Serendipity

TAKING A LEAP

2012-02-29T15:34:00.002-06:00

THEME: TAKING A LEAP
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. ~ Henry Miller

She Could Have Had It All

Carolyn B Healy

I get temporarily popular every time a celebrity overdoses, suicides, or runs into some sort of ditch. Given my therapy background, people want to hear my attempt to explain such behavior. With Whitney Houston’s death, the question seems to be a three-parter: Why couldn’t she 1) kick that Bobby Brown aside, 2) get clean and sober and stay that way, and 3) get back to singing like she was supposed to?

There is an angry question lurking just below: How could she have a gift like that voice and squander it?

As I sit here I contend with dueling earworms. With Whitney singing, “I will always love you…” and Adele belting, “We could have had it all…” it’s hard to think. But I’ll take a crack at it. MORE . . .

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Echoes of Marian Hall (Part Two)

Ellie Searl

I arrived home at four. The twenty-eight mile drive from Marian Hall hadn’t erased my agitation. Katie hugged my knees; her world of joy reminded me of normal.

“So, how was it?” Ed asked. “Do you love it there?”

“Where to start,” I said. “Do we have any wine?”

After an hour of relating my day, Ed had it all figured out. “So these are troubled girls from dysfunctional homes who do something bad, go to court, get sent to live with other troubled girls from dysfunctional homes all in the same colorless, cinder blocked, stinky-bathroomed, linoleum-floored, musty-furnitured room of a dead-bolted apartment inside a locked institution surrounded by a chain link fence and watched over by a bunch of nuns who patrol the building clattering keys around their waists.” He took a chicken out of the fridge and rinsed it under the faucet. “Now that’s living.” He slapped the chicken onto the cutting board. “What, exactly, did you expect?” MORE . . .

GOOD INTENTIONS

2012-01-15T20:16:00.004-06:00

THEME: GOOD INTENTIONS
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. ~ Douglas Adams

ECHOES OF MARIAN HALL (Part One)
ELLIE SEARL

I wonder if it smells the same. Rotting citrus. Meatloaf. Sour milk. Peanut butter. Disinfectant over vomit. Like an ignored school cafeteria.

Or if it sounds the same. Whispers, flushing toilets, sobs, pounding on metal doors, screams, record player needles scratching on forty-fives, keys clanking against the swish of black robes.

I remember my last conversation with the director, Sister Mary Esther, who by that time was Jeanne Marie in street clothes, but to me she was still a Sister of the Good Shepherd, regardless of the switchover to secular management. MORE. . .

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MY BRAIN ON FREDDIE MERCURY

CAROLYN B HEALY

Sometimes I wake up with a song in my head. Often the tune quickly dissipates, like the last wisps of a dream I can’t hold onto, fleeting and forgotten. I may recognize it as part of a commercial jingle (“1-800-588-2300 Empire”) that I hear all the time, or a line from a familiar song (like “This Land is Your Land” which I heard the other day). Its unimportance helps it go away.

But other times, the song stays with me all day long and into the next. My blood seems to pulse to its rhythm, and the words run like a news crawler in my brain, no matter what else I’m doing. When it finally lets up a couple of days later, it’s a relief. MORE . . .

HOME

2011-12-15T15:24:00.006-06:00

THEME: HOME
I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. ~ Maya Angelou

The Stories They Hold

Ellie Searl

I’ve never liked to rise earlier than the sun, but lately I’ve savored the first hours of each day. While I wait for a crack in the almost-morning sky, I imagine the treasures of my home. Memory treasures. Treasures our family has gathered through the years. Chairs and tables, vases and pictures. Sculptures and coats, lap throws and newspapers. All of these in a comforting disarray of living. We fill the rooms of our lives with love and bustle and happiness. My home is alive with the stories written by the people who matter most to me. MORE . . .

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Writing Your Way Home

Carolyn B Healy

By day, it was a typical conference room with moveable tables and stackable chairs. By night, or at least this night, it became a salon, a home away from home. The tables made a cozy U-shape, so everyone could see and be seen. Table cloths covered each, and antique-style lamps shed soft light. Plates of sweets and coffee took up the table near the door. Wordless music played quietly in the background. The words would come from the dozen women who filed in, late because there was childcare trouble – too many kids with too many needs, more than had been expected. The chaos of resistance and misplaced toys and unfamiliar places took its usual toll on both mothers and kids. New childcare recruits were summoned to help, and we could begin.

These women looked tired. They had all experienced domestic violence and were finding their way out, either through shelter or education and counseling or groups for moms and kids. They had children to care for, jobs to find, homes to make. Homes that would be safe. MORE . . .

REMEMBRANCE

2011-11-15T15:14:00.012-06:00

THEME: REMEMBRANCE
She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes. ~ Frank Deford

What Photographs Can Do

Carolyn B Healy

My father is 14 or 15 in the photo, posing with the big band he helped organize in high school. He wears two-tone saddle shoes, neatly tied. They look new. The photo has been hanging on my family picture wall for 15 years waiting for me to really look at it. I finally did.

In any old picture, the first thing I notice is the shoes. They hint at normal life, intimate suggestions of routine and circumstance. As I study his picture, I imagine him tying them on that morning, and wonder what was going on in those minutes: was he bickering with his sisters; what breakfast smells wafted upstairs; what was on his mind? MORE . . .

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Spokes People

Ellie Searl

I joined the fall session because I wanted to get the district-required “Teaching with Intention” workshop over with as soon as possible. The class would begin again in November with fifteen more teachers, and then again in January, and so on every other month until each teacher had completed the course.

The six-week seminar would spotlight a new and improved instructional system— the latest fad dreamed up by some scholastic guru—to reverse shoddy teacher competence. And when this maharishi of scholarship blitzed the nation with a bigger, better paradigm, our administration didn’t want to be the only district holding chalk without a board. MORE . . .

WHAT A CHARACTER

2011-10-15T15:03:00.007-05:00

THEME: WHAT A CHARACTER
Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poochie’s Day

Ellie Searl

Poochie’s mom told him it was too early. “There’s no sense you goin’ there ahead of time, - you won’t get your candy any sooner.” But Poochie put on his pea coat and stuck a flashlight into his pocket. He huffed down the front steps and across the street. “Cover your ears,” Poochie’s mom shouted after him.

Poochie walked past the Methodist Church and down the hill onto the short, two-lane bridge that crossed the river, which was more of a creek than a river by the time it trickled out of the mountains and meandered into the lake at the town beach. MORE . . .

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A Happy Story about Borders?

Carolyn B Healy

It seemed like a nightmare. Borders on Michigan Avenue was closing? Where would I go to have a tea and look down on the Water Tower park at throngs of shoppers? What would I do when I could no longer browse the crazy assortment of off-brand books in the basement, or look through the ironic Christmas cards on sale in January, looking for the perfect ones for next year? Where would I find another store with such character? If this iconic location could fail, what did that portend?

Soon there was an announcement. False alarm. It wouldn’t close after all. Phew! That was close. But the fear had been planted. MORE . . .

DREAM ON

2011-09-15T14:25:00.019-05:00

THEME: DREAM ON
Dreams are illustrations. . .from the book your soul is writing about you. ~ Marsha Norman

My Dream, My Book

Carolyn Healy

Here was my dream. I would write a book that would change the world. It would be about personal narrative, the story that each of us tells about our own life. For a while there, the working title was If Your Life Was a Movie, Would You Go to See It?

“No, too trivial,” said the writing teacher. “This is an important topic.”

Second working title: What’s Your Story? How the Story You Tell about Yourself Makes All the Difference.

“No,” said the writing teacher, “Wordy and repetitive.”

Time for a new writing teacher. MORE . . .

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Gatekeepers

Ellie Searl

They guard the entrance to creativity, allowing the select few—those who pass muster—to enter. Not the riff raff. Not the wannabees who try to worm through the slats, those sad, misguided dilettantes who think their work shows merit. They’re gatekeepers, and they prevent the unskilled culture-defacers from assailing the public with crap.

If it weren’t for that cadre of connoisseurs assessing, ranking, and restocking the Aesthetic Empire, the eating, viewing, and reading public wouldn’t know what to eat, view, or read. MORE . . .

HEAR NO, SEE NO, SPEAK NO, YOU KNOW

2011-08-15T14:59:00.007-05:00

THEME: HEAR NO, SEE NO, SPEAK NO, YOU KNOW
Nothing baffles the schemes of evil people so much as the calm composure of great souls.~ Comte de Mira

FAIREST OF THEM ALL
ELLIE SEARL

The pressure for women to be skinny, gorgeous, tight-bottomed, de-wrinkled, balloon-lipped, and big-boobed is just plain evil. According to magazines, billboards, TV ads, and fashion gurus, every woman who isn't a Heidi Klum clone, or close to it, should wrap herself in cheese cloth and squeeze out the hideousness until all that's left is a plasticine replicant of her former self. Or if not that, then she should spend a month or two at a Human Reconstruction Institute until her body, hair, skin, and lips are taut, voluminous, porcelain, and pouty—respectively.MORE . . .

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MY THREE DAYS AS A CUBAN

CAROLYN B HEALY

The email fairly screamed: Please take it down. You could be placing people at risk. Give us time to look at it first.

Uh oh. All I’d done is set up an online chronicle of my trip to Cuba.* I had to do something with the barrage of images and stories that woke me up every morning, to the Afro-Cuban beat of the music that followed us everywhere and then followed me home.

As a courtesy, or maybe nagged by a vestige of the paranoia that hovers in the Cuban air, the first thing I did was send the link to my two tour leaders. And received this alarming reply. MORE . . .

WELL, DUH

2011-07-28T13:18:00.061-05:00

THEME: WELL, DUH

To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question. ~Eric Hoffer

Positive Psychology and Me
Carolyn B Healy

I rented the office, then scoured used furniture stores and garage sales to furnish and decorate it. I even splurged on a painting of a rainy Paris street from TJ Maxx. I was ready. I was in private practice.

My very first client showed up on a Tuesday. I handed him the client questionnaire I had crafted, on a tasteful Lucite clip board. After the demographic info, I hit him with the big question: What do you hope to gain from counseling? I left three lines for the reply, but he only needed one.

He wrote: Peace of mind, and introduced me to the answer I would see far more than any other in the next 20-plus years of my practice. It wasn’t happiness, or get my spouse off my back, or make my depression go away. It was a much bigger order, peace of mind. MORE . . .

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A Social Call
Ellie Searl

She shouted from across the street. “Hey! Do you people believe in Jesus Christ?”

I stopped raking and looked up.
She stood in her doorway, hands on hips, feet planted—square—like a drill sergeant, as if my answer could knock her over. A full-length, flour-dusted apron covered her dress.

“Of course we do,” I said. “He was a great leader . . . and teacher. Everyone should follow his example.”

Quick thinking. Can’t argue with that. I continue raking.

“But do you-all believe that the Bible is the word of God?” MORE . . .

SAYING TOO MUCH

2011-06-13T22:10:00.004-05:00

Theme: Saying Too Much

If you wouldn't write it and sign it, don't say it. ~Earl Wilson

GYM SHOES SPEAK

CAROLYN B HEALY

My friend Carol and I walked home from school down 111th Street. We made it almost to the bus stop a block from my place. It was a Friday because I carried my white Keds home for their bi-weekly cleaning, as required by the gym teacher. My name was neatly printed along the side, and I had them tied together by the laces because they looker cooler that way.

I know I was in fifth grade because I remember the cocktail of growing freedom that fall – I could take unapproved routes home, pick up candy at the school store with my babysitting money, climb on the giant boulders where the vicious dog lived – without anyone telling me I was too little. Life was already good, and getting better. MORE . . .

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THE GOOD EDITOR

ELLIE SEARL

A good cook knows how to edit. Take meatloaf. Most recipes call for some kind of filler—like breadcrumbs. The right amount guarantees a moist, savory meatloaf feast. Too much and it's dry, tasteless, stick-in-your-mouth lump.

A good writer knows how to edit. Take Mark Twain. In his short story, "Advice to Little Girls," he wrote, "Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never to 'sass' old people unless they 'sass' you first."

Now that's succinct. MORE . . .

AUTHORITY

2011-05-08T21:30:00.002-05:00

THEME: AUTHORITY
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
~Michel de Montaigne

ROOM MOTHER DAZE

ELLIE SEARL

When Brett entered first grade this past year, his mom Katie not only signed up to be Art Master for the second time, she also volunteered to be the class Room Mother. She'd teach his class about famous artists, plan parties, organize treats, and become friends with the other mothers.

"And," she said, "This will give me solid foothold in the workings of the school."

"Aren't you doing enough already?" I asked.

"Mom – It's okay," Katie said. "Being a Room Mother is the best way to stay on top of things. It'll be fun."

Parent-Teacher Open House was the only September event that needed Room Mothering, so it wasn't until October at the Halloween party that Katie first encountered the Mighty Moms lurking behind the cubby buckets. MORE . . .

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THE FINE ART OF EAVESDROPPING

CAROLYN B HEALY

Ask any writer where their material comes from and the honest ones will tell you it’s from a lifetime of eavesdropping. Sitting in a coffee shop you can land like a paratrooper in the middle of the life of a stranger and find out more than you know about your best friend. Whatever you hear yourself, you have on good authority, I figure.

Sometimes you get only hints and have to construct the story yourself. Like the time I sat near an apparently former priest and an older woman breakfasting together. I got an earful about “that business” that caused him so much trouble in recent years in the church. I pegged her as a former parishioner, based on the delicate balance between devotion and flirtatiousness that ran between them. MORE . . .

CHEAP THRILLS

2011-04-15T12:01:00.005-05:00

THEME: CHEAP THRILLS
The only thrill worthwhile is the one that comes from making something out of yourself.
~ William Feather

HITTING MY POLITICAL BOTTOM
CAROLYN B HEALY

Hello. My name is Carolyn and I am a recovering political arguer. To qualify as recovering, I had to prepare a searching and fearless inventory of my p.a. past. Let me share the highlights:

At age 8, I canvassed the neighborhood with my mother for the Republican candidate for mayor of Chicago. His name was Bob Merriam. He was an author and reformer, a war veteran with a Bronze Star. The Democratic candidate, slated for the first time, was Richard J. Daley the Original. It is said that Merriam actually had a chance. Imagine what Chicago might be like by now if he had won. That day, people were either polite or not at home, and I got ice cream on the way back. I rather enjoyed it. MORE . . .

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HOME ON THE RAILS
ELLIE SEARL

The Promise. "We'll take you through the Heart of the West! Eight states and across the mighty Mississippi—past deserts and mountains, missions and pueblos, ranches and wheat fields. Carving through curving canyon passages only a few feet wider than the train itself. You'll see spectacular landscapes and pristine vistas. You'll be mesmerized by this land's beauty and allure."

The Adventure. Los Angeles to Chicago on the Southwest Chief, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. Over two thousand miles of the Old West along the Santa Fe Trail: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. Ed and I would leave Fullerton, CA, early on a mid-July Monday evening and arrive in Chicago, IL, Wednesday afternoon. Two pleasant, relaxing days riding the rails, soaking in the wonder, beauty, and mystery of the Old West. MORE . . .

RUMORS

2011-03-28T11:34:00.016-05:00

THEME: RUMORS
Rumors generally grow deformed as they travel. ~ Edward Counsel

RUMORS OF ALICE SPRINGS
CAROLYN B HEALY

We arrived in Alice Springs on a jet plane. The airport was a modest affair with one building and a few luggage carts. We could barely breathe in the heat as we walked from the terminal to our bus. On the way to the hotel, our tour guide Mark lavished praise on us, for being the kind of travelers who would brave the Outback, not just luxuriate in the coastal cities of Australia.

All we could see outside the window was red sandy soil and scrub brush, and the occasional scruffy tree. The sky loomed large above us. It was bright blue, speckled with filmy clouds, and vast.

All we could think was the hotel must have air conditioning, right?

We reached the outskirts of town, expecting a dirt track of a frontier town, a simple crossroads in the Outback. What we saw instead was KFC, McDonalds, Target, T-shirt shops, and two indoor malls with food courts. What? It looked like a mini-U.S. MORE . . .

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TARNISHED TIARAS
ELLIE SEARL

Ah, what fools we were, Ed and I, when raising our daughter Katie. We can hear them whispering. "Ellie and Ed didn't give Katie what every little girl should have - that all-important, rise-to-stardom opportunity." And they’re right. We didn't. Shame on us.

Because of our neglect, Katie missed out. So determined to raise our child on good old-fashioned values, we neglected to provide that one life experience that would have sent Katie straight to fame. Little girl beauty pageants. How could we have been so remiss? MORE . . .

FIGHTS

2011-02-15T12:11:00.002-06:00

THEME: FIGHTS
It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.
~ Mark Twain

SWITCHING CHANNELS
ELLIE SEARL

Sometimes my husband speaks from brain quarks. The other day, as we drove past the hideous concrete landscape of strip malls, auto dealerships, and fast food restaurants, Ed said something unintelligible to me in a nasally, Mr. Peavey voice. I thought he was referring to the ugliness.

“Huh?”

I expected him to say something funny about obese alley – those side-by-side hip packers: Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Burger King.

"I'm channeling Harrison Ford," he said.

I took a beat to reconnoiter. "Yeah, right,” I said. “Harrison Ford. A dweeb." MORE . . .

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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
CAROLYN B HEALY

As soon as we landed in Christchurch, New Zealand our group of 44 piled into a luxury bus equipped with soft seats in a flashy fabric and a bathroom. We met our driver Malcolm, a strapping blonde gent who over the next week was to narrate our way across his country. You could quickly see that Malcolm was not a chatterbox, but one of those folks who was worth listening to when he spoke.

It was January 22, 2011. He loaded our bags and we headed out of the airport on the exit lane. As he approached the traffic circle that would lead us to town, there was a loud clunk and we stopped dead. He shifted, and tried and this and that, but there we sat. His jaw twitched, he traded a couple of quiet comments with Mark, our cheerful guide, and got on the phone. MORE . . .

PAYING ATTENTION

2011-01-16T11:17:00.022-06:00

THEME: PAYING ATTENTION
I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.

~ Diane Sawyer

HEARING THE CHANT

CAROLYN B HEALY

It was Saturday, February 4, 2011. The Auckland Hop On Hop Off bus was transporting us through our last full day in New Zealand. We had already seen the grass-covered cone of an extinct volcano that sits above the city. I snapped a photo of my daughter peering into the top, while we tried to imagine what it had looked like 60,000 years ago when it was spewing lava. We couldn’t.

We’d also passed a suburban park with its own sheep, chomping grass within feet of the busy road. There are 4,000,000 people in New Zealand and 45,000,000 sheep. After a few days it seemed normal to see them anywhere.

We climbed off at the museum which sits above the city in a huge park. We looked down on a cricket match which we couldn’t understand and climbed the steps to the museum which we figured we could. We’d heard about the Maori show there, an authentic depiction of the music and practices of the indigenous people of New Zealand.

We were ushered into an elaborately carved meeting house, asked to remain silent for a welcoming ceremony, and then guided through a series of songs, games and dances. There was a cast of eight, 4 women and 4 men, dressed in traditional garments of muted patterns and ornamental beads. The men wore elaborate loincloths, the women grass skirts. The men held guitars, the women tucked poi balls at the waist. The oldest and most serious member of the troupe narrated. MORE . . .

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SPOT ON

ELLIE SEARL
Drawings and Spot's Story by Clinton Searl

My mother and father-in-law, Mary and Clint Searl, are 94 and 95 years old. They are in such good shape - body, mind, and soul - they could put most teenagers to shame. They'd probably tell you they're getting too old for this or too tired for that, but they have spunk and spirit and drive and a boatload of positive energy – the kind that adds spark to life and makes children giggle.

They tell the stories of their lives, most of which they've told many times, but which I never tire of hearing. Mom, the daughter of Austro-Hungarian parents and the eldest of ten children, growing up on a New Jersey farm. Dad, one of five children, growing up in a New Jersey mill town. They tell their stories, and I ask questions to stretch the details. MORE . . .

Photograph by Natalie Searl

ENDINGS

2010-12-15T11:34:00.007-06:00

THEME: ENDINGS
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. ~ Orson Wells

MY TV HALL OF FAME

Carolyn B Healy

I have friends who claim that they do not watch TV. They are too high-minded to engage with the sludge of popular media. “I never turn it on,” they declare, patting themselves on the back. Liars. Lure them into a conversation and they turn out to be surprisingly well-informed about the latest plot twists in Brothers and Sisters or The Good Wife.

Me, I make no such claims. I’m still making up for lost time because I spent several of my formative years with no TV. In fact, I have created a personal TV Show Hall of Fame. Let me tell you about my top ten. MORE . . .

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THE ESSENTIALS
Ellie Searl

It’s nearing the New Year - time to reconnoiter - time to think about how I’ve lived my life and see if my activities stand up to snuff. What unpleasantness could have been avoided if I’d been a better person? I don’t want to go into 2011 continuing behaviors that screech along the chalkboard.

Usually end-of-year self-scrutinizing comes in the guise of New Year’s Resolutions. However, this year I’ve decided to think of my life in terms of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I’ve fallen into the mire of sin, I'll cleanse my soul and waltz into 2011 with angelic purity.

Note: The sins aren't in the order I found them on the Internet. I alphabetized them. Makes me feel organized. MORE . . .

BOUNCING BACK

2010-11-15T18:09:00.005-06:00

THEME: BOUNCING BACK
A hard fall means a high bounce . . . if you're made of the right material. ~Unknown

S.M.A.R.T.

by Ellie Searl

I received my Master's Degree in Guidance and Counseling in 1978 from Youngstown State University. I've never been particularly proud of that - Youngstown not the garden spot of the universe, and the local university not the finest example of scholastic institutions. When a university names its football team The Penguins, something's off kilter. Penguins can't fly, and they can't run. They flap. Football flappers? Not a good image.

Right from the start, I worried about the educational quality of that town. Higher learning I didn't expect. However, Youngstown State was the only school in the vicinity that offered a postgraduate degree in counseling, so I enrolled there a few months after Ed, Katie, and I settled into our apartment and Ed began his ministry at the First Unitarian Church.

I wasn't particularly optimistic for lower learning, either, but I hoped Katie's education wouldn't be a huge disappointment. We had moved from Fayetteville, New York, a suburb of Syracuse, where Katie had attended an excellent school.

While I studied Carl Rogers' Client Centered Therapy and role-played I-messages with fellow students at the university, Katie became ensconced in fourth grade at Harding Elementary School. Her teacher, Miss Miller, was a single woman who lived with her ailing mother, and who, according to Katie, couldn't get married until her mother died. MORE . . .

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THE SPOT YOU STAND ON
by Carolyn B Healy

I sat in my fourth grade art class, flummoxed. I stared at the large piece of art paper, my 48 crayons standing ready. The assignment: Draw a picture of your dad for Fathers’ Day.

It was 1956 and I was the only kid in the class who had a problem with this. I approached the teacher, careful to keep my voice low.

“Mrs. Albright,” I said, “My father died.”

“Oh, well then,” she replied, “An uncle? Your grandfather?”

I shook my head.

“Do you want to just do a picture of your mother instead?”

Good. Clarity. Permission to do the only logical thing. I turned out a very nice giant head of my mother in her pearl earrings which she rarely wore, but which gave a bit of glamour to my picture. As I glanced at my classmates’ pictures, I had that familiar outsider feeling, my nose pressed to the glass of their normal families. MORE . . .

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OUT OF THE ASHES

2010-10-15T18:16:00.003-05:00

THEME: OUT OF THE ASHES:
It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes. ~ Anne Baxter

UP IN SMOKE
Carolyn B Healy

It was a sunny Saturday morning. I trailed my friends around a lovely suburban garden center on a sunny Saturday morning. More enthusiastic gardeners than I, they examined odd varieties of ferns and rusty garden sculptures while I daydreamed. Old college friends, we gather every once in a while to talk for hours and tour around spots of interest while our husbands go off to regress into their long-ago frat boy selves, to everyone’s entertainment, especially theirs.

My cell phone rang and my heart sank when I saw it was a counselor who worked with me in my practice. Sigh. This must be a client crisis bad enough that she had to notify me.

“Maraline,” I said, “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Um, Elburn, or St. Charles, not sure. For the weekend,” I said.

“You don’t know what happened to the office then,” she said.

“No.” MORE . . .
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BURNING BRIDGES

Ellie Searl

Camping became our temporary way of life in June of 1970 when Ed, our almost-two-year-old daughter Katie, and I left our townhouse in Burlington, Vermont, and crossed the border into Canada, thinking we'd never return to the States again. As many readers already know, we had left our country for Canada because we didn't support the war in Vietnam.

We purchased supplies at the Hudson Bay Company in Montreal –green canvas tent, two-burner Coleman stove, three red sleeping bags, plastic dishes, eating and cooking utensils, wrought iron frying pan, two pots, five-gallon water container with a spigot, yellow and white cooler, picnic basket, clear plastic tarp, some rope, and a folding potty with disposable plastic bags that clipped under the seat – for emergencies, we said. MORE . . .

CORRUPTION

2010-09-15T11:29:00.019-05:00

THEME OF THE MONTH: CORRUPTION

Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

THE LEGACY OF PAUL POWELL

CAROLYN B HEALY

As a lifelong resident of Illinois, I was brought up on corruption. One of my favorite examples comes from 1970. Paul Powell was Secretary of State. Two days after his unexpected death, $800,000 in cash was discovered squirreled away in his home/hotel room in shoe boxes, along with 49 cases of whisky, 14 transistor radios and 2 cases of creamed corn, presumably ill-gotten gains from his $30,000 per year position. I was fascinated that anybody could have that assortment in their closet. And at the lack of security – anyone could take off with that cash and who could he report it to? MORE . . .

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ACROSS THE GENERATIONS

ELLIE SEARL

FAIRLAWN CEMETERY

Located in the Town of Prattsville, NY, on the left had side of the road on Rte. 23, about one mile past the bridge heading towards Grand Gorge. This cemetery is active and is in excellent condition.

Section 4, Plot 84

Louise A.K. Volckmann, b. 1884, d. 1957

Frederick P. Volckmann, b. 1883, d. 1968

I don’t remember much about my grandmother, other than she was very generous, sweet, and loving, and she adored my father, her only child. Her home smelled like violets and her lemon sponge cakes seemed to rise a foot off the plate. She had married my grandfather in 1907 when she was 23 years old, and my dad, born in 1912, became a new love in her life. Her husband, my grandfather, spent the remainder of their marriage resenting that his wife’s attention needed to be shared with his son. MORE . . .

BORROWING

2010-08-15T13:44:00.028-05:00

THEME OF THE MONTH: BORROWING
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. ~ Woodrow T. Wilson

IN A BORROWED WORLD
Ellie Searl

A conflict of values can alter a state of well-being at any time. Such conflicts might cause discomfort, complications, or upheavals. In our case, a conflict of values caused us to transform our lives, and in June of 1969, my husband Ed, our two-year-old daughter Katie, and I moved to Canada. It was like borrowing a country. MORE . . .

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BORROWING MAGIC
Carolyn B Healy

My first book incident occurred when I was eight. My mother discovered me hiding under the covers late at night with a copy of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and a flashlight. She ordered me to turn it off and get to sleep. She did not see the tears streaming down my cheeks – you can tell where I was in the story – so did not perceive that there would be no going to sleep until I finished it. Despite my generally compliant nature, I waited about ten seconds after she left before I flipped the light on and plunged back in. Any reader would understand. MORE . . .

COMING HOME

2010-07-15T13:29:00.037-05:00

THEME OF THE MONTH: COMING HOME
There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits. ~ Robert Southey

A SLICE OF SUMMER

Ellie Searl

My first significant A+ on a paper came in seventh grade from Mr. Feltman for a one-page, one-paragraph story about a terrible summer afternoon when I was five years old. It's been decades since I wrote that story, but here is what I remember:

It was lunchtime. Mom, at the kitchen counter, stirred lemonade into iced tea, my two older brothers stood beside her making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I sat at the table, coloring, my crayons scattered across the enamel. A man walked onto the back porch and spoke through the screen door. I thought he asked, "Do you want a Collie?" I looked up from my coloring book and said, "We already have one. His name is Teddy." I scraped back my chair. "Want to see him?" Then the sad man said he had run over our dog with his car. Teddy was dead. We walked to the highway and looked at Teddy as he lay on the pavement, eyes closed, as if he were asleep. I patted his tummy and cried and tried to wake him up, but he didn't move. No more Teddy. No more Teddy chasing sticks and lapping water over the edge of his bowl. No more Teddy snuggling his nose under my arm as we sat on the porch steps. No more silky amber coat and firm presence. No more best friend. My heart ached. The story ended with how Teddy had given me an irreplaceable security and comfort, a special belonging to the world. That he had taught me the importance of unconditional love and shaped the buds of my spirit. MORE . . .

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WHIRLWIND

Carolyn B Healy

It was an end-of-summer organizing day at the house. The kids were just starting 3rd and 6th grades and I’d taken the day off to whip things into shape for the new school year. We took a lunch break at Show Biz pizza, played a few games, and came back home to finish up.

Eleven-year-old Ben worked in his room and probably sneaked in some reading, while Katy and I worked in hers, attempting to contain her many collections into the smallest room in the house. Clouds loomed, no rain yet. Disk jockey Steve Dahl reported that there was some weather coming in from the west. He made fun of how alarmist meteorologists and their weather-spotters get lathered up every time the sky darkens for a few minutes. He scoffed at a report that cars were turned over near I-55 in Plainfield. MORE . . .

RELIEF

2010-06-15T16:52:00.014-05:00

THEME OF THE MONTH: RELIEF
Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow, too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief? ~ William Blake

DR. MARVIN’S GOD
Ellie Searl

A string of spittle landed on the left toe of Dr. Marvin's brown Oxfords as he dumped a saliva-soaked cotton wad into the trash container. He pulled a tissue from his lab coat, bent down to wipe his shoe, and groaned in pain. On his return to Randy in the dentist chair, Dr. Marvin looked out the second-story window and barked, “Do you see that? Someone’s in my spot – again.”

Moaning from back pain and complaining about his filled parking spot had become daily rituals. Dr. Marvin's back ached all the time. “One of these days I’ll get it fixed,” he’d announce, on and off, to no one in particular. But he smoldered if someone parked in his private spot, which was pretty much every day.

I needed my job so I usually remained silent when Dr. Marvin fumed about the overarching transgressions of humanity - but my mouth shifted into gear before my brain turned on.

“You don’t drive to work,” I said.

“They don’t know that,” he sniffed and held out his hand. “Pliers.”

I slapped the instrument into his palm. MORE . . .
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GRIEF AND RELIEF
Carolyn B Healy

My mother called me, incensed. She’d just found the receipt from her doctor’s visit a week before. Uh oh. How did I let that fall into her hands?

“Do you know what that doctor wrote down?” she demanded.

Yes, I did know. I had taken her in for an opinion on her increasing forgetfulness.

“Dementia!” she sputtered. “How could he say that?”

I summoned my reassuring reasonable self. “Mom, remember we went in to talk to him about your memory?”

“We did?” MORE . . .

NARROW ESCAPES

2010-05-15T15:39:00.013-05:00

Theme of the Month: Narrow Escapes

Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together. ~ Earl Nightingale

DANGEROUS ROMANCE

Carolyn Healy

Have you ever been seduced by a house, or in the case of this tale, a townhouse? When I fell in love with it, it didn’t even exist. It’s the way a lot of romances begin, with a vision of something that isn’t really there.

It was shingle-style, with stone foundation and two porches, one screened in. It was roomy for a townhouse, meaning I wouldn’t have had to get rid of any of my lifetime accumulation of furniture I’m apparently not done with yet. The English basement even had room for the pool table and the juke box.

The sales team had it conjured on a full-wall video mural depicting the full sweep of the new neighborhood, to be constructed on the site of a recently leveled downtrodden apartment development. The sales office stood on an adjacent property, accessible via a circuitous route involving three left turns. MORE . . .

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LOSING CONTROL

Ellie Searl

In June of 2000, Ed and I took off on a road trip from the suburbs of Chicago to Tennessee. Our trip was two-fold: the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Nashville followed by a mini-vacation adventure through the countryside. We shunpiked our way through small towns - those pinpoints off major highways - mere outlines of their old glory: insurance companies, video stores, furniture shops, and a couple of bars across from boarded-up movie theaters and department stores-turned-thrift shops. Ed and I tried to imagine what the towns might have looked like before cross-country highways and discount superstores sent them into oblivion. MORE . . .

TURNING POINTS

2010-04-15T10:26:00.022-05:00

Theme of the Month: Turning Points
The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt. ~Max Lerner

WHAT TO LEAVE BEHIND
Carolyn B Healy

There I was, two years old, crazy about my father (I’m told, because of course I can’t remember), and he dies. Over the years in waves that come years and sometimes decades apart, I launch into projects in an effort to get to know him and figure out which parts of me are linked to him. As a child who can’t remember her parent, I am a walking advertisement for ethical wills.

Here’s what I’ve learned about him: he was a great guy, more a poet than a salesman (he worked for a book publisher), talented musician who had his own band in high school, who fell hard for my mother when they met at a Christmas party and found a way to send her roses while she visited her family in the North Carolina mountains the next week. His boss told me 50 years after his death that he might well have become president of the company and I believed him since he still had my dad’s picture on his office wall. I read the stack of condolence letters from colleagues and clients that poured in after his death, describing his intelligence and good will. I read narratives his sisters wrote about their growing up in Chicago. I memorized the photos of my early life. Since he took most of them, he rarely appears, which allows me to see through his eyes, in a way. MORE . . .

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STRAIGHT UP
Ellie Searl

It started as a game I’d play with my father, a hard-nosed drinker and long-time alcoholic, although it took years before I came to understand that. Dad would give me tastes, laughing at the faces I made, and quiz me on their names. Manhattan, Rob Roy, Daiquiri, Whiskey Sour, Gimlet, Old Fashioned, Black and White Russian. I learned them all. Early. Perhaps Dad believed in the Forbidden Fruit Theory: Become an educated drinker while young and avoid the abuse of alcohol as a teenager. But it’s more likely he wanted to share his shame with someone who wouldn’t judge him. And judge him I didn’t until years later when I realized abuse was the operative word when it came to my father's drinking habits, an observation he chose to ignore. His relationship to liquor is an ambiguous legacy left on my soul, like an unattractive callus I can't scrape off but occasionally keeps the stones from hurting.

Dad's three-shelved liquor cabinet was above and to the right of the sink where clean dishes should have gone, alcohol being far more essential than any immediate needs of the kitchen. That cupboard was my father's savings and loan of satisfaction. He stocked-piled all kinds of liquor - scotch, rye, vodka, gin, whiskey, bourbon. Mixers and supplements - bitters, tonic, club soda, maraschino cherries. Stainless steel accessories - ice bucket etched with a penguin, cocktail shaker with a spout and handle, like an elongated coffee pot, strainers, slicers, stirrers, tongs. Everything necessary for the art of mixology. MORE . . .

LEGACY

2010-03-15T09:39:00.018-05:00

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.`Pericles

DENTS

Ellie Searl

Katie phoned from college.

"Mom?" She hesitated. "Are you sitting down?"

In the few seconds it took to respond, I conjured scenarios of the typical fears: kidnapping, mugging, bankruptcy, expulsion.

"I wrecked the car."

She had taken my car to school with her for a couple of weeks at the end of summer and was planning to bring it back after Labor Day weekend. Her accident occurred at a five-corner intersection. A car appeared from nowhere and collided into the passenger side door.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine. The car's not."

My relief surprised her. But I was mollified by an experience that occurred long before she was born. MORE . . .

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ANNIVERSARY

Carolyn B Healy

Every year it creeps up on me. In late February I start feeling uneasy, not myself. I wonder if I’m coming down with something. Why can’t I sleep? It’ll probably pass, I tell myself. But anniversaries are hidden things that can seep in and seize you unaware. The light bulb goes on when my son Ben calls from Boston or D.C. or Texas or wherever he’s gotten off to and says, “Tomorrow is the day that Lauren died.” Of course.

The first time I met Lauren was in front of the library. Accustomed to awkward middle-schoolers with little to say, I was captivated by this short confident exuberant 12 year old who looked me straight in the eye, stepped forward and stuck her hand out for a shake. Introducing us was my son, also 12, and, I think, also captivated by this new friend. MORE . . .

LOVE

2010-02-15T08:05:00.011-06:00

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. ~Zora Neale Hurston

THE BREAKUP

Carolyn B Healy

Here is what you say to your heart:

Broken is overdramatic and unnecessarily hurtful. You are not broken; bruised is more like it – alright, perhaps it’s a severe contusion if that pleases you more. You will discolor and feel exceedingly tender for a while; in fact, you’ll hurt in places you didn’t know you had. But no one has to perform open heart surgery to fix you, and you don’t need the paddles to shock you back to life. You’re still beating. You know how to mend yourself, with time. Either you’ve done it before, or it’s time you learned. Over your lifetime, you’ll beat 2.5 billion times. That’s what you’re here for, not to moon over this insult. I can’t get along without you, you know.

Here is what you say to the retreating back of your person of interest:
Goodbye. No pleading, no demands for explanations, no stalking of his/her future activities. From now on, that person is the person who used to be at the center of your life. Old news, out of date, no longer qualifying as the focus of your attention. You need that attention for yourself. He/she is best viewed from a distance, both geographically and emotionally. MORE . . .

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PARADISE

Ellie Searl

We shoved a five-dollar bill into the padlocked honor box and drove into the camping area. Pine needles, damp from a downpour the day before, blanketed the entrance. The weather had turned dry, clear, and warm - a few rays of sunlight managed to sneak through the slatted openings of dense forest walls and ceiling of intertwined branches. Aside from my husband Ed, our thirteen-year-old daughter Katie, and I, there wasn't another soul under the thick stands of evergreens and hardwoods.

Why an eerily deserted campground? In the middle of summer? In this prime location overlooking the spectacular shores of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula? Maybe we were early and throngs of campers would crowd the grounds in a couple of hours. We'd find out soon enough - the hard way. MORE . . .