A new piece (it's been awhile)

Solstice

By: Emily Moore

I

His son had died in the winter of the previous year. The flat screen was muted as Jameson sat nursing a Bud Light in his recliner, it flashed station after station of school closings due to the ice storm. The closings, warnings of slick roads, it all caused a burning knot to tug at his throat. Garret had gone with his buddies sledding that morning and never came back. The two lane highway just outside of town was notorious for its blind curves, a driver in oncoming traffic hit a patch of black ice and slid into his son’s car causing it to roll and crush him and the two other boys inside. The grief that was caused by the accident created a canyon between him and his wife and she had moved back home to her parents shortly after. As he stared, eyes glazed over at the perfectly coifed anchorwoman on the screen, he realized he could not remember the last time he had kissed her.

                The days had gone on quite normally for Jameson, this the reason Hannah had moved out. She couldn’t understand why he could just go on normally, get up, shower, go to work and come home to eat dinner with an empty chair at the table. He was their only child, adopted when he was seven from an abusive home and Hannah had poured her whole life into showering him with love and attention.

                Jameson could hear the phone ringing in the kitchen, he decided to let it go to the answering machine and soon he heard his friend Randy’s voice piercing the quiet house.

                “Hey buddy, just seeing how the weeks going, haven’t heard from you in awhile. I know this ain’t the best time and all but Denise and I would love for you to come have Dinner with us for New Year’s. Nothin’ fancy, just bring some brewskis and we’ll ditch the women after the wine kicks in. Well, lemme know.”

                “Yep, I’ll be there,” he replied to the vacant room.

II

                It was an unusually warm evening for the last day of the year. Last weeks’ ice storm had closed schools and businesses for two days and then subsequently melted in the next two. Jameson had sworn that Kansas weather was the reason for his wife’s moods but no study had ever been done to prove it. He pulled up to the house, parallel parked across the street from their driveway and turned off his truck. He sat for a moment in the silence so that it melted over his ears in a comforting fuzziness. The warmth of the leather and the steam rising off the hot engine beckoned him to stay in the truck and avoid the party but he grabbed the 12 pack walked up the driveway anyhow.

                It was a cruel thing really, what they had done, like some nasty trick out of a bad romance movie, but Randy and Denise were friends with Jameson and Hannah respectively, and neither of the two could stand the idea of them sitting at home alone on New Year’s Eve in the throes of the season when their son had died. They invited them both.

                She was impossible to miss, so impossible in fact that she was the first thing Jameson saw when Randy opened the door to greet him. She was sitting at the island in the kitchen with the women balancing a wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. He said nothing, Randy walked around the kitchen onto the back porch and Jameson followed suit.

“You’re a real piece of work you know?

“I know, look Jay, look I’m sorry, I really am, but we just didn’t know what else to do. You guys have come every year since the kids were little and we didn’t want either of you missing out.”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“You wouldn’t’ have come.”

“You’re right.” Jameson set his beer down on the porch railing and took a seat in a wicker chair. He reached for a bottle, placed it at an angle against the railing and smacked it with an open palm, popping off the cap.

The patio door slid open behind them and the tinkle of wine glasses and tipsy female voices wafted out into the night air.

“Look man I’ll leave you alone for a bit.” Randy slid back through the door as Hannah replaced him at the table.

He didn’t turn to look directly at her when he realized she had sat down, merely shot a glance or two out of the corner of his eye. She looked thinner, much. Her hair was pulled back in a tight knot at the nape of her neck and she wore a dress that appeared about two sizes two big. She was not the woman he remembered.

He waited, expecting her to say something, she had been the one to come outside after all, but she never did. She placed her wine glass gently on the glass tabletop and began tracing the rim of it with each finger in sequence.

A chilly breeze swept through the backyard and lifted the sleeve of her dress slightly off her shoulder; she caught it and returned it to its place. She resumed to tracing her glass. She desperately wanted an answer out of him but she knew not to say anything more just yet.

“It’s warm tonight.” Jameson offered after a long pull on his beer.

“Yeah, it feels nice after all that yuck last week.” Her tense voiced abruptly turned loud and loose.

“That dress looks nice on you.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yes.”

“You were never a good liar.”

He finished the beer and set the bottle down on the glass table with a strong hand.

“It’s been a year.”

“And ten days.” Her hand dropped from her glass and fell into her lap where it lay motionless.

“I miss him Hannah.”

“Me too, everyday.”

“He’s really not coming back.” Jameson tried to reach for another beer but his vision was blurred by the tears.

“No, he’s not Jay.”

 She slowly rose from her seat and walked over behind his chair, placing a hand on his shoulder. With the warm weight of her fingers, Jameson felt silent tears begin to roll down his cheeks. They tasted salty on his chapped lips. His hand reached across his shoulder and clenched hers in a fierce grip as he buried his face in her palm.

Balance

It's easy to say, oh I'm working out more and watching what I eat. The hard part is actually following through with it. Well have no fear, for I have found the most wonderful healthy-lifestyle buddy in the biz. His name is Mr. www.Livestrong.com. I AM IN LOVE, with this website. It has the most wonderful application called MyPlate. You create an account and enter you height/weight stats and your weight loss/gain/maintain goal. Then every day for every meal you look up the foods you ate and record them. MyPlate gives you a daily calorie intake and a recommendation for how many grams of each type of food you should eat for the day.But, it doesn't stop there. This website is chock-full of dares, that dare you to change your life for the better. It ranges from quitting smoking to spending more time with family, recording food every day, to
running a marathon.

What I LOVE about this site is that I spend so much time on my computer anyways, it's incredibly convenient to use. And it doesn't expect every member to accept a dare to run a marathon. It's main purpose is to challenge people to live better, healthier, happier lives. And recently, my life has been just that.

In the midst of all this healthiness and positivity, I have been battling a NASTY cold. We're talking waking up several times a night to blow my nose and adjust my pillows just so I can breathe. Because oh, sometimes breathing is necessary to stay alive. I've been pushing through the nastiness and resisting the urge to plop into my comfy bed every day and not return 'till morning. I make myself get up and go to the gym, and not delude myself into thinking junk food will make it go away.

It's been working so far. But today on the treadmill, I jsut about cried because that cold fast air screaming towards my lungs made my already raw throat feel like it was splitting to the size of the Grand Canyon. ouch.

Apparently garlic is good for a sore throat. weird.

(endorphins endorphins endorphins)

Domestic.

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I love to cook. And they also know that I am dating a man who was raised in a tiny town by a wonderful momma who cooked him un-Godly delicious food. And now everyone knows that for the past 8 months, I've been desperately trying to impress this farm-bread corn-fed man with my cooking. This evening's attempt was no different. 

I LOVE potato soup. I love it with a strange culinary passion. Tonight I proudly concocted a mouth water, calorie crammed creamy delicious heaven called loaded baked potato soup. The following pictures are the from scratch to scrumptious process of birthing this concoction. It will be accompanied by a huge caesar salad and an entire loaf of sweet bread. So enjoy my pictures, and let's all cross our fingers that my loping lineman will drool over my delicacy.

chop chop chopping potatoes

Ryan HATES onions. I not so secretly included an ENTIRE onion by way of pureeing it.

GARLIC NOM NOM NOM

The smell of simmering butter and onions is enough to give me palpitations, and yes that's two stick of BUTTER, not margarine. An ENTIRE CUP of butter.

Potatoes cooking.

Milk and flour, creamy deliciousness and a great action shot if I may say so myself.

The finished product, a bubbling steaming creamy pot of heaven.

...and a whole loaf of sweet bread fo dippin'

BON APPETIT!

Sorry.

It is incredible to me how fast time passes. How one day you dream about being a cool high school kid and the next day you're dreaming about having your own kids...what?!

This phase of life is so strange and wonderful. Being young and ambitious and in love means that nearly every day a new idea for the future invades my mind. It's a great sign that at this point, plans are so useless. Whatever happened to the ability to just squeeze every ounce of fun out of every day? Now sometimes all I want to do is squeeze every moment of sleep out of my days.

My kids at the daycare always go a million miles an hour. From the moment they walk in the door, they're ready to play. And they play ALL DAY LONG. How I wish I had that energy and that passion for just playing, just imagining and creating and running, jumping, dancing, singing.

It's great to be young. It's a blessing to be able to recognize what you have and to not take it for granted.

I heard a quote once that went "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Ugh. I hate this quote. For me, loving means that as much as a tiny little worm as it makes me feel, I have to suck it up and apologize all the time. I notice this with the kids at daycare. It is SO EASY TO BE MEAN. The hard part of love, and of life, is being the person willing to step outside of their comfort zone so that those we care about feel loved.

When we get older we forget how precious apologies are. When I see my 4 year olds cry and then hug and apologize and run off holding hands it reminds me just how simple it is to fix what's broken. The problem when we get older is that our pride gets in the way of that simple fix.

Tell those you love that you love them. Remind them how much they mean to you. Even when they do little things, give them lots and lots of thanks and hugs and warm wishes. For you never know how far those words will sink into their hearts.

"Lou Lou, classic"

Today I am very thankful for one person in particular. Maybe because it's his birthday.

Maybe it's true that you never know what you have until you lose it, but I also believe that you never know what you've been missing until it comes along.

I love you Ryan Taylor Louia. Happy Birthday stud!

Short Short Stories

Well, I'm leaning more towards just using my blog as a place to post my writing. I've recently decided to minor in creative writing along with getting my BSE, so my output of pieces is only due to increase. Here are a couple pieces I've written recently. We've been doing a unit on the "short short story". This makes the pieces very concise, yet very difficult to write. The challenge is finding the right details and getting rid of the "fluff." Enjoy!

A Change in Appetite

                I didn’t eat lasagna for ten years. The very site of it used to make my stomach toss. I had just gotten off work and was sitting in the living room enjoying my first Bud of the night. Carly was making dinner. The smell of garlic wafted through the air. I started to doze off through her intermittent chirps of all the things women waste their breath on. I was doing my best to ignore the shortcomings she was pointing out. Then silence.

I jerked awake in my chair with her screeching at me. Something about flowers. Sleep still hazy in my eyes, I couldn’t tune in. Something else about affection, a brief monologue about emotion. I stared, mouth still slicked with drool. Then it hit me, literally, in the eye. The unmistakable fling of a 1 carat princess cut diamond ring collided with my eyeball with incredible accuracy. It was the first time I’d ever seen her actually hit something she was aiming at. But this wasn’t a hit that was supposed to miss. Something else about falling out of love, and a guy named Brogan. Brogan’s a funny name. I still picture some beefy oiled up bouncer with bleached hair. Then a warm gooey mush as she dumped the entire pan of lasagna in my lap. A couple of slammed doors, a fleeting pink duffle bag.

Years later I saw her at the grocery store. Fake tits and three chubby kids with white-blonde hair. I called my wife on the phone and asked if we could have lasagna.

“You hate lasagna.” She replied.

“No, not anymore. I think Lasagna just hates me.”

When the Glitter's Gone

After sundown, the fireflies flicker in the side yard. Brother and I would ride bikes around the block. Calling out to our friends, we were met with the hollers of after dinner excitement. Dodge ball games, capture the flag, sardines; we would hide from the moon. Every game was prematurely ended by the kid that lost, complaining it wasn’t fair, and proclaiming the next game was due to begin. Friday nights no longer mattered, in the summer, every night meant no bedtime, no homework, no cares. Grandma’s house became a place of refuge, the porch a breezy sanctuary from the sweltering midday sun. Happy to be rid of parents during the days, we filled every waking hour with the dreams we had spent the school year conjuring. I became a pirate, a teacher, a postman, a soldier, every bike-ride was life or death, and every playground a treacherous sea. Justice would be carried to every corner of the globe. Kids became warriors, doctors, heroes. Late summer afternoons could turn into the last battle to win World War II.

Mother left us every morning with a warning,” you boys have fun today and don’t you grow up too fast,”  words that meant nothing to us then ring harsh in my ears now, pounding, reminding me that those dusky summers have long since passed, now only filled by piles of paperwork ever glaring, lists of to-dos, ever staring, and the taunt of my own children now yelping in the yard, resounding the same proclamations that I had once uttered with my own brother, trespass and die, and now the ground is lava, and now we both can fly, you just went blind, I win, I’m the hero, this spaceship can takes us anywhere we want to go.

Now I only wish I could say these things, with a sliver of the belief that I had then. Only cynicisms, complaints, curses, now fill my ears and erupt from my mouth. Plowing away at my computer, day in day out, the floor becoming lava sounds nice now. Questions from my kids bring tiny sparks of imagination back to life, but nothing ever sets aflame. “Really Dad, is that really how you can become a Jedi Knight?” Some days I wonder what it would be like to grab my wife and call our friends for a game of capture the flag. They’d probably block our calls after that.

Unfortunately those summer nights don’t have their magic anymore, the glitter of fireflies goes unnoticed as the mosquitoes bite and the sleep tank whines for refilling. Very seldom, I’ll join my boys in their play games, only to find myself annoyed at the impossibility of their imaginative scenarios. “Why won’t you place with us Dad?” “Xenos the warrior God doesn’t really exist boys, and you don’t have a chance of beating him even if he did.” You can’t really say that to a six year old. Zero days this year, not a single one, that mother’s words don’t haunt me.

Great Love

It's been awhile since I've sat down and really penned something out. My life has been a whirlwind lately; work, school, family, love, and all the little things in between. If I'm learning anything from all the haze, all the business, it's that we must be active participants in our lives. Sometimes it's far too easy to just float along and react when life changes. But how much more exhilarating (and exhausting) it is when you start acting out your life instead of just reacting to it.

In the mess of everything, in the stress of this very formidable time of my life, I have found someone who I get to share it with. The one thing I have learned above all else from our relationship is that great loves do not just happen. You don't just slap on a ring somewhere and then travel down the road for thirty or forty years and hop out at a rest stop thinking, whew, that was a breeze. Love is not that way. Just as in life, in love you must participate, you must catalyze, you must choose to grow, or else your love will wither and ultimately die. If you cannot choose to grow, to learn and to find the joy amongst the bickering, you will never see a great love.

Being a lover isn't about expecting rainbows every day. Being a lover is about learning to rely on someone, to let them in and to mold your life around theirs. Sometimes (and I'm sure in ten years that word will be "all the time") being a lover means compromising. It means giving up something you are used to or comfortable so that your behaviors honor your lover. It's not about denying ourselves the pleasures of living a full life, yet it's the understanding that sharing your heart and your life with someone means sharing EVERY aspect of it. It starts with dinners and movies, then grows to toothpaste and family gatherings, and eventually it means sharing a bed, a home and the responsibility of caring for children.

Sometimes compromise can be difficult and sometimes it can be as easy as taking one second longer to consider a decision, because you take the other persons feelings into consideration.

Love is not rocket science, it's not chemistry either. And as much as the poets and writers will tell you, it ain't always a work of art, honey. But it is spectacular if you put forth the effort to make it so. It's recognizing that the small, everyday triumphs are what will eventually bring on the larger ones, (those daunting anniversaries of 25, 50, even 75). It may be a bumpy ride, but if you take out the map, listen to your passenger and take plenty of time to enjoy the scenery, you tiny little road trip could turn into an incredible journey.

(just my two sense)