Imagining Life's Coming Attractions

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. (Robert Frost) 

I love spring. A time when the spring peepers make music so loud that even with the windows closed I can hear them trying to convince some other peepers to be their dates. I like how one week the trees are winter bare and then a couple of weeks later leaves are waving in the breeze. I like how flowers start popping up out of the ground like magic as soon as the sun begins to warm the ground and then seem to grow tall overnight. 

I especially like those flowers that no one planted. That are just there. The wildflowers Mother Nature herself sowed in the woods and fields. Every year they show up again. Sometimes they spread out into bigger patches. Sometimes they shrink back and cling tightly to their little bit of earth and wait for a better year. But they keep blooming without fail. Flowers like the Dutchman's Breeches up above. 

They seem to be proof that, as Robert Frost says, life goes on. And if you look at my picture really closely, you'll see that even as I was taking that photograph, life was going on. A spider, that I surely didn't even notice, was building a web and using one of the blooms as an anchor post. It was paying me no mind. I was paying it no mind. We were just each in our own spring mode.

Life is going on in my work in progress too, but sometimes it seems to be still frozen in the winter of my mind instead of springing forth in the right words. 


Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. (Albert Einstein)


That's where my story is. In my imagination and I'm trying to tell it so that you might make it come to life in your imagination. While Albert Einstein isn't talking about fictional lives, the same can hold true for my characters. If I can imagine it, I can preview their lives' coming attractions. But I have to write it moment by moment or more aptly, scene by scene. Each scene has to flow into the next until the story is told. Because even in a fictional story, life goes on. My story might succeed if I can pull out the right succession of moments.

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed. (Corita Kent)

In real life, we can't pick and choose among the moments that make up our stories. We have to live the ones that come to us. But we sometimes can preview our lives by imagining what is to come. 

When I was a kid, I imagined myself married and a mother. I remember the moment when I looked forward to that life with a certain surety. Then I also imagined myself a writer. With a dog by my side. Lots of things have happened that I didn't know to imagine, but those things I imagined true. 

What are some of the things you've imagined that have come to pass in your life?   

Thanks for reading. Check back Sunday for a real treat. I'm having a guest post from someone who writes about her grandmother's struggles with dementia. A beautiful story I know will touch your heart. 

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/coritakent162489.html#DvO4Gp26V52g3WGr.99

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/coritakent162489.html#DvO4Gp26V52g3WGr.99

Mom's New Place

I haven't talked about Mom for awhile here. Not since I told you we were moving her into The Lantern, a memory care home for those with Alzheimer's or dementia problems. It's a very nice facility, bright and open, and the staff are kind and caring. 

Even so, it's been a difficult transition. The first week, we were in the ER twice because she fell, once at night and once late in the daytime. She had bruises and no major injuries. I cringed every time the phone rang, fearing another fall. But since then in almost two months now, we've made one more ER visit. Again, a fall in the night. Again, only bruises. 

Mom's a pretty tough cookie. But it could not have been that way. She could have been hurt worse, and that makes the falls a major guilty poke for my sister and me. We were watching her so closely at her house that we were right with her every time she sat up in bed. We had a bed alarm but after replacing it once at a high price, we just went with wind chimes tied to her walker. Then we placed the walker beside the bed so that she'd hit it and ring those "bells" when she tried to get up. The memory care home is not equipped for one on one observation at night. We signed numerous papers saying we were aware of that before Mom moved in. The workers do check on the residents periodically, but there's plenty of time in between checks for Mom to wake up and decide it's time to "go to school" or that somebody is "out front waiting for her." Or maybe just because she needs to "go."

There are other problems. She wouldn't eat at first. At home, she ate whatever we fixed, but once at the home, she wouldn't even look at the food on her plate. That is getting better. She eats breakfast now and dabbles with her other meals. Another problem, she doesn't like them giving her baths and helping her dress in the mornings. You have to realize where she is with this. At home, when I would tell her we needed to go get cleaned up, she'd tell me she just had a bath. In her mind, I'm sure she had. Sometimes I would have to talk for an hour before she'd come around to letting me help her bathe. The aides don't have the time to do that at the home. They have other residents to get ready for breakfast. So I understand the problem, but I know no solutions to suggest. The best help I had at her house was simply prayer that she'd be in a cooperative frame of mind.  

All's not bad though. Even though she wouldn't smile for me in the photo I snapped on Friday, she seems happier or more satisfied there than she was at her house. She still talks about "going home" to see her mother and father or that she needs to go cook supper for my dad. But she doesn't try to go out the door the way she did at home. I think because the place is bigger and the trip to the door is so far up the hallways, (and of course, locked if she did get to the door) she gets distracted easier. She thinks she'll have to wait until later. Plus, the other people there distract her too. 

There are residents at the home who are much younger and in better physical health than Mother and in better mental health too. Some of them wander a bit, walking to find an escape from the confusion that reigns in their minds. Others never say a word. One lady whispers everything and another lady sometimes stands in the corner and cries. 

In contrast, Mom has been chattering a mile a minute the last week. Nothing she says makes a lot of sense and she doesn't process what you say to her correctly. You say one thing and she thinks you've said something totally different. Makes for hard conversations. In this photo, she's telling me she has four of them - fingers, I think.

I haven't felt as if she's known me for a couple of weeks now. When an aide asked her if I was her daughter on Friday, she said no quite emphatically. But I am, whether she knows it or not. And she still smiles when she sees me. At least at first. Then sometimes she's ready for me to leave so that she can go home. After all, you can't leave company to do what you want. Innate hospitality forbids that. Maybe that's what keeps her satisfied in the big gathering room. 

My sister or I go see her almost every day. I'm not sure that's helping her, but it helps us. You see, it's not only Mom who has to adjust to the new arrangement, but us as well. Care taking is a demanding thing and it wraps tentacles of guilt around you when you come to the place where you think you can't do it any longer. 

But what we are continually reminding ourselves is that she wasn't happy at her house and she seems more content at the facility. There is the danger of falls. She is getting worse with her communication, but that could have happened at home too. The main thing for us to remember is that we love her and she loves us whether she's able to show that any more or not. 

She was a wonderful mother and I miss her. Those of you going through some of the same things with your loved ones understand what I mean when I say I miss her. Let's all lift up a prayer for those with this dreaded disease and for the families who have to watch their loved ones decline into a terrible world of confusion.

P.S. 

I took a walk back to my wildflower area today and was surprised to see a lot of the flowers blooming. The one above, Dutchman's Breeches, was always one of Mom's favorites. And I also saw my first snake! I think he was cold since he didn't slither away but let me step right past him on the path. 

  

Thanks to all of you who downloaded my book, Scent of Lilacs. It's going to be free for a while longer, so if you have e-reading friends, I hope you'll tell them about it. You can check my last blog post to see the links to the places where you can download the book. And you're always welcome to share my blog posts with any friends you think would like to read my ramblings. Thanks. You're the best.  

Wildflowers and Edits

I met an editing deadline yesterday. Actually I was almost two weeks early, but that other deadline for my Shaker 5 book is looming out there so I wanted to get the edits done as fast as possible. That way I can get going again on the Shaker book. I reread what I've already written or most of it today. Not bad, but I'm needing a brain surge to tell me what happens next. I like my characters, so that's a good thing. Maybe they'll whisper their plans for the rest of the story in my ear tonight while I sleep.

The book I finished editing is the one set in 1855 in Louisville. It's got lots of romance and some suspense and good helping of history. I think you readers will like my hero. He's very handsome and very in love with the heroine. We've struggled a little with the title for this one. I came up with Words of Fire. I still like that, but the publishers wanted something that sounded more romantic since this story teems with romance. So we've settled on Words Spoken True. What do you think? Does it make you think romance? They tell me the ideas for the cover are going to be fabulous. Anyway, I got the editor's suggested edits finished. Now I can get back to figuring out how to sneak a little romance into my Shaker village, Harmony Hill. Not exactly the easiest place to have a romance since the Shakers did not believe in romance at all.

But as a reward for getting the edits done and since we had a beautiful, sunshiny Sunday and I had to do something to take my mind off UK losing that ballgame, I decided to take a wildflower walk. I really didn't think that many of the wildflowers would be blooming since it had been so chilly all last week, but when I got over to Panther Rock where the wildflowers abound, they were blooming all over. There were the Dutchman's Breeches in the picture above. Those flowers do great over there and they are my mom's favorites. I don't normally pick wildflowers, but since there are scads of these and Mom loves them so much, I always pick a bloom to bring to show her. It's a good thing to see her smile.

But besides the Dutchman's Breeches, there were Woods Poppy, Twin Leaf, Bloodroot, Anemone, Spring Beauty, Yellow Trout Lilly, Sweet William, and others I need to look up in the flower book. I try to remember all the names, but I lose a few from year to year. It's such a treat for me to go see the flowers and I have the bonus of the sun glinting off the creek water as it flows past me. Today I had even more bonuses. I found a nest of some kind of animal in a hollow tree. Not sure what. And I didn't linger because I was afraid my dogs would come investigate and think the little creatures were supper. They could have easily gotten to them. Then I saw a huge crawdad. And a dozen wild turkeys. It was flower and wildlife day. I took pictures, but they never turn out as good as it looks when I'm right there in the middle of it all.

I'll have to go back in a week or so and see what else is blooming out. I'm sure to hit a knotty spot in my book and need to walk a while to give my brain time to figure it out. Writing isn't only done when your fingers are on the keyboard.

Do you like wildflowers? Well, here's wishing you "May all your weeds be wildflowers." Tell me about the wildflowers you love or how you reward yourself for getting something done.