Connections

 

 

M. and I met when we were five and six at the Children's Shop when our mothers outfitted us or the start of school.

We didn't see each other much after that. Our families traveled in different but equal social circles. 

We really became friends in high school when this handsome blue-eyed boy dated both of us. We decided we liked each other better than him. He was the seed for a decades long friendship where we shared dreams, hopes, troubles, and everything else.

When my brother pushed me down the stairs, I packed up and went to her family and stayed. 

I loved her family's apartment. One felt at home the second one walked through the door. It was a kind of Jessica Fletcher's down Maine 1950ish home. I had sour cream on a baked potato for the first time there.

Eventually the mothers found a solution for me and I went home. 

Because my parents were divorced, her father took both of us to any Father-Daughter event our activities held. 

We didn't lose touch when I moved to Europe as a new bride. We stayed friends when I came back to go to college in Lowell. M. graduated from Emerson in the same class as the Fonz before he was the Fonz.

M. went to work doing research on downs syndrome children confined to a home for a man, who was ahead of his time. He put her name on all research papers that they worked on together. 

She was the sanity in my bad marriage. My ex hated me talking with her, more because Boston was a toll call raising our phone bill. I talked her through bad relationships too.

When both our lives had gone smoothly for a time and we didn't talk, M. called and said, "Where've you been? I'm not just a foul weather friend, you know." 

After my divorce her mother would visit me every Tuesday often bringing clothes for my daughter, the grandchild she would never have. If her mother noticed a problem in the house, a couple of days later her father would arrive with his toolkit. My daughter loved the round green wagon they bought her. 

He was a salesman and my daughter's day care was one of his clients. Whenever he saw my daughter, he would check on her then tell me how happy she seemed playing with this or that. 

M. take the train from Boston, we'd play gin rummy, eat potato sticks, and walk my daughter. 

She developed a relationship with my daughter teaching her needlework that became a life-long passion of my daughter. 

We often had to cancel dinner plans. "Listen she said. Fate is getting in the way of us meeting. We'll fool it." From then on instead of voicing plans we said, "We won't meet at the Blue Parrot in Harvard Square Monday at 7 p.m." It worked.

When I moved to Europe, she sent potato sticks and letters it was pre- internet days. Her father and I exchanged letters regularly. He called me, "the little girl from Reading who moved to Europe."

Thankfully M. divorced after the move to California and found her soul mate. They visited me in Geneva. Seeing her happy brought me joy.

We ate local raspberries, reminding us of walking behind her parents' Maine cabin and picking the berries as we talked.

The phone rang. I ran to my house mate's room where there was a phone.  

"I never thought I would have to make this call," M's partner said. M. was in an accident. She died on the operating table.

I sank into the chair in front of the wall that was solid books. I heard howling and realized it was me. Walking to the balcony I stared out at Lake Geneva, flat, calm, beautiful. How could that be when M. was gone.

M's partner gave my daughter $10,000 from M's estate when my daughter went to Graduate School in Scotland. M's partner attended my wedding to the soul mate I found late in life. M. and I as teenagers and women in throughout much of our lives never thought that soul mate discovery would happen, but it did to both of us.

M. was one and the first of the four women I've known that has walked in my heart and soul.  Only two are left and I've locked rooms full of memories. Knowing them has helped make me who I am today. I am blessed to have known them.

 

 

 

 

 

Free Write Bag Philosophy

 

 

The saying on a paper bag  was this week's prompt.

Julia's Free Write

Ah, the luxury, she was finally back in a cabin in the woods: how had she let it be so long? No excuse other than the necessity to see friends and family.

Not a complaint, mind you as she was very content with her current life, loved seeing her grandkids as well as having lunches and coffees with friends. She is blessed.

However, a little “me” time does not come amiss.

She had seen this opportunity a couple of months ago and assiduously guarded the next five days free.

Sleeping, awaking on her own timeline, walks both short and long, her favorite meal, what wasn’t to like about the scenario?

And to have the loan of a friend’s cabin, one with a newly installed fireplace insert that spread heat much better than the old, but still had the luxury of flames, life truly couldn’t get any better.

“I can’t, I’m fully booked” was her excuse for not accepting anything for those days: just most people didn’t realize that the “fully booked” meant 5 books to be read.

D-L's Free Write

Mattie tried to discourage Kai politely.

No she didn't want to go to the Les Mis restaurant, although she did just not with him.

She couldn't see him because she had to visit her mother. She didn't,

"A college friend will stay with me for a week," she said. She wasn't.

When Kai stopped in Matti's office, he found folders on the chairs in front of her desk. He asked her to a movie.

"I can't go. I have to take the garbage out." 

Who wouldn't take that as a hint.

Kai, that's who.

Mattie's friend Julie suggested a fake engagement ring.

If Kai noticed, he didn't say anything although when she stopped wearing it he mentioned the green circle on her ring finger from the cheap metal of the fake ring.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out. What if I treat you to dinner?" 

"I'm swearing off men for a year," Mattie said. Maybe by then he would have found someone else.

"I'll wait," he said. 

Mattie decided to change jobs, cities. There were more than one way to skin the cat.

(Note: I didn't use the prompt in words, just in implication that no matter what Kai asked, she was booked.)

Rick's Free Write

I can’t sit down without reading something. I have an insatiable need to absorb information.

Even if I’m watching TV news, I tend to read the headline ‘crawls’ at the bottom of the screen.

I used to read the newspaper daily. Worked for four different newspapers early in my career. Still occasionally pick up L’Independant in France or Tribune de Geneve in Switzerland.

But mostly I read on my phone. A stream of news and commentary emails. The Atlantic magazine, our only remaining online subscription.

When I’m not ‘doom scrolling’ on US, UK and European politics, or searching for content for my weekly aviation newsletter, I’ll work through a book, a few pages at a time. Typically, Sherlock is on my lap.

I lean toward fiction, especially crime thrillers such as Val McDermid or Harlan Coben. I confess to liking Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher, largely for the staccato style, though the plots are totally predictable: Reacher stalks and beats up bad guys.

I just finished what one critic called “the first great novel of the new century.” Some good phrasing, but way overwritten. A writer in love with lavish run-on sentences. I struggled to finish it, hoping it would get better. It didn’t. Out of kindness, I won’t mention the book title or author.

We’re well stocked with alternates. Just picked up about 80 books at the English Library’s semi-annual sale for about 3 euros each. 

About the Free Writers 

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

 

 

The Ring Chapter 17, 18

 

 

MARGO LOUD STEINER

“STOP, STOP, STOP.” Margo said. Her tone wasn’t one that said an accident was about to happen. They had already pulled off the Autobahn for the quiet of the national roads to search for a small restaurant, not that the Autobahn didn’t have stops with good food.

Hans-Peter wanted a break from what he called the races.

“Where?”

“There’s a restaurant over there and it’s next to an art supply store.” Although she had loaded up on sketch pads and colored pencils before they’d left Stuttgart, she wanted to check what they would have that she might use while Hans-Peter was off filming at the dig.

He had called ahead to get her into any team meetings and access to any of the discoveries so she could copy the designs. Her reputation had opened doors for her that would have been closed to her when they were a young couple. As a young couple neither had any doors to have opened.

Tomorrow they would meet up with the BBC crew who were filming on spec that this would work into a full series. If not, Hans-Peter was happy with a single documentary. It would boost his book sales.

Hans-Peter helped her into the back of the Dacia where she could stretch out her leg along the seat. This car was bigger than they had when they were married.

Neither were proponents of big cars, but Margo needed space to transport her dishes, and Hans-Peter had books and other materials he used in his lectures including filming equipment.

“When we were young you said, ‘I don’t need to prove my manhood on the road,’ Margo reminded him.” “Still feel that way?”

“More or less. I drove a friend’s Ferrari once about six months ago. Beautiful machine. I’m too cheap to spend the money for something that does the job a used VW which will sit in the garage for weeks at a time will do.”

Margo smiled. She knew Hans-Peter used public transportation most of the time. She would have back home, too, except there was none.

“Art store or restaurant first?” he asked.

“Art store. I don’t want to risk they’ll close while we’re eating and there’s a certain kind of brush that will probably be cheaper here than in the States.”

 

THIS IS ALMOST a vacation which I haven’t had in umpty-ump years and it pours rain, Margo thought as Hans-Peter drove up to the little red house. Despite the weather, she didn’t regret saying yes to coming to Sweden with her ex.

He had a week of shooting for a BBC documentary on the new archeological methods used at the Luppåkra dig and the discoveries they helped find.

The weather could be a problem although interviews with some of the professors involved could be done indoors while waiting for the rain to stop. Shots of Hans-Peter at the site talking about how people had lived since the Iron Age could include weather information of long ago and could be worked into the script if the rain didn’t stop. He told her of two people he could call. “One of them will give me the sentences I need, if I mention his name.”

Margo had been surprised that, unlike during their marriage, their conversation was back and forth about him and her. He asked about her new kiln, the different clay, where she got her design ideas, things he hadn’t done when they were married.

During the drive from Germany, she had loved their conversations which expanded to books, movies and world politics. The 500 miles flew by.

Inside, the first thing she noticed was one bed. “I can take the couch.”

“Or I can. Your cast needs more room.”

As it turned out they would share the bed later that evening.

Almost as soon as they arrived, they left for dinner with an archeological colleague and his translator wife with whom Hans-Peter was filming the next day. “They’re also friends. You’ll like them.” He shut off the car engine in their driveway.

“This is it. I stay here whenever I come to Luppåkra. Johnathan and Walter are staying at another B&B just down the road.” He reached into the back seat for an umbrella and walked around to Margo’s side to help her out of the car and up the three steps to the front door.

“We didn’t bring anything?” she said.

He reached into the back seat and brought out a bottle of German white wine.