How to walk away - Book Review

This was a unique book. Golden girl Margaret Jacobsen is sure her boyfriend Chip is about to propose to her on Valentine's Day. Margaret has always followed the rules and life has been easy for her, bestowing upon her the gifts of beauty, kindness, a fabulous new career, and her relationship with Chip. When Chip drives them to the airport and begs Margaret to fly with him, she does, but not without serious doubt and trepidation; fear of flying has been her biggest fear all of her life. All goes well until a storm comes up as they are landing, causing the small plane to crash, and Margaret's life shatters to a million pieces.

Chip escapes unscathed, but can't even look at Margaret with her severely burned neck and severed spine. Margaret discovers that her perfect life was only perfect on the surface, and most everything she thought was real was truly shallow. Through the love and support of her family and her stoic, irritable physical therapist Ian, Margaret slowly rebuilds her life one small accomplishment at a time.

In honor of Mother's Day

Earlier I had an idea for a children's book. When I was young my mother used to read fairy tales to us. She bought my sister's and I a set of illustrated Raggedy Ann books. There are around 20 in this particular series, and they were written a long, long time ago. The Bobs Merrill company published them, and my mother bought them in the grocery store. They had them on sale for like $1.25 each; kind of like kids today collect the prizes from McDonald's or Wendy's? She kept them for us through the years. Periodically I would go borrow two at a time, and then next time I visited I would return those two and get another two. There is so much comfort in those books for me. They are my childhood, they were my mother's gift to us, but more. I love the sweet fantasy, the beautiful stories of how good combats bad. It is what I wish for in this world of ours today. When my mother died we took very little from her house. My older sister did could not bear with us changing mom's house and disassembling it. My younger sister and I wanted she and her family to have it, to own it, to live in it. Instead my sister chose to continue renting her own tiny house just a few blocks away. Mom's house still is not in probate, still legally belongs to my mother, and all of her things are in there; our history, our memories, our childhoods. Her boyfriend continues to live there, and he paid off the mortgage a few years ago. He lives there rent free, paying the property tax, I hope. Not long after she died I was having a hard time. My own divorce was just a few years old and missing my mom was insult onto injury. I asked Mark to mail me a few of the books for comfort. He mailed me the entire set. It was one of the most touching and endearing things given to me in my whole life. The books live with me, although I never thought I would have them given to me. I am the one without children. I am the one who has no one to pass them down to. But they live here, and my heart and soul love having them here. They are special. Today I was thinking of those books and thinking what a treasure to children Johnny Gruelle wrote. The tale of two rag dolls who have such goodness in them and travel throughout the world of fairies and gnomes, elves, spreading kindness and cheer. Cookies grow on trees and soda water springs from fountains in the ground. I imagined myself writing tales to parallel those of the Raggedy's. Of goodness, kindness, light - hope. It is what our world needs more of. It is definitely a start to the writing life I want to create for myself. Why not children's books with such a sweet, simple message? I wonder if children today would read them, or appreciate them in our fast paced world? I am willing to bet there are children that still have innocence and joy and like simpler things. Not all children are like those I encounter - filled with the sorrow that life brings and the pain and suffering; anger, angst, lack of hope. There have to more children like others I know and have helped give a joy of reading to - with parents who do care about their child's education and welfare. Parents who still read to their children and gave birth to them to love and cherish. What message I can give to children? Continued innocence, a belief in things we cannot see; simple adventure - joy?



I always wanted children. I did not want them immediately when I was a young adult. I wanted them eventually. First, I wanted to move west, become a poet, live a Bohemian life, to travel, to live, to experience. I wanted to lay in a high mountain meadow among the tall grasses and waving wildflowers while I watched clouds float over snowy peaks. I wanted to feel the earth under me, watch the sky above me. I wanted to watch sunsets and sunrises, to live in a cabin, to write words that flowed from my soul. I did not want to get married. There is a Bob Seger song, Roll Me Away, that speaks to my soul. "Stood alone on a mountaintop looking out at the great divide. I could go east, I could go west, it was all up to me to decide." That is what I wanted. But eventually I planned to come off that mountain top and choose a husband - to meet my soul mate, my split apart, my eternal heart. I wanted to have children and raise them, passing down all of the wonderful things I learned about life and living to them; pass on those lessons that were passed to me through my mother, her mother, her mother's mother; from all of our ancestors throughout time. Once I did see my children in Steve's eyes; I saw them as plain as day. But God had other plans.

I think my soulmate is waiting for me somewhere else. I had a marriage sooner than I ever planned, and that lasted a long time, but not forever. I did not move out west, although I have traveled there many times. I cannot pass my life lessons on to my children, or even my nieces and nephews because my path took me far apart from their young lives. I can pass on a little of myself to strangers children; children who are in need of life lessons and skills and knowledge - in need of love. But I also feel that is not my destiny. It occurred to me today that the way I can pass on myself to my unborn children is to write stories for them; stories to be shared as my mother shared stories with me. Maybe that is the path I am supposed to follow now. Today, on mother's day, I do not have a living mother to honor. My mother and my step-mother, my grandmothers, my Godmother - all are in heaven shining down on me. My unborn children are with them, maybe waiting to be born in another life where I can love them and pass myself on through them. They wait with my soulmate, in another plane in another time, in another life. In this life I live now, my destiny feels like it is to share my heart and soul through my thoughts and my words. We make the best of what we have in the life we have been given.

Comfort and Joy

Each day dawns differently. I've heard people use the phrase "nothing ever changes" and that people are bored with the sameness of their lives day in and day out. I am not one to find this to be true. Each morning I wake in my house and it is never the same morning, although I am surrounded by the familiarity of my own house, my own things, the comfort of "here". Sometimes it is hard to fathom that I have lived here in this house for over twenty years. I could barely wait for it to be built. I remember mornings in my old house and just imagining living in my own place, built from the ground up, not surrounded by someone else's vision of a house, and not surrounded by the squalor that was my old house. Yes, I had it fixed up sweetly, and yes, we made a home, and we were happy together, but down inside it was not mine and I did not want it to be so. It scared me after we had begun living here and watching the old house as it was torn down. It scared me the obvious nature of the frailty of that old wood - second hand, torn down from old houses in town before it was repurposed into the house my father-in-law built with his own two hands.

But here, now, looking back to then, I know each day dawn's differently. I'm different each morning. My eyes see differently, my dreams in the night were different; I wake differently. The sunrise this morning dawns differently. This morning the air, while not hot, is not quite cool either. Winter mornings are fresh and sweet; this morning the air is heavy and damp, but not unbearable. It lacks the freshness of many winter and spring mornings. The heaviness indicates rain is coming, and it is in the forecast over the next three days. The clouds are low and full of moisture, yet the sunrise peeks hopefully through the bottom of the cloud cover, it's faint pinkness light in the rising of the sun and the morning glow filling the sky. It's not a magnificent sunrise, and yet it is majestic in it's own way, as each sunrise is in it's uniqueness. But the sun still rises each day whether we see it or acknowledge it or not. Off in the distance I can hear traffic sounds, but not harsh or loud as it can be in air that is clear, less dense, and more cool. The heaviness absorbs the distant sounds. Even the birdsong seems distant, not close by, although it is still as sweet as ever. It's all the same, but different. It is a new day full of new choices, chances, moods, actions. A new day to begin again, and that is the best part of the familiar, different sunrise each day. Today the waiting rain, the low clouds, the quiet birdsong - it all feels like anticipation to me; that the world is waiting and we wait with it for whatever the day will bring.

I woke early, as is normal for me, despite the fact it is Saturday and my plans are a minimum today. It is my father's birthday, and he is here for a visit, and I am so looking forward to spending the day with him. I was hoping to sleep a little later, yet I am still secretly pleased to be awake so early. Mornings are my best time, and mornings at home are even a better-best time for me. So, I woke at 6 am, tried to fight it, but ended up coming out into the kitchen and watching the morning as I made coffee and decided to write early today. I cleaned up a kitty mess of over turned flowers (brought home from Teacher Appreciation Week) and the vase of water. I stepped out on the porch to get a feel for the day. These are things I do routinely, although not always daily. They are familiar routines, and never quite the same; they are never done with the same purpose or pattern. My routines are similar and familiar, but not filled with any sense of sameness. Each day my mood differs, depending on my dreams in the night or my plans for the day. Sameness and routine are a comfort for me, though. My life is often filled with so much activity, these comfortable routines are a blessing. Our world is filled with others need to change. We are filled with a sense that change is progress and progress is good and necessary. We are charged to change or become obsolete, out-of-date, or we fall from value and relevancy. Lack of change is considered in modern society to be lack of motivation, lack of living a meaningful life, and God forbid, boring. Staying the same is not what is valued. To me the answer is to say no. So much of life outside our own comfort and daily world changes too frequently and quickly. I love routine and sameness. I can give myself what I love; quiet time for reflection, recharge, and the gift to do what my heart wants; time to read, write, and the time for my own thoughts to fill my soul back up. I love my quiet mornings and I don't want to change up the idea of them. Each is unique to me in it's own way on it's own day, and familiarity is a comfort to me. I am not opposed to progress, but, as the Lorax says in the short film for kids - sometimes I think progress progresses to fast. Today I will stick with my familiar-but-different routines, and I will appreciate the beauty in the sunrise, the comfort and sweetness of my own home, my back porch, my kitties and the ability to spend time in the comfort and familiarity of being with my father.

The Novel of Life

Eighteen Easters ago my world changed forever. I've always loved Easter. As a little girl it meant an Easter dress, new shoes, white gloves. It meant Easter baskets and solid milk chocolate bunnies to be savored slowly, one little nibble at a time. It meant snow sometimes, but hearty crocus and snow drops peeping up from the faded green grass under the snow. Daffodils bravely waving their beautiful yellow faces at the mild sunlight. It meant church with my family, dinner with my maternal grandparents. As I grew to adulthood it meant family dinners here at my house, out of town family always coming for a feast; me loving to entertain and feed them all, Steve lording over it, enjoying my family as much as I did.

And then it changed. I do not celebrate Easter now. I have not cooked Easter dinner in the same way, and then, only rarely since. I love to paint Easter colors and Easter ceramics, but I don't celebrate it with any of the joy I had for the first 37 years of my life. Eighteen years ago my uncle died just before Easter. My cousin Ann flew down, and she and I drove her parents car back to New York. Aunt Betty and my other aunts and uncles flew. The funeral was sad, yet it was so good to be with the entire family. Steve could not attend; he had a job out of town and he could not take off. I understood. When I came home from New York, the next week was Easter. The aunts and uncles came back because they needed to close up their winter homes, so again, I planned Easter dinner here. Steve was still gone and we had not seen each other since before Uncle Polly's death, but we talked on the phone the Monday before Easter. He asked me to buy a certain printer for the house so he could fax time sheets, etc from home if need be. He was not available when I called after that and it did not raise an alarm in me until Friday, when I realized it had been a few days since we talked. My heart started working overtime; I knew something was wrong. His voice mail was full and would not receive more. A call to his company was fruitless, and even my call to them reminding them that he was in their truck and missing was not doing any good. It was a terrible time, not hearing from him. My father, who it turns out, was fairly certain Steve had cheated on me, drove to their hunting camp to confront the girl Steve had been with in New York - another fact I found out later. My father thought he may have been suicidal and had gone to the camp; he was not there. Chris called her husband; Steve's friend and co-worker, and he evaded her. Easter Sunday I bravely went through the motions of cooking. As my family began arriving, so did Chris. We went to the laundry room and she told me. She had threatened her husband until he told her the truth. She said Kim, he is not coming home. He has left you. He is with another woman out of state, in New Hampshire, meeting her family and celebrating with them.

My world collapsed. I remember falling to the floor. I remember her crouched over me. I don't remember too much else after that. My family left, dinner unfinished, untouched. I am sure someone put it away, but I lost the rest of the day. Chris left at some point and I died inside. I made it through the night and into the next day, and I remember sitting on the couch looking at the fireplace; the oyster bricks that we lovingly picked out together just three years earlier. I looked around me remembering every nail, every board, every brick; every moment of building our home together. I remember giggling was we spent clandestine time in the house as it was being built, making love in each room in the middle of construction. I remembered our plans, our lives, our happiness for all those years and all that we went through to get where we were. I remembered being at his mothers side when she died 10 months earlier. I remember discovering his father in his bed after he died in his sleep. I remembered losing our baby and discovering there would be no more. I remembered the sadness of that. But I remembered our laughter and our joy, so much more than all that sadness. I died a thousand deaths inside. I would not, could not accept that it was over that he had turned into someone who could or would injure someone, anyone, me, that way. Not the smiling, happy faced boy I fell in love with, the man who whistled as he worked in the yard, as he reorganized, as he planned, as we planned our future. It was devastating. He finally called Monday night, late into the night. He was at dinner with his new love, and he had stepped away to make the call to me. I was not allowed, in his eyes, to be angry. I just needed to face the fact that it was over and he was moving on. He never told me why, even all these years later. He never told me exactly why he became such a coward and why he could not tell me face to face that he wanted out. For 18 months he came and went, and I let him because it was so inexplicable, so unforeseen, just so random. He never told me, to this day even, that he was leaving. He just did it. He spent the holiday with his girlfriend; who eventually became his wife, and then his ex-wife. He spent the holiday pretending that he and I had been separated for over 6 months and that I was fragile, and crazy, not wanting a divorce and he was being kind and giving me time. I found all this later, and it still reads to me like something from a novel, not something that actually happened to me.

I have been doing a new writing exercise; 750words.com. I think the process of writing these daily words has been leading up to this. I have always realized, underneath all my pain, all my suffering, all my growing and healing that this is the novel I need to write. I need to write the novel of my life, beginning with that first magical summer of Us and ending where it did, as it did. As I have been writing the last 27 or 28 days, I have wondered where all this has been heading. I will have a record of how I need to write it, why, and it will remind me that life happens. That we learn, we love, we grow - we lose. That is the novel of life.

Dreams

I look around me here in my own personal library and I think of all the words in here. Books written by souls like mine; souls that want to write, to share, to encourage, inspire, create. I was driven to write from a young age. When I graduated high school my goal was to move to Colorado and write poetry. I did not want a job or a career. The only thing I wanted was writing, Colorado and happiness. Needless to say, all these years later, here I am at my computer, typing my thoughts and feelings, trying to come closer to being a paid writer. I don't need to make a living at it, although it would be nice. Just to be paid something might be nice. But I don't write for pay. I write for my heart, for my soul. I write, like last night, for my sanity. There have been long patches in my life where I did not write anything; a journal, poetry. Nothing. The happy years, I guess you could say. But those are the years I would have been able to maybe take the time to produce, to polish, to send off. I spent them being a wife. Being a homemaker, working jobs I had no passion for; just a job to make money. Now I know I have passion for my job and money to pay my own bills, but I am not in my "happy" years. Not to say I am unhappy; I am not. But I am not in the lap of luxury, I am not safe in the knowledge that my heart loves another and that is my be-all-end-all.

I am not living my dream of being a published author. I did not feel the urge to write in those years; I basically put my dreams on hold. First, because my parents said I had to. To them, college was the only option. I have never regretted that, although it ended up taking me a lot longer than I ever dreamed to finally get a Masters Degree. I don't regret the college years, and I am very grateful to them for the life path they sent me on. But, there are lots of side tracks in the road to life. Lots of diversions in those "happy" years. I don't regret much in life, and I don't regret those years. I don't regret putting every bit of me into my marriage, into my life with Steve. I was mostly happy and I think that I could have stayed in that marriage forever, just making it through life entangled lives always together. But it was not to be, and reflecting back I can see that I was not always happy; it was not a blissful time. There was a lot I gave up to be who I was then. My writing dream. A life different than the one I had - that Colorado dream. I can't express the love. We had love. A lot of it. We had respect, and fun, and caring and consideration. Until we didn't. I can look back and see the imperfections in myself. I can see them in Steve and in our life, too, but I can see them in me. I can remember the days I would be cleaning or cooking and working really hard to just exist; and I can remember crying, longing, desiring some other life and just not sure what that looked like. I remember knowing I settled when I settled into life with Steve; that I put my own dreams and heart aside to be joined forever. I can see his flaws, although I am not here to pick them apart; that is not what this is about. It is about how easy it easy to give away your dreams so carelessly.

I still go back to my thoughts about alternative world; parallel universes; how I wonder if they exist, and how comforting it is to believe that they do. That somewhere in time along another plane, the me that I really wanted, the poet with the Rocky Mountain High - I hope she is happy pursuing her dream; that somewhere she is poet laureate to the world; the Robert Frost of her time. I hope that she is living a Bohemian life style, un-tethered to any one soul, answering only to the call of her heart. That she dresses in flowing linen and gauze and she wears beautiful clanking bracelets given to her by a lover madly desiring her. I hope she dances naked in the moonlight under the stars and that she washes her face in mountain streams when the mood strikes. I hope she paints color portraits of her world with her words - and maybe, also in oil paints on canvas too. I hope somewhere sometime she and I can meet, share notes and discover that we wanted what the other has. I hope, that in my parallel universe, somewhere, one of me did achieve the dreams we wanted for ourselves.

The gray house

Driving home today I watched the trees and houses; sometimes springtime here in Florida is so crisp and clear, it just makes the heart soar. There is this one particular house on the edge of the historic district in Plant City. It is gray and kept very well. It has a beautiful paint job, shining many-paned windows. The yard is kept clipped, the white frames of the windows look nice; the trees are trimmed. There is something about that house that makes my heart ache. It has a sweet soul, I can tell. It has been there a long time, and yet it has such a pretty timeless, clean quality to it. I am not sure what it is that makes such a mark on my heart. It's a house I'd like to live in - not the location. I would not want to be in town on such a busy street. I would like the back yard to open up to a beautiful pond or a pasture with a mountain in the distance, maybe. But the house does speak to me.

I think about where I want to live next. Someplace cooler, less humid, less crowded; with less people wanting to move into the state. It is too much for me here - too much traffic, too much noise, too much chaos, too backwards ways of thinking, yet too many people wanting to change things to their own way of thinking. I remember reading something about Italy or France once and how it is important, should you decide to move there, that you definitely learn the language and the customs of the land. That it is expected. And it makes sense - French and Italian cultures have survived much over the long years. The inhabitants go with the flow, but they maintain their own core values. Moving to such a place implies to me that you learn the customs of the land. Why move to a new, wonderful adventure and bring your old ways and expectations with you? What is the point? You might just as well stay put if you want things to always remain the same. People originally moved here to America for a new, better way of life; to escape oppression, tyranny and so on. They brought their customs with them and they discovered that was not enough. It is not a debate about what happened to the natives already here; yes, that was a tragedy, but that is not exactly what I mean. Or, maybe it is. A whole culture, a whole way of life was desecrated. Still, back then, those new not-yet Americans did have to change, to adapt, to learn to live in the new land and to create a new culture, different from what they left. It seems to me that now what happens in today's society is that people move and expect things to be exactly the way they were in their old home. And they push for changes without really thinking them through. Others listen, and soon you have a lack of regard for old ways, old houses, the why's of what make a place special, and it becomes a hodge-podge of chaos and confusion, and it seems that no one is happy.

When I moved here I kept the parts of me that were me - I kept my language and my education, but I understood the language of being here; southern is different than upstate New York, for sure. I learned, grew, changed, and I accepted life as being different from what I knew. I don't always like it, and in fact I look forward to moving, but back then, I accepted that being here was different and some of the old ways had purpose and meaning; especially to those already established here. What happens now is that developers see empty land and they see the need to develop for money; take the money and run. Cities see the developers as a way to generate more revenue in the form of taxes, and to improve their community - interestingly, not always in the best way. It seems to me that it has to stop somewhere before it all goes by the wayside. It is kind of what is going on now - too many personalities from too many places stirring the pot and not liking the stew that is created; that melting pot society. Still. There are places here and there that are still reminiscent of the way things were once - this sweet gray house at the edge of the historic district. Life has built up around it, but somehow it has maintained it's dignity, innocence and heritage. That must be what draws me to it.

750 Words a Day

I started a new quest for writing. It's been my life for so long, being a writer (paid or not I know I am a true writer at heart) but I have found myself at odds the last few years. I've let living life take over my writing. I used to write in the dead of night, when I laughed, when I cried; when I was happy or sad. I would write stories, or starts of them; I would write poetry; pages and pages of it. I have neglected that part of me, though. Too busy - what a terrible word and terrible excuse. I have words to share with the world and they are not getting shared when I am too busy, too tired, just not in the mood. Today I saw this link to a site that intrigued me; 750words.com. It is private, and encourages daily writing, and helps log it, track it with points and badges; you basically compete with yourself. 750 Words came about because the creator read Julia Cameron's The Artist Way. I read that too, and was so intrigued by writing morning pages that I gave that a go for many months. But I have been unable to successfully keep it up. I already get up so early, and although I managed it for awhile, I just tapered off. The idea of morning pages is to purge your thoughts first thing in the morning before you really start your day. With purged thoughts, your creativity can come out easier. It's great and I loved doing it, but I also hated doing it, because it just was not practical for me.

Driving home I am often so inspired by sights, sounds, smells in the air. My mind wanders and I find myself wanting to write it all down. But when I get home a million things wait, and there go my 750 words again. For the last three years I have been on a committee reading and approving kids books fo the state of Florida. After this week my time on the committee is done, and my time will once again be spent doing what I want, reading what I want, and now, hopefully, writing what I want to free my creative soul. I'd get home over the last few months and I would see this huge pile of books waiting to be read and I'd know that I had to do the right thing, writing on my mind or not. So. Here I am signed up for 750words.com and today was my first day. I hope I can continue and finally inspire my own self to make my dreams come true.

Monday March 05, 2018

On the way home tonight I saw two young boys fishing off a bridge. They were pre-teen, scruffy, barefoot, one without a shirt, pants riding low on skinny hips, underwear showing, but not in the hip-hop, gangster style. This was just a casual, don't care about my appearance kind-of clothing. It was around 3 pm; the kids in Plant City today, did not have school, so it was an out-of-school moment for them, I am sure. Next week is spring break; maybe more time for these boys to fish, I hope. The trees are all in bloom - the oaks, grand in their newly budded bright spring cloaks, the air almost shimmering with it. The young boys stirred my heart. I cannot help but consider Steve at that age, probably dressed in a similar fashion. It teases my soul. I don't love Steve with all my heart now, but I did for a long time, and it makes my heart happy to see little boys with their futures stretching out in front of them, as was Steve’s once. They are still too young to see mistakes they might make; still too young to be of much harm to anyone but themselves. Their lives really are shiny and new; regardless of what they might end up as; today, they are young boys fishing off a bridge, enjoying a warm spring afternoon away from school and doing what boys love to do best. They can be a mess, look a mess, get dirty, wet, fishy. It doesn't matter. It's a wonderful way for them to while away the time; innocent, yet grown-up enough to be out of sight of parents. They might have siblings; a lot, just one. They might be from a split home; living with either parent seeing the other on the weekends, or not. Their stories can be played out in any direction, any number of truths possible. For today, they are just two young boys fishing off a bridge on a beautiful, warm, blooming spring afternoon.

Farther down the road I passed a house on the other side of the road. Chipped green paint, wooden frame, azaleas in riotous bloom all around the house in tall bushes. That's the way azalea's should grow and bloom, not trimmed into perfectly round balls, beaten into submission. They are naturally rangy, tall bushes in a variety of colors, although these were a deep fuchsia pink. It was an older house; no telling just how old, but an old frame house, the way houses were when they were built here in Florida until recent years. Now houses in this area tend to be concrete block, fancy stucco, mission style with rounded windows and archways. There is nothing wrong with those type houses; mine is a ranch stucco, but the old houses have such character. Built on concrete blocks, like feet, the air could pass through under the home and keep the house cooler in the summer, although in the winter it does nothing to keep heat in. Most were not insulated, were without central heat and air, and some even without original plumbing. They were fodder for termites, especially with the damp and moist heat we live with so much in Florida. So this house I passed was an old frame house built up on blocks, but also framed in around the bottom with what looked like wooden siding. The window frames were an odd brownish-green color that looked like it wanted to offset the chipping paint, and it really did so successfully. One framed window screen, however was slightly askew. My mind found itself wondering just what set that screen askew. Some teenager sneaking out at night, sliding open the window, lifting the screen, sneaking out into the night, clandestine meetings planned with friends; a boyfriend or girlfriend? Just for the thrill of getting away with it? Entirely possible; the window with the tilted screen faced west; if mom and dad came home from the east each day they would never see it. No yards really need mowing now, so chances are dad won't catch it while mowing. I remember seeing it askew as far back as last week, so who knows the truth of that wonky window?

All we have to do is watch where we travel; when driving, walking, wherever and however we get there. There are stories everywhere. We can imagine each and every detail, we can make them up ourselves; it doesn't matter the truth, really. What does matter is our curiosity, our observations, and the stories our own mind comes up with. I've always known I was a writer because of my inherent curiosity of the world around me. I've always wanted to know the lives lived in tumble-down, abandoned houses, in old barns with their roofs caving in; in the old tractor equipment left to pasture. It peaks my imagination, my curiosity, and it makes my storyteller mind come to life.