Telling secrets

Oh, I've been keeping this one for so long it's been killing me! I have a new book coming out in the fall of 2015 from Lake Union Publishing. Tentatively titled ANYWHERE BUT HERE, the story asks this question: How well do you know your own mind? What if your family is convinced you're losing it? Maybe you want to believe it's not you, it's them. But how can you be sure? It's very scary when your reality, the life and routine you share with people you love begins to dissolve and become unreliable like a dream or a watery reflection. Then your sister shares her shocking secret, one that fits together the pieces of the mystery that has haunted you. It all makes sense now, and that is only the beginning of your nightmare.

I can't wait to share this novel with the world! And to add to my joy, I'm working with Tara Parsons. I got to know Tara when she was with Mira, and I'm excited to be working with her on this project at Lake Union. Heartfelt gratitude to her and to my lovely agent Barbara Poelle for everything she does, and a heartfelt thank you to readers of my books and all books everywhere. If it were not for you, my dream job wouldn't exist.

 

3 novels you won't want to miss

I’ve read 3 good books just recently, all different and so good I have to share. 

Who could resist this cover, and I can tell you for sure that the story inside more than delivers on its sweet promise. Hello Love by Karen McQuestion is a heartwarming and poignant story with engaging characters that had me smiling around the lump of worry in my throat. I always admire when a story does that, makes you laugh and fight tears.

Catherine Ryan Hyde is a new author for me, but her novel, Take Me With You won’t be the last that I read. The story about a man sentenced to jail for the summer as the result of driving under the influence and the unusual bargain he makes with another man regarding the care of his two young sons is different and makes for a very compelling read.

The Missing Place, Sophie Littlefield’s latest is just flat-out good suspense. Two young guys go missing from their oil rig jobs in the booming fields of North Dakota and two moms, polar opposites of one another, combine unlikely forces, putting themselves in jeopardy, to find them. I read this in nearly one sitting, heart aching and hopeful for these families, and the suspense never stopped until the final page.

The sky is so much bigger out here....

I was outside on my knees in the dirt, building a retaining wall out of rock harvested from the property for the planned front garden of the story house when I heard the geese. A fiddly breeze lifted sounds to me: a barking dog, the drone of a small-engine plane, the faint base notes of the music Chris and David listen to when they work--and then the geese. I heard them before catching sight of them. Their song brought me to my feet, had me backing up, scanning the sky that was in late afternoon a shade of endless blue. The geese came over the roof peak, their flight pattern a wishboned white ribbon limned in shades of gray and silver. I was lost, watching, hearing their ancient cries. In awe, not thinking in words, really, of the eternality of their ritual, but feeling it more as a resonation ... that it has gone on since time began and will continue long after I am gone. Seeing them, hearing them, never fails to touch some basic note within me, one that is as deep as bone, deeper even, and I understand, if only in that moment, the concept that is inherent in the word "eternal" and all else, all other noise, whatever there is of strife, is stilled. I feel joined to them and to the sky and the breath of the breeze that is from the very air that we--the geese and I--share.

This poem, from Mary Oliver, is one of my favorites. That line: Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air. . . 

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

It's curtains until spring

Today is a blowy day in the hill country. The sky is leaden, heavy with clouds. The wind whistles around the potting shed's corners. It's swept the porch clean, saving me the trouble. It carries David's and Chris's voices, up the hill from where they are working on David's house, the whinny of a horse, the cry of the hawk that's circling, riding the thermals, likely hunting, too. A front is predicted to move through in the next day or so, bringing rain and the colder breath of real fall. Somehow, out here, I feel it more than I did when I lived farther south. It's as if the wind is giving me notice to prepare, to brace myself.

Curtains.

The wind has made me think of curtains. I've left the windows of my little garden shed bare on purpose, open to the expanse of sky, the sweeping, tree-softened landscape ... a distant ridge of hills. While the weather was warm, I didn't mind it when night fell black against the windows. It was a thrill to look out and wonder at the moon sailing high amid the scattered luster of stars, so many stars. But now, somehow with winter coming on, I have ... not a wish, exactly, more like an instinct to cover the glass, closing out the wind and the night that falls so early. Even to see the cold face of the moon is not so compelling as the desire to feel tucked in, warm and snug. How it is that a wisp of fabric accomplishes all of that is beyond me, but it does. Curtains. In winter, its curtains ... until spring, I think....

Chopping cedar is like Thanksgiving

I've been chopping cedar several days a week for a few weeks now. This is the first pile I amassed. It was as long as maybe two pick up trucks parked end to end and at least as tall as I am. It was such a lovely pile ... so tightly woven that David said it just made him want to light a match. He's a funny guy. Anyway I was so proud of that pile, the way it was coming along. I kept thinking how photogenic it was, that I really needed to snap a picture. Then one evening, as the sun was setting, I happened to look down the hill and there it was, one end of that beautiful pile up in flames! I flew out the door, phone in hand, shouting, "Wait, wait!" I got this shot. Then I worried aloud how smart it was starting such a big burn at dusk. David laughed. He said the pile was so dry and tight it would be ash in less than twenty minutes. He was right. I couldn't believe it. All that chopping and cutting into wagon-loadable pieces, hauling it down the hill, dragging the wagon back up (a great tush workout by the way) ... all that work, gone in twenty minutes.

"It's like Thanksgiving dinner," I said to no one in particular. "All that cooking for days and it's gone in twenty minutes, too."

Sigh....

At least there aren't dishes to wash.

The Story House, Chapter 4 - The Labor of Love

This thicket is to the right of where I cut. Really doesn't show the
awful amount of deadfall. Can you believe there are oak trees
in there?

The window over the sink in my garden shed overlooks a sinewy path leading to a little meadow, but you can’t see the meadow for the cedar that chokes the view. I’ve watched the foxes and the cottontails come tiptoeing through it, and I’ve seen the chaparral rushing headlong under the lowest branches in that hilarious way they have. No question the cedar is a great cover for wildlife. But as a thicket, it was so untidy, a stickery gray deadfall below giving way to needled feathery tufts of blue green above. And there was so much of it that none of the individual trees had much of a chance to thrive. Every day when I looked out on that thicket, it called out to be thinned.

Me and Mr. Poulan. I learned the hard way it's best to gear up
in jeans, long sleeved shirt and boots

First I tried with a Sawzall, but all it did was chew the cedar bark and vibrate in my hand until my teeth, even my bones, rattled. So I went to the box store and bought a small, Poulan electric chain saw. No one was very happy when I showed it off. Even I had some doubts about using it. About that time there was a story about a guy who somehow got a chainsaw stuck in his neck, I think. He lived, miraculously. Still, it gave me pause. But I read the manual for my Poulan. David added oil and made sure the chain was tight. He said what he always does, that he couldn’t do anything with me when I got one of my ideas. I tried a few test cuts on some branches. I was eager to start the clearing on my home site, which is opposite the messy meadow. I’m not going to lie, chainsaws make me nervous, but this one was light in my hands, and it handled well. Still, I didn't persist. Instead I stored it and waited for a day when David could do the cutting, and I could help by dragging off the limbs and smaller trees to the burn pile. A few weeks later, Chris cleared the rest of the home site and opened it up to the spectacular view. But every day, I was confronted with that cedar snarl on the other side of my property, outside my window. It weighed on me. There were oaks in there, a vine of some sort, who knew what all treasures could be uncovered? But it was no one’s priority other than mine. So a few days ago, I got out the chainsaw and went to work. I’d bought a cart, too, after researching what was the better means of conveyance for the jobs I have around here, not only hauling felled limbs and trees to the burn pile, but also transferring the rocks that were thrown up by the construction on the garden shed. Turns out that for me, a garden cart, the Gorilla cart to be exact, was a better option than a wheelbarrow.

At first, sawing down the trees was daunting, even maddening. I didn’t think I could do it. It wasn’t until I went out the second time, when I got the hang of it, that I stopped at one point and thought how much—not fun—I wasn’t having fun, exactly. In 90 º heat, the work was and is horrible, hot, filthy, sweaty, backbreaking and bloody. But it was so satisfying, as the trees were limbed or felled, to see the sun dapple the ground, to think how the ones left standing would have more water, more nutrients. To see the clumps of wildflowers and that pretty, big-leafed vine revealed, not to mention the oaks. Thirteen of them will be unearthed by my effort when I'm finished with this particular scruffy patch! I have a lot of wildflower seed saved up, poppies my sister gave me, milkweed for the Monarchs, delphinium, and bluebonnets, of course. Now that everything is breathing better, I’m going to sprinkle the seed along the path that uncurls through the little woods.

The Gorilla cart. Don't know how many trips we made up and
down the hill to the burn pile. It's a great workout!

It may be woo-woo, but I’ve always thought as a gardener that working the land is the way you get to know it. It always involves a lot of muscle, but if a year ago anyone had said I’d be felling trees nearly as thick as I am I’d have laughed. I’d have thought it was man’s work. But here’s something else about this experience that just feeds my joy: the way it spurs me to try, to go beyond what I consider my limitations, mental, emotional and physical. It’s like raising my children. They challenged me; they led me beyond places where I thought I could go. I learned as much if not more from them than they learned from me. This land is like that; it’s teaching me, nurturing me, toughening me even as I work to restore its native life and beauty. The work is basic, simple and gratifying in a way that gives at least as much energy as it takes. That must be what is meant by the phrase, a labor of love, which would seem to apply to both children and gardens.

A memoir I read recently, THE DIRTY LIFE by Kristin Kimball, really resonated. In it she talks of her own transformation, how the land and farming involved her heart and soul.  

As for my chainsaw, I love that tool, and the cart, for all they ways they help me get the work done. I am getting teased around here, though. Chris and David call me Babe the Blue Ox. That is when they aren’t calling me Big Mama or Warden.

There’s a guy around here, a local fella, who when asked will tell you he’s just an ol' cedar chopper from Smithwick. Yep, I’d say that about sums it up....