Lucy Adams's Blog, page 2
September 26, 2014
Narrow is the Road
My life, winnowed down to this one existence, panics me some days. Of all the possibilities, life narrowed to this: Wife and mother living in a small rural town working as a freelance writer. Someone in some faraway place occasionally wonders what it must be like to live a romantic, adventurous life like this. She uses her imagination to place herself in my chair.
Meanwhile, across the sea from her, another person sneers at the unoriginal outcome of the choices I’ve made. She wonders why anyone would settle for the commonplace.
Different genes, different decisions and my life may have thundered along another track. As it is, whittled to this singular experience, I will never wear a high-powered business suit to a job in the New York City financial district. I’ll never join a circus and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. I’ll never herd sheep in Patagonia, sail around Cape Horn, deal in fine art, live on the edge of a desert, paint portraits of royalty, map uninhabitable jungles, or absorb myself completely in any reality other than the one in which I find myself.
What near misses have happened to deliver me to this chair in front of this keyboard with these birds singing in the background! One chance encounter could have altered the outcome. One snap judgment could have changed the course. One wrong turn could have dead-ended or branched or circled back.
I wonder if Geraldine and Tyler Latham of Guymon, Oklahoma ever think this way. They’ve been married 65 years. Born on the same day delivered by the same doctor in the same town, they have never not known each other. The place where they came into the world will likely be the place where they go out of the world.
Have they ever questioned what might have been had one or the other of them started on the dusty road leading west and got going with too much momentum to stop? What an indulgence to ponder such things!
September 23, 2014
Good Fortune of Working from Home
My sister, who teaches at a major research institution I shall not name, received an administratively generated email yesterday afternoon. Its contents included the following:
· The student in the advisory sent earlier this afternoon about the off-campus incident admitted to investigators that the incident she described did not occur. The investigation into this case has been closed.
· The fire alarm in Presidential Village was due to sensor that was activated by a non-fire event.
· There was no machete with a note on the door of a fraternity.
· No shots were fired at Presidential Village.
· The FBI is not on campus, and did not conduct a raid in Paty Hall.
· No one dressed as the Joker was in Tutwiler or on sorority row.
· There was not a man on sorority row with a box tied to him in a threatening manner.
· No one was shot and no one has been arrested.
· No students were choked on the Quad or anywhere else.
I cannot imagine working in a place where nothing happens, though the attempts by co-workers to tie boxes to themselves in threatening manners has probably been entertaining.
A later communique advised, "I know you do so in every class, but please wrap your arms around all our students today." The vacuum of activity will soon be replaced by sexual harassment lawsuits.
I am so fortunate to work from home.
· The student in the advisory sent earlier this afternoon about the off-campus incident admitted to investigators that the incident she described did not occur. The investigation into this case has been closed.
· The fire alarm in Presidential Village was due to sensor that was activated by a non-fire event.
· There was no machete with a note on the door of a fraternity.
· No shots were fired at Presidential Village.
· The FBI is not on campus, and did not conduct a raid in Paty Hall.
· No one dressed as the Joker was in Tutwiler or on sorority row.
· There was not a man on sorority row with a box tied to him in a threatening manner.
· No one was shot and no one has been arrested.
· No students were choked on the Quad or anywhere else.
I cannot imagine working in a place where nothing happens, though the attempts by co-workers to tie boxes to themselves in threatening manners has probably been entertaining.
A later communique advised, "I know you do so in every class, but please wrap your arms around all our students today." The vacuum of activity will soon be replaced by sexual harassment lawsuits.
I am so fortunate to work from home.
September 5, 2014
Dog on the Run Read Aloud
My new children's book captures the fun and playfulness of Dog. Dog runs. Dog gets a big surprise.
For a limited time, you can listen to Dog on the Run for free. After that, it will be available from Audible.com. Dog on the Run is available from Amazon.com and free on Kindle when buying a print version. Kids love to turn pages, but the Kindle version is great when traveling.
Now Available from Audible Audio Books: http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_mt_conten_tseft__galileo?advsearchKeywords=dog+on+the+run&x=0&y=0
The Beast of Blue Mountain , my first children's book (released last year) is also available from Audible.com (your child can turn the pages while listening) and Amazon.com. Get the Kindle version free with the print edition purchase.
September 3, 2014
Dog on the Run
This is Dog. Dog runs. Dog chases things. One day Dog gets a big surprise. What will Dog do next?
Dog on the Run is here! Simple text and full color illustrations prime the minds of preschoolers and primary-schoolers, alike. Repetition, pattern and surprise have children wanting to read Dog on the Run again and again. Enjoy the Kindle edition free with the print edition. The Audible version is coming soon.
Make a kid giggle today!
August 20, 2014
Three Sentence Essay
Who needs five paragraphs when the crux can be said in three sentences? Since it's back to school time, I think the appropriate essay prompt is the perennial teacher go-to: Write a theme about your summer.
When 99-degree days wash themselves in summer's humidity, one must sigh and accept her fate. No sooner does she complain about the heat than winter comes whistling under the door. The woman, again, longs for August.
When 99-degree days wash themselves in summer's humidity, one must sigh and accept her fate. No sooner does she complain about the heat than winter comes whistling under the door. The woman, again, longs for August.
August 15, 2014
Farewell Until I Stay Forever
This is the Old Spring at High Hampton Inn & Country Club. I apologize for the stick that got in the way when I took the picture. You must understand that I risked contact with poison Ivy, mosquito attacks, and spider web entanglement to get this photo.The spring is located about 75 yards from the main High Hampton entrance down a steep embankment. It has carved it's way through here for thousands of years. Cherokee Indians traveling the Cherokee Trace Trail 2000 years ago stopped to replenish water supplies and refresh themselves. When this property belonged to General Wade Hampton's family, it was their summer water source.
Legend has it that the spring is haunted. Of course the only thing I ran into today was a spider web, but I'm willing to accept the legend. As the story goes, anyone who drinks from the spring will never leave High Hampton.
I marvel that folks aren't ordering a glass of it with their evening meal. I should have, because today I have to make my own departure.
But this is not goodbye. High Hampton and I are only parting until I muster the nerve to sip from the spring. This is only a farewell until I come back to stay forever.
The View from Here
Peering across high Hampton Inn & Country Club's Hampton Lake at Rock Mountain stirs a variety of thoughts. It takes me back to my Camp Chattooga Days in the foothills of the North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains. The surrounding cabins, the inn, the waterfront, the hiking trails remind me of those carefree days of my youth. They even ring a bell for lunch and dinner.It also returns me to my late teen years when I spent summers working at Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, NC. The warm days and cool evenings, the chilly lake water swallowing me when I dove in, the fresh smell of mountain air, the possibilities ahead in every day leap again in my heart. All those years ago I vowed to someday make Western North Carolina my home. I haven't yet.
Some part of those long ago experiences has stayed with me, though I didn't find a way to stay with them. I grew up. I got married. I had babies who turned into children. I got a job. I got busy. Soon, it was too late to go back.
Too late to go back except in my imagination. Gazing at High Hampton Inn & Country Club's Rock Mountain reminds me that I have gone back and I have taken hundreds of readers back with me.
The Beast of Blue Mountain: A Campfire Story for the Fearful (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1492259...) captures and bundles that nostalgia. At the same time, the story takes a twist and presents a surprise that appeal to young readers. It's an absolutely perfect book for a place like this.
August 14, 2014
Pinch Me High Hampton
I'm looking around myself and thinking, I must be in a movie. The cameras are rolling and I'm an extra on an elaborate set bringing a screenwriter's imagination to life. This is crazy, of course. This is how I think, though.
I look across the green lawn that arches it's back down to the lake's lip, and wonder if the film is a classic flick about the darker undercurrents in the lives of the upper class. Folks mill about in their dinner dress - jackets for men and boys and dresses for ladies and girls - smiling and shaking hands and covering their dissatisfaction with the realities they've created for themselves. Tomorrow in the movie the characters will play croquet and pretend their alcoholism, affairs and maladjusted children are figments.
The lawn behind the High Hampton Inn.
But maybe I'm in a fairy tale, a Disney production. Perhaps a princess or seven dwarfs will start singing at any moment. They'll fling open the windows and pour out of my cottage and all the forest animals will follow and prance around them.
Hampton Cottage at High Hampton Inn & Country Club.
The movie might be a frightful production. Earlier today, as I was exiting a trail, a man was entering. It's a path that skirts the edge of the lake. It's narrow. Not much sun reaches the understory, so the shade is dense. The fellow mumbled into the air, as if whispering a prayer, "This reminds me of Camp Crystal Lake." It crossed my mind that I may be one of the expendable extras that has no clue there's any danger until it's too late.
The Lake Trail at High Hampton Inn & Country Club.
Pinch me High Hampton, because I know this fantasy can't be real. And The High Hampton Inn and Country Club property in Cashiers, NC is so serene and beautiful, I'm perfectly okay with being the expendable extra. To spend a day here in Western North Carolina is a gift. To spend three days is a glimpse of heaven.
Never mind. Don't pinch me. I prefer not to wake from this if it is by chance a dream.
I look across the green lawn that arches it's back down to the lake's lip, and wonder if the film is a classic flick about the darker undercurrents in the lives of the upper class. Folks mill about in their dinner dress - jackets for men and boys and dresses for ladies and girls - smiling and shaking hands and covering their dissatisfaction with the realities they've created for themselves. Tomorrow in the movie the characters will play croquet and pretend their alcoholism, affairs and maladjusted children are figments.
The lawn behind the High Hampton Inn.But maybe I'm in a fairy tale, a Disney production. Perhaps a princess or seven dwarfs will start singing at any moment. They'll fling open the windows and pour out of my cottage and all the forest animals will follow and prance around them.
Hampton Cottage at High Hampton Inn & Country Club.The movie might be a frightful production. Earlier today, as I was exiting a trail, a man was entering. It's a path that skirts the edge of the lake. It's narrow. Not much sun reaches the understory, so the shade is dense. The fellow mumbled into the air, as if whispering a prayer, "This reminds me of Camp Crystal Lake." It crossed my mind that I may be one of the expendable extras that has no clue there's any danger until it's too late.
The Lake Trail at High Hampton Inn & Country Club.Pinch me High Hampton, because I know this fantasy can't be real. And The High Hampton Inn and Country Club property in Cashiers, NC is so serene and beautiful, I'm perfectly okay with being the expendable extra. To spend a day here in Western North Carolina is a gift. To spend three days is a glimpse of heaven.
Never mind. Don't pinch me. I prefer not to wake from this if it is by chance a dream.
August 1, 2014
My Costa Rica Rain Forest
My husband and I frequently threatened to run away to Costa Rica. Whether we do it because it's fun to have a fantasy or we do it to make the children whine, I can't say. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
Until we make good on the threat, though, I've grown my own inadvertent alternative in the backyard: A victory garden.
Tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers, snap beans, and okra jockey for space. Sweet potato vines trace paths around the feet of the currently producing plants. The cantaloupe have gotten huffy over the intrusion and threaten anarchy as they spill over the border.
Tomatoes and peppers ignore the chaos. My refrigerator is full. Though it's a sinful thing to admit, I'm almost happy when a critter beats me to the first bite. I'll regret that feeling come September.
Weeds weave their way in, around, through, among my vegetables. They're masters of deception. They're swift in the their overtake of property promised to other plants.
Alas, my victory garden has near been defeated. The crisp, clean rows of spring have morphed into an impenetrable web of foliage that resembles a Costa Rica rain forest. Finding my harvest is like spotting a sloth in a ceiba tree. It requires intense focus to see through the camouflage.
But patience pays off. Just because schools are starting back this month doesn't mean summer is over. I plan to cultivate my happy snarl until first freeze, escaping to it whenever the children whine.
Until we make good on the threat, though, I've grown my own inadvertent alternative in the backyard: A victory garden.
Tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers, snap beans, and okra jockey for space. Sweet potato vines trace paths around the feet of the currently producing plants. The cantaloupe have gotten huffy over the intrusion and threaten anarchy as they spill over the border.
Tomatoes and peppers ignore the chaos. My refrigerator is full. Though it's a sinful thing to admit, I'm almost happy when a critter beats me to the first bite. I'll regret that feeling come September.
Weeds weave their way in, around, through, among my vegetables. They're masters of deception. They're swift in the their overtake of property promised to other plants.
Alas, my victory garden has near been defeated. The crisp, clean rows of spring have morphed into an impenetrable web of foliage that resembles a Costa Rica rain forest. Finding my harvest is like spotting a sloth in a ceiba tree. It requires intense focus to see through the camouflage.
But patience pays off. Just because schools are starting back this month doesn't mean summer is over. I plan to cultivate my happy snarl until first freeze, escaping to it whenever the children whine.
April 30, 2014
Bookshelf ABC - Z
The Zombie Survival Guide
makes a great gift for a pre-teen or young teen boy. My oldest received it for his fourteenth birthday and pored through this manual, reading and re-reading portions to ensure adequate preparation should the unthinkable happen. Boys obsess over the potential hordes of undead that may or may not show up in their front yard unexpected by their parents. I for one am comforted to know that my son will know what to do. I, on the other hand, will run screaming, which will not help the cause.
Shew! I made it to the end of the April A to Z Blog Challenge. Another year in the books. But before you scurry off to celebrate (or ward off zombies) take a moment to post a comment about a Z title you have loved.
Shew! I made it to the end of the April A to Z Blog Challenge. Another year in the books. But before you scurry off to celebrate (or ward off zombies) take a moment to post a comment about a Z title you have loved.
