R.H. Snow's Blog, page 47

Life on the Front Burner

I love making schedules; it reminds me of what I’m not going to do. 

…

6:00am - Wakey Wakey!

6:15am - Exercise 

6:45am - Shower

7:00am - Devotional and Family Breakfast

7:30am - Feed and Water Livestock

…

That is my fantasy.  This is my reality: 

…

6:00am - Go to bed after staying up all night answering calls

8:30am - wake up in a panic because we’re late

8:31am - run around like a chicken with my head cut off waking everyone because everyone else has an on call schedule just like me

8:45am - yell outside the bathroom door that it’s 8:45am and we have to leave now because the tones are dropping

8:55am - get in car and eat peanuts on way to another call, pray on the way

10:30am - get home, do half of Ranch chores until 11:00am because another call drops

…

For extra flavour, try different combos each day.

Now, I know this answer to this conundrum.  Household management is a full time job, and it deserves a full time employee.  Traditionally, this job would have fallen to me - but since we all help with Volunteer Emergency Response, this job is split between all of us in our household. We are all in high demand at some jobs which demand immediate attention or people might die, and that means we often prioritise other people’s lives over our own. It’s Life on the Front Burner: on again, off again, then back on again until the next crisis…

and schedules are frequently in utter chaos.

Due to low humidity and uplift, our little Volunteer Fire Department was busy-busy this week;  Chief Runs-Towards-Fire took off hell-for-leather with his intrepid attaches Sir Chance-A-Lot and Miss Map-N-Flap for day-long expeditions of derring-do. This required a home team effort, as I am the one who sends spot fireweather forecasts to our teams on scene. As a result, my dishes are still not done -

I better do the dishes now.

Tonight the storms will be rolling in ahead of a strong cold front. There is a possibility of severe weather, but this is Texas and there is ALWAYS a possibility of severe weather.  That means storm spotting duties; as soon as the first little clouds roll across the prairie, the Storm Spotters will be calling.  They are an eager bunch, waiting with intense excitement for any weather event for which observation may be needed - when one lives four to eight thousand feet below the radar signal, one gets to be very aware of what is going on in the lower atmosphere.

You see, not all radar coverage is equal. Due to the curvature of the earth, and Other Boring Stuff, radar doesn’t always catch everything in the lower atmosphere, especially at the outer edges of the radar field. Since radars are rightly located where population density is the greatest, that means those of us farthest away from the cities - in these beautiful  Hinterlands of Texas - need extra eyes on the skies. One never knows when the sky might just decide to kill you…

Texas Tornadoes are a real thing, and they are very exciting, especially when they rip up the trees next to the Courthouse. Once that happens, people never forget and they have a tendency to want a little warning in advance.. enter the National Weather Service and their Storm Spotters.

Storm Spotters are needed, especially after dark; they observe and call in to local Weather Net (WXNET) and WXNET will call it in to the National Weather Service. The Ham Radio Operators among them will take to the airwaves and give concise reports direct to the Meteorologists on duty; others will confer with other Emergency Management officials if events warrant an activation of local Amateur Radio Emergency Services.  Then if needed, a Warning will be issued.

Spotters are the National Weather Service ‘eyes on the skies’ - and they take their job very, very seriously. While some are glamorous Mobile Spotters who take to the roads with their live feeds, most are ‘Point Spotters’ who report from a fixed location. It’s a symbiotic relationship - we feed information to each other and make certain that the local Community comes first. It only takes one derecho event or tornado in your backyard to highlight the need for Local Storm Spotters.

Tonight we will watch the radar and direct Spotters. The whole Storm Spotting team will be chomping at the bit for action, and much discussion will take place over coffee and radar. As storms approach in the wee hours of the morning, little old ladies will peer off their porches into the darkness, burly firefighters will glance out of station doors while sharing Bar-Be-Que, and fresh-faced youths will livestream from their locations.  It’s an exciting time - and that means my fantasy schedule will be annihilated. 

I can live with that - because my Storm Spotters are making sure I will get the warnings I need to live. Still, I sometimes become lost in fantasy, imagining Life on the Back Burner, with me as its dedicated, designated Guardian.

In that dreamy place, a pot of soup is simmering on the back burner, a giant stockpot of leftover roasted chicken with the bones making real chicken soup and not that abomination some call ‘broth’.  The dishes are done, the schedule is running smoothly, and chocolate oatmeal cookies have been made. The counters are clean, and the decorator pillows are perfectly fluffed, and household is filled with peace.  Hand-painted art and crocheted doilies adorn the rooms, alive with colour and devoid of dust. I gaze out the bay window to see ruby-throated hummingbirds flitting about the purple morning glory vines planted by the porch and

oh look, there are fresh wildflowers in Jelly Jars upon the table…

I catch a glimpse in the Mirror and behold a beautiful woman, dressed in fashionable blouses and golden earrings, and recognise my Mother.

I will always miss my Mother. She had a beautiful job to match her beautiful Artist’s soul, the job of managing our household.  I tried to emulate you - but I failed, I failed, dear Mother, and the dishes are still not done…

I wake to the sound of tones dropping, the radio signal from the county that something is actively on fire or getting blown away, and I rise. Life on the Front Burner is heating up, and I have to answer a call. I am not my Mother, no one but her could ever be my Mother -

but I am me, and the storms are coming.  

Walking With the Dead

Writing a horror scene isn’t easy.

One has to get in the mood, and for most of us, this involves the invocation of unnatural or supernatural events. The unseen or unknown provokes a terror that transcends the mundane.  But inspiration can also come from this present Life. The natural invokes its own fear; the physical world provokes a primitive dread more insidious than that of the metaphysical realm, because it is bedded in reality…

it haunts those who walk with the Dead.

I live in a family of First Responders  - volunteer FireFighters, certified Emergency Medical Technicians, Community Chaplains and Storm Spotters.  I myself was one such, before Some Healthlike Unexpected Stuff Happened (aka SHUSH); now I provide material and intel support for Chief ‘Runs-Towards-Fire’ and his homegrown Partner, Sir Chance-a-Lot. They both have a uncanny knack of being called out right before dinner, and as a result, I spend a lot of time waiting for them to show up.  When they do, it usually is accompanied by hunger and a need to talk. 

Not so last night; there was no call for Roast Beef and Potatoes, no clatter of dishes or chatter of excitement. They came in, mortality haunting them, their faces lined with the unease that comes from walking with the Dead.   

Escorting earthly remains to the realms of Life Everlasting is a terrible honour and a privilege. When the undertaker has not yet come, when the family is not yet notified, or the crime scene tape is still in place, there is a special reverence that comes with the task of walking with the Dead.  One is quickly reminded that there is nothing you can do; ten minutes ago, people were desperately working to save this life, to put it all back together, but now this earthly shell no longer contains what made it sacred - 

but it is still sacred.

It is also sometimes scary.  The progression from dust to dust is one with which most Modern Humans of the Civilised World are not familiar. They expect it to be neat and tidy, and contained; but Death is not tidy.

The journey is sometimes a swift one, unexpected and unwelcome.  Alone, beneath a tarp, on a roadside or in a quiet room the body waits for those who care to come carry it away. But where just a few hours before none would have left this precious person alone, now there is blood on the pavement and an abandonment to a cold, barren place, . Those who fear the Dead suddenly turn from the broken vessel, for they are not the ones who have been called - 

Other journeys have already been completed. The life departed, unnoticed except by neighbors, or friends who wondered why no one answered the knock at the door.  Then entry is made, and a swift retreat by those who fear the smell and the sight of Nature’s reclaimation of Life, for they are not the ones who have been called - 

enter those who walk with the Dead.

Theirs is the prayer, the respectful whisper that recognises life is passing from the body that housed Life.  They will wander about the scene, finding a little shoe, or a purse lying in the ditch, away from the crash. They may come in and find the dead sitting upright in a chair, barely recognisable as days have passed, with only a frightened little dog at their feet to testify this person was human. Theirs is the hand that remove tubes and tapes, smoothing wild locks of hair after rescusitation has been stopped, preparing for the family to enter-

Those who walk with the Dead see the horror of the end of life, the bloody brutality of trauma, the aloneness of the ones left behind; they also see the beauty of that Life that once was lived. The body, the memories, the house, the necklace, the mementos of love and struggle… this person was real. They existed.  They lived…

Once alive, nothing can erase Life. Death cannot destroy what was real, it cannot wipe out the past - the spirit housed in this body may be gone, but Life was here.

Those who walk with the Dead came in last night, the escorts of Souls past the Gates of this World.  It weighed upon them, all the Horror and Beauty that is Death and Life - 

and there was nothing I could say. We shall all pass through the Gates of this World and into the next, and those who walk with the Dead shall be there with us.  They will come - and we will be waiting.

Signs of Life

Your cup on the dresser

Your sock on the floor

Your dish in the sink as you run out the door - 

flotsam and jetsam of days in a rush

one last little push…

I’m gathering behind you 

these small signs of life

putting away all the hurry and strife

stuffing and shoving the pieces and parts

of our broken hearts

into a hamper

to wash away clean

the battles we’ve fought and the miracles seen

when the day comes when I clean your last mess

will I confess?

Through pain and distress

I loved you no less - 

and found it a pleasure to play the good wife

gathering memories in your signs of life

DiscWorld's 'Death' is Dreamy

Creating worlds is work. 

As an aspiring almost sort of Author, I have blocked out an ambitious schedule for myself - coffee and socials in the morning, popcorn and business in the afternoon, then music and writing overnight.  When I’m in the zone, I can crank out 10,000 words in a session - but getting in that zone is a necessity when one is in the middle of an eighteen-book series.  Typically I put on a playlist, load my brain with awesome music and get to work.  This has worked quite well for me for the last seven books, but I needed some new inspiration- 

that quest for inspiration led to my disciplinary downfall.

CONFESSION: I usually don’t read other Authors while I am deep in creative zone - I am deeply focused on my own work, and don’t want to be unduly influenced by other people’s wonderful ideas. But the need to procastinate was weighing heavily upon me and I really wasn’t in a mood to wait for Steam to update itself, so I looked at the List of Things I Really Should Read and saw the words:

DiscWorld

Now, I am not an uncivilised woman. I read Doug Adams, J. R. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis at a young age, and felt that I had already fulfilled my Extremely English Authors quota for Science Fiction. I am also a fairly accomplished gamer, and consider myself to be literate in Early First Person Shooters. But Pratchett’s ghost was haunting me; it seemed everywhere I turned lately, I was seeing references to his literature and the subsequent games, and my lack of Pratchett experience made me feel like an unwashed ignoramus.  Convicted in spirit and lazy at heart, I googled it:

It came back with a cartoon. Being a cultured person, I immediately clicked on it, and settled back to educate myself quickly on Pratchett and Discworld…

that’s when I made my terrible mistake: I watched it. 

Out of the vast darkness of space, the Great A’tuin blew me away with a  heavy drumline and a ramped-up righteous jigging beat, courtesy of Hopwood and Bush. Mesmerised, I proceeded to bingewatch Cosgrove Hall’s amazing interpretations of Pratchett’s Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters, then realised -

Christopher Lee is Death. 

CONFESSION #2: Christopher Lee is my secret crush, due to his tour de force metal performance as Charlemagne: by the Sword and the Cross.  Nothing can be more gloriously metal than Sir Christopher Lee wreaking his vengance upon the Saxon Men. But this… this was an entire new crush level.  Against Lee giving voice to Pratchett’s morosely witty and adorable Death, I had no defense. This character came absolutely alive for me in a way I cannot explain -

I could not sleep that night. I awakened and had to have more. I snuck my phone under my blanket so the sleeping Husband would not awaken, and read scavenged bits and bobs of Pratchett. After a sleepless night, my eyes bleary from too much phone reading and my neck with a crick in it from sneaking it under the covers, I have now come to two conclusions: 

I shall have to buy all the Pratchett Books

 I am in enamoured of Death.

Alas, I am now completely behind schedule, and hopelessly lost in the amazing narrative of Pratchett. This is a crisis of sorts; I cannot write an eighteen book series AND read all of Pratchett’s work - it’s just not possible.  So I’ll just have to give up writing…

no no no wait

I mean, I shall have to hurry up and write my own series so I can get back to the serious business of reading DiscWorld.  Perhaps this is the Truth I was meant to find, that when we find other Authors, we as Authors find ourselves -

or just maybe I think Christopher Lee as Death is Dreamy.

The Unbearable Lightness of Online Bedtime Stories

The voice is rich and mellow as the coffee I am sipping. I am sipping coffee at bedtime because of its soul-warming goodness, especially with chocolate almond milk in it - and that means I am going to be cranked to eleven for the next several hours unless I calm down. Hence, the bedtime stories - and of course, that brings with it yet more stress.

Soothing, hypnotic voices are very popular right now. That makes all the sense in this world of unending outrage and strident ridicule; a soothing voice, male or female, makes the world a better place. It reminds me of my grandmother’s voice at bedtime - not the voice where she found out I broke her ottoman by jumping on it, but the voice where she was just so glad to have me in her dusty-rose and walnut-wood bedroom, with the smell of lavender permeating the sheets. I miss those moments as an adult, and it is lovely to close my eyes and remember that comfort once more.

The voice sings on, telling tales of middle earth, or reading poems, or perhaps even singing a pat little lullaby; and as the feeling of comfort settles in, so comes with it a nagging conviction castigating me just beyond my sense of hearing:

What of my own voice?

I always wanted my children to remember me softly singing ‘Jesus loves me’ or recall the ending of our Childhood Prayer:

“I will always love you; I will never stop loving you…”

But that memory is long ago; today was a different kind of day, a day punctuated by evidence of the end of actual civilisation, as witnessed when Mother uttered the F-Bomb after finding all the chocolate almond milk gone. It has been a long time since I heard my Grandmother’s voice, but I distinctly remember her NOT saying the F-bomb when I broke her ottoman- and I am fairly certain that if one of my birthed persons broke my ottoman right now, I would probably start off with that dreaded word before descending into even greater depths of vocal depravity.

Perhaps I have been listening to too much Tik-Tok.

A crushing sense of self-doubt settles in, the kind that springs from comparing our private reality with others’ public image. Compared with this mellow voice, or my Grandmother’s soft twang, my own voice must sound like a garbage truck backing up. My daughter once told me that my memory smelled not of lavender, but of lipstick and coffee - not entirely bad, as long as the coffee wasn’t stale. But what soundtrack will go with that mom-scented memory?

I remember my own beloved childhood voices, then I imagine my future old-person children listening to a hologram of Morgan Freeman* reading ‘Go the *&$* to Sleep’ and wiping away a tear -

“Oh I do miss Mother so…”

The mellow voice drones on, comforting and chiding, and I continue to ride the wave of guilt, because as a Mother that seems to be my job, and since my children are grown that just makes it even worse;

the moments aren’t coming back. There are no do-overs, there is no rewind, there is no going back - and today is here. I ponder the BedTime Story and its message in my life:

Voices last. Words mean something. The last words of my day may be the first words of my eternity…

I hit pause, then call my children to leave a message: “I’ll always love you; I’ll never stop loving you.” I make sure to hang up without saying why I did this, so they’ll call back in a state of uncertainty as to why Mother is leaving cryptic messages.

Pressing play on my phone, the voice resumes as I remember Grandmother once more, the long-ago lavender moment forever frozen in time. A feeling of absolution fills me; I wonder if my own children will play back this lipstick-and-coffee memory and wonder aloud what the *) is wrong with their Mother and why I was calling at midnight to leave this message…

I suppose that’s a fitting legacy.

* Please search VR Morgan Freeman for proof this is really a thing, at least in my mind.