Elizabeth Marx's Blog, page 3
April 18, 2016
HELP! Writer Fearing Sophomore Jinx
SOPHOMORE JINX & FEAR THE MEAN The question readers ask me over and over again, besides if Aidan and Libby are okay, is what happened to Tony, Evita and Manny. The simple truth is I don’t know exactly. I mean I have ideas about where I want their story to go, but I haven’t committed … Continue reading "HELP! Writer Fearing Sophomore Jinx"
April 1, 2016
Indie Authors & Writers: Are We All Fools?
Is indie publishing a fool’s errand? A big April Fool’s Day prank? April Fool’s Day traces back to ancient civilizations like the Hindus and Romans who celebrated the New Year on April 1 which closely follows the vernal equinox. After Pope Gregory ordered a new calendar, the Gregorian Calendar (of course being the pontiff he … Continue reading "Indie Authors & Writers: Are We All Fools?"
March 4, 2016
We Need to Talk…
We need to talk romance. I’m all about romance. I love romance. I read romance. I write romance. I’ve always had a fascination with this genre and it started with my first Danielle Steel book when I was probably about 13 years old. As I grew up, I read everything from New York Times Bestsellers … Continue reading "We Need to Talk…"
November 30, 2015
Who is your JUST IN CASE?
Everyone should have one person they can always count on, but Scarlett Marbry is parentless, she never knew her father and her mother committed suicide when she was only sixteen. Scarlett doesn't think she can depend on anyone other than herself, but buried deep in her heart is the dream of Revell Marshall, the boy who'd always been there for her, the boy who'd been older and wiser, the boy she ran away from. Revell was like the chorus of a Sacred Harp song she could never forget and yet she couldn't allow herself to even hum the tune. He was the dream buried beneath secrets she thought she'd never uncover ... until now.
EXCERPTSister Scarlett Marbry. P.M.’s granddaughter. The daughter of the most celebrated beauty queen that had ever been birthed in Marshall County. Not many had seen hide nor hair of Scarlett since her mother’s burial, but even on that sad day, every man in the surrounding five counties knew that Scarlett would one day outshine her mother’s magnificence.I was completely shocked that she’d come back! Polly Anna was keeping secrets. Maybe this is why she hasn’t confronted me about being up at Copperhead Tabernacle.I managed to not drop the liquor. When I was directly behind Scarlett’s barstool, I looked up to meet the gaze she threw over her shoulder at the sound of my clumsy approach. Her eyes weren’t brown, they were purple . . . as purple as the violets I’d picked for her the day her mother had been laid to rest on Look Out Mountain. Her hair and lashes as brown as the mountain soil they’d overturned for her mama’s grave. Her lips were as red as the canned cherries I’d bought from Piggly Wiggly so Miss Mabel could bake them a pie because I knew cherry was Scarlett’s favorite.“Revell?” she hissed, as if confused. Her perfectly formed mouth was frozen in the shape of an ‘O’.My name on her lips hit me like a F150 clocked over the speed limit, impacting the center of my chest like a head on collision. I had forgotten what a simple look from Sister Scarlett Marbry could do to a man. Possibly because the last time she’d looked at me she was only the outline of the woman she would one day be. At eighteen, she was a mere shadow of the gorgeous woman that leaned over the bar in front of me now.Scarlett looked back at her barely restrained backside and tried to turn and reclaim her seat. Unfortunately, the snakeskin stilettos she was wearing had the slippery intent of the evildoer in the Garden of Eden, and Scarlett slithered onto the stool with enough force that the barstool fell backwards.I was known throughout the state of Alabama for both my gentlemanly behavior and my athletic grace, but even I wasn’t capable of discarding the crate of whiskey fast enough to stop Scarlett’s head from colliding with the table behind her on her way to the floor. Plus, I couldn’t chance breaking the quart sized mason jars of what would be P.M.’s last batch of hooch because I wanted his final send off and everything associated with him wiped from the minds of Marshall County as if he’d never existed. The moonshine would expedite that process. Now here, at my booted feet, fell the last of his progeny, the one thing about him that I’d allowed myself to remember and remember well. The only thing that came from him worth having . . . and Heaven help me . . . as inappropriate as it was, I still wanted to have her.
AMAZONB&NiBOOKSSMASHWORDS
EXCERPTSister Scarlett Marbry. P.M.’s granddaughter. The daughter of the most celebrated beauty queen that had ever been birthed in Marshall County. Not many had seen hide nor hair of Scarlett since her mother’s burial, but even on that sad day, every man in the surrounding five counties knew that Scarlett would one day outshine her mother’s magnificence.I was completely shocked that she’d come back! Polly Anna was keeping secrets. Maybe this is why she hasn’t confronted me about being up at Copperhead Tabernacle.I managed to not drop the liquor. When I was directly behind Scarlett’s barstool, I looked up to meet the gaze she threw over her shoulder at the sound of my clumsy approach. Her eyes weren’t brown, they were purple . . . as purple as the violets I’d picked for her the day her mother had been laid to rest on Look Out Mountain. Her hair and lashes as brown as the mountain soil they’d overturned for her mama’s grave. Her lips were as red as the canned cherries I’d bought from Piggly Wiggly so Miss Mabel could bake them a pie because I knew cherry was Scarlett’s favorite.“Revell?” she hissed, as if confused. Her perfectly formed mouth was frozen in the shape of an ‘O’.My name on her lips hit me like a F150 clocked over the speed limit, impacting the center of my chest like a head on collision. I had forgotten what a simple look from Sister Scarlett Marbry could do to a man. Possibly because the last time she’d looked at me she was only the outline of the woman she would one day be. At eighteen, she was a mere shadow of the gorgeous woman that leaned over the bar in front of me now.Scarlett looked back at her barely restrained backside and tried to turn and reclaim her seat. Unfortunately, the snakeskin stilettos she was wearing had the slippery intent of the evildoer in the Garden of Eden, and Scarlett slithered onto the stool with enough force that the barstool fell backwards.I was known throughout the state of Alabama for both my gentlemanly behavior and my athletic grace, but even I wasn’t capable of discarding the crate of whiskey fast enough to stop Scarlett’s head from colliding with the table behind her on her way to the floor. Plus, I couldn’t chance breaking the quart sized mason jars of what would be P.M.’s last batch of hooch because I wanted his final send off and everything associated with him wiped from the minds of Marshall County as if he’d never existed. The moonshine would expedite that process. Now here, at my booted feet, fell the last of his progeny, the one thing about him that I’d allowed myself to remember and remember well. The only thing that came from him worth having . . . and Heaven help me . . . as inappropriate as it was, I still wanted to have her.
AMAZONB&NiBOOKSSMASHWORDS
November 2, 2015
Alex Volkow likes to tease Polly Anna, but he’s learning the pleasure of pleasing her…
We’re celebrating the upcoming release of Just Close Enough by Elizabeth Marx, on December 1st. Be sure to sign up for all the promotional events! A man out for revenge… When Alexander Volkow raced into Crossroads, Alabama and bought up half of Broad Street, the entire town questioned his motives, but he didn’t care. … Continue reading "Alex Volkow likes to tease Polly Anna, but he’s learning the pleasure of pleasing her…"
Alex Volkow likes to tease Polly Anna, but he's learning the pleasure of pleasing her...
We're celebrating the upcoming release of Just Close Enough by Elizabeth Marx, on December 1st.
Be sure to sign up for all the promotional events!
A man out for revenge…
When Alexander Volkow raced into Crossroads, Alabama and bought up half of Broad Street, the entire town questioned his motives, but he didn’t care. He did it for one reason and only one reason — to find the man who went AWOL from the military with his brother, Kon. Knowing Kon, something is terribly wrong, and Alex is set on retribution.
But when all roads lead to the town’s favorite daughter, who just happens to be the missing man’s fiancée, Alex can’t help but be mesmerized by her alluring southern charm and sexy little snort.
A woman searching for a way out…
No amount of bartending, snake charming, or organic cotton growing can stop the fear blooming inside Polly Anna Coots. She knows if her MIA fiancée is found alive, he’ll want to follow through with their marriage plans, but she has had a change of heart — and not just because of the new man she can’t get out of her head. If her fiancée returns and she reneges on their future, she’ll end up DOA.
When one of Polly Anna’s snakes runs Alex off the road, sparks fly, and the two embark on a steamy collision course in a small town filled with secrets that add fuel to the smoldering fire.
Can either one of them get just close enough to acquire what they need from the other without falling in love?
*Can be read as a stand alone.
1DRAW ME IN, MY SWEET MEDUSAALEXANDEROctober Revenge. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I think I’d like mine hot, hot and bothered.My car was parked behind a stand of cattails, just beyond the dilapidated-looking barn, so I could admire the muscles in her legs when she put her boot in the stirrup and boosted herself up into the saddle. Her breasts bounced when she landed, taunting me further. Her hair was as flaxen blonde as her horse’s mane and it streamed through the breeze behind her as she urged the horse into a gallop. She leaned over the horse’s neck and whispered words in the animal’s ear. I imagined her lying over me, her silky hair cascading over my bare shoulders as she murmured encouraging words to urge me on. I’d discovered her while in pursuit of my prey, Billy Buford, the man I was certain would lead me to the whereabouts of my big brother. Whether Kon was dead or alive, the trail went cold in Crossroads. Day after day, I searched every backwoods shanty and abandoned still in Marshall County, Alabama, but Billy Buford was nowhere to be found. I should admit that I’d come up empty-handed and chalk it up to another dead end. I’d convinced myself that I’d trekked into the armpit of this county so I could locate Billy, but I had been sticking around to keep an eye on her. I’d met Billy once over a beer with my brother. I thought of him as Billy goat gruff; he was thick through the neck and thick in the head, as well as a bruiser and bully. I couldn’t figure out what my brother Kon saw in the guy; before Billy had finished his second beer he was chasing some skank. After he left with her Kon told me Billy was engaged to a beautiful girl — belle of the South — Kon called her. I gave my brother a double take — how could anything that shallow acquire anything of worth? Dumb luck was the only explanation that made sense because shewas the most tantalizing thing I’d come across in Alabama. But I’d never been desperate enough for female companionship that I’d stalked an unsuspecting female. I expelled a heavy breath into the humid air and the rearview mirror fogged up. I chuckled at the thought of her body hovering over mine, telling me what to do. When had I ever needed directions? Especially from a sweet little piece wearing frayed Daisy Dukes. The binoculars felt slippery in my hands as I pushed them over the leather on the passenger’s seat. I had to stop this; I chastised myself as I rearranged myself in my seat. I was obsessing over her as much as what I’d come to this backwoods town for in the first place. I was here for revenge. Retribution. I’d take it hot or cold, maybe I’d have a serving of each. My tongue moistened my lips as she faded into the distance. Maybe she was a way to get even with him, even if I couldn’t find him. Everything I’d learned of her had shown her to be innocent and unaware of any of the things I wanted recompense for. Her family, on the other hand, well, they might be as guilty as her missing fiancée Billy Buford was. Maybe there was a way I could get just close enough to her to get the information I was looking for. My head relaxed against the headrest, I closed my eyes and expelled another breath; the stagnant air was getting to me. My phone had no signal so there wasn’t a lot that I could do except sit and wait for her to be clear of the road leading out of Pigeon Hollow. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to call anyway and I was content, as I often was with my own company. It would be wrong to involve her in this. I’d give her enough time to take her horse off the main road before I headed back into Crossroads. Any nagging interest to meet her I’d fought off by rationalizing there was no need to find out up close if she was the reason a bright smile danced across the features of people when they spoke of her. I’d been watching her for weeks now, fantasizing . . . lusting after her since the moment I’d first laid eyes on her coming out of Billy Buford’s house. She belonged to him and she might be the easiest way to pick up the trail of the bastard I was looking for. Still, something about her cheerful, confident demeanor kept me from approaching her on one of her happy jaunts out to a cotton field just as easily as I avoided meeting her in town. The only right thing to do was to not cross paths with her. I didn’t need to see her blue eyes up close to know that she pined for Billy, the worthless piece of backwoods shit that I was certain he was. Maybe she didn’t know who he really was. Wherever the bastard was hiding, sooner or later, I would find him. Why ruin my Daisy Duke fantasy reel of her on the bed of a pickup truck in some ramshackle field? Why give up the idea of making her crazy for me if he wasn’t around to witness it? What I needed to do was to determine the location of my brother and then figure out a way to get him out of whatever mess he’d gotten himself into and stop focusing on a Southern belle.My Audi TTS purred over the red clay road when I shifted into first as I headed back to town. I’d stop right inside the city limits and wash the red dust off my car. Rolling the windows closed, I shifted into third, kicking up dust as I turned up the radio and blasted Mumford & Sons’ “Snake Eyes”. Among the cotton fields were a few sun-bleached cornfields hanging heavy with feed corn. Even in its decaying state, the corn had grown so tall that it made for blind turns in the rutted dirt road. I should slow down, but I was comfortable driving like a fiend in fifth gear since I never ran into another car along this stretch during the middle of the day.I peeked at the clock to make sure I’d make it back to Crossroads before the first shift ended at my factory. When I glanced back up something large and blonde was right in the line of sight of my front driver’s side quarter panel. I tried to brake and veer away from the blur of a large blonde animal and a red checkered something, but the brakes locked up when I hit a pothole. The car spun out of control across the gravel road, did another donut, and slid in a forty-five-degree angle through the grass, impacting a huge tree that must have been here since before the Civil War. I swear I could hear someone whistling “Dixie”, or maybe that was my radiator fizzling out.My seat belt cinched up. The air bags deployed, saving my head from the windshield, but showering me with powdery debris. “Shit,” I yelled through the smoke coming from the engine block. Managing to force my door open, I unbuckled my belt and fumbled out of the car to assess the damage. I looked back at the road, trying to place what had startled me in the first place. The red dust was too thick to make out much of anything, but I sucked in deep breaths of it trying to ease the constriction in my chest. I wobbled around the side of the car. The front passenger’s side tire had broken off the axle. The passenger’s side door had slammed into a huge oak tree that now had a streak of yellow paint slashed across its bark like a caution sign. A little late for caution now. Staggering up the embankment through the settling dust toward the road, I tried not to suck in any more of the swirling debris. Once I reached the top, I heard a woman’s alluring voice. “God-damn rattlers!” she muttered and then louder, “God-damn maniac drivers. God-damn, my horse is already crazier than a nesting loon.” Then she smoothed her voice out till it sounded as silky as my sheets. “Tidings, come on Tidings, come on back to me, girl.”I spotted the body that went with the sugary Southern voice, shifting between the plumes of smoke. Maybe I was a little dizzy because she looked more like a platinum blonde Medusa, than my fantasy Daisy Duke. The Medusa who was the beautiful and terrifying priestess of Athena before she’d been changed into a monster by the Gorgons. “You ran my car off the road!” I bellowed as I continued storming toward her fine backside.She barely acknowledged me as she glanced over her shoulder. “That souped-up engine of yours gave Tidings a horsey heart attack, scared the stink out of her.” “I almost totaled my car. I could have been killed.”“Serves you right for driving a damn race car out here on a dirt road.” She shrugged as she turned back toward the cotton field and called for the horse again.“Why the hell were you so close to the road with a horse to begin with?”She turned toward me and pointed at me with a fist full of something black, silvery, and slithering. “Me and my horse were out on these country roads long before the likes of you ever came to town, and we’ll be here long after you and your fancy-dancy duvet factory are gone.”I cocked a warning eyebrow as I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to ease the restriction there, as I examined her closer. It’s one thing to admire a woman from a distance — usually the closer you get the more the illusion vanishes and the flaws reveal themselves — not this girl, she was as perfect as I imagined. I couldn’t help myself; I smirked. The horse must have tossed her in the middle of the cotton field in its hurry to escape because she had huge seeded cotton bolls tangled in her blonde hair like giant brown snake eggs. A huge ass snake hung from her fist and her knitted brow was every bit as angry as Medusa’s, unfortunately I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling. “What exactly do you find so flipping funny, carpetbagger?”
LEAVE A COMMENT ABOUT THE EXCERPT & I'LL PICK ONE person TO WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF JUST CLOSE ENOUGH & JUST IN CASE. U.S. residents only and open until Dec. 1, 2015.
Title: Just Close Enough (Alabama Secrets Series #2)Author: Elizabeth MarxMature NA Contemporary Romance
Add to your GOODREADS reading list!
Pre-order Just Close EnoughPre-order for only $1.99 (price will go to $3.99 on Dec 1 Launch day)
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Just in Case (Alabama Secrets Series #1)GOODREADS
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Alex Volkow likes to tease Polly Anna, but learning the pleasure of pleasing her too...
We're celebrating the upcoming release of Just Close Enough by Elizabeth Marx, on December 1st.
Be sure to sign up for all the promotional events!
Title: Just Close Enough (Alabama Secrets Series #2)Author: Elizabeth Marx Mature NA Contemporary Romance
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Pre-order Just Close EnoughPre-order for only $1.99 (price will go to $3.99 on Dec 1 Launch day)
AMAZON: http://amzn.to/1MZVyXsiBooks: http://apple.co/1kgKTjZSMASHWORDS: http://bit.ly/1WoELSQ
A man out for revenge…
When Alexander Volkow raced into Crossroads, Alabama and bought up half of Broad Street, the entire town questioned his motives, but he didn’t care. He did it for one reason and only one reason — to find the man who went AWOL from the military with his brother, Kon. Knowing Kon, something is terribly wrong, and Alex is set on retribution.
But when all roads lead to the town’s favorite daughter, who just happens to be the missing man’s fiancée, Alex can’t help but be mesmerized by her alluring southern charm and sexy little snort.
A woman searching for a way out…
No amount of bartending, snake charming, or organic cotton growing can stop the fear blooming inside Polly Anna Coots. She knows if her MIA fiancée is found alive, he’ll want to follow through with their marriage plans, but she has had a change of heart — and not just because of the new man she can’t get out of her head. If her fiancée returns and she reneges on their future, she’ll end up DOA.
When one of Polly Anna’s snakes runs Alex off the road, sparks fly, and the two embark on a steamy collision course in a small town filled with secrets that add fuel to the smoldering fire.
Can either one of them get just close enough to acquire what they need from the other without falling in love?
*Can be read as a stand alone.
NOW AVAILABLE FOR ONLY $0.99!
Just in Case (Alabama Secrets Series #1)Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Purchase Just in CaseAmazon: http://amzn.to/1LbkZVFiBooks: http://apple.co/1GZ0UWfBN: http://buff.ly/1N6v3Oe Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1GPtIA8
October 21, 2015
Can he get JUST CLOSE ENOUGH to get his revenge???
When Alexander Volkow raced into Crossroads, Alabama and bought up half of Broad Street, the entire town questioned his motives, but he didn’t care. He did it for one reason and only one reason—to find the man who went AWOL from the military with his brother, Kon. Knowing Kon, something is terribly wrong, and Alex is set on retribution. But when all roads lead to the town’s favorite daughter, who just happens to be the missing man’s fiancée, Alex can’t help but be mesmerized by her alluring southern charm and sexy little snort.
A woman searching for a way out…
No amount of bartending, snake charming, or organic cotton growing can stop the fear blooming inside Polly Anna Coots. She knows if her MIA fiancée is found alive, he’ll want to follow through with their marriage plans, but she has had a change of heart—and not just because of the new man she can’t get out of her head. If her fiancée returns and she reneges on their future, she’ll end up DOA.
When one of Polly Anna’s snakes runs Alex off the road, sparks fly, and the two embark on a steamy collision course in a small town filled with secrets that add fuel to the smoldering fire.
Can either one of them get just close enough to acquire what they need from the other without falling in love?
Reviewers and book bloggers sign up for the cover reveal, excerpt tour and book tour. Get your review copy of the second book in the Alabama Secret Series!!!
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JUST IN CASE, BK 1 ALABAMA SECRET SERIES
August 24, 2015
Holding On & Letting Go
I cradled your hand.He cradled your head.We’ll cradle your heart.FOREVER.
When I laid my head on my pillow Saturday night, for the first time in eighteen years, five months and twelve days I didn’t know exactly where you were. Revisiting the final moments before I left you at college for the first time brought tears to my eyes and the watershed would go on for hours that night and bleed into the next day.
Intellectually I knew there were other short periods of time, times when you went to sleep away camp or leadership camp, when I didn’t know where you were at any given moment. During those short experiments, I knew you were coming back. This time I had to accept that you were on a road of your own making, enveloped in the first phase of your own life journey. An excursion filled with dreams and decisions that are rooted in a story we started long ago but that only you get to write the important chapters too.
I cried some more, feeling as if I’d lost you. I mean, I knew physically where I’d dropped you off. I had the empty boxes, the leftover bedding wrappings, and the dwindling bank account to prove that it really happened, that you were living on your own. It was as if by depositing you in that tiny room the size of a walk in closet that I’d given you to the world.
There’s no other way to describe the overwhelming feeling in the pit of my stomach, it is nostalgia tinged with acute loss. Not a loss as severe as some, but where’s the roadmap for what we’re going through? And today, in the light of the day after, I realize that the pieces and elements of this loss may last the rest of my life. You will never be completely and utterly ours, you are your own person.
What are the stages of letting go? How to you give up the child you’ve created out of love, the child you’ve dedicated eighteen years to making strong, resilient and capable to the world with only the whisper of hope that the world will embrace her in a kind and gentle way?
In the weeks leading up to our separation, all I could think about was the day you were born and that when they put you in my arms you raised a tiny fist. Less than twenty-four hours after your birth we brought you home from the hospital. You hadn’t made more than a peep in the hospital nursery and all the nurses commented on how good you were compared to the boy babies who all cried in unison. I should have known that was the first example of the determined personality just waiting to shine through. No, you would not follow the boys and cry, you’d cry and fuss on your own terms or not at all. Once we were home you were hungry, nothing else would soothe you and with my lactation production not up to your standards you let everyone know you were not pleased with the shabby accommodations.
The only way we could get you to stop crying was to hold you, so you’re dad sat on the corner of our bed and held you. I can still see his large hands, one cradling your head and the other cupping your tiny body. Exhausted, I fell asleep, lactation production really takes it out of you. I woke up five hours later with your daddy still sitting in the exact same spot, his hands in the exact same position. He hadn’t moved, afraid if he did that one or both of us would wake up.
Sometimes I watch your dad when he’s looking at you, seeing the young woman you’ve become and I know he wishes he could protect you the way he did that night for the rest of your life. In some ways, we both wish we could go back to the beginning and do all those little things that you never knew about over again because many of them molded you into the kind, thoughtful, loving person you are today.
There were many sleepless nights with you, when being held was the only consolation that you’d accept. No one held you with more dedication than your father, walking in circles with you cradled in a papoose. Then you discovered the binky and things became better for us, easier, but still determined to feel secure, you always had one in your mouth and another one in that small fist, so the back-up-binky and it’s many shenanigans began. Frankly, I thought I’d never pry those tiny security objects loose from your skillful hands. They held you safely assured until you were about three years old when the binky bugs came for them. You didn’t seem especially phased by the tiny holes the binky bugs mysteriously ‘ate’ into the rubber nipple, making the sucking action obsolete. You didn’t even cry. Surrendering the plastic covers of the binkies when all the rubber had been ‘eaten’ away by the binky bugs, one scissor clip at a time. But by this time you’d found the power of your own words, the inexhaustible lure of questions you posed and let’s not forget the inexplicable power that Pokemon held over you.
In your quest for the world to lean your way there were little hiccups along the way, the intolerable Mrs. H., the substitute teacher, you just couldn’t deal with on Halloween in second grade. Of course I came to school and saw you through it, holding your hand and reassuring you. The disappointment when you weren’t put on a sports team in junior high, only to play that sport in high school, starting out on JV as a Freshman and playing at the varsity level three years as an all conference athlete. And finally, your last colossal melt down, funny, but that was about food too! Because you were determined to have BBQ shrimp as your first meal on our vacation to South Carolina and the four star restaurant at Biltmore didn’t have it! You spent a considerable amount of time throwing a tantrum in the bathroom. I went down to the bathroom and found you talking to yourself, giving yourself a pep talk about the fact that the battle wasn’t over. I laughed about it then, but now looking back it reveals something about you that is your core strength. You are the MOST strong-minded person I’ve ever met, you set a goal and you see it through, and the most awesome thing is that you’re not afraid to stop along the way and help others, you’re not self-centered or destructive about it. You just put one foot in front of the other until you meet the goal and you never complain along the way because you’re to busy giving yourself a pep talk to bother with anything negative.
You’re like your daddy sitting on the edge of the bed, focused on the goal of waiting for the new day when the crying will be over. Waiting for the next opportunity to present itself, to prove your unwavering adaptability and drive. I can be content in the fact that I know you won’t let yourself down, you know where you’re going and you know where you’ve come from and we’ll always be here, our arms open wide to hold you when you’re just not sure.
So I’m letting go a bit at a time, I’m lessoning the touch. But I hope you can feel it, our love, on you today all those miles away, just as you felt it cradling you that night eighteen years ago.
Love you,Mom & Dad
When I laid my head on my pillow Saturday night, for the first time in eighteen years, five months and twelve days I didn’t know exactly where you were. Revisiting the final moments before I left you at college for the first time brought tears to my eyes and the watershed would go on for hours that night and bleed into the next day.
Intellectually I knew there were other short periods of time, times when you went to sleep away camp or leadership camp, when I didn’t know where you were at any given moment. During those short experiments, I knew you were coming back. This time I had to accept that you were on a road of your own making, enveloped in the first phase of your own life journey. An excursion filled with dreams and decisions that are rooted in a story we started long ago but that only you get to write the important chapters too.
I cried some more, feeling as if I’d lost you. I mean, I knew physically where I’d dropped you off. I had the empty boxes, the leftover bedding wrappings, and the dwindling bank account to prove that it really happened, that you were living on your own. It was as if by depositing you in that tiny room the size of a walk in closet that I’d given you to the world.
There’s no other way to describe the overwhelming feeling in the pit of my stomach, it is nostalgia tinged with acute loss. Not a loss as severe as some, but where’s the roadmap for what we’re going through? And today, in the light of the day after, I realize that the pieces and elements of this loss may last the rest of my life. You will never be completely and utterly ours, you are your own person.
What are the stages of letting go? How to you give up the child you’ve created out of love, the child you’ve dedicated eighteen years to making strong, resilient and capable to the world with only the whisper of hope that the world will embrace her in a kind and gentle way?
In the weeks leading up to our separation, all I could think about was the day you were born and that when they put you in my arms you raised a tiny fist. Less than twenty-four hours after your birth we brought you home from the hospital. You hadn’t made more than a peep in the hospital nursery and all the nurses commented on how good you were compared to the boy babies who all cried in unison. I should have known that was the first example of the determined personality just waiting to shine through. No, you would not follow the boys and cry, you’d cry and fuss on your own terms or not at all. Once we were home you were hungry, nothing else would soothe you and with my lactation production not up to your standards you let everyone know you were not pleased with the shabby accommodations.
The only way we could get you to stop crying was to hold you, so you’re dad sat on the corner of our bed and held you. I can still see his large hands, one cradling your head and the other cupping your tiny body. Exhausted, I fell asleep, lactation production really takes it out of you. I woke up five hours later with your daddy still sitting in the exact same spot, his hands in the exact same position. He hadn’t moved, afraid if he did that one or both of us would wake up.
Sometimes I watch your dad when he’s looking at you, seeing the young woman you’ve become and I know he wishes he could protect you the way he did that night for the rest of your life. In some ways, we both wish we could go back to the beginning and do all those little things that you never knew about over again because many of them molded you into the kind, thoughtful, loving person you are today.
There were many sleepless nights with you, when being held was the only consolation that you’d accept. No one held you with more dedication than your father, walking in circles with you cradled in a papoose. Then you discovered the binky and things became better for us, easier, but still determined to feel secure, you always had one in your mouth and another one in that small fist, so the back-up-binky and it’s many shenanigans began. Frankly, I thought I’d never pry those tiny security objects loose from your skillful hands. They held you safely assured until you were about three years old when the binky bugs came for them. You didn’t seem especially phased by the tiny holes the binky bugs mysteriously ‘ate’ into the rubber nipple, making the sucking action obsolete. You didn’t even cry. Surrendering the plastic covers of the binkies when all the rubber had been ‘eaten’ away by the binky bugs, one scissor clip at a time. But by this time you’d found the power of your own words, the inexhaustible lure of questions you posed and let’s not forget the inexplicable power that Pokemon held over you.
In your quest for the world to lean your way there were little hiccups along the way, the intolerable Mrs. H., the substitute teacher, you just couldn’t deal with on Halloween in second grade. Of course I came to school and saw you through it, holding your hand and reassuring you. The disappointment when you weren’t put on a sports team in junior high, only to play that sport in high school, starting out on JV as a Freshman and playing at the varsity level three years as an all conference athlete. And finally, your last colossal melt down, funny, but that was about food too! Because you were determined to have BBQ shrimp as your first meal on our vacation to South Carolina and the four star restaurant at Biltmore didn’t have it! You spent a considerable amount of time throwing a tantrum in the bathroom. I went down to the bathroom and found you talking to yourself, giving yourself a pep talk about the fact that the battle wasn’t over. I laughed about it then, but now looking back it reveals something about you that is your core strength. You are the MOST strong-minded person I’ve ever met, you set a goal and you see it through, and the most awesome thing is that you’re not afraid to stop along the way and help others, you’re not self-centered or destructive about it. You just put one foot in front of the other until you meet the goal and you never complain along the way because you’re to busy giving yourself a pep talk to bother with anything negative.
You’re like your daddy sitting on the edge of the bed, focused on the goal of waiting for the new day when the crying will be over. Waiting for the next opportunity to present itself, to prove your unwavering adaptability and drive. I can be content in the fact that I know you won’t let yourself down, you know where you’re going and you know where you’ve come from and we’ll always be here, our arms open wide to hold you when you’re just not sure.
So I’m letting go a bit at a time, I’m lessoning the touch. But I hope you can feel it, our love, on you today all those miles away, just as you felt it cradling you that night eighteen years ago.
Love you,Mom & Dad
July 1, 2015
BEST BOOKSHELF IN THE WORLD
There is one bookshelf, more than any other, that I’d love to see my books on. A shelf at the Chicago Public Library. My love affair with libraries started when I was a child growing up in the Chicago and continues today because every city I visit I try to check out the library. The library was a refuge for me. It was a place where I could go and not only feel safe, but I was surrounded by worlds and dreams that at that time I felt out of my realm of possibility.
The Chicago Public Library is the public library system serving the City of Chicago. It consists of 79 branches, including a central library, two regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the city.
The American Library Association reports the library holding 5,721,334 volumes, making it the 30th largest library system in the United Statesby volumes held. The library is the second largest public library system in the Midwest, after the Detroit Public Library.
In the aftermath of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, Londoner A.H. Burgess, with the aid of Thomas Hughes, drew up what would be called the "English Book Donation," which proposed that England should provide a free library to the burnt-out city. Burgess wrote on December 7, 1871 in the London Daily News: "I propose that England should present a Free Library to Chicago, to remain there as a mark of sympathy now, and a keepsake and a token of true brotherly kindness forever..." After circulating requests for donations throughout English society, the project donated 8,000 books. Private donors included Queen Victoria, Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold.
Chicago city leaders petitioned MayorJoseph Medillto hold a meeting and establish the library. This led to the Illinois Library Act of 1872, which allowed Illinois cities to establish tax-supported libraries. In 1897 the Central Library was opened, pictured above. Designed by the Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge in the same neoclassical style as their design for the Art Institute, it was located on Michigan Avenue between Washington and Randolph Streets on land donated by the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War Veterans group. The central library remained at this location for the next 96 years. It is now the Chicago Cultural Center and one of the most beautiful and visited landmarks in Chicago, housing the largest Tiffany’s dome in the world (see below). It's free to visitors so if you come to Chicago make sure you put it on your itinerary.
In 1991, the Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago's new central library, named for the late mayor, opened to the public. It was the world's largest municipal public library at the time of its opening. It is accessible from the Brown, Orange, Purple, and Pink Line trains at the "Library" stop, from the Blue Line at the "LaSalle" and "Jackson" stops, as well as from the Red Line at the "Jackson" stop. Harold Washington Library
If you plan a visit to the city and have a rainy afternoon, plan a stop at both the new and old central libraries. You won’t be disappointed and make sure you check and see if I made it to the shelves because that's where most of my dreams started.
