Ada Maria Soto's Blog, page 5

Meta Monday: What the hell is up with the political structure of Arendelle?

If you have a kid under ten, especially a girl, odds are you’ve been subjected to Frozen, the most artificially constructed Disney movie in history. I swear every character has been optimized by their marketing department for peek saleability. And each song is more earwormy than the next. And after repeated viewings I have some serious question about the political structure of Arendelle.

At the start, there is a king*, queen, and two princesses**. The king and queen die but princess Elsa is not yet old enough to take the thrown. Who is running the country? Due to crappy parenting Elsa is in seclusion and Anna has been left to her own devices. It’s stated that Arendelle is wealthy and an in-demand trading partner. Who is negotiating these trade deals? One would assume a regent or steward. Makes sense, except we never see or hear about one, there’s no exchange of power. Just a priest looking guy handing Elsa some stuff when she turns eighteen. When things go bad no one says ‘hey, where’s the regent?’

And when things do go bad, Elsa is accused of being a monster by foreign diplomats and sent running into the hills, alone. Even in a stripped-down household there has to be a palace guard somewhere. You know, someone whose job it is to protect the royal family? Instead Anna goes running off after Elsa, alone, leaving Hans in charge. This is some bad leadership but considering her upbringing or lack thereof you can sort of forgive it. But leaving a prince who has never set foot in Arendelle before, even if he is a half assed fiancé, is still a poor excuse of a power shift. Regent? Captain of the guard? General? Chief of Staff? Anyone who is actually in the Arendelle chain of command?***

Then Hans takes some of the palace guards, as well as Weselton guards, to go capture Elsa. Yes, Hans says the Queen isn’t to be hurt but who the hell is he to be giving any orders? It’s one thing to hand out blankets, it’s another thing to brandish weapons at the Queen. And again, the Arendelle guards don’t comment on foreign soldiers taking shots at their Queen.

Then Hans pulls the whole ‘Anna is dead but we said our vows first’ thing. First rule of a coup (because that’s what it is) is make sure your opponent is actually dead. No one asks for a witness to this marriage. If they do believe Anna is dead they leave her ‘body’ in the living room. And then backed by foreign diplomats, mostly the Weselton representative, the Arendelle guards accept Hans handing down a death sentence on their Queen. Regent? Captain of the Guard? Head of the Army? Head of the State Church? Housekeeper? The person who sewed their dresses? Anyone? Seriously why is no one questioning this nonsense? Even the ordinary citizens of Arendelle should be asking ‘who the hell is this’?

Once it all ends nice and happy the first thing Elsa needs to do is fire half her military for backing this mess. And Hans needs something worse than getting sent home to his brothers. He staged a coup and tried to kill a head of state. It’s established that Arendelle has some pretty nasty looking cells and if it is legal for royalty to hand down criminal sentences without any form a trial then Elsa should be on the throne making a public example. It’s obvious her position isn’t secure and there is something to be said for a show of strength in this situation, but that wouldn’t be very princessey now would it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Voiced by Maurice LaMarche who also voiced The Brain. Once you hear it you can’t unhear it.

** Because why have one princess you can use to sell crap to little girls when you can have two?

*** We’re working on the theory that Arendelle is an Absolute Monarchy instead of a constitutional one.

P.S. I now I have quarterly newsletter. Find out about it here.

Meta Monday: How Brexit is Going to Screw Fireman Sam

Starting something new. Short meta thoughts on Monday mornings.

How Brexit is Going to Screw Fireman Sam

For those who aren’t up on semi-educational Welsh originated childrens’ shows Fireman Sam is an animation about fireman Sam, the hero firefighter of the little Welsh village of Pontypandy. Yes, it is named Pontypandy. It’s a seaside fishing village that is also near rugged mountains good for having adventures. And it has the most amazingly equipped Fire, and Search and Rescue services, ever.

Pontypandy has a population of about forty, and that includes the sheep. Despite that they have two large fire engines, a fire boat, an old fire engine that runs on train rails, an amphibious rescue vehicle, jet skies and three boats for water rescue, a helicopter for mountain rescue, mobile command unit, and a GPS heat seeking drone for finding dumb ass kids that get themselves stuck dangling over a waterfall at night. In Fireman Sam: Heroes of the Storm, where a hurricane hits Pontypandy (hello climate change) they get an entire new station with a high-tech voice operated computer system somehow linked up to the entire village and a fifty percent increase in personnel. Where did the money for all this come from? No way a fishing village, even one attracting a couple of tourists, has the tax base to afford that kind of equipment. My best guess is EU grants.

The official website of Wales has an entire page devoted to EU funding in Wales with links to grants including ones for rural and maritime communities, plus links directly to a funding search checklist. An ambitious member of the Pontypandy civil service could almost certainly find some money as they fall under both rural and maritime. The Welsh website also assures people that EU grants are going ahead as usual but that’s not going to last. And depending which news outlet you read Brexit is likely going to kill the economy of the UK with public services getting cut first.

The problem with having all that fancy equipment is maintaining it. Police services realized this when they used Homeland Security money to buy military surplus tanks and high end surveillance systems. Then they realized that tanks get about five feet to the gallon with spare parts that are proprietary and expensive. And you actually need to hire someone to watch all the high-tech surveillance equipment. I don’t see Fireman Sam fairing much better.

It will be more exciting when Sam has to rescue kids by climbing up snow covered mountains or hiking through the woods alone. One of them is bound to die horribly. Probably Norman Price. Firefighters Ellie and Arnold will probably get let go. Last in first out. And undoubtedly a lot of that new equipment is going to get mothballed. The old captain may find out about forced retirement. At least fireman Sam will still be able to warn kids about the dangers of hot irons, overloading power sockets, and give Bonfire Night Safety Tips.

The Dyslexic Novelist

I am dyslexic. I’ve blogged about it before and it is stated in my bio. I’m also a writer. To most people these two things don’t go together. How can someone be a writer if they can’t read or spell or do anyone of dozens of things people who know nothing about dyslexia assume? In the last few months I’ve found myself having repeated discussions about this with other writers, people who want to be writers, and several sets of parents worried about their kids. I figure it’s about time to put my advice in one place. Here is what I’ve learned over the years of being dyslexic and a writer. Much of it applies to anyone wanting to write and not all of it will apply to all dyslexics but hopefully some of it will help.

1. The ability to tell a story has nothing to do with the mechanics of writing. Let me repeat that. THE ABILITY TO TELL A STORY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MECHANICS OF WRITING! In the second Science of Discworld book Terry Pratchett put forward the idea that the scientific name for humans should be Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee. Stories are how we communicate and I’m not just talking about vast epics. What did you do today? I went to the grocery store and bought stuff for dinner then went to the bank to deposit my pay check. That is a story. It’s boring but the structure is there.

Stories are how we teach our children. When we’re explaining how plants grow we start at the beginning with a seed in the ground, the roots growing, then the leaves. We tell them about sun and rain and photosynthesis. When we don’t want children to do something we tell them stories about what could happen. They are short like, you could get burned and it will hurt. You will get lost and be scared but they are still stories.

Everyone can tell a story. We’ve been taught that spelling and where to put semicolons is essential to the ability to tell a story. It’s not. That’s the purview of friends and editors. To put it another way, storytelling is millions of years old. Reading and writing is maybe five thousand years old. The idea that everyone should be able to read and write is less than a century old.

No part of the human brain has evolved to read and write. In most people the left front lobe is coopted for this. In dyslexics, it’s the rest of the brain trying to do the job. I know this because I allowed researchers to shove me into an MRI machine and watch my brain not work like everyone else’s. They were very excited about this. They also pointed out to me the areas of my brain that are in charge of cross hemisphere communication. There is apparently a lot more talk going on between the two halves of the brain in dyslexics which is good for creativity.

Here is where I made some scientists very happy.

2. Don’t compare yourself to other writers. This goes for everyone. Yes, there are writers who put out six books a year. It’s their job. They work at it 40+ hours a week and have for decades. They have practice. There are also amazingly successful writers who only manage a book every five years. Look how painfully behind schedule George R.R. Martin is with his next book. Stephen King went through a phase of putting out multiple books a year. He was also doing huge amounts of cocaine at the time. Don’t compare yourself to the seniors and the coke heads. You’ll write in your own way at your own pace.

3. Go tell your English teachers to go fuck themselves. Every teacher who made you doubt yourself, humiliated you in class, criticized your handwriting, told you you’d never be successful, tell them to go fuck themselves. Not literally, unless you really want to, but feel free to construct elaborate situations where you rub your literary success in their faces because you are going to write a novel and they can go fuck themselves.

4. Learn to touch type. This is one of those works for me but might not work for you. Every writer writes in their own way and many will argue that their way is the best. For dyslexics physically writing can be difficult and even painful. It can slow down the process and sap confidence. Hunting and pecking on a keyboard can equally take forever. I got through two writing heavy degrees by touch typing. On long nights I would close my eyes, tilt my head back and keep typing. It uses a completely different part of the brain from the one that moves a pencil in loops and lines. Common words can get right into muscle memory. I spell better when I’m typing than when I’m writing. Find a copy of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and go for it. It might take some time to get good but it’s worth the effort.

5. Speech to text. For some dyslexics, even hunt and peck on a keyboard isn’t an option. This is where speech to text programs come in. The most common and reasonably affordable one is Dragon Speak. When Terry Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s got to a point where he couldn’t type anymore he used a combination of Dragon Speak and assistants taking dictation. He said that once he got the hang of it it felt a very natural way to tell a story, after all that’s how we’ve been doing it for millennia. It does take practice however. You need to learn the program and the program needs to learn you. It will take hours of reading and talking to the thing before it flows smoothly. I never had the patience. There are also free programs out there like Google Keyboard that people are learning to use.

6. Have a skill you can bribe your friends with. Eventually you need someone to read and edit your work. Professional editors are expensive but even the kindest of agents and publishers are going to have a hard time accepting a work that is full of errors. This is where friends come in. And an ability to bake, knit, garden, clean or whatever it takes to get you some free editing and feedback.

7. Use Word Speak. As part of the editing process authors are often told to read their work out loud in order to find little errors or awkward wording. The problem is the human brain, even of the non-dyslexic variety, is good at seeing what should be there instead of what is there. Fifty thousand words into a story you’ve read over a hundred times already ‘on’ and ‘or’ start looking like the same word. ‘Them’ vs ‘then’ is another easily missed one. Even more complicated words like barely and barley can be easily missed. However, I have found a way of getting around this problem and I recommend it for all writers.

There is a little tool in more recent versions of Microsoft Word called Speak. They’ve buried it deep. You have to go to File, Options, Customize Ribbon, then change the dropdown from Popular Commands to All Commands, scroll down to Speak then add it to your ribbon. After that you just need to highlight a section of text, click the icon, and a dull little computer voice reads your words back to you. Your mind might skip over the difference between ‘on’ and ‘or’ but “Jack gets on the bus” sounds much different than “Jack gets or the bus”. Be warned it will make your story into the most painfully boring work in human history. Your hottest sex scenes will become so dull you want to slam your head into a wall. After two or three full days of this you will want to cry but by god you will find heaps of typos, overused words, and hacky phrases even in drafts that have been looked over by a professional.

8. Be honest with your Publisher/Agent. You will of course be selling your awesome story which will be the start of an editorial and production process that can last up to a year. Be honest with the people you are going to be working with. It’s in their interest to get your story into the best possible shape. When I sold Empty Nests to Dreamspinner I wrote a long note to the editorial department explaining in detail the types of problems they were most likely to encounter. They thanked me. By giving them a heads up they were able to add technical edit cycles and inform the editors to keep an extra eye out for certain things.

9. Be honest with your Readers. There will always be some dickwad out there who posts shit like ‘This would have been five stars but I found two spelling mistakes so I’ll only give it three’. Fuck them. The vast majority of readers will respect a good story for what it is and respect you for having written it.

10. If you’re going to self-publish get a professional editor. Dyslexic or not. I know they cost a lot and this is a controversial statement but if you are putting something up for sale than it is a product, and a shoddy product reflects badly on your brand, and your brand is you.

11. Take a sticky note, or a piece of masking tape, or paper or something and write these words ‘You Are A Writer’. Put it someplace where you can see it every day because the second you put words onto paper or screen you are a writer. You just might need to remind yourself of that.

Love for Empty Nests and Bowerbirds from the RWNZ

Last Saturday night Empty Nests and Bowerbirds tied for second in the 2016 Koru Awards, Long Romance section, given by the Romance Writers of New Zealand. I was told (but not by someone on the awards committee so I can’t be sure) that this was the first time they had a same gender novel submitted. So that’s cool.

I almost deleted these books back in 2014. It was a giant 130k mess that didn’t quite work and I couldn’t get my head around. Cooper West kept my finger off the big delete button and bought me a copy of Scrivener which let me handle the restructure. My awesome editor, Tricia Kristufek, back by everyone at Dreamspinner Press, handled my author freakouts, strange schedule, and dyslexia brilliantly.

And then there’s my partner who not only listened to all my obsessing and panicking but is willfully going through it again as I work on my next book.

So, thank you everyone for all the love and support.

The Passing of a Proper Woman

My grandmother passed away two weeks ago. We buried her last Thursday. She was 96, her mind was mostly gone, and she’d been given two weeks to live fifteen months ago. She took a couple of deep breaths in her sleep then just stopped. There are worse ways of going.

I’d like to say she lived a grand exciting life, that she had flown airplanes, climbed mountains, or written ground breaking work.

She didn’t.

She lived a very proper life. She grew up in Canada. Played field hockey in high school. She married her high school sweetheart. During the war he flew bomber missions with the RCAF. When he got home he married her then they immigrated to the US where he got a job in the petroleum by-product lab at Standard Oil. Ever used Pledge furniture wax? He helped invent that. They moved into a lovely planned post war suburban home in a lovely planned community where the men dug out the community pool and the wives made lunch.

She had two children and was a full time mother until the children were in school then worked as a secretary at a school. She was always home before her husband so she could have a drink and the evening news paper waiting for him. She wasn’t much of a cook but she used the ingredients she was supposed to. Miracle Whip, Ready Whip, Campbell’s Soup, Betty Crocker, Land o’ Lake, Dryers Ice Cream, Nestle, Stouffer’s, Folgers, Coke, not Pepsi. Don Draper would have loved her.

She went to church every Sunday. A nice respectable Presbyterian church. She was as a deacon, baked cakes for every event, drove around the little old ladies of the church until she became a little old lady. She was in the bowling league because in the 1960’s bowling is what good families did on Friday nights. Played bridge, tended garden. She was part of a local womens’ group. Not the kind that marched on protest lines for wage equality or victims’ rights. It was the kind that had bake sales and proudly gave out 200 dollar scholarships completely unaware that 200 dollars barley covers a single text book these days.

And when she lost her husband because he was too manly to have chest pains checked out, she drank a little too much for a bit, but in a very proper fashion. A little something extra added to the orange juice at dinner. The house was always perfectly tidy. Decorated for every holiday. She wrote letters and donated to charity but not too much. Voted for Nixon and Reagan and read Readers Digest.

As a grandmother she remembered every birthday and holiday. She would talk about us taking a train trip across Canada but that never happened. She tried to knit. She did absolutely everything society and the media told her she should do as a woman at the time and she did it perfectly.

And there must have been a reason.

That level of a ‘proper’ life takes work, and discipline, and there must be a reason for it that I never quite worked out. I heard her cuss, once. It wasn’t even hell or damn. It was the F word. There were a few obvious lies that she repeated so many times I think she believed them. There were funny stories that weren’t funny once you thought about it. There were stories that completely contradicted each other and stories about her own childhood that were just a little too perfect.

She always told us her husband was in the Battle of Britain. When we were going through some stuff earlier this year we found his medals and war record. He was part of a bomber crew but it wasn’t in England, it was in a far more dangerous campaign in North Africa. I’m not sure if he lied to her for some reason. If she lied to us, though there would have been no reason, or if she rewrote her memories over the years. By the time we had questions she wouldn’t have been able to give us answers.

There’s a saying that goes around, Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History. My grandmother was very well behaved. I don’t think she always wanted to be. She had the ability to swear. She had a freakishly high pain tolerance. When she broke her hip in a grocery store parking lot she drove herself home and didn’t go to the doctor until the next day when a friend came to visit and noticed she was limping. My partner once heard her make a dirty double entendre. I once saw a picture of her high school field hockey team and they looked like a tough bunch. She managed to forgive my aunt for being a lesbian. Never quite forgave my mother for marring a Mexican but grandchildren went a long way towards mending that relationship. The first/last/only time we talked politics was when she randomly mentioned she had concerns about some of Bush’s choices for cabinet.

There was something under that perfect post-war housewife. A different woman who never got the chance to run and I think I will mourn the woman I never met as much as I will mourn the one I knew.

Heartbreak of a Child

When I picked up my 3 year old from preschool yesterday she was a little subdued. Normally she squeals then runs, and jumps into my arms but yesterday she wanted to finish playing a fishing game with her teacher and show me that she knows her colours. Blue and yellow are still interchangeable but she’s got orange and green down. On the way home I asked her about her day. Did she play with blocks? Did she have story time? Did they do yoga today? Then I asked her about her best friend. They have been glued to each other for the last year and a half, literally half their lives. His mother and I refer to each other as in-laws and the teachers jokingly call them boyfriend and girlfriend. So when I ask about them I usually get an answer about riding bikes together or building castles. Yesterday I got told that he pushed her and hurt her arm. They’ve tussled before, usually over bikes, but always said sorry and made-up, so I wasn’t worried. But then she continued about how he said he didn’t want to be her friend anymore and wanted to play with another kid then pushed her because she wanted to play. I was also informed that she wasn’t going to play with him anymore she was only going to play with another kid (who happens to have the same name).

This was the point when I texted his mother for the other side of the story. It came out pretty much the same, the only difference being that she pushed him. I’m guessing there was mutual pushing. Not sure what the third kid was doing. Hopefully keeping out of it.

She was still upset when we got home so I let her have a bowl of frozen berries and suffered through several episodes of Tayo the Little Bus. I figure this is the three year old equivalent of chocolate ice cream and a Lord of the Rings marathon.

Usually after a disagreement we encourage the kids to makeup and be friends again. Basic social skills for getting through life. Screw that this time. He broke up with her and did it hard. It’s also tempting to think that kids that age have goldfish memories and the hurt will be gone in a day. Except no. I’m one of those people who can remember things from when I was three. It’s mostly negative stuff that managed to stick. I remember not being played with because I looked too much like a boy but wasn’t. I can legitimately blame my mother for that one. I remember being teased because I couldn’t run very fast and wanted to be friends mostly with boys. I was scared to climb to the top of the bars. There was the moment when I was traumatized by a fig (I don’t want to talk about it).

First heartbreak can stick and stick hard.

I asked her primary teacher about it this morning and they noticed she seemed a little sad in the afternoon but just told them she didn’t feel well. Breakups can do a number on your stomach.

I’m a romance writer. Happy Ever After is a requirement. I’m also a realist. Perfect happy endings aren’t a thing. Even the best of couples fight. Most will end in breakup, even if that breakup is someone dying peacefully of old age first. We all get scars on our hearts that we later tell ourselves it didn’t really matter but at the time it’s pushing and rebounds and Tayo and berries for dinner and it will always suck.

Ghostbusters (2016) – It Did What It Was Meant To Do

I love the Ghostbusters. When I was a kid it was my favourite Saturday morning cartoon* (I didn’t see the movie, I was three). Egon and Winston were my first great loves, though even then I understood that Egon’s first true love was science. I saw every episode, many written by J. Michael Straczynski who would go on to become one of my favourite writers. I even nagged my parents into getting me the firehouse play set. And considering we were on the wrong side of the Wage Gap (or poor as we said in those days) it must have been a hell of a lot of nagging. As an adult I even bought the video game despite being crap at first person shooters.

When I heard a reboot was on the table I was concerned. Not because it was a reboot. I’m a born and raised Trekkie and enjoy those reboot films. No, my worry was that Michael Bay had somehow gotten his hands on it. My other two great Saturday morning loves were Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. How they have squeeze five movies out of the hash Bay made of Transformers I will never know. I saw a Transformers toy in the store that didn’t transform into anything! That is called missing the point.

And I don’t even want to talk about Turtles, okay?

When details about the Ghostbusters reboot started coming out I felt a little more okay. Mostly because as far as I could tell Michael Bay was in no way involved. When I heard they were recasting with all women I was okay with that. Judi Dench was awesome as M. I knew the movie would come down to two things. Was the script funny and would the actors be able to pull off a funny script? Because, and this is something I think people are forgetting, Ghostbusters was a comedy! The cast was composed of SNL, Second City, and National Lampoon veterans. The script was intended for Belushi but he overdosed before it really got going. It wasn’t made to win awards or be high drama. It wasn’t meant to be the kind of movie that makes you question reality, boycott Seaworld, or get Ben Affleck another Oscar. It was meant to be a fun movie, and it was. It was fun to watch, it gave you a laugh, and you could tell the cast had fun making it.

Going into Ghostbusters (2016) I was only looking for one thing and that was to be entertained. I had no preconceived expectations. I could honestly say I’d never heard of the director and had seen nothing else he’d directed. I only recognized a couple of the actresses in a ‘hey, she looks vaguely familiar but I don’t recognize anything on her imdb page’ kinda way.

I got my ticket, my popcorn, sat down, watched some shitty looking trailers, and was entertained. I thought the cast was funny, the script was solid, they all looked like they were having a good time and played well off each other.** Hemsworth looked happy not to be wearing fifty pounds of armour and living off boiled chicken. The ghost effects worked for me as did the proton packs. I like that they didn’t recast the old characters but instead created new ones. I miss the tailfins on Ecto 1 but you can’t have everything. And anyone who is complaining about a slow first act needs to go back and watch a movie made between 1970 and 1995.***

So my review of Ghostbusters is ‘I Was Entertained’ which is all I was looking for.

~

* The Real one, not that weird ass thing with the guerrilla and if you don’t know what I’m talking about don’t go looking.

** I want Erin/Patty fic and I want it now.

*** Try Star Trek the Motion Picture if you want a first act that drags.

Giveaway Time!!!!!!!!

I’m currently at about half through draft one what should be my next book. The word count stands at 49,685 words.

We’re going to play guess the final word count! It’s like guess the jelly beans.

Send an email to adamariasoto@gmail.com with “Windsor Knot Word Count” in the subject line, and your guess as to the final published word count. I’ll tag and archive it without reading it.

When the book comes out I’ll look at the guesses and if you’re within 5k you’ll get a free ebook copy. 2k and I’ll send you a signed paperback. Keep in mind Empty Nests got split into two books because the first draft was 125k. Back in my fanfic days my longest piece was 130k. I don’t know how to do short.

P.S.  Over 18 only. This book will have some naughty bits in it.

 

The Universality of Choosing an Avocado

The world sucks right now. It really does. If we get to the end of 2017 without WWIII breaking out, the US breaking up, and Australia burning down coast to coast I’ll be very surprised. Lots of people suck right now to. Even people I usually respect and look up to are doing and saying dumb and sucky thing*.

In order to combat the unending suck I try to find moments of universality in the every day. Most of these involve small children having meltdowns in tourist spots. It doesn’t matter what your nationality, race, or religion is an overtired two-year-old is an overtired two-year-old and that is a storm no one wants to get in front of.

Yesterday my moment came while trying to choose avocados for guacamole. I got to the store late so while there was still a large pile of avocados that had just come into season they were all nearly rotten or rock hard. Next to me was a Chinese couple having a very intense discussion that I couldn’t understand but they were also shifting through a mountain of unacceptable avocados. The in the middle of a lot of Chinese** there was a word I knew very well. Guacamole. They were digging through the avocados for the exact same reason I was. There was even some gesturing towards the lemons and chillies. That made me smile. And as a half Mexican there was also some pride in the fact that our technique for mashing up avocados and making them extra tasty had obviously traversed the globe.

I tried to strike up a conversation because I make good guacamole and am always eager to talk to people about their recipes and techniques, but either they didn’t speak English or they didn’t want to talk to the random American lady in a New Zealand Pak n’ Save at five in the afternoon on a Sunday. Fair enough.

So that was my universal moment. When you want to make guacamole but you just can’t find the right avocados but are willing to dig through a mountain of them because guacamole is good.

~~~~~~~~~~~

*No, I’m not talking about Tom Hiddleston dating Taylor Swift. Oddly enough I think they might be good for each other.

** Mandarin, I think. It’s been a while.

Free Read: Sand Angels

My entry for this years Pulp Literature poetry contest. Made the top ten.

Sand Angels

The afternoon sun produces little warmth. The ocean wind cuts with the pain of midwinter.

Elderly couples walk their dogs along the sand, their beasts avoiding the rough rolling seas.

Children wrapped in layers until near immobility are herded down the beach by young mothers. They are desperate for the outing in the blessed sunlight after weeks of relentless storms.

One child, feet as bare as the dogs’, tightrope walks along the tide line making sand angels when she falls.

The sand coats the summer flowers of her dress and tangles into her winter darkened hair.

Her mother wants the sun more than a victory concerning the necessity of shoes and cardigans.

The child kicks a footprint, not her own, erasing it before the wind and sea have their chance.

She tracks up the beach to the previous step, brushing it with her hand, then the step before that, seemingly determined to remove all traces of a stranger from the length of jagged coast.

Shadows grow long too early, the day too close to the solstice.

The elderly couples and their dogs walk past and judge.

The young mothers cast glances at the bare feet and a dress of yellow flowers.

The well bundled children kick sand in solidarity.

No one speaks, however.

No one scolds except with their eyes.

Another storm is coming and this is the last chance for sunlight.