Mandy Haynes's Blog, page 2

Thinking of my little brother-the original Wild Thing

I bought Where The Wild Things Are at a scholastic book fair in 2nd grade for my little brother. He was four years younger and my little buddy. I couldn’t wait to get home and read it to him. If I played hot wheels with him first, he’d let me read to him for as long as I wanted.

I used to save cookies and fruit from the cafeteria lunches for my little brother, wrapped in a napkin, stuck down in my lint filled pockets. I missed him so much when I had to go to school and leave him – he was and still is one of my favorite people in the world.

I had no idea of the magic that was hiding in those pages. I bet I read it to him over a hundred times, had the words memorized so he could hold the book and turn the pages. He was Max all the way.

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I felt every word when I read, “I’ll eat you up I love you so.”

I still do.

Busier than a centipede at a toe countin’ contest

Hey y’all! I’m back for a minute. Sorry I’ve been missing in action.

Lots of good things going on here in Fernandina Beach.

Let’s see. I submitted a story to Live Ink Theater for their storytelling event in December and it was accepted. The theme is Hope for the Holidays and I’ll be telling a story about my time with the guests at Room in the Inn at St.B’s last year.

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I’m very excited and more than a little bit nervous. It’s been a while since I’ve worn my storyteller’s hat.

It doesn’t help that I can’t focus on the story because I found my copper and jewelry making supplies.

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But that’s how my mind works and I’ve learned it’s better not to fight it. It’ll all work out if I don’t get too crazy trying to force myself and just go with the flow. The good news is I may have found a gallery that will carry puplucyblue so hopefully I’ll have a little income coming in soon.

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Oh! Then this – my collection of short stories is being critiqued by Suzanne Hudson as I write this blog. I’m looking forward to her advice and edits. She’s the shit and I am extremely lucky to get her input. Hopefully it will be ready for publication soon. Fingers crossed.

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Still working on the house, but it’s finally feeling like a home. Albert is inside due to a couple of chilly nights, but I don’t think he minds. He’s always looking over my shoulder when I’m writing and keeping me company.

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I think that’s about it for now. I’ve got to get back to work and get my story memorized for telling.

Wish me luck!

It’s in the genes

Mary Beth Boyd says I have a gift.

I blame my dad.

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You should see him with a pair of divining rods (made from two wire clothes hangers). He blew my first mother-in-laws mind years ago when he found an old well on her property with a pair of them. She’d been looking for the old well for years, he found it in about fifteen minutes.

Walking in Linda’s back field in a pair of faded overalls and a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek with a determined look on his face. Focused on the divining rods in his hands, he looked like a country preacher or moonshiner, serious in his business.

The rods swayed back and forth until they crossed over above a spot in the ground and he grinned like a mischevious kid, a dribble of brown spit running down his chin. Sure enough, after a little digging, the old well was discovered.

I found all of these UNDER the sand in Pensacola when Mary Beth and I visited last year.

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We’d left the pups at the rental and walked to the beach to sit at the water’s edge and enjoy the ocean.

Not a shell in sight, but I felt them. I buried my fingers under the sand-and bam. The motherload. Beautiful shells of all kinds.

Mary Beth and I both had two good stacks in no time. We gave some away when people would stop and look, but no one asked how we found them.

Until we met these two.

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Ashley and Heather immediately turned into kids. They were laughing and digging for buried treasure. Ashley was so cute, filling the top of her suit with shells while the water knocked her around. I shared my shell finding tip and Heather shared a story.

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She told me she had dreamt of her aunt last night who passed a year ago. In the dream her Aunt Sama was giving her gifts and she said she knew that it meant that she was going to have good luck today. They’d been looking for shells all day, but hadn’t found any good ones. She was sad and confused about the dream until they met us.

I found out Heather’s aunt wanted her to be a writer. She’s going back to school this year to get her on the path.

As they were leaving she said they were going to drop some of their shells for other people to find.

That’s the way that the world goes round.

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See you on the flipside Glynda!

I loved my cousin Glynda to the moon and back a thousand times over. And she loved me. There will never be another one like her. She was little but she was huge. She loved with all her heart, laughed with every inch of her body. She was a true flower child with a mouth like a sailor and the brain of a genius. She will be missed, but not forgotten.
I wrote this for my first storytelling event about four years ago. I wanted to share it here.

Family Matters

We met at the Father Turgus Asylum (home for widows and orphans of the south) on the corner of St. Claude and Pauline. She was tucked into a hat that had been fashioned as some sort of basket, probably worn by one of the Lady’s of Storyville; with only the top of her little bald head peeking out of the midnight blue velvet lining. I was buck naked, wrapped in a Star newspaper. We were both quiet as mice, awaiting our fate; stoic baby Joan of Arc’s Glynda and I.

I had a head full of black hair, an olive complexion and no visible injuries, Glynda’s umbilical site needed attention but other than that we were as right as rain, soon to be as thick as thieves; left behind on the steps of the orphanage on a humid summer night.

Ok – that isn’t true – BUT it is a story we were going to tell people that we met on our trip to New Orleans. We visited the great city on Halloween a few years ago, met a honest to God Voodoo Priestess who blessed my most recent novel in the works (true story) and we were initiated into the religion by sacrificing a small child (that’s not true) but you can’t tell the other members of my family that. They are certain that’s how it works, just ask them.

Glynda is not a fellow orphan, but my favorite favorite cousin on my mother’s side. She is the daughter of my favorite favorite aunt, Helen who bakes the best cakes and tells the best ghost stories I have ever heard. She has a ghost she’s named Oscar that lives in her little house in East Nashville. I’ve had a run in with him myself. (true story)

Helen has been my anchor many times – one Thanksgiving I hid out at her house and we ate coconut cake instead of a turkey dinner. She made me promise not to tell anyone because she knew my mother would be mad that I went to Helen’s house and not hers for the holiday. I just couldn’t deal with the family drama that year – my son was at his new wife’s house, my parents had gotten divorced, but my mother still talked about him constantly.

I didn’t want to tell anyone where I was because I didn’t want to share Helen with anyone – or her coconut cake.

Back to Glynda. When I was twelve or so, she is the person that realized I had a little bit of talent and no outlet – except for boys – and bought me my first set of paintbrushes and oil paints. I couldn’t find enough things to paint – nothing was safe, I painted EVERYTHING – even glass.

She realized I needed more things to keep me busy – to keep me out of my mama’s hair and out of trouble – so she taught me Sherinschniette (I know that sounds made up but it’s a true story – it’s the German art of paper cutting).

Then she bought me a nice pad of paper and an ink pen and showed me some pen and ink drawings. I loved it all. She was the coolest.

But life is life and shit happened. I got pregnant and married – in that order – way too young. I guess I must’ve run out of paint… Years went by like they have the horrible habit of doing and I didn’t see Glynda much.

She was busy working as a psych nurse, spending time with her grandbabies and her husband –and I was busy trying to survive a horrible marriage to an overbearing bully. My whole perception of family is so way off, but I’m trying to make it work. Trying to have a family even if it kills me.

Fast forward – my son is in college at UT Knoxville – and Glynda and I pick up where we left off. Only this time she wants us to go to a little coffee shop by her home in Lebanon and participate at Open Mic night, write some songs – learn how to play guitar (even though neither one of us can sing or play) and of course I’m all in. Thank god. Because it was there that we met up with a writers group and I started writing again. I hadn’t written since my first marriage. I’d been divorced twice since then – still looking for a family, not having any luck – and not feeling very good about myself.

Writing helped with that.

I made a bunch of new friends, started writing like crazy and had my first story – one that I had no intention on submitting anywhere – published.

Thanks to Glynda, who never once let me feel like I was a white trash teenage mother (I did have my son at fifteen and we had lived in a trailer after all) not only was I a “self taught” artist who paid for my son’s books for college by selling my wares at craft shows the entire time he was in Knoxville, while working a full time job, I was also a “published” author. Okay – I know this sounds like complete BS but it is the truth. Thanks to Glynda.

Fast forward about four years from that. I won’t go into the gory details but I had my entire life pulled right out from under me. My whole idea of family – a husband, kids, dogs a home – has been completely destroyed. Obliterated. I’m three times divorced, my only son has completely erased me from his life – I’m too old to start over. It’s bad. I’ll leave it at that.

Glynda was the only one to validate my feelings, to listen to those gory details without telling me it was all going to be okay. She talked to me about – and more importantly let me talk about – the scary things that were going on with me. She talked to me about depression – about my family’s history of depression and suicide without sugar coating the situation or trying to make me feel like it wasn’t as bad is it is. It’s bad – and it might not ever get better – but it’s not all there is.

I know that – thanks to her.

Now fast forward to the first of 2014. Glynda calls me with horrible news. She has cancer. And it’s bad – it’s really bad. But she’s Glynda – she’s family. We are family and we’ve got this. We are going to celebrate life, not dwell on death.

So… we are going to have a party soon, because – well you never know how much time you have. I might get hit by a bus tomorrow, right? She wants me to invite Lucinda Williams, Nick Cave, Jim White – you know all the cool people. We will have a blast – no one has to perform, we just want to hear their stories. Just hang out – what? It could happen – this could turn out to be true, they haven’t said no yet…

And Glynda says when she leaves – whenever that might be – she hasn’t GONE – she will be on a trip with Nick Cave to who knows where for who knows how long. Because she ain’t dying until she gets to have a fling with Nick. And if you know my cousin Glynda – well, you know that part is 100% truth.

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Some mistakes turn into magic

I have to share this story.

Years ago, I taught myself to crochet. I had scarves and small blankets down pat, so I decided to make a hats.

My first one was ridiculous. It was so tiny I didn’t think it would fit a preemie, but took it to work with me to drop off in the NICU anyway. But something told me to keep it in the echolab.

Not a week later, I get a new patient. A cancer patient going through chemotherapy who was terrified. She was wearing a sweet handmade hat and carrying a little bald babydoll. No one could touch her…until I remembered the hat.

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It fit her doll like it was custom made for her little round rubber head.

While the patient talked about her doll, I was able to get the images we needed for her echocardiogram. And I got a bonus hug when we finished.

Fast forward to a few years later.

I’m meeting with a doctor to schedule my hysterectomy. I’m nervous, but okay. The doctor is very kind and patient and I’m grateful. All of a sudden she looks up from the computer and asks, “Do you work for cardiology?”

I answered yes.

“Do you do cardiac ultrasound?”

Yes.

“Do you still crochet?”

I laughed and said yes.

She wheeled her stool closer and took my hand.

“My daughter and I were talking about you. Just this morning. She still has her doll, and she’s still wearing the hat you made.”

We both teared up and she went on to tell me that her daughter is in remission and doing great.

“She always wanted to come back and see you, but luckily, we didn’t have to. I can’t wait to tell her I saw you today!”

I often wondered how that little girl was doing, and now I knew.