Pamela Foster's Blog, page 10

God with Us

This Christmas I’m giving you a poem. I’m a novelist and a writer of essays and humor. I know nothing of poetry. But I know about joy. And I know about pain. And I know I am not alone in this knowledge.

So, I beg your indulgence. For the rest of the year, I’ll stick to prose.

But, just this once, here’s my Christmas poem to you:

Emmanuel

Luminous pearls knotted haphazardly along a dirty string.

That’s life.

The trick is to polish those wondrous orbs like prayer beads.

Cherish each joy

Ent...

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Diamonds and Erectile Dysfunction

Does it bother anyone else that television commercials for erectile dysfunction are almost indistinguishable from advertisements for diamonds?

I’m serious.

Hit the mute button next time either kind of commercial comes on TV and see if you can tell whether they’re selling jewelry or erections.

Same 60’s pop music.


Same gaze of affection between the gorgeous older man and his twenty-year younger, wrinkle and fat-free wife.


Same look of adoration at climax, be it a ring or an orgasm he’s b...<!--[if gte mso 9]><!--[if gte mso 9]>

Science? Or Magic?

“I’m going to make a small incision–”

The surgeon held her thumb and forefinger up to show me a distance of about four miles.

“IN YOUR EYE and then–”

The happy smiling woman kept moving her mouth, painting images in my brain that would grow grotesque and monstrous and slip into my dreams to gnaw at my psyche and rip at my soul and leave me staring at the ceiling over my bed.

“I’ll just slip the rolled lens in–––”

“NO NO NO NO.”

I waved my hands in the doctor’s face.

“Here’s what’s going t...

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Always a Marine

Married to a Marine who fought in Vietnam, for years and years my writing stayed away from post-traumatic stress, war trauma. Or so I thought.

Honestly I didn’t even notice I’d included a combat vet in each of my novels until my publisher, Duke Pennell, pointed it out to me a few days ago. I was so shocked by the idea that I’d actually been skirting around the issue of war trauma for all these years, through all these books, that my first instinct was denial.

“No, no,” I told Duke. “Unt...

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Perspective

Have you ever stood really close to a great work of art? Your nose practically touches the canvas. The smell of the pigment makes the little hairs in your nose itch. The click of hard-soled shoes on granite tiles tips you to the fact that you’re about to be on the receiving end of a sharp lecture from the museum guard.

Okay. Me neither.

But if I did, I’d see not an artist’s painting of a winding country road or a young girl in dress with ruffles at the neck or. . . well, you get the ide...

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Nature is a mirror for the Soul

Overnight, autumn arrived, all flashy oranges and jeweled reds and brilliant yellows. The season tricked me into believing the cool, crisp, heaven-sent days would last. On Monday, the maple across the street was a blaze of glimmering color. By Saturday the tree’s top branches stretched bald into a dull sky, a ring of red leaves around the bottom of the stately tree already curling in on themselves.

This autumn is a mirror of my current life. Or so it feels.

At sixty-three, my heart may s...

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Writer Interrupted

My method of writing is to live the story. If you see me driving beside you on the road, get out of the way. You may look over and see an old woman with a purple streak in her gray hair, hands resting on the steering wheel, but I am actually on a horse riding through the Sonoran desert, Big Fifty across the saddle pummel, Colt on my hip, and Bowie snugged into a boot. I may talk on the phone, cook a meal or two, and listen to my husband. But my senses and emotions and all but the smalle...

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I Prefer My Characters Flawed

I’m suspicious of characters who appear to be perfectly good, or entirely bad. This applies to both fictional characters and those I love and hang out with in real life. I appreciate a good scar or a deep wound that festers, leaks poison at the most inopportune time. Yeah, yeah, I know, we all strive toward perfection, but come on! What a ridiculous cartoon of dream THAT is. I’m not saying we shouldn’t reach for the light. I’m just pointing out that, for me, the darkness holds some less...

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Autumn Memories

Dad’s birthday was September 8th. In my memory, summer ended and school always started on that same day. Which is, of course, totally impossible. Still, each year, there are sights and smells and sounds that bring me right back to Dad’s side, a carefully and horribly wrapped present extended for his inspection.

The first morning each year I step outside with the dog and the air which, just yesterday was heavy and warm, is instead cool and crisp, I think of Dad. Standing at the kitchen w...

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The Cat Did It.

Dad’s mom curled up her pug nose at store-bought birthday cakes. They were pretentious and proof of a lazy house wife.

Mom’s mom saw those crumbling, precariously leaning homemade messes as proof of a husband who was poor provider.

Never the twain did meet.

The first store-bought cake in our house arrived when I was eight and the cake was not for me. My sister Vickie was turning six. Mom had just gone back to work. A dozen neighbor kids and both sets of grandparents were due to arrive at...

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