Dr. Jenijoy La Belle

In the early 1950s, my mother was on a quiz show. It must have been a radio show, for I vaguely recall listening at home with my brother and sister. We couldn’t have seen it on TV, because we didn’t have one.

As the program neared its end, there were only two contestants left, a man and my mother. She was asked to name the three peaks of Mt. Rainier. Since we lived in Washington state, this was not a difficult question for her. “Liberty Cap, Point Success, and Columbia Crest,” she quickly answered.

The man was then asked, “Who said, ‘I think, therefore I am’?” He couldn’t remember.

“Descartes,” said my mother.

She won the top award, a diamond ring. He won a freezer. As soon as the show was over, they traded prizes. He had just become engaged and had no ring. We had only a small icebox and had to keep our meat in a frozen food locker downtown. Everyone went home happy.

My mother is now 81. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She no longer knows who said, “I think, therefore I am,” and I’m no longer certain about the great Cartesian proposition. The terrible illness has taken much from my mother, but not her identity. Rather, it has clarified her. She has mastered the art of losing. The affliction has made her even more herself. Always gentle, generous, and full of hope, she now is the very essence of these qualities. My mother has taught me that Descartes was wrong: thinking and being are not one.

My parents live in the woods outside Olympia, Washington. When we stand on the high deck of their house and look west or south, we see the forest. But if we turn east and look down a long tree-lined ravine, there is Mt. Rainier against the sky. Immense. Perfect. Unchanging and ever-changing. Black in the gray light. Scarlet at sunset. White in the blue air. Some mornings, my parents rise early to watch the sun blaze behind it. Dazzled, they go back to bed.

I go home as often as I can. My mother and I sit in wooden chairs on the deck and feast our eyes on what Washingtonians call simply “The Mountain.” The conversation invariably takes the same turn. “Isn’t it grand!” my mother exclaims, leaning forward. “Yes,” I say, “but I wish I could recollect the names of the peaks.” I hold my breath for an awful instant. “Liberty Cap, Point Success, and Columbia Crest,” she responds in a rush of words.

“Mama,” I tell her, “That’s what you should have named your three kids.”

She laughs. My mother knows she forgets our names and those of her grandchildren. She frets when she can’t recall the titles of the poems she taught in high school for so many years. It hurts her to have forgotten all the students she tirelessly helped climb up the lower slopes of Parnassus. Yet, she triumphantly remembers the mountain peaks.

The last time I was home, it was impossible to see Rainier. A gloom of clouds each morning, followed by too much of the rain that I used to think gave the mountain its name, but I knew it was there, and even when my mother’s thoughts are foggy and beclouded, she’s there, too. Like the ancient volcano, she may seem inactive, but she’s far from extinct.

I hope Rainier continues to doze; the state hasn’t yet recovered fully from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. I dream, however, that some cure will be found for Alzheimer’s, that one day our friends and relatives afflicted with this dementing disorder will awake and burst once more into intensity, shooting plumes of forgotten names into the air, releasing an avalanche of memories, covering the earth with lost recollections. But even if this vision never comes true, my mother is still here, the person she has always been, the human self I love, like the mountain in its serene presence.

Mary Bannister

Fallen needles soften passage into the forest.

Precise footsteps beckon her to him,
Like a portrait of symmetry in motion.
A kaleidoscope discloses awe-inspiring beauty,
As sunlight freckles tease fluttery fronds,
And stillborn dew splashes spongy mounded moss.
The green velvet becomes denser
With miniature outdoor terrariums,
Everywhere you look.
A grand opening welcomes a multiplicity of fauna,
Bustling about in the spectacle of day,
Urgently amassing essential ingredients,
For survival and sanctuary.

And in the distance a soothing sound-
A babbling brook,
An incessant talker,
Trekking with his daytime comrade-
The dogged sun,
Laughing with his pal-
The luminous moon,
An egotistical lover who can’t keep,
His vanity in check,
As time and time again he returns,
To glean his wondrous reflection,
In the crystal, clear, midnight waters.

And amidst this beauty,
A kiss is shared between her and him.
Not just any kiss,
For this is not just any place.
They have been transported
To a chamber of serenity
Where birds’ songs thankfully know,
No limit to jubilation and pleasure.
The kiss has been fueled by unspeakable splendor,
Christened with peace and appreciation,
Escalating and deepening the passion,
Between her and him.
A matchless kiss-

( This poem was written shortly after the death of my husband in June 2006.)

Linda Hayek

You are still big in my life, warm in my heart
not only because you loved me – completely
quirks and rough edges included
and fathered my daughters into adulthood

not only because you opened wide the doors of your heart
to share your family with me
and invited me to gaze through the windows of your faith
thus strengthening my own

not only because you embraced the adventures I concocted
sometimes called vacations – riding a bicycle for thousands of miles
across and around and beyond Nebraska -
you could smell a malt a mile away

and hiking the grand canyon for 22 miles down the north face
and up the south side
just to say we could, and we did
not only because you are still the “captain of the ski boat”

but because you are now bigger than life
for nine years I watched you live with cancer
intermittently seasoned with anger, indifference, hope, exhaustion, fear
acceptance, even gratitude and always with courage

I watched your strength wax and wane countless times during
the slow eviction of your soul, the twinkle in your eye the last
to give up the struggle and to be set free
finally released from the tired shell of your body

in the latter days you spent more and more time in a world I could not share
a land where green cookies sometimes appeared in your pocket
the tempo of our dance slowed, no longer rock and roll,
but gentle embrace assisting you from recliner to wheelchair

one last ride in the ‘ 56 Chevy,
a chocolate malt in the back seat shared from a cup with two straws
all too soon, suddenly it seemed
a tender parting, a peaceful crossing

and, now, your “being” etched in my heart
your spirit felt in campfires near our beaver lake
your presence big as I pedal the keystone trail
you are closer by far

until I, too, cross the great divide
will I know the way?
reborn to meet you again
kindred child of the resurrection

We will dance together once more
in the eternal ballroom of celebrations
no need to ask you to save one for me
the polka band will play forever

First Place

The Truth

By Marc Magisana,    Omaha, NE

The cards said murder. The old woman’s tarot readings were never wrong. To win the contest, I would need to kill. Who? She pretended not to know. Enraged, I beat the truth out of her. Her murder made me a famous writer. Now I’m framed: “Winner: First Prize Fiction Contest” hangs on my cell wall. (55)

Second Place

In Montana

By Marge Barrett,    Minneapolis, MN

By campfire light near Many Glacier, she snaps, crackles, pops. He strives to snuff out the flames, steaming water, sifting sand. Like paint pots in Yellowstone, they bubble, sizzle, while cedars crash and swans soar. Yet as fields seared in the fall, they spring up renewed, sip Beaujolais, curled together in Rising Sun’s fireplace lobby. (55)

Third Place

Toddler Turnabout

By Alberta Lee Orcutt,   St. Paul, MN

Chubby fingers clutch the peach to her mouth. Juice trickles down her chin and wrist on its way to her elbow, sugary orange passing through yesterday’s scratch and today’s dirt, finally sticking to the squirming kitten trapped between her knees. Then – the bolt! And Huntress drops the hallowed peach to devotedly stalk her panicked prey. (55)

First Honorable Mention

Spinach Salad

By Shawna Mayer,   Springfield, IL

Second Honorable Mention

Animated Acting

By Johnnye Gerhardt,   Omaha, NE

Third Honorable Mention

Rage Against Machines

By Angie Schendt,   Omaha, NE

Fourth Honorable Mention

Limitations

By Steve McKenna,  Albion, NY

]]> http://www.finelines.org/2010/04/winners-of-the-55-word-fiction-contest/feed/ 0 http://www.finelines.org/2010/03/on-bliss-by-katria-wyslotsky/ http://www.finelines.org/2010/03/on-bliss-by-katria-wyslotsky/#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:38:49 +0000 Jeff http://www.finelines.org/?p=478 On Bliss

Katria Wyslotsky

I’ve spent the past few days considering what I have come to understand as or believe to be bliss. What is it about bliss that makes life worth living? What is it about bliss that makes us smile like lunatics, sigh in ultimate contentment, and cry tears of joy? Just what exactly is this thing we call bliss?

Bliss, as you mature and change, alters itself to better suit your needs and life. As children, my brother and I believed that perfect bliss was my grandmother’s home in New Jersey. She and my aunt lived in the first floor apartment and my parents, brother, and I lived on the second floor. The yard seemed to be enormous, full of cubby holes in which to hide, and there were always kittens, little multicolored kittens that seemed to miraculously appear out of nowhere and were then smuggled into the house to play with. The pool was an old nickel wash tub my grandmother had used to launder clothing in before she purchased a washer that had evil looking ringers to squeeze the water out of the clothes. Sometimes, during the spin cycle, it would vibrate so hard that the washer appeared to be walking towards us which would send us shrieking up the stairs to the safety of the kitchen.

We all lived together in the white house with the wide dark gray porch that spanned the entire front portion of the house on White Street. I was four when we moved to Illinois, but I still remember the house. I can still smell the basement and the Ivory soap flakes my grandmother used to launder clothing. It is where my grandmother, once a raven haired Flapper, taught my brother and I how to dance The Shimmy and where my aunt taught us the words to Beatles tunes. It is where we learned our first prayers. It is where our lives began. It is where I first experienced bliss.

A few years ago, while visiting relatives for the Christmas holidays, I returned to my roots, so to speak, and went back to White Street. The yard was overgrown and littered with trash and the house, now a mottled yellowed gray, was in disrepair, and the windows on the first floor were all boarded up. The railing that was once so lovely and graceful as it wrapped around the porch was missing posts so that it looked as if the sadly grinning home was missing teeth. I found out later that the house was being used by drug addicts and was scheduled to be demolished. I will never return to the house on White Street. I am afraid that if I return and find that it has been razed my memories will disappear.

In high school, bliss was a concert at Madison Square Garden where the music was so loud that you felt like the drummer was beating his sticks on your heart. Bliss was a greasy piece of pizza on a Saturday night. Bliss was a prom date. Oh, those frantic weeks before the event, the torment of finding a gown and a date…all relieved by one slightly pimply young man agreeing to escort me to the prom. Bliss was also being with my friends. There’s nothing like a group of adolescent girls in mid-gossip shrieking with laughter as they walk down the street all elbows and knees, wind-swept hair, and flushed cheeks. We traveled in packs, like small, defenseless animals, taking over the local restaurants and annoying the staff. Bliss was having best friends. I still keep contact with two friends from high school. One is a musician who is currently recording her fourth CD and the other is married to the art director of People Magazine, of all things. Is there art in People Magazine? Honestly, I don’t think so, but that’s only my opinion.

Bliss, in my senior year of high school, was being accepted to Georgetown University as part of the graduating class of 1981. I met my room-mate and we immediately had a connection. I traveled down to the university to get my bearings and to learn the layout of the campus. Then, in May of the year in which I graduated from high school, my parents informed me that I was to return home and enroll at the University of Illinois. They weren’t going to pay for any other school, and I lacked the courage to try and make it on my own. Bliss seemed to disappear in a few tersely worded sentences muttered over the telephone line and I moved back to Chicago and registered for classes as I was told to do. After my freshman year at Illinois, the Dean sent me a lovely letter requesting that I enroll at a different institution of higher learning (aka, the local community college). I would be welcomed back once my grades got better. My GPA freshman year was 0.8. That’s all. Just 0.8. That, in itself, is an accomplishment! The expression on my parent’s faces as they received the news gave me a particularly perverse bliss. I told them I wasn’t ready for college. Bliss would have been to listen to me in the first place.

When I was twenty-one, bliss was my son. Never had I seen a creature as miraculous as he was. I loved his smell, the way he made little noises, how he laughed, how he smiled, how he managed to without a single coherent word make me do whatever he wanted…he was the wizard behind the curtain in what was my Oz. He was my best friend, my buddy, my pal, my guaranteed Saturday night date, and my road dog. He laughed at all my jokes, he liked to read the same books that I read, we both hated cooked carrots, and our favorite pastime was to lie on the couch and nap to the sound of a televised golf game. Have you ever listened to a televised golf game? The broadcasters speak in low, soothing tones so as not to disturb the golfer’s thoughts. Why is that? Why were they whispering to people through the television? It can’t possibly detract from the golfer’s technique or performance. And, after all, the broadcasters always seemed to be in a different location. But, if you have a chance, when it’s golfing season, watch a PGA match. It’s better than Valium to put you to sleep. One night, without the benefit of golf, my son went to sleep and never woke up. Bliss disappeared in a flash and agony took over my life for a long, long time.

In my thirties, bliss was a lengthy vacation somewhere that had pristine beaches and warm tropical waters. Bliss was a Pina Colada on a hot evening. Bliss was not having to answer the phone or try to beat rush hour traffic. Bliss was dating a man who wasn’t married, was gainfully employed, and didn’t live with his mother or another woman with whom he was “just friends.” Bliss was a pair of Manolo Blahnik pumps purchased at Nieman Marcus that made you strut, not walk. Bliss was a lunch date. Bliss was a Porsche 944, black exterior, with taupe colored leather seats. Bliss was finally taking a sip of a single malt, well aged Scotch and know what it meant to taste the peat. Bliss was an underwire bra that didn’t sprout fangs each day promptly at five o’clock. Bliss was having some money stashed away in an IRA, mutual funds, and a 401K. Bliss was a parking spot within a hundred yards of your apartment building. Bliss was being invited to a wedding and not having to sit at the singles table. Bliss was a walk down Michigan Avenue in the winter when all the little white lights in the trees twinkle in the gentle snowfall. Bliss was the perfect little black dress. Bliss was being able to afford to have someone else shovel the sidewalk. Bliss was the Green Mill on a Saturday night with your eyes closed listening to jazz so hot it made your toes curl. Bliss was a good dental plan at your place of employment. Bliss existed in possessions, of which I had many. Bliss was short lived. But then, bliss quickly returned once I realized that getting a divorce was the only way to rectify a colossal mistake. Bliss was when he packed his bags and finally moved out.

My forties began with a stunning lack of bliss in prison. Each day, an eternity, seemed to bring its own agony. All of the things that I’d spent the previous two decades running from finally caught up to me and sunk its teeth directly into my somewhat sagging behind that was no longer firm and youthful. The world became a tiny place or very little beauty and equally little bliss. Bliss was surviving a day behind an electrified fence emotionally and intellectually whole and intact. Bliss was a two hour visit from my mother once a month. Bliss was the familiar scent of her cologne on my clothes after she left. Bliss was receiving mail and knowing that you hadn’t been forgotten. Bliss was the day after Christmas, Thanksgiving, or your birthday because it wasn’t as painful to be alone. Bliss was a day when you were not reminded of your unfortunate past and events which lead you to prison. Bliss was the fifteen minutes of phone time allotted to you on a daily basis when you heard the voices of those you most loved in the world. Bliss was the perfume sample insert inside a magazine that gave you a momentary feeling of being human and pretty again as you rubbed it against your wrists. Bliss was finally and forever leaving prison. Bliss was sleeping in my own bed once again. Bliss was hugging the dog. Bliss was washing the dishes. Bliss was answering the phone. Bliss was knowing that no one read your mail before you received it. Bliss was having real cash in your wallet. Bliss was driving the car down a long and empty country road with the windows rolled down, the wind in your hair, and the stereo blasting. Bliss was simply being sober and alive.

Not much can be said about the past eight years of my life and bliss with the exception that it has been a period of tremendous change in my life, in my environment, in my social life, in my family life, and in my future. Gosh…actually, that’s a lot to be said, isn’t it? They say that a woman does not come into her own until she is in her forties. I had difficulty, given my circumstances, adjusting to being forty. I felt that the best years of my life were behind me and that there was nothing but work and drudgery ahead of me until the day I died. I was lead to believe that, without a spouse or a child to raise, my life was empty, joyless, and held nothing good for the future unless I took some drastic action on my own.

So, I mustered up my courage and I went back to school. It was difficult, at the beginning, re-adjusting to a new routine and developing study habits. The fact that I seem to be continuously surrounded by teenagers in class didn’t seem to help much. But, day by day, I became re-involved in life. I have, once and for all, finally convinced myself and have come to firmly believe that my future is not determined by my past and I am not defined as a woman, person, citizen, friend, aunt, sister, or daughter by the worst thing that I have ever done. I am defined by the last good deed I performed, no matter how insignificant and small it may be to others for it was important to someone somewhere in the world. Some people never get to this point of understanding. Some people never truly experience true happiness, much less bliss. All I did was open the door to my heart to a new experience and bliss moved right in. I have been fortunate for I have loved, I have lost, and now I am grateful for I am truly blessed. I am, once again, in bliss.

So, this whole piece began on following your bliss, didn’t it? That if one follows their bliss wonderful things will happen. That’s true, I guess. But its been my experience that you don’t really follow your bliss in life. Instead, bliss has a tendency to grab you by the seat of the pants, send you flying forward at warp speed, all the while shrieking, “LOOK AT IT!! LOOK AT YOUR LIFE! ISN’T THIS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE AND BEAUTIFUL? This, you dummy, is BLISS!” Bliss forces you look at life through its own eyes and teaches you the true meaning of life. What you do with all the information presented to you is entirely up to your own discretion.

At this time in my life, bliss is a new book that is a tropical ocean, fathoms deep, which one dives into without first dipping a toe in to check if it’s too cold. Bliss is a pair of comfortable shoes. Bliss is a wonderful piece of art. Bliss is a balanced checkbook. Bliss is seeing the first tiny purple Crocuses that shoot up from under the snow and open their petals to the sun. Bliss is a family gathering. Bliss is my 68 year old mother surviving two major surgeries within a year. Bliss is my brother’s rapidly receding hairline and the hundreds of barbs I fling at him regarding hair loss and aging. Bliss is being in the same room with my nephew and nieces who amaze me with their command of the world and sense of humor.

Bliss is a man who is so NOT my type who makes me laugh, who understands my references, who is intelligent, kind, generous, creative, and who embodies so many other admirable qualities. He is proudly bald, has a bit of a tummy, and an annoying habit of rubbing his goatee in pensive thought, but he is bliss. He is a nap on a snowy day. He is a good book, a walk in the park at day’s end in the warm rays of the sunset, a full belly after a particularly delicious meal, and a hearty irrepressible laugh. He is without guile or affectation. He, at the age of 48, still doesn’t know how to swim, but I plan on teaching him how to finally float freely and blissfully. He sings and dances alone and without a concern that others may be watching. He plays his brass instruments for the sheer joy of hearing his own music. He is a day at an amusement park. He is a breathtaking rollercoaster ride. He is an unexpected and colorfully wrapped gift. He is a boy at heart with all of the annoying childish habits that I vociferously rail against and secretly admire. He loves the fact that I’m smart. He makes me feel beautiful. He makes me feel wanted. He has brought bliss into my life. He is my bliss.

So, do we truly follow our bliss? Does bliss lead you to ultimate happiness and satisfaction? I guess that that’s what life has always dictated will occur if you follow instructions and advice carefully. One should studiously work toward and follow your bliss, so I’ve been told, but I disagree. I honestly believe that in every lie one tells there is an element of truth and that in every truth there is a small element of a lie. In every fiction there is a provable fact and vice versa. There is a sun and there is a moon, a yin and a yang, and for every action there is an opposite but equal reaction. The same theory can be applied to bliss.

In every bliss, there is a bit of agony, and in every agony there is a bit of bliss. What you do with all of it, all the information you receive whether in agony or in bliss, is what’s important. That’s what determines if you’ll remain in bliss or in agony. It’s all in your hands so choose carefully. Go wherever bliss may lead you and pay close attention to what you are shown. Never, not for a single second, think that it eludes you. Listen to it and heed its call, or sometimes, its whisper. Bliss cannot be ignored, but it can be unintentionally overlooked. Bliss is in the small and everyday things in our lives that we take for granted. Bliss is a perfectly brewed cup of coffee with just the right amount of cream and sugar. Bliss is the way the dog stretches and yawns when you both get out of bed in the morning. Bliss is watching a movie that makes you laugh so hard your stomach hurts. Bliss is munching on a bagel with Lox and Cream Cheese while you’re reading the New York Times on a Sunday morning. Bliss is remembering the old nickel tub my brother and I played in as children, the dent that was left in the plaster molding over the stairway in the house on White Street for it was where my father invariably managed to smack his head as he sped down the stairs, and the kittens that frolicked under the bed linens on summer nights when the windows to the house were thrown open so that we could hear the crickets sing. Bliss is a purple Popsicle and the accompanying startling purple tongue in a hot August day.

Bliss is your mother’s lips pressed to your forehead feeling if you have a smidge of temperature. Bliss is a idle taxi on a rainy day. Bliss is a long, hot bath with someone you love. Bliss is looking at your prom pictures and thinking that you once thought that you were bulletproof and finally came to the understanding that no-one gets through life unscathed and wondering what on earth possessed you to purchase that incredibly ugly gown you’re wearing in the photo in the first place. Bliss is knowing that you now dress more appropriately. Bliss is in that one moment in the spring when you notice that everything which has been gray for months during the winter has, suddenly and miraculously, turned a bright and brilliant shade of green in the spring.

Bliss is each small victory, each passing day, each smile given in your direction, each thank you that you give or you receive, each hand you extend toward another person, each time you return home after a long day toiling at work, and bliss is that wonderful moment between sleeping and waking when the world is perfection and all you feel is contentment. Bliss is the sudden and inexplicable tears coursing down your cheeks from the pain of too much joy and tenderness.

Do not expect bliss to arrive in a timely manner or exactly when you need it. Bliss will simply wander into your life when you need it most. Trust bliss; it always leads you where you need to go whether you want to believe it or not. Don’t fight it. Don’t try to prevent it. Don’t sit around trying to ignore it because it will find you and knock on the door to your soul until you let it in. It exists. You are bliss’s target, and, sooner or later, bliss will find you. Then, when you’re totally immersed in it, wallow in it. Swim along with its current. Wrap it around you like your favorite blanket. Wear it like a wide-brimmed, straw hat with a bright red ribbon tied around the brim. Cannonball into it with a mighty shout. Ride it off into the sunset. Smell it, taste it, swallow it, hold it, and keep it with you always.

Let bliss lead you. It knows you better than you will ever know yourself and will always take you where you need, but not necessarily want, to go. Bliss flies, so relax. Enjoy the flight. Soar over the mountains and into the clouds with it. Rest assured, bliss knows the most joyful route to your destination.

Karen O’Leary

The phrase was invented to thwart Mother Wrath and reduce any hard working mother to putty in her kids’ hands. And, it is guaranteed to send shivers down the spine of even the most seasoned Veteran Mom.

Picture this scene. I’m dedicating my already sore fingers to a mound of fresh vegetables, trying to prepare a truly nutritious and wholesome meal for my family of four. A loud crash echoes from our basement. My heart hammers in my chest as I brake for the stairs, my mind rolling through a list of possible casualties. My foot slips on the carpet, but I manage to right myself before breaking my neck.

My girls stand side by side near the fireplace, ready for battle. My eldest’s quivering voice pleads, “I’m sorry Mom, but we couldn’t help it.” It’s all part of the act.

I stare in mild shock as my new brass and glass candleholder lay in shattered on the bricks and surrounding carpet. My youngest has the offending basketball tucked under her arm as she claims, “It was an accident.”

“But you know you’re not supposed to play with balls in the family room,” I explain, trying to fend off their defense. My anger boils just below the surface.

They look up at me with repentant eyes. “We’re really sorry Mom,” my oldest appeals, tipping her head to one side. It was a masterful move sure to melt even the most hardened heart.

“We’ll buy you a new one,” her sister adds with the precision of a skilled lawyer. There was no way a few coins will cover the cost. I can’t afford to replace it.

Disappointment replaces my anger as I stoop down and pick up a piece of the crackled-finish glass. “I’ll help you Mommy.” My older daughter rests her small hand on my shoulder.

Meanwhile, my youngest carries the offending ball into the next room, returning with the wastebasket. She holds up the brass base of my broken treasure. “This is still good.”

I gently run my fingers over the shiny metal before sliding it into the trash. “It’s not any good without the other part,” my voice explains barely above a whisper.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot my eldest picking up a piece of glass. I suck in a breath, trying to calm my fears. In one smooth swoop, I grab her wrist, slipping potential harm from her tiny fingers.

I banish the two with the rigorous sentence of sitting quietly on the couch to watch television until supper. Their smiles tell me the defense has won another case. No matter, they’re quiet, giving me a chance to clean up and regain my equilibrium after swimming through a sea of emotions.

As I’ve heard the words, “I’m sorry Mom, but I couldn’t help it,” repeated over the years, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t God’s way of helping a tired mother control her anger. For that, I am grateful. But, I’d feel truly blessed if I never had to hear these words again.

Jazmond Goss

“Our Fine Lines mission is to provide a beacon of hope for the misunderstood, share a global vision of improved literacy, embrace the passion of human diversity, understand the need for clarity in all communication, and create the lives we desire through the written word.

Fine Lines is a national, literary, quarterly journal dedicated to publishing writers of all ages and interests. Led by dedicated volunteers who provide creative oversight, it is an inclusive, nurturing, nonprofit, educational, creative writing community engaged in the thoughtful pursuit of beauty and truth.” 
Our Motto: “Write On”

******

A delicious warmth engulfs me as I walk into Julio’s Restaurant from the biting cold outside. The smells of tempting, unidentifiable foods tickle my nose and tantalize my taste buds. A small murmur permeates the room; a burst of laughter breaks out in the back, and I know where my party is sitting. Making my way to the longest table, compiled of several shorter tables strung together, the Fine Lines Special Editors sit close to a window, and several people are reading, eating, or chatting.

Looking up from his papers, David Martin smiles a welcome to me. A few of the ladies at the table look up and smile also, as he extends his hand; I take it in greeting, and he asks me how I’ve been, how I like UNL, and brags to a companion across the table, “She went to Amherst last year,” as I take my seat. I smile, meekly, a little uncomfortable in this new environment. I had never been to one of the Fine Lines Special Editors’ meetings before, despite being an Online Editor for a year.

I first heard about Fine Lines through my creative writing teacher in high school, Kim Bultsma, who was an editor herself. The summer after I graduated from high school, I assisted in instructing a Fine Lines Creative Writers’ Camp held at Bellevue West High School. After this week of intensive writing, I had my first piece published in Fine Lines. That fall, I moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, to attend college at the University of Massachusetts. I was offered the opportunity to work with the journal as an editor when I met David at the camp and became a Special Online Editor. I would get articles e-mailed to me to edit and have printed in the journal. After my year in Massachusetts, I moved back to Nebraska, where I grew up, and attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where tuition is cheaper and home is closer. Lincoln’s close proximity to Omaha allowed me to finally attend one of the meetings and meet some other editors who worked with Fine Lines for a long time.

David Martin is an English teacher and has taught high school and college students for decades before moving on to teach college students. This is his story of how Fine Lines began in a high school English class, as shown in his piece “Fine Lines: The Beginning”: “In 1990, one of my English classes was filled with downtown, street-wise, tough high school teenagers who were one step from expulsion. All of them failed English class before, at least once, some of them several times. They did not want to be in school, and they couldn’t wait to leave those classroom walls . . . but the meanest looking and most physical was a white boy named Jack . . . . This group of “at-risk” juvenile delinquents was quiet, like the silence before a storm. If they misbehaved, they knew their days as students in that urban high school were over, and the street was the only thing they had waiting for them. Most of them knew what that meant: gangs, hard work, prison, and an early death from drugs. They all had friends or family in one of those places.”
According to David, Jack never talked to anyone, not even David himself. Struggling to discover the best way to reach these students, he knew he needed to try an approach different from the techniques that other teachers used in the past.

“I decided we would write every day and keep a journal of our own work. Our writing notebooks became our textbooks, and I graded their work by the pound. In this class, the sweat that appeared from pushing a pen across the lines on the paper would earn credit. Three days a week, I would bring ideas for us to write about, and two days a week, different students would bring ideas from their personal lives for the class to write about. In effect, they would share in teaching the class. We sat in a circle, and everyone was equal.”

David was surprised to discover the philosophical and intellectual person hiding behind Jack’s mass. At 6 foot 4 inches and 225 pounds, he was rather intimidating to both David and the rest of the students in his class.

“When [Jack] turned in his notebook to me, as the others did, every Friday, I made sure to write something about his thoughts on every page. All my comments were positive. I believe in the power of positive reinforcement, and he had so much rejection in his life that I did not want to add to that long, negative list of ‘downers.’ I was surprised to find out that he was a deep thinker. No one could see what he wrote but me. I was amazed. His words were philosophical and intellectual. The sentences and paragraphs were not filled with the anger he generated with his body language and glacial stares in class.”

I feel that this interaction David had with his student is a very important piece of Fine Lines’ history. Without David’s interactions with Jack, I’m not sure Fine Lines would exist today: “[Jack] was the primary inspiration who sparked that anemic, classroom pamphlet to grow into Fine Lines, now a quarterly magazine for new writers of all ages. What started as a classroom motivator to encourage marginal students to write more . . . became a publication . . . .”

Because of his interaction with Jack primarily, but the other students as well, David began to believe, that writing has healing affects on the soul, and the opportunity to release emotions lost inside a person can have wondrous effects. The opportunity to express something in writing may give one the feeling of being heard, rather than feeling ignored, and printing one’s writing particularly offers this, because it becomes far more likely that the writing will be read by others.

David said to Jack about writing: “Hold onto that notebook, and tonight, write into it like you are writing to your best friend. Tell it what you are thinking. Hold onto your pen, like it was your life-line. Don’t let go of it, until you are so tired of writing that you have no energy left. Whatever you do, tell the truth with your words. Make every word ring with honesty. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just write. Tell the truth. When you are done, let your ‘new friend’ talk back to you, and all you have to do is listen. Write everything down. You don’t have to show it to anyone, unless you choose to do so.

Through Fine Lines, David offers that opportunity to do so. He offers people the chance to share their words. Hurt, forgiveness, anger, joy, tears and laughter – anything that someone needs to express can be written, printed and in turn, read by another. Fine Lines offers creative writers an outlet and encourages those who are too afraid to share their writing with the world, to do so. By offering an inside look to the interactions of literary communities, one may be encouraged to join others, rather than tip-toeing around on the outskirts, desperately looking in

Fine Lines offers this outlet to people of any age; a piece of poetry written by an eight-year old third grader was printed, as well as several pieces by a ninety-year old great, great grandmother. Because the journal wishes to reach all authors and readers, there are no specific age groups printed; everyone can submit and have something printed. Because of this, there is a content restriction. The subject matter must remain clean (no profanity or overt sexuality).

Although Fine Lines is based in Omaha, Nebraska, the journal reaches much farther than the borders of this central state. Articles have been printed from every state in the US, and Fine Lines is breaching international borders, too. Writing from people in Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Dubai, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, and Thailand have also been printed in this ever-expanding publication.

Almost every student must write a paper for a class, whether in elementary, middle, high school, or college, and some must even write for their careers. Most do not identify themselves as writers, despite this heavy involvement in composition. What people do not see is how their writing may be considered a piece of art, especially if it was something thrown together at the last minute for a class. But anything that conveys a thought or feeling, right down to a sticky note with a poorly drawn heart or a grocery list may become a work of art, if the creator allows it. This is something that most literary artists recognize and wish to further in the minds of others. It is not necessary to write elegantly to write a book; it is not necessary to write wispy rhymes to write poetry. In order for one to write, a person simply puts pen to paper, fingers to a key board, and one’s thoughts and emotions pour forth. As editors, it is our duty to collaborate with writers and encourage them to do their best when they choose to share their thoughts, hearts, and feelings with our readers.

“Above the generations, the lonely prophets rise,
while truth flings dawn and daystar within their slowing eyes.
And other eyes beholding are kindled by that light
and dawn becomes the morning, the darkness put to flight.”

These lines from the hymn, “The Morning Hangs a Signal” with lyrics by William Channing Gannett, 1840-1923, proclaim the glory of the light. There is nothing unusual there; we find ourselves frequently proclaiming the glory of the light, even today, when “We sing, when night is darkest, the day’s returning glow.”

We are much in love with candles, candles of memory, chalices, and holiday lights in our windows. Light is metaphorically a good thing. Images of daylight and its beauty flood our vocabulary. Light is good, and darkness is, well, not so good. Daylight is good, and nighttime is something to get through.

We talk about the “light of knowledge” and “the light of truth.” Once we talked about “the light at the end of the tunnel.” We are surrounded by so many positive images of light that night and darkness have no chance. And now we have entered our traditional season of lights, Hanukah and Christmas. The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light says a line from one of the Christian gospels. Hanukah celebrates events in the world of the ancient Hebrews that took place a century and a half before the birth of the modern era, before, that is, the birth of Jesus, whose birth we are told, brought light into the world.

Here we are, then, a week away from the solstice, which is the naturalistic foundation of our festivities of light, and the world – at least the world of the northern hemisphere – sees shorter days and longer nights. Ancient people might well have imagined that the trend would continue, until all the world was covered with night. I have begun to feel that of late.

It was not just chance that placed these two religious holidays at the time of the winter solstice. The Christmas legend tells of the triumph of the power of light, from the star that guided the shepherds and others, to the theological concept of the light of the world.

My wife and I and our two youngest children lived in England for six months many years ago, and by the time late October arrived, we were putting our two sons in the school bus at 8:00 a.m. each morning when it was almost totally dark and greeting them each afternoon at 4:00 p.m. when it was also almost totally dark. So I am as caught up as any among us in this celebration of light.

When my wife and I were in Maine in early October this year, the local weather man would end his daily report with statistics about how many daylight hours we had lost since mid-June, right down to the minute, and, I tell you, it got discouraging. But I think we ought to be a bit more tolerant of the night, of darkness, a bit more kindly in the way we speak of the absence of light. A song or even a sermon in praise of night and darkness would be most appropriate at this season of light. So this is it.

No doubt, night will never be as popular as daytime; thus it probably needs a boost from the pulpit, a sermonic defense of “la belle nuit.” Forget for a time such phrases as “the dark night of the soul” and give some thought to the gentleness of darkness and night.

Night is not simply an interval between two days, between yesterday and tomorrow. It has its own being, its own place in the scheme of things. Being intelligent men and women who understand a lot about the movements of the earth, we know why darkness happens. And yet, in our speech and in our moods, the role of night and darkness is denigrated. Shall we speak of the Dark Ages? Of black magic? Black lists? Blackmail? I used the word “denigrated,” and I have learned over the years that it comes from the Latin, “denigrare,” which means “to blacken.”

There are negative images associated with white and with light as well, but they are far outnumbered by the negatives associated with darkness and with night. Ghosts are white, for instance, but so are angels. White is associated with purity and innocence, but too much light blinds us, as any alpine skier knows. There are racial implications to all of this, as well, but that is for another time.

The Psalmist wrote that the light and the dark were both alike to God; but they are not alike to us; it is darkness and night that need our support. I take it to be a truism that each of us needs an element of mystery in our lives, of that which surpasses our understanding. Something beyond our reach, something that intrigues the imagination. The night sky will do it for many of us. A dark night, far beyond the lights of the city, will do it, a sky whose darkness brings forth the stars and planets.

To be sure, there is fear in the darkness, too. I remember talking to a fearful child once upon a time about how nothing changes in the dark. See, I put the light out in the room, and all is in darkness, and then I put the light on, and nothing has changed. That may be a way to deal with childhood fears, but, in truth everything changes in the dark – that is the appeal, the mystery of it.

Anyone who has walked in the night in the country or in the mountains or anywhere far from artificial light knows this. The night makes the world more spacious, more vast, and, surely, more mysterious. All things look different. The commonplace things of this world are transformed by this alchemy of darkness. There is no ugliness at night. An old Arab proverb, more than a bit sexist, no doubt, says, “In the dark, all women are beautiful.”

There is another Arab saying: “At night, all men believe in God.” I doubt that to be true, but it is true that at night there is mystery, the unknown, and the universe is full of wonderment. In the daylight, we see things clearly, or at least we think we do. A house looks like a house; a tree looks like a tree. In the dark, things change their shapes and take upon themselves any shape we can imagine.

Nighttime is, I think, difficult for dogmatic folks, for those who are overly self-assured. It brings everything into question, even ourselves. It tells us that truth can be concealed. No wonder so many religious folks over the years have railed against the powers of darkness.

Shakespeare may have written that the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman, but that only creates more confusion about our attitudes about darkness and light. Be that as it may, there is nothing quite like a tranquil walk on a dark night to remind us that, although there must be basic truths in our universe, we don’t always feel too sure about what they are.

Think kindly thoughts about darkness. Night and darkness bring to our overly active minds and lives a bit of a respite. Nighttime can soothe and soften; it can gentle the harshness of our sometimes conflicted lives. Night is a thing of space and shadows. Louis Untermeyer’s little poem speaks of the world at night when only stars provided light as a place when “Earth, bathed in this holy light/ Is seen without its scars.”

Without the sometime garish light of day, the Earth can seem gentler, quieter. It is then, of course, when we sleep, when we gain that needed sedation. The ending of Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town is “The strain’s so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest.”

Darkness brings us sleep, sleep that “knits up the raveled sleeve of care” and restores the body and the spirit, and enables us to begin each day anew.

We are quite small in the darkness of night. Walk abroad at night, away from the lights of the city and the only lights are those from distant galaxies and stars. Beyond the moon are vast distances, so vast, indeed, that we cannot really imagine them. And who can feel big when measured against such vast distances of space and time?

The constellations are unimpressed with my problems, my bursitis, and this sense of our own littleness, our own unimportance in the larger scheme of things is probably a good thing for you and me. How absurd our little problems seem in the dark distances of space. How petty our concerns. A strong dose of nighttime darkness can cleanse us, purge us of the clutter and the trivialities that accumulate during the sunlight of the day.

That lovely line from Robert Frost: “I have been one acquainted with the night” is one most night walkers can respond to. There is another poem by Frost that touches on this theme. (I have been working on a Frost lecture to give at a Lifelong Learning Institute course on biography that I will be doing in the early spring, so I am filled with Frost these days.) Here is his poem called “Acceptance.”

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud

And goes down burning into the gulf below,

No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud

At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know

It is the change to darkness in the sky.

Murmuring something quiet in her breast,

One bird begins to close a faded eye;

Or overtaken too far from his nest,

Hurrying low above the grove, some waif

Swoops just in time to his remembered tree,

At most he thinks or twitters softly, “Safe!

Now let the night be dark for all of me.

Let the night be too dark for me to see

Into the future. Let what will be, be.”

Walt Whitman wrote of “the tender and growing night.” And Keats, in his “Ode to a Nightingale” says “Tender is the night,” which F. Scott Fitzgerald took for the title of his novel. In the darkness, I am part of the world about me. “Darkness has divinity for me,” wrote an English mystic poet.

Others have said something similar. Here is Unitarian minister, A. Powell Davies, writing about Christmas: “In legend upon legend and story after story, Christmas always begins not with daybreak and the coming of morning, but at midnight. It was at midnight that the primitive observances began. It was the darkest hour of the night – not in the glow of morning – that the shepherds of the legend heard the angels sing.”

And, of course, the Wise Men were guided not by the sun but by a star. The legends have grown both beautiful and fanciful. Yet, they have never drifted out of the darkness into a premature daylight. They have stayed quite close to the inner truth from which they draw their substance: the truth that men and women must find their faith, not in the daylight, but in the dark.

In the bright light of our daytime hours, we can sometimes see for many miles, across a street or even a town, or, perhaps, from a mountain top, for a hundred miles. In the darkness of the night, we can see for untold millions of miles, into eternity even. One cannot imagine the poet writing, “I saw eternity the other morning.” Of course not. If eternity is to be seen it will be seen at night, as the seventeenth century poet, Henry Vaughn, had it: “I saw eternity the other night.”

I don’t know what eternity is any more than you do, but I do know that I am content that poets use the word. There is a sense of distance in it and a hint of mystery and of wonder and even awe. Those are good things to have as part of our lives.

To love the night and the darkness is not to forsake the value or importance of light. Someone once said of Mozart’s music: “Joy overtakes sorrow without extinguishing it.” That’s just about perfect. Night overtakes day without extinguishing it.

The days of our years are made up alike of light and of darkness, of days and nights. This little sermonic enterprise today tells us nothing at all that is new. It is but a reminder to us, as the Simon and Garfunkel song said, that darkness is a friend and deserves a better press. “Hello darkness, my old friend/I’ve come to talk with you again.”

Enjoy this season of light but remember that the owl of wisdom comes at dusk.