Storyteller for Duffy Barkley

Before I ever dreamed of being a writer, I was a storyteller. I remember that the games I used to play with my brother and the neighborhood kids were not games of football or frisbee, but games of imagination. We would, in reality, be riding our bikes in circles around the block and the city park - but the whole time we would be following my imagination as the bikes became wild mustangs with names like "Singing Moon." we would wrestle a sled to the top of the monkey bars and sit balanced there while I told of our adventures in outer space aboard our spacecraft. we would clamp the metal roller skates to our tennis shoes and dart around the full basement, but we would be people who had been born with bone wheels on our feet and had become inventors simply to deal with the needs that created, a way to transport pants onto our bodies, a way to zip up mountains and so on.

My brother was surprisingly willing to allow me to direct the play, even following my cues when I ordered, "Now you say . . ."

Then I lost my confidence in my stories. The kids at school did not understand how i played, and I became a bearer of "Dixie Fleas" who had to have invisible disinfectant sprayed on any desk I had occupied before another child would sit there. At school at least. I lost my voice.

Then Jr. High and our school blended with two others to create classes where not everyone knew I was outcast. Some people actually asked to see what I was writing all the time behind the curtain of my long red hair. Amazingly, the comments were positive and they asked for more. But I was still timid and mostly believed that my stories were not as good as the books I loved. After all, there was nothing coming from my pen that didn't share aspects with things others had written.

So as I grew, I wrote poems and stories and tucked them away, I had to write but the only writing I shared was the letters I wrote by the mailtruck load to friends and family.

Then, the books I loved fell into a wide range, but one category completely claimed my heart. The Narnia Books, A wrinkle in Time, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I wanted to write about my own creation of a world, but it felt like they best stories had been told and so were off limits.

That is when I found the Harry potter series. Like most people, I loved Harry and Company, but I was astonished at how so much of their story was elements from other stories. It was old stories re-told in a new and delightful way, not because no-one had mentioned a castle or a three headed dog before, but because of the compelling friends we could make in that world.

So I started thinking of the stories we all love. They are different but they are all the same in one thing, Harry potter, Narnia, Cheers, Lord of The Rings, Friends, MASH, Star Trek. The addictive stories we beg for more of, have the kind of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn’t have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other’s back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually.

So I started realizing I needed to develop characters we could love, before creating the world for them. Then i walked into a Big Dog Outlet store and there was a wall of Punny T-shirts about Hairy Pawter and the Goblet of Fur, Or The Sorcerer's Bone. I was amazed that an author could be popular enough to be infiltrating the public mind lie this, and thought I'd love to have the Big Dog shirts make fun of my character.

That is when I started to dream of a boy, with Cerebral Palsy, who walked with crutches and so had a kind of 4 legged gait. He was 9 years old and named "Duffy Barkley" but he definitely was not a dog. He , survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy.

I finally wrote the book, With the help of NaNoWriMo, and got a free proof copy from Createspace, but now the doubts come again. Do I go ahead and let Createspace publish it, do I try to find an agent? I love "Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog" and so do the people I've shared it with.

It has those friends we all want. Now times are turning more difficult again. The world needs that kind of support. We need a source of encouragement so that we can find a way to be that kind of support when we are needed. As times are dark, people look for a reason to laugh, love and hope again.

Duffy Barkley is not a dog, a middle grade fantasy, gives you those friends, that escape, that voice of hope in the darkness. Duffy is alone, handicapped, desperate. He is picked-on, lost, & yet, never defeated. In the most alien of places he finds friends. In the most dire of emergencies he finds courage. In the most evil of villains he finds compassion and a solution. In giving away what he most needs, he gains everything.

Now I have to find away to share him with todays kids.

Time flows slower in Greyback Creek

In the Mid 1980s my husband and I were in college in Ashland, Oregon and one of our favorite places to get away from the Rogue Valley was up by Oregon Caves at a perfect campground. Perfect because it was beautiful and the water was swimmable and the air was hot and dry, but no-body came. Even in July we could get our favorite spot easily because it has no running water, just an outhouse.

So for five years we brought almost everyone who ever visited us, there. My family, friends from Germany, Friends from high school. And if it got in the triple digits we stayed cool in Greyback, or we went into the caves where it is jacket cold year round.

WELL, we graduated from Southern Oregon and then we moved to the coast. In the Redwoods, and somehow, even though Greyback had this one big boulder, where I loved to climb out of the water, and where I would send myself mentally, every time I got stressed. I'd just close my eyes and tell myself, the ferns are still growing and the water is still swirling round the rock no matter what is happening here - there it is peaceful-but we went other places and didn't get back.

So for my birthday yesterday, we took our teens and a couple of their friends, and met some friends from Ashland, and grilled kabobs and hiked and swam all day. I'm not even sunburned, love sunscreen! And it was over 100* while here, just an hour and a half away, we have been downright cold. The swing my Dad loved 20 yeas ago was still there, strange to see because Dad died 13 years ago. Odd how things can outlast people so easily.

My Music Man and I have changed way more than this timeless place. I have pictures of us there in the mid-80's and yesterday. Time flows more strongly across us, as it should.

The trees had fallen across and damned the creek for a lovely, temporary waterfall - and yes, the water was still flowing over my boulder and still just as icy and crystal clear.

We didn't get into the caves, part of the deal on getting teens to come with you, is they have evening jobs to get back for - but Oh, It was so much fun.

The trails had been super manicured, It would all have been wheelchair accessible , so it was all lined with benches and viewing decks and a lovely bridge had been built, but still, on a July Friday, it was empty and we owned it for the day.

There has been a rope swing here as long as we have been coming, but it had been replaced and was sturdy enough to support even the adults

I assembled the kabobs and put them in an orange teriyaki, but my husband cooked them on the extra long, freestanding grill while I explored.

Now, I have new images to meditate on, and a renewed determination to get back a little sooner to Greyback Creek

Once upon a time in China

Once upon a time, half my life ago, My husband and I took a break from our lives as American College Students, and signed up to travel to Beijing China and attend Beijing Teacher's College as exchange students. The Miracles began as soon as we committed to going. we didn't have the money, heck I worked at Taco Bell and he worked for Dominos pizza and we were full time students - but as soon as we said, "let's do this!" Doors opened. We met the University financial aid officer and she knew her job. She helped us get the loans and grants and put us into a program that viewed the whole trip expense as tuition.

Soon we had the next miracle. A girl, age 17, came to our home town as an exchange student from China to the local High School. We met her just before we had to leave and found out that her parents lived only a couple blocks from our dormitory in Beijing. this entrance into a Chinese Family gave us instant friends, who went out of their way to play host. They loaned us their daughter's bike and took us to many places, and invited us repeatedly into their home to eat and visit.

We flew from Oregon to Hong Kong, still a British Colony at that time, then stayed three days and Flew to Japan, and from there to Beijing at last. The first discovery was that the colleges in Beijing did not allow married students, and they claimed that they had believed us to be brother and sister, and fined us $200 dollars to allow us to share a dorm room on the men's floor. This was a time when the average monthly salary in Beijing was $20.

The classes that we took were History,Chinese Education, mandarin and Tai Chi. We got to go on many trips around the country by Bike, train, plane and boat. There were riches beyond imagining and a treasure of history, even though some still bore the scars of destruction from Mao's Cultural Revolution. There was also a lot of poverty, but not poverty of spirit. Over and over again we met people with no qualms about inviting us into their homes and allowing us to hold their babies and share their food. they sometimes shared one water spigot with 6 families, or had no refrigeration, or their toilet was a trench with boards across it, but they always made us feel welcome. They were richer than a lot of penny pinching people in McMansions around me every day now.

I have been looking at the photographs from that semester and realizing that no other period of my life, so shaped who I have become. Because I realized that even in vastly different cultures, people are people with many more good people in the faces you meet than "Bad Strangers." i have to admit that sometimes it was hard to be the obvious minority. I was as tall or taller than most people I met, and brightly red-headed and therefore everyone stared. A Lot. But the friends I made are still with me in my heart every day.

When dreams and children combine

Not artistic but old, this combine was the inspiration for many years of adventures for my brothers, cousins and I. Growing up in the hot, dry dusty summers it became everything from Cinderella's coach, to a pirate ship to the rocket to the Moon. In more than one spring we found that our Easter Baskets were hidden in here. We hid during games of hide and seek or when Grandma Grace wanted to assign chores, safe in here.

Life was good when the sun was baking down on this rusty hunk of junk. I'm not sure how active play could be when just sitting on the edge of this machine, clucking your tongue at a magnificent team of stagecoach ponies, but the imagination became more active by the moment, and at times the highest point became a springboard for long jumping competitions where we learned that we could, almost fly. So when the stagecoach was suddenly held up by bandana smothered bandits, the play turned very active, leaping from the coach, cracking whips and tackling the bad guys and earning golden rewards was all part of a day to day life, and easily managed in time to be called in for dinner.

Trip to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala

Sometimes the random choices we feel like we have made for no real reason, suddenly line up to bring us to something really good in our life. Lake Atitlan in Guatemala proved to be that way for me. I had never heard of it, never really had any interest in Central America at all. But. . .

My Dad had died too young, from esophageal cancer, and my Mom was trying to find her way to independence so when she said she really wanted to go, help build houses in Santiago on Atitlan, but was afraid to go alone, and wanted to take our family along. I couldn't imagine telling her "No."

I had travelled to Europe, and lived in China, but other than a trip cross the border at Niagara Falls and Tijuana, my Mom had never been out of the United States.

And After I said "Yes" things happened quickly. So it was that my Mom, my Younger brother, Lance (who has Down's syndrome and a true enthusiasm for Life) and my boys (Just finishing 2nd and 3rd grade) and I, found ourselves on a blue lake in the center of perfect, inverted V, Volcanoes, Speeding across the open water, and gliding silently through a tunnel of bulrushes, to the shores of a town which immediately took root in our hearts.

The beauty of the setting, lush with fruit trees and surrounded by Mountain and Lake and Sky, did nothing to hide the poverty of the people, or the sparkle of laughter in their eyes in spite of it. Learning about the history of the Maya people who lived there, and their independence in surviving and winning in the face of an army determined to subdue them was fascinating and impressive.

Learning more because of traveling with children. My kids made us less threatening and allowed them to approach us. The language barrier didn't matter in games of soccer on a dusty street or playing blind man's bluff. We were rich compared to them, but they soon stopped trying to ell us their beautiful beadwork and hand woven wonders, and offered us the greater gift of friendship.

We stayed at the Posada De Santiago Atitlan, in luxury, but went to their school and shared songs and "Duck, duck Goose" games. I thought this little week long adventure would soon be forgotten, but it has lingered as a gem in our hearts.

Now the fantasy novel I am writing is strongly influenced by the people and history of the Santiago People and the visions I have of Paradise will always look like a blue lake, and people in home woven finery beside cloud crowned volcanic peaks.

Open Adoption

My family has always had some biological and some adopted members; one brother, several cousins, and then when I married- my husband's Mom and both her siblings were also adopted as children. It made perfect sense then, that when I could not get pregnant after 10 years, adoption became the option of choice. We walked into a store and saw a little tri-fold next to the cash register that said, "November is adoption Month." We looked at each other and knew the time had arrived, so that day we called the agency, Adoption Horizon's and arranged to go to our first meeting.

We were both teachers and had a lot of experience with special needs kids and we knew that newborns were hard to get, so we were confident that being willing to take a sibling group or kids with handicaps would increase our chances but there were other plans for us.

We did look at several groups of siblings but the opportunity always fell through, and we tried to buy a house in the next State, our dream house on a Sea Cliff, and that fell through as well. Life felt pretty frustrating. How could we prepare if we didn't know if we were getting a school aged adolescent in three weeks, or three pre-school girls in 5 days? But we never gave up hope, and indeed, decided to act as if the future was assured, and it felt like it was. We always believed it was a matter of "when" and not a matter of "if." My husband and I would take long walks on the beach and pray that our child, wherever he or she was, would be safe and loved until we could keep him safe and loved ourselves.

Then I was at work and the call came, "We know you said older kids, but would you consider a newborn - because a mom in our birthparent center accidentally got your file, and she picked you." (Her 15 month old had picked it off a desk and handed it to her.)

My heart was pounding as I asked, "When is she due?" and the answer was TWO WEEKS AGO!! Three days later she was placing a perfect, 14 hour old boy into our arms. A baby who could only be placed within the two-counties where we lived. Then we forgot to "turn off the prayer faucet" and within 6 months I was pregnant with his younger brother.

Now, on my oldest son's 17th birthday, I put him on an airplane to fly 1400 miles and spend spring break with his birth sister, their mom, the mom's new husband and his 3 younger half sisters. After 17 years of cards and letters from them, he is calling me, sending me texts and photos and loving every minute. The fact that one sister looks like is twin is amazing to him. It reminds me again that my own brother had to wait until he was a Dad to see a face that resembled his.

Our open adoption was probably helped by the distance between our families for those years, but I believe it was planned for all along and the jobs we were offered, the home we got all put us where we needed to be to be there where he would be born.

The relationship he has with both families who love him, has made him a warm, wonderful and loving young man who can make two Moms proud. Both Mom's listen to the song, "From God's arms, to My arms, to yours" and tear up.

Edit: The pictures above are of my family, my husband, both boys and me - then My baby and his big sister in his birthmom's and birth grandmother's arms - and then my baby with his birthmom and his four sisters this spring break.

Now he is back home - but happier and more complete for having had the time in the roots of his family tree.

Self Storage

I have been only the latest in a long line of pack-rats in my maternal family line. Everything that I come into contact with, I feel an overwhelming desire to hold on to. The fact is, I don't find too much difference between the "Hoarders" TV show and where I am capable of going except for the fact that I have been motivated by, "Clean House" and FlyLady.com and my love of my family, to turn off that road about a year and a half ago.

Clutter no longer rules my home. And it did. Once I even threw my wedding ring away, because my husband dared to try to throw away the pile of clutter that had accumulated on out dishwasher without letting me go through it first. Yet last August I had a two day yard sale, then donated four pick-up truck loads to charity and took another three loads to the dump and am still going strong.

What made the difference? As flylady says, it is learning to Finally love yourself, and to give up on perfectionism. The main thing for me was the simple point that I am not getting rid of the memory, or the person, by getting rid of the item that they gave me, or wore or touched.

My problem started the day My Mom ordered me to clean my room, and then cried because I had thrown away a valentine card with a flocked grey kitten on it. It was from her, "Don't you love me?" and from then on, I was afraid to throw anything away. Now, She lives in a pack-ratss dream, next to the packed house of my Grandmother, and there are several, cousin's, aunts and Great-Grandparent, homes that went the same way. It is easy to see, even on a short road trip, my relatives are the ones with bags and cartons tucked around our feet in the floor of the car.

The biggest cure in my life is my digital camera, and a scrapbook that I named "Self-Storage." So I can always find Myself.

I took pictures of the clutter, and then wrote poems or paragraphs about why those items stirred my memories. Then I could lose the clutter without losing the memories of the people, and the places that I loved. That scrapbook was little more than a concept and two pages before my teenagers were interested - yet I know that if I had left the piles of old t-shirts and motel soaps and grade school art projects, they would have eventually been forced to throw them away for me, and been angry and frustrated, and clueless to the rich history that I can now share with them.

The things I keep now, the best things, are no longer saved for special occasions, because no time is more special than now - while my family is all still here, to chip the good china, and laugh at the memories when they see that chip later.