Sing Your Song With Soul

Above image at: http://www.rejectlost.org/overcoming-fear

Now I’ve done it!!  Just a few moments of double duty dovetailing, and while I wasn’t looking, the wind closed the end of the giant plastic bag  (clean chute) that extended up the feeding side of the 70 foot silo—just a moment of closure and hayledge being blown out the high-up door into the bag began to plug at the bottom and fill all the way to the top. There was a “Bang” as the chute ripped free and fell. The cattle stampeded in panic, and I knew, my heart plunging along with the clean chute—that I was “in for it.” The huge blue catch basin above the rotating feeder panels was now filled with 60+ feet of plastic bag, tightly stuffed, like a giant green baloney sausage, any coil of which was too heavy for me to lift.  The cattle were coming back to the feeder now, looking at me accusingly. “Hurry-up.  We want our munchy meal!” There was only one thing to do. I knifed open a coil and dredged out handfuls of icy compacted fiber.
Ordinarily, the grassy jumble tumbled down, its molasses bouquet misted with the warm breath of the cows to envelop the hundred foot feeder in a steamy cloud surrounded by frigid blue air. But “handful by handful” was slow going. The cows bunted and shoved for a place at the feeder, impatient and clearly disappointed.
Ordinarily,the pregnant cows would stand belly to belly, eyes shut in ecstasy,  tongues smacking the sweet moist trefoil in. They chewed with their mouths open and full!  Not today. To get into the coils at the base of the fiasco, I had to lay on my back in the feeder trough, reach up and drag hayledge down to fall on my face and get in my eyes. Irritated by too little too late, the cows began to fight with each other, all the while bellering at me to hurry.  They were cold. So was I.
All because of dovetailing, I scolded myself.   How could I have been so stupid to let this happen. I cursed myself over every slit I had to cut in the plastic, and as I clawed handfuls out through the holes, I stuffed anger at myself down into my gut (to be used later).  Stupid fool-will you ever learn?  It was an all day job on a day—like most—already overfilled with jobs. I had chores inside and outdoors, and a play to direct after the kids got home from school.  But I had to get the bag cleaned out and warmed by the register in the utility room of the house, taped and mended so it could work again tomorrow.  Never ever let this happen again, I admonished myself, and your punishment is—you will climb the silo and reattach the bag! You broke it. You fix it!
 There was a problem in that I was afraid of heights, it would be dark before I could get to the task, and I had never climbed the silo. Fear was my nemesis.  But on that night, fueled by anger, I faced and conquered fear.
Fool,
Be your own commander
Yes, your feet are clay
So put on golden slippers
Roll the dice and play
No more mamby pamby
No more quaking knees
Excuses don’t become you
“Man-up” if you please
The task needs your commitment
It’s crying out to you
Resolve it using anger
And belief that you can do
Climb the glass-faced mountain
Hang out with the stars
Strong enough to conquer
Fear is just a farce

Conquering fear
http://purposeeconomy.com/a-womans-journey-conquering-fear

Your movie’s cast and written
You have the leading role
Fear hampers your performance
So sing your song with soul
 
 
Order the new novel by S.K. Carnes.  The Way Back in all e-book stores.       Amazon: http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney

cover of The Way Back
New novel: The Way Back
 

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The Dark Side of Fear

Image from http://experiencelife.com/article/

 Fear.  A warning of danger, sometimes disguised as anger, hatred or rage, fear can portend evil as in the“dark side of the Force.”Fearing fear, I tried to stay out of its clutches. To me fear was like the dark side of the moon, shadowed in mystery and overpowering, and I focused on the sunny side, the known —where I had some control—except for sometimes. Sometimes, like ink spreading across parchment, fear stained my life. It fascinated even as it paralyzed me, and I determined that I would overcome it. But to do so, I would have to call it out, and in battle, it took away my ability to function, and left me white, shaken, and weak. It was a quest-my own Great Crusade. I learned that I did best when in the company of animals.

http://www.petfinder.com
http://www.petfinder.com

They bolstered my spirit. Indeed, when I was astride one of the big draft horses used on our farm, I felt invincible as a knight from King Authors table, drawing upon the animal courage I commanded.
Aware of my fear of heights, I aggressively attacked this weakness. I decided that I would make myself cross the railroad trestle that towered above the Middle River. I would ride my bike several miles, then, listen for the train, and hearing none, would start across the trestle. My heart beat increased in velocity and sound, until I could not walk but would have to crawl, going forward, clinging to the rails while my will dissolved in the echoes of the sound, and I could not proceed. I would carefully execute a turnaround retreat hand over hand until I could manage to rise and run back, sobbing at my failure and vowing to try again later with some new way of thinking.
Hoping to cross
I dared begin
But Fear was boss
And Fear would win.
Every year in the summer, there were picnics at the waterfall park, and everyone jumped off the top into the deep chasm at the base of the cataract. Everyone but me. When it was time for the picnic, I still had not jumped and so I stayed, and stayed and stayed, missing lunch out of determination. I stood quaking at the top until finally, when I gave up on myself and life itself, I jumped out of łack of caring. Then, sheepish and late, I got left overs or nothing-maybe a scornful look. Only when I gave over my life as in a sort of suicide could I do what I feared. As a college student, I would stay week-ends in Duluth to climb the condemned ski jumps. Sometimes an afternoon passed and I still could not manage to reach the top of the jump. Discouraged, my fingers freezing stiff with the cold, l would climb down, fear having won again.
There were other times when I should have been able to run away from danger but when fear set in, my legs went to mutiny mode. Then, I could only advance crawling or creeping on my stomach. I read articles and books, vowing to learn to beat this curse. I could take deep breaths while saying positive things, build on small victories, graduate toward the more difficult challenges as I explored my dark side. I noticed that on a downhill ski run, I fell when I “lost heart.”This defect was a mind thing to be studied, and the learning gave my life direction. Years passed, and by now I had a library of books about fear. With “ways around” strategies in my arsenal, I could cope as long as the situation was not too dire. I took up white water rafting, finally even daring to tackle the Grand Canyon of the Colorado —with mixed results. For there, lurking in the darkness was my old enemy waiting-waiting for the time to be right. Then one day, the worst thing happened; Fear and I came face to face… and there was no way back.

To be continued…

Order the new novel by S.K. Carnes.  The Way Back in all e-book stores.       Amazon: http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney

cover of The Way Back
New novel: The Way Back

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I Am Calling You

It started with an inkling that got crossways in my mind. After it came, everything else coursed around it like a stream does round a wind-fallen tree. I dodged it long as I could, you know—the plates needed to be stacked by size, there was dust on the door-tops—but it was alive and burrowing in until all my thinking began to pile up against it like water before a dam. There it was calling me “Time to go.” It was the essence in the lilac scented air, the verve in the spring green of the new leaves coming on, it was the song spun by the river swelled full and rushing by. It started as an itch to scratch but with the first touch it pulled me in, wound everyday with a beanstalk of desire until I was crazy wild to go.  Only—except—but still—I was afraid.  I stalled.  And the pastel spring passed, as did the watercolor summer, and autumn, layered like the oil painting of a master in russet and gold, left me alone and exposed cowering in fear before the ravages of winter.
I had made my intentions clear, said that I was leaving and going West; the canoe was in the river, so to speak, and caught-up by the current, there was no way to paddle up the rapids.  At last, with Christmas approaching and the blizzards out of Canada descending upon Lake Superior-land, it was passed time to go.  I had to leave now. The calling was deafening, self-loathing at my inaction and cowardice had reached a climax, and I could not live with myself anymore.  So I set a date to suffer over, packed up and drove away, my little car sliding on the frozen road as it strained to pull the smallest U-Haul trailer available; aimed to cross out of Wisconsin, and get through Minnesota and North Dakota before the storms caught me. I was terrified.
How did I manage to do this? How had I overcome my fear and guilt? And what force haunted my being? What Pied Piper beckoned, his calling ever more insistent?
Gently probing. Ever deeper
Comes this urging Quantum Leaper
Crooning song of wistful hue
Sweetly haunting
Heart breaking
Words so meaningful and true
They raked my soul as in they flew
“I am calling you,” it sang
Words that hurt, Words that rang!
I am calling you

http://www.lindenarts.org/umbraco/
http://www.lindenarts.org/umbraco

 
 
Next Week:  Overcoming fear.
 
 
Please click on the link below to read about The Way Back , by S.K.Carnes. Three Reviews and a description are posted. http://readersfavorite.com/book-review/28930
 
cover of The Way Back
New novel: The Way Back

 
 
Order The Way Back in all e-book stores. Amazon: http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney
 
 
 

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Flying

Featured Image: http://fromangelstozen.com

I wrote this poem  to introduce a memory written by Angela Jackson, an author, a speaker and a member of our Mazatlan Writer’s Group!

TAKE TIME!

Wish on a star
Laugh til you cry
Fly a paper airplane
Listen to the sea in a shell
Make an angel in the snow
Hold wonder in your hands
For trapped in the long shadow of“grown-up”
Is a child waiting to come out and play

Angela Jackson shares her moment of magic as written in her soon to be published book, All That Glitters.  Take time!

 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In 1955 my mother took a summer job as cook at a ranch in the Eastern Townships. She got the job through a friend of a friend and though she had never cooked professionally, her home baked desserts and mouthwatering tender roasts won everyone over.
She found a place nearby for my younger brother Tommy and me to board, and brought us there for the summer. What freedom. What joy! We yelped around the front yard like puppies and played in a dilapidated barn with no animals but plenty of hay to foster our imagination.
I loosened yards of flaxen twine which was used to latch square bales of hay, then combed the twine and bobby pinned strands of it onto my own short bob, pretending I was doyenne of the barn.
“I’m Mary and you’re John.” I said to five year old Thomas “I’m the boss so you have to do what I say. Take this broom and clean out the stalls, then put hay down for the horses, then rake the paths outside.  Get a move on before I tan your hide.” I said, echoing commands I’d had to obey.
For a week he did everything I told him in our pretend world. Then one day he came running at me with a present.
“Look what I have Mary.” He held the tail of a dead rat. I screamed and ran as fast as I could toward the house. Realizing he had an advantage, he chased after me, swinging the rat in the air and that was the end of John and Mary.
We spent six weeks at the farm together, jumping off rocks and swimming at the local waterhole, eating delicious French Canadian food prepared by the missus of the house who hardly spoke English and therefore could not tell us what to do. We didn’t understand French, so we were free to roam at will.
Saturday evenings, our hosts, the Fourniers, had visitors drop in, so out came the spoons and pans and violins and accordions. Out came the clapping of hands and foot stomping music that wafted upstairs to where we sat bug eyed and entranced, hunched over the grate, watching grownups dance and drink and sing in French below.
Fascinated by their Cajun rhythms, we drummed on the floor and stuffed ourselves with bright red cherries our mother had left until we were doubled over with pain and had to throw up in the pee pot and crawl into bed.
Mom came to visit every Sunday and brought us treats. Her Lazy daisy coconut honeyed cake was our favorite and often she would join us at the swimming hole where we thrashed in the water and showed off. Once she borrowed a van that had Lo Bar Ranch stenciled in bright blue letters along both sides.
“Get in you two; we’re going to ranch for the day.” She exclaimed, her eyes glinting with excitement.
We lingered in a real barn with horses that snorted. We patted mewing kittens and cavorting dogs. We held piglets and fed rabbits and felt indescribable joy at being there with our mom who seemed happy for the first time in years.
I thought summer would never end, that mom would stay at the ranch as cook and we would live with the Fourniers and go to a local school to learn French. In late August we befriended four little kids who lived down the road who, although they could not speak English, communicated with us in made up sign language.
One day,I decided we kids would fly from the top beam of the old barn; if Peter Pan and Wendy could do it, why not us?I don’t know why flying appealed so much to me, but I really believed we could do it if we just got up high enough. Somehow, I convinced the other kids to climb up the rickety ladder and line up on the top beam. There we were, six little kids standing in a row on the highest beam, too scared to look down at the hay way below.
“Un,deux,trois.” I called. Nobody moved. They all stood there, looking at me. Then I understood: it was my idea,so I was supposed to go first! Yikes! That was not what I had in mind. I was terrified of heights and thought we’d go together. Maybe this was not such a good idea after all, but what was I to do? I couldn’t lose face, couldn’t show my fear. So, with pounding heart, I raised both arms, perched on my toes, and took a step off the beam. For a second there was pure bliss as I soared through shafts of yellow light before crash landing in a painful heap on the hay below.
“My arm.” I writhed, dangling the broken limb.
“Pay no attention, she’s always joking.” Thomas laughed, but soon realized I was not, so he climbed down the ladder and ran for the Fourniers.
A country doctor was summoned, a craggy white haired old man, who examined my elbow, shook his head, and made a cast.
“Mademoiselle, you are one lucky girl. You could have broken your neck.” He wagged his finger at me as I sat shamefaced in the kitchen.
The Fourniers were chastened by the event and figured they better get rid of us before anything worse occurred, so my mother packed us up and we all returned to the city. Thomas to the foster home he hated, my mom to a new job, and me to her apartment for the final weeks of summer.
I was angry that I’d messed everything up and had to stay in the apartment by myself with my arm in a stiff cast. When it was removed, the elbow didn’t bend properly and my arm wouldn’t lower. Physical therapy was prescribed which meant I had to lug a bucket of water back and forth, up and down the apartment hall every day to try and ease the arm down, a routine I followed for two weeks, then, in a fit of pain and frustration, refused to continue.
My left arm was quite a bit lower, but still a good three inches shorter than the right. Though I’d screwed up our summer and my arm was the souvenir, I considered that time to be one of the best I ever had. Thomas and I never lived together again so that time was doubly precious.
Now I sat on the pine rocker and smiled at the memory, then grew sad.
Our time on Pine Island was rapidly coming to an end. Would it be the end of my time with Jesse as well?

 Check out Angela’s website for news of her books and
Professional Presentations:
angelajacksonbooks.com

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Fire and Ice

In the region of my heart where blizzards swirl and snow drifts—blinding and pristine— there is this core of paralyzing cold. So blue is this center, beautiful to behold, that should you fall under its bitter spell, you would lie frozen ‘neath a thousand years of ice—so blue it is. And for that reason, I worship at the altar of the stove.
I think it all started ’round my mother’s cook-stove, its green enameled face polished almost through in places,  its cast iron burning plate searing hot above riotous flames. The smell of baking bread, wood smoke and vanilla, still lingers like lowland mist in my mind. Ahh—heaven. And in those days, the brown oil heater reigned over the living room. I ran down from my freezing upper room to get dressed alongside her, wanting to hug her enameled belly, almost daring to be burned. Still, I never could get warm enough. Never warm enough to banish “the Blue.”
So when I moved to Oregon, in order to shield shadowy fear (circling all around me) and the cold wisped in fog (to disguise her icy fingers), I bought my first parlor stove. Made in 1896, refurbished, and lettered “Empire State,” it had a bright silver top and brass finial, like a light-house for a drowning soul. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t get warm enough, so I bought another. It happened with a move to Washington State to live on an island as far west and north as I could go. It had to be a special stove for such a move, so I went to Buck’s Stove Palace in Portland, and Buck-who maybe loved me a little, said he would find “just the one.” He looked “hi and low” and finally in an attic in Illinois, he found my Florence. Now here was an altar worthy of adoration. She stood taller then me on nickeled feet, and her face shone silver around isinglass licked by flames. I bought a house with a living room  wall set in stone— just for her—and she sat like a queen on her throne of polished flagstone.
But my fires were poorly built; I wielded the froe to split the wood, with a limp wrist, afraid of the breaking. It was only when I found Bill—the Keeper of the Hearth—that Florence lit up and the dismals were beaten back. And now, on any evening on our island, we sit like in an opera house waiting for the show. We open all the stove ports and the fire roars on center stage flanked by rocks fascinating in shadow-play and light. Look! There is the glint of fools-gold and mica, see the onyx dark against the white quartz while the life and death drama plays out. It is awful to watch hungry tongues devour the wood, the pitch pockets whistle and pop sending up little explosions, smelling of pine forests. At last the split fir is a black skeleton and Bill will feed the beast from his huge stash piled on racks, the kindling stacked precisely, the tools of the master hung at the ready. My living room is a primitive cave of wood and glass, stone and iron, with the hearth at its center, and the Keeper by my side; let the storm crash against my house of cedar, as long as there is fire in my stove.
For me, it would be wrong to have no need of the fire, or of the stove where it’s caged, for the hearth was my first love. There is something about a fire. Watch the spark blaze forth life in all colors of hot while death waits in the wings-to claim even the embers in Irish darkness. I hear the groans of solid form releasing energy, smell the essence free at last, speak with the old ones, feel the power of the creator, sense the mystery that teases at me, flickering truth that eludes me, leaving me always searching… for that warmth that is enough.


 

cover of The Way Back
New novel: The Way Back

Please click on the link below to read about The Way Back , by S.K.Carnes. Three Reviews and a description are posted. http://readersfavorite.com/book-review/28930
Order The Way Back in all e-book stores. Amazon: http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney

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Writing the Great American Novel!

(Featured Image courtesy of RedRoom.com)
  Writing my first novel was a truly unforgettable experience.

When I began this novel,
Booked a trip into my head,
The task nagged at me daily
Pulled me often from my bed,
Ripped asunder memory’s curtain,
Left me threadbare, weak, uncertain,
Chasing after, never knowing where I’m led.
Soon skeletons come creeping
From my closet to my page.
Lost in a sea of feeling,
Adrift in fear and rage,
Tis an impossible endeavor.
That will surely take forever
With no promise of succeeding and no wage!
I neglect my household duties,
Out of contact, out of sight.
My family may disown me,
Disturbed by what I write.
But lets forget the ticking clock,
For out beyond the writers block,
Words are waiting and may just come to light.
And now that it is finished, (See the Review below)
I’ve begun to write another book!
The Way Back  is in two e-book stores (all of them very soon).  Below is the link to Amazon’s Kindle where The Way Back is amazingly inexpensive . If you like it, please write a short review for Amazon and me.  http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney

cover of The Way Back
New novel: The Way Back

Rating: 5.0 stars

Reviewed by Rich Follett for Readers’ Favorite

The Way Back: A Soldier’s Journey by S.K. Carnes tells the story of John Chapman, a World War I veteran with PTSD and a poet’s soul. He finds work as a farmhand with a dairy farming family who, in their own stalwart, beholden-to-no-one way, help him find the ‘way back’ to wellness and a happy life. The narrative is a kind of historical/poetic frame story, weaving together the lives of three generations of characters through the central prism of Chapman’s journal, found in a barn being torn down in present day Wisconsin and lovingly shared by the author as a tribute to Chapman.
The Way Back: A Soldier’s Journey alternately features lush and lyrical narration, Chapman’s poems (copied from his journal), carefully researched historical and cultural references from World War I through the Great Depression and the dawning of World War II, and colloquial Wisconsin dialogue that is as heartwarming and educational as it is funny in that particularly wry Midwestern way that can only be depicted accurately by a native. S.K. Carnes is a gifted writer at the top of her game, capturing the images and episodes of an era and a heartland lifestyle that is rapidly vanishing from the American consciousness with a clarity and poetic vision that render the narrative unique and compelling. In an early glimpse of Chapman, Carnes describes her quiet hero as having “Muckelty-dun eyes rimmed in blue … eyes of that color could steal your heart away.” Prose like that does not come along every day!
The Way Back: A Soldier’s Journey has something to please any reader – romance, history, adventure, drama, poetry, a quietly epic feel, a magnificently rendered landscape, and eclectic characters unlike any of the ‘ho-hum’ heroes of lesser fiction. Having once entered John Chapman’s world, readers will want to linger, holding close one of the most pure-of-heart and earnestly crafted narratives in recent memory.


 
 
 

Packing Up to Go Home

Packing Up To Go Home

Another season in paradise-how many more will there be? I am packing up my suitcase to go back—Home? I’m not sure any more. ‘Cus there are these small things –things I can’t capture to pack them up! Like what happens along the way on our morning walk—Kathi, the dog, and me walking both hills and those merciless stairs. The small things—you know—like the cat that waits to take a swipe at our dog each morning, safe behind his fence, his face filled with concentrated hate, growling, hissing, spitting while the dog darts between us yipping, “don’t look at that cat—only meonly me. And then the broad smile of excitement on the dog’s face, looking back fiercely proud, as she heads for another adventure. “Stick with me girls-I’ll get you thru.”
And then there is the little rat—very fat—that runs between garbage cans and hides in the green hedge along the Malecon. Dog perks up, stops stalking birds, and is about to give chase, but our friend notices and says, “oh-don’t let her get it!” Now how do you pack that up in a suitcase?
Meanwhile, Lucky the little grey dog watches his mistress swim. Oh yes-see her head just beyond where you catch a wave. See you soon Glina-when you come ashore.
Some things travel well, like the crescent moon last night, looking like a sterling spoon over the surging sea. I will miss The Mazatlan Writers Group, where we read our hearts out to each other and spew forth suggestions to improve. Well, I don’t need to pack them up, for I hear them whispering over my shoulder whenever I sit at the computer to write. “Take a class in punctuation”, they say. They keep coaching the commas out, they keep calling for the gold.
But the music along the walkway at night—the two men who sing –sing with feeling most every night to passers bys and no one special. And the vendor with his arm straight out, dripping with silver chains—forever hopeful.   Has he sold even one? These things are of this place alone.
“Todo bien” calls the shoeshine guy, grinning ear to ear as he peddles his bike equipped with his home-made workbench and box, looking at all our sandals for a real shoe to shine. “It’s all good,” he says and pretends he shines toenails too. And this night the musician returns who played and sang at Canucks where we danced years ago. He remembers and smiles. Oh, we had some moments when we all rode along on the music, let it take us. Yes, I should leave some room in my suitcase for memories. Like the way we come out of the world class Recreo movies, teary eyed from laughing or crying past the line of our friends-“Did you like it? Was it good?”
It is the time for the Canadians to say goodbye with parties, already complaining about the minus degree temps greeting them when they get off the plane on the other side. Snowbirds are vowing to stay longer next year, even as we pack to go home—really—to go home? Where is home now that we have lingered too long in Mazatlan to really ever go back, now that we know we cant pack the small things up? Seasons spin around again, the year goes rolling by, and soon we will pack up to return, looking forward to parties of “Welcome Home.” The small things are waiting.

In the Middle of the Night

In the Middle of the Night
Why the River is Better then Potters Field

 I woke up crying in the night and had to wonder why. I can hear the waves of the Pacific Ocean breaking on Olas Altas beach outside, shifting the sand with the change of season. Nothing to cry over. Yet listen—there is someone deep deep inside, grieving. All I can do is get up and write. Maybe the words will roll out like 30 pieces of silver, the price paid to someone “selling out” and I can use the blood money to buy a Potters Field-and bury my dead.
Did you ever have such a dark thought? It is 2:00 in the morning for god’s sake and all I can think of is how I sold my horses before I left Wisconsin all of 25 years ago. Oh, I still see them running through my dreams—racing the moon. And it wasn’t just horses that I let go of, pushed the door shut and let drive away. It smacks of betrayal to leave family, friends, and even myself behind. Some call it mid-life crisis, and tonight it is guilt for the road forsaken. And hear the ocean breaking over the new shores! Sometimes it gets very crowded here in Potter’s Field with so many ghosts rising up. Damn, why wont they stay buried? Well, we may as well dance.
Is that a crazy idea? What should I do-hang myself with a halter like Judas did? And then what? I doubt that would be the end—maybe just the way to cop out, get stuck in the quagmire of remorse, and not pay the price of change with the seasons, shed the tears of grief for the old shore even as the new one is formed up. Yes, I might as well dance. Dance. Whirl with the memories of the devoted creatures that have loved me and I let slip away; the free spirit that I am and those I set free. Sing. Like Janis Joplin singing of “Me and Bobbie McGee.”
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Damn— these songs take wings and fly right down inside-maybe all the way to that inner-child grieving in the night, and the soul is enfolded in wings feathered with forgiveness, and the dance begins, bittersweet and haunting, like a Fiddler on the Roof is playing to the melody of life the way it is-mysterious, free and ever evolving like a river. Haven’t I always loved the rivers best, because they move on? Yes-dance to Proud Mary-“Rolling—Rolling—Rolling on the river.” And then I remember Billy Joel singing on the album I played over and over to survive the leaving.
“In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep.
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep.
We all end in the ocean.
We all start in the streams.
We’re all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night.”
This is the link to the album cover (Featured Image on this page) and the song by Billy Joel that so inspired me:
http://www.billyjoel.com/music/river-dreams/river-dreams
 

cover of The Way Back
New novel: The Way Back

Just arrived!
My new novel on the shelves at Amazon.com: You can down load it from the Kindle Store.  Here is the information: The Way Back: A Soldier’s Journey. If you like it, please write a review for me on that site. Thank you.
eBook: ISBN: 9781483520735  S.K.Carnes           http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney    Editorial Review by Readers Favorite
Soon to be available from all e-book stores.

Looking For the Sun After a Winter of “Too Long.”

I was looking for the sun and they said if I climbed high enough-it still hung in the sky. Besides, it was the season for rhododendrons, so I went to find them. I toiled up to lofty Hendricks Park, my 12 speed touring bike and me. Of course, I didn’t ride it, having grown up on a bike with no speed/shifts and brakes on the pedals, but it was my shiny companion, and light to push up the forever twisting, constantly climbing hill-up-up through the heavy mist over Eugene that smelled of wood fire smudge, remembering that like the cherry crowning a banana split—there would be at the top— the rhododedrons in bloom in their cloud garden.
In my usual absent minded way, I was thinking up a poem to mark the ascent.
Black, grey dingy down
Soggy grey and dirty brown.
Right—well, all at once the bike (named Silver for the Lone Ranger’s horse) and I broke out into the light.  It was a fanfare moment! Coming from the Lake Superior Country of Northern Wisconsin, I was used to cold, but the wet never ending dismals that stabbed frigid fingers to the bone—now that was depressing. I had set aside memories of blizzards and ice, choosing instead to remember that snow shown blinding-bright by day, and that a snow-scape, wrapped in its white pristine coat, was pure magic under the winter moon.
Sun starved, driven mad by the dreary drabs, I had gone looking, and there was the sun— all along hiding high above Willamette’s valley floor. I must come here more often, I thought, and immediately my poem changed seasons!
Purple pink, violet blue
Dripping wet with heaven’s dew!
Hendricks Park! A labyrinth of every color imaginable, every size conceivable, every texture possible, in the world of Rhododendrons and all sparkling, set off like gemstones by deep luxuriant green.  And people were strolling around beaming in the sun, walking their yapping dogs, children laughed and rolled in the grass in front of the picnic area where hotdogs sizzled for a family barbecue, joyful life erupted all around while smoky gloomy Eugene glowered beneath its leaden shield far below us.  We partook of the abundant banquet of beauty, traversed the manicured paths, discovered bright little song birds making nests, heard the water gurgling in the fountains, and skin, long shaded and pale, warmed and shone.  Me and my bike—we decided it was well worth the climb.    And finally, satiated with immersion in Pacific Northwest springtime , I swung up like “The High Planes Drifter” and rode down into the curtain of grim, the wet gloaming, the sea of melancholy that gripped the city still hibernating in the valley of no sun.
Only the road was wet and slippery and the bike sprung free of restraint, picked up speed and raced around the bends. It was not like riding my horses who had minds of their own and sense enough to try to keep body and soul together, this bike was possessed by some suicidal demon.  It was not clunky and stiff like the bikes of my youth-it was sleek and swift and like wildfire, out of control. I saw the hedge coming but didn’t know how to turn without falling, or brake without skidding and so I did neither one. I didn’t get to see the bad accident-it just sort of began and didn’t seem to end-just over and through, upside down and inside out with tearing branches and clothes and lots of blood and bruises and a clean cut through an impenetrable bush. I picked myself up, pulled spirea branches out of my sleeves, thorns out of my fingers and looked for my bike, visions of it dented and destroyed strobing in my brain. But I found it impaled on an oak branch with a wheel still spinning, freed Silver, picked up the speedometer flung haplessly into a bed of daffodils, and limped surreptitiously off down the driveway toward reality.

common-sense-versus passion
http://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/when-too-much-passion-is-not-enough/

I’m not a bird, I cannot fly
But I still dream, and I still try
And being bold and being brash
I sometimes fail and often crash
Yes, too much joy and too much speed
Makes me hurt and makes me bleed
But what a way to hope and live
What a way to sing and give
With passion, color, zest and dance
Beat strong my heart-Take on the chance
With luck to travel one more time
Into the realm of the sublime 

This is an excerpt from the novel I am currently writing. Download The Way Back: ISBN  9781483520735 soon to be in all e-book formats in all e-book stores. It is the story of a veteran of World War I working his way home.  http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney

Looking For the Sun After a Winter of "Too Long."

I was looking for the sun and they said if I climbed high enough-it still hung in the sky. Besides, it was the season for rhododendrons, so I went to find them. I toiled up to lofty Hendricks Park, my 12 speed touring bike and me. Of course, I didn’t ride it, having grown up on a bike with no speed/shifts and brakes on the pedals, but it was my shiny companion, and light to push up the forever twisting, constantly climbing hill-up-up through the heavy mist over Eugene that smelled of wood fire smudge, remembering that like the cherry crowning a banana split—there would be at the top— the rhododedrons in bloom in their cloud garden.
In my usual absent minded way, I was thinking up a poem to mark the ascent.
Black, grey dingy down
Soggy grey and dirty brown.
Right—well, all at once the bike (named Silver for the Lone Ranger’s horse) and I broke out into the light.  It was a fanfare moment! Coming from the Lake Superior Country of Northern Wisconsin, I was used to cold, but the wet never ending dismals that stabbed frigid fingers to the bone—now that was depressing. I had set aside memories of blizzards and ice, choosing instead to remember that snow shown blinding-bright by day, and that a snow-scape, wrapped in its white pristine coat, was pure magic under the winter moon.
Sun starved, driven mad by the dreary drabs, I had gone looking, and there was the sun— all along hiding high above Willamette’s valley floor. I must come here more often, I thought, and immediately my poem changed seasons!
Purple pink, violet blue
Dripping wet with heaven’s dew!
Hendricks Park! A labyrinth of every color imaginable, every size conceivable, every texture possible, in the world of Rhododendrons and all sparkling, set off like gemstones by deep luxuriant green.  And people were strolling around beaming in the sun, walking their yapping dogs, children laughed and rolled in the grass in front of the picnic area where hotdogs sizzled for a family barbecue, joyful life erupted all around while smoky gloomy Eugene glowered beneath its leaden shield far below us.  We partook of the abundant banquet of beauty, traversed the manicured paths, discovered bright little song birds making nests, heard the water gurgling in the fountains, and skin, long shaded and pale, warmed and shone.  Me and my bike—we decided it was well worth the climb.    And finally, satiated with immersion in Pacific Northwest springtime , I swung up like “The High Planes Drifter” and rode down into the curtain of grim, the wet gloaming, the sea of melancholy that gripped the city still hibernating in the valley of no sun.
Only the road was wet and slippery and the bike sprung free of restraint, picked up speed and raced around the bends. It was not like riding my horses who had minds of their own and sense enough to try to keep body and soul together, this bike was possessed by some suicidal demon.  It was not clunky and stiff like the bikes of my youth-it was sleek and swift and like wildfire, out of control. I saw the hedge coming but didn’t know how to turn without falling, or brake without skidding and so I did neither one. I didn’t get to see the bad accident-it just sort of began and didn’t seem to end-just over and through, upside down and inside out with tearing branches and clothes and lots of blood and bruises and a clean cut through an impenetrable bush. I picked myself up, pulled spirea branches out of my sleeves, thorns out of my fingers and looked for my bike, visions of it dented and destroyed strobing in my brain. But I found it impaled on an oak branch with a wheel still spinning, freed Silver, picked up the speedometer flung haplessly into a bed of daffodils, and limped surreptitiously off down the driveway toward reality.

common-sense-versus passion
http://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/when-too-much-passion-is-not-enough/

I’m not a bird, I cannot fly
But I still dream, and I still try
And being bold and being brash
I sometimes fail and often crash
Yes, too much joy and too much speed
Makes me hurt and makes me bleed
But what a way to hope and live
What a way to sing and give
With passion, color, zest and dance
Beat strong my heart-Take on the chance
With luck to travel one more time
Into the realm of the sublime 

This is an excerpt from the novel I am currently writing. Download The Way Back: ISBN  9781483520735 soon to be in all e-book formats in all e-book stores. It is the story of a veteran of World War I working his way home.  http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney

Magic Doors to the Unforgettable. Untold tales and meaningful encounters .

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