Winter Wonder

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Lori Ericson

A silent shroud of snow falls over everything in a white fluffy layer like a freshly washed linen sheet that billows high above the bed and slowly descends to the mattress in a flat plane stretching from corner to corner to be tucked neatly beneath each edge.

The glittering mantle offers a kind of innocence in its wake, a renewal as most of life comes to a standstill, muffling the bustle and rush of the holiday season just as it had switched gears from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It’s as if God is saying, stop, breathe in for just a moment, think of what this holiday season truly means.

Most hoard up in their dens, light their fires, bake cookies and watch from their windows as the piles deepen. Children soon frolic in it, shriek in joy as they glide down hills until their fingers and toes are numb, and mother calls offering hot chocolate and dry socks.

Others are forced out into the tumult. They forge a trail through the drifts and pray for footing on the ice below. Holding tight to the armrest, passengers watch as the snow flicks off the tires, and wonder how deep the ditch might be.

If no more falls to mask the trails, the snow eventually loses its innocent luster. Footprints from man and beast scar the virginal blanket. The snowplow and sand dispensers darken the passages.

Ultimately, the temperatures will rise, the sun will peek through the clouds, and the white shawls hugging the trees will drip away, as the layer below fades and seeps into the earth. The sleds and snow shovels will be stowed in the garage, and the rush to Christmas will gain momentum once again.

Another snow may come and go, and before we know it, the crocuses and tulips will be pushing through the newly green lawns to start the process once again.

Writer’s Goals and How To Get There (IMHO)

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Lori Ericson

This is truly inspiring for a writer, but also as we enter this insane commercial season. “What do you want that you already have?” Think about it all in those terms and don’t wish the joyous Christmas season away standing in a line at the local mall!
What do I want that I already have: a wonderful, caring and truly supportive husband; two healthy and smart daughters, now grown and making me proud daily; my first novel that I’m more confident in daily as I make final changes, along with the feeling that I’ve finally found my writer’s voice; all my supportive writer friends; my health; my job that supports my life and keeps me connected with good people; good friends and people who care about me; and, I have to mention again my absolutely adorable husband!

Live to Write - Write to Live

As a life coach, I talk to clients often about goals. I start with this question: What do you want that you already have?

My answer might be: “I have a life coaching blog that I love and am excited about every time I post to it.”

I used to ask clients simply: “What do you want?” but I found people always listed only the things they didn’t already have.

“Who cares?” you might ask.

I care because the important part of the answer to these questions is not the actual answer; it’s how the answers make you feel.

What do you want? A three-book deal with a major publishing house.

How does it feel to want that? Lousy since I don’t think I’ll ever get it.

When we want things from a place of lack, we take very different actions than we do when we want…

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Any Help With a Book Title?

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Lori Ericson

The title of my book isn’t working, but I’m stumped a little on what will work. I know it’s important. I want it to grab the potential reader, give them some idea of what they’re getting, but not give away too much. So, it needs to be short and catchy.

I’ve heard it called the “business card” of the book, and that’s probably true. I know I’ve picked up thousands of books in libraries and bookstores over the years, and now, click on books on Amazon just because I like the title.

One writer’s blog suggests write some keywords from the book and action verbs on small pieces of paper, and draw them out of a hat to come up with great combinations. Another suggests making a list of twenty titles from books you like in the genre you’re writing, brainstorm using important words from your book and come up with similar titles to try to find a combination you like, and then see if it would fit in the list of the twenty book titles you found without being to similar. I’m working on that.

I know, ultimately, a publisher will have a lot to do with the title, but I need to capture the interest of that publisher with a title that will make the best impression. If I don’t intrigue a publisher with the title, readers aren’t likely to be impressed either.

The book is tentatively titled “Arkansas 309,” which is the name of a state prison program involved in this mystery. It’s too restrictive and may not attract readers outside this area. It’s a mystery that involves a female protagonist who is a newspaper reporter with family and career problems, who’s investigating a story of police corruption and simultaneously writing about a serial killer. And, of course you’ll understand if you know me, she grew up in a cemetery.

My husband thinks I need to worry less, call it simply “309” and go on. I’m not sure. Any suggestions out there? Please?

For Halloween: Revisit of My True Dead Man Story

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Lori Ericson

My True Encounter with a Dead Man

I woke up to the “swish swish” sound of his arm moving against his windbreaker in the eerie green glow of the living room. His face was covered with blood, as was his chest that was exposed by the open jacket. He wore cut-off jean shorts and tennis shoes. I thought it was a dream, this stranger illuminated by the green glass lamp base. I was stretched out asleep on my stomach on the living room floor in the house next to the cemetery when I heard him. He came through the dining room and sat in my dad’s recliner a little after midnight.

He stared at me, the smeared blood making him look surreal. I put my head back down thinking I must be dreaming.

He rocked in the recliner.

Raising my head again, I could see the same image.

“Who are you,” I asked.

“I’m dead. I just crawled out of my grave.” He rocked.

“Oh, come on. Do you know my brother John?” I asked. He looked about John’s age, a few years younger than me.

“I might of, when I was alive, but I just crawled out of my grave.” He rocked again in the recliner and continued to stare.

Frozen in place on the floor in front of him, I was unsure what to do. He wasn’t a dream. I hadn’t ever seen him before. Fear caught in my throat.

His rocking stopped. He raised a hand to his face, drew it back and stared at his palm with a quizzical look on his face as if he’d never seen blood before.

Lowering his hand to his lap, he rocked and looked at me. “I’m bleeding to death.”

“You said you’re already dead. How can you be bleeding to death?” It was an obvious question, or so I thought.

“I’m bleeding to death,” he repeated in a raised voice.

That scared me. Why had I questioned this dead man, this apparition covered in blood?

I started to get up, moving backward slowly and watching him closely.

“I just crawled out of my grave,” he yelled.

I got to my feet, ran around the corner, down the hall to my parents bedroom. I heard him following. By the time my dad sat up in bed and put on his glasses, the apparition was standing in the hall. He reached into the bathroom, flipped the switch, and the light fell over this teenage boy covered in blood.

“Who the hell are you?” Dad asked.

“I just crawled out of my grave. I’m dead.”

He stared back at Dad, who repeated his question.

“I just crawled out of my grave, and I need to use your bathroom.” He stepped into the bathroom. I heard the water start in the tub.

I didn’t see him again until the police officer gently coaxed him out of the tub and escorted the boy from our home.

My dead man had apparently done a few too many drugs, entertained himself by jumping from headstone to headstone in the dark cemetery and broke his nose.

Banksy’s Welcome in Walmartland

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Lori Ericson

The British graffiti master Banksy has been in New York for the past month, and Mayor Bloomberg has labeled him a vandal. How can he be a vandal when his art raises the value of the buildings, the building owners post guards to protect it or they’re able to remove the door or piece of wall and memorialize it? Bansky art has gone for $1 million-plus in recent auctions.

I want him to come to Northwest Arkansas! After all, we have the Crystal Bridges Art Museum here. Can you imagine a Bansky stenciled piece on the outside wall of this great museum? It could draw even more visitors to our area.

Of course, this masked artist would likely use that piece to take a jab at commercialism at the Walmartland museum. But Banksy pieces are often thought provoking.

In 2005, when he was just becoming an international star, Banksy painted images on West Bank’s concrete wall in Israel. The stenciled pieces included two children with bucket and shovel, dreaming of the beach; a girl holding balloons floating to the top of the wall; and a boy with a ladder.

In New York throughout October, he was putting out an art piece daily under the theme “Better In Than Out,” but that apparently stopped last week. His website said the project was canceled due to police activity. If Bloomberg won’t welcome him, I’d urge Rogers Mayor Greg Hines to offer an invitation. A Banksy mural would be much better than the retro Coca-Cola ad we have on the side of a building. I bet Hines would stop his code enforcement graffiti team from wiping away a valuable Banksy installation.

While in New York, he produced a fantastic stenciled piece of a man leaning against the wall holding flowers outside the Hustler Club. His tour has also included a replica of the Great Sphinx of Gaza made from smashed cinder blocks, and a mural of a small boy spray painting with a butler standing next to him holding out a tray of spray paint cans.

Banksy’s unique art piece “The Crayola Shooter” is probably my favorite. It was done in Los Angeles in 2011 and shows a child aiming a machine gun and using crayons for bullets.

So come on Banksy, let’s see what you can do in these Ozark hills!

A Spoiled Worklife

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Lori Ericson

The boss hollers at me, but I ignore him. He thinks that if he provides a few benefits, which I more than deserve, I should trot my ass right on over when he yells.

He calls again. I turn my head and glance over my shoulder. He’s not even looking my way but appears to be scanning the sky, checking out the clouds. I’ll stay right here where I please, enjoying the breeze and watching a squirrel run up and down the big tree just beyond the fence.

I’ve about had it with his demands. I should just walk out and see what other opportunities there are for a guy like me. I know how to contribute. I’m good at security patrol in a place like this. I’m big and can push my weight around if I want something.

The boss mistakenly thinks he’s got me under his thumb. What a joke. He doesn’t even seem to know how much I’ve helped myself to around here. If it’s something I want and it’s within reach, I take it. Screw the rules. They aren’t for me and never have been.

I do have to give my boss some credit. He comes to my defense with this new cook he’s hired. She can sure put some good grub on the table. But damn, she’s bossy, doesn’t like me in the kitchen, and won’t let me have any of the leftovers I used to get. On top of that, she bitches all the time about the messes I make.

I have my rights. I know where I rank in this organization. Granted, my standing was much more stable before she came on board, but I still have seniority.

Even the old man that works with me, knows deep down that I was here first. He doesn’t always act like it and treats me like he’s my supervisor just because he’s older. I try to remind him now and then that I was here long before him.

The boss thought I needed some help, so he brought him in. That hasn’t worked out so well though. He’s not much of an assistant, and they all go easy on him because of his age. Just recently they gave him an official uniform. Of course, he was injured on the job and the uniform keeps him from hurting himself. But still, I didn’t get one.

Yeah, things might be a little better down the road a ways. I’ll keep stewing on that, but I doubt I make a move any time soon. I kind of like the boss, even if he doesn’t always give me the credit I deserve. It’s still nice working for such a pushover. I doubt I could ever get away with as much as I do here. He sometimes talks big and hollers at me, yet rarely does much of anything when I don’t comply.

There’s a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen, and the boss is hollering at me again. I guess I better quit barking at the darn squirrel and go inside to see if that bitchy cook might have a pork chop I can steal.

Working Through the Novel

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Lori Ericson

As I read over my novel and get it as polished and perfect as possible, my characters are getting stronger and my resolve to finally be done with this thing is ringing in my ears. To push myself a little more and give you a taste of what I’m up to, I thought I’d share just a very small snippet here.

Girl With Pencil Waving So, from Chapter 1:

“I got a good enough look to know he was dead for sure. It looked like a little boy from what I seen.” She spoke next in a muffled rush, staring at the lake below. “I saw legs and tennis shoes. Those sneakers was the saddest thing, sticking up there in the brush. They were red with no shoestrings.”

“Could you see anything else?” Danni blew at a strand of hair tickling her cheek as she took notes.

“He was wearing jeans, but I didn’t see much more’n that. The smell. That’s something I probably ain’t gonna ever forget. It was horrible, just horrible.” Elizabeth fanned herself a little faster. “And the quiet. Like the animals, birds, bugs and all, had gone off and left him alone there in the woods. That was the quietest I ever heard it out here this time of year.”

Baby Eyes and Life Before Living

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Lori Ericson

The following story is from an actual experience I go back to whenever I wonder about life beyond this physical experience:

I saw that sparkle in her beautiful brown eyes as I pulled the pink cotton dress up by the hem to lift over her arms.

“I was with Jesus ‘fore I was in your tummy.” Her child speak was muffled by the clothing.

“What’s that sweetie?”

“I was with Jesus ‘fore I was in your tummy,” the words more deliberate this time.

She was my second daughter, a child I worried over during pregnancy. Worried she’d be unloved, that I couldn’t care for another the way I did my first beautiful baby girl. Of course, I later marveled holding her in my arms, realizing God had made my heart grow rather then depriving this little one of what she deserved.

I pulled the dress the rest of the way off, setting her arms free.

“I ‘member.” She nodded at me as if to make it understood she was being serious.

“You remember what Honey?” I slid a tee shirt over her head.

“I ‘member. They was nice there.”

I took in a breath and looked into those big browns. “When you were where? In my tummy? Who was nice?”

I pulled the overalls up and fastened a button on each hip, turning her from one side to the other, her short brown hair bounced as she swayed. Just as one shoulder strap was in place, the sound of potatoes boiling over drew me over to the stove. She followed.

“No ‘fore, Mama, fore.”

“Stay back now, this is hot.”

“K.” The double doors on the lower half of the pantry slammed shut behind me.

“Stop that. You’re going to pull those things off their hinges.”

I stirred the potatoes and lowered the flame. The table would have to be set soon, but I had to know what this child was getting at.

She was something, always inquisitive and ready to explore the world, but also so stubborn and determined to get her way that she’d act up, strike out at her older sister, defy orders. It wasn’t that she was a bad kid, just so busy living and learning, she didn’t have time for anything that stood in the way.

I leaned down and fastened the other shoulder strap of her overalls. “Now, what were you trying to tell me about being a baby.”

“Not a baby, Mama.” She pursed her lips, giving me a look I’ve seen many times over the years since, especially those teenage years.

“Okay, not when you were a baby.” I tucked an errant strand of brown hair behind her ear.

“When I was with Jesus in heavnen.”

Goose bumps ran down my arms. They come back to this day when I think about her words that Sunday afternoon. I walked her to the table and sat down. She stood in front of me. Holding each of her hands in mine, I looked her in the eye.

“Hmmm, I’m not sure honey. I don’t think you’ve been to heaven.” My mommy tickle was screaming down my spine ‘pay attention, this might be big.’

“Yep, I was in there.” Curls bounced as she nodded, her chin nearly hitting her chest with the enthusiasm.

“You were in heaven?”

“Yep, ‘fore I was in your tummy.”

I plastered a smile on my face, not sure she’d go on, not sure I wanted her to.

“I ‘member cuz that man told me to pick you out.”

The chill started with the goose bumps embedded in the back of my arms. It ran up my neck and down my spine. I gulped. “What man?”

“That man with the glasses.”

She yanked one hand away from mine and pointed to the hallway.

“That man in the picashure.”

I couldn’t speak. Still gripping one of my hands, she led me down the hall. Photos of the two girls lined one wall. At the end, photos of my family were clustered together. A picture of my older brother in his tan leisure suit at graduation, my younger brother in his Marine Corps uniform, and shots of each of my sisters at graduation.

“That man told me to pick you out.” She pointed to a photo of my dad. He’d died nearly four years before her birth.

I hated that picture of him. I had hung it low on the wall so it seldom caught my eye as I passed. His eyes looked big, magnified by huge 1980’s glasses.

My daughter watched me with curiosity, uncertainty. The lump in my throat felt like a Ping Pong ball. Tears started to gather in the corner of my eyes. I dabbed them away.

“What do you mean, he told you to pick me out sweetheart?”

“He said you should be my mommy.” She said it softly.

I knew she was telling the truth. Her bottom lip trembled. Tears welled up in those big beautiful brown eyes. I hadn’t realized it, but it hit me right then, those weren’t her father’s brown eyes, she had my father’s big brown eyes.

“When I was in heavnen, he told me to pick you out, pick you for my mommy,” she whispered.

My own tears couldn’t be stopped. I knelt down, hugged her and breathed in the sweet innocent smell of baby shampoo.

“I’m so glad, honey. I’m so glad you picked me out.”

She doesn’t remember ever telling me she’d picked me out. And didn’t just a few years after that, but I can never doubt the truth. I know the blessing she’s been in my life. I know the blessing of each of my girls.

Reagan, my granddaughter, has a similar wise and knowing look in her beautiful blue eyes.

She came to stay with Lloyd and I this weekend. I took a photo of the two of them and wonder as I look at that picture, both their eyes looking directly at me, what we really know in those early years that is forgotten as we make our way through this life on earth.

BBs, Caskets and Art

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Lori Ericson

The BBs scatter and ricochet in an empty mausoleum crypt like a kindergarten class bursting onto a playground. They move quickly, bounce off each other and stop in random spots.

The cylindrical BB shape makes for a perfect tool to move a casket easily in the tight space. They roll with ease beneath, keeping the bottom from scraping along the concrete interior as it’s pushed into place.

I thought of the way we used BBs at the cemetery when I read last week about Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville using them to weigh down art displays. Most museums use elevator weights made of cast iron, sand or lead shot for anchoring their display cases.

But Crystal Bridges is taking advantage of a local resource in the Daisy BB company, and is better off for it. There are no health concerns and moisture issues, and they’re cheap. Daisy has donated about 6,000 pounds in defective BBs for anchoring the display cases.

The museum, according to the article, moves the BBs into bags from big blue 55-gallon barrels. We bought BBs in small cardboard tubes and had a lot less hassle in using them to serve our need. But they seem to be the perfect tool for either use.

A typical empty casket can weigh 200 pounds or more, and the opening in each mausoleum space is made with little room to spare. Tandem units that allow two burials end-to-end in one mausoleum crypt mean the first burial has a long way to go. There could be a lot of scratches and damage to a costly casket holding precious cargo without the aid of the simple BBs.

Crystal Bridges hosts hundreds of people daily. They gawk and stare, and move around the museum’s many display cases that manage to stay in place, keeping their precious cargo stable with the help of those same simple BBs.

I have to wonder how the emperor Shah Jahan would have used BBs in the 17th Century when moving his wives into the Taj Mahal, the world’s greatest and most beautiful mausoleum. All he had was some little ole elephants.

Shut Up Dr. Oz!

Posted on September 7, 2013 by Lori Ericson

I’m sick of seeing those ads with Dr. Oz holding a big blob of fat!

I get it… take supplements that boost your metabolism, eat some crazy fruit, hold off on the carbs, whatever it takes, drop the fat! Okay, already.

I’m not some tiny little petite thing and never will be, but I don’t care because I was once about 100 pounds heavier than I am now and happy just to be me. Sure, I could stand to lose another twenty pounds, but I love me just like I am.

People who met me in the last decade might not know that I once weighed about 250 pounds. I was miserable at that weight. The secret was that I had to lose that attitude before I could lose a pound. I had to love myself just as I was to have the desire to take care of myself. It wasn’t dropping the size 18 pair of jeans for a size 10 that made me want to lose the weight. It was the fear of what I was doing to my heart and body in general. It was worrying that I wouldn’t be here to see my grandchildren.

It took about a year of eating low carbs, avoiding sugar and learning to exercise. I bought a Pilates machine that I still use and love it. I learned that the more active I am, the less I have to struggle with food choices and the more active I can be because I’m not bogged down with that extra 100 pounds.

I work hard at times to keep the weight off still. Especially at the end of summer when I’ve had a few too many strawberry sundaes or bowls of dutch chocolate ice cream. Yes, that’s right, I’m my heaviest usually at the end of summer. I know the holidays can add a few too, but really the end of summer is my struggle time.

But I love me and will never let myself go like that again.

I just want Dr. Oz to stop holding up all that blubber and tell people to love themselves healthy.