Muscle Memory

So today I'm going to do something a bit different.  I know I have not been spending much time on the blog.  I think I've only written 2 or 3 posts this month.  But I have been writing.  I've been flexing my fiction muscles a bit.  They are way out of practice.  I hope they remember how to do the heavy lifting.

Recently my in-laws moved out of their house that they've lived in for years.  This meant that Clif and I had to find a home for all the stuff we were storing there.  I came across a box that contained writing from high school.  All fiction.  You guys?  I was really good at it.  I mean, I was totally impressed with my 17 year old self!  It was all a bit dark and angst ridden, but I was a moody teenager.

I had forgotten how much I loved it.  This then prompted me to find some of my college stuff.  Which led to 22-year-old Jaime stuff.

Anyway, long story short, I was yearning to dive back into it.  So I did.  So on the days that I would normally get an urge to post on here, I wrote a fiction piece.  None of them are done.  They're all just snippets.  So today, I'm going to share something with you.  But first...

THIS IS FICTION!!!!

Everything else I've ever posted on here has been absolutely true to the best of my knowledge and/or memory.  My point of view.  This is NOT true...fiction.  I just want that to be crystal clear so I don't get any worried phone calls or concerned emails.

I would welcome any constructive criticism.  I hope you enjoy it...

The memory is always the same, because how can a memory change?  A memory is.  There are no questions.  Different people may remember it differently, but to you, in the crevices of your mind, the memory stays exactly as it always was.

The memory comes in a dream, but it always seems to veer off course.  There is always some plot line that emerges that wasn’t there in 1982.

It’s raining.  Storming.  The thunder wakes me and as the next lightning bolt slices through the sky, my room lights up and my mother is standing over me whispering to be quiet. I can't be sure if she's real.  My mind has been yanked from unconsciousness and I can't tell what actually hovers over me and what remains from sleep.  The outline of her appears with the lightning and disappears just as quickly.

She picks me up, slips down the stairs and out the door.  She runs and my chin bobs on her shoulder.  I see the rectangle of light flowing out of the darkness where she left the door open.  I’m soaking wet by the time we slip into the car.  She tells me to lie down and she speeds off as another flash of lightning and boom of thunder disrupt the rhythm of the rain. 

Sometimes Andy is with us, running behind to catch up.  Other times I see him standing in the rectangle of yellow light, crying for us.  Still others I just hear him screaming for us to come back.  Once my mother carried both of us and when I looked over, he was just gone.  That's the dream's doing.  My mind's way of making sense.  In reality, Andy was never there.  He had drowned in the creek the summer before and I was left as an only child.  One child to a mother and father conditioned to parent twins.  Single in a world where I had never been alone, not even during my first breath.

My dreams always put him there, because how can I exist without him?  We were meant to be a pair and when he was gone, so was I.

I always wake when Andy disappears.  Right on cue.  I notice he's gone and my eyes pop open like I was never even sleeping.  As if my subconscious won’t believe he’s gone.  The memory exists, but refuses to finish it's playback.  I can remember what happens.  That my mother and I drove off, through the night, all night until we were four states away and passing under the neon lights of a dingy motel.  But my dream never gets that far.  My dreams belong with Andy...our dreams.  They can't move forward without him.  And without a dream, what could I possibly become?

My Favorite Milestone

By far, my favorite milestone is language development.  Yes, it is thrilling when your baby takes her first steps or learns to use his spoon.  But language is just amazing.  You have this little baby that grunts and cries and coos and that's about it.  Then all of a sudden, he's stringing together syllables, then words, then sentences.

And the best thing about it?  It keeps going.  Once a kid walks, she walks.  But language is ever developing.

Language is an evolution.  A word starts out as a grunt until the child is fully saying the exact word years later.  Freddie started at about a year calling Ainsley, "Eh."  Soon it became, "Aidy."  Then it was, "Ainsey."  But now he found his L's.  So he is saying "AinsLey," with quite an emphasis on the "llll" sound. 

Now he's only three.  So he still says things funny.  He calls Connecticut "Nectut."  He doesn't say nothing or nowhere or no one.  I say "What do you want for dinner?"  "Anyting," he responds when he means nothing.

Ainsley used to use the same word for alligator and elevator.  It was something like "eledator."  So you really had to pay attention to the context or you could be riding an alligator to the second floor.

Even now, Ainsley is still developing language.  She is learning to read and write.  It is possibly one of the most incredible things I've ever witnessed.  Just 6 months ago she couldn't read anything but her name.  And even that was iffy.  If she saw a word with an A and a Y in it she might have said it read Ainsley.  Two months ago she was asking me to spell everything for her.  And now?  Well Sunday, she asked Clif and I to babysit her daughters.  So she left us a few notes on  how to care for them...

It reads: Mi anb my husbin is go to a mebng you are go to babesite.
It says: Me and my husband are going to a meeting and you are going to babysit.

It reads: Thea Neb To go To Beb at 63 Thea Neb to hav Dinr at 83.

It says: They need to go to bed at 8:30.  They need to have dinner at 6:30.  (She explained that she had mixed up the times for us.)

It reads: When she my babe cris she can rib in a ???

It says: When she, my baby, cries she can ride in a stroller.

One minute they are totally dependent on you.  Completely vulnerable to the world.  Being held every moment.  The next they're asking you to babysit and being all bossy about dinner and bed times.

Don't blink people.

Leave a Message

I hate answering the phone.

I hate answering the phone so much that very often I let it go to voice mail and call the person back.  My stomach drops when the phone rings and I'm not sure who it is.  Mostly this happens at work.  On my cell phone, if I don't recognize the number then it's usually someone I don't need to talk to, so that doesn't bother me.

But at work, I'm supposed to answer the phone and speak to people.  I mean, that's not my main job, but I am the client in my industry and people who are calling me have questions that need answered and comments that need heard and issues that need resolved.  That is why I hate answering the phone.  I don't like being put on the spot.

I am an email kind of gal.  Send me an email and I can think about it, research it, compose my answer, read it 19 times and then give you what you need.  I can't do that on the phone.  On the phone I'm supposed to think on my feet, speak intelligently, banter back and forth.  I am not the bantering type.  I often feel like an idiot in spontaneous conversation.  I'm so worried about what I'm going to say that I can't always focus on what's being said.

I rehearse conversations in my head hours before they happen.  When I know I have to call someone or meet with someone, I play it all out in my head over and over again until I know exactly what I'll say.  But inevitably, a question or comment arises that I was not prepared for...and then that incompetent feeling seeps into my gut.

If I had my way, I'd do everything in writing, but that's not the way of the world.  So today I told myself that I would answer every single time my phone rang and just deal with it.

I made it half the day.

I'll try again tomorrow.