writing

semifiction

~ GennaClaire ~ 20 Comments

poloroid camera by a stack of books

It was sophomore year of high school, Ms. Hager’s American literature class, when I learned one of my favorite words: semisubnebulous.

It was used in a short story, but I can’t remember which one. Probably something by Faulkner. Maybe Chopin. What I do remember is a footnote at the bottom of the page provided the definition.  

It means walking around in dreamlike state. Half asleep. Half awake. It’s basically sleepwalking, but it sounds so much cooler than that.

Or at least that’s what it means to me. Because to this day, I have yet to see it defined anywhere else. It’s a ghost of a word, but I love it just the same.

There are plenty of non-ghost words that start with semi. Semiannual. Semicolon. Semisweet. Semitruck. Semicircle . . . But semifiction isn’t one of them. There’s just no such thing.

That’s because writing is not some two-lane road paved thick in black asphalt with reflective yellow lines that clearly divide the fact from the fantasy. Or if it is, we’re weaving in and out of our lanes like drunk drivers fleeing the scene of a bar fight.

The truth is even our most imagined tales are steeped far too long in boiling kettles of reality and history. And our most honest stories are fuzzied by slanted perspectives, by blurry Polaroids thumbtacked along the walls of our minds.  

It’s unavoidable. And poor James Frey had to learn the hard way. But to this girl, there’s no difference between a million little truths and a million little lies.

It’s all in what we remember. In how we remember. In how we write what we remember.

It’s the emotions that seep out of our pores. It’s the words we make up during our high school English classes. It’s the scenes we try to capture–in fiction and in memoir–each one rooted in fading recollections, sepia-toned facts, and yes, even semisubnebulous memories.

So go on. Write your heart out, storytellers. Let all the semitruths spill from your veins.

The world will probably only believe half of them anyway.

Photo credit: ForgottenCharm on Etsy

 

infinitesitale – two

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

Mema was just 22 when her dad died. The two were close; quite possibly, she was the favorite of his four children.

As my granddad, who we call Pepa, drove her home from the funeral, he warned, “You know, everything you see is going to make you think of him.” To which Mema responded, “You’re right; it will. And everything will be a beautiful memory.”

That’s the story as Pepa retold it to my sister and me 60 years later, as we drove him home from a new funeral. Now he was the one left with all the beautiful memories.

 

 

Infinitesitale: An extremely small story. 100 words or less. This was a second attempt.

the lost and the found

~ GennaClaire ~ 105 Comments
St. Anthony of Padua
St. Anthony of Padua

 

Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please look all around.
Something is missing that needs to be found.

Those are the words my mother would recite every time something was lost in our household. Except she’d replace the “something” with the name of the misplaced item: my homework, a favorite pair of shoes, or most often, the car keys. She’d finish off the request with a triumphant “Thank you, Saint Anthony,” always confident in her faithful patron saint of lost things.

Saint Anthony usually pulled through for her, too. With the exception of her engagement ring – and I’m sure he did his best with that one – I can’t remember a single time the requested item wasn’t found. And believe me when I tell you, we kept the poor guy busy.

Maybe it’s because my mom was such a spiritually keen woman. She was on a first-name basis with many saints and angels. Or maybe she just had that mother’s instinct, the sixth sense of knowing where something was without ever having seen it.

“That’s what mothers are for!” she would have sung at me upon finding something I’d lost. I’d just shake my head in disbelief, dumbfounded by her mom-magic.

The trouble is that not all lost things are meant to be found. And the thing I’ve lost now is my mother. Despite my prayers, all the patron saints and angels in heaven cannot help me.

When I was younger, mom once asked that if something was ever to happen to her, would I want her to come back as a shooting star or a rainbow? Perhaps even a budding rose? A question to which I’m pretty sure I responded that coming back from the dead in any form was going to scare the shit out of me, and she should probably just rest in peace.

So I guess you’d call it ironic that just four months after her death, I find myself constantly concentrating on the night sky, hoping to spot even the faintest star taking a dive.

Thus far, I haven’t seen one. Some nights I can’t see any stars at all.

But there are other times when I sense her presence without the help of stars and rainbows and fresh blooms. Like when I walk into a cafe that’s playing Paul Simon’s Graceland on repeat. Or when I find an old photo of her that’s fallen down the side of the fridge. Or even last night, when I grabbed a novel from my bedside table, hoping to finish it off before falling asleep, and in the final pages, it quotes the prayer to Saint Anthony.

And in those moments, I’m flooded with memories of her. Memories I’d completely forgotten. Memories worth more than shoes and homework and engagement rings and everything she and I have ever lost combined.

I have to believe it’s because of her. That somewhere not-so-far away, my mom is still calling on her old friend to find the things I’ve lost.

So thank you, Saint Anthony, for bringing her back to me.

 

 

hope blooms

~ GennaClaire ~ 12 Comments

My dad called me as I left work today to keep me company on my drive home. He’s buying a property in the hills of North Georgia. Ten acres of sunshine to build a cabin on, a place to watch for shooting stars.

He drove there this past weekend – to walk the property lines. It was his first time seeing it all done up for spring time. There’s a long row of daffodils, he said. Then a long row of iris. Then a long row of hyacinth. There are blueberry bushes. And there’s more still left to bloom.

You would have thought he found an oil well, the way his voice lit up as he described the budding scene to me.

But that’s the kind of man he is. The kind who identifies all the birds as they arrive at the feeder – gold finch, indigo bunting, mourning dove, chickadee. The kind who counts his deer encounters as he winds through the trails at Cheatham Hill Park. The kind who ad-libs songs on my voicemail on Friday mornings.

The kind who sees the hope in the jonquils. And calls just to make sure I see it too.

two young girls picking jonquils
Me and my sister, picking jonquils.


brooklyn, brooklyn take me in

~ GennaClaire ~ 2 Comments
new york from the brooklyn river pier
new york from the brooklyn river pier

I visited my sister in Brooklyn this past weekend. Instead of touring the Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building or Central Park, we explored her favorite bakeries and adorably cramped cafes. We shopped at local fish markets and butcheries and grocers. We sampled fresh-baked croissants and sipped on mulled wine. We dined on fish ‘n chips and roast beef sandwiches.

And despite the skyscrapers and honking taxi cabs and smog-covered snow and foreign languages and beautiful diversity, there was something about the city that felt quaint, as if Brooklyn was just any other small American town. Like shop owners beaming with pride as they hand you a bagel or a baguette. Or two neighbors sharing a hug when they run into each other on the street. And even the little sign hanging on the window of the shoe repair on the corner, handwritten in black permanent marker, “Out for a moment. Back in 5 minutes.”

It could have been anywhere. And it could only be Brooklyn.

 

prayer of the mourning child

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

But still I lie, eyes wide awake,

And feel my hands begin to shake.

For in dreams that wait to strike my mind,

Your heart beats on; we still have time.

I feel your laughter, hear your song.

I hold your hand and hum along.

I have no troubles; all is fair,

And I don’t dread what’s after prayers.

For momma’s love still holds me tight,

And keeps me safe till morning light.

But dreams are wishes of the soul;

They cannot make the broken whole.

And so my mind runs unaware,

Of lips that whisper children’s prayers.

“Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord your soul to keep.

If I shall die before I wake,

Please wait for me at heaven’s gate.”

this is the story of how we begin to remember

~ GennaClaire ~ 1 Comment

You probably didn’t know, when you forced me out of you, when you squeezed and contracted and pushed…You probably didn’t know that screaming ball of hot pink flesh, who grew in your womb for nine months and two insufferable weeks…You probably didn’t know that little hungry, demanding child would grow into a woman who wanted to be nothing more than a reflection of your energy, who longed to sway beneath the shadows of you and breathe you in.

You probably didn’t know, when I was two and hooked up to tubes and monitors in a hospital emergency room…When one of my organs wasn’t formed quite perfectly and the surgeons offered no promises what the next moment would bring…And you held my tiny, soft hands and stood by my bed and whispered gentle lullabies in my ear…You probably didn’t know that I would return the favor 25 and a half years later…And stand guard alongside your hospital bed…And sing you songs and tell you jokes and pray, and pray that you would stay a little while longer.

You probably didn’t know, when you brushed my hair and pulled it into a taught, perfectly smooth ponytail, when you pinned a giant bow to the very top – one with glitter or buttons or polka dots…When you tied my shoelaces and smoothed my ruffled skirt hems and wiped the dirt off my elbows and told me I was brilliant and beautiful and could be whatever I wanted to be…You probably didn’t know that I believed every single word…And never let doubt or fear settle anywhere near my dreams.

You probably didn’t know, when you tucked me in at night, and we read A Wrinkle in Time or Mr. Popper’s Penguins…When we said prayers out loud in that intimate space, when you kissed my forehead and pushed play on the cassette tape so I could fall asleep…You probably didn’t know how hard it was not to follow at your heels when you turned to go. How I longed for you to come back to me before you even left the room.

You probably didn’t know, when you planned my elaborate birthday parties – with goodie bags and piñatas and birthday cakes thick with sweet cream frosting…When I inhaled until my lungs felt as light as the balloons tied to the back of my chair and blew forcefully at the candles, trying to extinguish those melting time bombs before the wax collided with the cake below…You probably didn’t know every wish I made was for us to be healthy and happy and together forever…Every flame held the promise of a long life…Or so I believed as watched their reflection flicker in your endless brown eyes.

And I guess I didn’t know, when I talked to you 10 days before Christmas, and heard your hoarse voice on the other end of the phone telling me it sounded worse than it really was…And I told you to rest and carried on buying coffee mugs and goat’s milk soap and chocolate covered cashews for your stocking…I guess I didn’t know that would be my last, “I love you.” And there was so much more to say.

And I guess I didn’t know, when we sang the hymns and hugged and wept, when we called it a celebration even though we all knew it was a funeral…When we sat on the rows marked “reserved,” the rows that no one ever wants to be waiting for them…I guess I didn’t know how broken my heart would be.

And how much we all need our mothers. And how I would still need you.

angel painting
One of my mom’s angel paintings.