My husband Ed calls me “Story Girl.” Though “girl” is stretching things a bit, Ed knows my history, and I understand why he’d think the name suits me. My first memory is sitting beside my mother on our couch, Mama reading a story book, my interrupting her with words I recognized.

I’m told that, when I was three or four, I’d sidle up to my Grandmother and say, “Mama Toland? I’ll tell you forty-seven stories if you’ll tell me forty-seven stories. Okay?”

Juanita, my caretaker from age six up to junior high, called TV soap operas “the stories”, and I’d watch them with her while she ironed my family’s clothes. We watched movies too, and if I arrived late to start one, she’d summarize for me. “That Mr. Rochester’s wife, she’s crazy,” she said, explaining Jane Eyre. “And she does not like Jane one bit, I tell you that much.”

Ed and I are considering hitting the road in an R.V. for months at a time, renting out our house while we’re gone. When we’ve taken our two-week vacations in the past, I’ve done fine. But, when I hear “months”, my insides scrunch up. Though I dearly love gorgeous, unexplored terrain, I’m a homebody. I love my little town. And I adore my river.

My river is the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River, and it flows by my back door. It’s a freestone river, with magnificent rocks scattered in perfect disarray as water swirls around them. It is background music to the comedic, dramatic, ordinariness of my life. I feel bombarded by political and cultural horror these days, but when I sit with the river, the horrors subside, and I’m less prone to obsess or worry. The river makes me smile and cry and wonder in ways that feel real and deep.

I just went through Hell. A couple of month’s worth. An unscrupulous acquaintance deceived Ed and me and then threatened us with legal actions. He was dishonest enough that I had no idea what he might do next. I don’t remember ever being that scared for that length of time. We sought legal help ourselves, and then waited way too long to hear back from an attorney…

I recently retired from a thirty-five year career as a psychotherapist/couples counselor/teacher. I dearly love retirement. But it flabbergasts me that I no longer bring in income, yet my life is rich and full. “I work well, therefore I can live well,” has been my contract with the Universe since I was twenty. Alarm clocks, fortitude, and good black shoes have helped.

Now, first thing after my morning shower, I sit in my den or on my deck by the river and read a novel while I guzzle coffee. It feels luxurious. I feel free…

My mother was an ace at draw poker and duplicate bridge. She drank Rusty Nails (a mixture of Scotch and Drambuie). She loved diamonds, and sported them on her fingers, her wrists, and around her freckled neck.

She sported her views, too, telling me (her rebellious daughter) exactly how things were and I should be. Like when I was twelve and complained I didn’t tan, no matter how long I baked in the sun. “Doesn’t matter,” Mama told me. “Boys like girls who are thin and pale.” I remember tilting my head at her and blinking, blinking, then doing sit ups to build muscle and upping my tanning time.

Mama died eight years ago. I’m not, thank goodness, thin and pale. But other things Mama taught and I railed against are now an integral part of me…
..

We’re having guests for dinner this weekend, a couple we’ve not ever had to our home. At some point during the evening, I expect them to ask about my Humpty Dumptys.

I have more than fifty Humpty Dumptys. I bought my first one in 1987 at the now departed Shorey’s Bookstore in Seattle. It’s a Maxfield Parrish print of the cover of the 1921 Easter edition of Life Magazine, framed and hanging on the wall above an end table in my living room.

On the table are three more Humptys—a ceramic one from Ed, a small metal one I found in a shop in London, with tiny soldiers in high hats trying to mend Humpty’s head, and a light blue stuffed one my brother and his wife gave me.

They’re all over my house…

When I was in graduate school in Atlanta, I took a night job at a restaurant called The Lark and the Dove. I was new at waitressing, felt silly and self-conscious in my Heidi-themed dress and clogs, and was determined to get it right.

My second night, a customer ordered duck. My job was to get the roast duck from the cook, transfer it to a rolling table, and wait for Donna, the maitre d’, to join me. We would take the duck to the customer’s table, and Donna would flame it with brandy. Donna was cool. She wore suede hot pants and boots and seemed to know everything.

February, 2015

I have to do it, they tell me. Publishing a novel is practically impossible without online presence. I’ve managed to stay off Facebook, fearful it will suck me in. But I shake off my solitary writer dust and step into the connected world.

With old friends from faraway, it’s like going to a party where we’re all grown up and still young. With local folks, I feel more connected when I see them. “How’s your uncle?” I ask. “The one with the blood disorder?” “So good of you to ask,” she says.

But I’m stunned when my ex-husband’s photo appears, Facebook asking if I want to friend him. The answer is No. No, too, when my enemy’s face, the guy who caused enough misery to earn him jail time, pops up like a mean joke. I get rid of his picture, but it haunts me.

On New Year’s Day for the past three years, I resolved to chew my food mindfully, thirty times per mouthful. On January second for the past three years, I forgot and chomped mindlessly away. Forget it, I told myself. Resolutions don’t work. I’m not even sure I can change.

This New Year’s Day, my friend, Carole Anne, gave me a Glassybaby, a gorgeous, Seattle made, hand blown tea light holder. It’s a deep, intense yellow. “I was drawn to the color,” Carole Anne said. “And then I saw its name. It’s called ‘Fearless.’ I knew I had to get it for you.”

I love Glassybabys. But “Fearless”? Me?

Twenty years ago, basking in a hot tub with friends, someone asked, “Is there anything you regret?”

I thought for a second and said, “I wish I’d had children.” Early in our marriage, Ed and I learned there was only a very slim chance I could get pregnant, and decided to relax and enjoy both our delicious couplehood and his darling daughter, who was eleven at the time.

Ed’s daughter, who feels like my daughter now, grew up and married and birthed a little girl. “Smitten” is too mild a term for what happened to me…