REUNITING WITH A PAST; PAINTING AND DRAWING ..

THIRTY THREE YEARS AGO I stopped painting and drawing after about a four year effort that included studies for a short time in Pratt Institute's master of fine arts program. Stopped cold. I'm not sure why.
But watching my artist wife at work lately, her visual arts skill, rekindled the urge to return to the mediums of the past: pencil, chalk, oil pastels, acrylic painting.
Some of these works survived the years so I've posted a few in Pinterest and also include four here. The Pinterest link is www.pinterest.com/wildclearing should you like to visit.
I'll occasionally post here some examples of how I'm doing this way, too. Here are four works from then:

 

(c) Wes Rehberg

"RUST COLORED HAIR" -- UPDATED SEGMENT, NONFICTION STORY, CUBA JOURNEYS

"Rust Colored Hair" -- updated segment, nonfiction story draft, Cuba journeys --

        Aboard the chartered plane from Cancun, Mexico, the small Cuban band rocked the cabin, playing for we, the illegals, the ones who dared to defy the United States government’s prohibition against traveling to the shunned island 90 miles off the coast of Florida. A few dozen of us. Gathered by Global Exchange to violate and repudiate the U.S. blockade and its sanctions. And for me, the refusal to allow a government to prevent me from visiting with people from another land.

        This was the first of two journeys for me to Cuba during the mid-1990s. Our defiance on this trip had a penalty, the threat of 10 years in prison and a $200,000 fine. We were felonious. Troublemakers. And many of us broadcast our intentions beforehand, including me, with a local television news report and write-ups in regional newspapers. The closing shot of my TV interview showed me walking away from the camera, along a Binghamton University path in upstate New York where I was working toward a Ph.D., conveying something dramatic, maybe even exotic. Strange, I thought. The question raised in the report: “Will he get there?”

        The plane landed and we debarked, many mesmerized. Immigration did not stamp our passports when we passed through customs to hide evidence of our arrival. We boarded buses, were given flowers of welcome, and rode through Havana, stopping once for deliberation between the delegation leaders, including Medea Benjamin, now of Code Pink, and our hosts. When the bus door opened, I stepped out, alone, with my flowers, crossed the road, and gave them to an older woman among the onlookers. Spontaneous. Probably a transgression of some kind. I wasn’t showboating. I had a gift to pass along. Contact. Why I came.

        The trip became a gift, too. I wasn’t unfamiliar with so-called Third World circumstances, having traveled to Nicaragua twice, including to the northwest region along the Honduras border where the U.S.-backed contra forces marauded and murdered displaced Nicaraguans in the parched area, who chose to live in cooperatives, many of these radical Christian-based comunidades de base ecclesiales, thrown off their former properties by cotton and sugar plantation land thieves before the socialist Sandanista government revolutionaries came into power. That was history then, though. The Contra attacks were no longer necessary. The U.S. won. The Sandanistas were out of power. The base communities considered an aberration, condemned by the conservative Nicaragua Roman Catholic cardinal, the church. But a popular movement persisted despite that in Nicaragua. It wasn’t “communist” like the Cuban island. It was a means of survival, cooperative, collaborative in the midst of scarce resources, of a people who had known the feudal oppression of a dictatorship, the U.S. backed Somoza government.

Just a minute, though. A question. Wasn’t it the dictatorial Batista government that Fidel Castro and his band of insurgents overthrew? And didn’t these usurpers seek assistance from the Eisenhower administration before turning ultimately to Russia? A Cuba now entering its “Special Period” of increased impoverishment with the breakup of the Soviet Union at the time of our journey to Cuba?

A few features of the “Special Period” clearly stood out:

One, the second language taught in schools switched from Russian to English, including the courses of study open to teachers at the University of Havana. Walking alone away from our group through Havana streets, a small group of children followed me asking if I was a Russian. I said, no, I’m from the USA, which brought exclamations of surprise and greetings in English. One man walked alongside me, one of the new English teachers, trying out his own expertise in the language. He invited me to his daughter’s birthday party (a ruse for me to bring a gift, likely U.S. dollars). I smiled and declined. Still, we chatted.

Another feature, despite the proclamations of an egalitarian society, Cuba had two separate economies, the peso and the dollar, and the twain wasn’t supposed to meet, though it did via the underground market. Those who worked in the dollar economy – tourism and international commercial efforts – lived better off than those in the peso world, an elite of sorts. On both of my visits, my dollar lured prostitutes, vendors, restaurants, hotels and other amenities available to international visitors.

A third, though openly interracial – with Afro-Cubans making up about 65 percent of the population – one social policy analyst noted in her study indications of racism at the micro-levels of the distribution of goods and services, a distribution that at that level favored the more European looking Cubans. She did not hesitate to expound on her findings during an inter-American conference that I took part in at the University of Havana in 1995.

A fourth feature showed up as a plus, the availability of sophisticated medical care and the continued effort by the Cuban government to send teams of medical caregivers to other countries and to offer this care to victims of the massive Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown in Ukraine. ...

 

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

       

RUST COLORED HAIR - SEGMENT FROM AN ESSAY IN PROGRESS

Rust Colored Hair -- segment from an essay draft, in-progress

        Aboard the chartered plane from Cancun, Mexico, the Cuban band rocked the cabin, playing for we, the illegals, the ones who dared to defy the United States government’s prohibition against traveling to the shunned island 90 miles off the coast of Florida. A few dozen of us, gathered by Global Exchange to violate and repudiate the U.S. blockade. The sanctions. And for me, the refusal to allow a government to prevent me from visiting with people from another land.

        This was the first of two journeys for me to Cuba during the mid-1990s. Our defiance on this one had a penalty, the threat of 10 years in prison and a $200,000 fine. We were felonious. Troublemakers. And many of us broadcast our intentions beforehand, including me, with a local television news report and write-ups in regional newspapers. The closing shot of the TV interview showed me walking away from the camera, along a Binghamton University path in upstate New York where I was working toward a Ph.D., conveying something dramatic, my guess. A troublemaker.

        The plane landed and we debarked, many amazed. No stamps on our passports when we passed through customs. We boarded buses, were given flowers of welcome, and rode through Havana, stopping once for some deliberation between the delegation leaders, including Media Benjamin, now of Code Pink, and our hosts. When the bus door opened, I stepped out, alone, with my flowers, crossed the road, and gave them to an older woman among the onlookers. Spontaneous. Probably a transgression of some kind. I wasn’t showboating. I had a gift to pass along. Contact.

        The trip became a gift, too. I wasn’t unfamiliar with so-called Third World circumstances, having traveled to Nicaragua twice, including to the northwest region along the Honduras border where the U.S.-backed contra forces marauded and murdered displaced Nicaraguans in the parched region, who chose to live in cooperatives, many of them radical Christian-based comunidades de base ecclesiales, thrown off their former properties by cotton and sugar plantation land thieves before the socialist Sandanista government revolutionaries came into power. That was history then, though. The Contra attacks were no longer necessary. The U.S. won. The Sandanistas were out of power. The base communities considered an aberration, condemned by the conservative Nicaragua Roman Catholic cardinal, the church. But a popular movement persisted despite that in Nicaragua. It wasn’t “communist” like the Cuban island. It was a means of survival, cooperative, collaborative in the midst of scarce resources, of a people who had known the feudal oppression of a dictatorship, the Somoza government.

Just a minute, though. Wasn’t it the dictatorial Batista government that Fidel Castro and his band of insurgents overthrew? And didn’t these usurpers seek assistance from the Eisenhower government before turning ultimately to Russia? By the time of our journey to Cuba, now entering its “Special Period” of increased impoverishment with the breakup of the Soviet Union? ...

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

 

 

 

       

       

EXPLORING RUSSIAN RELATED AND PROBLEMATIC THEMES

I'm researching several Russia-related and problematic themes at the moment.

Why? I'm trying to figure this out. A solid explicit reason has yet to emerge. 

The themes include:

-Russian history,

-Putin,

-Yeltsin,

-the Ukraine conflict and illicit and warlike opportunism on all sides,

-the Chechnya conflict and others,

-the polonium poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko,

-the assassination and work of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya,

-Russian organized crime,

-the Gulag,

-imprisoned then freed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovski,

-the wealth and holdings ex-Ukraine president Yevtushenko gained,

-Russian literature,

-and others, some yet to be discovered.

 I'm studying the language as well (not easy at my advanced age).

With this, I expect to post summaries of some of that research.

Why again? A solid explicit reason has yet to emerge. Maybe it's the spirit of inquiry with integrity ...

Честность - honesty, integrity

ILLUSIONS FROM "WHEN" -- STORY IN PROGRESS ...

ILLUSIONS FROM "WHEN" - in progress

Agent One started the conversation above ground.:

"Of course this between us is only a matter of convenience."

Agent Two: "For now."

"And you have the state's resources."

"A mere suspicion. We're both elusive. And your resources? An enemy, maybe?"

"The state always speaks in terms of an enemy."

"The law, then ..."

"The state has control of judges, lawmakers, hired guns, lobbyists, influence peddlers, utilization of the underworld, you know that."

"We have secrets then to share?"

"That's what makes this alliance intriguing."

"So where did those two go?"

"We are not aligned. I don't know."

"But you're familiar with them."

"Only insofar as a brief historical encounter."

"The collapsed boardwalk then?"

"A mere demonstration, I suppose. There may have been another motive."

"We both have familiarities, then. To me it was a hallucination, an illusion. Nothing in the newspapers."

"Depends on the frame of reference, doesn't it?"

The two stopped walking, realizing they lost their bearings and an actual physical connection with each other, rapt in conversation. Both Agents ran their maps through their minds, pinpointing icons showing their locations, now several blocks apart, but converging.

Agent Two: "Our physical destination must be the convergence point."

Agent One: "I'll meet you there."

At that moment, police and fire engine sirens shot cascading shrill echoes through nearby skyscrapers. Both Agents received enforcement alerts: "The Museum of Culture!" They arrived within seconds, showed respective security badges, passed through quickly set up barricades, and stepped inside. The floors and walls looked empty. The intrusion alerts quieted and a guard pointed upward. All the works of that gallery appeared to have been spread across the ceiling, undamaged, but inaccessible beyond neon-colored wires.

"They're attached, perhaps they can't be removed, even if we get through the wires," a museum official announced. "Just this gallery."

"Those two," Agent Two assumed. Agent One agreed.

Agent Two: "Oh, it's a pun."

Agent One: "Amused?"

"I shouldn't be. They're commercially sacred artifacts."

 ...

She smiled as they sat on a park bench and watched the chaos.

“Watch, this,” She said. She nodded her head.

“I don’t believe this!” an arriving fire official shouted. “The whole thing’s a hoax!”

“No, no!” a police official said. “The stuff was on the ceiling. Ask anyone inside?”

Arguments grew louder as those who witnessed the illusion claimed what they saw was real while latecomers questioned or derided them.

“How on earth could all those artifacts be hanging from the damn ceiling one minute, then be back in place the next?” one official asked. "It is physically impossible. Come on, you can't be serious."

Afterward, the city formed a commission to investigate the occurrence. They would hire physicists to help them.

Both Agents smiled.

Agent One: “Typical of your people.”

Agent Two: “And not of yours? Are you sure yours are not there, too?”

© Wes Rehberg 2014

THESE ARE DRAFT VERSIONS ....

I probably don't need to say this -- it helps me that the clarification is specified though.
Some texts in posts have since been altered, even radically, as I weave things in a story.
Drafts, then, is what's in this blog.
Posted with trepidation.

ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM "WHEN" -- STORY IN PROGRESS

Another excerpt from "When" ...

------------------------------------

Speaker One and Speaker Two sat at a little round cafe table in the middle of a noisy chain restaurant and bar. The waitress came.

Speaker One: The special.

Speaker Two: The same.

She: Will it be the same then?

Both speakers: Of course, what else?

When She returned, She brought blackened catfish, baked potato and mixed vegetables for Speaker One and placed it on the table. In front of Speaker Two, She placed barbecued chicken wings, celery and sauce, and french fries.  Voilá, She said.

Both speakers: See? The special. The same.

The bartender, He, shouted to the other patrons to rise, circle their table, and applaud.

Speaker Two: No illusions here.

Speaker One: Thank you, all. Thank you. Enjoy our meal.

Both got up from the table and exited the restaurant.

Images of them eating remained.

What else now? He asked.

The museum, She said.

They rode the subway.

In their car, Speaker One sat at one end, Speaker Two at the other. They texted each other, oblivious to others aboard..

She intercepted the messages and displayed them on the train's windows, invisible to the two. Occasional lights in the dark subway tunnel flickered behind.

Speaker One's message: "They're on board with us."

Speaker Two's message: "How can you tell?"

Speaker One's message: "Our car is decoupled, we're coasting."

Speaker Two's message: "Wait ... we're pulling into the station."

Speaker One's message: "That means when the train pulls out, we'll be left behind."

Speaker Two's message: "No problem, this is our stop. "

Others on the car observed the interplay of messages, looked at who might be transmitting them, and headed for the doors. The doors opened. They all exited and turned to look at the car. The doors closed. The car left the station with the rest of the train.

"What the hell was that?" a subway patron asked, angered. "I got off, but this ain't my friggin' stop!"

Others turned looking for someone to blame. Speaker One and Two stepped on the escalator. Halfway up, it stopped.

Speaker One: "We'll have to walk the rest of the way."

The escalator started again.

Speaker Two: "No we won't"

The angry man shouted. "It was those two!" Others turned to look. Just then another train pulled into the station. "Forget it," one of the others said. "Here's another ride. There's always another one."

 © 2014 Wes Rehberg

SHORT EXCERPT FROM "WHEN," STORY IN PROGRESS ...

Short excerpt from "When" ... 

------------------------------

Look behind the illusion, like journalists are supposed to. These two are a layer beneath, under the myth that is perpetuated on the superficial membrane that most take for reality, the game of the frame, said the one speaker

Oh, such cynicism, said the other.

That's it. Swallow it whole. Did not the boardwalk collapse? The journalists will be told how it happened, will read the documents given to them in conspiratorial tones like precious manna that's really manure. Even though one of them may have witnessed what we had.

Oh, it was a hallucination.

How can you depart from your senses like that, said the one speaker.

She leaves the frame of the two speakers' reference and slips between them, ephemeral. He, a wisp, with her, coils a filament around their left ankles. She and he merge and sing in one voice. The sound brightens the filaments and sends a message along the outermost layer of the two speakers' skin so that it appears to be both sound in their ears and printed words to their optic nerves.

See, said the one speaker. Is that a hallucination?

I am still suspicious. Are we getting the same message? said the other.

---------------

© 2014 Wes Rehberg

FROM "WHEN," A WRITING IN PROGRESS

FROM "WHEN," IN PROGRESS ...

I could waste our time and talk about the inner sense of torque she used to remove the carriage bolts without a tool in her hand.

It was evanescent.

That is such a trite word. The whole thing collapsed.

Boardwalk and all.

It was the argument on the boardwalk along the beach.. A question of scale.

When?

When they were talking about scale.

What they expect? Of course they would have to shrink.

But then the estimate could be wrong. Too small. Too large. They're too random, careless.

They use a frame of reference.

Oh sure, them. Disrupting. Decoupling. Oblongs into wisps of steam and she shouting "integrity."

When?

At the estimated appropriateness. She never misses.

He's the randomizer though. Clever. Subtle, like an atmosphere of illicit behavior.

All of it.

---------------

© 2014 Wes Rehberg

DRAFT EPISODE: "ELROD'S AWAKENING" - ELROD AND CHER ...TURNING POINT

Draft episode from "Elrod's Awakening," my novel in progress -- Elrod and Cher, a turning point ...

"Probably way overgrown. Look for a  little log cabin"

"There!" Elrod said.

"Drive right up to it through the brush."

The van lurched as Elrod pulled off the road and rocked back and forth as he neared the cabin, the van leaving a trail of pressed down brush.

"Surprised? I hope it isn't too messed up inside."

"Sure out of the way," Elrod answered. "How am I going to get along here when you leave?"

"I'll get the electric turned on. Let's go inside. I'll use the walker but please bring my wheelchair inside. We'll need to get bedding and groceries and whatever else later."

Inside, dampness and darkness greeted them along with a musty scent. Elrod pulled back dusty curtains to let in light while Cher wheeled over to a woodstove. The one-room cabin had a medium sized futon, four wooden chairs, a table, a bathroom closet that contained a compost toilet, the woodstove, a low broad shelf and cabinets that contained dishes, utensils, a small refrigerator and a propane camp stove..

"No leaks," Cher said. "This is an amazing little place. I'll tell you the story about it later. Look out the back, there's a standpipe. When the electric's on, we'll have cool, clear water, I hope. The well's real deep."

Elrod laughed. "Far, far better than many places I've slept."

Cher looked at her smartphone, two to three bars, and phoned the electric company. A truck could be there in the afternoon. "There's a shed in the back with some useful things in it too, if they're not rusted," she said. "Might be some usable firewood on the ground too. I hope the chimney pipe isn't clogged up with a critter nest."

Elrod gathered up sticks and logs that broke off fallen trees, placed them in and alongside the woodstove, removed a butane lighter from his backpack, and with the trash from their meals on the road, lit the woodstove. No clog in the stove pipe.

"Warmth!" Cher said, laughing. I really like her laugh, Elrod thought.

"Tell you what," she said. "Let's just get groceries after the electricity is turned on."

Cher wheeled over to the bed, removed the clear plastic covering and felt the mattress. It seemed cool and slightly damp, but it could dry with the woodstove heat, she thought.

"I'm beat from the drive," she said. "We'll use your sleeping bag tonight, get bedding tomorrow. We could have gotten it before we arrived, but I wasn't sure about how things here would be. We'll rest and cook up a little dinner." She laughed again.

Elrod's eyebrows raised. "Okay," he said, not sure how to respond.

 I wonder what's going to become of my adopted identity as detective Elrod Mathews, he thought, and how this is going to turn out.

That night, Cher, in her wheelchair, asked Elrod to listen as she unfolded her story. "I'm a misfit," she said, "like you. But in a different way. I'll tell you a little about it. Then, if you want, you tell me a bit about you."

"Not much to tell, really, than you seem to know already."

"We'll see."

Elrod removed a pan of steaming water from the woodstove and poured the water into two cups, each with a teabag of chai. Into each he added a half a teaspoon of stevia and some soy creamer. He handed one cup, on a saucer, with a spoon, to Cher. He sat back on the futon with his cup. Switching arms, Cher moved the wheelchair closer to the woodstove and faced Elrod. They both sipped in silence, the slight scent of wood burning and the sound of the low fire undertones in the cabin. A single lamp lit the room with an amber glow.

"You know about the motorcycle accident," she said.

(C) Copyright 2014 Wes Rehberg

DRAFT EPISODE - "ELROD'S AWAKENING" -- novel in progress

Draft episode -- "Elrod's Awakening" -- novel in progress

In his motel room, Elrod tried to write a blog entry but the memory of the rush of recent experiences transfixed him. He looked out his window at the garden nursery next door then sat  back on his bed. I want to regress, he thought, go back to my homeless way of talking about myself in the third person, keep me at a distance. No. That's not possible. I'm unstuck. I laid aside the pretense. Deep down inside I knew it was a pretense.

“What do I do now?” Elrod wrote in his little laptop. “I feel suspended in time and space. When I look out the window, I wonder if I’ll see the large, black SUV or the Venus Appliances van, the Russian speaking men. If I move about in the ways I've become accustomed, I could be spotted and might endanger people here in the motel, including Jenny Clareville.”

Elrod wrote hesitantly about his role in unearthing the whereabouts of the kidnapped street-courier boy and the convenience store robber, his brief association with Detective Bo Carter, much different from that of his former relationship with Raphool Walker, and the suspicion that there might be a bounty on him. When finished, he posted it to his private blog. I need to keep the details in mind, in case my mind clogs up again, he thought. It might be that the days of the once-homeless investigator Elrod Mathews are over, if that’s what one could call me. He added that thought to his blog.

Clareville Motel sat about two miles from the main district of a small town adjacent to the larger city where the crime episodes that Elrod encountered occurred. No buses ran between these two municipalities, though a bus could be taken from the nearby shopping center in another adjacent town, the bus Elrod rode on his last trip downtown with his bicycle.

From the motel, Elrod could see Southern Cookin’ restaurant. He decided to walk there for lunch. Two other small motels that housed long-term residents stood within walking distance as did an old service station, a business that sold boats, and a used furniture store that boasted of antiques that actually were old pieces that had been worked on for resale.

The rush of aromas and warmth made him smile as he entered the restaurant's small crowded dining area. In a booth in the rear he noticed Jim Sylvester and thought about doing an about face, but instead took a seat at the counter. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned. Jenny smiled.

“Sit with me. I’m in the overspill room. I saw you walking by the window.”

Elrod avoided looking in Sylvester’s direction as the two moved to her table, in a line of sight with the cash register where customers paid the lone waitress. When Sylvester rose to pay and leave, Elrod asked Jenny if she knew him. They both watched him stroll by a window to his car. He waved and pointed his finger at Elrod as if it were the barrel of a pistol.

“No,” Jenny said. “I’ve seen him around. He knows you, obviously, though. How?”

“He showed up at the community kitchen homeless shelter and spoke with me. He knew what I’d been up to.”

The waitress appeared for Elrod’s order and Jenny asked whether she knew the man who just paid.

“Jim Sylvester,” the waitress replied. “He’s a private detective.”

Jenny laughed. Elrod looked puzzled.

"He lives in town, used to be married to Sally, the cook,” the waitress said. “Must still like the way she prepares lunch.”

“Maybe he wants to take you on,” Jenny said to Elrod.

“Me?” Elrod said, shaking his head. “He’s got something up his sleeve. And now he knows where I'm located.”

“If he didn’t already,” the waitress said. “He’s got a decent reputation. Ethical. But lazy. Drove Sally nuts.”

(c) Copyright Wes Rehberg, 2014

"UPROOTED" PASSAGE - MOROCCO REUNION AND AFTERMATH

Passage from “Uprooted” - the Morocco reunion and aftermath

"So, you can see through my family here, an answer to your question, father," Gasson Hasheem said to Stephens as they walked along the Tangier shoreline the next morning. "How I think, where it might lead. You represent that, too."

"I have," Stephens said. "Less so in recent years."

"Yes, but the exposés you were engaged in with Alicia, principally, and Helen, they count for something that way."

"True."

"Plus, now you have that buccaneer charisma, with the eye patch. You should continue to wear it."

They laughed.

"We must return. I think you and the others should have an early start. You have decisions to make once you get to Madrid."

"Or before."

"Make reservations to take the high-speed train. I suspect the buses may be crowded with our migrants returning to Spain. Some Moroccan migrant workers along the Spanish coast take a holiday to rejoin their families on the weekends."

Lys and Stephens looked at each other as they walked with the group toward the Tangier ferry slip. I know what's coming, she thought. So does Gil.

Awaad Hasheem and his sister Leila led the way. Family standard bearers, Stephens thought. Gasson walked with Sandra Mills, his arm on Stephens shoulder. On Mills other side walked Rice; on Stephens, Lys. At the customs entry, visitors and hosts embraced. They'd meet again, that seemed certain. There'd likely be a marriage sometime soon, maybe within the year.

As the travelers sat at a table in the ferry's lounge, Rice said to Stephens that she wanted to call SUNY-Oquaga, she had a sabbatical coming, paid, and she'd like to spend some of that time in Rotterdam to work with Mills, offer the workshop that was interrupted by the interstate accident that wounded Stephens and Lys, and to explore directions Europeans are involved in. It felt wrenching, but at her age, it was an opportunity she shouldn't pass up. This was a very serious thing, she knew, given all that happened in the last year. It's a time to explore transformations, directions. For all of them.

Stephens frowned. He walked out onto the ferry's deck, felt the sea spray, and took in the aroma of the Mediterranean. Sandra Mills stood up, left the table, passed through the cabin's doors and joined him, unprompted. She leaned on the rail alongside him, both now dampened by the sea.

"Gil, you've been like a father to me," she said. She put her arm in his. "Less crazy than Helen, for sure, but in your way, as present as she, someone I knew I could rely on all these years. I love you for that and for who you are."

Stephens turned around to face the ferry cabin and viewed their reflection in the windows.

"I'm happy my son and you found each other," he said. "It's not a trite thought. I can't explain it. What finding him, his family, and their acceptance, and you two together mean. And I understand how important Helen will be at this time. It's an odd uncertain moment."

"Maybe it's not as uncertain as it seems."

He smiled. She did too.

"You're too wise," he said.

"I'm getting wet," she said. "Let's go inside."

PASSAGE FROM "UPROOTED" -- Helen and Anna in Amsterdam

-- Helen Rice and Anna Pietersen in Amsterdam:

"So much sadness to overcome," Pietersen said. "In this, there is not only who we are, but also our memories. I have never felt love like this, Helen. Can this house really feel like home to you after where you have lived and worked for so long? I am afraid you might abandon me."

"That doesn't seem possible," Rice said. "I love you so deeply. It mystifies me."

"We will find out who we are, then," Pietersen said.

Rice smiled and nodded. "The creative crones."

"Yes, I like that better than the sexy crones," Pietersen said. "Tea and brandy?"

"Sure."

Rice watched Pietersen prepare their tea and sit across from her at the kitchen table. Her face can appear so sad at times, she thought. We are physically similar, but our dispositions are different. She is more reserved, I'm more outgoing. I'm not sure, but she seems to be more sensitively attuned to nuance while I might overlook that in moments of flamboyance.

Pietersen laughed lightly. "You are analyzing me," she said. "It makes me self-conscious."

"Sensibilidad," Rice said. "A Spanish word that I understand to mean both sensitivity and sensibility. You embody that, Anna."

"I appreciate that and like the thought," Pietersen said. "But I think you must have the same in order to perceive it."

"I'm a little short on sensibility at times."

With their tea and brandy, they moved quickly through the cold afternoon to the studio behind the house, entered it, turned up the heat, and stood side-by-side. Pietersen said she felt reluctant about returning to her potting wheel, that like Rice, she wanted to try a different approach.

"We talked about collaboration," Rice said. "Would you like to try that with a light sculpture? I'm anxious to start. Maybe something that will amuse us instead of the heavy works the memorials represent. Perhaps with the notion of 'tilt' and pinball machine parts."

Pietersen placed her arm in Rice's and smiled. That would work, she said. She conceived of "tilt" as a graceful gesture more than as a shove that ended a pinball game, or perhaps both notions could be incorporated. Yes, said, Rice, one to mark the end of one "game" transmuted to a gesture that suggests a new direction, in a way telling their story. Pietersen said she could familiarize herself with the electronics necessary, in a sense, be the "technician" for the electrical network they'd need. They laughed.

"Creative crones," Pietersen said.

"The work will take a while to do," Rice said.

"Good. There is no rush. It is for us," Pietersen said.

"UPROOTED" NOW PUBLISHED AND AVAILABLE ...

“UPROOTED” - the novel - is now published and available from its web site in paperback and ebook formats. It’s offered via Amazon.com in Kindle and paperback books, from the publisher, and from us in compact disk in three popular ebook formats that can be shared with others as well.

Web site is: http://www.wildclearing.com/uprooted.html

Also on the site is a synopsis of the novel.

'UPROOTED' PASSAGE - AFTER THE ACCIDENT

PASSAGE FROM MY NOVEL 'UPROOTED' -- AFTER THE ACCIDENT ...

Gil Stephens saw tiny blinking light flashes, then felt pulsations in his head. A rush of sound followed and stirred him, then it quieted down. He opened his eyes to a blurry field of view. No. He was looking out of just one eye. Sounds clicked behind him and fogged faces appeared, then torsos and arms. He felt himself lifted and placed on something soft. Voices murmured. I'm sliding, he thought. He tensed.

"Mr. Stephens," he heard echo somewhere. The voice repeated his name. He tried to grasp its meaning. Mr. Stephens, he thought. He tried to shake his head to clear it but the pain jolted him. Oh. This is a hospital. The accident, the highway, the snow. Alicia. What happened to Alicia?

He tried to speak, frightened, and attempted to raise himself. Another jolt of pain, now up his left side. He couldn't move his arm.

"Mr. Stephens," the voice repeated again. "Can you hear me?" It was a female voice. Someone lifted his right arm and connected a tube. He felt attached and detached at the same time. The image of the crash consumed him. He tried to speak.

"Is she alright?" he heard his voice, slurred, say. "Is Alicia alright?"

"Your passenger is fine. She was injured, a couple of cracked ribs, but went home yesterday."

"Oh," he said. "Oh." He shuddered at the torrent of emotions that swept through him. "Where am I?"

"You're in the ICU at Oquaga General. You've just had an MRI. It looks like you'll recover. You've been pretty banged up."

"Helen," he said. "Does my wife know? She's in The Netherlands." A sense of clarity returned. I need to think straight, he thought.

"She was here earlier today, came right from the airport. She went home to change. She said she'd be right back. I'll call and let her know you're conscious. How do you feel?"

"Overwhelmed. Totally overwhelmed."

Stephens tried to see who he was talking with. Her image was still blurred.

"I'm Jeanine, a nurse," she said. "You have a broken upper arm and collarbone. We've got you bound up. Your left eye and the left side of your head is bandaged. We put you on a morphine drip."

"How bad? How bad are my injuries?"

"We need to monitor you to check for any swelling inside your head. So far, so good. Your vital signs are positive. We're not sure about your eye yet?"

"My eye," he said. He felt his awareness slipping away. "I'm having trouble."

"Go ahead back to sleep. It's okay."