He was depressed throughout the six-week class.  A prominent author in Charleston, he had won awards for his short stories and now led a workshop at the downtown public library for aspiring authors.  I had participated in the group and benefitted from mingling with others who shared my love for the craft.  I was amazed at the different genres represented--historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry--a plethora of creativity sitting along the walnut conference table.  Throughout the class, though, I sensed the teacher was "not all there."  He would bring an exercise, but rarely showed enthusiasm or provided feedback--his affect flat.  I surmised he was tired, as he talked of his rigourous schedule teaching at the local college and parenting his small children.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt, as I'd read some of his work, and it was really good.  I wanted to write as well as he did.

Yesterday I stood looking out the window at my workplace as I microwaved my coffee for the fourth time that morning.  I'm like that.  I forget about my coffee, and it goes cold.  Then I'm back at the microwave punching the button for sixty more seconds.  The rain hit the window pane in streaming rivulets of water.  Through the rain-streaked window, I glimpsed a city bus.  I could even hear its wheels slicing through the wet pavement.  The bus was painted bright red with a gigantic picture of McDonald's French fries on its side.

This week I continue a third excerpt from the book I'm writing, What Lies Between Us ( A Geography of Marriage).  I'll end the excerpts here for a time.  If you missed the first two entries, you'll find them in What Lies Between Us and The Medieval Prince Bids Farewell.  Thank you for allowing this peek of my newest work...

"How wrong we were about each other, and how happy we have been." (From the poem, I Married You, by Linda Pastan)

The closet was one of the most spacious I'd ever had--kind of counterintuitive in such a small house.  In fact the entire master bedroom was almost another little house in a house--like those Russian nesting dolls.  In the bedroom I got down to the next to last doll, and then that remaining little doll, as tiny as a thimble, was me, my truest self there in that sanctuary of a bedroom--able to rest and read, sleep and think.  I decorated the room in soft greens and creams. For Valentine's Day, Giovanni bouht me a comforter that had the same greens and creams with understated touches of pink in the design.  He brought it to me on that Valentine's night after he got off his shift at the Olive Garden. 

This week I continue with another excerpt from the book I'm currently writing, What Lies Between Us.  The book follows the true story of a marriage that intersects two cultures--two relational geographies.  

"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn."~Anne Frank

August 2005

Charleston, SC

Thunder growled outside.  I looked out of my front window and noted the clouds--gray plumes that created a shadowy covering for the day.  I didn't really mind.  It would feel good to be in the house with Emma.  I looked at my gigantic dog sleeping on the sofa. How did I ever become a companion with such a large creature?  At her last vet visit she weighed in at ninety pounds.  Granted she was slightly overweight, but not by much.  Her girth took up most of the couch.  I sat down beside her and rested my hand on one of her velvety ears.  She raised her head and looked sleepily at me, her eyes narrowed.  She siged, then laid her head back down. "We have it good today, Emma.  A cozy day inside, just the two of us."  By that time, the rain came down in sheets, pelting the window pane and blurring the green fronds of the Palmetto Palm gowing stately in the front yard.

I got up and headed for my bedroom.  Today I had two tasks.  The first to neaten up my walk-in closet, and the second to work on the book I was writing.  Lately, writing had begun to surface in my life again.  I'd always had a fondness for words, even as a child.

Last week I began writing my fourth book--working title:  What Lies Between Us.  In 2005 I wrote my first book, An Ocean Away, a memoir of how I met and married my Italian husband. We've been married now for eleven years and the story continues. Initially an ocean separated us.  As time rolls on we no longer navigate an ocean, but we do grapple with other elements perhaps even more daunting than the wide Atlantic.  I offer a sample here. 

"I feel like running away today.  I would like to go somewhere and make lists to feel better.  Today I feel as if I'm swimming in the ocean and I can't touch bottom.  While the water is warm, it is deep and the waves sometimes crash over my head, the saltwater briny as it washes down my throat.  I cough and spew and fight against the taste.  I want life to be easier, less messy, more predictable.  So today, when it isn't, I can trust that God is here amidst the enormity."--Journal entry, February 2005