100 Word Stories
These are four stories I wrote after I ran across a contest for stories of 100 words or fewer. It seemed like a crazy idea at first but I came to like trying to tell a story in this format. So did others. Click here to find the winners and think about the next contest yourself.
Also in print
Two Very Short Stories
Secret World
She was eight, I’d guess. She hid something on her lap. Crossing the room, I bumped her shoulder, hoping to see what it was. It looked fuzzy.
Recovered, her fourth finger stroked softly while she pretended there was nothing. No one else saw, I’m pretty sure.
She fell asleep before her mother bustled back in. Startled, she forgot her secret. The baby bird slipped to the floor, leaving a streak of blood. Her mother shrieked.
“That’s disgusting! We must wash your hands right now. What is wrong with you? Don’t you hear a word I say?”
No.
Before My Piano Lesson
Cat Woman, pale and severe, was systematic: first the older daughter; then the little one. She spit in her hankie and rubbed their faces. The girls were compliant.
Walking up the stairs for my lesson, I’d pray that Cat Woman would just read her magazine this week. I’d take out my book and wait to be called, but I couldn’t tear my attention from the wetting and washing. Maybe this time they would throw her off.
In my heart, they painted their mother with lip-crusts and filled her old-age with sweat-streaked, grass-stained boys.
Blessings
The start of the year seemed like a good time to revisit Blessings. What’s important? Who’s important? All the big questions sneak up on us this time of year.
What Is Chanukah All About?
Happy Chanukah everybody! For those of you who think Chanukah is just an excuse for Jewish kids to get presents–well, not really, although presents are nice. Chanukah celebrates an interesting bit of history and of course, celebrates winter light–always precious.
I took a little journey through the Chanukahs of my childhood. First we’d light the candles and sing songs in a mixture of English, Yiddish, and German. We had a good meal–brisket and latkes. We opened presents (mostly socks and pajamas.) Then we’d have the fiercely competitive dreidel game (for poker chips or nuts-in-the-shell.) When my Mother got bored, she would start to eat her reserve, which was the beginning of the end.
For all of you who need a little course in dreidel, there is a Hebrew letter on each side of the dreidel (a top made of wood or plastic. I never made the ubliquitous clay dreidel.) The player spins the dreidel and if it falls with the Gimmel up, the player wins the whole pot. If the Hay is up, player takes half the pot. If the Nun is up, player takes nothing and if the Shin is up, player puts 2 in. Everyone antes up again and another player has a turn. The letters stand for the phrase nes gadol hayah sham, a great miracle happened there. The miracle was that the small amount of oil found for the eternal light in the temple lasted eight days until more could be refined. Religiously sanctioned gambling–how fun is that.
My Family–Enough Already!
I wrote, reviewed and performed a great deal about my family in Big Words. Now–I’m done–at least for awhile.
Also in print.
Second Chance
I went to dry plains of West Texas to see if I could find stories about my Grandmother who married and settled there after she endured the second World War in Europe. I found myself wondering about coming to this dry, yet welcoming place.
Recalibration
Recalibration is part of my show The Vestibule (which is available for benefit performances and touring– please contact me.) Thanks to one of my listeners, I discovered this favorite piece never got hooked up quite right when the site went through it’s transition–so here it is in a new recording. It’s timed about right for folks sending their “little ones” off to college. What a process–Congratulations to you. It’s also In Print.
RECALIBRATION
This is a piece from The Vestibule. It’s that time of year when we send our little fledglings off to grow some more… Well, both sides grow.
Recalibration
The liquid lubricates my eye sockets against the everyday too-much. The trickle continues around the back of my throat and along the sides of my neck–warm and gentle. It slows my breathing and my chest finally gives up all the stale air it’s been holding just-in-case.
This salt water loosens the memory, gratitude, sadness, perspective, doubt, uncertainty, and longing I’m usually too busy to feel. It distends my head with the bubble of a sob that might escape, but it doesn’t. The doubts come instead. Then the inventory of the difficulties this day, this week, this month. Finally I notice gravity cradling my body. It sucks me into release I rarely know.
I remember the weight of my belly full of her—my most intimate acquaintance I’d never met. I would think about this child kicking inside—I’d go on to something else—and all the while I was growing her in every miraculous way. Once she brought her long body outside, I’d wrap myself around her on sleepless nights and slow my breathing to trick hers into sleep—a cure for all the strangeness of the world. Often, it would work and I could hold this package of dreams and love in peace.
And now, I’ve sent her off to college, off to refine and refresh those dreams and make them her own. I hope I got it all in there.
My girl already carries way too much wisdom in the cruelties-of-the-world department: the disillusionment of divorce, bad judgment, cultural lies. She learned to speak “adult” to cope with 50 year old adolescents.
“You, fresh-faced ingénues and fascinating elders, cross down center.
Remember your parents—stage dressing.
I spent the summer in retail therapy for the strains of departure—laptops and Ipods and plugs and clocks and phones and cords. I remember I faced motherhood with a similar electronics buy-a-thon. I lost control of my body to a space alien and suddenly I needed a big TV, a VCR and a microwave. Oh I know, these things have nothing to do with a tiny little baby. That’s when I learned— electronic gadgetry is so comforting in transition.
Tonight’s her first night in the dorm. “Goodnight my darling daughter, best I’ve ever done and all the whole world to me. I’m off to the hotel.” She’s so gone.
Walking across the campus that next morning I feel pleasure and calm just knowing she sleeps here. They seem to want her, they want to grow her. She seems pretty comfortable here. Waiting for her at breakfast, all that old anxiety fills my eyes and chest and breath; she feels like a limb again.
“Hi Honey. I’m leaving today–once I find the perfect clip lamp.” It’s all about the clip-lamp now.
There might be some phantom longing. I wish I could always help her. And don’t I know better. The next time I see her she’ll be floating across the sidewalk, like those other daughters I observe. A woman, a daughter. She’ll pull into focus, and become My Girl again—my special girl—for a bit. That moment is more sweet marmalade than it’s always been. Then I’ll return to my world.
The ground is beckoning to her, and she’s planting: studies and mastery; friendships and love affairs; people and solitude. She’ll plan, she’ll do, she’ll have and she’ll be.
The ground is beckoning to me too. I’m pruning, thinning starts. My time feels like my own for the very first time: white porcelain filled with warm custard, golden. New needs and desires, mine.
Ice Cream Musings
Did you know it’s National Ice Cream Month? And what a month! What a substance! So I’m sharing my ice-cream recollections with you. (In Print has the text version of this piece.) You can hear more about my adventures with fresh peach ice cream at Vacation.