HALF WAY

Yesterday afternoon I left a gloriously GOD-decorated fall day in Portland, leaves still every shade of yellow, gold, and red and Mt. Hood graciously standing guard over the city .. and flew to San Jose and traveled down the coast of CA where they are having a heat wave in November. We travel so easy from one place to the next and as easy as it is... I always remember why I love where I live. It is not just the green of the summer and the wonderful fall and blue skies and even the many colors of rain, but the people that I have come to feel are my family. Being gone from them makes me feel smaller and less. And coming home brings joy ... even from small weekends away.



This visit is one of excitement because I get to watch my daughter skate in a roller derby bout, something I have never seen and I am truly anxious to experience this part of my youngest child's life.



I awoke this morning with the windows open and fresh air streaming in... birds calling and as I sit here and write I see flowers cascading over the fence. Skies are blue and it just promises to be a fine day.



But more important than all of that, I have gotten over the hump of this novel I am writing. Today is the 15th and I am more than half way to my goal. The fact that I have found discipline to keep writing does not surprise me. What still scares me is that the story will be completed and I will still have 15,000 words to go. How do people arrange to finish their novels at 50,000 words. If they only make it to 45,500 is that any less of a novel? Can you just write a preface and call it good? I actually already have a preface .. but an epilogue could be in order. Perhaps one could dedicate their novel to their dead mother or to their great aunt Jennie or to their first grade teacher whose name they have forgotten.



BTW that first grade teacher helped me know my potential in challenging me with the hardest spelling words a person could do. I remember having to learn to spell "encyclopedia" and "spaghetti" and "equipment" as a 7 year old and I thought that was what school would be like. Imagine my disappointment when I hit second grade and there was no challenge for me ever. And third grade was even worse. But I digress. That first grade teacher who showed me how smart I was humuliated me - the new girl who arrived mid year in some sort of self invented spanking machine for some imagined infraction. I am sure I did something wrong... but I was not the kind of child at 7 to do anything deliberately wrong. I obeyed my elders and obeyed the rules. (It took me till my teen years to decide to test the rules). I was the new kid. And she had all the kids in the class line up two by two and the offender had to walk between them while each kid was allowed to swat/hit/slap this "bad kid" as they walked the line. It was humiliating. Same teacher. Go figure. No dedication here... just some old baggage.

DKU