Angela Amman

stories of choices and consequences

Writing

re-reads & future plans

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Yesterday I didn’t do any writing but ran all over the world getting ready for the start of school. I didn’t even feel bad about it until later in the evening when I considered writing something just to check a box for the day. I didn’t do that, and now I’m not sure if I should have or not.

I do know that it made me realize daily writing, at least in a formal sense, will be much harder to do when school starts again. I’m pondering how to structure my week so I can keep up with my reading, and increase my writing, but still manage to do everything I need to do. Right now, I think I’m going to try to keep up here maybe three – four days a week and dedicate my non-preschool days to a block of fiction writing. I have a project I think could get off the ground by spring, but I haven’t really made any effort to touch it in a long time.

As far as reading, I’m spending the twilight of summer diving into books I’ve already loved. I don’t have to concentrate on the plot as much as the mood and language, letting the writing transport and soothe me without the need to push through pages to discover what happens. It’s a source of comfort for me when other things are ramping up my anxiety, and I’m counting the books toward my annual count.

Speaking of the annual count, I’m questioning whether or not I like the tracking of books and reading goals. Is my focus on the number or the quality or what? I can’t decide. I’m not sure it makes sense for me to quantify one of my favorite past times the way I’ve been doing it, yet I can’t help but chase the dopamine rush of meeting (or beating) a goal.

Is it any surprise that the majority of my August posts are “musings” instead of anything substantial?

dapper? {fiction}

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June’s eyes darkened as they walked through the door to the tiny store. Lauren did her best to unclench her jaw, but even her considerable patience had been shredded by her daughter’s bad mood. Jasmine scented the air inside the shop, just lightly enough not to be cloying, and she soldiered forward to one of the racks that held dresses. June’s clipped tones from the previous stores echoed in her head. “Too short. Too long. No. Definite no.” Shopping with a grumpy teenager was worse than she remembered.

“I think I’m going to look at the earrings,” Lauren said. “Why don’t you look around and see if there’s anything you’d like to try on before we call it a day.”

“This is barely a store. There’s not going to be anything here,” June hissed.

Lauren paused for a moment to feel grateful her daughter still had the manners not to insult the shop within earshot of the woman straightening scarves next to the register. The gratitude only soothed her for a second.

“Just look. I don’t think you have time to ship anything before you leave tomorrow.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t even go,” June said.

“What? You’ve been talking about flying home for the winter formal for weeks,” Lauren reminded her.

“I’m still confused as to why you’re not coming with me,” June grumbled, thumbing through a small rack of short dresses.

Unbidden, the memory of shopping for June’s first homecoming dress unfurled through Lauren’s mind. Emerald green sequins, June had insisted on sequins, and the green looked incredible with her eyes. Of course, no teenager in the history of dress shopping would ever consider that they looked “incredible” in anything at all. Sequins were a “definite no” for this shopping adventure, thankfully, since Lauren didn’t see anything sparkling in the dresses in front of June.

“I’m not coming because we’ve spent a small fortune flying back and forth the last eight months, and I don’t think any of your dapper young friends care to see me before hopping into a party bus and making their way to a school dance,” Lauren said.

June groaned. “Who uses words like dapper anymore?”

“Your mother, when she’s trying not to bop you over the head with a hanger, I guess,” Lauren said.

“I thought you were looking at earrings,” June grumbled.

Lauren wandered to the back of the store. She needed a new pair of earrings like she needed another argument with her daughter, but it gave her somewhere to reign in her irritation. As she browsed dainty hoops and delicately beaded shapes, she listened for the hangers moving against the rack. At least June was trying to look for something instead of walking out.

“They’re made by a woman on a little island just north of here.”

“I know that island,” Lauren said, wondering which of her neighbors handcrafted jewelry in their spare time. She hadn’t recalled anyone mentioning it.

“We try to stock local goods whenever possible,” the shopkeeper sighed. “It’s harder than it seems.”

Lauren nodded, recognizing the pang of guilt about the amount of online shopping they did from their little cottage. Of course, good jeans weren’t as easy to source locally as artsy earrings and scented candles. She held a pair of earrings up to the light, appreciating the tiny opal beads lining the hoops. Guilt shopping would get her every time.

“Mom?”

Lauren detected a slight thawing in June’s voice and took a breath before turning around.

“I’m going to try these two on,” she said, holding up a satin slip dress the color of storm clouds and a tiny concoction of tulle layers that looked short enough to be considered a long shirt.

Lauren nodded, knowing better than to say a single thing about either of the dresses June held. If she’d learned nothing over the past few years, it was that her opinion was only needed when June asked, and not always even then.

“The fitting room is unlocked.”

“Thanks.” June turned on her heel, allowing a smile to play at the corners of her mouth.

“We don’t stock many cocktail dresses,” the woman said, her tone apologetic.

“We don’t buy many,” Lauren shrugged. There’d been a time when she had, though, and some days she missed it. The specter of their life in California loomed larger some days than others, especially on days like today when the cold air bit at her neck through her scarf. Even trickier than the weather, her argument with Charlie lingered uncomfortably in her mind. She would never tell June, could barely admit it to herself that the reason she wasn’t getting a plan to San Francisco was because she was almost unsettled enough to make it a one-way trip.

prompt: Use this dialogue: Who uses words like dapper anymore?

the fading of summer

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Our air conditioner isn’t working. The cooling factor decreased a little at a time over a couple of weeks, and now we’re waiting to either change something or fix something before caving in and replacing the whole darn thing. Some days the house feels stifling and other days I need to wrap a sweater around me to feel warm enough, though it’s always a little damper than I’d prefer. I should care more than I do, but on days like today, when rain falls and dark clouds fill the sky, I feel like summer is almost over anyway.

The kids go back to school in eleven days. We are in the twilight of the season, when most of the fun is finished and all that remains is spending money and rushing around to one-off commitments, like health training and eighth grade registration. We’re all a little on edge, torn between midnight bedtimes and the promise of a solid schedule.

Every year I lament the things I didn’t accomplish: the outings we didn’t do, the book I didn’t write, the times I flipped my pillow to the cool side and fell back asleep instead of getting up early to run. Soon my days will be filled with treadmill miles and spreadsheets, meals on the go and trying to remember to empty lunch boxes before filling them the next day.

I don’t mind the scheduled days, the flipping of my attitude back into school mode. I do wish I could go back to the beginning of summer, with the months stretched in front of me, and make more progress than I have. Some summer nights I wonder if I made any progress at all; things seems stagnant and loud in my head, and I wonder if I’ve missed something crucial between June and now.

Tomorrow could bring blinding sunshine, a promise that we have summer days still left to unpack. Today, though, the rain brings cool dampness to the air, a whisper of fall pressing its lips to my ear, whether or not I’m ready to listen.

clarity {fiction}

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I found this site, which offered this prompt: Start with this, “It’s all perfectly clear now.”

“It’s all perfectly clear now,” Lauren said.

The phone call ended shortly after she agreed to the clarity of the explanation. New Jersey would be closing shop for the day soon, and her questions sounded redundant even in her own ears. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, because nothing seemed any more clear than it had when she picked up the phone to call her father’s attorneys. The details of the educational trust tangled together, backtracking on themselves and becoming more weighted with every question Lauren asked about applying it to her daughter’s potential boarding school.

Not that she wanted June to go away to school yet, anyway, Lauren reminded herself. She opened her eyes and stared at the notes she’d started to write, crossing out certain words and circling others. Her father’s pre-mortem wishes, like most else about his post-mortem legacy, seemed overly complicated, a puzzle to solve instead of a gift to her sixteen year old. Whether or not the money could be used for pre-college study seemed to be straightforward enough, but he’d added preferences about which areas of the country were permitted. The geographical stipulations possibly ended with high school graduation and possibly didn’t, depending on grades and what June’s post-high school plans might be.

It didn’t help that Lauren hadn’t truly slept in days, in not weeks. Her father’s death hadn’t shocked her in the least; she’d known for years he lived on borrowed time after a life spent cultivating every bad habit one could find between Atlantic City and Las Vegas and back again. What shocked her were the breadcrumbs he’d left for her to follow, emails, phone calls, and even a hand-delivered letter from his lawyer’s office, all containing new twists and addendums to a will she had been surprised he’d even created in the first place. Her grief teased at her, leaving her to wonder whether he was engaging her in one final puzzle or flipping her a seriously severe proverbial bird.

Scowling at her notes one more time, a copy of the trust agreement in pages across her desk, Lauren swept it all onto the floor. She’d be the one to pick up the pages, but she was used to doing that. Tears threatened but she squeezed her eyes shut before they could consider falling onto her cheeks. She didn’t need the money to send her daughter to school anyway. Lauren let herself admit, for just a second, that she wanted June to feel closer to her grandfather, even if only when tuition was due. If anything at all was crystal clear, it was that her relationship with her own father never had been, and apparently never would be.

crows & ravens

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This morning I saw a murder of crows perched on our neighbor’s roof. I’m not sure when they landed, but I noticed them as I rinsed out my coffee cup, torn between emptying the dishwasher myself and waiting until Dylan came home since it’s technically his job. (I waited.) The first crow lifted into the air, then the second, black against the white-gray sky. The third, no longer part of a murder, strutted across the peak before coasting down to the ground. He pecked lazily at the ground before leaving.

He looked larger on the ground than the roof, black and gleaming, even in the gloomy light of a morning that would bring rain. I’m always surprised by the size of the crows in our yard. Accustomed to sparrows and cardinals, the occasional blue jay, and some woodpeckers I hear but rarely see, the crows seem out of place.

A few summers ago, we went to a tiny zoo and saw ravens. I saw the plaque for them before I saw the birds, and I questioned the inclusion of them along the path we were taking to get to the bat tower. Then I saw the ravens, and I realized I’d never seen one, at least not up close. I marveled at their size, the way they made the backyard crows look delicate. Their talons gripped the ground prehistorically, and I shuddered to think of the way they would feel if the raven perched upon my shoulder.

Their eyes saw more than I expected, promising intelligence I didn’t expect. It could have been an illusion, but it stuck with me darkly and slightly uncomfortably.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” grew more ominous after seeing those birds.

I thought of them this morning as the final crow alit into the sky. I was reminded of the importance of perspective, and the cruciality of experiencing certain things in reality and not just in imagination. Odd, how something as simple as a black bird can conjure thoughts of mortality and knowing. Odder, how I can still feel the gooseflesh that arose on my arms when I saw their eyes.

prompt annoyance

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Today was going to be my first prompt writing day, and instead I’m writing about annoyance. (I feel like that’s par for the course right now, though why I’m using a golf saying when I don’t golf, I’ll never know.) I’m annoyed, because I did something I warn my kids against doing.

I downloaded a free app without looking into the fine print.

I wanted to get prompts in a simple way, so I quickly scanned apps and chose one. I noticed there were in-app purchases offered, but I feel like most apps have that disclaimer, so I ignored it. I went through a few steps of choosing what kind of prompts I would enjoy getting (different genres of writing, visual or written), and then I realized I would only be able to use the app for a week before I needed to pay for a subscription (monthly or annually).

I deleted the app immediately, because there’s no way I’d remember to cancel before the end of the trial, even with email and phone reminders. We’re getting into serious back-to-school mode, and I know myself well enough to know I’d miss it by about five minutes and be on the hook for a year. Since it’s creeping toward the end of the day, I decided not to find another source for prompts and just write about why I’m not using a prompt.

I’m also half watching Criminal Minds with Ab and one quarter watching Max chase a puff ball around the room, which means I have only a sliver of my brain on the screen. That’s not how any of this is supposed to work, I know, but it’s been a long day. Hopefully tomorrow I can do something a little more meaningful — or at least interesting — with my writing time.