Rain has been pounding on my roof all night. And most of yesterday. Today it’s going to be the same. I’m stuck inside my house, longing to stretch my legs and feel sunshine on my face.
Storm after storm after storm. No chance to catch my breath.
I’m not the only one who’s gone through storms over this holiday season. Each person has their own storms to face. To someone else, my problems would only be annoyances. For me, as each problem piles on top of the next, it becomes mind-numbing.
Incessant rain. Grey, swollen skies that hold the day captive.
My creativity is held captive with the California sunshine. My hands hover over my laptop keyboard yet nothing is typed on my screen. Maybe the query rejections were right. Maybe writing a novel is too hard.
Maybe my story is not important.
My responsibilities come tumbling out like junk out of a woman’s purse. Days fill up with important tasks. People I care about need me. When things break, it takes time and money to fix them.
Cars drive by my house, splashing up water from the gutters.
An email arrives. A short story I wrote last year was shortlisted for a fiction contest.
Silence catches my attention. The rain has stopped.
Maybe I can write a story that is important.
My hands fly over the keyboard. Characters, storylines, wonderful places flood my mind. When my stolen moments pass, the story takes hold in my mind and rests there, waiting for my next writing time.
Out comes the sun and dries up all the rain.
And the itsy-bitsy spider climbs up the spout again.
It has been a great year for my writing. Four of my short stories were chosen for anthologies, both digital and printed forms. I now have an Amazon author page. Even though it was modest, I received my first advance paid for my writing. You would think this would create a happy bubble of encouragement.
But it’s also been a year of rejection for my novels.
For an author seeking traditional publishing, the first fortified gate I must scale is finding a literary agent. The querying process is a torturous process that offers little feedback except “you’re not what we’re looking for.”
I could self-publish, but it can be an expensive and grueling process for a mere peasant like myself. Some small publishers take queries from unagented authors, but again I find myself in the dungeon of waiting. As time passes like dripping water down the stone walls, the lack of answer becomes the answer.
There is a bright spot in the dark and damp. My critique groups. While there are readers eager to embrace your character’s struggle, authors will keep on writing.
Even in the dark, even when all seems lost.
Authors create stories and readers give them life.
Check out my short story, “Skulls on a Shelf” in the anthology Never Cheat a Witch. You can buy it in Kindle or paperback on Amazon. You’ll never feel the same about DIY craft projects.
The tiny, shriveled blooms collecting in my swimming pool tell me change is on the way.
Although the sun still sends a trickle of sweat down my cheek, twilight approaches sooner every day. I still wear shorts. The air conditioner still rumbles. But there is a promise of cooler days to come.
If I were back in the state I was born, leaves would turn yellow, red, and brown before swirling to the ground. The wind would have a cool bite. But here in California, the elms in the front yard shed their leaves, but the citrus trees hold theirs green. Nights will be slighter cooler, though not enough to get a jacket out of the closet.
But no one can escape change, not even Californians.
Hope and dread war in my heart. How reassuring would it be if everything stayed the same. As I look around, change never stops. Majestic mountains are brought down, rock by rock. Rivers carry garbage to the ocean. Forests are devastated by raging fires, and farmlands drown in floods. Natural wonders are shadows of their original untouched beauty.
As the years pass, I also cannot escape the ticking clock of time. New wrinkles, grey hair, dental work, aching joints. They remind me that my body has an expiration date. And I can’t renew my extended warranty.
But as the Californian rock band, Switchfoot, wrote, “this skin and bones is a rental.” When my travels on Earth are over, I will move to a more beautiful place. A place not touched by viruses or pain. A place where beauty cannot be corrupted.
So I mourn not for what is lost. Instead, I smile to see piles of elm flowers crumbled in the street. They are my promise that change is coming, and someday I will be home.
The tiny, shriveled blooms collecting in my swimming pool tell me change is on the way.
Although the sun still sends a trickle of sweat down my cheek, twilight approaches sooner every day. I still wear shorts. The air conditioner still rumbles. But there is a promise of cooler days to come.
If I were back in the state I was born, leaves would turn yellow, red, and brown before swirling to the ground. The wind would have a cool bite. But here in California, the elms in the front yard shed their leaves, but the citrus trees hold theirs green. Nights will be slighter cooler, though not enough to get a jacket out of the closet.
But no one can escape change, not even Californians.
Hope and dread war in my heart. How reassuring would it be if everything stayed the same. As I look around, change never stops. Majestic mountains are brought down, rock by rock. Rivers carry garbage to the ocean. Forests are devastated by raging fires, and farmlands drown in floods. Natural wonders are shadows of their original untouched beauty.
As the years pass, I also cannot escape the ticking clock of time. New wrinkles, grey hair, dental work, aching joints. They remind me that my body has an expiration date. And I can’t renew my extended warranty.
But as the Californian rock band, Switchfoot, wrote, “this skin and bones is a rental.” When my travels on Earth are over, I will move to a more beautiful place. A place not touched by viruses or pain. A place where beauty cannot be corrupted.
So I mourn not for what is lost. Instead, I smile to see piles of elm flowers crumbled in the street. They are my promise that change is coming, and someday I will be home.
Every week, she created 10 TikTok videos, posted 21 pictures of her meals on Instagram, and liked all her friends’ memes on Facebook. She answered every text and email immediately upon receiving them. All her friends loved her.
Not only did Violet do everything right, but she also had the right job.
She only drove to the office once a week. The remaining days she worked from her spare bedroom in her tank top and yoga pants. Her colleagues lived around the world, creating ad campaigns for top companies. All her friends envied her.
In addition to doing everything right and having the right job, Violet had the right boyfriend.
Anthony was a firefighter, with tousled raven-colored hair, the kind you wanted to run your fingers through. In fact, he was so hot he was hired to pose for a firefighter calendar that benefited families displaced by wildfires. All her friends loved him.
And yet, Violet did not feel right.
She felt like social media dictated what she should wear and care about. Her bosses expected more from her since she worked at home, so often she worked all night. Anthony worked long hours during the fire season, so he felt like she should run his errands and be available to him without any notice.
She suspected she might need to get rid of some things in her life so she could feel right. She turned off her TV and computer. She deleted her social media accounts. She quit her job and started working at Starbucks. She broke up with her firefighter boyfriend. Her friends pushed each other out of the way to try to date him. Although she was surprised she didn’t care that much about losing these things, she still didn’t feel right.
Violet starting writing again, and that felt right.
Years ago, she loved writing horror stories, but her life became too busy and too right. She pulled her old stories out of the desk drawer and revised them. Then she submitted them to magazines who eagerly accepted them for publishing. She started working on a children’s book. It was about a little girl who was surrounded by adults that told her what she should do. The little girl ran away into the forest, where she ended up living happily in a tiny cottage with her pet rabbits. When the book was ready, she submitted it to a literary agent who loved it so much, she signed her that day.
Violet started to feel right.
She wore clothes that looked good and felt right on her. Her job at Starbucks paid the bills so that she could write books when she got home. She even met a guy at her first book signing who seemed right for her. He was smart and creative. He wanted to start his own publishing business and publish all her books. He did things for her, and that felt right.
Even though Violet felt better, she still knew she wasn’t right. She bought a Bible from a used bookstore. Every night, she would read a chapter before bed. After a while, she understood what she needed to do.
She started attending a church down the street from her house. The pastor said things that didn’t make any sense, like giving money to the poor and caring about people who were not right like her. This intrigued her so she decided to find out more. She bought a Bible from a used bookstore and started to read. The words were different from all the things she had heard online and from her friends.
That’s how Violet finally found out how to be right.
Unless you are a teacher, you will never experience the mystery of summer vacation.
The school year grinds relentlessly through your calendar for ten months. Deadlines loom like boogie men. State tests. Report cards. Awards. Room inspection. Then one day, you leave your key with the school secretary and walk out to a new world. Your chest relaxes and you can breathe. The sun smiles at your secret summer plans, and for a moment you forget that it will burn you. You don’t realize that you have started to giggle, causing others around you to stare.
Except other teachers, who share a secret smile.
During summer vacation, mornings are quiet and leisurely. Birds chirping outside are the only ones busy at work. When you finally roll out of bed and stretch, the sun is well on its daily trek across the sky. Devotion time is not rushed. Coffee is savored. Plans for the day include reading on a lounger in the pool. No grading papers. No staff meetings.
The first few days are a blur. Your mind is resetting itself for summer mode. But after a while, you notice other people racing around in their cars during the day, especially in the morning and early evening. That’s right! You forgot that other people go to work. In the back of your mind, you know that you’re only on summer vacation for ten weeks, but now you can only see empty, uncommitted squares on your calendar.
However, you are a teacher, so you have made plans for some of those days. Beach trips, camping, visiting relatives. But those events are not squeezed into the school year, so your forehead doesn’t wrinkle when you think about them. You’ll have plenty of time to shop and pack in the days to come.
Weeks go by. Smiling comes easy. Your family enjoys your company. Your dogs wag their tails at the door as they wait for their morning walk.
As July comes to an end, anxious thoughts poke their way through your summer brain. Will I have a good class this year? Will our principal do that same old team building activity during our first staff meeting? You rebuke these thoughts as it is not time yet.
Then a letter arrives. Your spouse laid it on the kitchen counter without a comment. You pick it up with trembling hands because you know what it means. Your principal sends it every year.
The dreaded Welcome Back to School Letter. With all the dates for meetings and days you can get your key to work on your classroom. Each line cuts into your soul.
Summer is almost over. Frantically, you try to jam in as many activities as possible before your report back date. Your smile is fading now. Your laugh sounds a little forced.
And just like that, summer vacation is over. How can you walk away from your school building one moment, and then in the blink of an eye, you’re back stapling up new paper and counting out school supplies?
Jodi Rizzotto 