Shining a Light
February 26, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 29 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
Princess Amy
Once upon a time there was a princess her name was Amy. She had blond hair and colorful dresses. Princess Amy was determined to find her true love. One day she started singing “My true love I will find . Oh yes I will find him”. Then a handsome young boy heard her over the palace wall. He came in the garden gate. She soon saw him. She started to sing.”Now that I found you I will love you”. She came down the stairs and they met in the garden. My name is Amy she said. My name is Jeremy he said. Then she introduced him to her father. Soon they got married.
THE
END
My daughter’s first attempt at authorship.
Despite the fact it’s filled with references to things no father in his right mind believes his eight-year-old daughter should be thinking about, it’s rather good. And I told her such. All the elements of a good story are there—characters, plot, scene, and the tension of whether or not Princess Amy will indeed find her true love. And of course there’s the happy ending.
We have spoken at length in those quiet hours before bedtime of her desire to be a storyteller one day. “Just like you, Daddy,” she says. I’ve at times wondered if that wish would correspond to anything I happened to be. If I were a garbage man or a dentist, would she spend her time picking up the household trash or staring at teeth?
I somehow doubt it. Indeed, she spends as much time with her nose in a book, whether one that’s written or one she’s intent to write, as I do. And though I have my misgivings about encouraging anyone regardless of age to take those first steps upon the road to publication, I do so with her. It gives her joy, and I’m all for allowing anyone to drink his or her fill of that.
Thus far it is the romance she seems most interested in pursuing. She’s tried her hand at poetry and managed to fill a few pages of “Roses are red, Violets are blue…” Not her thing, she said. She’s gone the non-fiction route and written two paragraphs on Easter Island and bunnies. Too boring, she announced. No, it’s the romance for her. That’s her thing.
Knowing my feelings regarding talk of love and marriage to anyone other than her father, she’s asked my blessing to continue her stories. I’ve given it—how could I not?—and whatever reservations I had were nicely disguised in layers of excitement. And to be honest, I am excited. Not that she may soon be penning stories in which she marries herself off to someone in her second grade class, but because of what those stories may eventually lead to.
Truth.
In the end, that is the aim of all writing. We tell our stories so that we may come to some morsel of truth in the end, however uplifting or sad that truth may be. We write to give meaning to our lives and the circumstances within them. It is a holy act, a means by which we elevate ourselves above chance and fate.
Which is why I consider all writing to be of value, whether they are written for the ages or merely for the times. Every book, every letter, every blog post is a victory over the crushing weight of anonymity that presses down upon us.
Fantasy is just as relevant as literary fiction. The young adult novel is just as meaningful as a poem. Each medium and genre, however different, still contain within them the very same struggles and hardships. They speak of the human condition, of our shared fears and hopes, our triumphs and struggles.
I didn’t tell my daughter that; I’ll let her find that bit of treasure on her own. But I did tell her this, and now I’ll tell you:
Putting pen to paper is unlocking the door to a very dark room to which you intend to bring light. It matters not if that illumination comes from a lantern or a candle or a flashlight. All that matters is that, for even the briefest of moments, a bit of the darkness is chased away.
The Art of Rejection
February 25, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 9 Comments
Writers compare rejection notices like veterans compare war wounds. And that’s appropriate, I think. The two are very similar, evidences of battles not necessarily won or lost or even stalemated, but simply fought. Both begin as a bitter pain that seems unendurable but, with hope and God and perseverance, may become points of pride later.
See this? we say. Got that one three years ago. Hurt like hell, too. Doesn’t really bother me much anymore though, except when it rains…
For those of you who might have missed this post the first time around, Rachelle Gardner has been kind enough to repost it for me today on her blog. We both invite you over to read it.
And remember — always try one more time.
Music in the Madness
February 24, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 22 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
I have friends who can navigate the labyrinth of hallways and departments of the local hospital with equal measures of grace and ease, as if they are walking through their childhood homes. These are friends who do not work at the hospital, though. They are not doctors or nurses or radiologists. They merely have had the misfortune of an accumulated number of instances in which they’ve been forced to endure the suffering of being there.
I myself am thankful that I require very specific directions on where to go and for what. I don’t like the hospital. Never have. Aside from the birth of my two children, every thought connected to it is a bad one.
And now I can add one more to the list. Maybe.
A few weeks ago I exercised every bit of grace at my disposal and slipped on some ice disguised as snow. The thump resulted in a bit of salty language and a sprained shoulder, which required a trip to the seventh circle of hell and its radiology department.
I was not alone. The forty-something lady beside me offered a hello and then resumed her crocheting. When I asked what exactly she was creating, she said she had no idea. That was when I knew I was in trouble.
The retiree on the other side of me paused in his crossword puzzle, shook my hand, and asked what was wrong with me. I was halfway through my childhood before he clarified and asked what was wrong with me physically.
A two-year-old girl, sweetly unaware of the pain and suffering around her, was using the chair across from me as a jungle gym.
Among the dozen or so others were the young and the old, the professional and the blue collar, the bruised and the broken, all shepherded by two nurses with tired faces and thick glasses who guarded their flock with Nazi-like efficiency.
I spent the next ten minutes leafing through an old newsweekly (Can Obama Win? asked the cover) and the ten after that listening to the two-year-old girl screaming in agony because she failed to stick her landing off the chair. I was about to ask the crossword-working retiree beside me if I could borrow his pen and jam it into my eye, effectively putting myself out of my misery, when an announcement came over the intercom that someone was stroking.
A flurry of activity outside the open door. Nurses quick-walked. Electronic doors whooshed and shut. Elevator doors pinged.
Despite my normally stoic and reserved nature, the whole experience was beginning to wear on me. I decided x-rays weren’t all that necessary. People went for thousands of years without x-rays. And in a way I’d be healthier without having all that radiation zapped into me. I grabbed my hat and coat and sat them on my lap in a first step toward leaving.
The truth? I didn’t want to be around all that pain and suffering. I didn’t want to be reminded that life was in fact a fragile and fleeting thing. Life makes much more sense outside of a hospital than in one. It’s more permanent, more solid.
More beautiful.
But then mixed in with the cacophony of beeps and sirens and chatter came a noise I did not expect. Wafting through the door came music. Someone had decided to sit at the baby grand piano in the lobby to score the day’s events.
I checked my place in line with one of the nurses and decided I had about twenty minutes to spare, then I strolled out the door in the direction of the tinkling ivories. There at the piano sat a young man in faded jeans and a leather jacket. A pair of sunglasses was perched on top of his head, which moved back and forth a bit in concert with his melody.
The songs varied—classical, jazz, and blues. Especially the blues. If there was ever a place for the blues, it was a hospital.
The nurse stuck her head out the door to tell me I was on deck. I never got a chance to talk to that man. Never got an answer as to who he was or why he was there. He was gone by the time I left.
But I like to think he played that piano often and for no other reason than he felt he should. For proof that music can be created in even the worst places.
What Happened to My Kindness
February 22, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 31 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
On the tree of Virtue it was always the fruit of kindness I could easiest pick. The others—love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—seemed to grow a bit higher up. I could pick that fruit too, of course. I just had to work a little harder to get it. I had to raise to my tiptoes and reach.
But as I said, not so for kindness. That one was easy. Until Eddie, anyway.
Eddie was the sort of guy you’d let your daughter go out with knowing you wouldn’t have to sit on the porch with the shotgun until she came home. He was a nice kid who grew into a nicer man—mannerly, quiet, and able to quote scripture that I had never read. There are people you meet early in their lives and know they’re going to make it, whatever the “it” happens to be. Eddie was one of them, and everyone knew it.
He was twenty-eight when he married Christina. His first, her second. It was one of those chance encounters that most felt had little to do with luck and more with God—they shared the same Sunday school class at church. Eddie started out on the other side of the room from her. A few weeks later, he’d moved a bit closer. Then closer still. By the third month we’d not only finished most of the Old Testament, but the two of them were sitting side by side and holding hands.
It was love. Of the true, sloppy, head-over-heels sort.
As far as anyone knows, things were storybook for the newlyweds from the start. No one at church had ever seen a happier couple. But no one knew about Eddie’s drinking, either. Not even Christina. It was something Eddie had always kept to himself and the small circle of friends he’d go out with after work. There was, to him, no need to mention it to anyone else. Jesus drank, after all. It wasn’t like Eddie had a problem.
Four months after the wedding, Eddie left work early one afternoon to meet an old friend at a bar in the city. The two caught up over bottles of liquor and whiskey, rehashing old times and promising new ones.
Eddie crested a hill in the wrong lane on the way home. The compact car he met just on the other side offered little resistance to his truck, which was going nearly seventy miles per hour. By the time rescue personnel arrived, the four passengers in the car were dead. Eddie’s truck was lodged against an oak tree. He was passed out but unharmed.
His foot was still on the accelerator.
Eddie was charged with four counts of vehicular manslaughter. Dead were a grandmother, her daughter, and two grandchildren. Most of an entire family taken in less time than it took to down a shot of whiskey.
Four months later during Sunday service, Eddie stood before the church and confessed his sin. He asked for mercy, for forgiveness, and for the grace of a second chance. His sentencing was the next morning, he said, and he would appreciate any prayers.
Then he broke down in a spasm of tears.
The congregation, silent and still through Eddie’s speech, stood as one and began to applaud.
All but me. I couldn’t get out of my pew.
I couldn’t find my kindness.
I couldn’t because I could not see in front of me a broken man begging for the sympathy of his church and his God. I could not see my neighbor, my brother in Christ. I could not see the Golden Rule.
All I could see were the four people he killed. Not on purpose, no. But not by accident, either.
And I knew this as well. I knew if Eddie had crested that hill and met my family on the other side, I’d have wanted him dead myself.
Eddie’s sentence was sixty years. With good behavior, he can be paroled in twenty. He’s currently leading Bible studies and counseling fellow inmates. Eddie’s gotten his grace of a second chance, though it’s behind bars.
And me? My drive to work and home takes me past a cluster of small crosses by the side of a hill I must crest twice daily. I look at them every time I pass. I wonder of what’s left of that family.
And Eddie.
And my kindness.
(This post is part of the Kindness blog carnival hosted by Bridget Chumbley. To read more posts, please visit her.)
Love Still Holds On
February 22, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 4 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
Last week I reposted a story about an acquaintance at work and her long distance relationship with a local guy. The two of them had never been too far removed from my thoughts since. I’ve often wondered what became (or didn’t) of them.
Recently, I found out.
It isn’t any wonder why love can be so unpredictable. For all of its power and might, it is in fact a fragile emotion. It takes care to make love grow. It withers easily.
But these two? These two just might make it. You never know.
To read Part II, hop over to katdish’s blog.
My Wandering Eyes
February 19, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 33 Comments
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Writers are always hungry for compelling topics to explore. The problem is that the best ones are mortifying.
—Ralph Keys, The Courage to Write
Despite their claims to the contrary, I really do listen when people are speaking to me. I know what they are saying and why they are saying it. I understand the points they’re trying to make or the things they’re trying to share. I’m a great listener, though that’s usually proven after the fact. During, though, is something else entirely.
Everyone from friends to family have said it’s because of my eyes. Evidently at the beginning of a conversation they’re directed outwardly toward the person to whom I’m speaking. But then there always seems to come an inevitable point at which they seem to either almost turn inward or outward even further, off into some other place as if I’ve lost interest. I assure them that’s not the case at all, and it isn’t. I am genuinely interested in what people have to say to me. Though I must say that interest has a bit of selfishness to it.
Those who know me well and talk to me often have come to accept all of this as an aspect of my passion rather than a flaw of my character. They see my eyes, know what’s going on behind them, and understand that it’s something I cannot help. It’s at that point when they all utter the same four-word question that, if answered in the affirmative, allows them some understanding and me the alleviation of guilt:
“You’re writing, aren’t you?”
The answer is always yes, I am writing. It’s a question and an answer that does not depend upon location, either. If someone in my family were to peek in the door right now and ask that question, my answer to them would be both obvious and understandable. I’m sitting at my desk with my coffee, my computer, and a stack of books. Of course I’m writing.
But where family and friends sometimes stumble is with this one simple yet profound truth—a writer is always writing. It is not merely a job and never a hobby. It is not something that can be picked up and then placed down at will. Writing is a jealous spouse or a rare flower—it demands your constant attention.
And you will give it willingly, if only because you are just as jealous of it. Writing and the writer are locked in an eternal embrace that is part devotion and part fear the one will wander too far from the other. That is why a writer is always writing. Why life itself appears not as a blank page, but one that is a hodgepodge of words that need to be ordered so the story can shine through.
It’s also the reason for my wandering eyes. There is a friendly separation between writer and world. Life unfolds itself upon the stage and the author is its audience, there not merely to applaud but to take note. Writers are the true historians. We lay a foundation of the present upon which the future can be built. That’s why every conversation, every circumstance, everything, is approached under the assumption that it’s something that can be written about.
Because, really, anything can be written about. Not because nothing is sacred, but because everything is.
That’s why a writer is always working. Always trying to piece together the next story or scene, always trying to find the wisdom in the moment.
Which leads to a curious question.
If all of what I’ve said is true—and I believe it is—can anything truly bad happen to a writer? Is there any situation, any event, that with time and healing cannot be put to the page?
I’ve yet to answer that question for myself. Have you?
Love is a Misshaped Tree
February 17, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 5 Comments
Photo by ll barkat
It was Harry Sparks who first told me the love between a father and mother was like a misshaped tree, and therefore different and better than all other love. Boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, and lover and lover? They didn’t know what love was, Harry said. Not really, anyway. Because their trees were tall and straight and perfect.
I didn’t understand a word of what he told me, of course. I was eighteen at the time and in the throes of the sort of love that poets and philosophers had always tried to define but never quite managed. I didn’t know what sort of tree my girlfriend and I had. I didn’t think it mattered. I walked away from Harry thinking he’d either had one too many drinks or one too many kids. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but I was sure I wasn’t going to find out…
To read the rest of this post, please follow this link to highcallingblogs.com. And let me know what sort of tree your love resembles…
Getting the Pain Out
February 16, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 37 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
The local convenience store offers more in the way of convenience than most others. Yes, you’ll find the staples of modern life—snacks, tobacco, alcohol, and lottery tickets—but you’ll also find just about anything else. Including a story or two.
A case in point:
I stopped by one afternoon last week to stock up on the necessities for surviving yet another Virginia snowstorm (bread, milk, and beef jerky). Standing near the coffee pots was Bryan, an old high school friend who worked construction for one of the builders in town. Bryan had come to the store for some supplies as well, though of a different sort. He had managed to talk the lady at the register into giving him a Styrofoam plate and a sheet of aluminum foil.
“Hey, Billy,” he said. “Can you hold this for me?”
I took the plate and foil from him and said, “Okay. Whatcha doin’?”
“Fixin’ my ear. Hold still.” He pulled out a knife and punched a hole through the center of the plate.
I wrinkled my brow and decided to let that go. And then decided not to.
“What’s wrong with your ear?”
“Got something in it,” he said. “Been about a week now. Can’t hear a thing, either. I tried the drops, then a hot rock, then smackin’ my head. Nothin’. It’s killin’ me, it hurts so bad. So now I’m trying this.”
He held up what looked to be a long, hollow piece of honeycomb.
“What are you going to do with that?” I asked him.
“Well,” he said, “I’m supposed to stick this in my ear and light it, and the heat’s supposed to act like a vacuum and suck out whatever’s in my ear.”
I stared at him.
“Seriously,” he said.
“You’re gonna stick that thing in your ear and light it on fire?”
“Yep.”
“What’s the plate and the foil for?” I asked him.
“I’m gonna hold that against my head so I don’t get hurt. I’m not an idiot.”
“Of course not,” I said.
I spent the next ten minutes trying to convince Bryan that his best option was to perform this particular kind of redneck medicine right there in the store so I could watch. He refused. Evidently modesty trumped desperation. Still, it was amazing to me what people would do to get the pain they held inside out.
I was still trying to convince him and still not quite doing it when Stanley Sours walked by on his way to the beer cooler. He snatched a case of Budweiser and passed us on his way to the register.
“Hey, fellas,” he said.
“Stanley,” I said.
“What’s up Stanley?” said Bryan.
Stanley looked at the plate in my hand and the honeycomb in Bryan’s.
“What in the world are y’all doin’?” he asked.
“Bryan’s got something clogged in his ear, so he’s gonna light his head on fire,” I told him.
Bryan nodded.
“Can I watch?” Stanley asked.
Bryan shook his head.
I explained the process to Stanley as well as I could remember it. He was as just as impressed and just as doubtful as I.
“You’re gonna light your head on fire to suck the pain out?” he asked Bryan. “You ain’t all there, are you?”
We all laughed. Stanley slapped both of us on the back and made it way to the register, where he paid for his beer and left.
“He ain’t all there either, you know,” Bryan told me.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. Because he was right, Stanley wasn’t all there. Half of him was in the Ford truck that was pulling out of the parking lot. The other half was about two miles away in a small cemetery plot that held his four-year-old son, a victim of cancer.
That’s when the drinking started. Slow at first and not often, as it always seems to be. Then more. And more. And then Stanley found himself stopping by the store every evening on the way home from work for his case of Bud.
I stood there and watched Stanley leave, then looked down at Bryan’s contraption.
Yes, I thought.
People would do almost anything to get the pain out of them.
Holding On
February 15, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 5 Comments
photo by potobucket.com
Valentine’s Day is, of course, all about the enjoyment of love. It’s a celebration of the highest of human emotions, the most noble and true.
But love is still more than that. As much as it can elevate us and make us whole, there is a pain peculair to that emotion that is absent in any other. Love has its own set of challenges.
Those challenges are most clearly seen in the story of a college student I spoke with (or rather listened to) last year. Hers was a story that is all too common among men and women of her age and circumstance.
A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to visit with her again, to get part two of her unfolding saga. But before I share that with you, I’d like to share the first part. All great stories have a great beginning, and hers is no different.
That chapter one is over at katdish’s blog today. I hope you’ll pop over there to read it. I hope, too, that you’ll agree with me on love’s grand premise–it holds on.
On love and writing
February 11, 2010 by Billy Coffey · 25 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
For some reason I sort of unconsciously fell into a pattern of writing about writing for the past few Fridays, which has turned out quite well despite the fact that what I know about the technical aspects of being published can be summed up in less than a paragraph. Since this is the last post I’ll do before Sunday, I thought I’d have to forgo anything along those lines and write something Valentine-ish.
Then again, maybe I could do both.
Because for writers, their craft is irreparably entangled in love. It is an affair of both the mind and the heart that is equal parts passion and indifference, joy and misery. It is falling in love and falling in hate all at the same time.
Both love and writing begin in much the same way. There is a bit of trepidation with a lot of Should I really be doing this? running through one’s mind. But the more you try to convince yourself you should ease away, the more it quietly pulls you in. And the more you remind yourself of the hurt and pain that may result, the more you’re also reminded of the sheer bliss.
And, eventually, you fall in. Fall in love with either a person or the act of giving thought and feeling life. Small steps at first—a flirtatious comment, a few short sentences. You have one foot upon a path that leads into a very black but very inviting unknown and the other safely planted in your own familiar but dull world, and you must choose. Will you plunge and offer your heart? Or will you instead play it safe, trusting that a familiar loneliness is better than the risk of a new and different one?
But then you come to the realization that you don’t really have a choice at all. To have one foot upon the path of the unknown is enough. You are in and on and there is no going back.
There are decisions that are arrived at by clear thinking and careful planning. Love is not one of them. Neither is writing. Those are decided by the heart. The mind may come along for the ride later. It also may not.
And therein lies the risk. Sometimes what we think is love isn’t really, just as sometimes what we consider destiny, one in a million, is temporary and common at best. Love and writing can both seem so simple and so easy at first, but they’re not. That’s what can happen when you approach both with much feeling and little thought.
You have to know what you’re getting into from the start.
With love and with writing.
Because it won’t always be easy. The shine can fade into shadow at times and the cloud you think you’re walking upon can evaporate and leave you tumbling. And you come to face the hard fact that what was once trouble-free is now fraught with it and the sunrise you thought you were enjoying is really a fire that threatens to consume you.
There is a truth to love, and it is the very same truth to writing—both take work. Hard, difficult, daily work. And without that work you are destined to fail. Because neither of them are the rocks we believe them to be. They are not enduring. They are not solid all the way through.
They are fragile, castles of sand facing a raging tide that must be built and rebuilt again.
And therein lies their worth.
The precious things in life are not the ones that last regardless, but the ones that must be tended to. The ones that must be nurtured and cared for and, above all, practiced. Love is like that. Writing, too. Both will wither without attention. Both can seem like the real thing and not be.
And both can bring a sense of peace and joy that few things in this world cannot. They are the means by which we seek to assure ourselves we are not alone in this world. That our thoughts and our feelings matter.
That we have a worth and a purpose beyond ourselves.
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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