Tag Archive for: TK Thorne

Chicago Angels—by T.K. Thorne

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This is a true and funny story that happened a few years ago. It’s about angels and life and Bob.

I was thrilled that my book had won a national award but didn’t think it was worth a trip to Chicago just to get a photo made. Sister Laura, however, was hyped about it. She had worked hard with little credit—editing, designing the original awesome cover, marketing, and supporting me at every step of my novel about the wife of Lot (Angels at the Gate). She also wanted us to attend the BEA (Book Expo America), which was happening simultaneously.

A few days before our flight, Laura fell and hurt her ankle. BEA requires lots of walking, but she was determined to go, even if she had to get a wheelchair. Where most people would have rented one, my always-check-a-thrift-store-first sister borrowed an old wheelchair from a thrift store. It was heavy and squeaky, and not knowing its history, she had cleaned it with Lysol, which was a prudent sanitary move but, unfortunately, set off the explosive-substance detector at the Birmingham, Alabama airport.

So, wheelchair, Laura, and all of her stuff had to be hand searched. And they confiscated our wheelchair, in case it was really a bomb, I guess, promising it would be at the gate waiting for us when we arrived in Chicago.

Not.

No wheelchair at the gate when we landed in Chicago. Had it exploded somewhere? We finally track it down in baggage. After a start like that, we are surely over the hump. All we have to do now is get outside the terminal because Laura has arranged for her friend, Bob, to pick us up. I’d never met Bob, but he was Laura’s friend. What could go wrong?

Bob, it turns out, is 82 years old. His car is about the same age and smells strongly of gasoline. I have visions of someone in front of us throwing out a lit cigarette. Are we going to explode after all? Will the Lysol on the wheelchair add to the incendiary mix?

Bob hops out and loads us up, pulling stuff randomly out of the hatchback area to get our suitcases and the wheelchair in and then crams piles of boxes on top of them, keeping the hatch down with bungee cords. When we get in the car, I politely mention that the boxes totally block his vision on one side.

“I’m used to it,” he says, pulling out into the rain and the insanity of the Chicago airport traffic.

The “it” he is “used to,” I realize, is not being able to see . . . omg!

I text our hostess. *Landed. If we survive Bob, will be there soon.*

Miraculously, Bob gets us where we are going, an area several miles north of Chicago in Edgewater, where Laura has arranged rooms at a friend’s cousin’s condo. Why, my always-check-a-thrift-store-first sister had reasoned, stay at an expensive hotel? It is a lovely place, but this is the award night, and I am worried about us getting back into Chicago. That ride was not part of the Bob-bargain, so we are on our own. That’s a good thing, right?

At Laura’s insistence, we forgo a taxi because we are so far away, but Laura has called the Chicago Transit Authority, and they assured her that all the metro train stations are handicap accessible. Still, it is no longer raining, and we leave the condo early, me pushing the squeaky, cumbersome wheelchair that I learn randomly applies its right brake and jerks hard to the right. I should have had a clue that the plans made by a woman who borrowed a wheelchair from a junk shop, not to mention, Bob, might warrant follow-up. When we arrive at the nearest station, we find there is, indeed, a way to get a wheelchair into the station. But “handicap accessible” does not stretch to a way to ascend the many stairs to the subway platform.

Reversing course, we head to next station down the line, which does have an elevator and where we meet a nice young man with the Chicago Transit Authority who helps us up to the platform. I ask his name.

“Angel,” he says.

My first thought is how appropriate—the name of my book is Angels at the Gate! WAIT! The name of my book. . .  omg, I have forgotten a copy of my book (necessary to hold when getting picture taken at awards.) The last thing the publicist said was, “Don’t forget a copy of the book for the photo.”

I leave Laura on the platform with Angel, hurrying back to the condo. By this time, my feet are aching in my boots (which I am wearing because my skirt rises too far in front for knee-high stockings, and I will die before wearing pantyhose.)

I grab a copy of my book and switch my boots for sandals. Still need the socks, because this is Chicago, not Birmingham. I look down to see two bright pink big toes peeking out through holes in the socks.

Whoops, sandals not going to work for photo opt. I grab boots for later donning. By the time I get back, we are running late. We set the brakes on the wheelchair but, besides randomly engaging, they are not that spiffy about staying engaged. At the first lurch, Laura rolls down the aisle. I am running after her trying to catch her before she crashes at the other end.

A second angel jumps from her seat and shows us how to lock in the wheelchair. Who knew? We are from Alabama.

The clock is ticking. The whole purpose of the event is to get that photo op. We are a long way from our stop, the closest one to the (Sears) Willis Tower with an elevator.

As we discuss strategy for when we exit, a third angel pops up from her seat—apparently getting a signal from above (or perhaps watching our entrance) that there are some Alabama girls in need of assistance—and plops into the seat next to me.

“You’re going to Willis Tower? I work near there.” She kindly explains which way to walk from our next stop. We are so late now that we must take a cab.

Holding our breath against the olfactory assault in the train elevator (known as a subway by locals, even when it is above the ground), we descend to the street. I step out into the roadway and hail a cab for the first time in my life. (Again, I live in Alabama; a household is incomplete without two cars and a pickup truck.) A cab stops and looks us over, shaking his head at the wheelchair and driving on. I hail another cab, who also shakes his head at the wheelchair. We push on to Willis Tower, rolling through the puddles and treachery of cracked sidewalks. We are now very late.

I push the rickety wheelchair as fast as I can until we hit a crack in the sidewalk that stops us dead, shoving the wheelchair handles into me and nearly dumping Laura, book, and boots onto the sidewalk into a puddle because, yes, of course, it is now raining again.

Willis (Sears) Tower is massive. We enter and proceed via elevator to a winding corridor down to the security station, surely close to our goal, only to find we are at the wrong door and have to be escorted through the labyrinth of the Tower to the service elevators in order to reach 99th floor and the Independent Publisher’s party and awards announcement. We are finally here! We register, pick up our ID’s and a program . . . from which we learn “Historical Fiction” is #15 on the list and they are now announcing #26.

We missed it. All the way from Alabama to Chicago . . . and WE MISSED IT!

I wheel Laura to the bathroom. I feel worse for her, since she really wanted this, and it is as much her award as mine because cover design and layout are also considered, along with the story and writing.

While waiting for her, I notice we are sort of “backstage” to the awards announcer, and a beautiful young woman is standing (on the stage) with her side to me, so close I could touch her with a step. She is obviously connected to the proceedings. Hearing one of my father’s oft-repeated life lesson in my head— Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease— I take that step and tap her shoulder between photo setups, whispering that we had difficulties and just arrived, and is there any way we could go out of order? She steps out of the big room and consults a list, asks my name.

“T.K. Thorne.”

She brightens. “Oh, you are T.K. Thorne? I loved your book!”

“You read it?”

“Yes, I really loved it; it was my favorite book out of all of them.”

There are 80 national categories. No idea how many submissions in each category or how many she actually read, but that’s a lot of books, even if she meant in my category. As far as I am concerned, I am happy.

Dianu. (Hebrew for “it is enough.”)

She graciously arranges for us to get called up, Laura hobbling at my side. They put a huge medal worthy of the Olympics around my neck and, to my delight, around Laura’s too. And I have the book in hand! Success! Photo snaps.

 

You wouldn’t have even seen the pink toes. We head to the bar.

 View out the Willis Tower, drink in hand  View out the Willis Tower, second drink in hand

Over the next several days we encounter angels and references to them in rather odd ways. In addition to the transit guy named Angel, another “angel” (whose friend is Angela) shows me how to use Uber (Yea! No more wheeling for blocks to the train station); the Egyptian uber driver mentions his son’s name is translated as “Angel in Heaven”; and a book publicist at the Book Expo America (BEA) advises me to “listen to my angel.”  I keep looking for a flutter of wings out of the corner of my eye!

On our last day, Bob picks us up, and we load wheelchair and baggage. After bungee-cording his car hatch down (not because of our luggage, just normal procedure), we are off to the airport with an extra hour . . . just in case. It is bitter cold, but I roll down my window because I can’t afford losing any more brain cells from the fumes. There is so much stuff in this car, it is unidentifiable. I try not to think about what all could be in there and just hope there are no rodents that live near my feet. This time I am in the back seat, and I reach for the seat belt. I actually find one, but there’s no buckle, so I just loop it around one shoulder. There’s a chance if we hit something at just the right angle, it might help. Laura is in the front seat. “What’s that noise?” she asks, forehead wrinkled in concern. Is it the engine?

“I don’t know,” Bob says. “Haven’t heard that one before.”

Laura: “Sounds bad.”

Bob: “Unless the wheels fall off, I usually just turn up the radio.”

I couldn’t make this up.

Postscript:  Despite appearances, Bob was one of the many Chicago angels, for sure. He has spent most of his life traveling around the world helping people in disasters, which is how he and Laura met. I really wish I could spend more time with him and hear his stories . . .  just not in his car.

T.K. Thorne writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out her (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com

The Meaning of Life

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When I was young, I had a deep need to understand the meaning of life. It consumed me. A knot inside that HAD to be untangled. Why was I alive? Why was I me?

I believed if I thought about it hard enough, I would figure it out. (Hubris, that!) I knew the answer was out there somewhere.

Adults did not seem particularly concerned about the meaning of life. How crazy was that? What could be more important? But one idea scared me more than realizing that everyone wasn’t going around absorbed by this great mystery—the fear that when I grew up, I would be like them. In my diary, I wrote my adult self a stern message, admonishing her/me against settling for complaisant acceptance.

I read a lot in this quest. Alan Watts was a great inspiration and guide, giving me difficult concepts to chew on, such as the mind being like an onion—you peel layer after layer, thinking you are getting to the core, only to find there is no core, only more layers until there is . . . nothing.

I hated that. There had to be a core, a “me.” And there had to be a meaning, despite Watt’s cryptic conclusion, “This is it.”

Many people follow an ideology that journalist Derek Thompson calls “workism,” a belief that work provides one’s sense of identity and purpose. As a former police person, I get it. You put on more than clothes with a uniform; you put on an identify. Retiring, many are unable to find a center to hold onto when that layer peels off. What happens when children go off to live their own life? When a parent dies? A spouse?

Who am I, if I am not a [cop, nurse, entrepreneur, doctor, builder, artist, spouse, parent, friend, etc.]? 

I thought I had escaped that trap in my retirement because even during my law enforcement career and the one that followed, I knew my real and true self was not that work (although I did it wholeheartedly).

You see, I was a writer. All this other stuff was what I did, but not who I was.

And then I retired. I still wrote, but I wasn’t as consumed with it as I had been. How could that be if that was my true self and life’s purpose?

I was free now to pursue my art on my own terms. But strangely, other things started to take my attention, things I found I loved too. This surprised me. It challenged my perception of myself.

Who was I now? I was still determined to find out, because the answer to that question seemed entwined with the meaning of life. We need to be who we truly are. Right?

I did a lot of things. I redefined myself as an artist, a martial artist, a teacher, a very humble gardener.

But I knew I was none of these things . . . or I was all of them.

Elusive, this meaning-of-life thing. Is it an onion, after all? Are the peels just what we do?

What if I die without finding it?

What if I get old and stop doing?

In my mind, I jump ahead:

I am old. I am still. I look out on my garden and the stack of books I have written, the paintings I have painted. Remember the children I have taught. My friends are gone. Family gone, except for the young who are living their own lives.

Old. Forgotten. Maybe I am in a place where they put old people who stop doing. Now what? Who am I? Are only memories left?  Is that why old people are still?

What was my life about? Did it mean anything? Am I worthy of it if I just sit here?

Wait.

Is it possible that there is no one-size-fits-all? That the meaning of life is not the things we do, not the breakthrough understanding, not something we find at all, but something we . . .

create?

Well then.

Maybe I will create a meaning right here in this moment, a meaning to breathing in and breathing out. A meaning to smiling at the cranky woman on a walker who hogs the hallway every morning. A meaning to inhaling the turned earth of the rose bed outside my window or the taste of fresh-from-the-oven bread. Maybe just remembering. What is writing at all but remembering? In the moment we pen, the moment we write about has already passed.

So maybe I will scratch out a few words with my arthritic, age-splotched hands, words on a napkin bound for the trash bin. Or maybe words that might touch another someday, a fellow human seeker looking for who they are and . . .

the meaning of life.

T.K. writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Read more about her at TKThorne.com.

When Walls and Water Speak

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One day, I looked at an area along the brick walkway in the front of my house and realized I needed to do something extreme. Despite having spread grass seeds more than one season, only weeds grew in the shadow of a magnificent weeping yaupon that arcs over the sidewalk and shaded a crescent-shaped area.

I looked at it with despair and frustration.

(How many times have I looked at a blank page without a clue what words to paint on it?)

Suddenly, I saw a garden in that crescent-moon space. In a previous post, “Goddess in the Garden,” I wrote about its transformation into a moss-garden.

But nature had other ideas. When it rained, water caught in the yaupon’s draping branches, streaming down them in torrents that hit the ground and tunneled trenches into my creation.

(How many times have the words I carefully crafted looked very different when I returned to them later, requiring I rewrite them or throw them out altogether?)

I tried to repair the craters, but each time it rained, the holes and mini-gullies returned. The space was not happy. I was not happy. But I had put in so much work!

It was not fair.

I grumped. And repaired what the water had torn up.

Until it rained, yet again . . . as it is wont to do. And again.

Finally, I surrendered.

“What do you want to be?” I asked my garden.

(Once, I wrote about a blank wall speaking to me, eliciting mockery from a local radio host, but the wall wanted something, and I listened.)

“I want to be a pond,” my garden said. “I want the water.”

“What about little rocks?” I mused. “Can’t I just put pebbles down where the water flows?”

The garden’s reply was a definite, “No.”

So, I began to dig. It hurt to dig up what I had painstakingly planted, what was beautiful just as it was, for something new.

[How many times do we have to start over in our lives, to force open scars, so new love and light can enter?]

I dug for days. Frogs came to visit.  One cutie in particular dove into my hole on three occasions, probably looking for a place to hibernate for the winter. I took him out each time and asked him to be patient.

Finally, the hole was done…I thought. Then came the Plastic War.  Instructions on lining the pond sounded very simple.

Not.

One of our horses, who should be named “Curious George,” made an appearance to help out, but alas, was not equipped. Hubby helped with the large rocks I coveted. It was a great feeling when they settled into place!

 

 

   

The rocks came from the streams and creeks on our property. My husband became accustomed to having his truck appropriated for rock gathering expeditions.

My fear was that the black lining would show along the steep sides in the deep end. I had never done anything like this and had no real plan other than the foundation rock placements.

(How many times have I started a book with only a few words, just a sketchy idea of my characters, and no idea what happens next?)

I tempted the creative muse yet again with my crazy pond idea. Yet, she didn’t fail me.

My biggest fear was the sides of the deep end.  How would I keep from having gaps that showed the liner?

As I worked, I realized the edges of the stones placed on edge along the bottom provided a shelf for another layer and so on. Each stone had to be fitted for shape and stability. They let me know when it wasn’t the right place for them.

When I thought I was finally finished, the water said I was not honoring its flow, and I had to tear up and redo a section.

It is the middle of winter. The plants I tried to save are hopefully sleeping. Some of the moss is thriving, even in the cold. The water is happy, flowing as it wanted to all along. The garden is something very different than it was and yet the same.

Isn’t that so of us, as well?

Every moment we are different, a memory of all the moments before spun into the illusion of a constant, just as the garden changes every moment—as water swirls, plants grow and rest, leaves fall and change form. Every morning when I visit, I and the pond are new and old. Sometimes I change it by way of a rock that needs adjustment, a tuft of moss to add, or a new idea of where a gift of crystal should nestle.

Sometimes I just breath in the peace of it.

(The tales I’ve told don’t change once they are printed, yet each time a reader opens the book, they come alive, changed by the perspectives and person who recreates them from a few words. The stories are the same and yet different, a joining of imaginations—theirs and mine.)

I am looking forward to the spring when I hope my frog friend will return.

T.K. Thorne photo

T.K. Thorne is a retired police captain who writes books and blogs that go wherever her imagination takes her. TKThorne.com

We are Living History— by T.K. Thorne

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We are living history.

In 1958, the janitor at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Alabama discovered a satchel in the building’s window well with a fuse running from it. Fifty-four sticks of dynamite were in that bag. The fuse had burned out within a minute of igniting it. No one knows what happened, perhaps an early morning rain or a fault in the fuse itself.

It was a pivotal moment in time. The crime was never solved, but the perpetrators were mostly likely a Nazi-inspired organization called the National States Rights Party headquartered in Birmingham. They hated Blacks and Catholics and Jews.

Today, the incidents of hate crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions are rising at frightening rates. Along with other activities, like the attempted armed insurrection of our government, it is chilling and feels like it could be 1958 or even the 1930s when powerful men in this country echoed Hitler’s poisonous sentiments toward Jews, men like Henry Ford, the car manufacture magnate; Charles Lindbergh, the country’s famous “golden boy;” and Father Coughlin, a catholic priest with thousands of listeners on his radio show.

Having a common enemy often binds people together. Thus, the citizens of Germany coalesced when Jews were targeted as “the enemy.” But that works both ways.

Sixty-four years after the attempted bombing of Beth-El, the synagogue is working on a civil rights exhibit about looking to the future by examining the past. I was asked to be a speaker at the launch event because I wrote this book—Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days.

It took eight years to complete. While I was writing it, I thought—Will anyone be interested in this or will it just be another tome for the historians’ bookshelves, if that? But it had become a labor of love, so I labored on.

I woke from the “coma” of writing to find my book relevant. That was not necessarily a good thing but was why I was speaking at Beth-El’s event.

For the most part, the White community has welcomed the book’s revelations about what  happened behind the scenes (or behind the curtain) in a city that changed the world—stories of secret missions carried out by the police and sheriff’s departments, as well as little-known deeds of civil rights’ allies in the city branded with images of “dogs and firehoses” used against children, an image seared into the nation’s consciousness.

I tried to honor the Movement as well and weave my stories into the context of the day and the efforts of those seeking long overdue equal rights and justice. But I’ve had little feedback from the Black community. After I spoke at Beth-El, however, a diminutive, elderly Black woman approached me and asked me to sign her copy of Behind the Magic Curtain, which she had brought to the event.

I did, of course, and she told me she had been one of the children who had marched for freedom in 1963 and how much she had enjoyed the book and how much it meant to read confirmation of things whispered in her home and community when she was young, things she had never known were true or not. It completed a circle for her.

It was a small interaction, lasting only a few moments in the chaos after the event, but it meant a lot to me. She had probably given little thought as a child that she was living a pivotal moment in history. Nor did those who went to pray at Temple Beth-El one morning, or those who listened to Father Coughlin, Henry Ford, and Charles Lindbergh spew supremist views that eventually embraced genocide.

We are living in a pivotal moment. It will be written about (and already has) and one day we will be the ones who say, “I was there.” What are we going to tell future generations about what we did . . . or what we didn’t do?

T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.

How Mowgli Made a Marine – T.K. Thorne

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Unhappy Boy purchased from dreamstime_xs_6525479Early in my marriage, a stepson arrived on my doorstep every other weekend as a troubled 8 year old.

A learning disability imprisoned him as poor reader and student to the point that all his tests had to be read aloud to him.  He didn’t fit in.  He knew it and acted out.  Naturally, he hated the sight of books, and all my efforts to read to him were spurned.

One day, a misbehavior earned him time-out, and I offered him his choice—either an hour in his room or sit with me while I read him one chapter of a book.  (I know, I know—it’s contrary to all behavioral advice to make reading a punishment, but I was at wits’ end.)

He considered it and asked how long it would take to read a chapter.

“Probably about 15 minutes,” I said.

Fifteen minutes versus an hour.  He wasn’t bad at math and chose the chapter.  I went to my collection of childhood books, my heart pounding. It thumped away in my chest, warning me that this could be my only chance with him.

The books, stiff and dusty in their rows, whispered of cherished hours. Which to choose?  I stopped at one, remembering pulling it from my mother’s bookshelf, hopeful from the title though the company it kept was grownup stuff. By the first chapter, I knew I had found treasure.

Once again I pulled it out and took it back with me, clutched to my still thumping chest and sat with my stepson on the hard cement of the porch (part of the “punishment”).

“Here are the rules,” I said sternly.  “You have to sit still and listen.  I will read one chapter.  After that it is up to you if you want to hear more or go.”

He agreed, and I opened the book. I read my best, in honor of all the hours my Granny read to me, her voice cracking with the effort to bring the characters to life. I hoped to reach a young mind with the gift she had given me.  I read and did not look at the boy beside me, afraid to see on his face the boredom of a prisoner doing his time.

When I finished the last word of Chapter One, I snapped the book closed, deliberately keeping my voice matter-of-fact.

“That’s it,” I said.  “What do you want to do?”

There was a long hesitation—maybe it wasn’t so long, but I remember it that way—a silence so deep, you could fall into it, and then one intense word from him—“Read.”

In the years ahead of us, he would repeat that word many times.  We finished the book, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and moved on to many others.

He began to sit next to me, at first to see the pictures, but when there were no pictures, he stayed to move his eyes over the words as I read.  Eventually, I feigned a sore throat and asked him to read a sentence or two, and then a paragraph, and then a chapter, never criticizing as he stumbled and only offering help when he needed it.

One day, I poked my head in his room and asked if he was ready to read Part III of “our” current book.  “Already read it,” he said.

And once again my heart pounded, this time with mixed joy.  He was reading on his own, voraciously, but we were never again to have those special moments together.

Bitter-sweet.

He read a lot about ordinary young boys becoming heroes, and I think it helped give him the courage and inspiration to sign up for the Marines.  Though not a physical boy—he played in the band and was ho-hum about sports—he thrived there, and today is a successful career Marine (Master Sergeant) with a beautiful, kind, talented wife and two wonderful sons he reads to.

Semper Fi.

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-01 at 11.21.57 AM

T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com

Goddess in the Garden – T.K. Thorne

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The last few weeks (during the heat spell, of course), I’ve spent on my knees with copious streams of perspiration running down my face (or as the Southern phrase goes, “sweating like a stuck pig”).

A few years ago, I was working full time and squeezing every minute of free time available into writing. The   yard rarely got attention. Over the years, I planted a few things next to the house and basically let ground covers fill in.

Then I retired. My goal and dream was to write. But Covid hit. I was afraid of the groceries. I didn’t know who of my loved ones would die, how many would fall, or if I would die.  I couldn’t write.

At some point, I looked out the back window and realized that the small piece of wisteria root I had thrown into the woods thirty years prior had not only taken over the woods but had taken down large trees and eaten half of the backyard! Apparently, I had not ventured there for thirty years.

Unable to write, I learned what a mattock was and used hard labor to feel like I had a purpose. I dug up (some of) the long, stubborn roots spread all over the yard. It was the beginning of the Wisteria Wars . . .  which is still ongoing, but now skirmishes fought with spray. Like Kali, the Hindu goddess of Destruction, I hacked and chopped, in order to sleep at night.

Kali, Hindu goddess of Death

 

One day, I noticed the green moss on the brick walkway in the front yard was full of little weeds and grass. Something else I never had time to notice. Moss is magic. When he was little, I took my stepson into the woods and explained that elves lived in the rotting hollow tree trunks and that the emerald splotches of moss in the woods were actually “elf carpet,” touching off his vivid imagination, which he still expresses in his art. When he eventually had children, he passed on the wonder of elf carpet.

Forgoing the fearsome Kali for Venus, (who was a goddess of the garden and cultivated fields before the Romans assignation as the Queen of Love), I spent several hours absorbed in the work/craft of pulling up tiny weeds from carpet without tearing it. A different kind of gardening than hacking wisteria roots, it offered a calmer sense of purpose and absorption.

Venus

A huge weeping yaupon arches over that walkway. (Although mine is higher than the house roof and trimmed to have a “tree” bark, a yaupon is technically a bush with small leaves containing caffeine that the Creek Indians used to make “Black Drink,” for social bonding rituals. Translate:  having coffee with friends.) I love the “tree” (as do the birds—especially the waxwings—that descend on it on their way to wherever they are going and devour the berries it produces). But the shadow area it creates over the front yard has always been a scraggly place of weeds and dirt where grass refuses to grow.

I had the area scooped out in a waxing moon shape and re-dirted. (Writers can make up words, y’all; it’s in the writing rule book. You can look it up….) Then spent three days picking out embedded rocks. I considered many kinds of shade-loving plants, but discovered I really wanted a place for the elves. So, I went moss-fern-rock hunting in the nearby woods and raided the ditch next to our driveway that becomes a stream when it rains, careful to only take a part of the mound to allow it to grow back (a nod to First People wisdom).

My sister sent me a photo of a meditating frog statuette she found. She knew frogs make me smile), and I had to have it. The elves would love it!  The meditating frog has a home now, as does a huge bell and a dragon my husband gave me and other cherished things, including a piece of driftwood from the Gulf beach and three black stones from my husband’s beloved Big South Fork of the Cumberland River in Tennessee.

 

It’s just a beginning. It will take time and patience and lots of sweat, I know, but my garden gifts me with daily joy, and a big smile every time I pass my frog, even though he doesn’t smile back, being absorbed in seeking enlightenment.

The garden reminds that creation requires a balance of destruction and growth.

Destruction is only a changing of forms. The unwanted plants transform into soil, feeding a new generation of life.

The garden is a place of humility. When new life stirs the soil, it also stirs the realization that you are only the tender, that creation comes from the Universe itself and even as you affect it, it affects you.

The act and process of gardening is a metaphor for many things, as is writing. Words blossom. Some need pruning and some need to be pulled out altogether to make room for others that work better. But even that act of creation comes from somewhere that is more than the sum of parts, as any writer will acknowledge.

And often, if you put sweat (metaphorically or real) into it, both words and weeds can create something unique, something beautiful, and maybe even inspiring.

T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com

What Love Really Means

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Writer, humanist,

          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,

       Lover of solitude

          and the company of good friends,

        new places, new ideas

           and old wisdom.

The answer to what love is has defied the best efforts of philosophers and poets, yet we know it when we see it, as these keen observations from children prove. 

“Karl, age 5: ‘Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.’ 

Billy, who is 4, had to think about it, but decided, ‘When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.’

And Rebecca observed, ‘When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So, my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.’”

And Teresa (TK) age. . . never mind . . . said, ‘Daddy is love–you can crawl onto his lap, and he will read the comics in the newspaper for you; you can crawl on his shoulders, and he will flip you over and over again! You can know you will always have a place to go if you need it; he will always be there.’

Thank you, Papa for everything and always. I love you . . . and that’s the most important thing.
T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com

Just Joys — T.K. Thorne

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 Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        new places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

 

 

 

The whirling weeks have left me vaguely unsettled, looking for what I have “accomplished.” I am used to measuring that in terms of word count, and I don’t have many of those. Rather than wallow in guilt, perhaps word count is the wrong measurement. I decided to look back and ask, “What happened?” And specifically, “Where did I find joy?”

While I listened to the talented Lia Frederick bring my characters to life in an audio book version of House of Rose* (the first in a trilogy about a police officer who discovers she’s a witch), I pulled the grass/clover/weeds out of the moss on the brick walkway. You might call this gardening. I call it a Zen exercise.  

[* Contact me at TK@tkthorne.com to get a promo code for a free audiobook!]

During the early stress-filled days of the Pandemic, weeding the moss calmed me. It requires concentration (if you pull wantonly, the moss will pull up too; if you are lazy, other plants will take over.) One of the encroachers was a tiny flower with a deep violet base and translucent blue-white petals, perhaps large enough for an ant’s umbrella—a Japanese Mazus. I left it in the moss.

 

Two + decades ago, I worked in the Birmingham Police Department with two dear friends, Becky and Juanita. Becky recently had a hip replacement, and Juanita stepped up to be a full-time care-taker. (A lesson about the meaning of Love!) We visit regularly, and our tales ensure a lot of laughter, the good kind that runs deep as a river between us. Becky’s husband died not that long ago, and she asked me for a painting based on a photo he had taken on a special day. The photo is beautiful, a solitary duck and crimson reflections in the water of (unseen) day lillies on the bank above. Here my first stab at it:

The Left Coast Crime conference in Albuquerque, NM, was a mixture of delight in being with people and anxiety at the crowd after the last two years of isolating and masking.  The highlight was being with my friends, Vikki and Kevin who were experiencing a writing conference for the first time. Also loved meeting fellow Stiletto Gang members, Donnell Ann Bell and Dru Ann Love.  Didn’t get to talk much with Dru Ann (who was always surrounded by admirers!☺), but I sat at Donnell’s table at the banquet, and she kindly offered a ride to the airport, so we got to chat a bit, enough to know what a kind, generous person she is and hope our friendship grows.  
 
Also enjoyed extended conversations about writing and law enforcement stuff  with fellow panelists and police crime writers—James L’Etoile, Frank Zafiro, Dana King (and his wife, Corky), and Colin Conway. The best part of conferences is the people!
 
 
 
 
Brushed tangles from Foxy’s tail. Tomorrow it will be tangled again, but
today it’s a silk flag in the wind, and she is prissy, knowing how
beautiful she is (because I tell her constantly). She was a racehorse,
but during the pandemic (or perhaps because her hooves don’t grow well)
she was sold at auction with a future as dog food in Mexico if no one
rescued her. She is such a baby, wanting constant petting and treats.

 
Janice is almost my age (i.e., an “elder”). We met this winter at a martial arts clinic (yes, really). She rode with her sensei (teacher) from Wyoming to Alabama! Fourteen hundred miles separate us, yet we chatted via email about tying up her gutter that fell in the Laramie wind to the porch with a bungee cord, and I told her about a piece of my day. The thread of a new friendship weaving across those miles lightened my heart.  
 
Our old dog, Glenny, walked all the way to the barn with me today. Usually, he goes to the end of the yard and then abandons me, heading back to the house. This time I had to wait while he stopped often to read the “newspaper” of smells along the drive, a lesson in patience, but I was happy with his quiet company.
 

This is not Glenny in quiet-company mode. This is it’s-time-to-cook-dinner mode.

 
Colors in the water of Becky’s painting are giving me fits. Do I still like it?  Yes . . . no.  Frustrating. Trying to push through the fear of an ugly mess, giving the paper the paint and waiting to see what it does with it.
 
Took some mint to my sister (so grateful she lives nearby) and helped her move hosta plants she had grown for years to her new house and decide where to put them, as well as an ornate wrought iron gate she bought at a yard sale. (She is a yard-sale queen!) She helped me load two trellis plant stands (that she would have sold, but gave to me), into the truck. I put them in the back yard in front of the ugly metal poles of the clothesline. Any thoughts what I should grow on them?  Clematis, maybe? Only partial sun back there.
 
More paint on the duck. Hoping Becky will like it. Hoping I will like it. Layers defining, softening, brightening. It will never look like the photo but that’s okay has long as it evokes the wonder of the light, the quiet dignity of the duck rippling through still water, but I don’t know if it’s working or not.  Really struggling with making this right.

 
I was up at midnight the night before taking this to Becky because it was still not right, but in the end, I went to bed feeling it was good, or as good as I could do. 

 
She cried when she saw it.  
 
Her happiness made me very happy.

 
Writing this woke me to the small joys that happen every day. Looking for “accomplishments,” I miss their significant. What a gift life is.  
 
 

T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com

Retirement Nightmare–T.K. Thorne

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Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        new places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

 

 

I just cannot figure it out.  How is life still whirling by, filled with so much, to do when I am supposed to be retired? Okay, I am a little A.D.D. and a dear friend who is also a therapist told me that means my frontal cortex is always looking for stimulation. I know this to be true because…. 

One day, back when I was working full time, I decided to test what it felt like to be retired, so I went out on my front porch and sat in a rocking chair overlooking our pasture, a bucolic, peaceful scene.  The idea was to do nothing, pretending that I had all the time in the world and could finally just sit and rock, as I imagined old people did.  

I lasted exactly six rocks. Then I jumped up to find something to do. 

All my life I had looked forward to the day when I would be free to write full time, to read as much as I wanted, to travel, to do fun stuff. Now, a new fear arose: Was I going to fail at retirement?

When the actual, real “R” date loomed, I grew anxious. I was accustomed to being around people every day and having very full days (writing only in the evenings and weekends) and meaningful work. I couldn’t imagine writing for eight hours or not seeing my friends. I lived almost an hour from town and worried I might feel isolated. What if I had to sit on my front porch and rock and do nothing?

My anxiety grew. I  even took a workshop called “Aging Gracefully” and started writing a book about how to face retirement!  At some point it dawned on me that I had a car, for heaven’s sake, and a driver’s license. I could go see the people and places I wanted to see!  Silly, yes, but this one thought felt like a life saver.

Hard to believe that was six years ago! Hard to believe how fulfilling and full my life is. I’m so fortunate in so many ways!  Life is precious, y’all. Choose carefully what you fill it with. Make sure it is a mix of self fulfillment, giving back, and making the world a better place, even in tiny ways.

That’s actually all I have to say, because I’ve been so busy, it was just yesterday I realized I needed to write something for today!  

Oh yes, PS —

The final book in my trilogy about a police officer who discovers she is a witch has made its debut, and I am thrilled to have it complete.  It didn’t get a coming out party because of Covid, but 

 

…announcing  the long-awaited HOUSE OF IRON!

 

 

T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com

How to Cook Dinner and Start a Book–T. K. Thorne

/in /by

 

Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        new places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

 

 

My husband recently had shoulder surgery for a torn rotator cuff.  He is the chef in the house; I, the consumer. In fact, I’m not normally even allowed in the kitchen (a survival thing, so I don’t burn down the house or poison him). But he would be out of action for a while, so I . . . panicked.

My anxiety centered not around the actual cooking, but  coming up with something to fix for dinner for several weeks. I think that can correlate to worrying about writing a book. The task seems enormous, requiring a large amount of creative energy.  Where do you start?  How do you make all those decisions?  I needed a plan for at least a week with a list of ingredients and grocery shopping (which husband has been doing since 2020).

I freaked out and employed my best strategy, finely honed over the years—Procrastination.

People who would like to write a book, but are overwhelmed with the idea sometimes ask me  —“Where/how do you start?”

My honest reply is “with the first word.”  

I have started a book based on an image, a phrase that popped into my mind, a vague sense of who my character is, a statement from a character, or a random idea. Sometimes, I know where I want to end up, especially if it is already a story, like the biblical tales that loosely formed the basis for Noah’s Wife or Angels at the Gate (Lot’s wife). With the nonfiction book, Last Chance for Justice (about the 1963 16th Street Church bombing case), I knew I would end up with the trials and convictions of the Ku Klux Klan members who planted the bomb.  

It is very handy to know where you will end up (like having meals in mind when grocery shopping.) But even if I do, I have no idea how to get there. I need to create and feel out the characters, make sure they are interesting enough to intrigue me and make me want to live with them for the many months or years we will be working together. I say working together, because it is a partnership. Once a character is conceived, it’s my job to figure out what to throw at her and her job to react as appropriate to who she is.

I’m sure many other authors feel this way, as if their characters are alive in some intangible but real way. At some point, I daydream as far ahead as I can and work toward that, but sometimes everything comes to a halt and I don’t have a clue what’s next.  

At that point, I pull out my well-honed strategy and go clean the kitchen, read a book, or talk to a friend.  Eventually, my character subtilely tickles my fancy, politely knocks on the door of my mind, or hits me over the head with an idea and I a back to it.

The End

Postscript: My fears were ill-founded. Husband knew what was in the freezer and what he wanted, so he just ordered dinner menu and then stood over me, “guiding” every step.  Piece of cake. 

T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com