Clair's Song

Don't cry for me for I am not gone.
I am in the morning fog before it rises.
I am in the dew on the roses.
I am in the sunshine that warms the day.
I am the lightening bugs that flicker across the fields at night.
My breath is the breeze on summer afternoons.
My heart beats are the minutes that pass on long winter nights.
Don't cry for me, but rejoice and live.
Watch the petals of the roses bloom.
Hear the birds sing in the morning.
Feel the caress of a lovers touch.
I am not gone.

Lost Loves

Love floats into our lives on the wind.  It can be taken away just as easily.  When love comes to you and life hits you over your head taking it away through a deadly illness, what would you do?

Silence

I lie awake at night
unaccustomed to the silence
of automobiles and the rush
of crowds.  I try to force sleep,
and he comes to me.
The stars are his eyes,
the roar of the waterfall is his blood
rushing through his veins.
He makes love.  His voice
is the singing crickets.
And finally, in the early morning,
when the sun awakes the gray sky
and the dew washes my face,
he leaves me by the hoot of the owl.
A soft layer of fog covers my body,
and I sleep exhausted
from the silence of his love.

Difficult Choices

Recently my mother and my fiancé were both in hospitals on the same day.  The two people I love the most, set to have operations on the same day, several states and hundreds of miles apart.  How could I choose where to be?

Difficult decisions plague my heroines every day, some life and death decisions I'm glad I don't have to make.  As a writer I draw from my experiences for my characters.

If I wrote Si-fi, I would have beamed myself from one hospital to the other, with the proper coordinates.  If I wrote paranormal my essence could have been taken over by a ghost and I could have flown between the hospitals. 

But I write historical romance, and hospitals that were even 50 miles apart in 1870 would be difficult to visit the same day, except with a good horse or train perhaps.  Communication for the heroine between the two hospitals might have been by telegraph, instead of cell phones like today.  The monitors would have been nurses and doctors, not machines.  And there would have been no television to pass the time.

Yet in the end, my heroine would still have to wait...as I did.

Between Mothers

My elderly mother fell Sunday night/Monday morning and broke her arm.  I...am hundreds of miles away and feel desperately that I should be there to help the rest of my family take care of her, sharing days and nights.

This is 2012, and many people take their elderly parents into their homes where they can help them live a safer life under better circumstances.  This seems more humane, as opposed to the 1970's and 1980's when everyone was chucking their parents into a nursing home until the end of their lives.

Being an historical writer, I can't help but to wonder what my characters of 1867 would do.

Although Sara's parents are both dead, she holds a grudge against her mother.  (Sorry Mom.)  Sara's mother was a vain woman who only worried about her status in life.  She forced Sara into a marriage of convenience.  Her  mother passed away shortly after the wedding leaving Sara to try to survive in a relationship not of her choice.

Grudges wear at you, eat at your soul over time, sucking the marrow out of your bones, leaving you with nothing but anger.  This is what happened to Sara, leaving her feeling dull and numb when she thought of her mother.  So even with the enormous capacity Sara has to help people, I believe she would not want to help her mother.

When a writer creates a character from a real person they do not always have the same occupation.  They might also have characteristics of several people.  My mom is more like Sara than like her mother.  I have been lucky.  Love you Mom.  Get well soon.

How Cold is Too Cold

The temperature has dropped into the single digits this week. It makes me happy I set my novel of 1867, Innocence to Love, in the southern states, or at least in the states below the Mason Dixon line.

I wonder how my heroin Sara would dress to stay warm.  There would be flannel petticoats, not the thin flannel the stores sell nowadays, but the heavy two sided flannel from years ago.  Her stockings, as well as her good dress, gloves and scarf would be woolen.  She would have a top coat made of wool or some type of fur coat.  Her good boots would have thick soles and would be, what we call today, high tops.  Depending on the temperature, she might even wear a man's woolen union suit under her clothes.

Taylor, her son, would wear two pair of wool socks and two pair of wool pants with a union suit, a heavy wool coat, hat, gloves and scarf.

If they were traveling, there would be bricks that had been warmed on the stove tucked beside them on the buggy seat or down by their feet in the buggy to help keep them warm.  They would heat their small house with the wood cook stove and the fireplace in the great room.

I believe I'm much better off in 2012 when I can turn up the thermostat and the furnace comes on or I only have to put on a sweater and my knitted house slippers to feel the warmth.

So stay warm...stay dry and have a prosperous 2012.  God bless....

Taking a Vacation

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  I am taking off for the new year and will not be posting this week on my blog. 

Stay safe and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

God bless....