Celebrating my 25th post,  a small milestone, and go with my first crack at fiction (that I’m willing to publish and share!) So with o’ tip of the hat to Diane, Brenda, Kristine and the Professor…

Her laughter was soft, lilting, like dappled sunlight through old lace, drawing his heart to her as she moved lightly about, her feet almost seeming to not even touch the floor. “Music of the Night” played in the background from the music box as she dipped and swirled in time to the tune, stopping only when he stopped to wind the mechanism. Moonlight streamed in the windows and the air was heavy and still, no breeze to move the curtains.

It was his favorite time of day, when everything was sleeping and the world was his alone. The occasional sound of an owl or other night creature hunting for food broke the otherwise still silence of the darkness.

As always she didn’t speak but reached down and took his hand, and as he stood they began to dance. Together they glided soundlessly and effortlessly, feet barely touching the scuffed floor. Without her, trying to dance with anyone else, he felt as clumsy as an ox but when she put her hand on his shoulder it was if magic went through him and he felt alive in a way he never did with anyone, graceful, leading her around and around the floor, dipping, swirling, waltzing around and around. A sensation similar to the feeling of bumping his elbow just right would go through his whole body at her touch, but so faintly he sometimes wondered if he imagined it, that little zsst of energy.

The music box had been his mother’s, given to her by his father when they realized she was first pregnant with him. After their death in “the accident” as it was referred to, it was all that was left of her that he wanted to keep. It happened when he was 9, and he didn’t remember much about the time right before it, bits and pieces really. His mother crying, both of them yelling, slamming doors, several voices, some loud sounds, then they were gone. After that he’d tried to live with his grandmother in her big old house for a little while before they brought him here. “It’s just for a little while”, they said, “it’s for the best”. But a little while had become years now, and he no longer knew who to believe, and sometimes even questioned how much of what he remembered was real. The only reason he thought it must be is that he was still here, otherwise he would be home with his parents, and this would all be a bad dream.

He no longer listened to the music box as much as he used to. For a while it was every night but then he became afraid he would wear out the mechanism, so he had to work to make himself listen to it less and less, until that summer he came to think of as ‘the summer of magic’, when she came into his life. That summer, he was listening to the music and sitting in the window seat, staring at the stars, wondering if his mother were watching him from somewhere up there, when he became aware of someone next to him. Her sudden appearance didn’t frighten him like he knew it should, but him feel more intrigued and excited. She put her index finger to her lips to indicate silence and motioned him toward the middle of the room, and there first danced for him to the music played from the music box.

They never spoke, and he never knew when she would appear but always, she was there when he needed her to be. For a long time she danced alone, as a ballerina, pirouettes and releves, her long hair falling over one shoulder then the other, as she went en pointe. She danced only to the music from the music box, or would sit quietly with him at his side and hold his hand. Eventually, she taught him to dance with her and he found a sense of completeness and peace that he’d never known in his young life.  Near daybreak, they would sit quietly in the window seat, until his eyes grew heavy, and noiselessly she would slip away.She was glad she could ease some of the hurt he felt with the loss of his mother, but it was difficult to not being able to say anything to him, not being able to tell him anything about her secret. If she did, it meant her time here had to end and she wasn’t ready to let go yet. There was a freedom here for her, to share her gift to help those that were mourning and in stasis move on.

Toward the end of summer, she knew that he was closer to not needing her any more. He’d made friends with people his own age, started being away in the evenings, coming back to his room later, sometimes looking a little flushed and happier and she knew he’d met someone special. He didn’t sit by the window as often anymore, didn’t have the look of melancholy on his face. She knew it wouldn’t last, it never did here, and that when it ended it wouldn’t end well and he wouldn’t want her comfort then so perhaps now was as good a time to make the break as any. So even before he knew he would feel his first heartbreak, she went to him for one final dance.

With the moonlight streaming through the window, they twirled around the room, lighter than air, the shafts of light sparkling as if lit with diamonds. Around and around, breathless with the joy of dancing, through the night. As night turned to day, however, he knew something was different when she didn’t leave like she normally did. Gray light filtered in, and slowly shadows began to appear, and with them she looked different, almost as if she were shimmering.  His arms slowly fell to his sides as she moved away from him and toward the music box and as she did so, she seemed to be growing smaller. He was certain he was imagining things, and blinked hard before rubbing his eyes and suddenly he wondered why, after all this time, he hadn’t noticed the dancer wasn’t in it when she was there dancing in the room with him. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again she was no longer in the room, and when he looked at the music box, the ballerina dancer WAS there, looking exactly like his beautiful dancer who had been coming to him all these months, and taking him in her arms to dance during the night. He moved closer, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him. As he did so, she pressed her fingers to her lips in a kiss goodbye, and resumed her position so quickly he was no longer sure if she’d been there with him in the room at all. He stared until other sounds began to penetrate his awareness – the rattling of keys, muted voices, a telephone, shoes on a tile floor, confused with the improbability of it all even as the orderly spoke his name, beginning another day.

A big thanks to Tom Merriman for this month’s theme of “The Next Level“, which is timely for me as I’ve just completed my annual performance review at work, and as some of you know it hasn’t been that long since I finished grad school and transitioned back to some facsimile of normal human again.

So that’s gotten me to thinking what’s next? Where do I go from here? I’ve laid out my work goals with my manager, and have picked up some of my old hobbies again, but I also know myself well enough to know that I need a challenge. I have no doubt work will provide that in one area, but that’s the only the obligatory challenge. I also need voluntary ones, the kinds of things you do just to see if you can. I learned to scuba dive in my 30’s thanks to acquaintances who brought their dive gear along to a party at a lake, and when I asked a few too many questions, finally said to me “oh for God’s sake, here, put it on and get under water!” After a few minutes of breathing under water I was hooked, and those acquaintances, Mary and Mark, have become some of my dearest

SV Mandalay

friends and traveling companions. They are also guilty of introducing  me to the best vacations I’ve ever had, sailing on a Windjammer ship.

But I often wonder, how many of us busily go through every day without moving to the next level in anything? You keep on doing the same things over and over, in a rut because it’s easy, or you’re just too busy to take the time to try something new, or too tired, or stressed or spread too thin or whatever. When was the last time you pushed yourself past your limits? It could be for something good, or scary, to get a good outcome or past a painful one. If we never try, we never find out what we’re capable of. I’ve had so much fun when I’ve taken a deep breath and taken a leap into the deep end, and I feel like my life is only just starting to unfold in front of me. Don’t misunderstand me, ain’t no way I am EVER, EVER getting on roller coasters. It’s not happening any more than bungee jumping will. Pigs will fly first.  I mean, I have to draw the line somewhere, be reasonable for heaven’s sake. Scary good, terror stricken bad. Writing this blog was a little unnerving, scary came when I realized I actually had to tell people I was writing it in order for anyone to actually read it. Then I got a like, and another and another from a stranger, and from a couple of  published authors, one of whom seems to be even more sarcastic than me (how is this possible, you ask? One of the great mysteries of life, right up there with “where is Jimmy Hoffa?” and “did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?”)  Suddenly, it was FUN! (Thanks everyone, you like me, you really…sorry, I watched the Academy Awards the other night, and just couldn’t help myself there for a moment.)

Last week my mother went to the funeral of one of her aunts who was 101. She sent me this summary about her Aunt Bernie: She went to college at the age of 55 and got her degree, then applied to the Peace Corp but was rejected because she was too old! After that she taught school at the Indian Mission in Zuni, New Mexico, and then got her Masters in Bi-Cultural Studies. All of that after the age I am now, and now I’m feeling the pressure. Oh no, must Level Up! Achieve More!

Thanks to a lifelong dream, encouragement from Brenda, Diane, and the Professor who gave me a big verbal kick in the keister a couple of weeks ago and the voices in my head (don’t anyone even go there) my Leveling Up means my next post will be fiction, and I’m going to start writing the book I always said I would (yes, Brenda, I still have my idea notes.) Of course, now I’ll have to create an Aunt Bernie in it. And Brenda, Diane and the Professor. ( with Gilligan, the Skipper too …just kidding. Gilligan and the Skipper won’t be really be in there. I’m just checking to see who’s paying attention. As for the rest of you, I make no promises. )

What’s your next level ?

One thing that I’ve noticed and quite honestly it’s bothered me for some time, is the lack of medical consultants for television. I think they say they have them, and probably do for terminology or for accuracy of a diagnosis, but that’s all information that can be obtained via email. I’m talking about an on-set consultant (ahem, calling all Hollywood producers, I could be available as a consultant, let’s talk). Some of the things that I see that leave me feeling very frustrated include blood that looks like someone poured ketchup on the actor, scars that are supposed to be years old and yet are made to look as pink as fresh ones, and oxygen tubing that’s never placed correctly.

It’s all about artistic license and what looks good on camera, right? Details, details, let’s not concern ourselves with educating the public on what’s right or real. So here’s the deal, and producers, it’s your one “get-out-of-jail-free” card. After this you have to pay my consultant’s fee, and to paraphrase hubby I’ll be cheaper than some, more expensive than others.

Blood – unless you hit an artery, blood isn’t bright red, it’s more like dark maroon. I get it, it shows up better on camera as bright red. It’s still wrong, wrong, wrong. When it dries, it’s even darker. But it’s never the color of ketchup.

Scars are only reddish pink when they first heal. After a few months, the color fades, and by about a year they are faded to white/barely pink, which is more of the permanent color. 6 years after the knife fight, they aren’t still red. I get it, you want your viewers to always be reminded every single time he’s on screen, of the fact that your hero was knifed in the face. Find some other way. Give him a knickname. Better yet, work it like Days of Our Lives did back in the day, when the character of Steve Johnson got in a fight. He lost an eye, and wore an eye patch. Now THERE’S a scar.

Scene: The lovely, young ingenue has been suddenly and tragically been given a diagnosis of heart failure. She must now lay in a hospital bed for the next six weeks during sweeps, with oxygen tubing under her nose and over her head, full make up, hair perfect, nails done, face slender as ever. Which of these is wrong and/or completely unrealistic? Answer: All of them. It’s a trick question. The oxygen tubing is always positioned wrong, and it’s bugged me ever since I learned how to place it as a student nurse. Gah! It’s so easy. (I’m not going to tell you, that’s part of my fee. ) And I’ve been in the the hospital as a patient, and after a couple of days there, trust me, you don’t care so much about make up. You’re sick, you feel like crap and can’t breathe. Producers, you need try this: Stick a straw in your mouth and breathe through it, and only through that. How long did you last before you felt like you couldn’t get enough air? 2 minutes? 4? Keep going, wait…..come on, maybe another 15 minutes. Now, do you give two hoots about makeup, hair or nails?  Yeah, didn’t think so. That’s kind of what it feels like to breathe with heart failure. The medication needed to treat it makes you blow up like a balloon. How about writing that reality into the story for once, what real people struggle with.

See, if I were there with you, I’d make sure you got these details right. Instead, medical professionals all over the world are laughing at you.You’ve never gotten it right, but at least in the days of Marcus Welby, MD, the broadcast quality was so poor we missed a lot of the details. Now with everything in HD broadcast, and everyone having 70-inch screens in their living rooms, you can count George Clooney’s nose hairs, so details count.

Oh, and by the way, if you have someone hooked up to a respirator, you probably should have the machine actually on, and the bellows moving. Younker’s corollary, is that if the bellows are moving and the machine is on, the patient better be hooked up and not speaking. Did you all hear that? It was the sound of the stampede of 272 producers all rushing to their archives, as they all said “oh shit”. Busted.

You know how to find me.