Excerpt One
As the day wears on, Terrance is working steadily when Eli interrupts, “How do you breathe here without scuba gear?”
Eli wipes the sweat from his face for the hundredth time in the last hour. Terrance carefully lifts the tarp, looks around the cooler and slowly pulls it out. He opens the lid and reveals it’s full of partially melted ice, bottled water and Gatorade.
“I guess they make them fragile up there in the Northwest. Help yourself, if you need more, we can go get some later on.” Eli grabs one of each, opens both, then alternates between the water and Gatorade taking deep gulps of both trying to quench his thirst and replace all the fluids he has lost.
“Talk about making them fragile. You look like a kid scared of a monster under their bed moving that tarp.” Eli looked pretty pleased with himself holding his own with the big man’s ribbing.
“That’s because you reach under things without looking and you’re liable to get bit by a rattlesnake. I should’ve warned you of that from the start. We’ve got a couple different types but the one you especially do not want to cuddle with is the Eastern Diamondback. They’re much less common than they used to be but they do enjoy a nice place to catch some shade, and since humanity hit pause for a while, they’ve been around more in areas that they normally wouldn’t.”
“I’d think a guy your size could just say boo and the snake would slither off crying.” Terrance smiles at him.
“I thought you said there were great schools out there in the Northwest.” His smile turns into a Cheshire grin.
“There are, I never said I went to one.” Eli parlays back, “Can I ask you something?”
“We’ve been through this.”
“Fine, fine, what did you mean when you said you think life is challenge by choice? It’s been challenging for me lately and I sure didn’t feel like it was a choice.”
“There are always going to be challenges. A lot of times you can choose your challenge.”
“How so?” Eli interjects.
Terrance slowly ambles back over towards the work area bringing a Gatorade that he sets by his feet. “Look at how most people eat these days; they eat a bunch of stuff that’s easy. Fast food, processed food, a quick fix. Then they don’t feel good or their kids get sick all the time. Or another example school; that’s not easy paying for college and doing all the work to graduate but it’s not easy to work low-paying jobs and struggle your whole life. It seems to me like a lot of folks would be better off choosing a little more challenge up front for a lot more easy down the road.”
Eli sets an empty water bottle next to the cooler and reaches inside for another water and takes that and his half-full Gatorade back to the work area. Deep in thought, he almost trips on his hammer he had left on the ground.
Excerpt Two
Up ahead, he can see some sort of structure high in the air and is relieved as they go further up the drive to see a much lower one. This one has a net.
“Come on over here”, Isabella walks towards the high rig. Eli leaves his gear in the car and follows along. “You climb up on this side,” she says, “and I’ll climb up on the other side once you're on the platform I’ll explain how to get onto the bar.”
He pauses, thinks about the lessons of the last few days and slowly reaches for the ladder. She smacks him on the hand and pushes him away.
“What are you stupid?” she hisses.
Bewildered, he asks, “What do you want?”
“I want to know how safe you are. I'm not happy with my answer.” The more emotional she gets the more her accent comes out. He has to muster his focus to hear what she is saying and keep the dumb grin off his face.
“I don't know what I'm doing here, you're the expert and the teacher. I trust you to know what's right and what's not because I don't know the difference yet.” he responds in his defense.
“I appreciate it. I did just tell you to trust me and there's an important distinction everyone needs to make. So, let's do that.”
She looks to him for agreement. He nods. “Many people avoid fear anytime they feel it. For them fear means they can't do something, they let fear stop them everywhere in life, until they are practically living in a cave. That you don't want to do. Fear actually lights the way; it says come this way. This is where you can grow. This is where you can learn. This is where you can expand.”
He nods agreeing. “On the other hand, you want to pay attention to danger. Danger is something you should avoid. Going up that high with no instructions, no experience and no safety lines is dangerous. Whatever had you hesitate before you reached for the ladder, you want to pay attention to, because it was telling you there is something dangerous.”
He thinks about it and admits, “It makes sense. I haven't looked at it that way, but I can't argue with any of it and I want to. Especially the fear part, but when I think about the things people are afraid of there's something they can learn, gain or there is more
freedom they could get from facing the fear or however you want to phrase it.” Suddenly feeling self-conscious he stops.
She graces him with a big smile. “Exactly. Before we start, how's your shoulder?”
He holds his arm up getting ready to move it around. She grabs his wrists and gives it a yank. He pulls back and scowls.
“That's good,” she says, “that's honest. How did it hurt? Is it a sharp stabbing pain like when you get injured and it causes damage or is it more like the kind of pain at the gym?”
“Neither” he says, “it's more like it hasn't been moved enough the way it's supposed to be for the last few days.”
She smiles again. “That's good. This is what I need from you. I need you to be honest because you are going to be my catcher and my safety is going to be in your hands to some extent. We will have a net for your safety of course, and mine because I'm going to be teaching this to you and I want both of us to get through this in one piece. The thing about trapeze is you need to have good communication and trust with the person you're working with. My partner and I have been working together for years. You and I will have days.”
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri
As a writer,
what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
I would love to give you a
cool solitary creature as a spirit animal or some sort of peaceful warrior superhero
avatar, but since I have a mascot, I’ll give her the credit she is due.
She is my constant companion, including a ton of travel, my blind mini wiener
dog Reyna. I have always loved her and truthfully, she used to be a real
pain in the butt. I had two Rottweilers over the course of twenty years
and neither one ever killed or injured anything. One of them even saved
an injured squirrel from another dog. Not Reyna, she was a murdering
mayhem monster. She would even hurl her eight pounds against the chain
link fence to try to get at the coyotes that passed by. All guts, no
sense, a real pain in the butt!
She went blind in August
of 2019 at the beginning of a month-long road trip. Which if you don’t
know, is the most perfect example of what not to do with a blind dog let alone
a newly blind dog when neither the dog nor her seeing-eye person have had time
to adapt. It was a challenging, but fun trip, and by the end, it was me
and not home that became her safe place. She travels with me all the time
(or did pre-Covid). Reyna was on fourteen flights and spent more than one
hundred and fifty nights in hotels (thanks La Quinta) and Airbnb places in 2019
and early 2020.
That never would have been
possible if she hadn’t gone blind. She is still as stubborn as ever, but
now that she is blind, she isn’t yapping her head off and trying to kill
anything that moves. That makes me happy and also makes it possible for
her to be in hotels, airports, and on planes. In going blind her world
got bigger, much bigger. She’s been to I think twenty-two states so far
and we’re nowhere close to finished with our adventures. I love how what
some perceived as a tragedy was a real gift.
For me it’s been a
blessing too. I get to have the comfort of a loving presence when I
travel. It’s forced me to be more present in the moment so that I see the
obstacles in front of her early enough to tell her how to avoid them.
It’s improved my self-care; she is always willing to remind me when it’s time
to eat. Finally, it forces me to step away from the screen and step
outside in the sun or the rain or even the snow for at least a few minutes
throughout the day and that is always a good thing.
So glad I stumbled across this, was a great read.
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