Roar Firemouth, Write That Book

I decided I needed a break from the book the last couple of days, and  this morning it woke me up in the middle of a dream.  I mean I saw my book in my dream.  It was laying down, not filed, on a wooden bookcase, wearing a nice dust-cover, glossy bright yellow.  Instead of a proper title, there was an image of a piece of 3-hole binder paper with book titles scrawled in heavy black ink then lined out.  They were scribbly notes, some on lines, others almost vertical, a visual mess:  


Now That They Are All Dead (I have carried with me for decades while I waited for my elders to pass on)
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Hand Me Down Rage  I became aware of the anger both my parents (must have) lived, and how it affected we kids. 


Circles of a Life I became aware of completions:  people appearing, unexpected connections, and resulting in unusual, sometimes spontaneous, always benevolent situations.  


A Nightmare in Bali, 1983:  I suffered my first adult episode of PTSD. 


 Bob Geldof got me Arrested!: for taking photos in a refugee camp with a news journalist. A description of our rollicking escape from gunfire in  the Sahara Desert.  (The Geldof connection made it happen!)   Oh oh - maybe it should be called Bob Made Me Do It!


Abu Dhabi Airport: 1985: an unforgettable child  lives in my heart today. 


Last day in Riyadh: an emotional final day in our home in Riyadh.


A Hole in Her Heart: Where I came from: my mother's history makes a good beginning.


Roar, Firemouth!   It too woke me up from sleep last summer.  At first I thought it was another book title knocking at my dormer door. I sat up in bed then knew I had to get to the computer immediately.  I now have a lovely sign posted on the wall that I first see when I wake up.  Roar Firemouth!.  It is my personal get-to-work call and it gets me out of bed and doing the necessaries before sitting down to create what I always hope will be an eloquent passage.

A Hole in Her Heart  may be the title I will choose.  I came into an understanding of my poor deceased mother thanks to my genealogical investigations of her family, which revealed  a sad and lonely story.  She was a toddler when things went awry and never was able to make sense out of it.  What does a baby know about what's going on?  They can only feel.


Through my search sites I found her sister's son, who kindly sent me his original family photos so I could scan them and share with my family.  He told me about my mother's life from a different perspective, a very different perspective, proving that little was known about her and how she was (not) cared for as a child. I  found more about this from newspaper articles around the turn of last century.  


Fortunately the discord between Mom and me  was sorted out . That's really a  candy-coated way to describe our violent history and the final moment of violence. I was sixteen and she broke a heavy wooden coat hanger over my head.   I grabbed her by her elbows and I threw her across the room.  Shortly after we began a brief but remarkable relationship.  This part seems to be what I most want to write about:  how bad things happen and how they can be righted but it is not always done in your time frame, your lifetime.







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