Contest 2010
Tiny Lights
page one
Time is a river that carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire." Jorge Luis Borges
W
ith so many time and labor-saving devices at my disposal, why is it taking me forever to get anything done? This issue of Tiny Lights took about six months longer than anticipated, with delays that never ceased to amaze and aggravate me. I‘ve only just now figured out I‘ve been integrating some major life changes at about the same rate of speed as my ancestors who viewed fountain pens and flush toilets as miracles of technology. I might have made faster progress with only a broom and a washboard to distract me. No shortcut yet exists to greater understanding, and with the blessings of hindsight I see I needed to grapple with every lesson and challenge the last year has handed me. It doesn't take a wise woman to know there are more lessons to come. But I apologize for making you wait for these prize-winning essays, full as they are of hard-won wisdom.
Susan Bono, Editor December 2010
First Prize: $350
Connie Mygatt
Just Fifteen Minutes by Sandy McPheron
I
stand on the deck of our new home in the mountains of Southern California, holding a brand new pair of pruning shears in one hand and a book on how to prune fruit trees in the other. It is a particularly warm sunny day, considering it is February. I stare out over our tiny orchard feeling completely overwhelmed. Why have we bought this house? I didn‘t even remember that it had an orchard until we moved in. I had been going through electric shock therapy for crippling depression during the hunt for a house, so this place wasn‘t even in my memory bank. But here I am, there are the trees, and it is my job to do something about them. This house is supposed to be part of the therapy for my
new life. A new start: electric shock to ease the depression, new doctors to find fresh answers, new medications to rinse away the depression and anxiety from my fragile mind, and this new home. It‘s time to shed our old family home, a home filled with years of happy childrearing and what is now the sadness of our grown children‘s empty bedrooms. Time to shed a suburban neighborhood that has become increasingly hectic. This is an escape to a quiet mountain community of orchards and clean air, a place to heal. My feet feel bolted to the deck. I am tempted to abandon the daunting task before me, crawl back into my depression and the comfort of my blanket on the sofa. I know depression; I know how to do depression. What do I know about fruit trees? My dog, Callie, is having a grand time loping easily through the trees. Might as well check out the apple tree and let Callie play for a while. As I trudge across the lawn into the orchard, the smell of the grass wafts up and tickles my nose with the scent of . . . green. The sun warms my widebrimmed hat. A red-tailed hawk comes flapping out of a huge oak tree, startling me as it goes screeching out over the adjoining canyon. Once beside the apple tree, I realize that it is considerably larger then I had anticipated. Oh God, I’m going to need a ladder. I look back toward the beckoning comfort of my home, but I want to be able to tell my husband, John, that I have done something constructive for the day. There have been so many days when all I could report was that I had gotten out of bed, and praise the skies if I had taken a shower. So I have decided that I will spend fifteen minutes pruning. Fifteen minutes; then I can say I have pruned without lying. I also want to be able to rack up one small victory over the depression. The monster has won too often for too long. Five years. Doesn‘t sound like a long time in the grand scope of a middle-aged woman‘s life, but it seems like the darkness has been surrounding me forever. I have been caught in a riptide struggling desperately to reach the shore of sanity, but keep getting pulled farther and farther out, no matter how hard I swim. I‘m tired. Memories of my happy life are still there but dance just out of my reach, just far enough away that I can‘t quite pull them in to replenish my current existence. I want my life filled once more with the explosive energy and sparkling light of the past, that sparkle of the years overflowing with raising happy kids, giggly sex with John, satisfying work for the community and a successful career. The monster of depression seeks out those types of dreams, pounces on them, grinding them into dust. The harder I try to fight the terrible weight, the harder the depression leans on the millstone. A bee buzzes my face, snapping me out of my ruminating. Better get the ladder. Leaning the pruning shears and book against the trunk of the tree, I walk to the tiny barn at the edge of the orchard, empty except for an assortment of dusty flowerpots, the ladder and an old papery hornet‘s nest. I pick up the ladder—damn it’s heavy— and clumsily crash it through the doorway, banging my shoulder.
