Another Short Day in La Luz – Harriet Doerr




This was a very nice story to welcome me back to this collection of shorts. The struggle to read these stories continues.

Life…life…life.

This is our second encounter with Doerr. We first met her back in 2013 when I read and briefly wrote about Edie: A Life.
It looks like we’ll run into her writing again when her story appeared in the Best American Short Stories 2003.

This story appeared in the December 24,, 1990, edition of The New Yorker. Quickly flipping through the pages of that issue, nothing really stands out to draw any sort of reflection on those times. Typical adverts for cars, booze, books, and travel. Nothing newsworthy stands out. 
In December 1990, I was home from Norwich – my first time back since leaving for school in the summer. I was a shell-shocked, shaved head, boy.

To the story. Reading this, there is a portion of the story where the main character reflects back to a tender moment between her and her husband who died three years ago.
I wonder sometimes what position I will be in (hopefully) many years from now. Will I be missed or will I do the missing? I wonder how M will reflect back on our times together.

At this stage of our lives, our days are taken up with raising the boys.

She wakes up in the mornings, tired, and finishes off making their lunches and breakfasts that I have already started preparing. She dresses them and runs them off to school as I head out the door to the paper. She has a few hours alone before the youngest returns home and lunch prep begins. An hour or so for cuddles and a light nap on the couch after lunch and it’s off to pick up big brother. Returning home, dinner prep begins and homework completion struggles rise. I return home and there is dinner followed by the bedtime routine which usually involves repeated visits from the boys back downstairs until we have to threaten them with “time out” around 9:00 on school nights. By this time, I’m wiped out and dozing in my chair hoping to get into bed by 10 so that I can wake at 5:25 and get a 10K in. 
So with this simplified overview of our daily lives, I have to wonder – if I died tomorrow, would there be tender moments that she would reflect back on? So much of the last many years have been taken up with just the day-to-day mundane tasks of living life.

This journal/blog space reflects that too and I point that out quite often. Of course, my fear is that when the time comes for us to have time together, with the boys grown and out of the house, we won’t know each other anymore. I only have this fear generated by my own insecurities.

And this is where this little short story brought me today.
    



Oil and Water · Millicent Dillon



Millicent Dillon gives hope to those that have stories in them but wait until their later years to let them out. She started down the path of becoming a writer at the age of 40 (in 1965) and didn’t become a full-time writer until 1983. Oil and Water was included in BASS when she was 66. So – it’s never too late!
I do not have the disciple to get my stories down on paper…yet. Who knows if that will ever happen.
Turning to the story.
Reading Oil and Water, I think back to college when I was dropped into a room with two other 18-year-olds.
I’m not sure how the university determined who should live with each other but my first two roommates were very interesting.  One just finished a summer at Parris Island Marine Corps Boot-Camp and he was going through some serious PTSD shit leaving that environment and getting dropped into the freshman experience at Norwich. Not to mention that the Iraq war (1990) was ramping up and his reserve unit was being activated…so he didn’t last long as a roommate. When he left, another guy was brought in to fill his position. I have a hard time dealing with writing about him because he died in 2009. Just a couple of minutes ago I went back and read his obituary and the University death notice that was sent to his classmates. What he did after graduation doesn’t seem to fit the person I lived with for 6 months and knew for a total of 4 years. He wasn’t my favorite person – but I can’t seem to write ill of him. The third roommate, the one that I lived with from the beginning to the end of freshman year was a strange guy but not one that I can find anything too disturbing about that would motivate me to go on a lengthy few sentences about.
With all three of these guys, our relationships were a bit like oil and water. We existed together – forced together but never combined.
I’ll wrap up this post with that. 

The Way People Run – Christopher Tilghman

  When I was reading and writing here more frequently, I remember the feeling when the story delivered a surprise. I’m not talking about...