Remembering My Dad - William Roy Hudson, Jr.

Today I'm remembering my dad who died in 2007. We had a tumultuous relationship for much of my life though in his later years and by his end, much improved. What I recall most about him was that when I was a kid, I believed he could fix anything. As an adult, I reflect back on how that simple belief gave a sense of security even in the unpredictable environment of living with a father who was unpredictable in his anger and rage. I still harbor a belief that my dad could fix anything as a comforting blanket of confidence about my father and that seems part of my own foundation and perspective on the world that things will work out for the better. Seems a strange juxtaposed set of beliefs but for me they seem tied together.

I don't know a lot about my dad or his growing up or him as a person. I know that much of my life he felt like I was not his daughter. A stroke addled brain will say whatever it feels. I look as much like him as look like my mother and as his second wife told me - that she thought that was just silly since he and I bore such resemblance. I know that he and his father bred cocker spaniels and when emptying his childhood home, found a framed certificate of a champion bloodline dog they had bred. He'd been an accountant when I was born. He was a teacher when I was growing up. He died a small business owner having over several decades grown a successful campground from nothing. He was funny, in a dry, unexpected manner and I've inherited his sense of humor. As a parent, I am not like him, and perhaps his greatest gifts to me were what and how not to become. I think he grew up in a difficult time. (He was born in 1930.) I think he would have been a wonderful grandfather, so unlike the father that he was as his best traits grew more apparent as he aged and gained the lessons of what people around him could give to him. He declined in health in his last years, yet gained so much and seemed to grow so much as a person during that time.

I'm sorry that he never knew his granddaughters. I wish that he could have lived to enjoy their laughter. I wish I could call him to ask him how to fix something or about a common homeowner problem I might be considering or just to remember our long drives cross country when I was growing up.

I believed my dad could do anything when I was a kid. The best thing he did though, was become my dad and my friend in the last years of his life, when despite a stroke that made it harder to speak, he was so much more able to communicate.

I miss you daddy. I love you.


(The picture shows my dad with his two sisters, Mary in the middle, Betty on the right. This is the only photo I have of my dad.)

Time Flies When Kids are Little

Spring is already here - where does the time go?

Baby number two has discovered locomotion on her own. We've nicknamed her Birdie, perhaps inspired from her incessant upwards attention whenever anyone is eating anything. She has her sister's same determination to get what she wants, this most evident when she is not happy with where she is sitting when mommy is not right next to her. This is how we discovered she had figured out the difficult movement synergy for crawling. Returning from a quick trip down the hall and into the bedroom resulted in turning the corner upon the return almost to stumble over little Birdie, nearly to the bedroom door. The baby is mobile. She's been on the move for about a month now and we still are not quite re-used to closing all the baby gates.

The lack of growth is no longer the huge worry it was. She remains a very tiny baby, barely doubling her birth weight even at nine months. She is growing tall though and in the top 25th percentile for height. This apparently balancing the barely on the bottom three percentile for weight issue that had the doc considering tube feeding a few months ago. She did lose some weight the first month Other Mommy returned to work, but once she figured out how to eat actual food, that is no longer an issue. Open up the deli drawer in the fridge and she is one happy bouncy baby.

Where Bug developed a special relationship with Callie Cat, Birdie seems to be BFF with Bella Bear. And a more tolerant dog just does not exist. Let's not forget, Bella was one of the her first words. She hears Bella coming up the steps and gets all wiggly, squeally excited, hands flapping. She had figured out how to pull back when the lick monster is in her face only to lean back in to explore the furry face with her fingers.

Once a week, Other Mommy sends in the Nanny so I can get some writing done. This is such an appreciated, much needed action. Means on Thursdays I get most of my writing for the whole week done. Just like Bug, Birdie won't start preschool until she is two and then for only a couple part days.

My current writing this month is focused upon the Pulitzer Remix Found Poetry Project. Eighty-five poets writing found poems from each of the Pulitzer fiction prize winners. My book is the 1970 winner, The Collected Stores of Jean Stafford. Visit Pulitzer Remix for one poem from each participating poet published daily. You can find the earlier poems by looking up the books or listed by the poet. I hope you'll take a few moments to visit the project and check out mine and some of the others. Each day I also post on my web site a note about the poem published that day and link to the site.

Bug is almost four now and entertains herself, and us, with songs of her own creation. Her own version of found work - she takes her inspiration from what she sees outside the car window.

Farewell Charlie. The Fight Continues

Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan died today, February 10th, 2013 after a long battle with cancer. She left with dignity and grace, survived by her wife Karen and their daughter Casey. Charlie and her family were plaintiffs in one of the challenges to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. That is how we met. While last week it was announced that outgoing Secretary of Defense Panetta would extend benefits that are not bound by DOMA, he has not yet done so and will leave office as soon as his successor is confirmed.

Charlie's fight for recognition of her family was more than courage and the honorable choice to do what is right in the face of systemic wrong, this was also a fight for her family's future. A battle to ensure access for Karen as her spouse to each and every benefit a surviving spouse of a military veteran and in Charlie's case, a serving Soldier, should receive. Her fight was about as simple an action as Karen having access to the military base commissary and freedom to buy food for their family, being able to enter a military installation not as a visitor, but as one who belonged, one who is part of our greater military family. That her earned survivor benefits would be paid to her lawful spouse, Karen, enabling financial security for her family.

If I had to go to war, I would want Charlie Morgan in my foxhole as my battle buddy. I don't know of a greater compliment any Soldier can pay another.

Farewell Charlie, our comrade in arms. Go in peace. Your battle buddies will look out for Karen and Casey.

Crowdfunding

OutserveSLDN's statement on the passing of CW2 Charlie Morgan.

From the Washington Post, November 22, 2012 - Soldier's Last Wish: Let DOMA Die Before I Do.

From the Washington Post, February 10, 2013 - Soldier dies of breast cancer but her widow won't get benefits.

Mommy Slumber Pary

The bug is almost four years old now. She sleeps through the night, goes to bed usually at her bedtime about 7 and wakes about twelve hours later. Now and then she tries to delay the usual kid way - "I'm thirsty," she'd say. So she has her own cup of water by the bed. Instead of fighting about staying in bed, we let her have a short while "reading" some of her books by the rather bright night light. Often she puts herself back to bed but sometimes we have to tell her times up and time to stay in bed. We do breathing and say goodnight to the many body parts. Sometimes she wants to just have mommy there to hold her hand while she slows herself down and falls asleep. Sometimes she just doesn't want to be by herself. "I'm lonely," she'll say.

What do you say to that?

With the new baby still up most of the night, the last vacation we took meant the littlest bug was with other mommy and I was in with the original bug. We called it slumber party with mommy. A week together and she loved it. And there is no better way to stay warm in a cold winter night than a furnace toddler cuddled up next to you. Just have to deal with the constant changing of body positions and tendency to sleep horizontal, kicking mommy in the kidneys half the night. Then vacation ended and it was back to the usual arrangement in her own room. Started to hear "I'm lonely," much more often.

Now slumber party with mommy is a reward for going to bed on time and staying in bed all week. Now and then a weekend night is offered as a reward and she gets to have slumber part with mommy for one night. This means I get to bed earlier than usual, no late night forays into Azeroth or blog updating on slumber party nights. We usually watch a video after dinner, read some books for our usual bed time story time ritual, and then she gets a little while with mommy's read in bed light while I finish up some work on the computer. Then she's tucked in, I curl up with my nighttime reading and she falls off asleep in nothing flat.

This won't last forever, she won't want to cuddle with mommy and the only slumber parties will be with giggling peers. For now though, it's nice to cuddle with the bug. She is a hot sleeper so it isn't too long before she moves away to her own little section on the bed, but then one hand or foot will reach out across the void between, she must make contact. The tiniest of touches while she softly snores her way to dreamland. No, it won't last long but while it does, it is such a treasure.

Noah St. John: NPR Snap Judgment Performance of the Year

Storytelling - Noah St. John

Survive Ranger School

Currently I'm researching what it takes to succeed and graduate from the United States Army Ranger School for a future writing project. If you've been through Ranger School, please take a survey about success at Ranger School. Thanks. Click here to take survey

The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers by Laura Oliver

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Laura Oliver’s The Story Within is not your every day craft book. This is a whooping roller coaster over the highs and lows of the vocation of writing. Every writer has heard “Show, don’t tell.” I never thought I’d find an entire book on the craft of writing that page after page did just that over 26 topics of writerly discussion.

Full disclosure – Laura sent me the book, after I sent her my book No Red Pen: Writers, Writing Groups & Critique. We have never met, I’ve never been in her workshops, or as best I recall heard her speak. I don’t particularly like craft books as in general they make me sleepy and thus can only read them in small doses. (I’m on my second month reading a book on Poetics.) I was professionally interested in her work. I might learn something, more likely, I’d find something I might be able to use as I develop my own professional writer and teacher persona.

The Story Within is a page turner, can’t put down, tour de force packaged in of all things, a writing book. The entire book is a treasure trove.

Oliver starts with science, physics to be exact. Wow. The theme to that sitcom with the brainy nerds soundtracks the introduction for me. I picked up the book off a stack of a dozen or more waiting for my attention to read for a few moments in the bathroom as I was too lazy on my way to bed to turn on the bedroom light. Twenty minutes beyond the two minutes I’d allotted to read the intro I’m in bed, wondering how I can carve out time the next day, a non-preschool day, to read more. I find a way. While the toddler runs the electronic device’s battery down with games, videos and interactive books and we are cuddled together on the couch, I read the first half. Quiet Time after lunch gets me to the end of the book. I’ve laughed, cried, and been on the edge of my metaphorical seat. Along the journey, for it was as tumultuous a journey as any novel that has kept me way past bedtime, I kept experiencing ‘ah ha!’ moments. These were then filed away because what I was reading was what I could use in my own writing practice. Sometimes new ideas, sometimes just a different perspective, sometimes a reminder of something I already knew about but perhaps had forgotten or misplaced.

Laura Oliver is a skilled, imaginative writer with clear confidence, regard, and respect for her calling. This is important as her writing is matter of fact not presumptuous. Each chapter is a conversation in a best friend’s or long time neighbor’s kitchen. She interweaves her prose with quotes and passages from other authors’ work in such a way that a tapestry of craft emerges. Threads from the page link with the reader’s own experience creating what every writer I believe is seeking – connection. The individual is the collective universal experience. She adroitly creates doorways and windows into the writing process, each one an invitation. When a passage to illustrate the navigation of a story depicts a mother gathering her son in her lap, I am transported to my daughter’s bed, holding her safe so she can quiet and let herself be sleepy. Then I lay her back down, leave her to get there on her own, walking out to a quiet whisper of “Good night mommy.” The chapter’s point, the story entry is a direction not a conclusion, resonates.

I’ve always considered, no wait, I’m pretty damn proud, of my ability to create dialogue that is realistic. That’s not a chapter I expect to get much from when reading a craft book. I learned three new ways to consider and create better dialogue from Chapter 7. And, I have to hunt down a copy of Alan Elyshevitz’s story, “Noah’s Ark” from which Oliver drew for example. I have to know what happens.

In chapter 17 I've become so emotionally attuned to the examples and writing passages that in this chapter entitled “Spirit: Caring for the Writer” when she encourages “So get it all down now even if you don’t know what you are going to do with it. Capture on paper the first time you heard your son laugh, your parents harmonize to ‘Moon River,’ the smell of a dog who has rolled on a dead fish.” I am instantly transported. My daughter’s laugh, my mother’s voice, my favorite dog who rolled on a dead fish in January and stank so bad I had to give her a bath standing in a tiny shower because it was too cold for her to sleep in the truck. And was instantly overcome with grief because she has been dead and gone for almost ten years. “Write the damn book,” Laura Oliver says. Because memories fade with the living.

The Story Within promises “New Insights and Inspiration for Writers.” Laura Oliver delivers. Read the damn book. Because this is the book you will dog ear and mark up, will recommend and lend out or because you don’t want to lose, will buy and give away. This is the book for every cohort of writing students, and every emerging writer out there to invest in because it’s one that will not be sold back or garage saled.



View all my reviews

The Story Within – New Insights and Inspiration for Writers by Laura Oliver
ISBN 978-1-61564-114-7
U.S. $13.95 CAN $15.50
2011 Alpha Books

She Lost Her Wife to War

The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell allowed gay and lesbian service members to serve in the open. No longer did they have to hide their family, their sense of self as a person. Serving under DADT for the three decades of my career, I felt isolated and always on the edge for I could never, ever let anyone I served with know who I was, know me. This impacted my relationships within the service, never enabling me to have the close comradeship that is the traditional hallmark of military service. This became all the more real when I was involved with someone who became my spouse in every possible way except under the law. When I was deployed overseas my greatest fear was for her and how she would be treated if I was wounded or killed.

The Defense of Marriage Act is federal law that has been repeatedly declared unconstitutional. This spring, the Supreme Court will address the issue. Until DOMA is gone, service members will continue to be treated as if they do not have spouses even if they are legally married within their state.

Listen here to what happened when Staff Sergeant Donna Johnson was killed in action in Afghanistan, leaving behind her spouse, Staff Sergeant Tracy Dice. Please, contact your elected officials and tell them you want the Defense Department to accord to gay and lesbian service members the privileges, benefits, and rights their straight married peers receive and that the Defense of Marriage Act must go.

Late Night Musings

The baby has reached six months and today had her first walk in the backpack. Bug had decided she no longer wants to wear pull-ups at night yet has enough awareness to know she can't yet make it to the potty when sleeping. Conundrum for the toddler. In 2012, I submitted twenty-six pieces of writing for publication. Four have been accepted, one rejected and waiting on the rest. My iPhone still fails to connect for data and I am reluctantly soon to terminate with the current carrier. Really hate change sometimes. Soon after retiring from the Army Reserves I wondered if all those years trying to be accepted into the boy's world was worth all the sacrifice and all that was lost in the process. Not sure it was. DADT and its precursor regulations resulted in a career largely marred by isolation, standoff from comrades, and a cloud of "difference" and it had consequences. Still, individual Soldiers have communicated the difference I made for them. Individual actions still resulted in mission accomplishment regardless of the lack of acknowledgement. That's collective made a difference. For that, I am proud of my service and content that I lived up to what Captain Charles Douglas Knowlten once taught me - "Do what is right, once your integrity is gone, it's gone. Your career isn't worth compromising your ethics. Take care of soldiers, not your career."

There is much writing still to be done. There is much work as a veteran where I can make a difference. I wish I'd had my family years earlier, but then it would not be the family I have now and I wouldn't trade them for anything. I am still hopeful I might win the lottery 12, 15, 20, 30, 6, 3. Instead of playing a month of World of Warcraft after retirement I've started two poetry collections, revised numerous fiction and nonfiction pieces and started a few essays. I'd still like to play nonstop WoW though if I could. I've been sick more the last three years than I think in the whole last ten before and am hoping now that I don't have to travel all the time I'll finally be healthy - no more pneumonia, whooping cough or bronchitis would be nice. The Victoria A Hudson Emerging Writer Scholarship to attend the San Francisco Writers Conference is going into its sixth year. 2014 will be year 7. I am my own best buyer for No Red Pen: Writers, Writing Groups & Critique having given away more than 200 copies. Thankfully, I get a discount. I can now plank for one minute, twenty seconds. January is the birthday for all my pets, because they all get to have Boo's birthday of January 22nd. I never remember when they died but remember Boo and Polka in January. I miss them both. This year is my twelfth anniversary with my Beloved.

Christmas the Ties that Bind

Christmas has no religious significance to me though I understand the significance the date holds for many. The holiday is one with personal significance for me though as a family holiday. I remember Dad dragging the box holding the Christmas tree from the attic crawl space above the garage. We'd put the 'boughs' into the 'trunk' and as we sorted out what went where in the three dimensional puzzle that was the tree. Every year Mom would give us a special ornament. Her intent was so we'd have ornaments when we grew up. A sheet and soft rolls of cotton were laid out under the tree that perched up on a end table by the bay window on the the living room. Upon this field of white a village was laid out and paperbacks tucked underneath created hills for sledding and skiing metal people. In one corner was a nativity scene but that was more or less just another story on the snow beneath the tree.

We didn't receive lots of presents but a few and usually one big ticket item. Once it was a small portable TV set. I remember watching Star Trek and Outer Limits on it in the room I shared with my sister. We were allowed to open our stockings when we woke up, not allowed to go wake up Mom and Dad. These were hung in the kitchen, from the highest cabinet so the dog wouldn't pull them down. Each stocking always contained a toothbrush, underwear, an orange, a tin of hard candy and then the contents varied with school supplies, small books, and games. Everything was wrapped in festive paper. A late breakfast always included Canadian Bacon, the only time of year we had that treat. Mom would bake Hot Cross Buns from scratch for pre-breakfast when we took a break from opening presents. One present was opened on Christmas Eve and our Christmas cards were placed in the the branches of the tree.

I went many years with non-Christmas on Christmas day. No tree, no presents, no special meals. No family. With my own family now, it's important to me to create memories for my kids, create traditions for them to share. Create the ties that bind them from after me back to before, to their grandparents and my childhood. In doing so, I bring my Mom forward. When I recreate something she did for me with my own children, I honor her memory. I remember her. She is not lost to time's passing.

Each holiday this is a struggle. How to adapt and what to include and how much to introduce as the kids are still very young. The oldest at three and half years is forming memories now and so it is time to introduce the elements from my childhood I want my kids to share with their kids, kids I may never know. But they might know me a little, from what my kids continue, that they learned from their mom, who shared it with them, from what she learned when she was once a kid too.

Retired

Well, I am retired after 33 years, and about three months service in the United States Army Reserve. I reached maximum years of service of 28 commissioned years as an Officer and thus mandatory retirement. Only promotion to Colonel would have extended that two more years and alas, I was not selected I found out today.

Not to dwell on that, since last month I have been moving forward in my work post Army as writer and author. Right now there are about 15 different pieces of writing out for consideration. Several pieces have already been accepted that were submitted last month. In the upcoming few months I'll have work published in Bay Laurel Literary Magazine, Adanna Literary Magazine and Bluestem Literary Magazine. The work being published includes poetry, short story, narrative essay and narrative profile nonfiction. This month has been a very productive period.

I am working on two poetry collections currently, one currently titled Gun Control will explore guns in American society and culture and the second with the working title Other Mommy explores being the non-biological mom in a lesbian family. The long on the back burner narrative essay collection, Weekend Warrior, is bring brought forward as I write the final chapters that include experiences serving under the now repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and reflections on my last few assignments in Command. I'm hopeful that I'll have this ready for proposal shopping by the Spring. I'm collecting stories from GLBT service members, families and supporters for the Repeal Day anthology which has a deadline for submissions of October 2013. Finally, I have several other peculating book ideas that will continue to develop in the background.

Again in 2013, with Tanya Egan Gibson, I'll take part in a critique and writers group workshop at the San Francisco Writers Conference. I'll be in attendance at AWP in March and finish that trip east up with the Outserve-SLDN annual dinner in D.C.

So, perhaps not so sadly, as I certainly have a few projects to work and can always benefit from more time with the family.

Sure, I was sad when I checked the list this morning. I hadn't received a phone call so was pretty sure what it said before I looked. I've appreciated having no Army responsibilities though this last month and half. No hours of email, conference calls, problems or issues to respond to immediately (it's always a crisis from above it seems). I'll miss some people I won't cross paths with again. Miss helping Soldiers move forward. I won't miss wondering if I have done everything possible to ensure someone's family member is prepared for war.

I'm disappointed, yes. Yes I am. Now though, time to move on.

Autumn

Grey corn stalks lean in the autumn wind. The dead sunflower husk another remnant of the summer garden, gone. All a visual reminder of how quickly time is passing. Bug 2 is now almost five months old. Bug 1 (most of the time) loves being a Big Sister and has become a very interesting little human. We successfully have instilled a love of books and reading, even as she only recognizes the occasional word as an image, not yet reading herself.

Bug 2 continues to be below the curve on weight gain, even more so than her big sister was. She is however, like her big sister, making and surpassing all her other developmental milestones. Of late, she's been hankering for solid food. We'll be keeping that out of reach though until she is six months. Though Bug 1 grabbed, and refused to release and ate, a slice of brisket at five months. Bug 2 is starting to want to sit up, and has successfully now rolled over several times. She even scoots herself a bit, so mobility is probably not far away.

Other Mommy will have to return to work in about six weeks, having this time all together has been very rewarding. Once she returns to work, I'll have my own time with Bug 2 while Other Mommy is at work and Big Sister is at preschool as they'll be on the same schedule. That time with just the baby and me will go by so fast.

I'm having my own transitions with retirement on the horizon from the Army Reserves. My mandatory retirement date (MRD) passed on November 1st, 2012. I've not yet received the order and am waiting for the results of the 2012 Colonel's board that met last July. If selected I'll continue another two years, if not, I'm required to retire due to the MRD. Without the Army to suck up all my available time outside of family I will finally have dedicated time to concentrate on several writing projects. I've already started working on developing the writer side of my life having been invited to submit guest blog posts and articles to OutServe magazine. Even if I have two more years in military service in the Reserves, building up my self employment as a freelance writer and Author will be the priority. The Army has gotten the majority of my adult life and I'm turning my focus now towards what do I want this second half to contain.

The garden waits, last year I only planted one bed of the five garden beds in the back yard. Time was a scarce resource with too much demand and not enough supply. I'm optimistic that this year will be better as I shift my productivity from the Army Reserves and Command to my life as Writer and Urban Farmer.