photos – beckycochrane.com

Keep on truckin’…

“Dear Three-Sport Letterman: Despite that it all ended, I have good memories of you and the times we were together. I always thought you were one of the smartest people I’d ever known. You were very Southern: good manners, slow talking, love of sports, wry humor, easygoing. I remember every one of the cars and trucks we rode in along the way, and I knew exactly when we made a wrong turn even as we took it. I tried to warn you. Tried to persuade you to take a different road. But you knew where you wanted to be, so I tried to find a place for myself there with you. But most of the time I felt smothered by all that came with that place, and as time passed, my discontent grew. No matter how I tried to adjust, or how right a choice it was for you, it never was right for me. It never could have been.

I regret any pain that I caused you, but we were young and resilient, and you showed all signs of a quick recovery. I remember the last time I saw you in person. My father had died and you came to the funeral home. That meant everything to me, and I was glad to meet your wife and first son. Then you came with another of our friends to Daddy’s graveside service, and that, too, was a touching surprise. Daddy thought a lot of the two of you, both as boys and young men.

If I think about it, I’m saddened that the final time we spoke–(by phone–your mother had asked me to call you and share some news with you)–one of the last things you said, maybe meant to be a joke?–was a little hurtful. In all the years after our parting, I’ve tried to say only kind things about you or to you.

I do think some things have changed, and you and I probably aren’t as likeminded as we once were. It happens. Instead of regretting that or anything else, I’ll share a photo you once took of me when we were young and goofing around with the new camera I’d gotten from Bruce and April for high school graduation. You’re in the photos on the wall behind me. May you choose to remember the days we were young and I smiled at you. Thank you for everything we learned together before we went our separate ways. ‘Just Passin’ thru,’–Becky.”

Sunday Sundries, part 2

Publishing this on March 31, a day after I should have. The photo of a salmon tie is one I found online. I don’t remember what the original salmon tie looked like, nor do I really care. I’ve probably given one or two as gifts since the one I once gave “Pinocchio.” This one is meant to be a representation of his.

When I think of salmon, though I’ve never had an in-person view of them swimming upstream, photos and art have led me to imagine the sight more similar to another tie, an old one of Tom’s. When I decided to write this letter, I used Tom’s tie as the backdrop for one of my One Word Art paintings I chose never to sell: Seek (acrylic and glitter on 4×6 canvas, 1997).

“Dear Pinocchio: After our ending, when I tried to break down not so much the pathology of your dishonesty as the way I so easily let myself believe you, I came to conclusions I shared with you later over dinner in a restaurant. (I’d stopped having any private meetings with you for several sound reasons. It’s possible this was the last time I ever saw you.) I’d stopped wanting to exhume or examine all of your lies. I no longer had faith that you would, or maybe even could, admit your culpability and how manipulative it all was. Possibly it was only human nature for you to ascribe the best of motives to your bad habit. I’m no psychologist, but why wouldn’t your compulsion to lie to others also enable you to lie to yourself?

It wasn’t my problem then and still isn’t. My problem was making sure I was rigorously honest with myself, about myself, what behaviors I should have identified, and what I could have done differently, so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes or choices again. Ever.

I remember you listened to my assessment of certain of your qualities that reminded me of other people and made you attractive to me or drew me to you. Of outside events that left me vulnerable to your dishonesty. Of my anxiety about the future that had once made you seem like someone stable who offered me a brighter future. That maybe you were even similar to a character or life I once wrote or imagined before I ever met you.

Instead of hearing the accusation and blame I was directing toward myself, not you, you finally said, ‘Maybe this is how you need to rewrite history, but none of what you say is true.’ Possibly, you were judging me by the purposeful lies that guided your own behaviors. Again, however, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me. You were the liar who couldn’t recognize when a person was trying to tell the truth to herself about herself. Possibly you thought so little of my wisdom because I’d shown so little of it.

I always say I write fiction, not memoir. But I gave some of the details of events in our past to a character in one of my novels. She wasn’t a main character, and her decisions were much better than any I ever made. I wrote her not because she was like me or because I ever behaved as well as she did. I wrote her as a reminder to myself of how I wish I’d been; how I wish I’d behaved. I gave her all the dignity and strength I didn’t show in my situation with you. Her story reminded me that I always have choices; that I want to make good ones instead of poor ones. I haven’t always lived up to her example, but she’s still like a really smart friend. And I’d rather think of her than berate the person I was way back then.

As for you, I rarely think about you or the other characters in your story. Besides the novel mentioned above, I never consciously include(d) you in any other stories, poems, or lyrics I’ve written. Though you have shown up in a few posts on this site. Peace out–Becky.”

Time in a bottle, or…a packet

Publishing this on March 31, two days later than I should have. I’ve been pleasantly distracted by family meals, conversations, and activities with guests from out of town. Even on schedule, I knew I’d run out of enough days in a single week to post all the items I showed from my paisley memory bottle. I’m continuing into this week along with whatever else I decide to post. This one explains the mustard packet pictured on the upper right of the photo.

When I was looking through my photo album for pictures from that time to refresh my memory, I found a photo from another birthday, this one at the location where I taught. My students got a cake to surprise me. (There were no grades, no pass or fail, in this program. It was an unselfish gesture on their part. They were lovely humans with a range of ages, genders, races, and life situations.) Apparently back then, I wore a lot of blazers, and this outfit included a tan one along with a light brown shirt and a coffee-colored scarf. My haircut was the unsuccessful result of someone trying to feather layers around my face. What can I say; it was the times.

Another from work, this time wearing an off-white blazer and vest with a brown shirt that looks like it has some kind of floral pattern, finished off with dark brown pants. This outfit is similar to the one in the next photo. I was probably wearing brown pants in it, too.

I’m in the driver’s seat of my Monte Carlo (it was a swivel seat marketed as providing ease for exiting the car, I think). I believe I’m sitting in my car outside a business I frequented at that time, where I got to know some of the people who worked there. Any one of them, and maybe even Lynne, could have shot the photo. Somewhere in my writing archives, I have a poem written to that group of employees. I will spare you that, at least.

The employees were always really nice, professional, and they all had great senses of humor. They didn’t become friends so much as friendly conversationalists. When I went by there one day, one of them (he wasn’t working; just hanging out) said he could use someone to talk to and asked if I wanted to take a drive with him. It was obvious his coworkers weren’t worried about me and thought it might be of some benefit to him, so I said sure. When I tell you I got into the passenger seat of his WHITE PANEL VAN and the two of us headed up the nearby mountain to a REMOTE spot, it sounds like the beginning of a terrible documentary with an outcome that wouldn’t bode well for me. But I was never a heedless risk taker, and I promise I had the discernment and maturity to assess whether I was likely to be the victim of a sociopath with bad intentions. I’d had many occasions to get to know him. He wasn’t a threat.

In fact, HE was the one in trouble. Sometime before this day, he’d been with friends (not his coworkers) and thought it might be interesting or enlightening to drop acid (in case this is too long before your time or outside your interest set, it means he took the illegal substance LSD, aka the psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide). His account of how badly it went can be summarized in some quotes from my Internet search: “users [can] experience panic, confusion, sadness, and scary images. Bad reactions can happen with the first use and a user may have flashbacks later, experiencing the feelings of a bad trip even after the drug wears off.”

I don’t know how long we rode in the van or parked on the mountain to look at the serene scenery, or how long he talked, but I fully knew I was in way over my head on this subject (I never dropped acid, though I had friends and acquaintances who did). I was meant to be a listener, not an advisor, so that’s all I did. What finally broke his meandering stream-of-consciousness soliloquy was when he asked, “Do you smell mustard? Or is that just me,” as if this might be yet another strange symptom of a bad trip.

Once he mentioned it, I realized that I, too, smelled mustard, and we started trying to find its source. It turned out to be the seat of my pants. There’d been some kind of fabric, maybe a thin shop towel, on the passenger seat that I hadn’t moved when I sat down. Under it were several packets of mustard like you’d get at a fast-food place. The weight of a passenger had broken them open. Unfortunately, the mustard seeped through that thin fabric and onto the fabric of my brown pants. They were stained yellow and reeked of mustard.

The surprise of it shifted his focus. We laughed our way back down the mountain, hugged goodbye, and I drove home. A couple of days later, I stopped by the business to see if he was better. He wasn’t there. His work buddies told me his parents had checked him into some kind of facility so he could get professional counseling. Apparently, he ended up with a pretty severe diagnosis and a long hospitalization. Here’s my letter to him.

“Gentle and good soul: I never saw you again after the day of our drive and have no idea how things turned out. I can only hope it had a good outcome, that you got the assistance you needed to unravel it all and manage the after-effects. Even now, decades later, when I see mustard packets, I silently send good thoughts your way, wherever you are. You always deserved all the best–Becky.”

Ghost

“Dear Mystery Man: We became friends in the summer of 1981 when we worked at the same place. The ex I wrote about on my birthday a couple of days ago also worked there. In fact, the three of us, all students at Bama, became friends. When he was robbed at gunpoint in our workplace one night, we starting hanging out there during one another’s shifts so nobody felt alone and vulnerable. One Thanksgiving, I was going to make us all a big holiday dinner, and for some weird reason, I developed excruciating pain in my right elbow. The two of you got in the kitchen with me and let me give you orders on what physical labor needed doing and how to do it. We worked well together there, just as we did at the business where we met.

In time, the friendship between the two of you faded, but you and I stayed close, especially after something bad happened with you. You ended up dropping out of school and moving north to where your parents were living at the time. That’s when we began our writing correspondence. We were both avid readers and letter writers. You one time told me, ‘You make the best analogies in your writing that I’ve ever read.’ From you, that compliment was high praise.

You became a sportswriter and moved to a city where I’d previously lived for a while with my mother after my father died. My nephew and his mother still lived there. My nephew was a teenager then, and he liked sports, so one time when I was there to visit him and his mom, you took him and me to a basketball game you were covering. I think he had fun, and I was just happy to spend time with my him and my buddy.

We lived about three hours apart, but we no longer wrote letters. We talked on the phone. We were still doing that the year I married Tom. One night you and I were talking and something prompted me to ask you if you wanted to come spend a couple of days with us. You seemed to have something on your mind that was bothering you. You accepted the invitation, so Tom and I got the guest room ready, bought groceries and whatever else we might need for meals and snacks, and waited. And waited. And waited.

You never showed. I called and left messages on your machine. You didn’t return them. I knew your parents’ names and where they lived (another state), and your brother’s name (and had a vague sense of where he lived, yet another state), but I didn’t want to hunt you down. I figured you had a good reason for the silence and you knew how to reach me when you were ready to talk.

You never made that call before Tom and I moved to Houston. I never heard from you again. We didn’t have the term ‘ghosting’ yet, but you ghosted me. Once the Internet came along, I tried to find details about you that way. I was never sure whether I’d reach out if I did find you, but probably not. I’d be reassured knowing you’re out there, doing okay, living your life. Unfortunately, you share a name with an actor who was once on a popular TV series, and I got tired of always seeing his photo and details in my searches.

Through the years, I’ve found variations of your name on decades of obituaries and always breathe with relief when those names are never you. My own online presence, social media, publishing, etc., are all under the name you’d recognize. You’ve always been able to find me if you wanted to. In case you ever do find this, leave the comment. Send the email. There’s even a PO box connected to my author name if you want to write another of your excellent letters. I don’t want to reproach you or bitch at you or demand answers. A hello, how are you, I’m fine–I’d be great with that.–Becky”

It’s a happy Thursday

We’re all delighted to see our brother David, who hasn’t visited since 2018. We had a light lunch and lots of conversation, and now I think there’s some napping going on before dinner. (I have a roast with potatoes and carrots almost ready, and a squash casserole baking. All I’ll need to do is steam fresh broccoli and then warm rolls and bread for the bread basket.)

This happy reunion has me in a mellow mood, so today I’m writing letters to a couple of men who were in my (second) high school as well as being at Bama at least part of the time I was. They’re both special friends from my history, and over the last decade, we sporadically reconnected thanks to email, maybe Facebook, this site, etc.

“Dear guitar-playing, baseball-loving, tea-drinking friend with the sharp mind and clear-eyed yet compassionate view of human nature: You might wonder how you’re connected to a photo of a bunch of anniversary cards. I can’t remember if we ever talked about this, so forgive me if I repeat myself, but among the stories you reminded me of from our youth, you shared one about how you and another friend once made me cry when teasing me after I wrecked my father’s car. In the school parking lot after school in the late afternoon. When it was a small car, a huge parking lot, and the large car I hit was probably the only other one there. I was practice driving, learning to shift Daddy’s four-speed, when it started raining. I had no experience driving in the rain, looked down to find the windshield wiper knob, and–BOOM!

The thing is, if someone had asked me to tell a story about you from high school, it wouldn’t have been that one (or the bird at graduation). I didn’t even remember being made to cry. Instead, I’d have reminisced about a school day when you and another friend–possibly the one you were referring to in the car story–planned something sweet for me and The Boyfriend our senior year. It was our first anniversary of going steady. The two of you had gotten a bakery cake, assembled friends and cake in the lunch room (I think), and went looking for us to surprise us. I guess maybe you found The Boyfriend, but I’d gone to the printer in the ‘city’ a few miles away to deliver or look at proofs for the next edition of our high school paper. By the time I made it back to school, the effort to fete us had fizzled out. As I walked from the (dreaded) parking lot to the building, you met me. With an exasperated expression, you muttered, ‘You’d fuck up a free meal.’ I had no idea what you were talking about, and was SO sorry that I’d ruined the surprise when I found out. It was a really fun and nice thing to do. I’ll apologize again all these years later, but mostly, I want to thank you for giving me that phrase. You can’t imagine how many times through the decades I’ve been able to tell someone, ‘You’d fuck up a free meal.’

You were a regular commenter here for a while and I loved your stories, including all the ones that had nothing to do with me. I appreciated the glimpses into your world. I think things tapered off when you retired. I sort of picture you as a Jimmy Carter personality. Retirement simply gave you more time and energy to do things that felt meaningful to you and are good for humanity and your family. I do know you were around when I experienced a family tragedy and a few other occasional rough times circa 2011 to 2017. You were present when I needed you most, and more than a few times, I’ve gone back and reread your comments. They still resonate and help me. I know I’m not the only one in your life who’s able to say that. Thank you. You’ll always be a friend of mine, heart and soul.–Becky”

“Dear…honestly, I’m not sure how to summarize you or how to help you recognize yourself. Will you remember the time you and…our most mutual connection…were riding around and spotted me on University Boulevard heading toward town? Kathy was driving the car I was in, and we saw you, too. We all waved. Then you said to your driver, ‘I think Kathy’s a bad influence on Becky.’ At that point, the light turned green, Kathy hit the accelerator hard, and her tires squealed as we left you two in the dust. Without a pause, you said, ‘Let that punctuate my remarks.’ When he told us the story later, and I told her, we laughed our asses off, and we both still occasionally repeat it when we reminisce. We have several favorite quotes from you. Your wit and intelligence were two of many things that made me adore and admire you. I know that from time to time, there were bad moments between us. In fact, after we reconnected, you once said to me (I’m paraphrasing), ‘I think in the past, I said some very cruel things to you, and maybe I should apologize.’ And I answered, ‘No. I don’t remember anything like that.’ So here’s my confession. I did remember. I do remember. Your words did hurt me, because your opinion mattered to me. But it was long ago, and it doesn’t hurt me now. You helped me grow up. If you do need forgiveness, then know it’s been there for decades. Also, I hope what I’m about to say makes you laugh. One of the things I thought when you tried to apologize was, Yes, I remember. But what if I’m remembering the wrong things? What if there are more, maybe even worse things that I’ve blessedly forgotten? Let’s let sleeping dogs lie. My friend, I still admire you, and I’m sure I’d still find you adorable if we ever saw each other. As far as I’m concerned, it’s only good vibes between you and me. Did we, such fierce Scrabble® opponents, ever try playing Words With Friends™? Affectionately–Becky.”

Sunday Sundries: sometimes I dream in paisley

I finished a mystery I was reading on Friday; I have unlimited respect for Louise Penny and her work. Her characters are like friends I rely on for humor, sanity, intelligence, integrity, and compassion. The most recent novel’s written with her usual deft ability to lure readers back to a world they’ve visited for twenty books. The plots can be heart-stopping, sometimes heartbreaking, but there’s comfort that somehow, all will be well in the end. This time was no exception except that The Grey Wolf ventured a little too close to a reality that frequently costs me sleep and peace of mind. Maybe because a lot of the current real world exhibits very little humor, sanity, intelligence, integrity, and compassion.

The next novel in the series is due by year’s end, and I hope to be a little better prepared in heart and mind. Maybe reality will cooperate and improve, as well.

After finishing Penny’s book, I looked forward to a very different novel for my next selection, the fifth in a historical fantasy/supernatural series, Deborah Harkness’s The Black Bird Oracle. I was racing through it before it came to a natural stopping place at my bedtime. I fell asleep easily, but the last section I’d read made its vivid way into my dreams with its concept of “bottled memories.” Literally, a human (or ghost, or witch, or vampire, etc.) can choose to pour their memories into a bottle and seal them inside before…well, whatever comes next.

What came next for me was a 4:30 a.m. wide-awakeness and seal-breaking on some of my own bottled memories. That’s how I came to visualize and then create the collection of prompts on the photo below. Over the next few days, I plan to send messages (from my unsealed paisley memory bottle) to the people the items are connected to. I won’t name names. I’ll try to mask as many of the identifying details as I can, though many of them have been referenced before. I figure I’m pretty safe because this site hasn’t been getting a lot of action, including from people familiar with my past.

There’s probably no point pretending The Guitar from my paisley memory bottle isn’t obvious. I’ll record what will always be the most painful of words to my late friend: “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Nothing would have kept me away if I’d had any idea you needed me. I hope you know. I hope you feel the way love defies any attempt to suppress or hide it. I’ll love you every day that I breathe, and beyond. –Becky”

Except for one, maybe two others, I think the rest of the letters may be… a bit more acerbic than that one. Stay tuned for my random pre-dawn ruminations about: Iron, Packet of Letters 1, Going Steady Ring, Anniversary!, Mustard Packet, Earrings, Salmon Tie, Pickup, Packet of Letters 2, Scrabble®, Karma Button.

Mended

Yesterday, I spent between six and eight hours repairing all the worn spots, tears, and loose stitching on the dogs’ quilt that covers the daybed. This is one of their favorite places to hang out, especially if Tom and I are in the office at the same time.

I’m not sure what compels me to hold on to this quilt and keep “fixing” it. It wasn’t an expensive or high-quality quilt to start with, but it’s been with us through several homes and our entire dog family: Pete and Stevie; Margot and Guinness; and Anime, Delta, Jack, and Eva. They love the dog stairs that save wear and tear on their backs and legs. There are dog stairs in three rooms of our house for that reason, and they can be moved as needed. It’s not called PEOPLE Hall; it’s Houndstooth Hall because the dogs are so much of our home’s heart and energy.

I’ve decided, however, that on future occasions when I feel crafty or ambitious, I’ll cut squares from my fabric collection and hem their edges on the sewing machine to make patches of various sizes. Next time I undertake this mending task, I’ll sew those patches over the badly worn or torn spots. I’m not interested in symmetry or patterns here. I just want to extend the life of their favorite sleeping quilt.

Today’s agenda for me: more yard, carport, and patio cleanup. We have entered The Pollening time of year in Houston, so I might try wearing a mask to head off some of the sneezing. This was actually something a doctor and pharmacist first recommended when I was a freshman in college, and back then, the masks were of fabric filters and plastic. They really helped, and maybe those years are the reason I didn’t think it was a big deal to wear simpler, softer masks during the pandemic. I still use a mask in public spaces. [shrug]

Bonus photos: Delta says hello, and she misses Jim, her friend who named her.

Easy Day

Looking forward to more visitors near the end of this month, and there are still things we need to do around here. But a big project that was way overdue was getting help with our yard and flowerbeds (we don’t actually grow many flowers except in pots, unless Tim plants any around our large tree in the front yard), but we do have shrubbery and we have the Mexican petunias (aka ruellias or wild petunias) that grow outside the kitchen window, as shown in this photo from last September:

Looking back, here are a few shots of the back of the property, including this one from 2023.

And later in 2023, when we had a large, dead tree removed.

Even with January’s snow, you can see it became a kind of jungle back there. The dogs thoroughly love it that way, but it was a problem for me. It was so overgrown that I couldn’t easily follow them and clean up behind them. Also, Anime loved the stump of that removed dead tree and was eating the bark and the mushrooms that grew under the bark.

Last week, we called back the yard crew to have the stump ground down, and then, as well as cleaning out that part of the yard, they worked on all the beds, front, back, and sides, and everything looks so much better. We still need to finish mulching that back bed, and we have plans for filling in spaces back there with pots/potted plants currently scattered elsewhere on the property to get color and texture. We’ll see how it looks compared to today’s photo when I take another at summer’s end.

Along with finishing the short series I watched on Netflix, I’ve finished one little project today related to future hospitality. I’ve also handled paperwork for a license I hold. Other than cleaning out refrigerator leftovers and organizing others for lunches and dinners until the leftovers are gone (a couple of days), I’m planning on reading a recently published book by a favorite author and thinking a lot about something I found on social media in the last couple of weeks.

In relation to that, this is the writing I do: occasional commentary on (mostly) strangers’ social media; rare emails, usually short though sometimes longer; this website, which often includes poetry, occasionally flash fiction, but is mostly exposition of one type or another; and fiction. What I guess I must evaluate is what of the above points are true, because some are; some are with qualifications; and some are not at all.

Hump Day

Jim left for the airport before dawn this morning for the second leg of his vacation. I missed him instantly. After he left, I ate breakfast, napped, and spent time outside with the dogs. Then I continued this week’s house and home theme by removing everything from the breakfast room cabinets pictured above, cleaning all the contents and dusting the shelves, then Windexing the glass doors. And POLISHING THE SILVER, as That Old Woman™ (Tim’s trademarked name for my mother) would have wanted. I also cleaned bathrooms, did a load of dishes (the dishwasher is probably in shock over all this attention), and a load of laundry.

It’s a LOT more fun to hang out with Jim and the Houndstoothers than do housework. I need the staff of Downton Abbey.

Me and two of my writing partners on the night Jim cooked stroganoff for us.

Tiny Tuesday!

From The Tiny Book of Tiny Pleasures:

It was the last night of Jim’s visit, so we did Thanksgiving in March for fun!

On the menu: turkey breast, cornbread dressing, fresh green beans, fresh squash casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and rolls.

I also prepared a dessert table for the pies we’ve been eating since Saturday that included apple, peach, and Key Lime, but we forgot all about dessert because of the lively conversation. Family and friends: what it’s all about.

One of my house and home projects is to clean the display cabinets in the breakfast room, including the glass shelves and doors, but especially because I’m way overdue to polish the silver. I got a tiny head start today by polishing the butter dish given to my parents on their 25th wedding anniversary by Aunt Lola and Uncle Gerald.