Journey into My Imagination
Jon stared at the little drowned waif of a girl standing in front of him for a full minute before he thought to introduce himself to her. The slick maneuvers and smooth words of other men were not second nature to him. He was honest and forthright and considered himself backwards in matters of love and yet he would have been very surprised to discover that that is exactly what women found irresistible about him.
From the fireplace, she crossed the room to her stereo system. Browsing through her eclectic music collection, she finally settled on a compilation CD of her favorite R&B artists. It just fit her mood right then, melancholy. She put the CD in the drive and left it on repeat. Moving back to the kitchen, she scooped up her large bottle of white wine and went to curl up on the couch, to stare at the fire and contemplate where she was going in life.
I remember sitting by the lake, watching my brothers, one older and one younger, casting their long fishing poles into the water, sending ripples splattering off into the distance. Looking over beyond the farm, I could see my father walking through the cornfields. He looked like something out of a movie in his overalls and big, wide farmer’s hat. I sat on the swing, my bare feet dangling below me. I was wearing a plain cotton dress, a faded print of blue flowers. My mother would have said the dress was “serviceable.” She meant that it was as good as anything to wear around the farm, good as anything to get your chores done in and then to bask in the setting sun of the day.
Chapter Seventeen: Coming Home Eight months later, when I brought my baby home from the hospital, waiting in the living room of our house was a party. Stevie was there. Momma had gone back to California. Jessie was there with Willa and Kathleen Lucinda, their baby girl. Cleo was there with Jaques, her paramour as... Continue Reading →
I knew for sure that this time I had lost my best friend and the only love of my life. I spent the next few weeks crying all the time. I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t sleep. I guess it was around the time that I started to get sick that Grammy wrote to momma. She must have because soon enough I got a postcard from her stating simply, “I’m coming home.”
In August I made a portrait of my parents. I had pushed them to the back of my mind until then. I hadn’t heard from momma in over a year. I didn’t even know if I had the right address. It wasn’t until I made that portrait that I realized that I wanted to get in contact with her. I had painted them as they once were, or I tried to. But when I looked at the painting, I realized that my father’s eyes were guarded as if even the painting was holding secrets that it would never tell. My mother’s eyes were tired and wary like she was afraid of being hurt.
Politically, there was some noise about a young man named John F. Kennedy running for president of the United States. He had Grammy’s support because he was both Irish and Catholic. Most women liked him because he was both young and cute. I kind of liked his brother Bobby more. The man had a lot of potential and a lot of kids.
Shannon McCauley - Author 