Falling in love

Six months before the accident, I fell madly in love. With a photograph. Of a once-proud farmhouse, fallen into disrepair.

When it was built, in 1895, it was called Avalon, which meant Paradise.

Landscaping? You’re kidding, right? No tenderness or plan at all. There was no garden. Anything growing was fierce enough to push through the rocks and plant itself. Sort of like me.

Then there was an accident. A truck crushed a car. I was in the car.

I was shipped nine hours south and Avalon? It was sold to pay the bills.

Images flickered faster than I could comprehend them, faster than I could name them, way too fast to contain or connect them. I wasn’t speaking well and I couldn’t read. I also created a Three-Step Program, which had two steps,

And yet — I decided to write a book. I told myself, You start. You start again. A noun. A verb. A swerve. A curve. One step in front of the other, one day at a time. My mantra became: Write like your brain works.

As a child, I didn’t belong anywhere with anyone, except in my room with my cat. Like I was renting a room as a six-year-old. I drew thousands of pictures of families.

Decades later, I was still a maker of pictures that didn’t include me. A teller of stories that didn’t include me. Even a stellar teller at times. That was called freelance writing.

Then the truck. I lost a piece of my mind, rather countless pieces smaller than microbes but not as useful for gut health.

Now I live in an old age home, which isn’t called an old age home. A sprawling, very faux chateau. At one table, someone consulted for the U.S. Navy. Someone consulted for NASA. Someone worked with a Devil Wears Prada. The third one was me. Someone owned a bank or two. I forget who. It wasn’t me.

You know how things combine — for example, like daylight and savings? Or — when seasons change — flipflops and flannel? This place combines residents and replacements. We have 530 residents and a waiting list of 1540+ future residents putting down big bucks, then waiting to live where we live now. Keyword: live.

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