Mitzi Flyte

About five years ago I moved from one apartment to another. The new apartment was near my office so I virtually moved myself- loading boxes into my PT Cruiser and dropping stuff off in the morning before work and going back to the old apartment and doing it again after work.

I’m getting married soon so I’ll be moving again. I decided if I could do it once, I could do it again. Hmmm?

Why am I having problems with this?
I’m moving in with the love of my life.
He lives in an old stone farmhouse on three acres in the country. I love old farmhouses. I love the country.
His house is full of books and antiques. I love books and antiques.
His house is full of…his stuff.
Aha! I think I’ve hit upon the problem. Where do I put my stuff? What do I keep? What do I give away? What do I trash? What do I store?

I know this is not a new problem. Many people combine households. But this is my first time. It’s not as if he wouldn’t take all of my stuff; he would. He’s taking my kitties. He’s even made one of the bedrooms into an office for me. But it’s a matter of space, floor space for furniture, bookcase space for books, counter space for appliances, cupboard space for dishes, closet space for clothes and my shoes (!!!). Well, you get the picture.

To solve the books and bookcase issue we decided to “make” his large living room our library–moving in four more bookcases that will hold most of my books. There will be a comfy sofa and chairs, antique tables with marble tops and no TV – a perfect get-away spot.
But there are still some books I need to give away–bags will be going to a local library for their next sale.

It’s not a “Sophie’s Choice” problem, but it’s still hard. What little knickknacks from family, friends and coworkers to take with me and if I take them, where in my new home will I out them? What family pictures (I have many on walls and bookcases) to take, which ones to store. Really it’s all just stuff. But it’s my stuff.

From where I write this I can see my medieval prints, a Celtic cross, a knight plaque still on a living room wall. But there’s also a large picture of my handsome fiance in his medieval Scottish garb.

I guess combining these two households may not be as difficult as I thought.

I know the day is almost over. Since my “child” is living in the Seattle area, I spent it with the gentleman I’m marrying. Morgan gave me a card and a gift. He took me to the movies and then to dinner. It was a beautiful day, one of the best Mother’s Day…except for one thing. Heather is just too far away and my mother is even further.

Mom’s been gone for more than twenty years. It doesn’t seem that long and yet, at times, it seems forever. When I think of her I sometimes wonder if I’m really remembering her or just an ideal of her. She certainly wasn’t perfect and there were many things I wish she’d done differently.

But what I wish the most is I wish she could be here to see how her granddaughter has become a beautiful and intelligent woman. I wish she could have known that I grew to be a better person. I wish she could have met Morgan.

But this is life…an eternal wheel of love, loss, love and loss. Hopefully the wheel lands on love more often and stays there the longest.

In one month I will be retired…retired after 44 years of being a Registered Nurse.
I worked on medical-surgical units and on the rehab unit of the local hospital. I was a visiting nurse. I was a director of rehab. I was an agency nurse. When I worked in nursing homes I was a nursing supervisor, an assistant director of nursing, an inservice coordinator, a nurse liaison, a charge nurse. When I moved to the corporate office I became a Quality Improvement nurse, a reimbursement nurse, a marketing director, director of quality improvement and finally the Vice President of Nursing.
My personal life has gone through as many changes as my professional.
I never really wanted to be a nurse. But it was the best education for the cheapest price in 1965 and now finally I will have the time to become the person I was meant to me.
Whoever that is.
I think I was a good nurse. I cared for my patients with skill. And I cared for them with…caring.
But that part of my life will soon be over.
I can’t wait for this new chapter to begin.

The Citizens of Llanview, PA

I’ve been watching, taping and recording One Life to Live for more than 41 years…since Heather was born. I’ve been through all of Viki Lord’s alters, marriages and almost-deaths. Tomorrow January 13, 2012 is the last episode for this “soap opera”. I’m sad to see it pass. Most of the stories have been great, with the exception of the underground city. The acting has been superb…Trevor St. John as Todd Manning waiting for his lethal injection at his execution was Emmy-worthy. The plots have been unusual and the characters memorable. I would have loved to have been a writer for the show – many times I pretended I was and tried to imagine how I would finish or twist a storyline.

I will miss everyone. I know several of the characters (some of my favorites, too) are moving to General Hospital but it won’t be the same. I’ll miss Viki and Clint and Bo and Nora. But I am glad I was there, in Llanview, for more than 41 years. It was fun and I was never ashamed to say I was a fan.

One of my personal essay pieces was just published by Mill Park Publishing  www.millparkpublishing.com in a book entitled Little White Dress. All of the personal essays/poems in this book are about wedding gowns. I have some knowledge on the subject since I was married more than forty years ago and will be married again (different groom) next year.

And I’ve had some experience in writing personal essays: I wrote sporadically for a  personal essay column in a local daily newspaper. I was also published in “The Ultimate Cat Lovers Book” – a story about how a kitten rescued me from grief. I enjoy taking personal experiences and giving them a universal theme. “All is grist for the mill” as a writer-friend once said.

So you think you could do the same thing? Add a credit to your writing credentials…

Start by keeping a journal. Every day write a short piece about something that happened to you that day – something funny or sad…something that made you angry… something that was important to you…something that seemed so important to others but not to you. In a few months you should have some of that “grist”.

Now for the “milling”.

How did I find the submission for the wedding dress anthology? After all, it’s a small press and I just don’t have the time to look on every small press website for a potential call for submissions. So I let my good friend, Google, do it for me. I set up a Google Search that runs a daily…uh…search for writer submissions. Everyday I get a list of who is looking for submissions. Ms Google found this one. It lead to a Facebook site and voila! the rest is history.

No…not quite.

You have to write the piece.

This one, I have to admit, I wrote and revised in one sitting. It’s short but I usually let things sit and then go back to them but Mill Park’s lovely editors wanted this to be an “in one day” book, so every submission had to be into the publisher within a 24 hour period. No time to worry over a word or a phrase. Just write the darn thing, read the darn thing out loud, fix what needs to be fixed and then….then voila! send it out.

Did I say “read the darn thing out loud”? Yes, by gosh, I did.

I read almost everything I write out loud. Boy! have I found some stinky phrasing doing that. I’ve also found that I use some words too many times.

Read your stuff out loud. To the cat, if he/she’s the only one around. At least you’ll hear it.

I made sure there were no spelling/typos/grammar bugs and then emailed my story for Little White Dress out to Mill Park Publishing.

The editor emailed me and said she laughed when she read it. That was what I was going for….at least this time.

We all have stories, some funny, some sad, some poetic. There’s an audience for them.

Trust me. After all, who would have thought that forty years after the first wedding dress, I’d be writing about the second one.

Wow!

It seems that the anthology is “out of print” – at least that’s what it says on the Amazon site. But it’s only been out for several days. So if anyone out in cyberland wants a copy, I would suggest going directly to the publisher’s website: www.millparkpublishing.com.