Schrodinger's Stories - Blog

Life, After

8/4/2017

I dreamed about my mother and grandmother last night.

They came to visit me, both as they were 20 years ago or more, busy and full of plans with a list of errands as long as my arm, and they drove me crazy and ran me ragged, and they were having the best time. Laughing. I don't know that I ever saw them laugh together in life, but in my dream their joy in one another was apparent. Plus, my mother let my grandmother drive, which everyone who knows my mother knows is pure fantasy. That woman never let anyone else drive!

I don't believe in an afterlife, and I don't think dreams are prophetic. A dream doesn't fix the hole in my heart made by their absence. I may never stop mourning them; I may never want to. But this is the first time I've dreamed either of them since they died, and oh...

It was good to see them.

May 23rd, 2017

5/23/2017

Gladys Bishop Hurtt was born in January 1921 in Albemarle County, Virginia, the much-loved youngest of a large family. Her parents Lee and Queen Victoria Bishop worked hard, and Gladys said if they were poor, she never knew it. As a young woman, she drove a smart roadster and dressed with the careful eye she would always be known for. Gladys raised her infant daughter Betty with great resourcefulness while her husband John Sheldon Hurtt was away at war. She worked hard her whole life, both at her job assembling electronics and at home. Gladys never sat if she could do something; she never walked if she could hurry. She cared for her grandchildren, Travis and Torah Cottrill, with great love and endless patience, and loved her four great-grandchildren without reservation. The kindness and generosity she showed to friend and stranger alike touched many lives. She will be greatly missed.

At the Intersection of Fantasy and Reality

5/20/2017

When Hal Greenberg asked us to bring The Awakened phenomenon into the 21st century, I imagined the possibilities of using the sudden appearance of Awakened individuals throughout the world to explore how the powerless might use unexpected gifts. In The Awakened universe, a second moon awakens latent abilities (the ability to communicate with an animal companion, or one specific ability such as the ability to heal or to control an element) in a very small fraction of people on their 19 birthdays. In the fantasy world of Grimaton, people are aware of the possibility that they may be Awakened, and different societies have different ways of incorporating Awakened individuals. But what would happen to people in our world who discover powers that seem to be magical or supernatural? What will they do with those powers, and how will they be treated?

I had seen a documentary about sex workers in India, many of whom had been sold into the red-light districts and were kept as literal captives, and I wondered how these women, powerless and voiceless in the modern world, would react to becoming Awakened. Would they use their abilities to free others or to enact revenge? How would the world around them react to the most marginalized becoming powerful?

Genre fiction—fantasy, science fiction, horror, urban fantasy, and other blends of the fantastic and the mundane—is a perfect vehicle for exploring the ripples that promulgate from a shift in reality. You can change one thing, and see where the consequences lead. Many of the most engaging works of genre fiction explore the impact of a single decision or event on the larger world, like Simak’s City, Hopkinsons’s Brown Girl in the Ring, Gaiman’s American Gods, the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic, or Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog. In my own far more modest story “Return of the Devis,” I wanted to explore the places at which physical power intersected social powerlessness, to see where having an Awakened power made a difference to a character’s life and the world around her, and the places where it couldn’t.

One of the joys of writing in a shared universe is being part of the creation of a far larger work. Writing for the Awakened series has given me a chance to see the many different ways genre fiction can explore new ideas. One set of circumstances—the process of becoming Awakened—leads to stories as different as the authors. We can use comedy, swashbuckling, problem-solving, crime-fighting, and psychological drama, among many other tools of the genre writer, to explore the ways a fictional universe can reflect the essentials of human existence.

Fragile

5/11/2017

The last time I saw my mother, she was frustrated with her hair. Her post-chemo hair, suddenly iron-grey and surprisingly obstreperous, wouldn’t submit to damp-brushing. It was the hairstyle of 1930s child comedies, not my polished, self-controlled mother. But by the middle of April she was too weak to stand and wasn’t able to shower even with assistance.

“I want it cut,” she insisted, and her boyfriend and caregiver Richard brought me a pair of clippers and hovered. Finally, I shooed everyone else out of the house for errands and filled a bowl with warm water. “Let’s try this first,” I said.

Draped in a bath towel that swallowed her thin shoulders, my mother dabbed her face as I wet her hair with a damp washcloth. She sent me back to get different shampoo from her bathroom; my first pick, Touch of Silver, was “for old ladies” and she didn’t want it. I worked the shampoo into her hair with my fingertips. Wet, her hair was more sparse than I’d realized. Her skull against my fingers felt so fragile, so vulnerable. I had a memory of washing my children’s hair when they were brand new to the world, eggshell skulls heavy with significance and fragile as spun glass. I cupped my mother’s head in my hands, at the end of her life, as I had my children’s at the beginning of theirs, with painful care and desperate tenderness.

When we were finished and shampoo, bowl, and towels cleared away, I styled her hair with the product I used on my own newly short cut. “Smells nice, doesn’t it?” I asked. I smoothed and combed and patted until her hair was carefully controlled, the way she’s always liked it. Mom had me push her wheelchair to a mirror and show her how I did it, and I brought her a hand mirror so she could see the back. “So, just wet it and comb it in the mornings, right?” she asked. “That should do it,” I told her. “You probably won’t even need to wash it that often; this stuff doesn’t make my hair sticky.” I wondered who would wash her hair for her next time.

We sat for the rest of the afternoon, her in the wheelchair and me on the couch next to her, holding hands and talking, each telling the other she was loved. “Have we done everything you needed to do while I’m here?” I asked, and she went through the list, still very much the woman who’d always needed to be in control of every aspect of her life.

After a while, she started to fade. By the time Richard got back, she was ready to go to bed. I sat on the side of her bed, holding her hand, as bit by bit she fell asleep. I remembered this, as well, staying warm and still and present holding a child’s hand as sleep stilled the last restlessness, waiting past the first steady breaths and waiting longer, standing up by increments, carefully letting go the sleeping hand. I stayed with my mother as I once did with my children, stroking her arm, trying to ease her gently into sleep.

We had a few more days together, but by the last one she didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. I sat on the bed with her until it was time to leave for the airport. “I can’t say good-bye,” I said, mostly succeeding in not crying. “I’ll get some more time off work and come back in a couple of weeks.” “Okay,” she said, “that would be fine. I love you.” “I love you, too.”

That was Friday. By the next Friday, she was dead.

Betty Hurtt

4/25/2017

On April 24th, Betty Hurtt died as she lived, fearlessly, with great poise and more than a little stubbornness. In her not nearly long enough life, Betty was a model, a stewardess before there were flight attendants, a secretary before there were administrative assistants, a mother without an instruction manual, and a social worker who helped children and adolescents. She accomplished every goal she set for herself, from a Master’s degree to world travel to a house on the beach, and if she made mistakes along the way it was because she wasn’t afraid to take risks. An avid and fearless traveler, Betty embarked on her last journey with her usual meticulous preparation for the unknown, after telling us all good-bye.

If the measure of a life is the vigor with which it is lived and the number of people it touches, Betty’s life was astonishingly large. She is loved beyond the reach of words by her two children, her four grandchildren, her companion Richard, a small, fluffy dog named Eva, and her many, many friends. Although we know that the end of every life is death, we face her loss with incredulity and outrage. F#@* cancer.

Betty Jean Hurtt (9/13/1942 - 4/24/2017)

My Mother: At the End as Ever, Her Life

3/25/2017

My mother is dying.

Well, of course. Most of the people ever, ever to have lived are dead. Why should I expect that my mother, myself, my partner, my friends, my children should be any different? We live, we die; in doing so, we make room for the people who inherit the human condition after us. But still, every moment is a new slash in the face, a new stutter of the heart, to realize that the woman who overshadowed my childhood, my young womanhood, my motherhood, isn't the element of nature she always seemed but fragile, mortal, friable, and too soon gone.

Words are what I do. Words are the only thing I can give to someone beyond any other gifts but my love. What does a woman who has said good-bye to her body, her family, her joys, her friends, and all but the stripped-down essence of herself need? Nothing. So I give her what I can: my love, my forgiveness, my hand in hers, my effort to give her my whole attention and hold my overflowing grief for some other place. And my words. I feel as if I've failed to manage the poetry I'd hoped to offer, and instead wound up howling to the empty air my anger, and my loss.

Substitute Mom

3/19/2017

New hair. I feel like a new person! I must be, because my youngest told me last night I didn't look like her mommy any more. I told her yeah, I was the substitute mommy until her usual one got back.

Farallon After Hours: Steve Figgins, Road King

2/28/2017

Steve is famous at Farallon for his biking. He easily won Most Miles Commuting by Bike in our latest Going Green competition. Plus, he's a really likeable guy. But it wasn't until I wrote this article that I appreciated what a wonderful human being he is, too.

Farallon Principal and Southern California resident Steve Figgins has commuted to work by bicycle since 1997. With his round-trip commute of 42 miles and weekend rides of 60 to 80 miles, Steve averages between 4,000 and 5,000 biking miles per year, making him Farallon’s official Road King.

Steve rode in his first charity biking event in 2000 as a challenge, and as a way to get into shape to accomplish his personal goal to ride 100 miles in 1 day. The event Steve chose was the 2-day 150-mile Pacific South Coast Chapter MS 150 event from Orange County to San Diego. Annual Bike MS events held in many locations are sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society to raise money to support MS research.

After telling friends about the event, Steve discovered that people he knew had friends and relatives who were suffering from MS. “A friend’s wife had her world turned upside down when she was overcome by MS in her 30s,” Steve remembers. “She was barely able to walk, and couldn’t read or drive a car. Thanks to MS treatments, she has her life back again, and is doing exceptionally well.”

Steve committed himself to supporting the fight against MS. Since 2000, Steve has participated in the MS 150 event almost every year, and has raised $34,742 for MS research and support. In 2016, Steve raised $5,272, contributing to the Pacific South Coast Chapter’s highest fundraising year of $2.6 million.

“You most likely know people who have MS, or have friends who are close to someone who suffers from MS,” Steve says. “You don’t need to bicycle 150 miles, but if you are looking for a worthwhile charity that really helps people deal with a very challenging disease, consider an MS walk or an MS bicycle ride. The shorter routes are just as much fun and challenging, and you get in better shape while helping other people. Now that’s a worthwhile effort!”

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except...

2/22/2017

I watched 13th last night. My older (teenage) children were as absorbed by it as I was. Compelling, well written and produced, this documentary is required viewing for anyone living in 21st century America (where race has never NOT been central to our experiences as citizens).

As Seen at RustyCon

1/14/2017

The real question is, how much do I need this awesome steel crown/mask? No, really, it's pretty spendy. How much do I need it? (Full disclosure: I'd wear it to work at least once a week, because it's that awesome.)

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