One Cobble at a Time

Christmas Tree

By Sandra Tayler / December 18, 2015 December 18, 2015

It is a Christmas tree like many others. Some Christmas trees are gorgeous, a treat for the eyes, and a thing for admiration. Mine is lovely, but in an ordinary way. If you were to line up my tree with a dozen others, it wouldn’t win any prizes, at least not if the judges were objective. But objectivity isn’t the point of Christmas, neither is competition. My tree is special and beautiful because it is mine, because it adds light to our house, because the mish mash of odd ornaments all have stories, because we’re the ones who haul it out to assemble it each year. I love that my tree doesn’t need to be special for me to love it. Or to put it another way, it is special because I love it. Even if no one but my family can see how special it is.

The Gift of a Cat

By Sandra Tayler / December 17, 2015 June 23, 2017 / 1 Comment

I’ve written about our cat before: how I found her, how we had to give her back, how she chose to come back to us, and how she became ours permanently. She has been ours since 2010 and she adds a lot to our lives. I thought my allergies would mean I could never have a cat live in the house with me. I’m very grateful that this turned out to be false.

Our cat is getting older now. She’s becoming an old lady kitty. Every day we get to have her is a gift, which is why I took the opportunity to photograph her under the tree among other gifts of this season.

Little Wooden Soldier

By Sandra Tayler / December 16, 2015 December 16, 2015

This little wooden soldier has been in my life for a long time. My first memory of him was when he was attached to a musical night light lamp in my childhood friend’s room. The soldier had two friends with him on a wooden platform and when the lamp was wound up, they went around carousel style. I think I was three or four. I remember playing with the lamp, winding it up, and eventually breaking the music box portion. These friends lived right across the street from us and they were more like auxiliary family rather than friends. Friend’s mom was an extra mother for me. She loved me, gave me many horse books, encouraged me in creative pursuits, and didn’t even get very angry when her son and I painted splotches on the walls of her house.

At some point my friend out grew his need for a nightlight. His mother, wise woman that she was, took the little soldiers and turned them into Christmas ornaments. It is possible that she did this just prior to them moving away. One of the little soldiers was given to me. He has hung on my tree every year since. When I pull him out of the ornament box I think about my childhood friends. I think about the woman who was so kind to me and who has since died. I’ll never get to hug her again or tell her thank you.

The soldier smiles at me and he keeps marching, reminding me of good things past and that good things are ahead too.

Christmas Cards

By Sandra Tayler / December 15, 2015 December 15, 2015

I love Christmas cards. They are a tradition that is waning as electronic communication takes over. I remember when my Christmas card wall would be covered with dozens of cards before December was over. These days I’m fortunate if we end up with ten.

Yet I know that Christmas cards are complicated. They seemed simple when I first got married. I just took a mailing list, printed out a cheerful letter, and dropped them all into the mail. I liked doing it. I liked reaching out an connecting with people whom I may have lost contact with during the prior year. I liked that each card carried an invisible message “I’m thinking of you.” Though at that younger age, I may have been less aware that the message was muted by my mass mailing approach.

Then I arrived in 1999. That was the year where I went through radiation therapy to kill a tumor in my neck that was not cancerous, but kept growing back. The radiation sapped my health and sent me into a depression. By fall things were better, but then in early December Howard took himself to the emergency room with chest pain and ended up in the cardiac ICU because he had myocarditis. I still hadn’t sent out my annual Christmas letter, and I couldn’t bear to write one. What would I say? “Merry Christmas from the hospital. Howard will probably be fine eventually, but we’re in crisis right now?” That was the first year I didn’t send a letter at all. I sat in Howard’s hospital room and signed the cards “Love The Taylers” then dropped them into the mail.

2000 was a better year for us, Howard and I both recovered fully and we’d launched Schlock Mercenary. 2004 was when I gave up mass mailing Christmas cards at all. We’d just quit Novell and money was very tight for the next few years. I let Christmas cards fall off my December to do list.

I miss them. I miss getting bright colored seasonally appropriate art in the mail. I loved the year that I got an Eid Al Fatr card. Yet I find that this year I feel about writing a Christmas letter approximately what I felt in 1999. I would have to choose between being appropriately upbeat for the holiday and being truthful about how this past year has felt for me. So I’ve compromised. I just spent an hour writing The Christmas Letter I Will Not Send. It tells of all the medical appointments and mental health issues. It talks about joy and bright spots that are all mixed up with stress and pain. It goes on for three pages with far more personal information than acquaintances are likely to want. Writing it was really good for me to do. It helped me see my year in summary, and I can see that it qualifies as a good year because we are all stronger and better than we were at the beginning. Most of it was not fun, but I’m not sorry for it. Writing the letter helped me see this in ways that I had not before. I suspect that most Christmas letters matter far more to the person who writes them than to anyone who reads them.

With that letter written and stored on my hard drive, I find that I still want to reach out to friends and family. So I will be sending out some Christmas cards. Each one will have a handwritten note. They aren’t trying to catch people up with all the events of my year. They just express love and gratitude to the recipient. I don’t know how many I’ll do, time and energy are in limited supply, but the ones I’ve done so far have made me happy. I’ll do a few more as I find time until I run out of December.

May you find the holiday traditions that bring you joy and let go of the ones that don’t.
–Sandra

The Story of A Wall Sconce

By Sandra Tayler / December 14, 2015 December 14, 2015 / 2 Comments

Almost three years ago I devoted a couple of weeks to repainting our front room. It was a project that required shoving all the furniture to one side, draping everything with plastic, painting and then repeating the process for the other side. I then had a lovely empty wall. I spent the next few weeks looking at that wall and planning what we should hang on it to finish making the room a beautiful place. I even went out and purchased a wrought iron wall sconce as part of my plans.

That January was the beginning of 2013, which was the year of massive transition in our family. Mental health issues emerged in not-to-be-ignored ways. I had kids transitioning schools, the oldest was headed for college, and there was a shift to be made in how our business was run. I wanted 2014 to be better, part of it was, most of it wasn’t. 2015 has been a rough ride as well, much of that because all the stress caught up to me and I’ve been trying to regain my balance. In all that time this wall sconce sat on the floor in my office. Sometimes it was tucked into a corner. Other times it got moved out into the middle of things because I was rearranging. It got knocked over. The glass cups went rolling on the floor and had to be recollected. I thought of getting rid of it more than once. My plans for the front room wall had changed anyway. I kept being annoyed by it, but not quite being willing to give it away.

A few weeks ago Howard saw it in my office and mentioned that it would look nice on the front entry wall where we’d recently removed a batik hanging. This was not the wall that I had nicely painted. This was the opposite wall that I’d meant to get around to painting, but never did. It sits there white, dingy, and waiting for me to decide if I really do want to knock open the front of the coat closet to turn it into a nook, or if I just want to paint and call it good. Howard was right, the sconce would fit there. Yesterday I decided I was done waiting. I didn’t have the energy to make big decisions about closets and nooks. I didn’t have time to undertake a big painting project. But I could grab a drill and drive in a few screws.

Two screws. Fifteen minutes. The sconce that has been underfoot in my life for three years is now in a place where it is lovely instead of annoying. Howard took it a step further and lit candles to go with it.

It is beautiful, and in the light of its candles, the wall becomes beautiful too. My mind wants to make a parable of this story, to find a single meaning. Instead I found several. When things are out of place, I can’t see their true value. Sometimes something which spends a long time being a problem can turn out to be wonderful. If I am patient I will get through the hard time and back to where I can make things lovely instead of spending all my energy surviving. Howard sees things I don’t and makes my life brighter.

Or maybe I should stop trying to assign meaning and just be happy watching the candles flicker.

Celebrating in Small Ways

By Sandra Tayler / December 13, 2015 December 13, 2015 / 3 Comments

When I was growing up December 13 was an important landmark during the Christmas holidays. It was the day when caroling began. Each year our family would pick a few friends or neighbors who we thought were having a particularly difficult holiday. Sometimes it was because their money was tight, sometimes they’d just experienced a death, sometimes they were facing an upcoming death, sometimes they struggled in other ways, sometimes we just wanted to express gratitude to a person. We picked two or three households then we would go and sing to them each night for twelve nights before Christmas. Each singing featured one of the verses from the song Twelve Days of Christmas only with our own words to match the small gift that we gave to them. I loved that tradition. I loved the singing. I loved the look on their faces when they realized we really were going to show up on their porch every single night. I loved the feeling that we were bringing joy to someone in a difficult season.

For various reasons this tradition did not work well in the family that I helped create when I got married. I tried it one year and discovered I do not have the gift for it that my mother has. (I wrote about it here.) It certainly isn’t something I would be willing to put into our lives now. I simply don’t have the emotional energy necessary to sustain that big production. But I would like to do something small that feels like giving. So I thought I might give a photo and a story about it for each of the next twelve days. They’ll mostly Christmas things, because that is what fills my house with beauty right now. Sometimes the stories will be small if I’m having a very full day.

I’ll begin with my advent candle. I wrote about it a little more than a week ago when I described what I hoped to do as an advent practice. Unfortunately I haven’t sustained the advent effort on a daily basis, but I still burn the candle and think careful thoughts when I find the time. Candles in December make me happy. This year’s candle is more decorated than most. I usually just paint numbers, but my sister-in-law offered this up as a Thanksgiving project. So I painted while visiting with people I love. In only twelve days the candle will burn down to a stub. Between now and then, I’ll watch it shine bright.

Attending the World Fantasy Convention

By Sandra Tayler / November 14, 2015 November 14, 2015 / 3 Comments

I have been waylaid by many things in the past few weeks. I am still processing grief from my Grandma’s passing. That emotion is not particularly heavy, I did much of my grieving in advance, but it is still present. More difficult to manage are the emotions I’m having over parenting decisions I must make. I’ve got a kid in a diagnostic cycle, another for whom it seems like we’re wandering around hoping that a pathway becomes clear. On top of that are the things of the internet and the world at large. There are causes for grief both among my local people and tragedy on the world-wide stage. And then there is the sinus and ear infection which showed up without permission. All of these have filled my head with thoughts. I’m still sorting, which is why a week later I realized that I never posted the blog entry I wrote during my visit to the World Fantasy Convention. The first part I wrote last Saturday. The final part this morning.

Written a week ago:
Last night I was talking to a friend about parenting guilt. It was a discussion very pertinent to our lives since we were both at a convention and hundreds of miles away from our children. Hers are young. Mine are struggling with emotional things. Logic tells us that four days away will cause no harm and could be beneficial. Emotion pounds in the guilt.

I am at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs New York. It is a show that is full of writers, editors, and agents. I arrived by myself, knowing that my most familiar convention friends would not be in attendance. I have met new people who are becoming new friends. Yet I find myself alone during the spaces between conversations. Some of this aloneness I want. I need time to process and think. Unfortunately some of what surfaces in my brain are guilty or anxious thoughts. This is when I miss having familiar friends, because they know about my challenges and are able to reassure me quickly. Friends help each other put the self-doubting thoughts into perspective.

I also make sure to step away from the convention sometimes. Today I’m down the street in a coffee shop called Uncommon Grounds. There are many other convention attendees here, but we all have our laptops and don’t feel obligated to socialize. Yesterday I went walking in Congress Park. It was lovely fall weather. I didn’t even need a jacket. That walk is where I took the pictures.

This convention has some different social dynamics than other shows I’ve been to. Most people have scheduled all their meals in advance as business meetings. I’m more accustomed to dinner groups forming up spontaneously as people congregate around dinner time. Conversations are harder to join because more of them are either business meetings or long time friends who are catching up. But there are still the large group hang-out times where new people are welcomed.

I have no agenda for this show other than to talk to people and get some work done. I’ve met quite a few people who are far more focused. They have specific agents or editors that they want to meet. They have panels to be on and meetings to prepare for. I’m enjoying being responsible to no one. It is a nice break. Though I know in the long term I’m much happier with people who need me and miss me.

Written this morning:

It is interesting to note that the last part of the convention felt different to me than the first part. Lately I’ve only been to shows where I have an established group of friends that I’m excited to seek out. I’d forgotten that the first half of a convention is meeting the people that you’ll spend the rest of the show bonding with. In the second half of the show I easily found groups of people to join for meals. I’m glad I went to World Fantasy. I connected with new people. I experienced some beautiful fall weather. I got the feel for what upstate New York is like in the fall. I saw the most beautiful dogs any time I went outside. There were many people walking their dogs and every single one looked purebred and like it had returned from the groomer only moments before. I didn’t take any photos of the dogs and I kind of wish I had. I got to see the wind blow clouds of leaves high into the air and carry them far distances. It was a good trip.

I have no more trips scheduled for months. This is a good thing. I really need time for steady work both on the business front and for emotional processing of the things in my head.

Dressing Up

By Sandra Tayler / October 11, 2015 October 11, 2015 / 3 Comments

It is not often that Howard and I get a chance to put on our nicest clothes. Usually it is in connection with an award ceremony and thus is an inherently stressful situation. On the cruise we got to dress up without stress and we quite enjoyed it.

Here is a better picture of my dress. I’m standing with Ellen Kushner.

I’m quite pleased with the dress. I found it at a thrift store. It had been overlooked because at the time it was a pants suit. I altered it to be a dress and made the shrug to match. One of the nicest things is that the base fabric is polyester knit, so I can wad it into a ball in my suitcase and it will still come out wrinkle-free and ready to wear.

My Writing Excuses Cruise

By Sandra Tayler / October 2, 2015 October 2, 2015 / 3 Comments

A week ago today the island of Cozumel, Mexico was outside my stateroom window. Memories of the cruise sit in a strange space in my brain, like they belong to another life somehow. I read posts on social media from my fellow travelers about how they are sad it is all over. I haven’t been sad, but I think that is because my brain has decided that the cruise workshop space still exists and I’ve just stepped away for a bit. It feels as if I could just step back. Or maybe as if I’ve bundled it up small and carry it with me.

The trip was not made entirely of joy and awesomeness. This is because Howard and I accidentally packed along some emotional baggage. As this sort of baggage tends to be invisible, we tripped over it on a couple of days until we managed to identify it and get it safely stowed away. Perhaps that is why I’m not sad about being off the ship, perhaps it is because, when we left the stateroom, I left some of that stuff behind. I hope the porter doesn’t mind cleaning it up. Though it likely evaporated by itself without me there to sustain it. Yet the hard bits are vague in my memory and the lovely parts are crystal clear. All the photos remind me of happiness and the entire trip was a gift, one I shall treasure.

The attendees have been sharing their photos of the trip. As I flip through the folders I realize that while we were all on the same ship, each of us had an experience that was unique. I see photos of places I did not go, of people I did not spend much time with. That was one of the powers of the cruise as a location. Each person could choose what sort of trip they wanted to have. Some stayed on the ship and wrote, or read. Others went on tours and sampled native foods.

I climbed up a river in Jamaica with a group of people.

We laughed, chanted along with our guides, and got soaking wet.

I learned that building a house in Jamaica is a multi-generational project. They build a few rooms and move in, only adding to the house as funds come available. We saw lots of open and thriving businesses whose upper stories were construction zones.

I wore a silly hat and walked through a cave that has been traversed by a Spanish governor, pirates, runaway slaves, and nightclub goers. The very air of the cave reminded me of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, which told me I was passing through the original. I stared up in wonder as bats flew overhead.

Then we found a towel bat in our stateroom that night.

I walked through Mayan ruins in Cozumel, Mexico, setting my feet on a road that has endured for thousands of years.

I took beautiful pictures of ocean and beach.

I sampled Mayan chocolate made in the traditional ways.

I watched the sunset over the railings of the ship, and the clouds shift and glow in the fading light.

I found my fellow writers in the quiet corners of the ship.

And then there are the things for which I don’t have pictures.
I ate dinner every night with a different group of writers and never lacked for good conversation. I ate new foods, both on the ship and on the shore. I dressed in fancy clothes and felt happy. I stayed up late because talking was more attractive than sleeping. I participated in dozens of conversations that started “next year…” I was saved from awkward food by my waiter who showed me the proper way to go about eating butterflied shrimp. I spent time with long-known friends and acquired some new ones. I saw kindness as people helped those around them with problems both big and small. I felt an amazing sense of community among our group who was there.

As I said earlier, the trip was a gift. It is one I’d love to share. Registration for next year’s cruise will open in a couple of months, I hope that many amazing people will be able to join us because we plan to make it even better. I know I feel honored to have been a part of it.

Walking the Spiral

By Sandra Tayler / June 10, 2015 June 10, 2015

My breath came ragged through my open mouth as I walked quickly up the slope. Dirt and rocks crunched under my feet as they walked along the narrow trail in the grass. Many other people had walked this path before me, as is to be expected when one goes walking inside a state park. None of those people were visible now. The parking lot had been empty when I pulled up. I’d intended to tweet a cheerful photo. “Look how beautiful Fremont Indian State Park is.” I’d taken the picture, written the words, hit send. No service. The park was in a canyon, hidden from cell towers. It was a dead zone. No one knew where I was. Howard knew I’d headed to southern Utah to pick up our daughter from college, but I hadn’t mentioned my intention to stop at the park. It had only been half an idea, something I was mulling over. I’d intended the tweet as a digital bread crumb, a quick note to let people know where I was. Instead I stood on the asphalt, wanting to seek out a place where I’d been before, wondering if I really should go hiking solo, knowing the trail was an easy ten minute walk, and finally deciding the park was a safe enough place. “This is how people go missing.” I thought as I took the first steps on the trail, but I walked up anyway. I was drawn there by a desire I didn’t fully understand. I promised myself I would turn back if I didn’t find the place in ten minutes of walking.

My children and I had stopped at Fremont Indian State Park on a whim in the fall of 2012. We were on our way back from a college visit where my daughter got to walk the campus and realize that she really did want to attend that school. All four kids were with me on the trip. I hauled all of them out of the car and made them walk trails with me. None of them were particularly thrilled about it at first. Slowly they began to enjoy themselves and we all rejoiced when we found the spiral built in a meadow. The kids ran their way to the center. I have a photo of the four of them standing there, triumphant. Even as we walked away, I knew I wanted to visit it again. The memory stayed with me. I thought about stopping each time I drove past the freeway exit as I traveled on trips to fetch my daughter or drop her off. “I really need to go back there.” The thought bounced around in my head. Each trip had a dozen reasons why I didn’t have time. Two and half years of driving past and I didn’t go back. Until I did, because on that day the pull was stronger. I’d had a rough few months. I was mired in depression, grief, and other emotions I couldn’t quite sort. I didn’t know what I needed, but I knew I really wanted to see the spiral again. So I stopped and I hiked. Solo.

The trail was clear and did not branch. There was no risk of getting lost. As I walked, I measured the land with my eyes. Did I remember this place correctly? I thought I was on the right trail. It seemed that I was traveling ground I’d been over before, but two and a half years had passed. I didn’t remember clearly. I wondered if the spiral would still be there or if it had been neglected. I was nearing the end of my ten minutes time limit and ahead of me was a rise. I told myself that if I couldn’t see the spiral from the top, I had to turn back. I didn’t want to, but every step took me further from where I was expected to be. I could feel responsibility calling me back to my car. My daughter needed me to help her load her things into my car and to help her finish cleaning. After that I was needed at home. I had responsibilities and they tugged on me as I walked upward.

There it was. My breath caught in my throat and I realized I’d been worried that I wouldn’t find it, that it hadn’t been real, that it had vanished like some modern day Brigadoon. I half wouldn’t have been surprised at that. It felt like a place that could just vanish. Or perhaps a place that could only be found by serendipity or need. On that day I found it. My eyes began to water as I walked the distance to the open end of the spiral.

2012 was before. It was before all the transitions that our family made stepping all the kids up, one to college, one into high school, one into junior high. It was before my younger daughter had panic attacks. It was before my older son began his long slide into depression. It was before we recovered from that. It was before I discovered that our recovery was a limited one. It was before my younger son also had panic attacks. It was before all the appointments, therapists, doctors, medicine, and meetings. It was before something in me broke, or gave up, or grew too tired. The person who visited the spiral in 2012 could honestly look her depressed son in the eyes and promise him it would get better. The person I was when I returned wondered if that was true. I wondered if I had been lying to him. I knew I had to keep going, taking the right steps, but somehow I’d lost touch with the belief that we could pull out of the emotional mire which kept reclaiming us. We’d seem to be out, but then the troubles would come again. My feet stood at the opening to the spiral. The last time I’d been here was before. I didn’t know why I needed to come again, nor why I wanted to cry at being there. I stepped forward and began to walk.

I once read about a meditation path in the center of a garden. It was a twisting walkway leading toward a center point. A person was meant to walk the winding path and examine whatever thoughts surfaced during the walk. I took a deep breath and as my feet walked, I opened my thoughts. “What do I need here?” I asked.

Walking a spiral feels like going nowhere. I passed the same scenery over and over. As I got closer to the center this was amplified, I saw the same things, but they went by faster. At the end I felt as though I were spinning in a circle even though the speed of my walking had not changed. Then there was the center. And I stopped. I sat on the log and waited. I took deep breaths. Birds chirped unseen. The wind blew past my face and lifted tendrils of hair. I wanted to cry again, but in the center the tears were happy instead of grieved. I sat there, feeling happy, feeling connected to the person I was before. It was the first moment in a long time where I could see that yes, we kept getting mired in the same emotions. We were seeing the same troubles again and again, but somewhere there was a center where the trip might begin to make sense. I just had to find the center. Then I had to work my way out from there. I sat for long minutes. I did not want to leave. I could feel my obligations and responsibilities waiting for me beyond the edge of the spiral.

After a time, I stood and walked my way out along the spiral. I saw the same things over again, but this time the more I walked, the more the sights slowed down. Then I was at the open end and stepped free.

Finding and walking the spiral seemed such a silly thing. I still don’t understand how so much meaning got attached to it. Yet in that step out from the open end of the spiral I felt like I’d left some grief behind and took something hope-like with me in its place. The spiral helped me remember that there was a before, and the existence of a before heavily implies that somewhere ahead of me there is an after. I just need to keep wending my way along the path until I get there.

Photography