I have an idea....

a land more kind than home Craft Essay Jane Ellen Smith First Semester 11/04/2014 The use of dialogue to create a sense of place and characterization In a land more kind than home Wiley Cash has given us a window into the family- centric, lesser educated-world of rural North Carolina and much of Appalachia. He tells the story of a small church that’s been overrun by a self-proclaimed, charismatic preacher who practices snake-handling and poison drinking as evidence of his being filled with the Holy Spirit. Three narrators give us their accounts--a young boy whose brother dies, an older woman who tries to protect the children of the church, and the sheriff, almost an outsider. Cash uses the native speech patterns and colloquialisms of his characters to help his readers see and hear the North Carolina hills. Many writers believe the best way to demonstrate the relaxed speech of Southerners is to drop the g s at the end of words in an effort to duplicate the softening of wor...

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez, This quilt is my gift for you on your wedding day. It isn’t perfect. It might be the wrong colors. It’s definitely tested my faith and perseverance, but I give it to you in the hopes that you will warm yourselves beneath it and know that you are loved. No one sets out to make an ugly quilt, just like no one begins a marriage planning for it to be difficult and ugly. No, a quilter spends time carefully designing the pattern, selecting just the right fabrics to best express it, expects a masterpiece and begins cutting the pieces with a little fear and trepidation. What if I cut it the wrong size? What if I didn’t plan the right amount of fabric for that part of the pattern and I run out before I’m through? What if I hate it when I’m finished? Making a quilt is remarkably like making a marriage. We plan; we prepare; we hope and pray. Sometimes a piece is cut a little small, so we finesse by carefully stitching the narrowest of seams. Sometimes a block...

Here are a few things to remember about moving into a southern state from just about anywhere else: 1. Southerners are proud of being southern. We are proud of our stubborn, do-it-ourselves history and though we may smile and nod when you talk about coming from somewhere else, we are really thinking--you poor thing. 2. Southerners know we do everything the right way. You can do it however you want, but it will always be the wrong way. Ours is the right way. 3. Skin color doesn’t matter. Where you are born, which organizations you belong to, how long you’ve lived here, what schools you attended, what your folks did, what their folks did, what states did all of them live in--these things matter. If you and your grandparents didn’t grow up in the south, none of those things matter much anyway. 4. We recognize the necessity of your moving to our states. We may not like it, but we will tolerate it as long as you don’t try to make us change too much, too soon, too often. 5. Sout...

Flightless Birds I have two flightless birds living in my back yard, so my interest in Corona's chicken ordinance is not casual. I think what the council is missing is that most people who want to own chickens are not interested in chicken farming. We don't intend to build large chicken houses and sell eggs by the dozen. Some of us just love chickens because they are cute. My flightless birds think they are dogs. They come running when I walk outside and squat so that I can pick them up or scratch their backs. They hang out with the dogs and sleep on top of a box. They do bark, but it sounds more like bok, bok, bok, and they are never as loud of the neighbors’ dogs who howl each time the sirens go buy which, where I live, is many times day and night. Around 10AM they are the loudest because they lay their eggs and are right proud of it. They go to bed at sunset and never make a sound, also unlike dogs. Hens are less noisy than roosters. I'm not a proponent of rooster husb...

Maybe men are only good in 15 minute segments. Good sex, compassion, eye contact, laughter, conversation. Maybe that's all we get. 15 minutes of good, a lifetime of good enough to get us through. February 20, 2013

I loathe him. I like the sound of that one. Loathe. It stretches out the tongue and draws the lips together. Loathe. Webster's says that it expresses utter disgust and intolerance. Execrate. I execrate him and all he stands for. "to declare to be evil or detestable" Sounds shitty, just like him. I abhor him. Abhor--to regard with extreme repugnance. Abhor has that hard air sound in its middle like the sound made when preparing to spit. Yes. That works. Except he's not worth spit. April 1, 2013

I'm going to throw away that damned little mirror that shows me the crinkles, those damned little wrinkles. I'm going to rip down the closet doors which haunt me with truth each time I pass by. In my mind I'm old enough to know what sex is how to make the most of it, and attractive enough to make it worth his while. And how I long for those hot, panting sessions of athletic pleasure. But that damned little mirror reminds me that I sit here in my grandmother's body trapped by weight with bad eyes, bad knees, rough skin knowing that it's over. February 24, 2013

In the dark my dog and I walk quietly across their lawns down their roads around their corners. In the dark we see vignettes in the windows hear the voices loud or soft. In the windows we see tv flickers lifted hands, but not to praise hands that raise against another blow. In the windows we see light and laughter soft embraces sleeping children quiet peace. On the lawns are men smoking holding drinks talking sports and children's birthdays. In the dark, my dog, we wonder when will we be loving family and quiet peace. September 12, 2012

I saw you coming with your prissy dog and I moved my solid dog twelve feet away from the sidewalk where you'd pass by; But you came my way anyway. You brought your little sofa dog three feet away from us and upset mine. He jumped without warning, wrapped his leash around my knee, sliced the tender back of it with the nylon webbing, threw me into the tree that stopped him from running after you. Did you even take the cell phone away from your ear? Hey, hey! Watch where you're going with that dog! "Not my problem!" you yelled back. Right. Next time, my dog won't give way to your expensive rug rat. Next time, you can fall into the bushes. Not my problem. July 4, 2012

When I finish reading, could you not do that old beatnik thing where you snap your fingers to show your appreciation? How about you hold your breath while you digest words and then let it out slowly with an ever so softly mouthed "wow..." Don't just listen to the words. Inhale them as you might the fragrance of fresh cut grass on the hottest day. Or breathe the words in, then spew them out as though you've driven through the musky sweet fog of dead polecat two days old. July 3, 2012

I have passed the gauntlet. I have run through hell. And now I can stand on the other side and breathe. Standing here, hell cooling in the distance, I think it wasn't so bad. Like labor pains are forgotten in the first flush of love. I have come through the pain and the labor and I am New again. Stronger. Happier. Scarred but not scared. I am ready. December 7, 2012

Thirty three years we go back, Of course I think of you when I hear it. Twenty five years of listening, questioning, understanding... Of course I think of you. My mind isn't a spigot I can turn off  and forget the water that flowed through. I think of you when I was proud to be your wife, proud of your accomplishments. What does she know of those? She doesn't know      you. She doesn't       know       you. She hasn't loved you through the rages and disappointments, through the utter giddiness of new fatherhood, through your father's death, your mother's pain.  She didn't thrill with each promotion, plan homes, plant gardens, hope for thunder, dance in the rain, live on  bagels for lunch, play badminton in the dark. She hasn't dried your tears over a son's illness. She didn't play bridge for five years and remember friends or know their son who died, the tow -headed little boy who made us think of becoming paren...

Here’s what a divorce does: Divorce Takes a remnant of a family from the house they moved into 10 years before when their family numbered 6 then added a 7th Divorce Takes them from the house where a new daughter came home a new Marine came home the first daughter-in-law came home the first grandchild came home the newest daughter to be came home where we battled illness and survived where we laughed till we cried. Divorce Takes them from the house where friends have gathered to celebrate birthdays bonfires a prom a dinner dance a wedding. Divorce takes one away puts two in limbo makes three leave four-legged family members who can’t live where they are going. Divorce shatters family abandons dreams mutilates memories condemns the future. Divorce only helps the one who wanted it. 4/13/2012

Please. Not another you make my heart beat fast poem. Not another life is worth living because you are in it or can't live without you, or happy, happy with you, sad, sad without. Not another one of those. There are more ideas than love and starry skies and broken hearts. March 29, 2014

I want to see Jesus. Not the storybook one in the white robes with the blue eyes, the dark-eyed Jesus, brown-skinned and stained. I want to see Jesus the man who was God the man whose feet were dirty whose sweat dripped as he sawed the wood with Joseph, whose hair fell into his eyes as he bent over his work. I want to see Jesus whose lean back was muscled from years of hard labor whose hands were rough from handling raw timber, who could have fought the soldiers and won because he was fit and able but who didn't because that wasn't the plan. I want to see Jesus strong, respected by men, honest and capable, used to negotiating prices, smiling and confident. I want to see Jesus the man who loved his mother and followed her instructions even when he would have preferred not to. I want to see Jesus the man who was God when he walked through the crowds who loved him, disappeared from those who would harm him and strode across the water as though it were land. I wa...

What if he’d touched her that night? That first night when he’d taken her to his trailer and they’d sat on the sofa and she’d had trouble breathing because he was so close and so much a man and unlike any other boy she’d ever known. He smelled of cotton and cigarettes, maybe the sweet kind he rolled himself. He lived by himself as young as he was, lived in trailer in a part of town she’d never been before, worked hanging sheet metal until it fell on his arm and sliced through to the bone. She could see the bandage on his arm, tight against the skin, under the sleeve of his cotton shirt. He showed her boy things--rocks he’d picked up, bottles he’d found, coins he’d saved--in his man’s world of second hand furniture in beat-up trailer.  She’d been dating high school boys with smooth cheeks and slim builds but this was a man she sat beside with a man’s strong legs and stubbled cheeks, a year out of high school and a lifetime beyond any boy she’d ever known. This was a man who smoked ...

I wonder. Is he embarrassed at all to show off a new wife when they knew the old one too?  Does he think about it?  Does he wish that he could remove the old one from history so that he could introduce the new to the people they once knew? Oh I forget. He did that. He took the new back in time  across the continental divide and showed her to the people  who knew the old. He did erase her in their minds.  Only the old is embarrassed to be replaced. Only the old thinks of these things.  She is not busy being new  and so remembers.  But old and new are such common occurrences that no one thinks anything of it now. It is how it is.  That’s all.

I don't know if I’m good enough. Oh, I can string the words like silvery, satin, wild-caught pearls  along a silken line... or foment strong, heavy words like boots that march in bloody mud or hot, shivering sand. I can spit them out when they cloy. I can bite them back  when  like silent razors  they slice swift and clean. But every day... every day when the word count rises when writing’s the thing and not the play when words must stick together in factory formation to add up, to bring forth, to produce... maybe I’m not good enough for that.

I was married for 31 years, 5 children, 27 years as a full-time homemaker. Comfortable living in a comfortable house, but not elaborate. I spent countless hours deciding what to put into each room, what it's purpose was, how to make it prettier and so forth. It was my job to make the box we lived in a home. Then I lost that job when my husband fired me and moved out.  Now, I've given away, sold or donated roomfuls of furniture, trinkets, art, plants, brand new appliances. My two daughters and 20- year old son and I are living with two dogs and a cat in an apartment with less than 900 sq.ft. After a month here I'm still trying to find places to put things. All we have are twin beds, a sofa, a cushy chair and $99 stainless steel shelving units from Sams. You'd think that with 2000 less square feet would be easier to keep clean but it's still a struggle. Even so, it has become home because my children are here, their friends come to squeeze in with us. We watch tv, cel...