Gladys Blanca
Gladys Blanca
There are whales off the coast of my ancestral island that are attacking pleasure sailors.
I delight in this. I marvel.
They claim a specific matriarch named Gladys Blanca is the ring leader.
Teaching orca pods and her babies how to smash into the hulls, press against the rudders, snapping chains and immobilizing the sailboats for a time, and even sinking at least three vessels.
They claim Gladys Blanca must have had a bad run-in with a boat at some point. She suffered a sort of orca ptsd, and now she lashes out.
Whales have always meant a great deal to me. They are massive and minuscule, miraculous and mysterious.
They are cosmically more intelligent than primates, of this, I am sure.
They know of eternity in a manner that we can’t comprehend.
We little beasts given to pillaging and murdering their ancestors en mass, without sanctity or thanks, as did our ancestors.
Our modern human viciousness blinds us to the enormity of the gifts of this earth.
Forever set outside of Eden. Stirring in our base amusements and filth.
They say of this transient orca pod — there are but 40 left.
Gladys Blanca knows full well what needs to be done — and is fighting back as best she can.
The only reason I hope she stops — is that if she doesn’t — she will be killed, and I would rather no more martyrs.
But in my heart, I thrill at the thought of her.
A pensive, raw look at aging and time’s passing.
This review mentions a restaurant I worked in as being sleazy, but it wasn’t at all a sleazy place. It was a rough place, it was a tough place, and people worked their asses off. . .you could have served caviar off the floors the kitchen was kept that clean and ruled by an iron fist.
It was a place that was most mythical in the area and when you were underaged you couldn’t wait to be legal to get in.
Self-publishing Review*
Elephant Crusher by S.E. Bourne
Telling a strongly autobiographical story through a collection of short stories and other prose, Elephant Crusher by S.E. Bourne is a brilliant piece of diaristic writing. From Sophia’s childhood spent swimming in the polluted river by her house to her travels as a middle-aged woman, the collection is a clear, honest, and original work of autofiction with a delightfully dark sense of humor.
Sophia always felt aloof, including with her family; distant and troubled, her parents and relatives rarely made her feel cared for, both economically and emotionally. The deep traumas that scarred Sophia’s life, however, didn’t stop her – she went to college, worked hard to save money, and carved out a life of her own.
Now older, Sophia can look back on her past with a new sense of clarity on her parents’ push-and-pull kind of love, her unfaithful boyfriends, her unsavory work experiences, and most of all the inner knowledge that she has always been different. Through writing these pieces, the author has put order into her painful, joyful, adventurous memories, finding meaning and solace in her life to this point, which translates to the reader.
Written in prose that manages to be both conversational and lyrical, Elephant Crusher is the collage of a highly intelligent woman with a fresh perspective – both strong and vulnerable, independent and lonely, disillusioned with a childlike sense of wonder, for a truly multifaceted and rewarding read.
https://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2023/03/elephant-crusher-by-s-e-bourne/
Authors note: So I mean it is only Self-Publishing Review. . .but they got the general gist of what I am trying to go for. I don’t know about the highly intelligent, or aloof, or finding meaning and solace. . . but overall, I think they get what I am trying to do.
Old Hooker
It is 2000 in August. There is a business networking event at the office collaborative that her company rents from. Her boss asks her to attend.
She dreaded the thought of mixing in the halls and kitchen area with business grads and inventors, and investors.
All the best minds in Boston, maybe in all of the states, maybe in the world. MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, USC / the pedigrees and ivy combos go on and on.
Some she already knows well and likes — but this is an open mixer, so a lot of unknowns will be on hand. She wouldn’t mind if a friend were with her — but no one was available, and she has to be mindful of what she drinks — so she can’t try and soften the edge.
Everyone there is a rich kid. Or rich adult. All wealthy and pedigreed and confident.
The clarity in their eyes, multiple languages on their lips. Vocabulary and society and money and tennis courts and golf clubs and charity functions and family African safaris and trips to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos and China and Japan.
She has lived in Key West for six months, hitched from Orlando to New Orleans, and, driven in a battered van through Mexico for around two months time, gone through England, Scotland and Wales for a month. And bummed around Alaska for two weeks.
That is the extent of her worldly travels. She is 29. She has an off-and-on older boyfriend, a dog, a cat, a car, a car payment, and two credit cards, and her wardrobe is almost enviable.
She does not want to deal with this business mixer event. She goes into the large communal kitchen. Smiles her way through the crowd. Talks with one of the operations girls that work for the co-office space. Talks with one of the more shadowy investors that keeps an office there.
Looking back as she writes this / she is going to have to look into him. Never could quite tell what he did — but he knew everyone. Nice guy (seemingly), very down to earth and charming. But as she types this — she thinks, hm?
She is always slow on the uptake. Seriously she knows she is not dumb — but her naive obliviousness is astounding at times. Though, in a way naivety can be a superpower.
She has no angles — people see that about her. She wants nothing from anyone. Her only requirements are humor and kindness from others.
One nice thing about getting older is that she feels great graciousness with people now. Especially when they are a bit younger. They get a kick on how she can swear like a sailor — she really is becoming a joyful old lady.
Anyways she is young in this reminisce, and she doesn’t want to be at this business event.
The office is set up, so a hallway does a complete round. She walks about, saying hello here or there. She sneaks back into her office after two loops.
A pretty well know tech journalist that she is friendly with — sees her in the window and comes in.
He is insanely smart and completely New York City pedigreed and has speaking engagements and a special position at MIT — and she thinks he enjoys her company a bit — cause she gives no fucks who he is.
It is that naivety as a superpower. He sees she has no angles. As of date, she hasn’t seen him personally in years, but they will correspond via email on rare occasions, and he always responds to her immediately.
They film flam a bit. He is actually being a bit cunty on this day, he is, after all, a huge intellectual ego of man. He snipes her about a mispronounced word.
She looks at him and asks if can swim without holding his nose.
Can you dive into the ocean without holding your nose? Can you? Come on — tell me the truth. When last were you barefoot on a beach swimming?
Do you know how to swim?
He says something snide and leaves.
But as said, they have stayed in touch over the years, and that was the only time she had to pinch him a bit. Otherwise, he is a charm.
So he leaves, and she feels a bit hurt by his snobbery — usually, he is gracious and sage with her.
Looking back, maybe he, too, was stressed to be at this event.
She sends an instant message to a friend complaining of the journalists being a snob and of her plight of being trapped at this business mixer.
Her friend encourages her to do a few more loops around the event.
She goes back out. The hallway has thinned out. She walks to the ladies' room to splash some water on her neck. Cool the anxiety.
As she is walking — 2 man-boys are headed towards her. They have khakis and loafer polo shirts in bright colors. They are a bit bloated looking in that frat boy sort of way. They are ultra silver spoons. She can smell it.
She is walking by them, and they are looking at her intently. They pass, and she hears one say — did you see that old hooker. She is stunned. She goes into the bathroom. Is her mascara amiss? Is she showing too much boob?
She thinks she looks okay. She doesn’t look slutty or slovenly. She has never felt comfortable with her looks, but she is sometimes passingly cute and funny.
But those man-boys have just called her an old hooker. She is seriously a bit devastated. Like feels as though her breath was knocked out of her.
She pats some cold water on her neck and then braves back into the hall.\ Says hello to a few people. How are you? What a nice event, blah blah blah.
Goes to the kitchen grabs another beer and a small plate with cheese and crackers, and goes back to her office.
She instant messages her friend. Tells her two yuppy boys have just called her an old hooker in the hall. Her friend calls. What is happening?
These little pig men just called me an old hooker when I passed them in the hall. And she retells it to her friend. Her friends starts hysterically laughing.
There is NO WAY in HELL that they called you an old hooker. Sounds to me like they were checking you out.
No — I am telling you — they gave me a once over and called me an old hooker!
Her friend is laughing again. They were checking you out.
You couldn’t look like a hooker even if you were a hooker. Do you understand that?
She starts to fill up. I am telling you, they called me an old hooker!!
Her friend is silent. She says, “I swear to you either they said something else entirely or maybe said — did you see that looker?”
No — they were being cruel. I can just tell. I will call you later. And she hangs up on her friend.
She drives home from Cambridge — listening to music. Seriously convinced that she has been called an old hooker. She is fresh-faced and modest and believes so little in herself. So completely distrusts the world around her.
Brave like a scrapper — but easily internally devastated. She believes that for years, they called her an old hooker.
She is out with a friend today for lunch, and she tells this story again. With her wry humor and salt. And they belly laugh over the preposterousness of her bad software. And praise be, she is funny as hell.
And even though intellectually she knows the probability of them having called her an old hooker is nill to none / there is 5% of her that still thinks it was possible.
And they laugh and laugh and laugh. Life is strange — but it is good to laugh.
2017 A Year of Weeping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qSN6ttLCh8
It has been a year of weeping
years past
at my nana’s services, I did not cry
at my mother’s services, I did not cry
my father’s services, I did not attend
I did not cry
when I put my last dog down
I bawled like a child
held that dog’s body tight against me after she passed
spooned in and held her till her body went cold
and held on long after that
on the floor in the veterinarian’s room
on the blanket I wrapped her up in that morning
to
bring her to this last part
I cried like a lost thing
snot, and sniffles and a confusion to my face
cried like a child
ache and not understanding
and the sharpness of not being able to fathom
I remember the gal that worked there
that I had gotten to know over the years
I saw her out at the pub six months after
I am not one to hug strangers
we saw each other and ran right into one another’s arms
for a good old-fashioned hug
and I filled up again
and she said how her heart had broken for me that day
told me another love would come
and it is now almost full five years come to pass
and I have been weeping most every day the past year
sometimes it is bitter and lost
sometimes it is sorrow and confusion
a few times, these tears even feel like a joy
like a soaring thing, like a goodness
sometimes I don’t even know why the tears
but I am trying not to squelch them
trying just to let them come
weeping in public even, without shame
or drama
quietly
just sweet tears
just sweet tears
just sweet tears
A New to Me Author
A new to me author
“From the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.”
I just discovered Louise Glück, and it is like a flash of light, illuminating a window, that I always knew was there, somewhere, but couldn’t beat a path to, couldn’t fully articulate, couldn’t identify.
But here now is Louise, an author new to me.
I had never heard of her before yesterday, never a word, never a single sentence or work, but now it is as though I have found a wise aunt that I didn’t know existed and she can help me trace the past and find my way to the present, perhaps even encourage a future.
“…whatever/ returns from oblivion/ returns to find a voice.”
― Louise Glück, The Wild Iris
Mao Zedong Rising
Mao Zedong Rising
Application Essay to Umass Boston / August 1993
#
You want very much to fold me into this omelette you have cooking.
I can assure you that you do not want me on the fringe.
I have run with pirates since a young girl with skinned knees.
I have grown on mayo sandwiches, fried Cheerios and powdered lemonade.
I first smoked a cig at 10, puffed on weed at 12, knew the power of vodka at 13, given a key bump of coke at 14, dropped acid at 15.
I wanted Neil Cassidy as my first boyfriend.
I have read Dostoevsky and Hesse and Rand.
I understand just enough to be a danger to myself and others.
You don’t want me out here working as a waitress, sweating in kitchens.
I have notions and resentment and a quietude unnerving.
I have a rage so fierce grown men will turn on heel.
If you don’t get me on path to civility and a job with climate control,
I will burn this village to the ground.
I will lay waste to it all in a Zedong-type fashion.
A cult of personality like never before seen.
This girl wants an office job at 65 degrees year-round.
You don’t want me getting better with knives.
You don’t want this bitter to strengthen.
You only have this blink of time to fold me in soft to the mix,
you best take me now.
Danna Ogden
I just saw Mrs. Ogden as I did a quick errand to the corner store, she was walking down Grand Street. Thin as ever, tan as ever, her champaign grey hair in its straight bob, with her baseball cap on.
But her body was stiff, struggling as if she were having small fits and it was all she could do to keep walking.
But walking she was, with dignity and style, despite whatever was ailing her. I suspect it could have just been old age. She must be in her late 70s now.
She and her boyfriend bought my grandmother’s cottage decades ago and rehab’d it. Put a second addition, keeping the original of the cottage as the top floor.
I hated them after they bought. Never liked her in particular before. She was the mother of a girl and boys that I had grown up in the vicinity and they were a wealthy family and had regard in the community.
I never felt regarded.
It was a shock to have someone else owing my grandmother’s house. After a few years, I got over it, but it always felt awkward to have them there, though I did start sending them Christmas cards at some point in time. I think I thought of it as neighborhood outreach, and they would send me cards back as well.
She and her boyfriend now actually live in a condo across the way from my apartment, though it is rare that I ever see them out. Perhaps that is because it is rare that I am ever out.
She was a beautiful woman, still is, though the freeze of age seems well upon her.
It was a shock to see her so stiff and pained walking but determined to hide any discomfort.
I am sad today, it has been a sad weekend, filled with history in my head, and the what ifs and where did I go so wrong.
Afraid that my manner of being isn’t something I can shrug off now, nor do I necessarily want to.
This weekend though, I am lonely. It is rare I get lonely per se, though I am most often alone.
It is only with memories and worries that I get lonely. Imagining things that were and then were not, and not to be.
I spent 10 years of my life liberating a property so that it would have value and then I still got short-changed, hugely short-changed.
Never am I happy, and that I mostly don't care about, but oh, I hate it when I ache and the worries come up around me like a fast tide.
It hurt to see Mrs. Ogden today on the street, a reminder of how it is all so fragile, fast, and fleeting.
I didn’t want that reminder today, not from her.
The Sailing Trip
I can’t remember how old I was or what year in school, but by this time it was obvious, that I wasn’t fitting in anywhere, wasn’t at home in myself, in school, with family, or with friends.
Floundering quietly, and getting into little bits of trouble, that looking back were very minor, but my family liked to use them as examples of how difficult I was.
In comparison to some of my peers, my bad behavior was mild at best.
There was some sort of writing contest for a sailing trip on one of the old sailing schooners that had been redone.
Discovery or something it was called. I had always been a reader and had a decent vocabulary. On a whim I applied an essay to the contest, I vaguely recalled writing that I thought the trip would help me take a turn in my life for the better.
I was picked, and my mother, I remember being elated. But she was always elated in a manner that I found overwhelming and frightening.
Her smile to me was like a sharp and cutting laser and could wound with its brightness. Her blinding smile.
Once I confessed to her that I was afraid that I felt as though I didn’t actually exist, that I was a ghost somehow. That I was low status, and my life was never going to materialize.
She smiled at me, her radiant smile with her perfect feminine features, and bright blue eyes, and said, “Oh, I am sorry that you feel that way, I have never felt that way. I don’t at all understand what you mean, maybe you should talk to someone about that. I don’t have any answers.”
I was still very young, so her response cut deeply.
My parents were never listeners or instructors, I always felt like a roommate with them, a roommate that didn’t pay rent and was a burden.
But I won this little writing essay and a month-long trip on a sailing schooner.
There was a wine and cheese night at the local Maritime Museum, all the teachers and local to-dos were there.
I remember my mother bought me an outfit for it, which was nearly unheard of, my mother rarely if ever bought us clothing, though she would primp for herself without thought.
The outfit was fine, but I just remember her, her looking so beautiful and smiling her dagger smile and talking with people, and I just slunk off into a corner defeated.
I didn’t want to talk with anyone, I did not want to mingle, and I didn’t want any hors d’oeuvres being passed around on trays.
I stood up in a corner against one of the huge blocks of the granite wall of the building, and remember my mother coming over, and smiling through her teeth at me.
“What is your problem? Talk to people, MINGLE.”
There was nothing I could do, trapped by the crowd, cowed by her.
Her face smiling at me and no warmth or concern behind it.
I didn’t end up going on the sailing trip, I don’t recall how I backed out of it, and I don’t remember anyone objecting or trying to encourage me to go. I just remember that night in the Maritime Museum and the grip of my mother’s smile.
Emergency Preparedness
Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge
My Stepfather
My stepfather was a man that was prepared. He could get paperwork done, he ran a business, he was regarded in the community, and his children were well cared for, always with cars and clothing and safety. His ex-wife still relied on him.
His house was stocked with food, was orderly and neat, and well kept and charming, he had an extra refrigerator in the garage, stocked with soda and treats and ice cream.
Ice cream has a mythic and twisted history in my immediate family.
My father was given to eating ice cream by the bucket full and it was the highest treat for both sides of the family. Ice cream sundaes, coffee frappes, black raspberry soft swirl, or hard scoop.
The relationship between my father and ice cream was epic, mythic, wholesome, and pathological at the same time.
I was brutalized once as a child for eating ice cream without permission. I remember him screaming in my face as he held my arms and shook me. His face and his neck were bright red, his nose almost touching mine, his spittle hitting my face as he screamed at me.
My mother was on holiday somewhere, he had sent her and her friend to Cartagena, Colombia of all places, in the early 80s, I guess it had been cheap and the place was on the beach.
When my mother came home she found the bruises on my arms (I do not recall the bruises, or her finding them, but she told me of this years later) and she had told him to never touch me again.
My stepfather with his nice neat life and clean clothing and slow manner, and Italian largess. We didn’t know what to make of him.
But he had traveling bags and woolen blankets and boxes of food, and he bought my sister and me a gorgeous white VW Jetta to share. Gave it to us at his house with a red bow on top.
He cleaned the island house and mopped and polished the ratty vinyl floors himself, and was dressed in old jeans and sweaters when he was there.
In the mornings he went out and got coffee and donuts and cleaned the yard and fixed things. He put a real light fixture in the bathroom, where there had always only been a bulb on wire hanging from the wall.
It was like a miracle had occurred, and there was a freezer full of ice cream at his house.
He bought my sister and me each small lady-like tool boxes for our apartments, he helped us move, hang curtains, and put in window AC.
He got me a futon for my college apartment, he even offered to pay for my sister and I to finish college, but my mother wouldn’t allow it.
He did get us each a car eventually and would have them serviced for us, and we had triple AA and he even gave us each a credit card for emergencies, which we eventually had taken away, as we weren’t very trustworthy. Nothing extravagant, but the novelty of a credit card was too strong of a pull.
He always had bags, bags of bags, travel bags, trash bags, and plastic bins filled with bags. Tote bags, boat bags, leather bags, business bags, suitcases.
Emergency bags were put in our cars, in our apartments, in the island house. There were foot warmers and Windex and ice scrapers and shovels and twist ties and zip ties, extra gloves, and hand-me-down men's shirts and sweaters, (my sister and I always loved big men's shirts and sweaters to kick around in or use for nightgowns or beach coverups).
There would be maps and files and instructions, and candles and flashlights. Oh, how he loved flashlights and extra lightbulbs.
And finally, there were always extra rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. Paper towels were bought in 6-pack rolls and tp bought in 12 packs.
We had always lived on a roll here, and a roll there, certainly never any extra stacked rolls deep in the closets.
I can remember being very little and when my mother was raising us alone, I wiped myself after peeing with a bath towel on more than a few occasions before I could get to a store with any money of my own. I recall using coffee filters a number of times as well as paper towels if they could be found. (My sister has a similar recall)
To have the island house stocked with trash bags, and tp and paper towels, was a cinderella story, a prince had come.
The Indie Book Nook Review
Every Awful Thing – S. E. Bourne.
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
Every Awful Thing is a semi-autobiographical publication of poems and flash-fiction from the life of the author, S. E. Bourne. And within it, as the title suggests, is lots of heart-wrenching musings from her own childhood and early adult-hood.
It’s unlike any book I’ve read before, interspersed with poems and short stories, some in first person singular, some in omnipresent narration. All of them thought provoking and providing an insight into a life of poverty and wrought relationships They cast a grim, but nostalgic picture of her childhood, and a slightly rose-tinted spectacle reminisce of her early adult years.
The book itself is a strange juxtaposition, with the poetry not necessarily being more typical/traditional poetry – of the sort that has so many lines per stanza and rhyming couplets. It’s unlikely to win any awards, especially as ‘poetry snobs’ would undoubtedly be in control of awards. But for me, poetry isn’t just about correct grammar, structure and specific numbers – it’s about what speaks to the heart. And, these gritty, uncomfortable poems spoke to me. They dredged up emotive responses in me, had tears pricking the back of my eyes at the sheer rawness of them. That’s powerful poetry. Not a perfectly formed sonnet.
The short stories are slightly different, telling in more detail certain events that stood out to Bourne in her life. Whether they be tales of hitchhiking in Alaska and encountering a bear, or drunkenly trying to ride a horse like her father once had. All are interesting, filled with an array of the colourful characters she’s met as she travelled around North America and Mexico, and later from her time working many different jobs.
Although raw, rough edged and somewhat gritty, Every Awful Thing has at it’s soul a deep, moving, beating heart. It’s beautiful, in it’s uncooked state, revealing the hard edged exterior but warm, kind soul of Bourne. For someone who has seen so much, experienced such diversity and lived through it and come out thriving, she’s incredible. And someone who I hope is a kindred spirit.
S. A
I received a copy of Every Awful Thing directly from S. E. Bourne in exchange for a fair, honest review. You can purchase a copy of the book through clicking on it’s name. You can also read it for free on Kindle Unlimited.
For the full review, please link to the site: https://indiebooknook.co.uk/home/every-awful-thing-s-e-bourne
Self-Publishing
There is a lot of swirl and snobbery around self-publishing. I am not sure how I feel about it, though I too am participating.
My guess is that what we are seeing with self-publishing is much like what is happening with podcasts, and YouTube streaming. Individual creators overtaking the mainstream and making those standards irrelevant.
The work that I have put up on Amazon KDP is no winning read, but it is mine and it was a small honest effort, and it lives, and I will continue to edit it, and build on the work. I think of it as an anchor, my anchor, my effort, my sweat equity, my project, my fun, my sadness, my small tiny flag planted on this planet.
Is it great writing, or literature? No, no it is not.
There are huge talents that might have been overlooked in the past, never to see the light of day, at least now the playing field is a little more level if not flooded. . .but floods, in general, recede eventually.
When I think of self-publishing, I am reminded of a quote that always strikes me.
“. . . peasants are a silent people, without a literary voice, nor do they write complaints or memoirs.”
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If you can get to a computer, or on an iPhone, and get an account on KDP, and have some hustle, and maybe a few worthwhile words, at the very least, a record of your thoughts and observations might survive and might be of value someday, to someone, or only to yourself.
‘One publisher called my book repellent’: the first self-published author up for the Miles Franklin
― Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
“My sense of urgency is very simple,' said the professor, 'I've remembered that much. It's because what I have to remember has to do with time running out. And that's what anxiety is, in a lot of people. They know they have to do something, they should be doing something else, not just living hand-to-mouth, putting paint on their faces and decorating their caves and playing nasty tricks on their rivals. No. They have to do something else before they die—and so the mental hospitals are full and the chemists flourishing.”
― Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
One of the surreal ones that stays with you. Due to my time under the ministrations of "the Chemists," my reading ability has become that of a goldfish: I used to read for days, weeks, and months, with much contentment.
Don't let the chemists get to you, as best you can, keep the chemists at bay, to do so I would suggest, fasting, exercise, and the stars.
2 Out of 4 Star Review. Ouch.
https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?p=1944357#p1944357
Review of Every Awful Thing
Posted: 04 Jun 2022, 19:05
by Dustin Stopher
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Every Awful Thing" by Sophia Bourne.]
2 out of 4 stars
”Sophia Bourne recounts memories from her life in Every Awful Thing.
Every Awful Thing is a collection of flash fiction and poetry that the author has written over the course of her life, and as such, it acts like a time capsule that captures individual moments from her own history. Bourne is able to find meaningful life stories in the mundane, and the stories contained in the collection are varied in what types of encounters and themes are included. While each selection is short, it feels like the impact that the text as a whole has had on the author is huge.
There are many commendable elements of the work. Bourne’s ability to make something artistic or entertaining out of something common is a skill that not many authors possess. In the writings, I found myself relishing everyday events such as her finding a hidden cookie jar as a child or seeing a bear on a trip to Alaska. I appreciated the digestible nature of the text, as someone could sit down to read a story or poem or two and then move on to something else. The author takes a very straightforward and genuine approach to reminiscing about days gone by, and readers will undoubtedly find comfort in the simple pleasures conveyed. The snippets offer a nice respite from more intensive readings.”
I can’t disagree with most of his summary, but I only posted the good stuff above. Go to the link to get the bad stuff.
Overall, for a first effort done on a whim, I will take his 2 out of 4 and consider it not half bad.
The International Review of Books
The International Review of Books: Badge of Achievement
June 1st 2022
Every Awful Thing
Which line stood out from all the others in the book?
“Sometimes all you need is one ear to listen, to give you the bravery to crawl" (pg 133)
General Summary for Context:
This is a collection of poems and short stories that are dubbed literary fiction, but are also a memoir of sorts.
Concise Review:
As a reader who doesn't typically like memoirs, I was utterly delighted by Every Awful Thing by S.E. Bourne. "A memoir?" you ask, because the book's true genre could be considered more literary fiction that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. What it was to me though, was a captivating and often hilarious peek into the author's life and mind where the reality was as delightful as the fiction.
And in the end, what came out on the pages was as mischievous and fun as the author is!
Definitely read this book! It's worth the money, and it's worth the time!
General thoughts on the Novel:
It was truly so much fun!
Supportive Critique:
Dear Ms. Bourne,
Before I wrote your review I went to your Amazon page again and looked through everything. I often do this in an attempt to connect with the authors and their readers (if they have any yet), so that I can write a review that speaks to them more personally. I was unsurprised to discover your personal note at the bottom of your book's description dated May 24th, 2022 talking about the next edition that's soon to come (with fewer typos... they weren't bad!).
I can't tell you how many times I've encouraged authors to leave personal notes in that exact location where you left one naturally, as a way of connecting with readers and providing relevant information. And I was indeed very unsurprised to discover you'd already left a note there, which is as personable as everything else you've written.
You truly have a knack for connecting with your readers on that deep and personal level. You leave them with a feeling as if you are old and dear friends who have accomplished mischief together. This is a very rare and exceptional gift, and if you haven't thought about it yet, I'd consider where you want your author website and newsletter to go. You, specifically, would benefit greatly from a newsletter.
The only other author I know of who has accomplished such a close and personal feeling with her readers is Tammi Labrecque who wrote the book Newsletter Ninja. If you get the chance, look into it. Her newsletters always made me feel like I was her bestie, and her fans have always been very close to her and devoted.
You could accomplish the same thing easily, I think!
I have nothing but good things to say about you, your book, and your future writing career, and I sincerely wish you luck!!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thank you!
Kind regards,
Masa
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Masa Radanic
masa@bgsadmin.com
booksgosocial.com
My Spirit Children — Fini
My Spirit Children — Fini (Initially published to Medium May 12th 2021)
Day trip
I am here, in the far away salty north. Up for the week, hiding out, having breakfasts out, light early dinners and a martini here or there. Taking random drives, doing a bit of work remotely, and creating this Sophia Bourne person, who is sort of me.
I have known Sophia only since, say, the end of January, the start of February, but I almost feel she is authentically me at this point.
The random search for a pen name has been an ongoing hobby since about 2010 when I started to jot down stories and revive old poems more seriously.
I first used various last names and then a few random first names. Nothing felt authentic, though.
When I first signed on here, I was using my real name for a blink and then thought, hm, I still need to get a real job soon, and maybe best I stay anon. So on the fly one eve, I took the name of my family’s first cat and the last name of Bourne (cause I think the CIA should hire me, I can be that cagey.) And now here I am, this Sophia persona, and she seems not half bad.
The name is a bit camp, but it works, and I think this is it for my pen name; I think it will stick.
Today, I woke up to sun, songbirds, and seagulls. I went to drive down a few blocks to a cozy old fashioned breakfast place, but it was closed, and I thought, well, let’s drive over to that island on the map about an hour away, see what I can find over there.
I drove over the long and slightly hilly roads; there is fuck all up here. Nothing for traffic, no strip mall congestions, no spring bicyclists in their scuba outfits and helmets hogging the lanes dangerously and with entitlement.
Honestly, I hate bicyclists in their outfits; it is not the Tour de France, my friends; get over yourselves; you look ridiculous.
Cruising down the long stretches of road to the village on the next peninsula, that is only about 20 minutes as a crow would fly, but around 45 via driving.
Over the bridge, check-in with Canadian Border, which makes you download an app to track your crossing and your stay. There are three kids in the building, getting their passports stamped. Two boys and a girl dressed outdoorsy and for travel with backpacks.
I smile at them. “You all backpacking?”
“Yes, we are,” they say.
“Would you like a ride around the island? I used to backpack when I was about your age. I am just over here to try and find a bite to eat and take a day trip. Happy to have you along if you like or drop you somewhere if you need.”
Their faces light up.
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” they say
“Great, I would love the company, and I remember the strangers that took care of me when I was traveling. Will be fun now to do the same.”
We walk out to my big silly rig that I bought used a decade ago, so I never had to shovel snow again or feel like I was in a tin can during my long work commutes.
“Wow, they say, what a great vehicle.”
I can see them smiling at the SUV and each other and telegraphing to one another that this has been a nice bit of luck.
Lovely kids, clean, well-spoken, perfect English. Two were German, and one was French; they were exchange students.
We set out to find the village, which I am sure must exist, to find something to eat.
I hand them my cellphone and asked if they knew how to use it, and then laughed and said of course you do. “You are children; you must know better than me how to use. Open up the map and tell me which way to go.”
We are all giggling.
“Okay,” they say, “Stay to the right; the map indicates not so much a village as a small cafe among some houses down the road.”
We drive along a bit; we chit-chat. They have been in Toronto Studying for a year, then went down to DC and up to NYC, and now are heading up to the Maritimes to meet up with family and travel back to Europe.
We have driven around in a circle and gone right past whatever the map claimed was a cafe.
I ask if we should turn around or which way to head. One of the boys in the back says it looks like there is a lighthouse up ahead. Shall we go see it? I am for it. We drive, but only a mile or so, and there before us is an old-fashioned lighthouse with keepers quarters on a jut of rocks off the coast.
We all get out of the car and walk out of the empty dirt parking lot towards the lighthouse on the rocks.
Metal stairs wind down to a rock and seaweed-covered beachhead. A sign that says beware of the incoming tide.
We decided to go anyways. The boys are convinced the tide is headed out.
Regardless, we want to get over and then back. Get closer for pictures and get a sense of the massive expanse of the bay of fundy.
I am behind them on the trail. I am slow going down the narrow metal steps and slower, still picking over the larger sharp boulders and slippery seaweed. I am amazed at how well I am doing. I have been so sedentary for so many years. but behind them, I pick along, a bit nervous but determined to get out to the lighthouse
so down one flight of metal stairs, then select footing carefully ahead through the jutting boulders to a rocky beach and back through more boulders and slippery seaweed past a few small tidal pools and back up a steep set of very rusty stairs.
We get to the top of the second outcrop and realize that we have only just begun this effort; there are two more similar outcrops to climb up and down before the lighthouse island is reached. I feel a bit defeated. If I had on better boots, I like to think I would have gone on, but as it was, I had on ugg boots with a slippery sole, and we didn’t know what the tide was doing.
You kids are welcome to go on ahead, but I will head back to the car. I don’t feel comfortable going any further.
They said we will go back with you; they mentioned not knowing the tide and that where we were right now was beautiful enough.
We take pictures and marvel at the outcrop and the surrounding vastness of water and other islands far off into the horizon.
The air is cool, fresh, and salted, and the sun is just warm enough. A good breeze, it is stunning.
We turn around to head back. The going is a bit easier, but I actually have a bit of a slip and fall. not bad, but enough that I say, okay, kids, anything happens to me, my emergency numbers are right on my iPhone. We laugh, and they say I am doing good and that my boots are the problem.
I am again amazed that I have traversed this far along, and then we are back up the last set of steep metal stairs and back to the parking lot and my SUV.
We all agree that we are glad we drove out this way and now are determined to sort out where that cafe could be.
We conclude that we have, at this point, actually seen the entirety of the island and that there is no village center and only that lone cafe that we can’t seem to locate.
The young girl takes her cell out, powers on some data, and becomes our guide.
Okay, keep going straight, she says, the cafe should be up here on the left, and soon we are on upon it. A cute little old building that someone has recently taken some time with and done up for business.
I get some chilly fries and a coke, and they get some chicken sandwiches, and we dine on Adirondack chairs on the porch. There is a clear view across the bay to the little town where my Airbnb rental is. I do quite like that town.
Saw a property there the day before, but I can’t seem to pull the trigger to buy anything. Too nervous with the market crashing and my job situation being so up in the air.
I don’t know where I belong anymore. Part of me isn’t bothered by it in moments when my brain is full and buzzing along healthily, like when I write this, but in moments of quiet or nostalgia, my heart breaks for my family home and my sister and all that I thought would be healed but seems blown well to dust.
My modest savings quickly become worthless with the inflation that has hit.
Feeling trapped in some weird limbo of middle age, middling finances, and mediocre life.
A single woman at 50 that never really became a woman.
These children that I travel with today seem much more mature and sophisticated than me. I am sure their lives have had heartache and will know more, but they seem assured in a way that I have never been.
While sitting there on the cafe porch, talking, eating, and admiring the view, all of a sudden, a giant bee comes under the porch overhang and buzzes along the length of the four of us, almost seeming to stop in front of each of us for just a moment and buzzes away again, we all look at each other with questioning looks and then the giant bee is back under the porch darting the length and back and then out into the sky and over towards a tree line.
“Wow, that was a hummingbird.”, I say. “It was they ask?” “Yes”, I confirm and chuckle, “Initially, I thought it was some giant weird bee.”
They all exclaim that they have never seen a hummingbird, and I say that I have only seen a few in the wild, but they are a most extraordinary creature. I tell them that despite their movements’ speed and darting, they can hover in place if they so choose.
One of the boys says, “I am so glad to have seen that hummingbird; I think it is a good omen.”
They really are sweet kids.
After light chats and lunch, we head out to see a local park. It is on the other side of this tiny island, and we get to a vast beachhead with a massive tumbled rock berm and smooth rock beach.
We sit on the large round stones, and the warmth of them and the sun and the rocks are just the right sizes that they are comfortable to lounge upon. It is an empty place, but for us and a cruise ship far off into the distance, a few fishing boats heading into one of the ports well off to the other shores.
Pine trees and rocks and seaweed and gulls and the warmth of the sun and cool freshness of the breeze and the emptiness of the place. It is magic. I will return there; I will return to that spot if nothing else.
We sit around for about 45 minutes or so. Chatting lightly but mostly just sitting still and looking at the view.
We each collect a handful of the tumbled large stones that make up the beach.
We agree on the beauty of the place.
They decide it is time for them to see where the ferry is located and determine that they will catch it and head out to their next destination if it is in port.
“I am so glad to have picked you kids, up today, I would have never gone out to that lighthouse if I hadn’t met you, thanks for the company.”
“Oh, you were so brilliant to pick us up.”, they say, “What a beautiful island. Thank you for helping us see it.”
We talk about other past and future travels; one of them mentions having been to Morocco.
I have always wanted to go to Morocco, but now, I feel a little less brave than I did when younger. I have even thought of hiring a younger person to travel with me.
They say that that is a clever idea and encourage me to pursue it.
I look at their young faces. I have 30 years on them. They well could be my children if I had had any, and yet, while I know my grey hair and weight and slower movements belie my age, when I look at them and talk to them, I feel like we are peers, and that somehow they are wiser than me.
I feel as though I am some simpleton that has awakened into a new world order that I didn’t see coming, as if long asleep, and brought back to life a character in an Aesop fable.
We get to the ferry, the ferryman is there, and I walk onto the ferry while they get their bags out of my car. I look up at the ferryman in his cabin. He steps out and smiles at me. I ask if the ferry ever goes into US waters, and he says no.
Initially, his face seemed welcoming, but then he got a wave across his eyes as if I was something he doesn’t want to see.
He remains polite, but I feel it best not to speak with him further. I wave up to him and smile and walk away. The kids are stepping onto the small car ferry and laughing at how cool and cute it is.
I walk up and shake each of their hands and tell them to have a lovely trip, and we smile and bid each other goodbye.
I watch the ferry pull out and drive back to the states.