While Walking

I’m one of those people who’s always thinking about something, be it my stories, the things I have to do that day, or random stuff that makes me launch into a silent monolog on the subject. Suffice it to say, my mind is always spinning, making me a poor candidate for meditation. Anyway. The other day I was walking and thinking sadly about my boss’s dog, Sam, who had collapsed at work and was rushed to the vet where it was discovered he had a tumor next to his heart that had burst. Nothing to be done. It was especially sad since Sam was such an awesome dog, greeting everyone who came into the shop, following people around who patted him, or just sitting next to a shopper with his head in their lap while they raved about what a great dog he was and were we sure he wasn’t for sale? This led to my thoughts about Heaven and how I hope it is and I thought I’d share that hope with you.

First off, all my critters are there, from my first Tigger cat to my old Jasper cat, along with all my dogs. And they will all live happily together. Second, everyone I love is there.  My dad will be there (no doubt thrilled to be reunited with his favorite cat, Matthew), and my grandmother, Mimi, whom I still miss. Sisters, brothers, moms (I’m lucky; I have two!), and anyone else who wants to live in the heaven I created.

We will all live near enough to walk to one another’s homes, but there will be fields and stone walls and dirt roads between us. There will be a library nearby where I can always get the latest books published back in the world of the living, a movie theatre with couches and extra comfy pillows, and a train station so we can go visit any place we like. There will be a Heavenly Boston, a Heavenly San Francisco, and an extra Heavenly London – all the cities we know, and only a train ride away through country side and valleys and over bridges until we’re ready to get off the train and arrive at our destination. And of course there will people there, because some people would want their Heaven to look like Tokyo, or Istanbul.

Me, I’ll be happy with my country house where meals magically appear on my table whenever I don’t feel like cooking, there is always time to read books, watch movies, play scrabble with my mom, take walks with the dogs down to the ocean, and write something divine.

What does your Heaven look like?

I think I would like a trellis like this to sit beneath.

a conversation with death

Do you ever notice that some of your best ideas come just before you fall asleep? You're lying there all snug in your bed, almost drifting off, your mind floating free, and suddenly it comes to you. It could be the perfect query letter you've been trying to write or the scene you were trying to get right earlier that day, or a replay of a conversation in which you say all the right things instead of all the wrong ones. Maybe it's an idea, an absolutely brilliant idea, or the solution to how to get your characters out of the jam you got them into. Or in my case, maybe it's a conversation with DEATH. Yeah, you know who he is. The guy with the hood and the scythe, or, as Terry Pratchett says: "An obvious sort of fellow: tall, thin (skeletal, as a matter of fact), and ALWAYS SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Generally shows up when you're dead, or just when he thinks you ought to be. Not a bad chap when you get to know him (and sooner or later everyone gets to know him)."

Now if I could just remember what we were talking about...