Posts about John

Lisa Blackwell

Ring Out, Wild Bells

/0 Comments/in /by
A long time ago, I applied for a job. There were two openings. I was hired, and the other spot went to a woman named Denise. We were the only two women on the tech staff, about the same age, both born in Tallahassee, both educated, both vegetarians, same build and hair.
We became friends, and she began going out to dinner with me and John. She had just gotten out of a dead-end relationship, and we were thrilled a few years later when she met Steve, the stellar guy she later married. That friendship cemented itself when she brought Steve and their dogs, complete with a homemade sign, to cheer me on when I ran a marathon (an event so dull and protracted that no sane person should show up, even the participants). And then, without needing to be blackmailed, she read a literary fiction novel I wrote. She said she loved it, and then she asked two dozen questions that referenced actual details. Even I didn’t care that much.
Over the next seven years, Denise and I traveled the world for work. She volunteered her purse for me to throw up into at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul (not Constantinople). She explored the vibrant markets and cafes of Barcelona, while I hid in the hotel and worked on a novel. Denise was also, briefly, kidnapped by a taxi driver in Bucharest and had to pay him off to deliver her to our hotel. Once our boss screwed up our flights from Europe, sending us to Albany, Georgia. We rented a white stretch limo at the airport and rode all the way back to Tallahassee, which was cheaper than new flights
Denise was the one I could trust when things got bad—very, very bad—and a year after that, when I ran out of options, she understood that I had to quit.
We stayed in touch over the next five years, though not as much as I should have. Our last lunch was in December 2019, and on Christmas Day she was taken to the ER where she was diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer. I was in line at Publix when I found out. I was crying so hard by the time I reached the register that both the bag boy and the cashier offered to carry my bags out; they looked relieved when I said no.
Looking back on 2020, most of us will remember things like schools closing, toilet paper shortages, and a country on fire. I’ll remember trying to figure out what an appropriate gift is for a terminal cancer patient. I agonized over how to write the perfect text to a dying friend, then nervously waited for her response. And she always answered, even after surgery for a new tumor—cheerful, determined, gonna beat this.
Then this week I got a call. There were not going to be any more messages. Denise had taken a sudden turn: she had passed away.
I’m sure no one wants 2020 to come back, but I do. I do, because Denise is there.
“I feel your love & support, and right back at you. Love you both!!”
—DBS, Christmas Eve, 2020

In the Grand Bazaar—Istanbul, Turkey

Lisa Blackwell

The Moo Shu Man

/1 Comment/in , /by

I’m in limbo at the moment — most of us are. The pandemic has strangled my business. My Dad died, and I can’t visit my Mom. I’ve finished my current novel, and it’s stuck in a review queue with TPTB. I check my email more than I should.Bike trail in forest

The one thing I still have some control over is riding my bike off road, deep into the national forest. My husband gave me a full suspension Norco for our anniversary, and for the first time in my life, I beat him to the trail junction. I was ecstatic.

And then I waited, and I waited, and I waited some more. I started to get worried when it struck me: of course — he’s the Moo Shu Man.

“Yeah,” a friend told me even before I met John, “it’s like when you order out Chinese, and you’re hungry but it’s taking a while, so you get really worried, and you obsess over every sound outside. Is that him? Is he here yet?”

That, she said, was what it was like to be single, waiting to meet someone.

“And then the driver pulls up,” she said. “And you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, of course he’s the one. I knew that. He’s here already? Of course.’”

Man on bike in forest

John was the Moo Shu Man, always late but perfectly on time.

And eventually as I stood there in the forest, now twenty years after we married, he pulled up on his bike, grinning and proud of me for beating him, and utterly unaware that I had been worried.

So here I sit now at my desk, waiting, grinding through another day, and trying not to jump at every electronic ding or check my email at 3 a.m., because when the Moo Shu gets here, it will be perfectly delicious and perfectly on time.

Lisa Blackwell

Mirror, Mirror…

/0 Comments/in , /by

It’s always tricky to self-diagnose a disorder, especially when there’s not a definitive medical test for it. For my raging case of prosopagnosia (“face blindness”), anecdotal evidence was more than sufficient.

I easily confuse characters in movies, even if they’re on opposite sides of the country, one is pregnant, and the other is missing an ear (Vikings, Season 2). I frequently walk past friends in public places. I try to open cars that aren’t mine, but are the same color. At a concert I found a glossy head shot on the ground, so I took it with me in the autograph line. Then I asked the singer if it was a picture of her. (It had her name at the top.) I tried to get into a car with someone who wasn’t my husband. Twice. He thinks it’s a miracle I haven’t been shot yet, and he may be right.

So whenever I participated in writing groups, receiving critique for the things I could improve, physical description was always at the top of the list, mostly for its complete absence. For years I couldn’t understand why people kept bringing that up. Did anyone really notice this? Apparently so.

Not too many people know what prosopagnosia is, or care to learn to spell it. I finally learned about my disorder from, of all things, a Milla Jovovich movie. It felt like the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card from every awkward situation I’d ever landed in; although, ironically, There Will Be Blood makes less sense now. This was no more my fault than a color blind person not knowing how to read a traffic light, and with far fewer consequences.

But to other writers, even a cognitive disorder wasn’t much of a defense for flawed writing. No matter the underlying reason, this was something I needed to work on, and they were here to help.

You may not suffer from face blindness, but no writer comes out of the gate with all pistons firing. There’s going to be some aspect of your writing that you don’t realize needs help. Find some people you trust—you’re going to need a guide to get going. Ask them to hold up a mirror and tell you what’s there. You might not even recognize yourself, but in time your eyes get better, and so does your writing, and you’ll like what you see.