Doing Time in the Real World

Doing Time in the Real World is published on The Noneuclidean Cafe.

This story has made the rounds. It was accepted at another publication provided the language was edited out. After a few days of thought and a whirling email debate with my writing compadres, I withdrew the story. Another story was accepted in its place, and I renewed the submission process for Doing Time where it was accepted by the Noneuclidean Cafe.

The Winter issue was originally slated to be released in January, but real life stepped in for editor James Swingle and the issue was delayed. My thanks and respect to James for walking through his life experiences and pulling us together for this exciting double Winter/Spring issue.

Doing Time is one of my favorite stories. It speaks to something that weighs on my heart, of people overlooked or forgotten. Of despair and survival.

Perhaps there is a greater statement about failed systems and the cost of what constitutes success in bigger circles. But in the end, it is a personal story. Change begins with awareness and is carried forward by individual compassion when one person reaches out to another. The connection then lifts us all, one hand reaching forward, one hand always reaching back.

But that is just my experience.

Sherri H. Hoffman

Wonky Weather

April 20 and there is snow on my tulips and violets.

There hasn't been so much weird weather like this since the first year I was here - 1995. That year there was ice on the Columbia River, a windstorm to rival some 1950-ish record, and snow. Then a flood that ultimately breached the Portland seawall and flooded the train station and the international airport. The city was cut off by mudslides in the Gorge and both north- and south-bound I-5.

I remember calling my parents from my basement apartment during a power outage just to reassure them that all was well. All my friends told me it was "unusual." I suppose it was, but for all I knew, winter was one chaotic natural disaster after another.

Five years ago, we had an ice storm that shut us in the house for 5 days. No work, no school, no groceries. We could get out in our 4-wheel drive but not safely. The little birds trying to land on the feeder in the back yard were slipping right off. The heating bill that month was over $1000.

This year, we got the tornado in February, snow in March, and hard frosts and snow in April.

It just proves we pitiable humans are not in charge. Thank goodness.

Sherri

Writers Night

Last night was the 6th Annual Writers Night at the Springwater Grange presented by The Estacada Area Arts Commission. Reading were my mentors, Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose, along with Jackie Shannon-Hollis, whom I adore as both peer and teacher.

I rode out to the grange with my friend Mary Milstead and her husband Nathan and baby Solomon, who were most engaging travel partners. We got to discuss all things llama, bbq, and grizzly bear and swap stories about when you first met the parents of your significant other, since my daughter was that very afternoon meeting the parents of the boyfriend. Solomon mostly listened.

The theme for the evening was The Elephant in the Room, an open look at those things we don't talk about in polite company, things like politics, race, religion, sex, and mental illness. Except that Mary, Nathan, Solomon and I had pretty much run the gambit on the drive, including how my darling muscular husband would be the Donner Party first-choice should his Mazama climbing class become stranded on their climb this weekend.

Keeping with the theme, Stevan tackled racism, Joanna religion, and Jackie mental illness. "Writers," said Stevan, "have the task of addressing these issues with grace and wit, so that the unspoken can be heard and discussed in a way that is intelligent instead of threatening."

Joanna opened with part of her novel in-progress, Ruby's Roadhouse. Jackie read her short story, Her Own Special Touch. And Stevan closed out the evening with the end of his story, As Men Will Do Unto The Least Among Us; he read the beginning last year, but there were so many requests to finish, he had to comply.

The stories were engaging and poignant and thoughtful. The language beautiful. Cecily Patterson showed up and we both laughed at Stevan's reference to atheists, although Cecily may have just been laughing at me.

I'm sure the party-after was no less than fabulous - I have been to one before, with oysters on the half-shell, an unlimited supply of wine and drink, and a troupe of belly-dancers. Stevan is admirably committed to throwing a good party.

Alas, it was a party we would miss this year. Solomon was well past his bedtime, and I had to pickup the teenagers from VSAA Spring Fling and get the scoop on the parent-meeting. Thanks to Nathan's keen ability to avoid deer, we made it home without incident.

I always love to experience to the greater community of writers. To hear those who are ahead of me, my mentors, read in their own voices, their own works. It was a night to remember.

Sherri H. Hoffman