Author: Linda Wright

Linda Wright, author of "My Turn: When Caregiving Roles Reverse," now lives in Florida. She has served on the boards of organizations serving people with rare, genetic bleeding disorders like hers. As a writer, she has contributed to several anthologies and is a member of the Tallahassee Writers Association. Linda is married to the Reverend Ms. Robin Gray.

Trust the Dawning Future

~ Linda Wright
The sun appears to slide towards the sea like a seductress waving scarfs while backing away inch by inch. The water mirrors the colors of the sky, splashing yellow, pink, salmon, and violet. Just when I think it is over, sun out of view, the clouds pick up the theme and intensify the colors in a last attempt at enticement.  It is as if the sun is still fluttering her scarfs from behind the closed door of night. Follow me she tempts.
After the sunset has given it’s last burst, little star patterns emerge from the darkness. The constellation we call Orion begins to rise from the southeast. Welcome back old friend, I think. Glad to know you are still doing well, still up for the good fight.
By morning the tide will be at it’s lowest ebb. Rows of sea birds will be sitting on the sand bars and the sunrise will turn the sky to yellow gold just before it pops above the horizon lighting the stage. I muse about how each of these, sunset, star sparkles, and the golden dawn are like jewels in an infinity chain. The eternal return is indeed what seduces me. My mortality is so insignificant.
We’ve spent four weeks at the beach and I feel like I have been drinking in each sunset, gulping the gifts of sun, sea and, sandy ground. Tomorrow we will pack our belongings and head towards home. The sunsets there are small city slices between houses and tall trees. I lose touch with the circularity of life. I miss the subtle spectacular repetitions of our circular planet Earth and the wider view.

What a Wonderful Bird Is the Pelican

~ Linda Wright ~ 1 Comment

The chain of dignified brown pelicans swoop down so low they skim the waves. They have a prideful look with their necks pulled back and their eyes looking downward over their long pointed beaks. They are hovering over a school of fish and effortlessly capturing hundreds of little fish by opening their jaws and dipping the water’s surface. Then they ripple in formation as if to mimic the tide. The wonder is that such a ridiculous looking bird can achieve gracefulness at all. On dry land they look as if their predacious beaks are too heavy for their neck muscles, their bellies too low slung to stay air borne.

Some of the pelicans dive from high above the water’s surface capturing a bill full of fish and spilling out the water on their ascent to the air. The pelicans hit the water with a splash, and then float. It’s an hour before dinner when they will be joined by hundreds of their own kind as well as terns, gulls and osprey. The tide will becomes dark with frenzied feasting.

I feel like the oddly shaped pelican. I scoop up bits of information, opinions, sights, sounds, aromas, and take in whatever comes my way. Then I begin to sort, keeping what makes sense to me and flushing out the useless and harmful bits.

I identify too with the unsuspecting minnows. They swim nestled in the comfort of their community until suddenly gulped into a dark mouth. I am sure I am an edible catch, not shell or seawater that will be spit out. There is no turning back, no way to escape. All I can do is wait for the throat to squeeze and swallow.

Class Photo

~ Linda Wright

In Junior High we were put into tracks. Even at twelve years old, we knew that Tracks #1 through
#3 were the most likely to be accepted at a college. These were the smart kids. We were Mr. Sampson’s Home Room, Track #8. We were the dumb kids, at least in school.

In the fading class photo, bald-headed Mr. Sampson is wearing his signature clip-on bow tie. He
looks rather like a man counting the days until his retirement. Thirty-one budding adolescents squint into the bright sunlight, staring at the camera lens. We were the ones who showed up for school on the day of the class photo in 1961. We stand in rows on the cement front steps of the Junior High School.

The eighteen boys in the snapshot are attempting to look streetwise or surly. Looking at the
photo now, I remember that one of these boys was whispered to have been in trouble with the law. He was older than the rest of us. The rumor was he had done time in a Juvenile Justice Center.

Standing on the lowest steps are thirteen girls, including me. Several of these female faces
can barely be seen, hidden by the faces in front. Some girls are purposely avoiding the camera. Those of us who are flat chested stand up straighter than those who have begun to develop breasts. We look embarrassed by our changing body shapes.

There are only three classmates I can still identify today: Michelle, Christina and Terry. Terry liked to brag about being sexually active. She wore the shortest skirts of any girl in our class and clinging sweaters, but there was little that could be considered feminine about her. Her short black hair appeared uncombed. Her gait looked like she had just swung off the back of a motorcycle. There was an unmistakable “I dare you,” look in her eyes.

Christina wore her blonde hair in a bouffant style that enlarged the natural roundness of her face. She started a Beatles Fan Club, passing out hand-made membership cards and collecting dues during Social Studies Class. Not many fell for her ‘get rich quick’ scam. Christina enjoyed telling shocking tales of wild parties she held when her parents were away. She bragged that at these parties plenty of drugs and alcohol were available and that by the end of the party there was only broken glass where once there had been a chandelier. I was skeptical that there was any truth in her stories. Now I realize that these stories had a striking resemblance to a Frat party. Perhaps Christina had an older sibling who was at college.

Michelle is the only member of that 7th grade class who is still a friend of mine today. She and I had been paired together by the School Principal because each of us had been absent from our elementary school more often than present. Michelle and I were accustomed to being set apart. Michelle had home teachers during her recovery from rheumatic fever; I had missed most of sixth grade while my body healed from surgery. Mr. Sampson assigned Michelle and me to the center back two seats and called it Row 6 ½. It was obvious enough to all, even without this special seating assignment, that Michelle and I were out of place in the classroom. We actually did our homework assignments, dared to raise our hands in class, and when we were called upon, we knew the answers.

After the first month, the Principal reassigned Michelle and me to classes in Track #2, but left us in the Track #8 Home Room. Each morning we sat in Row 6 ½, attempting to understand what “Truth, Beauty and Goodness” had to do with our lives.

Fungus Among Us

~ Linda Wright ~ 1 Comment

Brilliant golden orange mushrooms are scattered across our wooded property. Their fluted edges look like petals and my imagination sees the random pattern as the work of a playful child scattering flowers in a summer dance.

We have had rain almost everyday for nearly six weeks. Sometimes it has been heavy enough to bring down branches and even large trees. Power lines have been ripped away making electricity and cable connections undependable. But each day has had some breaks in the rain when the gray clouds make way for clear blue sky. When it isn’t raining the air outside is moist. All in all, a perfect mushroom environment, damp, humid and surrounded by decaying tree roots.

I believe these mushrooms are Chanterelles and if so they are expensive little cups of gold at the farmer’s market. But, I don’t want to eat them. I’m not willing to trust my limited knowledge of mycology. I notice that no ravenous squirrel is willing to nibble them, neither is our dog, who doesn’t even give them an inquisitive sniff.

The inverted cups that beautify the mottled shade and pine needle clutter behind my home will disappear again, now that the rain seems to have subsided. They are true survivors and I appreciate the way they wait until the conditions are just right before springing into action. Something inside me wishes I could let go of my impatience and bide my time, like a mushroom.

Pop-Top

~ Linda Wright

“You really need to get a port,” the hematologist said. He kept up this mantra for more than twenty years.

My veins have always been small, the best ones seem to automatically retract or dodge away from an oncoming needle. By the time I was twelve years old I had three scars where a doctor had cut the skin to get an IV line started. Some times it took a few tries but they always succeeded eventually.

By the time I was an adult the IV nurses who knew me best wouldn’t come near me until I had soaked both arms in hot moist towels to plump up the veins. The nurse would choose a child-sized butterfly needle and take a deep breath. I tried all the tricks I knew for my part of this drama. I drank several glasses of water to hydrate. I meditated and relaxed. I wouldn’t let them try to stick me until the blood products were hung beside me, just in case it took several tries. I didn’t want too many pinholes oozing all at once if the first few attempts to start the IV failed.

When I had a hemorrhagic stroke in 2002, I awoke to find that they had inserted a line into my femoral vein. The doctor increased his nagging, “You need a port.”

“Not yet,” I said, “Not yet.”

I couldn’t quite explain why I kept putting it off. I knew there was a risk of infection, ports could get clogged and have to be replaced on a regular basis. I new it was surgery and my automatic response to surgery had always been, no. I knew once I made the decision, there would be no going back. Unlike people who have a port for chemotherapy, I would have one for the rest of my life.

Nurses said, “You’ll love it.”

“Doubtful,” I thought. I guessed that the nurse might love it, but I couldn’t imagine that I would.

“You’ll wonder why you didn’t do it earlier.”

“Probably, I won’t,” I said.

I held them off until I was 64. By that time the only veins that could be felt or seen were on my hands and they were dotted with scars from previous use.

“Ok,” I said after one day there were four failed attempts and the one that succeeded was on the base of my thumb. “Ok, I’ll have a port put in.”

I almost reconsidered when the surgeon explained that he was going to cut my jugular vein and run the plastic tubing to just above my breast where the port would be implanted. Then the line would continue downward just above my lung.

It took a few weeks for the scars to heal, but once it was in they could easily test my clotting levels and give me additional fibrinogen.

Now there is a round bulge about the size of a quarter just under the surface of my skin. I can also feel the plastic tubing that runs from my neck to the port. It is a foreign object and I do not love it. Nor do I wish I had done it earlier. The nurses don’t shudder when they see me walk in the door. But, it only takes one skin stab to start the infusion or draw a blood sample and I have to admit there are some benefits to having a pop-top.