Review from Love to Learn: What a funny and poignant read. I thoroughly enjoyed stepping into Bice’s shoes and experiencing her highs and lows with her husband. It brought back great memories of going to the track with my husband in my youth. Going down memory lane with her was a real treat.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Love to Learn. I’m so happy you enjoyed the memories from one part of my life!
Shortly before Mom passed away in October 1986 she asked me to give her a good hug. “Was I a good mother?” she mumbled, her face pressed against my shoulder. I answered her truthfully. It was what I said over many years. “If I could consider myself half the mother you were, I would be satisfied. I never considered myself half as good as she was as a Mom. I too, made hard choices.
She was a fabulous mother, devoted to us three kids. With my father in the hospital for the last 7 years of his short life (he passed away at age 44 when I was 12) Mom didn’t have to split her time between husband and children. We were her strong, main focus. She sacrificed everything for us. Mom had chances to marry but refused to marry before we were all out on our own. No man would be in the house until then.
She never liked school and quit in 6th grade. Fortunately, her father left her some properties that her smart girlfriend Edie managed to tie up legally so the State or the hospital could not take them from her. She sold them one at a time to use for income. To supplement that income she made jewelry at home at night with my brother Albert to help her. He was 6 years my senior, working in a bank as a day job. When jewelry making closed down, she followed with working in a laundry ironing men’s shirts. Summer temperatures rose about 100% in the laundry. She walked the 1 ½ blocks away and was home when my brother Bob and I returned from school. Later she replaced that job by working as a waitress on weekend nights.
We always had 2 home cooked meals plus the lunch she packed for school. Never did we eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch. In summer, she made 3 meals a day, every day. On Saturdays she took a break and made something simple for dinner, like hot dogs and sauerkraut or chili con carne. In the winter we ate cakes and pies for dessert made from scratch and home-made bread she made to save money.
Life got easier for us in my teen years when Joe entered our lives. He wasn’t allowed to live in the house until they married after I did when I was seventeen.
My wedding was gorgeous. My marriage, not so gorgeous. For years I resented that she pushed me into a marriage I didn’t really want. How foolish I was. I didn’t understand her thinking at the time. All she wanted was for me to be safe and secure in a good marriage. It wasn’t her fault that her choice was not a good one for me.
I always took care of Mom after she was widowed a second time but there a space between us that could have been better if I had the wisdom then, that I gained over the years by coming to know her through her eyes after she passed away. Writing about her brought me closer to knowing the wonderful woman/mother she was all along.
We were more than 300 miles north of Niagara Falls, Canada, leaving Sudbury. I suggested that we continued driving north just to see what was there. For five and a half hours, the road took us far north then southwest. We saw no one and no sign of anyone except for several mail boxes lined along the road. It was miles and miles and miles before we saw the next line of mailboxes. Forests were all around with occasional peeks of sun-sparkled water glistening through the trees.
The first sign of people was the town of Chapleau. We were starving and spotted the only café on the block-long main street. The sign said Sportsman Hotel and Dining Room. Nothing fancy.
People on the street stopped and stared at us when we got out of the car and watched us walk inside. It was a little unnerving. Again, inside each person stopped what they were doing and looked at us. We both ignored it, smiled, and sat at a formica top table with chrome legs. The sparse interior reminded me of an old 1920s kitchen; well-worn but serviceable. It match-ed the exterior façade. No one smiled in greeting including our waitress. She was an older woman who looked like her feet hurt. The food offered was plain meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and string beans. When truly hungry basic is more than enough. It was delicious.
Everyone continued to stare at us as we were leaving. They seemed to want to ask what we were doing there! No one said a word. We thought they were Native Canadians. No one spoke. No one was friendly. There were no open smiling faces. No one was rude either. It was a weird experience I didn’t expect as a seasoned traveler.
WRITE YOUR STORY, NOW!
WORKSHOP LEADER: Arlene S. Bice, author of 14 books (3 memoirs)
Saturday, 22 Sept. 2018 10 am – 4 pm
Comfort Inn * South Hill, VA
includes box lunch, materials & follow-up
reserve your spot now,
email: arlenebice1633@gmail.com
Paypal or check SEE WEBSITE FOR MORE: arlenebice.com
Telling your story is a priceless gift! Your story told as the only person who can tell it, the way you lived it, felt it, what made you happy . . . or not. Forget about spelling. Forget about grammar. This is a fun way for a fun day. Tell it your way. You will be led in ways to recollect moments you think you’ve forgotten. It’s all in there. You will be shown how to build your story. You’ll be guided with ideas and writing crafts. You can write about growing up, your teen years, your career, your clothes closet over the years, your shoe collection, traveling, raising kids, or not, the parts of your life you liked best . . . or not. You choose the portion you want to tell.
This exciting one-day workshop with Arlene S. Bice, memoirist, author of 14 books, and workshop facilitator for over 20 years provides an intimate place (limited to 12) to write what is burning inside you, waiting to come out. Write your story straight from the heart so your children, grandchildren, and others will know the real you, not only by the roles that were visible. Tell them about a yesteryear that no longer exists and will never return.
Synchronicity pops up often in my life, as it did a few days ago. A friend handed me a book, Portrait of a Past Life Skeptic by Robert L. Snow that her daughter told her to give to me. I was pleasantly surprised as I recognized the title and author’s name. In 2012 he spoke at the A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, VA where I was attending a past-life regression seminar. I was impressed with his story but had limited funds for buying books, so I didn’t get his that day.
As I read his story it brought his appearance back to me. He was a police captain for 30 years in Indianapolis, IN who, on a dare, experienced a past life regression with Dr. Griffith. As his career must suggest, he believed in facts, only facts; the here and now, certainly no New-Age stuff, even after his session.
It was difficult for him to accept that he once lived in the 1800s as an extremely successful artist, J. Carroll Beckwith. Yet the experience rolled around in the back of his mind until he started doing some research to disprove what happened to him once and for all. Except that it didn’t disprove it. Instead it proved that he once lived as the artist.
Being an artist, I had been impressed by his story enough to do some research of my own and found a few of his paintings online. His most famous portrait of The Lady in Red was featured in one of my art books. Even though I had learned some bits about reincarnation when I heard him speak, I learned even more by reading his full story in the book. I especially enjoyed his wrap-up at the end where he says how the experience has opened his mind to learn so much more about life and the afterlife.
I loved his book! Taking the day off from a computer who was sassing back at me in the way of not doing what I wanted it to do, I finished reading the book in one day. When I emailed Lisa, thanking her, not knowing why she chose to send it to me, but happy that she did.
Well, she didn’t. She sent it to my friend Arlene and it got to me by mistake! Or by synchronicity!
Think about your life and put your thoughts into words. Spend some time with just you. Write your thoughts down. On paper. No need to publish or share with others if that is not what you want. Do it for yourself. It’s amazing how it makes a difference from just thinking about your life and putting those thoughts on paper. It will show you where you have been, where you are and maybe where you are going or at least pointing to the direction you are going.
Or you may take just a small period of your life to think deeply about. Write about it. If it was sad, it will bring you healing and closure. If it was a happy time, it will make you laugh while you’re writing about it. You’ll bring it into a conversation and give someone else happy thoughts!
This writing about your life, whether to publish or just for your own sake, can be an important time for you. If you can’t get started or would like some guidance, come to my workshop. I’ll lead you through it, help you to learn how to access the memories you want to reach. You’ll learn how to weave your words; get practice in putting pen to paper. If you prefer to use your computer, that’s okay, too.
Telling your story is a priceless gift! Your story told as the only person who can tell it, the way you lived it, felt it, what made you happy . . . or not. Forget about spelling. Forget about grammar. This is a fun way for a fun day. Tell it your way. You will be led in ways to recollect moments you think you’ve forgotten. It’s all in there. You will be shown how to build your story. You’ll be guided with ideas and writing crafts. You can write about growing up, your teen years, your career, your clothes closet over the years, your shoe collection, traveling, raising kids, or not, the parts of your life you liked best . . . or not. You choose the portion you want to tell.
This exciting one-day workshop with Arlene S. Bice, memoirist, author of 14 books, and workshop facilitator for over 20 years provides an intimate place (limited to 12) to write what is burning inside you, waiting to come out. Write your story straight from the heart so your children, grandchildren, and others will know the real you, not only by the roles that were visible. Tell them about a yesteryear that no longer exists and will never return
Check out my website at: arlenebice.com with your questions or to reserve your seat at the table. If you don’t get your story recorded it will be lost forever.
A Nosegay of Violets is more about my psychic awakening than about my day-to-day life as a young housewife and mother. Although the story that includes the strange happenings to me could not have been written without tapping into my normal life, too. So I continue adding chapters, one at a time, about my daily doings during the years of my first marriage. It’s a story that needs to be told. I know that I will not be completely healed from the pain and sorrow I suffered through that time until my entire story is revealed. It was a journey of learning lessons needed in this lifetime. Now that I look back, I see the growing process that has brought me to be who I am today.
So I return to the guidelines I share with others in my workshop about telling their stories. As I write, my memories will make me relive those moments again, tears will spillover but by the end I will see how far I have come on my journey and be thankful for what I have learned.
Another Telling Your Story workshop in South Hill VA is over. Armed with information on how to go about it, clues on how to remember what may be forgotten, more women are on their way to writing their own story as only they can do.
Recently while browsing through the book lists on sovalue.overdrive.com/ purposely looking for women’s memoirs to read, I realized that there weren’t many out there. A few women celebrities have written their success stories, but I was looking for the everyday woman like me who sometimes face concrete walls to climb over just to get through the week and still find pockets of happiness to make it worth it. One by one, I aim to help any woman who wants to record their life for any reason, whether they want to publish, which helps a multitude of sisters out there, or just so their offspring can come to know who they truly are, not just the mother, daughter, sister, etc. but the individual.
Thought-provoking and helpful were words repeated in the comment section which delights me. I thank all who attended.
This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.
purplestoneblog 