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Maybe an agent or publisher will remember me when I call :) !!!
Maybe an agent or publisher will remember me when I call :) !!!
Literary fiction - mainstream story
Grandpa’s Sunrise
Since both my parents worked, grandpa was my designated sitter. Mom and dad were just my parents, but grandpa was my hero. I’m not sure what kind of a parent he was to my dad, but for me he was the best friend a girl could have. He always had time for tea parties and bug collecting. The “secret fort” tree house he helped me build was the envy of all the neighborhood kids.
The best things he gave me were the stories of his life. He traveled around the world in the early nineteen hundreds. Working steamer ships and odd jobs, he sailed the seven seas, and met people in places most people only hear of in a geography class. Sitting on his lap, snuggled in his big chair, I listened with rapt attention as he spoke of the evening light in the city of Florence; light making the statues almost come alive. During his descriptions, I could feel the warm scented breeze and round sand grains on the beach near the village of Padding Bai in Bali, a place where men wore skirts, and they didn’t have a word for war. He would tell me stories until I fell asleep. In the morning, I would tell him of the adventures I had in my dreams.
In his eighties, grandpa still dreamed of all the places he’d missed seeing when he replaced his youthful travels with home and family. When I entered my teens, I dreamed of adventures yet to come. So, we traveled in magazines and books marveling at the new discoveries of ancient cities. He would shake his head over the changes in places he visited. Then, he’d tell me how they were before they became westernized, when the people still had their own unique cultures. To this day, if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can smell grandpa’s pipe tobacco and “Old Spice” cologne as he told me of camping at the “Gates of Alexander” in the mountains in Turkey.
Last week I passed my fiftieth birthday thinking of my grandpa and watching Andean condors float on the updrafts rising from the deepest canyon in the world. Two score and ten, a long way from home. “No one can put you in jail for what you steal with your eyes and ears.” Grandpa used to say. It is a good thing, because I’ve been stealing experiences since I was a child and planned to take a lot more before I’m done.
Fifty doesn’t really bother me. I come from long-lived stock. Fifty seems a great age to be. Although I know most women dread growing older, to me it seems now I can go back to being amazing, I mean, in people’s perceptions. The way people look at other’s accomplishments is if you do something interesting before you are thirty you are a wonder kid, but between thirty and fifty anything interesting you do is just expected. After fifty, on the other hand, the same things you did five years ago are now amazing for someone of “your” age. It’s like this trip to Peru, in the past twenty years I’ve traveled on four continents, and none of my friends really commented on my travels other than to wish me a nice trip. Yet this time, because I was turning fifty, people went out of their way to say how brave or adventurous I am to travel on my own. It’s nice to be amazing again.
Grandpa’s Sunrise
Since both my parents worked, grandpa was my designated sitter. Mom and dad were just my parents, but grandpa was my hero. I’m not sure what kind of a parent he was to my dad, but for me he was the best friend a girl could have. He always had time for tea parties and bug collecting. The “secret fort” tree house he helped me build was the envy of all the neighborhood kids.
The best things he gave me were the stories of his life. He traveled around the world in the early nineteen hundreds. Working steamer ships and odd jobs, he sailed the seven seas, and met people in places most people only hear of in a geography class. Sitting on his lap, snuggled in his big chair, I listened with rapt attention as he spoke of the evening light in the city of Florence; light making the statues almost come alive. During his descriptions, I could feel the warm scented breeze and round sand grains on the beach near the village of Padding Bai in Bali, a place where men wore skirts, and they didn’t have a word for war. He would tell me stories until I fell asleep. In the morning, I would tell him of the adventures I had in my dreams.
In his eighties, grandpa still dreamed of all the places he’d missed seeing when he replaced his youthful travels with home and family. When I entered my teens, I dreamed of adventures yet to come. So, we traveled in magazines and books marveling at the new discoveries of ancient cities. He would shake his head over the changes in places he visited. Then, he’d tell me how they were before they became westernized, when the people still had their own unique cultures. To this day, if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can smell grandpa’s pipe tobacco and “Old Spice” cologne as he told me of camping at the “Gates of Alexander” in the mountains in Turkey.
Last week I passed my fiftieth birthday thinking of my grandpa and watching Andean condors float on the updrafts rising from the deepest canyon in the world. Two score and ten, a long way from home. “No one can put you in jail for what you steal with your eyes and ears.” Grandpa used to say. It is a good thing, because I’ve been stealing experiences since I was a child and planned to take a lot more before I’m done.
Fifty doesn’t really bother me. I come from long-lived stock. Fifty seems a great age to be. Although I know most women dread growing older, to me it seems now I can go back to being amazing, I mean, in people’s perceptions. The way people look at other’s accomplishments is if you do something interesting before you are thirty you are a wonder kid, but between thirty and fifty anything interesting you do is just expected. After fifty, on the other hand, the same things you did five years ago are now amazing for someone of “your” age. It’s like this trip to Peru, in the past twenty years I’ve traveled on four continents, and none of my friends really commented on my travels other than to wish me a nice trip. Yet this time, because I was turning fifty, people went out of their way to say how brave or adventurous I am to travel on my own. It’s nice to be amazing again.