A Freckled Girl

By Sidney Mack

Truly a girl with freckles, being of Scottish and Irish descent, Sidney Mack has been writing her thoughts down in pencil for years. She touched, and was touched by, many lives and places as the daughter of a USMC aviator and continued her growth and high exposure while raising two sons, embarking upon motherhood at age nineteen. Amidst roles as a mother and wife, and then as a single mother, Sidney earned Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in North Carolina. Her career of teaching and performing spanned a period of twenty-five years. One major life trauma in 1972 compelled Sidney to record her experience in writing and on tape. More pencil scribbling emerged again in the 1980s until Sidney decided to compile her past and present recorded thoughts into a little book in hopes her reflections might benefit another who battles through this fascinating thing called life. A Freckled Girl is the result. Any reader may choose to freely develop one opinion or another while reading the text and can enjoy brief or not-so-brief writings at any given hour. A reader might just abandon the partially read book for a while until personal experience causes one to be drawn back to a freckled girl''s freckled happenings and a possible significance to one''s lifelong yearnings, hope for peace, moments of enlightenment, and desire for wisdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 10, 2005
• ISBN: 9781420868418

Sidney Mack

Actions may speak louder than words in some instances, but words are Sidney Mack's livelihood, her grand staff to lean on as she trudges and skips through life, and her refuge during the onslaughts of strife.  This, her second publication, is delivered once again from the heart, from her compelling need to share her thoughts as a result of living, of being, in hopes her words may inspire, comfort, provoke, or even delight fellow humans.  It might be possible that some readers may venture into deeper thought concerning their lives and even yield to the possibility that a slight change in lifestyle can open windows, or even doors, to a remarkable place in living upon reading the literary works of Sidney Mack.  

Book preview

© 2005 Sidney Mack. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/07/05

ISBN: 1-4208-6841-1 (e)

ISBN: 1-4208-6840-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4208-6841-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005906082

Contents

Foreword

Angel

The Art of Being Still

Blizzard

Catfish

Cause of death: Antidepressant

Postscript

Cause of Death: Antidepressant

Creepy Killer

Demoralization of Dementia

Forgiveness = Healing

Halfway

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Addendum

Halfway

Epilogue

Halfway

Images

Infamy

Laundry Day Out

The Little Christmas Tree

Introduction to Loneliness

Loneliness

Memorial Day 2003

Misconceptions Can Maim

Prologue

Postscript

NAM

The Park

The Poignancy of Visual Art

Recollection

Untitled

Redemptive Rainbow

Shades of Bigotry

Sunny Celebration

Tour In Space

or Surviving Armed Robbery

Wisdom of a Son

(Untitled)

About the Author

Foreword

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The act of living is phenomenal. Its remarkable course cannot be measured, although experts have attempted to pen life’s significance as it relates to the order of things for eons of time. From scratching out thoughts with rock onto rock in cave dwellings to ticking out Morse Code over vast stretches of land, air, and sea to scripting a multitude of ideas over the World Wide Web, the utter wonder of life remains untouched by human hand. It is the seemingly mundane, the magnificent forests and falling waters, the untamable Rockies, the massive salty oceans, the inestimable sense of humor of all living matter, and the spirit and guts of survival that have perpetuated our energy and excitement to live and love and carry on. The writings forthwith are accounts of living and of loving. The emphasis is on marveling at the happenings, not that they happened at all. I do not relate any item to anything monumental other than its importance in grasping the significance as it may apply to one’s life. It is hoped that these accounts may stimulate you, or at least help you to know that your happenings are as significant and vital to living as the next guy or the next girl or the next pinecone or seashell. Keep in mind that living is a flow of good and evil, neither influence necessarily plopping in your lap at will, allowing you to adjust your thinking before the good or evil completes its process in a particular experience. We must have blackness in living and loving in order to appreciate and bask in the wonderful and warm brightness inevitably bestowed upon us. The cycle of bleary and balmy will go on infinitely. Accumulating scars and freckles along the way, continuing to fear the unknown, we nonetheless remain steadfast in our trek through time. The greatness is knowing that we are just about halfway there forever in our earthly lives because, without hesitation, the sun everlastingly rises before us to light and to lighten our path throughout the incredible journey of living and of loving.

Angel

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I knew an angel. Her earthly life ended last Friday, but her kind, gentle gestures and words will linger in my mind forever. She was the mother of a family relative. The angel’s twinkling eyes and warm smile first appeared to me about thirty-five years ago. Angels are like that. They appear and disappear. This angel has appeared and disappeared before me many moments since I received the news of her death. She always made me feel loved, special, beautiful, talented, and worthwhile. She was a teacher of young minds for many years, and I was always envious of her students because I sensed that the same things I rejoiced in surrounding her nature and sensitivity to mankind most assuredly exuded to the children in her care.

Sometimes I felt like a child in her presence because we hugged, laughed, and recalled personal experiences since we last hugged, usually during an extended family gathering; we shared an awareness of each other’s heartfelt feelings. I suppose our occasional meetings invariably met with such success because we managed to share mutual ideas and circumstances without emptying the bowl of inner grief, pain, or doubt about our lives that might encumber our minds and souls. We would just keep laughing and touching and inadvertently burn love into each other’s eyes as we would describe in so many words that, despite our inner conflicts, life remains beautiful, sweet, simple, and forever God’s wonder. At this moment, as I record my thoughts, I believe this angel has been the most influential being in my life in helping me to pick myself up, to brush myself off, and to take life a day at a time. I speak of her in the present momentarily because I am certain that I will carry her spoken and unspoken wisdom with me throughout my life.

One Christmas, I gave her a small, brass statue of a deer, at least I think it was a deer. I have seen that statue in my mind’s eye many times since she received my gift so many years ago, wondering where she placed the brass object in her home. For you see, her home was just like her—graceful, welcoming, bright, cheery, and peaceful. I think the angel told me once where it was displayed, and often thanked me for the little animal. Her thankfulness made me feel so appreciated and, perhaps, that encourages the reappearing picture in my mind of the little brass statue.

I remember now. The statue was that of a fawn. It stood straight and tall, wide-eyed and astute in anticipation of its God-given place in life, just like its owner.

Summer, 2002

The Art of Being Still

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Stillness. The impact can stun you, purify you, or fill you with fear. For me, stillness is purifying, even cleansing. As I now sit and stare and contemplate, I find my surroundings to be marvelous. The motel where I work the midnight shift has a huge stone fireplace built against the outer wall in the middle of the spacious lobby. Laramie, Wyoming, is experiencing the month of August. This month’s ending begins a hint of the fall season, so no crackle is yet heard from the belly of the fireplace; but the ceiling-to-floor twelve-foot-wide structure speaks out through the stillness. The formation of the stones creates a rhythm of grandeur, several of the stones becoming three-dimensional because of their jutting contour. I dim the lobby chandelier lights each evening so that the grandness of the hearth is not disturbed by stark light.

Okay. Stillness and a stone fireplace. What’s the big deal? The big deal is the re-creation of inner peace that the lack of sound coupled with the appreciation of the giant stone structure brings to me day after day in my workplace. Being still, quiet, uninterrupted by phones, free from problematic challenges of public relations, unburdened by personal money management stress invading my brain—all border on a slowly approaching feeling of magnificence. I am able to digest my day and to allow floating thoughts of love for my two sons and grandson who reside two thousand miles away. I can re-think decisions I have made today that can be altered or concreted or I may relish in the utter excellence of the Rocky Mountains surrounding me, anticipating the early morning view of their majestic peaks when I drive home at 7 AM tomorrow. Most important, in the stillness, I ask myself if I have been genuine and deliberate today. Did I wallow in self-pity or self-criticism, did I display compassion for mankind, and did I remain honest with myself as well as with others?

The stone fireplace is a reminder that grand does not have to cost money. I do not have to pay a fee to appreciate its qualities. It delivers a sense of well-being through its beauty, quiet dominance, and its centrality in overseeing daily activity around it. Historically, the fireplace and hearth have represented the basic means of warmth and intimate gatherings; some homes still carry on this tradition. I once owned a single-wide trailer that contained a quaint, rounded, metal base corner fireplace that required gas hook-up in order to be functional. Some glitch in the city code would not allow a second gas line into the trailer, but I didn’t mind. I placed my andirons and my eldest son’s first little chair at the hearth, and stationed my reading chair and lamp nearby. I enjoyed that corner daily, winter and summer, because I perceived the beauty of the setting, not the lack of an orange and yellow blaze. Quite candidly, all of life is like that to me. I slowly grew to this way of being as a result of life experiences and wanting to cherish something physical that would always be inviting and nurturing. I set my surroundings at home, placing my furnishings, whatnots, and wall hangings so that beauty accompanies me continually. This commitment enlightens my general attitude and also creates an inviting refuge from the world. I can also convert the lobby and front desk workspace at the motel into an area of beauty and orderliness, which leads to ease of movement and a feeling of tranquility in the still of the night as I prepare the audit. If my constituents at work continually mark time until they clock out each shift and do not organize their work area to please, it takes me five minutes to swish my desired atmosphere of peace and grace into reality following my co-workers’ departure.

I stopped teaching this year after twenty-two years of service because politics is scraping the beauty away from public education. My students and I were at home in my classroom. I required the young ones (ages five to eighteen) under my tutelage to appreciate the surroundings of the room through organization of the classroom setting including their individual space, through activity, through creativity of work methods, and through stillness. As the years rolled on, I realized that my requirements to achieve peacefulness and academic success worked a great percentage of the time. How do I know? I know through observation of my students, observing behaviors away from my setting, observation of other classroom settings and expectations, and through growing communication with parents. The organization and stillness theory began to leak out into students’ attitudes at home. In the classroom, the children eventually took pride in the look of our room and the look of their personal work area. The students also dealt with social and academic frustrations with fewer emotional outbursts, and learned to praise their classmates and graciously accept praise when class projects or individual successes became evident. They also learned to work as a team in succeeding on a social and academic basis and in easing the despondency of classmates when efforts did not meet expectations of the course. Once in a while, we would just stop everything and sit quietly when the necessity of re-grouping, or the exhaustion of too many kids, drove instruction and learning to be disjunct. The students had ten minutes of a ninety-minute class block, or five minutes of a fifty-minute class period, in which to do as they pleased on an individual basis and without speaking. Some went to sleep, some sketched, some walked to the window and stared at whatever caught their attention outside, and some even stretched out on the floor and stared at the ceiling. My point is that requiring, and finally allowing, stillness each and every day can restore the body, the mind, and the soul. That ten minutes of stillness did not halt those kids’ concentration nor their desire to go back to work. It re-vitalized their minds and bodies so they could tackle the rest of the lesson and, maybe, the rest of the day.

As I sit quietly at this moment, I project my thoughts to the added exuberance I will experience when the gas logs in the great stone fireplace are lit, coupled with anticipation of falling snow reflecting against the street light beyond the giant ceiling-to-floor motel lobby windows. Try sitting still at some moment each day of your life. If you are uncomfortable with the thought of stopping and doing nothing, start off with demanding five minutes of being still and build each day until, unexpectedly, you realize you cannot imagine operating your days without this momentary respite. Yes, I know. Stillness initiates thought and perhaps you do not wish to be that close to yourself. Think about it though. If you once become comfortable and appreciative of yourself during the stillness, you will be amazed at the zest, the joy, and the self-confidence that will emerge from these moments of quiet. You will realize that you do not need to race against life, that your time with yourself is a greater conquering force than any deliberate goal or decided obligation you place before you. If you are weeding the garden, plop down where you are and look around. If you are on the golf course, stop and sit under a shade tree. Sure you can. Just let the storm teams or individual sprinters play on through. Your golf ball will not forsake you until you meet up with it again. If your car seat is the first seat you’ve taken on any given day, stop. Don’t turn on the ignition. Sit and stare at something or nothing for a few minutes, then flip on that ignition and bang out the rest of your day with an unexpected renewal of spirit delivered to you through that