Dec 282022
 

The holidays aren’t what they used to be, at least not for me. Although I have a remarkable collection of friends, I am alone for all or a good portion of nearly every holiday I can think of and a few I can’t. Not like the family gatherings that took place during the season.

I used to be sad about that. No more. It’s not just that I’ve adapted. It’s become apparent that many of us get swept up trying to turn the season into a Hallmark moment, especially when children are involved. Yet there’s so much we can’t control: the cancelled flights, the crushing storm, the various viral diseases. All of these conspire to obliterate even the best laid plans.

I appreciate the effort to spread joy, share happiness, grab a piece of peace, and bask in the glow of lights—so many lights. I love the feel-good stories, the way that people have opened their hearts and homes to others who are stranded. I’d like people to be kind all year round and maybe they are, and we just aren’t hearing enough about that.

I feel fortunate this year, more than I have in some time. It’s about having not just necessities but also friends. Say what you will about social media, it has connected me to an amazing assortment of people who have provided me with a meaningful virtual community. Meanwhile, I have an IRL group. Seven of us got together for a Christmas Day that included a pop-up movie event at my house and coffee and chocolate at a hotel filled to capacity with families. We grabbed seats in a roped-off section of the lobby away from most of the mayhem and had a lovely time. Ho-ho-ho.

So now it’s nearly New Year’s Eve, another invented milestone. The beginning of a new year always marks an opportunity to express our wishes for an improved future, not to mention a chance to “do better.” For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s hard to make promises in the dead of winter when all we want are the gifts of more light, more heat, more color, less strife.

Still, markers exist for a reason. I’d like 2023 to be the year I design a custom-fit version of gratitude, one that feels less practiced and more present, less  saccharine and more mindful, less self-conscious and more aware.

I’d also like 2023 to be the year I become more tolerant. That will be harder. Because while I wish for peace with all my heart, while I support peacebuildig and conflict resolution organizations, while the idea of “reasonable discourse” sounds good in theory, I have become increasingly impatient with lies, personal attacks, false equivalencies, conspiracy theories, close mindedness, and all-out hatred.

I hate hate. I hate how well it serves the people who would manipulate and the people willing to be manipulated. I hate that intolerance is a cornerstone of entire movements that pretend to be about taking something back when really they’re about keeping someone else down. I hate the corrosive nature of hatred, a violent state of mind in which the end-game is some sort of wholesale elimination or domination.

How does one support peace with a less than hate-free heart? I don’t know. I guess my other goal for the new year  is to create a custom-fit version of tolerance that doesn’t put up with intolerance.

I have my work cut out for me.

Nov 102021
 

Freeze Before Burning: A Sam Tate Mystery is the third book in the Sam Tate Mystery Series and will be released December 8th.


Ed Rizzo slid his ample body into the ornate confessional, crossed himself, and pushed a strand of thinning hair off his forehead. “Forgive me, Father,” he intoned, “for I have sinned, although I’m pretty sure God will cut me some slack even if my wife won’t, if you take my meaning.”

At ten in the morning, the sanctuary was deserted. Good. He didn’t need anyone listening to his confession, which he unloaded to the figure who sat beside him in the confessional over the next ten minutes.

Even as he talked, he considered who might be on the other side of the grate. Rizzo couldn’t make out the features of the man. He wondered if he’d landed the new priest. Maybe a younger person would make light of his transgressions, which mostly related to his perfectly legitimate reaction to his obnoxious neighbor, Frank Pagonis.

Rizzo had his justifications lined up. He hadn’t survived more than a year of enforced quarantine with three kids and a demanding wife, never mind the missing paycheck for a while, only to put up with the stolen newspapers, a lawn mower returned with a bent blade, and a television loud enough to wake the dead.

“But when his dog, which, by the way, he refuses to leash and that’s against the law, went and dug up my tomato plants, yeah, I sprayed some stuff on whatever the mutt left. Not enough to kill the animal, you understand. He can’t help it if he has a jerk for an owner. I would have sprayed his owner’s food if I could have. The point I’m making is, the dog got sick, but it didn’t die, okay?”

Rizzo cocked his head, thinking he might have heard a faint sigh.

“Now he’s coming around with a pile of vet bills and talking about suing me. I told him to take his threats and shove them. I tell you, Padre, I am this close to beating that smug face or maybe twisting that scrawny neck of his. My wife claims that kind of thinking is sinful. I don’t think it’s as bad as doing the deed. I haven’t told her about poisoning the dog, but sparing her the details isn’t the same as lying, is it?”

Nothing. The guy had probably fallen asleep. The confessional was stuffy, and Rizzo experienced a touch of claustrophobia. Time to move things along.

“If you can just suggest a penance to perform, I’ll get it covered. Then I can be on my way.”
He stopped talking, suddenly aware of the silence, how absolute and enveloping it was. The noises of the city street outside had receded. He could hear himself breathing.

“Hey, Father? You all right in there?” Rizzo scratched the grill dividing the two sides of the confessional. His head was pounding now, and he felt vaguely dizzy.

“I know I’ve been yakking a lot. How about we wrap this up, okay?” Again, no response. It occurred to Rizzo that the other man hadn’t said a word the entire time. What if the good father had suffered a heart attack?

He hoisted his bulk off the narrow bench and pushed himself out of the tiny space. The other side of the confessional had its own entrance. He rapped on the door, then tried the handle, more out of instinct than anything else. It turned in his hand, and he pulled.

The black-garbed figure sat with head bowed, hands folded in his lap as if in prayer or contemplation. Or asleep. Rizzo put a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder. With a sigh like a punctured balloon, the black-robed figure tipped sideways off the bench, fell to the floor, and rolled like a blow-up toy.

Startled, Rizzo jumped back. Stay cool, he told himself.

He bent over with an umph and put two fingers to the priest’s throat to search for a pulse. He expected to feel cold, not the scalding heat that burned his skin.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, forgetting for a moment where he was. He waved his blistered hand in the air and hopped around until a wave of nausea stopped.

With his foot, he nudged the body so that it rolled onto its back. He stared, speechless for once, at the face of the priest. Then he stepped farther back, pulled out his cell phone, punched in 9-1-1, and gave his report to the dispatcher in a calm, measured tone.

He agreed to wait for the police and medical authorities just outside the church. He even accepted the suggestion that he might dissuade others from entering until help arrived.

Without looking again at the body of the priest, Ed Rizzo crossed himself. He walked slowly to the front door, stepped into the fresh air, and threw up.


Information on the Sam Tate Mystery Series can be found here.

To pre-order this book, click here.

May 032021
 

Four years ago, I came upon an opportunity to “mentor” an incarcerated individual by becoming a pen pal. The offer came on Facebook via an established and well-recognized journalist friend. That was smart; it got me to notice. What got me to sign up was the chance to do something positive, to get me outside myself.

My pen pal is serving time at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, NY. One year into our correspondence, I visited. We met in a large open space with long tables and chairs separated by low plastic. No, we didn’t talk by phone through glass. I was in the company of maybe two dozen inmates and their visitors, including children. I was by far the oldest there and palest person there.

Our scheduled forty-five minutes turned into three hours because of an unscheduled lockdown which the prison institutes from time to time. I expected to be nervous, and I was, but not for the reasons you might imagine. My guy treated me like royalty. He was easy to talk with. I just wasn’t sure how we could fill three hours.

I needn’t have worried. We talked, mostly about writing, some about his life inside the prison and his family, a little about my experiences as a widow. He brought a lot of his work, some of which I scanned. I bought lunch at the vending machines and we ate companionably. And then I left.

Driving home took three hours and I realized how much the visit had drained me. Nothing like a visit to a prison to understand how debilitating (as opposed to rehabilitating) life in prison must be for the inmates.

The program that connected us allows selected inmates to express themselves creatively. Many of them keep journals. Others write short stories. One is working on a novel. My pen pal writes essays, stories, and plays. One of his pieces made it into a book called Scrolls From a Forgotten World: Prisoners’ Writings and Reflections. His play was produced a couple of years back and a segment of it aired on CNN.

Sometimes I edit his work, mostly not. For one thing, he is improving with practice. For another, his work is authentic and from the heart. You can’t teach that, but you can inadvertently stifle it, and that I never want to do.

He takes great pride in his acquaintance with a “real” author. He claims it’s enhanced his status. All I know is I’ve sent him all my books and he’s gotten them all into the prison library. I can’t tell you how much I love that.

There are rules of engagement, limits imposed by the program, by the logistics of his situation, and by my determination not to promise more than I can deliver. Sometimes all I can do is listen. Mostly, I have to believe that’s as helpful as anything else.

We had a fallow period last year. Like most everyone else, we were both accosted by feelings of despair. I came off my sister’s death and went almost directly into COVID lockdown. In my pen pal’s case, lockdown was that much more onerous. Prisons have been hotspots for virus outbreaks. Visitors were restricted and prisoners lived with the very real danger of living in close quarters within an aging structure with questionable ventilation. Our correspondence faltered.

We’re back to communicating. He has a new play he’s excited to send me. I have a book I want to send him. The prison now allows for paid emails, which he says is what most of the inmates use. I suggested we use email for “emergencies” and stick to letters the rest of the time. They allow for a more personal kind of interaction. The more he writes, the better writer he becomes. I only hope the more I write to him, the better human I become.

For more information on the program, please visit: https://www.transforminglivesny.org/