Have you started reading No More Empty Spaces, and met Will Ross? The following is a short story (that will be featured as a series of posts) where you can get to know Will as a young boy. Perhaps it will give you some insight into why he becomes the man he does.
Will walked home from school along the dirt road to his grandfather’s farm. It was another blustery day, like nearly all days were in southwestern Kansas. But Will was glad for the wind that day, clutching his kite to his chest. It quivered against him as if it wanted to jump out of his grasp and fly on its own. He kicked up puffs of dust with his little boy boots, and the sun shimmered through them. The glimmerings made him think of the prism his teacher, Miss Wilson, had shown them—how it split the light into all its colors like rain does to sunlight when it makes a rainbow. It looked like each sparkling bit was doing just that.
Of all the lessons Miss Wilson taught, science was always Will’s favorite, and today’s had been the best. Her desk had been heaped with sticks and balls of string and jars of glue and big sheets of red, blue, brown, yellow, and green construction paper that morning. They would build and fly their own kites, “just like Benjamin Franklin’s,” she’d said, holding up a picture of the odd old man with long hair and spectacles. He was not only one of America’s founding fathers, but a scientist and inventor too, and had used a kite in a famous experiment about lightning and electricity.
She’d drawn a picture on the blackboard for each step and guided them along, helping sometimes, especially with lashing the sticks together, since they kept slipping out of place before the strings could be pulled tight. It had to be just right, Miss Wilson had said, because the framework was the most important thing.
When they’d finished cutting and lashing and gluing, she’d explained how kites flew. Will could hardly sit still while she’d talked about air flowing over and under the kite, “lift” she’d called it. Up and away, he’d thought, racing across the schoolyard when she’d finally let the class out.
Miss Wilson had said they should help each other, but Will had decided to try it on his own, not trusting his kite in anyone else’s hands. He’d run hard and launched it, but instead of flying, it bounced along the ground. He’d stopped then—looked around at his classmates and their kites, at the trees, at the flag flying in front of the school, and then changing direction, he’d set up, and run again. His kite caught the wind and rose above him, the string pulling through his fingers. Lift, he’d thought, and as the kite sailed higher he had felt like he was flying himself.
Some kites had crashed and some had soared, but Miss Wilson made sure that everyone got to fly one, laughing along with them as their kites danced and dipped in the spring wind. She’d had to clap her hands over and over to get the class to reel the kites in. Will had been the last to ground his, winding the string onto its spool as she stood over him, hands on her hips.
Will liked his teacher. She smiled easily, sat on the floor with the class in reading circle, and never hit anyone. So different from old Mrs. Harper who he’d had for first grade last year. Miss Wilson made it fun to go to school, fun to learn. Today especially.
As he walked, he grinned thinking about flying his kite. Up and away!
“As soon as I get home,” he said to the kite, “even before chores.”
Will whistled the rest of the way, like Joe, the old farm hand, had taught him, pressing his tongue up to the gap from his missing tooth.
Spring had finally arrived after a long, cold winter, and that meant Will could spend more time outside, on his own. As long as his chores got done, most days neither his mother nor his stepfather Lucien paid much attention to him. And Will liked it fine that way.
When he got to the house, he drank a big glass of milk. Looking around and listening for his mother, he didn’t find her, so he snuck a cookie, too. Then he grabbed his kite and ran outside, the door slamming behind him in his hurry. A few steps into his run, the kite sailed out of Will’s hand. He marveled at the way it climbed, the paper bowing out in a perfect curve, welcoming the wind across it. The breeze shifted and the kite swooped, its colorful tail whipping behind. He pulled in on the string, turning and running, feeling for the lift, reading the wind, playing with it. He moved the spool up, down, and around, watching and feeling the kite react, and for the second time that day, Will felt like he was above the ground, flying with his kite. He laughed out loud.
As a little kid, if asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d respond, “I’m going to get a PhD in Ornithology.” Weird? Cute? Definitely nerdy. I birdwatched with my dad, loving it, and the birds. Though I did not reach the lofty goal I set for myself, I still love birds. However, on the scale of serious birders (let’s say 1-10), I’m down around a 3 or 4—I have no life list, warblers generally baffle me, and I can only recognize about five birds by their songs. Still, almost every day I hike, I bring my not-birder-serious, but very-lightweight binoculars with me, and take delight in the birds I see and hear.
Particular favorites are Mountain bluebirds who winter in the junipers of the Sandia Mountain foothills. If you have never seen a Mountain bluebird, they are, in a word, stunning. Each fall, I rejoice in their return. And in late winter/early spring, I prepare myself for their departure, savoring each day I spot them, knowing they will fly north soon. I saw them into March this year, later than they usually depart, and was thrilled for every extra day I had with them. For me, they really are the Bluebirds of Happiness. But I love the whole rainbow of birds I get to see throughout the year.
While watching a Ladder-backed woodpecker at our feeder, I thought about that rainbow (remember ROY G. BIV from grade school—the mnemonic device for the colors of the rainbow). Though I grew up back east seeing bold red Cardinals, the desert is not their habitat (their paler crested cousins, the Pyrrhuloxia are here though), still I see many birds with flashes of red, like the Ladder-backs with their scarlet caps and red-shafted Northern Flickers, one of whom posed nicely for me on our parapet. For orange, bright Bullock’s orioles and more muted Black-headed grosbeaks visit us in spring. And yellow, well, our springtime visitors, the Western tanagers, are certainly flashy in that department, and the males in mating plumage are wearing the whole ROY of ROY G. BIV. Lesser goldfinches are year-round yellow friends. Green is tougher, as only rarely do Green-tailed towhees stop at our feeder, with their rusty red raised caps and olive-greenish tails. For blue, you can’t beat the bright Mountain bluebirds, and I count our year-round resident Western bluebirds (who are different, but no less spectacular than their Mountain cousins) as our indigo birds. I can’t think of any violet winged visitors in the desert (oh wait, what about the iridescent purple flashes of Black-chinned hummingbirds!), but the Purple martins who I see all summer while sailing the Salish Sea, complete my rainbow of birds. And in addition to their visual beauty, oh, how I love their songs…
A Curve-billed thrasher on a desert perch
Just when I’m missing the Mountain bluebirds who have migrated north, a Curve-billed or Crissal thrasher atop a cholla or juniper will sing a long, sweet serenade—calling for a mate, signaling spring, and filling my heart with as much joy as any bluebird.
What fills your heart with joy?
P.S. – How could I not mention our New Mexico state bird, the Roadrunner! With its eye stripe, and personality, a colorful bird for sure.
What an exciting time for this debut author—and I get to share that excitement with readers across the country at author events.
We had the book launch for No More Empty Spaces at my local independent bookstore, Bookworks, last week and what fun it was. Now you can join the party as I travel to several states for the book events listed below between now and June.
And even if you aren’t in one of those cities, you can join me for the Tuesday, May 21 event at 6 PM Eastern at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina via Livestream (it’s free, but you need to sign up to get the link to the event). Click below to get to the form to sign up:
I’d love to share this with you, in person or virtually! See you at a great bookstore near you (click on the links below, some of them ask you to sign up)! And scroll down for more fun—interviews with podcasters and bloggers, and pieces highlighting No More Empty Spaces. Did I mention I was excited? What’s exciting for you these days?
In the pages of a book a story unfolds. In fiction, a truer truth?
A truer truth—while speaking of fiction, a writer said that at a Bookworks author event. I can’t remember who (I’m sorry! We host a lot of you…), but that is why I write, to explore truer truths. And I thank you for lending me those words. I will pass them on.
Yesterday, my debut novel, No More Empty Spaces—untitled for years, then Inundation, then Inundations (which seemed right at first, but then not, but I never found what was just right, and I’m grateful that my publisher did)—was published. This story I have labored over, labored through, played in, played with, and loved, is now out in the world. Still mine (it always will be), but now, it’s yours too, to make whatever meaning of it you will.
So, today, I woke up an official published author, and still (Really? How can that be?) I am all the other things I was yesterday, the day before, and the day before that (you get the idea…). But I’ll spare you, and me, a listing of what all those things are.
As a geologist and a writer, the metaphor that comes to mind is this—I feel like a new mineral in the rock of “me” has been revealed (With a swing of Will’s (No More Empty Spaces’ protagonist) rock hammer on the page? Or my pen?). Today, that mineral seems very sparkly, indeed, and I think I’ll simply let myself enjoy it, without working to identify it precisely. Perhaps another day, while searching for a truer truth, I’ll take my hand lens to it and try. But today, I’m going to hold it in my hand, and let it sparkle in the sun.
Wherever I look, outward or inward, I can find a story. On hikes, at home, on the boat, in my dogs’ faces (even their pictures now), reminiscing with friends, or flipping through a photo album (or like we do now, scrolling through pictures on our phones)—there are stories everywhere. Some are true, or my take on the truth. Some are pure imagination, spurred by a sight, a sound, or a smell (lovely or vile, either way, it can bring up a story). Memories can make stories. I don’t know why, but the one that comes to mind at the moment is the first time (maybe the only time?) my mom dropped the f-bomb (that really is a good story…I’ll tell you one of these days). And for me, as a geologist, rocks tell stories too.
Soon, a story I have nurtured and crafted for a long time will make its way into the world between the covers of a book (and thank you, Julie Metz and She Writes Press, for that beautiful cover). I hope you’ll read and love that story—No More Empty Spaces.
Geologists study the earth and the processes that shape it. Writers study the human heart and the processes that shape it. The GeologistWriter builds a bridge between the two. Come across it with me!
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