Exactly How Beautiful

Posted on October 30, 2012 by admin

I wrote this based on the prompt “potion” in Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction challenge.

Exactly How Beautiful
By Laura McHale Holland

I want a potion—a strong one—so I can jump up and down in the stands at a Giants game. Rain pouring or wind roaring, it won’t matter. It won’t matter because I will be thick skinned with rosy cheeks and narry an ache in my joints.

I want a magic elixir so I can make love with my sweetheart in a tent on a far off beach from dusk to dawn, with no worries about what the future will bring.

I want a golden potion to take me back—if only for a day—so I can race full tilt down the sidewalk to catch a streetcar and know in that moment exactly how beautiful I am.

Photo by jadis1958

Undercover

Posted on August 22, 2012 by admin

I wrote a first draft of this based on a promt at WriteToDone.com. It’s posted, along with many other stories based on the prompt, in the comment section there. Then I did a couple more rounds of editing before posting it here.

Undercover
By Laura McHale Holland

I’ve seen plenty in my thirty years here. There was the time I arrived to open the bank, and the display windows were smashed. Glass shards littered the sidewalk; glass was on the floor inside, too. The work of young anarchists prowling the night before.

Another time, it wasn’t glass on the floor; it was everyone in the bank. Except for the tellers. They were pulling money from their cash drawers with trembling hands. But then a customer realized the gun the robber brandished was only a toy. He wrestled the culprit to the ground. I pressed the alarm. Soon enough Officer Kaufman had the man in a paddy wagon.

Photo by H.Adam

Yes, I’ve seen plenty over the years. But today takes the cake. I can’t work. Clothes racks and shelves clutter the waiting area. And a checkout station is right where my desk should be. A girl behind the counter is waving at me. Our tellers would never have tattoos all over their arms like she does.

“Hi, Mr. Walker, are you lost again?” she asks.

“I’m not lost. I work here.”

“Of course you do. Why don’t you have a seat by the window? I’ll sort it all out, okay?” She picks up her cell phone. I stand my ground.

A few minutes later, Officer Kaufman walks in, smiles at me. “Francis Walker. You’re just the man I’m looking for.”

“Hi there Officer. Do you need another loan?”

“No, Francis. I’ve come to take you home.”

“Home? Is something wrong with Nancy?”

“Nancy is in heaven now, Francis. You and me, we’re both widowers long retired. We live at Happy Hills, and I’ve come to take you home.”

I don’t believe a word he’s said, but he is an officer of the law. I’d better go. This must be some undercover operation; he’ll fill me in once we get outside.

Click to visit H.Adam’s flickr photostream.

A stunning review of Reversible Skirt

Posted on May 30, 2012 by admin

I stumbled upon this review of my memoir, Reversible Skirt, on Goodreads. It’s by a member named Ana:

“Reversible Skirt is probably the most honest and gripping memoir I’ve read. McHale Holland is on my top 10 of writers writing today. She’s managed to tell a tragic story fraught with emotion without the poor poor pitiful me some writers might have fallen prey to.”

Bliss.

Beyond tomorrow

Posted on March 11, 2012 by admin

beyond tomorrow

by laura mchale holland

two dinner plates
two towels in the dryer
two sets of keys
two parents memorizing
one pair of sandals
left behind

one young woman
driving south
dreams burning fears
just beyond tomorrow

A love note to Jim

Posted on February 15, 2012 by admin

Local bookstore chain Copperfield’s asked people to submit love notes for posting on its website yesterday (Valentine’s Day). Mine was among those selected. Here’s what I wrote:

Stretched out on the leather couch you found for our living room when we bought our home, wearing a pair of red fleece pajamas you gave me when my hair hardly had any gray, sipping a kombucha drink you bought me at Oliver’s, and warmed by an oak and almond wood fire you built for me before you turned in tonight, I see the signs of your devotion in every room and in each moment of our lives. Do I need flowers, chocolates, fancy dinners out? Nah. I have you, my one and only Jim, taking my hand, leading the way, embodying love again, again and over again.

Always, Laura

To see all the notes, go to:

/www.copperfieldsbooks.com/love-letters-user#jim

I’m flagging, my friends

Posted on February 7, 2012 by admin

When I was a youngster, I used to tear down our block, jump over our neighbor’s small evergreen tree (which grew from about two feet to four feet tall in the years that I did this), run diagonally across our front lawn and then leap over four stairs to our front porch. I did this routinely and with much delight.

One day my foot slipped at the bottom of the stairs, and my knee slammed into the edge of one of the stairs. Actually, it was the top of my tibia that met the stair. The whole knee area was a swollen mess for a while, but eventually it shrank to its normal size, except for a bump on the tibia.

Since then, the bump has caused me no problems unless I try walking on my knees or do some kind of dance activity that uses the knee joint in ways it’s really not supposed to be used. And I went for 49 years without further injury to that spot.

Unfortunately, last month I injured the knee in the very same place. The leg can bear weight, so my doctor deduced no bone is broken. The skin is healing, the swelling is going down, but the joint is not working well yet. The bump on my tibia is a bit larger; the soft tissue around it is stressed. To avoid pain, I have to poke along like my arthritic grandmother used to do.

This has slowed me down more than I would have ever thought. Last week I had oral surgery, too, which has slowed me down as well. Recovery from that is going very well, though. No problems there (except eating is difficult for the time being).

So, my friends, I’m flagging for a bit. I’m of necessity focused on healing. I’m down but not out. I’ll be back to posting soon.

Guest post at TellTale Souls

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin

I don’t have a story ready this week yet (I’m still thinking over what direction I want to go in this year), but I do have a guest post up at Lynn Henriksen’s TellTale Souls blog. It has to do with mothers, and, well, mothers are what brought us all into this world, and some of us are mothers ourselves, so it’s hard to be neutral on the topic, isn’t it?

I hope my thoughts on my mother and stepmother stimulate you to share your own perspectives.

Here’s the link:

http://telltalesouls.com/blog/extolling-the-virtures-of-mom-in-memoir-not-for-everyone/

One year ago, a farewell

Posted on February 3, 2011 by admin

We are not ready

By Laura McHale Holland

Little B wags his tail as we walk into the room. Rain pummels the pavement outside, but B is bathed in warm, incandescent light; sedated; feeling no pain. I move a few throw pillows aside so we can sit on the couch. The vet hands him to me. Our little dog at the end of his road.

He relaxes into my lap as tears roll down our faces. The vet explains what is about to happen, asks if we are ready. Our fingers are all over his white hair, massaging, patting. His fine hair recently clipped to perfection. We look into his round black eyes and bid him farewell: good-bye, Baby B, little doggie, best, best dog. good-bye, dear buddy; we love you; we’ve always loved you and we always will; good-bye. We murmur on until the sobs choke off our voices.

I nod to the vet to proceed. The poison flows, and our Little B is gone far too soon. We stay, my grown daughter and I, holding what is left of the tiny Maltese who has been part of our family for 13 years. We stay, suspended, as rain pounds the roof. We stay for a long time. We are not ready for this.

Ordinary person, extraordinary moment

Posted on January 27, 2011 by admin

This is a 100-word memoir I wrote in 2009 for Ordinary People/Extraordinary Moments, a project Ana Manwaring spearheaded for Redwood Writers as part of the ArtsSonoma 2009 Festival. It was a challenge to write something for the theme in so few words:

It was out west, in Salt Lake City, maybe, or Denver or Albuquerque. I passed through them all in 1975. My long dark hair sparkled in the sunlight as I sipped wine in a cafe. A handsome man with dark hair and dark eyes sat down next to me, asked me to leave with him. I refused, said I was waiting for someone. He tensed up, inched closer. Repulsed, I rushed to the bathroom. Years later, before his execution, I recognized Ted Bundy on TV. He especially liked women with straight, dark hair, parted down the middle, just like mine.

To read more 100-word stories written for the project, visit http://norcalextraordinary.blogspot.com/.

Remembering 1970s San Francisco

Posted on October 24, 2010 by admin

I just reconnected with a friend I knew in San Francisco in the 1970s, and that’s gotten me thinking about what a magnificent time and place it was.

Back then, you and a bunch of friends—seekers, misfits, up-and-comers and down-and-outers, people running to and people running from—could rent a big railroad flat in the Mission or the Haight for a couple hundred a month, and you could reinvent yourself as a street musician or coffeehouse poet, book binder or filmmaker.

You could study landscape architecture or Sanskrit, rolfing or breadmaking. You could buy 1940s outfits for 50 cents at Thift Town and wear them temping at downtown legal offices, or you could dress down and get a job scrubbing the deck of the ship Balclutha.

You could buy a bike at a sidewalk sale on Dolores Street for a buck and later pedal through the rain with your best friend at 1 a.m. to the top of Bernal Hill because she’d just broken up with her boyfriend and couldn’t sleep. You could join EST or the Hare Krishnas, do primal scream or live on wheat grass and goat cheese, and nobody would care.

And love was everywhere, but elusive. You’d fall for a guitarist/courier with a gap-toothed smile and squinty eyes, and he’d decide San Francisco was too much for him and move back to Spokane or Milwaukee or Chevy Chase. You’d click with an actor/window washer with a Monty Python wit and gravely voice, and he’d say San Francisco wasn’t enough for him, and off he’d go to New York or L.A. to make it big. You’d go sip a latte in North Beach or sign up at Fort Mason for a workshop on homemade soap, and you’d meet someone new, someone who’d just moved down from Alaska or up from Louisiana, and you’d begin again.

People answered the call of San Francisco and spent a year or two or ten (I remained for 29), and left with memories of a time when everything seemed up in the air, full of possibilities, full of hopes and dreams ready to gel and fall gracefully back to earth, making it a better place than before.

Some dreams came true; others didn’t. We all matured, planted our feet on the ground and walked toward our diverse destinies. Many of us devoted ourselves to committed love and the joys of parenting, punctuated by conference rooms, school rooms, waiting rooms, bills. But San Francisco in the 1970s will forever be a part of those of us who were there. And a good part it is.

Blurb for back cover of Reversible Skirt

Posted on October 16, 2010 by admin

How’s this for the description to go on the back cover of Reversible Skirt?

When the mother of three little girls commits suicide, her husband wants more than anything to keep his family together, though his in-laws believe the children should be split up for proper care. He remarries in haste and tells his daughters his new wife is their mother. The youngest, Laura, believes her mother must have gone through a kind of magical transformation.

Reversible Skirt is written from Laura’s point of view as she sifts through remnants of her mother’s existence and struggles to fit into a community where her family’s strict rules are not the norm. When Laura’s father dies, her stepmother grows increasingly abusive, which propels Laura and her sisters into a lasting alliance. Thus their father’s wish that they stay together comes true, although not in the way he’d imagined.

A song I wrote long ago

Posted on October 12, 2010 by admin

Instead of falling asleep, I keep thinking about a song I wrote for my sisters back in 1978. So I thought I may as well make a cup of tea, grab my laptop and post the lyrics here:

Song For My Sisters
By Laura McHale Holland

Three little beds made in a row, sun streaming in through our open window
Days of our youth began with me racing with you to the kitchen
Where we’d argue over who would get the Wheaties, who would eat the Rice Chex, who would get the Corn Flakes
Did I tell you then how much I love you, sisters? You’ve been always in my heart

Three ragged coats hung in the hall, three pairs of boots stood right underneath them
I walked to school right beside you, children were cruel, called you names, now
All our clothes were second hand, I didn’t understand why it should make a difference to the others
Did I tell you then how much I love you, sisters? You’ve been always in my heart

Three teenagers, babysitters, waitresses and ice cream dippers
We bought new clothes, lipstick that glowed, cologne in scents for our earlobes
Rubbing elbows in the hall, each waiting for a call from someone who we hoped would see our beauty
Did I tell you then how much I love you, sisters? You’ve been always in my heart

One scholarship, one wedding ring, one Greyhound east, three new and different lives
Youth on my own, sometimes alone, I’d want a home with my sisters
Graduation came so fast, our childhood was past, we’d grown up and we had to say good-bye now
Did I tell you then how much I love you, sisters? You’ve been always in my heart

Three women now stand tall and proud, voicing aloud plans for a saner world
Times have been worse, I’ve bled and hurt, cried in despair who will care?
And you’ve come flying to my side wherever I did hide, and you knew I would do the same for you
So, I’m saying now how much I love you, sisters. You’ll be always in my heart
Yes, I’m saying now how much I love you, sisters. You’ll be always in my heart