Snapshots of Where I Came From

Writing in cursive and everything…

For various reasons, I don’t have a lot of old stuff to my name. Historical records of the personal kind. Memorabilia. Snapshots of where I came from. And I generally think that’s okay. I don’t see a lot of usefulness in staring into the past. Learning histories from before me is good and useful, but holding onto my own personal history seems almost pointless. Though, it can be kind of neat. It can be fun to see progress from who we used to be.

Case in point, I came across one of my oldest-recorded stories the other day. Shown in the image above, I wrote a short story about a cold germ. I remember this was a project set to music. The teacher, her name terribly unremembered, put on some music and asked us to think through the feelings we felt. Then, each student wrote a story based on those feelings. It’s a fun method for writing that I still use. Though, nowadays I am more inclined to put on some tunes that fit the scene I’m trying to write.

Anyway, for giggles, here’s that story all transcribed into the digital world. For amusement, I’ve kept all grammatical and spelling errors intact.

A Soapy Death

A Story written to Music
January 25, 1996

I, the cold germ, will tell you a story told also by my father… A volcano erupts. The boiling lava flows, and there is a giant explosion. More volcanoes erupt. Then, slowly one by one, the volcanoes die out.

Then, as by magic, plants, animals, and water sprout out. Some animals fight, some hide, some watch. Strange, two legged creatures, build a great wall. Then as the work, and fights stop, it rains.

Finally, the rain stops, animals run and play in the sun. They frolic upon the meadows. Then, the ground rumbles. Suddenly, the ground cracks. The mighty wall that held back the water also cracks and rumbles down in a flood of water.

Many animals flee to a plateau, while others are tossed air in a wave of water. I hitch a ride on a strange flying crature with no wings. When the creature goes a few more yards, it lets down a strange silk, and pulls up a two legged creature. The flying creature lands and two leggers walk out.

I jump on one, and am carried into a cave with a red imprint on the side. I am then carried inside, which has a path. I look back, and the entrance of the cave has dissapeared. Then the creature goes through another hole. He moves his hands toward a ditch coming out of the wall. He fills it with water and puts a liquid on his hand. Then, …. That is where it ends.

Somehow, my great grandpa died, how, that is the question.

Please wash hands… Relevant even today!

And that’s it. Something that probably took me a while to write was just five paragraphs. Maybe I was limited to a five-paragraph format or some kind of time constraints? I do remember that the teacher read all of the stories out loud. I imagine someone has that recording somewhere, but not me.

But, I enjoyed reading this old piece of me. It’s fun to see where my mind was, and I like the idea of writing from the perspective of a germ. I’m also kind of surprised that I was thinking of a story from the perspective of an oral history. I end up wondering if I was reading or watching something with a similar idea at the time. Too bad about my old self’s bum grammar and spelling, but at least I’ve improved that somewhat right?

Overall though, these kinds of glimpses into our past selves are probably worth the time. I don’t feel especially illuminated by the exploration, but I did gain that sense of progress I mentioned. Like going on a long hike, sometimes it’s nice to turn around and see how far we’ve gone.

Easy Beliefs

a stylized yellow and orange sun over a patchwork green field

It’s easy to believe:
that this is it
it’s all over.

Optimism foolish,
and hope a meager meal.
Seeing a pattern of life defeated:
prevailing winds all sailed.

Much harder is the challenge
to recover, to rebuild
to end the cycled brooding
where harvests never yield.

And it surely doesn’t help
that complexity seems fraught
little nooks and crannies
that only seem to rot.

Yes, simplicity is charming
like an easy winning smile.
It can seem a deft decision
to prune away denial.

But shutting off and shutting down
just mimes an early death,
barely meeting definition,
of fire taking breath.

And it would also be mistaken:
to paint a happy-lucky wash
grimness has its uses
to avoid perspective lost.

Oh, but it’s overwhelming
the grinding of this wheel
scraping skin and breaking backs
under boots of steel.

Which is all the reason
to keep the bridges open
to bind and knit the friendships
that soothe us when we’re swollen.

Because there are no saviors
no single points of success or failure
instead its threes and fours of us
that move this stubborn glacier.

No, it’s not quite the end
not this partial apocalyptic;
we humans still have centuries
despite naysayed insistence.

Hope is still the worthwhile choice
with meaningful resistance
neighbors helping neighbors
mutually aided persistence.

Heart of the Storm – Book Review

At least things were back to normal now. Not the same, because nothing ever returned to how it used to be. – Heart of the Storm: Teo

It is unfortunate, but hope can only go so far. Hope can provide us the groundwork for a great future, but we eventually have to take some action to build a path forward. Otherwise, there’s always someone willing to crush a hope to fulfill their own dream.

The Moonless trilogy makes me think of hope. Of the dangers of relying on hope. And on the greatness that results from direct action. This is a book series that represents that conflict repeatedly: hope versus action. Desire versus commitment. I see it from the first pages of We Lost the Sky: “He studied the expanse for any sign of humans. And there, so far away that he had to squint to be certain, was a flicker of light.” Renn, a primary protagonist in the series, is always looking for that next bright spot on the horizon. All of these characters are—Luca, Renn, Teo, and the rest—they’re Seeking Shelter despite being in the Heart of the Storm.

Closing out this trilogy, Heart of the Storm feels especially solid and cohesive in those narrative echoes of hope and action. We Lost the Sky set the stage and gave our heroes their first chance to act to chase a dream. Seeking Shelter showed us that even the best dreams take responsive leadership in the face of a crisis. Now, Heart of the Storm is about the need for community to protect dreams for a brighter future. The hope is never enough. The dream is never enough. All the right people can be in all the right places, but they still have to act together to be effective.

After the end of the world, routines were necessary to keep yourself going. – Heart of the Storm: Luca

Picking up some time after the events of Seeking Shelter, Heart of the Storm introduces two new viewpoints, Domenico and Huan, while retaining the core cast. If you’ve read the previous books, there’s a ready rhythm in returning to Howalt’s writing that felt like taking a seat at a comfortable café. Their work always gives a sense of distinct calm; the story unfolds with quiet surety and at a steady pace. That hasn’t changed with HotS, and it was also a pleasure to rejoin this set of characters. I really enjoy Renn and Luca in particular. They feel like the heart of the entire trilogy.

In book one, Teo, Luca, and Renn helped found the new settlement of Siena. In book two, there was a plague that made the settlement seek aid outside of its walls and existing relationships. Now, book three sees the Sienans defending themselves against the long-growing shadow of Florence. The moonless world seems especially harsh in this part of the story, but not because of its physical setting. If anything, there were some real moments of beauty out on the desolate plains of a ruined Italy. But, perhaps it is the state of Earth present, but many of the fears and struggles faced by the Sienans felt especially dire and relatable.

Driven by fear, attacks from Florence threaten the lives of people that just want to live better and with more togetherness. Restless uncertainty sends Renn and Luca on a path that is more familiar rather than the one that requires a leap of faith. Teo and Arsenio face the regret of taking action while trying to find joy amidst pain and problems. These could be excerpts from the mid-pandemic world of this book’s release.

And, much like the chaos of reality, it takes a lot of steady hands and cool heads to save the day. It takes quick thinking and honed tempers to find solutions that minimize pain and death. In the previous books, I enjoyed the sense of pacifism presented by the heroes. I truly believe in an ideal of nonviolent action to achieve our goals. In We Lost the Sky, the group sought out Siena as a third option in the face of fighting over a city. For Seeking Shelter, everyone banded together to help; in the end, bartering skills and shared service won the day. Unfortunately, not all problems can be solved through talk or trade.

In a way, the settlement of Siena grows like any human in this series. First, it drew a breath. Then, it learned to walk by coordinating the efforts of its body. Finally, it faced the harshness of external pressures and had to understand itself to remain autonomous. Critically, it is only because of external pressures that the township has to redefine its limits. It is only because of outside pressures that Renn grows wistful. It’s external influences that make Teo doubt. And, it’s the external that forces Luca to finally throw all in with the Sienans.

Of course, growing up is painful, and I felt a familiar pang of regret at the end of this story. Yes, I’m a little saddened that its the last of the series. This series is a comfort read. It’s calming and reassuring to have realistic characters acting sensibly in the midst of disaster. However, the other regret is that Siena had to change in the ways it did. It’s painful to recognize the nature of conflict. It’s somber to realize that humanity is so often inhuman.

Heart of the Storm was a lovely book, and it wraps up the trilogy in a lot of great ways without any tidy neatness in the ending. It’s a living world that feels like its characters will go on living. I have an almost nostalgic fondness for this series in that it feels like it’s from another time. It provides an escape from this world, and what else can you ask for from a book?

Available from Spaceboy Books, Heart of the Storm is by Marie Howalt with a release date of 2021-09-25. Marie Howalt was born and raised in a small North European kingdom called Denmark and decided to become a writer at the age of 11 when the local library ran out of science fiction and fantasy to gobble up.