My context for everything is the end of my days as “Mrs. Day”. I was married once. Now I’m not. It is better to make Life this way for me. It is good.
It was hot outside all days and nights when everything ended. The whole world smelled like dust and dry pasta and baked stones – word is: “scorched”. Sky is fluorescent at 7am. The lines on the back of your knees sweat. The body opens up everywhere. Our pores are bigger; skin like a fruit peel; skin like candle-wax. Night crickets sound like washboards, kazoos, arthritic knees – and the door won’t shut. The door won’t shut. Swollen wood is old in the Old Louisville old lintel, and the front door won’t shut on the first try, and I will always, always remember this.
If you must End Everything, give yourself a stage. Build a story. Play the parts. Your mouth drops open, because it’s fluid in a way that Real Life is not – perfect. Like science. Like art. Like clockwork. Like things that don’t move on a table. Watch it unfold.
And – well hell! – then it suddenly makes perfect sense when people casually say “destruction is a form of creation”.
Live this way like a book: Hysterical Realism, Surrealism, Creative Non-Fiction. Science Fiction. Fiction. Just make it up. See it happen. Tell the story, and it’s good. So, so good. Really. The End!
Here is another story: hailing from Lexington, author Cynthia Ellingsen releases her newest book of love, chance and the stage of marriage tomorrow, Saturday, April 13th, at Carmichael’s Bookstore. Join her starting at 4pm for a special reading and signing of her newest novel of nuptials, Marriage Matters.
Following the relationships of three brides-to-be – daughter, mother and grandmother – Marriage Matters weaves together a tale of humor and family in the face of the twists and trials of love. Touted as being “laugh-out-loudable” and “inexplicably hilarious”, this new novel presents another chapter of Ellingsen’s tongue-in-cheek style, joining 2011’s comical The Whole Package. Both books can be purchased in paperback at Carmichael's, with Marriage Matters priced at $16.00 and The Whole Package available for $15.00.
These are stories told about affirmation and love. When I tell my story, Divorce scares people; that gray curtain behind the eyes falls over their faces – but I stop them. No! Listen. When I tell you my True Story it is ok to laugh when it’s funny and cry when it’s sad. It’s a story. And it’s a good one. It is good. It’s the best yarn I could ever spin for you, and I make Life better because I played my part once on a stage that was just way too hot all day and all night when that old door wouldn’t close for love nor money.
Carmichael’s Bookstore has two are locations: 1295 Bardstown Road and 2720 Frankfort Avenue. For more information, visit the event page or call the Frankfort Avenue store at (502) 896-6950.
Image: Courtesy of Carmichael’s Bookstore website www.carmichaelsbookstore.com
