Once Upon A Time

By Linda Brooks Davis

Christmas has passed. It’s filed away in a drawer labeled Once Upon a Time.

Weeks ago you unplugged the lights and stuffed them into bins. Unhooked ornaments from brittle branches and set them into their compartments. You wrapped the angel topper in tissue and laid it in its box. And swept pine needles into the dust bin, thankful the hubbub had passed.

Standing in your spacious closet, you slump as you remember Christmas Next is waiting the other side of This Coming Thanksgiving.

More accurately, Christmas arrives just after Halloween.

Actually, it’s more like Labor Day when department stores herald the advent of Christmas.

Come to think of it, Labor Day’s just the other side of Independence Day, for heaven’s sakes. And that’s only …

Your eyes slant toward the wall calendar. Last Independence Day faded in July’s bright sunlight and reappeared overnight as First Day of School. Labor Day and Halloween scattered in rust-colored corkscrews before you could shout, “Go, team! Go!”

Thanksgiving’s turkey platter sat out a full month. Why put it away with Christmas elbowing its way around the table?

Now post-Christmas weeks have melted away. And the years? Why, they disappeared in a puff. Days, weeks, and months bled into one another, it seems.

Your gaze rests on a box in the corner marked Fragile. Very Fragile. Extra-Ordinarily Fragile.

You kneel. Lift the lid. And innumerable calendar pages flutter in your memory, years of them.

You peel aside yellowed paper. It crackles, and your tears well. Once upon a time the tissue was crystal white, and it folded without a sound.

The ornaments … oh the ornaments. The red ones were redder and the greens, greener … the rusted hooks shone like silver … once.

Even now snow clings to the paper-thin balls. You sprayed it onto the tree yourself. Once upon a time.

Music swirls in your head—“Jingle Bells,” “O Holy Night,” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”—as it did when you were ten.

You catch a whiff of Christmas. Cinnamon. Ginger. And peppermint. Cookies made from scratch, as it was done way back when.

Splinters of memories whirl. They twirl and swirl. And swim. They coalesce in one shimmering idea.

You set your hands on the computer keyboard. Or pick up a pen. And a once-upon-a time tale takes shape.

We writers live in make-believe worlds rooted in reality. We thrive on what-ifs that are more real than make believe. We make notes at stop lights and under the hair dryer, but it’s the turn of that woman’s head, the tone in her voice, that flicks on the lights.

We abandon chores to jot a final sentence in Chapter Twelve, but the words were born somewhere in our memories, perhaps some Christmas Past. Or a mealtime prayer. We bolt upright from deep slumber to scribble the best idea yet, something that’s been scratching at us for days, a bit of dialogue that harkens back to supper time.

Once upon a time.

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Linda Brooks Davis winner of 2014 Jerry B. Jenkins Operation First Novel and 2016 ACFW Carol Award, Debut Category, has lived in multiple states and outside the U.S, but she speaks Texan. Born and reared in Raymondville, a small farming town in the southernmost tip of Texas, Linda holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees. She devoted forty years to the education of students with special needs before settling down to her lifelong dream: writing. Set in 1905 pre-statehood Oklahoma, THE CALLING OF ELLA MCFARLAND, an inspirational historical with a strong romantic thread, debuted on December 1, 2015.When not writing, Linda enjoys Bible study, reading, and researching genealogy. She and her husband dote on six grandchildren, three of whom arrived in 2005--in triplicate form. In her first published article, "The Choice", which appeared in 2011 in LIVE, a publication of Gospel Publishing House, she chronicled her daughter's agonizing at-risk triplet pregnancy and the heart-wrenching choice her medical team placed before her.Linda likes to brag on her daughter and son, both veterinarians who like one another well enough to practice together. In Texas that's called learnin' to get along.You may visit Linda at lindabrooksdavis.com. Porch light's always on.

Work’s a Gift

By Linda Brooks Davis

Everyone worked at my home, a South Texas farm near the Mexican border.

My playmates were children of Mexican laborers. Language never hindered playing la casa, making mud pies, or rocking los bebés. Frijoles and tamales served from stewpots over open fires tasted delicioso in either language. I learned outside their homes a broom works great on hardened soil.

Daddy paid workers on Saturdays, some by the hour, others by production. Lining up, they extended their hands, and he laid cash across their open palms. They checked figures scribbled on paper scraps, trusting el patrón to correct discrepancies. Humble, grateful people, they showed respect.

Daddy verified immigration paperwork for those whom he housed. Others lived in the shadows, arriving around sunup and disappearing before sundown when a car or truck would rattle alongside the field. The shadow worker would slip inside, and the vehicle would clatter toward the horizon.

Occasionally, however, an alarm shouted in Spanish would sound across the field. Dropping his cotton sack, a worker would dash toward the trailer in the turn row. He and a compadre would leap over the sides and dig a hole in the freshly picked cotton like hounds burrowing under a house. The first crawled in, and the other covered him up.

The immigration officer making his rounds would walk into the field and occasionally stomp around inside the trailer, searching for man-sized lumps. I never witnessed the discovery of a shadow worker, but I heard about them. Worst of all, I heard about tragedies. With very little oxygen between tightly packed fluffs of cotton, a man could suffocate and occasionally would. I wondered what would lead a man to take such chances and how my law-abiding, God-loving father justified his complicity. So I asked.

“Desperation, sugar. All they want is work. I can’t turn them away. Work’s a gift.”

Since when is work a gift? I wondered. Years later I understood. The strength to work was God’s gift. The opportunity to work was Daddy’s. And the fruit of a man’s labor was the gift he sent home each week.

At Christmas we enjoyed preparing bushel baskets of meats, fruits and vegetables, candy and nuts, and toys for each family. I wondered about those who stayed around only for a day. Would their children find fruits, nuts, or even a piece of candy on Christmas morning?

Answers evaded me then, but as a writer in my eighth decade of life, I count the strength for each day of writing to be a gift, as is less pain in my arthritic hands and back … a unique turn of a phrase … and an invitation to write a blog.

Protecting our safety isn’t what it was in 1956, but work’s still a gift. Come to think of it, an idea for a novel—one set in the southern tip of Texas, a story about a loving, destitute man who wants only to provide for his family—is work, but it’s a gift.

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Linda Brooks Davis, winner of 2014 Jerry B. Jenkins Operation First Novel and 2016 ACFW Carol Award, Debut Category, has lived in multiple states and outside the U.S, but she speaks Texan. Born and reared in Raymondville, a small farming town in the southernmost tip of Texas, Linda holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees. She devoted forty years to the education of students with special needs before settling down to her lifelong dream: writing. Set in 1905 pre-statehood Oklahoma, THE CALLING OF ELLA MCFARLAND, an inspirational historical with a strong romantic thread, debuted on December 1, 2015.When not writing, Linda enjoys Bible study, reading, and researching genealogy. She and her husband dote on six grandchildren, three of whom arrived in 2005--in triplicate form. In her first published article, "The Choice", which appeared in 2011 in LIVE, a publication of Gospel Publishing House, she chronicled her daughter's agonizing at-risk triplet pregnancy and the heart-wrenching choice her medical team placed before her.Linda likes to brag on her daughter and son, both veterinarians who like one another well enough to practice together. In Texas that's called learnin' to get along.You may visit Linda at lindabrooksdavis.com. Porch light's always on.

What’s the Good in Writing?

By Linda Brooks Davis

I recently read a novel that focused on the ins and outs of legal wrangling and duplicity. It held me spellbound. But I closed it wondering what good had come of reading it.

So I made a list:

1)      It provided spellbinding entertainment from first page to last. But its story, characters, and take-away deserted me in minutes. A fleeting good.

2)      It educated me in back-room plea deals, courtroom drama, and proper evidence gathering.  But will that knowledge affect a single aspect of my life? No.

3)      It illustrated effective dialogue techniques. But much of the dialogue tested my sensibility meter. The needle slammed to its upper limits and beyond. It inspired me to nothing good. I put it down praying the memory and imagery would fade.

Shortly thereafter I read a similar novel. But its story line, characters, and take-away stuck with me. They’re tucked away in a drawer of memories, in fact. What good had come of reading this novel?

I made another list:

1)      It provided spellbinding entertainment from first page to last. Will I hold onto the story line, characters, and take-away—and certain images they created? You bet. That’s good.

2)      It educated me in back-room plea deals, courtroom drama, and proper evidence gathering.
But will that knowledge affect my life? Indeed. One character in particular has become a reference point, a measuring rod, for how to stick to the straight road in the midst of so many crooked ones. That’s good.

3)      It illustrated effective dialogue techniques, but this time the dialogue tested my sensibility meter not a whit. The needle didn’t even twitch. Has its dialogue changed me even in a small way? Yep. The dialogue’s contrast of sunlight with darkness left me repelled by the dankness—the emptiness—of the first novel and reaching for sunlight on my face and fresh air in my lungs in the second. It left me striving for similar inspiration in my writing. That’s very good.

What made the difference for me? Heart. Faith. Or inspiration if you prefer.

The first novel challenged my brain cells; the second challenged my heart. The first built my knowledge; the second built my faith. The first aroused a sense of repulsion; the second inspired me to reach beyond the good to the best.

I’ll no doubt keep reading novels similar to the first, as well as the second. Why? Because I want to seep myself in the contrasts so I’ll forever run from the void created by writing that lacks heart, faith, and inspiration. And create instead a home for both heart and faith—inspiration, if you will—between the front and back covers of whatever I write.

That’s all good.

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Linda Brooks Davis, first-place winner of the 2014 Jerry B. Jenkins Operation First Novel award, has lived in multiple states and outside the U.S, but she speaks Texan. Born and reared in Raymondville, a small farming town in the southernmost tip of Texas, Linda holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees. She devoted forty years to the education of students with special needs before settling down to her lifelong dream: writing. Set in 1905 pre-statehood Oklahoma, THE CALLING OF ELLA MCFARLAND, an inspirational historical with a strong romantic thread, debuted on December 1, 2015. When not writing, Linda enjoys teaching 4-year-olds at church, reading, and researching genealogy. She and her husband dote on six grandchildren, three of whom arrived in 2005--in triplicate form. In her first published article, "The Choice", which appeared in 2011 in LIVE, a publication of Gospel Publishing House, she chronicled her daughter's agonizing at-risk triplet pregnancy and the heart-wrenching choice her medical team placed before her. Linda likes to brag on her daughter and son, both veterinarians who like one another well enough to practice together. In Texas that's called learnin' to get along.You may visit Linda at lindabrooksdavis.com. Porch light's always on. 

Twitter: @LBrooksDavis  Facebook: www.facebook.com/LindaBrooksDavis/ 

YouTube Book Trailer:http://bit.ly/1VZcAi5