Author: R.M. Carlson

Freelance writer, blogger, aspiring novelist. Former career as a college prof in finance. Encore career as freelance writer for a number of financial websites.
Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 04/15/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Memories and Dreams

When I lean over the railing of the pier and look into the Gulf of Mexico, the surface is ultrasmooth. What I see is the reflection of my memories and the mirage of my dreams. They overlap as the water moves and it becomes hard for me to tell what is a memory and what is a dream. I think some may be the same. I hope not. It’s time to unpack my baggage, as a friend of mine would say, and move past the memories. Try to make my dreams happen.

I have to ask myself if it’s too late. Is it too late for me emotionally? Are the emotions that support those dreams used up now? Maybe it’s just too late physically. Maybe I’m too old to have the dreams of a younger woman. I’ve never thought that before. It’s not like me to think that. I seem to be feeling my age recently, whatever that means. That’s also not like me. It’s worrisome.

There are always people in your life who are small-minded, petty, and jealous. I spent many years of my life avoiding those people. In the last few years, I forgot what I knew to be true. I cannot deal with such people and I let them back into my life. I have learned my lesson.

I still have dreams. Big dreams, in fact. I also have memories and, often, they get in the way. My memories that get in the way really have nothing to do with my dreams. My memories are of emotional things. People, places. Failed relationships. My dreams for the future are not about people, places, or relationships. They are dreams just for me. Successes professionally are my primary dreams. How can my memories of people and failed relationships possibly get in the way of professional successes?

I’m sure I don’t have to explain that to most of you. Repeated emotional failures can break down self-esteem and self-esteem affects every facet of your life, including your professional life. I have always had the ability to put emotional failures away in a box in my head and heart and go on with my life, including my professional life. As I get older, that ability seems to be escaping me. I find that very distressing. Exposing myself to small-minded people did not help me, but I have fixed that problem now.

Memories and dreams. Where do memories stop and dreams start? Is there really a clear-cut, definitive line?

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Posted in Challenges

Hassan

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Hassan watched the soldiers as they went through their drills near the house in which he and his mother were staying. He remembered another house. He was with his mother, father, and baby sister in that house. Now his father was a soldier and seldom came home. As for his baby sister, she was just gone. When Hassan asked where she was, his mother just cried. Hassan was seven years old. He lived in Aleppo, Syria.

All Hassan knew was that his ears hurt. He wished for quiet. It was never quiet where he lived. Hassan was also hungry, but he tried not to cry.

One day his father came home and told them to get ready. They were going to escape. They left the house and ran into the country, hiding all the way. His father said they had to get to the border. Hassan was so tired, so his father carried him. Suddenly, there were bright lights and men with guns. When Hassan woke up, he was on a cot with his mother smiling over him. They were safe now, she said.

Hassan knew she was right. It was quiet now.

Posted in Challenges

The River Chamo

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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They had spent three days camping by a lazy section of the Rio Chamo in New Mexico below Taos. Leslie and Bill had brought their raft with them. After much reading, they decided that this section of river was suitable for novices. After getting the raft ready and in the river, along with their gear, they climbed aboard.

It was smooth going at first. They knew how to paddle. As the river took a turn, the water got rougher. Bill yelled his concern to Leslie but she wanted to keep going.

They saw the rocky dropoff ahead, but it was too late. The raft flew up in the air and so did Leslie and Bill. They both landed on the bank, unharmed. As they sat up, trembling with shock, Bill quietly told Leslie to turn around slowly.

There sat a large black bear staring at them.

Posted in Fiction

The Old Man by the Sea

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The old man stood on the pier. He was there at high tide. He was there at low tide. He particularly liked to be there at sunset. He seemed to know everyone and everyone seemed to know him. If you walked by him on the pier, you wouldn’t have found anything particularly physically special about this man. He was more than middle-aged. Animated in his physical movements. Tall in stature. He seemed to make an effort to meet most people who frequented the pier.

Joy began to talk to him about the manatees in the water. He heard her mention them and pointed out the spot to her where she might see them. He was amusing and both she and Glen enjoyed talking with him. She felt like he was doing stand-up comedy. Finally, Glen went off to talk with one of the fishermen on the pier. Joy enjoyed speaking to the old man. She sought out intellectual conversations whenever the opportunity arose. He certainly fulfilled that need for her. At first, she snapped pictures of the beautiful sunset as they talked.

He was the kind of person you felt like you had known forever. You wished you had known him forever. He was wise. Kind. One of Joy’s first impressions was that his eyes seemed to look right through her, right to her heart and soul. She found that interesting, but disconcerting. They talked a bit about their work and each downplayed what they had done in their past life, before retirement. She still did not know exactly what the old man did in his former life. He learned a bit more about her, but not specifics. Somehow, those things didn’t seem important when they were talking. They talked about deeper things, although they kept it lighthearted in tone.

The sun set and the old man told her about some of the creatures of the night that came to the pier. The night heron who tried to steal the fisherman’s catch. The great egret who stood at the far end of the pier and watched the action. The manatees. The dolphins. Joy felt that he had so much more to share with her that they could talk forever.

The old man introduced her to many people who came to the pier and told her about them. What they did, who they were, how they fit in his life. She had never really met anyone like him. Joy’s career had been almost exclusively male-dominated. She had not only worked mostly with men, but had male friends, all her life. She enjoyed the company of men, often more than women. She was comfortable.

Joy found herself drawn to this man of the sea, drawn to his interesting observations about life. She liked to listen to him and would have liked to talk with him more, but there was no opportunity.

One day she went to the pier at high tide. Her worst fear had come true. The old man  wasn’t there. She went back at low tide, then at sunset. No sign of him. She repeated that pattern for many days. She felt a deep sense of loss. Maybe someday he’ll be back, she thought.

It had been a long time since Joy had let anyone close in any way. The old man of the sea had touched her soul. She didn’t even know his name.

Copyright Rosemary Carlson 2017

*Photo Credit to Last Door Down the Hall Blog

Posted in Fiction

Poverty or Plenty

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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It was important to Rita that she have a career. More important than anything. She married, but neither she nor her husband wanted children. She wanted her offspring to be the lives she touched as a professional woman. It was the late 1970s.

Rita decided on a career path. One that was going to be difficult because it was typically a man’s world. She didn’t buy that. If she studied hard, worked harder, she knew that she could do it. She could compete with men. She could certainly work with men. She was up for that challenge. Not only would this career path be fulfilling for her as a professional, but it would provide her with financial security. Financial security was important to Rita. She had never had much of that growing up.

Rita went to college, then to graduate school. She succeeded in obtaining the credentials she needed to pursue her desired career. She went after a job. She was highly sought after because she was a woman. It was now the early 1980s and companies were seeking diversity in their workforce.

Rita worked very hard, accomplishing as much as two men. Companies still discriminated back then. She was never paid as much as men doing comparable jobs. She stil worked hard. She was able to have a home, cars, clothes, travel, and all the things she thought she wanted. Best of all, she was able to buy them with money she had earned. She didn’t have to depend on any one else.

She didn’t regret her decision regarding not having children. She’d never been taught domestic skills growing up. Never been encouraged to be a mother. She wouldn’t have known how. Outside of her work, she developed many other interests and a plethora of friends. She had a lot of skills, both in her vocation and as avocations.

As Rita got older and started thinking about retirement, she realized that she didn’t really want to retire. After all, what would she do with no family? She had already traveled around a big part of the world, at least the part she wanted to see. She had known for some time that her home didn’t really give her pleasure. Rita had been taught to take pleasure in “things.” Beautiful, expensive things, but they were still just things. She had a house full of these beautiful and expensive things that meant nothing to her. They carried sad memories. Memories of loved ones who were long gone. She hated looking at these things. They simply signified the loss of the family she had loved.

Rita had “plenty.” But, plenty of what? Material things? Sadness?

Then Rita experienced a crisis in her life. A traumatic experience that made her question everything about her life. Her home reminded her of that crisis. She felt that she needed time away from it. She decided to take another trip, this time to a place she had always loved but where she had not visited in some time. A very different place from her home. Somewhere she felt she could recover from the traumatic event that had occurred in her life.

Something happened while Rita was on her trip to the place where she felt she could recover from her tragedy. Rita realized what she needed in her life and it was not the “plenty” she had at her home. It wasn’t the big house, the nice cars, the beautiful clothes, and all the largesse that goes with it. She realized those things were causing a poverty of her spirit. Putting her energy into taking care of such things was the wrong thing for Rita to do. Instead, she needed time to live simply, in a simple place, with like-minded people. After that revelation came to her, she didn’t care about her home again.

Rita realized she couldn’t live any longer with the poverty her spirit felt. She had to leave the people and places that made her feel inadequate and stressed. She had to leave the house where she had plenty, but where she really lived in poverty, and the house that stole her time. She had to run, as fast and hard as she could, toward the place and the people who made her feel young again, strong again, smart again. She had to do it quickly because she was in the last quarter, the last quarter of her life.

She would take with her the people from the “before” life who she loved and who loved her and who made her feel strong. She would leave all the others behind. She would embrace the new place, the magical place. She would make this last quarter of  her life the quarter of “plenty,” not poverty of spirit, and finally be happy.

Posted in Blog Series

Travel Florida: The Goats of Ft. Myers and more

Posted on by R.M. Carlson


Yes, goats. Real, live goats. I’m not using the word goats to mean anything else. The goats are those you see in the pictures above. Let me tell you the story.

We were eating lunch at a restaurant on a main street in Ft. Myers, FL. As we left the restaurant, I looked up and realized that across six lanes of traffic, there was a large field. A pasture-like area that looked like a farm. A farm? On a main street in a big Florida city? Sure enough, I was right. I walked to the curb and it was a farm with some sort of animals grazing in the pasture. You can see from the picture above that the animal was goats. An entire herd of them! The story doesn’t end here.

We drove across the road and pulled in a small parking area by the pasture’s fence. I got out of the car and the whole herd came running toward me. Many stuck their heads through the fence. They looked well-cared for. I looked around. There was a small barn that said “Pitts Farm Market” on it. There was no vegetable or fruit stand around. Everything appeared closed, except there was this pasture full of goats! 

When I got back to my house, I looked up Pitts Farm Market online. It seems it did once exist but has long since been closed. The mystery is, “Who owns the goats?” 

Who takes care of the goats? Why are they still in a pasture in the middle of Ft. Myers, Florida? On land that has to be incredibly valuable. Don’t ask me. I just live here. 

Posted in Finance, Flash Fiction

Grace

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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He didn’t dare go home. He had worked all day, but he and his buddies had slipped out to the car and had one too many snorts of Old Crowe. He didn’t want to incur Pansy’s wrath, and he didn’t want to scare his sweet daughter.

That bike had been sitting there all day. Everyone was gone. He jumped on it and headed to the bar. He’d have another drink or two. Gus would let him sleep it off in the back room.

Sitting on the bar stool, he turned around and there stood Pansy. She offered him her arm.

 

Photo Credit @ Jellico’s Stationhouse

Posted in Blog Series

Travel Florida: An Interesting Bird Experience

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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See that bird? That bird demonstrated to me tonight what a vastly different environment I’m living in. That bird is a Night Heron. I could not supply you with my own picture because when I saw him, it was dark and he was almost on top of me. It was not the optimal environment in which to take his photograph! So, Wikipedia is providing his picture. I hope to get one of my own.

Night herons are not the Great Blue Herons you’ve heard of. Oh no. They are birds that like to ambush us unsuspecting people. Specifically, unsuspecting people who have been fishing. Let me tell you what happened.

I visited the pier at Bokeelia tonight, another community on Pine Island. A beautiful place and I will post pictures. We met some people, and we were all hanging out on the pier after sunset talking, laughing, and some were fishing. I was close to one of the fishermen. He would pull in a fish and place it on the pier. At that point, I didn’t know anything about these birds they call night herons.

My companion said Continue reading “Travel Florida: An Interesting Bird Experience” →

Posted in Blog Series

Travel Florida: A Perfect Cup in Matlacha

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Would you like to have the best cup of coffee, along with the best omelet, you’ve ever tasted? Then come to Matlacha, Florida.

Pine Island is not the only beautiful barrier island off the Creative Coast of Ft. Myers and Cape Coral, Florida. Between Pine Island and the mainland are two other barrier islands. The smallest is Matlacha. It is quite the undiscovered jewel! Everything is on the water. In this case, Matlacha Bay. It is considered part of Pine Island, but it really isn’t. It is its own little jewel in the sun.

In Matlacha is a tiny restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch called A Perfect Cup. You never know who you might see in A Perfect Cup – everyone from your neighbor to one of the celebrities who live in the area. It’s a busy place because of its awesome coffee (and tea), its great breakfasts, and its good food for both breakfast and lunch. Today, I took my laptop and went to A Perfect Cup in the morning and did some writing. Not only is it The Perfect Cup, it is the perfect place for such activities.

Yesterday, I was out doing a bunch of stuff and did not have time to eat a proper lunch. I stopped by A Perfect Cup and they fixed a Chicken Salad Sandwich for me – to go. It was wonderful! No fast food for me when in Florida! It’s also the perfect place to go and write for awhile. A writer’s haven! A Perfect Cup is the Perfect Place. If you’d like to read more about it, take a look at its TripAdvisor site.

Posted in Flash Fiction

Bank Heist

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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We hid under the branches of the old, twisted tree. Crouching so they couldn’t see us. We didn’t think they were chasing us with dogs because we couldn’t hear them bay. If they were, we were already lost. David and I, we had just robbed First Farmer’s Bank at the point of a gun. Armed bank robbery.

We got the money too. We hadn’t had time to count it. We’d been off escaping on foot. By the looks of the bills, we had quite a haul. Everyone had said that if you rob a bank, something would explode and get red stuff all over you. Nothing had exploded. We could just hear those sheriff’s men crashing through the forest after us. We crept along the high ridge.

“Cut,” the Director cried!

“And print. Great job, everyone! We’re done for the day.”

 

#Photo credit to yarnspinner