Reflections - The Check’s in the Mail

Book Cover - Photo by Chicken Soup for the Soul

Finally! I’ll get paid for a published story. Three figures even. And I have Babs to thank.

I popped onto a ZOOM meeting of the Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters (MVP) one fall Saturday in 2021. Murmuring conversations and rectangles with five writers' videos met me. Babs held her gray tabby. Putting the cat down, she said in her smooth alto voice, “Hey, Janet. Check out the Chicken Soup for the Soul submissions.” Her eyes looked straight into the computer screen. “They’re calling for dog stories. You’d be good at those.”

Mumbling okay, though the Chicken Soup stories I’d read had been church-preachy, I started the writing group meeting while my mind reflected on what Babs had said. She did give good advice. She’d published so many novels that she once half-joked, “I thought I’d write about ecoterrorism. Then I realized I already had.” Babs made me curious.

After the meeting, I looked up the guidelines. Editors requested stories featuring lessons learned from dogs, mine or one I knew well. Spence and I had owned nine cats as husband and wife—never a dog. But we’d encountered many over the years.

 

My mind wandered back to the summer of 2008. Spence and I—less arthritic and tremor free—had taken three-mile walks along roads populated with all kinds of dogs. A puffy toy dog yipped until we passed her farm. A mean dog snarled and bared his teeth at the sticks we carried past his house. A giant mutt named Arby, who terrified strangers, wagged his tail to welcome us. And Spot.

A sigh escaped my heart for the friendly beagle. Once I’d pulled into the log house driveway and opened the Subaru’s door. Spot put his front paws on the metal sill and lay his head on my thigh. Chicken Soup for the Soul or not, I would write about Spot.

He belonged to Dick Hill, slept on one neighbor’s door mat, gobbled another neighbor’s outdoor cat food, and adopted us for walks.

Nose down and pony tail up, I wrote. Pleased, I took the story back to MVP.

The writing group gave encouraging feedback, caught embarrassing typos, and pointed out places to clarify. My enthusiasm, over their “great dog story” conclusion, quickly evaporated because Babs shook her head. “It doesn’t have a Chicken Soup for the Soul ending.”

Listening to her advice, I reworked the conclusion fitting the Chicken Soup criteria yet still satisfying myself. I submitted “Crossing the Bridge” on January 26, 2022. Like buying an item online, an automated email confirmed that my submission had been received.

Spot

A long silence followed. I figured the story had landed in the bottom of someone’s slush pile.

Nearly nine months later, an email appeared in my inbox: Your story “Crossing the Bridge” has made it to the first phase of our selection round for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Lessons Learned from My Dog. Only a small percent of the submitted stories have made it this far.

I had to fill out more forms and could still be rejected.

On September 29, a wait of only thirteen days, another email made me shriek for joy and yank my ponytail in despair. I’d made the final cut. However, the last two paragraphs had been chopped off. I didn’t want to appear in Lessons Learned from My Dog with no lessons.

Three tabby cat heads swiveled. Their eyes followed me stomping and muttering around the house until I reread the email about sending back edits. Duh. I could delete other sections and reinsert my ending.

My revisions accepted, I relaxed and fell into silence mode again.

My son Charlie came home on December 12 lugging a heavy box. He said, “It’s for you.”

I was puzzled. Not that he brought a box home. Since he works at UPS, he puts a hold on all our packages to save the drivers a stop. “I don't remember ordering anything that heavy.”

“It’s definitely for you.” He set the box on the table.

Slitting the packing tape, I pulled back crumpled paper to find ten shiny copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Lessons Learned from My Dog. I slapped my hands against my head and silently recited the line Jane Austen wrote upon receiving her copy of Pride and Prejudice. “. . . I have got my own darling Child from London . . .”

Though the books in the box were not “my darling child,” I lifted one out reverently and searched for my story. “Crossing the Bridge” is on page seventy-six.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Lessons Learned from My Dog goes on sale January 24. My check will come in the mail a couple weeks after that.

Finally, I’m a paid, published author.

Opening Chicken Soup for the Soul Box with Rills

 

 Reflections -A Lasting Sparkle

Smartwool Socks

A week after country rifles shot in 2023, one memory outshines the Hallmark moments family, friends, and furry companions created for me during the holidays this year.

It began ordinarily enough with Spence’s observation on Christmas Eve. “You’re barefoot. You need to put socks on.”

“I’m not cold.” Our geothermal furnace kept the house barefoot comfortable. And I’d kicked my open heel slippers off so I didn't trip on the spiral stairs. Carrying my laptop, mug of tea, and eight o’clock pills, I climbed to the loft.

He followed, toting my princess blanket and the battery operated leg massagers I use for restless leg relief. “Your feet will get cold.”

Setting the computer on the sewing table, I clicked on Amazon Prime videos, selected Something from Tiffany’s, and cast it to the wide screen TV. “I’ll tuck my feet under the princess blanket.” I settled in the folding recliner.

Spence knelt to help wrap the massagers around my legs. “You need to put on socks.”

The buzz of the batteries pumping air through the wraps blended with the murmur of Christmas shoppers in the movie. I pulled the blanket over my legs, wraps, and feet. “I’m fine. Toasty even.”

Spence left.

On the screen, Daisy helped her dad Ethan select a diamond ring.

Footsteps thudded up the spiral stairs.

Kneeling in front of me a second time, Spence ripped open a clear plastic bag containing lavender and gray Smartwool socks. “Think of it as an early Christmas present.” He pulled my right foot out from under the princess blanket and fitted a sock over my toes. Though Spence pushed, it didn’t glide on as smoothly as Cinderella’s glass slipper. He seesawed the sock back and forth.

The sock felt warm, soft, and cuddly. Spence reached for my other foot. Together we pulled the sock on. He sat back on his heels. “Do you feel warm?”

“I feel like I want to marry you all over again.”

Blushing behind his beard, Spence crushed the plastic wrappings in one hand and grabbed the arm of the recliner with the other hand. He rose and departed quicker this time.

The movie drew my attention to the blue gift bags, one containing a diamond ring and the other containing earrings, on the New York sidewalk. No sparkling gift from Tiffany’s could beat the gift Spence had just given me. And I didn’t mean the comfy socks.

After fifty-four years, six months, and twenty-three days of marriage, he still treats me like a cherished bride. As if caught in amber, his caring gesture will glow in my heart. Forever. Whatever.

The sound of Spence’s feet thudding downstairs changed to his feet thumping onto the coffee table. He doesn’t keep me company while I watch movies in the evening—the last vestige of “princess mode” from my September surgery recovery. His concern for my well being only extends so far. Spence hates rom-coms.

 

Princess Feet