The Pluses of On-Demand Publishing

As I said in my previous blog, most writers (myself included) would prefer to have a contract with a publishing house, as that confers a certain degree of respectability and comes with an advance and access to the resources of the company (such as publicity). Having said that, I have come up with a list of positive attributes for the on-demand publishing side of things.

 

1)      Good for the environment. Your book is not mass-produced, so there’s no pre-publishing guess about how many copies will be needed by the public. Each book represents a desired commodity, and no books get remaindered. This is good for our forests. And as Kindle use grows, even fewer trees will meet the axe.

 

2)      The book never goes out of print. Once computer files of the book are uploaded, your book will always be available unless you decide to take it down.

3)      No timetable for publicity. If the book is always available, you can do publicity bursts whenever and however you choose.

 

4)      Corrections can be made quickly and easily.  This point might not seem very important, but if you’ve ever worked in book publishing (as I have), you know the process authors go through to correct typos, etc. By the time changes are incorporated, many thousands of books may have already been produced and purchased.

5)       No second-novel pressure. As a fiction writer, I’m not supposed to talk about this, but many published writers feel some panic about producing a second book. But in this case, if your second title doesn’t sell like the first, you’re the only one to know. In fact, commercial success is moot, though plenty of on-demand publishing authors sell very well (a friend of mine mentioned to me that one of her students had sold more than 10,000 copies).

 

6)      Less ego involvement. We all like our ego stroked, but there’s a delicious sweetness in sending your book out into the world without fanfare. Like a parent, you trust this creation (which is yours and not yours) to go forth and make its way.

7)      No publishing house author hatred. If you’re a writer whose book has traveled the ordinary publishing house route, this might surprise you, but oftentimes there’s some copy editor or production person gnashing their teeth at the mere mention of your name. I remember this well…such comments as, “Will he ever stop making corrections?” “She’s in my office making kissy sounds over the phone with her husband, and I can’t get her to leave.” “He only thinks he knows Spanish.” “She thinks she lives here, and she keeps staring at my breasts.” “Can you believe that advance? Good god, how I hate her.” (By the way, if you are a publishing house author, follow Cristina Garcia’s--Dreaming in Cuban—lead and send gracious notes to everyone who worked on your book. You’d be surprised how few do this, and a simple thank you goes a long way. Your agent and editor are not the only significant people in the development of your book.)

 

 

Self-Publish or Perish

Roughly two years ago, I finished writing a novel called Dream of an Inland Sea. Unfortunately, I have terrible timing, as Lehman Brothers had just gone into bankruptcy, and most of us were simultaneously learning about real estate derivatives and sensing that our economic security had been horribly undermined.

Many years before, I worked in book publishing in New York City (HarperCollins, Alfred A. Knopf), and I knew that this industry was not unlike others; when people become more conservative regarding financial risks, every business is affected. In book publishing, this means agents and editors view all incoming manuscripts with more reserve than they did before—and this was in addition to the reserve they’d already developed due to Americans’ changing reading habits, the growth of the internet, and the availability of e-books.

But, ever hopeful, I began sending my book to agents. After three or four rejections, I almost had one, but someone at the agency with veto power prevailed. At this point, I went through some soul-searching. Is the book flawed? I wondered. Do I need revisions, or am I satisfied with its vision and execution?

I decided I was happy with the book but that I didn’t have the energy to pursue finding an agent. This decision was, no doubt, affected by the journey I’d been on with my twins, both of whom have special needs. Publishing the book was no longer my most important focus, and I was at peace that I had managed to finish the manuscript. I decided to put it away and bide my time. I had children to raise, and maybe the book didn’t need to be in the marketplace.

Then my high school band mate Dean Fetzer and his wife, Debra, came for a visit. They live in England, and Dean is also a writer. He, too, had not found a place within traditional publishing, but with energy and can-do, he’d begun successfully to self-publish his mystery novels online. During his visit, he said, “Why don’t I help you? Can I read the book?”

At first, I was dubious. When I went through the graduate program at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, “vanity publishing” (which was how self-publishing was once described) was  considered just that: evidence of the author’s feeling of self-importance, a purple signpost announcing the person’s inability to write or, at the very least, to successfully edit his- or her own work.

But the publishing industry has changed, and I decided that I should, too. I have friends who have been successful with the typical publishing route, and I applaud them, and of course, I still wish to join them, as it would be ever so lovely to have an advance and a publicity machine. But because I was at peace about the book, I thought, Why not? The novel might not sell a lot of copies, but maybe someone will enjoy it. That was an electrifying thought, as no writer honestly writes entirely for the self.

So…my book is now available in paper and ebook form. This novel means a great deal to me, and I would be so honored should any of you decide to read it. Here are the links:

PAPERBACK:

US
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0956158188/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0956158188&linkCode=as2&tag=deafet-20
UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0956158188/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=deafet-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0956158188

KINDLE:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=dream%20of%20an%20inland%20sea

 

 

 

Steal This Business Idea (Please!)

It’s Mother’s Day, 2012, 10 a.m., and I’ve

1)      Performed part of a gastronomy tube feed on one 11-year-old child,

2)      Bathed and changed the clothes (and beds) of both this same child and his twin (they both have autism),
3)      Cleaned the kitchen after a lovely breakfast made by my partner, Lisa,
4)      Set up one child in the master bedroom with a video about the moon,
5)      Set the other up in the living room with a Signing Time video, on a loop, the way he likes it.

A pretty good morning, actually. (Don’t ruin it by telling me I’m a bad mother for “parking” my children in front of the telly; I already know this.)

So if it’s a good morning, why is it I feel that someone should create the Karen Leh Home for the Perpetually Perplexed?

No, this is not the business idea (but come to think of it, you might want to stay tuned on that one). The business idea would actually counteract my perpetual confusion and make such a home unneeded. What I’m thinking of is a nonprofit called Rent-a-Mom. Not a mom for my kids—no. For me!

Before anyone thinks I’m putting down my own mother, I should say this: I adore my mother. We’ve come through a great deal together, but she’s 75 years old, and her health is not that great. Plus, she lives two hours away. And our town home has (count ‘em!)  29 steps—which isn’t even counting the three to our front door or the seven into the lowest part of the basement. In short, it’s a septuagenarian’s nightmare. (And to punctuate this household issue, Lisa has just called me on the land line from our basement. No joke.)

So why would Rent-a-Mom be necessary and what would it entail?

Unfortunately, I have to back way up. Picture yourself with twin babies, then imagine flying halfway across the country, both three-month-old infants in tow, so that one can get open-heart surgery that will then go very wrong. Five months, seven corrected heart defects, one heart valve, one tracheotomy, one gastronomy tube, and a brain bleed later, you are back at home. One child lies on the floor. He has a tube that has been lassoed around his neck and is blowing oxygen and moisture at his trach, the fog of which billows up around him, prompting an overseas friend who sees a picture of this get-up to remark that he “looks like an astronaut.” The other baby seems to be doing okay, is hitting his milestones, but eventually takes to screaming day and night, forgets how to use his eating utensils, loses his vocabulary, stops giving eye contact, and begins incessantly lining up Matchbox cars.

I could go on, but you get the idea. When my children were small, I used to threaten to put a flagpole on my roof where I’d attach a white surrender flag so that someone would come and rescue me—or at the very least, feel like crap for NOT coming to rescue me. I also used to fantasize about getting in the car and driving.

And driving. And driving. Away, anywhere. One of my friends, who also had a critically ill child, told me, “Oh man, if you do that, call me. I want to come.”

Somehow, we all survived, though with what mental defects I do not know. I remember one particularly horrible instance where one of our twins, at about age six, had diarrhea, took off his pants, danced through it, then oh-so-artfully fingerpainted his walls, the curtains, the windows, and everything else. This had happened on many other occasions but never this badly.

“Lisa,” I said, “we’ve had a poop disaster, and I think we’re going to have to tear up the carpet.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” she insisted.

I went back upstairs, and after several minutes, she came to survey the damage. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” she muttered. “We’re going to have to tear up the carpet.”

“Yes,” I said, jaw set.

She left the house to purchase a truckload of cleaning supplies and tools we’d need. I will not describe her mental state or the particular swear words she chose for the occasion, but suffice it to say, she was not happy.

I was, if I remember correctly, shaky. But I was clear-headed enough to call one of the boys’ paraprofessionals from school. “Can you come?” I asked after explaining the situation.

Fortunately, she did. I’d never had anyone help before, but I probably had never sounded like that before either. She was, no doubt, somewhat alarmed. Sherry (the parapro), shepherded the kids, and Lisa and I proceeded to take the room down to the subfloor. I opened the windows, cleaned the walls, threw away bedding, curtains, stuffed animals, books, you name it, moved the one boy into a different room with his brother, then locked the door to the ruined room and left it closed off for something like nine months. Sherry, being the sweetheart that she was and is, entreated Lisa and me to go out for dinner afterward, just the two of us. We sat in a Chile’s in numb, stunned silence for quite a while, as I recall, like people just returned from some unknown circle of hell.

I’ve heard others tell similar tales. One mom I met several years ago told me that after her autistic son pulled a brand-new $2,000 plasma television set down on himself, she promptly packed the whole family off to the ER. Not because anyone was hurt but simply because they “needed monitoring.” But who can afford to do that every time a TV is destroyed or a room is redecorated with feces?

Many of you might think, But Rent-a-Mom already exists—it’s called Therapy. But again, I tell you, too expensive, especially for those of us who are parents of special needs children (for those of you who don’t know, most of these parents 1) have filed for bankruptcy, 2) totter somewhere near the brink of it, and/or 3) have avoided it only by virtue of loving family). Plus, if you’ve come through a room-destroying scenario like the one I described, a 45-minute “therapeutic hour” will never suffice. And, honestly, complaining only goes so far. I’d be happier if someone came and did my laundry or just sat and brushed my hair. The way I picture Rent-a-Mom, it’s a funded service, gratis for the person being served.

Sherry was my hero that day. But what if there was always someone like that that you could call? Even mothers of neurotypical children could use such a service. Hell, even single, childless people could use it once in a while (read my post entitled “Karen’s ‘Helpful Hints’ on Coming Out” if you don’t believe me). Most of us have dear friends and family, but I have to tell you, it’s incredibly hard to ask for help, or to keep asking for help. And sometimes the help you need is just someone to make sure your kids are safe while you do a hard thing. Someone to make you a cup of tea and remind you to breathe. Someone to say, “Go out and eat, go grab a nap, go for a walk—I’ve got it.”

In short, a mom. But a younger, able-bodied, no-emotions-invested-in-this-situation kind of mom. (My own mother knows better and would never do this, but the last thing you want someone to say in a situation like the one I described is, “Why did you leave him alone in his room for twenty minutes?”)

This nonprofit I’m thinking of would offer short-term but essential help. I would start it if only I didn’t still need it so badly (argh!), but maybe this is your calling? Go ahead, I dare you—steal this idea.

To the Madonna of the Healthy Children

Yes, you—the one who came into the coffee shop lugging a car seat and a beautiful baby girl who is still fast asleep and enfolded in gauzy pink blankets while you sip a hot drink on the couch with your friend. I know I’m not supposed to be listening, but my table is inches away, and I can’t help hearing you any more than I can help peeking at your child.

“Typical” children astound me—I look at them as if they’re aliens because neither of my children has full health (they have been given six diagnoses between them, and both are considered autistic). I know in my head that fully functioning children are still the norm, that women’s bodies (by and large) know instinctively what to do to create life and deliver it in perfect packages. (That happens every day, I remind myself, astonished.) I am currently studying to become a nurse, and one thing that surprises me daily is that despite the complexity of the body, most of us are extremely healthy. We also possess an incredible ability to heal when our health goes awry.

I know that my pregnant body, too, did a good job. I have gorgeous children who possess all their fingers and toes and functioning muscles. They can produce words, are capable of affection and emotion as well as humor, and they do learn. But one’s heart folded incorrectly, probably in those first couple weeks in the womb, which set off a whole series of post-birth operations, surgical accidents, and developmental fall-out. His twin mysteriously regressed at about two and lost all the milestones he’d achieved.

Needless to say, I’ve been living in a whole different world. And it’s all right—I really mean that. I think I’m privy to some insight that I wouldn’t have otherwise, which is extremely valuable to me though it’s been costly. I’m not saying these things to call forth your pity or excessive admiration. But my life is very different from yours. So different, in fact, that I sometimes can’t relate to “ordinary” people. They mystify and sometimes downright irritate me. In a week in which the CDC announced another rise in the number of autistic children (1 in 88), I’m no doubt a little more cranky than usual.

But I’m off the point: Listen, you are complaining about the loss of sleep, the two o’clock feedings, the soreness of your breasts, about managing your other two children and your husband’s work schedule, and I want to yell, “Stop! Do you not see the bliss on your newborn’s face, the blush in her cheeks? Could she be any more perfect? Do you realize what a privilege it is to have these so-called problems? So seven-year-old Michael’s not doing as well as his peers with reading, and you have to nag Natasha to practice the piano—but Michael’s only seven, and he’s reading, for godsake, and Natasha—don’t even get me started. She can decipher music and manipulate her fingers across a keyboard well enough to play? That’s simply amazing to me. And here you are at a coffee shop, looking for all the world like someone who’s showered and is wearing clean clothes.”

This may sound a little like “when I was young, I had to walk three miles through the snow to get to school,” but bear with me. Basic daily tasks were tough to manage, if not absolutely impossible, when my children were infants. How, for example, do you take a shower and ensure that your baby is still breathing through his tracheotomy? How do you help your significant other get enough rest to function at work when you both are awakened by a tantrumming toddler who screams from two until five in the morning many nights of the week for years? When does the laundry get washed—okay, maybe it can be wedged in, between occupational therapy at one and speech therapy at three, but who knows?

And now that my kids are eleven, I still have trouble with these tasks. I certainly could never bring them into a coffee shop for more than maybe ten minutes. One child would bother patrons who are studying their computer screens (because he loves computers) or would go behind the counter so as to investigate the cash register or push buttons on the microwave (he blew up the one in our home). The other child will be overwhelmed by the smell of coffee, the large number of strange people, and heaven-only-knows-what-else because his sensory system just can’t cope with the intricacies and—what is to him—the onslaught of our world.

I don’t mean to be persnickety although I’m sure I’m coming across that way. And I don’t mean to imply that I do not ever enjoy my children because I do. I realize, too, that neurotypical children can also be challenging. Besides, difficulties are relative, right? If you’ve no experience other than the reality you’re living, your life can seem quite difficult. I, too, am reminded of this fact when I see people in desperate poverty, in our country or elsewhere. Or when I think of friends who have an autistic child (or children) who are divorced and parenting solo, or those whose children are more severely impacted, having to spend weeks or months in hospitals or lock-down units because they’re so dysregulated that they’re violent or self-abusive. I have a friend whose life was forever changed by her son with special needs, only to have him die at eight and a half, which was beyond unfair. Believe me, I know I have a great deal for which to be thankful. Still, I don’t know if my children will ever be fully independent, or even independent enough to take themselves regularly to a bathroom. This is a whole different level of worry.

So go ahead and complain—sometimes we just need to. I get that. But don’t fooled. Your troubles are not that bad.

I was recently reading a piece about Angelina Jolie because…well, I’m a bit obsessed—she's beautiful, her husband’s beautiful, they have this exotic, beautiful menagerie of children. She and Brad were attending some banquet (I forget which one) where Brad was nominated for an award. The interviewer asked Angelina something to the effect of “Does he get nervous about these things?” And her reply was something like “Oh, a little. But really, if your children are healthy, what is there to be nervous about?” So now she’s my personal hero. How can that come out of the mouth of a starlet when so many day-to-day people don’t even realize such a thing? Talk about a true madonna.

Some people make so much of their children’s “issues” that it feels to me like they’re making things worse. There was a woman in here last week who was hectoring her son relentlessly about his math, really going at him, which made me feel embarrassed and sorry for him (irony of ironies, he had the same name as one of my sons). And a friend recently told me about a hockey practice she went to where a father yelled out at his child, “Try not to be a dumb-ass.” Say what?!

I don’t think you will do that (I certainly hope not). But please recognize that half the things you are worrying about—okay, I’ll just say it—are stupid. Honestly, if no one’s dying, there’s not a problem. (I sat at the bedside of my heart-baby for two weeks and didn’t have a place I could even touch him, he had so many tubes coming out of his jaundiced, swollen body, so you can take my word on this one.)

Breathe. Look around (it’s a stunning day). Listen to your friend—really listen. Enjoy that baby’s sleep. For heaven’s sake, enjoy that baby’s sleep.

Obscure Lessons from Math & Science

Maybe these lessons are not so obscure, but as I’ve been taking prerequisites for a nursing program, they represent another dimension of what I’ve been learning/relearning. (I apologize ahead of time for the uneven tone of what follows: some of these “lessons” engender my humorous side, while other inspire my inner philosopher or social psychologist.)

What’s the status on your permeable membrane?  Not a typical question, I know, and I’m not talking about your skin or the envelope around your cells, from which I drew the example. Most people, I assume, fall into the psychological category of semi-permeable. (If you’re in that category, bully for you. Go on to the next lesson.) The rest of us possess the unfortunate quality of taking in too much or too little.

I’m afraid that since I fall into the first category, I won’t be much help on the second. If you don’t take enough in, all I can really say is this: Be assured that you are this kind of person if you find yourself on an episode of “I Married a Mobster.” (I mean, come on. There were signs.) One should also be alarmed if 1) a significant other carries on a year-plus affair, 2) an accountant or investor steals all of one’s life savings (though those folks can be tricky, it’s true), 3) everyone at the conference table is howling with laughter, but you “just don’t get it.”

Unfortunately, as I intimated, I don’t know how to help. Ask more questions? Develop some healthy paranoia? Ask the heavens to unstick the cobwebby goo from around your senses? (I’m at a loss, so please forgive me. Because I’m at the other end of the spectrum, trying to come up with solutions is like an uber-wealthy politician trying to relate to your joblessness or end-of-the-month inability to pay bills).

For those of us in the overly permeable category, there’s a panoply of options. A very incomplete list would include 1) unremediated schizophrenia or other mental illness, 2) pharmaceuticals!, 3) heavy use of alcohol and/or street drugs!, 4) permanent hermit status, 5) endless years of therapy, 6) endless journaling, or my personal favorites, 7) yoga and meditation, 8) relentless internal “housekeeping,” whereby you toss on the ash heap various useless assumptions, obsessions, feelings, beliefs, and relationships, or  9) some combination of the above. Believe me, I do not place judgment on anyone’s use of any of the above strategies, although homelessness, jail time, and psychosis present obvious drawbacks.

Oversensitivity sucks. However, seeing the underside of nearly everything has its upside. (Did I just say that?) Maybe it’s even a gift—at least, if one manages not to drink oneself into oblivion, adopt an unwavering victim status, or redirect one’s hurt or sickness in an outward direction (in other words, please avoid becoming the next Unibomber or Timothy McVeigh).

There is usually more than one way to solve a problem. This is true even in addition; it’s called the commutative property (2 +1 can also be written 1+2).

The online algebra classes I’ve taken the last two semesters have solidified this point for me. Pearson Learning Solutions produces these fabulous textbooks with an online interface that I cannot stop raving about. After reading a section of text, I then go into something online called My Math Lab to do the homework. Each question may be answered three times incorrectly before I get dinged. But even so, I always have the option to click a button that pulls up a similar problem so I can try again. Another great feature allows me to pull up an application that will walk me through the steps to the solution. The end result: no math anxiety. I can try a problem, then try it again and again. I can go step by step with the online tutorial—multiple times, if need be.

The second advantageous aspect of this system concerns experimentation. The problem appears on the screen, and say I don’t know quite how to approach it. No problem! Sometimes I’ll just give it a go and see what happens. And sometimes I’ll end up solving the problem in a less than typical fashion. Woo-hoo, I’m a genius, I’ll think. I’m not really, but the mind has amazing ways of working toward solutions.

I’ve found this idea of “more than one way to solve a problem” a useful tenet, and it’s essential to call to mind when someone tells you that you simply must do things a certain way. While it may be true that theirs is more expedient, sane, healthier, safer, or more long-lasting, believe me—it doesn’t represent the only way. And if you follow your own path, you might discover a startlingly wonderful new method of arriving at an answer.

We are all one. Yeah, yeah, I know—this is a spiritual truth and not something one is supposed to derive from math and science. Poppycock. In biology, one thing I’ve been learning about involves systems and their interrelationships. An individual organism is part of a larger population of similar organisms, which then participate in a community, which takes part in an ecosystem, which takes its place in the overall biosphere. This trend moves the other direction as well: from individual to organ systems and organs to tissues to cells to organelles and then molecules and atoms. If someone ingests food with an awful microbe (God help you), that person is likely to feel systemic effects. In the same way, if you toss chemicals into a water body, there will be ever-enlarging effects in the greater world. We understand this in a fundamental way, even if we don’t always acknowledge it (it’s certainly not politically expedient to acknowledge it, that’s for sure).

Here’s another example that should make us pause and look at one another. Human beings—according to what has been learned through the Human Genome Project—are 99.99%  genetically similar. What we might observe about our differences can seem extraordinary, and we put a premium on their value, but statistically speaking, those differences are small.

An experience I’ve had since I stopped working for a local hospice speaks to this point as well. Sometimes I’ll be driving around, and I’ll pass the home of someone I took care of during their final days or months, and then I’ll pass by another and one more. I’ll suddenly be struck by the web of death across Boulder County, by how we’re all connected through that experience—not one of us gets out of it. And I’ll think, Well, if we’re all connected by death, why not by life? Why are we not more aware of our interconnectedness? I don’t have an answer for that one, but I figure there’s some kind of payoff in not acknowledging it. After all, if I’m not connected to you, what do I care if you lost your job, or if the nearby plant or pipeline poisoned your water, if my kid called your kid “retarded,” if the state’s roads look like hell and the neighborhood school stinks and you suffer from some disease that requires my tax dollars but I believe the government shouldn’t take any of my money because I need it for a vacation to the Bahamas?    

Just because you’re solving for X and Y, don’t assume you understand the whole alphabet. By this, I’m referring to what I’m learning regarding graphs (and of course, extrapolating from that). I’ll sometimes graph an equation in algebra, and the line represented by it will shoot up indefinitely—or down, depending. But I’m usually solving for one or two variables, not an infinite number of them. Who knows what that would look like—I’m certainly not there mathematically speaking.

I’ve just started working with a graphing calculator, which is kind of fun. Basically, you have to input the minimum and maximum values for X along the horizontal axis; then you input the minimum and maximum values for Y along the vertical axis. If you don’t set up the window correctly, it may appear as if the graph of the line is shooting up or down at an uninterrupted angle; but widen the window, and whoa! Sometimes the line actually hits its full height a little higher up and then changes direction.

And here, because I’m odd, I think of Whitney Houston (may she rest in peace). What a meteoric rise, right? What a fabulous talent. But it’s hard to know what else was going on—why the sharp downfall, the recovery, her eventual death? None of us can account for all the variables that had an impact on her life. None of us could have predicted the dips and recoveries. Sometimes our “window” isn’t wide enough. And people are full of mystery; you can’t put them on a graph because sometimes their influences are unknown to us (possibly even to them), and influences don’t all possess equal pull. The lesson to me: show some humility, girlfriend.

The body possesses an amazing capacity to heal. You cut yourself with a serrated knife, and five days later, the injury appears to be much better. Experiments with stem cells return function to the malfunctioning body part of a lab rat. Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is shot, and months later, though still struggling with her recovery, she is able to speak and understand, to carry out many tasks of her pre-injured life.

This last example highlights a difficult aspect of this truth: unfortunately, we often learn more about the body’s healing capacity from those events where it fails to do so, or fails in part. I think, too, of my twin sons (who, for those of you who don’t know, share about six medical diagnoses between them). I think of that scar down one son’s chest from heart surgeries, which reminds me that eventually he’ll require another operation; of that inch-long scar on the side of his neck, where the heart-lung machine's tubing entered his body the second time he was hooked up, which reminds me of the brain hemorrhage that occurred during that period because of the blood-thinners he had to be on; of those times my other son finds a phrase and then cannot stop repeating it, the synapses of his brain firing in some fashion I cannot fathom; of the wide-eyed, anxious look that sometimes appears on his face because stimuli from the world is impinging upon his nervous system.

But even in offering these personal examples, I still look at my boys and realize that in so many ways, their little bodies developed according to the usual plan. Muscles attached to bones, their hearts beat, their eyes track an object, they try with amazing courage to communicate, they run and jump and laugh. And from the time of their various diagnoses, they have traveled a long, long way toward recovery.

Also, after reading about meiosis—that very intricate process whereby our parents’ DNA is copied, crosses over, divides, and then divides again, with individual gametes later joining to become each of us—I cannot help being awestruck by my children’s individuality and perfection. Mutations, my textbook assures me, happen with great rarity. But people don’t often find a chunk of meteor either, so if my sons’ genes mutated in some way, I can’t help thinking that it’s as if I had not one but two chunks of star-stuff fall into my backyard. The very fact of their being seems so specific to me, so personal, that I simply assume we are bound up in a grand universal plan of some sort. Hokey-sounding? Maybe, but not from my vantage point.

Death Bed

Death Bed

The wife of my patient

is impatient.            

Her mind is a wet newsprint.

She falls because

the earth cannot stop calling her.

His bones are eaten through.

He cannot lift his head.

She says, in a bullying voice,

“You’d better hurry and get well

because I need you for some things—

and I love you.”

I am astonished,

but he says her name

and she hobbles to him.

His hand shakes

as he pulls her down

for a kiss.

I’m a butterfly then,

reading the air with its wings.

******************************

Cold Morning, May

I tipped the waitress well

though she took my order  

after the ladies I preceded.

Generosity needs no reason,

I tell myself, laying down the bills.

This thought should force my heart  

open, but it doesn’t.

Rain alights on the windshield

as I pull onto South Boulder Road.

North on Cherryvale,

Baseline Lake has pulled a shawl of mist

around its shoulders. It  wants

to be left alone.

Two brown horses stand in a wet field.

They might mind the rain, but

they stand there and take it.

A church sign announces,

god’s grace is all you need,

and I think Really?

I am almost home, where

your every cough

feels like a complaint. It’s true:

our life is too hard.

You gave me time away

but I cannot smooth over my exhaustion

              or rage.

You must feel this way each time

you drive home

but I’m not used to it.

I disappoint myself.

The Vaporizer

A blue light comes on

and a triangular wedge of cool mist

appears, its far edge

                    disappearing

                           into the unknown.

One of my twins  

delights in it,

carrying it from plug to plug,

repeatedly ecstatic that its being

is refreshed—

Ah, the mist! Ah, the light!

But no—his joy comes before that,

when he matches the prongs to the holes:

                      resistance

                               then give.

His brother

is circumspect,

avoiding the spangled energy

just behind the walls.

It resonates in his arms 

and makes the stumbling pathways of his brain

go dark.

Though one night,

sensing something,

I awoke.

From down the hall, I saw him,

a small, dark form on his knees,

no movement but his narrow chest’s

careful expansion,

worshipping the blue light

and its attendant breath.

What’s in a Name? (Or, Confessions of a Girly-Girl)

Once upon a time, in a fabled flatland farm town with an enormous sky, where almost everyone knew almost everyone else as well as how many cattle their family ran, and there was hardly any crime (unless, of course, you were the type to point an accusing finger at a meat-packing plant or raise your fist at a low-flying pesticide plane) . . . there was in this town a five-year-old princess whose mother decided she really wished she’d named her daughter Kari instead of Karen. This was a very long time ago, during what came to be known to the girl as the PLE (Pre-Lesbian Era, probably better named the PKLE for Pre-Knowingly Lesbian Era). A time of schooling lay ahead for the child, the time for letters and numbers, of Show-and-Tell, and so her mother, the queen, thought to herself, I know! When she starts going to school, I’ll have everyone call her Kari.

The girl was perplexed. Can someone just do that, she thought, just change your name? She felt distinctly like a Karen. But maybe she was mistaken. She did an inward shrug, put on a bright yellow overlarge skirt that was safety-pinned at the waist, placed the West Side Story album on the record player, and resumed dancing and singing and pretending she was Natalie Wood (because who in the world was more enchanting, after all?).

She took up tap dancing, then ballet. She replaced her play kitchen and the large baby dolls (whose eyes clicked open and shut) for Barbie dolls [mock horror] and a ping-pong table. Many of her cats were killed by cars on the road that ran by their little castle, which greatly grieved the princess, who loved nothing so much as stroking the fur of a cat. She fixed her hair in five million different hairstyles. She sat for long hours patting her baby brother to sleep after he was born and looking at him gooey-eyed. She took piano lessons, then took up flute, and she tried to figure out how to write a story (without much success, I might add). In other words, she was your basic artsy girly-girl princess.

For many years, she answered to the new name as well as her old one. Then, around the time she was learning times tables and memorizing state names, her teacher asked the students to make a nametag for themselves. The girl penned a neat KAREN OR KARI onto hers.

“Which do you prefer?” asked Mr. Herberts.

“Karen,” the girl replied, then quickly looked around. Let it be said that the ground did not quake, the sky did not fall, but strangely enough, the color of the leaves on the great trees outside the large plate-glass windows brightened. Hmm, the newly reannointed Karen thought.

The queen was chagrined at this development, but alas, she let it go. The curious thing was, though, that the girl’s father, the king, and her younger princeling brother continued to use the newer name. And like the sands of the desert—blowing into gently contoured shapes with feathered ridges—the name became transformed.

“Kari?” her younger brother would say, turning his beautiful golden face toward her.  But the princess heard this: You are my soil water air how I love you let your rain fall soft upon my shoulders.

And when her father said it, she heard, My little one my darling my dear child I will always cushion your fall and no one will ever be allowed to harm you.

And so it went, until one day when the princess realized that she was not interested in a prince-suitor. In fact, there was another princess—one from the far-off Southlands—who, once the two became acquainted, became impossible to live without. Again, the leaves of the trees outside her castle brightened.

This realization caused a great disruption in Princess Karen’s kingdom.  The queen was accepting and loving but obviously distraught. The princess’s brothers handled this development with much grace. The king was supportive but also quiet. That wasn’t unusual, though. He was, by character, a quiet and thoughtful man.

However, one day, when the princess asked him if she could take some photographs from the family albums—pictures from when she was young—the king held up his hand to stop her from showing him which ones she sought. “I can’t look at them,” he said, his voice cracking.

The princess was grieved, but she knew he needed time.

The harder thing for the princess to accept was that both the king and her younger brother no longer affectionately called her by her nickname. Somehow, to them, Kari had died.

But she’s right here, the princess thought. I am still her. She is still inside me.

She didn’t say this to them, though. She didn’t know how. After all, a nickname is a nickname—something people give, not something that can be forced. Maybe, the princess thought, it’s not that important. After all, they still love me.

Sometimes, though, the memory of the lost name nagged at her. She heard its silver, disembodied voice saying, I’m lost I’m lost you’ll never find me.

That’s not true, she would reply. You’re only lost to other people.

So she inwardly recrowned herself KAREN OR KARI. When people asked her about her childhood, she’d say, “I was a princess.” She told them, “I envied my brothers their train and their Matchbox cars, but I still loved my Barbies.” And when people laughed, she’d say, “People shouldn’t be so down on Barbie. That’s about telling stories. Hell, half the time we’d just build her fantastic houses. It doesn’t have to be anti-feminist. Sheesh! Does anybody fear GI Joe or Transformers are going to make macho, insensitive males? I don’t think so.”

So this new, sassier princess felt more like herself as a result—and once again, the leaves on the trees outside her window brightened, and all was well in the kingdom. All was well.

The End.

Tim Tebow and Me*

By now, unless you’ve been locked in a vault the last few months, you’ve heard of Tim Tebow, the Denver Broncos’s quarterback—that guy whose last name has become a verb, whose person has become synonymous with overt displays of piety. Maybe you admire or idolize him, in which case, I don’t need to convince you to keep reading. But maybe you’re sick of hearing about him. If so, I beg you to indulge me.

I once was a little like Tebow, so I now find myself in the odd and distinctly uncomfortable position of both defending and criticizing him. The main thing I’d like to say to everyone on both “sides” is: calm down. He is neither some fantastic miracle man nor an unbelievably obnoxious religious person. He’s just a young man with passionate convictions.

I emphasize “young” for a reason. I don’t know about you, but I remember being young. It wasn’t so long ago (okay, twenty years, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long). And when I was in my twenties, I thought I knew a great deal. I was ready to change the world and was idealistic enough to think that I could do it.

At the time, I was attending a Presbyterian-affiliated college in the Pacific Northwest called Whitworth College—now Whitworth University—in Spokane, Washington. Our campus population was heavily populated with P.K.’s (preachers’ kids) and was very influenced by the evangelical movement (which is not the same as the fundamentalist movement, though people often conflate the two). Many of the students who were believers, including myself, were very passionate about their faith but not literal in their biblical interpretation.

How did this translate, you might wonder? Well, almost everyone bowed their heads over meals in the student cafeteria. There was some social activism—a protest against Apartheid, for example; cafeteria-supported fasts, where the proceeds went to this or that cause or charity, etc. I would say that the majority of students regularly attended church. In addition to having resident assistants in the dorms, we had resident chaplains, who counseled peers and ran weekly Bible studies. Our infirmary didn’t prescribe or give out contraceptives, and alcohol was banned on campus. Of course, you could still go to an off-campus doctor for the former, and if you didn’t live in a dorm, you could drink all you wanted. There were obvious and not-so-obvious pluses and minuses about this set-up.

How all of that translated for me was this: my best friend and I, when there was no Ash Wednesday service at the chapel one year, performed our own private rite with ashes she’d gathered from a dorm fireplace (one of my favorite memories); I begged my father to allow me to go on a mission trip to Pakistan, and he (wisely) refused; I dated a couple of guys with whom I had pretty chaste relationships; I became a resident chaplain; at one point, I lay in bed for a full twenty-four hours, paralyzed with the fear that I was lesbian (much later confirmed). I also got a great education.

At the time, I thought I was going on to seminary, and for two summers I worked at a nondenominational evangelical church in Richland, Washington, home of the former Hanford Site, a facility instrumental in producing plutonium for the first nuclear bombs and, reputedly, now one of the most contaminated. My little anti-nuke self hadn’t realized this before I went there, and I wonder if knowing would have changed my mind. In any case, I went.

The first summer, I lived with the minister and his family, so I wasn’t confronted much by the politics of the situation. I did, however, sit through an interesting presentation by a lay person in the church about the ethics of nuclear energy. His discussion was fascinating and pretty compelling, I admit. Even if I wasn’t thoroughly convinced, I had a much better understanding of how someone who believed differently from me was thinking about this topic. I essentially figured out that good people can hold very different views from me, which was a great thing to learn.
 
The second summer, I lived with a middle-aged couple from the church. The first night in their house, at dinner, the husband told me that he was at work on the Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as the “Star Wars” Plan. My jaw must have dropped because he then began defending the program, telling me how their research had taught them many useful things, even if none of it was ever used in the way that had been proposed. I was not fully reassured, and I had that uneasy feeling you get when you know you’re about to be taught a lesson.

The wife was an amazing cook, but I learned to stay out of the house while she worked in the kitchen. Not because the scents were overpowering and hunger-inducing (they were) but because she listened to a talk radio station that left me silently spluttering if I happened to be in an adjoining room. This was the summer of the Oliver North trial, and the station she listened to was adamantly pro-Ollie. In absenting myself, I managed to postpone the reckoning I faced weeks later when this couple and their friends sat in front of the TV one evening cheering on Oliver North. I will tell you: I was upstairs and apoplectic. I realized what I’d gotten myself into and wondered how I could accept the church’s money when I finished work in August (I was so in denial and naïve that it was just sinking in that that “scholarship” was mostly nuclear-facility-generated). I knew the people I’d lived and worked with were good people; they were doing what they felt was right. But I also knew I had compromised myself. I’d like to say I turned the money down, but I didn’t. I knew I’d made a mistake, but I was young, and I vowed to do better next time.

No matter what your politics may be, please understand that that is not the point. I tell this story to illustrate what one might do when one is young, how one can unwittingly stumble onto a stage one is not fully prepared for, armed with faith and conviction.

Obviously, Tim Tebow has a more visible stage than I had or ever hope to have. But I understand his from the perspective described. I say this not so much in regard to his kneeling thing but about something more serious, to my mind. Remember when Tebow was still a Florida Gators quarterback, and he met up with James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family? As a result of their joining forces, Tim and his mother produced a Super Bowl commercial, the end of which referred viewers to Dobson’s site and an anti-abortion message.  No matter what you might think of that, I believe the ensuing firestorm had an impact: when he was recently encouraged to endorse a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential contest, Tebow refused. (Score one for carefully monitoring one’s influence?)

I’m not saying that anyone should not or cannot be held responsible for their choices. But maybe we need to cut Tebow some slack. He is undeniably trying hard to do good in the world, whether you agree with his actions or not. When he talks about his faith, he quite literally shines. And he has inspired his teammates to pull off some amazing comebacks. He’s forced some of us to talk about what we believe and how best to express it. He’s sparked some backlash and discussions about what prayers the Divine cares about (football? Well, personally, I hope the Divine cares a little about football because I’m a fan but also because I’ve prayed about such “trivial” things as tests, dates, that child that won't go to sleep, etc.).

If Tim Tebow were my son, I’d be plenty proud of him—what mother wouldn’t love a big, healthy, handsome, talented boy? I’d probably have some quiet conversations with him about his P.D.A (public displays of adoration), but he might not listen to me, which would be fine. Even though I still refer to myself as a Christian, I doubt I fit anyone else’s idea of one. But I’m just stubborn enough to refuse to let other people define it for me. Why should I? People have struggled for centuries to clarify what Christianity means and will clearly continue to do so. I place a premium on personal growth and change. I figure that if I don’t question orthodoxy, my faith risks becoming a fetish, so I’m always in a process of tearing my beliefs apart and putting them back together. I guess you could say I’m a tinkerer.

So it’s as a tinkerer that I worry about Tim. He likes to kneel and testify—so be it. I’d defend him in just the same way I’d defend someone’s wearing a yarmulke, a head scarf, an abaya, or for that matter, a Gingrich-slogan T-shirt, a pink-triangle, or Black Power colors. But what if Tim Tebow decides not to kneel, not to testify every time he has a microphone? Will the very public nature of his faith become a litmus test for him? What about for other Christians? What if other aspects of Tim's belief system change? Will we allow him to transform? Will he allow himself? I pray that it is so.

*I know the grammar of the title sucks, but I chose the vernacular on purpose.

Karen's "Helpful Hints" on Coming Out

     1)    When you’re four or five, paging through the “Christmas Wishes” catalogue, and you find yourself flipping back and forth from the women’s to the men’s underwear section, and the same-sex pages make you “feel funny,” just know that you are in for a helluva ride. Even if you think, Wow, I’m backward, your second thought, but I guess that’s okay, is good. Your third thought, Maybe it will change, is tragic and not true, but when you live in a town of ten thousand in the middle of nowhere, circa 1969, and your family-of-origin has issues enough, that’s the thought that will protect you. That, and your fourth thought—I’m not going to tell anyone—which is really for the best. You won’t remember having the infamous catalogue experience, or any of the accompanying thoughts, until many years in the future (thank God for denial). Get good and comfortable with vague confusion.

2)    Keep your head down in the locker room (why are there so damn many locker rooms in childhood?). About the young woman who, in your teenage years, sits on the bench and watches you undress: she does not hate you and is not trying to intimidate you. Quite the opposite. Again, you will not realize this until many years have passed, but oh, well.

3)    If you find that you just want to be with your best friend, and you feel anxiety, raging jealousy, and self-hatred when she does anything with anyone else: you are what people call “in love.” Get used to it. It’s not comfortable, but it might eventually be fun.

4)    The boys and men who will like you, even love you—there’s nothing at all wrong with them. Someday, in the future, you will want to reassure them of this, but there will be no adequate way, so just wish them well in your heart. What else can you do?

5)    If you go to New York City dance clubs with your boyfriend, and you check out women together, there is a major problem.

6)    When you go to your first Gay Pride parade in NYC, but you’re not out (even to yourself), expect to be surprised. While your very liberal church hands out water to the marchers, your best gay male buddy will keep cocking his head to one side and saying, “Something’s happening with you.” And he’s right. A co-worker may call to you from within the ranks of the parade, and you will run out and hug her, and when you return to the sidewalk, the whole world will appear radically fresh and recalibrated, but you still won’t “get it.” And it won’t help matters when that tall, slim, attractive woman from Dykes on Bikes slyly asks you where there’s a bathroom at the end of the parade. She’s really asking something else, but you won’t understand. You will have an empty feeling when the festivities are over and will, no doubt, wonder where everyone went and why you feel so lonely and weird.

7)    On your way home from said parade, you will probably appear somewhat transfigured to other people [insert heavenly chimes]. A young man may suddenly appear and offer to carry your groceries home for you—something that never happens. You will surely go to bed thinking everything will be “normal” the next day.

8)    You will realize that the day after the Gay Pride parade really should be its own holiday. I say this because gay people are then usually a) hung over, b) happily exhausted, or c) freaking out. If you went to sleep thinking everything would return to usual, you are in for quite a shock. At work, you might walk around the production floor of a large publishing house and—like Saul of Tarsus in the Christian Bible—have scales fall from your eyes. Good God, you’ll think, half the people in this company are gay!! How did I not notice that? How is it that I know now? At this point, you will want to go to your office, shut the door, and hold your head in your hands. You will feel emotionally naked and frightened. That’s completely appropriate.

9)    Thus begins a very trying period where a) you don’t sleep well, if at all, b) you can’t concentrate, c) you wish someone would give you a Xanax, d) you realize that health insurance should have a “coming out” clause, whereby you could hole up in your apartment with your cat because you just can’t deal with anything. A note: even your cat will get sick of you. Your stress may actually cause his skin to flake.  

10)  It’s perfectly acceptable to sit in your badly furnished, off-the-slope Park Slope, Brooklyn, apartment and pet your cat for a year (or more). You’ll have to force yourself out the door and onto a crowded subway to work at a job so that you can eat. But go back home as soon as you can. Don’t think you have to go anywhere special to figure things out. Ruminating is fine. After a couple decades with your head in the sand, it’s absolutely acceptable.

11)  You may lose your nerve when you first find the secret address with the normal-looking door buzzer. Allow for that. Just know that the people upstairs understand your predicament. They’re all in the same boat (you might even run into a co-worker here!). But you’re probably not ready to talk about this. (See number 9.)

12)  Your vegetarian blond artist friend with the face of an angel is not a lesbian or even bi unless she uses those terms about herself. Even if she admits she likes to look at women more than men. Even if she’s willing to accompany you to a dance at the LGBT center. If she’s dating men and isn’t into you, you need to accept where she’s at and who she is. (Return to number 9.)

13)  The cute, athletic brunette you met at the secret address might be interested in you, but she is really meant for someone else—probably someone with a better figure and less emotional baggage. Don’t write her stupid letters, whatever you do. And if you make that mistake, return to number 9.

14)  Don’t be surprised if two ex-boyfriends arrive to help you move out of your apartment when you’re ready to go to graduate school. They are such good fellows, even if one accidentally lets the air-conditioning unit drop from the window. No one will be hurt, and “Do you want to throw any other small appliances out my window?” will forever be a great laugh-line. Years later, you will wonder what happened to that guy and hope that he’s extraordinarily happy somewhere.

15)  When the Mississippi floods, you really should not drive alone toward and across it with a U-Haul. This may sound like a cool idea. You may feel too neurotic in your half-“out” state to be trapped in a truck with your crated cat and someone else, but you’ll probably regret not having company. Midwestern towns look like hell during floods, it’s difficult to find an apartment when you’re driving around in a U-Haul, and your new landlord is bound to price-gouge you when he learns you’ve just come from New York.

16)  Choosing to attend a graduate program while still in the process of coming out is usually not a good idea, because a) you still can’t sleep, b) you still can’t concentrate, and c) you still wish someone would give you a Xanax. Creative writing programs, especially, present formidable challenges. Some of your peers have so much talent, you will wonder if they need to be here at all. You, though fairly well read, will be a good distance behind and an emotional train wreck to boot. Spottily attend your seminars. Expect some out-of-body experiences; there will be plenty. Spend oodles of time in that apartment petting and feeding your cat or walking around Iowa City. When you feel extremely perplexed or angry, walk to a bowling alley several miles away and bowl your heart out even though you stink at the sport. Save your glass recyclables so you can take them to the special drop-off site, then throw them as hard as you can into the receptacles just to hear them crash (very cathartic). Sit in coffee shops (there are so many!). When you inquire about coming out groups at the women’s center, you will probably be told that you need to be “of the experience” (sorry, you do look that straight). The neighborhood gay bar is friendly, but you’re a long way from New York and slinking around trying to be anonymous won’t work; when people express interest in you (when were you ever this popular?), just tell them you aren’t ready. Some of the best conversations you will have here will be with gay men, one of whom you’ll even end up protecting (yes! Little you). Riding on the back of motorcycles with leather-jacketed women is recommended. Occasionally, one or another totally stoned-out friend will land on your couch; they are too shy to tell you they like you and are waiting for you to make a move. Expect that your bright, intelligent, straight-women classmates appear attractive because they are. A maybe-twenty-year-old blond lesbian is too young and may try to break into your apartment with a credit card. On the other hand, it’s best not to send a note to the visiting poetry professor who is a good fifteen to twenty years your senior, even though she’s extremely smart and practically makes you pass out whenever you spot her (send her a nice email in the future, when your life’s calmed down, and that will make you both feel good). Stay at home, let the cat wander out the window onto the rooftop, drop fish flakes into your new tank and admire their silent, underwater world with its electric hum. You and the fish are one.

17)  Very important: DO NOT GO to NYC during the huge Stonewall anniversary and try yet again to entice the cute, athletic brunette you first encountered at the secret address. She’s still in love with the woman with the better figure and less emotional baggage and probably always will be even if they’re broken up right now. Despite your both being single and lonely, it’s good to forego sleeping with your best gay male buddy—you can congratulate yourself later that you didn’t make a bad situation worse (whew!). Instead, go to Long Island and allow the ex-boyfriend you kept in touch with and who helped you pack the U-Haul for graduate school to do simple things to nurse you back to health. He has such kindness and class.

18)  Do not, I repeat, do not come out to your parents or anyone significant within six months of Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s just asking for trouble.

19)  Do not come out to anyone who has a history of psychotic breaks, at least not until you can handle the consequences. They may try to reassure you and then not be able to string together a coherent sentence.

20)  If you made the mistake of coming out to your parents too close to the holidays, be prepared for a fiasco, even if you do not go home. If they’ve been told not to talk about it with your siblings, they will take that literally and will tell all the other relatives at the Thanksgiving gathering as well as various people in your home town. You, meanwhile, thousands of miles away, might find that on this holiday you cannot seem to stop drinking. When your gay male classmate (who doesn’t yet know he’s gay) comes to pick you up for the Thanksgiving meal, you’ll be charming but half out of your mind. Your very able future mate will have fixed the turkey for all the attending members of your graduate program, but both of you will be completely distracted (and you, too drunk) to be aware of each other. When you are dropped off at a lesbian couple’s house later, you’ll be fairly well soused and will play the part of buffoon for this second turkey dinner. Do not lie down at home when you return later and do not smoke a cigarette because if you do, you will end up on your knees vomiting two perfectly well-cooked Thanksgiving meals, laughing maniacally, and proclaiming yourself “a mess.”

21)  Do not go to the local gay bar drunk and stoned. Naturally, the one stable woman you’ve met outside school will be there. When she learns that you’ve recently come out to your parents, do not act macho, as if you’ve got everything under control. She’s bound to see through this, and though she’s interested in you, she’ll return to her ex, who is sure to be more grounded and honest.

22)  Eventually, your future mate—the cute, funny, extremely smart and well-read woman with the shining brown eyes—will sit down next to you in a class. A mutual friend will ask you both to dinner. You might get asked out on a real date by your future partner afterward and not realize it. You’ll be a bit confounded. Go anyway, dammit! When she arrives and says something like, “You live across the street from the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration—how appropriate!” you will know she’s a keeper. It’s okay to hem and haw over the ensuing weeks while having heart-to-heart conversations with her (who knew you could come clean?). She will not care about your baggage. She will live through your wondering if you “didn’t try hard enough” with men. She will fight her way through all your stupidity and stubbornness, your obsessions and weaknesses. She will put the cat you fed too much on a diet. She’ll move halfway across the country with you. She will talk you through a panic attack on a pay phone. She’ll take the baby out of your arms and send you back to bed. She’ll eat cheeseburgers with you after the children receive horrible diagnoses and then work incredibly hard to provide for all of you. She will struggle to write beautiful lines, and these will inspire you, and you’ll never be bored with her (frightened, yes; bored, no). She will call you “my angel,” “my beloved,” “my sail and my compass.” That, my friend, is how you will know you are home.