On the Occasion of My 100th Rejection

Yes, that is me and poet, Terrance Hayes.
I was so young, newly mfa'd and ready to be the writer. 

This past week, I finally received my 100th pass as a writer. It is a milestone I am celebrating, because if I'm not getting my work out there, I am not establishing myself as an emerging writer. As Los Angeles poet Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo of Women Who Submit helped me realize in her article,  "Building up to Emerging," getting my work published is part of building my career as a writer.

This journey started many years ago. After completing my mfa in writing, I set out to find an agent. I wrote a query for Through Eyes Like Mine, researched agents and agencies and sent out a dozen queries. I landed with Judy Heiblum at Brick House Literary Agents in 2006. She believed in my book, sent me wonderful edits, and then, just before sending my manuscript out, she moved to Sterling Lord Literistic, a big New York agency. My book was passed on by lots of editors at big houses. But the book didn't move, and Judy didn't see my next book, Overdue Apologies, as different enough that it would get picked up. My manuscripts quietly gathered digital dust on various computer hard drives.

I spent a couple of years teaching, started blogging, and spent the next few years of my post-mfa-life teaching and trying to start a family. In 2009, I finished up NaNoWriMo and was walking my students through the self-publishing process. That was when I realized, I could do this. It wasn't all that hard to put a book together and get it out into the world. I enjoyed designing covers, working with writer-friends who are great editors, and let my agent know I was going to self-publish Through Eyes Like Mine in 2010. She wished me luck, and I launched the book in Bend and Portland with readings and signings. It felt like a wonderful way to get my book in people's hands and onto shelves. It opened up readings at museums and in classrooms and at book clubs, but it was a lot of work.

Three years later, in 2012, just before Kiara was born, when I knew motherhood could put writing on pause for a while, I quickly and quietly self-published Overdue Apologies. I didn't schedule a book launch or readings or signings. I didn't have the time or energy as a new mother. But the book was out there and done.

It wasn't for another four years that I would connect with Women Who Submit, a group of LA writers who encourage submitting work to counter underrepresentation of women in literary spaces. That's when I started submitting. Since July of 2016, I've submitted to 106 journals, contests, presses, residencies, and agents. I've published or have forthcoming 16 pieces (poems, essays, excerpts) since then, was shortlisted for the 2040 Prize, and a request for a book proposal for Dispatches from a High School Feminist: Rising Up from Rural Oregon. For now, I'm trying to go traditional with this next book, but if things don't move, I'm not afraid to give it another go on my own.

Thanks to all of you for following this journey, for reading my books blogs. I know it doesn't seem like it's still the beginning, but as a writer, I'm working on building to emerging.

12 Days of Blog Posts: NaNoWriMo Excerpt on Earthquakes

This year my National Novel Writing Project took an unexpected turn. My realistic fiction piece titled #nerdyjock turned thriller when my protagonist's sister turned up missing.

Here's an excerpt from this work in progress because, to be honest, I don't have the energy tonight to create something new.

Lo on Earthquakes

We’ve been having all of these earthquakes lately. Some people say it’s because of fracking, others say it’s the fault moving little by little which might actually be saving us from the big one. Or maybe, it’s just getting us ready for the big one.

But no matter how small, I hate earthquakes. They jolt me wide awake, send my heart racing and force me to imagine a world of absolute destruction.

None of them have come at school, so no one really knows how freaked out I get, but Mom and Dad have a hint. They try to ease my fears, show me the earthquake preparedness kit, tell me they have a plan for what we will all do if the big one hits and we are at school and work.

The last big earthquake in Southern California was the Northridge quake. I wasn’t alive when it happened, but Dad talks about it sometimes, how he got motion sickness from all of the aftershocks. Mom wasn’t living in LA at the time, so she’s never been in a really big one either.

It’s the pictures that I can’t quite get my head around, how the earth shifted causing freeways to collapse and buildings to crumble. I never pass under a tunnel without thinking about how it would be a terrible place to be during a quake.

And every time we have one, I get a little more nervous and wonder what would happen in my life if the big one hit.

The thing is, sometimes earthquakes aren’t of the fault-slip kind. Sometimes earthquakes shake up your life, hit when you least expect them and leave you devastated. What I want to know is: am I ready for the big one?

Four Week Countdown to the Close of 2014

The year is winding down, and it's amazing how much change a year can bring. I set some ambitious resolutions for 2014 and I've checked in with my progress a couple of times, once in April and again in July. I was behind then, but since then, well... in some ways the wheels came off. I still have four weeks left which makes me wonder, how close can I still get to these goals? 

I didn't set a goal for spending 
time with this girl... but we did. 

Writing Goal: Finish high school memoir draft of Notes from a High School Feminist (50,000 words) and revise YA novel: Rice Paper Superheroes. 

Progress: I finished the draft of the high school memoir: 52,000 words, but it still needs of a good deal of revision. I haven't revised Rice Paper Superheroes yet (boooo) but I did draft a new memoir in verse: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop (30,000 words) during NaNoWriMo last month.  

Reading Goal: Read and write short annotations for 50 books in the year. 

Progress: Aaaargh! I am stuck on number 32 which means I'd need to finish a book every couple of days in order to finish in time. Realistically, I think I could still get to 40. Wish me luck.  

Publishing Goal: Submit work at least once a month and publish one blog post per week. 

Progress: I have failed tremendously here. I've only published 24 blogs (I think this is 25...) and I haven't sent out work regularly. I think I might need to set a rule for myself that I can't work on new essays/drafts until I submit something and I should really submit once a week instead of once a month in order to get some momentum. Yes. That's what I'll do for these last four weeks.  

Fitness Goal: Run 500 miles in the year. 

Progress: I changed run to walk once I got pregnant so I'm at 417 right now. 83 miles in 4 weeks is possible...

So, grief played a role in some of my falling behind. Pregnancy played some as well and last time I was pregnant my mind turned to mush as did my muscles. So at least these goals helped that from happening again. And still, I'm close and we'll see just how much I can get done in these last four weeks of 2014. 

Blog? What Blog?

I know. It's been a while. Blogging seemed so much easier a few months ago. I was on summer break. I wasn't brewing a little one. I had so much to say to the world. Now, after eking out 30,000 words in November for NaNoWriMo, I have very little to say except, I'm tired and I can't wait for the holidays. So, I thought I'd post a couple of excerpts from my students who participated in NaNoWriMo this year too. Here is the first: Julia's The Cancer Cloud, along with the incredible cover she designed. I'm a proud teacher, but really, all I did was provide the time and space for creativity.

The next day, we went to the oncologist's office.

My heart sank.

"C-cancer?" Lily stuttered.

"Lily has cancer?" Mom was already in tears.

The doctor, with a solemn look on his face, replied, "Yes."

"Well, is she going to be okay?" I asked anxiously.

"We don't know for sure. It could be weeks before we find out. I'm going to run some tests, and we will see." He looked down.

"It's official. We're dying your hair pink," I said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Adelaide!" My mother snapped. "Lily is staying alive, meaning no alternative hair colors for her."

We all laughed a little bit. I couldn't imagine my identical twin, or either of us for that matter, with pink hair.

"Well, if we decide to use chemotherapy, it's possible Lily will lose her hair," Dr. Simon, the oncologist said.

The slightly happy moment vanished. Lily started crying. I hugged her and whispered that everything would be okay. Then mom started crying. I hugged her too. I sat between them in the oncologist's office, on a tacky purple couch from the 70's.

Then I started crying. It took a lot to get tears out of me, and when I did cry, it meant something real was happening. Something that would change my life for the worst.

And that was the day that the cancer cloud blocked my sunlight.

NaNoWriMo: My Favorite Month of the School Year

NaNoWriMo:  National Novel Writing Month.  It's this insane idea that you can write a novel in a month.  I discovered NaNoWriMo in grad school (another Raymond Johnson contribution) and as a writer, or non-writer, or wanna-be-writer, it has always served me well.  But the past two years I incorporated NaNoWriMo into my eighth grade English narrative unit and it was been my favorite lesson/series of lessons ever.  The young writers program has great curriculum to help students or anyone who wants to try to write a novel.  The first time I saw the young writer's handbook, I wished I'd gotten something like it during my mfa program.  Last year I managed to draft a YA novel, and this year it's historical fiction, but what amazes me most are the stories, the sentences, the scenes from my students.  Here are a couple samples.

from Shattered Glass by Denise:   

At school it was like he wasn’t even there.  Teachers always skipped his name as if they were seeing right through him. 

Sam hated his life he hated the way they treated him like a ghost, as if he was the one who died in the car crash.  

Sometimes he would wonder if he had died and his ghost was still lingering in the real world and he just didn’t realize it. 

from Sports Addict by Hunter:  

Yelling. That's the noise that I wake up to every morning. My parents fight non-stop like two wild dogs. Every time I make a mistake, in school or just “mis-using” my knife at the table all I can hear is my dad and mom yelling. “Clyde Little this and Clyde Little that.” It’s all thanks to my stupid choice and addiction.

These are only a few lines from two of 60 novels my English students worked on last year and there are 65 more in progress right now.   Best of luck to anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year; I really should get to work on mine. 

New LA Life: Chapter 4

I woke up early the next morning and took a shower in what had been Auntie Laine's guest bathroom but now was the one Jem and I would share. At first I wasn't sure I liked the bathroom. The floor was this wood bamboo and the sink and stand-up shower were this beige stone. All of that was just fine. It was the shower doors that were all glass-enclosed and there was a big window with no covering so even though the outside wall faced the backyard and a wall of thin bamboo blocked out the view, some peeping tom could sneak into the backyard, part the bamboo and watch me bathe. That first morning I kept looking out the window, imagining what someone would see if they were watching me. I showered for those first few weeks as if I was in a shampoo commercial, lathering up and posing, closing my eyes and arching my back as I rinsed.

For some reason, I didn't feel scared, though. After the last night at our old house everyone kept expecting Jem and I to freak out, be nervous or jumpy, but I never was especially once I arrived in LA far away from anyone who knew Dad or his mistress. In Portland we always had to worry about running into someone Dad had prosecuted as a DA, but in LA no one knew my family, our history, or me.

I dried off with a thick white bath towel and wrapped it around me. When I opened the door to walk across the hall to my bedroom Auntie Lane was there.

"Morning, Honey. Find everything okay?"

"Um, yeah," I responded, my wet hair dripping down my back.

"Well, we're heading over to the Taylor's place in about half an hour. You should probably pack your soccer stuff too. Do you eat breakfast?"

"Um, sometimes," I lied again. I somehow couldn't stop myself. Mom always made us eat breakfast even if it was just a yogurt and a sports bar.

"Okay, well, there's some cereal on the counter and milk and juice in the fridge."

"Great. Thanks."

I closed the door behind me and shook my head. It wasn't a trick question or anything.

She just wanted to know about breakfast. What was my problem?

I skipped breakfast because all of the cereal was the super healthy kind and looked gross. Auntie Laine did have a stash of sports bars though so I grabbed a couple of those and threw them in my soccer bag which was packed with everything I needed to survive this first day: long soccer socks, cleats, shinguards, two bottles of Gatorade, headphones and my iPod loaded with my thinking mix (The Shins, Seawolf, Helio Sequence) and my hyper mix (Black Eyed Peas, Missy Elliot, Beyonce). I was wearing my short soccer shorts instead of the baggy ones, and an extra t-shirt in case I wanted to change. I had a sweatshirt on over my tank top and Auntie Laine told me I probably wouldn't need it but I decided to wear it anyway.

"Okay, so the Taylor's live just a couple of blocks," Auntie Lane said as she backed out of the driveway. "Audrey, or Mrs. Taylor, hired me last year to convert their garage into an office and she has a son about your age."

We passed by houses heading south on Harvard and then turned left on Redondo. The cul-de-sac we pulled into had five houses and the Taylor's house was one of them. It was painted a bright yellow except for the garage that Auntie Laine had helped them remodel. It was painted olive green and blended in with the trees and grass so that it almost disappeared. There was a black SUV parked in the driveway and I was suddenly nervous and hoped, maybe even prayed even that I'd get along will this Taylor kid. Maybe he'd even but hot.

New LA Life: Chapter 3 continued

Auntie Laine was on the phone in the kitchen making some popcorn and I wondered if that was some kind of Yamanaka tradition, to make popcorn and watch tv because Mom used to do that just about every night too. A show was on pause on the tv and Auntie Laine must have been talking with someone from work because she was complaining about being asked to finish some project that shouldn't have officially been her job. Auntie Laine is Elaine Yamanaka at work, an interior designer at a firm in Century City where she caters to people who like that clean, modern, minimal look in their homes.

She held out the bowl of popcorn and motioned for me to sit on the couch. The room was still spotless and there were a bunch of pillows on the couch. I sunk into the leather and I had a sweatshirt on even though it was still hot outside because Auntie Laine liked to keep the air conditioner cranking all night. I pulled my legs up beneath me and soon Auntie Laine was pointing the remote at the tv, "Did your parents let you watch this crazy reality stuff?"

I recognized The Amazing Race and nodded. It was the first time Auntie Laine had really mentioned Mom and Dad. "Yeah, they let us watch this, but not The Bachelor or the reality shows on BET or MTV."

"Oh, yeah, huh. Well, I guess we'll keep that same policy going here." She grabbed a handful of popcorn. "Are there any other little rules your mom and dad had that I should know about?"

I thought about Mom and Dad's no computers in our bedrooms rule even though I'd already broken that one and checked my email on my laptop earlier. But what Auntie Laine didn't know about that one it wouldn't kill her. Mom and Dad had tons of rules, about meeting friends' parent before we could hang out with them and no tv during the week but I didn't want to tell Auntie Laine about any of those rules. Mom and Dad were way too strict anyway.

And there was no way I would be able to tell Auntie Laine how Mom and I had stopped getting along after sixth grade, how we hardly talked anymore, how the house had been dominated by silence, how I'd cried at the funeral but no one knew the real reason because I felt too awful about it. What kind of daughter feels relief when her mom is gone?

But that night I had to think of at least a few things I could tell Auntie Laine so I thought about my phone. "Well, I can't go over my minute limit and I only have 500 texts a month. I'm not allowed to download ring tones or movies or anything like that." I stopped. I didn't think she needed to know that they checked my phone every week to see who I had in my contacts or who I was calling the most. Besides, I was pretty much a good kid so she didn't need to be all up in my business like Mom had been. Besides, living in LA now, I didn't know anyone to call.

"Okay, phone rules. And what about boys? Any rules about dating or makeup?"
I hadn't really gotten into make-up but yes, there were rules Mom and Dad had about boys. I could go out with groups of people but never anywhere with just one boy. And again, they had to meet his parents. I definitely didn't want Auntie Laine to know any of that so I just shook my head and pretended to watch the people on tv getting ready to climb part of the Great Wall of China. "I guess I'm not all that into that stuff yet," I lied even though I sometimes messed around with make-up at Sephora with Nat and I had my first real kiss this past year.

As I sat there pretending to watch tv, words from my mom echoed through my mind. "Erika, there's nothing I hate more than a liar." Maybe that's why I'd felt relief when Mom was gone. I knew I'd let Mom down, that she hated the girl was becoming. But how was I supposed to know how things would end?

"I'm heading to bed," I told Auntie Laine before the end of the show and in my room I buried my head in the foreign smelling sheets of my new bed. Tonight I was a liar and as I lay there, face down on the bed I hated myself. I used to lash out at Mom, had told her more than once that I hated her but now she was gone and there was no one to hate but myself.

New LA Life: Chapter 3

That night at dinner Auntie Laine took me to this little Mexican restaurant and asked me what I wanted to do for the last few weeks of summer while she was at work. I shrugged, but I guess she'd already thought about this so she gave me some suggestions.

"Well, there's a surf camp or junior lifeguard classes at the beach. There is a beach volleyball camp or an all-day sports camp where I guess you can play a bunch of different sports."

I picked at the chips served with my burrito at The Burnt Tortilla.

"Then there is this arts and crafts center where you could hang out,"

I shook my head at the sound of that.

"And then there's a soccer camp."

I looked up. "Yeah, soccer camp." I'd just finished up camp in Portland and loved the idea of another couple weeks of soccer.

"Okay, so I'm going to take tomorrow morning off so I can introduce you to the family where you'll hang out while I'm at work. Then we'll get you signed up for soccer and I'll head off to work."

"Okay," I said and thought about how different this soccer camp would be. Every summer since second grade I'd gone to camp and known every girl and every boy, knew who the best strikers and defenders were, knew which club teams everyone played for and where they went to school. My best friend, Natalie (Nat for short) and I had played together since first grade. Her dad was a coach at University of Portland and we used to go to games together and dream of playing in the soccer final four, winning an NCAA championship together. We both still had that dream even though I now lived a thousand miles away and when I got home from dinner I called her to tell her about camp.

"That's awesome," Nat said.

"I wish you could come with me. I'm not going to know anyone. Who knows who my partner will be or if any of them will be any good." Nat and I had a high standard for soccer and I wondered if the girls here in LA would be as good as we were.

"Well, you'll get the chance to scout out the competition that will end probably end up at UCLA."

"True that, " I said and then it was quite for a second.

"So, how are things with your aunt? Is she cool?"

"Yeah, I mean it's all right. She's okay. She wants me to talk all the time and hang out and she seems a little like she isn't sure what she's doing. She's never had kids or anything so, whatever. I have to wait and see how things go. Have you seen Derrick or Jason?"

"Uh, no. Paris and I went to the mall and the movies yesterday but we didn't see anyone."

I imagined Nat and Paris going on with their lives without me and suddenly felt every single mile that separated us. "Oh well. Maybe you should call him and then they could meet you guys instead of trying to guess where they'll be."

"Oh, yeah, I guess I could do that."

I shook my head at my best friend because I knew she just liked the drama of possibility, possibly seeing her crush or possibly bumping into her enemies.

"Okay, well, I better go," I said, thinking I should see what Auntie Laine was up to before I went to bed and as I hung up the phone I knew more that just soccer camp was going to be completely different. I was leaving Portland, Oregon, the only world I'd known before far, far behind and entering something completely unknown.

New LA Life: Chapter 2

"I have an old surfboard at the house, can get you some lessons, if you want," Auntie Laine told me on the drive to her house. She practically had to shout over noise coming in through the open windows and the old school R & B blasting through the stereo, "Smooth just chillin' on a Sunday afternoon..."

I nodded even though she wasn't looking at me and I wasn't looking at her. I peered out the window and try to guess which street we would to take, which turn off of Redondo Beach Boulevard would take me to this new place called home. I tried to let the mellow grove play like a soundtrack for a my life, of a happy moment, to forget what had brought me here.

A sign welcomed us to Gardena but I didn't see any gardens. All I saw was concrete, asphalt, anemic palm trees rising up from sidewalks and a few trees planted in mini-mall parking lots.

We passed by a Starbucks and an In 'N Out burger and my stomach rumbled again but rather than stopping for lunch we turned right on Harvard Avenue and pulled into the driveway of the house that would be my new home.

The house looked different than the others on the block and I figured it was because she was an interior designer. Most of the homes were older, one story ranch homes, or two story duplexes and they all looked like it they were built in the late seventies. The paint on these homes had faded from day after day of sunshine and the trim was peeling around the edges. Most of the lawns were cut and maintained and had these plants called Birds of Paradise with red flowers pointed like a beak planted around the edges. Auntie Laine's house was once one of those one story ranches, but in a recent remodel the pitched roof became straight and the windows wide with neat white trim. The rest of the house was painted a dark gray and her lawn was perfectly maintained and trimmed with succulents and pointy desert plants. I figured she must hire a gardener because I couldn't imagine her actually mowing this lawn or pulling weeds around the desert plants.

She pulled into the garage and pulled up the parking brake. "Welcome home, Kiddo," and I remembered how Grandpa used to always call me kiddo and both Mom and Auntie Laine must have gotten that from him.

We grabbed my bags and the room grew dark as the garage door slid down behind us. Auntie Laine opened a side door that opened to the kitchen and the first thing I noticed was how clean the house was. I wondered if Auntie Laine had cleaned up for me or if she always kept it so neat. I learned later that the house was always clean on the weekends and during the week dishes might pile up in the sink and mail would fill the woven basket on the kitchen counter but that was as messy as her house got until Friday night when out of habit or some sort of ritual Auntie Laine would clean like crazy until order was restored, the floors shone, dishwasher was loaded and everything placed back where it ought to be.

She glided down the hardwood floors, past the living room where there was a huge tv flanked by two paintings with browns and greens bubbles of color. A mini-grand piano in a deep chocolate color sat in the corner of the room and an acoustic guitar gleamed from a stand next to that. Across from the TV there was a big leather couch a couple of chairs that matched but didn't match perfectly. I followed her down the hall lined with black and white family photographs and recognized one from Mom and Dad's wedding with Auntie Laine as the maid of honor.

"This will be Jem's room when he gets here," Auntie Laine said pointing to a room off to the right, "And this is you," she said as she plopped my bag onto a bed with an icy blue comforter and pillows with big white flowers on them. I hate flowers, but how could she have known that.

"Thanks," I said and my voice sounded quiet even in the completely silent house. I walked around the room and noticed that it was bigger than my room back home. Everything in the room looked new and I hoped Auntie Laine hadn't bought all of this just for me. The walls looked like they'd just been painted a light brown and the trim a clean white. There was a little desk in the corner that had that perfectly distressed look and there was a pile of books on each bedside table. A wide window was covered by a white sheer curtain and there was a full length mirror with a fancy scalloped trim. I was way too tomboy for that room. I was about to sit down on the bed when Auntie Lane asked, "You hungry?"

"Starving."

"Okay, well, take a minute to get settled and then we'll go grab a burger or something."

I thought she was going to leave then but she stopped at the door. All I wanted was to be alone for a minute but she turned and looked back at me. "You're so quiet, Erika, and I understand. This is all so completely crazy, but you can talk to me. Really, you can."

I could tell she wanted me to say something. "Sorry, Auntie Laine. I'm just..." and that was when my voice faded away again and I didn't know what I could say to her. Not yet. I knew I wanted to talk to her but I didn't know what to say. Not yet; not then.

A little more of New LA Life

My sister asked for the next installment of the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo, so here it is, for my audience of... ten? twelve maybe?

Auntie Laine parked the car and plugged the meter with a few quarters. Then she took me by the hand and said, "Come on, my favorite niece," (I'm her only niece) and I walked with her down the sidewalk toward the beach. All I really wanted to do was see where I was going to be living for, for, who knows how long, but instead I followed her down a steep sidewalk toward the beach.

Auntie Laine was wearing flip flops, a tank top, and a little skirt that flounced with every step. She belonged here in this world. It had been cloudy and rainy when I'd left Portland so I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt from my soccer league and grey Converse low tops. The sun shining off the ocean looked like glitter scattered across a crinkled of piece of blue construction paper and I couldn't look at it without squinting. I was getting sweaty and wished I had sunglasses.

We reached the sand and Auntie Laine waited for me as I slid off my shoes and socks. Beads of sweat started to drip one by one down my back and the sand was hot on the soles of my feet but Auntie Laine seemed determined to get to a shoreline crowded with sunbathers and kids splashing in the break. The temperature dropped as we got to the water. I stopped and sat on the sand to roll up my jeans so I could dip my toes in the water.

Auntie Laine neared the water. She hadn't noticed I'd stopped following and walked straight into the surf. She must have felt my eyes on her though because she turned and waved for me to join her, ankle deep in the water. I stood up and walked toward her, a feeling rising up as I neared her silhouette against the shimmering wall of water. Maybe it was because she reminded me of mom, standing there in the water, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, reaching back for me.

For a second I wanted to cry but then a breeze blew past and I took a deep breathe of salty, ocean air. I closed my eyes and walked toward my auntie, my mom's sister who was so much like Mom and still completely different. For a minute I stopped worrying about being dressed all wrong for the beach, or that I was thirsty and really wanted a pop with lots of ice or that my stomach was growling. I forgot that I was stuck living here for good, that this wasn't just a summer vacation.

For a second I felt happy and I let the happiness wash over me like the waves rushing across my feet. I let the water pull at some of the heavy weight that I had carried down with me and let it wash out to sea.

New LA Life

Here is an excerpt for my new NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) work in progress. It's a YA book but it doesn't have anything on the novels my students are writing. If you don't know anything about NaNoWriMo... here's a link. http://www.nanowrimo.org/

LA is nothing like they show in the movies but I didn't know that as I was flying into LAX last summer. Now I know, reality isn't something you watch on tv and celebrities never make their way to Gardena, the suburb I moved to a year ago.

Sure, there are palm trees, sunshine all year round, and the beach is just a few miles away, but Hollywood (even though it's just a few freeway miles to the north) is a completely different LA than the one I moved to.

My Auntie Laine picked me up from the airport that afternoon and for once she wasn't late. Well, she wasn't early either, but she pulled up there at the curb in her little white Audi just as I walked out of the terminal.

She looked nervous. She glanced around the airport like a little squirrel, gave me a quick, rough hug and then grabbed one of my two bags. Her keys jangled as she popped open the truck and as I watched her fumble with my luggage it occurred to me that even though I'd spent every Christmas with my mom's sister, even though she'd come to visit us every summer, I'd never seen her look uncomfortable or uneasy.

Usually, she flew into Portland all tan and golden. She wore jeans and traveled light and always seemed so much younger and hipper than Mom ever did. It was hard to believe Auntie Laine was two years older than Mom, but they were two extremely different people.

First off, Mom had me and my brother Jem. She married Dad right out of college and stayed home to take care of us. Auntie Laine is single. She works out every morning, drinks wine with dinner and watches more tv in one night than we watched in a whole week at our house.

But when Auntie Laine picked me up, and I buckled my seat belt in the passenger seat, I wasn't all that worried about her. I was worried about me. Even though it had been almost a month, I couldn't talk about it, couldn't make the words come out my mouth about what happened to Mom and Dad. I could talk about them no problem, but I still can't talk about that night, what I saw or what I heard once I closed my eyes.

Grandma, she's a psychotherapist, and she says that's okay. When something terrible happens you can put it in a box and lock it up, shove it on a shelf in a closet far away from everyday life. It's called coping and I don't know how I'm coping and when people ask I don't think they really want to know about it so I tell them I'm okay.

It was warm in LA, way warmer than it was in Portland, but it wasn't too hot and Auntie Laine had her sunroof open even with the air conditioning on. The combination made it cool in the car but I could still feel the dry air of LA and smell the exhaust from all the traffic as Auntie Laine pulled away from the curb.

I wasn't in the room when Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Kev and Auntie Laine talked about where Jem and I should go. All I know is that it wasn't really up to me or Jem. Who knows what Mom and Dad would have wanted for us under these circumstances. I tried to listen from the tv room where I was watching the Wimbledon final while the adults discussed my fate. Venus and Serena were playing and I didn't know who to root for. I wasn't really watching the match anyway. I was trying to eaves drop on the conversation that would determine where Jem and I would land for the rest of our lives.

Uncle Kev kept saying, "They'd want them together," and Auntie Laine agreed but they also knew that I couldn't stay in town, not after what I'd seen, which was already boxed away and on a shelf in a closet far away so I didn't have to think about it.

I don't know how it was finally decided but I ended up on a plane and the plan was for Jem to come down in a few weeks later, right before school started.

Auntie Laine drove fast and I felt like I had to hold on but didn't because I didn't want her to know she was scaring me to death. The sky above me was perfectly blue and that definitely didn't fit my mood.

"Well, welcome to LA," she said and as I looked over Auntie Laine steered us out of traffic. She put her hand on mine and gave it a squeeze. "We're taking the scenic route home," she said with a smile, but I could tell she was still freaking out. Just like my life had changed completely, so was hers and I didn't how she was feeling about it.

I did know she was missing her sister, maybe as much as I missed my mom, so at least we had that in common.

She turned left and the ocean appeared before us, reflecting sunlight and stretching all the way to the horizon. The palm trees, the sand, sea and sky all made me want to cry just like so many things did lately. But I didn't cry so I wouldn't have to explain that I didn't know why I was crying so I fought back the tears and wondered how Auntie Laine was coping. Did she have a box stored away on a shelf in a closet somewhere or was she handling this differently? I thought about asking her but she seemed preoccupied by driving and finding a parking spot so I figured we'd have time to talk about it some other time. In fact, we had the rest of our lives.