Dare to say Yes to a Dream

I have been blessed with the time to be able to write, while also having a job that allows me to be around school  kids and spend a lot of time talking with them about what they are interested in and reading the books that they like as part of my work.


Since I also love to write books at the middle school level and higher, and my novels are fantasy novels that interest several kids in any class I am teaching, this has given me a lot of feedback and stimulated new story lines to develop.

Once school ended on June 16th, I was able to pull my nearly completed, second novel out of the ignored folder it slept in, and bring it to a conclusion.  Today, I got the proof copy to hold in my hands and evaluate for possible publication.

I set it next to the book I published last year, and smiled.  I only hope they both bring other people some of the joy that they have already given to me.

Both my Tales of uhrlin

Back covers

Look at the double books please, not the double chins

I became a special Ed teacher, after being raised with a younger brother, who has down's syndrome.  I also had been bullied a lot as a student myself and the experiences I have had as a teacher and family member of a special needs kid, and as a victim of bullies, are both a large part of the framework of these novels.  But my Duffy, a boy who has Cerebral Palsy, and is bullied, is not handicapped or willing to be a victim.  He won't accept the word, "No."

My Brother and I in Panajachel, Guatemala

Boating in Lake Atitlan, bullrushes

 One of the most pleasurable parts of writing, Duffy Barkley: Seek Well has been the chance to review my journal and photographs and memories from a trip that my boys, my brother, my Mom and I took to Guatemala.

When you read this story, you will see a lot of the things that I loved about this poor, war-torn but lovely area around Lake Atitlan.

My son, teaching Duck, Duck Goose to Mayan children

You will also get to meet a character, who was first suggested to me as a challenge, while trying to write the first 50,000 words of this novel as part of National Novel Writing Month.  I love Fred, he loves baths, and he thinks he's a small, pop-eyed micro monkey.  Duffy thinks he's a Dragon, but neither one is right.

Mayan girls and my youngest son

Mayan Grandmother and my oldest son

By Lake Atitlan

Posada de Santiago Atitlan

 So, my dream was to be a Writer.  Like Duffy, I refused to accept the many times I was told "No."  I'm glad that I did.  The bullies lose if we refuse to be victims, and instead insist on our right to be who we dream.

Lake Atitlan

Browsing our Guatemala album

Sometimes, the most important times of your life remain so crisp, and detailed and immediate in your mind; that is can be a real shock to realize that it has been years since you were there, that you have grown and moved on, no matter how the scents and flavors still fill your senses.In June, of 2002 my mother, my brother and my two sons and I travelled to Guatemala. It was a quick, vivid trip filled with delicious tropical fruits, laughing children, hot, sweaty work and rowdy games of blind man's bluff. It feels like it just happened. But in eight years my children have become men, my Mother has stopped traveling, and I have published a novel, "Duffy Barkley is not a Dog." The first book hints at my fascination with this area of Central America but now I am beginning to write a sequel and the Guatemalan character becomes more important.


And so I have been pulling out the dusty photo album and reminding myself of the smaller details. The fresh roasting coffee smell, the vivid fuschia flesh of dragonfruit the mystery of a watery road through bullrushes. I have looked at the intricate and original hand-woven clan clothing that the Mayan wore, and remembered the recent and bloody battles between the Spanish and Mayan in the very peaceful town where we played with laughing children.
I remembered how my sons were giants compared to children older, but less well nourished than they were, and yet how even with no words in common, they shared the rules and structure of each other's games. "Duck, Duck, Goose" "cat and Mouse" soccer, basketball.


And after we learned a few terms, the older people treated my children with respect and interest. Their delight in finding an American child who would stop, and try to say, "hello" in Tsuitajil was obvious and endearing.


My brother's handicap has never been a barrier. People respond to his smile quickly, and in this foreign language culture, most of our communication was done just as his always is. With smiles.



It felt at times like we were there forever, and at times like a part of us has never left.

We are more consumer oriented when we are at home. We all want the newer, therefor better products. But we were closer to each other without those extra things entertaining us. Every day, we still reach out and connect, even now that my boys are in high school, but in a large part, it started in a place where we only had ourselves and an old plastic ball and a lot of strangers staring to see what we would do next.

When we left, we took some of the realization that we have too much, with us. It hasn't made us drop the internet connection, or give away all our extras, but it has helped us remember not to allow the piles of stuff to become a barrier, and to see the people, and this beautiful world, as more important.

Taking American School children to Lake Atitlan

When my two boys were finishing second and third grade, my Mother invited us to go with her on a trip to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I had always planned on traveling with my children, after all, I had loved every country I had ever visited, and I wanted them to have happy memories with their grandma too — so it was easy to say, "yes."

My husband was working and could not come at the time the trip was scheduled, and Mom signed us up to go with a group that would be building concrete houses in Santiago, Atitlan.

Now we are far from rich in American standards but I had travelled enough to know that we are very rich in the world view. My boys were sweet and friendly, but I knew that they took a lot for granted. If Dad and Mom could not afford a toy, then just asking a grandparent had a way of working out for them. The fact that our home only had one bathroom for the 4 of us, was not the norm in the homes they overnighted in. They could not really imagine a place where one concrete room and a shared water spigot in a common are might be considered a grand home.

So we flew from Portland, to Houston and waited in the airport for 7 hours to meet their granmother and my brother, their uncle Lance. Lance has Down's syndrome, but a real gift for making friends. As we flew to Guatemala City, and then went by bus to Panajachel, and spent the night in a walled school there, the beauty of the greenery balanced the poverty of shacks and litter and the boys were enthralled.

Then we got on a boat to Cross the volcano lined lake, and for a short distance even travelled a watery highway between "bullrushes." My older son loves all things water, and was excited by the boat and fascinated by the small fishing boats and single men standing up fishing in them. Neither boy was too eager to try their hand at washing theirclotes on the rocks that lined the lake but they were willing to stomp their clothing clean as they showered.

Our cabin was a luxurious stone and wood cabin at the Posada in Santiago. It was set in among Banana, fig, orchids, Dragonfruit and the kind of lushness I had only ever seen before in the Otrgon Coastal area. There were wonderful weavings and leatherwork and embroidery and woodcarvings.



but there was also poverty, and begging and children who did not attend school because they made things all evening to sell on the streets every day.

We had been warned not to approach children because no-one wanted to make their parents feel threatened by strangers, but with my handicapped brother's warm smile and my two friendly boys, the children flocked around us. At first they were shy and then they tried to beg from us, but in a couple days they were kicking soccer balls and playing blind man's bluff with my boys.

We did go to the work site and spent one day cutting re-bar and clearing rocks, but because the project had just finished one house and was not ready to begin the next, we were appologetically asked if we would mind visiting a school to volunteer instead.
Mind! It was the best thing that could have happened to us of course. Since I am a teacer and a storyteller and we had children with us, we were delighted at the opportunity. It could have been strange, neither the Mayan children in their clan weaving uniform, or my children seemed to notice that they did not speak the same language,
We sang each other songs and shared photographs of our ocean and redwoods and then gathered outside where my boys taught them "Duck, Duck, Goose" and they taught us "Cat and Mouse"

Then we shared lunch and smiles and it was all good. The children were Tzuitajil Mayan, but the school taught in Spanish. After lunch, they tried to teach us some Mayan phrases and the idea behind their base 12 math. It was wildly interesting and we were glad that the visit would continue more days.

When at last we had to climb aboard the boat to begin our trip home, a parade of children came to the docks with us and as the boat pulled away, they threw a rain of beaded bracelets and keychains into the boat and yelled, "Come back next year!"
We never made it back, or not yet, but it made an impact. My boys came home and signed up to support a Guatemalan boy and raised money to send him every month for three years, we read an intense book, by Sister Dianna ortiz, called "The Blindfold's Eyes" about another side of Guatemala's recent history. And eventually much of our experience is finding its way into the first two "Duffy Barkley" books as well.

Bearing the Load, in Guatemala

Bearing the Load, on the Shores of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, is something that the Mayan and Spanish descendants have done for centuries. But they do it with a smile.

When I usually think of backpacking, I often think of it as a recreational activity, a pleasant escape from the burdens of the work-a-day world. The people that I saw in Guatemala simply did pack things on their back, if they were male, or on their hear if they were female. Not ultra light loads but bundled firewood and multiple gallons of water, in a town on the slopes of a volcano where nothing is ever flatland.
I look at what I have to carry; a three gallon bucket of water to fill my aquarium, about 20 steps from the water faucet, 10 times; forty pound bags of dog-food, a load of firewood, with a wheelbarrow, from the edge of the yard to my front door. Not long ago, I balanced two 30 pound toddlers on my hips.

Beyond that, I reach for my car keys and moan when I have to make several trips from the drive way to my kitchen with an abundance of fresh groceries. I scoop up my fat cat and carry her to a lawn chair and curl up with a fresh coffee and a good book.


Not that an American, mother of teenagers, lives a burden free life, but my burdens are often the ones that weigh down my mind and spirit with worries of things that never happen. They do not exercise my legs and keep my back erect.

Watching the grace and acceptance as a child lifts firewood onto her head is a humbling experience for me. Looking at the beautiful, handwoven clothing with the Mayan tribal traditions in every thread, remembering that Santiago, Atitlan has suffered massacres and devastating mudslides. I am again amazed at the ringing laughter and the broad, gold-toothed smiles. The one thing these pictures cannot show is the smell of fresh fruit all around, the dragonfruit trees and avacado trees and banana plants that grace the roads and homes where these people live each day.