I am currently working on such a variety of writing projects. I feel a bit like that circus performer, spinning plates perched on broomsticks. It feels like a desperate attempt to give each just enough attention that they don’t crash down, even though they all seem close to faltering.

I’m nearing the end of spring term and pushing past the midway point of my MFA. Therefore, I am not truly passionate about some of my reading and writing. However, I do recognize that those less enjoyable elements are where I am seeing the most growth. Much of what I am learning is being used to revisit and revise pieces that I am more passionate about.

I somehow fell into a cohort of one, is that a thing, in my MFA program. All of my classmates are a full year ahead of me. Last summer they welcomed me into their cohort. They have helped me to grow as a writer. It might sound weird, but they also helped me to grow as a reader. That is such a valuable skill. Being able to read a piece and identify craft elements an author has used translates to enriching your own writing.

The cohort that adopted me last summer graduates in a few weeks. I have not heard how many students applied to or were accepted to the cohort that will follow behind me. I do feel a sense of loss, knowing that I will no longer be interacting with my current classmates in discussion posts. I know I will keep in touch with several of them. But it will be different. Will I connect as strongly with the new cohort?

This chaos has helped me realize the value of like-minded people. I have fallen into some amazing literary groups over the last few years. Former college professors that call me friend or colleague. Fellow writers, both online and in person, facing some of the same challenges and dreams I have. Of course, my classmates, sharing my educational path. Wait, am I in the overlapping section of a literacy Venn diagram? Wow, that was a surprise.

My point is I gain support from this diverse group of writers. I would like to think I provide at least a little in return. I am thankful to have this circle of friends and colleagues to keep me grounded, in check, even inspired.

It is easy to get sidetracked with the often-lopsided teeter totter of the elusive work/life balance. The result? We can forget to make time for those things, or people, that bring us joy and balance.

What is your passion? How do you feed your passion? Drop some comments.

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The one guarantee in life is loss. Losing a parent is part of the natural order of things. Knowing it will happen doesn’t make it any easier when the time comes. My call came just at the end of December 2019.

While completing my bachelor’s degree I began writing a book. This is an excerpt from the first chapter. (subscribe to my Substack for publishing updates)

LIFE CHANGES

Yesterday’s call still did not seem real. I had just come home after working a 12-hour NOC shift at the hospital. I could hear my landline begin to ring as I unlocked my door. No one ever called my land line unless something was wrong, so of course I thought, “Who died?”

“Hello, what’s up?” I said, having seen my parents’ number on the caller ID. It was a toss-up whether this would be my mother wanting to engage in a long rambling call, a call to inform me my dad was in the hospital again, or my mother just calling because she hadn’t answered her own phone in time and wanted to know if I was the one who had just tried to call her. It did not matter how many times I told her I would always leave a long message on the answering machine.

She always assumed she had missed a call from me. Countless times I told her I knew it was difficult for her to get to the phone within seven rings. Countless times I explained if she left the volume up, she could hear messages as the caller spoke. I had promised to always talk slowly enough to give her time to get to the phone. Was it so difficult to remember this? I sometimes joked with my parents that Mom must be going senile.

“Hi…it’s Mom.” It sounded like the start of a normal rambling call, and I was exhausted and just wanted to get rid of my scrubs, shower, and sleep. “Well, we just loaded your dad on the ambulance…”

As she said this, I thought that was not a huge shock, probably a UTI. Maybe pneumonia again. With his disability he was prone to both. They were also more serious and usually required a trip to the ED, sometimes even a day or two as an inpatient.

“He said ‘This is it’ as they were closing the ambulance doors.” She said in a flat tone.

I debated reminding her that he claimed it was the end every time he was transported to the hospital. Most times, I felt it was for dramatic effect. I’m sure it was his way of deflecting from the knowledge that it could be the end. However, sometimes I was sure he meant it.

“They had to revive him twice before they loaded him up. He was having another one of his little almost blacking out episodes.” I was surprised that as a retired nurse she would use such simple terms. For at least a year Dad had been experiencing pre-syncope. I wondered if he had not been confined to a wheelchair if he would have passed out and collapsed during these episodes.

“Wait. What?” Christ, she could have led with that! The fact that they had to revive him obviously made his situation much more serious. His previous episodes were so short. One event happened while he was in a routine checkup with his doctor. It was over before they could even fully assess him. His cardiologist had finally implanted a heart monitor. However, the only benefit it seemed to have was ensuring he had no episodes long enough to record. The fact that he was a DNR/DNI, and she had allowed them to intervene, had not even registered.

“I should let you go so you can get to the hospital. You said the neighbor saw the ambulance and offered to drive you? Don’t forget to take your cellphone.” I felt the need to remind her that this was a time to make sure she had the cellphone she usually left at home.

She said she still needed to get dressed and ordered me not to come racing across the state for what she considered no reason. This was what she always told me during calls like this.

I knew that I was in no shape for a seven-hour drive after working all night. The best thing I could do would be to get ready for bed, sleep, and call his hospital room to chat with him before going back to work that night. I had just reached to turn on the shower, and the phone rang again. I knew. There was only one reason the phone would ring again so soon. I pulled on my bathrobe and confirmed it was their number on the caller ID. I hesitated, thinking that during the pause this was a Schrodinger’s phone call of sorts, and answered the phone.

“He was right. This was it.” She had offered no hello, no lead-in. She just put it out there.

“Oh.” I wondered what a child is supposed to say to the surviving parent when they deliver this news.

“Well, he said this was it. I guess he was right. They ran another code on him but couldn’t get him back.” Her voice was calm. There was no more emotion to her words than if she had been telling me about a trip to the grocery store because she was out of milk.

“Are you dressed already? You should finish getting dressed so the neighbor can drive you in.” I said as I imagined the neighbor standing there waiting for her.

“Oh, I told her she didn’t have to. I’m going back to bed.”

It sounded so cold. She told me if he were dead, there was nothing she could change by going in. She reminded me again that I was not to bother with driving up in the winter.

After we hung up, I sat at the table wearing only my bathrobe. What am I supposed to do now? The boys were with their dad. Bentley, the boxer my son volunteered to foster, the dog I did not want, the dog that fought his way back from near death due to someone else’s neglect and then found a way into our family and our hearts, was sitting next to me with his head cocked sideways, drool halfway down to the floor. His silent, intent gaze somehow conveyed that he knew something was not right and that he was there for me.

I needed to tell my boys, tell my extended family. Shit, and the house supervisor at work, she will need to make sure my shift is covered. Hopefully, they will be able to discharge enough patients so they will not need two CNA’s tonight. I had to let them know I would not be in. Of course, I would be making that drive to my parents’ house, but it could not be today. It was early afternoon before I finally showered and tried to sleep.

I only slept for a few hours. When I woke up, I checked my email to see if any relatives had messaged me. I did not check my emails earlier in the day. There were a few relatives and old family friends I had no other way to contact, so I had emailed them before sleeping. I scrolled through my inbox. Spam, spam, relative, bill reminder, relative. My hand lifted from my mouse as if it had received a jolt of electricity. There was an email from my dad, sent the night before. I paused. It felt strange to open it knowing he was gone. I wondered if I would hear some creepy music heralding a message from the great beyond when I opened it. The only sound was the faint click of the button on my mouse. Dad shared that his cardiologist had called him earlier that day. After nearly a year the monitor had finally caught a “funny rhythm.” They were going to put in a pacemaker. I wondered if he would chuckle at the irony of the timing. Finding out what was wrong with him 24 hours before it killed him. I could hear his voice in my head, “Well, doesn’t that beat all?”

Every child knows the odds are that they will outlive their parents. However, my own father’s mortality was something we were always aware of. Fifty years earlier, on the way home from a family trip, our car had slid off the road after hitting black ice on a stretch of highway ominously called Dead Man’s Pass. My father, suffering from the flu, was lying down in the back seat. When our car came to rest on its side, my mother had a sprained wrist and whiplash. My brother and I had been sitting in the front seat, unrestrained, and struck the dash. He had a broken nose, and I had a bleeding gash in my chin. My father found himself upside down. His chin was pressed against his chest, the weight of his body on the back of his neck. He could not feel most of his body. He could not move. He was vomiting. He could barely catch his breath as he tried to change position. He couldn’t even turn his head to avoid the vomit pooling around his mouth and nose. He thought he was going to drown in the backseat of a car on the side of an icy mountain.

Dad was told that with his injuries he would never walk again. He was also told he could expect to live about a year, two at the most. He was stubborn and proved the doctors wrong, living well beyond what he called his “new warranty period.”

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I was reminded of hot eastern Oregon days and my grandmother’s flower garden, neglected when she could no longer tend to it. There was always a barn cat, the buzz of unseen bugs, and buttercups.

Enjoy a glimpse from one of those days

***

A subtle breeze pushes through the neglected flower garden. Its presence is confirmed by the glimpses of jewel-toned petals between the tall silvery green blades of grass gently swaying. The breeze itself makes no sound, but the motion it has caused creates a soft swishing. The waving blades bruise the colorful petals, releasing their intoxicating fragrance. The sight, smell and sound of the breeze are barely noticed by the child in the middle of the yard.

She is four years old. She is more concerned with her toes and how many buttercups she can strategically place between them. Sitting under a crabapple tree along the well-worn path that leads away from the porch of the old farmhouse, her hand repeats a simple motion. Run her fingers through the small mound of flowers, lift one for inspection, twirl it between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand while touching the green hued carpels with the tip of her left index finger. The flower passes her stringent inspection, a spot next to previously placed blossoms is selected. This one goes between the left piggy and fourth toes. As her hand and gaze return to the mound, she echoes the call of a Western Meadowlark. The tabby striped barn cat who had been napping under the crabapple tree wakes and looks in the direction of the bird, chirping her own reply.

“Bird not for you Stwipy. You eat hay in the barn,” the child informs the cat. The cat’s left ear briefly shifts toward the girl, then quickly back to the direction of the bird.

The girl fills all the spaces between her toes and still has several blossoms remaining. She continues to select flowers from the remaining supply. Without the benefit of a mirror, she blindly runs her fingers through her hair. She places the flowers in random places throughout her blonde hair and tucks some above her ears. She smiles and claps her hands together when she has placed the last one.

I don’t remember the writing prompt that week. It made me contemplate items I remember from my childhood. Items that are now only memories. I wondered. What if I could have taken some of those items when I was there? What would I have taken? What could I write that would give a sense of urgency in deciding, forcing to decide what was most important? Fire, which was always a concern, seemed the appropriate choice.

What would you take, if you had a heads up?

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The Important Things

“Gretchen, please! We need to hurry!” Tom’s voice was more insistent this time.

“I’m coming. I just want to go through each room one more time.” She knew they had to hurry. She just had to take one last look. She snapped a few photos of the room with her cell phone. She knew that in mere hours, photos and memories might be all she had left.

Her uncles’ childhood rooms were next. The small collection of mantle clocks in her youngest uncle’s room could stay behind. None of them worked. She did not have any special connection to them. Her oldest uncle’s room was filled with 4H and FFA trophies from decades earlier. She grabbed the framed photo of a cow with a crooked horn. It was Lafrona. All of their cattle on their ranch had descended from that cow. Her grandmother’s sewing room was across the hall. The sewing machine her great-grandmother had brought by train from Kansas had already been moved to the safety of the root cellar. The window looked out over the garden, and beyond to the barn. She remembered stories of her grandfather “helping” to build that barn as a child. He was far too young to really help of course. Supposedly he fell off the roof by that corner where the moss covered, wooden watering trough now stood.

Just yesterday she was standing in front of that barn. The gates to the corral were now open. So were the ones to the road. The horses had been turned out of their stalls and along with the cattle driven toward the canyon. The barn doors were secured to prevent them from going back in.

Honk, honk!! The horn of the neighbor’s truck coming down the road tore her from her thoughts. She must hurry. She moved the last few boxes to the top of the stairs. She glanced out the window on the landing of the staircase. She could see a rainbow forming in the drops of water just beyond. She hoped the sprinklers placed on the roof would save the house her great-grandfather built over one hundred years ago. She grabbed one of the boxes and headed down the stairs.

It probably started late that night they spent on the porch with their neighbors. After dinner Tom set up the ice cream maker for the children. As the children argued, first over who would have to turn the crank, then about when it was their turn again, the adults talked.

As they talked about cattle and timber prices, they watched the tree line. Flash…. followed by a rumble. They continued their conversation without missing a beat, but they all looked intently at the treetops in the direction of the flash. This was a common occurrence during summer storms. She could remember similar evenings when she was a child, just as carefree as Tiffany and James, while her parents watched the tree line.

“I heard that Mendenhall lost his Hereford bull the other night. They are thinking a bear.” That was big news, but Frank seemed to always know even the little things going on at neighboring ranches. He had lived in this area his entire life. Frank had been one of her fathers’ closest friends. There was always a mischievous glint in his eye as he told of childhood escapades with her father. Even the clouds of cataracts could not dim the sparkle in this kind man’s eyes. “I told him that he should keep an eye out down by his orchard. That bear will probably visit his place next. Probably catch him on a trail cam.”

Flash…. rumble, rumble, BOOM!

I read Beowulf for the first time a few years ago while taking a literature class. One of our assignments was to draw a picture of the monster, Grendel, or write from his perspective. Well, writing seemed easier.

The result echoed advice I had received many times growing up. Most of us have probably been asked, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?”

Maybe the next time you read a book with a hero, contemplate the monster.

Here is an excerpt from Grendel’s perspective as he is defeated by Beowulf in the great hall.

(WARNING - GRAPHIC CONTENT)

We tumble through the great hall. I am surprised by his stamina. As we crash into benches and tables, splinters of wood go flying. We break free of each other, only to rush back together, locking again in combat. Goblets that hours ago contained mead clatter across the floor. Their great hall will not look so great after I finish this battle.

His men jab at me from all sides; they are so distracting. I turn to flick one away. My adversary sees my distraction and lunges for my arm. His grip is stronger than anything I have ever felt before and I cry out in pain. The walls of the great hall shudder as all of his men cheer.

How is this happening? I turn, I spin, I try to free myself to no avail. I feel the fibers of my shoulder separating as my arm leaves my body. Again, I shriek in agony, and again these men cheer. I am free, but not unscathed. My arm is no longer mine but held high above the head of the man I thought I would best. He raises it high as he shouts his victory, his men shout back just as loudly. I cannot fight like this, I must escape.

I lunge for the door. I hear the cheers of the men, mocking me, shaming me. I am broken, bleeding, and weakened. They know this and will not stop their attack. I stumble, nearly falling several times as I cross that same space covered in three bold strides a brief time ago. I must make it back to my lair. I will find peace there.

It seems I just can’t get enough of colleges. In addition to working on my MFA in creative writing, I have formed a lifelong connection to my local community college. This does not upset me at all. In fact, I am enjoying it.

A few nights ago, I shared the spotlight with two students who attend community college. The event was a monthly collaboration between the college and a local brewery. It is an amazing event, held in a historical building. The topics can range from contemplating autistic writers throughout history, math journeys, the automotive industry, or this month, a recap of a college sponsored trip to the UK last summer.

I was fortunate enough to be part of that group. Our ages ranged from late teens to (ahem) a few decades older. I had been asked a few months ago to coordinate this talk to share our experience “from inception to landing back in the US.” Challenge accepted.

We discussed some of our first meetings. What should we expect and why we wanted to go. We shared how many of us met for the first time as we checked in at the airport. We spoke about what parts of the trip we found most meaningful.

It’s difficult for me to say what was the most meaningful to me. High on the list would be the connections made with our travel companions. Our WhatsApp group is still active almost a year later. We still talk about our tour guide instructing us to be prepared for our next stop on The Tube when we heard our group begin to quack. I was surprised that most of the food we had was not as awful as you hear. I felt as if I was floating through layers and layers of history. I discovered each place we visited had its own distinct personality.

Would I go again? In a heartbeat. In fact, I want to. I graduate with my MFA next spring. That will open up some time for, can you guess? More classes. One of my travel companions is returning to Oxford this summer for a writing program. I’m happy for her, and maybe a little jealous. Maybe summer of 2028? (Our community college is planning Italy in 2027….I looooove lasagna.)

My advice? Always take the trip. Find a way. Have an experience. Make memories.

What am I doing next? Well, another event with the community college. My participation will benefit my MFA courses.

I will be presenting an essay on a novel by Oregon Sci-Fi author, Ursula K. Le Guinn. She is such a remarkable individual. She has an amazing talent for world building in all of her writing. The daughter of anthropologist/authors. Her father, as the first professor of the anthropology department was in the position to work with Ishi, believed to be the last of California’s Yahi tribe. I feel that the parallels she creates between her fictional worlds and what we have all been taught about colonialism beg the question of nature versus nurture.

I will also be presenting a craft talk on character building with interiority. I decided to use excerpt from a piece I wrote while earning my associates degree at this community college. There were two reasons I made that choice. First, I really liked how the piece turned out (our prompt was to write Beowulf from Grendel’s perspective). Second, in my presentation I am re-writing a few scenes, leaving out the interiority. It is surprising how much a scene can change when those details are omitted.

I left out that I read a couple pieces at the talk the other night. Truthfully, I did not read all of what I brought to share. There was a bit of an ad lib element as we passed the microphone back and forth. So, I will take the opportunity to share one here.

The Tube

We tap our oyster cards and enter, one by one,

Then descend deep beneath the streets of London.

Escalators so step if feels dangerous to lean forward.

A flight of stairs and cross to the next platform over.

The air is heavy and humid.

I try not to think of the weight of the stone and dirt

Held in place by the glistening white tiles above.

From the darkness there is sound,

A high-pitched noise of metal.

How fast is it hurtling in our direction?

Will it be able to stop in time?

Red, white, red, white

The blur slows and comes into focus.

Through the windows passengers

Collectively brace, sway slightly forward then stand straight.

Heads remaining bowed in worship of their phones.

We push to enter the closest car

We hope for a seat but settle for a pole.

We brace, collectively lean back, then return upright

We listen for the stop before ours

We wait, we hear it, “Quack Quack Quack”

This piece was one of those moments for me. It was published in the 2026 edition of Clatsop Community Colleges Rain Magazine.

The fog is thick and heavy, resting on the calm surface of the bay.

Just above, the sky is flawless blue, and the morning sun shines brightly.

Slowly, the fog begins to retreat.

Shadows begin to emerge.

The fog is losing its battle with the warmth of the sun.

Shadowy figures gain definition.

Sentinels, decades old pilings, driven deep in the silty bottom of the bay.

Old, weathered, and worn.

No longer serving the purpose for which they were placed.

They are now used as an occasional perch for a lone bald eagle

Or a slalom course for fish.

They serve me as a vision to ponder.

How many footsteps once echoed along a long-forgotten dock?

How many ships may have tied off alongside?

How far did those ships travel?

Was every crew member on board by choice,

Or were some shanghaied as my great-uncle once was?

Most of all I am reminded by the receding fog that our history is always there,

Whether we choose to see it or not.

During that time, she conceded to an iWatch and iPhone. If she fell, 911 and certain family members would be notified. After several welfare checks in one month, she agreed to place a camera in a common area of her home. I would be able to see that she was in fact alright. Her landline would be left off the hook, her cellphone battery dead or ringer turned off.

I have recently revisited that capstone project. Here is an excerpt from a chapter I am dropping somewhere in the middle of the book.

The camera had turned into what I called a proof of life portal. At least I knew she was safe at that moment. It was not a solution to the risk of her living alone, seven hours away. At times unreachable due to weather related road closures or simply my own fear from an accident I do not even remember. It was not safe for her to live alone. I felt powerless not being able to convince her of that.

I thought about the packet of letters my cousin sent me after her own mother passed away from dementia. They were letters from my parents to her mother. A large manilla envelope. A dozen or so letters. Cursive written on both sides of floral stationery, blue ink bleeding from one side to the other, smelling of moth balls. The early ones were from my mother. Communication between college roommates turned sisters-in-law, discussing the cognitive decline of my paternal grandmother.

As I read and re-read those letters, there was no denying the events shared were repeating, five decades later. It felt like a recycled play. The same story, new characters, shifted by a generation. There had been so many advances in medicine since those letters were written in the early 70s. Now there was a name for my grandmother’s condition. No treatment, no cure, just a name to validate the struggle. A better understanding of how the disease affects far more than memory. Was it really better to know how the disease would progress and still be powerless to change the outcome?

I wondered if my aunt experienced the same feeling of helplessness I was feeling. Hours away from a mother whose mind and health were failing. I am certain she felt more comfort reading my mother’s letters than I gained from the camera, my window into my mother’s world of dementia. My aunt knew her mother always had my mother, father, or uncle present to keep her safe. In my situation with my own mother, I could only rely on the camera, the hard fall indicator on her iWatch, or the mailman or Meals-on-Wheels driver to notice if deliveries were piling up on the porch.

Had my aunt remembered the letters when she herself was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Did she pull them out of the box where they had been saved, tucked in amongst those moth balls? Did she read them, re-read them? Did she wonder how my uncle and cousins would be able to manage her care?

My aunt died from the same condition that took her mother’s mind and then her life. My maternal grandmother, also a victim, and now my own mother. How long before it is me? What about my boys? Both of their grandmothers have dementia. When will my boys decide to give me my own Grandma Cam? Who will set up a camera for them? What catchy name will their cameras have?

My mind always goes back to a literature class I took for my associates degree. We explored the dichotomy of the idea of heroes versus monsters or villains. For my essay, I broadened that to good versus bad.

One of the points I posed was the question, “Does there always need to be one or the other? Good or evil? Is life always about extremes? What lies at the mid-point of the swing of a pendulum? Can’t we just eliminate evil and keep the rest?”

What would Beowulf be without Grendel? How much would we appreciate happiness if we never knew sorrow? If we did not fear failure, would we strive for success?

With every question I posed, I could hear the argument, “Life would be happy if we just lived at that point where the pendulum no longer moved.” One might argue it would no longer be a pendulum, but instead it would measure plumb.

The truth is, we need the proprioception of the swinging pendulum. We need to feel like we have purpose. Fear of the undesired consequences gives us the drive to succeed. Like any hero, we need our own monster for motivation.

Workshop critiques for the full essay were mixed. Some of my colleagues felt it was good. Others felt I fell short of fulfilling the prompt. I felt the same about their essays; some nailed it while others fell short.

So, I am posting some of the highlights here. I know some of you might enjoy them, while others could think they are crap. Others though might just sit in the middle, neither pleased, nor displeased. Mid-point of the swing of the pendulum.

I suppose in the end it might have been better to say, “If there were no mid-point, there would be no path for the pendulum to travel from one extreme to the other.”

Well, as with my reading, much my writing is currently dictated by class assignments in my MFA program. I am being challenged with a variety of genres and techniques. All of this while recovering from wrist surgery. (BTW, not a huge fan of voice to text with dialogue.)

This week I revisited a book I wrote during my bachelor’s program a few years ago. I felt it was finished, felt it needed to sit for a bit, planned to revisit, revise, then figure out the publishing. Then there was life, the start of a new degree, a couple more ideas for books that are in process, and the pull from that book I thought was complete.

I am at that age that much of the previous generation of my family is gone. After the most recent passing, I was given some letters that my parents wrote back in the 70s. Much of their content related directly to that book I felt was already complete and just waiting in the wings to be published. Last week I had an assignment that pulled that book back on stage.

The book was only intended to share the process of a daughter discovering after her father’s death that her mother was showing signs dementia. Suddenly, life shifted to finding life insurance policies that had been moved to places that could not be remembered. There was the realization that the mother should no longer live alone. There was the emotional and physical distance between the two.

But what about the letters. Decades old hand-written letters, floral stationery, blue ink bleeding from one side to the other. Words from a daughter-in-law to her college roommate turned sister-in-law. Updates on the mental and physical decline of the mother they now shared through marriage.

The situation, repeating, now has a name. There is no cure, just a name to validate the struggle. Would having those letters while trying to convince this generation’s victim to move made a difference? Would she remember having written of her struggle with her mother-in-law all those years ago? Would she deny her mother-in-law’s fate was now her future?

I chose to revisit the book. My revisions include a new chapter that seemed to fit the assignment of the week. Although I did not have those letters at the time, I am certain of how they would have fit into my thoughts at the time. As the author, I will alter the timeline of this content.

Then I will wonder how many more times I will repeat the cycle. Write, wait, review and revise, wait, review….

Last term I took a Northwest Gothic course. That does seem like an odd concept. Our working definition focused on atmosphere, setting, emotion. What happens when you explore fear. How could morals factor in? What about haunted places, or people.

Our reading list was filled with Northwest locations and authors. This term, I am revisiting one of those novels in a narrative course with a focus on home and land. The book is My Abandonment, by Portland Author, Peter Rock. The 2018 movie Leave No Trace was inspired by this book.

Have no fear. I don’t plan to drop a lot of spoilers. If you have not read the book or watched the movie, I would recommend reading the book first, then watching the movie. As with any movie to book transition, there are some significant differences.

I have to admit; I was delighted to be able to re-use a book I had already purchased. But as we have just finished this term’s module, I realize it was good for me to revisit this book. My classmates and I had so many questions, felt there were a significant number of red flags, and in a few spaces wondered if Rock had intentionally left what felt like a few holes in the plot.

This story is based on a true story. A father, who is a veteran, and his young daughter, Caroline, are discovered living in Forest Park in Portland. The book is told from the Caroline’s perspective. They are separated, questioned, tested, and ultimately relocated to a horse farm near Portland. The plan was to help them re-enter society. However, father and daughter disappeared and have not been heard from since.

Rock, however, continues the story. He incorporates some back story. He moves the story forward in what could be a realistic path. The most notable differences between book and movie happen after the pair leave the horse farm.

There are several aspects of this book that are very present in society today.

Where do you live when you are unhoused and can that place be called a home? Whose definition decides? Caroline considers their spot in Forest Park home. Forest Park is public land, but it is illegal to live in the park.

Why is more not being done to help who say they are veterans struggling with PTSD? What if there is help available, but they do not accept it? Caroline’s father tells her that life on the horse ranch is not the way they want to live. When they leave, he tells her to leave behind everything they had been given. They take only what they came with.

Where is the best place for a child? If a parent is struggling and cannot provide shelter for their child, should the child be removed from their care? Again, whose definition do we use?

In this novel, who is controlling? Is it the government, telling Caroline and her father the must live in a real house on the horse ranch? Is it Carolines father when he insists they return to their previous lifestyle? There are more examples in the book, but I said I don’t intent to drop too many spoilers (some of them are doozies).

How about some of the craft elements Rock uses in this novel?

My Abandonment is filled with tension. As an adult reader, I have my idea of what is normal. Caroline, as a child, has a different perspective. There were points in this novel when my brain was screaming that Rock had just waved a red flag. In some cases, as if he sensed reader would be alarmed, Caroline would conveniently share her perspective. The level of concern would be lowered but not removed.

The contrast between how the characters of Caroline and her father are presented is not hard to miss. Caroline’s character is rich with interiority. Rock leads us through this novel solidly in Caroline’s thoughts. We know how she feels being separated from her father. We feel her emotions. What we know of her father is only what we can glean from her perspective.

Another character to consider in this novel is the land. Whether it is Forest Park in the first half of the book, or where the second half of the book takes them, the land very much plays a role in this novel.

I am left conflicted. Part of me wants to know what really happened to Caroline and her father after they left the horse ranch. Did they move deeper into Forest Park? Did they leave Oregon altogether? Are they safe? Just as strong is my desire to follow Rock’s version of this story further. I want Caroline to reveal more of her back story. I want to see where she goes beyond the pages of this novel.

Have your read this book? What did you think of it?