Hello everyone and a big thank you to those who have already participated in the Tumbled Stone Fundraiser for Mainsprings Pregnancy and Family Support Centre, Calgary. I want to let you know that the deadline has been extended to August 31^st so there are 20 days left to reach our goal.

Today the 26th book was mailed off, so we are just over the half way point in reaching our goal of 50 books. Many local people have purchased a book and donated the cost of shipping as well, so to date we have raised 261.00 that will go directly to Mainsprings.

Please feel free to share this link wide and far, to friends and family. This is such a vital ministry and they need our support to keep funding the good work they are doing.

A Tumbled Stone – A Fundraiser for Mainsprings Calgary

For those who do not wish to use paypal, an etransfer to vinemarc@telus.net will work or a cheque made out to me and sent to 119 Riverside Place N.W. High River AB T1V 1X3.

I thought you might like to get a taste of the book, so here’s an excerpt:

Exerpt from A Tumbled Stone by Marcia Lee Laycock

   Andrea opened the drawer on a small desk and drew out a notebook she had bought long ago. She had a stack of coil bound notebooks that she had used to write her stories and poems and all the other work her high school teachers had so often encouraged her to do. But this one was different. This one was bound like a normal book, but it was black, inside and out. She picked up the white gel pen that had come with it.

   Names had been flitting through her mind for days. She’d suddenly realize she’d been listing them, filing some as possibilities, discarding others. But she had never spoken them, never written them. She put the gel pen down, picked up an ordinary pen and found a blank piece of white paper. She wrote the list in alphabetical order. Alyssa, Brandilyn, Cameron, Destiny. She scratched lines through that last one, continued the list for a while, then crumpled the paper and threw it into the garbage can by the door. She pulled the book toward her, switched to the gel pen and turned to the next blank page.

Dear Diary – I wonder if my birth mother ever thought these thoughts I’m having. She gave me away, so obviously she didn’t want me. Why didn’t she just abort me? I guess back then it wasn’t so easy. It is now. I heard two girls at school talking about it in the washroom. They didn’t even care that I was there. One girl  knew a lot about it – how to get the doctor to make a referral  – just mention suicide, she said, and there would be no problem. “It’s just a tiny blob right now,” I remember her saying, “but don’t wait too long. Waiting complicates everything.”

Waiting. I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life. But for what?

   The pen hovered for a moment, trembling. She let it drop and put her hand over her mouth to hold back the sob that threatened to rip from her throat. She had to get out of this room, out of this house. She grabbed a jacket and slipped quietly down the stairs, out the back door and across the yard to the yellowed field beyond. She strode along the fence line toward the creek, her ears perked for its sound, her eyes peering steadily ahead until she saw the thin line of scrub brush where the land suddenly fell away. Her eyes found the brown scar on the bank where she so often climbed down into the gully. When she reached it she stood still, staring down the incline to the creek.

   It was swollen with the spring’s run-off, its water muddied and full of debris. Part of the far bank had fallen away, exposing the roots of old poplar and spruce trees. Andrea stared at the churning water. She wanted the peaceful trickle of mid-summer, the small sound of flowing water that so often soothed her. There would be no comfort here today. She stared down at the steepness of the path. If she fell … tumbled over and over … A crashing sound made her start. A young poplar had yielded to gravity and plunged into the creek. She turned away and wandered along the bank, feeling the bite of wind not yet warmed by the sun. She had stopped crying. She felt dry, hollow inside and wondered at the feeling. Shouldn’t she feel full, with a baby inside her? Sitting on an old fallen cottonwood, she put her hand on her stomach. She should feel something. But there was only a numbness now, even when she thought about Cory. What would he do if he knew she was carrying his baby? She could still hear the rushing water in the creek. The wind had increased and seemed to punish the trees. She pushed herself up and headed back toward the house, each foot crushing the ground in front of the other. She could feel the stubble under her shoes like blunt needles trying to break through.

   The back door swung silently as she opened it into the kitchen. Earl had fixed the squeak. He was always fixing things, quickly, before they became a bother.

   But he can’t fix this.

   Edna was standing at the sink. Andrea watched her fold the washcloth over the faucet and knew by the slight stiffening of her back she was aware of her but she didn’t turn. She just stared out the window at the barrenness of the landscape – the land she always said she loved, perhaps too much.

   Can anyone love too much? Andrea wondered. The land perhaps, an inanimate thing that can’t love back. But that’s so much safer than loving those who should but never do.

   Edna’s long hand rested on the cloth on the tap. Andrea could see the curve of her high cheek bone, a moistness to the curl of her pale eye lashes as her head turned and dropped almost imperceptibly.

   Andrea wanted to scream, “speak to me. Look at me!” For a moment she imagined her turning, a smile quick to her lips, her eyes beaming approval of her only daughter, her “chosen one.” She had longed for that look for as long as she could remember. But then a cloud blocked the light like a heavy curtain, dim reality returned and Edna did not move. Andrea stepped across the doorway and past into the hall, slowly climbing the stairs to her room. Her legs felt like heavy logs but her feet made no sound.

   Maybe I’m invisible already, only a phantom whose footsteps can’t make the floors creak.

   Back in her room, she picked up the book and pen.

I’m sitting on my bed now, staring at the small suitcase partly hidden on the floor of my closet. Edna brought it up from the basement yesterday so I could get ready. She has arranged everything with her sister, she said. A sister I’ve never met. I’m to leave on Friday, go away for a few months, a year maybe, then I can come home, after, and no-one will know.

But I’ve decided. Tomorrow I’ll take that small suitcase and walk away.

   A sound on the stairway made her freeze. She closed the book and stood up, leaning toward the door to hear what might be beyond. But there was no sound. She pulled a box of old books out from the closet. Edna had discovered it in the basement the week before and brought it up to see if any of the books were worth reading. But Andrea didn’t feel like reading much lately. She lifted a stack and slid the diary beneath them, then shoved the box back.

*****

Thanks again for your trust, your support and your generosity.

Marcia