The sky remains the same as ever

PANAMA CITY BEACH — I heard a haunting melody this week, a particularly atmospheric clip by the Japanese band MONO: “The Sky Remains the Same as Ever.” It fit the mood I was in, which was at least in part precipitated by the sky, itself.

Maybe I pay too much attention to the sky. When I walk our dogs at night, for instance, I watch the stars and the moon — which hasn’t yet caused me to fall down, though it has resulted in some epic stumbles.

But I also tend to associate certain skies with specific moments in my life.

Last Saturday, as I watched over some chicken breasts sizzling on our back porch grill, I sat back in a deck chair to enjoy the afternoon sunshine. The temperature was in the 70s, the sun was high and warm, the breeze in our shared courtyard just a gentle, cool suggestion.

The sky was a rich blue, cloudless, without a sense of depth. It made the tops of the houses and trees look like cardboard cutouts against a lighted diorama backdrop.

And the combination of details took me back in time.

First it brought me, as it so often does, to a morning almost exactly six years ago, standing in a front yard in Lynn Haven, making phone calls to friends to tell them the worst news one can share. The sky, the sun, the breeze were just like that. Such a lovely sky for so terrible a day.

Then I was back even further, to summer 1985 — more than a lifetime ago, if measured by the earlier memory — sitting on a green space in Gainesville, feeling sun on my face, scribbling notes in a journal, looking up at the endless blue dome overhead.

It was hotter that day, and my mood was restless, but the sky was exactly the same. The world below stood out in stark relief, and with it a sense that none of this was real.

When I got up from my chair to flip the chicken, I wondered about the passing of time and our innate ability to relive moments at the slightest provocation: a scent, a sound, the texture of a blanket, the flavor of a pie, a song playing in the background of a television commercial.

In our hearts and minds, all time is one. The past is always there, one step removed, and sometimes it feels more real than where and when we are now.

As I write this on Wednesday morning, a fog has lifted and formless gray clouds have obscured the blue above. Spanish moss sways in oak limbs still bare of leaves. The sun persists. It punches through the haze, turning the moss dark against the brighter firmament.

What will this day be remembered for, I wonder, and what will this sky recall in years to come?

Peace.

---
(This is my Undercurrents column for this week at PanamaCity.com and in The News Herald.)

A Book Trailer: The Book of Gabriel

My friend, Lou Columbus, a videographer, writer and audio story narrator, created this trailer for my most recent novel, "The Book of Gabriel: An Endtimes Fable."

He used footage from this shoot on the shore of St. Andrew Bay, as well as found footage, and a photograph of Marisa, on whom I based the personality and image of the angel Joy; the text shown on the background of each scene is taken from the book and corresponds in some way to the scenes being depicted. I think he did a great job.

I hope you'll watch the trailer (1 minute) and check out the book, which is available in trade paperback and Kindle editions from Amazon.

It's the story of Gabriel Jones, a man at the end of his rope who finds himself drafted into a celestial war, fighting fallen angels and heavenly hosts on the side of Shekinah, the female aspect of God. They take some advice from Cain, the first murderer, who lives outside of Eden Gardens State Park. Borrow a ride from Elijah, who likes cars with flames on the side. Meet the Watchers who hover in the night sky over Gulf Breeze.

Dream of new lives in other worlds, and awake to find them true. Step through a door into the torture rooms of Hell, and walk the wilderness with Lilith, first wife of Adam. Stand on the edge of the world, part the sea, and raise the light of hope in a world where Lucifer is lord of all.

Connecting the Dots

PANAMA CITY — I try to notice when the universe starts speaking. Unfortunately, I seldom understand what it’s trying to say, but I’m learning to live with the mystery.

Regular readers of these columns may recall that I have admitted before how reason and faith are comfortable companions in my brain. This mystifies both my spiritual and atheist friends, which of course amuses me.

Look, I know we live in a random universe, but I continue to believe in signs, seeing meaning behind events that have no obvious connections — what others might call “coincidence.” Maybe it’s just magical thinking, but I can’t help opening myself to any deeper meaning when synchronicity smacks me upside the head.

It happened earlier this week, but all I know for sure in retrospect is that I was where I was supposed to be at that time. Abiding, one might say.

I came to the coffee shop to conduct an interview. The coffee of the day was “approved by The Dude,” according to a drawing of a bearded man wearing sunglasses that had been scrawled on brown paper behind the counter.

(You might recall The Dude in the film “The Big Lebowski” being accosted by the Nihilists, who tell him, “We believe in nothing.” I was thinking, right then, I believe I forgot my sunglasses today, and then recalled The Dude exclaiming, “Careful man, there’s a beverage here,” as I picked up my order.)

A few minutes later, I was talking to young singer/songwriter Kristen Barkuloo about songs that speak to us. She said she wanted her music to remind people of meaningful times in their lives. I mentioned that there are a few songs that do so for me, and one artist in particular.

Seconds later, David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” began playing over the sound system and goosebumps rose on my arms. (Bowie released his latest music video, "Valentine's Day," on Tuesday, the day following this interview.)

Barkuloo talked about a song she was inspired to write after a young friend died in a car wreck, and I thought of my own history with similar tragedy. She talked of getting into theater productions and studying under Bruce Taws, and I further connected that to my son, a songwriter and singer who did theater with Bruce years ago, and whose best friend died in a car wreck.

So now we talked about linkages, connections.

She mentioned that she also wrote fiction, and I encouraged her to visit Writers Gallery, a monthly open mic for writers hosted at Chez Amavida that will reconvene in September after a summer hiatus. I told her it was organized a couple of years ago by local author Nick May, and then I looked to my left and saw Nick opening the café door.

Greetings all around followed, and more talk of strange connections. As The Stranger said, “I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that.”

Peace.
---
(This is my Undercurrents column for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald for this week.) 

Five Years

Gulf Coast State (then "Community") College. I was seated behind Jameson, Marisa and Nathan. Michael York was about to take the stage for his "Will and I" one-man show, in which he told stories of his times portraying characters from Shakespeare. He was there as part of FSU's "Seven Days of Opening Nights." The kids had gotten a chance to see him earlier in the day as part of a school trip, and this was his public event. 

I just looked up the date this happened. I found a TV news report of coverage.

Feb. 23, 2005.

I tried to get all three of the kids to look back so I could take a photo. Jameson actually shifted away, thinking I was trying to get a picture of just Nathan and Marisa. I got this shot, and my camera battery promptly died. I tried several times to revive it.

At the time, I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to get a photo of Michael York. Now, there are very few things I would trade this photo for. I have a shadowbox in my writing space that contains York's autograph on my DVD of "Logan's Run" and the brochure for his performance. I'm adding this photo to that tonight.

Three years later, to the hour, we were gathered in the theater lab at Gulf Coast, the "black box," with Marisa's friends, fellow students, and loved ones, telling stories about her and trying to ease each other's pain. We woke up that day in a world that no longer contained her, and we've been struggling ever since with her absence.

And now, five years further on, somehow, the pain has eased.  It's an ache now, though it can still pierce, still bring tears. I feel it in the center of my chest as I write this. Yesterday seems so far away.

That is, until I ran across this photo tonight. I stared at it, and it seemed like only yesterday again.

We're still in the process of moving into a new home, and we were going through pictures to put on our "Family" wall in the staircase. I pulled this one out, not because it's going on the wall, but because of the look in her eyes.

Look at them. What do you see there? Look again.

Don't look away. Don't blink.

Look again, and she might be gone.

Books Alive 2013 Photo Post (1 of 2)

Morris & The Kretzers

Books Alive was Saturday. The 14th annual event hosted by the Bay County Public Library Foundation. As a volunteer, I was invited to the Friday evening gathering at the home of Frank Walker, the director of the Panama City Beach Library. (Debra wasn't able to make it, as she was still very ill with the head cold we both have been suffering from this week.) These photos are from that event, and the next post will include photos of the actual festival.

I was pleased to see my friend Jayson Kretzer and his wife, Heather, in attendance. Jayson is the guy I want to work with on a graphic novel adaptation of my "Book of Gabriel." They discovered they knew some of the same folks in Wewa as author Michael Morris, who asked me about my current project, which I have teased a bit on Facebook. Michael is a lyrical writer, and a gentleman. He hails from Perry and writes about the areas just east of here along the "Forgotten Coast."

Stone, McVoy, West

I met the authors Michel Stone and Jacqueline West at the party, but had already met Terra Elan McVoy earlier in the day; my friend Kathie Bennett (of Magic Time Literary Agency) had put us in touch when I asked Kathie if any of the authors she represents would like to visit my Education Encore class. Terra volunteered, and the class just loved her. She showed them a character-building worksheet she uses, and how to draw a character web. (She brought her mother, Heather, along to the class — and Heather bought two of my books on Saturday. Terra says she gets to read them when her mom is finished. I hope we can still be friends when she does.)

Morrison, Monroe

Michael and Mary Alice Monroe wanted a photo together, and I was glad to oblige. I had written an article about Mary Alice for the daily paper two weeks back, based on a looong phone conversation we had (and which Kathie again set up), and we had another long talk at the party. I was impressed by how she really focuses on the person she's talking to; I noticed her giving her undivided attention a few times that evening and the next day. She's a South Carolina conservationist and avowed "turtle lady," which I thought Marisa would have appreciated.

My Big Bald Head. Also, authors.

Michael also grabbed me to say that Janis Owens wanted to recreate one of her favorite photos from a previous Books Alive party, in which I held the camera out MySpace style and authors gathered behind me. Why not? So I did, and that is the result at left. Janis is the one with the giddy expression and clasped hands. She's so funny. I was glad that Michel and Mary Alice jumped in to participate. Last time, we had a rather unimpressed Jeff Shaara in the photo (or rather, his name tag. That guy is taaaaalll.)

Featured Authors (and Bettina)

Bettina Mead, the PR person for the library, asked me to take the annual "official" photo of the featured authors. That's what you see at the left. This photo kind of marked the end of the evening (although now that I think about it, I believe the picture above actually was taken after this one). Everyone was shuttled off to their overnight places, and I returned home to gather the things I would need for the next day.

It was very cool to meet some new-to-me authors, and to get to spend a few minutes with Michael and Janis and Kathie again, as well as the locals who support the event each year, like Frank Walker, who's always good for a joke or two. Kathie and Michael, in particular, made me glad I attended, as they had nice things to say about my work; that may come off as egotistical, but what I mean is that it's nice to be bragged on by people you admire in front of people you respect.

Better picture, with Janis literally propping me up as I squat.

...To be continued ...

Word Prompts at the Writing Class

(Notes from the Rosemary Beach Conference for Writers continue...)

JD's prompt: Think of your foremost fear. Phobia. What are you afraid of? Write an example and attempt to trace it to a childhood incident if you can.

I wrote:

My greatest fear is the death of my children. They're both in their 20s, both intelligent, cautious, capable, imaginative. But I worry. Four years ago, a phone call from the FHP awoke us. My son's best friend was dead in a car wreck. 18 years old. I have not gotten over that and I don't think I ever will.


Phobia? Snakes. We lived by the woods in a rural area with a creek that cut through our front yard when I was a kid. Snakes every summer. Moccasins. Rattlers. Diamondbacks. King Snakes. Corals. We killed snakes by the bootfuls every year. Chopped with a shovel. Shot with a rifle. Our dogs cornered them. Our cat stalked them. Too many times, I ran right up on them at play. Now I have nightmares about infestations of snakes. The only good snake is a dead one. Just yesterday, my wife went out in our yard to water her garden and was about to sit on a little rolling tool box on the lawn — and there was a pit-nosed snake curled under it, just the tip of its tail showing. I split that thing in three pieces with a shovel before tossing it over the fence.


My fear is the lurking danger. The one you don't see coming, that takes your loved one in an instant. That doesn't give you a chance to say goodbye.

JD tells us: "Don't be afraid of failure. All works of art are failures. All we can do is try to fail better next time."

Writing is patience. Diligence. Tenacity. It can be a learned craft; the more difficult skill to learn is storytelling.

As fiction writers, we write about the things we don't understand. And we don't understand ourselves sometimes. Writing can be therapy.

We don't offer answers. We ask questions.

Fiction allows us to shape our troubles, fiction being defined as "to shape."

JD's prompt: Write about the memory suggested by this next word:
"Photograph."

I (knowing even then that my first thought was triggered by the previous prompt) wrote:

It's black and white, the color was leeched by a setting on the digital camera. I'm seated on a stool in the kitchen of my home. She's hugging me, caught under the crook of my right arm, her scented hair soft against my jaw, her cheek against my neck. I'm looking directly at the camera. I don't recall who was taking the photo now. All I remember any more is the sense of loss. She was leaving for college soon, moving away in a few days. It was Christmas week and we were making cookies, having a holiday party and goodbye party all in one. Two months later, she would be dead, but I knew everything was changing even then.

JD's TIPS:

• Notice everything. You cannot twist the fact that you don't know.
• Invent.
• Stop before you're finished. If you're working on an ongoing piece, then stop when you know what the next line will be; you'll have a place to begin tomorrow.

Next time: Flash fiction, obituary and myth.

Four Years

A lot can happen.

In four years, an economy can collapse and begin to recover. Presidents (and other officials) can change with the terms. Infants become toddlers become little people. Olympics return. February gets an extra day.

Pain fades. Memory becomes ever more treasured.

Today marks four years since we were awakened on a sunny Saturday morning by a phone call from the Florida Highway Patrol. Debra answered the phone. The man asked us to come over to Donna Williams' home. She had asked him to call us when he arrived to inform her that her daughter had been killed in a car accident overnight.

(I have sat here for several minutes, now, trying to decide what more there is to say about that morning that hasn't been said before. I believe there are volumes still to write. Moments that stretched like millenia. But I don't think I can approach those moments here, now.)

Here are other entries about Marisa on this blog (minus those somehow lost in the three-year gap of missing entries from Jan. 2006 to Jan. 2009). And here is her final entry on her Myspace, the story of her best friend and how she loved him and why. (And the extra Mom and Dad and Sister he brought into her life. ... And I'm crying right now.)

And following is a column I wrote in the days immediately after her death, originally published March 2, 2008:

All that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect, and in her eyes

Let me tell you about this girl I know.
I can’t recall how we met. I do remember my son, then a junior at Bay High, saying that Marisa was helping him with his math, and I said, “Who?” and he said something like, “She’s a drama kid.” But it seems no mere chance that the time our troubled lives began to get on track and start making sense coincided with her appearance.

Few anecdotes here, though. I’d need a warehouse of ink and paper to tell each story, and still they wouldn’t explain the complexity and (paradoxical) simplicity of her heart, mind and spirit. In fact, I don’t doubt that whenever I write from now on, some part of me will be writing about Marisa.
So descriptions instead, the briefest sketch to fit the page, though I wonder how one may capture a dream with words.

Beautiful in every way. Lightning wit. A smile that makes the world stop spinning. Rain boots and scarves. Silly accents. Accomplished hugger. Radiant. Made of pure love.
Sneaks across the lawn and crouches by the door (or just outside the front windows) and then calls on her cell phone to ask if she can visit. Says she’d have crawled back across the yard to her car if she’d been told no.

Forgives. Trusts. Leaves messages just to say “I love you” or “I’m coming to kidnap your child” or “I’m with the squirrel police and I have a warrant to search your house.” Rescues stray dogs and turtles in the street. Befriends strangers. Always asks questions, when her shining eyes tell you that she already has the answers to any mystery you could ever imagine.

Likes Bradbury and Vonnegut. Boondock Saints. Lucero. Johnny Depp. Power tools. Apple juice in Mason jars. Red Twizzlers. Miyazaki. Crayons. Puppies and kittens. Leg warmers, striped stockings and toe socks. Barrettes. Taking photos. Playgrounds in the middle of the night. Couch pile-ons. Naps.

Thoughtful. Bold. Gentle. Funky. Mischievous. Tolerant. Sweet. Acerbic. Delightful. Strong. Giving. Spontaneous. Willing. Capable. Funny. Real. Creative. Soft. Driven. Precocious. Perky. Deep. Courageous.

Hogs the shrimp at parties. Teaches friends to levitate. Wears an apron and flour “war paint” when she bakes cookies. Rules movie nights punctuated by Reefer Madness or Rocky Horror sing-alongs.

Secretly leaves gel hearts on your car. Quotes Moulin Rouge on her bathroom mirror: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

Artist. Actress. Model. Techie.
Explorer. Instigator. Peacemaker. Dreamer.
Daughter. Sister. Auntie. Friend.

And so suddenly she exits the stage, her scenes unfinished, lines unspoken — and though we know beyond any doubt that she is one of God’s shining lights, she always has been and always will, that she watches us struggle and loves us from afar, still we ache at an emptiness only she can fill, the sense only she can bring to the world.

We hold our children close and gather in numbers to share our pitiful strength, and we watch for her in the stars and on the breeze, and listen for her in the sound of music and laughter of children, and find her in the widest skies and on the cool blue waves that sparkle like her eyes, full of answers and mystery.

Peace.

Holding on to hope of better days coming

SEASIDE — We arrived at the square in the setting sun and lowering fog of a Sunday evening.

John Darnielle, singer/songwriter and founder of The Mountain Goats, walked past us into Sundog Books. I browsed there, too, while my wife and daughter sat outside, eating ice cream from the gelato shop and waiting for my son to meet us. Later, I would ask Mr. Darnielle what children’s books he had set aside for purchase later, but he couldn’t recall the titles.

Upstairs in Central Square Records, a crowd was beginning to gather. Darnielle browsed the stacks as I purchased two of his albums on vinyl (free digital downloads included). I picked up the new one, “All Eternals Deck,” which includes the songs “Damn These Vampires” and “Birth of Serpents,” which I had heard recently on public radio. My son got “Tallahassee,” which for us is the iconic Mountain Goats album.

I said, “Excuse me, Mr. Darnielle,” and introduced myself to the man. We shook hands. I told him I didn’t want to take up his time, but I felt compelled to tell him that I was introduced to his music through my son and his best friend, Marisa.

Nathan walked up then, and I introduced them. They shook hands, and I told Nathan what I had been saying.

“Mountain Goats was one of her favorite bands,” I said. “We lost her a few years ago, and your music became sort of fused together with that time in our hearts.”

The look on his face was touching. He was stunned and perhaps embarrassed a little, curious and I think maybe honored. He asked if it was all right to ask how she passed.

I told him it was. It happened in 2008. She was killed in a car accident. He said he was sorry for our loss and I’m not sure what he said after that. My emotions were clouding my senses.

“I just wanted you to know that your music was part of what got us through that,” someone said. And I don’t know as I write this if it was me speaking or Nathan. For a moment, I was outside myself.

“When we heard you were playing here, there was no way we would miss it,” I said. “We’re so honored to be here and hear you perform.”

He shook his head and smiled. “I hope no one’s disappointed. I’m only playing a few songs. This is just an in-store, not a full concert.”

“It will be remarkable,” I said.

He thanked us again and said he would like to browse some more before the show. We thanked him for his time and stepped away.

He played to a packed house and invited everyone to sit down on the floor if they wanted; no one did. People of all ages stood and swayed, tapped their feet, mouthed the lyrics along with him.

He told us stories between songs:

... Of how he had looked at a map when he lived in the Northwest and thought about how Florida was on the other side of the country; how it was somewhere people ran away to; how disappointed someone would be when the pavement ran out.

... And of his stepfather, whom he described as abusive to the whole family, and how he grieved bitterly when the man died, and he sat on a floor somewhere in France and wrote songs about how weird it was to grieve.

... He joked about his lyrics being about the squalor of people treating each other terribly, and that it seemed odd to be singing them in this place of beauty.

He played “Cotton” and “Dance Music,” “See America Right” and “You Were Cool” ("We held on to hope of better days coming/and when we did we were right"), and he sang “Matthew 25:21,” which is when the tears welled up. He played more. He had no set list, just pulling songs out of his head as they felt right.

He did, near the end, ask if anyone had a request. I wanted to hear “Old College Try,” but didn’t shout the title because what I really wanted to hear was whatever he wanted to play.

After the set, he signed albums. Nathan’s he embellished with the boy’s name in Hebrew. Mine, he decorated with a star and the words “all love.”

And we all left in the dark and the fog, carrying something bright inside us.

Peace.

Book of Gabriel reviewed in The News Herald

My coworker, Jan Waddy, wrote a review of The Book of Gabriel that appeared in today's Panama City News Herald and online at newsherald.com. It's only the third time the paper has written something about my books, (the other articles are not available online) and I'm very pleased with it. Here's the text:

Book of Gabriel: Be aware of dreams
By Jan Waddy / PanamaCity.com

PANAMA CITY — Have you ever had a dream and wondered if it was real, contemplated your existence as a human and spiritual being or been surprised by your own intentions?

Let Tony Simmons guide you into another realm with his latest novel, “The Book of Gabriel: An Endtimes Fable.”

“This project started as a serial for a friend’s website, part of a year-long daily fiction writing challenge I gave myself in 2008-09,” Simmons said. “My family had suffered the loss of two dear loved ones that year, which made it very difficult for me to express myself creatively. This was a way of forcing myself to exercise that part of my brain, and it allowed me to work out through fiction some of the emotions, fears and memories I was dealing with.”

Other work from that period is featured in “The Best of Days,” a collection of short stories, poems and experimental writing Simmons published in 2010.

“The Book of Gabriel” opens with Gabriel, known by many names, sitting alone under the stars on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, waiting to die from an overdose of alcohol and prescription pills. When a beautiful woman rises up out of the sea, he thinks she’s a hallucination. She drafts him into a mission that pits them against angels and demons alike in a desperate attempt to reunite the shattered aspects of God and stop the coming apocalypse.

“It starts out weird and gets stranger as you go,” Simmons said.

Even if you can’t fully relate to Gabriel’s circumstances, his experiences will leave you pondering questions about your own destiny — setting the book down to think and then picking it back up to see where it leads.

“The Book of Gabriel” does what all great books do; it opens your mind. The story includes regional locations, some stuff Simmons “just made up” and actual Biblical references. If you find yourself unsure of what is based on fact or fiction, you just might want to follow up by reading the Bible.

From Shekinah to Lucifer, the characters in Simmons’ book are so well developed that setting the book down is akin to pushing pause on the mind’s video. And if you have read Simmons’ weekly Undercurrents column since it first appeared in The News Herald, a familiar face will come to mind when you read about the secret power of Joy.

Along the way, Shekinah and Gabriel meet Cain (the first murderer) and his daughter Death, the archangel Michael and the mysterious Watchers that live among the stars. The quest becomes a dangerous road trip through parallel realities, dream worlds, time/space paradoxes, myth and legend — with side-trips into chapters from “The Book of Cain,” lessons in forgiveness and Joy.

“It’s pretty experimental in some places,” Simmons said.

The experiments will be refreshments for those who wander in random thoughts.

Meanwhile, Lucifer has his own plan to subvert the power of Shekinah, the female aspect of God — and Gabriel’s weakness is key to the devil’s plan.

“Every chapter ends with kind of a cliff hanger,” Simmons said. “I wanted to give myself a reason to go back and follow it up.”

The author is a writer and editor for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald. Originally from Century, Fla., he has lived in Panama City for more than 18 years with his family.

His other books include the literary novel “Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century” and the collection of his newspaper columns “Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents.” Simmons also compiled and edited the two volumes of “City Limits,” the official literary anthology of the Panama City Centennial, in 2008 and 2009. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the recently published “Between There” from Pulpwood Press.

You can follow his reporting at NewsHerald.com or PanamaCity.com, and his personal blog at TonySimmons.info. Find him on Twitter @midnightonmars and @PCTonyS, and Facebook.com/WriterTonySimmons.

Local Books Alive Photo Blog

Saturday was Local Books Alive 2011 at the Bay County Public Library. Here are some pictures:

David A, & Cash Money

My friend and former News Herald colleague David Angier bought the first-ever trade paperback of my novel, The Book of Gabriel. I told him I wanted a photo of the first buyer, and he said it was more important to get a photo of that first money.

Michael Lister & Nick May

A total of 23 area writers showed up to play along (24 were scheduled). I sold both copies of the hardback version of Gabriel that I had on hand, three of the trade, two of my column collection (Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents), one of the City Limits anthologies I edited, and three of my Best of Days collection. A pretty good response for two hours of sale time.

Mark Boss

Lee Baker

Dax and Jim Dodge

Mom and Me

Some names (you might recognize from this blog) that were there included authors Mark Boss, Lee Baker, Nick May, Michael Lister, Dax and Jim Dodge, Olivia Cooley (deBelle Byrd), Jeannie Cooper, Pat Douglas, Michael Brim (Goldcraft), Karon Phillips, Marlene Womack, and several others.

I had a visit from my mom, my daughter, and Donna Williams, whose daughter Marisa was the inspiration for a character in Gabriel. We also visited with Kayla, who appears in a sequence of the trailer for Gabriel being edited now by my friend Lou.

Me and Donna Williams

Pat Douglas, right, and wife.

It was a good day, beginning with presentations by Karon, Michael Brim and Olivia. I managed to give away a bunch of PanamaCity.com stickers and copies of our new tab insert that replaces The Entertainer in the News Herald now. Met some new readers and spread my brain worms into unsuspecting victims. One young woman really wanted a copy of The Best of Days, but her partner wanted Gabriel (and she had the funds); when her partner bought Gabriel, she went ahead and bought Best of Days, saying this was rent money she was spending.

I signed the book, "Thanks for the rent money." It seemed appropriate.

Peace.

Lou1492 & LightsUpOnKayla & HeyNickMay make a movie

Kayla & Nick as Shekinah & Gabriel

I have some good friends. Possibly even courageous ones.

This evening, Kayla and Nick met me, Lou and my daughter Jessi at the shoreline behind Oaks by the Bay Park to shoot a sequence that opens my novel, The Book of Gabriel. Kayla assured us the water wasn't too cold (she was more concerned about the crabs crawling in the sea grass and the jellyfish we spotted). To say she was a trouper is an understatement. She dunked herself under water several times so Lou could get just the right shot, while all Nick had to do was sit and be cool.

Lou and Kayla in the bay.

Lou was great to offer to make a trailer for the story, and Kayla and Nick were great to volunteer for the shoot. We were concerned about Kayla being too cold (the temp here has been cool in recent days), but she said she was an "art martyr" anyway. Jessi and Lou both joined her in the shallows to get a couple of shots, while I stayed dry on the shore with Nick (and we laughed at the antics out in the water). Let's just say, we had a slowly gathering audience of onlookers on the boardwalk who had more to look at than a gorgeous sunset...

Reviewing the shots.

We then got a shot of Nick pocketing the photo of the angel Gabriel meets along a back road. These shots will be added to others that Lou has gathered, and a few more we have yet to shoot. I'll post the trailer as soon as he's pleased with it.

It was great fun, and it warmed my heart to have such helpful and willing friends (and daughter, too) to participate in the project.

Lou & me, in the brilliance of the moment.

If you'd like to read the book this trailer is being made for, just come by the Bay County Public Library on Saturday for Local BooksALIVE, a gathering of area writers and authors. (Or download the ebook version for cheap.) We'll have informative presentations from 10 a.m. to noon, break for lunch (you're encouraged to bring a sack lunch and talk with the authors), then have sales and signings from 1 to 3 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Peace.

Three years later, she remains more than just memory

Marisa Joy Williams
before the prom in 2005,
just less than three years
before her death.

What wounds time fails to heal are those whose aches remind us that we have survived.

I still walk outdoors on a cool springtime morning when there’s not a cloud in the deep blue sky and tremble at the memory of the day, three years ago, when a trooper’s phone call awoke us to tell us she was gone.

It’s amazing how much life has changed in that time. And how little, considering the most beautiful and perfect of days remains a bittersweet reminder.

Marisa Joy Williams was my son’s best friend, and she was like a second daughter to us. Regular readers of this column will know that she died in a single car accident on Feb. 23, 2008, driving in a thunderstorm to pick up her boyfriend, who had been stranded when his car broke down. She was 18.

The next morning, the sun rose anyway. The sky was blue, the air crisp and cool. For three years, the sun has continued to rise each day.

As those days passed, Marisa’s parents, Donna and Charles, and her extended family and friends raised money and last year established a perpetual scholarship fund in her memory at Gulf Coast Community College, where she had earned her associate’s degree in technical theater. A playground was constructed and named for her on the grounds of her church, Springfield Methodist.

She will not soon be forgotten. Years from now, children will play in the Joy Playground and students will continue to receive the scholarship in her name. Her memory will live on long after those of us who tremble at perfect spring mornings are gone.

Three years later, I still can hear a noise at the front door in the morning and look up from my coffee, half expecting Marisa to be standing there. Every day for the better part of two years, she would come by to pick up my son for school and would have apple juice in a Mason jar. He was always late getting ready, and we would talk as she waited.

Now I can’t even buy apple juice without thinking of her — particularly, how she reacted one morning when she came in to get her regular jar and discovered brand name juice in the fridge instead of the Walmart label. She gave me a skeptical look as she poured and drank.

“Yuck,” she said, and I asked if the new juice was too refined for her palette. She took another drink, made a face and shook all over.

We still only buy the store brand.

Peace.

This was my Undercurrents column for the News Herald on Sunday, Feb. 20.

Drive-In Saturday: A Marisa Film Festival

Presented without further comment because I'm missing her today:


Tony The Tiger Song

Tony | Myspace Video






Peace.

Drive-In Saturday: Remember Her

It was a day just like this one.