Lori Hoeck

“I’m sure you don’t want to do that,” he said. “It really wouldn’t be helpful to the company.”

The parental tone rang subtle, but commanding, from a superior to a subordinate. But this time the fatherly smile he put on his face like makeup didn’t ring as true.

Damn, she thought, this was going to be a long discussion.

Well, not discussion. He rarely let others listen or get a word in edgewise.

As her immediate boss in the company’s marketing department, he was automatically dealt the better and upper hand, and damn if he didn’t know how to use it to his best advantage.

She knew it would fall on deaf ears, but she had to say it anyway. “Actually I was trying to help the company with this new online idea.”

“Sarah,” he always used her name when he felt threatened and insecure, “you know what I’ve said about this. I love that you have enthusiasm and want to help, but I’ve been down this road before, and it never works.”

With hardly a pause he continued, “When I first joined this company, I took pride in how it stood on solid standards and ideas. We’ve never wavered from those. To do something new just to do something new is not good business.”

“But I’ve seen this work elsewhere with great success. I read an article in the main trade magazine that backs up how well it can help us.”

“Have I ever steered you wrong, Sarah?”

There it was — his switch-up in the conversation to avoid having to listen to her defend her ideas.

And what other reply did she have for the person who approved her paycheck? With the smallest of sighs, she bit off the word, “No.”

“Well then, you know I mean what I say when I’ve tried things like this before. When I first headed up sales, a man by the name of Jack Johnson came up with something similar …”

At that point her nods came diligently, but her mind ran long and hard from this twice-heard story he used to prove to the world why “things are they way they are and are going to stay that way.”

Each of his hand gestures and well-rehearsed emotional stage play weighted down her heart and shoulders. Why did I stick around for more of this? I left home years ago. I don’t need a Daddy-figure or school principal to keep make me feel like I don’t measure up so I keep trying harder to please.

Her self-loathing jumped a notch, but never bubbled up to her face. She’d learned a long time ago to peer through well-made masks. Otherwise, the conversations grew longer.

Somewhere inside her, as the drone of words played on, a sharp blade cut into her, slicing something old and moldy from her mind. The once quiet and dead-still inner sea moved as if whipped by a strong wind. Waves slowly rolled higher and higher as long-held indignation roared across the seascape.

With a new clarity crashing against the shore of her selfhood, she naturally sat up taller in her chair. The new body language commanded notice.

Sarah heard his words trail off as he noticed the change. His kind spent a lifetime controlling the small and large things of power.

She now she noticed them, too.

Leaping into the gap between the torrents of words, she said, “I understand your vast experience with this company carries a lot of weight for you, but I see stories like these as unhelpful. I value quality, standards, and making this company great, too, and those things don’t disappear when innovation and new ideas are tried.”

Before he could summon another gush of words, she plodded on.

“There is no harm in my suggestion. I’m the one taking the responsibility here. I’m willing to try it and if it fails, then I’m the one who fails. I’m not cowed by other people’s past attempts. Sure maybe they did fail, but maybe they just didn’t have the abilities I do. I own my successes and my failures, and I won’t let Jack’s story be a gravestone to innovation or to my creativity.”

Standing up, she added, “If you want to back me on my idea, fine. If not, there’s nothing more to say.”

Turning to leave, a power and a freedom raced through her body, a feeling that had eluded her a long time. Smiling broadly, she realized no one would take a parental role over her again.

—-

—-

For information on emotional self defense and how to deal with such controlling parental figures, visit my other website, Think Like a Black Belt — especially this short article: “Defense Against the Dark Hearts.”

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Dust floated, blew, or blasted into the house, depending on the wind strength. It filled the air with a choking dryness, a desert in every breath.

After fifteen years of high plains living, Margie longed every spring for the little green that would fill the sparse trees and wild grasses. Her friends in the city sighed at her lack of lawn or flowers, but her small well could never be allowed to run dry.

No, the water could never be wasted on a lawn or a rose garden. The few farm animals and chickens needed it, as did her vegetable garden.

She’d learned the ways of scarcity from her grandparents, who’d owned the farm for years. Grandma and Grandpa took her in after her own parents had died in a car wreck when she was ten. Now they’d both passed on within a year of each other, leaving Margie the farm.

Life on the harsh, wind-swept plains meant “doin’ without” and Margie had learned her lessons well.

“Waste not; want not,” Grandma always said.

“Fancy things are for fancy-pants people who don’t know nuthin’ but how to spend money,” Grandpa said whenever she wanted something new.

Taking these words to heart instead of as advice, Margie shied away from fancy things all her life: going to college, accepting a marriage proposal from a wealthy land owner, and her dream of becoming a writer in the big city.

One early summer day, as Margie dutifully dusted the house, she noticed a difference in the wind, the kind of thing a farmer notices, because so much rides on the weather. Walking outside to the porch, she looked to the west and saw a huge thunderhead building in the sky.

From years of watching storms come and go, she knew this one was a freight train headed straight at the farm. Keeping a wary eye on the storm, she shooed the chickens back into their pen, covered her still small tomato plants with buckets to prevent hail damage, and put the car in the old shed for the same reason.

In the house, she visited the storage closet to pull out emergency candles and the extra flashlights and batteries too see if they were all set to go, just in case the electricity went out.

Back outside, she looked up and gasped. Never before had she seen a storm’s cloud wall so menacing and swift or the color so green, the latter a sure sign of hail.

As she watched mesmerized, a small white cloud spun itself into a downward pointing arrow that stretched quickly toward the ground. Rising from the ground to meet it came the dust. They met fifty feet in the air and formed a now dark, twisting, writhing funnel of death headed straight for her.

Her feet would not move. Planted in the dust, she remained awed at the raw power in front of her. The tornado’s thousand-demon roar filled her ears and heart with a surge her scarcity-driven life had never known.

Before the swirling debris field hit, she dropped to her knees.  Without thinking, she raised her hands at the same time. Not in prayer, not in surrender, but in an embrace.

In that moment, the funnel danced up and over her, carrying its ripping and tearing winds a few yards away, where the tornado once again tore open the earth with its fury.

Margie jumped up and turned to follow the destroyer with her eyes. She lost view of it as the storm let loose with ice-cold rain. Fortunately for her and the farm, the hail would wait and drop a mile east.

Drenched, Margie walked to the farmhouse. Just inside the door, she paused. Something odd tickled at her mind. It took her a full minute to realize the house was somehow smaller and less of a home than a house. In the next few hours, as the storm raged with lightning and rain, the house began to feel like a sweater two sizes too small, the collar gripping the neck uncomfortably.

Finally the clouds broke and the setting sun lit up the back of the departing storm. Margie decided to put away her extra flashlights and candles, glad the electricity still worked. As she opened the storage closet and placed them on a shelf, her elbow knocked a box to the floor. Picking the box up, she noticed they contained her notebooks from high school, including her once much-treasured writing journal. As she put the box back in place, she grabbed the journal, blew off the dust, and took it back to the kitchen table.

With the smell of fresh rain still filling the air, she found a pen, pulled up a seat, and let the words flow.

—-

—-

I grew up in the Tornado Alley area of the country in Oklahoma. Storms still fascinate me, and I would be a storm chaser running down tornadoes with a camera if I could.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

The dusty halls ring silent
Where light and warmth have fled.
All is hushed in this abode
Where the living live as dead,
Where days and nights cry aloud
To an end of quietness
When no more a soul must shrink aback
From the touch of human kindness.
Oh to quit this house of masks
Through which a guarded heart peers.
Oh to run into the light
And shed this cloak of fears.
But the door to here is bolted shut,
Built to stand against all stress.
It can’t be opened with guile or strength,
But only with warm gentleness.
And when that humble soul comes calling,
With the heart of a gentle friend,
Then gone will be the gloomy masks
And the living shall live again.

—

I wrote this poem in 1993.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Coffee in hand, she watched the morning clouds first glow pink, then slowly fill the sky with a canopy of fire.

“Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” The old timers’ saying made her wonder, did the sky know her heart?

Even with the warmth of strong coffee, she shivered, but not from the cold. The handgun on the kitchen table lay ready. She hoped she was as well.

Her friends all said she had choices, but from her viewpoint there was only one. He’d already made it clear he would never let go, never stop looking, never give her up. She’d lived through enough blood, bruises, and broken bones to know what he could do.

It was time to put a stop to it all.

Down the hallway, she heard their son stir in his bed. His birthday was next month, “The Big Fife,” as the boy called it.

At least this birthday wouldn’t include a trip to the hospital with the smell of cake and blood mixed together.

Visions of that day burned resolve into her soul. She carefully set down her coffee and picked up the weapon. It felt right in her hand, heavy and durable.

Then she heard it. The motor of his pick-up truck coming down the road, gears down shifting to make the turn into the driveway.

I will enjoy selling that truck, she thought, if only to never feel the fearful anticipation again.

She heard the door open on his truck but not shut.

He must be drunk. Again.

Then she heard the front door burst open with a kick, followed by the sound of a shotgun being cocked.

As he made his way through the house and toward the kitchen, he crowed triumphantly,  mockingly, “Honey, I’m home!”

Her jaw clenched. Not for long.
——–

——–
As an EMT who has responded to more than one domestic violence scene,  I don’t advocate this response, but I can understand it.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Since this blog explores writing, I’m including a favorite post from my previous blog:

Twenty-nine years ago when I was a young adult in Aspen, Colorado, a one-man show came to town. A talented, but fairly unknown actor (not Hal Holbrook) had memorized almost every line and moment of Mark Twain’s life — my favorite author at the time. The actor even had the look, gestures, and witticism of Samuel Langhorne Clemens down to an art.

I sat mesmerized by the performer, enthralled to see Mark Twain come alive before my very eyes. Every wave of the cigar, each dancing smile of self-satisfaction at a joke well received, and the playful Southern accent drew me into the act.

Toward the end of an fun evening of entertaining, the actor said he would answer any questions from the audience. The Aspen crowd was quick to ask Mark Twain about his take on current politics and trends. The actor enjoyed adding Twain’s satire to his answers and obviously had fun with the give and take.

Finally, I raised my hand. Sweeping across the room, expecting another barbed questioned, he drew near and asked, “And what would your question be little lady?”

I replied, “I want to be a writer. What do I do to become a better writer?”

Suddenly the room fell silent. The actor and audience looked into my earnest face, and they realized I wanted Mark Twain, not the actor, to answer my question.

The man’s face softened, his mind switched gears, and he drew even closer, as if Mark Twain and this young woman were to have a private conversation. Everyone leaned forward to listen.

Mark Twain looked me in the eye and said, “Experience of life — not of books — is the only capital usable in writing well, and one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.”*

Quite frankly, I don’t remember the words exactly, I just remember he talked about living life more fully so you can write more deeply and richly.

In that one, stellar moment, my writing hero came down from on high and touched me with his words. As I looked into those Mark Twain eyes, I did hear that old father of American literature answer my question, and it changed my life. In those eyes, I felt Mark Twain bless my journey as a writer, a journey I’m still taking.

—

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

—-

This poem came rushing out of me last year when I first explored the world of blogging. I posted it on SpaceAgeAge.com in response to many sad posts I read during a series of blog searches on personal growth and adversity.

The Light

The darkness called;
I followed, falling,
down into the underneath,
and lay ripped, shredded, torn.
In pain wracked, I reeked,
oozing bile-filled blood.
The darkness played music,
of fear and self-hatred,
until I danced ugly to the tune.
I heard my voice screaming,
“Give me one, not-dark thing!”
And there it was.
A pen-thin beam of sunlight,
stabbing the darkness.
Its smallness did not matter,
because its strength was in its source.
I followed the beam, eyes only for it,
until the darkness fell behind,
Soon came the sun, healing and warm.
I sat down and cried, releasing it all.

—

“If you can’t find the light, may it find you.”

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck