Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

August 22, 2007

Publishers Favourite Sites:

Rosanne Catalano

http://www.rosannecatalano.net/

Michael Smith

http://subs.zinester.com/86758/

Barbara Weymouth

penwormprayerwarriors-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Helen Dowd

www.occupytillicome.com

Today’s Announcements

Today we have another new poet/writer.  Michelle Lowrie becomes writer #427 for Storytime Tapestry.   She is quite a witty gal.  Please welcome her to her new writing home.

Today’s Stories

~**~**~

Connections

Peggy Ann Doak

  At this moment I am absolutely exhausted.  A long day at the stable, but a fun one.  I was thinking of not writing tonight, but some really cool connections from the past few years and my childhood came together, and I simply have to share them.

   I haven't talked much about what happened when I came back to Maine, except for the woman who brought me here to this farm.   I really didn't think that the events were important.  OH was I wrong!

   Ever since I came back to Maine, it has been nothing but hardship and heart ache.  The first stable I worked at for a summer to help me become situated back here, was a nightmare.  People were vicious.  They attempted to use me to get back at the owner of the stable for some past wrongs that they felt she had done to them.  Meanwhile at the same time, what I didn't know was that her daughter wanted me out of there and had said to several people that she would do anything to get me out.  Gossip began.  I don't listen to gossip, and when it was realized that I was not going to get on the band wagon against the owner, I became black balled. One day when it was known that I would be two hours late to work because I had a job interview, my horse Zoom, a rogue thoroughbred and my bestest buddy coliced to death.  Colic comes in many forms, from gastritis, to impaction in the long intestine, to a foreign poisonous agent.  All I knew was that when I returned to work, my horse was dead.  I was devastated.  I also had Josephine who was a youngster and Zoom was her babysitter.  Rumors started that he had been poisoned and people were pushing and pulling me to get a lawyer.  Once again, something to hurt the owner.  I didn't get a lawyer, as that would not bring my horse back.

    I moved into downtown Bar Harbor and boarded Josephine at a local farm that used to be a dairy barn.  I waited on tables and hung out with my horse.  One day a couple of people from the farm I had left, came and began talking about moving their horses to the same barn I was at and that we could have a equine co-op.    I had been given the most of the barn in a lease that would allow me to choose boarders or not as I wished.  I told them no.  That I did not feel right about them leaving the other barn and coming to me and I did not want a co-op.  The truth was, I didn't want a co-op with them.  So rumors and hateful actions like talking to people including the man who owned the barn I was in, that I didn't know anything about horses that I would sue at the drop of a hat, and yadeyadeya.  I basically cut off all communication with the horse people around here, and minded my own business.  The next summer Josephine was three years old and I had brought her to the place in training where I planned to get on her in a few more weeks.  But one day I was feeling depressed and I did a stupid thing.  I got on her without anyone there to hold her head up, in case she bucked.  Also it is against all safety rules to start a horse alone.

      Josephine bucked me off before I was even into the saddle.  Somehow I went underneath her, and she came down on my spine and then slid into my shoulder, breaking my shoulder.  I had a perfect hoof print on my jacket that told the story.  I had to undo Josie’s gear and put her in the pasture so I go to the emergency room.  The fellow who owned the barn I was in had a brother who lived just across the driveway.  He was sitting there with his wife.  I realized that they saw the whole thing and did not even come over to see if I was alright.  I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing me in pain, so I walked out to my little sports car that I had then, and I waved to them with the one arm that worked.   My car was a standard shift, so it was an interesting drive to the hospital.  This accident triggered two things.  I got my first glimpse of fibromyalgia, and I quit waiting tables because I couldn't wait tables.  Friends from Massachusetts sent horses up for me to teach on.  For the next four years I busted my ass cleaning up the farm, building new stalls, creating a grain room, a tack room and a visitor's lounge.  At the same time, the owner of the barn started acting strange; I'd say I'd been there two years.  For example, he brought in wet hay that was so wet it was steaming hot and would have ignited if I hadn't realized.  I had to throw the hay outside. When I talked to him about it, he told me I could get my own hay, instead of saying, 'wow, thanks for saving my barn.'  I had also called the man who baled the hay and woke up his son.  I told them about the hay incase they didn't know it was so wet, as I didn't want their barn to burn down.  Instead of thanking me or just not saying anything, they called the house at my barn and told the owner that he would not sell to me.  It was crazy.  When I relayed what had happened to the farmers' father, he said, "I don't know how that happened.  He has a moisture gauge."  Then I realized that I had been set up, so I would have to find my own hay instead of it coming with the rent, but my rent didn't go down. I stayed because I really had no where to go, and continued to build my business.  However I felt hated.  And not cared for. Now where did that happen before?

    Two years later a couple asked if they could board their horse with me. They seemed desperate, and though I didn't like boarding I said Ok.  It started out as a situation too good to be true.  They helped me with a web site, and also knew someone at the Bar Harbor Times who came out and did a feature story on me.  I was doing great in my business, and the couple bought two more horses to add to the riding horses I had.  One day I got on a mare I had, who had gotten hurt on her front right leg, and though she would never be sound, she could be ridden in small amounts by children.  There was a child there who I was going to let ride her, but I got on her first to make sure the mare was not going to be daffy.  I could not get the horse to turn. It was very weird, and then all of a sudden, she rolled back onto her haunches and onto her back trapping me. I didn't have a helmet on and her head swung back and drove my head into the driveway.  I did not drive myself to the hospital that day.  The EMT's were called.  I was in and out of consciousness.

     I learned later that that mare had a serious case of a hoof disease called white line.  A fungus had gotten up inside the hoof wall and had eaten a large amount of the connective tissue.  Sometimes white line is difficult to find when cleaning the hoof out, as the outside wall and the sole of the hoof come together which created an anaerobic environment, perfect for this organism to thrive.  However, though I had not detected it, my farrier had to have known for some time that this problem existed and he said nothing!  He was fired.

     I cracked my head along my left suture line in my skull, thus locking the suture from opening when ever my brain needed room.  We all have sutures to allow space when too much fluid is backed up for whatever reason. 

      Connection: When I was two, my brother pushed me down our stairway to the second floor.  I remember seeing the bureau at the bottom of the stairs coming at me.  My mother said she thought I was dead, but I was breathing, however knocked out cold.  My nose was bent sideways, and she simply straightened it.  I woke up and it was forgotten, except as a tale of my childhood told by my mother as a sort of funny story.  When I was in my twenties I began going to a chiropractor and he discovered that my right suture line on my skull was seized.  He worked to unlock it and said that something had happened, a huge blow to cause that.  I told him about the stair incident and he said, 'that would do it.'  Later on in life, it was found that the inside of my mouth, the right gum line was bent inwards and the neurosurgeon/osteopath said that a huge trauma had caused it.  I had begun going to him due to headaches from being driven into a driveway by a thousand pound horse.  I was learning more and more that that 'accident' caused by my brother had left some endearing marks on me.

    Later that summer I began to notice that the couple was treating me in a weird way; sorta shutting me out.  They also talked a lot about the farm, and how the owner didn't deserve it etc. They started to become his dream come true and began putting a wedge between me and the owner.  More and more I was treated poorly by the couple and also by the owner and his family.  One day, me and the female part of the couple got into a huge argument.  I thought we were going to come to blows.  I went to the farmer and said, "it's either me or them.'  He said, 'well, looks like you better go.'   I warned him that day, that even though he and I had our differences I had always been upfront with him.  And now with this new situation he was about to be manipulated like he'd never imagined.  And sure enough, two years later that couple sued for the farm, saying that the farmer had given a verbal agreement to sell.  They won!

       That is how I got to where I am now.  Once again I was woed, and actually talked into taking over this place.  The owner of this farm had seen what I had done with the other farm, and now I realize that that is why she wanted me there.  Not because I was 'the best damned instructor and trainer there is' which is what she would say, but because she wanted this farm cleaned up and fixed up.  Three years into working on the place, I had come to the end.  She could never find anything that I did right, constantly complained, and then told me I could not teach anymore.  I had already come to the point of times of hunger and cold.  A touch of what was to come.

        That winter, after the owners of this farm headed back to their estate in Florida, my dogs, my three rotties were getting out of their pen at night.  I kept thinking that I hadn't shut the door tight enough.  But again and again it happened.  The dog officer began to warn me that I could be summoned to court of allowing dangerous dogs to run at large.  Rottweillers are on a list of dogs that are considered lethal.  One day after they had gotten out again, I noticed that the brace I used to keep the door shut tight was not just knocked down like the dogs had done it, but had been moved aside.  My dogs have a back yard and can jump through a window into the house whenever they want.  Spoiled they are.  I tried to tell the dog officer that someone was letting them out but he didn't seem too convinced.  I also had a big Caterpillar Backhoe in the yard that was going to be lent to me for the winter to help me take manure into the fields, by making it easy to dig down into the mound and filling the back of my truck.  An eighty year old man owned it.  One night someone doctored the oil in the tractor causing the seals to corrode almost overnight.  It became unusable and my friend had to take it home.  I was taken to court by two people who claimed my dogs tried to attack them.  I had to pay a fine.  Hefty fine that I did not have.  I began getting threatening phone calls, and soon my horses were being let loose right along with the dogs.  When I would talk to people about what was happening, I was treated like I was nuts.  Then one night, my dog Schooch disappeared.  I found him through a Veterinarian after a nightmarish week imagining the worst.  When I did find him, I also began to realize that a supposedly good friend of mine was undermining me, telling people that I shouldn't have the dogs that I couldn't take care of them etc.  To this day I have no idea why she did that. But we are no longer friends.  Then two dogs disappeared.  I was losing my mind. It became clear that the people who were complaining about the loose dogs were good friends of the owner of this farm.  I wrote an email to her telling her everything that was happening and that her friends were involved.  I wanted her to call them off.  She never answered the email.  Claims still today that she never got it.

     When two dogs, Buddy and Baby disappeared I was frantic.  Almost four days had gone by, when a woman who worked for the ambulance in another town stopped at my farm telling me that she could hear Baby whining in the woods down by the cove.  We both went down, and this woman was amazing.  She grabbed any gear that might be needed including first aid, and she tracked the area from where she heard the dog.  We traveled through some horrid landscape.  Big rocks, fallen trees, dense brush.  We both got cut up on the rocks and brush.  At the top of this rock and woods incline, we found Baby.  She was getting a drink of water at a pool beneath a dead pine tree.  When she saw us she immediately took us to Buddy who was tied to a huge fallen log. He had a rope tied around his neck, secured with a slip knot that the lobstermen use on their traps.  It gets tighter but won't loosen. Buddy was nearly out of air.  This woman and I struggled with him to push him up against the log in order to get enough purchase on the rope to untie it.  It seemed like forever, but we got him loose.  Then I just stood there and howled.  I felt the rage and pain from the depths of myself and the earth.  This woman with me was awesome.  She helped us get both dogs down off of the rock ledge and out of the woods.  When I got home I called the dog officer.  He had the gaul to say that the incident was hearsay, since he didn't see it.  I mentioned the other woman who would have no reason to lie, and he said that he hadn't seen it, therefore it was hearsay. 

     I will tell you now, and you can probably imagine my state of mind.  I began looking for a gun to buy.  Fortunately I didn't have the money, because I do know how to use one.  Then one morning I got up and the dogs were missing and half of my horses were running loose.  Someone had also unhooked Josephine's stall, but she must have bit them because even though the door to her stall was unlatched, she was still in there.  Josie won't go through a stable door if it is closed, latched or unlatched. 

    I got the horses in.  Oh, I also want to add that I had gone to the dentist from hell the night before and was in horrific pain.  I had several stitches in the left lower part of my mouth.  I was miserable.  I had been told two days before that if this continued, I could be facing three years in prison for continuing to allow these dogs, who had never bitten anyone in all of their times out, to run at large.  A case was being brought against me.  That morning my heart was in my stomach.  I figured it was over.  The dogs would be euthanized and I would go to prison. 

     I drove a big red Dodge Ram Truck and I started up and went to the water where the dogs liked to play.  The tide was out, so it was hard to see where they might be.  Two women were walking and they signaled for me to pull over.  I figured they were going to tell me where the dogs were. Instead, one of them began to call me names that had nothing to do with dogs.  I didn't know her.  I knew the other woman because I had seen her at my landlord’s house.  This woman who I didn't know continued to call me names and then said that my dogs were down there again and she and her friend couldn't even get back to their car. She swung her arm toward the tide line, and I saw the dogs.  They were leaping about in the water, way way away from these women or anyone else.  I tried to say that someone was letting them out etc. but it was difficult with the stitches.  It didn't matter.  She kept calling me a liar and screaming at me that I was a sl....t, w.....re, all sorts of things that didn't fit me as a person, and certainly didn't fit the situation.  I got back into the truck and began backing up.  My mouth was rabid with pain.  My heart was breaking.  After I'd backed up a bit, I looked forward to the place to turn around and I saw this woman’s mouth, with out the sound since I had the windows rolled up, say, 'you f...k...g   b.....tch.'

      Something snapped.  I drove the truck straight at her. She ran to the side of the road and I turned the truck toward her.  You all know what a Ram truck looks like.  Not a welcomed site coming in your direction.  But I squealed to a stop and jumped out, about two feet in front of her.  I got out and she yelled, "You tried to kill me," and I started walking toward her.  "You have no idea what you have done,” I said.  I was in a rage.  I kept walking toward her and saying what I had to say in a low, and yes, menacing tone.  The stitches in my mouth had broken and blood was coming out the side of my lips.  I kept talking about how I have had it, I knew who was behind this travesty and I was done with it.   The woman on the side of the road kept talking to her friend to back off.  She was backing up every time I took a step toward her, and eventually she went to the side of the road.   I realize today that I wanted her to hit me, and I believe I could have killed her.  All of this had been going on for six months!  I was at the end of my reasonableness.  No one believed me, not even my so called friends.  This woman believed me though she called me a liar, because she and her husband were in the thick of it.  In fact a few couples were having a good time at my expense.  All friends of my landlord.

      I let her go and went to pick up the dogs.  I was certain that this was the end, and the end was the end of me and my dogs.  After I got home I did chores, my mouth was a scrambled mess.  Then I got a call from the county Sheriff.  Guess What?  They had called him, and I don't know what they said, but somehow they had convinced him, not that I was dangerous along with my dogs, but that they were the culprits.  He told me to stay away from all of them.  And to this day the horses and dogs have remained at home.

      The connection?  The other night when I wrote about my mother making me put my horse statues and stuffed animals into trunks; she was taking away what I saw as my safety.  I had endowed my dear 99 horse statues and the stuffed animals on my bed with the power to protect me.  My three dogs sleep on my bed.  My horses are my loves.  And once again someone was trying to control my life by trying to get rid of what was not only dear to me, but these guys, my dogs; they keep me safe for real!

          When those connections came together for me, injuries, neglect, being isolated and having what I loved attacked...when I realized that because of my child hood these things had an incredibly powerful effect on me.  It would have been bad enough if I had grown up in a perfect and loving home.  With my background, it was as if my former hurts were happening again and I was not safe, nobody cared and the message I gave myself was, I don't matter anyway.  But that is a lie!  If I didn't matter, why did so many people feel so threatened by me.  And I was a fun and nice person to hang out with. 

         Like Patricia said, "The dark hates the light."  Thank you all for reading this.  Please forgive any typos, but I am falling asleep.  But I don't feel like killing myself!  Not even close.

Peggy Ann Doak

pdoak333@peoplepc.com

~**~**~

Poetry Corner

~**~**~

I have some work posted on Writing.com.  They have re-rated one of my poems: "The Drugstore Soda Fountain."  They say it's because of a reference to drugs.  There isn't any reference to drugs.  It's about hot fudge sundaes, root beer floats, and egg salad sandwiches.  This is the second time they've done this to the poem since June.  If they keep this up they're bound to censure all of my work.  After all, my first name has a bad word in it - MicHELLe.

The Drugstore Soda Fountain

Michelle Lowrie

I love a soda fountain

where stools spin 'round

and dirty dishes pile up.



Nothing tops

some hand-dipped ice cream,

a Soda jerk named Peter

who's working his way through college,

and Mrs. Cloud, the waitress

who knows her way around an egg salad sandwich.



I love the paper cups

amid the buzzing noise 

of the milkshake maker

I love plain vanilla topped with nuts

on a sugar cone

and people who aren't in a hurry

a refinely dressed lady licking butterscotch,

teens yacking over melting sundaes

and a little boy counting out change.



And it's nice

to leave the drugstore

just after dark

while the red sky lights the walking

and the wind whips my hair

all around my face. 



© Copyright 2007 Michelle Lowrie



mschelle@writing.com

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/user_id/mschelle

~**~**~

 Uncompassionate People 

Michelle Lowrie

For God so loved the world, 

that he gave his only begotten Son, 

that whosoever believeth in him 

should become pretentious, 

narrow-minded, judgmental, 

and uncompassionate people 

with a superannuated theology 



Ready to change all frequent visitors 

and converts in a single bound 

getting them to stop smoking, 

drinking, doing drugs, 

wearing revealing clothing, 

piercing their faces, and 

other unmentionable places, 

changing their purple hair 

back to brown 



They say they love Him 

more and more, but 

they're acting like His enemy 

fighting all that God's working for 

they've sold their souls for vanity 

they're not the Christians 

they should be 

 

Going against what is commanded 

by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 

they divide into cliques 

neglecting the new and lonely faces 

never once offering them a seat in 

bible study or a day out for lunch 

and drive
off in their Touaregs 

ignoring the less fortunate 

as they pour another quart 

into the Sunbird - then give it a push 



Love is patient, love is kind 

Love is not envious or 

boastful or arrogant or rude 

It does not insist on its own way 

It is not irritable or resentful 

It doesn't rejoice in wrongdoing 

It rejoices in the truth 

It bears all things 

believes all things 

hopes all things 

endures all things 

Love never ends 

 

And all Christians should follow Him 

even if it means having to deal with 

sitting next to some scruffy kid 

with straggly hair and stinky
feet 

you are the only Christ that he will see 

and he might benefit from your company 



Copyright 2007 Michelle Lowrie 

mschelle@writing.com

A Prayer of Confession 

 

O Lord, help me not to despise 

or oppose what I do not understand. 

To each one of us, the other 

is a sick, hypocritical, self-righteous, 

ethnically impure religious heretic 

whom God is punishing. 

We are all enemies 

unworthy of discipleship. 

We are poor souls who 

neither have the time nor the resources


to maintain the harsh rites of religious purity. 

Neither believes the other is capable 

of attaining your Grace. 

We are all sinners, but you said 

the promise is for all of us whom 

the Lord calls to him and that 

everyone who believes in your Son 

shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

 

Amen. 



Copyright 2007 Michelle Lowrie 



mschelle@writing.com

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/user_id/mschelle

 ~**~**~

Readers Feedback

Clueless - I went through the same emotions as Peggy Ann Doak. Brilliant.

S K Jandu

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