STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ Debra Shiveley

Oct 15, 2005? 

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Manual Reflections

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Debra Shiveley

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The smell of yeast is tantalizing.?  The combination of water, flour, salt and yeast within my hands is almost sensuous as I lift the ball of dough, turn it, and right hand palm to center, push away, turn, fold.?  I work until the dough is smooth and glossy.?  Soon the smell of fresh baked bread will waft through the house.

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I look at my hands.?  They are the hands of a twelve-year-old, or so my doctor has told me.? ?  More to the point, I find their smallness and bluntness of fingers unattractive.?  Although I find my hands unlovely, I still appreciate their utilitarian value.?  My hands are tools.?  With them I clean, cook, sew, soothe and, just for me, write.

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Turning them over I study the process of the disease that will someday make my hands useless:?  Dupuytren??™s Disease.?  A rare disorder found in the Viking blood line.?  The contractures in the palms of my hands worsen each year, drawing ring fingers to my palms.?  They hurt all of the time: the joints, the bent fingers, the wrists.

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I return to the bread, now risen.?  I punch it down and place it on a cookie sheet, shaping it to the form I wish it to be.?  It will rise again and I will place I in the oven.?  We will have fresh bread tonight.

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Debra Shiveley

merribuck@merribuck.com

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About Me:

Hello, my? name is Debra Welch.?  I'm 52 and the very proud mother of a soon-to-be 13? year old son named Christopher.

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Christopher is adopted, so I have some writings on the subject, and he was? born with a moderately severe unilateral clefting of the lip, gums and hard and soft palates.?  He is beautiful!?  Chris also has learning differences:? ADD, Dysgraphia, and Executive Function and? Working Memory Deficit.?  He is the joy of our lives.

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I have been writing since age nine.?  My father came to visit and plopped down a pad of paper and a pencil.?  "Write me a poem," he said "and call it 'Poetry Problems.'"?  This is when I learned that my father and great grandfather both wrote poetry.?  I was being tested.

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I have just finished co-authoring a novel with my cousin titled "Jesus Gandhi Jetta Mae Adams," a murder mystery set in Columbus, Ohio and am starting my second novel.