Mountain Hike

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

My husband and I have a greyhound.

I’ve mentioned that before, haven’t I? She’s crazy and energetic and HUGE and loving and not-the-brightest, which I blame more on being a puppy and having a puppy brain than an actual lack of intelligence. She’s the kind of dog who learned immediately to sit and go to her kennel when told and wait by the door when it was time to go out, but also periodically runs into walls or bites her own foot so hard she yelps.

We love her a lot.

She’s very exasperating.

Recently, we had the chance—since the weather is thawing and things are starting to get slightly warmer—to take her up into the mountains for a hike.

Since she’s still a puppy, she gets a little carsick.

We’re working on finding the right medicine.

It’s a little rough.

But we did actually make it up to the trail in one piece, and the moment she was out of the car, she was in puppy heaven. There were new trees to smell and other dogs on the trail and dog tracks in the mud and people she’d never met before. Her tail didn’t stop wagging the whole hike, and we had to forcibly restrain her to keep her from leaping on our fellow hikers.

She really, really likes to meet new people. It’s her favorite thing.

Halfway through our hike, we reached a snowy patch on the trail, and her excitement got a little—over the top—shall we say. Which means she yanked really hard just when my husband stepped on a slippery spot in the snow and knocked him over. He’s a sturdy guy, thankfully, and he managed to hang onto her and land in such a way so as not to break half his bones.

I was thankful for that.

Carrying him back down the trail would not have been my idea of a good time.

Unfortunately, we didn’t realize until we’d reached the end of our hike and gone all the way back to our car that, in the process of being knocked over, my husband’s keys had fallen out of his pocket. And were allllll the way back up the trail where he’d fallen.

Puppy was wildly excited that we got to start the walk all over again. My husband and I were less so.
Still, she slept all the way home and was drowsy the rest of the day, so I’d call it a win. Anything to tire out the dog, right?

Do you have any ‘crazy puppy’ stories? Tell me about them in the comments!

To Fool A Witch

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Witches, I’ve been told, are very difficult to fool.

I’ve got a witch on my block. She lives three houses down from mine, behind the gate that’s climbing with ivy and blue morning glories. I’ve seen her a few times, working in her garden, or sweeping off her steps with a twiggy broom that I’m pretty sure she flies about on when the moon is full.

I haven’t let her see me. Not even once, although I’m sure she’s tried. Sometimes I take the long way home from school, walking all the way around the block to reach my house from the other side, to keep from passing her door. Sometimes I get down on my hands and knees and crawl past her gate, although the gravel on the sidewalk cuts my knees in the worst kind of way. Sometimes she isn’t in her yard at all, and I can hurry past without being seen.

Today is that sort of day. Her yard is empty and a little smoke curls up from her chimney as I go by. I wonder what she is cooking in her big black kettle, and hope it isn’t a child that forgot to duck when he was walking by her gate. Tommy, I think, is a very probable candidate. Tommy does not believe in witches, even though he’s got one living on his block, and sometimes he does forget to duck.
But he’s waiting for me at the bus stop, same as every other day, and I decide that the kettle was probably full of squirrel guts and frog eyes instead of careless children.

The kids at school all know about the witch on my block. I tell them stories about her every day. Today, I tell them about her bubbling, steaming kettle, and the frog eyes that she collects in her garden an hour after midnight. Only Tommy pretends not to believe me, but I can tell my stories are getting into his head. Tomorrow, I think he’ll duck when he goes past the gate.

Just in case.

I’ve been thinking about our witch more and more lately. I sit in the back of the bus on the way home, so as to think better, and put my mind to the problem. Witches have extremely sharp eyes, and I’m sure that one day she’ll see me walking by her house. Maybe she’ll follow me home, just to see where I live, or maybe she’ll lure me inside her house with something that I can’t possibly resist. A new baseball glove, maybe. Or a white mouse in a cage, like Eliza Finch has in her bedroom.

I don’t think I could resist a white mouse. Their pink paws are so impossibly tiny.

When we climb off the bus, Tommy suggests I come to his house to play basketball in his basement, but I tell him I can’t today. I have other things to do. Important things. He leaves me to myself, and I take the long way home, down our shady street, thinking all the way.

Witches, I’ve been told, are very difficult to fool. Only the cleverest sort of person can do it, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a chance. I’ve won the school spelling bee three times in a row, after all, and I am the only boy in school who knows how to count backward by threes. That has to count for something, I am sure.

So I go home the long way around and stop to pick a whole handful of daisies from the empty lot at the end of the street. I find some thistles too and add them to the bunch, because I’ve heard that witches like to use thistles to fill their pillows. They prick my fingers, so I’m not sure why a witch would like to sleep on them at night, but I bring them anyway, right up to her front gate.

She’s working in her yard again. She has a black cat with her, which is very fitting for a witch, and she comes over to the gate to see me when I knock. Her eyes are very blue, and she has a hooked nose and gray hair and a long, pointy chin. She smiles when I give her the flowers, a witch’s kind of smile, and asks if I would like a cookie. I’m cleverer than she is, so I say no—because witch’s cookies are made with spells—and thank you—because it’s always wise to be polite to a witch—and walk home.

The next day, I bring her a muffin from the school bake sale and tell her about the batch of brownies that Ellen Stauch tried to sell, even though they were made with salt instead of sugar and tasted worse than anything I’d ever eaten in my life. She tells me her name is Milly-Jane, which I think is a terrible name for a witch, but I don’t say so, because maybe she’s self-conscious about not having a really good witchy name.

After that, I meet her at her gate almost every day after school. I bring her lots of things, like thistles or ugly plants that I think a witch might like or river rocks that are extra smooth. Once, I even brought her a toad I found, and she seemed to like that more than anything else. I give her the gift and tell her about the pop-quiz at school, or about being chosen last for the baseball team and still hitting that home run, or about the white mouse I want to buy when I’m old enough. Sometimes she lets me into her garden, and I help her pull weeds or pick up sticks so she can mow her grass, and she gives me a cookie and some lemonade that she made in an ordinary kitchen, without any spells.

Witches, I’m told, are very difficult to fool, but I’ve fooled mine. I’m not afraid to walk past her house anymore, because I know she won’t try to boil me up in her kettle or turn me into a toad for her garden. If she did, who would bring her interesting treasures for her window sills, or tell her about baseball and bake sales and the girl at school who I’m pretty certain is actually a vampire?

No one, that’s who. So I guess I’m pretty safe.

A Thousand Things

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I want to be a thousand things,
With a hundred thousand skills.
I want to paint and write and draw,
And do the things that give me chills.

I want to be an artist,
Better than the best.
I want to sketch and speak and write,
And never, ever rest.

I want to be a teacher,
And pass on what I’ve learned.
I want a box that’s overflowing,
With all the skills that I have earned.

I want to be a thousand things,
If I only had the time.
I’d steal so many skills away,
They’d want me for a crime.

I want to be a thousand things,
Instead I’ll have to choose.
What fits me best,
What I love most,
What I can’t stand to lose.

3 Tips for Taking Action

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Have you ever had a stunningly brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime, on-fire idea that you were pretty sure was going to win you the Nobel prize or an Academy Award or something else of equal significance.

And then you just . . . never acted on it.

Ever?

You meant to. You had it all planned out in your head, did hours of research, maybe even told your friends and family about it and acquired some much-needed support and enthusiasm. After all, it was a brilliant idea. Of course everyone you told loved it.

But after that . . . it just . . . petered out. Got put on a shelf somewhere. Gathered dust. Stuck waiting for that perfect moment. You know the one. When planets align and the stars begin to sing and the universe decides that it’s your turn for that one spark of success that has been passed around through humanity since the beginning.

When you’re ready, in other words. When it’s time.

I have never, in all my life, experienced that moment.

I’m going to guess that you haven’t either. Nor, realistically, are you expecting to—not really. But taking that first step on a new project or idea—especially if that first step could result in criticism—is tough. It’s easier to let the idea remain just that—an idea, with nothing concrete to dislike or criticize.

Unfortunately, ideas only go so far. The book has to be written to be worth anything. So, here are my three favorite tips for taking action when it feels impossible.

1) Let Go of the Vision
I know, this one seems counterintuitive, but bear with me. You had this great idea. It’s been building up in your head for weeks or months or even years. You know exactly what you want it to look like, down to the last detail.

Only it’s not going to match your vision once you start. First drafts—of anything—never do. They’re awkward and stilted and ugly and they very rarely, if ever, match the vision in your head of what you wanted to produce. But, they’re a step beyond an idea, and however the project shifts and changes with the execution, it will be better for it.

Eventually.

2) Know Your Why
Why did you latch onto this particular idea? Why does it matter to you? Where do you want it to lead you down the road? Big projects—writing or otherwise—take a lot of time and energy to bring to realization, and getting started isn’t the only place people get stuck. Some of the projects that I’ve worked on seem to get stuck every other chapter, and the effort it takes to get unstuck feels exhausting.

But, I know why it’s important. I know why I don’t give up, and haven’t in the last ten years of being a writer. That ‘why’ pulls me through the bad days, and helps me take action when it’s hard.

3) Map it Out
Sometimes, failure to take action is connected to a lack of clarity. You don’t know where to start, so you never do. After all, ‘Write a book’ is a pretty tall order, especially if you’ve never done it. Instead, give yourself some steps that don’t feel like climbing the entire mountain in one leap.

Write one chapter.

Flesh out an outline.

Read a book on story structure.

Write for ten minutes before bed every night.

Whatever your list of small steps is, take the first one. And the second. Commit to yourself, your idea, and the vision of the future that this idea spurred. No matter how hard taking action is, I can guarantee it won’t be more difficult than watching that awesome idea you had wither to ash because your ‘moment’ never came.