Discussion Questions
What do we learn about the main character in the way the author weaves the past and present together? What do we know about the main character as a younger man? What do we know about him as an older man? What has changed or not changed?
What kind of person is the son? What did you use to draw the basis of your conclusion? Do you trust the main character's version of his son?
Most people would agree that seeing fairies is not enough of a "condition" to move a loved one from their home, so when is it time for a child to make the call that a parent should be in an assisted living environment or to remove the parent from their own home?
Green is not green, it is celadon. Can you give examples from the story in which the main characters sees things through an artistic lens? Can you think of examples in your experience when two people saw the same thing, but described it very differently?
What kind of lens do you look through? What experiences in your life have shaped your lens?
A Note From the Author
An interesting conundrum occurs as we grow older. Our bodies age in a way that seems to pick up speed as we get older and older, just like Willy Wonka's boat in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Yet, our minds seem to retain a semblance of youth as if it hardened two moments after puberty ended. In that moment, we no longer think like children, but, from that point on, we also don't feel like we've aged. It isn't until we're confronted with the realities of having less energy to play with our children, or the growing sense of caution as we take a seat on the merry-go-round, or the frustration of removing a sliver that we can't quite see that the discrepancy becomes glaringly obvious. With "Golden Meadows," I wanted to capture that idea of aging and demonstrate how we feel inside, with our eyes closed, separated however briefly from the infirmaries of our age-worn bodies.
I started my story with a memory of gently swaying in a hammock, lost in the sounds of chirping crickets, singing birds, and the swishing of the wind as it rushed in and around the branches of the trees above. I love that Zen-like peace that comes from floating above the ground as if I am free from the entrapment of gravity.
As I wrote, my thoughts inexplicably turned to my grandparents. Some of the best memories that I've retained from my youth are centered around the time spent with my extended family. My cousins, siblings, and I spent most weekends with my grandparents, having numerous sleep-overs, baking cookies, attending church, and even going on vacations together. Those memories form the basis of how I remember my grandparents. They were proud of the family they had created, delighted to spend scads of time with us, and limber enough to walk all over amusement parks. My grandmother gave us crafting and baking, while my grandfather gave us barbecuing and storytelling. I have to think harder to remember that they got old, that they used canes and then walkers, and that they complained about backs and hips and bruises, and suddenly the main character was had started out as me, had turned into a man more like my elderly grandparents.
I got as far as the man sitting up in the hammock, afraid that, if he fell, someone might notice (I don't suppose we ever grow out of that fear of embarrassment), and paused to think about what might happen next. What does a man in his later years think about? What does he do to fill his days? Does he get lonely or does he have a companion? A wife? A dog? I returned to typing. A dog entered the story, and then came the pixies, straight from a colorful coffee table book filled with incredible sketches of the world of fairies. It was a book my mother owned and one I poured over endlessly because of the beautiful, fine, hand-drawn details. And the moment the first fairie arrived on the pages of my story, I knew how my tale would end.
My original version of "Golden Meadows" seemed lacking in detail when I reread it a year later, and when I took an on-line class covering character development, I realized I hadn't done my main character justice. I hadn't drawn a very good comparison between the man's younger years and his current late age so I revised and added new information. He became a war photographer who gave up the excitement of chasing the next big story to settling down with a family, something he seems to accept and regret at the same time. I combed through the news from the years I thought he would have been a young man to find a suitable war and stumbled onto an article about the Irish War of Independence.
This is where the beauty of social media comes in. Through social media apps like Twitter and Instagram, I have met people worldwide and have gained a new perspective of the world, the United States, and myself. One of the people I leaned on for information for this story was a man from Sligo, Ireland. I had written some lines about the main character traveling away from the pain of the war in Northern Ireland to rest and recuperate in a small town on the coast of Ireland. Not familiar with the region since I've never been outside of North America, I asked Terry for his opinion. An art and history buff, he was quick to set me straight that the town I had selected was too small, too out of the way, and not a likely destination. Instead, he pointed me to Sligo and the home of William Butler Yeats, who, around my main character's early years, would have been gaining international notoriety for being the man who won the Nobel Prize in Literature and who had been giving fiery speeches in support of divorce to the government and clergy working to disallow it. I encourage all writers, even the most introverted, to use social media in this way. The world abounds with people who like to share their stories and their knowledge.
Sheltered Hope (an excerpt)
My father was a hard man who didn't stand for nonsense. He wasn't cruel, but he believed every man had a responsibility for the space his family lived in, even more so than their comfort in that space, and he took that job to heart. Any man who didn't do that, or who wasn't even willing to try, was an out and out failure. Happiness was always a little more than one step away from him, except when it came to my mother. She was his radiance and it was only when he was around her that I ever saw him smile.
“It’s a mutt.”
“I know.” I had found a pup earlier in the day. She was a speckled thing, probably dropped off and not a run-away. When I brought her home, mom just sighed and shook her head. We had been through this routine too many times to count, but she found a tiny collar and helped me hold the pup still to put it on.
Animals were dropped off with some regularity out here in the country. I don’t know what people thought, but animals that get dropped off in the country either get shot right away, or grow up feral and then get shot. Since I found the pup before my dad did, it wasn’t shot. Yet.
“Give it to me.”
“No. I want to keep it.”
My dad’s eyes grew hard and got small. I had only told him no a handful of times and I had paid for it. I was ready to pay for it again for the wriggling bundle in my arms.
“You won’t take care of it.”
“I will. I promise.”
He stood staring at us and I could feel him wavering for the first time. It had been a long, hard fight for me to earn a pet. Years of watching kittens, puppies, and even a couple raccoon kits drowned, clubbed, strangled, and shot before my eyes. I hadn’t even named this one yet.
“How’re you going to feed it?”
“I’ll do chores and work.” My heart beat with hope.
Hope-hope. Hope-hope. Hope-hope.
I squeezed the pup and it squirmed in my hands. Finding it couldn’t escape, it started licking my face. It’s tail swept back and forth a mile a minute batting me on the side.
“We don’t pay you to do chores around here. That’s just part of being a family.”
“I’ll help the neighbors.”
“One chance. No mistakes. You feed it. You water it. You lock it up when you’re working ‘cause if it gets one of the chickens, it’s gone.”
I waited. He wasn’t much of a joker, but it still seemed too good to be true and when he walked away, I just sat there still squeezing Hope. That’s what I named her, right there, right then, right in that moment.
Richelle Renae's Sh
eltered Hope is coming in July.
Other titles by Richelle Renae
A White Crow
Alms of Freedom
Thank you for reading Golden Meadows. Watch for more short stories in this series coming soon. Share your experience with the author.
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Golden Meadows Page 3