I believe in adventure

October 8, 2012 by Kelli

Nine and a half years ago, I set out on quite the adventure to make my dream of writing a book about World War II Ukraine come true.

I had a publisher lined up at the time for what was supposed to be a non-fiction book entitled Letters to Kelli. For roughly three years, Ukrainian World War II vets had been sending me letters with their stories of the war. I met a school teacher when I studied in Kiev in college who believed in my love for the culture and history of her country and she began this Letters to Kelli series in her school newspaper.

I was five months pregnant and figured it was as good a time as any to take off for Ukraine for a month. I had planned on going alone, as Lee had to work, but my husband and parents put their foot down and insisted my mom accompany me.

Sometimes I’m a little too adventurous for my own good.

I arrived in Kiev, Ukraine on March 16, 2003, days before we went to war with Iraq and the very same day SARS became an international epidemic. In other words, I had perfect timing.

Want to build your husband’s faith? Take your pregnant body overseas during a time of international upheaval and call him the day after you arrive with a deep, chesty cough. He’ll thank you for it.

Or not.

Bless his heart.

While on the trip, my Mom took perhaps the most epic pregnancy picture ever. You’re welcome for this:

Epic

For one month, Mom and I travelled the Ukrainian countryside interviewing veterans, walking on land ripe with history (did you know Hitler had an underground bunker in Ukraine and an assassination attempt was made on his life in that country?!) and falling more in love with my home away from home.

It was a hard trip, but it was also beautiful. I heard story after story of survival as aged men and women shared with me their wisdom from years lived under Soviet Rule and the days spent fighting Nazi brutality. I spoke with soldiers who shared their stories with such passion and emotion. As they spoke, I could see them reliving the moments.

“We were more than just soldiers,” one man said to me. “We were people.”

To me, these were just stories, but to them they were memories – experiences come to life.

I spoke with women who fought. I spoke with those who joined the partisan army, performing underground maneuvers to thwart the Nazi’s quest for domination. I spoke with Christians who fought to protect the persectued Jews and who were gravely punished for their protection.

Did you know that Ukraine had the greatest loss of life per capita than any other country in the world during World War II? Ukraine’s population was largely Jewish and the Jews were being attacked and persecuted by both the Nazis and Soviets. In addition, Ukraine was known for its rich soil and land ripe for harvest and Hitler made it a point to focus on that region of the Soviet Union.

I heard these stories from the men and women that lived them and I came home with a new vision. Just translating their stories wasn’t enough, and I couldn’t get legal permission to use the stories verbatim anyway.

So my book is based on their stories. My novel compiles their tales together into four characters and my deepest desire is that it honors them the way they deserve to be honored.

Why has it taken me so long to finish the book? When it’s all said and done, I will have been working on this for a decade.

Why couldn’t I finish it sooner?

I didn’t want to let them down. I love those people fiercely. Most of the men and women I spoke with have passed away at this point, but I want their stories to live on in a way that honors their memories.

It’s taken so long because I can’t afford to mess it up.

I wrote 1,500 words this morning bringing my total word count to just over 86,000. I’m getting so close. I’m going to do this!

Day 8 of 31: I am one step closer to accomplishing this dream.

Join me and the hundreds of others who are participating in Nester’s 31 Day challenge.

Oh, and if you are interested in donating to our adoption fund, we would really love to hit the $1,000 mark this week. I plan to share more about our heart for adoption soon, but for now we would love for you to join us on the journey. There are miracles happening, friends…

Filed Under: 31 Days, faith, Novel, Russian, writing

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

October 3, 2012 by Kelli

Ever so slowly, I chip away at my novel. Just like The Little Engine that Could, I find myself slowly chugging up the mountain, straining to reach the top. The problem with writing a novel (particularly a historical fiction novel, which relies as much on historical accuracy as it does creative license) is that it’s an up hill climb the whole time. And simply finding the time to write is proving to be the biggest hurdle of all.

I need another week in California to knock this thing out.

Just sayin’…

Whatcha think, Babe? Think I could sneak away for five more days?

You wouldn’t miss me…right?

*sigh*

Here is another sneak peek at the novel that I am fighting to finish. I hope you enjoy.

Set up: Maria and Polina have been sent from Kiev, Ukraine to Northern Germany to work in a slave labor camp assembling armaments for the Nazi’s. The conditions are poor, just a step above those in the concentration camps.

A deep, rattling cough has settled in Polina’s chest and I see her movements slowing down steadily. She is sick and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Nothing but offer her half a piece of stale bread and a hand to hold on to in the dark.

It’s been a little over a year since the war began – since everything changed. I have nothing left of my former life but the memories that haunt my dreams – the echoes of laughter and sorrow that mix together in a swirl of black and yellow each night. I worry about Sergei and wonder where he is and what he’s doing. Is he alive? Is he well?

I have convinced myself that Anna is safe and refuse to consider the possibility that she might not be. I’ve heard from the other girls that when they examined our hands at the train station, they were looking for strong hands that could perform hard labor. If the hands looked too soft and the girls too dainty, they were sent to another part of Germany to work as housekeepers or nannies.

I pray this is where Anna is, because then I know she must be safe. In a house full of children with only the chores of cooking and cleaning, Anna will be in her element and it gives me hope for her survival.

I cannot think of Mama and Papa without my chest burning with sorrow. How frightened they must be with all of us gone and no hope for knowing where we are. It is the thought of them that gives me the most heartache.

It’s dark tonight and we are finally heading home. We work sixteen to eighteen hours a day and the labor truly is wretched. We stand the whole time, sometimes lifting heavy containers. My fingers are raw and rough from the long days of moving metal and turning and screwing on the caps that will seal the fate of one of my countrymen.

Polina wheezes steadily next to me, her chest giving off a deep rattle. She is so sick.

“You shouldn’t work tomorrow,” I say, my voice thick with fatigue.

“If I don’t work, they will kill me,” she responds.

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” I answer quietly and immediately regret my words. Polina labors forward a moment in silence.

“Yes,” she says finally. “It is what I want, but…” She grows quiet and I wait as a coughing fit racks her body. Stopping to lean forward, I hear her coughing up fluids and spitting bitterly in the grass at our feet. I cannot see her in the dark, but I can guess that she is spitting out blood and my heart goes cold.

Taking a breath and straightening up, Polina pulls hard on my arm. “Help me back,” she whispers. I hear the sound of the German boots coming up swiftly behind us.

“Walk quickly!” he snaps, jabbing me in the side. Polina and I stumble to catch up to the moving line.

“I don’t want to die at their hands,” Polina whispers, her voice tight and constricted. “I don’t want them to have the satisfaction of hearing me moan as they burn my body alive. I want to die on my own.”

It’s true, what she says. I know that it is. I haven’t seen the ovens where they burn the bodies, but I’ve heard of them. They are real and sometimes girls are still alive when they’re lit. Tears prick my eyes, hot and bitter as we step across the threshold of the camp, our home in hell.

“I just need to lay down,” Polina says and I nod. Most of the girls make their way to the bath house where they will wash off the grime of today’s work, but I turn with Polina and we slowly walk back to the barrack. I pull Polina through the door and set her down gently before heading to the lamp and striking a match to light the wick inside. The single, burning lamp gives a light orange glow which dimly flicks at each barren wall with a sorrowful shadow. I pick Polina up under the arms and drag her to the small pallet on the floor that is left for the sickest girls who are unable to climb into the bunks along the wall.

She is so light, her body nothing but skin stretched taught over bones.

©Kelli Stuart; October 2012

The Nester has issued a 31 Day Challenge in which we write for 31 days on a single topic. Over 1,000 people have joined in and the internet is ripe with learning and encouragement right now. I have chosen 31 Days of Believing I Can. Scroll down for more of what I’m learning as I embrace confidence. Today, I believe I can finish this book…by the time I die. Let’s just go with that.

Are you participating in 31 Days?

Filed Under: 31 Days, Novel, writing Tagged With: 31 Days, Novel, The Nester, writing, writing a novel

One more glance

July 19, 2012 by Kelli

We are on our last days of vacation. Tomorrow, the kids and I begin the two day drive home from Arkansas where we’ve enjoyed a week of swimming and playing with family. I’m tired and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

I’m still plugging away on the novel. It’s coming, very slowly but very surely. Some days the words flow freely. Others days it’s like plodding up Everest with a bag of rocks on my back. Some characters are sure and free and beautiful. Others are chunky and in need of a good editor.

But it is coming along.

This character, Maria, is coming into her own. Her story is heart wrenching and a couple of times I’ve had to stand up and walk away, the emotions have run so high. When I told Lee this he looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You know you’re the author, right?”

Yes. I do know that. But sometimes I’m not writing the story.

Kinda weird.

Here is one more piece of Maria’s story:

For three full days we rocked slowly along the tracks, all of us stuffed in tight and wrapped in heat and terror. After the first day, when dehydration and starvation began to set in, emotions ran high. We were a car full of teenage girls, all ripped from the ones we loved and forced into a situation of extreme stress. The tears fell freely and emotions ran hot. By the afternoon of our second day on the train, girls were screaming and wailing. Panic set in and several beat on the sides of the train until their fists were raw and bloody.

Others tried to shut out the wailing. Polina and I wrapped our arms around one another and slid to the floor, each a lifeline to the other. After awhile fatigue set in and most of the screaming faded into pitiful wails.

If the sounds of our enclosement didn’t set me over the edge, the smells threatened to. We all forfeited every bit of dignity we had as time went forward. Girls defecated publicly, and threw up repeatedly from stress and heartache. Even I had to finally give in to the calls of nature and with the deepest of sorrow in my eyes I released the pressure on the floor right where I sat.

Never have I felt such a sense of shame.

Polina did all she could to allow me some sense of dignity. She did not mention it and gently turned her eyes away from me when I could resist no more. And she did not complain when together we finally had to sit in the mess.

By the third day, everyone had made a sort of pile on the floor. In an unspoken agreement, we all allowed the smaller girls to lay on top of the larger ones, making a sort of long patchwork of grief and fatigue.

It was this day that I thought we would die. I envisioned the Nazi’s pulling open the door to find us all rotting in our own stench and somehow I took some comfort in this vision.

But it was not to be so.

Instead we finally pulled into a station and stopped. We had made many stops along the way, but this was the first time that the door was opened. The light that streamed into the cabin assaulted my eyes and left me blind. We were all so weak by this point that the Germans who began herding us out the door had to physically lift most of us and set us on our feet. Polina and I did not let go of one another’s hands. We clung tight as they set us upright and both of us, stiff-legged and squinting, followed the line of females into the unknown.

We were soiled, dirty and smelled of human feces and vomit. We did not look like young girls, but old women who had endured years of abuse. What a difference three days made.

There were four girls who did not make it. I watched as their lifeless bodies were pulled from the train car and tossed on a waiting truck with such indifference that I wondered if our captors were, indeed, even human. How can one witness death with no expression at all?

I don’t understand it.

©Kelli Stuart, 2012

Filed Under: Novel, writing Tagged With: Novel, writing

On Friendship

July 2, 2012 by Kelli

“But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.” Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts God knitted in me was loyalty. When I make a friend, I consider that person a friend for life – not just a season, but forever. Naturally, there are seasons when some friendships are deeper due to the simple fact that you are allowed frequent time together to build the friendship.

And then there are times when God knits your heart so tightly with another’s that the seperation of time and distance only serve to strengthen and deepen your ties to one another. Usually, these friends possess the same quality of loyalty as you do, creating the perfect storm for depth and growth.

And Laughter.

This gift of loyalty comes with a price. There are some who don’t cherish friendships the same way I do. It’s not wrong, but in the past it has been different enough to leave me feeling hurt. Of course the passing of time wanes the effect of one on another, but for those of us who are inlaid with the gift of loyalty, it hurts to see people walk so easily and effortlessly in and out of our lives.

I am deeply blessed to have a great number of friends from different stages of life that still impact my life on a regular basis. Friends from high school, from college, from our days as young marrieds and our early years of parenting. Friends who have long been distant but who have remained knitted so tight that when we’re together it’s as if no time passed at all.

Friends who bring out the best in me.

Friends who will stay up late into the night listening to me read chapters of my book while also serving me tea for a sore throat, medicine for a hacking cough and sound advice for misguided facts in my chapters (apparently rabbits aren’t greasy…and don’t feed a lot of people – Alright already!! I cut that part out.)

Friends who bring their fancy cameras and spend precious time shooting headshots, willing to make me look and feel beautiful no matter how much time it takes (or photoshop magic, which I have permitted to be used liberally).

They're so cool...

I’m grateful for friends who let me be exactly who I am. There is no competition amongst such friends, but a realization of one another’s gifts and a true desire to encourage one another on to the good things set before them. I spent the past weekend in the presence of those very women and I feel so immensely full because of it. Those friends have made me better, challenged me to be greater in all aspects of my life.

I’m thankful for all the friends that have been brought into my life, both near and far. To me, friendship is a lifetime commitment, never to be taken for granted and not to be forsaken. Not when you share a relationship that is mutually edifying and works to make you a better person.

Have you hugged a friend today?

“As iron sharpens iron, so one sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

All photos taken by the incomparable Wendy.

Filed Under: Family, Friendship, Novel, Travel, writing Tagged With: Friendship, Loyalty, seasons of life

Livin’ it up in California

June 29, 2012 by Kelli

Last year, right around this time, I came to this beautiful lake house in Northern California and spent five days soaking up wisdom and inspiration from my favorite people in the world.

I’m back here again, still working on the same book, still soaking in wisdom, honored and blessed to have the privilege to come to this spectacular place do the thing I was created to do. I have come down with a nasty cold and my throat feels like it’s been excavated overnight, so I’m not sure how much actual writing I’ll get done today, but I will rest and will go home rejuvinated and renewed.

Have an amazing weekend, everyone!

Take a few minutes to do the things that make your soul sing.

I wrote 22 pages on my novel yesterday. It's hard not to be inspired here.

Yes. We're eating food like this every. single. day.

Filed Under: Novel, Travel, writing Tagged With: California, Novel, Travel, Writer's Retreat, writing

Funky little me

June 21, 2012 by Kelli

I am in a blogging funk.

And also, there are five kids in my house.

So I’m taking some time to stop and breathe deep.

I’ll confess, as a blogger it’s kind of scary to take these little breaks from the blog. Any blogger who says they don’t care about comments or how many readers they have isn’t being fully honest. None of us write online without the hope that someone(s) is reading.

But I’m in a blogging funk. I have bloggers’ block. I don’t know what to write about, what I have to say that is productive to the betterment of the world. Funky funk, funk, funk.

You really have to be careful when typing that word….

I’m sorry I don’t have anything exciting to share with you – anything to change your life today. I can tell you that yesterday I tried out a new hairstylist and let her do my pink and my head ended up looking like a giant piece of Bubble Yum.

It took another hour and quite a bit of highlight, but she managed to get it looking much more natural and normal. I know that’s not going to change your life, but it almost changed mine, so…

See what I mean? Blogging funk.

I should go. I hear the children stirring. If I don’t immediately get them up and moving in a direction of productivity we will never get out the door. It’s like trying to herd a group of electric chihuahua’s.

If you’re a blogger and you’re comfortable sharing, can you tell me what your purpose is in blogging? Why do you do it and what motivates you to keep going? What message do you want to share with the world?

These are all questions I’m having a hard time answering. Because today my message was Bubble Yum hair and electric chihuaha’s…

Filed Under: Random, writing Tagged With: Bloggers block, Blogging, Taking time to breathe, writing

And now I’m back

June 6, 2012 by Kelli

Oh hi there! How are you? Me? Oh, I’m fine, thanks. Now that I’ve finally finished all three books in The Hunger Games Trilogy. I read them on my iPad. I don’t know how many pages the books were, but on the iPad, all three books totaled 15, 215 pages. I swiped my iPad screen 15, 215 times in the last four days.

My eyes hurt.

Yep. I took the plunge. I started The Hunger Games Saturday night and I finished the third book, Mockingjay, last night around midnight. I have done absolutely nothing in between those times. Except turn thirty-four, which I largely ignored anyway, so no big deal.

So my take on the books: I was skeptical when I went in to the series. I didn’t want to like it but, alas, I did like it. I had to fight through the first five chapters of the first book, which I found to be painfully boring. I almost gave it all up, but once the story finally picked up, I was hooked.

From a story standpoint, the books were great. There was a love triangle, lots of action and fantastic descriptions that pulled me right into the world of Panem. I could see it and smell it and feel the terror of it all.

That is great storytelling.

My suspicions that it isn’t the most grammatically sound piece of literature were correct, but I see the freedom that the author took with creative license and I could appreciate it. There were a few paragraphs that were overly fragmented in my opinion and a couple of times I laughed out loud at the, perhaps, overly judicious use of creative license, but overall I understood why she wrote the book the way she did and why an editor didn’t change it.

About half-way through the book I started to feel a bit squicky about the idea of watching the movie. There was this nagging idea that the author was making a pretty braod social statement, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. But all I could think was that The Hunger Games were meant to be a thing of entertainment. People from the Capitol watched children killing each other as a means to entertain themselves.

Doesn’t it seem odd that we would want to watch the movie in that context?

By the end of the series, though, I got it – I saw exactly where the author wanted to lead us, which made watching the movie version of the book less offensive to me (though I still don’t know if I’ll see it). The Hunger Games is supposed to be an allegory of war. It’s a loose allegory and I think it’s meant to be an extreme picture on purpose.

We send young people into battle and they have to fight to the death with the knowledge that really, there can only be one victor. But in the battle, the good guys and the bad guys get muddied and soon, everyone kind of looks alike, because the battle for survival makes us all act in desperation.

Just as in a war, the end results of The Hunger Games are devastating. The victor is never the same, having seen and done things that are unspeakable. The families of the victims are forever left without their child and every community is ultimately affected with the horror of it all.

But who is the Capitol supposed to represent? This is something I had a hard time figuring out. Maybe it’s not a representation of any one thing or group of people, but on occasion I got a vague sense that maybe the Capitol was supposed to represent America and it felt a bit underhanded.

Other times, however, that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

In the end, it was one more story that leads us to believe that the only answer is a sort of Utopian society, where a new race of peace loving people is the only hope for the world. A nice thought, I suppose.

But in the end it’s all just fiction, isn’t it?

So what do you think? I realize I’m roughly two years late to this conversation. I’m edgy like that.

*eye roll*

In all honestly, though, before I read the books I truly had no idea what they were about so I’ve read nothing on the subject. What message did you take from The Hunger Games?

Filed Under: books, Product Reviews, writing Tagged With: books, The Hunger Games, thoughts, War

The Novel

May 24, 2012 by Kelli

I’m not going to finish my novel by June 1st. This writing a book thing is hard. Really, really hard. Like child birth kinda hard, complete with back pain from all the hunching over the keyboard.

Today I laid down to take a nap and I was flooded with ideas. My characters began swimming and talking and I decided to listen. I fed my family, packed up my computer and headed out where I promptly grew totally overwhelmed because my fingers cannot type fast enough.

I know where the characters are going, but getting them there takes time and I’m impatient and frustrated and wish I could just get it all out at once. Instead, I type a few pages, my heart starts beating really fast, my pulse quickens and I literally feel like I’m falling – like I’m leaning into the finish line and my feet can’t keep up.

So I have to step away, take a break, then dive back in. Do you know how slow this is going?

I’m almost to 200 pages and their stories are just ramping up. This is the longest labor ever in the history of all time.

Would you like to read one more sneak peek? Okay, good. Because this girl’s story is my favorite and it is the story I simply can’t get out fast enough. So here you have it – this is a bit more of Luda’s story. I first introduced you to Luda in Sneak peek #1. Her story is complex and full of beauty and pain and grief and joy. Isn’t that how life goes?

Beauty and ashes all mixed together.

(Disclaimer – This is the unedited, first rough draft. It’s not perfect, but it is coming out and that is a step in the right direction.)

Leaning back, I turn my face up to the ceiling and take in a long, deep breath. The pieces all began to fall into place. “So my mother was not a whore,” I say, less to him and more to myself. Every single image of my mother that I’d conjured up as a youth came flooding back. Her laugh that sounded like a thousand bells. The sound of her voice singing softly over me. The way her hair swung loosely over her shoulders. Could these be real memories? Could it be that the very few moments I had with my mother had been stored inside of me all along?

“I’m sorry, Luda,” Alexei says quietly, breaking the silence. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry that I failed you…and your mother.”

I nod, then ask one last question that has been pressing against my heart like a vice. “What is my mother’s name?”

Alexei’s eyes widen. “He never even spoke her name?” he whispers.

I shake my head no. “He only spoke of her when he was drunk and he always referred to her as ‘My darling,’ in those rare moments. I have never heard my mother’s name.”

“Marianna,” Alexei said and a gentle smile spread across his face. “Your mother’s name is Marianna.”

I nod and my eyes fill with tears. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you for giving my mother back to me.”

Alexei reaches across the table and grasps my hand. “You are just like her, Luda. You are going to be an excellent mother just like she was.”

I nod slowly and allow a smile to form. The first genuine smile I’ve given in months. I look at my stomach and breathe in deep.

Like your mother.

For the first time in all my life, I feel peace.

©Kelli Stuart, May 2012

My new goal is to hit 200 pages by June 27 when I head to California for a writer’s retreat. I’m going to finish this thing, you guys. It’s actually going to happen!!!!

If it kills me…

And it just might…

But let’s hope not because I really need to finish this before I die…

The End.

Filed Under: Novel, writing Tagged With: character development, I'm losing my mind, Novel, writing

About the book

May 3, 2012 by Kelli

I’ve been hard at work on my book lately. I’m not going to finish it by June, but I’ve got momentum going now so I fully intend to finish by the end of the summer. Want to read a little more?

For some context here is Sneak Peek Part One, Part Two and Part Three. You have now met three out of the five characters. Today I will introduce you to the final two characters. Maria is becoming one of my favorite stories to write and it shouldn’t come as a surprise because her story is based on the story of a woman I knew and loved in Ukraine.

Maria’s story inspired this book.

Fourteen-year-old Maria and her brother, Sergei, are the oldest and the youngest of Ivan, who you met in Sneak Peek Two. Sergei has joined the Red Army and without him, Maria feels lost. Ivan has survived Babi Yar with his life, but emotionally and mentally he is failing. Maria longs for her brother and this passage has become a sweet moment for my characters as Maria escapes to the confines of her memory.

A particular memory keeps folding over me. The bitter, biting cold of January pushes the sun beyond the hill overlooking the Dneiper River earlier each night, and I find myself overcome with this one moment in time. I can’t escape it and so I have given myself to it. The shadows of night make fighting too difficult.

Tonight is no exception.

I’m eight years old again and we’ve gone to our dacha for the summer. The dacha – our happy place. On this particular day I wake up early and tiptoe outside to watch the sun lift up over the small lake settled at the back of our property. My long gown soaks up the morning dew and I shiver against the chill of daybreak.

As I come out of the trees into the clearing, I see him. His back is to me, long and thin, always stretching out and up. I don’t speak but the rustle of my feet in the moist leaves reveals my presence and he turns, his thin face breaking into a smile.

“What are you doing here?” he says and gestures me to come sit.

“I wanted to say good morning to the sun,” I reply and he laughs. I have always loved his laugh and even now, as I listen to it dance through my mind, I feel a smile spread slowly.

“Well, sit,” he says, and together we drop onto the banks of the lake, the rocky soil digging into the backs of our legs. I look at him, my brother, and I am completely at peace.

“Sergei?” I ask.

He turns and looks at me, his thick eyebrows raised. In this memory he is more boy than man. At twelve years old, he didn’t feel that much older, but then Sergei never did feel too old for me. Anna, on the other hand, has always seemed to be light years ahead of me in maturity despite only being two years older.

“What do you want to do when you grow up?” I ask.

Sergei takes in a deep breath and looks back out over the lake. A thin layer of orange and pink is beginning to pull up over the horizon. Daybreak is coming and our solitude will quickly slip away. I find myself wishing then and there that the sun would never rise. If only I could have frozen us on the bank of the lake for all of eternity.

If only…

“Don’t know,” Sergei says with a smile.

“You don’t know?!” I ask incredulously. “How do you not know? It’s very important to know.”

Sergei laughs again. Magic. “Well, I just don’t know yet,” he says with a grin. “Do you know what you want to do when you grow up?”

I open my mouth to answer, then snap it shut. Afraid.

“I don’t want to tell you,” I finally answer and Sergei gives me a gentle push. “See, you don’t know either,” he says with a laugh.

“I do know!” I protest. “But you can’t tell anyone yet.”

Sergei nods. “Okay,” he says and he means it. My Sergei always keeps his promise. Taking a deep breath I lift a small handful of sand and pebbles and toss them into the water, watching as a hundred droplets form rings that pierce the sheer glass of its surface. The strip of orange is getting brighter. Morning dawns.

“I want to join the circus. I want to be an acrobat.” I don’t look at him while I say this and I wait for him to laugh at me. I know I can’t even turn a cartwheel, but I truly believe acrobatics are my destiny.

Sergei is silent for a moment and I fear he is just laughing too hard to answer. Slowly I peek at him, barely turning my head. He isn’t laughing. Instead he stares intently at the rising sun. Now that she has broken the surface of the horizon it seems she is racing toward her perch in the sky. Time sped up – never slowing down.

“Okay,” he says, his eyes narrow and serious.

“Okay, what?” I ask.

“I think you should do it. I think you should plan to join the circus as an acrobat.”

I narrow my own eyes and study his profile seriously. “Are you making fun of me?” I ask evenly.

Sergei turns and looks at me, his eyes a little deeper and different. The sunlight gleams in the dark parts of his eyes swirling with an intensity that I’ve never seen before.

“Masha, you can be whatever you want to be and do whatever you want to do. You’re good and you’re a fighter. I believe you can do it…if you want to.”

We study one another for a quiet moment then he turns to look at the sky again. The colors reach from left to right as far as our eyes can see, vibrant, full and brilliant. The golden orb hangs above, giving forth the heat that will ultimately dry the grass and give way to a day of grace filled memories. I lean gently into my beloved brother and sigh.

“Thank you,” I say with a small smile.

Sergei is quiet briefly before responding. “When I grow up, Masha,” he says softly, “I will make sure that you can do and be whatever you want. That’s what I want to do.”

©Kelli Stuart 2012

Have a great day, friends. I leave tomorrow for Tanzania! Eeeek!

Filed Under: books, Novel, writing Tagged With: Novel, writing

Dear 5:00 AM…

April 9, 2012 by Kelli

I set my alarm for 5:00 AM this morning. Go ahead. You can laugh. It’s funny.

I really thought I could handle it. I even went to bed at 9:45 last night. I felt very responsible when I turned the lamp off before the 10:00 hour. How grown up of me, right? But what seemed like mere moments after closing my eyes, the alarm on my phone start screaming in my ear.

5:00 AM?!

I don’t know what I was thinking.

Incidentally, I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect alarm sound to wake me up. I listened to every option provided on my phone and I painstakingly chose the sound that was least offensive. It sounded like little fairies ringing bells, gentle and serene. When I chose it, I pictured myself leaping out of bed in song. Like a musical.

Good Mornin’. Good Moooornin’.

In this vision I tap danced through the house, happy and free as a lark. I don’t know how to tap dance, although I did take lessons a few years ago and had the time of my life. I should do that again…

But, oddly enough, when my alarm went off this morning, it didn’t sound like fairies ringing bells any more. IT SOUNDED LIKE THE DEVIL HIMSELF CLANGING SYMBOLS IN MY EAR.

It was angry and harsh and I wanted to punch someone, not sing.

Then I got back in bed.

“Is that your alarm to get up and work?” Lee asked. He wasn’t really interested in the answer so much as he just wanted to acknowledge the offensiveness of being awakened by evil bells at 5 in the morning.

I grunted in reply and promptly closed my eyes. For the next 37 minutes, my brain and my body warred against the morning. It went down something like this:

BRAIN: “Get up. You have a lot to do this week. If you don’t get up now you won’t have time to get anything done this morning.”

BODY: “Shut up.”

BRAIN: “Seriously, just get up. You will be fine if you get up and move around. You can have coffee. You won’t regret it, but you will regret staying in bed and not getting anything done.”

BODY: “Shut. Up.”

BRAIN: “Alright that’s it you lazy BEEP. Get up! Get up! GET! UP!”

BODY: *sitting up at squinting at the clock that reads 5:24* “Ten more minutes. Now shut up.”

BRAIN: “Check the clock. I think it’s been ten minutes. Check the clock. Seriously. Your window of peace and productivity is shrinking exponentially. Check the clock. CHECK IT!”

5:37.

Sighing, I rolled out of bed and landed with a thud on the floor. Stumbling to the kitchen, I noticed how beautiful and serene the house felt. Dark and quiet, patiently waiting for the hustle of energy to roar to life. I liked it. The peace of the moment made me happy.

It did not make me feel like singing, though. Or dancing.

If any of you need me later, I’ll be on the couch taking a nap…

While I’ve got you all captivated here with my amazing and deep words of wisdom and grace, I might as well show you a few pictures from our Easter weekend, don’t you think? Wouldn’t that make your day? You’re welcome.

We spent the weekend with my cousin, Sean (whose book I hope you all purchased and are impatiently awaiting its arrival) and his wife, Addie, and their two cuties. The huge waves at the beach Friday made for three hours of crazy fun for the kids.