The Birds

Back when I had a day job, I would have the occasional "closed door day." These basically meant I planned to disappear into my office to finish up a hot project. It was a signal to others not to call or knock unless something or someone was broken, bleeding or burning.

I'd planned for today to be a closed door day, too. I'm almost done with my WIP and I want to finish it. This means no email or trolling Facebook while I write in what I hope is a white heat of creativity.

But now there are the birds. These birds are sitting on my balcony rail, watching me with a gleam in their little eyes that make me think of The Birds (not the movie, which is scary, but the book, which is terrifying).

Birds have an odd affinity for me. Ask my friends. They'll tell you about me being followed down the streets of Charleston by a chicken. Or around a St. Louis zoo by a vulture. Or from room to room in the little gray bungalow by a wood pecker.

An owl even followed me home once in Charlotte, but that was OK. He ate the squirrels in my magnolia tree and I actually had blossoms that year.

I'm telling you this in case the birds turn feral and mistake me for Tippi Hedren. Someone should be able to tell the police the birds were local.

Extreme connections

After a full day of writing, I spent Sunday night sprawled across the couch feasting on Mad Men and then destroying my brain with "Hoarders: Buried Alive and "Sister Wives."

I'm not usually one to watch reality TV, but as I was flipping through the channels these piqued by interest. In other words, they drew me in like a gawker at a car-train accident. As I watched, though, I realized these shows are at either end of the same spectrum. They're both about connections, or lack thereof.

The Hoarder's show is heartbreakingly raw as hoarders try to clean up their homes and lives. What is painfully obvious is the hoarders don't have any real connections to other people. Instead, they focus on things.

Most have suffered a traumatic loss and cling to things with the excuse (and very real fear) that they might need them one day. As a result, their house is a maze of trash,  empty boxes, mismatched socks, gloves and shoes, and too often dead rodents or pets. Their relationships often seem as jumbled and mismatched. Many have distant, hands-off relationships with family, including those who live under the same roof. The hoarders have withdrawn into their internal world and the reconnecting process is painful.

At the other end of the spectrum is Sister Wives, a show about a polygamous Mormon family with one husband, four wives, and seventeen children. Personal beliefs on polygamy aside, I suspect the kind of suffering in isolation that leads to extreme hoarding wouldn't happen in such a family.

The very nature and number of the relationships and household structure requires an openness and emotional intimacy that would make it impossible to hide away when something or someone breaks your heart.

It makes sense. Words are approximately seven percent of a conversation. Tone of voice is 38 percent and body language is 55 percent. In other words, it's easy to lie with words, to say we're doing great, to hide the heartache and the frightening loss of control that cause us to cling to stuff. Face-to-face connections force us to be more honest with others, and by extension ourselves.

The more numerous our connections the greater the likelihood of our honesty.

Connections are on my mind this week because I've been sorting through my possessions, deciding what to toss, donate or pack for my upcoming move. I'm always ambivalent about moves. I love the idea of going someplace new (in this case, someplace much warmer) and meeting new people. But I also hate to leave people behind.

Sure, there's email, IM and Facebook, but these can't replace meeting someone for lunch or supper and talking about your day, your boss, your muse. A quip on Facebook, a link on Twitter, a quick email to "see how you're doing" isn't really a connection. It's just a reminder that we have these connections. Keeping those connections strong and honest is up to us.

What I'm reading

A few weeks ago, Kendra Leigh Castle on a blog asked posters to share who is our favorite, unapologetically bad boy. I answered Methos, from the old Highlander TV series. The character was a 5,000-year-old immortal who could be a loyal and trustworthy, but when it came to the sharp edge of a sword, he was always--always--out for No. 1.

My answer won me a copy of Kendra's new release, Renegade Angel. The book is about Raum, a fallen angel, who's also on the outs with hell. He works with a motley crew of other dispossessed demons to snuff out lesser demons and their half-human progeny. His latest assignment brings him to Vermont and to a half-human/half-demon woman he's determined to save--even if it destroys him.

Typically, I'm not a fan of vampires, weres and demons as heroes. Maybe it's my Southern Baptist upbringing or the heretical influence of gnosticism, but I like monsters who are monsters not monsters who are really just misunderstood.

So I was a bit skeptical about a book with a fallen angel/demon hero who is bad to his soulless bones and proud of it.

That said I enjoyed Kendra's voice immensely. Her characters are vibrant and her world-building so vivid and detailed that I could've sent a postcard from the Infernal City. I even found myself liking the hero who ends up with the key to something he doesn't want: redemption.

In the end, the story isn't about demons or monsters, but about the power of love to give us faith. At its core, Renegade Angel is a redemption story, and I'm a complete sucker for redemption stories.