We each have our own story… “Pieces of Sky”

So many of us have a story to tell.  Whether it is about growing up in a “Leave it to Beaver household”, living on the wrong side of the tracks as a child, being a part of a gang, being raped, having cancer, having a serious mental illness, dealing with substance abuse, being neglected or growing up in a broken home, the stories are endless.  Many of us share our stories like I do through blogging, or church groups, or group therapy, or friendships and some choose to write a book to share with the world.

My friend, Noelle Cablay, is one of those brave souls who has poured her life onto the pages of a book for everyone to read.  She wrote a memoir of her life, “Pieces of Sky” and it has just become available to download to your Kindle, Ipad or any device like that.  After I finished reading her book months ago, (she forwarded me a free copy before the editing was done) I was so moved by her story, I could hardly think of much else for days.  Her life was nothing like my life growing up, yet I felt her pain, her strength and sheer drive to survive as I read each word.  Her story is similar to so many children who grow up neglected, abused and understand what it feels like to be hungry, yet her story is totally unique, just like her.

I have never read a story like hers.  Once I finished her book, I asked her if I could help promote it on my blog.  Funny enough not everyone wants to be apart of my blog, it is too real for some people, but when I asked Noelle if I could help, she was thrilled.  She said “I blessed her.”

It is my opinion that she has blessed us all by putting her story into a book.  So here is an excerpt from her book and if you are at all interested, please support her by downloading a copy.  It is only 4.99$ even though it is worth so much more.  Our goal is 5000 copies and I know once 5000 people read it, it will take off and you will see it on the New York Times Best Seller list someday.  It will also be available in a paperback version, starting April 30 on Amazon.com, if you like an old school paper version.

 

 

Pieces of Sky,

a memoir

by Noelle Cablay

Mr. Everson

Dear Mr. Everson. He is probably long gone. After all, he was 55 years old, 26 years ago. And he scared the living daylights out me. I would drag myself into his sophomore English course every day to study the Iliad and Tennyson. And we would write and write, and he would parade around with his glasses hanging off one ear and recount in vivid detail the ancient battles of Troy as if they happened yesterday. His presence would fill the room, and even the cheerleaders would lean forward in their seats as he waxed poetically about Dylan Thomas and The Fisher King. A former actor with a deep, rich velvet voice, Everson could recite passages from memory, each breath like a practiced dance with words. He would read aloud Robert Frost, pausing to take in the air as if our Southern California mountain town was nestled in Vermont, and then he would linger to tell us how the birch trees, with their thin, fingerlike branches brushing against a crisp New England sky, would bend. How they would bend and bend under the weight of the previous night’s storm, and how you would find them in the morning, their trunks touching the ground, almost groaning under the enormous mound of snow. And with a whisper, he spoke of the secret to birch trees. It was simply this– birches were made to bend. By bending ever lower and lower, presenting themselves time and again to the forces that lashed at them, pressed them, and crushed them, they survived.
One day, Mr. Everson gave an assignment. Write a descriptive essay about your front door. Argh. Where do I begin? I went home, scoured the place for some paper, found a spiral notebook and green pen and went to work. Finally, when I finished my two-page essay, I tore it from the binder and stuffed it in a book for class the next day.

We handed Mr. Everson our papers as we entered the class. He was waiting by the door, fresh snow melting around his rubber boots, his well-worn Pendleton rolled up at the sleeves. He had a ritual for grading papers. I think he had a lot of rituals. We had to turn our papers in unstapled (only the stupid people forgot that, and they only did it once) and he would stack them in a pile to the right side of his desk. Then he’d hang his glasses off one ear, lean back in his chair, prop one foot on his desk, and, with a red pen, he would bleed all over the papers. As he read, he would place the papers upside down on the left, until the pile on the right was finished and the upside down pile on the left was graded. It was well understood that while he worked we were to finish reading another chapter and start writing our next response. No one spoke. We didn’t dare. When Mr. Everson graded, the room took on a stiff silence, and one didn’t dare muster a muffled cough.
And so it was as usual, until someone passed me a note. Quick, grab it… don’t let him see you. It was a friend complaining how dreadful the assignment the night before had been. How completely boring to write an essay about the front door. To measure the dimensions and find out the paint color, check the thickness! But I began to panic. What did you say? You mean you wrote about the actual door? How it looked? What size it was? I thought we were to write about the door, what it meant, how we felt about it. I quickly ascertained that I had really screwed up. My panic escalated. Being the over achiever, I didn’t want to get this wrong. The idea of Mr. Everson yelling at me for missing the point of the assignment was enough to make me sick.
But here we were, and I realized I had blown it. I was the only one who didn’t understand what it meant to write a descriptive essay. He’s gonna bury me. I didn’t write of the door’s physical attributes; I wrote about the door’s meaning. I described how I felt about the door. How I hated going through it. How it was brown and cold and heavy and lifeless and filled with anger and hunger and want. What an idiot.
And so I sat and waited until I saw the broken edges of the spiral notebook paper and the words in green. He reached for the paper and began to read it as he had all the others. Carefully, I watched his face. Suddenly, he grabbed his glasses, repositioned them squarely on his head, leaned forward and gave a slight grimace. It was then that I took a chance to speak.
“Mr. Everson …” I said sheepishly.
No response.
“Um, Mr. Everson,” I said a little louder.
Still nothing.
“Mr. Everson,” with great nerve, “I am so sorry, but I misunderstood. I’ll do it again. Tonight. I’m sorry, but it’s my mistake, I misunder–”
“Shut up!” he barked. And he continued reading.
I shot him a pleading look.
“Be quiet!” He admonished me.
I fought back tears. I sat there and felt the blood rush to my feet. Everyone in the room knew what was coming. They offered me pitiful glances.
Mr. Everson grabbed my paper again and reread it quietly. And finally, when he was done, he said determinedly,
“Noelle…”
I looked up. The class looked up. I began to melt inside. He stared deep into my face and smiled with conviction.
“This is damn good. For the first time in 20 years, someone did it right. See me after class.”
And so that day, Mr. Everson began reading my stories. He listened to my stories, and he heard my pain. It was he who helped me find confidence in writing, and he who became my first supporter. He shared about his own pain at the loss of his first marriage, and how by reading about Abraham Lincoln, he realized that great men suffer and persevere.      Persevere, Noelle. Persevere.
It was Mr. Everson’s idea for me to write music and poetry and to create beauty out of words. So this is a fulfillment of a promise I made to him when I was young, that I would write a book someday. More than that, it is a fulfillment of a calling that began all those years ago. It’s not that I didn’t want to write, it’s that I wasn’t sure of what to say. But now I know. This is the story of what happened behind that door, and why in order to not break I had to bend.

 

 

BARNES AND NOBLE ONLINE

Have a wonderful weekend and by the way, Tiara and I made it back to Target today!  She was sooooo thrilled.

xoxo tiffani