Today, I tackled black spot mold on our climbing roses on the side of the house. This area gets slammed every year by the thrice-cursed horror, making once beautiful shiny leaves turn into speckled yellow death throes before they curl up and die. So every year, I pick the diseased leaves off and spray them with homemade black spot spray which works well but you have to keep spraying. A LOT.
Gardening is like meditation for me, a perfect escape from deadlines and horror, which is what I’m writing about at the moment. My Charlie was such a hero in my life, and an incredible hero in the war. All his Marine buddies are beloved to me through his stories, and I have to be so brutal to them. I have to write about what they went through, how they were hit, how some cracked, how so many of them died. I must and will stay true to their reality but it’s hard. But I’m not going to dishonor Charlie or any of them by making anything up. And my friends, it was awful. It is also true.

I am currently working on the first edit of the first book in the World War ll trilogy about my beloved stepdad Charles the Man. It’s been decades, from the beginning of this project until now to get to this point. Charlie lived in Illinois, I lived in New York, and we only saw each other once, sometimes twice, a year when I’d come visit with the kids in the summer. The interviews were so traumatic for him, we only did a few per visit. I’d go home and start transcribing the recorded tapes, crying openly in private because I learned fast that Charlie would clam up if he saw any emotion on my face. My mom told me I was heartless, pushing him like that, telling him to keep talking even when he was crying so hard and shaking so much, he couldn’t get his cigarette in his mouth. She often listened from the bedroom and out of sight. I told her, “Mom, I’m not going to dishonor him by making anything up. He has to tell me everything he can tell me.” And he did. Charles the Man. Greatest man I’ve ever met or am likely to ever meet. He died two weeks after our last Iwo Jima interview. The grief was so awful and all consuming, every time I tried to write about him, it was maudlin crap. So I put it away and focused on other work. Over the last few years, after many other projects, I returned to Charlie’s story and found that I could finally write decently about him. So I began. And now, I’m editing the first book. I wrote two screenplays about it (the first two islands he was on) and began the third one. Right now, I’m reading through the first manuscript before I send it off to the editor. A special Thank You to my warrior poet friends of the Third Marine Division, whose expertise, knowledge and personal histories have been invaluable in keeping this dumb civilian accurate and on point. Lots of Love, All. You’ve been heroes to everyone. Thank you. Love, R