Write What You Know

Agent Hunting and Other Pastimes

My sympathy goes out to the white rabbit lamenting, “I’m late, I’m late…for a very important date!” When I began my Substack, I was determined to write at least once a month. Finding that not as easy as I thought, I decided to stop, regroup, and rethink my strategy. What do I want to achieve with these posts?

Graham Strong’s Substack, How to Fall in Love with Writing, has helped me with that question. Not that I ever fell out of love with it; I’ve been writing since I was thirteen, my first story published in a junior high school yearbook. The story wasn’t very good, but somebody must have liked it.

Following that, I wrote every chance I could: essays for writing contests and public speaking events during high-school and college, the Mitchell Manor Newsletter (a monthly paper for Navy families on Long Island), yearly family update letters sent in Christmas cards, many stories published in various history magazines, and, of course, personal journals.

I am a writer. I like to write. My latest article, “The Girls Who Danced,” is included in History Magazine, Moorshead Magazines Fall 2023 issue. The story details my mother’s experiences dancing in Britain during the WW2 years. This past week I made my monthly visit to her in her long-term-care home in Ontario, Canada, taking the magazine with me. Seeing the smiles and glints of recognition on her face, as she insisted on reading the entire story aloud to me, was all the approval I needed for a story I loved writing.

My mom’s captivation with “her” story gave me incentive to pay more attention to my other, more substantial, literary project, Just Call Me Irene: A Memoir. Over the last 2 months, I’ve sent out hundreds of query letters to book agents in the US, Canada and the UK. Replies have been coming in slowly…one very curt and to-the-point:

“Thanks, but not for me.”

I laughed-out-loud at that response but appreciated the direct approach from the agent! Other replies have been positive in their responses sending actual personal notes saying they enjoyed my query and synopsis submissions, but…

Of course, I’m not giving up. To that end, I’ve decided to publish passages from the book here on Substack. Your comments, criticisms, suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Just Call Me Irene: A Memoir by Beverley Foster Bley

My mother, Irene, a young dancer in the UK during WW2, marries an RAF pilot/theater promoter. Fifteen years after the war’s end, she immigrates to Canada with her two small children, where her husband believes he can follow his dream to write in Hollywood. Structurally the story juxtaposes Irene’s early life with her descent into dementia after her husband’s death. Irene’s quirky antics are the fodder for many stories against the backdrop of enforced isolation and quarantine in Ontario due to COVID-19. I rely on determination and humor to repeatedly cross a ‘closed’ international border, in my attempt to keep mom in her own home for as long as possible, while learning the most effective ways of navigating various new normals.

An excerpt from Chapter One:

Dear Auguste,

A belated thank-you for thinking of mom at Christmas. Your beautiful card and terra-cotta pendants were a lovely gift. Mom, unfortunately, squirreled them away – as she does with most things these days. While her health, for her 93 years, continues to be good, mom’s mind is deteriorating faster than I could have anticipated.  As I write this, she has packed a suitcase for a non-existent trip; she routinely cooks supper for 3 or 4 imaginary visitors; and has a stash of items she claims aren’t hers and wonders why they are in her drawer…

2020

It’s been two years. Mom still insists her apartment is not hers. She says, daily, that she needs to pack to go “back.” To where? That’s always the question.

Her small ground-floor apartment in Forest, Ontario has a pleasant wooden patio which overlooks a park-like expanse of green grass and mature trees, leafless at the moment.

After my father died, Mom insisting on moving from New Brunswick, her home for almost fifty years, to Ontario, closer to her family. My brother and his wife live only 50 yards from her in the next building. His daughter and family are a fifteen minute drive away. My two grown sons and I live about 4 hours down the highway in southwest Michigan.

Since her move, I’ve been driving over the U.S./Canada border to stay with her. Despite worsening signs of dementia, mom does not qualify for a 24/7 caregiver, however, she does not like being alone – especially in the evenings.

Over the months, the Canadian border agents have collected all my personal information in their computer – shoe size (9) and astrological sign (Leo) – making crossing into Canada a quick process. That process is made easier, of course, since I am a Canadian citizen, having never opted to turn my back on Queen and Commonwealth. My official Permanent Resident card in the U.S. has to be renewed every ten years. I cross my fingers each time it comes up for renewal – the whims of the government being what they are.

As I cross into Canada, and show my passport, only the standard questions are asked. “Are you bringing in any alcohol, firearms, fruit, or gifts?” I answer in the negative each time.  Firearms aside, don’t ask me if that’s totally accurate! I try to recall everything I packed but, at just past 70 years old, who’s to say my memory isn’t a little faulty! Let’s keep that to ourselves please.

After a three-hour trek up Interstate 69 in Michigan, and a snails-pace navigating the Bluewater Bridge and Customs, the drive to mom’s apartment takes about 30 minutes. As I arrive, I knock on the door but, given mom’s hearing, let myself into her apartment with my key and brace for the inevitable conversation.

“Hello mom!”

“Where did you come from,” she says looking surprised even though I phoned last night to say I’d be arriving this afternoon.

“Michigan, mom.  I just drove up. You knew I was coming.”

“You got here very quickly.”

“It actually took me longer than usual. There was a lot of traffic on the bridge coming into Canada. And it was sleeting part of the way.”

“Oh, it’s a good thing you flew,” she says.

No matter when I arrive, the conversation goes the same way. More often than not there are diversions into the Twilight Zone. Little did I realize, when watching that program in my teens, truth would become stranger than fiction in my own life.

 “Did they let you on the plane with all those bags? Why did you bring so much?” asks mom.

“Mom, I drove.”

“How did you get here so quickly from England?”

“Mom, I drove from Michigan…across the border.”

“Oh, that’s right. You moved to Michigan didn’t you. Is the weather the same in England? You must be ready for a cup of tea. Where are you going to sleep?”

 I take my bags to the small spare bedroom. “My” bedroom. Home away from home.

Mom calls out “You’re lucky the bedroom is free. June just left this morning.” 

I respond, laughing, “I hope you had time to change the sheets!” 

My Aunt June, mom’s younger sister, died four years ago.  Mom’s memory erased that fact, along with so much more, following my father’s death in April 2017. And now, three years on, she’s showing obvious signs of Dementia much sooner than we could have anticipated.

***

I hope this peek into Irene’s world will entice you to want to read more of Just Call Me Irene. Told with humor while providing insight into coping with dementia, future chapters span the years 1942 to the present. It is a story that will likely resonate with many families, so, please share this and future excerpts if you know of someone who can relate. Thank you for your support and until next month, enjoy the beautiful autumn colors.