While this title could include so many things I decided to add books to the end. I collect books. The free ones that the library is throwing away. The cheapos in the bargain bin. Hand me downs from friends. You leave it out for recycling and I may just take the whole box.
I had always intended to read every single one. I have smut, someone college books, various poetry anthologies, ancient aeronautics textbooks, 1960s sci-fi that has actually come to pass, minus the earthling-alien interaction, which some may debate.
Every book had a place especially at our last station. It fit perfectly in the first spot I chose. When I would have time I knew exactly where I would pick from and then hand it to someone else or recycle it. The problem was with a full time and part time job, countless volunteering positions, a family, friends, and being a military spouse, which truly does deserve its own category, I ran out of time. The books piled up without leaving. Even more came in. My husband joked that the house would go up in flames with no hope if it hit my library first. Especially with the finger paint artwork on the wall.
When the movers came, I was more concerned with the furniture, the dinnerware from my grandmother that was no longer made and considered antique, and maybe my encyclopedias from the 1890s that had passed through generations of my family than the shelves of random books. I eventually came to regret it. While most advice is to go through your stuff and get rid of what you don't use, when you have 30 days notice to PCS, toss-happy can be addicting and too much to handle with everything else. I suggested that since we didn't have the usual six months notice, and since we wouldn't bust the limit, we could just get rid of everything there. I did not realize what a pain that would be or how my priorities would change.
At the new location, I won't mention that there is no housing where my husband was to work or that the architecture closest was for people who apparently didn't own furniture or TVs. Aside from the heartbreak when my furniture came ruined but not destroyed, what ended up being a thorn in my side was where to put those stupid books. With the furniture set up in less than ideal patterns, none of the books, either those I was dead set on keeping or the tossers, seemed to fit. Even the keepers in the books shelves weren't going in right!
For how ridiculous this worry probably sounds, when you are stuck in a house all day long because the one mostly working vehicle is being used by the only one with a job and therefore not left with you, and the unpacking might as well get done, its the little things that will get to you. Like why don't any of these drawers fit our flatware separator? Why does the slow cooker not fit on any of the shelves in this whole kitchen? What do you mean the bed and only one dresser fit in this master? Where are all of the pens? Why are none of these appliances magnetic and how are we going to put the grocery list on the fridge? What did you do with all the batteries? How did we not notice the only closet in this house is long and narrow and our decoration bins are too wide to fit through the door? This bedroom is too small, the book shelves will have to go in the other one. Move all those boxes back again. Why don't these books fit perfectly? I just want one room to be done!
So take a breath, I thought. Moving is hard. The books shelves went in a less than ideal spot but I did not want to pull the books down, again, dismantle the shelves, again, and move it all, again. So I separated the tossers into teetering columns and left them to be dealt with while the bedrooms were finalized, priorities first.
When job hunting proved harder than I had anticipated and the rejections came rolling in, I decided it was time to attack the towers of books I had separated out. After I read a tosser the privilege of putting it in the recycle bin fell to the hubby, who was more than happy after having packed and moved all those books DITY a few times.
I was determined that no matter what jobs or volunteering cropped up, those books were not coming with us unless I was absolutely going to reread them. Maybe someday my college books will go, too. But hubby is a lifer, and I paid for those babies. Don't touch those recipe books, those are off limits!
Christina M. Callisto
Freelance Writer
Published in Military Voice & Community News March/April edition 2010 and the Town Crier
Published in Military Voice & Community News March/April edition 2010 and the Town Crier
After three years of dating, as a brand new military spouse at age 26, with jobs at Eglin and Hurlburt, I thought I was prepared for my husband’s first deployment. Boy, was I wrong! Seven months, no big deal…until the loneliness set in. When you aren’t used to it and are forced into it, silence is not golden, it’s deafening.
A friend introduced me to the Emerald Coast Writers group, a non-profit consortium of writers of all skill levels, abilities, and genres in this area. Members are retired, young moms, middle-aged dads, homemakers, snowbirds, and military, both active duty and retired. Some are high school grads, others have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s, and at least one has a PhD yet they are all equal in their common interest: writing.
Through ECW I was put in touch with author Vicki Hinze, spouse to a former Special Ops officer. I was so excited to contact someone who knew what I was going through and survived it! I had seen her books in the library but never knew she shopped at the same stores that I do. We chatted on the phone and through email; she was so welcoming.
I learned that her successful writing career, over 20 novels published with a contract for three more, started when her husband PCSed to follow AFSOC from Scott AFB to Hurlburt. Like many spouses, she stayed behind to sell the house, let the kids finish the school year, and she continued working her full-time job (a blessing many of us struggle towards). With the stress of juggling kids’ activities, work demands, and preparing the house for open-house showings all by herself, writing became her me-time outlet. By working late nights and getting up in the wee hours before dawn, Hinze finished her first book in four months–one month shy of the family moving to the new base.
Although seemingly “unqualified” to be an author, she was undeterred. Writing helped her through the loneliness and anxiety of another military PCS and move. These military life trials had colored her experience and allowed her to reach out to other spouses and service members through her books. I still was not convinced she was the woman next door who would say hello while watering her plants. That is, until I heard the following story.
Hinze’s military-themed writing began in 1994 during a trip to the commissary. While grabbing items off the shelf to fill her cabinets she overheard a young couple debating between buying a jar of peanut butter and a can of tuna; purchasing both was not an option for their budget. Stunned, disgusted at the forced choice on food, and outraged that the heroes both active and on the homefront would need to go without basic necessities let alone the comforts many take for granted, Hinze called her editor and scrapped her current contract for a novel with a military-theme revolving around women. Her publisher agreed and fully supported the change. Her successive books dealt with active-duty service members, custody battles and divorce, romance, biological warfare, TDYs, alcoholism, deployments, risks, and the varied dangers inherent in service. Hinze’s single point in all of this was not to sell books, although that was a plus. It was to help the general public see that these hardships exist and understand that military families face specific stresses and dangers every day. This is what made Vicki Hinze a real person, a neighbor, a mom, a spouse, in my eyes.
She used her strength to bring awareness to a much ignored aspect of life, of my new life. She has used a number of pen names for different book series, but when it came to her twelve (so far) military books, no other name but her own felt acceptable. Hinze was on a personal mission and she wanted to stand behind the things expressed and to be an active advocate in the struggle to raise awareness on the concerns and welfare of military families. My new family.
Since I was very young, I’ve moved around quite a bit. A job search brought me to this area, thanks to the bases’ missions. Hinze’s family moved from Mississippi to California to Illinois and finally to Florida. She hailed from New Orleans, Louisiana while her husband was and is a Texan at heart. She confided to me that the varied cultures and lifestyles both of her own family and that of the wider military family helped to broaden her perspective. All of this helped expand her insight and creativity and aided in building relatable, empathetic characters.
After learning all this in bits and pieces, I couldn’t wait to meet the person. I wanted to pick her brain for every joy and heartbreak she sustained as a military wife with a full family. I am glad she will be attending the ECW Conference in April so I will have three days to chat with and learn from her. My husband and I would like to have a family some day, but he was deployed to Afghanistan one month after we wed. I have so much to learn, but now I know as a military spouse I am never alone. In the wee hours of the morning, I can pick up one of Vicki’s books and know someone is with me in this.
Emerald Coast Writers Inc. www.emeraldcoastwriters.org/
Vicki Hinze www.vickihinze.com/
April 29, 2010 at 7:16 am