I Write: The Distance Between Us

At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem. This is fictional.

The prompt for August 2026: Unanswered Messages

The Distance Between Us – Carol Kagan

(in the notebook)

The disagreements. The resentments. The arguments. The anger flaring so much I needed to leave. The unresolved reasons fostering lies to avoid accepting any responsibility. Now you are with him and I can’t see you.

I need to urge you to step away from him to give me the opportunity to explain why I left. He is so controlling over your life there was no way to sort our ending out. The lack of any possibility of seeing you is a battle that consumes my every thought. My love for you is as strong as our first day together.

The phone messages I left before your number was changed were not returned. You have not responded to the notes I left. The last attempt to reach out to you is another note. Knowing I will put it on your car I am hoping the contents bring back fond memories of those trips together. Singing to beach music as we traveled to the shore- the salty air, unsuccessful surfing attempts, and messy steamed crab dinners. The vacation trip to Disney World, sharing snacks of sweet smelling caramel corn, peanuts, and McNuggets between the seats. The smoky scent of campfire and smelly hiking boots filling the car on the way home from camping. After sealing the envelope and writing your name on it, I realize you may recognize my handwriting from all the notes I had written over the years. I pray you will read this one.

Easily recognizing your car in the parking lot, I placed the note quickly and steered into a nearby lot. I sat there waiting to see you.

I watched, surprised that he was with you that day.

He quickly went to the driver’s side and picked up the note. He looked at it. Without offering it to you, he went over to the trash bin and threw it away, unopened.

Did he make you change your phone number? Has he intercepted my notes? Is he the reason there are so many unanswered messages?

I watched as you both sat at the outdoor table on the patio of the Georgetown Pub- one of our favorite places. Why am I not there with you? Were you making plans for after the ceremony- plans that could have been with me? I will still go and to watch you.

I stood there too long. To make a quick exit I grabbed the first tour bus and during the ride remembering one of our best days together. It was picnicking beneath the cherry blossom trees, their faint fragrance carried on a light breeze on a picture perfect April day.

Ending up at the Smithsonian Museum, I wandered through the gift shop and saw a silver keyring with pink cherry blossoms engraved on it and a blank spot on the back. A perfect gift now engraved on the back with the loving name you called me.

Using brown paper wrapping, I carefully printed your name in block letters. Just before your usual arrival time home, I left it at the door. Maybe you will think it is from a friend, or maybe a neighbor.

I watched as he came home early and picked up the package. Looking around along the street, he took the unopened package and threw it into the garbage can. How did he know it was from me?

Your photos are scattered about my apartment – you and me, a group photo of us with friends, sometimes one taken at an event. And two albums with pictures from your younger days, obtained through nefarious means.

Although I am reconciled that my pleas to reunite were ignored, I have decided to make one last attempt. I have received an invitation to the award ceremony.

*     *     *

The award recipients entered and sat in the chairs lined across the stage. She focused on the podium and who would step up next. When the ceremony was over, he saw her and she ran from the auditorium. When she reached the lobby she was shaking and stopped to take a deep breath.

Suddenly he was behind her, wrapping his arms around her. Slowly he took her shoulders and turned her toward him. There was that wide smile that had often greeted her when he came home.

He leaned in and breathed in her ear, “I love you and miss you so much.”

She wrapped her arms around him and the deepest love welled up inside her. They walked hand in hand to the reception area and found a table. She reached in her purse and pulled out a small package, a gift to commemorate the occasion.

It was a silver keyring with pink cherry blossoms in colored enamel and on the back was engraved – With all my love, Momma.

 

© Carol Kagan, 2026

I Write

Well, posting on Sundays did not work. So I will post whenever. I plan to share on Sundays at Noon (and maybe just whenever I have time or the mood strikes me), various writings. 

Some of the stories are a mix of truth and fiction, other just fiction or just reporting facts or observations. 

If you click around on the blog you will find lots of articles about gardening. If you see my name at the bottom with a "MG" after it, it will be an article for the Master Gardener program. I just put them here as we don't have a blog or anywhere to put them on the internet to share.

Feel free to visit the eBlog 

https://gardenandlifenotes.blogspot.com/

You can search in the upper right box for 

I Write

Leave comments if so inclined but no punctuation comments as I am not a fan of the Oxford comma. And, after all, it is MY writing.

You can also read about my published book Herb Sampler. If you know me, I can sell you an autographed copy in person for less than Amazon charges. But I still get royalties from Amazon if you buy there but not enough to bump me up tax brackets. 

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I Write - An Unusual Character

 My writing group has monthly writing prompts. Here's my part true and part fiction writing for An Unusual Character

Duke Devlin

Prologue

After visiting the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts, Bethel being the home of Woodstock, my husband asked, jokingly, “I wonder if anyone stayed and never left?”

That question called for a Google search. This is partly fictional and the information about his participation at Bethel Woods in true.

~~~   *   ~~~   *   ~~~

I Ain’t Stayin’ Long 

    In 1969, Duke Devlin, 26, was living on an Amarillo, Texas, commune. The heat was thick and dry. Some chairs and benches were strewn about in the cool spots under the low hanging branches of a honey mesquite tree. He was sitting in a creaky old rocker dressed in dirty overalls, a sweat-soaked t- shirt, and a tattered cowboy hat pulled low in front. His friend Ezra came along, scooched a bench over, sat, and stretched his legs out.

    “So, Duke, I’m chasing good leads for some jobs on the pipeline in Alaska. That’s gonna be quite a trip from here upta there. I’d want company to travel and there’d  be work for you, too. You interested?”

    “Yeah. I reckon I am. Got no plans now. Cooler than here, I ‘spose.”

    “Well, I won’t hear back until the end of next week, maybe a bit more. I’ll meet you here when I get word and I hope we’ll be heading north.”

    Duke was still sitting in the rocker later that day when another friend, Ritchie, drifted into the shade.

“Hey, Duke. I’m headed to Pennsylvania to visit my girlfriend. I need a travelling companion. Can you come along with me? I got some dollars to get vittles and such.”

    “Since I ain’t got no work seems everybody wants to drag me along where they’re going. I’ll go but I ain’t stayin’ long. Gotta be back here soon.”

    They set out, hitching rides. A VW van painted with colored flowers, hearts, and peace signs, pulled up.  The scent of pot floated out as a girl rolled down the window and offered a ride. They were headed to a music festival in New York, “3 Days of Peace & Music.” Duke and Ritchie rode along, lazing in the back on Mexican blankets and looking up at swirling, whirling colors and shapes on the ceiling. They got out on Route 40 in Nashville and hitched on to Pennsylvania.

    Ritchie discovered that long distance romance was near impossible. His girl had moved without telling him. He was down and needed a pick-me-up.

   “Let’s head up to that music festival. They said there would be some good music. Maybe catch a buzz or two. It should be fun.”

      “Well, okay,” said Duke, “but I ain’t stayin’ long. I gotta get back home. Might be some good work waitin’ for me.”

    They hitched up toward Woodstock but learned along the way that the festival was moved to a dairy farm in Bethel. Another car headed that way picked them up. As they got closer, traffic was at a standstill, gridlocked. They decided to walk in.

Woodstock Festival (Photo: Culturetrip.com)

   

   Once they got there the crowd was huge. Organizers expected 50,000 but 450,000 showed up. They got separated and Duke only had a few dollars in his pocket. Lured by the aroma of grilling burgers and hot dogs, he slogged through the muddy field until he found the food truck.  As the concert started he was offered work at the food truck. All you could eat and $2 an hour. He was in. When he had a break, there was always an open invitation to crash in someone’s tent or under a tarp. He enjoyed the music and the atmosphere. Despite mud and overcrowding, the nearly half million people were peaceful.

    When the concert was over, Duke stayed around to help clean up the grounds, salvaging some of tents, tarps, and other items left there. Yet, he still didn’t leave. He set up a small camp near the edge of the field and enjoyed a bit of celebrity in Bethel after everyone left. Strolling into a local bar they’d say “Hey, hippie, you still here? Set him up a beer.”

    He took odd jobs around town then a job at the dairy farm. He wanted to make enough money to head back south, but the beauty of the area and the friendly people held him. He met a girl and got married. He became the man who never left Woodstock. 

    In 1989, 20 years after the festival, a French reporter caught up to Duke for an interview with the hippie who never left. The interview was widely published and lots of people started coming to the Bethel site. Shortly after, a charitable organization purchased the site and put on a small show. Duke was asked to get involved, telling stories and walking people around.  

Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts
(Photo courtesy CDTrips.com)

    The show was a success, and this led to the creation of the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts. A special monument was placed at the edge of the Woodstock field. Duke was hired to be the Center’s Site Interpreter and for years he would give golf cart tours to performers scheduled for the Center. At other times he could be found sitting at the monument, reminiscing, and sharing little known facts about the bands, the people, and the event.

    He may have said “I ain’t stayin’ long” but he didn’t retire until 2016 when he headed back to Texas.

* * * * *

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