#alison smith

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Alison sat on the couch crying. Maybe she hadn’t exactly wanted this baby but this wasn’t what she wanted either. She was working on her latest job designing some icons for an upcoming video game when she felt it. It just felt like normal menstrual cramps at first but the pain just got worse and worse when the bleeding started Alison knew she needed to get to a doctor. She hoped and prayed to anyone who might be listening that the baby would be ok but her fears were confirmed. 

“Ali, are you OK?” Colin asked finding his sister laying on the couch when he got home from work. 

“The baby’s gone” Alison whispered to her younger brother. 

“What do you mean the baby’s gone? Did you...” Colin said watching his sister. He highly doubted she would get an abortion without talking to him first but maybe she did. Maybe he made her feel alone and like she couldn’t talk to him. 

Alison started to cry again bringing Colin’s attention away from his racing thoughts and back to his sister as she slowly shook her head. “I started having cramps,” she said between sobs “and then the blood started” 

“Ali...” Colin said scooping the older girl into his arms “I’m so sorry. Have you been alone all day?” 

“No I called mom when I got home from the doctor. She left about 10 minutes ago when I told her you’d be home soon and I wanted to be alone...I didn’t want the baby...  I shouldn’t be this upset...”  Ali said reaching up to wipe away her tears. 

“You can be upset, I know you hadn’t decided what you wanted to do yet... but it sucks that life made the choice for you,” Colin said.  

“

[ultralaser]

At the first cocktail party I saw instantly that I was out of place. Held in beautifully appointed rooms I’d never before entered, they were exclusive gatherings for the visiting talent and university faculty. There were no students, certainly no freshmen. I busied myself making sure Ursula had a drink and a plate of snacks at all times. Professors from the English department gathered up their courage and began to speak to her. They found she was charming, affable, warm. Her magnetism and wry humor soon captured everyone’s attention. The room filled with tipsy, jovial academics peering over their cocktails at Le Guin. One of them muscled through the crowd and stood before her, towering over her. He announced that he’d like to take Le Guin to lunch. ‘I’m not sure I can find the time,’ Le Guin demurred. ‘I’m sure we can work something out,’ he insisted. ‘You’ll have to ask Alison,’ she said. ‘She’s my shepherd. I’m just her little sheep, following where she leads. Baa! Baa!’ . The first time I heard her utter these words I was heading back from the hors d’oeuvres table with a plate of fruit. The bleating was remarkable – loud and sharp, the practiced bleat of a person who knew how harsh real sheep can sound. The professor, flustered, stumbled back. Le Guin took that as her cue, grabbed my arm and said, ‘Let’s go.’ . She pulled out that line early at the next cocktail party and used it liberally throughout the evening, whenever anyone tried to encroach on her open schedule. No one ever followed up with me. Not a single endowed chair or provost or department head buttonholed me and asked about her availability. I think it was the thunderous clarity of those bleats. A sound that said: I dare you. A clarion call, demanding that they reach beyond their preconceived notions of who was worthy of their time, their attention. In putting me between her and the phalanx of ‘important types’, she required them to humbly beseech me – the nobody, the mute – to find room in the schedule for them. I have never in my life been so honored as I was on those frigid Rochester evenings when Ursula K. Le Guin told a department chair that if he wanted her attention, he’d have to ask permission from the freshman hovering by the hors d’oeuvres table, shoving saltines in her bag.

HER LEFT HAND, THE DARKNESS - Alison Smith

[dk-thrive]

I spent my days orbiting a new world, afraid to land.

In The Wave in the Mind, one of Le Guin’s many collections of essays, she wrote, ‘All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don’t, our lives get made up for us by other people.’ When I met Le Guin, I was in outer space, hovering in that darkness. Cast out from my homeworld, I spent my days orbiting a new world, afraid to land. She taught me a few things that I’ve never forgotten: 1. Not everyone who thinks they’re better than you actually is. 2. Speaking your mind is better than hiding your mind. 3. Trying to be an author is a very bad idea. ~ Alison Smith, HER LEFT HAND, THE DARKNESS (Granta 145: Ghosts | The Online Edition, Essays & Memoir 3rd January 2019)

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“Hey, are you OK?” Colin said as his sister came out of the bathroom. 

“Yea, I’m fine,” Alison said with a smile. 

“Don’t lie to me” Colin said “I know you better than that” 

Alison took a deep breath to try and steady her nerves. Colin was her brother and her best friend. If she couldn’t talk to him she couldn’t talk to anyone. 

“I’m pregnant” she whispered not meeting his eyes. 

“What?” Colin asked “Who's the father? I didn’t even know you were sleeping with anyone since.... oh...” 

“It’s Caden’s I haven’t slept with any else recently... We’re always so careful... I just don’t...” Alison said starting to cry. 

“Shhh” Colin said pulling his older sister to him “It’s going to be OK, You don’t have to come tonight if you don’t want to.” 

“What! No! This is your night to celebrate that big modeling contract you got! I’m going to the party tonight. I’ll be Ok if anything it will be a good distraction for awhile”  Alison said 

Colin sighed, he’d call off the whole thing if she asked but he couldn’t blame her for wanting to be distracted. 

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It’s going to be negative Alison told herself You’re being completely ridiculous and this all just a waste of money and time. She was just about to throw the test into the garbage can when she saw the word start to appear in the window.

Pregnant. 

This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. They had been so careful. It wasn’t like this was their first go-round they had been doing this off and on since college. 

Alison heard a knock on her bathroom door pulling her from her thoughts. 

“Ali come on we have to get going or we’ll be late” Colin called from the other side of the door. 

“Be right out” She called out. 

[cumbriacrack]

University of Cumbria named among nation’s lifesavers A dance therapy group for stroke survivors at the University of Cumbria has today been recognised for its contribution to keeping the nation healthy. Full story: https://www.cumbriacrack.com/2019/05/16/university-of-cumbria-named-among-nations-lifesavers/

[cumbriacrack]

International Day of the Midwife: how things have changed Sunday 5th May is the International day of the Midwife and in the week leading up to it we have been celebrating Cumbria’s midwives Full story: https://www.cumbriacrack.com/2019/05/03/international-day-of-the-midwife-how-things-have-changed/

[funsimplethings]