Mind Over Mirror: A romantic beach read for the bifocal set (Life, Love, and Bifocals)

College reunions present a pageantry of who has found fortune, fallen far, remained buff, aged poorly, married well, or divorced often. For Olivia Walker MacLearn (Liv) the stakes are higher because forty-six years before the internet spit out her contact information onto reunion organizer Guen’s laptop, Liv had cut all ties with her friends from Kentucky’s prestigious Morrison College. Not so much as an exchange of Christmas cards has tied her to her past. But when an invitation to a 46th reunion arrives, Liv is strangely drawn to the place she fled, even though she knows that an explanation of why she went off-radar could reveal a secret long kept. Then an email arrives from Rich, the man who broke her heart those decades ago at Morrison, and with it tempting thoughts of a relationship mulligan. Liv guardedly communicates with her college buddies, always under the microscope of her fiercely-loyal best friend Mary Alice. The five share life stories as they email back and forth. Like so many middle-agers, unceremoniously yanked into the non-exclusive guild of senior citizens, Liv and her friends struggle with the dichotomy of mind and mirror. They acknowledge, mostly with humor, that their bodies may be beyond the bloom of youth, but their minds still brim with passion. As the reunion approaches, increasingly intimate conversations between Liv and Scotty, her best college buddy, a lanky boy turned intriguing man, bring both clarity to Liv’s past and a new set of questions about her future. Might a new relationship develop or will the spark of an old love, extinguished for decades, reignite? And if that spark should spring forth once more, can the fire burn brightly regardless of the years gone by?

Jan Allinder Anestis provided a skeleton plot and created the character Olivia Walker MacLearn (Liv). Jan's weekly Op-Ed column "I Wonder..." was featured on the editorial page of The Weston Forum, Weston, CT, from 1995 to 1998. She also authored "Laughter Therapy" in 2004 for Bountiful Health, a magazine briefly available in health food stores in Tennessee, and she has written a forty-something romantic beach read, BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL. Jan treasured the challenge of weaving the characters' stories together for MIND OVER MIRROR. Wandaleen Cole penned Guendaline (Guen) Field. Wanda is a retired corporate lawyer who practiced for over thirty years. Her creative talents were spent writing pleadings, briefs, contracts, software licenses, opinions and instruction manuals. Stepping into Guen's shoes was a pleasant and relaxing experience for her, a relief from years of convincing, protecting, securing, opining and instructing. Wanda also hosted a local television program for several years that invited the audience to ask questions related to the law. Richard (Rich) Stapley's writer was Jack Hailey. Jack is a policy analyst in health and human services in California. He wrote "Teaching Writing, K-8," for U.C. Berkeley, distributed by the National Council of Teachers of English, and he was for many years a teacher-consultant for the Bay Area Writing Project. Jack spends weekends at his sweetie's gallery, talking to people about how art feeds the soul. Bill McDonald authored the character Thomas Alexander Scott (Scotty). Bill has published one book and numerous articles of historical research plus several devotional works. He lectures on the topics of racism, religion, and other simmering realities. McDonald spoke at the Kentucky Governor's Inauguration in 2007 and 2011. From 1983-2008 Bill penned a weekly faith and humor column, Out of My Mind, often stolen by or quoted in other newsletters and columns. For 18 years McDonald has managed and played bass for a classic rock band. Jo Ann Walther authored the character Mary Alice Evans Schneider (Malice or M). Jo Ann spent thirty-five years teaching secondary English in Cambridge, Massachusetts, writing recommendations for many of her more than three thousand students and three dozen student teachers. She is currently working on a memoir, "November in My Soul," a cautionary tale for her grandchildren.