Riddles on the Harp

Writer's Block

2012-02-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Come out of that crawl space

you formed in your head

glide past with purpose

your unmade bed.

Cut swath through the clutter

of loved ones’ play

shrug them off kindly

lay claim to your day.

Sit down in the sunbeam

that shines on the floor

move pen across paper

behind a closed door.

Now.

Write.

eMotion

2012-02-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

I just put The Motion of the Ocean by Janna Cawrse Esarey on my Nook. I discovered this adventure story in a bookstore in Antigua. Esarey lives in the Pacific Northwest where young professionals and people with salt water in their veins seem to converge. She gives us a generous peek into the cruising lifestyle along with some well worded wisdom on relationships (she was honeymooning with the boat captain).

One of many passages I could relate to was a discovery she made as she was being tossed in the air by a storm. She writes:

I actually enjoyed the speed, the adrenaline, the feeling of flying. The fear squeezing my chest wasn’t so bad either. And that’s the thing about change. Sometimes it happens over days…months…years. And sometimes it happens in that no-time between air and sea, between him and me, between now. And now.

When fear squeezes your chest, time stands still. Priorities shift. Lines get crossed. Perspectives change. While I don’t enjoy speed or the sensation of flying, I do like the feeling of exhilaration. A good heart thumping scare that vaults you to a new place is the stuff of life and good novels. I recommend this one.

Teaching old dogs new tricks

2012-01-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

Trying to teach a really smart person how to use Facebook is tough. Husband is impressed with how in the know I am about the trivia of so many people’s lives so he asked me once again how to use Facebook.

The last time I tried to untangle the mysteries of friending, posting, liking versus commenting, chatting and managing permissions in this volatile terrain things did not go well. He wrote an essay in his status box and when it got rejected he took it personally. He declared the app to be stupid because it wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do. That’s the problem. His expectations are too high.

Husband thinks that Facebook is a benign application that is designed to facilitate social connections. That’s a bit of a Trojan horse. It looks like that is the purpose but actually, it wants to alter our DNA.

I read that Facebook wants to change the way people do business. Today, when we want a commercial exchange, we go to Amazon. When we want a social exchange, we go to Facebook. I think the wizards behind the Facebook curtain dream of a tomorrow when every social exchange will have commercial potential.

When I was explaining to husband the purpose of a status update, new boxes I’d never seen before kept popping up.

Me: Just write two sentences that let people know you are alive and well. Tell them we are going to a movie this afternoon.

Him: How do I get rid of this box that wants to know my location? Why is it asking me that?

Me: So Groupon can send you a coupon for popcorn? I don’t say that. I tell him to close the box.

Ten minutes later he notices a response from daughter-in-law who is delighted to see Dad online and asks him a bunch of questions.

Him: If I answer her, won’t everyone see my answers?

Me: Yes. That’s the point. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want the world to hear. Pretend you are having a conversation in a grocery store. Pretend it’s a grocery store in a small town. The cashier is married to your third cousin so whatever you say will travel through the family. The guy in line behind you is an off duty cop, so keep it legal. You get my drift.

Him: How do I get all these conversations to go away?

Me: They never go away, remember that too.

Husband closes down Facebook and returns to his more compelling interests, the physics of flight, second guessing the stock market, string theory—and I have new material for a blog.

The 30%

2012-01-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

I've been ruminating on life's statistics: the 99% vs the 1%, the 80-20 rule...then I remembered a blog my daughter wrote a couple of months ago about a lesser known statistic: schizophrenia is 70% hereditary and 30% evironmental.She is writing a novel that explores the legacy of mental illness. I asked her to be a guest blogger on Riddles on the Harp. Reprinted with permission from My Wilderness Years.

April Trabucco

The Writer Magazine’s email newsletter this week was titled “Why we need pain to write.” I’m all over that, but not by choice. If that’s the key, I should be churning out chapters by the hour. There is the requisite time necessary for licking one’s wounds though and that turns out to be an involved process. There’s also work and children and house and said source of pain that require ample tending. So chapters are not churning as fast as I would like. Is it to my creative detriment that I'm an optimist and cherish the happy times that come when hope prevails?

It’s true that some of my best writing has come from deep pain. Does this need to be the case? It echoes my spiritual journey. I am often closest to God when I am in pain. I am very willing to let that pain go. I’ve opened the cage and encouraged it to fly away, but I’m more bound to it than I’d like to admit and it keeps coming back. I recognize the growth that has come from it, not the bumpy unsightly kind of growth you scramble to hide, but a growth born of resilience that propels me forward despite the odds and I’d like to think there is beauty in that.

I was reminded this morning of why I started writing the novel I’m very slowly working on. I opened my inspiration box for the first time in over a year and found an article my husband had given me years ago. “Haunted By My Family's Madness.” It was an account of a young woman forced to question the practicality of having children. She had been in a serious relationship with a man who ended things because he decided that she was too much of a genetic risk. Both of her siblings were schizophrenic and though she exhibited no symptoms and was seemingly healthy and grounded, statistics show that schizophrenia is hereditary. Children with a schizophrenic aunt or uncle can be at risk. Statistics also show that schizophrenia is 70% hereditary and 30% environmental.

I’ve followed a lot of rabbit trails into the land of speculative fiction trying to wrap my head around the legacy I’ve stepped into. I’ve used this process to search for purpose and redemption and the key to breaking the ties that bind. I will admit, though it may sound crazy, that I feel a huge sense of responsibility to change the legacy. If all I have to work with is 30%, then I want that 30% to be solid. My children are beautiful and healthy and surrounded by healthy influences, but I'm not naive enough to claim there is nothing to worry about. I grapple with my own obstacles and they don’t always cast me as the strongest candidate to lead the charge, but day by day, prayer by prayer, I am trying to raise a healthy family.

So, I think I need to get back to the nitty gritty theme of why we make the choices we make and how they affect us and future generations and steer away from the temptation to court angels and demons and end of times prophecies (in the book, I’m not suggesting I do this in real life). Spiritual warfare is gripping whether or not the veil is lifted.

George Clooney and the 10/30 window

2012-01-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

When I get the witching hour wakeup call sometimes I reach for my latest copy of World Magazine. Not that it puts me to sleep, au contraire. The January 14^th issue is definitely not warm milk and wooly sheep. One article that has stayed with me is a Mindy Belz essay on the 10/30 window. According to Mindy there are 2.4 billion youth in the world that are in an extended state of adolescence. They begin puberty around the age of 10 and are not fully formed adults until they are close to 30. That is 20 years of teenage angst!

Furthermore, your kid is more likely to find a kindred spirit in a Facebook friend from Kathmandu than she is from an older family member. And as she and her brother will search the internet for advice before they will consult their wise elders, there’s not much opportunity for torch passing.

Even in our Christian circles adults are no longer a treasury of wisdom and experience for children but a directory of services.

After reading that, I punched up my pillow, turned out the light and started thinking about George Clooney. We just saw The Descendants. I think it’s a movie every parent should see.

Clooney plays an emotionally distant father forced to regain the high ground with his 10-year-old and 17-year-old daughters while their mother lay dying in the hospital. He responds to the girls’ bad behavior with a mystified expression and does…nothing. His puzzlement drove me nuts, but it paid off in the end. When he finally figured out what to do, it proved to be the right action. He protected the younger girl and engaged the older girl in a way that helped her mature. He created the bond the family needed to remain a unit.

You can’t get that off YouTube.

Behold what lurks in yonder swamp

2012-01-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

What a thrill to leave the flow of the St. John’s river, haul keel over the swamp grass and settle in beside an alligator sunning himself under the watchful eye of a heron. And then to turn around and see cattle grazing chest deep in the murky water—who knew that they fancy the water hyacinth?

It’s nice to learn something new, if not entirely useful, every day.

Now I can check an airboat ride in a Florida swamp off my 100 TTDBID* list . I’ve had my CBS Sunday Morning moment of nature.

*one hundred things to do before I die

My Winter Vacation - Part 2: The American Spirit

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you have to leave the country and spend time at the crossroads where cultures intersect to appreciate what is uniquely American. In Barbados I was reminded that Americans have always traveled the trade routes to remain in touch with the finer sensibilities of cultures with longer histories. In turn, Europeans have always traveled to America to enjoy the sensation of freedom and wide open space.

Like a pound dog, the space shuttle Endeavor waits for a new home

We were touched when a German woman full of emotion ran up to us on the Royal Clipper sundeck one evening and pointed to sky. “Look, the American space station Is going over!” As the brilliantly lit constellation zipped by overhead, she would not acknowledge my correction: “It’s the international space station.” I gave up and we marveled together at this feat of science and technology.

A week later we were at the Kennedy Space Center having a look at the history and present reality of this endeavor. First a word from our sponsor: NASA wants you to know that they are alive and well and working on the next generation of space craft. Back to our regular programming: The vision and courage of our scientists and astronauts is truly something to marvel at. To push our boundaries into outer space is to entertain innovations in medicine and ecology that are mind bending. I did not know.

Cyrstal Bridges Musuem of American Art

From the space center, we took ourselves off to the Ozarks to kidnap grandma and take her to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Named the top 2012 attraction in the U.S. by the Today Show (on the very day we were there) it is a marvel as well. I recommend starting in Rogers, Arkansas at the Walton 5 and 10 where Sam Walton got his start with a Franklin variety store franchise. Forty five years later, we know how that story progressed. There’s always a dark side--ugly box stores, low wage jobs—but you can’t argue with the man’s vision. He wanted to lower the cost of goods for the common people (the 99%) so they could have more money to spend on products that would raise their standard of living.

Shuffle off to Bentonville and see what his daughter Alice did with the money he made. She made fine art accessible to mid-America in the most beautiful setting imaginable. She blended art, architecture and nature into a modern cathedral.

View the "bridges" from Eleven Restaurant

Spend a day in the 12 galleries and you will have an education in all the art movements that expressed our history and culture from inception to present day.

Now you know.

Island Wisdom

2012-01-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

Our taxi mama Mrs. Thompson points to a green fruit growing on a tree. “What do you think that is?” To prompt us she says, “It turns purple. And you can eat the skin around the shell. Then you crack the shell and then you eat the nut.” Turns out, it’s an almond. Not the kind we grow in the Central Valley in California, I’m pretty sure.

I think I may adopt this wisdom as my guiding principle for 2012. Find the good and nourish yourself with what surrounds it, but get to the nut of the matter. Determine what tools you will need to crack the shell and dig for the meat. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8

Do you have a resolution, mantra or guiding principle for 2012? Please share!

My Winter Vacation - Part 1: Island Time

2012-01-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

We gave Santa the slip, flew to Barbados and tuned our hearts to the rhythm of the sea. We switched off the internet addiction – traded beep tones for the chirp of the whistling tree frogs and redeemed leds for the light of the moon. The warmth of the sun and gentle massage of the trade winds rendered us catatonic.

For two days we sat at the edge of the ocean at Peach and Quiet Inn and stared at the horizon, watching the surfers spill their boards at Inch Marlowe around noon and spotting sea turtles who stuck their necks out of the water to sip air at dusk. Our only movement was to trace a finger across the screen of our nooks to turn a page, the one e-device we allowed ourselves.

Aboard the Royal Clipper, we dispensed with Tylenol PM and let the ship rock us to sleep every night. The sparkle of the sea served as our holiday tinsel; the unfurling of the 42 sails at sunset to martial music all the seasonal pageantry we required.

No gift exchange, we filled up our bucket list with the suggestions of the many seasoned travelers we dined with nightly. Better than Christmas cocktail party conversation, we shared the wonder the ship, the beauty of the shore and joy of the Caribbean culture with guests and crew representing over 30 nationalities.

Some highlights of our trip:

· Snorkeling in the champagne reef in Dominica and off a beach in Les Saintes while pelicans dove for fish over our heads.

· Swimming in St. Lucia with six-year-old Nativia, who explained that sharks don’t come into the bay because they don’t like sand; chatting on shore with the local spear fishermen.

· Learning the history of the islands: The English and the French played tug-of-war with these islands from atop a fortress in St. Kitts. The Barbadians claim responsibility for George Washington’s win – they say he learned fortification on a trip to Barbados. Also, he contracted a mild case of smallpox that left him immune to the disease which claimed many lives during the war.

· Feeling more “present” when there is less to be present to. What’s not to love about beach shack living, al fresco dining and the constancy of the ocean?

Sea-U Guest House, Tent Bay, Bathsheba, Barbados

In this context, I’d like to wish the world more of God’s spirit that leads to an abundance of joy. Happy New Year!

That's all she wrote (for 2011)

2011-12-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

Many blessings to my friends in the blogosphere. See you all next year!

Extravagance

2011-12-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

It is said that you can’t outgive God. Apparently you can’t outspend Him either. God spends our time, money and resources as if they were limitless. Cases in point:

When God took our dear Betty home, He gave no thought to the number of people it would take to fill her shoes. When the coffee doesn’t get made and the flowers don’t show up on the altar on a Sunday morning, we say “I guess that must be something Betty used to do.” Now people have to step out of their comfort zones to take over these jobs –it takes teams of people to do what Betty did. Wouldn’t it have been better if God had left Betty in good health so she could have kept on working for us? You have to wonder about God’s economy.

God tells us to go the ends of the Earth with the gospel message. It costs a lot of money to get there. We are there for a week, we tell people that their hope is in Jesus, we weep with them and then we go home with the plight of the poor seared in our hearts. They may receive the peace that passes all understanding and a coupon for the consolation and joy that will be theirs in Heaven, but they are still hungry. Wouldn’t it be better if we just wrote a check to a world hunger project?

When a saint falls ill, God sometimes moves His people to gather in great numbers to fast and pray. He knows the outcome – maybe the saint will get better and maybe he won’t. He engages more people in the process than can possibly be necessary.

Sometimes it’s a small child born in ill health who requires an inordinate amount of time, money and resources to cling to life. God lavishes His grace and mercy on one sick child, as if the supply of love were limitless. Does this make sense?

It’s the Christmas season. The economy is bad. Our churches and charities plead for our time, money and resources to keep the doors open and hope alive for people who suffer. It would make sense to take into account the devalued dollar and uncertain times and cut back our giving, wouldn’t you think?

In this season of giving, we are challenged in our thinking by the God who did not spare his own Son, the God whose ways are not our ways, the God who loves us above all measure.

Conscripted

2011-11-28T12:12:00.000-08:00

The guy I’m growing old with signs up for a Medicare drug coverage plan and then he leaves the house to go fly his airplane. The phone starts to ring:

Hello my name is (didn’t catch that, no matter), how are you today? I’m calling from (good grief, his drug plan has a name a paragraph long) to verify (yada yada yada, no breath) this call will take five minutes (still no breath) is now a good time for you to take this call? (Let’s get it over with, yes, YES!) You must answer yes or no to each question, can we get started? (By all means, I mean, YES!)

What follows is painful. The caller repeats the paragraph-long name of the drug plan coupled with the yada yada yada description of the elected coverage at the beginning of each sentence she reads from her script. Her voice is toneless with a passive aggressive subtext: Don’t try to stop me or I’ll start over from the beginning.

I don’t listen to what she is asking me, I just clench my teeth and wait for her to take a breath so I can insert Yes or No into what is blessedly not a conversation.

The only way I can speed this up is by declining her offer to repeat what she just said, (No, I don’t want you to repeat that series of phone numbers I can call if I change my mind and decide to drop his coverage. He’s going to need his coverage when he comes home and I drop kick him down the stairs.)

It’s useless to abuse the caller. I know that from experience – it just prolongs the call. I try to think good thoughts. I’m glad she has employment (that is a very Christian thought, don’t you think?). I hope she has a stiff drink sitting by her telephone. I wish I did. (Okay, that’s not such a Christian thought.)We are partners in this nasty business, fellow sufferers.

I send my angry thoughts in the direction of the person who wrote this #$%@ script and the person who hired him and didn’t test the process on his mother (I bet he ran it by his attorney, though, and got a thumbs up). Strangely, the caller doesn’t ask if I’d like to stay on the line and take a customer satisfaction survey.

I think I would rather be waterboarded than get a call from Humana...I’ll spare you the rest of the paragraph.

Stage vs. Street Performance

2011-11-26T17:47:00.000-08:00

Public displays of strong feelings make me nervous, especially when people take to the streets. I prefer rage delivered in short bursts from a stage. I suppose the street is a stage of sorts, but watching trained actors reveal studied emotions touches my heart. Seeing people chant on cue and shout into a camera lens, not so much.

Actors are people who understand the motives of the characters they portray. They play out their drama for calculated effect. If I am devastated, it is the contract I made when I bought my ticket. When the performance is nuanced, I will learn something new about the world and about myself. My heart will be changed.

To effect real transformation, hearts must change. To my mind, that is more likely to happen in a theater or a house of worship than in the street.

Not that some protestors don’t have a legitimate grievance. They want a piece of an overpriced pie that some (1%) enjoy and most (99%) can no longer find on the store shelf. However, when the goons in activist’s clothing peel off to go loot and deface stores, I lose the thread of the drama and begin to worry about welfare of the people who work in those stores. When people shout into a video camera, “You have to give me money!” they don’t move me, they just scare me. When students who borrowed huge amounts of money to attend pricey four-year colleges don’t believe they should have to pay it back that just motivates me to ask: “Didn’t you do the math on that?” Even in the best economy that’s not smart.

I care deeply about people who can’t get a decent start at a job or career they prepared for, doing work that society needs. But I can’t sort them out in the street. Give me two hours in a theater to chew on a well crafted drama that helps me make sense of a situation.

Throwing a brick through a window may be cathartic but while the bricks fly, scores of millionaires in China are making plans to emigrate, and half of them are heading our way. I seriously wonder how that will affect the pie.

The tents are starting to come down, the cameras have moved on to Black Friday, and we are left with a mandate as old as time.

The Morning Rush

2011-11-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

A CBS Sunday Morning interviewer caught actress Michelle Williams in a revealing moment of self-awareness when he essentially asked her if she was addicted to adulation. Pain and frustration clouded her blue eyes as she acknowledged her dependence on the affirmation of others. The more that people told her she was doing a good job, the more she needed to hear it. She said it was a constant struggle for her.

As a writer, I struggle with this same issue. An Editor’s Choice placement in the bi-weekly Faithwriters’ Challenge sends my confidence soaring, but never for long. Two weeks later, when I fail to place in the top ten, the ground pulls away from under my feet. Oh let’s be honest, two hours later I’m surfing the net looking for a contest I can win so I can feel the rush all over again!

A reminder in my morning Bible study pricked my conscience. God expects me to bring the desires of my heart to Him and seek His purpose. It is difficult to ask Christ to fulfill the desire of my heart without confronting this issue: how pure are my motives?

I want to publish my book. My motives are not fortune or fame. Breaking even is desirable, but being acknowledged as a writer worthy of publication is probably closer to my true motivation. If I am forced to state this in terms that God might approve I would say that I want to produce a work of quality that touches hearts.

Taking our eyes off our approval ratings and placing them on the One who can align our work to His purpose is probably a bigger rush, and one that lasts longer.

Remembering Betty Tetzlaff

2011-11-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

When Betty was born into the Kingdom the angels congratulated her Father.

“She has your compassion. Look how the tears glisten in her eyes when she tells her friends about the babies in your orphanage in Ethiopia.”

The Father smiled.

“She has your smile too.” The angels gathered around Betty and delighted to watch her read scripture in Sunday morning service, lead the choir in a worship song, bustle in the kitchen before service making coffee for the fellowship time or freshen her flower arrangement on the altar with a new blossom.

“Yes,” the Father acknowledged, “She has continual praise on her lips.”

“Well she certainly has your energy!” It was a sweet sound in Heaven as one angel after another chimed in with a story:

Every month she fills her car with bags of groceries from the Food Closet and delivers them to her neighbors who don’t have transportation.

She packs boxes full of diapers and formula and mails them to that orphanage.

She rides the mountain roads with the county sheriff, responding to calls for help.

“And talent, don’t forget that.” The angels sang softly as one of the saints joined them: I don’t believe there is a person in Betty’s town that doesn’t have a framed card with the spiritual meaning of their name written in her beautiful calligraphy.

“Or their children,’’ added an angel.

“Or their grandchildren!” another one said.

The group began to gather at the gate, joining a party of Betty’s friends, relatives and her beloved Ted. A buzz went through the crowd: The Father has called His daughter Betty home. Look, here she comes!

As Betty entered Heaven, an angel whispered, “Today there is a hole in the heart of her community.” Rising from Earth, the angel heard a sweet Amen.

Birds of Prey

2011-11-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

Late morning, a hawk’s shrill victorious shriek slices through the quiet Sierra sky. Fair warning furry creatures that forage in the field or run on the road. This day your life will be taken from you. From the sky above a quick pounce will stun you. You will be lifted up and split open, your vital organs pecked from the glistening cavity where they nest.

Late evening, an owl’s incessant call strums the moonlit sky like a rhythm guitar. Flurries of bug-inhaling bats escort her down an unmarked aisle. Earthcrawlers cringe under the shadow of her wings.

I love birds of prey! While it is proper for man to control his bloodlust, raptors get a free ticket to indulge their bloody appetites. It’s the balance of nature.

photo by Steve Ryan

Our political landscape changes. The furry animal that is fair game for the carnivore once kept people warm. Sensibilities changed, perhaps around the time that options for keeping warm expanded. Still, no one is likely to suggest a synthetic diet to an owl or an eagle.

These birds command airspace without regulation. They don’t go rogue, they do exactly what’s expected of them -- provide shelter, feed and raise their young. They revel in the updrafts that lift their wings. They take their posts and focus merciless eyes on territory they claim as their own. They are fearless. They are magnificent.

In these confusing times, it lifts my heart to know that there is a creature who knows what its mission is and executes it flawlessly.

Intimate Details

2011-11-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

Corruption, depravity, desperation, sex, medical emergency – is this not the stuff of great stories? Intimacy is the common element that creates a heartwarming or chilling tale.

Today I am pondering the connections between two writers’ explanations of what inspires readers.

Roger Rosenblatt concludes in Unless it Moves the Human Heart: “The heart that you must move is corrupt, depraved and desperate for your love.”

In The Daily Writer Fred White maintains: “Human intimacy lies at the heart of human nature.” He gives as examples of intimacy medical, sexual and spiritual experiences.

This tells me why so many of the stories that move us involve crime, life threatening medical conditions and romance.

My 1970s edition of The American Heritage Dictionary omits spiritual experiences in its list of intimacies, but in the 1930s edition of the Dictionary of the English Language(Oxford University) editor Henry Cecil Wyld defines intimacy as something that is knit together in close physical or spiritual relationship.

Intimacy is expressed in details that are private and personal. Our favorite detective stories, murder mysteries and medical dramas are loaded with intimate details. Examples: The murderer who strong arms a victim and plunges a knife into a vital organ; the doctor who dives his hand into a patient’s chest cavity. We get involved with the intimate details of the crime or the surgery.

Stories about love, sex and revenge penetrate the essence of our human nature. They reveal intimate knowledge. Example: The shamed child who grew up with malice in her heart and enough familiarity with her antagonist to know exactly how to hurt him.

Some of the most inspiring stories are found in the Bible, the best selling, least-read book of all time. Stories like Sampson and Delilah and Abraham and Isaac knit together the physical and the spiritual and draw connections between desperation and love. We are moved by these stories.

Perhaps God is the greatest storyteller of all time and we are His story.

Working it out

2011-10-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Step aerobics before dawn does more than wake up my muscles, it plays with my mind. I step out of the car and the cold morning air slaps a washrag in my face. I was too sleepy to care how close I came to hitting a deer crossing the road in the dark, but I’m awake now!

In the weight room, the boom box is pounding out the lyrics to “Highway to Hell” and I know what I’m in for – an hour of heart pumping agony. I have choices. I can grumble, but then I engage the wrong muscles. As I punch and kick the air I can visualize the faceless fund manager who lost a chunk of my money, but that’s probably a misdirection of adrenalin as well. Self-talk sometimes carries me through a session.

This morning I looked down at my step askew on the floor and thought about the four countries of the heart that people live in. Maria told me about a personality model that divides people into quadrants. According to this model, the perfectionist would kick the step into place repeatedly until it squared with the tiles on the floor. The person who lives in the country of control would divert her attention to figuring out the proper way to get the step to adhere to the floor. Then she would inform the rest of us how it should be done. The peaceful person would align the angle of her body to the angle of her step and breathe. Then there’s me. I’ll look at it, see the irony and go home and write about it. Yup, I live in the fun country.

So why am I up at six AM doing curls and crunches? Because it feels so fun when I stop!

Joining the Party

2011-10-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

Heading out to a Zumba class I threw a backward glance at the laundry piled on the chair in my bedroom waiting to be folded. As I pushed myself forward past my writing studio I felt a strong desire to make a detour. I really wanted to get back to work on a ghost story I’d been writing. I turned back and wailed in the direction of my spouse.

“I wish I could clone myself!”

He looked up from the book he was reading as I continued my rant. “I would like to be three people. One of me would work out, one of me would write and one of me would put the house in order.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to do all three at once! But I want to be one person experiencing all three activities at the same time.”

I entertained that idea all the way down the stairs. “Maybe my clones have different personalities,” I shouted up to him from the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, maybe that’s what God did – cloned himself to form the Trinity!”

I’m not suggesting that is actually what happened, but it does give me a different slant on Christ’s role experiencing life as a human to edify the Godhead. Perhaps the esoteric Spirit who hovered over the waters is the celebrant of the secretive, mysterious nature of God. Maybe God is a party of One, attended by three guests of honor and we are on the invitation list because we live in Christ’s heart rent-free.

Does God entertain Himself with us, in the broader sense of the word – holding, possessing, preserving and cherishing? That’s a party I’d like to attend.

Contraband

2011-10-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

We smuggled the contraband out in a tote bag filled with voltmeters. The stuff is easy to get in our county. You can buy it at Walmart but as it happened, I had some hidden in a cupboard in the garage. It was part of our plan to get kids hooked.

In Santa Cruz, you can’t buy this stuff! We were careful about how we distributed it, placing it in front of the children only after a detailed explanation. Mr. A. assured the children that what they were about to do would not give them a jolt. “It will be fun,” he promised, “although if you aren’t careful you could get burned.”

Parents gathered around their children as they began to experiment. When Mr. A. felt they were ready, he signaled to his helpers to pass out the stuff. They controlled it carefully to make sure there would be enough for everyone.

The children maneuvered tinfoil wrapped sticks, wire and batteries with awkward fingers and intense concentration. “Oohhh,” one said, “I can smell it burning!” Finally they began to cut the stuff. They were hooked.

“Awesome!” said one boy.

“Can I keep mine?” I want to go home and burn something!” a girl said.

The helpers gathered up what was left of the illicit goods. One of the parents jumped at the opportunity to take the remaining stuff home, saying “I’ll stash it where I hide my plastic bags.”

From the get go, Mr. A had these kids – voltmeter probe, nickel chromium wire and D-cell battery. When they sliced the hot wire foam cutter they made through a Styrofoam cup to test Ohm’s Law that defines the relationship between (P) power, (E) voltage, (I) current, and (R) resistance they got their first lesson in circuitry at Fun Science Night at school* and some lucky parent scored some plastic foam to keep for posterity.

*The name of the school has been withheld to protect the innocent. The school is not responsible for the reprobate behavior of volunteer Mr A. in importing illegal Styrofoam into Santa Cruz County.

For a copy of Mr. A's Basic Electric Circuit slides, click here.

Plunder

2011-10-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

The economy hasn’t affected the California sea bird population. They dine on a bounty of shellfish delivered in waves by attentive Neptune. Like revelers at a melodrama downing sudsy brews and tossing peanut shells on a plank floor, sabre-beaked sandpipers long step through foamy surf to catch up fresh crabs and toss them down.

The wasteful Pacific Ocean piles up the leavings on the beach, shells of former selves who have moved into larger quarters or been sucked from their habitation by greed. Up the beach a lone cormorant unable to fly waddles into the surf and bobs like a cork out to the sea and certain death, enjoying the fine day as the tide carries it away.

Waste and greed, reviled by Take Back Wall Street, are celebrated on Sunset Beach.

And the Oscar goes to...

2011-10-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed the new set of characters popping up in stories? People who used to interact with each other now spend a fair amount of screen time interacting with digital media. What a challenge for a writer.

Writers employ exciting events to move plot lines – explosions and car chases, dialogue that reveals ulterior motives or murderous intents, scenes that employ people and nature to depict conflict. In today’s world, human characters must also interact with digital devices because they are, well, interactive.

Instead of the detectives circling the body and discussing the crime with each other, I’ve seen them turn a shoulder to the action in front of them to glue an ear to an electronic device. They talk to their partner back at the office, their mole in crime lab or the principal of their kid’s school (secondary plot line).

Do drama teachers assign students scenes to perform with in-your-face props?

Teacher: Your cell is playing “who let the dogs out” so you know it’s your sister calling from the hospital. A tweet is coming in from your campaign manager about a big announcement and your iPad is signaling a Skype call from a name you don’t recognize – GO!

In The Elegance of the Hedgehog the annoying little French girl remarks that watching action on TV fires the same neurons in the brain of the viewer as are triggered in the actor -- our bodies actually feel what the actor feels. I feel my ear getting hot and my neck developing a crick when I see a detective on a mobile phone. When I see crowds of people walking heads down, paying no heed to the world around them I feel alone in the universe.

What would make me feel better? I love the moment in the story when the main character gets fed up and flings his cell phone into the river.

World Views

2011-10-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

Small town gals with big city aspirations need to push their boundaries if they want to live in a bigger world. Technology makes it possible for us to live in rural landscapes and still find ourselves at the table with the movers and shakers.

Last week I got an email invitation to join the Associate Publisher of World Magazine and other subscribers for lunch in San Francisco. Let me digress: When I moved to the top of the mountain I invested in subscriptions to two publications I consider journalistic epitomes, the Wall Street Journal and World Magazine, to help me stay up to date on world events. So when I got an email invitation from Warren Cole Smith I dialed Chili’s in Millbrae into my GPS and pointed my Buick West.

Only in the Age of Technology could I enter a room full of strangers and be greeted by Michelle with these words: Cherie says to tell you “hi.” Cherie is my sister. She and Michelle have never met face to face but they know each other through WorldMag.com forums. Small world, isn’t it?

I sat with Michelle from Santa Rosa, CA on my left, the CEO of God’s World Publishing Company from North Carolina across the table, and a homeschooling mom of four who lives on a ranch in Dixon, CA on my right. As it turns out, Michelle works for a literary agency. She has written her spiritual memoir and published a book, A Log Cabin Christmas. It made the New York Times Bestsellers List in September. As it happens, I am circulating the manuscript of my first novel, The Sheepwalker. She graciously gave me her card.

So, who are the World Magazine subscribers? By in large they aren’t Northern Californians. World represents a conservative Christian viewpoint. Now I’m a Christian with conservative leanings and a U.C. Berkeley education. Go Bears! I majored in English and muddied the waters with Master’s level education in Mass Communications. If I were forced to express my philosophy of life in one word, it would be “balance.”

So I asked World Magazine CEO Kevin Martin how he would characterize the magazine’s editorial style. He thought a moment and said, “thoughtful and reasonable.” He offered this illustration. A faction of his readers were upset that World did not cover the brouhaha over Obama’s citizenship. There is no reasonable evidence to suggest our President is not a U.S. citizen. It is not news.

This is what I love about Christianity. Regardless of how we might like to think the world works, there are principles at play that are unaffected by our desire to see things our way. I think Kevin’s words, thoughtful and reasonable, are the fulcrum that balance opposing world views. If we present our viewpoints in thoughtful, reasonable ways we can hear and be heard. God will sort out the truth.

Push your boundaries. Give an ear to what is thoughtful and reasonable and I don’t think you can go wrong.

Traveling Solo

2011-10-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

An invitation to have lunch with the associate publisher of World Magazine was ultimately too good to pass up so I drove down the mountain to the Bay Area, a three hour trek. I couldn’t think of a friend quite as enamored with getting the scoop on the future of publishing a news magazine with a Christian world view as myself so I made the trip alone.

When I was working my travel arrangements were no brainers. We traveled in packs and stayed in corporate approved hotels. Traveling solo, I find I make decisions differently. I nixed an airport hotel near San Francisco in favor of the Best Western “boutique” hotel on the Alameda in Santa Clara. It was half the price and twice the charm. Santa Clara has aged well. It feels like anycollegetown, USA. It feels like being back in the ‘hood.

A quick OnStar search turned up Antonella’s Ristorante on Park and Naglee in San Jose, 0.7 miles from my hotel. It’s a great little neighborhood restaurant where you can get a cup of homemade minestrone, a caprese salad and a nice glass of Sangiovese for under $25. I read a Ray Bradbury short story about a house that survives without its people while I ate. I people-watched the neighbors in this wonderfully cosmopolitan city come and go.

Tomorrow I’ll head to San Francisco to join Warren Cole Smith and other World Magazine subscribers who have decided this is worth their time. I wonder what we will have in common, other than an interest in quality journalism that provides in depth coverage of world events.

It pushes me outside my comfort zone to travel alone, but not that far out. Funny how you can make yourself feel at home by choosing what feels like a familiar corner in a large landscape. I’m intrigued with the thought that I might be able to make myself feel at home anywhere in the world.

Old Family Bibles

2011-09-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Do you have a collection of old family Bibles? Leaf through them and see what falls out. Sadly, I did not pay attention to the roads my musty Bibles traveled before they checked themselves into odd spaces on my bookshelves.

I will never know which relative slipped a 4-page leaflet titled “Two died for me” into a 1913 New York American Bible Society translation. I surmise from a Google search that the tract that presents the story of Jim, who went to a watery grave to save the life of a shipmate, was published in the 1930s and is part of the Adventist archives.

This put me in mind of other flotsam that has floated from the pages of my old Bibles – a favorite poem, a rose-bordered memorial card, yellowed clippings of obituaries, the cryptic scribble of a graveyard row and lot number where an ancestor might be found if the scribbler had thought to include the name of the cemetery. There are more stories in an old family Bible than the parables these pages produce.

My favorite story is not my own, but my friend Barbara’s. After her mother died Barbara found a note in her mother’s handwriting tucked between the pages of her Bible. The note was not addressed to anyone particular, it simply said “Do not worry. I am just fine.”

We often think about family history. We record the dates of births, marriages and deaths in family Bibles, or we used to before the advent of Ancestry.com. These records don’t say much about our spiritual history though. The clues we find or leave, the passages we underline, the notes we take tell a bit more.

There is an advertisement that suggests that our success in life can be determined by an answer to the question, “what’s in your wallet?” Perhaps our hearts are revealed by the answer to a different question. What’s in your Bible?

Because we can

2011-09-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I read in my morning devotional that our souls are preserved by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the pungent fragrance of strawberry jam bubbling on the stove filled the air around me. Perhaps a reason we have trouble making our faith real is because so few of us can anymore. We’ve traded long hours in front of the stove for long hours bent over a computer. What we’ve gained in mental stimulation we’ve lost in the sensory input that is our soul’s nerve endings.

Strawberries are like people, beautiful for a season and then they die unless they are preserved. Preserving strawberries is a process much like the work of the Holy Spirit. Years ago I took my young daughter out into a field in Watsonville and we picked strawberries. Some fell easily into our hands. Some had to be tugged. We left the ones with a hard green side to ripen in the sun. We mourned those bloated with rot, left them on the ground to feed the soil for next year’s crop.

Back in the kitchen, our work began. We prepared the fruit: culling, washing, removing stems and imperfections. Strawberry juice ran down our arms, dripped onto the floor and we barefooted through the mess, moving from counter to sink to stove. The linoleum floor got sticky. The air got hot as summer poured in through the open patio door and steam rose from the Revereware pot full of fruit simmering on the stove.

We added sugar to intensify the flavor, tasted and it was good. We sterilized glass jars to protect the fruit, ladled in the sweet steamy stuff, screwed down the lids and popped a batch into the canner for processing. Our fingers burned touching the hot glass.

Was it precious little yield for so much work? Perhaps, but seeing the pints and quarts of gleaming fruit lined up on the kitchen counter like victorious soldiers on parade in smart dress uniforms, smelling the nectar-soaked air in the kitchen, cradling a softened whole berry in the curve of our tongues while warm fruity sauce filled our mouths, it was heaven!

Preserving fruit is a meditation on the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s a long, messy, painful, engaging, exhilarating experience. There are steps and sequences, waiting periods and celebration times.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8

Prophets, Playwrights and Shepherds

2011-09-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Don’t these times just cry out for a Jeremiah, a man with God’s words in his mouth? Wouldn’t we welcome a Shakespeare with the wit and wisdom to fence with human foible? How about a Moses with a mandate to move his people to a place of prosperity?

I’m looking for prophets who can state clearly, “this is what you are doing wrong and this is what you need to do to turn it around.” I’m watching for playwrights who can do justice to the world stage. I’m waiting for that shepherd who can part the seas that rage before us.

I’m listening for their voices, and I’m hearing a few.

When violence reminiscent of the sixties sci-fi novella A Clockwork Orange raged in London, Britain’s chief rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks laid the blame squarely at the feet of moral decline (See the Wall Street Journal 09/20-21/2011). He finds it indefensible that we have placed the entire child-rearing burden on mostly single mothers. “By the time boys are in their early teens they are physically stronger than their mothers. Having no fathers, they are socialized in gangs. No one can control them.” Sacks concludes that governments can’t change lives, only religion can do that – “not as doctrine but as a shaper of behavior, a tutor in morality, an ongoing seminar in self-restraint and pursuit of the common good.” Sacks calls us to return to our Judeo-Christian heritage.

In Oregon, Ashland Shakespeare Festival director Amanda Dehnert examines the sin of pride in human behavior. She has staged Julius Caesar with a chilling urban guerilla force that drives a dagger into the heart of the audience. When Vilma Silva in the role of Caesar demonstrates the power of an actor to both summon and suppress audience response, we come face to face with how easily people are manipulated for political ends.

I thought about this edgy production when I watched our local production Annie, a delightful, feel-good romp. Who would dare bring Annie into the 21^st century? Instead of the work house, today’s Annie might have a short life at the intersection of child trafficking and the sex trade. I don’t think it would sell many tickets. Still, there is hope for true grit in some recent stage plays that pack a power punch. Two Pulitzer winners, August: Osage County by Tracy Letts and Next to Normal by Brain Yorkey and Tom Kitt come to mind. The first laughs at family dysfunction and then parades the terrible wounds. The second dramatizes the devastation of mental illness. Perhaps it takes a dramatist to help us seriously consider the pain of what we normally treat as sitcom fodder.

Shepherds are more difficult to identify. Certainly some leaders are surfacing, people who have pledged to spend their vast fortunes down to the last penny to solve world problems. Bill Gates is tackling hunger. Warren Buffet is making strategic investments in the stalled U.S. economy hoping the right jumpstart will get the engine going again. There are others, but none who can roust the oppressors with convincing plagues on their houses or offer heart transplants to the oppressed who want for faith, hope and courage. Only the Good Shepherd can do that. We may find ourselves with an enemy at our backs and a seawall in our face before we recognize him.

The High Road

2011-09-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

When I chose to major in English at U.C. Berkeley my reasons were simple and self-serving. I got my best grades in English and I loved to read. Times were turbulent (it was the 1960s) as they are now and the future was uncertain. Most women I knew were on autopilot. We set our course to include an education and possibly a job before we married and started raising kids. It was not at all certain that a career would figure into the equation.

I just finished reading Joseph Epstein’s review of The Cambridge History of the American Novel (WSJ August 27-28, 2011), a 1,244 page tome that rates American literature on a scale of how the classics treat our narrow agendas on gender, race and class. Says Epstein:

Multiculturalism, which assigned an equivalence of value to the works of all cultures, irrespective of the quality of those works, finished off the distinction between high and low culture, a distinction whose linchpin was seriousness.

In simpler terms, Epstein is taking lit professors to task for teaching books of questionable quality to study that speak to their own biases instead of encouraging students to cull the classics for timeless truth. The result is that even fewer people major in English now and serious readers are on their own in their quest for good books. Epstein characterizes the modern English department as an intellectual nursing home where old ideas go to die.

I was mighty depressed to read this, but the second to last paragraph perked me right up. Epstein explained that English majors of old were always “a slightly odd and happily non-conformist group.”

He nailed it when he said we didn’t major in English with any thought to being able to work for a living.

One was an English major because one was intoxicated by literature – its beauty, its force, above all its high truth quotient.

Be still my heart if that isn’t the honest to God reason why I majored in English. Sadly, there are fewer of us oddball non-conformists besotted with the notion of truth these days.

So here’s the point. Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be English majors. Let them be business and economic majors instead. But don’t send them to University without a good grounding in the classics first.

Pink

2011-09-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

My manicurist squinted at the color of shellac she was applying to my nails. “That looks like the color of bubblegum,” she said.

“I hate bubblegum!” My fingers stiffened.

“I’m sorry! Do you want me to change the color?”

“Eeeuuuww! Now I can taste that nasty stuff in my mouth. It reminds me of the gum dream.” I turned to the woman sitting in the chair next to me who regarded me wide-eyed. “Didn’t you ever have the gum dream, where your wad of chewing gum takes on a life of its own? You try to pull it out but it sticks to your teeth. The more you pull out, the bigger it gets and the nastier it tastes?”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” She asked, staring at me as if I were an exotic bird that might bite.

I thought the gum dream was universal – like flying dreams, naked dreams and not remembering your high school locker combination dreams – apparently not though, because I didn’t find it in my Mystical Magical Marvelous World of Dreams book.

My manicurist took another look. “Actually, it’s more the color of Pepto-Bismol.”

I yanked my hand from her grasp and glared at her. “Two strikes,” I said.

She recoiled and went into deep thought mode. “It’s princess pink.” She smiled like a mom trying to get her kid to take a bitter pill disguised as candy.

“Three strikes.” I’m a hard customer.

Across the room the salon owner was doing a comb out. In a gracious, tip-saving gesture she suggested that my now humbled nail girl look at the bottle to see what they named the color.
Nail girl flipped over the bottle. Everyone in the salon held their breath. “Pink Dawn?”

“Lovely.” I offered her my hand. The salon breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, I’m doing a puzzle of the Grand Canyon that has exactly that shade of pink. Now my nails match my jigsaw puzzle and my manicure reminds me of an Arizona sunrise.

I’m still wondering what the gum dream means.

A Puzzlement

2011-08-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

When I tell people I write a blog, they inevitably ask, “what is your blog about?” I suppose the answer is that Riddles on the Harp is about anything I find puzzling. For that reason, I will never run out of things to blog about.

To my mind, a blog is a form of personal essay. Essayist Dinty W. Moore stews on this in Crafting the Personal Essay. He calls essay writing a gentle art where writers explore a topic from their own unique perspective. They begin with questions rather than answers.

In an essay in the Atlantic’s 2011 special fiction issue, Bret Anthony Johnston says writers may enter stories through literal experience but that that fiction transcends the limitations of fact and history. “What matters is our characters, those constructions of imagination that can transcend our biases and agendas... “

Johnston is speaking of the characters we create in our writing, but this is also true of our moral character. We reach greater heights when we approach a topic from a platform of integrity, courage, fortitude honesty and loyalty instead of an agenda that boxes us in with people who agree with us and shuts everyone else out.

The joy of placing a riddle on your harp is in the process of discovery. In the course of forming words into patterns on a page, the writer listens for what rings true and hopes others will also hear a pleasing melody.

Riddles are often amusing and always engaging. That the image of a riddle on a harp comes from the Bible is not surprising. The Bible is riddled with word play. What is a parable but a metaphor or allegory to ponder or a conundrum to try to resolve? The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:36) works on many levels. When Jesus poses the question, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” he expands the meaning of the word neighbor just by asking the question.

That God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1Cor:27) has always been a puzzle for me. What holds meaning for God’s people is undecipherable when we rely on our own resources of intelligence, wealth and power. Why, then, is my first instinct to reason, spend or manipulate my way out of a problem rather than to pray? I have to ask myself.

Of rhino pairs & bipolar bears

2011-08-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

On a manmade field of ice, a bipolar bear takes three steps forward, three steps backward, bobbles her head to the left and to the right and repeats the process. She resembles a windup toy with a weak battery that is compelled to move in place, never forward.

Across campus, rooms with bulky equipment designed to entice a rhinoceros to charge large objects sit idle. The resident rhinos are napping near a pond out in front. It appears they are no more interested in staying fit than most of us. A sign cautions that rhinos have been overhunted and are now an endangered species.

Nearby, an expanse of grass labeled Bison Environs appears to be an exhibit of where bison would live if any inhabited this zoo. At this moment, the Detroit zoo appears to be fresh out of buffalo. Happily though, this regal animal has made a comeback since it flirted with extinction in the 1800s. (The food industry will dispute that buffalo were ever endangered. Perhaps that’s because they were part of the drive to replenish the American herds.)

The Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak provides luxury accommodations for damaged animals. It is evident that patient rights come first here, but visitors aren’t complaining about how few animals are actually in view today. Peacocks roam zoo paths looking like docents and that is what we are here to do this hot summer day just outside the motor city. We are just out for a walk in the most diverting of landscapes.

About the time that we think all the animals have gone to lunch, we spot a trio of giraffe strolling across the grass in front of a reproduction of an Egyptian palace. Egypt was one of the first cultures to keep wild animals on display in royal compounds, a human docent tells us.

When you don’t demand to be entertained by nature, the simple curve of a giraffe’s neck is grace. The tiger’s repose is refreshment. Like so many regional zoos, the Detroit Zoo provides a safety net for God’s creatures. We exercise a God given right (Genesis 1:28) when we care for animals.

Platforms, personas and publishing

2011-08-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Devout Stout
by Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing

To distill what I learned at the FaithWriters conference is a challenge similar to describing the complex elements of a zesty brew. To extend the metaphor, drawing an audience and attracting a publisher is an exacting process -- like pouring a Guinness with slow patience to preserve its head. Appealing to particular tastes (bold flavor, coffee aroma, chocolate notes) requires knowing your audience and giving them what they expect. It also requires understanding the bitter reality of today’s publishing world. Determine if you can pass the acid test of excellence or be prepared to spend a lot of money for a disappointing harvest.

All writers want readers. If you don’t know that you are expected to build your own audience you haven’t been paying attention. Patty Wysong did a great job of connecting the dots on blogs, Facebook, and a myriad of ways to build a community of people (your platform) who might be willing to buy your book, a data point that will be of high interest to any publisher you approach.

Many writers are shy. In a brilliant display of “show, don’t tell,” self-described wallflower Patty shared how she overcame extreme shyness to offer value to the audience she built for her blog, and then for her business (helping others build blogs). She described how she created an alter-ego she could step into when she needed to step out of her comfort zone and speak before an audience.

Some of her tricks:

Try out what works for others
Cultivate inner resources that are there but need encouragement to blossom
Present yourself as the person you want to be

Most writers want to be published. Deb Porter, who runs the FaithWriters Weekly Word Challenge, shared the sobering statistics that the numbers of book titles in print have jumped about 4,000 percent recently! This is not good news. It means readers have to wade through a lot of bad writing to find good stuff and writers are rushing to print with stuff that’s not ready.

I’d summarize Deb’s perspective this way:

You can lead the market if you start from the platform of celebrity or have that rare combination of talent, timing and luck;
You can follow the herd and pay someone to publish your book;
Or, you can enter through the narrow gate.

This third path requires writers to work really hard to hone their craft. Follow the process that leads to excellence. Seek feedback from people who will be honest with you and make the changes you need to make. Look for an agent who believes in your project and will take it to a small press when it is ready. The writer's life is for the stout of heart!

Thank you to all the wonderful presenters at this year's conference.

The Dao of Connections

2011-08-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

I look up to the mountains. Where can I find my help? Psalm 121 Song of Ascents

Worldviews collide and the Dow disapproves. Some media dub the U.S. drubbing as historic and others label it not unexpected, but a yawn. Whichever way you see it, living with the consequences will not be boring.

For that matter, spectrum itself is subject to argument – a utility that can remain regulated and underused or freed up for innovative uses that might create jobs and turn a profit. While we are mulling this over, I am reminded of a blue screen we recently experienced.

Popped a DVD into the blu-ray recorder and got the dreaded blue screen. Uh oh.

“Didn’t we just retune the receiver to pick up some signals that were dropping?” says I.

“This is the recorder. We need to do a firmware update,” says he.

And, isn’t that just like life? I thought about that in Sunday service when pastor, preaching on Exodus, asked the question, “Who do you want to be influenced by?” Well, good question. The next question is, “And what am I doing to put myself in the sphere of influence of those people?”

From time to time, I also need a firmware update. What is fixed in my brain needs to be reset so I better understand. I need to retune my heart to pick up signals I’m missing.

I suspect the powers that govern our country are missing some signals. As a result, we may be facing an economic blue screen.

The Zen of Wii Bowling

2011-08-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas a Kempis.

The more a man is united within himself, and becomes inwardly simple, the more and higher things he understands without labor, for he receives intellectual light from above.

To put it simply, don’t work too hard.

The more I apply the principle of not over thinking or overdoing a situation, the more I find myself “in the zone.” It’s exhilarating, it’s magic, and it has improved my Wii bowling score.

I belong to a Wii bowling league that involves sixteen people who bowl three sets in two shifts with a break for pizza and chit chat. The logistics of scheduling, handicapping and scoring the bowlers is one of those high things I can’t understand without labor, so I don’t try. I just show up and try to break 100.

We’ve been at this for a couple of years and like baseball players, each bowler has developed a liturgy of tics that works for them. Wina hops up in the air on her left foot, swings her right foot ballet-like across her meridian and lets ‘er fly. Mike sits in a chair with his shoulder braced against the wall and flicks his wrist at the screen. They both get amazing results.

Paul bowls an S curve that is truly impressive and Agnes basks in the intellectual light from above, swinging her arm with a mathematical precision that causes the pins to fall all over themselves in awe.

Cheryl positions the controller, pulls her arm back, does a three step run- up, lunges, pulls her right foot behind her left heel like a pro and releases the ball. Score! Ron dispenses with the drama and goes for the hard and fast hook. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Then there is me. Traditionally, I bowl like I walk. I start out knowing where I’m headed and then veer off into the gutter. It’s a pretty sharp turn to the dark side. But tonight, I channeled the Zen master and it worked! I squared my feet, pressed A, lifted a wine glass in my right hand, and floated my left hand forward without effort. The pins were mesmerized. They swooned at the sight of my ball spinning slowly toward them.

I think the wine glass gave me the balance I needed to correct my wicked curve ball, which I suspect mirrors the scoliosis in my spine. But, I don’t want to over think this.

The resort of my dreams

2011-08-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

We are planning a December getaway. In the planning stage it is useful to know what you are trying to get away from. Expectations, holiday stress and worn out routines top my list.

We begin our trip in Barbados, sweep through seven islands on a sailing ship, come back through Orlando and end up Bentonville, Arkansas. I imagine that moving from the trade winds that cool Bathsheba on the east shore – where green monkeys play in palm trees above our hammock pillowed heads below – to wintry Arkansas will be a trip in itself. But we want to take grandma on a holiday, so we are taking her to see the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

After we set the dates and made the airline reservations I had an “uh –oh” moment. We had decided hang out in Barbados for a few days after our cruise. I researched hotels, inns, guest houses and resorts, avoiding phrases such as raucous night life, good place to shop for trinkets or beach activity (euphemism for crowded). The west shore seemed ideal. When you visit Barbados, don’t you owe it to yourself to check out the resorts?

That’s when I discovered that Yuletide rates would be in effect. We are talking $1,500 a night, at the low end! Despite those lovely beaches, do we really want to be in surroundings that make us blink twice in the morning before we remember where we are -- and what we spent?

If I read People magazine at the beauty shop instead of short stories by Raymond Carver, I would know that this is where the rich and famous spend their holidays. Will sighting celebrities enhance my island experience? More likely it will focus my attention on where I can find a knock off of that darling resort wear thingy some Sex in the City sultress is wearing.

Loathe to letting go of the idea of staying at a resort, I want more to rub elbows with history, smell the rainforest and experience the real instead of the real estate.

This morning I read in my devotions:

“Where he is to be found, there make thy resort.”

If I look for a place where I can open my heart to God, I will find the resort of my dreams.

I powered up my computer, looked on the more remote Atlantic side of the island and discovered the Sea-U Guest House. It features charming colonial style rooms, reasonable rates, rocky tide pools where we can wade with brilliantly colored fish, porches high above the ocean where we will sit, sip our rum punches and watch the local surfers. Ah, yes.

Quote by Charles Spurgeon

Sunday in the park

2011-07-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

If you are ever at a National Park on a Sunday, take a little time to attend a worship service conducted by ACMNP (A Christian Ministry in the National Parks). These inter-denominational services are led by seminarians and college students honing their abilities to lead worship. They get a lot of help from nature’s most impressive object lessons.

“No one ever stands in front of Lake McDonald and says ‘Wow, I am awesome,’” Paul from Georgia concluded in his homily. Still waters and green pastures are God’s therapy for us who are over involved with our own needs.

If the heavens declare the glory of God in a national park, then the stand of fire-ravaged tree trunks that circle the lake have a message as well. I regenerate. At water’s edge the forest is greening. A shadow of green pushes its way back into the forest like a watercolorist bringing a sketch to life by adding subtle hues.

Lightning, the world’s most careless and uncontrollable arsonist, has burned away the pine and cedar duff along with the trees. Now, new light shines in an old dark forest. In the transitional habitat, lodge pole pines that required heat to burst their pods are gaining ground. Song birds increase 200 percent after a forest fire.

Nature gives the best sermons.

Wanderlust

2011-07-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

I am blessed to live in a mountain town with the peaks of Yosemite in my backyard. When I go to the Farmer’s Market at funky Mountain Sage – part nursery, part coffee house, part art gallery, occasional music venue for amazing talent – I may not have a choice of vendors of a vast array of designer vegetables, but I know the back story of most everyone I encounter.

And yet…

I miss access to a state-of-the-art fitness center, easy walking distance to boutiques and museums, the availability of a nearby college or university that hosts artists and writers (no disrespect meant to Columbia College, which turns out firefighters who keep us safe and chefs who tempt our palates at local restaurants).

Closed in by oaks and pines, I yearn for open pastures. Up here on my mountain I long to be gazing across a glacial lake or skimming my eyes over gray coastal tides to lose myself in a horizon that pulls the sky down into Poseidon’s fathomless depth. I want to light incense in my living room that smells like Montana.

No matter how good it is to be home, I’m always looking forward to the next adventure.

Travelogged

2011-07-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

It’s time for some irreverent musings on travel accommodations.

Chico Hot Springs

Resorting to an international hotspot

When we first considered vacationing where the buffalo roam, what better place to begin than Chico Hot Springs? Our “suite” was so named for the prominence of a huge Jacuzzi tub in the center of the bedroom. Resorts typically offer romantic décor but impractical furnishings. I couldn’t fit a book on the night table, but as the light was too poor to read by it didn’t matter. A full sound system took up all the space on a counter by the tub. At night, the CD slot cast a bright neon blue light in the room suggestive of pole dancing. As we had ridden horses, rafted the Yellowstone River and toured the park all in one day, I was too tired for any more activity.

Offerings from Grandma’s organic garden found their way to our table. We loved that.

Olive Branch Inn

Inn consideration of meeting every need

Three generations of our family descended on the Olive Branch Inn in Bozeman and there was room for all, from a closet in which to tuck a tiny pack ‘n player for his nap to a suite retreat for the seniors. In this case, I could spread a library of books and papers, glasses and small electronics, tea and fruit on the night table. Small cousins played secret agent, hiding under beds on three levels of the historic home. Big cousins adopted a rhythm of cooking, cleaning up and storytelling on the patio or around the big dining room table, lazy walks to Front Page for coffee, and field trips to the local attractions. The seniors flitted about like honeybees on the flowers of youth, enjoying the energy.

In Montana, fresh clean water is on tap everywhere you go. That and clean air are rights guaranteed in the state constitution, I'm told.

Lake MacDonald

A view with a room

Not an original saying, but appropriate to our fifties-style rooms at the Village Inn at Apgar at the panoramic lakeshore edge of breathtaking Lake MacDonald. Our suite accommodated two couples in a clean, comfortable, scout lodge-like fashion. Built for easy maintenance with no perceived need to indulge users of modern electronics, all communication with the outside world ceased when we entered Glacier National Park. But who cared? We were stunned into submission by beauty.

It’s not pretty but it’s clean

Our final night we are hanging out at the Royal 7 Motel on the highway praying for good weather for take-off tomorrow. We dined around the corner at hole-in-the-wall Fresco Café whose chef makes pasta sing opera.

Moving experiences

Now for the irreverent part – our family curse is the stubborn bowel. Sis offered up her remedy – five dried figs a day. Good, but I like my son’s cure better. He said his poopologist (too funny) prescribes a shot of Jameson’s. It works!!

some of the clan

Montana Skies

2011-07-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Truly Montana is big sky country. On a canvas stretched across eternity, clouds charge across the sky like Disney animations on steroids – empty-eyed flying dragons strike at fat furry bears that fly by, nipping at the tails of celestial squirrels.

Look below and a different drama unfolds. Cavorting through the tall grass a wild black bear forages. It pokes, unconcerned about the people pile-up on the road – anglers for a glimpse of a creature that is cute and uncontrollable, darling and dangerous.

In a meadow a lone bison lounges undisturbed, chewing his cud. We joke that although we appreciate his ubiquitous quality – his stolid, preternatural presence – if he gets paid per viewer he will lose to the bear.

It’s the vistas that most enchant me – the lone dwelling settled in a pasture of sweet grass dotted with prairie flax looking like a pointillism masterpiece. A warm speck of life against a majestic snow-capped mountain, it whispers in the wind: Here there is time and space.

Channeling Sarah Winchester

2011-07-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

I get Sarah Winchester. She thought as long as she could hear the sounds of construction in her house, she would never die. I too feel happy when I hear the industrious buzz of worker bees in my house –updating a bathroom or installing fresh carpet that banishes old red wine stains and cat barf we discovered when we moved the piano.

It seems that I wake up every morning to unfinished business. Unlike Sarah, my agenda is not to live in this body, in this house, on this earth for eternity. Still, I feel compelled to wrap things up in an orderly fashion.

I want to put my house in order, literally and figuratively. I want to finish things – the revision of my novel, my ancestry tree, the pile of photos and photo albums sitting in the corner.

Even though I know it’s a race I won’t win, I want to maintain things. In aerobics the other morning the instructor on our tape encouraged us to let the house go and take better care of the temple – this body we live in. If I took as good care of my body as I do my house, I would look like Queen Esther.

Life seems to have a heavy maintenance schedule. I’ve started considering that when some delightful shelf dweller wants to go home with me. Is it worth the time to learn how to use it, the space to store it and the aggravation of caring for it? Usually not.

It’s come to my attention that I got way to good at acquisition, and now I can’t get rid of stuff fast enough. Today I tossed a pair of Capri pants because they take too long to iron. Also a pair of vacation pants I bought for my husband so he would look like a stud. Because he defines “stud” as a surface that doesn’t require a molly bolt, they’ve never been worn. I sorted my Tupperware into square containers and round containers and bagged all the round ones. Square containers without lids are followed their round cousins to the thrift shop.

In the glee of divestiture, I still find I want to start things – not new rooms in my house but new life experiences. I think that’s where Sarah and I part company. I don’t need any more rooms in my house. I need room in my life for God to fill with good things.

Gold

2011-07-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

Singing praise songs in church on a Sunday, I became aware of how like our thought life a praise song plays. I focus my conscious thought on what the words and phrases mean in a song like In Under Your Wing*:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills

For I know where my help comes from
You will sustain my weary soul
For it’s by Your grace I stand here today.

Focused attention forms the melody of my thoughts, but soon I hear a harmony. It’s the nether song of the muse introducing a contemplative accord or a cognitive dissonance into my praise:

The hills – the peaks of Yosemite were beautiful this morning. Jesus, why don’t I look up more? We should go into the park next week after the holiday crowd leaves; no, we shouldn’t, we have to get ready for the carpet installation. Focus!

By your grace I stand here today – and, where is everyone else? Attendance is light today. I wonder if the kids bothered with church today. Focus!

Thank you Jesus that I am in this place, with the beauty of your world in my backyard, singing with this praise choir of precious souls. I am blessed.

The harmonic balance of tension and peace give depth to praise in the much the same way that subconscious thought – the kind that comes through the door at our invitation or bursts into our interior rooms unbidden – gives rise to understanding and creativity.

Sometimes my soul yearns to hear a descant. Musically, a descant is a counter melody that floats above the main melody and carries the theme. A counterpoint in the life of the mind might be the still, small voice we all long to hear.

Folk singer John Stewart performed a song called Gold. It had a wistful refrain:

“People out there turning music into gold.”

Although the gold he yearned for was the money that could be made from music in the right market, this is a beautiful phrase when placed in a different context. People turn music into gold when they direct their song to God. Perhaps our praise is the gold that paves Heaven’s highways.

*Christy Cooper

Watercolors

2011-07-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

I took my first watercolor class yesterday. Let’s put a frame around that. I took a watercolor class at the Yosemite Art and Education Center; with my five and seven-year old grandkids (GKs); on a day when sunlight tangoed with the trees in the meadow and the falls spilled snowmelt like a bosomy matron in a bikini.

I’d spent the past two weeks observing the GKs who sponge new experiences with thirsty glee. On this year’s summer visit, they learned to keep a horse’s head up and out of a tempting salad of poison oak and swim without water wings to the platform in the middle of the lake (don’t tell their mom). The boy improved his aim with the BB gun he keeps here and the girl learned to knit. (I will make no comment on gender roles; it was their choice.)

It was interesting to see how differently we all approached the lesson as we sat in the meadow and sketched our view of Half Dome. The five-year-old drew big a teepee-shaped rock in the middle of his paper and then filled in detail around it from his imagination. After the seven-year-old pulled her attention away from the “eeuuuwww” factor of small bugs flying into her face she produced a very credible sketch. I, on the other hand, put pencil to paper and froze.

As I pulled my pencil along the pebbly paper a refrain started up in my head – I am really bad at this. I pressed on, filling in more detail than is appropriate for a watercolor sketch and assessing my progress at intervals – the perspective is off; the scale of the tree in the foreground is wrong; this looks more like Mt. Fuji than Half Dome.

We returned from the meadow and pulled out the paints. At the end of the day, the children each had a drawing they were proud of and I had a soggy piece of paper. They learned the difference between poster paints and water colors. I learned some life lessons.

Where to begin -- the sky or the grass? No, begin with the focal point. I may make that a daily practice.

A sketch is a roadmap for your painting. It should be drawn lightly enough to be erased before you add color. It should include notes about color choices. Note to self: what in my life could benefit from an eraser and what needs color?

Blending watercolors is a delicate and mysterious art. Who knew that gray wasn’t black dumbed down a little with white. “Try pulling in a bit of yellow into that muddy drop, or a little blue, and see what you get,” our teacher suggested. We got thrilling purplish and peachy grays.

So much to learn – like any art, watercolor must needs be learned from a master and practiced over time. I wish I’d started earlier. I return to my writing with a fresh perspective. There are so many rich experiences in life to pull in.

Borderline

2011-06-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

When life changes and the family dynamics suffer a seismic shift, it’s time to reframe the future. I’m still adjusting to a universe in which my parents’ generation has disintegrated. As the stars fall around me and the galaxy rearranges itself above my head, I will draw new borders for my life. Then, I will cross them.

My new borders will feature places that comfort and inspire me. I pull out an atlas and search for a favorite city. It could be as close as San Francisco or as far away as Paris. It does have to be accessible – a place I can tuck up in for cultural feasting.

I think I’ll start my western border at the Pacific coastline and look for a signature beach town to call my own. When my soul needs soothing, I need to rest my eyes on the horizon and fill my ears with Poseidon’s throaty roar.

My western border will extend from the Puget Sound to San Diego. From there I will draw a line through the Sonoran Desert to Santa Fe and then wiggle my pencil over to pick up Chicago and the Upper Michigan Peninsula before I scurry back to the Pacific Coast.

Like a proud spider contemplating her intricate web, I will hang out in my corner of the Sierras. When I spot something juicy in another corner of my world, I’ll scuttle over and check it out.

New holidays are in order. We’ll downsize old favorites like Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ll celebrate Columbus Day with a trip to an unexplored mecca and Valentine’s Day with a romantic adventure. No dutiful recycling on Earth Day for us, we will choose a day to dub Big Sky day and celebrate it in the air.

Our seasons won’t be related to the weather but to our mode of transportation – Wings, Wheels, Waterways and Wanderings. Our seasons are not consecutive they are whimsical, like the weather, and when we run out of money – the ice floe, baby; new vistas.

Cheap thrills

2011-06-13T17:10:00.000-07:00

I get it. I get that internet addiction – flirting, sexting, virtual hook-ups – is as much about the thrill of pursuit as it is about sex. Life is stressful and people need their distractions. In the grand scheme it’s trivial, people say.

I listen to the responses to Representative Weiner’s predicament. An eye-winking press cites a long history of this type of behavior in men who have otherwise been judged as good leaders.

Outraged supporters go a step further to say that if people would just ignore You Tube and all the issues that get us off track, the country would be better off. They believe that issues like the state of marriage and family take us off track when we should be worried about the economy and the environment. He is doing a good job for his constituents, they say. What he does in the privacy of his own gymnasium is his own business.

But is not private, it is a public display of a complete lack of integrity. Integrity is the steadfast adherence to a moral or ethical code. What belief system or code of behavior does this sneaking around serve?

We have been served well by good men whose public and private lives have survived intense scrutiny. John Adams comes to mind. We have possibly been served well by scoundrels who have owned up to a long list of bad behavior, but at least they have owned it. There is some integrity in their "this is me, take it or leave it." stance. It is consistent.

There is no integrity in a man who demurs, deflects and defies his party when they ask him to step aside. "I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold," God says in Revelations 3:15,16. "I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm -- neither hot nor cold -- I am about to spit you out of my mouth." that is a perfect definition of a man who lacks integrity.

This one man is not my real concern, but the numbers of men who are amusing themselves in this way. How many marriages break because a husband or wife so distances themselves behind the closed door of internet addiction that they destroy the fragile bonds of intimacy?

Marriage is sustained by meaningful conversation, shoulder-to-shoulder labor and mutual joy. Good government is sustained by meaningful dialog, shoulder-to-shoulder labor and mutual respect.

Internet addiction is not a recreational pastime. By its very nature it consumes large amounts of time and attention and encourages deception. That is time and attention stolen from wives and children. I can’t think that the electorate, whom offending politicians are sworn to serve, benefit from inconstancy and corruption.

Circling Facebook

2011-06-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Fool’s give you reasons. Wise men never try. I wanted to post this on my facebook page today but decided it is more appropriate to be enigmatic on a blog. And, it’s a nice lead-in to a discussion about facebook, which I promised two new acquaintances I would do on my blog.

I met these delightful women at a reception at the top of the Transamerica Building in San Francisco. After exploring our various connections – we’re all passionate about what we do – pharmacology, hedge fund management and writing; we all love cities on the water – San Francisco, Seattle and Stockholm; and we’re all mystified by where facebook is taking interpersonal communications. In particular, one woman posed this question. Why are so many people willing to broadcast their personal information?

I opened a facebook account for two reasons. I wanted to understand social media and I wanted to understand my kids. My son and daughter-in-law use facebook to keep track of each other, sometimes when they are sitting in the same room. I see the discussions they have about myriad mundane issues – clogged sinks, who will do the dinner dishes, who’s tired and headed for bed; facebook has been criticized for banality but it’s the pedestrian nature of their conversation that delights me. I have access to the information that the tomato vines survived the hornworms and the surf was good on Saturday morning. I see that all is right in their world.

It is interesting to contemplate that the song, There must be 50 ways to leave your lover, was written before the advent of social media, so now, counting email and twitter, we can add at least three more ways to that list. If we open a discussion about what is happening in our lives to the full spectrum of our personal network, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It tests the waters of who is interested enough to comment and indeed, they may have valuable feedback. (That’s how I found a mechanic when my car developed a new rattle and my husband was out of town.)

Facebook seems to serve many functions, from back-fence gossip to the venting or validation of emotions. Being a writer, I can understand the value of wanting to edit your words before you place them in the public arena. You can’t take back what you’ve blurted out at the height of emotion. You can wordsmith a tweet or delete an ill-chosen posting before it’s done too much damage. So maybe there is some element of control at work here that might be missing in a face to face encounter.

A good test of appropriateness remains what I learned in Journalism 101. Play it as a headline. If you have any question about words you feel led to share/ actions you feel compelled to take, write it out in your mind as a newspaper headline. Hornworms attack early vines, stir debate over pesticides seems acceptable. French banking magnate jailed for attacking maid in hotel room – I just shake my head. Morality aside, if he’d taken 10 seconds to write that headline before he dropped his towel, he might have made a better decision.

The Meanest Mom

2011-05-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

This is for my daughter, who works so hard to keep it all together.

My mom is the meanest mom for blocks

she makes me sort and fold my socks
my mom is the meanest mom, oh man!
I must feed the cat and clean out her pan
make my bed, make my lunch, pick up my messes
why she’s so awful, I only have guesses.

Other kids’ mothers for sure aren’t that way

they do their work and let their kids play
my mom says someday I will be older
and have a burden I’ll need to shoulder
I’ll need to do my part, says she
somehow she thinks she’s helping me!

Today I struggled down the stairs

with a trash can full of old parts and spares
of pieces of toys I hide under my bed
that make my mommy just shake her head
then I put the can back where it used to be
and my mommy, she turned and smiled at me.

The tired in her eyes just sparkled away

I felt a good feeling that lasted all day
maybe my mom is not really that mean
maybe she needs me to help her keep clean
the house we all live in and mess up each day
so she can have time to go out and play.

The Four Spiritual Questions

2011-05-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

I've given a lot of thought to how to boil down the Christian message to the essentials in a way that people who struggle with their identity can grasp. I know my readers are shy about responding, but any feedback would be appreciated.

1. Who am I?
It depends on who you ask. I like the explanation Jesus gives us. You are a sinner. That’s who you are. You are God’s child, and a sinner.

2. What do I about that?
Jesus is clear and direct in his answer when he says I am the way, the truth and the life. After that, the fun begins. We each work out our salvation – the full implication of what it means to be a sinner saved by grace – with fear and trembling. Fear in the sense of the respect we give to the message and its giver; trembling in full appreciation of the joy we receive when we travel that path.

3. What if I don’t like the answer?
You are free to choose another answer, but remember -- not making a choice is a choice. You live on the Devil’s playground and you can play there until Kingdom come or you can join the family of God and then the question – who am I? – becomes irrelevant. The question becomes, who are You, God?

4. How do I join God’s family?
Allow God to work in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. God is love. If you spend your life being genuine, loving your wife/husband/neighbor/brother as yourself, holding fast to what is good, being patient and kind, bearing, believing, hoping and enduring, your reward is love. You become love. That’s who you are in Christ Jesus because he first loved you. Apart from Him you don’t have the genuine fruits of love. Take your eyes off Him and you lose the power to love perfectly.

Don't get even, get mad!

2011-05-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

Today I paced around my house with a hammer in my hand looking for a head to bash. My husband scuttled downstairs and stayed there. The painter working in the upstairs bathroom stayed out of sight. I won’t say whose head I wanted to bash, but it wasn’t one of those two heads.

I wanted to crack open this head with a sharp clean blow and peer inside, then reach for a box of brains and dump them in, followed by a healthy measure of common sense and compassion. While I’m at it, I might like to do some rewiring.

Getting so riled up pretty much ruined my whole day, because from outrage it’s not too much of a jump to get in God’s face and rail at Him – do something!

At our book study tonight we talked about whether living life fully requires us to fully experience our feelings, both good and bad. There is a latency in the way I experience feelings, a built in time delay. It can be hours or days before it hits me that...I...am...angry!!! First, I analyze a situation. Then I look for a label to paste on the offending behavior so it will make sense to me. Then I look to God for an answer, but He seems to have a built in latency in His response as well. Meanwhile, I am full of this feeling that must needs expression.

As the book we are studying is about giving thanks for everyday blessings, I will now give thanks for animation. Visualizing committing murderous mayhem on a cartoon head is a cathartic release for my pent-up frustration with everything that is wrong with world that just happens to find it’s fullness in this one individual. It’s an “aha” moment to realize that the hours my children spent watching a fat beaked black duck bop a wiseacre rabbit (or the other way around, I forget) were more productive than I realized and may actually have kept them out the penitentiary.

Of course, the place I need to get to is prayer for a soul who is in distress and causing distress. While I am cracking an imaginary head, the Christ who breaks His heart to heal ours (one thousand gifts by Ann Voskamp, p. 40) breaks a real heart.

I, too, am heartbroken.

Springtime in the Mountains

2011-05-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

Driving on our mountain road I saw an amorous vulture hovering upright near the top of a tree. He opened his wings like a theatre curtain and bared his intentions to some little vixen hiding in the pines. The sunlight glanced off his great glossy wings spread in horaltic stance and he expressed his ardor in a slow, seductive, “come hither” movement.

The doe that settled in at the end of the front porch breezeway grew a big belly and disappeared. She’ll be back with twin or triplets – it’s been a good year for these foragers. Her man came by one evening, walked right up the front porch stairs and eyed us through the screen door.

Old Man Winter is not giving up without a fight this year. My sunflowers that have just settled into their pot and wiggled their roots down into the dirt are in for a nasty surprise. Tomorrow the Old Man plans to hurl everything he has left in his arsenal at pretty Spring – thunder, lightening, fierce wind and snow.

The oak trees shake the pollen from their leafy crowns like long haired dogs rising from creek beds to rattle their bones and let the water fly. The detritus coats our eyes and makes us itch and weep. It cakes all we possess with scummy, soggy gold muck.

The birds don’t gather on the deck off our bedroom to fight for space in the fountain like they used to. They lost their home in the last big storm – the mighty live oak tree that nested so many of them pulled itself out of the ground and crashed to the forest floor, groaning in protest as it went. It left behind a fan club of smaller trees blinking in unfamiliar sunlight -- new real estate to be explored by the jays and finches, hummingbirds and sparrows.

We’ve set the table a bit early for Spring, who wanders into our mountains on her own timetable. We’ll be glad to see her when she finally arrives.

Feeling Lucky?

2011-05-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve had cause to contemplate the difference between luck and blessing as I’ve listened to different folks express thanks for the sun that shined on an event or the serendipity that got them to where they hoped to go. Those who credit luck may also express appreciation. They send up thanks, like balloons, trusting that credit will be received where credit is due. God or no God, everyone acknowledges that a thankful heart is a happy heart.

Those who see blessing in the happy outcome have a different perspective. Luck just happens. Blessing is bestowed. Luck is impersonal. You lucked out and that makes you happy. Blessing is personal. God gets the credit and that fills you with joy.

Luck can be appreciated, but blessing can be appropriated. You can take ownership of it and assign it a value because you receive it as a gift. Better than that, you can pass it on. That sunny day created just for you is a reminder that God cares. Your thankful prayer hits the target of God’s heart. Most likely it radiates out like the sun itself, asking the Creator to shine His blessing on those you love. And he does.

Of course, should the rain fall you have a choice. Deem it unlucky, or look for the blessing in the rain. I’m betting you’ll find it.

A Writer's Mission

2011-05-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

A friend asked me what I was trying to do with my writing. When I didn’t say I hoped to publish the great American novel and achieve fame and fortune she released the breath she was holding and the fear in her eyes faded. Most people believe that if you are a real writer you would be published; if you call yourself a writer prematurely you must be deluded. Or worse.

What I did say was – I want to grow as a writer. What I forgot to add was – I want to encounter truth and experience 1John 1:14, “We are writing these things that our joy may be complete.”

Of course every writer needs an audience. A journal writer requires an audience of one, a blogger may target family, friends and fellow travelers, a novelist hopes to reach the hearts and minds of many more,

The path to publication has widened, but it’s weedy. It reminds me of a neighbor who sought my advice on how to get her daughter on stage because my daughter was having a measure of local success. I mentioned the years of ballet lessons and small roles on rented stages and suggested she enroll her daughter in a community theater class at the recreation center. She gave me a withering look and spit out in frustration that she had no time for that, her daughter wanted to be famous. I backed away, much as my friend was prepared to do if I had started pitching the draft of my novel.

Here’s the reality. Writing is a lifestyle. It requires that you plant yourself daily in a chair for hours and focus, then deal with the aftermath in a healthy way. Refuel your body by walking with a friend and breathing fresh air. (Helps you keep your friends.) Replenish your soul by seeking new vistas to rest your eyes on while you nurture the seeds of inspiration scattered in your brain. Refresh your depleted spirit in acts of appreciation.

Ramping it up to be better than you are also requires productive downtime. Resting and reading rather than watching C.S.I. Detectives Who’ve Moved to the Dark Side while emailing, posting and killing a bottle of wine (unless you are analyzing plot lines).

It’s an extravagant lifestyle. Time is yours to account for and waste, Rewards are joy in discovery, hope that you will touch a heart and, let’s not kid ourselves, the possibility you might one day snag a brass ring on the go round.

Picking Paint

2011-05-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

Picking paint colors has all the fun quotient of starting a new piece of writing. The burst of inspiration – I’m going to write a novel/redecorate my bathroom; the joy of confirmation – the theme will be regret and renewal/ relaxing at the spa; the thrill of beginning the project – the setting will be Basque regions of Spain and California/the beach and ocean. My purpose is clear.

After choosing shower and floor tile and trim I wade into the waters of choosing colors to paint the walls. Like I do in writing, I will pay attention to current trends. I’ll paint each wall a different color. So far, I’m on terra firma. The trim is small sea glass tile squares in shades of green, blue and taupe. This will dictate my color choice.

As in writing, now I hit the wall. My imagination has driven me into unknown territory. What do I know about Basque culture/tone and hue and color saturation?

In possession of the knowledge that I do have – I want to balance cool ocean tones with a warm-toned taupe accent wall – I head to the paint store. Surely someone who knows color can help me sort through the myriad chips of icy blues, grey greens and intense taupes. I know I’m sunk when the young girl behind the counter says, you mean beige? I’m on my own here.

I give silent respectful acknowledgement to the art majors and interior designers of the world and head to the section where some marketing genius has arranged colors in collections and named them things like Exuberance, Immolation, Au Natural and Zen Meditation. Now we’re talking. How wrong can I go in a bathroom painted with colors from a collection labeled Relaxation or Sea Breezes?

For my walls, I choose Early Morning Climb to grace the toilet and Crystal Geyser to surround my tub. I could make a case for doing it the other way around. The accent wall at one end will be Sea Hawk and in a moment of madness, I add a fourth color. I will paint the opposite wall Mountain Stream. I have a whole short story going in this bathroom.

The moral is this: When a project looms large and threatens to confuse you, use your words.

Can you have too much fun?

2011-04-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

All you care about is having fun, my mother used to tell me. She pronounced the f word with exaggeration and distaste. It’s true, I enjoy a good time, but in a more literal sense than she imagined. Fun times have their element of entertainment and distraction but more than that, it’s the layers of satisfaction you can discover in a perfect moment.

What’s the most fun you had this weekend, I asked my husband while my own perfect moment played in my brain.

Four of us enter a beer joint carved out of a recycled warehouse. Full disclosure: it’s an organic brewing company in a trendy industrial setting that also houses bakeries and wine tasting rooms, but on a Monday afternoon only the locals hang out here.

Are these fishermen, wharf rats or seedy surfers swapping tales in salty language? We order ale and a couple of stouts, find ourselves a dark corner and settle in. Vic swings open a window and perches on the ledge, a graceful figure in relief against the sudden appearance of sun. She unpacks our sandwiches and we sip, munch and contemplate the action at the bar.

The topic of conversation is music. A young man in a black sweatshirt and cool boots holds forth on the musical themes of Beethoven that appear in his favorite rock tunes and how much fun it is to actually play Beethoven. The small group that gathers about him is enthralled. I lean over discreetly and say to my son, “Is this a University hangout?” He lifts one corner of his mouth.

Two young boys enter the bar and the people reconfigure, some moving to tables to give the boys room to belly up. They seat themselves and spread their homework out in front of them. The conversation turns to vocabulary lists and math problems. The barmaid tests their spelling and the university student explains an obscure number theory to the boys.

He did a good job, my husband says.

I think we are witnessing a new model for education that is very workable, I say, and we finish our brews, Warmed by the sun, the hops and the interaction we witnessed in... whatever that was... bar, pub, tasting room, classroom, we head out for more adventure.

This was fun.

The Easter Choir

2011-04-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

A choir blends more that voices. Up there is my lovely daughter-in-law, a spring daisy pompon in a field of flowers. Young faces group below her like a freshly planted border of pansies. The overhead lights bounce off their shiny knees and illuminate their upturned faces.

Above their heads a bouquet of people – some stand erect and still, like bearded iris, other sway like tall grass in the breeze of the music.

A chair is placed aside the risers to accommodate one senior singer. He is dressed all in brown, an early planting now fading in color and drooping in stance as he leans on a brown cane, but his face radiates with praise.

The choirmaster multitasks. He’s a master gardener keeping the raised bed of basses and tenors in harmony with the terrace of altos and row of sopranos. He pulls one and then another out to bless the Lord with a solo phrase of song, taking the microphone himself to join a trio in front. A hand rises in the air and keeps the beat for him when his attention is elsewhere.

From a seat near the front of the stage at the First Baptist Church in Watsonville I sing a joyful song too, appreciating the balance the worship band has achieved, allowing my eyes to rest on the guitar player, my son.

I know these people were plucked from their busy lives, pulled together hastily to form a choir for Easter. I also know that when God’s people gather to sing and play, angels sing and play with them. A choir blends generations, talents, even Heaven and earth for moment.

Belly Bombs

2011-04-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

After a week of taking care of the 5-year-old and the 7-year-old while their parents vacationed in Puerto Vallerta we celebrated with dinner at Anthony’s in Seattle – with them – in the expensive dining room upstairs because I wanted choice fish.

The kids were on their best behavior. The 5-year-old ordered fish and chips and ate his fish first. For dessert he polished off dolce la leche ice cream with caramel sauce. I had to talk him out of the espresso. The 7-year-old ordered a house salad and Ivars clam chowder. She finished with Seattle chocolate chip cherry ice cream. I helped.

As we gazed out over the sound -- wondering what a slip in the harbor goes for, counting the number of rude teenagers spitting ice cubes over the side rail (4 boys and 8 girls) and musing about the pedigree of the handsome dog being walked on the wharf by his master (a French bulldog, the 7-year-old thought) we speculated the source of success of our experiment – taking the children to an expensive restaurant before collecting their parents from the airport.

Granddaughter declared it was the “good behavior and excellent taste buds” they both exhibited that made the evening a success. She went so far as to extrapolate that good behavior and well developed taste buds were probably the secret of success in life.

She was primed for this experience by her discovery that the bathroom stalls at Anthony’s each have their own sinks. She was also impressed by the cocktail dress one of the young diners was wearing, and offered her a compliment as we passed to visit the bathroom (again). The compliment was well received.

A couple of nights later we were all eating dinner at their house. My daughter served brussel sprouts – belly bombs my husband calls them. He hates them. The children each asked for a brussel sprout. The 7-year-old sided with her dad and her papa by wrinkling her nose. The 5-year-old sided with his mom and his nana by chewing, swallowing, smacking and smiling.

The conversation turned to food tastes. “I bet you like ginger and licorice too, I said to him.”

“Yes!” he said. High fives.

“So, how would this sound to you?” I asked him. “A dark chocolate covered brussel sprout dipped in Brie cheese,

“Sprinked with sea salt,” his mother added.

“With caramel sauce!” He finished.

He totally gets us.

A Change of Scene

2011-04-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

Today I saw an old man jogging on a trail in the Northwest. Nothing unusual about that, except that he was juggling while he jogged. This struck me as the ultimate Alzheimer’s prevention exercise. It’s not a sight I would expect to see on the mountain trails in my home town.

Last month I saw a league of old men playing softball on a field in the Southwest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a gathering of healthy old men. Again, not a sight I’ve witnessed in my rural town in the California Sierra Nevadas. Perhaps the difference is that Bainbridge Island, WA and Surprise, AZ are urban spaces in natural landscapes.

Wikipedia characterizes an urban area by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to a rural setting. On Bainbridge Island I experience a cornucopia of characters, artists and entrepreneurs who weave themselves into the landscape and flower brightly. The desert suburbs of Phoenix fairly burst with the health and wealth set.

We return to our rural enclave next week only to venture out once more to the California Coast. There is nothing more beautiful than the Pacific Ocean lapping at the Northern California Coast. Craggy cliffs overlook stretches of sandy beaches I walk in mostly temperate weather while gazing out at fathomless horizons. The old men don’t stand out particularly. No one does, really. Like Paris, France and Los Gatos, CA it’s the dogs sporting age–indeterminate people who stand out.

I live in a place graced by golden hills and expansive valleys, wild rivers and sparkling lakes, snow-capped granite mountains and grassy meadows. It’s not very populated. Our human features are not all that vast.

We are rural. Our resources are limited. Mostly we live on fixed incomes, although some are fixed higher than others. Some live “off the grid,” with no income at all. Mostly we are aging, although school buses still disgorge short backpackers onto the roads every day around 2:30 pm. I vacillate between thanking God for the breathtaking beauty of our mountains and wishing for a wider array of human features.

A change of scene is welcome then. When a lone juggling jogger crosses my mindscape of rugged hikers, when I pass a grassy diamond full of exuberant gray-haired ball players, when my eyes follow a seagull sweeping low over the ocean water instead searching for the red tail hawk soaring high above the oaks and pines, I am caught by surprise, and it delights me.

Spontaneity

2011-04-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

In a recent Wall Street Journal book review, Alexandra Mullen noted that blogging uniquely captures “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” (Wordsworth). I guess I haven’t been feeling spontaneous lately, which is why halfway through April there are no blog titles listed for the month. My annoying sister pointed this out. Powerful feelings are just hard to conjure.

My daughter just emailed from Dreams Resort in Puerto Vallerta where she and her husband are celebrating their 10th anniversary:

Did water aerobics, played blackjack, learned card tricks, lounged by the pool, had a wonderful dinner on the ocean and now we're listening to a concert on the beach from our balcony.

We have moved into her house on overcast Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle for a week to ferry the grandkids to school, after school activities and birthday parties. Our other duties include:

Sorting fact from fiction

Her: Mommy lets me buy milk from school every day.

Me: How much money do you need for that?

Her: Three dollars.

Me: For a carton of milk? I don’t think so!

Finding homes for socks

Me: Whose socks are these?

Him: Not mine!

Her: Not mine!

Me: Okay, you – go put these in your brother’s drawer.

Her: Okay, they’re mine.

The list goes on.

I wish I was the kind of grandmother who cultivated grandmaternal feelings with an outpouring of spontaneity. You know, the kind that takes the kids out of school and whisks them off to Canada to introduce them to Haida Indian culture, sparking a lifelong interest in anthropology.

We did take granddaughter to see Chief Seattle’s grave in Susquamish. Then we wandered into a curio shop owned by the delightful Rainey Daze (Is that an Indian name? I think I might have known a Rainey Daze at Berkeley in the sixties). Rainey recommended the local pub for the best food, assuring us it was a safe place to take a seven year old on Sundays. Granddaughter wrinkled her nose and shook her head, declaring her preference for “American food, like pizza.”

What happened to your adventuresome spirit, I asked her. I think it ebbed after Rainey showed her the skinned lynx heads the Indian children used to push their hands into to keep them warm on their three hour walk to school in zero degree weather.

Like granddaughter, I’m feeling uninspired. No font of powerful feelings to report. I do feel a spark of pleasure, though when I hear granddaughter say, “this is a very fun puzzle,” in response to the challenging jigsaw we packed and brought to encourage the children to focus on something they can’t finish in a day. It’s time well spent to hear grandson say, “it’s very hard, but look! I did it!”

At the other end of my mother’s dining room table that now graces my daughter’s front room I’m watching the five and seven-year-old work on a large puzzle together. “You know, practice does make perfect,” she tells him. “I’m not very good at this,” he says, popping in another piece.

Truth Unplugged

2011-03-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

I’m in Bakersfield researching the setting for several scenes in The Sheepwalker. I have some rewriting to do.

In my minds’ eye, the twin sisters who have never met are reunited at the Noriega Hotel. I’ve imagined the scene where they encounter each other in a private room off the hotel lobby. In fact, the Noriega Hotel was never a hotel, it was a boarding house for men, mostly sheepherders, mostly Basques, until the 1930s when it became more profitable to run as a restaurant and bar. This May, the owners will travel to New York to collect a prize from the James Beard Foundation for their culinary art.

Enter the Noriega from Sumner Street down by the railroad tracks. The Union Pacific brought the sheepherders to town in the early 1900s. Come in through the bar (no lobby) around 6:30 pm. Most patrons will be locals. At 7 pm a waitress will seat you at a long table for a family style dinner.

Unlabeled bottles of red wine grace the table and a succession of serving dishes pass across – listen up or you won’t know that you are supposed to add the beans and sauce to the vegetable soup after you’ve ladled it into your bowl. In the spirit of “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” I offer this list of what came after the soup:

Pickled calves tongue (I’m sorry, it was delicious)
Beets

Cottage cheese
Blue cheese
Lettuce
Beef stew
Bread
Corn
Spaghetti and red sauce
French fries
Ribs and sauce
Ice cream

I enjoyed conversation with my tablemates – a Sacramento transplant who manufactures and serves ice cream at Rosemary’s on F Street and a lady bartender who left teaching to tend bar for 25 years because if you manage to stay off drugs, alcohol and cigarettes you can pay off your house serving drunks who act like first graders, something teaching actual first graders who act like drunks won’t allow. Then I took my glass of wine down to the end of the table to talk to the sheepherders.

Okay, kill the scene where the oil company is the bad guy. The oil company and the sheep men are symbiotic – sheep keep the grass cut, which makes it easier to get to the oil. The bad blood was between the shepherds and the cowboys. Well we knew that, didn’t we?

The problem with writing a novel is that you have to amp the action. For those of us who find life’s daily routine compelling enough, this is hard. And people like my new Peruvian friend are no help. The most talkative of the bunch wasn’t one of the French Basque brothers or the Basque from Spain who spoke no English, it was the retired shepherd from Peru. He came to the U.S. because he wanted to be a veterinarian. On an exchange program, he discovered he had ambition that far exceeded what he would ever be able to do in Peru. In America, the Basques had already figured out which sheep to cultivate for meat and which strains would produce the best wool. There was so much to learn.

“It’s a lonely life,” I probed.

“Oh no! “ he said. “There is so much to think about. You have time to read books. Figuring out how you will feed and bathe yourself, how you will get exercise and stay healthy keeps you very busy. On my two week vacation, I went to night school to learn English.”

Would it surprise you if I told you he has four grown children who will never herd sheep? They are all professionals.

As I was leaving, the French Basque told me about the time the water truck came up to water the sheep he was tending.

“I stripped naked and threw myself under the stream of water to bathe before the sheep had a chance to drink,” he chuckled.

I think I can probably do something with that.

Zoo-awe-lo-gy

2011-03-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

When I saw the world through a child’s eyes monkeys in the zoo performed hilarious antics, tigers paced their cages with the thrill of the hunt in muscle memory, and lions lazed on warm rocks, allowing children to admire jungle royalty at a safe distance. We took for granted that wild animals were caged for our benefit, to develop our curiosity about the world and foster our appreciation of nature. The world was a big place.

Today the world is smaller, and the zoo serves a larger purpose. I reflected on this at the privately owned and operated Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium in Litchfield Park, Arizona.

South America is too small now to accommodate the Andean Condor, who has the largest wingspan of any land bird. Today this solitary bird spreads his wings in a mesh net enclosure.

An appetite for bushmeat in the Congo has sentenced an entire species of monkeys to life behind zoo bars. They will never return to the wild. If they are to be preserved, it will be in captivity.

Nothing inspires awe so much as God’s handiwork in the animal kingdom. What a fashion show – bold designs sported by big game in Africa are recycled in intricate detail on small fish that dart about in the Caribbean waters.

Every form of human behavior can be observed in animals – the ADHD otters constantly in motion, the parrot couple carping at each other – he talks incessantly in her ear, she lifts her wing to distract him, he smoothes her feathers, then gives her a rude bite on the foot. Her squawks are unintelligible, but his are discernable. He articulates a litany of English words. He is an abandoned pet.

The popular animals are the mutants – an albino alligator so white he glows eerily in his dimly lit indoor swamp, an albino boa conscripted into the animal show to demonstrate reptile habits – the freak show in the circus.

A hymn set to an English melody is a proper tribute to the animals who find sanctuary in the world’s zoos, and to their keepers who tend to them with respect.

All things bright and beautiful
all creatures great and small
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

With all due respect for the human need for space, food and fuel, let’s sustain as many of these marvelous creatures as we possibly can.

A Desert Meditation

2011-03-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

A Desert Meditation took first place this week in the FaithWriters weekly word challenge, advanced category.

Early mornings in the Sonoran Desert

eternity teases you off the treadmill of time

draws you up into the stillness of a moment.

Hold a pose then, like the Saguaro Cactus –

spiney arms goal posted to frame the sky

prickly limbs pointing – There! See?

shoulders holding a perfect port de bras of praise

so gather eternity inside you like water

feel it transpire from ramified roots

to cool and nourish the thirst in your soul.

While time hangs a misty veil over the valley

and eternity beckons you to the desert edge

walk the White Tank Mountain trail

stand where water pooled in the rocks

to sustain the Hohokam

let the Word petroglyphed on your heart

give mute testimony to the One who

walked this earth before time.

Like the Saguaro Cactus

know that your roots in this world are shallow

let your reservoirs tap Living Water

Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Too Much of a Good Thing

2011-03-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, we joined the caravan of sun worshippers leaving the snow capped mountains for the desert valleys. Today I’m warming up in Arizona, watching two cottontail bunnies build a nest out back under the watchful eye of a mourning dove.

Daddy bunny appears to be helping, but I suspect his motives. “C’mon babe, the nest is perfect. Let’s make some babies!” His honey must be an interior decorator bunny; she’s choosing straw for softness and fragrance, and she’s picky.

In a bit, I’ll walk four minutes to the fitness center and choose among a number of exotic classes – Zumba, Muscle Works, PowerUp Abs, Aqua Aerobics in the indoor infinity pool. After that, Joel will go to a Cactus League baseball game with the gang and I will settle down and write.

It is Week 10 of Stanford University’s online writing class, Gripping Plots, and young Seth has hit his stride. In addition to critiquing two of my classmates’ work, I have this blog to write, questions to answer on the forum and progress to make on my novel, but it’s all good.

I’m learning to be a more careful and critical reader – to post encouraging and helpful comments on my fellow writer’s work that go beyond, “I liked your story”. I labor to add value, like “Bob’s facial tics were a brilliant way of showing us he’s a nervous guy, but he went out for a smoke on page three and never came back. What’s up with that?”

I’m discovering my own lapses: “You didn’t get that Henry is Dee’s husband who died in Korea, not the father she never knew?” I better fix that.

I’ve work shopped the first few chapters of the Sheepwalker and gotten useful critique and encouraging response.

From Elisa, “There is a slow beauty that comes through in the lyricism of your writing.” I hope when she gets famous she’ll do a blurb on my book jacket.

From Terry, “It’s got secrets, romance, exotic and colorful places, generational issues and a very satisfying ending.” I’d want to read that book, wouldn’t you?

From Seth, a call for more clarity and better management of the information flow. So, I have my work cut out for me.

Revising the first draft of a novel is like putting together a 5,000 piece puzzle. Some of the pieces that appeared to fit where you first placed them actually don’t. You have to pull them out and refit them, and then more pieces will fall into place. Or you may determine they don’t belong in this puzzle at all and set them aside.

Perhaps the most fun I’ve had in the last ten weeks, besides getting to know some talented writers, is learning to kill adverbs. I may offer a contest when I send out review copies of my book: find an adverb, get a free autographed copy of the first edition. Adverbs seem to proliferate, like bunnies.

MIM

2011-03-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

When in Phoenix, don’t miss the new Musical Instrument Museum. Worth noting:

Open just 10 months, the museum first twinkled in the eye of Robert Ulrich, founder of Target. “No one has ever done a museum devoted to the instruments and music of every country in the world,” the purveyor of cheap chic said in a New York Times interview in 2008.
You will need two visits to fully appreciate the contents of this museum that sprawls across the Phoenix desert. Visit the café for lunch. It features locally grown Arizona foodstuffs that taste as good as described on the whiteboard. For someone who felt like she’d been crawling in the desert for days looking for interesting food, this was worth the price of admission.

Music is the language of the soul, the expression of what we see and feel. MIM sets itself the task of showing how music is the thread that pulls through every tribe and nation, uniting us globally. Enter each music room and rest your eyes on instruments created from whatever clay is available – cedars of Lebanon or a Castrol oil can. Watch performance videos as you move from Greece to Turkey to Belarus and listen through the earphones MIM supplies – all timed to accommodate a carefully researched (I’m sure) attention span. For fun, take your eyes off the displays, remove your earphones and observe the people in the room. They all smile in wonder, delight or reverence, bop their toes and bob their heads like chickens to whatever beat they hear, sing along when they catch a familiar tune, unaware their voices join with others who are doing the same.

Music is entertainment and communication, ritual and rite – and right. In some cultures, only the anointed may play certain instruments or tunes. In some countries, only men may perform music. This breaks my heart.

Random thoughts:

Young musician from Belarus perform in other countries because of restrictions in their own. They are credited with bringing a new sound to the world stage, but their music sounds oddly Irish. I think there is a Masters’ thesis or doctoral dissertation somewhere in this observation.

You can fashion a bagpipe out of anything, including a cow and a dog. I’m thinking Stephen King could have a lot of fun with this idea.

Variety Show

2011-03-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

The black oak in our yard pulled up roots in the last storm and threw itself across the back forty. The birds that hoteled in that tree will have to find new digs. Shortly after its demise, we also uprooted ourselves and headed to Arizona for respite – or maybe in spite of my superior attitude toward snowbirds. What? Not tough enough to last the winter in the place you’ve chosen to live? That’s why we live in California. Now, we also have flown the coop after a particularly gruesome start to winter.

A lot of my attitudes are being challenged here in the sunny Southwest. I’ll just say it. We are holed up in a Sun City, something else I thought I would never do. Don’t people go to Sun City to die? I guess not, because everyone here looks amazing! They zip around with a sense of purpose, on foot, on bicycles, or in cute little open air contraptions that look like golf carts on steroids.

I took an aqua aerobics class today in an infinity pool the size of Canada. No class for sissies, I punched and kicked and lunged and almost passed out with exertion. Yup, I’ve traded the oaks and pines for saguaro cactus, but mostly I’ve sold out for the amenities. This place has a fitness complex the size of our small town back in California, and it’s a 10 minute walk from our rented house on even pavement. It’s been over a week since I’ve had to dodge a deer on icy streets in the car. The only wildlife I’ve spotted here has been a cottontail bunny, and it dodged me.

I can’t get over how healthy and happy everyone here looks. Of course, I brought my bad habits with me. One hour in the pool does not a reformed exercise slacker make. I still spend hours at my computer writing, but at least I can step outside my door – without a sweater – and go stretch, flex and tone something. I can go with the flow yoga day or night, or tai chi, chi gong or zumba my way back to bliss.

I’m sure all that sunshine will get boring and I’ll be happy to head back to the land of leafy oaks and needled pines that filter the sun, host bird choirs, and shelter fox, deer, and the occasional black bear. Life is a variety show. I’m glad I have a ticket.

The Palm of Madagascar

2011-03-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

The Palm of Madagascar won first place in the FaithWriters weekly writing challenge. I get to move up a level --a writer high akin to playing video games.

Once in every hundred years
a Madagascar palm tree blooms
the sweetness of its flower spears
toward heaven and as quickly dooms
the nascent blossom full of life
dazzling in the summer sun
to lose its strength in deathly strife
and so its days on earth are done.

Just so are we allotted time
in which our bloom is but a flash
illuminating skies sublime
then cooling in a bed of ash.
In days of old were men endowed
with children over centuries
and yet it seems time disallowed
their progeny their God to please.

Though man may age ten times tenfold
Or seventy times seven years
It matters not how young or old
man’s worth exceeds his greatest fears
if love is borne like tiny seed
to nourish life afar and wide
the gift is in the loving deed
the wounded hands and feet and side.

By this we know that we abide.

1 John 4:12 & 13

Can I help?

2011-02-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

“Can I help?” the young man with the intense stare said. Usually one or two of the people who come to our food closet pull us aside and say they want to help. Some appoint themselves a task, sweeping the walkway after all the pet food has been given away or refreshing the snack trays we put out for those who wait for their number to be called so they can go collect their grocery bags.

The men want to go downstairs and do the heavy lifting – bag the groceries, load the bags into the cars. They want to feel useful. When we can we make room but more often we say, “We actually have so many volunteers that we had to send some home today.”

It’s a good thing that so many people in our community feel compassion for those who go hungry. We use our talents to organize and staff an enterprise that distributes food and a chance for people to visit with each other. We don’t make much room, though, for these folks to join us in useful work.

Sometimes they make suggestions on our process, and sometimes their suggestions are good ones.

The young man with the intense asks why we don’t recycle.

“We have no staff to deal with the bins.”

“Why don’t we let the guy who collects cans for money be responsible for taking away our recycled bottles and cans?”

There’s a good idea.

Work is a sacred activity. When people are deprived of work – by economic downturns or by personal circumstances that prevent them from holding a job, their spirits are as depleted as their empty stomachs.

“I thought about getting here early because I knew someone would need to shovel the snow away so people could get here,” the young man said. “But I had to wait for a ride. When I got here, it had already been done.”

Those of us who are blessed with health and brimming with ideas need to stand aside sometimes to make room for others. They will have ideas of their own, and different ways of doing things that we may not like. But we will all be blessed in the give and take.

The 7 Laws of Money

2011-02-16T21:08:00.000-08:00

Natalie sat up in bed at 5 a.m. on Monday and looked over at her sleeping husband. She reached for her book light and her morning devotional. Forty-five minutes later, Greg rolled out of bed and headed to the kitchen to start the coffee. Natalie pulled her laptop across her knees and switched it on. She opened her email and clicked on a message from an attorney informing her that that her Aunt Maggie had passed away and left her a sizeable sum of money.

Greg came back to bed with two mugs of coffee and handed her one. “Honey, I must have done something right!” Natalie hopped out of bed and danced around the room. “This is what I’ve worked for all my life! Now I have enough money to go to Europe for the opera audition season.”

“Don’t count your chickens, Greg said. “You don’t have a check yet.”

By Tuesday, the chickens had come home to roost. Natalie had a Publisher’s Clearing House moment when she opened her door and signed for a FedEx package with an unreadable return address. As she tore it open, Greg said, “Did you even know you had an Aunt Maggie?”

Natalie pulled a sheaf of papers out of the cardboard mailer. Rummaging inside, she came up empty handed. ‘There’s no check here, only instructions. The attorney wants to me send him information about my bank so he can deposit the check electronically. He’s asking for passwords and pin numbers.”

“Is Aunt Maggie’s attorney possibly from Nigeria?” Greg asked.

On Wednesday, Natalie stayed in bed until noon. She was thoroughly depressed. She had set her heart on finally attaining her goal – enough money to live in Europe for a year. She had fantasized for so long about writing checks with no thought to taxing her bank account. She would rent an apartment in Paris, take voice lessons from the masters, shop for haute couture fashions befitting a diva, and enjoy all the accoutrements that enabled the life of a rising opera star.

By Thursday life had become a nightmare. “Did you tell anyone you inherited a fortune?” Greg asked her after the mailman piled several boxes of mail on the front porch. All the boxes contained cards and letters pleading for money. “I might have said something in a tweet,” Natalie said, pulling the covers over her head. She had disconnected the phone and stayed in bed all day. “I didn’t know having money was so hard to handle.”

At 7 am Friday a chastened Natalie woke up and told Greg she realized she had set the wrong goals for herself. “I’ve been acting as if that money would make a difference between whether I have a career in opera or not.” She vowed that if by some miracle she did receive a check, she would give the money away. That afternoon, she received a check in the mail for $500,000. True to her word, she sat down and began to draw up her philanthropic plan. It wasn’t long before she realized that giving away money was a career in itself.

Early Saturday morning the attorney called to remind her that if she cashed the check, she was agreeing to the terms. What terms? Natalie wanted to know. Didn’t you read the sheaf of papers I sent you? said the attorney. Your aunt specified that if you accept the money, you must join the Libertarian party, become a Scientologist and move to Nova Scotia. Natalie tore up the check.

On Sunday Natalie stayed after church to rehearse for evening Vespers. Her voice teacher pulled her aside after rehearsal and asked her if her phone was out of service. “I’ve been trying to reach you all week,” Elizabeth Schiller told Natalie, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “You’ve won Operalia, the World Opera Competition. You are going to Europe for a year, and you won’t need a dime.”

Rewriting History

2011-02-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

“I willingly turn off my brain to get through the racism and sexism on every other page,” Bruce Holland Rogers writes in defense of his love of Tarzan pulp novels. For the sake of a good story, I’m willing to do that too. When the sex strays into gratuity in film or when a hero spits out a racial slur in a novel I note it briefly and edit it out. At question is whether I want someone else to assume this task for me, or for school children. I do not.

The most present controversy is whether Mark Twain’s newly released journals should be banned from public schools or rewritten to remove the offending racial slurs. The terms in question are offensive in our day and they were demeaning in his day, but culturally acceptable at the time he wrote.

Eliminating the offense by banning the book or rewriting a treasure has two effects: We lose a teaching moment and children lose the opportunity to develop a critical thinking skill. Could we not present such writing in the context of history and then have a lively discussion of how things have progressed? Could we not go deeper – what words do we use today that we may be judged on in the future?

Stories laden with language that offends universally go out of print if they have nothing else to recommend them. Stories with raw language and gripping plots stick around. I’ve developed my own fine line of how much profanity I will tolerate for the sake of a good story. I’ve also developed an appreciation for the role of the profane in literature.

I recently posted a devotion titled “Season of the Witch” on FaithWriters.com. I was exploring the concept of the witch as an archetype rather than a literal being. Some reviewers felt I was treading on dangerous ground (with them, I was). Others were inspired by my suggestion that many of us experience a witching hour or season that can lead to useful self-examination.

A last thought. I watched Sonora’s Stage 3 production of Big River. The director made a creative decision to leave the n-word in play. It was a powerful account of the dignity of a demeaned slave. It made everyone uncomfortable to watch the effects of both intentional and thoughtless hurtful speech. (I felt deeply for the actors who had to deliver and receive such offensive lines.) I think the director made a good decision; up to you whether you bought a ticket or not. I highly doubt any of the young people in the audience walked out feeling they were now in possession of a new word that enriched their vocabulary.

Have your people call my people

2011-02-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

Have your people call my people. That toss off phrase reminds me of a little boy in a café we happened onto in our travels. I was standing at the cashier’s counter looking out the window at a man working in a field when the proprietor’s son noticed my idle gaze, pointed to the man and said, “That’s our person.” Captivated by the thought, I turned to Joel and said, “I want one!”

Now, I don’t want to own people. I don’t even want to manage people. I want staff. Maybe that’s why I so thoroughly enjoyed Masterpiece Theatre’s recent offering, Downton Abbey, which featured a “family enduring for generations and its staff, a well-oiled machine of propriety”. I figure a well-oiled machine should be able to manage itself. The Earl of Downton Abbey put good people in place and let them run things. I could do that. Here is what I think I need:

Technical staff – my techweenies; at a minimum I need a personal photographer to snap and post my photos, a webmaster to keep my social networks up to date and a scribe to record points in my weightwatchers tracker system – that is a time consuming!

House maintenance staff – over and above the garden and housekeeping chores, I really could use the services of a plasterer, painter, rough and finish carpenter and handyman with plumbing and wiring skills on a pretty regular basis.

Personal maintenance staff – here is where the serious overhead occurs. I’m thinking a dietician, a chef, a fitness trainer, a shopper and a dresser who will not let me leave the house thinking my midnight blue jeans are really black and pairing them with the wrong socks and shoes.

Design staff – a personal interior decorator to advise me on what shade of purple I should use on the accent wall in the bathroom I’m redecorating. It is so easy to make a mistake.

Business staff – in addition to the obvious, the finance manager and the bookkeeper, I would like some clones and drones – people who can stand in for me at meetings when I double-book myself and do volunteer work when I over commit.

I know what you are thinking. I haven’t addressed the expense of maintaining such a staff. Watch enough Masterpiece Theatre and you know that the great houses crumbled under the expense of such maintenance. That’s the oil required to keep the machine running. I’m just going to have to depend on the salesman at Orchard Supply Hardware to help me choose the right shade of purple.

Life

2011-02-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

There was a time when she could see the shore from her boat. She spent long lazy days bobbing off the coast. Sometimes she practiced maneuvering her craft; sometimes she lay on the floor boards and watched a cinema of clouds play in the sky. She hardly noticed when her boat caught a drift and pulled her away from the shore.

As the shore receded from view, she used the skills she had practiced to keep her boat steady. At first, she kept an eye on the distant shore, but soon she learned other ways to navigate. The sun and the moon helped her stay on course, although what path in these waters she followed she couldn’t say. Each morning, other vessels appeared on the horizon and it seemed good to her to set her compass in their direction.

She found she was happiest in the society of other vessels. In the vast stretch of water, she would tie her boat up with others and they would drift together for a time. Self-proclaimed captains, they would tell each other stories that encouraged, dismayed, intrigued, delighted and terrified. In time, it seemed prudent to travel in flotillas.

She didn’t pay as much attention to the heavens now. There was too much work to do: maintaining the boats, fishing, bringing new arrivals up to speed on how to navigate the changing seasons. Then, just as she had slipped away from the shore so many years ago, she found herself unmoored and alone in her boat.

The sea was a wall behind her, obstructing her view of where she had been. She couldn’t see above the chop of water ahead of her. Above her, the sky was dark. Starlight reflected a weak Illumination on the black water that surrounded her. She no longer felt in control of her boat. The skills she’d honed over the years were gone and there was nothing for it but to keep her balance as best she could. She focused on trying to stay in the boat.

After her little boat broke apart in the ocean, before she began a new journey, words formed from the deep and roared in a whisper in her ear. Well done.

Psalm 77:19 KJV Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.

The Olive Branch

2011-01-30T14:08:00.000-08:00

I picked for my devotions this year to spend “A Year with C.S. Lewis” and

“Morning and Evening” with Charles Spurgeon. It’s proving to be a good choice.

Spurgeon wrote an entry about the dove that brought an olive branch back to the ark. He called the olive branch “the memorial of the past day, and a prophecy of the future.”

In the instance of the olive branch, the dove returned to Noah a souvenir of its day. Just as we shop carefully on our travels for a memento to bring back to a friend to give her a sense of what we have experienced, so the olive branch recalled an encounter that pleased the dove. The branch represented firm ground and life-giving bounty to the hand that reached out from the sea-tossed vessel to receive it.

Spurgeon challenges his readers to bring home pleasing records that pledge loving kindness. He suggests that we present to our Lord grateful acknowledgements of tender mercies which we experience as new every morning and fresh every evening.

What a lovely thought. I will look for the olive branches in each day that remind me that God loves and cares for me, memorials that testify to His Presence and His promise to sustain me. Like the dove, I will bring my daily souvenirs before my Lord. We will admire them together.

RIP Ford Taurus

2011-01-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my five-year-old Ford Taurus gave up its engine on the road to Sonora. Just as we passed Sierra Motors in Jamestown, Joel remarked as how he’d heard that was a great place to buy a car. I relaxed into idle conversation and commented on how well our Taurus was running now. The alarming smell of engine oil that sent us to the auto repair shop last week seemed to be gone. The moment I said that, the oil pressure light came on, something clunked under my feet and the car expired half a mile passed the dealership.

We had it towed to AutoTech where it received last rites. A couple of quick calls on a dying cell phone located a friend in the checkout counter at Safeway who came and collected us and all the worldly goods that had collected in the crevices of my young car. I was surprised to find I owned so many flashlights and that they’d all found a home in the car.

We shed no tears for the untimely death of my Taurus. It’s just a car. Still, the thought of abandoning her in a parking lot, a perfect body with an engine that just stopped turning makes me sad. Soon, a wrecker will come for her and dump her where vultures will rip parts from her body. Maybe it would be more comforting to think of her as an organ donor, giving new life to other cars with failing parts.

She was only five years old! Something gave out inside her engine. It’s rare the mechanic said, but it happens. It’s just bad luck.

Last night, we went to Sierra Motors and ordered a 2011 Buick Regal; white, like my little Taurus, but with upgrades -- cashmere colored leather seats, a sun roof and a navigation system. We’ll get to take her home next week.

Mammogram

2011-01-23T17:41:00.000-08:00

No amount of tying and retying the short strings on the smock would hold the fabric across my naked breasts, so I finally gave up, held the garment in place by anchoring my elbows to my sides and reached for a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing. The perky radiologist came around the corner with my chart and said,

“What are you reading?” I held up the book for her to see. That instantly exposed my left breast but she was more interested in the book.

“Are you a writer?

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

In the room, I dropped the smock to my waist. We are both women, but she said,

“Oh no,” and pulled the smock over my right shoulder, leaving my left breast in line as the first candidate. She lifted it and plopped it down like meat on a tray. Then she threw a lever, flattened it and said,

“I just read the best book! Hold your breath now.”

Breathlessly, I waited for the synopsis.

“The Red Leather Diary, have you read it? You can breathe now.”

“I haven’t,” I exhaled. She adjusted her equipment, put my right one in a sidewise vise-like grip and retreated.

“A New York columnist lives in an apartment building. Hold your breath. One of the apartments is being renovated. The contents of the apartment have been thrown in a dumpster. She’s curious to see what got thrown away. She goes through the dumpster and finds a red leather diary and reads it. The woman who wrote the diary lived in the 1930s. She wrote about her life and it was so fascinating the author, I forget her name, wrote a book about it. You can breathe now.”

“Was it a good book?” I ask, gasping for air. She repeats the drill for my left breast.

“I didn’t want the book to end. That’s how much I liked it.”

My right breast is now sandwiched between sheets of plexiglass. She seems to be applying more pressure to this side. I focus on the music that is playing in the room. It’s not your usual massage room ocean-waves-lapping-the-shore soundtrack. This sounds like the music wafting through the lobby of an upscale resort hotel in the tropics.

“Gee, I feel like when I’m done here, I should go get a margarita,” I said.

“Good idea!” she said. “You’re done.”

I like this woman.

Witchy woman

2011-01-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

There are occult, sports and finance definitions for the witching hours, but normal people don’t need Wikipedia to define the witching hour for them. It’s the period of time between 3 and 4 am when you lie wide awake, wishing for sleep.

It's also that period of time between 3 and 4 pm when the kids or experience a drop in blood sugar levels that brings out their inner nasty ogre. They flail, they whine, they really do appear to be possessed. It’s the time you abandon your diet and reach for every evil thing you can stuff in your mouth.

Donovan wrote a song about the witching season. The lyrics are part of my brain DNA, yet their meaning escapes me. When I’m perplexed about something – like why I’m awake at 3 am or who turned these kids into Godzilla – I get a brain buzz:

You’ve got to pick up every stitch.

Mmm, must be the season of the witch

I’m a knitter. I know that if I drop a stitch, the whole piece of work unravels. If I miss something in whatever mystery I’m trying to solve, I will never see the truth.

A witch is classically defined as an ugly hag with malignant, supernatural powers; alternatively she is an attractive woman with allure. As an archetype, her truth has two sides, evil and benign.

Judeo-Christian tradition condemns the practice of witchcraft, most often referred to as sorcery and most specifically focused on the sin of idolatry. Do I have “seasons of the witch?” Oh yes.

As sure as the seasons come and go, I will vacillate between that which merely distracts and that which has the power to undo me. Exodus 22:18 cautions us not to suffer a witch to live. When things go wrong, rather than employing this verse to justify whatever witch hunt is de rigueur stop and count your stitches. Maybe while you are lying awake at 3 am.

What have you let slide that is affecting the shape of things? What have you picked up that you should have left alone? Are there holes in what you’re doing? Unevenness an extra stitch may have caused? Pick up the spiritual practice you dropped. Drop the unnecessary activity that threatens your perfect design.

About the baby Godzillas, I haven’t a clue. And, what possessed me to put a brownie in my mouth after I’d been good all day? Must be the season of the witch.

This old house

2011-01-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

My mother’s house is on the market. It was our family home for over 60 years, but I think of it as my mother’s house. She designed it to suit her needs. Sinks and counters were scaled to her tiny frame. It worked for me. Not so well for my father and my sister.

Her house was her refuge, protected all around by ten-foot fencing. The fence prevented automobile lights from shining in the windows of a house set into a cul-de-sac. It also discouraged human traffic. That’s why it was there.

A small house on a large lot, my mother found sanctuary in her backyard among the raised vegetable beds. There, the Early Girls, rainbow chard, lemon cucumbers and a bountiful cornucopia of their sisters slept and grew and came to our table.

She watered the birds and fed the squirrels until they got too rude. She disdained automatic sprinklers. For as long as I can remember, she was always moving a hose. She knew what wanted weekly deep watering and what required daily sprinkling. To her, watering was a meditation. To me, it was a chore.

Her main occupation was collecting recipes. She filled 60 binders with recipes – good ones. I threw them all away. I’m not proud of that. Binders rot and recipes, even the old ones, are all online. But I now I realize it was a life’s work. One of those occupations you can’t take with you.

Once in awhile, I open a book that belonged to her and a piece of memo paper drops out with a recipe copied on it in her beautiful handwriting. I wonder what this meant to her. She had beautiful serving dishes suited to every type of cuisine, but she and my father rarely entertained.

I think the beginning of the end was when my father could no longer help her in the kitchen. Meal preparation and enjoyment was their private worship.

Most of the fence has come down. The Japanese maple yanked from its place in antiquity; the dogwood tree leveled in favor of grass and bark; only the gardenia and camellia bushes survived the facelift.

I pray whoever buys my mother’s house will find sanctuary of their own sort.

Clothes Story

2011-01-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

I walked into my closet and announced to my clothes,

“I’m going to Arizona for a month!”

The fleece vests immediately got in a huddle and muttered,

“She’s not taking us.”

The church clothes hung proudly on their hangers and said,

“She’ll still go to church. She’ll take us.”

The sundress contingent peeked out from where they’d been shoved back behind the church clothes and laughed,

“I don’t think so.”

Then they flaunted their airy skirts and sleeveless construction. The lovely sweaters slumped in the corner.

“We’ve hardly been worn. It’s just now turning cold. We’ve so looked forward to a trip to the mall to see the new styles. Why would she want to go to Arizona in the winter? Now we’ll never get worn.”

The clam diggers slid looks at the short sleeved tees and smirked,

“We’re goin’ to Ar – uh – zo – na.”

The tees sang,

“We’re going too,” and they began to pair up.

The sandals rattled in their boxes high on the shelf, but the underwear remained quiet in the drawer,

“We never get a break. What difference does it make to us whether it’s the snowy mountains or the sunny southwest? We never see daylight!”

"Don’t get too excited,” I said. “I’m not going until March.”

They all relaxed, except for the designer jeans, whose bid for attention is constant.

January Snow

2011-01-05T05:50:00.000-08:00

A fresh snow in January spreads like hope for the new year. Like a new resolution, it allows the eye to skip over distractions buried beneath – the rotting leaves of past seasons, the new buds of the season to come. They are there, like the seeds of weeds that will plague us in springtime, but we don’t see them in January when it snows.

For a time, vision cross country skis in exhilarating rhythm over paths we don’t normally trod. January is a time to abandon ruts, set our feet on new tracks and just go! Buried below our feet may be a pavement edge engineered to warn us away from a meadow, but just now we are free to wander.

Time and space expand at the beginning of a new year that has clothed itself in a thick, glistening robe and swept its train across the landscape. January is a blessedly long month in which to recover from December’s revelry. Soon enough, muddy holes will burn their way through the fabric of our winter, presenting obstacles to our best intentions.

Now, rest.

20Leaven

2011-01-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

Twenty eleven sounds kinda clunky. Nineteen eleven has a lovely illiteration. You don’t mind letting those five syllables linger on your tongue. Same with twenty twelve – three strong syllables that chime like a bell. But twenty eleven? That’s a slog; precisely what we hope 2011 won’t be.

I propose we shorten the pronunciation to twenty’leven, or a more thought provoking 20leaven. The action of leaven lightens and softens a finished product and gives good things the ability to rise and increase in volume.

As we reflect on 2010, a year of struggle, what have we learned that we can use as leaven in 2011? Hard times can be incubators for new ideas. Adjusting to “new normals” gives us our ideas time to ferment and produce in a good year.

What in your life could profit from a little leaven? Is 2011 the year you rise to an occasion or a challenge, increase your giving, reach or influence, lighten your hold on something, soften your attitude toward someone?

May 2011 produce good things in you.

Invasion

2010-12-31T17:06:00.000-08:00

General Petraeus tried to Skype me. I’m not kidding. Perhaps he needed my advice on exit strategies. As I don’t trust myself with the nation’s peace plan, I blocked him from ever contacting me again.

I now get regular updates on what fast food establishment provides nutrition to my husband’s cousin in Arkansas. I fully expect reports on what she ordered and how much she left on her plate in the new Facebook rev, that should be happening in, say, the next two minutes.

Facebook commandeered information from my profile and now Bob Dylan is my pal.

My favorite TV programs ping me regularly with mundane chat about things like what Alicia is going to wear to court next week. (It got about 30,000 thumbs up. That many people care? I hope they aren’t on the General’s contact list.)

We were very patient during the elections with the dinnertime phone calls from Mike Huckabee and Ronald Reagan Jr. (Who calls my liberal friends, I wonder.) I was even a bit intrigued bya live town hall meeting that left a recording on my telephone answering machine. How else would this misplaced city girl ever hear about the irrigation woes of my central valley farmer neighbors? And how interesting that Meg and Carly knew so much about what the farmers were talking about.

The latest is that my son sent me a recording he made; I clicked on it and it played in iTunes and then iTunes invited me to ping – follow my son’s recordings, I assumed. But no; I clicked on ping and got invited to connect to the music loving universe. Scared that I might spend the rest of my days with soundtrack accompaniment not of my choosing, I shut down my computer.

I wonder, where will all this go in 2011? I love being connected. I hate being invaded. I think there is a good Pixar animation movie in here somewhere.

Resolution? Not!

2010-12-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

My sister, who should learn how to leave a comment or get her own blog, sent me an email response to my posting on resolutions that is too good not to share:

New Year Resolutions? Made to be broken.

List of Goals? Perhaps; most of us are fairly goal oriented and probably have a few to do lists hanging around anyway.
List of last year’s accomplishments? Oh my, no, that sounds prideful.

As Christians, we are quite adept at listing our shortcomings and failings. But how often do we list our accomplishments? and even, heaven forbid, share them with others? And yet, James reminds us that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights… .” Accomplishments in my life are certainly good and perfect gifts. And, lest you think I have taken this phrase out of context, the chapter begins with a discussion on the result of perseverance: “…let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” That sounds like a pretty good definition of “accomplishment” to me.

So this New Year’s Day I’m going to make a list of my accomplishments from 2010. I might even share my list with someone. And just so I don’t stray too far out of bounds, perhaps I will make a list of what I would like to accomplish in 2011.

My list of accomplishments from 2010:

Established the habit of daily scripture reading
Learned more about effective prayer
Made some headway towards not complaining as much
Continued to maintain healthier weight and good diet
Walked 3-4 times a week

Be it resolved

2010-12-26T19:57:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. It always surprises me how many people pale, throw their hands up in front of their faces in self defense and back away when I ask, “What is your New Year’s resolution?” I think that’s because they hear a different question: ‘What have you purposed in your heart that you know the minute you verbalize will come to nothing?”

I can’t help myself. Just like people who have SAD, a seasonal affective disorder that depresses the spirit when the sun takes a hike, I have SID, a seasonal intention disorder that compels me to set quarterly and annual goals. Over the years, I’ve found ways to frame these resolutions in ways that produce life change instead of persistent defeat.

Choose a mantra

Choosing words to live by for a year can help you focus on areas in which you’d like to grow. They are easy to remember. You can use them to decide which life adventures to pursue and what might need purging. Here are some examples:

Compassion, charity, courage, clarity

Simplify, purify, magnify

Rest, refresh, renew

Face a fear

One year my job went south. I was still employed, but I had nothing to do. Believe it or not, collecting a paycheck for doing nothing is stressful. That’s because the organization will either find a place for you in the new normal, or at the end of the day you will be unemployed, but there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome. So I decided to do something scarier than hanging out in limbo. I took lessons to learn how to land an airplane and landed the Piper at San Jose International. You can’t think about anything else when you are setting up for a landing in a plane you don’t know very much about. Now, every year, I look for a big scary challenge.

Give it a year

Years ago, I got tired of beating myself up for all the ways I fell short. I decided to take one year off guilt. I told myself that if it didn’t work (if I began to sink into an abyss of self-indulgence), at the end of the year I would reinstall the guilt program. That was the year I learned how to say “no.” (No, I’m not good at that. No, I don’t’ want to do that. Thanks for asking, but no.) I was a freer, happier person at the end of that year.

Establish a habit

Will Power is a character with poor motivational skills. He’s a task master who exhausts easily, a parent who yells and then leaves the child alone in a room with temptation. Any resolution needs a plan to establish a new habit that supports a new behavior. Are you thinking that 4 p.m. glass of wine to settle your nerves is only making you too sleepy to cook a healthy dinner? Will Power can scream “don’t do that anymore,” all he wants in your face, but facing Will just makes you feel you actually need two glasses of wine to get through the witching hour. Maybe make it a habit to have a refreshing assortment of teas and a special tea cup or mug available. Find a favorite corner and stash some short reads there, or your iPod dock or your Sudoku book. I made an investment in a fuzzy bear footstool with real lamb’s wool. The minute I put my feet up on Griffin, I relax. It’s getting to be a habit.

Shopping Blues

2010-12-21T22:47:00.000-08:00

Our 87-year-old mother was quite the shopper in her day. It wasn’t very long ago that I wore out in the mall before she did. She lives in a small town in the Ozarks; a highlight of her yearly visits to us used to be the opportunity to refresh her wardrobe. No more.

In Arkansas, a lady dresses for church. She reluctantly adopted the polyester pant suit when dresses went out of style but she’s not descending down that slippery slope any further. Complicating the situation is the fact that she wears a size 6 petite and eschews dark colors.

Admittedly, we live in a shopping deprived region. We walked into the petite section of Kohl’s in Sonora and she announced, I’m looking for a pant suit or a dress. I literally threw my hands in the air and said, “you won’t find that anywhere is California.” Two days later, we took her to the mall in Pleasanton. By then, she had narrowed her hunt to ‘a dress.’ Unless you are going to a cocktail party or a prom, you will not find a dress in any store I know of.

Fellow shoppers, sensing my frustration, offered advice. “She wants a ‘frock,’ said a sympathetic Indian woman. Of course she does. Sales women trotted out smart two-piece suits, all is red and black and grey. Our mother shook her head. It must be a light color with long sleeves and a high (but not mock or turtle) neckline. That’s descriptive of the dresses our Mennonite neighbors wear, but that won’t work. It also has to be fashionable.

“I won’t cry,” she said as we left the mall empty handed. She won’t cry, but I might. An 87-year-old woman deserves to have something new, comfortable and attractive to wear to church. That’s how I felt when I used to leave the stores empty-handed after looking for something for my now deceased parents to wear after they moved into an assisted living community. I’m not alone. If you want sympathy, bemoan this situation in any clothing store and you will gather a crowd of equally frustrated adult children of parents who have aged out of the clothing industry.

I have two thoughts about this situation. First, the apparel industry is missing a big opportunity. We children would pay money to make our parents comfortable and happy. Second, I wonder if this is what is really behind the push for assisted suicide. Maybe the last straw isn’t a bad medical report but the dawning realization, “I haven’t got a thing to wear.”

Choices

2010-12-19T17:26:00.000-08:00

We watched an old 1953 movie, Hobson’s Choice. It’s British. It’s old-fashion. It got to me. Briefly, Hobson owns a cobbler shop. He drinks and depends on his three grown daughters to keep it all together for him. The oldest has just turned 30. She takes it upon herself to get herself and her two younger sisters married. Her motivation appears to be personal happiness and economic stability. How old-fashion is that?
Recently I read that 40 percent of Americans now choose not to marry. Instead, they choose from a multitude of options to form and reform families. Single woman choose to mother without a father present; gay men choose to parent without a mother present; an Asian billionaire creates male triplets to pass his empire to, no female required beyond egg donation and womb for rent. Some observations:

This seems to work better for the rich than the poor.
The jury is out on how well it works for the children.
Traditional marriage is now under siege.

Back to Hobson’s Choice; the older daughter sets her sights on a cobbler in her father’s shop who is skilled, hard-working and underprivileged. Combine those attributes with her business saavy, family legacy and faith in her chosen’s potential and by the end of the movie the couple has a happy marriage, a profitable franchise, siblings with a future and a redeemed patriarch.
Today, after a few sessions with a therapist, the older daughter could find good reason to dump the old man. And why spend time getting her sisters settled in good marriages? She is not her sisters’ keeper. They are not grateful. And how risky is it to emotionally invest in Casper Milquetoast? Today, he would not recognize the value of a Proverbs woman, who “rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household,” who “considers a field and buys it; and with the fruit of her hands plants a vineyard.” Instead, he would bemoan his loss of personal freedom.
The most precious moment to Hobson’s Choice is when the young cobbler, who has recognized his good fortune in being loved by a woman who believes in him, takes his wife’s advice. Against his instincts to devalue himself, he claims his role as the man of the family. As a result, all members of the family thrive.
Without passing judgment on other people’s choices, I believe there is something to be said for the partnership and commitment of a man and a woman to each other. In his Oratio El Nino, performed by the San Francisco Symphony this year, John Adams explored the passion and commitment of Joseph to Mary. Mary chose to be vulnerable to Joseph’s reaction to her pregnancy. Joseph chose to bend to the will of the Almighty and be a husband and a father in the face of ridicule. The result was a legacy of hope for the world.

What legacy are we leaving for our children?

My Annoying Sister

2010-12-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

My sister emails me every day I don’t blog. She thinks I’m her personal entertainment system. Because blogs are public I will not comment on the details of her personal life that compel her to seek distraction in this way.
To nudge me into action, she has sent me a request list of blog topics:

Candy…Cookies…Pies and other Sweets
One year shy (of a significant birthday)
The NEW 12 days of Christmas
Life after 50,000 words
What I want for Christmas this year
Why is my sister so annoying?
Retirement and other myths
Blogging to Bulgaria
When I’m on Oprah’s Show
Orphanhood
My personal top ten list from 2010
An alternative to NY Resolutions

There are some good ones here. I’m always trying, with little success, to get people to comment on my blogs. So I’ll throw it out there. If I get any votes for any of these topics, I promise I will blog on them. Or, suggest one of your own. If one of these topics inspires your inner blogger, be my guest. Please do share a link to your musings.

But I digress from the topic. Why is my sister so annoying?

Top 10 reasons why my sister is so annoying

1. She is misdirected. Get a blog, sis!

2. She has brain freeze. Didn’t I tell her not to move to Detroit? It’s cold in Detroit. Maybe I forgot to tell her.

3. She misses our mother, who was always happy to hear the boring details of our lives. Now the only person she has left to bore is me. The kids just stick their fingers in their ears and chatter, “la, la, la, la, la.”

4. She suffers from sister envy. I graduated, married, had kids, had grandkids and retired first; born second, always #2, so she has to try harder. Being my sister is admittedly an annoyance.

5. She’s in the wrong time zone. She actually lives on Capitola time and suffers from constant cravings for lattes from Mr. Toots. It can make you nuts.

6. She works too hard and pays too many taxes. Stop. Just stop. If you aren’t making any money, you don’t have to pay taxes. It’s that simple. It will be years before the bank repossesses that underwater condo. May I refer you to Laura Lee’s blog, Broke is Beautiful?

7. She has an overactive inner cynic, nicely tempered by Christian charity.

8. She pokes me until I make her laugh. I’m black and blue.

9. She has too much imagination and not enough time. See #6. Then see #1.

10. I wouldn’t have wanted to be my younger sister either. It’s a tough gig.

Cookies

2010-12-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

It distresses me, invitations to cookie exchanges. I wouldn’t ask you to write a novel; why would you expect me to bake cookies?

I want to be neighborly. I want to brighten the holidays for the bereaved with ‘lovin’ from the oven,’ but dang, I’m just not very good at it. Truth is, I’m not a ‘sweet’ person. Sweet things make my teeth feel like they’ve committed a crime for which they will be executed. Sweets electrocute my teeth with a buzz that plunges through my tooth enamel and zips straight through the root canal to the bone. Not the bliss I hope for when I filch a second toffee bar from the plate.

I figured there must be other cookie junkies looking to go clean, so for this latest cookie exchange, I googled “spice cookies.” It’s a simple recipe. After overcoming my fear of the behemoth Mixmaster I inherited from my mother, all seemed well. The machine mixed the ingredients into some semblance of cookie dough. Like champagne, it needed to chill, so I chilled it and poured myself a glass of champagne.

Three hours later, I plunked a hunk of dough on the counter and attempted to beat it into submission. The dough appeared to suffer from tension and stress, so I massaged it vigorously with a rolling pin. It warmed up a bit and relaxed enough that I could cut shapes with the only cutters I have – a little spice boy and a candy cane that looks like a golf bag.

The best thing I can say about these cookies is they emitted a lovely aroma that filled my kitchen. It smelled like the wise men came through with bags of cloves, nutmeg and allspice. My first clue that something was wrong was when I took them out of the oven and they looked the same as when they went in. Then I dropped one and it didn’t break. These cookies are like concrete, smooth, heavy and bland. I’m thinking maybe I should glaze or frost them but Joel, after he stops laughing, decides they need faces and belly buttons, so he goes to town on the next batch. They look so cute;I think maybe we’ll just hang them on the tree instead.

I arrange a plate to take to the cookie exchange and plop an undercooked spice boy in the center. When you take them out of the oven at 12 minutes instead of 15 minutes they wrinkle a bit when they cool, so this guy looks like Old Spice man with a lecherous grin. That ought to cheer someone up.

I’m not expecting anyone to ask me for the recipe.

Cookies-to-go was a lovely event. We assembled 36 plates of cookies and took them to people in the community who needed a special touch. God bless the Free Church Ladies and heal the hearts of those who hurt, mourn and grieve at this season.

Candy

2010-12-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

Joel and I pulled booth duty in the See’s candy shack. We wiled away the morning trying to ignore the allure of molasses chips and key lime truffles wrapped and stacked on shelves behind us. Allure was all around. A doe sprinted across the parking lot in front of us, a six point buck in hot pursuit with a hopeful adolescent tagging along. ‘Tis the season.

How long could you sit in a See’s candy shack before you stuck $6.20 in the till and opened a Mini Holiday Fancy box of six delectables? I went for the dark chocolate truffle. Joel bit into a California Brittle and generously offered me his second bite. (California Brittle? That could describe our state’s economy!)

Confess – is it not your fondest desire that Saint Peter will meet you at the gate with a welcome gift – a See’s nuts and chews assortment and a steaming cup of cappuccino?

Manning the candy shack is a meditative experience; plenty of time to slowly suck a butterscotch lolly and gaze at the pine trees framed by the booth window. It’s early in the candy selling season. We are well stocked. Our neighbors come to the booth window in ones and twos, knowing what they want – peanut brittle for a holiday recipe, boxes of pops and chocolates to ship to friends and relatives. Our last sale was a 50-cent lolly pop to a hiker who happened by. Everyone give me plenty of time to count the change on my fingers.

We benefit from years of candy boothing that has gone before us – this is a well buttered machine, right down to the Yahtzee and cards on the table in case it rains and our trade dries up completely. No wi-fi though.

Half way through our time commitment, three pieces of candy still nestle in the the 4 oz. Holiday Fancy box we paid for and opened. Joel says we should save two for his mom, so I have a decision to make.

Imagine being alone in a candy shop to do your Christmas shopping at your leisure, no fellow shoppers to poke you with their overstuffed shopping bags, no waiting in line...If you’re on my Christmas gift list, guess what you’re getting this year!

NaNoWriMo Fever

2010-11-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

Writing a novel in a month is like taking a lover – it creates a buzz in your community and it makes your husband jealous. My husband retaliated by getting very cozy with his metal lathe down in his shop, so it worked out well.

I learned a lot in the NaNoWriMo adventure:

Keeping to a vigorous writing schedule; pushing your story out of the weeds – the boring stuff like endless description and interior musing – out to the middle of the lake where the action is; it’s hard work so it must be worth it, right?

I learned to push my characters overboard and leave the in the wake of danger to see what they would do. One day I had this conversation with myself:

Me: This story is boring.
Self: Burn her house down.
Me: I can’t do that! I love that house!
Self: Burn it down NOW! I’ll get the gas can. You light the match.
Me: Gulp. Okay.

Boy, was that ever fun! There’s nothing like a house on fire to get a story moving again. Creating mayhem for my main character to deal with was so entertaining that I mugged her daughter in a subsequent chapter.

I learned that good friends will tolerate conversation about your plots characters far longer than they will listen to stories about your grandchildren. They offer ideas on plots, you steal their ideas and put them in your novel, they are delighted and everyone wins.

It’s fun to open up your email see a message of encouragement from Lemony Snickett.

Writing a novel on a deadline gives you a perfect excuse to stop grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning the house, doing laundry, all the chores that sustain life, because you no longer have a life. It’s a terrific time management tool:

Me: Okay, where do I have 4 to 6 hours in my day today to write my 1,667 words?
My Calendar: Sorry toots, you have 3 meetings scheduled today. Not happening today.
Me: Reaching for a red pen: That one goes, that one goes, Ah there’s the time.

The only downer is the inevitable question from people who don’t write novels. Right up there with the “I’m sorry your baby died, but you can have another one” response is this: “Do you have a publisher?” I wrote a decent draft in a month. It takes about three years to get a book published I’m told, but we’ll see. That’s the polite answer.

I finished the first draft of my book last night. I promised myself I would wrap Christmas presents today. But here I am. Like an alcoholic who has to have a drink to face the day, I am compelled to exorcise my demons and darlings before I’ve even combed my hair. If you don’t get a Christmas present from me, that’s why.

Courage

2010-11-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

Finished my draft. Got the "attagirl." Here is Father Mike's spiel about courage. Not going to give away the end. Do the twins meet? Do Roger and Dee get married? Does Valerie choose Peter or Gibert...or, late development...Andy? Do I rename Roger because Peggy hates his name? You'll just have to wait til it's in book form, (however that is going to happen).

Roger and I did not have the ‘where is this relationship going’ conversation before he left for the East Coast. I moved my boxes into his spare bedroom and he sublet his apartment to a co-worker who is getting divorced. Our agreement is that we will share the details of our new lives on the phone regularly and meet up in San Francisco and New York for occasional long weekends.

“Assignations,” Father Mike says humorously, when I explain the arrangement to him. “Dee, you little devil.”

“Father, you are making assumptions,” I waggle a finger at him. “It does sound like a Hollywood movie, doesn’t it?

“Seriously though, I want to thank you for advising me to get Valerie involved in the Bakersfield deal. I have a feeling some good will come of that.”

“Dee, I wish you could see your face.”

“I look at it every day in the mirror.” I’m having to get a little too artful with the Revlon pencils and pots. I don’t like spending the time I could be working on my collages arranging my own face.

“I mean, the changes I see,” he says. I grimace.

“Oh I know, we’re both getting older. But the little lines I see in your face – and my dear, they are little – are from work and wisdom, not worry and resentment. You’ve done good, working all this out.”

“It’s not completely worked out.”

“True – you don’t know whether this new arrangement with Roger will keep the spark going. You don’t know whether Alaya – joy – will ever return.”

That’s a new thought. I always assumed that if there were ever to be a reunion, it would have to be initiated by me.

“Dee, keep asking the big questions. Keep seeking truth in your art and in your life. Keep knocking on the door.

“This business of knocking – it’s in Matthew and in Revelation – my reading leads me to believe that the doors to our hearts malfunction. Our Lord opens doors to understanding, but it helps if we knock on those doors a bit ourselves – prime that pump you got in there with love and compassion for others, and for yourself. Ask God to help you do that. Then it will work easily, as it’s supposed to.”

“Keep the door open. I will.”

I’m off to Carmel to unstick whatever doubts I’ve had about starting this new venture.” A visual of misaligned doors on rusting hinges pops into my head. I think I have a new theme for a collage series.

“You give me courage, Mike.”

“We all need a lot of that in life, don’t we?”

A broken engagement

2010-11-23T16:25:00.000-08:00

Turns out, Gibert is a bit of a playboy and Peter isn't going to make the cut either. Remember, it's 1954 and Valerie is cresting the matrimonial hill...

Late into the night Peter and I discuss likely scenarios and in the end, I give him back his ring. I cry. He has tears in his eyes too. We agree that we love and care for each other, but that the life of a rookie baseball player is no life for a young family. It’s a short career, and when it’s over...when it’s over I will be too old and too set in my ways to start a family but, if his plans work out, he’ll be in a perfect place to marry and have kids, just not with me. Life is so unfair! At 23, he has years to play around before he settles down. At 25, I don’t.

At dawn, Elazar drives Peter to the airport in Barcelona, where he will start the long flight home. Alaya wanders into the kitchen in her bathrobe and makes us coffee. I have an awful headache from being up half the night and crying my secret distress into my pillow. My mouth is cotton, my heart has a stiletto stuck in it, and my stomach is empty and sick. I’m a mess.

My aunt sets a cup of coffee in front of me. I struggle to my feet, tuck one crutch under one arm and pick up the cup with my other hand.

“Alaya,” I say, “you and my mother are going to have to work out your relationship yourselves – or not. I can’t fix everything.” And I hobble back to my room and swing the door closed behind me with the tip of my crutch.

More secrets revealed

2010-11-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

From the Sheepwalker

He asks about what I’ve been doing since my last trip to see him. I tell him about the fire. He’s very concerned that I don’t have a place to live.

“Dolores,” he says in a pitted voice. He reaches over and pats my hand. “You don’t have to worry about not having a place to live. I won’t be around much longer. I’m leaving my house to you.”

Oh God, no! I think. I don’t want TWO houses to worry about. A burned out lot in Los Altos and a retirement house in Bakersfield. Two properties to be responsible for and no place I really want to live. Of course, it has never occurred to Iban that this would not be my dream.

“People here will take care of you.” What can I say to him? I don’t want to be taken care of anymore than my mother did. That’s a revelation, I think, but it shouldn’t be. Apparently these ways of thinking are grooved into us over generations. Who knows who the first woman in our family was who refused to follow a man, or the first man in the family who left to follow a calling to pasture, or commerce or war. And how do I come to be seated so naturally beside the deathbed of this man I hardly know?

“You know, I saw you and your sister come into this world,” Iban is staring at the ceiling when he says this, recalling an event or searching for an invisible face, I’m not sure. “Alaya first, and then you. It was the happiest day of Alonso’s life. He loved you both so much.”

“He must have been very upset when she died,” I say. I’m on the verge of asking him what happened when he starts to cry. “It’s okay, Uncle Iban,” I take his hand and hold it in mine. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“I have to tell you, Dolores,” the old man says. The tears stop. “I have to break a promise I made to your mother and father.

“This is very hard,” he looks at me with eyes that plead for forgiveness. “They are both gone, Iban. What is it you need to tell me?”

I can hardly hear him when he says, “Alaya didn’t die. Alonso took her back to Spain with him.” I’m confused:

“My mother kept me and my father took my sister?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Your mother couldn’t start a new life with two little girls to take care of. I offered to help, but she didn’t want to stay here. The two of them came up with this plan. It was a way they could guarantee that you would both have a good life.”

“So, Alaya didn’t die here, she died in Spain.”

“She didn’t die. She’s not dead.”

“She’s alive? In Spain?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Pilar keeps track of her. Alaya keeps track of us. All of us.” He looks at me and I can see the crafty young man he once was. I’m not feeling so sympathetic now.

“I have a twin sister who has always known about me, but has never made any effort to let me know about her.” He is silent.

“Everyone knows this story, but me.” He closes his eyes.

“Why?” He is gone.

Setting the house on fire

2010-11-20T23:04:00.000-08:00

The power was off all day today, so I burned down Dee's house. It was good for 2,891 words!

I decide to drive through hills on my way home. The sun is setting earlier these days and I sense change in the air. A season is passing. Something is coming and something is going. How much say do I have in what gets left behind and what takes its place? I’m thinking about my collages now, how each step in the process alters the character of the piece. Cut too much away and context has no power to help define theme. The piece is flat. Allow too much in and...I round the car into the lane and see flashes of red and blue lights shooting like sparklers in the night sky. They shoot too high to be coming from a police car. Above the rotating lights the sky is thick and glowing. In the dim light, I can make out figures standing in the middle of the street, and yes, that is my house they are standing in front of – my house is on fire.

This can’t be. It’s like someone has turned on the lights in my head, one sense at a time. Now I smell the acrid smoke. The old wood house is burning like a fall bonfire. Now I hear the whistle and crack of the fire. I throw the car into park in the middle of the street and forgetting to cut the ignition, I open the door and stand in the street with my neighbors, completely stunned. My pepper tree looks like the burning corpse of a woman with her hair on fire. The back part of my house is black and chewed, exposing its bony skeleton. The front of my house chokes in the smoke, trying to live but losing the battle. A few firemen shoot water into the melee from the ground, while others stand on the rooftops of my neighbor’s homes, watering down everything in the wake of the blaze. A fireman comes over to talk to me. Gently, he says:

“Is this your house?”

“Yes, this is my home.”

“Your neighbors said you live here alone?”

“Yes, is that important?”

“No one was in the house, then?”

“No, no one. Just everything I own in the world, but no, no one is in there.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you this, but the house is a total loss. At this point, we are working to save your neighbors' houses.”

A Purse Snatching

2010-11-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

Attacking your main character is always a good way to stir up the action!

Did Alaya make the right decisions? I can’t say. I do know that I will make different decisions. I am mulling this over on a Monday morning, walking through the plaza on my way to Esteve’s office when a disheveled young man runs smack into me, catching my shoulder with his. The impact spins me around and I fall into the street with my leg twisted up underneath me. He bends over me, to help me up I think, but no. He grabs my purse and takes off running. It all happens so fast that people walking by see only a girl stunned by a fall. If anyone notices the purse snatcher, they don’t react. A businessman stoops down to see if I’m okay. I’m not. I feel an intense burning sting in my ankle that demands my complete attention. Black spots float in front of my eyes. Like the click of a camera shutter after it’s let the light in, my world goes dark.

When I come to a few seconds later, I hear a siren. I’m sprawled in the street and I can’t get up. I try to float my thoughts above the pain, which is nearing the top on my pain register. I hear someone say,

“She’s in shock.”

The next time I wake up, I am immobile on my back with a cast on my leg that runs clear to my hip. I’m so drugged I think pleasantly about the items in my purse that I will never see again – my passport, my identification, my travelers checks, my favorite lipstick. Then I think about what I didn’t have in my purse – my manuscript, my address book, my engagement ring from Peter. As groggy as I am, I feel I am having my first moment of clarity since I left California. I actually let Peter give me an engagement ring before I left for Spain, knowing that I wasn’t sure this was what I wanted. Before meeting my mother for lunch, I took the ring off my finger and put it in my briefcase. I told myself it was because I wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet, and that I didn’t want to attract attention. The ring is showy, to my way of thinking, with a large, brilliant-cut center diamond and two side diamonds set in white gold. I was shocked when Peter slipped it on my finger just before I got in the car to leave and said, “Don’t forget to come back.”

I guess it makes sense. He is graduating this year and I’m 25 years old. Most of my girlfriends are already married, which is why I spend so much time with the undergraduates I teach.

I’m going to have a lot of time to think about this. Gibert has been by to see me. I’ve sustained a nasty break in my ankle. I’ll be in some kind of a cast for months.

A hospital volunteer arrives with a vase of flowers. They are from Peter. Phone calls have been made and the word is getting out. The card on the flowers informs me in the flowing script of a florist’s pen that Peter is flying to Spain this weekend to see “his girl.” Gibert stops by my room once again. This time he has a telegram:

What can we do to get you home? Stop. Mother.

If the United States had dropped the bomb on my life, this could not be worse, I think. Then I feel guilty for thinking that. What is a little broken ankle and two lovers about to collide compared to such a horrific happening? I’m wondering how fast and how far I might be able get in a hip cast when the nurse brings me drugs that make me pass out and sleep for 18 hours.

Keeping Secrets

2010-11-16T10:24:00.000-08:00

For those who wonder if I'm still nanoing...

Alaya turns to me, “would you like to come out to the farmhouse this weekend? I’d like to introduce you to my husband and my children. You can ask your questions then.” Esteve, knowing that Gibert has rounds this weekend, offers me the use of his car. I am elated.

I am also unsettled. My work here is almost finished and I have decisions to make. What will I say to my mother? I don’t want to be the one to tell her she has a twin sister, who is alive and well. How will she feel about me if she finds out that I guessed that she had not been an only child, and then made up a story about it that turned out to be nearly true? Now I have to ask myself, how do I feel about having done that? Like a child who has spun elaborate stories to entertain her friends and been caught in the truth.

What about Alaya? Apparently she’s always known about having a twin, but she’s never done anything about it. That’s got to be as bad as what I’ve done. I’ve always hated secrets, and here I am, caught in the mother of all secrets, and not the only one, either. Of course Gibert doesn’t know about Peter and Peter doesn’t know about Gibert and I have four weeks to make a decision. Do people keep secrets because they can’t make decisions? My head is spinning. I check my watch and see that it’s time to meet Gibert for tapas.

26,721 words!

Of Hamburgers and Helpers -- The Sheepwalker

2010-11-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

“Where did you get that big dent in your car?” If we talk about her, she might not notice I’ve been crying. Even so, I’m concerned that she has probably run her car into something. She seems accident prone these days. And that’s exactly what she’s done, she explains. She ran up a curb and hit a post office box in San Bruno.

“What were you doing in San Bruno,” I ask. She hardly ever leaves Santa Clara County anymore.

“Well, I want to tell you about that,” she says.”But let’s get a table first.”

I can smell those burgers on the broiler, so fresh they must have been cows an hour ago. At Clarkes, you smell the beef, not the grease. The meat juices baste your chin; it’s like you eat heaven on a bun with your whole face. I am going to miss this.

I munch through my burger like a ground squirrel digging to China while my mother goes on and on about the hours she is spending at the National Archives in San Bruno. Huh? I start to listen.

“So this library is where you can go to do research on your family, and there are lots of records from the central valley,” she is so electric that the hairs on my arms start to rise like little magnetized wisps of wheat in a polarized field. “And I’ve figured out that Iban was likely Alonso’s brother and that something happened that caused Alonso to disappear, but I’ve got Iban’s phone number now and I’m going to call him this weekend.

“I found an item in a Bakersfield newspaper on microfiche, about an incident that involved some sheepherders and some cattle ranchers. Iban and Alonso are mentioned, but the photograph is fuzzy and I can’t make it out, so I’m just going to call Iban and ask him. Or, maybe I will just get in the car and drive to Pine Mountain Club, that’s where he lives. But I will probably call first.”

“Whoa, whoa,” I put my hamburger down on the plate and wipe my chin with my napkin. “Who is Alonso?”

“He’s your grandfather,” she says triumphantly. “He’s my father.”