Memory . . .

It’s nine a.m. and still cool up here at the cabin. In town I’d have had to walk the dogs before seven to beat the heat. Here we just came back up the road.

It’s green up here too, a lush, almost tropical kind of green, different, more varied than the green of my yard in town. I can just see a slice of the side of Big House Mountain through the cut made 17 years ago by the power company stringing new line onto the land. A month ago almost the whole mountain was exposed, visible through the budding trees.

Living in town now, I miss the cool here. I miss the dried leaf and rich loam smell of the forest.  And I miss the quiet punctuated by birdsong and the hum of insects. In town we have a mockingbird that imitates 47 birds outside in the old apple tree, but it’s not quite the same. It’s been two full summers and I am still not used to the perpetual and constant sound of mowers, weed whackers and leaf blowers that punctuate every daylight hour from April to September.

This mountain land is far more overgrown now than my OCD self used to keep it. The forest is encroaching into the clearings and my hand-manicured gardens lie in disrepair. No longer able to handle the workload or the drive into town, I have retreated to the little writing cabin nestled at the edge of the woods. My partner and I come up as many weekends as we can manage. We are trying to make this space our refuge.

The larger cabin where I spent most of my first 17 years in Virginia – only a few hundred yards away - is occupied now by renter/caretakers whose busy lives spill out onto the porch and surrounding grounds. I know I am incredibly blessed to have 2 places to lay my head, when so many don’t have even one. This knowledge runs through me, as much a part of me as the pain and fatigue that forced me to abandon my 68 acre dream in the woods for a more realistic and manageable third of an acre in town.

I know.

The sun is out now, glinting off the wire enclosing the tiny stand of fruit trees, beginning of my now abandoned orchard. From my perch on a stool at the tiny drop down table I can the wild blackberry patch. The vines have dropped their petals since I was last here and are beginning to fruit out, as is the elderberry gifted to me years ago and the wineberry vines that have taken up residence in one of the gardens. In the creek the watercress still flourishes, as do the wild mushrooms that spring along paths and old roadbeds when rain is plentiful.

Perhaps it’s ok that so much of what I did here is reverting back into wild. I shall have to spend time, money and precious energy cleaning it up if or when I need to sell, but for now, instead of cultivated asparagus and blueberries, I will teach myself to be content with wild berries and mushrooms. I will learn to rejoice in the wildflowers that bloom in glorious profusion from seed strewn long ago onto naked red clay banks along the road instead of mourning choked out gardens of carefully tended perennials brought from a local nursery. I will transplant those I can to my gardens in town and let myself be surprised by bursts of color peeking through stands of green at odd intervals throughout the summer.

I will.  

And I will carry away with me each time I leave the memory of the taste of blueberries and asparagus, and the sight and scent of those gardens. The way I’ve kept the memories of my travels in these intervening years.  The memories are good.  And I can keep them safe from the encroaching forest of daily life, the leafy, twining march of forgetfulness that comes with time. This work I can still do.

Times change, people change, but the song remains the same.

That might not be strictly accurate, but it’s the way I remember that phrase.

And it’s the memory that’s important.

So...

Friday I gave my first talk at a middle school relating to Coyote Summer.

I've taught and read poetry to classes before but this was my first time talking to a group (actually two groups) of kids who had read my book. These kids read my book aloud for better comprehension, and one class was a bit older than what I think of as my usual reading demographic.

Not that I have any idea what that is. I've spoken to book groups whose readers ranged in age from 30 to 70, and I’ve been told my book has been read aloud to four to six year olds.

So I guess my demographic is 4 to 75, roughly. Sorry, three and under and those over 80, if I offend you. I’d love to count you among the roughly 232 people who comprise my Summerhood Island series audience.

The reading teacher who'd invited me emailed me a list of questions the students had come up with so that I could prepare myself.

Which was kind of cute because it assumed I would not be able to answer questions off the cuff but also thoughtful because she really had no idea how much experience I’d had with this sort of thing.

Not included among those questions was "Is it legal to dig a hole yourself to mine for diamonds?"  but I thought I handled that one pretty well anyway. 

Actually, as much as I joke, this was a great experience.  I mean, how often does a non-famous author get to meet with an audience of 20, all of whom have just finished a close reading and discussion of her book? These kids had good, solid questions, and equally solid opinions about what they did and did not like in the story.

And along with the usual questions about the island and about writing in general- "Do all the people who live on the island really know each other?"  (yes) and "Do you make a lot of money as a writer?" (no),  they proceeded to tell me why they thought Susan acted the way she did, and they filled in their own  backstory of Jessie and Amanda’s friendship, in the process answering questions I hadn't even asked myself.

When I was in elementary school I read a book by Nat Hentoff about a little boy left alone in an apartment who listens to a jazzman. It was actually a pretty horrific story now that I recall it, as the boy is left without enough food. In the end the boy is rescued and everything turns out perfectly. Or does it? I wanted to know if the boy really made it or if it was a dream and he died. The librarian said, “What do you think?”

So I wrote Nat Hentoff and he wrote back. One line. "What do you think?" 
Way to dodge, Mr. Hentoff.

(Of course, now that I search for the book I can’t find it, so maybe I made the whole thing up.)

I think I got more than I gave from those two classes of middle schoolers. But I hope they got enough from me to want to keep reading. I gave them everything I had. (unlike Mr. Hentoff.)

Including a quick tutorial on how diamonds are made (immense pressure on coal, so even though there’s coal around you probably won't find diamonds in your back yard). 

But go ahead and dig, girl.  Don’t let anyone tell you there’s absolutely nothing there. 

You just never know.

By an odd series of coincidences

this last couple of weeks, I am drawn back to the theme of giving. 

In my last blog post I wrote about doing a favor for a friend, and how in doing so I found a publisher for some children’s verse that I wasn’t even really looking to sell right then. I titled the blog post No good deed goes unpunished. It was a sort of sarcastic comment but I wasn’t feeling particularly generous toward the world at that moment. And yet the world, with a sort of blasé indifference to my mood, chose to do something nice for me.

This morning’s reading brought me this quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer, “a gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it.” Later she quotes Lewis Hyde, “it is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange than a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people.”

Although Kimmerer and Hyde were speaking about gifts from the earth, it’s being made clear to me through no fault of my own, that these statements actually work for all gifts.

I have somehow become involved with a group of givers. It’s a secret Facebook group that if I tell you about in detail I will have to kill you. Actually, they would probably kill me. So I won’t go into detail, except to say that this is a truly amazing group of people. 

They’ve decided to go beyond gift giving at Christmas and help each other out whenever someone has a need. Some in this group have more disposable income than others and they have figured out ways to help those who are struggling at the moment with gifts of both necessary and “unnecessary” items. Some are bought, some are swapped.

And what has grown out of this group is the amazing gift of friendship across state lines, continents, oceans. Across social, occupational, class, and age divides. Those who can, give. Those who can’t, often can pay it forward in the smallest of ways, like giving someone struggling with a load of groceries a ride to their house. 

A gift that might not have been given had the driver not been given to.

Sometimes the gift is just that of listening. Listening to someone who is having a tough day vent. Letting someone blow off steam without feeling their problems are not as important or as great as the people listening. Cheering someone on when they do something that their immediate family or social group might not see as a great accomplishment.

And possibly the most important thing of all we are learning. Definitely one of the hardest lessons for me to take in, and to remember. People are giving the gift of accepting help when needed. 

When you accept help you allow someone the gift of giving. And that may be the best thing that you do all day.

I’m a giver. Most givers find it very hard to take. As a result a lot of people find me hard to take. Especially at holidays, birthdays, and when I’m struggling, and they know I’m struggling, but I insist that I can handle it. Whatever it is. I’m learning that sometimes the way to make someone’s day is to let them help. 

What a concept.

Okay, so that’s several solemn and serious blog posts in a row. Where, you may be asking, are the funny and clever blog posts with all the carefully chosen clipart?

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m setting up a series of podcasts. I’ll let you know as soon as they’re ready to go. I’m putting most of my funny, 87% of my sarcastic, and 93% of my puns into the podcasts. 

Oh, and all the clipart.

No good deed

goes unpunished. Isn't that the way the saying is supposed to go?

Well, let's just say that in my past, and especially over the past couple of years, that's
pretty much been my mantra. Not that this stopped me from trying to fix things. And people. And situations. Sometimes all three lumped together at the same time.

Because that's what I do. I'm a fixer. And in 58 years of living I haven't learned that while some things may be able to be fixed, very few situations can be, and almost no people. Okay, let's be realistic. No people. You can't fix people. Most of the time you can't even help them fix themselves.

And it's not like I'm Pollyanna. I don't bop around with my head wrapped in candy floss thinking everyone is practically perfect, just needing one little tap on the head from my magic wand to make everything better.

 (Some people mix metaphors. I like to mix fictional character references.)

But I digress. Shocking, isn't it? I'm usually so blunt and to the point in these musings.

The point is, I can't help trying to help. And since I can't do much physically these days, I have to get creative. So I'm delighted when a friend drops into my lap a positive, concrete thing to do, something that I can easily accomplish that will also be a great help.  This happened recently:

A dear friend of mine has run out time.  No more trials, no more chemo.  He’s reached a place – perhaps not acceptance, but nearby – but the thing is, my friend has written some beautiful poetry that his family would like published. I happen to know (or thought I did) the name of a publisher in the next town who had a reputation for a quick turnaround of self published projects.

Nuff said. I would take his project to the publisher and help see it through.  I could help. Really.

Then things got interesting.

I flipped through the phone book (yes some of us Luddites still do that) and looked under publishing. Called a number listed, talk to a very nice man about the project, and made an appointment for the next day.

About 10 minutes into my face-to-face conversation with the very nice man I realized that this was not the self-publishing company of my memory. Apparently there are two publishing companies in this small town. Fortunately, the very nice man (let’s call him Andy, mostly because that’s his name,) had helped people with projects like this before and understood the need for a quick turnaround.

 There were sailing pictures and model boats on all the walls, and a nautical theme throughout the office. Suddenly the name Mariner Media made sense. And of course, in one of those crazy island coincidences Andy had sailed to Cuttyhunk Island many times in his youth. He'd even read my island memoir, and liked it. We talked about what I was doing now, and he asked if I had an illustrator. I replied that I didn't need one for the 'tween novels but I'd been looking for one for a series of silly children's sea poems that had been knocking around in a drawer (literally) for 10 years.

Andy might have an illustrator. He’d like to see a poem or two.

Within two days I'd sent him the poems, he called me in to look at some illustrations, and I sat down and signed a contract for the book. Working title, Washed Up in the Waves.

A good deed. Done not to fix, but out of love. No expectations. 
Not only not punished, but doubly rewarded. 

Damn. 

I would like to believe that if I believed in such things, this would be the sort of thing I would believe in. 

I guess that day, everybody did the best they could with what they had to work with that day. 

Let’s keep it up.

It's finally happened. I've lost . . .

the beginning of a blog post. I know I started one before all this PowerPoint nonsense, (and by the way, I was absolutely brilliant at the VSRA conference in Richmond).

The blog post was going to be brilliant too. I'm sure of it, because I saved it so carefully, in such a safe place. You know those sorts of places, the spots where you store special things so you won't lose them and then can never find them again. Yeah, like that.

Brilliance, and the expectation thereof.  Or if not expectation, then at least hope. I don't know if it's the same for everyone. Perhaps a few of you non-A type personalities have managed to learn, somehow, to expect only what seems achievable.

Not me. I have never thought to myself, "Tonight I will make a perfectly adequate dinner that will fulfill everyone's needs." Or, "I think I will write a poem about that tree, and that deer, and it will be a good poem, one that will say what I want to say."

A friend sent my wife a wonderful book by Harry Roberts. Our friend had marked a place inside with a quote from Roberts:

"Today I have done the best I could with what I had to do it with today."

Today is March 17. St. Patrick’s Day. The Ides of March passed without incident. Basketball’ s March Madness is upon us. It still seems odd that the college basketball playoffs can go on without me sitting by my father, trying to understand this game he enjoyed so much. For a while there it seemed like every March my father had a health crisis, and at some point I was there with him and we were watching March madness.

Next week is the five-year anniversary of my father’s death. I will light 24 hour memorial candle in remembrance. I don’t really need the candle though. Not yet. He is still a presence in my life far more often than once a year. He comes to mind at unexpected times, for unexplained reasons. More than once lately it’s been because I wish I could’ve shared something with him.

My father did many things very well. He also did some things merely adequately, and yet he continued to do them because he enjoyed them. My father wanted to be a writer, and he ended up running a factory. In college he thought he’d be writing plays, but the closest he came to that was acting in community theater. He played golf his whole life yet rarely broke 100.

And yet, if you had to say one thing about my father’s life, I think it would be safe to say that he had a good time. Almost all of the time, regardless of what he was doing. And other people around him had a good time because of that.

My father did the best he could do with whatever he had to do it with (or make do with it) on just about every particular day.

Now that is brilliance.

Because, snow.

I've been out in California the last 10 days, managing to miss just about all of the worst snowstorms in my adopted home state of Virginia.  Our first big storm happened the week before we left, and barely cleared in time for us to leave. Then, the day after we left the massive snow dumps began (massive by our standards; sorry, New England).

The caretakers were snowed in up on the mountain, the house/dog sitter snowed in at our place in town. 

Clear driveway, repeat. And repeat.

The temperature was in the 60's in northern California and they were praying for rain, with none in sight. Feast or famine, drought or flood. What's worse, a dust bowl or a mud hole?

I miss snow on the mountain. I don't particularly like wading a mile through unplowed snow up and down the steep hill to where the car is parked.  I don't miss the power outages and the downed trees, or the 100 dollars per trip plowing bills and 600 dollar propane bills.  I really don't miss putting two wheels in the ditch and doing a "controlled" slide down the steepest part of the road, trying not to notice the nasty drop-off on my right.

I do miss the silence snow brings, the blanket of quiet and calm it wraps around the house. I miss knowing animals are circling just at the edge of the woods, and knowing this because I have seen their tracks. I miss imagining the shapes of these animals as I identify rabbit, skunk, deer, coyote, bobcat, and the wondering of where these creatures are going to or coming from.

I miss the sound the creek makes when it's almost frozen bank to bank but still running swiftly under its ice and snow blanket. I miss those first years when both Jesse dog and I were strong enough to enjoy those moonlit walks back up that unplowed road to the cabin after a night at the restaurant. 

I miss that dog, and I miss that woman who still had the strength to work a shift and then walk back to that cabin with that dog, towel dry us both off, build a fire and sit steaming before it.

In town the plows come by every couple of hours. We can pay someone to shovel our walk, clear off our cars and dig out the snow ridge the plow leaves across the drive. I can walk into town, or to the grocery store, in less time than it used to take me to walk down my driveway.

But...

There’s the constant sound of those plows, and neighbors calling to each other as they shovel out. There are cars and trucks racing and sliding up and down our street the moment the snow stops. The only non-human tracks I see are those of the dogs in the fenced yard. A couple of blue jays and a cardinal are no match for a trio of red-tail hawks hunting in a slow circle above you

I may not miss that tree falling across the road, but I miss hearing it fall.

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Trigger warning: this blog for mature audiences

I've been doing a lot of writing about writing lately. I'm starting a podcast series soon, and I have an upcoming talk at the VSRA (virginia state reading association) yearly conference in Richmond on March 13 on writing the 'tween novel you wanted to read as a child.

Both highly lucrative engagements (can you sense the subtle sarcasm here?), but somehow I don't think even a series of such jobs is going to keep me in the style of printer ink and paper to which I would like to become accustomed.

So I'm looking at the phenomenon (yeah, you guessed it) of Fifty Shades of Gray. I mean, I admit I was a little pissed off at J.K. Rowling, but at least that woman put in the work. And she could write. 

But badly written soft "porn" that isn't even really porn but is abusive and degrading to women but that's ok because it was written by a woman?  Admit it, don't we all secretly (or not so secretly) hate her for making that kind of money off this kind of crap? And don't we all wish we could make millions selling badly written drivel?

Do not despair, my friends. I don't think our gold ring has passed us by for good. Remember how many parodies sprung up from just a couple of songs from Frozen? And that wasn't even that bad a movie, for a Disney film.

I've already seen several fine parodies of the trailer for Fifty Shades. (Can you believe you don't even have to use the whole title and people know what you mean? It's like she's Beyonce, for heaven's sake) 
My personal favorite is the Lego parody,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7AvZPTT4kU altho Fifty Shades of Ayehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-oQYCse8xw is close behind. But there's just something about two Lego figurines clawing at each other's painted clothes in an elevator . . .

You see where I'm going? There's a market here, I'm sure of it. We just have to specialize, narrow our sights a bit. We don't have to make it into every airport  bookstall in the country. There's a ton of niche markets out there, filled with well-read book buyers looking for something that's a little more up their alley.

Niche markets. E.L. James made it ok to read this stuff on the subway, Why not hardcover coffee table books?

I've already got the horsey set covered with my soon to be bestseller Fifty Snorts of Neigh.
And for sequels I'm taking on the Christmas market with Fifty Seats in Sleigh, then I'm gonna hit the farming community with Fifty Rolls in Hay .

Don't worry. There's plenty to go around. I'll be busy writing those for at least 5 days, then while I'm figuring out how to spend the millions I'm raking in, you guys can take over.

Imagine the possibilities . . .
Then send them to me in the comments section below. I've already got a publisher or two in mind.