Pamela Morsi, Author

LET THERE BE (this little) LIGHT (of mine)

2011-10-15T09:44:00.002-05:00

We're getting to that time of year when the morning sun is north enough on the horizon to shine directly into the east window of my office. Sunshine is a good thing. It provides light and heat. It helps our mood. And it's necessary to make the flowers grow. In college I arranged my summer schedule so that classes were early in the morning and work was at night. I spent every afternoon at the university's pool, greased up with Coppertone or Banana Boat. I got browner than a white girl ever should. Today the solar panels on my roof provide a third to half of all our energy our household consumes. Sunshine is good. So very good.

However, like most good things, even very good things, it is possible to get too much.

Between 8 a.m. and 10:30, I cannot read anything on my computer screen. It is one giant, shiny glare. This room, my refuge from the distractions of the world outside, takes on a temperature only experienced in Hades. And with my overhead fan running on high, all the papers on my desk have to be anchored down. Heaven forbid that I have to actually look through my notes, everything starts flying. Of course I could probably stick it all together with my own sweat. It's like a planned hot flash. I would strip down to my underwear, but the other window faces the street and I'm afraid of sending my neighbors into therapy.

So instead I completely close the blinds, trying to blot out the effects. It doesn't do much for the heat, but it does cut down on the light. Cut down, as in narrow. It now comes inside the room in a series of pencil thin strips, making my office look like a film noir set.

I guess this proves, in this time of national austerity, it's still possible to get too much of a good thing.

I mean like, fast food. Everybody likes it. Sure it's great to not cook all the time. And how convenient to simply drive through and have some stranger hand you dinner. But it costs a lot of money, wastes a lot in packaging and limits the family palate. Not to mention upping your salt and fat intake.

Or coffee. There is nothing that I like better. Most days I have my first cup before I even get out of bed. But if I'm still drinking it late into the morning, I start to get a little jittery.

One really good thing that I've had WAY too much of lately, is politics in my church.

I am a Baptist and I am very proud of that heritage. I am not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which I believe has misinterpreted Baptist history and practice. I'm an adherent of a much older tradition in our church as being the haven of free-thinkers. The "priesthood of the believer" and the concept of "working out your own salvation with fear and trembling" are tenets I am not willing to give up. I've written about this in more detail elsewhere, so I won't bore you here. But suffice to say, when Baptists and other members of "evangelical" churches were a poor, powerless backwater in national politics, we had to count on the separation of church and state to keep us from being swept up and disenfranchised by larger and more influential religious constituencies. These were ardent believers who were convinced that because our worship lacked creed and ritual it was not a religion.

Which is worse being "not a religion" or being "part of a cult"?

I am very disappointed in Pastor Jeffress up in Dallas, on a lot of levels. I am not aware of God giving him the power to decide who is a Christian and who is not. In fact, the Bible expressly forbids us from making those kind of judgements. But somehow the righteous can never seem to stop themselves from pointing fingers at somebody else.

Not that I am guiltless here. My sister has been an Episcopalian for decades and holds a high position in her church. She would love for me to be a part of it. But when I'm sitting in that pew and the processional comes in dressed in robes and swinging those smoky containers full of incense, I know, without question that this is not the worship for me. But who am I to say there is something wrong with it? Let me answer that question. I am only human, and humans are narrow, tribal and suspicious of everything that is foreign to them. We are not meant to be the arbiter of such decisions.

These days it looks like we evangelicals have the ear of government. Candidates are PTL-ing all over the place and hearing burning bushes under every tree. They try to one-up each other in the whose-a-better-Christian game.

UGH.

A lot of people think that the influence of religion in politics is not good. And other people, like me, think having politics show up in the middle of my worship service is a very, very bad.

We know from history that political power is transitory. Those who are up today will be down tomorrow. And having the sun beat down on us, day after day, glaring our screen, heating up the room and causing us to fan up the papers we need to be working on, is too much of a good thing.

Yesterday Bill constructed a new screen for my window. It's the same design he used for the ones on the front of the house, but on this particular one he used a special, heavy solar protective mesh. It works great. It allowed me to use this morning to write this blog.

Love's Laborer Lost

2011-09-05T09:38:00.004-05:00

Happy Labor Day everyone! According to Wikipedia, who as we all know is just south of God in authority, this holiday came into existence to celebrate the American worker and their family. At the time, 1894, the term American worker, meant laborer.

I've written lots of stories about working class people. Truth is, I've always found them interesting. Moreso than those from a more privileged background. I guess this goes back to the adage of "write what you know". I know nothing about elite private education or vacation homes. I am more familiar with the school of hard knocks and summer jobs.

I grew up in the working class. My father was a pumper and gang pusher in the oil patch. My mom was a practical nurse. They worked hard for wages. They scrimped and saved and invested where they could. Ultimately, they did well. They were able to live comfortably, provide for their family and have a pension in their old age. That was their American Dream.

My dad was a great believer in education. He never went to college, but from the moment I was born there was never a suggestion that I might not go. During my high school years, when Oklahoma was trying to put more money into education, a bumper sticker began showing up on cars that read: Only Ignorance is Free. I remember Dad jokingly stated his disagreement. "Ignorance is not free. I pay for mine every day."

So Dad not only paid for his ignorance, but he and Mom paid dearly to rid me of mine. My older sister and I both went to Oklahoma State at the same time. My parents made that happen through buying "shacks" and fixing them up into rent houses. My mother finished her work week at the hospital by pulling 12 hour shifts every Saturday and Sunday for years. My sister and I worked, too. But without the sacrifice of my parents, I'd probably have taken that job as a "table braider" at the hose factory right out of high school. Maybe I would have ended up as a writer anyway, but I'm sure it would have been harder.

Another quote from my dad, "What you learn, nobody can ever take that away from you."

I got a Humanities degree at OSU and then went to grad school at University of Missouri. I often joke that becoming a Professional Librarian is like taking a vow of poverty, but it did provide me with a modest income and an interesting work day.

I also married well. Well, not well as in novels of "marrying well" where the impoverished governess charms the dashing Duke whose inheritance is "forty thousand a year!" But "well" in the sense of a guy that I loved and who loved me. Who took responsibility seriously and was unashamed of being thrifty. Or as my mother once said of him, "He could squeeze the manure out of a buffalo nickel."

Our squashed nickels managed to secure us a place among the middle class. The folks who, at least to some extent, can use their heads instead of their hands to make a living. That's very good for me, since my brain was always stronger than my back. I feel proud and blessed.

But I also feel very, very lucky. Luck has a lot to do with it.

Among the working class men and women in this country, and a lot of folks in middle class as well, luck seems lately to be in short supply. In fact, a holiday to celebrate the workers seems a bit out of sinc with the way things are. Technology and mechanization have increased productivity, allowing factories to pare down the staff. And companies have repeatedly relocated manufacturing overseas where labor is cheaper. With 9.1% out of a job, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of holiday mood.

My dad grew up during the Great Depression. My grandfather had been partially blinded in a refinery accident at The Magnolia and was told that if he'd sign a paper absolving the company of blame, he'd always have a job. He signed and when hard times hit, he was the first man let go. There was one long winter when they had nothing to eat but black-eyed peas. They'd grown the crop to feed the cow, but skimmed off the peas to feed the children instead.

A sad story like this is not meant to say to folks who are out of work and struggling, "hey, you don't have it so bad." I would not diminish your crisis in any way. Your fears, your Plan B and Plan C and Plan D42 are as scary as any bread line.

What I hope this story reminds you, reminds us, is that while life is short, it is also long. The outlook today, the challenges we see, they are today's troubles. Tomorrow is the unknown. Forecasters, soothsayers, prophets may tell the truth or not have a clue.

Ten years after the middle of the Depression, with two sons in harm's way fighting Hitler and Japan, that cold scary winter of the black-eyed peas must have seemed like the good old days. And by the time I knew them, all of them, it was as if only the happy memories floated to the top. In later life Dad was not averse to a big bowl of black-eyed peas. And my Uncle Bob, in his last days, would ask me to make him "mustard sandwiches" like his mama made him as a kid.

What's happening to working people today, whether you make your living on the line or in a cubicle, is just plain crappy. If you've lost your job, you will never really forget that feeling. If you've lost your savings, you may never be as well-heeled again. But the thing about life is that it's always changing. The everyday people who feel overlooked today, are going to be the ones looking over the future tomorrow. Good times and bad, we must keep putting one foot in front of the other. A hard lesson for all of us.

But remember what my dad said, "What you learn, nobody can ever take away from you."

Happy Labor Day to all those who seek to do the best you can with the tools you've got.

Pine in the Prevailing Winds

2011-08-04T15:01:00.003-05:00

One piece of basic advice for writers of novels is to use all five senses to stage a scene. The reader needs to see it, feel it, hear it, taste it and smell it. As you can imagine, the last two of these are sometimes the most difficult to set up. And even if you can, you might not want to. Yeah, sure, it's great if the fence along the lane smells of honeysuckle vine. But I'm not so quick to say, "the odor of left-over pizza and old gym shoes waifed through her box-sized, third floor walkup apartment."

Smells are, however, very evocative. And we have a memory for them that, if calibrated like vision would be most often 20/20.

I came home the other night to a scent in the air that really brought some things back to mind. In the terrible heat and drought we're having here in Texas, a big limb from a neighbor's tree broke off and just hangs down toward the yard. Because it's not in a dangerous place and broken off pretty high, our neighbor hasn't exactly rushed out to get it down, chopped up and hauled off. He works long hours, and in this heat, who could blame him?

When I arrived home, in the darkness of an eighty-degree evening, I could smell that tree.

The scent of rotting pine is one that is not easy to get out of your nose. Once you've smelled it, it stays with you for a lifetime.

In 1989 Hurricane Hugo came through the part of South Carolina where we lived. It flattened buildings, washed away houses and either ripped the trees out of the ground or cut them off like matchsticks about 8 to 12 feet from the base.

My family was so lucky. We had a yard full of 100 ft. longleaf pines. The ones in the front fell in the first half of the storm...away from the house. When the second half came through, the winds blowing in the opposite direction took the trees in the backyard, also away from the house. Our home was safe and my family in it.

Like most survivors of natural disaster, I could write a very, very long story about what it was like. The storm itself, the immediate aftermath, the months of getting our lives back and our lingering feelings of loss and insignificance.

And I don't just know my own story. One of the things that happens in this kind of situation, is that you need to say things. It's such an overwhelming experience and you simply need to talk about it. And the only people with the patience to listen are those who went through it just like you did. I remember the stories my neighbors had to tell. I remember the words of my friends. Not only the ones who held each other for hours in the hallway as both sides of their condo blew out and everything they owned disappeared. But also the ones who packed up the kids and the dogs and evacuated to Charlotte, only to face the same storm there, while stuck in a dinky, airless motel room.

There was the guy that was barricaded under his bed, but had to pee so bad he decided to take the risk of a run to the bathroom. While he was in there, the bedroom side of the house fell down.

My friend who went out to check his shutters in the calm moments as the eye passed over could barely walk for the hundreds of birds huddled on the ground that refused to move.

And the working class hero that, tied with ropes, made his way across the roof of the hospital in the teeth of the storm to repair the emergency generator and keep the respirators running in the ICU.

One of my favorite stories was an old Charlestonian, who'd inherited a beautiful 18th century home in the oldest area of the city. He felt as if he were the guardian of this incredible piece of architectural history. So while he sent his family off to safety, he stayed to protect the house. He boarded it up and prepared it as best he could to ride out the storm. When the water started coming into the front door, he took refuge on the second story. But when the roof began tearing off, he tried to go back down. The water was already several feet deep on the ground floor. He huddled on the stairs, pondering his fate of either being washed out to sea or blown away. It was then he said, "that I realized, that I'd never really liked that house. I had never wanted it. I'd never asked for it and I didn't care what happened to it."

I think a lot of us have been there. Sometimes it takes being trapped on the stairs to make us realize what it is that we really value in our lives.

I know he repaired the house, and the last I heard, he and his family were still living there. I doubt, however, that he's changed his mind, just his perspective. Bill is always saying, "It's not where you are, it's who you're with." And people interviewed post-disaster always reiterate that as long as their family is all right, the "stuff" they lost doesn't matter.

Still, it takes time and money, hard work and sweat to get back on your feet again. And no matter how grateful you are for the second chance, there is going to be some grieving for what is gone.

I hope the people in Joplin and the other, so numerous, tornado sites of the year, the people along the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, and the folks dealing with the devastation of the wildfires know that even after their images have left the six o'clock news, there are people out here still thinking about them, and hoping and praying for them. And if it takes the smell of rotting pine to remind us, then may a limb come down in all our neighborhoods.

Two Heads Better in One

2011-07-24T10:44:00.005-05:00

I just got my author copies of my new book. THE BENTLEY'S BUY A BUICK will be on sale August 23, 2011, about a month from now. This is my twenty-third novel. That's not counting several novellas and one story that never made it to print. A new book should definitely be no-big-deal for me. But that's not how it feels. I'm as excited about this one as I was about my first.

I think it was Dorothy Parker who said, "I don't like writing, but I like having written."

I can identify with that. There are definitely good days and bad days in the writing process. But when you have the completed book in your hand, it doesn't matter if the story poured out of you like melting butter or was painstakingly pick-axed out of granite, it's a feeling of accomplishment.

I answered a question yesterday about how I first got published. I don't get those questions so much anymore and I don't think about it much. But pondering it yesterday, looking back, I simply had to shake my head in disbelief. Who could imagine that someone like me could ever get to have a career like this? It's a dream come true.

Well, not one of those dreams. I didn't go to sleep one night, dream I was a writer and the next day wake up to be one. Not quite that easy.

It's curious that in English the word "dream" can mean both are hopes, ambitions, goals and also mean those crazy things that go on in our heads while we're asleep at night. You know what I'm talking about. I know I'm not the only one whose gone through the nightmare where it's the final exam and you forgot to take the class all semester. Or where you're sitting behind your desk at the office and realize that you forgot to put on any clothes from the waist down. (My cure for that one has been the home office. I'm truly working in my pajamas more often than I'd like to admit.) One of the worst for me is losing my purse. In my sleep, I imagine losing my purse at least two or three times a year. Now there is not anything irreplaceable in my purse, but symbolically it freaks me out.

My friend and fellow writer, Janece Hudson is an expert on dreams. Jan's a psychologist who's been writing and teaching about dreams for thirty years. She's always been willing to help me understand what my brain was trying to tell me. Especially so when my personal life was very tough. I saw her recently in Austin. Still frank and funny, I enjoy her company. And I recommend her classes and workshops. She's got a brand new book out now called Into Your Dreams. I can't wait to dig into it.

Of course, there are a lot of people who don't think that dreams have any meaning at all.

These folks suggest that our nighttime scenarios are just the brain misfiring. That what you see and hear and feel during them signifies nothing and you shouldn't spend a minute imagining that it's more. That may be true for some people. We're all different. We all use our brains differently. Those differences are obvious and vivid while we're awake. For me to understand anything, I've either got to create a backstory for it or hum it to a tune. My husband on the other hand, will need to put the data into a graph, or worse yet, a spread sheet.

So while his dreams may be misfires, I see mine more as hints. I think that dreams are my subconscious mind working on the stubborn, rusty parts of my conscious mind.

I am a big fan of my subconscious mind. I often joke that "my subconscious is a better writer than I am". And I readily admit that's true. I'm one of those writers that simply don't plan a lot of stuff. I start out with a premise and I just sort of see where it leads me. Disclaimer for those of you who don't write, or even for those who do: This is not a typical or even a preferable way to construct a story. It is definitely more sane and efficient to know what you want to say and plan how you're going to say it. Instead of that, I wander around in the wilderness, not really knowing where I'm going on what I'm doing. I'll be writing a scene, maybe something I've been thinking about for a while, and suddenly appearing before me on the computer screen are words and paragraphs about something completely unrelated. Something I may not know anything about, nor have any interest in. It's a "rabbit hole", a tangent, an annoying distraction from the direction of my storyline. My first instinct is to hit DELETE. I have learned, however, that those tangents, those rabbit holes are where the heart of my story is going to be. I've got to follow that and see where it takes me.

Maybe my subconscious mind does better writing than me because it does not have the fears that I do. In my sleep journeys I will hang out in neighborhoods that I wouldn't venture into in daytime. I will attempt things that conscious daylight finds terrifying. Consciously I walk around so afraid of heights that I avoid glass elevators. In my dreams I joyfully leap from high places, unafraid.

The same is true of my stories. My conscious mind warns me, "this is not what people are buying" or "what are my writer friends going to think?" But my subconscious apparently doesn't care about sales trending or the weight of peer pressure. My subconscious has a story it needs to get out. And it's only allowing my conscious fingers to do the typing.

I once heard Sharon Sala say that her stories come to her in dreams and that she wakes up and writes the whole thing start to finish. I hope I'm not misstating her. But I was blown away by the whole idea of that. I couldn't even imagine such a thing. But I've come to think that my "method" such as it is, is not a bit less strange and miraculous.

Some reviewer of my last book said something like, "surprisingly deep for such a frothy premise." Blame it on my subconscious. Consciously, I'm as frothy in my books as I am in person. Now if I could just figure out what my head is trying to tell me when that transvestite dwarf shows up.

RITA with a side of jalapenos, please

2011-07-01T11:27:00.004-05:00

Leila and I were having lunch together the other day when she piped up with "This is my favorite Mexican restaurant!" We were eating at Adelante, a place I like to take her to because it's a kind of healthy Mexican, if such a thing exists. They use local and organic veggies, whole wheat and stone ground corn tortillas and have a no-lard policy. The food is surprisingly good and the friendly atmosphere is terrific. But in a city like San Antonio, where there is a Mexican eatery on nearly every corner, picking a "favorite" is not something I would want to do.

You can't get a better breakfast taco than the ones at Twin Sisters.

That hot orange salsa at Cafe Salsita is good enough to drink from a cup.

Don't miss the tomatillo quesadilla at Betos.

Or the yucca chips at Urban Taco.

And any day is the day to try the special at Blanco Cafe.

You haven't lived to you've eaten a tlayuda at La Gloria Ice House.

I wouldn't eat cabrito any place but Mexican Manhattan. And margaritas are too die for at La Fogata.

La Barrios, MiTierra, Jacala, Pico de Gallo or El Mirasol if you're hungry for some some spicy south of the border flavor, this is the place to come.

How could anybody choose just one?

That got me to thinking. Most of my writing buddies are busy this week in New York City. It's the national Romance Writers of America conference and tons of people you and I like to read have shown up there to meet with their editors, schmooze with important people in publishing and attend workshops and business meetings.

Tonight, with much pomp and circumstance they will award the 2010 RITAs for the best romance fiction of the year. There are twelve different categories for the award, so short contemporaries don't have to compete with long historicals or midlength Christian inspirationals. But among 12,000 titles entered, only a dozen will be judged as this year's best.

I am not a finalist for 2010. Yes, of course I am bummed about that. I'm always a little bummed. I've been a finalist at least a half dozen times and I've won twice, but still I kind of always want my books to be labeled as THE BEST. But I'm just greedy. There are so many fantastic writers turning out wonderful books everyday. Tonight some of the authors of the best will be taking home a statue and some of the authors of the best will be plastering a smile across the face and saying, "It's an honor just to be nominated."

With so many wonderful books out there and so many tastes and preferences in reading matter, choosing a BEST is not only impossible, it's almost an exercise in failure. Some really incredible novels will somehow miss the golden ring. And some so-so stories can win by being sentimental favorites where the author's reputations give them the leg-up that their writing didn't. But mostly, every book in the running tonight is a winner for the readers that are lucky enough to pick them up.

I won't be there to see who, among my friends, take home the trophy. I'll be here in San Antonio. Maybe we'll go out for Mexican food.

Hot summer and shades of gray

2011-06-19T14:52:00.002-05:00

Well, it couldn't be much hotter here in south Texas. Okay, maybe it COULD be hotter, but we've set records the last couple of days...so who wants hotter? Not me. Like lots of people around the country who've been struggling with natural disasters, flood, fires, tornados. We too, have our problems. We're in the the throes of a drought. Not a baby, hey it hasn't rained for a while kind of drought, we're doing the least-rainfall-in-recorded-history kind of drought. There was a photo on the front of the San Antonio Express-News this morning of the upper Guadalupe River. It was just a pile of bleached limestone boulders, nothing was even damp.

There's not a lot that anyone can do. We just have to wait on the clouds. I would say "pray for rain" but line is getting so overused by our politicians it's become cliche. Still, do it for us when you think about it.

In our neighborhood we're on Stage 2 water restrictions. Without a change in the weather, Stage 3 should be upon us any day.

We've been following the rules and have been very stingy with our plants and trees. Especially our trees. Our yard is not so amazing that anyone would ever comment, but we do have a couple of incredible trees. In the front yard we have a tall white oak that somehow manages to find a way toward the sky between the electric poles and overhead wires. In the backyard we've got a red oak that was probably planted when our house was new. It is about four feet across and tall enough to shade the entire back yard and the deck for most of the day. It is wondrously elegant. And in the early morning, way up high, it catches the suns rays and glistens when everything below it is still gray and quiet.

The water restrictions allow us to water twice a week or by hand. We've been doing that. But it's a big tree and I know it gets very thirsty.

Earlier this week, because of my thirsty tree, I began to feel bad about my baths. I love to soak in a bath. I have the best soaking bathtub on the planet and there is nothing I like more that sitting in hot water up to my chin. Yes, I admit it. Even in this time of drought, I have still been soaking up to my chin.

The guilt has been driving me crazy.

I decided that I must give up the baths. No, I didn't plan on foregoing hygiene completely, but I thought a quick shower would probably be good enough.

It's my experience that sacrifice, both large and small, is a great boon to innovation. As I was contemplating a showery future, I began to think about how I could have my trees and bathtub, too.

I decided that I would not drain the tub. After my leisurely soak, I would get my trusty bucket, dip out the water and carry it out to my oaks. After all, before the advent of modern plumbing a woman would have to tote water both to and from her tub. And those women were wearing long dresses and workboots. If they could do it I can do it.

At least I thought that for the first few buckets.

Water is heavy. Hmm. As I learned in school, "A pint's a pound the world around." So that makes my 5 gallon bucket weigh 40 pounds. And I'm...I'm... okay, I admit it. I'm a wimp. Way too much time spent sitting in front of a computer screen. The heaviest thing I move is the mouse.

Sadly, I decided that I just couldn't bale out the bathtub on a daily basis. Once more I sadly bid

adieu to my decadent soak. Bravely I vowed to shower.

Then this morning Bill told me to go ahead and take a bath, he'd take care of the water. He pulled a hose in through the back door and siphoned the water left in the tub, out the back door across the deck and down to the roots of the red oak. Being, as he is, a math geek, he told me how much water this would be for our trees. 500 gallons a week. Five hundred gallons of gray water to keep the shade flourishing over our heads, eating up our CO2 and giving us back a lovely breath of fresh oxygen in our air.

As God is my witness...I will never feel guilty about bathing again.

Thanks Bill. Happy Father's Day.

Nesting Instincts

2011-05-30T10:47:00.002-05:00

We have a lot of bird houses.
Last winter, Bill decided that he wanted to do some building projects with the little kids in our life.
Now, a lot of guys would have just bought some wood and maybe a plan and went with it. But, Bill, being Bill, had to do some research on bird habitat, try some experiments and produce a prototype or two before coming up with exactly the right project for three to six year olds.
He did and the kids had a great time. Everybody got to hammer something, turn a few screws and slap on primer or paint or both. The kids took home the birdhouses that they made, souvenirs of an unforgettable afternoon in Mr. Bill’s workshop.
We, of course, have all the prototypes and trial runs still here. So Bill put them up in different spots around the yard and they’ve been very successful. We’ve had wrens and tufted titmouses (titmice?) in the back and English sparrows out front.
The English sparrows got their house a little dirty and Bill suggested that’s because they are English. My heritage. I guess German sparrows would have been on their wings and knees every morning scrubbing around the perch!
Watching the mom and dad fly in to feed their screaming little nestlings over and over again is very addictive. But you know those parents must get sick to death of it. Here’s a worm. Fly away. Fly back. Here’s a worm. It doesn’t matter how exhausting or monotonous it gets, that’s what they’re supposed to do, so they do it.
That got me thinking about human families and all the things that we are supposed to do and somehow manage to do it.
I hardly remember a time when my mother didn’t work. Even back in those days, when most mom’s were stay-at-home, mine was not. It was partly economics. My dad made decent money as a laborer, but my mom’s paycheck meant more than pin money. And she really liked working. She was a practical nurse and a very good one. She took a lot of pride that. Pride she didn’t have in her haphazard housekeeping, messy sewing and brown thumb.
So with that example and all the time and money it took to get my education, it seemed pretty unextraordinary for me to have kids and a job. Until I managed to support myself with writing, I worked as a professional librarian.
Not that I would recommend it. Parenting is hard enough just by itself. Adding career on top of it, is probably crazy.
I remember very clearly what it was like. I’d finish my day at work and be just exhausted as I dragged myself through the parking garage to my car. Then I’d worm my way through traffic to the freeway which would be crowded to near bursting point. All I wanted was to get home.
Then the reality would dawn on me. Home was no quiet refuge or place of peaceful respite. The hours between my arriving home and the kids’ bedtime were the busiest of the day. Everyone would be grouchy and tired and hungry, especially hungry. I was supposed to monitor homework and referee sibling disputes while creating something hot, tasty and nutritious in the kitchen.
There would be laundry piled up and mold growing in the bathroom. I would have, unbeknownst to me, been volunteered to send twenty-five President’s Day cupcakes to school the next day. And there would be a very annoyed message on the answering machine from the receptionist at the orthodontist’s office because I’d forgotten our appointment again.
My husband helped, but he was tired too. More often than not we’d snap at each other. That is, if we got a chance to talk at all.
So as my commute continued, my mind got clearer. Approaching my exit, I confess, there were many days that I thought to myself, "What if I just kept driving?"
I could skip my exit, keep heading north and eventually I’d end up in Canada. Maybe they would never find me.
But every day, I clicked on my blinker and eased right onto the frontage road.
I did it, because that was what I was supposed to do.
Here’s a worm. Fly away. Fly back. Here’s a worm.
I guess that English sparrow and I have even more in common than I thought.
And I would venture to say that neither of us have any regrets.

This was first published in 2008, but this morning I decided it was worth re-posting. Hope you enjoyed it. P

This morning a theme dawns on us

2010-10-27T08:52:00.005-05:00

While we were drinking coffee together in the gray light of morning, Bill and I began to discuss our philosophy of decorating. It's not a very common topic for us. Mostly because our life seems overfilled with other things. But I recently finished my next book and I'm waiting to hear the first comments from my editor. Typically this is the time of the year when I get my annual medical check-up, visit the dentist, embark on a new exercise routine and think about other things, like decorating.

I love to watch the cable channels with their home makeover challenges. It's amazing how they can make a room unrecognizable in 72 hours. But now that I think about it, my kids were able to do that in twenty minutes. Decorating is all about style and color and theme. Theme is BIG in the lexicon of decorators. It gives a home, a room, a handle to grab on to. Everything in the room should fit into it and enhance it.

Bill and I were thinking that in our house is lacking in theme, or dare I say, theme-less.

When we married in 2001, my little bungalow was pleasantly full of furniture, knick-knacks, treasured history and objects d'art. Some of it I'd bought, some came from the homes of my parents and grandparents. There are even pieces whose origin is lost to history. (Was this my sister's or did my college dorm mate leave this when she moved out?)

Bill was living in a house just down the street from mine. He had plenty of things as well. And when we plighted our respective troths, well it got pretty crowded around here. Over time we've managed to "outsource" a number of things to kids, friends and Goodwill Industries to the point that we no longer have to clear a path to walk in and out the door.

We have established a rule, that neither of us can buy anything that we don't already have a place for. This works pretty well, but there are still the unexpected additions. This week one of the kids is moving and dropped off a bookcase end table that he no longer wanted. The sturdy piece, constructed from old growth walnut was built by my father in his high school shop class. It was a fixture in my grandparent's living room for perhaps sixty years. My grandfather kept his reading material there and when Grandma got too much for him, he was known to turn down his hearing aid and lose himself in Salvation Army Magazine, the Reader's Digest or the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley.

When my grandparents died, it became mine and it has fitted itself into the numerous apartments and houses with purposes unique to each locale. I'm not sure exactly how it ended up in my stepson's bachelor pad, but it's nice to have it home again and living among those who might occasionally dust it.

Because it is dark wood and has the bookcase feature, we decided to put it here in my office. It fits in nicely and already looks as if it has been a part of this room forever.

So Bill and I sat here, sipping our coffee and admiring it, imagining the wood being carefully cut on the table saw at Oilton High in 1937. Thinking of how proudly Dad might have presented it to his parents, his grade 'A' marked in chalk on the underside.

I remembered it covered with a crochet doily, as the location of the button jar in my childhood. And sitting next to my big reading rocker in my first home in Tulsa, the one with orange shag carpeting.

We speculated on the books that had filled its shelf in the last 73 years. Maybe 1st editions of Cimarron and Grapes of Wrath, a dog-eared copy of The Greatest Story Ever Told. And my own reading history, when Girl of the Limberlost made way for graduate school texts on librarianship, which got replaced by What to Expect When You're Expecting and then Curious George.

That's how, in a discussion of decorating, we figured out our theme. Our decor revolves around memories. It's about looking at our life, and the lives of people we love, in the long term. And everything in every room encourages and enhances that theme. Some day maybe our grandkids will see it the same way.

Attempts at being a better person

2010-10-13T13:04:00.003-05:00

Most people who know me know that I'm a Christian. Most people who know me pretty well, know that I'm not that good of one. I love a nice glass of wine and hardly ever pass it up when it's offered. And terrible Anglo Saxon curses have been known to escape my lips. I laugh at unseemly off-color jokes. I've even told a risque tale or two.

Admitting that, I also must confess that from time to time I make attempts at being a better person. So far the results have been mixed.

Several years ago I determined to give up gossiping. Now gossip did not make the Bible's top ten list, unless you consider it "false witness" which I think is really lying. However, the New Testament is very sternly opposed to it and for undoubtedly good reasons. So in a moment of self-betterment, I decided to give it up. My vow lasted about a week. A very silent week. I realized that without sharing what I knew or what I'd heard, I suddenly didn't have anything to talk about. A gal has got to have conversation!

My next improvement project was inspired by a Sunday School teacher who urged his class to pray for our enemies. I was momentarily caught up short. I couldn't think of any particular persons at the time that I would consider enemies. I probably could manage a better list now. But after some thought I eventually chose a fellow writer who had dissed me at a conference. I didn't know the woman and what her motivation might have been, I couldn't imagine. But she had angered and embarrassed me in public. And I would have very much enjoyed throttling her. But of course, I didn't. Instead I picked her to be the enemy I prayed for.

I was diligent about it. I kept it up. And I have to admit I had expectations. I thought I would eventually feel forgiving toward her. That I would learn to care about her. And that somehow, some way, that care would translate into some sort of explanation of what happened.

Well, nope on all counts.

I think my mistake was one that I often make. Maybe it's one everybody makes. I feel that when I do something good, something kind, something unselfish that over the course of time I get all that back. We even have a saying for it. "What goes around, comes around." If you're into Eastern religions, it's called karma, I guess. My late husband, Mr. Morsi, would have quoted an Arab proverb about salt on the water. It always comes back to you.

I, however, have decided that is wishful thinking. An act of altruism that maintains a selfish component isn't really altruism. It's just hedging a bet. In order to be truly good, kind, charitable, you simply cannot suppose you will profit from it in any way.

Of course, when you take out the profit motive, the number of participants dwindles significantly.

I was talking with friends the other day about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and the billionaires trying to give away half of their wealth. I admire them for that. Even if they do have so much money they will never miss it, giving half is very significant and very much needed. And it's even better that they're trying to encourage other billionaires to do the same. Now, it's not lost on anyone that these guys have more money than they could spend in a dozen lifetimes and that they can't take it with them. By giving away their money now, they get to control where it goes. They get to take bows for the good that it does. And they get all the positive tax consequences they are entitled to.

I sure wouldn't want to discourage that.

And the "goes around, comes around" thing can also be good if you're a recipient.

My Uncle Bob has been having some health struggles lately and he's received so much assistance, not just from family, but also from the folks who live nearby. Their caring has been so generous and consistent that it's difficult for him to accept. He gets all teary-eyed about how kind people are to him. I've tried to make it better by pointing out all that he's done for others over his lifetime. He was always there when somebody needed him. The difference now is that he's the one in need. I think that made him feel better. And I don't doubt those neighbors do it with no sense of ever having it reciprocated by anyone. Then again, I'd hope that if they ever need help, someone...maybe someone like me, will be there.

Maybe that's the whole deal about community. The truly selfless are so rare, that they would be completely overwhelmed were it not for us sort-of-self-interested folks.

There's a saying that I can't quite remember something like, "a drowning man doesn't judge the hand that reaches out to him." That's not quite it, but you probably know it better than I do. It's a more sophisticated version of, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." For those of you not typical horse recipients, translate that to "don't look for faults in something freely offered."

Doing the kind thing, the nice thing, the best thing is such a positive to our families, our communities, our world, that whatever our motives might be pales in significance

Oh, and that author that dissed me? She became so fabulously successful that she's practically a household name. I take some credit for that. I'm sure my prayers helped.

What a difference a Dad makes

2010-06-20T08:38:00.002-05:00

Conventional wisdom says that if you want to know what a woman will be like in old age, look at her mother. I've never really liked this saying. Those of you who read my books have probably figured out already that my relationship with my mom was complicated. It was my goal in life to be nothing like her at all. In some ways, I've succeeded, in others, well I see more of her in myself every day.

The only thing that made growing up in the house with Mom tolerable, was Dad. He was a man with a quick smile and an expansive heart. He could curse to blue blazes if the situation called for it, but in truth he rarely raised his voice. He loved my mother, totally.

He also adored his girls. The story goes that with his second daughter still in diapers, Mom said to him, "I think I may be pregnant AGAIN." Dad's reported response, "I hope to hell it's not true, but if it is, I'm delighted."

It was true, of course, so the two of them got through tough times and a miserable winter fantasizing about having a boy. They got me instead.

A man with three daughters needs infinite patience and as many bathrooms as he can afford to build. We had only one and Dad had to get up pretty early in the morning to be able to get his turn in it.

As the youngest I had, I believe, the most blest life. By the third child, pretty much all your expectations and ideals are out the window. You're just hoping to survive parenthood. The rules about bedtimes never applied to me. I don't recall anyone ever bothering to look over my homework. My hemlines never seem to cause concern. And my boyfriends never required much scrutiny. "If he's a friend of Pammy's he must be all right."

My older sisters were very much watched, very much urged in the direction of studying hard, postponing marriage and getting education. They were expected to be good citizens, well-read and active in both body and mind. My oldest sister was pretty and popular. The middle one was the most important woman on campus both in high school and college.

My dad once joked to a friend, "We just had Pammy for the fun of it."

But once let out in the big world, I too, have had my own measure of success.

I'm not talking about my writing or about my years as a librarian, both careers of which I am very proud. The choices I've made that have most enhanced my quality of life are the men that I married.

Now to me, that makes total sense. Nothing has more impact on a person's happiness or well being than the person with whom they share their life. Rich or poor, healthy or suffering, it's the person standing next to you and the confidence you have in leaning on them or having them lean on you, that makes the difference.

I always tell people that I've been "lucky in love". And there is a truth to that. I was so negative about the prospects for a relationship with Mr. Morsi, that I almost stood him up on our first date. And the tiny pieces of fate that had to fall into place for me to end up married to Bill are so monumental, I deem it just short of miracle.

But "lucky" isn't the whole thing about relationships. We've all met women who managed to get mixed up with the wrong guy. Sometimes youth is to blame. Sometimes it's libido over logic. The lure of the "bad boy" has led lots of girls on a fast track to misery. And of course there are the mending women who can't resist a broken man with the hope that they can fix him. Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't.

Also I see something that I call BAD DAD SYNDROME. I'm sure psychiatrists probably call it something else, but I think you know what I mean. A bad dad can sometimes mean a bad marriage or a series of bad boyfriends or a life of no attachment at all. Not that women with difficult relationships with their fathers, damaged relationships, non-existant relationships can't eventually find happiness with a partner, but I think they have to work harder at it.

For most, a woman's very first interaction with the opposite sex is with her father. If that relationship is characterized by violence or neglect, criticism or disregard, those negatives get tied into expectations. Constant complaint, emotional distance or an apparent enjoyment in belittling spouses becomes, in these women's mind "just the way men are."

MEN are not like that. Only some men are like that.

My dad was such a perfect father for daughters. He loved talking to us. He cared about what we thought, how we came to our ideas, what our worries might be. He had great confidence in us and encouraged us to have confidence in ourselves.

I took my first tears from a broken heart to him, he said, "Men are just like streetcars, they'll be another along in fifteen minutes."

When I chose to marry outside my religion, outside my culture, he announced to the family, "If he suits Pammy, he suits the rest of us."

When I told him his granddaughter was mentally handicapped, he told me, "I think she'll do just fine for us."

Dad walked me down the aisle for my second wedding in 2001. He was just recovering from a bout of pneumonia at the time. He'd lost so much weight only suspenders would keep his trousers up. But he wanted to be there. As he and I stood outside the church door, waiting for our cue he told me, "I like Bill, he's a good guy. But then, baby, you've always been able to pick 'em."

What I didn't say then, but want to say now is that being his daughter made that so much easier for me. From the other side of the world or just down the street, I always looked for the qualities that I saw in my dad.

Happy Father's Day.

What a little bird told me.

2010-05-13T08:45:00.005-05:00

We went for an early morning walk. It's always nice to get out of the house, but we do it for exercise and the exercise, of course, is mostly for me. I have a very sedentary job and when I'm kind of "in the zone" of a story, I can easily fail to step outside my door for days at a time. Bill tries to see that doesn't happen.

We went down the hill to the track at the Olmos Basin soccer fields. The track and fields are constructed on land that is in the flood plain. I don't know if that's the exact terminology "in the flood plain". It sounds like I'm saying "this land could flood" but in fact this land is supposed to flood. This natural basin was re-engineered in the 1920s to collect water behind a dam to keep downtown San Antonio free of the terrible, tragic flooding that had historically plagued it.

So, the basin can't be used for houses or schools or anything that might wash away. The city keeps it as a green zone with nature trails and fields for baseball and soccer and a partially shaded track that encircles about 50 acres of open land and abuts at least that many more acres of heavily wooded wildlife area, home to coyotes and other critters not usually a part of an urban landscape.

The highlight of the morning's jaunt was that we saw Alonzo, the male partner in the pair of Mexican Eagles that rule the area. Mexican Eagles don't just exist on the Mexican flag. They are real birds, otherwise known as crested caracara. The photo here is by wildlife photographer Claude Desrochers. Check out his work at www.Desrochresphoto.com As you can see it actually looks very much like the American Bald Eagle, except the male looks like he's wearing a hat. A sombrero, some say, but to me it looks more like a beret. Or when he's very alert and the feathers stand on end, it resembles something that Davy Crockett might have worn.

Like the American Bald Eagle they are huge birds, majestic and graceful. They soar to great heights over the field. And when they spot a creature moving in the grass, they swoop down at high speed to whisk the hapless prey from the safety of the ground to the nest of sticks in the tall tall trees.

The absolute beauty of this hunting, this picking off of the smaller and weaker, it is fascinating, almost hypnotic to watch. It's a part of nature. And nature is part of all of us. For the good and bad.

We all experience the eagles of this world and sometimes fall prey to them.

As I watched I began thinking about my new story, out in July, called THE BIKINI CAR WASH. Now, I'm sure you can't imagine how, with such a title, this eagle would bring that to mind. But one of the themes of the story is how a rich and powerful, connected community leader, for reasons the heroine can never know or understand, decides to prey upon her struggling summer business. This theme is not new to me, nor is it new to American literature. Some of our greatest writers, from Hawthorne through Steinbeck and beyond have pitted the little guy against the landlord, the robber baron, the corrupt official. And in film Frank Capra created his legacy on his everyman-Jimmy Stewart characters valiantly sparing against the giants of injustice.

As a people, Americans love this theme. It speaks to us in a way that's both personal and rooted in our history. Whether your family came to this country when they ran out of potatoes, or escaped the pogroms, whether they were chained into the hull of ships, sailed in on the Mayflower or, as Cherokee-American humorist Will Rogers used to say, "we met them at the boat when they landed", the ideals of our country can be summed up as: we believe everyone should get a fair shake. For that reason, we are always going to root for the underdog.

And perhaps, for that reason, in our poems, our novels, our movies, the little guy usually comes out on top.

"Ah..." I thought with a sigh. "If only real life were more like books. If only nature were a little more nurturing."

Just then, ahead of us near the edge of the trail, the Mexican eagle landed on the grass between a pair of big trees. We heard what was happening before we could see it. A pair of mockingbirds, who undoubtedly had a nest to protect in one of those trees, were frantically charging, pecking, harassing the eagle. Mockingbirds are not tiny, though most of their size is in their extra long tail feathers. Compared to the eagle then were very outclassed. Kind of like a bar fight between an NFL tackle and a pudgy 3 year-old.

But the mockingbirds refused to be intimidated. Again and again and again they charged the eagle. One would go at him directly while the other fluttered up to poke him sharply on the top of the head. The eagle tried to go after them with his talons, the mockingbirds were too quick. He tried swatting them away with the power of his wing-span, they were knocked down but they came right back.

Finally, the eagle took to the air, with mockingbirds in pursuit. With his size and strength, he quickly left the smaller flyers behind.

But he didn't come back.

Sometimes, even in nature, the little guy wins. I like that.

Where's the beef?

2010-05-02T16:06:00.003-05:00

We had some friends over for dinner last night. Although I love their company, I’d put off inviting them over because they are vegans. As you know vegans don’t eat meat or any animal products, no dairy, no eggs, no fish. All of which are big staples of my company cooking capabilities. And you just can’t throw a big plate of salad in front of people and call it a meal. What little I know about being vegan is that you have to get your complete protein from the simultaneous consumption of beans and rice.

Hmmm. The truth was, I was venturing into unfamiliar territory and I was scared.

Finally, I called them and we settled on the date, trusting on faith that somehow I could come up with a menu I could manage. I did. I made my best cabbage rolls using black beans instead of lamb or ground chuck. That along with some tabouli, hummus, baba ganoush and olives actually made a meal.

And it turned out pretty good, even if I do say so myself. My recipe is probably not going to make the vegan version of the Pillsbury Bake-Off, but it was edible. And the great conversation and pleasure of their company more than made up for any lack in my personal culinary skills.

As I was cleaning up I thought about how silly it had been for me to be so nervous. If my dinner had been totally inedible, we would have munched on bread and eaten olives. We would have all had a good laugh at my expense and that would be the worse.

But I guess the thing is, sometimes imagining the worst can just get completely out of hand. The worst takes on a stature that seems like a tremendous life changing armageddon. Terrible things do happen, but in truth they are so rare.

I have a dear young man in my life whom I love and admire deeply. He’s spent the last few years and more than a few dollars trying to bring to life a business that he really loves and believes in. Troubled times, tight credit, bad luck, it just hasn’t happened.

Now, disappointed and probably a little disgusted, he’s worried about supporting his wife and kids, anxious about paying the mortgage. Maybe even angry that hard work doesn’t always pay off. That sometimes despite careful planning and diligent efforts, the elements of success don’t readily come together. I guess it’s really a wonder that they ever do.

I think if he were to ask my advice, I’d suggest that he take a step backward. The way I see it, who you are is infinitely more important than what you do. Career is not the definition of life. Life is spouse and family, friends and community. It's the human connections that you make in this world while you still can.

Not that work isn’t important. A smart guy with a quick mind will always have to be striving. But success is not the end all, it is the means to an end. We are obligated to use our skills and talents to provide for ourselves, our kids and those around us in need. As the bible puts it, (Luke 12:46) “to whom much is given, much is required.” Or as my Okie oilpatch dad would have said, “Do the best you can with the tools you’ve got.”

Setbacks and stumbling blocks are the fodder from which creativity and ingenuity are made. Giving into fear or cynicism is just a waste of time. Sooner or later we’ve all got to man-up, or woman-up, and face the necessity of altering the recipe. Keeping clear that dinner with friends is never about the food.

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2010-04-30T19:44:00.001-05:00

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Sarah Palin's kick in the gut

2010-02-21T10:46:00.003-06:00

I'm not venturing into the political here, but the recent controversy between Sarah Palin and the cartoon FAMILY GUY caught my attention. Mrs. Palin and her daughter Bristol apparently caught the show which portrayed a Down Syndrome adult. Sarah described her reaction as like being kicked in the gut.

I really know that feeling.

Now it kind of turns out the portrayal that Sarah saw as negative was actually performed by an actress who has Down Syndrome. And that actress has spoken out saying her characterization was both accurate and funny.

I didn't see it. I don't know anything about it. But I do know about being kicked in the gut. It is a sensation with which most parents of mentally handicapped people can identify. And I can remember when my reaction, like Sarah's, was to lash out.

For months now a couple of mom's (both of them with children under age two) have been pushing for legislation that would change the language of official parlance to exclude the word retarded. They've been joined in this by such stalwart organizations as the ARC and Special Olympics.

I can go along with that. But personally, I've always found the R-word useful. It's a good English word that people understand. If I say to a new neighbor, "My child is mentally retarded." They get it.

If I say to a new neighbor, "My child has an intellectual handicap with decreased cognitive functioning and multiple developmental delays." I may get questions about whether I think she'll grow out of it. They may suggest that maybe if I tried to "work with her". Or they might go into great detail about a talk show last Thursday on the incredible powers of fortified kelp.

Still, I cringe when I hear a ponytailed teenager giggling to her girlfriends and saying, "That is so retarded!"

Whatever.

I think the real difference between my position here and that of the Palin's and the moms pushing the legislation is one of time on the job. I hate to put myself forward as the grizzled, old veteran with sage words of wisdom. But I guess that's who I am.

Ladies, I do not fault your efforts, but I'd urge you not to waste too much time in the wrong battle. Yes, you may succeed in washing out every teenage mouth with soap. But no matter how PC you make the rest of the world, you will never make your child a part of it.

What? You can't be saying that. I am. And that's okay.

Because, trust me, your child doesn't want what you want.

A fellow special need's mom, a grizzled veteran when I was still wet behind the ears told me once, "We spent thirty years trying to make it possible for our son to live in our world. We finally figured out that we have to live in his."

In my novels, I've written a lot of characters that are mentally handicapped. I do it because I write from life and that's been the life I've lived. Mostly I've tried not to portray my daughter. She has a right to privacy, even if she doesn't know about it. However, in the book I have coming out in July, there is a character that is a real homage to Leila and the world she inhabits.

It's not the world that has any of our typical definitions about achievement or consumption.

Leila loves her job and thinks it's fun to get her paycheck. Whether it's $12 or $120, she doesn't see a difference. The plastic beads that got thrown from the Fiesta float are as dear to her as the pearls my mother wore when she married. Leila knows what she likes and what she wants and my take on this is meaningless. I can insist to her that the lovely, expensive purse she got for her birthday is much better for carrying to church. But if she really wants to be seen with the glittery piece of Hannah Montana plastic, should I forbid her such a small pleasure?

She finds joy on her own terms and I think it's wrong for me to try to change her.

She had a fellow classmate who truly loved cleaning. He loved the broom, the mop, the dust rag. He was thrilled with the power to change the whole look of a white porcelain sink with only a damp sponge. It was such a feeling of accomplishment. His father, a successful, high powered executive was incensed that his protected, privileged child, despite his handicap, would choose such menial work. Although there was clearly a place of employment for his son's skills, the father insisted that he would never allow his child to pursue work as a janitorial helper. This was obviously not about the son, but the preconceptions and values of the father.

I believe the same can be said for these young mothers. They are trying to protect their children from a word that means nothing to the child, but is fully loaded to wound themselves.

Sticks and stones, as well as the more literary slings and arrows, are more often the problem of the parents. They know how THEY would feel. But it will be many years before they can even begin to understand how their child would interpret it.

Cruelty, teasing, they are bad things. We all know that. And every parent should try to instill in their offspring an empathy with and protectiveness for those weaker, whether physically, mentally or spiritually. But it's a result produced more often with a fine, skilled needle than an heavily wielded broad axe.

Raising a mentally handicapped child, being responsible for a mentally handicapped adult, these are not jobs for the faint hearted. But aching hearts grow stronger day by day by day.

And those kicks to the gut? The solar plexus gets so sturdy that the kicker will likely break a toe.

Many years ago a well meaning supporter in my Sunday School class quoted the hackneyed wisdom that "Special children are born to special parents." The truth about what makes us parents so special, is that we cannot go forward based on our own emotions and our own experience. We've got to learn how to be happy and prosper in a universe that will never settle into the rules that we would make for it. We swallow our own fears and hurts and disappointments, we submerge our expectations and determinedly head out into unfamiliar territory. And we do that all for a goofy smile and a laugh that's just a little bit too loud.

Dining Room Table Saw, Part 2

2009-11-06T09:19:00.002-06:00

Fairly often when writing my novels I think I'm going to write about one thing and when it's done, I've actually written about something entirely different.
That's apparently what happened with my original Dining Room Table Saw post. I was going to write about my house, but instead wrote about my parent's house.
So I want to tell you now, what I thought I was going to tell you then.
As I've stated dozens of times in this blog, I live in an arts & crafts bungalow that we're fixing up. I love this house so much. It just suits me to a T. It's a near perfect floor plan. Three bedrooms and an office. It has dark hardwood floors, oak in the living room and dining room, long-leaf pine in the kitchen. We painted the exterior pink with white trim and plum accents to match the 20 foot high crepe myrtles that line the street in our front yard.
Locally it is know as "The Jewel House".
But not because it's the jewel that it is.
Like most houses in town, it's named for its original resident, Dr. Jewel.
What we know about it's history is gleaned from public records and the long memories of some of our older neighbors. Dr. Jewel contracted with the Steves Construction Company to build the house in 1921. He moved in here with his first wife. They divorced early in the depression era.
About the same time, he added the office (where I write) in space that had been part of a wrap-around porch. The office was designed to be an office with vintage knotty pine and built-in filing cabinets. Separated from the front bedroom by a pocket door, I speculate that he utilized both rooms and made this the site of his medical practice.
He remarried shortly thereafter. The second wife was a nurse and younger than the doctor. He built a smaller house next door and deeded it to his mother-in-law. That all seems very nice. A really close knit family.
However, when the good doctor died, things got a little curious. The first wife, the second wife and the mother-in-law all sued each other for a share of this house.
I guess that was how it ended up with the Harrises who lived in it from the WWII era until the early 1960s.
When they passed on, it became the property of a young single mom with a child. Her father was a contractor and added the family room and another bedroom and bathroom onto the back.
The young mom lived here a while. After that it was rented for many years to the Sisters of the Incarnate Word as an overflow residence for the Mother House of their order located only a few blocks away.
By the time I first saw it in 1994, it had been a frequent-turnover-rent-house for a couple of decades. It was beige inside and out. The carpeting in the bedrooms was officially called "chocolate". For me, it was the exact color of cockroaches.
But something about the place really drew me to it. I remember sitting out in the car parked next to the curb, looking at the place and saying aloud to my husband. "I think I could be happy here."
And I have been. Sad too. And angry. And joyous. That's what homes are about, I guess. They house all of our emotions, our triumphs, our failures, sometimes for generations.
I know a lot of people like new houses. They want to build something that is exactly like they want it and that has never been touched by anybody but them.
That has never even been a temptation for me. I like being a part of the history of this house. If I manage to live into old age, I'll probably be the person that's resided here the longest. That would be nice. Maybe then my descendents will put up a plaque calling it The Pamela Morsi House. Cool.

Dining Room Table Saw

2009-11-04T15:11:00.003-06:00

When it comes to home renovation I used to joke that I was in college before I knew that every family didn't have a table saw in the dining room. My grandfather, as the story goes, owned one very long narrow building on the corner of Main & D Street in Oilton. It was reputed to have been a house of ill fame. I don't know that for sure, but was "across the tracks" as they say and apparently in the right neighborhood.
My grandfather had the building cut in half. He moved one half to the corner of Main & C and donated it to the congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I remember going to services there a few times.
The other half he left on the corner of Main & D and gave it to my parents. They were newly married, my dad just home from WWII and there was a tremendous housing shortage. They were so thrilled to have their own place...such as it was.
They were young and strong and hardworking and they lived and worked on that crumby little sad excuse for a house through three children and thirty-five years. Every time they'd get a few bucks ahead, they'd buy some paint or sheet rock, shingles or knotty pine paneling. The entire foundation was constructed from rocks my dad picked on the the side of the road and threw into the back of his truck.
Ultimately, it was a pretty nice house. Certainly as good or better than most of our neighbors. Dad said there was probably enough lumber in it to build three houses. And the plumbing and wiring, done completely by Dad and his best friend Lyle was added onto so many times it looked like a giant spider web in the attic. And the hot water had to run around the house full circle before making it to the front bathroom.
So with this history, I guess it's not surprising that Bill and I would buy a 1921 arts & crafts bungalow that "needed some work". Fortunately Bill is pretty handy. He's not afraid to try anything and he's managed to become a pretty dad-gummed good carpenter.
We've done most of the work ourselves. Or rather he has, with me offering helpful suggestions like "is that level?" But mostly he does such fabulous work and I am amazed at what he gets done.
We're currently in year six of what we jokingly call our twenty year restoration schedule.
However, the bathrooms in this house are really, really sad. Some very helpful person in the mid-sixties decorated one all green and the other all brown. Those are not my favorite bathroom colors, especially the brown. I always think maybe it's not really clean.
With all the time Bill has donated to the city the last few years, our progress has come to a near standstill.
So we bit the bullet, so to speak and hired a contractor.
As I write this. The formerly brown room is now all hardy board and drywall gray. Two guys are doing something in there pretty much all day long. Maybe they are just listening to the radio. Country music at 20,000 decibels.
Bill says that everything that happens to me, to us in our lives, ends up in a book. He warns people not to say anything to me that they wouldn't want to see in print.
I am not that bad. I want you to know that.
Still, if my next novel feels coated in chalky dust and screams of George Strait, well you know what happened.

I think I'm gonna curl!

2009-09-24T12:32:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I got my hair done, not by my regular person. This hairdresser was very young, very sweet and amazingly sincere. After the shampoo bowl she raved about my natural wave and suggested that rather than wasting time straightening it out, I should just make the best of what was natural.
At the time it sounded like a reasonable idea, so I said, "Okay." She got some hair goo called 'Let It Curl' or somesuch freedom-sounding product and worked it into my damp tresses. Then she used a diffuser to bring it all out.
She liked it very much. My response was less positive. Something just short of "AGH! Get this giant pile of kink off my head!
So she, with the help of another nearby stylist, sprayed it down with witch hazel and then blow-dried it and flat-ironed it to a more chic and acceptable straightness.
I left the salon looking really good.
As evening arrived I had to attend a fancy dressed up event. I wore a gorgeous suit and headed out on the arm of my handsome husband. The setting was a nineteenth century mansion, now a private club, in my neighborhood. The people were charming and the discussions inspiring, but honestly it was busy, crowded and hot. Just off the second floor main salon was a covered porch with lots of tables and chairs and a lovely view. It was at least ten degrees cooler out there and I found myself drifting in that direction time and time again.
Did I mention it was raining? Ah, beautiful lovely rain. In drought parched south Texas we are just crazy for rain. We are all just astounded about how it can fall from the sky and make everything so cool, so green.
Of course, it has other effects. It can flood your neighborhood, as it has in Georgia this week. It can turn lazy little creeks into dangerous torrents. It can carve away the landscape in ways that are irreparable. It can kill people, which is certainly no joke and I wouldn't wish in any way to make light of that.
But to get back to my story, rain has amazing effects on hair. Especially curly hair. Even more especially, curly hair that has recently been imbued with a curl enhancement product.
So I am at this party, talking, chatting, ever teetering between being delightfully witty and sticking my foot in my mouth. And unbeknownst to me, my hair is evolving...or devolving. By the time I caught sight of myself in a mirror I was very distinctly Medusa-esque. Not a good look for me. Even with my excellent bone structure.
I'm not much better today. I look like a wild woman. I've pulled it back in a ponytail, but still there is just nothing smooth, sleek or tidy about it.
Sophisticated. My husband, Bill, tells me that was his first impression when we met. That was his word "sophisticated". Now I admit that if the talk turns to art, music, great literature or fine food, I can usually hold up my end of the conversation for about five minutes. Sophistication is not something one picks up in the oil patch. A sense of self reliance. A strong work ethic. A belief that anything can be fixed with wood shims, duct tape or WD40, those are traits you pick up in the oil patch.
The other stuff, not so much. More likely than sophisticated, I was probably just nervous. Whatever, he married me anyway and if he thinks he got shortchanged, at least he doesn't say so.
As I got to know him, I relaxed and behaved more like the person that I am, a little bit silly, sometimes irreverant, and a sufferer of Broadway Tourettes (the annoying tendancy to burst into song at any moment). It's not the most winning personality but it is me.
Sort of like my hair, however, I have the good sense to try to control it most of the time.

Counting it all up

2009-08-29T18:08:00.003-05:00

Two discussions occurred in my house this weekend. Both of them involving mathematics. Bill came in with his laptop. He was taking a break from the heat outside and while wandering the internet decided to look up current research on ill-conditioned polynomials. When he was an undergraduate, he'd devised a computer program that was successful in conditioning them. Since he never published his paper, he has been watching for years to see if somebody else figures it out. So far no.
As husband's sometimes do, instead of going public with his methods and his findings, he chooses to explain them to me.
I'm not sure I really understand what a polynomial is. I can't imagine why one would want to be ill-conditioned or what might cause it to be so unstable nearing zero. (I guess cold weather makes all of us go a little nuts!)
But I'm a very good listener and I don't mind looking at little colorful grafts and charts. When Bill talks about this kind of thing, it's like a glimpse into an entirely different world. As strange to me as anything a fantasy writer could conjure up.
The second discussion was instigated by me. I was filling out forms for Leila. Some of these forms require that I use symbols like > and <>?
What makes sense to me is that the pointy side is littler than the fat side, so the pointy side should point to the number that's less. But somehow it can't just point to the lower number it has to relate to some other number, some number that might not even be on the form. So less than 50 has to be written <50>50. Huh?
I get so frustrated with this kind of stuff. I just don't get it. Even as a kid, and I was a fairly bright kid, I couldn't get this sort of concept. You know when they'd give us a row of three baseball caps facing different directions and the question would be "Which of these are the same?" Well, they were pretty much all the same. For me the two that were the same were the ones that were facing each other, because they were both facing each other. The answer that the teacher wanted was the two that were facing right or two that were facing left. Facing each other didn't count.
I've read things over the years that women don't pursue math because they are not encouraged to do so. That society expects women to be bad in math. That may be true. But I am absolutely stuck in a stereotype. And I don't like it.
When I come upon a math problem, the first thing I do is take a deep breath. I remind myself that I am a smart person, that math is logical and therefore I can logically reason it out. That if I just break it down into smaller parts and work those out, then I will be able to come up with the answer for the whole. Utilizing this process consistently, I find that 9 times out of 10, I still get it wrong. What's a writer to do?
Readers often ask me about my process and how I get complicated stories down on paper. I have to answer, that I really don't know. There are no rules in writing. There are no formulas, no tables of known quantifiers, no algebraics. It's just one word after another and somehow it all comes out. I wish I understood it all better, but somehow just doing, without knowing, has gotten me a long way. Maybe it could be stated like this.
X = 1 disciplined writer x 400 manuscript pages + (characters >=people you actually know) - all the stories you've ever read + a lot of hard work from editors, agents, publishers and a bunch of other folks I don't even know about.
Do you think those other people I don't know could be polynomials? Conditioning is all the rage.

Thanks Eunice

2009-08-11T18:47:00.003-05:00

Eunice Kennedy Shriver died yesterday. I didn't know her, but she made a lot of difference in my life. When my daughter, Leila, was born, I didn't know a thing about mentally handicapped people. Oh, I'd seen a few growing up in my hometown. I had very little contact with them and spent even less time thinking about lives.
Then I was blessed with Leila. I used the term "blessed" but I have to admit, it didn't always seem that way.
When she was a baby, she was so sweet and so well behaved that people commented on it.
"She's such a good baby," people would say.
I would smile proudly and tell them, "Oh, you know God looked down on me and said, 'this woman can't take much. Let's send her an easy one.'"
It always evoked a little laugh from all those in hearing distance. And it was a modest way, I thought, of dealing with my excellently behaved little sweetie.
I remember vividly the day of her diagnosis. The doctor who examined her was pretty casual. I thought he was going to suggest more tests. I hadn't even asked my husband to go with me to the meeting. I thought I wouldn't need him. Leila was playing with the blocks. Playing and smiling. The doctor spent most of our time explaining to me his new IQ shorthand that he was developing. He thought he'd come up with a way to reduce the laborous testing for children. He could give a task and then determine the level of function based on how fast the boy or girl could accomplish it. He was so delighted with himself, he almost didn't get around to talking about my daughter. But finally he said, "I'd peg her IQ at about 38, she's severely handicapped. You'll be lucky if she's self feeding and potty trained."
I don't know, even with a million pages of explanation, if I could convey the shock and horror of these words. My beautiful, happy child was handed a future that was so sad, so without promise, that I could hardly bear it.
I almost didn't get through the rest of the day. Suffice to say it was the worst day of my life.
I read later that for parents of special needs children the worst days are the day of diagnosis and the 21st birthday. I've been through both of those now and come through okay.
I think Eunice deserves some credit for that.
I didn't know Eunice Shriver. I don't know what kind of person she was. I don't know what kind of things motivated her. But she did something very important. She, almost singlehandedly brought the lives of mentally handicapped people into the American mainstream.
Eunice used her influence and her celebrity and her own grit and elbow grease to bring my daughter and so many more like her, out of the back room and into the communities in which they live. Without her, there would be, of course, no Special Olympics. But there would also be no Public Law 94-142. Of that I am very sure. Without Eunice, my daughter would never have been allowed to attend public school in this country. And without public school, well the other options are only for the wealthy. In the last 30 years all of us have been astounded to discover what the handicapped are capable of doing. New inroads in special education have performed miracles for people whose lives, in an earlier generation, would have simply been wasted.
Today, my Leila, is self feeding and potty trained. She also takes care of her own laundry. clears the table, washes the dishes and waters the plants. She has friends, makes jokes and loves movies. She attends a sheltered workshop where she's actively employed and earns her own paycheck. She also has a huge display in her bedroom of all the medals she's won over the years in Track and Field, Bowling, Basketball and Golf. Her life is not an easy one, but it is a happy one. She's been given a real chance to fulfil her full potential.
Thank you, Eunice Shriver.

Philosophy of Flying Fish

2009-05-31T13:09:00.003-05:00

We were coming home late last night and Bill suggested we take a quick detour down to Avenue B and check out the flying fish. Now, if you're not from San Antono, you may not have yet heard of the flying fish, or think I'm referring to actual flying fish. I am not.

These flying fish are a school of 25 seven-foot long, colorful, figerglass sunfish that now hang over the newly opened section of the San Antonio River beneath Interstate 35. We'd had several good looks at them in daylight, but they are illuminated at night and we really wanted to see.

It was very much worth the trip, though it was getting close to 1 a.m. and that area is what is called euphemistically a "transitional neighborhood". In my vivid imagination it occurred to me that Sunday morning's headline could read, "Local Author Slain and Dismembered Near Site of Her Next Novel". But since I do not write thrillers, I comforted myself that it was not ironic enough to happen.

In truth, it all seemed pretty tame. The bars were still blaring music and people were milling around, but minding their own business, just out for a good time on a Saturday night. I felt, in a sense, right at home.

Now you might think from that statement that I am a former bar fly, night-lifer, living-large kind of gal. No indeed, I am still the relatively shy, bookish nerd you originally imagined. But that is only in my REAL life, of course.

My next novel, going on sale June 30th, is called RED'S HOT HONKY-TONK BAR. Red's bar, a completely fictional place, is located on completely unfictional Avenue B., specificially on Eight and Avenue B. I love that. Eight not Eighth. As if the city couldn't manage to spring for another letter for the street sign. Yes, I am aware that on the new sign where it crosses Broadway they're now calling it Eighth, but on that corner of Avenue B, it is merely Eight.

Anyway, I spent a year hanging out in Red's bar. As I said, it's not a real bar, but that doesn't matter. I was sitting here at this desk as I am now, but I was there. So the area does seem like home somehow.

It's one of those strange truths that writers live with and don't usually share with others, that our fictional lives can be as real to us as our true one. We don't usually talk about that too much, because it makes us sound crazy. Hey, if you spent your whole life making up stuff for a living, you might sound a little crazy, too.

I have written a lot of characters in a lot of settings. I feel connections with those characters as if they are actual people that I'd known. I feel connections to those places, as if I actually spent time there. This can be both good and bad. Thanks to stories like GARTERS and SWEETWOOD BRIDE, I walk around Tennessee as if I'm a native. I have never been more than a tourist there. And because of LAST DANCE AT JITTERBUG LOUNGE, I've developed a nightmarish fear of being lost at sea.

In RED'S HOT HONKY-TONK BAR, fact has strangely caught up to fiction and it's a challenge for me to peel away what I know to be true from stuff I just made up. In my story, bar owner, Red, has, among her many plotline challenges, the construction of the new San Antonio Museum Reach on her backdoor.

When I began the story, a little more than two years ago, the river behind Eight and B, looked just like it had for decades, I guess. The first day I walked around the area, thinking about it, I saw orange construction tape cordoning off the area beneath the bridge at Brooklyn Street. As I began the book, the digging started.

This weekend the area opened to the public. It's amazing so much planning and waiting, it all happened so fast. Bill and I walked to the riverside where I imagined Red's to be and I was blown away.

The character, Red, rightly feared the loss of something that she loved, a place that was as dear and special to her as any in the world. That has certainly happened. But I'm convinced that sometimes we do have to let go. The world is not a static place. The planet keeps spinning and we cannot hold it still, even for the best of reasons. The noisy bars on Avenue B are undoubtedly going to disappear for more staid residential development or tourist friendly commerical. We can't stop that from happening. What we can do is relish the moment that we're in. Even if it occurs at one o'clock in the morning.

The Novel as Mystery Meat

2009-05-03T16:47:00.005-05:00

I just took a break from writing to pull some meat out of the freezer for supper. We are in that awkward stage of grocery shopping when most of what is left in the freezer is roast beef. I like roast beef, which is frighteningly evident from my cold storage. I've got roasts for the crockpot and roasts for the rotisserie, roasts that I could pot roast and roasts that need to be roasted. Unfortunately, I also have leftover roast in the fridge. We've eaten it a couple of times this week. I don't know how welcome it would be on the table again tonight.
So I dug a little deeper and within the distant recesses of that frosty whiteness I spied a small freezer bag. It was opaque with age, but clearly there were pieces of something inside. I was immediately thrilled, thinking by the size and shape that these might be ancient filets, long forgotten but still very good.
I was doing the happy dance all over the kitchen.
I carried the bag outside where Bill is working on the front flashing of the house.
"I think I found some filets!" I told him. "Are you up for filets?"
He walked over and looked at my bag.
"Pork chops," he said. "I think they're just pork chops."
I look at the bag more closely, and a bit disappointed.
"Okay," I said. "Do you feel like pork chops?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
I came back inside and put them in warm water to thaw. But I'll tell you, I still think they might be filets.
And right then...ta dah!...the metaphor jumped me. I don't go looking for metaphors in my life. But somehow they always seem to find me.
My writing, I realized is a lot like mystery meat.
Unlike a lot of writers that I read and admire, my stories are not really planned out in advance. Or rather there is a plan, a very simple straight-forward roast beef kind of plan, that get's thrown out quicker than a turkey neck at a vegan barbeque.
I think to myself, I want to write about a young father who feels like he never fit into his family (Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge) or a grandmother who's not very good at taking care of her daughter's kids (Red's Hot Honkey-Tonk Bar). And the ideas seems simple and straightforward.
I have always written "from the hip," as they say. I sit down at the computer and put one word after another and that's how I work best. I guess you could say that my subconscious is a better writer than I am. I think I'm writing about fictional Jack Crabtree, swimming pool designer. But on the pages appearing before my eyes my subconscious begins to mull over long forgotten truths about my father and my uncles, my life in Oilton and bits of wisdom that I've learned, mostly through trial and error, in my life.
Writing pushes me to dig deep into my own heart, my own past, my own disappointments, my own fears. Invariably, the story that emerges is far different and more complex than I'd ever imagined. Even more that I wanted to imagine.
In writers' workshops I often tell a story about working on a book (Suburban Renewal) where the hero's father is in prison. I put him in prison at the beginning so that Sam, the hero, could be raised by his grandmother. Men who are raised by dads are often very different from those who are not. I needed this guy to be not.
Then suddenly in the middle of a scene, his father walks in.
What?!? Delete. Delete. Delete.
That was weird. I told Bill about it. Too crazy. This father was a very bad guy, very bad for my story. I wanted him out of there.
Next day, I returned to the computer and the bad dad shows up again.
Once more, I deleted him.
On day three, I decided, "Okay, I'll let this guy have a really peripheral role here."
For those of you who've read it, you know that Sam's father becomes so important in that story. He is a bad guy, but he ties the generations together and upon his character rests the entire theme of redemption possibilites available for even the worst among us.
So right now, I'm busy at work on a new book for 2010. (Red's Hot Honky-Tonk Bar is coming out this July). The 2010 book is a very concise and simply story, strictly roast beef. I could tell you all about it. But the minute I write a word here, it will definitely become some nice smothered pork chop with tasty stewed apples on the side.
Hope you're up for some grilled filets.

Hot Coffee and Optimism

2009-04-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

Ahhh...Saturday. What is it about waking up sans alarm clock that makes sleep so much more satisfying? That’s what happened to me this morning. My eyes opened up about 7:30 and I rolled over to see a cup of hot coffee steaming on the bedside table. Bill was already out sweeping the sidewalk or watering plants or whatever it is he does in the morning when I’m not paying attention. I scooted up in bed and drank my morning brew thinking optimistically to myself, "All’s right with the world."
Of course, not everything is right. That’s why I was so tired that I slept past six. My neighbor came by late last night. She’s a widow lady of later years, living on a secretary’s pension and social security. She’s been trying to help her struggling children. Her daughter’s husband has had his hours cut back at work, and with two in high school, they’re having a hard time. It’s one of those truisms that when family needs money, you have to help as best you can. But when you do, you can be sure it’s going to come back to bite you in the butt.
Her butt biting was last night. After an argument with her daughter, she just needed to vent. I was glad I could be there. It certainly is no burden to listen and nod as someone sorts out her feelings and gets calm enough to move on.
But it does take time, so I got to bed about midnight. That is not horribly late and if that were the end of it, no big deal. But at 1:40 a.m. I was awakened by what sounded like construction work on my ceiling. But no, even in San Antonio, contractors don’t show up for work that early. A raccoon was trying to make his way into our attic. His plan was to destroy our attic vent. This is not a task he could accomplish quietly.
Bill and I both got up and he, wearing only his scanty skivvies, went out on the back deck and shined a flashlight in the critter’s eyes until he got annoyed enough to wander away.
This raccoon has been living in the eaves above the carport for a least a few weeks. Animal control brought us a trap, complete with tuna bait, which we left nearby hoping to capture him. He, apparently, turned his nose up at the tuna. But the neighborhood cats found it to be delightful.
I have been googling today to try to figure out what to do next. Ammonia rags? Moth balls? A blaring radio? More lighting? I suspect that we will take what measures we can. And when the critter is good and ready, he’ll wander off to bother someone else.
I guess the problems with the economy are like that, too. We just have to get by as best we can. Make the best choices we know how to make. And wait it out. Sooner or later these hard times will wander off as inexplicably as they wandered in.

What's Bugging Me

2009-03-09T16:20:00.002-05:00

Bill walked into my office a few minutes ago proudly grinning ear to ear.
"Do you want to see how good my compost is this year?"
In the little trowel he held before him, among the shiny dark bits of well tended compost were two huge white grubworms, as big as a fat man’s fingers.
Now in retrospect I know that my response should have been, "Wow Bill! That is so great."
Instead however, I jumped up from my chair, physically recoiling from the sight and said, "Get those things out of the house!"
They were ugly, without a doubt. I think I get a pass for that.
However, I recall a couple of weeks ago, Ben was over and he occupied himself for some time gathering up rolly-polly bugs and putting them in a glass jar. I was okay with that, though I didn’t offer to hold any. But when he carried his jar full of little friends through the house, I was less supportive. "Bugs have to stay out on the porch. Even if they are our friends."
He obeyed, though his expression suggested he didn’t understand why.
This aversion to things buggish would be understandable if I had lived my life, as I do now, very princessy. I stay out of the sun. I never get dirty. I am willing to take a healthful walk, but I would only run if someone were chasing me. Mostly, my days are lived in this book-filled room, my office looking at this computer screen, my livelihood.
But that’s not how I grew up.
As a kid I shared a room with my sister just older than me. Although we love each other, we are not now, nor ever were, what one would call "kindred spirits". The only way we managed to live together without killing each other was that our room was her territory. And I was free to roam outside.
Outside was not so bad. Afterall, Dad was outside a lot and it was always fun to run errands for him, getting tools from the shed or nailing down something. That was far superior to the dusting, sweeping and dishwashing available as inside entertainment.
Of course, naturally the outside was full of nature. Including bugs and varmints of all kinds. There were certainly insects I didn’t want any part of. Wasps and mosquitos, who needs ‘em? But I used to catch grasshoppers with my friend, Patsy, from across the road. And there were butterflies and lightning bugs that just made the world so beautiful. There were interesting beetles and silly jumping junebugs. I even found a vinegaroon once! A strange creature so interesting I carried him to school to show my teacher.
I was never afraid of these critters. I wasn’t repulsed by them. I never worried about them being dirty...or even being dirty myself. It was a great life for a kid. A great life for anyone.
Am I really getting so prissy that I’m willing to let that go?
I don’t think so. Okay, I’m making a vow. I will walk barefoot in the backyard. I will look for interesting bugs. I will give up squeamishness right here, right now.
I’ll start small. Rolly-polly bugs to put in a jar. I can do that. I don’t expect to be cuddling up with those fat, ugly grub worms anytime soon.

Sunshine and Storms

2009-02-22T15:40:00.002-06:00

The sun is shining brightly outside my office window and above the roof of the house across the street I see beautiful blue sky. A perfect day in a quaint, quiet neighborhood. You’d think to look at it, that "peaceful" would be the typical descriptor.
However, if you walk out on the front porch, as I did a few minutes ago, you’ll get a completely different perspective. The porch is spattered with mud, littered by leaves and looking pretty much disreputable. It’s not that we haven’t been keeping neat and clean around here. It’s that last night we had a tremendous storm. The wind blew like crazy, hail banged against the roof and the cars, and the rain was coming in horizontal.
I was talking with one of my neighbors about the wild night. In our typical Spanglish discussion she used the Spanish word for storm, "tormenta". That word says things that the English equivalent just doesn’t touch upon.
Lately, it seems that our economy has come upon some really stormy weather. I guess, like Global Warming, part of it is completely natural and expected and part of it is man made. But it doesn’t really matter how it got here, what matters is how we get through it.
We all hate to see people suffering. And those who are more familiar with it, hate it the worst.
Years ago, back in my corporate life, I was given the task of heading up the United Way Fund Drive. At the launch of the campaign, we had a photographer and a staff writer and we went up to the CEOs office and he presented us with a personal check. We took his photo and wrote up something for the newsletter.
After that, I went around to all the high paid corporate officers and they all wrote checks. And I thought I was getting somewhere. But as I worked my way down the payscale, I discovered something surprising. The folks in Maintenance and Housekeeping, they were in no position to write big checks, but what they could do was bi-monthly withdrawals from their wages. And they did that. Folks who were making just over minimum wage were finding a way to donate hundreds of dollars to this cause.
I remember thinking, maybe they’re not adding it up, maybe they don’t understand how much they’re giving. So I asked one young woman who worked in the laundry, "Do you realize how much this amounts to over a year?" She nodded. "I’ve been burned out," she told me. "I lost everything. I know how it feels and I’m grateful for all those strangers who found a way to help me."
I guess what that says to me is that, sooner or later, most of us find ourselves on both the up and the down side of the economic world. If we can help somebody else, then we really should. And when times get so tough that we can hardly take care of ourselves, then we should be just as eager to accept help when it’s offered.
While you’re in the middle of it, the storm completely consumes your senses. You hear the scream of the wind, the moaning of the trees. You see the flashes of lighting on the swirling water in the street. You smell ozone and you taste the rain.
There is a tension to it that can so easily slip into plain old-fashioned terror. Once that happens, well you don’t forget it soon.
It’s one of the truths of writing, that authors allow the same themes to creep into their work time and time again. The stories may be 180 degrees dissimilar, but somehow when you boil down what’s being said, you get the same thing. We’re like one trick ponies. We’ve got this tiny piece of human insight and we put it out there again and again and again.
I guess my piece of insight is that life, although unmercifully short, is amazingly long. Things change and despite terrible storms that torment us today, tomorrow may look completely different. It may well bring that beautiful, peaceful calm. Different enough to have us smiling out the office window.

Morsi at the Movies: Last Chance Harvey

2009-01-17T17:14:00.001-06:00

Today it was one of those rare days that make up the winter in San Antonio. It was cold. Mid-forties and everyone in town was bundled up as if they were traversing the polar ice cap.
Bill was planning some sort of work on the chimney and decided it was too windy to be atop the house. I’m waiting to hear back from my agent on a new book proposal. So it was almost like a snow day at elementary school. Surprisingly free to do whatever we want.
After a chalupa lunch at Adelante we ran a few errands. Then he said, "Maybe we could catch a movie." Without any plan of what we wanted to see, we showed up at the theater. We quickly ruled out the kids movies and the ones we might see with Leila. We narrowed our prospects down to Gran Torino and Last Chance Harvey.
Gran Torino is supposedly vintage Eastwood at his best. And who could not like Eastwood? But we decided to take our popcorn to see Harvey and I’m so glad we did.
It was, to my thinking, a romantic comedy. Dustin Hoffman isn’t what one might call the traditional romantic hero. For one thing, he a bit older. He wears a bruised, battered, life weary persona that can’t be achieved by make-up alone. And Emma Thompson, is the charming girl next door all grown up and never quite realizing her potential. Of course, I loved it that she goes to writing classes and that the dream future she imagines for herself involves living in Spain and being a novelist. Having lived in Spain myself and being a novelist, I can only applaud her choices.
Harvey and Kate spend the day together and in the tradition of BEFORE SUNRISE, they walk the mostly non-touristy haunts of a beautiful city, in this case, London.
You don’t see them falling desperately, stupidly, for each other or passionately ripping each others clothes off. You see a friendship develop and a mutual respect. From there, the momentum can only go forward. Yes, it’s a romantic comedy, but it’s for grown-ups.
And that’s mostly who was there. The, fairly-well-populated-for-a-Friday-afternoon, theater was over-represented by folks of a certain age. Even the youngest in the room had been around the block a few times.
Now I am, without question, a romance junkie and I always have been. Bill says he loves to watch my face when the love talk comes on. He tells me that I’m always smiling. I guess so. I have been very lucky in love and I want everyone else to be as happy as me.
I do know that many people prefer singlehood. I agree that a bad attachment is worse than no attachment. And for some, living alone and unencumbered by unrelenting relationship is the perfect lifestyle. Good for them. Or good for you.
For me, well, I like being married. When I was single, I wasn’t unhappy. My life wasn’t empty or miserable. It was pretty dad-gummed nice. But I do love living with a special someone.
My friend, Margo, used to tell me that she didn’t like the stories where the people got together late in life, because there was so much time they wasted. Margo married a man she met in her twenties and still lives happy with him three decades later. I can understand how she might have acquired her perspective. But life can be messy. Whether it is tragedy, bad choices or just back luck, the truth is many of us find ourselves alone at some time in our life.
But I am very glad that, like Harvey, I got another chance. And thank God, I was open enough and maybe just wise enough to take it.

Semi-Sage on the Season

2008-12-19T08:40:00.004-06:00

We put up our Christmas tree this week. Bill did all the hard, boring work, schlepping in the tree, getting the lights to work and bringing down all its trappings from the overhead closet cabinets. Then Leila and I swooped in for decoration. She and I work very differently. She is very efficient, removing the ornament from the box, seeing if it has a working hanger and then getting in onto the tree with no muss nor fuss. Granted, her side of the tree is bunched up and crowded, but she sure gets everything up there.
I work a lot more slowly. I look at every ornament and remember where it came from. I have the ancient old bulbs from my mother and grandmothers that I remember from my childhood. I have construction paper stockings, paper plate angels and cotton ball snowmen from my children’s early art education. And I have the beautiful classy ornaments that have been gifts from friends and family over the years. When you put them all together, they are a gorgeous mishmash of memory and meaning, that makes the Christmas tree sparkle with more than just twinkle lights.
Leila, although now in her twenties, still believes in Santa Claus. She saw him at her workplace this week, along with Mrs. Claus. She told me that she had assured him that she was on the "nice list" and that I was too. It’s always good to get her vote of confidence.
I worry about whether I should let this belief continue as the sweet, precious thing that it is, or should I insist that Leila be more age appropriate. Early in my tenure as parent of a handicapped person I was warned that if I treat my daughter like a baby, she will always be one. I have...or more truthfully, WE have worked hard over the years to foster maturity and independence. And within the limitations that God has given her, she’s certainly had her share of successes on that score.
How valuable is the truth really? They say it will make you free, but I’m wondering, in this instance, free from what? Free from imagining that there is a weird guy in a red suit who consorts with elves and devotes himself wholeheartedly to ho-ho-ho-ing and gift giving. Free to believe that religious holidays always have to be somber occasions of prayer and self-reflection, divorced from candy and commercialism. Free to own the knowledge that reindeer do not fly and that their hoofs on a clay tile roof would cause considerable damage, difficult to claim on your home insurance. Or maybe it’s just free from the burden of maintaining ones place on the "nice list". As a motivation, that’s not really so bad.
I love my brain and I appreciate how it can hold lots of conflicting ideas, beliefs and emotions at the same time. I love how it allows me to look up at my Christmas tree and genuinely smile, even as my eyes fill with tears. But, I’m pretty enamored of Leila’s brain, too. Simple, straightforward and satisfied with the explanation that if you are good all year, someone will notice and leave a thank-you trinket in your stocking.
I hope you find one in yours. Merry Christmas!

Circle of Gratitude

2008-11-30T15:28:00.001-06:00

At church today I was intrigued by the phrase, "circle of gratitude". It was said in relation to Thanksgiving and the image of the family, friends, neighbors, gathered around the table and holding hands as they pray. I like that image very much. Maybe it’s a little too Norman Rockwell for some people, but I’ve always liked Rockwell. And I like the idea that we would join forces to acknowledge what we have, our lives, our health, our children. Maybe some of our wants go unfulfilled, but somehow our needs get provided.
There is strength in numbers, that’s undeniably true. And in the tough economic times that appear to be headed in our direction, it’s good to know that we aren’t alone. That, in fact, we’re all in this together.
In church however, when you say the word "circle", more than this Thanksgiving picture comes to my mind.
I was raised among singers. My grandparents were in a quartet that performed in my church thousands of times over decades of their life. My grandfather sang bass. Grandma sang tenor. Hmmm. Could be a lyric in that?
My parents sang as well. They were both prone to breaking into song unexpectedly. My dad would come home from the oilfield, his khakis stained with grease and his shirt wet with sweat. He’d take a seat on the porch step, remove his hardhat and light up a cigarette before he went into the house to clean-up. If he were to catch sight of me in the corner of his eye, he might burst out with "come sit by my side, little darlin’. Come lay your poor head on my brow. And promise ol’ Russ that you’ll never, be nobody’s darlin’ but mine."
In much the same manner, my mother, in a good mood, would sing us little ditties from her girlhood, like Mares Eat Oats, When Penny was a Puppy, and The Night Sweet Willie Died.
My parents, when together, occasionally made up their own songs. I didn’t realize until I was grown that they were the actual authors of such unforgettable tunes as "Who drank my beer while I was in the rear? When I got back, my beer wasn’t here." Or "I was riding down the trail, had a birddog by the tail, riding down the trail to Albuquerque."
With all this musical whimsy around me, is it any surprise that I myself began singing in very young childhood? In those old days when the television signal was still so faint we could only get a channel if the weather was right, having your children perform was considered a reasonable entertainment. I stood with the front door as my backdrop and belted out songs from church and school and the Perry Como Show. My family applauded as if I were amazing. I’m pretty sure that I was not. But I had a great memory for lyrics and was under the impression that all that was necessary in singing was opening my mouth and letting it out.
These days, I sing in public only in large crowds. Not surprisingly, however, in my own home I have taken up the mantle of my parents and burst into vocal performance without warning. I heard a comedian once describe this as "Broadway Tourettes". That label is not so far from the mark.
But anyway, with all this music that I’ve been blessed to hear and sing and remember, I think it is quite understandable that when I think of a circle of gratitude, I would remember my grandparents in the church quartet, my father able to croon after a hot, hard day and even my mother making merry between migraines. They are all gone now. They’re just a part of my memory. They are like echoes of the songs that come to my mind and spring to my lips. And for that, I pray, "may the circle be unbroken."

Destiny vs Musical Chairs

2008-11-16T22:01:00.001-06:00

I talked to Uncle Bob yesterday. I’ve been "out of pocket" for a few weeks and I wanted to check in and see if he was doing okay. He was in great spirits and told me about running into an old friend of his in a local café."I haven’t known Delbert all my life," Bob said. "Just since 1933."Bob laughed at his little joke, realizing that for most of us seventy-five years is more than a lifetime.He talked about Delbert a bit, remembering some of the things they did as kids, including being pallbearers at the funeral of one of their schoolmates who drown while swimming in a water tower by the railroad tracks."I never would have picked Delbert as a friend," Bob told me. "But when you’re a kid and somebody moves in down the street, you really don’t have much choice."I thought about that. And I thought about my friends. I’m fortunate to have a lot. Some that I’ve known for many years. Others that I’ve acquired more recently.A group of my girlfriends and I got together for a dinner just last week. A decade ago we came together as part of a Bible study for Special Needs Moms. By the way, for those who aren’t into the lingo, Special Needs Moms aren’t moms who need something special (as all mom’s do) rather we’re the mothers of kids with special needs. In our group the kids are all mentally handicapped, have Down’s Syndrome or are on the Autistic Spectrum.Though we come from very diverse religious backgrounds, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, we felt the need to interact with each other. We’ve struggled with trying to understand why God made our children the way he did. We’ve worked on finding peace within the lives we’ve been given. And we’ve tried to figure out how to be the best parents that we can be.You can probably imagine over the years all the things we’ve been through. The highs and lows of any life are dramatic. A handicapped person in the family often makes the swings even greater and more frequent. Each of us has had times when we needed a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen as we’ve vented frustrations. We’ve been good for each other.However, now that I think about these women, I realize that like Uncle Bob and Delbert, I probably would not have chosen these women to be my friends. Truth is, I never would have discovered these people had not a unique set of circumstances thrown us together.My sister once described life as a game of Musical Chairs. You never know where you’re going to be or who you’re going to be next to, when the music stops. I feel very lucky that in this particular interim in my life, the music has brought me here.

Saddles and Parachutes

2008-10-11T11:46:00.002-05:00

We were driving past a new little commercial sector near our house and I saw that one of the businesses coming soon was a Saddlery.
I mentioned it to Bill and he immediately began talking about a saddle he’d once owned. It was beautiful black leather and was made slightly smaller than a typical western saddle as if was designed especially for Arabians. At that time he had a gorgeous white Arabian named Tex. Tex was retired carriage horse that Bill trained for a saddle. He’s long since gone to horse heaven or wherever the souls of such creatures go.
The saddle is gone as well. Thieves broke into the tack room and stole it. Bill sounded mad about it as he remembered.
I tried to be philosophical. We live in town now. He no longer has horses, so he would have gotten rid of the saddle anyway.
Bill agreed. He had other saddles, all of which he sold or gave away years ago. He doesn’t even remember what happened to them. So what was so special about the Arabian saddle?
It was beautiful, of course. But truly what makes it memorable was having it stolen.
There is something about us, something in human nature, that absolutely decries injustice. When we see something wrong, we rarely can keep our mouth shut about it. That’s a very good thing. This compulsion to stand up for what is right and what is fair has been irrevocably woven into the fabric of our civilization.
And if it doesn’t resolve, which happens so often, we can never actually let go.
At this point I can almost hear my dad’s deep bass voice admonishing me with a useful piece of working class wisdom, "You might as well just get over that."
He was right, of course. But it’s never that easy. Not even for him. Remember that story I told you about the bad sorghum. (Check out MORSI MOVIE REVIEW from July 15th). However, I think making the effort to just chalk it up to experience and move on is worth it.
So this week, when we look at all the trouble on Wall Street and we get so riled up about what these knot-heads have done with their unsatiable greed and golden parachutes, I think we may all just have to take a deep breath. We have to get over being mad about it and try to figure out what the next step should be.
It’s going to take a smarter person than me to answer that question. But at least I won’t be wasting my passion and brain power on low-life thieves. I’m going to let justice be meted out by heaven, where they have much more experience with that sort of thing.

Didn't she say she was blogging and she couldn't shut up?

2008-10-03T11:06:00.002-05:00

Wait a minute, you’re saying to yourself. Didn’t she say she was blogging and she couldn’t shut up?
Yes, it has been almost a month since I’ve posted anything. Did ya miss me? Okay, don’t answer that. I’m sure most of you didn’t notice.
The truth is, I haven’t been avoiding the computer, I’ve been finishing up my next novel. I guess we’d call that my "day job". Anyway, I sent it off to my editor at 11 p.m. last night and now I am in that perfect state of bliss between when I write THE END and the initial reaction of my first audience, my editor.
Without sort of sucking up, I’d like to say that my editor is a pretty cool gal. She’s smart and sassy and old enough, as we say in the country, "to know come here from sic ‘em". But being an editor is not an easy job. Because...they have to deal with authors.
Being an author is a really cool job. That’s what I say to high school kids on career day. And I believe that. Unfortunately it puts me in the mind of that Bible verse that says, "I believe Lord, help my unbelief!" It is a cool job, but most of the time it feels very ordinary. I sit alone in my office for hours on end. I work on something that I really can’t discuss with anyone else. Some authors have writer friends or brain storm with readers or editors. I can’t do that. If I talk about a work in progress and an offhand comment is made, it can really throw me off. My confidence in my own talent is not very strong. I continue to think, even after twenty years of proving otherwise, that my career is a total fluke and that somebody is finally going to read my next book and say so. Self doubt is a problem for a lot of writers. Frequently we are introverted folks and the outside world can be harsh. Writing, especially fiction which portrays so much of our inner being, exposes us in very scary ways.
But scary can be good, right?
Truthfully, I’ve never been a big fan of the scary. I don’t like heights, fast driving, haunted houses or horror novels.
I’m also not eager to get out of my comfort zone.
Now, avoiding ledges and parachutes, race cars and things that go bump in the night does not, I don’t believe, impact my life negatively in any way. No, I can never reference any well-known lines from Silence of the Lambs, but I rarely need to.
However, keeping myself in the cocoon of my knotty pine office walls, snug in my little bungalow, that is not a good thing.
In order to write about the world, I need to be out in it. I’m gearing up for some exciting, out of my comfort zone adventures. I’ll keep you posted.
BTW, the just finished book is called RED’S HOT HONKY-TONK BAR and it’s currently scheduled for release in July 2009.

That's the way the wind blows

2008-09-13T17:03:00.002-05:00

I sat up late last night watching the news about Hurricane Ike. I’m in San Antonio, so we were never in any danger. In fact, we didn’t even get any rain. But I have friends and family in and around Houston, so I was concerned for them and concerned for the beautiful Galveston area and the city of Houston itself.
It looks like things were bad, but not a lot of casualties. Mostly just damage and damage can be cleaned up, fixed up, lived over. At least most of the time it can.
My family lived in Charleston, South Carolina when Hurricane Hugo went through there. Hugo made landfall as a category 4. The eye went right over the city of Charleston. Our neighborhood was a mess.
The aftermath of a disaster is an interesting time in retrospect. It really shakes things up, makes people look at their lives differently. Maybe this is sexist, but in someways it seemed to me that this was harder on the men than on us women. The guys who were always so in control of their world found their world completely out of control and it was tough. I talked to several of my men friends about it at the time.
One told me about going out to check the house during the calm as the eye passed over. He talked about the strangeness of the absolute darkness and how weird it was to try to walk around with hundreds of birds that were hunkered down on the grass of his lawn.
Another guy who owned one of the venerated old homes in downtown evacuated his family. He’d felt that the house had been left to him to protect for future generations. It was full of family antiques and a priceless collection of eighteenth century nautical maps. He told his experience to me this way. He said, "when the water started flooding the downstairs and the roof started blowing off the second floor, I was trapped on the steps between. I couldn’t go up or down. And I thought to myself, you know, I’ve always hated this house."
At our home the damage wasn’t so bad. We did without running water for three or four days and without electricity for about a week. The house needed only minimal repairs. The worse thing for me was the trees.
When we’d bought this place it was sitting in the middle of a half dozen hundred foot, long-leaf pine trees. The great thing about long-leaf pines, aside from the giant pine cones and the huge bales of pine straw, is that they are majestic trees that somehow shade the house without blocking the light.
A lot of people in my neighborhood hated the pines, but I loved them and I loved my house because of them.
Hugo took them all. The first half of the storm knocked down the ones in the front yard. The second half took the ones in the back.
Things happen. There is nothing to be done. We cleaned up our place and our neighborhood. We got the blown-out glass replaced in our cars and ultimately we went on with our lives. But experiences like that change us always. Not necessarily good or bad, but changed for sure.
We planted new trees. Sycamores. They are beautiful trees and much more suburban friendly than pines. We put in the biggest ones we could afford, still they were very small.
I had no regrets when we moved here to San Antonio about three years later. I have a cute little bungalow with oaks and crepe myrtles and japanese maples.
I often think about my old house. I remember a lot of good times there. But when I picture it in my mind, those pine trees are still standing tall.

Looking for love in the Sunday newspaper

2008-08-31T00:27:00.002-05:00

I love to read the Celebrations page in the Sunday newspaper. I’m a romantic at heart and I love the perfect young women in their incredible white wedding gowns as well as the imposed stuffiness and strain on the English language of sentences like:
The former Miss Jane Doe was begowned in a vintage fashion first worn by her maternal grandmother Winifred Rose Harthington nee Plunkett and crowned with a fingertip veil accented with mother of pearl.
This is all fascinating information for a writer and I put a whole story to it in my mind, Grandma Winny’s dress not being the bride’s first choice and the mother of pearl veil thrown in to sweeten the pot, so to speak, and ultimately being perfect.
I have a certain fascination with those weddings, where there is
great seriousness about the bride’s choice of lace and flowers. Where the fate of the world seems to hinge on the total unexceptability of tea length gowns. And theme colors can truly make or break the day.
Words of wisdom that I often share ad nauseam whenever an occasion arrives is that weddings and funerals are the most vulnerable times for families, the wrong words spoken will be remembered for a lifetime. For all the elegant centerpieces and tasteful tulle, the relationships at these events can be very sobering indeed.
The big white wedding never happened for me. My first husband and I married in the judge’s chambers on our lunch break.
The bride wore brown slacks and a brown and black print shirt that still hangs at the back of her closet somewhere.
Then, when I married Bill in 2001 I was a widow and a bit past the age when one could really carry off the great white dress and all that tulle. But I had a nice blue dress and a cute hat, a few friends and family and Mexican food. It was perfect for us.
Still, I love weddings and enjoy reading about them.
But it’s the other part of the Celebrations page that truly draws me in. The older couples with their landmark anniversaries, 50, 60 something even 70 years of married life. I love those announcements.
My mom’s parents made it past 60 years. My dad’s parents made it to 72 years. My parents were married for 57 years. That’s big.
From all directions we hear how few marriages actually make it, how hard it is to stick together and how nearly impossible it is for people remain in love for the long haul.
Some people say that couples don’t try hard enough. That they give up at the first sign of trouble. But that can’t be true. There are whole sections in bookstores about keeping marriages together. People buy those books! And they don’t buy them to sit on the coffee table for their friends to see.
I think most people who get married, whether in a fancy white dress or brown slacks, really really try to make it work. Sometimes it just can’t. One person may just completely go zonkers. Both people may drift apart. There can be unforeseen obstacles that make compromise impossible. Or day to day annoyances that just wear love out.
But oh, those that make it, they do make me smile. I especially love the wedding picture next to the current photo. It sort of a BEFORE and AFTER that implies: This is what 60 years of wedded bliss will do to you. (ha!)
The lists of children and grandchildren is an absolute requirement. I wondered for a while if couples without children didn’t live as long. But the real deal, I think, is that without children, nobody thinks to put your picture in the paper.
Occasionally the bride or groom will attempt to answer the secret of their years together. I always try to make note of what they say, because it’s important information you can’t get anywhere else.
Over the years I’ve been reading these, all advice boils down to two necessary requirements: A sense of humor. And mutual respect.
Maybe we should write those two traits on elegant white cards in fancy calligraphy and send them as wedding gifts. In the long run, they’ll do a lot more for the marriage than a blender.

Dinner Conversation

2008-08-15T21:59:00.001-05:00

I’m supposed to be working, but I’m not. I’m sitting in front of my computer thinking about Jane Austen. I’m thinking about her wonderful characters, her brilliant style.
"Some books are so familiar reading them is like being home again."
That quote reminds me of Jane, but it’s not Jane’s quote. It’s Louisa May Alcott. Another of my heroes, or should I say heroines?
I have wondered upon occasion if Louisa May Alcott ever read Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice would have been about thirty years old when Alcott was a teenager. We know Louisa was an avid reader, but I’m not sure if she had time for novels. With Emerson living across the street and Thoreau down by the pond, one might have to expend considerable amounts of time on the classics just to keep up with the dinner conversation.
Wow! I like that image. I’m picturing my back deck, cooking a few chicken breasts or lamb chops on the grill as a couple of America’s greatest philosophers sip wine and share thoughts about transcendence or the natural law of compensation. Now that would be an interesting evening.
When we have friends come over, the conversation goes through all kinds of highs and lows. We talk about family, school, the price of gas, whether the Spurs can win the championship next year and what are we going to do about that woman down the street who walks her poodle into our yards to poop.
As the night gets later and the dishes are cleared off, the talk might drift into less mundane discussion. Is it right to push the homeless into certain neighborhoods? Should people who don’t recycle pay more for trash pick-up? If you can’t make a college education free, can we at least make it equitable?
Of course, none of us are great minds, or if we are no one yet knows. But then being a great mind is not usually something we know about people in their lifetimes. Sometimes we do. Leonardo DiVinci and Benjamin Franklin were famously brilliant and everybody knew it. Even Alcott, Emerson and Thoreau were well-known and respected in the time that they lived.
Jane Austen was not.
I was in England last year and did some Jane Austen travel, including the museum in Bath. I also visited Winchester Cathedral where she is buried. Her grave marker in the floor says something like: Jane Austen, beloved daughter and sister. On the wall nearby a plaque was put up, many years later, identifying her as THE Jane Austen, Authoress. She died before the true genius of her work was known. People undoubtedly talked to her at the fish mongers every Thursday with no clue that she was the greatest literary mind of her generation.
All my friends are smart, interesting people. They are all capable of what Jane might call "elevated conversation". I don’t know if our discussions are as interesting as those that took place in the dining room of Orchard House, but they are interesting to me.
I think I’ll go thaw out some chicken and get on the phone to see who’s up for some philosophy grilling.

I Brought My Heart Home from San Francisco

2008-08-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

I’m back from my trip, tired, but rejuvenated as well. I like to travel, to see new things and interesting places. But it’s always good to come home to our little bungalow that’s comfortable and cozy and so suited to us.
San Francisco is a fabulous city, unique and cosmopolitan. The weather was cool and the sun shone. Who could argue with that?
I was there for a writer’s conference, so I signed a lot of books, talked to a lot of long time friends and had some great face-to-face meetings with my agent, my editor and people from my publisher.
Bill and I took as much time as we could to see the city. We tooled through Golden Gate Park in a three-wheel scooter. We ate a romantic lunch at the Cliff House. And we saw the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
I enjoyed it all, but maybe my favorite day was visiting the giant redwoods in Muir Woods. It’s dark and cool and the sweet smell of the trees seems to permeate everything. We didn’t take the hardest trails, but we didn’t stay on the easiest either. We got far enough away from the crowds to hear the rustle of the leaves and the water rushing down the creek. It was nice.
Bill and I talked about how the trees got so big. He told me that the redwoods have an advantage over many other trees. When they are threatened by fire or storm damage or whatever, the tree’s response to that is to form a burl near the roots. From that burl a new shoot will grow out very quickly and being attached to the old tree’s root system, it can get big and strong and sturdy in a very short time. Sometimes the main tree survives and sometimes it does not. Either way, the new growth flourishes on the deep roots that were already put down.
Amazingly, the seeds of the redwood are equally unique. They lie dormant on the forest floor, sometimes for years. It’s only when fire sweeps through that they are activated to grow.
The panel I was on at the conference was about writing under pressure, writing when things go bad. I’ve certainly written books through some very tough times in my own life. And my fellow panel members had their share of adversity as well.
I guess the whole premise of such a discussion is that in times of tragedy, going on with our lives, doing our jobs and continuing to meet our obligations is somehow miraculous. It’s brave. It’s admirable.
Perhaps though, there is a way that the terrible things that happen to us can activate new growth. We can form attachments that tap into our roots or finally spur all that creativity that has lain fallow on the ground for so long.
It doesn’t make the bad times any easier to bear. But maybe it does give them some kind of purpose. That in itself can be enough to get us by.

Leaving on a jet plane

2008-07-27T07:34:00.001-05:00

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go. Wait, isn’t that a song? Well, at least I’m not singing. Bill and I are leaving today for San Francisco. I’m speaking at a writers conference there next weekend. If anyone living in that area reads this blog, check out the appearances on my website and drop by to see me. There is a mass autographing on Wednesday night, July 30th. Hundreds of writers signing their books and all the money goes to literacy.
We’re going early because I’ve never been to San Francisco. I consider myself fairly well-traveled. But then every time I think that, some giant gap in my knowledge wields its head and I have to remember that I’m still that oil patch kid who saw the ocean for the first time at age 27!
I often find myself a bit envious of people who grew up in the larger world. I meet writers who’ve got MFAs from Ivy League schools or spent years in Europe walking in the footsteps of Gertrude Stein or Hemingway. They talk about wanting to capture the ambiance of the Hampton’s in the 1960s or maybe write another memoir of their east coast private school for the privileged. I like those stories, too. But that sort of shared history that a lot of people in publishing claim has always left me as odd writer out.
When I try to capture the ambiance of oil patch in the 1960s or wax eloquently of my small public high school where the well-to-do were the ones in the nice new mobile homes my work gets pegged and "wacky southern". I don’t really think of myself as wacky or southern. But I guess to the ladies from Radcliffe and Wellesley it must seem very amusing indeed.
My background, perhaps, makes me an improbable writer. I remember once getting a fan letter from a reader who’d grown up in my hometown as well. She said, "I’m so happy that someone from Oilton did well."
Of course, the truth is, a lot of people from Oilton have done very well. So well in fact that if you see them on the street, you can’t recognize them as different from anyone else.
So maybe that’s my goal. I’ve packed up my best clothes and my warmest smile. I’m headed off to San Francisco to be among a huge throng of writers. And I hope not one person looks at me and says, "hey, is that one of those gals from Oil’n?"
I’ll keep you posted.

And staring in the role of Great-Aunt Nora...

2008-07-22T21:13:00.001-05:00

Bill and I took my daughter to see Mama Mia! I’d seen it on stage several years ago, so there were no surprises. It was fun. Who wouldn’t enjoy a lot great songs, wonderful dance numbers and fabulous scenery.
But you would think, since the director, producers, virtually everybody, knew that it was a musical, they would have cast actors in the roles who could actually sing. For most it was a laudable effort. Poor Pierce Bronson was worse than guys at my high school.
As we were leaving, Bill said to me, "I just kept imagining how Cher would have belted out those tunes or even Madonna.’"
I couldn’t help but agree. Meryl Streep did a pretty good job. But yeah, Cher has really lived the story.
Of course, both Streep and Cher are a little old for the part. Much was made of the daughter being just twenty. So when the mother was living this wild life with three serial boyfriends, she was 37? Hmmm.
My sister, Sherry, told me (therefore it might be just gossip rather than fact) that Hollywood had a hard time getting someone to accept the part of the mother. That the script called for a woman aged 40. But in Hollywood, no woman aged forty wants to admit to being forty. So they had to settle on Streep who is 59 and therefore more kindly disposed to being thought to be 40.
I just shook my head at that. Hollywood! They are such shallow phoneys. Getting older is great. My years have given me such perspective. And I’m a lot happier now than when I was younger. I don’t look like I did at twenty. But I think I have more character in my face now than I did then. A photographer once suggested that my publicity photo should be air-brushed to get rid of the crows-feet around my eyes. I wouldn’t let her. I think the lines actually make me look smarter and more interesting.
With these thoughts in my mind, I piddled around my house tonight feeling very smug and superior. I’m traveling to San Francisco next week for a writer’s conference and have a lot to do to get ready. All my best clothes had to be pulled out of the closet, tried on and then taken up or let out. I’ve got to get a haircut and freshen my highlights. Tomorrow, I’m getting a facial and having my invisible blonde eyebrows dyed. Much to be done.
As I washed my face with jojoba cream, I caught sight of myself in the mirror.
Who do you think you’re fooling? I asked.
If I’m so unconcerned with my looks and my years, then why aren’t I allowing myself to gracefully age into a revitalized version of my Great-Aunt Nora.
Does this qualify me as having ‘gone Hollywood?’

Breakfast with Griffin ease

2008-07-19T20:34:00.002-05:00

Six-year-old Griffin spent the morning with me. His mom had a doctor’s appointment and just a couple of minutes after she left he said that he was hungry.
"What would you like to eat?" I asked him.
"Pizza!" he answered, very enthusiastically.
I carefully explained to him that it was nine o’clock in the morning and that we do not eat pizza at nine o’clock in the morning. He heard me out completely, nodding in recognition and then with a slump of his little shoulders and a sigh of defeat he said, "Okay. Hot dog."
I did not feed him pizza or hot dog, because I just couldn’t get my breakfast mindset around it. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since.
Why is a hot dog so different than a link sausage and a couple of pieces of toast?
Are there things in pizza that you wouldn’t put in your omelet?
I remember as a kid that occasionally we would have "breakfast night" at my house. Instead of a typical supper, my mom would fix pancakes or biscuits and gravy. Looking back, I imagine that the breakfast nights undoubtedly coincided with the end of the month or right before payday. But as a kid I had no sense of that. And the truth is, I really like pancakes better at night than in the morning.
I guess our food choices for specific meals is more a habit than anything else. General Mills pretty much invented breakfast cereal. Prior to that, I think breakfast looked a lot like any other meal. All meals were heavy on bread and since bread took a while to bake, quick breads, like biscuits and corn pone were more typical early in the morning. That was also the time to gather eggs, so maybe it made sense to eat them early or at least to eat the ones that were cracked. Working people ate meat if they had it. And with no refrigeration, ham and bacon cured with salt or sugar was convenient for just slicing off to go in a pan.
So it seems to me that what we eat for breakfast has probably almost nothing to do with health or diet or nutrition. And has everything to do with convenience, perception and tradition.
I’m sure if Griff were sixteen instead of six, he would have argued it just that way.

A Morsi movie review

2008-07-15T23:09:00.001-05:00

I went to see Kit Kittridge, American Girl this week. Actually I went twice. I took my daughter and liked it so much I talked Bill into going with me to see it a couple of nights later. It’s a kids movie, I guess, but there is so much kid still in me that I’m not bothered by silliness. And I felt the storyline had tremendous depth and a lot to think about in our current economic times. But I don’t want to ruin it for anybody who hasn’t seen it. And I don’t really want to talk about that part of it.
What stuck with me in the movie was not how daring and resourceful and bright Kit was. She was, and that was great. She and Ruthie and Stirling represented the young people raised in terrible economic times that would grow up to fight and win a world war. Tom Brokaw called them the Greatest Generation and I would never argue that. I know and remember so many who grew up in that time and I admire them tremendously.
But as I watched the movie, I just couldn’t get over the realization of how young Kit’s parents were.
I guess I hadn’t really thought of that before. Somehow I’d always pictured the adults in that era to be, well...adults, wise and certain and in control. But you know they weren’t. They were no more wise than we’ve been. They were as uncertain as humans always are. And during the depression, so much of the world was out of control.
Kit’s dad went from an up-and-coming business owner to standing in line at the soup kitchen. And Kit’s mom goes from serving the ladies of her club in the garden to being on her hands and knees in it trying to scratch out food for the table.
The grace displayed on screen, probably couldn’t hold a candle to some of the stories our grandparents or great-grandparents could tell.
I remembered a story my dad told me about he and my grandfather. They had been hired to harvest a farm and they were to be paid in sorghum. Dad said it was just the two of them, one man and one boy on a huge farm. They worked for weeks in terrible conditions and awful heat. When they got paid their sorghum, they took it home in triumph only to discover that it was rancid.
My Dad was furious. He told me, "I wanted my father to go back and kill that farmer." But grandpa didn’t. Instead he said, "Son, now we’ll know never to work for him again."
Dad would shake his head when he told that story. Sixty years after it happened, he still was amazed at the decency of a man who could take that kind of injustice and somehow live over it.
It made me wonder about myself. Sure, I’ve had some tough times, some heartbreaks. But those seem small in comparison to what these people faced. I don’t know that I have the fortitude, the grace, the decency that my grandparents had.
And if perhaps I actually do...well I’d just as soon never find out.

Weathering best & worst

2008-07-08T22:23:00.002-05:00

It rained this week. I know you’re thinking that’s pretty lame news. As in, when you’ve got nothing to say, talk about the weather. But it really was exciting. The sky clouded up. It got darker and darker. And that wonderful smell of ozone was in the air.
I said to Bill, "Do you think it’s going to rain?"
He answered something like, "I hope so."
Probably a half hour later it began. At first just a few scattered sprinkles. Then it started coming down as if it were in buckets. We sat on the front porch together and watched it. My side of the swing was getting most of what was carried on the wind, so I made Bill switch places with me. My mother would have said, "You’re not made of sugar, young lady!" But the truth is, I am.
Now if you’re not living in south Texas in the summer of 2008, or in the southwest generally or northern California or the Sahara, then you’d probably think that we’re pretty crazy to sit on our porch to watch the rain. But this June was the driest on record. We’ve only had six inches of precipitation since last September. And we were days away from water restrictions.
But then it rained and rained and rained and rained again. Today I was at lunch with three of my Slacker girlfriends and we lingered over coffee as we watched the downpour through the windows.
My girlfriends and I, known to ourselves as The Slackers, have been together about fifteen years. There are seven of us now. We sort of ran into each other over writing. Some of us are multi-published, some slightly published, some not yet published and maybe a couple who’ve thrown in the towel on getting published. Writing brought us together, but it’s not what keeps us together.
We’ve shared a lot. We’ve bought each other gag gifts that nearly made us gag. We’ve analyzed each others children and listened to each others complaints about husbands. We’ve been through deaths and divorces. We’ve danced at weddings. We’ve worried about health. And we’ve even tried to remove an orange aura seen by a fortune teller in New Orleans. Don’t know if that worked, we didn’t go back to the fortune teller to find out.
We’ve drank too much. We’ve laughed too loud. And we’ve cried like our hearts were breaking.
And today was no different. Some great news, some good news, some not so great news.
Like the weather, things can be lush and wonderful for so long, that we forget how bad things can be. Then the troubles come and we feel like we’ll never get past them.
I try to believe that the rain will always come. That no matter how long it’s been since all that cool goodness has poured down on us, it will always come again. Some days that’s enough to get me through.
Or as Natalie said one Thanksgiving when she was still just a little girl, "I’m grateful that nobody is in prison."

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-02T20:33:00.002-05:00

I wanted to share something special for the 4th of July. This is a blog that I wrote in May for someone elses site. It's about Memorial Day, but I think it has significance for this holiday as well. So fly your flag, thank a vet, make some noise. Have a great holiday.

Memorial Day weekend is just ten days away! I’m Pam Morsi, your guest blogger today. And I’m here to remind you that hot dogs and potato salad are in your immediate future.
It’s been a busy month for me. I’ve got a new book out and I’ve been doing some traveling around to try to promote it. I like traveling, but I really like staying at home too. So, I try not to overbook myself and spend more time than I really want on the road. With that said, yesterday nobody was more surprised than me when I decided that for this Memorial Day weekend I would head north to Oklahoma and see my old Uncle Bob.
Uncle Bob is a gentle soul, with smile so wide it makes his eyes disappear, and a laugh that comes rumbling up from a depth of good humor. He’s the last of his generation in my family. He’s outlived his brother and sister and most of his friends. Although he still takes care of his own yard, he’s just not as strong as he used to be. He doesn’t see as well and doesn’t drive unless it’s an emergency.
On Saturday, the 24th, his high school will have a big alumni picnic. He wants to go and visit old friends. So I’m going to take him.
His class, the Seniors of 1942 faced a world so different from ours, it’s hard to get our minds around it. Many of his classmates quit school before graduation to go into the military. And others who’d signed up for the National Guard right out of Boy Scouts were simply plucked out of class. He knew that he would be going off to fight a war, because the whole world was involved in one.
Bob was lucky to come back, he says. Lucky because some of the battles he was in, D-Day, the Hurtgen Forrest, the Battle of the Bulge, are imfamous for all the guys like him that didn’t come back. I knew that Uncle Bob was in WWII, but I didn’t know a lot about it.
My father was a highly decorated Army Air Corps Medic who served in four theaters of the war. Maybe he overshadowed his younger brother. Or maybe Uncle Bob is just too modest about the contribution that he made.
My first true understanding of these men I’ve known all my life came about while I was doing research for the character named Bud, in my new book LAST DANCE AT JITTERBUG LOUNGE. Let me make it clear, Bud isn’t my Uncle Bob. The old man I created in that story is a composite of a lot of guys of that age and time. The fond memories of days gone by and the scars of events that can’t quite be outlived are both a part of all of them.
This Memorial Day, when laughing and eating and enjoying friends and family, as we rightly should, let’s all do some remembering of those who serve their country in all our conflicts. We do that by being the cheering crowd in the hometown parade and by decorating the graves of the fallen.
I’ll be hanging out with one of the heroes that’s still with us.
Maybe you can find time to do the same. I realize that everyone doesn’t have an Uncle Bob. But just a mile or so from my house is Brook Army Medical Center. Hundreds of men and women are recovering there, rehabilitating themselves for more active duty or a whole new battle completely. Volunteer opportunities abound. I’m sure your own community has its way to say thanks to Vets. We are all so blessed that these people are willing to put themselves in harm’s way. That’s something that can’t be measured into potato salad.

A Night at the Opera

2008-06-28T16:07:00.001-05:00

We went to the opera last night. I thought it was too hot to really get dressed up, so I wore a kind of beachy-type long skirt, navy floral with a jacket. A lot of other women weren’t so done in by the heat and I enjoyed the sight of lovely ladies decked out in fabulous little dresses and incredibly high heels. I was especially intrigued by the gals with the long silk shawls across bare backs that then wrapped elegantly at the elbows. I don’t think I could wear a long shawl. I’d probably get it caught on something and hang myself.
Which might have been an act perfectly at home in TOSCA, Puccini’s tragic love story. I am new to opera. It is more Bill’s thing than mine. Not a lot of opera was being performed around my hometown (Oilton, Oklahoma) when I was growing up. And somehow in the busy years getting on with my life, college, career, kids and finally writing, I just never got around to it. I attended my very first performance maybe five or six years ago.
I like it. Who wouldn’t? Beautiful music performed by a live orchestra and amazing young people whose voices can make sound that just melts your heart. Add to that all that fabulous sets and incredible costumes and wow. It’s great.
Being unlearned in this area, I wouldn’t presume to judge Puccini on his art or his music. But I came away very sad. If you haven’t seen it, I hate to ruin the story, but basically everybody dies in the end.
A lot of people really like that. It’s almost as if they don’t get enough opportunity to shed tears in the normal activity of their day.
Some people really like to be frightened. They read Dean Koontz or Stephen King and just get thrilled to have the wits scared out of them. And they sit through all those terrifying movies with alien creatures or serial killers behind every door.
Now, I’m not truly bothered by people who look a things a little differently from me. But I do wonder about this sort of thing. Is the world not already frightening enough for Stephen King? Did Puccini not see more than enough suffering in the lives around him?
I am, without question, a happily-ever-after kind of person. I want things to turn out well in the books I read, the movies I see, the stories I tell.
Following the same logic as above, that must mean that I have not experienced enough happiness. But I know that’s not true. I’ve had my share of frightening moments and devastating tragedy, but I look at my life and see that I’ve mostly been happy.
So why are some of us attracted to thrillers or tragedies while others, like myself are more into Pollyanna’s "glad game"?
I would imagine that some very bright and enthusiastic graduate student is conducting brain studies at the very moment to determine if such things are hard wired or learned through experience. We’ll have to wait to find out.
In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the sight and sound of opera and maybe make up alternate endings that more suit my taste. Like maybe, when Tosca tells Cavaradossi that the firing squad is a farce and he should fall down and pretend to die, he answers. "I’m no actor. I could never pull that off. We’ve already got the letter of safe passage. Let’s sneak away while the guards are off stage." The two make a break for it and race toward the approaching army, where they are received with welcome. And news that Tosca has murdered Scarpia makes her a heroine to the French, lauded in song and story for decades to come. She and Cavaradossi move to Paris. He becomes a great painter. She is a virtuoso performer and they marry and have four bright happy children.
Now really, isn’t that better than throwing yourself from the parapet?

Refrigerators I Have Known

2008-06-25T11:39:00.002-05:00

This has got to be one of the more unusual choices for blog comment, but I bought a new fridge this week and I’m excited about it. We remodeled our kitchen about two years ago and, at that time, I picked out the perfect refrigerator. However, our old refrigerator was still working fine and it seemed wasteful somehow to buy a new one when the old one had no problems.
So this week my sister’s "garage fridge" went out and she was looking to buy something used and I said, "Take mine. PLEASE, take mine."
I’ve had several of these big, hulking indispensable appliances over my lifetime. When I lived with my parents, my mom’s still required defrosting. A task that was less than fun, but gave me such a feeling of accomplishment when all the ice build up was finally gone. Not so much that I’d want to do it again. I’m sure it’s one of those tasks, like childbirth or writing a novel, that only seems more interesting in retrospect.
My very own first refrigerator was bought as the Scratch & Dent sale. My husband and I moved it in ourselves. We’d just closed on the house the day before and we owned a bed and the new refrigerator. That was enough to get by for quite a while. The box it came in went into the dining room, covered with a nice cloth, it was our first table. And it worked very well.
The thing about refrigerators, if you think about it, is to keep things fresh. Without them the milk sours, the meat rots and the vegetables have to be eaten when you cook them or you throw them out. Now we just stick it all in the fridge and we have problem free leftovers, potential breakfasts, lunches and dinners always available. Not to mention the cold glass of iced tea on a hot summer’s afternoon.
I wish that if was that easy to keep our jobs and our relationships fresh. Wouldn’t it be great if we never got stuck doing the same things, saying the same things, arguing over the same old ground?
I remember when my dad broke his leg, I was forced into a pretty rigorous schedule of daily care for both my parents. It was amazing really, how quickly my mother and I got back to exactly the same patterns of interaction we’d had when I was sixteen. She would criticize the things I did, because it was not the way she would have done them. And I would seethe with silent resentment. That was definitely a relationship gone very stale.
I’m not big on confrontations. I hate blow-ups, especially family ones. But sometimes I think you’ve just got to do something, anything, to shake things up.
For us, well my dad got better and my folks were back on their own again. Without the daily contact, Mom and I were able to have a more reasoned, amiable mother/daughter thing. By the end of her life, I think we were okay.
I wish I could call her and tell her about my new refrigerator. She’d be excited too. And she’d want to hear all the details.

Bird watching

2008-06-20T16:34:00.001-05:00

This spring I’ve been doing some bird watching. Not the kind where you hike into nature with binoculars, more the kind where I lounge around on the porch swing or the back deck and watch the activity in our bird houses.
We have a lot of bird houses.
Last winter, Bill decided that he wanted to do some building projects with the little kids in our life.
Now, a lot of guys would have just bought some wood and maybe a plan and went with it. But, Bill, being Bill, had to do some research on bird habitat, try some experiments and produce a prototype or two before coming up with exactly the right project for three to six year olds.
He did and the kids had a great time. Everybody got to hammer something, turn a few screws and slap on primer or paint or both. The kids took home the birdhouses that they made, souvenirs of an unforgettable afternoon in Mr. Bill’s workshop.
We, of course, have all the prototypes and trial runs still here. So Bill put them up in different spots around the yard and they’ve been very successful. We’ve had wrens and tufted titmouses (titmice?) in the back and English sparrows out front.
The English sparrows got their house a little dirty and Bill suggested that’s because they are English. My heritage. I guess German sparrows would have been on their wings and knees every morning scrubbing around the perch!
Watching the mom and dad fly in to feed their screaming little nestlings over and over again is very addictive. But you know those parents must get sick to death of it. Here’s a worm. Fly away. Fly back. Here’s a worm. It doesn’t matter how exhausting or monotonous it gets, that’s what they’re supposed to do, so they do it.
That got me thinking about human families and all the things that we are supposed to do and somehow manage to do it.
I hardly remember a time when my mother didn’t work. Even back in those days, when most mom’s were stay-at-home, mine was not. It was partly economics. My dad made decent money as a laborer, but my mom’s paycheck meant more than pin money. And she really liked working. She was a practical nurse and a very good one. She took a lot of pride that. Pride she didn’t have in her haphazard housekeeping, messy sewing and brown thumb.
So with that example and all the time and money it took to get my education, it seemed pretty unextraordinary for me to have kids and a job. Until I managed to support myself with writing, I worked as a professional librarian.
Not that I would recommend it. Parenting is hard enough just by itself. Adding career on top of it, is probably crazy.
I remember very clearly what it was like. I’d finish my day at work and be just exhausted as I dragged myself through the parking garage to my car. Then I’d worm my way through traffic to the freeway which would be crowded to near bursting point. All I wanted was to get home.
Then the reality would dawn on me. Home was no quiet refuge or place of peaceful respite. The hours between my arriving home and the kids’ bedtime were the busiest of the day. Everyone would be grouchy and tired and hungry, especially hungry. I was supposed to monitor homework and referee sibling disputes while creating something hot, tasty and nutritious in the kitchen.
There would be laundry piled up and mold growing in the bathroom. I would have, unbeknownst to me, been volunteered to send twenty-five President’s Day cupcakes to school the next day. And there would be a very annoyed message on the answering machine from the receptionist at the orthodontist’s office because I’d forgotten our appointment again.
My husband helped, but he was tired too. More often than not we’d snap at each other. That is, if we got a chance to talk at all.
So as my commute continued, my mind got clearer. Approaching my exit, I confess, there were many days that I thought to myself, "What if I just kept driving?"
I could skip my exit, keep heading north and eventually I’d end up in Canada. Maybe they would never find me.
But every day, I clicked on my blinker and eased right onto the frontage road.
I did it, because that was what I was supposed to do.
Here’s a worm. Fly away. Fly back. Here’s a worm.
I guess that English sparrow and I have even more in common than I thought.
And I would venture to say that neither of us have any regrets.

Okay, I've decided to write a blog

2008-06-17T12:38:00.000-05:00

For years now I’ve resisted the impulse, knowing that nothing I have to say could add much to public discourse in the digital age.

“But your readers miss you between books!” I am told.

The answer to that is that nothing I come up with about my life is ever going to compare with a novel. Then again, I think we’ve all had days when we say to ourselves, “I should write a book!” Of course, knowing the publishing market as I do, I realize that real life can be so busy and complicated that if you tried to make it fiction, nobody would believe it.

“That’s crazy, it could never happen.”

It could. It did. It does.

Anyway, what the blogmeisters tell me about this is that I should take something that happened in my real life and write about it and just allow my train of thought to take over and to then follow that rabbit trail for fifteen minutes.

I have a plastic kitchen timer sitting here beside me. Let’s see how it goes.

Last night, as my eyelids were getting very heavy, I threw on my old ratty nightshirt from a Valentine’s Day long past and was getting ready to brush my teeth and don my plastic nightguard when my husband, Bill, came into the bathroom and said, “Come with me.”

Normally, I would be cautious of such an invitation, but it was late and I was tired and we are legally married, so I went.

Outside he sprayed me with mosquito repellant. (It’s always good to put on a coat of poison before going to bed). And then he led me out to our hammock which hangs in the backyard between the big red oak and the multi-family birdhouse.

It was a great night to be outdoors. The moon wasn’t full, but it was plenty big enough and there was a hole in the tree canopy above us so that we could see it perfectly, except when the breeze stirred the leaves.

I lay there with him soaking up the comfort and wondering why we didn’t sleep outside all summer.

That stirred a long ago memory from my oilpatch childhood.

I remembered, in the days before air-conditioning, that people did sleep outside. In fact, they put their beds out in the yard to catch the night breeze. How they dealt with bugs or skunks or possums, I don’t know. Because, of course, my parents never did that.

But one summer our neighbors down the street did have their bed next to an old shed in the backyard. I don’t know why they put it where they did, but it was perfect for our band of young hooligans. In the afternoon when that mom and dad were hard at work, we propped a ladder against their shed. Then we took turns climbing up to slide down the tin roof and land in their bed.

No amusement park ride was ever more fun.

Bill and I have often talked and laughed about our childhoods. He was a Maryland boy and I am from Oklahoma, but our memories are similar because we were both what we like to think of as Free Range Children. Our mothers always worked and from a very young age we were mostly responsible for ourselves. People don’t do that now, and for good reason, I’m sure. But it does make for a lot of smiles looking back.

So should we sleep out on our hammock for the rest of the summer? Well, first I want to find out about those skunks and possums.