Jan 4, 2017
2 New Year's gifts for my dear readers: a light hearted encomium to the sine qua non of home maintenance, and an easy recipe.
A couple of months ago Joe said, “I’d like a birthday party this year.” We only celebrate our birthdays in a big way every few years, so I told him if he’d give me the list I’d organize the whole thing. Then I forgot, and I think he did too, until eight days before the date. We went into high gear. He gave me the list, and some email addresses, and I sent forty invitations.
What about the menu? I suggested a big pot of chili, fried chicken from Publix, salad, and of course birthday cake. Over the years I have let go of the show-off cook, so I felt no need to prepare all the food for thirty or so people.Joe made it even easier. He wanted oysters, and he wanted to be in charge of them. He vetoed the chili, asked for deli sandwiches and fried chicken. And for everyone who asked “What can I bring?” the answer was salad.
After consulting with Luli, my sister and on-call food professional, I decided I could quadruple the Blitzen Kuchen recipe to make two sheet cakes without any unanticipated chemical reactions. (I did not consider the capacity of my stand mixer, and after beating the butter, sugar, and dozen eggs I had to transfer it to my largest bowl and mix in the flour by hand.)
The bowl was too small
The guests were all old (in both senses of the word) friends of one or both of us. There were clusters of guests – Joe’s poker buddies, his movie and football buddies, and the Muumuus – many with spouses. These were supplemented by a few outsiders who were welcomed by the different groups, including my middle-aged son – some of the people had known him as a toddler. And people saw old friends they had lost track of – there were warm reunions complete with pictures of grandchildren.
The weather obliged us. The sky was overcast and blustery, almost chilly, perfect for raw and grilled oysters out on the deck, with plenty of beer. As it got darker and colder, we moved inside to eat sandwiches and chicken by the fire, with Etta James on the stereo. Sitting on couches and folding chairs and coffee tables, people talked of books and movies and old affairs and (ugh) current affairs, which led Kristin to give us a song about Hitler’s (and Himmler’s and Goering’s and Goebbel’s) balls. She sings very well.
image:michael'stvtray.com
The party was well underway. Joe was basking in friendship – I’m not the only one who loves him. I was moving from place to place, checking on this and that, responding to the teenage girls’ boredom complaint with a look and then Netflix on my laptop, when Bruce said, “Liz, the front door won’t close.” “Whaaat?” (Translation: I don’t have enough to think about?)
It stood open about 18 inches, letting in the cold and letting out the cat. It wouldn’t go over the threshold. On our knees we discovered that the bottom of the door had come loose and slipped down. We agreed that this called for Larry, a retired cabinet maker with meticulous skills and a generous willingness to help. I went out on the deck and said, “Larry, please stop shucking oysters and come help with the door.” (We had bought a bushel and hired a shucker, but guys like to stand around shucking oysters and shooting shit.)
image:gypsygema.com
I went about my business while Larry and Bruce investigated, until Larry called for…duct tape. So much for the gifted cabinet maker. They jammed the bottom board up where it belonged and fastened it neatly. “To fix it you’ll need to take the door off the hinges. This is just a temporary fix,” Larry said. But I wasn’t so sure. Duct tape is a theme of our decor. The lovely silvery gray complements our lifestyle (I sneer at the brightly-patterned stuff they sell at Office Depot.)
Seven years ago Amanda was, to put it kindly, rambunctious. Sometimes it was a product of anger, but sometimes it was sheer exuberance. She was dancing in the shower one night when she slipped and grabbed onto the ceramic soap dish set into the tile. It broke off, leaving a gaping hole which exposed the pipes. (I still don’t understand how the weight of a slender seven-year-old could accomplish this, but that was her story.) Call the tile man? No. Get the duct tape. Joe, an ingenious – if not a handy – man, made a neat silver rectangle which has lasted to this day.
Three years ago Amanda had settled down and we had a slumber party for her 11th birthday. click This entailed moving all the living room furniture against the walls and laying down pads and mattresses. It was a lovely and boisterous affair, and after she had slept it off, Amanda was very cooperative in restoring the house to our standard of tidiness. Alas, in pushing the piano back into place she smashed the light switch plate and rheostat. Clearly a job for…Superduct!
This repair only lasted a week or two. I was uneasy about all the unprotected electrons shooting around behind their silver cover, and tired of not being able to turn on the lights, so I called a handyman.
image:warningacooleelectric.co.uk
I have written before about our low standards of tidiness and decor click. I love to visit my friends, their houses filled with beauty and the tranquility that comes from order, at least when they have visitors. Our disorder is a product of laziness, distractions, and perhaps most of all, the way messes become invisible as time passes – I no longer see the shoes in the middle of the living room, the pile of books waiting to be shelved.
Joe and I are fortunate to be well-matched – I can’t imagine a tidy person living with either one of us. It’s not that I’m proud to be a slob – sometimes I even think how nice it would be to be otherwise – but I’m no longer embarrassed. And in the way we all redefine our faults as virtues, I have created a new etymology for sLOVEnly.
BLITZKUCHEN
350 degrees (325 for pyrex) 8"pan, greased and floured 25-30 minutes
1 C white flour
1 t baking powder
pinch of salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
3 eggs
zest and juice of half a lemon
1/2 t vanilla
Cream butter well, add sugar and lemon zest, beat well. Beat in eggs, lemon juice, vanilla. Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and beat in at low speed just till blended.
Frosting:
1 stick butter
1 C powdered sugar
2t vanilla
3oz unsweetened chocolate, melted (I do it in the microwave at 50% power)
Cream butter a LONG time, beat in sugar for a while, add vanilla and chocolate. If too soft to spread, refrigerate a while, if then too stiff, put in bowl of warm water and beat again.
Nov 15, 2016
I vote a week early. I get tears in my eyes as I black the little oval next to Hillary’s name. On election night I am excited, set up my computer to watch the numbers roll in. But they’re rolling the wrong way. Hope eroding with the numbers, I go to bed at 10:30. Maybe I’ll wake up to good news in the morning.
I wake at 12:30. It looks worse. At 1:15 I go to Facebook; I have to say something, anything. Judging by the response, many of my Facebook “friends” are awake. I stay up until 4.
Before she went to bed I had told Amanda, “Don’t worry about it honey. She’s going to win.” When she wakes up in the morning I have to tell her. In the car I try to acknowledge our outrage while warding off despair. “Why do you have to talk about it. You know I’m mad; leave me alone.”
For a couple of days it doesn’t seem real. I shake my head as if to clear the bad dream. Then for a little while I think – maybe the president won’t be as awful as the candidate. After all, he has no firm opinions. But I know he is a racist, a misogynist, hateful, impulsive, still a two-year-old at 70. I fear his ignorance, his incompetence, his willingness to exploit what is worst in us to win.
I try to avoid information, but the New York Times and Facebook keep drawing me in. I see in the Times the committee that will manage the transition – I recognize Steve Bannon from Breitbart News, and Pam Bondi, the Florida Attorney General who received $25,000 from the Trump Foundation and then did not investigate fraud allegations against Trump University – and realize things may be as bad as I fear.
Bondi and friend image:NYTimes.com
A few weeks before the election I had started writing about Michelle Obama’s New Hampshire speech – the one about Trump boasting of assaults on women – trying to understand my response to it. On Friday – has it only been three days? – I watch it again on YouTube, download the transcript. And now the crying begins, on and off for two days, until it feels like this new reality has loomed forever.
The looming horror: image of Hurricane Matthew in news-press.com
I’ve long thought that it’s past time for the American Century, the American Empire, to be over. Maybe this is just a marker on that road. But the crumbling won’t be painless, and most of the rubble will fall on the poorest, the least powerful.
image:bbc.com/gettyimages
I watch David Chappell, Steven Colbert, Seth Meyers, Whoopie Goldberg. I cry. I have to do something. What can I do?
Wednesday is the HOME Van food pantry at Arupa’s house. I hand out medicines, tents, sundries. To my surprise – usually the political views I hear there are right wing – most of the talk in the long line is dismayed, or outraged. I go to the annual celebration at Grace Marketplace, our two year old homeless services campus, knowing I’ll see familiar faces. I go to collect hugs. I get plenty. I ask a friend about the mayor’s book circle – first they read Ta Nahisi Coates, now they’re going to read Ibram Kendi. I’m going to read it. Good old progressive, prosperous, white me, I want to learn more, I want to connect.
From my car I wave and smile in the rural southern way at pedestrians, especially non-whites. I wish I had a Clinton bumper sticker. We go for an evening walk and pass the home of the two gallumphing Great Danes. In their yard is a Trump sign. I call to the neighbor. “I love your dogs. But they’re not big enough!” – and she laughs. We walk on and I mutter to Joe, “But I hate your sign.”
image:danesonline.com
Everything makes me think of the election. Sunday afternoon we go to the new Depot Park to hear some reggae – it’s been open a couple of months but this is our first time. It was built on a brownfield full of contaminated soil and water, which was treated and removed. How much its recent opening influenced the latest eviction of nearby homeless camps, I can’t say. In Gainesville we have big camp evictions every few years, with no provision for the campers to go anywhere else, no regard for the functioning community they have created. The people scatter and find new sites.
Despite my misgivings, the park is as wonderful as I’ve heard – still new and raw, but when the trees grow up it will be glorious. Plenty of seating – rocks, benches, concrete risers – and curved walking paths. In the center is the playground, full of delights. Fossils planted in the sandbox. Little digging machines that kids can sit on, the sand shovel controlled by the pedals and handlebars. A wet area where water spurts from the ground, slides down a wall, sprays out from moveable metal tubing. This is Florida, mid-November; we can still play in the water.
image:independentfloridaalligator.com
Joe and I sit by the sandbox and watch the children, parents, grandparents. It’s like an advertisement for multicultural diversity. Asian faces, faces framed by hijabs, children black and brown and white, talking English and Spanish, and is that Chinese? A 7-year-old blonde girl makes sand angels. A 2-year-old brown boy with glistening black curls stamps his feet in the water. I nod and smile at everyone I pass. This is not Trumpworld, this is America.
image:sandia national laboratory
Light a candle and curse the darkness – it’s been my motto for many years. What can I do? There is a Progressive Women’s Meeting Sunday afternoon, but meetings?… Oh God, I can’t anymore. A Million Woman March January 21. Possibly. The last big demonstration I went to in DC was for abortion rights. I remember the exhilaration -seeing clusters of women in Atlanta at the gate for the DC flight, masses of women on the DC subway. But I was 45 then – I could stand for hours and hours. And I hate crowds.
image: huffingtonpost
The news keeps getting worse; Bannon will be chief advisor. What can I do? What can I do?
It’s been a week. At 3AM Tuesday morning I see two posts on Facebook:
Amanda Debour Bartlett asks people to protest to Congress about the appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump’s senior advisor, followed by much discussion regarding Congress’ lack of power in this matter. I think, and say, that if we protest as often as we can on the truly horrible decisions (and with Bannon in charge there will be many of them) Congress may believe it has to resist the executive when possible. I share the user-friendly Common Cause website to “find your representative.” click I resolve to keep addresses and stamped envelopes by my writing chair, and dash off notes whenever I feel the outrage.
from Common Cause website: my representatives – alas (mostly)
Another post:
“…Join me in showing love and respect to others. Find your way to swing the pendulum in the direction of love. Because today, sadly, hate is gaining ground.” (Mara Carrizo Scalise on Instagram, posted on FB by Karen Epple, shared by Arupa, and comically mocked by her husband) I vow to work hard on kindness, friendliness, civility. To wear the safety pin. click
Is it all silly? I don’t know. Will it help? Probably not. Maybe only to assuage my feelings, to save my own soul. I am still crying.
Sep 19, 2016
For years I’ve had an idea running unnoticed behind my thoughts, the way programs run in the background on a computer: this is the way my life is supposed to be.
image:slideplayer.com
It’s an idea that can lead to resentment, but recently I’ve had a revelation. There’s no supposed to be; there’s just what is. Maybe this new (to me) version of truth will help me with my quest for acceptance, as in, “Accept the things you cannot change.”
It’s not that I’ve ever thought life was supposed to be all gardens and beaches. Accidents and illness, struggle and heartbreak – I’ve long known they were part of the mix. Since I was quite young, I’ve had a vision of how life works. You go along happily for a few years, encountering joys and troubles along the way but staying fairly upright, when suddenly life comes along with a catastrophe and pulls the rug out from under you.
image:missionblueprintonline
Still, I had a sense that there was some natural progression from infancy to old age, stages of life that would come in a certain order. This was one of a number of unexamined assumptions produced by a safe and secure childhood. As a child I lived in a luxurious cocoon. I was the youngest of four children, the baby of the family. My family was intact, my father made a very good living, my mother made a comfortable home life, my brothers adored me.
a luxurious cocoon image:busyknitter.com
Some of these unexamined assumptions are useful: I can do it; I am loved. Some are just silly. I was born when my parents were in their forties; we lived in big houses. My grown brothers lived in tiny apartments. I concluded that when you’re young you’re poor and when you’re old you’re rich. This idea miraculously survived years of working in poverty law. I was probably forty when I realized there wasn’t a natural progression from one state to the other.
images:thetinylife.com, wikipedia.org
When I was little I assumed my future was college, husband, housewife, motherhood. (You can tell from this when and into what class I was born.) This assumption exploded with the second wave of feminism, with reading the Second Sex at fourteen and The Feminine Mystique at fifteen. When the dust had settled, a new assumption took its place. I was in charge of my life, I could choose my path.
I’ve always known life isn’t fair. When I was raising two kids they’d say, as siblings do, “It’s not fair.” And I’d annoy them with a little ditty, “You always, you never, IT’S NOT FAIR,” and tell them no, life isn’t fair, that’s just the way life is. Every year I’d spend a semester and three credit hours trying to teach my law students that life’s not fair. They had not entirely earned their good fortune, nor did poor people deserve their misfortunes; a good deal of everybody’s situation was due to luck, good or bad. click
Life is what happens when you’re making other plans. I’ve known this for years; I’ve said this for years. Yet there in the background, belying this knowledge, was the belief that my life would proceed in ordered stages.
image:thepragmaticcostumer.wordpress
The gods have laughed at me over and over, yet I have to learn the lesson again and again. I had to learn it once more when my son came home to recover from a serious illness. Now the four of us – hard-working husband, retired wife, teenaged granddaughter, and middle-aged son – are bumping along together as well as we can. It’s not what I expected when I retired. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
All my life I have struggled to accept what comes my way. I should have been an alcoholic; then I could have gone to meetings and heard the Serenity Prayer. Maybe it would have sunk in. But I can’t go much beyond one drink without getting drunk, and I hate being drunk. I prefer musical inspiration anyway; I want to learn to take One Day at A Time. click
Writing has always brought me clarity. But I’m still confused, still trying to understand. There’s no supposed to be. There’s just what is.
N.B. This post is full of God and Jesus. I haven’t become a believer. Growing up in a sanctimonious culture, I’m saturated with pious aphorisms. And just about my favorite music is gospel, full of trouble, promise, and joy.
Aug 14, 2016
In this year of totally distressing, not to say horrifying, political campaigns click, Joe and I turned to West Wing. He brought home DVDS from the law school library, and we binge-watched, together and separately. (I fall asleep when I watch anything after 8pm.)
image:twinversity.com
After five seasons, the show lost steam and we lost interest. But now I had the TV habit, and, fearing I wouldn’t get enough exposure to politics, I turned to House of Cards. I had watched one episode a few years ago, but I found the characters so loathsome I didn’t want them occupying my living room or my mind.
THE WEST WING
image:theatlantic.com
In West Wing, the liberal’s wet dream, various domestic or international crises force the characters to reconcile their ideals with the need for political compromise. The President is just one of many major characters in the show, which focuses on senior White House staff. Each episode has multiple story lines, which may reflect each other, and there is often a humorous side story.
The scripts are stuffed with policy discussion presented in rapid-fire arguments, but at the core of the show are the almost-family relationships among a group of people working long hours towards usually common and often elusive high-stakes goals. They argue and get really angry, cover their caring with teasing and jokes, and support each other through tough times.
I enjoy these struggles. Not everyone does. In Wikipedia I found critic Heather Havrilesky: "What rock did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under and, more important, how do you go from innocent millipede to White House staffer without becoming soiled or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?"
an innocent creature image(leopard gecko): dreamstime.com
a soiled politician image:izquotes.com
HOUSE OF CARDS
Frank and Claire Underwood image: netflixlife.com
In House of Cards, the paranoid cynic’s delight, everybody does heinous deeds and then they blackmail each other. The show is about two ruthless people with one ambition: to reach the top. They remind me of a law student I once interviewed for a public service internship whose ambition was to “be a leader.” I kept trying to find out what issues he cared about, what he wanted to achieve; he just kept saying he wanted to be a leader. Finally I asked, “But where do you want to lead people?” He had no answer.
Whither the wethers? image:gapemogotsi.com
The show is also about visual style. No matter where it takes us – homes, offices, cars, stores, motels – the entire world is decorated in shades of brown and gray and ivory. Everyone is thin. Everyone’s clothes match the decor. Two exceptions to the neutral pallette: outside we may see a touch of green, and the blood is always red.
image: businessinsider.com
Robin Wright, as Claire Underwood, wears very high needle-thin heels and tailored suits (sometimes tailored dresses) regardless of what she’s doing, unless she’s running or rowing. Then it’s a skin tight black workout suit.
image:pinterest.com
Obviously these costumes reflect and enhance her characterization, and my friends might say I’m in no position to criticize someone’s attire click, but as with the set design, they distract me. When a viewer is more intrigued by the show’s design than by the characters, there’s something wrong.
And that brings me to Kevin Spacey, an actor I usually admire. In House of Cards he seems to have two notes, sneering contempt and instrumental charm. The former is the major note – he can’t say he wants a cup of tea without scorn dripping from the line. In the later episodes, he rounds out the character a bit, but that over-the-top contempt still dominates. Robin Wright’s character seems more layered than Spacey’s. Doubt and second thoughts sometimes shimmer in her face. She is also considerably less talkative than her husband, and therefore less transparent.
It should be obvious that I preferred West Wing to House of Cards. West Wing is made for me, a left-of-liberal with a fairly positive view of people (in sum: few of us are evil, most do the best we can, but we are led astray by self-interest, ignorance, blind spots, and incompetence).
image:cathtatecards.com
But I don’t think my preference is only because of my politics and world view. I think it comes down to the difference between character-driven and plot-driven fiction.
The West Wing crew, both major and minor characters, are complex. They grow in each episode. Though I binge-watched the show three months ago, I remember the names of many of the West Wing staff. I finished watching House of Cards just a few weeks ago, but while I can picture the faces, I can only name the two major villains.
House of Cards is all about plot, the more outlandish, the better. Old plots (both stories and dastardly schemes) return from time to time, giving the series continuity and depth. I continued watching to the bitter end because I was curious about what melodrama the writers would devise next. But I sometimes had trouble remembering who did what to whom, and why it mattered.
I think that’s because, while heavy on plot, House of Cards is light on character. Everyone is cynical and ruthless, or a hapless victim, and not much beyond that. Villains are supposed to be more interesting than saints; good guys can be insipid. But villains with no redeeming features are as flat as heroes with no flaws. You can show their vulnerabilities, and throw in some back story to explain how they got that way, but it's not enough.
images: wikia.com, somesaints.tumblr.com
I am neither cynical nor paranoid (though I sometimes wonder whether Donald Trump was hired by the DNC to destroy the Republicans). I understand that loathsome heroes are currently a popular trend in television series. At the risk of being called a goody two-shoes, I think that consuming large doses of evil as entertainment promotes cynicism and despair.
image:wikipedia.org
I don’t have to be inspired, but I do prefer characters with more than one note, and characters I can like, or at least care about. If I’m going to let them into my living room, they should be people I’m willing to hang out with for a while.
Jun 28, 2016
Most of my old friends near and far are grandparents now. They share their grandchildren’s pictures on Facebook, and though I usually ‘hide’ cat and dog videos, I love looking at babies and toddlers, especially when my friends are in the picture, beaming happiness.
My grandparent status is different, though hardly unusual, because I’m raising mine, and she’s a teenager. She lived with us for a couple of extended periods before coming for good when she was eight. We’ve had the usual travails of child-rearing, and then some. But I’ve had a grandmother’s full share of adorable and adoring. And I want to share those stories, because mine was once just as cute as yours, and because I like to remember those days.
Just as cute as yours
I love to sing, and in those days Amanda loved to hear it. I wrote a song for her before she was born ‘Ukelele, huckleberry, Amyanda Rose, she’s the sweetest baby, everybody knows, Orange blossom honey from her head down to her toes…’ To sustain us both through hours of walking (me) and screaming (her), I had Elisa’s song from my childhood ‘Aa naa naa mi nena de mi corazon..’ click. I wrote a toilet training song: ‘I went peepee in the potty… I’m such a great big girl.’ To my amazement she sang it to me just the other day.
And then there was the huge repertoire of songs to get her to sleep at night. She had me trained to stay with her until she slept. I particularly remember holding my breath and inching my body off the bed after twenty renditions of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, only to hear “Grandma,” as I reached the door. We had On Top of Old Smoky, You Are My Sunshine, Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, Down in the Valley, Go Tell Aunt Dora, and many, many more. I look back and wonder, what was I thinking? I’m a great believer in bedtimes, and bedtime routines, but somehow our routine had become sing until you drop. I think I was a pushover because I worried about what was going on at home.
Like Grandma, like Grandbaby: until she matured into self-consciousness, Amanda would frequently break into song. At three we took her to Jacksonville Beach. Joe went in to ride the waves, Amanda and I sat in the sand at the edge of the water, making drip castles. Every time the water ran up under our bottoms the castles washed away. Every time, she laughed. And suddenly she began singing, ‘Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham.’ click
First trip to Jax beach – in winter
We took her camping at Cumberland Island when she was seven. It’s a special place, only accessible by ferry, a national seashore in southern Georgia with long empty beaches, wild horses, and billions of birds. Though it was supposed to be a tenth anniversary celebration, suddenly we had Amanda. So we borrowed a bigger tent and went on our first real family trip.
some of the billions:oystercatchers image:Jacksonville.com
Everything was new to Amanda. It was her first boat ride – she and Joe stood in the bow to catch the wind in their faces. We disembarked and got a cart to haul our gear over the long trek to the camp site. We slept cozy in the tent, the October weather mild and the mosquitoes gone, and through the night heard the wild horses galloping down the trail.
image:ajc.com
We rose early, and Amanda and I took flashlights to walk the long path to the bathrooms, and then through the woods to the beach. Through the moss-draped oaks the sunrise filled the whole sky with rose and gold. And Amanda began singing, ‘Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me.’ click
image: m.flikie.com
Cumberland Island is magical in so many ways. We watched the waves and birds and sunrise, and then returned to the camp where Joe was making breakfast. When breakfast was cleared away, the three of us set off to explore the island, walking carefully down the trail to avoid the piles of horse shit. “Grandma, the doodoo is moving!” We squatted down, and sure enough, iridescent dung beetles were patiently rolling balls of horseshit along to wherever they thought it should go.
image:toptenz.net
Children like shit. Whenever Amanda was staying with us, we would go for a walk in the evening, Joe holding Trisket’s leash, Amanda on her tricycle. I was in charge of picking up the poop, until the day when Amanda said, “I want to carry the doodoo.” Proudly she led the parade, with the plastic bag of shit dangling from her handlebars.
Maryanne and I have been friends since 1980; like me, she acquired a child late in life. When they were little the girls loved to play together, and Joe and I spent a lot of time with Maryanne and Larry. We were so at home at their house that I could honestly say ‘Being with you is almost as good as being alone’(and they didn’t take offense).
On a chilly night Larry made a fire in the living room and the girls roasted marshmallows. Soon they were covered in melted marshmallow, particularly fetching on Amanda’s dark skin. They were purely happy; so was I. Sharing this unexpected road with Maryanne has doubled the pleasure and cushioned the bumps.
When Amanda was in kindergarten I picked her up every morning to take her to school. One day she found a soup pot and wooden spoon in the back of the car (no, I don’t remember why), and she decided to make breakfast. From then on, I chose my daily breakfast from the menu she recited. I could have bacon and eggs, pancakes, spaghetti and meatballs, black beans and rice, or chicken soup. It was all delicious, especially satisfying on winter mornings as we drove through darkness with dawn just breaking. I asked her once what was in the soup. “Chicken…and soup,” she told me scornfully – any fool would know that.
All you need is chicken…and soup. Images:recipesfab.com, allrecipes.com
Amanda was briefly a Brownie, and in fourth grade Joe took her to the Father-Daughter Dance. We went all out for this, knowing it would likely be the last time she would happily go dancing with Grandpa.
Brownies selling cookies
She needed a special dress. Until now, fearing squabbles and tantrums, I had always bought her clothes, returning whatever she didn’t like. This was our first shopping trip together, and it was a revelation. She was quick and decisive, and we found a dress in twenty minutes. And what a dress: very grown-up-looking and entirely modest – we both loved it. We had time and energy for shoes – jeweled silver sandals with a slightly elevated heel. And later I went to Beauty Max (the place for costume jewelry) for diamond earrings and a hairclip.
The afternoon of the dance, I painted her nails and fixed her hair in a bun, and we came out to present her to Joe in her full glory. “Wait,” he said. “There’s one more thing.” And he went to the refrigerator and brought out a rose corsage.
She won a prize for her dancing
Since I saw her born, I’ve known I was lucky to have my grandbaby living nearby. People often say the joy of grandchildren is you get to have them for a while and then you get to send them home. We don’t have that with Amanda, instead we have the complex joys of raising her. A recent article in the paper told me that people who take care of their grandchildren have a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s. I was delighted, until I kept reading and learned that those who are full-time parents to their grandchildren have an increased risk. Oh well.
Now we have a brand-new grandbaby, who will be the borrow and return type. Joe’s daughter Leah gave birth to a HUGE baby, Ula Mae, on June 1. All is well there – the love was immediate and overwhelming, and mother and baby are champion nursers. James is doing everything fatherly possible given that he lacks functional nipples. The little issue of sleepless parents will resolve itself after a while. They don’t live quite close enough, but New Orleans is only an eight-hour drive, and I’ve learned from my friends that Facetime does wonders. It’s my turn again to be fatuous and adoring, and I can’t wait.
May 27, 2016
I have written three novels; each one took several years. But my fourth novel has been gestating for eight years. My back aches from the weight of it, and I wonder if it will ever be born.
image: scitechdaily.com
I’ve started my story three times. In my first attempt, a middle-aged woman finds her mother’s high school yearbook and tries to imagine her deceased mother’s life, while her mother argues with her from beyond the grave.
image:oaklandtech.com
The second version is the life of that same middle-aged woman. I’m confident that this third version, the story of her parents’ long marriage, is the right one, but I’ve put it down to revise other books, write the blog, travel, have surgery, adopt a granddaughter. I’ve written close to 380 pages, and I’ve only gotten the defenseless pair to their third and last pregnancy.
In my long dalliance with these people, I’ve had to do a lot of research, which is really fun. The most fun was learning about life on the home front during the Second World War. I found a Rosie the Riveter website with first person narratives by the women, now in their eighties, who helped build the ships and planes. click
Working on an airplane engine…
and a dive bomber
both photos of unnamed “Rosies” by Alfred T. Palmer of the Farm Security Administration
I read letters from women to their soldier boyfriends. I watched a documentary series about the war. As it turns out, my story begins a month before the end of the war, so I know a whole lot more than I can use (always a good thing with “historical” novels).
For more general research, and inspiration, I bought the complete New Yorker from 1925 to 2006 on CD’s – a bargain at $60 – which gives me a lot of contemporary news and views and culture. For instance, I learned (and used) the fact that in the spring of 1947 Richard Wright escorted Simone de Beauvoir around Harlem.
images: independent.co.com; national archives
From these old New Yorkers I get a sense of the writing of the time, and a certain insular Manhattan attitude that I need for some of my characters. It also gives me wonderful pictures of clothes and cars. I have yet to figure out how to browse through it without becoming caught up in a story or article.
I struggled with my other novels, but I don’t believe any of them were as challenging, had as many stops and starts, as this one. None of them required research into an era. None of them covered more than two years – this story lasts about forty years. More than that, none of them began with biographical bits of me. This one has strayed so far from its beginnings that I have disappeared, but one of the versions was very much me, and I found I wasn’t very fond of myself.
A couple of months ago I examined the situation. I’m 68, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life not finishing this book. My son suggested that if this one is such a struggle, maybe I should write a different one. But it doesn’t work that way. This story, these people, inhabit me.
A few weeks ago I reached a milestone – the end of the first section (courtship, early marriage, moving out of Manhattan) and began to believe again that someday I will reach the end. All I have left is the years with young children, the teenage years, the childless years, and the last year. The first draft will be massive, but then it will exist, ready to be cut and chopped and molded. I hate creating; I love revising. Michelangelo said “Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.” I will have a huge block of stone to carve.
image:wikipedia
I’ve labeled my current work, about the years with young children, chunktwo; I’m three chapters into it. The milestone has given me confidence and new resolve. I can do this. I know where I’m going. I’ll work first thing every morning, after feeding the beasts. What could stop me?
the beasts
Anyone who writes knows what could stop me. A thousand distractions beckon, and the most tempting lurk in my laptop: Email, Facebook, Free Cell, the New York Times. Even if I avert my eyes from the Firefox icon and go straight to my word processor, when a question arises the Internet is at hand to answer it. So I’ve returned to Freedom, an app which I tried a few years ago and abandoned when I found how easy it was to get around it. It’s not easy in the latest version. I set a schedule to block the Internet, and it’s in effect until I change it – and I believe I can’t change it while it’s actively blocking. (Please don’t tell me if I’m wrong.) I’ve given myself Internet access five hours a day in three parts. It’s wonderful how this has freed up my time, not just the early morning writing time, but the rest of the day. I’m completing all kinds of tasks and projects, and reading more than I have in several years. click
Along with the Internet, my self-imposed monthly blog deadline troubled me. The blog posts take several days; I feared they would destroy my momentum. I ignored my May 6 deadline and kept on chugging along in the novel. But I like writing the blog: it clears my mind; it amuses me; it’s a great writing exercise; and I love finding the illustrations. And so I’ve decided that every time I finish a chapter, I’ll stop and write a blog post. If the chapters come fast and furious, I’ll stockpile posts.
I just finished a chapter (As often happens, I didn’t realize it was ending until it did.) So here I am, in my look-at-me way, telling you about it.
