“It Never Rains in California, but It Pours, Man It Pours” – A Writer’s Tale

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012 / roughwighting / 20 Comments

One of my stories was published in an award-winning book, yet I didn’t attend my reading debut in a California bookstore on a wet Friday November evening.

Sad, but true.

Author Lynn Henriksen had chosen to include my story, “Traveling to the Ocean” in her book TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character and Spirit (http://www.amazon.com/TellTale-Souls-Writing-Mother-Memoir/). A long title for a smart, emotional guide to writing memoir.

Lynn’s book helps writers of any level access memory and tell true tales in just a few pages. And in each chapter, she adds poignant mother/daughter (or son) stories written by selected contributors.

My story was one of those, in the section entitled “Using Descriptive Imagery.” How exciting is that? And then, to top it off, Lynn asked me to join her and some of the other writers to read at the Catching Spirits Event at Books Inc. in Alameda, a book store known as “The West’s Oldest Independent Bookseller.” (http://www.booksinc.net/Alameda)

So did I send the news to my 500 closest friends?

No.

Did I proclaim my publishing success on Twitter and Facebook?

Well, yes, but just two hours before the event began. I may be a writer, and I may want readers, but I’m still shy about my ‘stuff’ (yes, my fingers shake every week before I hit ‘post’ on WordPress), and I didn’t want people to brave the highways and byways of the East Bay just to listen to little ole me read a story.

I was so glad of that decision when my guy and I left our home an hour and a half before the event. Normally a 45-minute ride, we factored in that (a) we’d be driving in Friday evening commute traffic and (b) the rain was falling hard enough to make my hair frizz, all the better that I’d not encouraged family and friends to attend.

An hour later, we were still in bumper-to-bumper, rain-soaked, slick streets racing (about 3 minutes per hour) toward our destination. Since I tend to motion sickness, I opened the window every so often, allowing sprays of spittle-like moisture to soak my face and my hoped-for straight hair, which now resembled an SOS pad.

7 p.m. The event was beginning, I was supposed to be the first reader, and yet my man and I were still enmeshed in a sea of moving metal bodies. My head throbbed in motion distress, and my stomach thanked me for not eating anything.

Finally, we reached the city of Alameda, sighing that our journey was almost at an end. I texted Lynn to not give up on me. As we got closer to the treasure – the bookstore – I searched desperately for a parking place, seeing nothing but parked cars on the metered spaces and red brake lights in the dark drear night.

We followed directions for a parking garage, two blocks away, and followed a line of similarly wandering souls. Turning into the small garage opening, we drove UP, and around, UP, and around, UP and around, until my head pounded in protest.

“Must be space at the top,” I murmured hoarsely to my man, “look at all the cars coming down the opposite way.”

Well, four more times we went UP, and around, UP and around, until we reached the top, the sky, and not one open space. All those cars we passed going the opposite way? They’d had no luck either. What kind of garage has no sign that says: FULL?

Didn’t matter. At that point in time, my body was full of motion sickness. I couldn’t walk, much less talk or smile or hold a book for sale.

“Take me home!” I croaked.

The rain stopped for our drive back. So did the horrible traffic. In fact, we soared home, and I crawled into bed like a sick child.

But stuck in my head, all night long, was the 1980s tune, “It never rains in California, But it pours, man it pours.”

Songwriters: HAMMOND, ALBERT/HAZLEWOOD, MIKE

Got on board a westbound seven forty-seven
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
Ooh, that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true …

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

I’m out of work, I’m out of my head
Out of self respect, I’m out of bread
I’m underloved, I’m underfed, I wanna go home
It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

Dirty Letters

November 16, 2012 / roughwighting / 33 Comments

SSCSSN – the DMV claims these letters could be “considered offensive.”

On September 21, I sent my permission form to the California DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) for a new ‘vanity’ license plate using the initials SSCSSN.

But my request was denied.

Why? I can’t figure it out, but perhaps you can.

Here is some background to the mystery: two years ago, when my guy and I moved from MA to CA and needed a license plate, I applied for the wacky, weird combination of SSCS. How did I choose those letters, you ask? (As many do after I park my car and start to walk away…)

My usually ‘unsentimental’ man had the idea – the first initials of our baby grandchildren, in birth order.

Approved! Back in 2010, SSCS seemed just fine to the “Special Processing Unit” over in Sacramento.

But 4 months later, just when my license plate finally arrived by mail, our son and daughter-in-law announced a baby in the making, and a few months after that, our daughter and son-in-law made an identical pronouncement.

Two more initials needed for the license plate!

When grandson Sloan was born in March, we figured, ah, SSCSS. Has a certain symmetry, doesn’t it? But we waited for six more months until the last (and final?) grandchild was born. Neville.

Thus, in late September, I filled out the application for a new vanity plate – SSCSSN, and sent it along to the powers-that-be with a check.

To my surprise and disappointment, I received a letter this week from the manager of the DMV’s “Customer and Program Support Unit” stating that “Per CA Vehicle Code, Section 5105, the department may refuse any combination of letters and numbers that may be considered offensive, (or) which could be misleading…”

I don’t know about you, but have you watched TV lately; listened to the words on some of the newest, hottest songs on the radio (or just listened to the vitriol spewed out by a DJ); paid attention to a billboard; even, dare I say, read some of the messages that non-thinking people place on their Facebook page? Those, I grant you, can be offensive. But SSCSSN??

All I want is to have some good clean fun with my grandkids, their parents, my family, by acknowledging the presence of these Sweetly Sanguine Completely Scrumptious Splendid Newcomers.

And this reasoning is what I explained in a letter to the Manager of the Customer and Program Support Unit of the Special Processing Unit, DMV, in Sacramento.

Do you think they’ll reconsider?

Touchy Feely

November 9, 2012 / roughwighting / 47 Comments

I spent the weekend in Napa with my man and friends visiting from the right coast, and they either insulted me or paid me a great compliment by the end of our time together.

“We didn’t realize you’re one of those ‘touchy feely’ kinds,” the couple said to me on Sunday.

At first I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong (assuming it was not a good thing to be touchy feely).

“Ah,” I finally answered. “Yes, I complimented the chef at the B&B we stayed in, but you don’t know the whole story.”

“You told him that the food he created for his guests came from his heart, not just from the ingredients, saucepans, and oven!” they exclaimed, a bit of recrimination in their voices.

I gulped. It did sound hokey when my friends repeated it, even though the chef made improbable but fabulous brunches for his weekend guests.

Imagine inn-made, melt-in-your-mouth cranberry scones with fresh fruit, yogurt, homemade jam and fresh-squeezed orange juice, then thick cheese sandwiches grilled with delightful homemade bread and a small cup of tomato bread soup cradled in the center of the plate.

Think tiny soft-on-the inside-crunchy-on-the-outside cinnamon twists that melted in eager mouths, then a five-inch square chef-made ravioli filled with ricotta, basil, and other savory spices, topped with a pouched egg. A weird combination that tasted like Tuscany and sun-ripened mornings.

“I read a newspaper article about the chef,” I explained defensively. “He’s the 10^th of 17 children. In his family, cooking and serving meant survival and love. Plus, he became a Catholic priest until he realized he didn’t belong there. He had an epiphany on Epiphany and bought this B&B with his partner.”

“Sooooo?” my friends asked. “He serves good food to keep his guests coming back. It’s called economic survival.”

I shook my head. “This chef’s main ingredient is love. I could taste it in every bite. This is his service, not as a priest, but as a giver, a nurturer, maybe even a ‘touchy feely’ cook.”

My friends rolled their eyes.

My heart sank.

Can’t food preparation equate love?

Call me touchy feely (and I have a feeling many do), but I think so.

touchy feely, pineapple, food, love, granddaughter

First pineapple – a touchy feely food photo of granddaughter Sophie.

The Fear of Walking

November 2, 2012November 2, 2012 / roughwighting / 12 Comments

Walking scares me, yet I practice it every day.

Of course, the actual motion of moving one foot in front of the other, swinging arms, smiling at the dog by my side, feeling the cool San Francisco fog on my face and appreciating the rising rosy sun isn’t scary.

But my walking thoughts are.

What, for instance, would it be like to trade places with the pelican swaying above me right now, showing off its ability to use the power of the wind while eying me with beady distain? If I were he, and he were me, I’d ignore such a useless two-footed creature, stuck in slow motion on a hard surface at limited eye level with the grace of a tree stump.

I’d soar above the blue gray water to search for the tell-tale scaly flash and YES, point my long sharp beak straight down to smash past the wave, grabbing my meal in one sharp swallow.

Instead, I swallow my disappointment that, in my human form, only dry toast with some sticky peanut butter awaits my slow-footed return to home.

I wonder, if only I tried harder, I could learn the secret of how to release my lighter, brighter soul, the “it” inside of my tree stump of a body, and zoom up and away, exploring the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge, past the Farallon Islands, cross the endless miles of melodic monotonous ocean waters, mingling with the other endless souls released from bunioned toes and stalky legs.

Zap…NO! I don’t want to be released yet from these mortal coils, I scream silently, holding on to my soul like a woman holding down her hat on a too windy day. I’ll stick with the crackling knees and blistered heels, the chapped red knuckles and running nose, the stress of too little time for a deadline-heavy day, and the pang of missing family who live on the wrong coast. I want to continue enjoying the glory of the left coast with sunsets and fog horns and handheld hikes with husband along the soul-drenched waters of life.

The dog tugs and suddenly my thoughts are leashed to the day ahead, the bread to toast, the office desk to manage, the bills to pay, groceries to buy, phones to answer, news to digest, rugs to vacuum, and words to write.

Until tomorrow morning – and another scary walk.

What about you? How scary are YOUR walks?

A Ghost Story

October 26, 2012 / roughwighting / 13 Comments

I know it’s going to happen tonight. All the signs are right. Children off on their own, husband away on business, my two best friends gone on vacations with their families.

I am alone. Finally.

For the past two months I’ve been preparing for this time, not knowing that it would come, but preparing nonetheless.

The sun finally loses its power over gravity and sinks down into the dark rose horizon. The moon floats ahead, but herds of black clouds cover its cheerful shine, darkening the sky and the earth below.

I turn off the lights to the living room, the hallway, then the stairway, and finally my bedroom.

I am swathed in glorious blackness.

I close my eyes, then open them so the room is revealed to me like a developing photo in a dark room. Familiar shapes and shadows relax me.

Then an unfamiliar form floats from the window to the door and stops a few feet away.

“Virginia?” I ask. She nods her head. I see no face, no female body, but still, I know it’s my dear friend of many years, my mentor, dead over 15 years now. I have talked to her so often in my prayers, but never a response.

Now she speaks, though no words fill the room.

We revel in memories of the life we shared, and she laughs heartily. My soul fills with the sound. I have missed it, but now realize that it has always been part of me, and shall remain so.

She answers my personal questions of what lay beyond. I won’t tell you what she says.

Felicity, my cat, creeps into the room, staring at me with her yellow eyes. I’m afraid she may think her mistress has lost her mind, but instead she meows to me. “Why stay here? Take a cat nap and see the world.”

Oh, I suddenly realize; I’ve always been able to go back and forth between worlds. I just don’t nap enough.

I close my eyes, feeling Virginia’s presence close at hand. We soar off through the window panes into the black night. I am so happy my heart balloons twice its size. I see George, then, and grandmama, and, of course, Pauli. They are just as free as me.

We head toward the prism that has suddenly appeared, and just as suddenly we’re in a garden of roses and delphiniums and hydrangeas. The soil is moist and smells like cut grass, starfish, and summer moonlight. Felicity joins us and converses with a butterfly.

“Change is imperative,” the colorful flying insect says wisely.

I wink and find myself back in my dark bedroom, seated Buddha style, petting Felicity in soft gentle strokes. She gazes up at me and says only one word in a long, low purr.

“Llllllooooooovvvvvvvveeeeeeeeee. ghost story, butterfly, cat, soul