“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

DAILY PRACTICE

October 5, 2012 / roughwighting / 12 Comments

Back in the old days, people were encouraged to attend to daily prayers. Not just encouraged, bullied into it almost.

So I have a hard time with the idea of a “daily writing.” I’ll write when I damn well please, thank you very much.

But then I think of pianists. They need to play the piano, daily, for weeks and months and years to become merely proficient in their musicianship, much less able to say that they are accomplished in playing the piano.

I watched the New York Open with open-mouthed awe this summer, and listened to the stories of some of these incredible players. Who became incredible by natural ability and then hours of daily practice hitting that damn yellow ball back and forth over the net since they were pre-teens. Day after day, month after month, year after year.

Then I think of my friend, who is training for a marathon, again. She gave herself, and her ailing kidney, a year and a half off from the last marathon, watching her body become sluggish and her figure add the weight she had run off to such effort. Now, six weeks back into daily training, her face is rosy and her step lighter.

Will my writing become rosier, my fingers lighter if I succumb to daily practice? Will I become a more accomplished writer, by forcing myself to put my words on paper (or laptop), every day? At some point in time, will someone read my stories and say “incredible,” because of the extra effort I’ve made in my life, to write daily?

I know what the answer is, damn it.

How about you? Do you practice your craft/hobby/thethingthatrocksyourworld – daily?

TO MY READERS: I’ll miss next week’s blog post due to an important meeting with the newest member of my family, now 2 weeks old and impatient for my visit. But I shall be writing my observations of a New England fall, my musings about new life and life’s renewals, the joy in reunification with the best daughter in the world, and the fear of flying…. DAILY.

baby, newborn, grandson

Who Am I? Who Are You?

August 10, 2012August 10, 2012 / roughwighting / 71 Comments

I’m a curly-haired woman who loves fairytale fantasy, long walks along the water, communing silently with babies and animals, and reading for hours in a deep plush chair while sipping Tropical Green tea.

I dislike vapid vain chatter; inconsiderate drivers who turn without blinking; wayward souls who act as if they run the world; grocery carts with broken wheels; men who pinch women’s rears (yes, still!); unanswered e-mails; unplucked eyebrows; arguments; orange vests; and fruit drinks.

My heart soars with the soft, whisper-filled kisses of little ones; a sun salutation on a Hawaiian beach; a spontaneous loud laugh from a coworker; a handful of M&M’s, particularly the green or blue ones; a sudden embrace from my irreplaceable guy.

The sounds I most enjoy: the swish of pens on paper (and the clack of a laptop) during one of my creative writing classes; the pounding surf on the New Jersey seashore; the beat of a Beatles tune; the bark of Henry, the dog, as he sits in front of his cookie jar,; the beginning melody of The Nutcracker Suite ballet; the soft plop of an omelet-filled plate placed in front of me at a sunny San Francisco corner café; the ‘hello Pammy’ call from my effervescent magnetic mom.

Life is worthwhile because of soft classical music on a cold Sunday morning; two-hour conversations with a long-time friend; a tall diffident son who stares deeply into my eyes and says, ‘Love you, Mom’; a 2-year-old grandchild who sits quietly, attentively on my lap while listening to Good Night Moon; a foggy afternoon writing stories about people I’ve never met; a man who runs out to buy my special Earl Gray tea latte, non-fat milk with foam at 6:15 in the morning; a beautiful daughter who wears her heart on every sleeve and her love in her morning glory eyes.

That’s who I am.

SIX WORDS, THAT’S ALL I NEED!

June 29, 2012 / roughwighting / 77 Comments

Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to tell a story in only six words. His response: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I’m sniffling already, and it’s only a six-word story!

Since then, similar challenges have been thrown out in magazines, books, and blogs: can you tell your life story in six words?

Well, can you?

Here’s a few I’ve come up with:

WHO IS THAT IN MY MIRROR?

Well, that’s not my life story, but sometimes it’s what I scream to myself in the morning.

LIFE’S HARD, LOVE SOFTENS IT UP

Life IS hard, I think we all agree. But can you imagine how much harder it would be without your loved ones? Your friends, your spouse or significant other, your children or nieces/nephews? Since I’ve been old enough to wonder about the meaning of life, about why we’re even here, I’ve figured out that it’s all about the love.

I’M STILL 30, KIDS CATCHING UP

That’s how I feel – like I’m 30 years old and having a heck of a time each day making it through my job, my joys, my fears, my … but wait. My son tells me he’s 30? How’d he catch up to me like that?

I love the title of a book that published six-word memoirs by “Writers Famous and Obscure” (2008) called Not Quite What I Was Planning.

I imagine that’s how most of us feel by the time we’ve reached a certain age. Are you nodding your head? Did you plan to be where you are, who you are, years ago? Doubtful!

Oh, here’s another one I just thought of:

BORN. EDUCATED. MARRIED. FAMILY. NOW FUN!

Spoken like the empty nester that I am. Yes, Virginia, there is life after 50 (um, and even later!)

My turn now to challenge YOU. I dare you to send me (in the comment section) your six-word story or memoir.

Come on, you can do it!

Appreciation

June 4, 2012 / roughwighting / 12 Comments

What does it mean, to be appreciated, or to appreciate something? Dictionary definition says:

[uh-pree-shee-ey-shuhn]

1. gratitude; thankful recognition:

2. the act of estimating the qualities of things and giving them their proper value.

3. clear perception or recognition, especially of aesthetic quality: a course in art appreciation.

4. an increase or rise in the value of property, goods, etc.

5. critical notice; evaluation; opinion, as of a situation, person, etc.

I like the #5 definition best, and it reminds me of the time I babysat for my daughter – her 1-year-old and 1-month old babies – for 8 hours, yet she picked them up after a long day kind of grumpy and well, non-appreciative, in my mind.

So, being exhausted after the day, and feeling a bit weepy, I told her straight out as we strapped the kiddies in her car: I DON’T THINK YOU APPRECIATE ME!

And you know what? My daughter stopped in the midst of the babies crying and asking for their bottles and dinner and stared me straight in the eye – her blue intensity gazing into my green regard and said strongly and full of love, “Mom, yes, I do! I do appreciate you!”

I believed her. And felt loved and appreciated, and I let go of my tiredness and instead appreciated how much I loved and enjoyed these grandbabies, and how much I loved my daughter.

That was three years ago, and still on every birthday card and Mother’s Day card and Christmas card my daughter sends me, the botton line always, ALWAYS says: I Appreciate You!

So that’s what I first thought about when a fellow blogger nominated me this week for the “READER APPRECIATION AWARD.” She didn’t know how much this sweet award would mean to me – much more than the one word seems to imply.

We all love to be appreciated, and I thank you, my readers, for enjoying my posts, for commenting, for smiling when I say something funny (or even when I don’t!), and mostly, for being here, allowing me to enjoy my weekly wighting writing.

Besides telling you something about myself (see above) to accept this award, I also have the honor of nominating six other blogs. Here they are: