Stylist Wars

I know better than to be late for a hair appointment. After all, those ladies have to make a living, too. So if I had followed my own advice I wouldn’t be writing this sad story. I had a hair appointment today. New place, new town. I’d won a gift certificate to the shop in a charity auction event. I had no idea where I was going, but I had the name of the shopping center. How hard could it be?

I drove around the shopping center twice, three times, looking for the salon. Finally I found the certificate at the bottom of my purse and called for directions. Turned out it was at the back of the center, at the truck entrance.

I arrived six minutes late, panting to the stylist closest to the door, “I made every wrong turn I could make finding you.” She was busy blowing someone’s hair, but she smiled and said she did the same thing when she was new to the area. Just then my gal came around the corner and announced in a voice that would have carried in a wind storm. “You had a 12:00 o’clock appointment.  I thought you weren’t coming. You can wait until 12:30 or you can reschedule.”

Several women looked up, their curiosity branding me with shame. My face must have shown my humiliation because my gal added, "Sweetie” in that saccharine tone usually reserved for old ladies in wheelchairs—and they don’t like it either. My face was obviously set in a grim mask of shock because she complimented me on my cute top and called me “sweetie” again in an effort to rescue the appointment.

I murmured something about taking the 12:30 and slunk out. I was parked in front of the store, so I got into my car and drove off. Fury, aggrieved injustice and humiliation spun around in my head while I tried to decide how I felt. I wanted to call my lifeline number and ask for advice like they do on those reality shows, but this was too personal—a road-not-taken fork.  I’d be carrying the memory of this day to my grave

My blood pressure cooled and a semblance of reason returned. The honorable thing to do was to honor the 12:30 appointment. After all, she was right. I had been late. But it was easy to get hung up on the technical point that it had been only six minutes. And it was her fault for setting up shop in the parking lot.   

Part of me wanted to drive home and never think of this day again. My gal's attitude spoke of a long career working with women. An ugly adjective that rhymed with "itch" kept coming to mind. I don’t usually have that thought. I considered my options. I could go back and get my free hair cut without saying anything. Claim the moral high-ground and reduce her to tears. I could leave a tip that would humble her. She would start to apologize, but I would cut her off.

I walked in and the stylist near the door offered me a cup of coffee in a soft, apologetic tone that made returning a whole lot easier. Then my gal called across the room, “They said you phoned that you were lost.  I’m sorry.” Yeah, I had. That was nice to hear.  

An hour later I had a great haircut. I left with something else, too, self-knowledge. I’m a better person than I was yesterday. I'll be a gentler, softer-spoken person in the future, a metaphoric server-of-coffee-to-stricken-strangers. My character got an up-do by the most unlikely of stylists. I'm grateful.

But if I go back to that shop again, it’ll be to the stylist near the door.  

15 Lessons about Playing Solitaire

Every writer I know plays Solitaire while they’re waiting for inspiration or coming down from the natural high of being “in the zone.” It occurred to me this morning that most of life’s lessons apply to Solitaire.

1. Sit up straight, don’t slump.
2. Don’t assume anything.
3. Luck is passive. Winning because of our skill feels better.
4. Don’t be greedy. Nobody wins every hand.  
5. Be careful what you ask for. The hand that lets you use every single card in the initial lay-out will leave you out of options.
6. Trust your instincts, but heighten them by living in the moment
7. Don’t get pompous. More great hands are lost for lack of a low face card than a king.
8. The round may start out easy, but every game has its rough patches.
9. Forgive yourself for being an idiot.
10. Sometimes you get a second chance.
11. God doesn’t answer every prayer.
12. The game isn’t over until it’s over.
13. When you don’t feel elation over winning, it’s not a game anymore.
14. It’s addiction if you have to hide it from others.  
15. Try other games in the list  

I'm sure this list could go on forever. How about you? Do you have one to add? 

Writing with George

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite

all the time. - George Orwell

I found this quote somewhere last week and it cracked me up. By coincidence, I’m working on a novel with this theme.

In my novel I channel a middle-age Mexican man with self-doubts. Preliminary readers say it works, and I’ll bask in the glow until my editor gets her copy. By implied consent she gets to say it doesn’t unless I can convince us both that my way works. One thing we never disagree about are the details I tuck into the story.   

My favorite part of writing is developing a character. It’s the same for actors, in that we become our characters. For me, the best part is asking myself the nuanced questions that go beyond the “who, what, where, why and how” that some writing books suggest. Fleshing out a character always happens after the first draft, like when I used to sit across a cafe table with Robert, a friend who reads my early iterations. He’d ask me things like, “What is the lighting like in Esquival’s cantina?”

I’d answer without taking time to think about it, “It’s an ancient wagon wheel from the wood hauler’s oxcart. After the ox died at the age of twenty-six, the owner had no further use for the cart. A week before he died, he bartered the wheel for a few day’s worth of pulque and drank himself into a place where old men could still find purpose.

     

My friend would blink, expressionless, and continue. “What does the front door look like?”

 “A heavy wooden door in the brilliant blue of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s robes, painted by the owner’s wife so everyone will know she is a righteous woman and a Catholic. Above the arch she added six gold stars that have kept their color even as the door has faded. Although it can no longer compete with the shouting lavender of the Jehovah’s Witness Hall at the edge of town, it is of no matter. The color satisfies her.”

Now Robert has moved away and the café sessions are no more. Now I ask myself these questions as I write.  I’ve learned that the best details define the characters that own them. Every accessory serves the purpose of moving the story forward. Nothing gets in without carrying its own weight.

And, surprisingly, they all seem to have something to say about the struggle of man (or woman) to be good—but not too good and not all the time.

Our Grandmothers, Ourselves

   This is an excerpt from Branches on the Conejo: Leaving the Soil After Five Generations, my memoir celebrating life in (then) the rural Southern California community of Thousand Oaks.                             

We daughters of the soil bear a long and affectionate link to the past. When most of us left home for the glamour and the financial opportunity of the city, we didn’t understand that we were abandoning our rural heritage. We thought we could escape the drudgery of chores and save up a nest egg for retirement. We never meant to sever the link. Now we baby boomers have become grandmothers, viewing the past through lens of wisdom. And we are torn.  

We think of ourselves as the last generation to be reared under the expectation that hard work will be rewarded. We work at town jobs but drive a tractor on Saturday mornings. We daydream of silk lingerie, but opt for a new pair of Wranglers. We help castrate sheep, but wear gloves to protect our nail polish. Some of us marry city boys and spend our lives trying to figure out why some things make us so cantankerous.

Still too close to the old ways, we see little reason to trade our values for others that seem artificially slick and calculated. We accept progress with a sigh, pick and choose what we will embrace.

We help raise sheep and cattle on our five-acre suburban plots while we work full time jobs in town. We grow peaches and apples and spend our weekends canning them into Mason jars before returning to our town jobs. We can’t understand why our children won’t help in the family garden, why our children and grandchildren have rejected our belief in hard work and have replaced it with confidence in a New World Economy. Our advice, our spirituality, our way of life seems archaic. We see our community becoming a service economy where no one wants to be the servant.

Our children think we are dinosaurs, fools for our work ethic and our slavish devotion to the old ways, and maybe we are. We seem to be caught in a schizophrenic blur between the old and the new.

We distrust bio-engineered food and altered milk. We remember when things tasted real. Many of us can still milk a cow. We recall our grandmother’s roses and geraniums before the nursery industry hybridized their scent away. We recall when trees were planted in both male and female varieties, the females making a mess in the yards with their pods and debris. But they attracted the pollen that now floats uselessly in the air. Now we sneeze and take our allergy medicine, and medicate our children’s asthma. We recall that the old days were healthier.

We study the photographs of our ancestors and we notice that hardly anyone was fat. We remember the Fifties, when sodas, flavored drink mixes, white bread and potato chips came into our diets, when sugar became synonymous with a mother’s love. We remember school prayer, spankings, being sent outside to play, and having to change into play clothes. We remember twice a week baths, and saying ‘thank you’, and calling our parent’s friends Mister and Missus instead of by their first names.

Now we are hounded by the guilt of our abandonment. Things are out of kilter and we suspect that we are to blame. Our grandparents’ photographs remind us that we forgot their lessons along the way. They were disciplined in a way that we are not, focused in a way that we have lost.

True, theirs was a world of fewer choices. I doubt, given the diversity of our temptations, they would have done any better than we have. But the fact is, we failed to heed their maxim: Waste not, want not. Maybe we are bracing ourselves for the consequences.

What about you? Anything resonate with you? 

35 Rules for Living a Happy, Spiritual Life

Here’s something to reflect on as we move into a new season.  

1. Do you have a generous countenance or do you hoard?
2. Do you let go or must you always control?
3. Are you courageous or too scared to go forward?
4. Do you hope or do you despair?
5. Do you recognize the abundance in life or do you see only the scarcity?
6. Do you put your trust in Jesus or in politicians?
7. Do you love or live in fear?
8. Do you take time to notice things or are you always in too big of a hurry to care?
9. Do you love people or are things your treasure?
10. Do you look people in the eye or stare at the ground as you pass?
11. Do you celebrate life or its total misery?
12. So you see life as a great adventure or is it all about fate?
13. Do you know God or just know about God?
14. Do you go the extra mile or skip corners when nobody is looking?
15. Do you say “yes” to people and then “no” later?
16. Do you give whenever you can or withdraw on false excuses?
17. Do you trust or are you suspicious of others motives?
18. Are you humble when you make a mistake or do you get defensive?
19. Do you stand for the truth even when it’s unpopular or do you cower to peer pressure?
20. Do you seek forgiveness when you are guilty of serious wrong or do you shrug it off?
21. Can you laugh at yourself or are you always serious?
22. Do you bless the stranger you encounter or avoid them in fear?
23. Do you listen to God or just yourself?
24. Do you give with no expectations or with strings attached?
25. Do you speak well of others or spread gossip that destroys?
26. Do you praise God in all things or always complain to him?
27. So you strive to do heroic things or do you frequently play the victim?
28. Do you use you power in order to give it away or use it to subdue others?
29. Do you seek solutions or must you be right and others be wrong?
30. Do you treat others with the dignity they deserve or do you mistreat them?
31. Are you living your life to the fullest or are you afraid inside?
32. Do your actions demonstrate that you value and respect the dignity of life or do you put your personal desires ahead of the most vulnerable?
33. Do you know that God has won the war or are you overcome by battles?
34. Do you know God’s forgiveness or feel that your sin could never be forgiven?
35. Do you know how gifted you are or are you always self-critical?

Borrowed from my priest’s sermon this morning. Thank you Fr. Bill Holtzinger, St. Anne Parish, Grants Pass, OR. 

Here's to Friends Far and Near

Four  months have passed since I took flight from my comfortable old zip code in California.  

It's starting to sink in that I was pretty hard on my friends when I announced that we had found our dream property in another state. In retrospect I was rather blasé over my quick-and-easy lifestyle change.  I filled every conversation with fun facts about my new house and community. My friends and family made brave faces and fixed frozen smiles while I assured everyone that we would stay in touch and that I would be back often to visit.

Truth is, my move hurt my family and friends more than it hurt me.  

Come on now, let’s be honest. I’ve lost friends to the moving van. I know what it feels like to be left behind with vague promises that “we’ll stay in touch” while they replace me with new friends whose dogs wag at their knock. I get it—despite their smiles, my friends feel like they’ve been dumped.  

I’m not trying to be egotistical here, simply stating a fact. I chose to leave—nothing forced me. For months now the task of settling into a new life consumed me and I've hardly looked back. But now I’m settled in. My address labels have arrived.  I’ve memorized the aisles of five different grocery stores. I belong to a critique group. I’m even taking long walks along the country roads again.       

Last night a new neighbor invited us over for a “meet the neighbor” dinner party. Sitting in the room with smiling strangers I began to miss the solidarity of the friends I left behind. I began to wonder about the structure of friendship.

Here’s what I’ve got so far—My friends fit into four categories:

Long distance friends that I meet at conferences or writers groups. We share mutural interests. We connect with a stroke of the keyboard. These are project friends like the one I phoned yesterday in the hospital. We spent ten minutes talking about her health and another ten talking about our current projects and we were both fine with that.

Old friends who share my history.  These are the ones who surprise me with an email out of the blue, or a card, and make my day. The ones on my Christmas card list. The ones I know will spend the night on their way through town. Comfort friends.

Old neighbors and former co-workers. These are the ones I seem to run into every time I visit my old house. The ones I meet at the hamburger joint where I’m picking up a quick bite. These are the friends that add dimension to my life, remind me of my past. Pepper and salt friends. I’ve run into a couple of them in my new town and the serendipitous moment is breathtaking.

Developing Friendships. A friend reminded me of this one. For some reason, the last year at my old home produced some of the most satisfying friendships of my life. I found soul sisters with whom I connected on several levels. They are the ones that hurt the most to leave and I pray that we can find ways to sustain this fragile connection. Why now? was the question I asked myself as I packed and skipped town like a suitcase salesman with an unpaid bill. Guilt is a tough master.

Family members We shared an assumption that things would never change and now I appreciate my family more when I see them. My husband and I moved away from our children and we’re already making plans for extended visits. I have a new camera so I can Skype. I spend the night at my siblings and we talk over the dinner table.

Maybe there's a category I missed, but I'm still a little numb from the move. It’s been harder than I thought, living in two worlds. I need my friends to step forward and help me out here. I’m haunted by the good friends that disappeared in the past while I assumed they had forgotten all about me. The truth is—they probably needed reminding.

—like the anonymous saying:

 Make new friends, but keep the old. One is Silver and the other is Gold. 

Do you have anything to add about hanging on to old friends? 

The Sweet-tooth's Survival Manual

I used to wonder what would happen if the connection to the grocery store was broken and my family was forced to survive on its own. Earlier this summer we picked up our household and moved to Oregon to find out.

We’ve only lived in our new home for a few months, but every day I marvel at the way the earth provides. At the risk of seeming boastful, I just need to share.

July was blueberry season. A neighbor showed me how to cut gallon milk jugs into picking tubs with a length of clothesline looped through the handle. I hung one around the necks of my two granddaughters and we picked until our lips were purple. We bagged them in gallon freezer bags for winter smoothies. We made freezer jam and gave a lot to friends because it was just too fun to stop picking! (The girls are two and five so the thornless bushes were a big hit.) Full disclosure--their mom and dad helped.

 In late July the wretched brambles that cover the countryside came alive with temporary recompense for their annoying existence. Everywhere I looked I found Himalayan blackberries just begging to be picked. Even though they sport life-threatening thorns, the bushes hung across the road, along the creeks and rivers, juicy berries sweet enough I didn’t need to add sugar to my pies. I started waking at 6:00 A.M. so I would head out to the meadow and fill my jugs with fresh berries for breakfast.

Every time I walked down to get my mail the letters came home stained with berry juice because I couldn’t resist. My fingernails were stained berry blue for a solid month and there was nothing I could do about it. (If there’s a way to pick berries in gloves, I haven’t found it yet.)

By the time I got my hands bleached, the peach tree in the orchard threatened to split under the weight of its bounty. The week we arrived we propped the limbs and thinned the fruit and we probably saved the poor mother-trunk's scrawny life.

By mid-July I peeled the skin off a peach with my teeth and ate it in three bites.

I picked the tree clean in slow stages every time a new batch ripened, an obsessive-compulsive activity that replaced writing for the entire summer. Finally I left a few for the birds and hornets and spread the last batch out on the patio to ripen. And on Canning Day I processed every pint jar I owned with peaches and made the rest into freezer jam.

Praise the synchronicity of nature. God must indeed be a woman because everything came ripe in stages. 

By mid September the apples and pears in our orchard began dropping. My tree didn’t have many, but I found enough abandoned apple trees to make wonderful sunshine-yellow applesauce with a combination of apples that needed just a hint of cinnamon.

I used one of those hand-crank peelers on another ten pounds and fried them in a skillet with a half-cup of brown sugar, a half cube of butter and a shake (more or less) of 6 different spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, pumpkin pie spice, allspice, cloves. Easy-peasy side dish for a Sunday pork roast. I froze most of the ringlets in baggies for future roasts.

 Big discovery—pear sauce is better than applesauce! When I ran out of jars, I quartered and peeled  ten pounds of pears and boiled them in two cups water until soft (covered pan), then tossed in a handful of brown sugar and some cinnamon and while still hot, smashed the fruit with a potato masher. To die for.  When it was cool I ladled the sauce into small baggies and froze them flat on a cookie sheet. After they were frozen I slipped them into one gallon-size freezer bag for frost protection. This way I don’t have a dozen small bags sliding around the freezer.

The beauty of using the land’s bounty is that you can slap-dash bake without worrying about “ruining” the recipe. I mean, have you ever tasted a pie you didn’t like? It it’s too sour, add ice cream. If it’s runny, so much the better. If it’s too thick, well, some people prefer it that way. I’m a lazy cook, but I have fun. As the oldest daughter in a family of nine hungry mouths, I learned early that you can’t mess up dessert. It just isn’t possible!

Here’s a couple of no-fail recipes—

Fruit crisp—fill a square or rectangular baking dish with small pieces of fruit. (smaller is better than quartered fruit. Berries can be left whole.) For the small dish, add a cup or so of water, a little (1 tsp.) cornstarch, a quarter-cup sugar and boil until it reaches z full boil. Don't worry if it's not thick. Double for the larger pan. Stir into the fruit. For the topping—equal parts flour, brown sugar and quick oats and ½ cube of cold butter, crumbled along with the dry ingredients. Don’t worry about the calories because you can’t make it crumble without the butter. I add a dash of salt and some cinnamon. Bake until the juice bubbles and the top is brown.

I add left-over pancake batter (gluten free) to a baking dish of cut up fruit and bake it with raisins, nuts and a little brown sugar for 30 minutes or until thick. I love it for tea or breakfast. My grandfather used to pour cream over his.    

Now my counters are lined with pint jars filled with fruit that I got for nothing. (Truth, I bought a few packages of Ball jar lids and a 5-lb. bag of organic sugar for the canned pears because they were a little tart.) Oh, and a few dozen more pint jars, but that's an investment, not an expense.    

As I write, the grapes in my vineyard are getting sweeter by the day. I have no idea what kind they are, purple with seeds, but they'll make juice for winter breakfasts until I learn how to make wine. All I have to do is steam, strain and squeeze.  It’s walnut season. I’ve collected a 50-lb. sack filled with English walnuts and I’m going to spend my evenings in the patio cracking them. In a wet-wood pinch I can use the cracked shells for firestarter--just mix with some dryer lint and a little glue and place in individual egg carton sections. My sister gave me the idea.   

My mom sent me instructions. I’m collecting acorns and I’m going to be making acorn meal as soon as I pick up enough. They stay around because we don't have much competition from squirrels, only the rain.  

My husband's a hunter. The Canadian geese are starting to land in the pasture. The wild turkeys march across the lawn and fill their gullets with our crickets so I feel entitled to one of them when it’s time to think about Thanksgiving. Five does and a couple of bucks have spent the summer stripping everything they could reach from the fruit trees. They wait while I shake the apples from the tree and eat everything I don’t bag, including the trimmings from the peeled fruit. We’ll be having venison for the holidays.

So this is what I’ve gleaned off the land so far. Do I feel better about the end of the world? You better believe I do. If I have to, I can survive on jelly and fruit. I’m waiting to see what the next season brings. I picked up a pinecone to harvest the nuts, but most of them were already open. I got there too late for pine nuts this year, but there’s still firewood in the woods for the taking. And in the spring I’ll find the best spots for miner’s lettuce. 

Anybody else out there a survivalist tiger? Do share.