Unusual Beauty

This water lily stands at the edge of a pond in Middletown, Maryland, at Surreybrooke, a collection of garden rooms and nurseries. I was taken with the lily's unusual shape (though there were other water lilies, as you can see in the background here, most of the plants in the gardens were of the also-lovely and still-flowering kind). This one, along with some of the other lilies, had already begun its preparation for next season's seeds and next year's plants.

Something Real

I'm not immune to the pressures and preferences of our culture, though there has always been a part of me that rebels at them.

When I get to the crux of the matter, though, I don't think appearances matter nearly so much as we sometimes think.

At the same time, I'm a designer and artist who cares very much about how things look, and I'm meticulous about details when I need to be. It's a tension, I'll admit.

A few years ago, I wrote a letter that included what appears below. It's also something of a tribute to my grandmother, the one who has not yet been pictured here.

At my grandmother's funeral, I looked at her before they closed the casket and I had a fuller realization of something that's important to me. I have always known this, and maybe, to some extent, we all do---but it hit home with me in a very real way when I saw her.

I looked at her body there, and I knew for certain it was not her, or not what consituted the main part of her.

It is what was inside—her spirit, her soul—that was the most important part of her. It manifested itself in little things about her—how she played the piano with passion even in her 80’s, how she spoke with a sexy voice without meaning to and blushed when we teased her about it, how she fed the dog at the table even though Grandpa told her not to, how she was so gentle that birds would eat from her hand.

She was my grandmother who was a constant in my life, who stroked my head gently when I sat next to her while we watched Grandpa’s slides, who rejoiced when I learned how to read and gave me books as soon as I could ask for them.

She was my grandma who wrote poetry about trees, who would not let Grandpa record her playing because it was not “perfect” (but he did anyway on the sly), who could listen to music and nearly swoon, who had her faults. But even all this is only part of the sum of her. It is her spirit, her soul, that was, that is, her.

I have a friend who told me that she knew her first marriage was doomed when she discovered it was mostly about looks and status; I agree. Those things don't last and they don't matter nearly as much as we sometimes think. If that was what my grandparents' union had been mostly about, I doubt that it would have lasted, either.

Yes, I think we need to take care of our physical selves---I've learned that later in life. Sure, the outside matters, too.

But it's the inside that counts most. That's my opinion, anyway.

NYC, After

It's been almost six years since September 11, and the photo at left shows the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood.

Something that struck me: the trains still travel on a track that used to be beneath the towers. I have ridden that train before.

Now, temporary shelters stand above the tracks. The steel girders that anchored the towers are still there, sticking out like uneven rows of teeth.

New York City, though, has broad shoulders. It's brash. It's bold. I know Carl Sandburg described Chicago similarly, but I think his description, or one like it, applies to NYC, too.

Maybe this is most important, given that we can't bring back the greatest treasures lost almost six years ago: it's (re)building.

Iowa Savanna

Last month, I visited my birthplace, Iowa, and I learned that Iowa's pre-agricultural land was not just prairie, but also bona fide savanna.

I usually think of savanna as a place in Africa where you'd find lions, not pigs, but I can't deny that Iowa's savanna, its grasslands punctuated by bur oaks and, this time of year, black-eyed Susans, has a beauty all its own.

I've thought this before: growing up in a place that's not the splashiest tourist attraction in the world can help you learn to see loveliness wherever you are.

And, yes, there are more pigs than people in Iowa. A story appeared in the Washington Post to this effect while I was in graduate school, and a mischievous coworker from Boston teased me unmercifully about it. I checked it out today, and it's still true that pigs come in first by a longshot: people number just under 3 million, while pigs top 15 million, according to the Iowa Pork Newsroom.

Birth of the Boot

Olathe, Kansas celebrates its 150th anniversary this year with big boots placed strategically throughout the city. One of these is pictured at left.

Why boots? Olathe resident and harness-maker (circa 1872) Charles Hyer of the Hyer Boot Company is credited with being one of the first to craft the cowboy boot.

According to the Kansas State Historical Society, "a Colorado cowboy stopped by the Hyer shop on his way home from the Kansas City stockyards in 1875, requesting a new pair of boots that were different from his Civil War-style boots. He wanted a boot with a pointed toe that would slide more easily into a stirrup, a high, slanted heel that would hold a stirrup, and a high top with scalloped front and back so he could get in and out of his boots more easily. Charles accepted the challenge. The unknown cowboy was so pleased with Hyer's work that he returned to Colorado and told others about his new boots."

Check it out, if you like, at the KSHS's Cool Things pages.

Writing Conference & Rest

Soon I'll be boarding a plane for a brief respite away from everything here. Right now, I need it; I can feel it.

I just learned more about children's book writing at a conference I absolutely recommend---the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' MD/WV/DE chapter sponsored it. I met agents, editors, writers.

I heard so much good, inspiring information that it was encouraging; I know this is something I was born to do. I heard artists talk about their art and I felt like I was home.

I am just tired.

The Little Red Car That Could

Instead of just writing about stories, I'm about to tell one, apropos of, really, nothing.

I find that whether I'm happy or sad, hot or cold, rich or poor, I get what I'd call (for lack of a better description) "alien transmissions." Once it was the urge to write a poem about a lobster; another time it was a poem about blueberry yogurt; another time it was about bees buzzing under a glass in a bar (entitled "Bees Under Glass"). I also seem to have a need for humor, even when I feel basically like an open sore.

My first car's last journey is pictured here; it's Photoshopped to death to cover for the fact that the photo started out horribly underexposed (hey, I had a cheap camera then), but not so much that you can't see the details: the smashed-in side, the fact that it's being towed away, my neighborhood (at the time) in Ridgewood, Queens.

That car and I went through a lot together.

I first got the idea to buy a car right before my fifth year of college. I had effectively decided to drop out of school for a semester so I'd finish in May rather than December and, truth be told, to wait for my then sort-of boyfriend to finish college (notwithstanding the fact that he was flunking every class and known in his dorm mostly for his tendency to get knock-down, drag-out drunk and fall out of bed).

Sight unseen (I had mailed in my application), I had already been hired to work full-time as a nurse aide, and I thought that it might be a good idea to have a car to get to work---I'd gotten by with just walking and riding a bike before then.

I'd also been working in a factory---Interbake Foods in North Sioux City, South Dakota.

The point is---I had a little money, but not too much, I was taking a semester off, and I had a job lined up.

And so Dad and I (I was 20, so Dad still figured in these decisions) made a trip to the used car lot on Floyd Boulevard in Sioux City, Iowa.

We looked at several cars, and this is the one I liked, mostly because it was red (in car heaven, I assume it's still red, though I can't really say for sure).

It also did not have power steering, air conditioning, an FM radio, or automatic transmission. My theory, given that my funds were very limited: the fewer frills it had, the fewer possibilities that things could go wrong with it.

An approximation of the conversation between my father and me follows (I will refer to him as MBF, or My Beleaguered Father, and I'm A for Anne).

A: I want the red car.

MBF: I think you just want that car because you feel sorry for it. What about this nice brown car? It has power steering.

A: I just like the red car.

MBF: But, Anne, you can't drive a stick shift! You don't even know how to drive this car! You can't even drive it off the lot! But you can drive this brown car right away.

A: I'll learn. Dad, I just like this car.

MBF (sighing): It's your factory money---I know. I'm just saying that this brown car is very nice.

A: It's shiny. It's red. I like it.

Car salesman (CS): I see you looking at that car. Are you interested?

A: Yes.

MBF: She's not sure.

A: Yes, I think I want this car. It says $1100 on it, though, and I can't afford that much.

CS: Well, maybe we can cut a deal. How much can you afford?

A: $600.

CS (after raucous laughter): I'm sorry, but that is just not possible. Can you afford any more?

A: No. I really only have $600.

NOTE: This wasn't hard bargaining. That's really all I could afford.

CS: Well, I'll take your number down in case we get another car. But, really, don't expect it.

A: Okay.

MBF (secretly relieved): Oh, well, we can keep looking.

We left the used car lot, but I wasn't sweatin' it too much. I figured somehow I would get a car. In fact, I think I probably went swimming.

A few days later, the used car salesman called. "It's very strange," he said, "but that car you wanted didn't sell at auction. Do you still want it?"

I did! So, anyway, I bought the car. I remember looking out at it the next morning with pride. It was so red and so shiny.

The next week I fell up a hill and tore all of the ligaments in my left knee.

Orthopedic surgeon's suggestion: avoid surgery by letting the leg heal on its own, but wear a brace.

It was difficult to learn to drive the car in hilly Sioux City, and the leg brace just added to the challenge---but I did it. And I was glad to have the car because, without it, the usual options of walking and biking just weren't in the picture for awhile.

That August, my friend Kristin flew in so we could make the Triumphal Journey back to Seward, Nebraska (my college town) when my job and her classes started.

In the meantime, my sister and I had outfitted my car with a few accessories: a button with Val Kilmer's picture on it attached to the column (I thought he was SO HOT in the film Real Genius), a styrofoam dolphin and penguin that hung from the rearview mirror, and a kazoo in case anyone complained about the lack of an FM radio.

The Triumphal Journey to Seward began, so-called because I was returning to the place where my sort-of boyfriend had stolen all of my luggage just a few months earlier. And I was returning with a Shiny Red Car.

We got as far as Onawa, Iowa, which is, oddly enough, the birthplace of the Eskimo Pie.

There, the radiator overheated and Kristin and I had to wait overnight for the service station technicians to repair it. The car's first Triumphal Journey had lasted about 30 minutes.

But then it was fixed.

We continued on, and we arrived in Seward. A neighbor later told my parents that every morning at 5:30 a.m. she heard me trying to pump the gas and actually get the thing to start.

But start it did, and the car eventually took me to both my nursing home job and an additional job at Sheldon's, a bar in Garland, Nebraska (oddly enough, Garland is the home of Poet Laureate Ted Kooser). I even backed it into a ditch once, but that's another story.

On its biggest voyage, the car drove from the Midwest to New York City with my friend Andrea and me in tow, putt-putting up mountains (despite its 4-cylinder engine) at a rousing 40 mph.

And so it happened that the car's real Triumphal Journey was emerging onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for the first time and actually making it to my first NYC-area home in Flushing.

Later, my friend Rachel's mom told people back in Nebraska that she was very afraid because I was actually driving the old Fairmont on the Long Island Expressway (if you've ever been on the Long Island Expressway, you'll understand).

I drove that car to upstate New York time and time again. It went camping when I did. One day, I drove it all the way out to Montauk just to see a lighthouse and take some photos. It didn't complain when I took it to Jones Beach.

I drove the car to Vermont's ski country twice in two subsequent winters with trusting friends along, and it putt-putted up those mountains, too, amid snow and ice. It just kept going.

Once, when I was away for a few weeks, someone stole the battery out of the car. I got a new battery and a chain for the hood to avoid future theft. The car kept going. It just looked tougher.

Sure, there were a few repairs along the way, some of them costing hundreds of dollars, but the car's greatest injury came when a driver coming down Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn didn't look where he was going. Unfortunately, simultaneously, another driver backed out of a driveway without looking where she was going, and the poor parked Fairmont got the side injury you see in the photo. The driver's side door would never open again.

I made the necessary insurance inquiries and found out the driver who struck the car was uninsured; the driveway driver who caused the accident was insured, but her insurance would only pay half the cost of the car's worth. The insurance estimator said the car was worth $500, so the half they gave me was $250.

I still drove the car for the next year until inspection rolled around, though it was pretty difficult to get in on the passenger side and over the stick shift, especially in a skirt.

In the meantime, the car developed a serious drinking problem---I couldn't give it oil fast enough.

Finally, inspection time came and I knew it wouldn't pass, so I reluctantly called a junkyard owner who gave me $50 for the car. They towed it away down Metropolitan Avenue and I took pictures. I told the guy who towed it, "I know it's kind of weird to take pictures of my car."

"Not at all," he said. "A lot of people do it."

And so, the Fairmont's five years in my possession ended. Five years for $600 with $300 back at the end, I thought as I watched my car fade into the sunset and smog of Metropolitan Avenue, headed for an unknown junkyard.

Not a bad deal.

What Makes a Good Story?

My grandmother, pictured here, was my first inspiration for telling and writing stories; my other grandmother was a poet and musician who loved to read and encouraged me to do so, so it would have been surprising if story didn't mean a lot to me.

What makes a good story?

Grandma (the one shown here) told a good story by including just enough details to make you feel like you were there (in the one about meeting Judy Garland, details included an account of Judy pinching her when they sang a song together at the old AA club in St. Louis). Other factors: conflict (Grandpa didn't like to dance and she did, and when she danced, they stood back to watch) and surprising plot twists (like the fact that her father with the long black hair didn't live past her fifth year).

What else? I think we have to care about the characters, and, of course, when she told a story, that was a given.

This photo, of course, is not my work. I have a good excuse: I wasn't born yet.

Travel Writing

I just listened to a teleconference on travel writing sponsored by a group called American Writers and Artists. I would say, guardedly, that it was worthwhile. There was quite a sales pitch for the group's weekend conference coming up, which is beyond my budget for that sort of thing at present. There were some good tips, though, too.

The tip I remember most applies to any kind of writing, not just travel writing: delete adjectives whenever possible (a slightly more focused version of "be concise").

Question that's come up as I'm working on the novel: how do things in our memories intertwine with purely figments of our imagination to weave what is fiction? I find that bits and pieces come to me as I write, mixing with "real life" experiences, sort of like a dream.

But I must also have RIGOR.

Beginnings

I've written fiction since I was seven years old and wrote my first story, "Miricle [sic] at Porter's Airport," a seven- or eight-page masterpiece :) that was fully illustrated with photos of various rescue scenes, islands, airplane landings, etc. A theme was "rescue." Today I've dedicated this blog to telling my story of starting up with fiction writing once again, for "real" this time, at age 40. I have taught writing, I've edited countless papers, I've written many articles, and I'll continue to work on nonfiction.
But this space is mostly just for fiction. I'd love to hear comments from any other fiction afficionados and/or writers out there.

My work in progress is a novel for preteens. I wrote three pages today, bringing the grand total up to 8!

A few weeks ago, I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

This week, I'm listening in on a teleconference on travel writing and going to a workshop on freelance writing.

I even got some wonderful design software lately, the whole Adobe Design Premium Suite. I've done plenty of desktop design, so I'm looking forward to using all the new Adobe tools.

Any advice is welcome as I take on these challenges!

In fact, HELP!!!