WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE GRAVY CATCHES FIRE

This town looks so much better under snow I almost believe I can come home again.
But even as the insidious salt spray and sand begins to discolor the white, the truth of what I have learned this past year destroys any naive beliefs still circling: you can never return.

I am a heartsick educator of over thirty-five  years, screwed by a system that dropped the ball and didn't record my professional accomplishments (neglecting to inform me, for almost a year--and then, when I questioned their timeframe, didn't so much as apologize for costing me at least two full-time positions--all at a time when the public hears: "There aren't enough qualified teachers!")
Bullocks!

I am a heartsick teacher who substitutes, still, (though fully licensed and with three decades of experience in both inner cities and rural areas on both coasts...)and listens to kids whose teachers belittle them, pull them aside and tell them they will "never get into college", or worse, ignore them because they are of a certain sociological group.

Not all teachers are good teachers. Not all teachers should teach. Not all teachers even like students. This is not a hidden fact. But, there ARE teachers who have jumped through the jungle of hoops, who have committed their adult lives to these kids, and who want to teach. I am lamenting those of us who are being held back by a system that is about making money; printing certificates they can charge for; and not evaluating what is really going on for the majority of kids in American schools.


I am a heartbroken educator who watches kids who are homeless, in a town with room to spare; in a city that used to pride itself on families going back generations; in a suburb just forty minutes out of the middle of Boston, where it snows like Siberia for three or four months of the year. I tutor these kids when they get in trouble and are not allowed back in the High School for a certain bit of time. I tutor them where we can come in from the cold and wet and have heat, electric lights and no rodents facing off with us as we try to power through U.S. history or Steinbeck's Okie sagas.

"My teachers don't want me in class, Ms. Minns...why should I even try to get this homework finished?"

"You know that the other kids hate me...they say I smell...how can I go back there?"

"Got any food, Ms. Minns?  I haven't had breakfast...since Wednesday..."

"I'm not going to get my diploma...I'm failing every class...I just go in cause it's warm at school...and sometimes I get a free lunch..."

I'm teaching Environmental Science and World poetry to this. We are sitting in the set of "Les Miserables" and discussing Jean Valjean while the smell of woodsmoke and cigarettes surrounds this fourteen year old. It is different from the hot concrete edges of downtown L.A. or the cockroaches coming up from the sewers in East L.A. at night or the scents of beans and eucalyptus on the air...but some of the laments are the same. Different accents, similar pain.

I am a broken-hearted emptied chakraed teacher who knows not only how to teach but how to reach these kids--who respects and cares in a very specific way--who can help some of them (some of them some of them some of them) out of the cold and back to school--if only the school will listen. If only the school will hire a teacher based on her experience, her success rate, her record, her coursework, her degrees and her desire to reach out to these kids. But the schools and the state system are all about money. Grants. Votes. About order and numbers and documents in print, on file. They are not about teachers who are still passionate about teaching. They are not about teachers who make it their business to see beyond the butts in the chairs--the attendance forms--the numbers of kids who show up for suspension duty. It is a far, far cry from education. It is simply and shockingly about forms and middle management and political careers beyond the walls of the schools.

We talk school systems and we are talking about votes and candidates and committees. We aren't talking about kids. We aren't talking about teachers, either--at least not about teachers who are still willing to take on that sherpa duty and become guides up the mountain. About teachers who are willing to change lessons plans and styles and update and refine and re-invent so that every learner who comes to them has a chance to become more fully human...we are talking budgets and tax spending and which community looks good on paper. Any community can look good on paper--until it explodes.

I have to tell you, regardless of the photos of the smiling ten percent of the senior class who do service related volunteer work to look good to the colleges they are applying to, there is a far richer, deeper and murkier society filling our schools. It is a place of germination and chaos and random acts of heroism. It is where real evolution can occur. It is between the lines and between the students and the few remaining adults who honestly believe in them. Not as cattle to be managed or product to be shot out, packaged and ready to consume, but as leaders, thinkers, creators of a new society. It is in this intellectual soup that I hope to find a wave to ride.

As people scratch their heads, debating teachers carrying guns or armed guards roving the halls of high schools, or mental illness and poor parenting, I think of what I know about the students that I get assigned to--where their real lives take place. I have some answers and some insights to share,after thirty-five years as an educator. However, it seems, the state of Massachusetts doesn't want me to speak up. Or out. It isn't an opinion that shakes a finger at some specific person--it is an opinion which involves communities willing to look at the diversity, the richness and the problems hidden between the lines--it is communities willing to stop talking at each other and simply watch for a while--listen to the people on the front lines, with the kids who "don't fit".

After proving myself for over a year and three quarters, including tracking down where the clog in the licensure pipe was backed  up, getting the flow moving, losing yet another position where it came down to one week waiting for a license promised but slow-moving and arriving too late for the job, I find myself still bobbing in that dark current. Amid the kids who are waiting...to be saved...to be seen...I know why people shoot. I think I have some ideas how to stop the violence.

My heart is broken, in this home town I've tried to return to, because it seems, nobody really wants to hear.

REFLECTING SANDY

Every blog on the East Coast must have a "Sandy" post by now. This is no exception. (One of the amazing results of the Blogverse is that we have eyewitness/earwitness views of our world, as it occurs, that go more in-depth than the evening news, or even YouTube.) So, from this part of north central MA, reflections on "Sandy":

Gardner is surrounded, like a bulls-eye, with the radiating towns of Ashburnham, Winchendon, Hubbardston, Templeton, and Westminister. Beyond that wooded New England circle lies Ashby, Fitchburg, Leominster, Princeton, Rutland, Barre, Petersham, Phillipston, Athol and Royalston. Still, mostly wooded towns with lots of freshwater ponds and mid-sized lakes fed by shallow brooks. Mountains are part of the wilder landscape--some easily climbed--others ski-worthy. More citified cities fall below and towards the east--Worcester being the second largest in the state. For the most part, however, it was the factories that provided industry in this part of central and north Massachusetts--along with family farms (vegetables and dairy). Shoes, clothing, furniture were the core industries. Woolen mills, shoe shops, wood working factories all buzzed while I grew up. (In fact, I spent a coughing-out-loud summer, before college, working in the paint department of Simplex Time Recorder--glad for the college spending funds but hating every aspect of factory life and what it did to the workers.)

My family grew up with almost every member of my parents' generation, in Gardner, working for one of the factories,their entire lives, happy for it. Now, except for my parents and my "uncle" Bob, all of them are dead. (You do the math.) Today, the mill buildings are being re-vitalized as upscale or assisted- living condos. Hardly a small New England town has escaped the trend. You drive through, and you are as apt to see a red brick refurbished "factory", with a "for rent" sign out front, as you are to find the grassy common and the white sided Protestant Church in the middle of town.

 What hasn't changed is New England still smells the same, in autumn, as I remember. The trees flame-on for a week or so, then cold rain and colder breezes send the colored flags into the gutters, replacing the brilliant tints with factory colors: rust and brown and mossy gray. It is as if Nature, Herself, reflects the heritage of our industrial follies.

This year, however, the brilliant display was barely underway when a strange, yellowish cast filled the sky above Gardner.

 Sunday night, I had a dinner date with an old high-school friend, followed by a late night run to the drugstore for a prescription. The restaurant was jaunty and everyone seemed unperturbed about the weather forcasts. We were far from the ocean--at least far enough not to worry about storm surges and sea-wall breach. Besides, Gardnerites had withstood the ice-storm of a few years back. Most of the at-risk older trees (some hundreds of years old) had already succumbed. We knew our neighbors--for the most part--and even strangers had pitched in to help each other in that big, bad, multi-weeked black-out and ice-cover. A hurricane was second-string weather, for Gardner. So, the restaurant was jumping.

It had begun to rain--not freezing rain, but a weird, temperate-for-autumn pour-down. I was hatless. My spikey haircut mashed flat against my brain by the time I entered the drugstore--I was shocked to find it as packed as the restaurant!
"Storm supplies?" I asked, wiping my face and glasses, making small-talk to the first cashier by the door.
"Some...we're almost out of batteries and water...but tonight, people are coming in for snacks, soda, chips, ice cream, toilet paper...and prescriptions. I think some people just wanted to do something before the weather really hits..." The cashier goes back to filing her nails.

I walk to the back, threading my way through the thin aisles, excusing myself as I wend between old and young. Little kids are agog at the Halloweenie decorations filling the spaces near the ceiling, and begging for early treats. Parents look raggedy--more worried than the restaurant goers--perhaps just more tired. Kids sensed "something was about to happen". Their wiring kept them hyper and demanding. Parents didn't have the words to explain, so let them just bounce.

My prescription wouldn't be ready for twenty minutes--or I could come back, tomorrow. The pharmacist giggled. (We both knew "Sandy" was predicted to hit Gardner precisely at that point. I wouldn't be returning in the a.m.) I chose to become a drugstore zombie. I shuffled amid the crowd, headed to the dog toys and t.v. special sales items. (Always comforting to find new ways to remove body hair or lose weight fast.)

Outside, the wind began to really pick up. Inside, we could see the swinging telephone wires and beginning-to-bend utility poles. A sudden crash on the roof made everyone gasp. But the power remained. The phones in the pharmacy all lit up. The two young women pharmacists gritted their teeth--literally--and tersely kept their heads down as they filled prescriptions, fielded questions and kept moving between the computers and phones. Two more crashes and a lashing of rain against the front doors were all that it took to empty the store.

I watched little kids herded into rain-washed vans in the parking lot. I stood by the "Niquil" stand as the pharmacists grimaced, but kept filling platic bottles.The front cashier smiled nervously, but put down her nail file.
"Just a couple more hours..." she signaled to her friend, in the chocolate aisle.
I checked on my prescription.

The downtown area was deserted and very, very water-logged as I drove home. The dependable Subaru, Tortuga, got me back to Maple Street, in the same dogged way she had propelled me home in the middle of a tornado that first summer I was going back and forth to Worcester State U to finish my MA credential--the night Helayne prayed Catholic prayers all the way home, believing, as she later admitted, we both were going to die that night. Gardner was full of capering fools, downtown and along the side streets, when we got back from school. The Tornado had touched down all around, but had, for whatever reason, allowed us grace. Escape. Freedom. This night, though, "Sandy" was blowing all around us and everyone was wisely tucked away. (Or so I hoped.)

At home, Dad had several tiny flashlights in strategic spots, downstairs: on top of the microwave; his bedstand; the t.v.; the bookcase; the fireplace; the kitchen table; the coffee-maker; the windowsill in the mud entry in the back. Upstairs, we were on our own.(However, my own L.A. paranoia about earthquake preparedness has extended here. I have several pairs of complete clothes--from undies to boots and med supplies--stashed in Tortuga and in my room.) I have eyeglasses everywhere Dad has a flashlight: without my glasses, I am blind. Let's be real! I bought my own flashlight and batteries. I also have forbidden candles and matches and lighters by my bed. My sister Ann has given me enough Swiss Army Knives (in my stockings at Christmas) that I am well armed if we are invaded or I need to slice and dice my way off the second floor...I also have emergency, battery operated lanterns--some given me by other members of our family, some by Ann--we all love disaster films and adventure t.v. Ann's travels all around the world have also made survival something she takes seriously--well, that and her addiction to "The Walking Dead" t.v. series. (I put on my Celtic cross that also has attached a cross of St. Benedict, the real excorcist, attached--my worries tend to be more metaphysical...)

Mom and Dad were fine. They had a case of bottled water ("The water is never a problem here," they laugh at me.) and matches and dry wood down cellar. (When I pleaded for them to allow Ann to invest in a generator before winter, they had scoffed. Then, when I pressed, Dad had out-right forbidden the purchase. I was confused. He didn't have to pay for it. We both knew how to work it. It would take up almost no space in the dirt cellar near the Christmas wreaths. But, it was "his house" and he would have no generator. The end.) "We survived the ice storm with no friggin' generator!" was the battle cry.

My friend from L.A., Terry, suggested I make the purchase and apologize later. (Obviously, she doesn't know this family...)We have no generator. (I think Dad and Mom actually like the idea of no computer access, no cell-phone re-charge, no t.v., no radio once the batteries die. They are pushing ninety. The world is faster and fading for them...perhaps the quiet of a hurricane is just what they long for--and to prove how tough they are, while we are all wimps around them. I don't know but if there was a power outage, we were back to Pilgrims.)

I had laid out my storm clothes, including heavy boots, socks, a winter parka, hat and gloves, strongest jeans, warmest undies, a scarf, a rain-poncho, extra glasses and keys. My meds were lined up. (Mom and Dad got ruffled when I attempted to question them about having extra prescriptions in case of emergency--that, like the gas-in-the-car discussion--and the generator, somehow angered them. I had "been away all these years and we've survived just fine" was the thinking- stream and I wasn't invited to add any "suggestions" to the flow.) So, I made my own survival strategy and tried to keep focused on what I could.

The ceiling- ring waterstain, which had appeared the first winter I arrived, didn't grow. There were no leaks--anywhere--except the usual wet cellar floor. But it is cement and there is a storm drain and Dad has rigged up heaters and fans and that is his domain. So, not to worry. The windows are all blizzard proof--and screens had long been taken down for the season. The roof is fairly new. Some few tar-paper roof tiles might blow, but they would easily be replaced. Again: not to worry.

(I did the laundry.We had towels and blankets and sheets. We were prepared with bedclothes.)Though the canned food supplies seemed small, there were lots of frozen things that would stay frozen, even in the power- out times.We had propane and propane stoves and lanterns in the garage. And if the sixty year old sugar maple in the back didn't come down on the garage, we had access to all of those supplies, the gardening equipment, the snowplow, miles of duct tape and the family car. Ann's being at 88 Maple most of the time also insured plenty of first aid supplies and extra food in the pantry--including dog food. (And since I'd just recently gone to the pharmacy to procure insulin for Maeve, we even were covered in dog diabetes territory.) Again: not to worry.

So, while the lights dimmed, twice, then returned, and the blasting wall- to- wall coverage from Dad's humongous wrap-around-sound television kept us up to the minute with the storm's course, I crouched in different corners, with the dog, listening to the screaming wind and blasting rain.
I kept assuring Maeve: "We aren't supposed to worry."

The trees in back and in front and along the entire street, bent and moaned. Only the ocassional "snap" and "thud" gave us cause for suspension of breath. (But only a few times.) The house is an ark and survived like an ark should. We, the crew and animals, also survived.Twelve hours after the worst of it, we knew we were safe. Both rain and wind gusts (some close to 85) continued for two more days, but the grizzly soul of the storm had passed us by.

Outside, all of the hundreds of birds, skunks, squirrels, possums, chipmunks, mice and other living things, hunkered down, someplace. I didn't catch a glimpse of any of them the entire three days we were lashed. All of the foodstuffs Ann had filled the yard with were either eaten, hidden away or blown to another state. Or, they were buried: about five hundred pounds of wet leaves had been caught in the yard by our seven foot fence. Everything that had been still clinging to the maple tree in the back was now on the ground--much of it bright green; hardly turned. (I had spent the week before, raking, scraping and bagging about a hundred pounds of leaves. Dad found this leaf vacuum and we had an old-time factory assembly-line going between the scoop, bagging; emptying; sealing and hauling of leaves.) Now, some of the bags were emptied again--this time, in the soggy yard. Others were flung all over the street. Instead of shoveling snow, as we had last Halloween, we would begin shoveling sodden leaves.

Maeve weathered the storm by making little whining noises--not to be confused by her begging baby-alligator noises. She couldn't find a comfortable place, anywhere. Upstairs, down, front room, her bed in the kitchen, her mother's bed on the second floor, my room, even her usual "hiding place", in the bathroom, (next to the tub) was unfit. Finally, at the worst of it, while Dad was wrapped in a fleece blanket, in his lounge chair, sipping Ensure, eating peanut butter crackers and watching the huge flatscreen t.v. for storm coverage, Maeve curled, her head on his slippers,tail tucked around her, whimpering faintly, sure the wind outside was coming to get her. But, she made it. We made it.

Outside, Tortuga-the-Subaru looked newly washed. Not even leaves were left plastered to her green sides. She was watertight. No branches had crushed her. No stones pecked her glass. Her tires were shiny. Her interior secure. And since we were not a flooded plain. (Maple Street is on top of a small hill--in fact, most of Gardner is atop a series of hills.) no running water came inside my street-parked turtlecar. (For that, I am officially thankful.)

The trees that remained after the ice-storm, remain still. Some are thinner or shorter, but they are there. Everything is "bald" now. Gardner is usually ugly before the snow--the trees skeletal and threatening. But we are all here.Yes, there were casulties. South Gardner had power losses up until Friday of this week. The ring of towns around us had further damage. But this time, Gardner was spared.

I am still wondering about friends in other localities: a long ago "important person" in my younger life who lives in MA, and shares the hurricane's name; a Gypsy who stole my heart and never returned it thirty five years ago- whose last sighting was in NYC/NJ; more friends than I can list who live along the eastern seaboard and who have not returned either cell calls nor e-mails...All the pets and wild things who are lost out there...I send prayers up and out...but that's something I do for all of us, every day, anyway.

Halloweenie wasn't cancelled. (The New York marathon was.) The presidential election circus lumbers on. And we pick up the pieces, as always, everywhere.

"I told you we didn't need a generator!" Dad grins.

(Not this time.)    
     

MALALA

It was Wednesday, October 10, that I first read about Malala Yousufzai. The 14 year old girl from Pakistan who believed in the absolute right of every human being to be educated, began a blog, at age 11, under the pseudonym Gul Makai, for the BBC. Her blog was about life under the Taliban. In 2009, she began publically speaking out about girls' education in Pakistan--which marked her not only as a female activist, but as a target to religious extremists.

Malala was riding home with other schoolmates, on a bus, in the northern Swat Valley, when a gunman walked up to the vehicle and shot her in the head. (A second girl was also shot.) The Taliban quickly took credit for the attack--clearly stating it was an example to other females in the country.
Incensed, I wanted to write a full blog about the situation on Wednesday, when I read about it. However, at the time, Malala had been airlifted, by helicopter, to the frontier city of Peshawar. A military hospital had just taken her in...the story was still unfolding. I decided to wait. To pray. To see.

Yesterday, I was e-mailed a beautifully moving piece by my friend, the writer Malcolm Boyd. It is a "love letter to Malala". I want anyone who needs a complete perspective on the situation, (and the young woman), to track down this piece. After reading it, I realized, anything I could have said about her, and the situation, was better said by Malcolm. So, I will send out this notice and those of you interested in world activism, or heroism by even the youngest among us, will do your own research.
His perspective is far more eloquent than mine.

As I post blogs about everyday life in this part of the world, reflecting the changing anxieties, tragedies and triumphs of middle class America, I am reminded, constantly, in other places in the world, women are still property. Women are murdered for attempts at education, let alone attempts to gain the vote. Women are mutilated, raped, destroyed--not for who they are, as individuals, but as "lessons" for others--lessons in power, war and genocide. This is not "new". Unfortunately, in the West, it is seldom even "news".

As I check in on FaceBook and see the joy of friends celebrating milestones with their families; or the requests for prayers or advice ; or even recent triumphs of new undertakings--be they college graduations, new jobs, relocation successes or signing the papers for a house--I can't help but think of other places on the planet where social networking is a lifeline. Issues such as "will I make it home from school, today",  or "will my family still be alive when I get there", are the subjects of other Tweets, posts and blogs.

Somehow, this makes me a little sick, and decidedly sad.

I hope we can learn to extend our humanity, even as we stay in touch.
Like it or not, as Malala has proven, we are citizens of the world; what matters in Pakistan, should matter here.  

INTERNET DATING

Call me a Luddite, but it seems to be an oxymoron: Internet Dating.  I mean, isn't a date a social interaction, in the flesh, where you and someone physically go someplace and engage in an activity? If Internet connections count as a "date", then, every e-mail I send, or any type of game interface I do, would be a technical "date" in cyberspace, right? (Extending that thought, would animated characters I engage with, in a game, be considered "dates"--at least in digital worlds? (I won't even get into sexual politics...).

My friends, all well-meaning, (every time I've been single, or between relationships), suggest cyber hook-ups as a cure-all to the blues.

"Minns, if not just eye-candy, go for a service that matches you according to your interests and a psychological profile! There's six or seven billion people on the planet--there's got to be someone you are attracted to!"

How often have I had this argument tossed at me?  Okay,I will admit, I did fall into the trap, at least once (or twice...). Always, in the end, it seemed that I'd wake up one morning and feel sick to my stomach--without ever having been in the same room, at least the same physical room, as the person I was "dating". Too many unanswered questions would arise--was the person lying? That was always number one. (Is the photo really them? If it is, WHEN was it taken? What has transpired in their lives since that photo took place? WHO took the photo? Which one of the people in the group is really the person I'm communicating with?)

I mean, since Cyreno started writing letters for his friends, people have attempted to hoodwink others into falling for them. How many Shakespearean characters use this ruse? Even the Greeks are dishonest--whether it is the number of enemies vanquished, the number of slaves owned, the size of the palace (or anything esle, for that matter), the laurels accumulated--fibs are ways we manipulate each other. Cyber-connections are rife for that. (I'm not even talking about stalkers and pedophiles...)
Masking who we really are seems to be a historical keystone of the human race.

There is also Photo-shop, make-up, prosethetics, lighting and camera angles, etc. to consider. (I have a Californian friend who showed up for a date after corresponding with a guy for months, only to find a paraplegic in a wheel-chair, who needed a  nurse's aide for his oxygen, waiting for her on the edge of Santa Monica pier. Never once had he mentioned his physical challenges--or that they would always need a "chaperone" in attendance--or that he couldn't feed himself solid food. Would it have changed her response when he asked her out to the beach? Perhaps. The point is, however, that we deserve to make these dating choices for ourselves, based on reality. By manipulating reality, he took away her choice. (He also squashed his date: she saw him waiting for her, rose in his lap, nurse by his side, on the appointed hour, and she crossed the street, running...) Neither ever contacted the other, again.

Then, there is the endless parade of people who send in pet photos instead of head shots. What does that mean? "I am a dog."  (That's my first interpretation.) "I am looking for a person who resembles my dog." (That's my second choice.) "I can only relate to canines...if you are a cat lover, don't contact me." Or, how about the message that: "You will have to also date my dog."  "I am already in a relationship--with my dog--you will take second place, always." I could go on and on. What are folks thinking? (The same misunderstanding, on my part, is attached to head shots of horses, cats, motorcycles, cartoon characters and tattoos.) Body parts are also weird. (I don't date parts of human bodies...ever...)

When it comes to match sites that seek to pair you up according to your interests and values...how many Liberals are there in the world?  How many fans of "The Hunger"?  How many people pray?  Or kayak?  Or listen to "Annie Lennox"? These are hardly in-depth, profile points...(How many people stretch the truth on those questions, anyway? I mean, who is going to answer "yes" to a question that asks if you steal? Or hoard? Or lie?)

Of course, the biggest question in America is the question we all face as we log into a dating site, looking for "love": who is desperate enough to go on these sites? Why aren't they already in a real relationship? This is question we are asking ourselves, about ourselves, as we zoom through a thousand "profiles" with Annie Lennox blaring in the background...Who are WE? Why aren't WE paired up? (Who would ever choose Me??)

There are success stories. Or, sort- of- success stories. (Or, they started out successfully...) But, like fifty-one percent of all American marriages, most end up re-posting, down the line. When friends tell me they've found "The One", and then add the tag: "We met on-line", I can't help but freeze my best smile into place; reminding myself that I must not judge; I am working on becoming a non-judgmental human being; only God judges; "judge not lest you be judged"; etc. I take lots of tiny sips of whatever I'm drinking; or lots of tiny bites of whatever I'm munching. I chant in my head, and wish for the best, and send angels and elementals and Light to surround my friend. But, honestly, my heart sinks.

We are  human. We are flesh. It is written in almost every holy book: we aren't meant to be alone. I think that means we are meant to interact in physical reality. Perhaps we are really just energy and light. But, on this plane, in this dimension, that energy and light has taken a concrete form. However painful (at times) or complex and unknowable it is. We are. Cyberspace is another way to connect for a while; it can offer a path toward or a bridge to, but it isn't a real meeting for a fully realized human romance. Not really. For that, we need touch. Face to fleshly face. That's scary.

So, what's a body to do?

Keep the heart open wide. Be prepared to take a plunge, if the person enters one's real-life. Date in the third dimension; spend time in the same place; the same room. Share more than video-games and e-mail. Feed each other; take in each other's scents. Take a walk or a drive or a sail. Visit the woods or the beach or the mountains. (Stay out of the desert...) Sing to each other. Tell stories. Hold hands. Really kiss. Explore dislikes as well as likes. Be honest. Talk. Listen. Argue. Share. Be kind. Get to know the whole human before taking the long-term plunge.

Save Skype for when you are apart.

         

BLOGTOWN, U.S.A.

When I read the "New Yorker" or "Time" or "The Village Voice", there are certain sections that are like road maps for my mind. (I won't share which as I don't want to bias anyone...) I know, in choosing those publications, whether it be on-line or in my hands, I won't read the entire issue--however I WILL read my favorite bits. It is almost a religious vow. (At least, obsessive.) Always, it comes down to these details: information I must have for my life at this time; entertainment I must have for my life at this time; delicious stylings by the writer.

When I read "The New York Times" or "The Boston Globe" or "The Washington Post",  I seem to need to read everything--even the ads. (All the ads...) Sure, there are favorite columnists and sections in each where I know I'll glean more information that is useful than from others. But the total experience of reading the particular publication over-rides the bits and pieces therein. I have only a certain amount of allocated time to get through my reading, each day. I want to know where I will spend it. Upfront. This gives me more choice and a better quality of life.

 So too, would we benefit, if it were so in the Blogosphere.

Why people, who merely want to announce family events, choose to create what they label as "our blog", do so is a pet peeve of mine. FaceBook, MySpace , Twitter,and other social media outlets (including family websites) exist for this purpose. Anyone who knows your family, or has reason to become familiar with your family, will be able to  find the information, visuals, etc. on those sites. Those places were created for just this purpose: to keep people informed about the daily details of your whereabouts; the banal and dramatic moments of your blood kin and friends! But it doesn't mean those details are blogs!

I admit it: I'm a writer who follows the lives and work of others of my ilk. Given the fact that print media is still relegated to those "in the power spots", or those whose ideas reflect the tastes of the majority, it became exciting when blogs emerged. Suddenly, the voices of the voiceless would be given a platform--a platform easily accessed--and best, unedited by powerbrokers or mainstream interests. Blogs seemed to be the underground columns of the freepress that used to pepper city sidewalks in the sixties and seventies. Checking the numerous sites created (for free) that allowed excellent writing to emerge, my fanship grew. I could follow writers I didn't agree with, as well as writers whose styles illuminated my life. I could follow student writers, noting how they grew; using the growth as examples to my own students, in class. If a particular favorite blogger wrote something boring, I could go on to the next blogger, and find something much more interesting or enlightening, for that day. It was a readers' (and a writers') Paradise. (Well, almost.)

 The Blogosphere had been born, with a house promised for every  head.

Then, perhaps like any human endeavor, it became populated with those just out to sell something. Or to toot their own narrow horn. Or to get a few minutes of public notice. It began to resemble those holiday tomes. I wanted freedom of expression to reign, (I also needed some kind of index--where could I spend time away from the "family Circus notes" and get to writers who were practicing their crafts? To writers who showed style, content and concern with a wider world?) While I might adore little Tina's new kitten, I don't need a blog post about it--unless there is something deeper happening--a lesson or a theme or a product that revolutionizes the cat (or the kid)! A blog post should be a mini-drama in a few columns. It should contain something that jars us, or changes our thinking, or challenges a response.

This is MY post, and this is my thinking. It is what I'm trying to do here--and what I want to read from others. It is what I look forward to and spend my lifeforce on. Please help define the boundaries in Blogtown. Think before you create. Re-read before you publish. Save the "we did this on vacation" prose/information for the holiday cards. Or FaceBook. Or MySpace. Or Twitter--social media outlets that cry out for exactly those tidbits and visuals.

Let's create a BlogTown where there is real writing; abstract thinking; debate; style; exciting information; transformative culture and open ended questions.

(If you disagree, well, here's the great part: start your own blog!)   

OCTOBER RAIN

Where do the jays hide? The sparrows and robins and mourning doves? Do the wet leaves make cool blankets for the squirrels or merely plaster their furry hides against the backs of chimney posts and abandoned eaves? Does the chipmunk roll into a striped ball, napping...dreams of deep winter slumber around the edges of the dripping nest?

My kayak's orange hull peeks from under the blue cover, drinking in the only water it has encountered this fall. Around it, like flattened children, the orange leaves skim the ground, easily as slick. "Before November, Before November!" I send mindwaves to the dry-docked boat. I mean it. The lake has filled my consciousness each morning--only to be pushed away by cries of students or parents or the ping of rain.

Upstairs in the haunted attic recesses, the rain swells the wood another season. I know there are splintered holes that will need repair. But not before the passing of the parents. Not before my own decisions about New England promises and four seasoned future. A brown-tinted ripple the size of a penny has decorated the ceiling since I arrived. It doesn't grow, but is constant. A shadow of what is to come. A reminder of  pebbles carelessly flung into ponds, sending out secrets to the farthest shore.

Does my heart still hold any secrets?

The light splashes against the garage; the roof; the windows of my neighborhood. Clouds drop down upon our heads.(Blessings in a country of thirst, as we have become.) The summer's long past. Autumn rages, just outside. The back yard smells like New England cemeteries-- dank moisture rising from the lawn; the soil singing a final chorus, before the deafening frost.

This is what I remember. This is what I've come home to.

This is my inheritence and my legacy, so far from the Pacific shore.
 

VANISHING

It's in the Church bulletin--I told you that's what they were  up to when they didn't hire you!"
My mother has come into my room, fairly singing the news. (She is "only herself" when she feels vindicated--doesn't matter the issue, only that she's "correct".) This time, it is about the newly announced "melding" of both Catholic schools in the city.

"Mom," I tell her, "the Pastor told me that this was his preferred route--he thinks it is the only way to save both schools--even though I think he's dead wrong..." I turn back to a re-run of "Survivor".

"Well, now there's going to be the first through fourth grade at one school and the fifth through eighth at the other--but it will just be melded into the something called "The Generic Catholic Schools of Gardner", or something like that...I KNEW they were going to do this!" Mom has stopped listening to me.

I highly doubt the name change. However, I do not doubt the plan. This Pastor is the man who,after the retiring Principal of Sacred Heart School had hired me as the "official sub" and went on to recruit me for the new eighth grade teacher--with blossoming hopes of a new arts program and a stronger Language Arts program--not only "un-hired" me, he didn't talk to me for three weeks. This allowed embarrassment between me and the families in the parish who met me at Mass, introduced by their children, as "the new teacher"...and further consternation in my family, whom I was advised that I might tell of my new job by the same Principal (now retired) who had assured me that she had the power to hire and was hiring me as the new eighth grade teacher. So, the freeze-out by the Pastor, (with no notification until I pressed the Principal, about my standing), has made me permanently wary of anything this man does. Most especially, in the arena of Sacred Heart School.  (No reason for my non-hire was given. No apology for being told by the Principal that I had the job--and then it dissolved. No "sorry" for not contacting me for weeks, either way.)

Now, the entity, that for four generations of my family, educated us through junior high, saw us through all the formative sacraments of early Catholicism, and was supported emotionally; spiritually and financially, by my entire clan, is vanishing. It is being absorbed and morphed into something that neither the Irish congregation of Sacred Heart Parish nor the French congregation of Holy Rosary Parish, are satisfied with. (Rivals for all of their existence, they offered healthy alternatives and strong choices to Catholics in the surrounding part of the state. The schools were different in their styles of education--from uniforms and discipline--to the orders of nuns who once solely commanded them.) Having older children separated from their younger colleagues in the Faith will also be a decided difference--as the campuses and buildings are a city apart. (What of families with kids in both places--isn't this simply a greater set of difficulties, not to mention transportation and time-tables?) How can this "solution" be seen as a positive plus?

I have held my tongue most of my life when it comes to the inconsistencies, brutality, hypocracy and illegal actions of the Catholic Church (as opposed to its parishioners and adherents...). I have not protested against the organization--mainly in honor of my family and the nuns and priests and friends who have benefited from and added to the humaneness of the religion. However, there comes a time when one has been mentally buffeted by, physically judged and cast aside from, emotionally ostracized, financially abused, publically embarrassed and spiritually robbed, so one must speak. While I can say that as many good, solid, educated and caring people have entered my life who are Catholic and whom have made a positive difference, I can point out an entire organization which has made me feel guilty, separate from, not as good as, and ever "bad", simply for who I am; who I was born as; who I will forever be.

Even if the Catholic Church as left me in its shadow, my parents and their generation, who have supported and safe-guarded its traditions, are being betrayed. The Church is moving too fast and furious. Too quick to lop off, to close down, to eradicate the very things the elders created or fought so long to uphold.

My parents believed in Catholic education--still do. Though their children and their grandchildren have been out of Sacred Heart School for a decade, they still support it. (As do they the Church, itself.) They are forever suggesting its programs to family friends moving into the town. To have the school suddenly "morph", without so much as a vote in the parish that has kept its corridors open and filled, betrays the decades-long history of both parishes--and denies the cultural traditions that created both schools in the first place--traditions of diversity and richness.

I attempted to explain sociological theory to the Pastor in my interview. He is new here. He is younger than me. He is good friends with the Bishop, who lives an hour away, in a mansion, in a city that is thriving and much larger than this poor factory town. Sacred Heart Church survived because Sacred Heart Parish thrived. Its identity was clear and clearly formed. It's parishioners loyal and proud and needing the personal contacts of the Church at the center of their lives. So, too, with Holy Rosary Church. The very identity of the parish was different, and larger, and culturally connected.

Yes, both are Catholic. However, it was more than Rome that made them important fixtures in the community. Today, while the community begins to disappear--the older generation which created it is in most need of these institutions. The older generation supported and ran and breathed life into these institutions. Now, they need that energy--they need the priests and nuns whom they welcomed and opened their homes and hearts to, in past years. They need the bolstering of their identities within those spiritual hallways. They need the cultural sensitivity that helped foster their organizations and on which this generation built its families.

The Bishop doesn't need what is here, in Gardner. (Only the dwindling funds--and therein lies the core of this problem.) By combining the schools, without a game plan anyone has seen--and surely without a cultural game plan, let alone a publicized educational blueprint in place-- it drops the first shoe. The second will be, surely as the Catholics of this town fear, a closing of several of the distinct houses of worship--cultural meccas for the population that was once the richness of this town--and which might have brought this town back, someday.

People don't support generic sports teams. They hold no loyalty to generic beauty products, foodstuffs nor manufactured goods. Generic items are items you turn to when the best in show are out of your reach, when you are on hard times and a budget and can't afford the top of the line. Do you want to pay premium tuition to a generic school? Do you want to say you are a graduate of such a place? (Would the Bishop attend? Would the Pastor?)

Perhaps I still resonate at the betrayal of those sisters of mercy (Whatever our mixed  memories of them are...) who gave up their lives and their comforts, for the children of our school, living lives of poverty, chastity, and obedience? Nuns, who, suddenly after spending their productive years in service and obedience to the Roman Catholic Church, were cast out of convents, the Church no longer willing to support them, and told to "find service in the world"--without support or funding to do so...  I can own all of these emotional undertows.

But it seems to me, that to homogenize and consolidate the very things which stood out as precious,  and increasingly rare, is stupid. It is short-sighted. It is queasy and common. It smacks of politics, money making, and a sullied bottom line--even as the Catholic Church seeks to remove the mire from its boots. Seeks to right the moral wrongs it once overlooked or hid away. It is the betrayal of a town down on its luck. It is a sucker punch to people who are too old and needy to fight back--and to their legacy passed on to their grandchildren.

The Church I grew up in, for all of its sins, was better than this. There were aspirations and hope.
In Gardner, that is going the way of plain-wrapped obsolesence.

There IS a reason I didn't get that job, a few months ago.

       
 

Ten Crows

There is an old riddle which poses: If there are tens crows on a branch and five of them decide to fly away, how many crows remain?

The difference between "deciding'' and "action" plagues me these days.
Having decided to quit Los Angeles and come to Gardner, my hopes have been called into question, daily. The actions I believed would be in the realm of "Highest Good" have been blocked from the beginning. Connections seem to be tenuous and if not arbitrary, utilitarian. (But then, aren't all human connections based in utilitarian connection--at least, at first?)

Health decisions remain pure--yet health actions remain spotty. (I know I need to walk a mile each day or paddle an hour each day or ride a bike for half and hour or lift weights. I know when I do these things I feel better. My mood improves, at least for a little while. My body shifts its weight. I'm taller and less achey, overall. Yet, every time I decide to undertake the activity, something moves in front of it.) The car is running roughly; the gas tank is empty; the tires need air; the dog wants to go but that means all I'm doing is watching for other dogs and cannot use the track; my Mother wants to go with me to the track, and that means an entire morning shot: she will be done with her walk in fifteen minutes, tops; then its "lets go to the grocery store; let's take a ride and drop in on your sister-in-law; let's take a quick trip to New Hampshire and check the cemetery flowers on your relatives' graves...(She has many other family members to do this with and she drives herself, everywhere. It is just if I'm going somewhere, she wants to know where and for how long...My guilt wrestles with my frustration, hourly...). Sometimes the weather is so shifty, a day planned for kayaking becomes rained out or is too freezing to put the craft into the water. Dad's stationary bike is set up for him--and I'm just too short--besides, it bugs him when someone else adjusts anything. My sister needs me to go to the vet because she is working. My sister needs me to babysit the dog while she runs errands. My niece drops by to "chat". My parents are going out and want me home to watch the dog--and the house. I get a sub job at the last minute. (When are substitute teacher jobs NOT the last minute?) The list goes on. As the t.v. ad states: "There is always an excuse NOT to sweat."
But I have decided that excercise is necessary. The decision stands.

I have decided to continue to write. Every day. Sometimes each hour. From blogs to letters of inquiry and business to poetry. Of course, the novels. Even in the face of constant rejection (for the new fiction), hope springs eternal, helping create an open flower-bed for effort. I still define myself as a writer. I still do publish-- just not the stuff I really want to have a life of its own. Even more than "teacher", I have been a writer my entire conscious lifetime.

However, one needs solitude, quiet, a personal space in which to write (no matter how small), supplies, and time. Uninterrupted hours .In this house, there is no such thing as silence.(As my nightshift sister has come to find.)Screaming neighbors in houses separated by only driveways or narrow lawns. Crying babies; a Catholic grammar school which parades its students to the Church at the end of the street at least once a week, only a block away. City Council members having street repairs and tree trimming and waterworks and electrical services updated, constantly, now that it is in their home neighborhood. A public park at the other end of the street. And everyone has a large dog...Los Angeles had a different kind of "loud", but Gardner rivals it.

Then there is the uber-volumed t.v. sets in several rooms throughout the house. Mostly for the parental units who refuse to admit their diminished hearing. Or forget the sets are on, as they leave the rooms throughout the day, for errands. Or fall asleep in the arms of CNN and whatever baseball/football/hockey games are playing full-blast. There are the constant phone calls from politicians, local and national pollsters; there are twenty-four-seven doctors' secretaries and nurses checking appointments for parents; teeth, eyes, hearts, intestines, screenings, pills, prescriptions, shots, bloodwork, etc. There are insurance agents and home-repair techs and extended friends and family members--also for the parents (this is their home, afterall). There are the nieces who are far more attached to this "base" than I ever was--their needs extending from rides to money to emotional support. All valid. All welcome. However, all unending. And while it keeps my parents alive and vital and in their right minds, it is not the setting in which to get writing done.

Again, no excuses. (Even as every fifteen minutes there is either a knock at my door or a call from the outside hallway or a bang on the radiator leading to my room, from downstairs--the universal "signal" that someone wants me...) My choice to be here. My loft in California was as noisy, but in a different way. One of the reasons I left and came back. Shock of shocks to find not the peaceful setting of an old age residence, as my youngest sister had painted, but, in fact, an aging circus, still very much occupied and rumbling along. The decision to write is high-jacked, daily. The activity is only engaged in about fifty percent of the planned time.

My decision to get at least eight hours of continuous sleep--something I've never been good at attaining at any point in my life--has been firm. The reality is that at night I am most aware of the possible mortality of my parents; my siblings; my pet. A realization that at any moment I may have to spring (as well as I can spring these days...) from bed, pull on reasonable clothing and shoes, glasses, i.d., keys, and be ready to take someone to the hospital follows me to sleep every night. My dreams are filled with it. (So far, only daily emergencies have plagued us--and my other sibs, much more used to dealing with the situations--have stepped up and taken control. But this doesn't stop my
psyche from preparing itself...) Four to five hours are a good bet. The other time is spent stealing short "naps"...the best sleep being from five a.m. to nine a.m.--unless that is interrupted by a call to come substitute teach...oy vay. But, I have decided: eight hours, uninterrupted sleep. Optimum. Indeed.

A clean diet, full of fresh fruit and veggies, low fat, high fiber, preferrably locally grown. Absolutely. But this is Gardner and my family is ruled by my Mother and I am living under their roof. The beans we eat are baked. The veggies are usually cooked or canned or in miniscule salads containing the same iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and cukes from my childhood. Mom insists (grumbling while she does it) that only HER COOKING will pass as the main family meal of each day. So it is porkchops and beefstew and strip steaks and baked chicken and baked fish and lots and lots and lots of potatoes and carrots at every meal. For variety, in summer, there are ribs. (My favorite evening meal is spaghetti and meatballs--but at five p.m., it is a wee bit early to digest.) These menus are not bad nor fast and it is a kind of love that my Mother passes to us. No doubt. For all these things, I am glad. However, it is difficult, after thirty five  years of Thai and Mexican and Vietnamese flavors, or Whole Foods thirty-five varieties of beans and tropical fruits, to be on this regimen. When I have a full-time job and am again, "on my own"...my mind quiets, admonishing me for being spoiled and a piglet enamored of too many choices, reminding me of the fact of starving humans all over the planet...or that, I could further restrict my diet to only those minimal salads. Only oatmeal or yogurt and whatever veggies appear in the evening meal. I can exist on tea. I can offer to cook my own rice. Yes. My decision is to clean up even this meat-heavy menu and do what I know is best for my aging body. Then Ann brings home a coffee-cake and flavored creamer for my coffee...

My decision is to do what it takes to become a Massachusetts public school teacher of English Language Arts. I take the professional classes. I clep the required courses MA won't accept from my New York college work. I pass all the educational tests for teachers which are required before a credential is bestowed. I do the coursework. I get all "A"s. I create a two-foot thick professional portfolio outlining what my philosophy is as an educator and what I have accomplished. I pay my dues and all fees to the university and the state. I apply to any job within a fifty mile radius--only to find, that, through no fault of my own, the university has failed to send my transcripts to the state. Every employer I've applied with has tossed out my resume or upon researching my vitae, found I do not have a current license number--unbeknownst to me! Finally, after six months and no jobs, I call the state and track down the issue. My transcripts! I call the university and find, after two weeks of problems and the Dean's intervention, someone made a drastic mistake and marked me down as having withdrawn from the program!  After a year of courses, a 4.0 average, and my final seminar and portfolio passed in with my program -mates in attendance! My decision to be a public school teacher of English, in MA, has remained firm. The actions continue to be thwarted...

My spirituality remains constant and unwinding. Trying to re-unite with Catholicism, briefly, mostly for the parents' sake, and for the sake of being "pure enough" to teach at the Catholic school in the neighborhood, has ended in embarrassment and bitterness. A decision to overlook the huge issues raging in the Church--especially against women (who have helped to sustain and save the organization!)--only ended in my own passion play at the hands of the parish priest. But that's another story...So, back to the semi-Native hybrid Christianity and Celtic traditions of the invisible forces in my life. At least none of those manifestations has ever betrayed me, nor made me feel less-than!

As for love: the only decision is to remain open: to the Universe.

So, like the ten crows on the branch, I remain.       

Skunks Redux

Like all the males in my family, feeling remorse for a faux pas doesn't really stick. The usual response is a bit of a bemused blush, rapidly turning to angry outbursts and a long harangue about how it is not "his problem"--but circumstances or other people or the angle of the moon over the housetop,etc. This does not make them unloveable--in fact--the females of my family are notoriously forgiving of the men...but sometimes, I just want to scream in frustration!

Dad and Mom have their routines culled from sixty years of marriage. (So, I give them lots of slack just based on that mileage!) A dinner scarfed in twenty-minutes finds Mom wrapping leftovers and Dad clearing the table in time for JEOPARDY! If you are eating at a more refined pace OR if you pause for discussion of any depth, you can just sit there, abandoned, with whatever you still have on your plate, your used utensils and beverage, but they are out of there. Dad loads the dishwasher and refuses any assistance. Indeed, if you attempt more than taking your dishes to the sink, you get a stern reprimand. Okay. I get it. They are feeling independent and the ownership of their own domain. I am still the "child visitor" and need to get out of the way--even as they whisper to friends that having the kids home again doesn't mean that ANY of the housework gets done--sigh. Dad also insists that the dog must go outside, after OUR dinner, even if she has already gone outside to do her "business" after her earlier dinner.  Again, no problem in theory. However, Dad is prone to forgetting that he put the dog in the yard. Then, he goes off to watch t.v. at optimum volume. He neither remembers she is outside nor that the days are getting shorter and the night-living things are coming to visit earlier nor can he hear her bark to be let back in.

That is their routine.
Mom is even deafer than he is, now sitting literally two feet from the giant t.v. with the enhanced dolby speakers on at full blast.
No one hears Maeve barking but  me, upstairs, typing, in my room on the second floor.
Hollaring for them to let her in does nothing.

So, as with  many evenings, I run downstairs and out the back door. However, this evening, the skunk-of-all-skunks has arrived before me...

Maeve can't pass up a good skunk. She has never learned. (Must take lessons from my father.) The blast of skunkfunk hits me full as I open the back door. I reach down, unhooking her from her run and she bolts past me into the house. The King Skunk is strutting in his blue cloud, right by Ann's car. (Ann is asleep, also on the second floor, at the opposite end of the house.) Before I can catch Maeve, she has run into the middle of the livingroom, rubbing her nose and ears on rugs, furniture, and yelping at the parents for not letting her in earlier.

Mom is screaming--finally able to smell the dog--and Dad, in typical MinnsMaleStyle, denies that Maeve has even been sprayed! When he sees Mom's reaction, he admits: "Well, it isn't like the last time...it's not that bad..."
Then he and Mom get into a huge argument about why neither of them remembered putting her out in the yard after dinner...I scoop the dog up, getting now skunkified myself, and haul both our butts upstairs to the shower.
Up there, I strip down for battle, grabbing the peroxide and a bottle of giner and lemon body wash and the dog shampoo and finally the Skunk De-Odor rinse that never really works, but is a quick fix until a better remedy can be mixed.

By then, Ann is awake and barking orders about using her "special recipe".  I can neither take the time to leave the dog, re-clothe with the only clothes I have in the bathroom, go downstairs and dig for ingredients (while stinking up everywhere I walk or touch), mix them in a large and "special container", come back up and expect Maeve will be blithely waiting in the shower for me...so I just get busy shampooing her with the stuff at hand. Ann, cussing and huffing, still half-asleep before her night shift at the hospital begins, pulls together  her skunkjuice, yelling at everyone about how this is the only thing that will work and why don't we ever use it as a first defense--then admits that you can't mix it up and keep it at hand. The chemicals break down over time, so it has to be made fresh, each use.

Ask me if I care, now that I'm as stinky as the sopping dog...

When Ann comes up, I wrap a towel around myself and back out of the shower, only to meet Mom, who is opening windows, and all the shades on the second floor--giving a good peep to the neighbors. Meanwhile Dad is denying that the skunks come out this early and he thought Mom or I had taken in the dog and its Ann's fault for scattering so much birdseed for the squirrels and chipmunks and that the windows should be kept shut because the skunk smell isn't from the dog (It is!) but from the skunks still in the  yard (Also true!).

Ann, meanwhile, doses the dog and the shower with her "special sauce", three times the dog goes through this. Ann pauses to take pictures on the second phase of the operation. Maeve, half -squinting, not even whimpering, knows that once Ann gets hold of her, the routine allows for no complaints nor protests. There is no escape. Meanwhile, Ann assures me she is leaving enough of the secret potion for me to use, when Maeve is de-skunked. I can also have the joy of cleaning the bathroom and laundering all of my skanky clothes and the towels we have used...Lovely.

It is not exactly a scene from "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo", but it ranks close.

Maeve emerges whiter and brighter and fairly non-offensive.
The bathroom--and me--another story, completely.
It seems that when I grabbed her, carrying her like the Baby Jesus, upstairs, her most skunky side was pressed against my chest, so I am as smelly as she was...
There is nothing to do but use the "special sauce" on myself.
And that is how my evening goes.

This morning, Dad is making coffee in the kitchen and whistling and happy. He refers to the skunk episode as if it were an act of God (Maybe it was...) and he had little blame. Of course. He will not switch his routine after dinner. Skunks do not come out that early. Ann is nuts to think they do--and anyway, she is the one spreading the birdseed. He can't smell anymore skunk odor, not even in the yard, so, what's the problem? Why is everyone still upset? This is just life. Period.

Meanwhile, Mom has gone through several bottles of  Febreeze-for-fabrics, uncaring about the poisonous contents. I have done six loads of laundry from the night's adventure. The odor of skunk hangs on the morning air--even as rain in the yard just intensifies it. But, Maeve smells nice.
She only wants to sit in her bed in the kitchen--seeing as it, unlike Ann's bed, upstairs--doesn't reek. She won't even go upstairs to watch t.v. by the air conditioner--her place of queenly comfort in the warmer weather. All the rugs downstairs have to be washed, again, too.

My hair looks like a brillo pad--not in a good way.
My favorite jeans may not be salvaged. A tee-shirt sent a few summers ago by a best friend from New York was a casualty, too. My bedroom is scented with Febreeze, Mom's pot-pouri scented candles, baking soda and peroxide, and lemonginger body wash.

Thank God I didn't get called in to substitute teach this morning.    

LOST LOVERS

There are many people I know who have the ultimate FaceBook list of friends. Every person they have shared more than a sentence with,  had a coffee, a beer, a tear, or a friendly "spat" exchange, they stay in contact with--for reals! So, when it comes to lost lovers, ex-partners, spouses and significant others, they simply add them to the train, seamlessly.

In the old days, when one was conscientious, or polite, or had the time (whatever that meant!) a holiday card list would strengthen the parade of people. Oh sure, the mailing costs alone were increasingly outrageous...still, a sense of community; of belonging; of "doing something during the holidays" prevailed. Some folks would write elaborate and rambling tomes.(New family alliances; lost jobs; babies and pets; even the make, model and color of the most recent car would be included.)

 Hardly a "love note", these letters were often smudged, poorly typed and hand- decorated--but they were a tangible connection to an ever-receding group of friends. Often the butt of comedians and bad toasts, for a few, it might be the only personal mail received the entire holiday season. What amazed me, was the sheer number of these manuscripts that were sent off--and the ambered addresses that would be resurrected in order to mail them.

Today, we have social media. Sometimes it is pointed out that "less is more"--thus the brevity- delight one finds attached to texting and Twitter. (I counter with the number of texts to say pretty inane things...it seems, though, that I'm out-voted.) Social media makes it quite easy to track down old buddies.(Even past lovers.) No more pawing through ancient yearbooks. No dragging college roomies to seedy bars to ply them with drinks (and innocuous conversation) leading to,"So, did you see Soandso at the Reunion in September?" Even criminal and tax info can be gleened fairly easily these days, if one is so inclined.

But, I'm not musing about ways to be a stalker, here. (Nor am I in my cups and feeling alone.) I am simply noticing the transitory nature of human existence, up close and personal. How some folks are masters at holding on to people--even if their holding is illusionary or vapid. Even if the content of those connections is one-dimensional and awkward. (Or maybe, that is the key?) They are not threatening. They are not demanding. They really are not even inquiring. They simply want people to know they are still around--what they are doing--where they have been. (Less important, it seems, is where the other person has traveled. Who the other person has grown into.)

For me, I have been lousy at holding on to connections with lost loves. Friendships are more solid. Friends come back, like the seasons.

 Not so with people who have peopled my heart. It might be that I've never been a good break-up artist. (Either leaving or being left, it has always been a fitful scene.) Short of actual bloodshed, the losses seemed more like the last battle in an epic war--where it doesn't matter who the victor is--only that those final losses were needless.

In such cases, searching for "old loves" via social media, is a waste. Even if one did track down a ghost, what could one say that would actually make a difference?  (A new connection? To what end?) Reburying the dead is not an assignment anyone wants. (All the amends-making-forgiving-and forgetting stuff I've done in spades.)

Yet, if I'm to be honest,there is a kind of soft curiousity, still...a nagging pull. Did they accomplish their goals? What adventures continued forward? Is there any pain? Who might they have turned into? Are they even, still alive?

Because I have not become rich nor famous; have not completed the challenges I set before myself, decades earlier (not yet): have not traveled to Tibet nor met breathing aliens nor founded my own school of the arts nor discovered the answer to world peace, there is little to crow about.

Because I am not seeking an audience for my life, nor a fan-base, I won't be sending any "this is my year" tomes out at Christmas (nor Solstice, for that matter). I don't mean to be harsh. I am not criticizing people who do. It is just not for me.

Yet, my dreams keep popping missing people into my consciousness. Mostly past loves I've lost through the ages. They come back, not in anger or remorse, or even with romantic intentions--they just come back and walk beside me for a while. Not exactly spectres nor portents of doom. They just ...enter. Their tracks are the question marks in my eyes when I awake.

"What was THAT?  Where are they? What am I supposed to know?"

So, for all of you I have lost, for whatever reasons, if you are wondering: the answer is "Yes."
I still do think of you.

I have been forever haunted; you are carried, still, in my dreams.


      

"I felt a funeral in my brain"

As the poet, Emily Dickinson, once wrote, "I felt a funeral in my brain".

 I've said it before: this is a year of funerals.

Perhaps because I am "mid generations"--losing not only friends at mid-life, but the friends of my parents, my aunts and uncles, the friends of colleagues, the friends of our public lives.

 In L.A., in the 1980's, between AIDS and cancer, I saw an entire generation of artists, wiped away. For those of us still standing, going to another funeral was like being in remission: any day another bit of bad news might appear.  It always did.

For a while, funeral services became like weddings: who could be the most creative; who could blow off the biggest 'party'/reception; who could draw the most surreal tears? Not so much bad taste, as much as having to get out from under the terrible oppression. People of every background and ethnicity went over the top for their families--whether blood or chosen--because there was just so much loss. But, even then, our numbness crept in, like a guest at the services.

When I came back to New England, the first thing I did was begin attending funerals.

It began with family then immediately extended outward. I didn't have much in the way of  autumn teaching outfits (mine being from warmer climes), I did,indeed, have a plain black suit, purchased the first week I landed. It has come to be my "funeral suit". Like something out of Ibsen or Tennessee Williams, there was no question of wardrobe on these somber days.

Monday, Mrs. Nancy Anderson, mother to two of my high school friends, will have her funeral services and burial. She was a Lutheran. I haven't seen her family in decades. However, I have been kept informed of their lives, over the years, by my own family.

Though we are far, far removed, my re-awakened New England roots have been itching for new life in their direction. So, after sending condolensces, I will reconnect at the funeral. (No one ever prepared me for any of this stuff...Is there a text I might study, somewhere?) I feel awkward; unsure of what to say; shy; and painfully aware this is not "about me"--it is a funeral, for their mother. Still, how does one begin...or end...with grace?

My friends are very,very upstanding, kind people. No one is going to ask me to leave or begin screaming grudge matches--I have witnessed such outbursts in other locales--though not personally involved. There will be no dramatics; no high-fiving in the sacristy; no "long lost harrangues" in the pews. I know none of their extended family; none of the grand-children or spouses, even. Our ties were decades ago. Though once strong, our paths have shot out in multiple directions. They know I will be there, among hundreds of others, to send their Mom off to her Heaven. (I will also be there to say "gracias".) For now, this is enough.

Mrs. Anderson was the first person to introduce me to avocados--a bit ironic as I spent thirty-five years after that eating them almost daily, in the West. She also took me, along with her family, to Nantucket Island, inviting me to stay with them for a week at a time. Her daughter, youngest son, and I became close on those journeys--exploring the island off-season--seeing it for the first time with my inland eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson got a kick out of that uncovering. (Their kids were past the point of absolute awe, though they loved the history and beauty of the rugged place). Not so this teen.

 When we got back to town, she asked for some of the pencil sketches I'd done, on the trip. (I was shocked that anyone would be interested.) Later, those sketches went up in her kitchen. Framed. (I was too self-conscious to comment, but utterly pleased.)

Some time later, (though it became a turning point in my life--one from which I have yet to fully recover)Wells College was singled out to me by Mrs. Anderson. None of us, not her daughter who  went there a year ahead of me, nor my family, nor myself, could foresee the strange destiny waiting for us there...things rarely turn out as we hope, or plan. It was Mrs. Anderson who embodied the finger of Fate, signaling the trailhead, the back-country path, I would  follow for decades. In many ways, my deepest adventures were initiated by her suggestions. (Not that she knew.)

 Simply for this fact, she remains seminal in my personal history.

 I bow my head and send prayers up in the dark for her. Her own life accomplishments were many. Her family is wide and wonderful. She is what Gardner would dub "a successful citizen" and a law abiding, intelligent, faithful neighbor. A good wife; a loving mother; a woman who gave back to her community to the end of her days. A fateful figure in this writer's life...

So, another chapter closes. This is a post in honor of a passing friend.
Time to iron my black suit.
(Like Emily D., I feel the funeral beginning in my brain...)     

NOAH GETS SWAMPED

So this is the sign we've been waiting for: in addition to both major political parties holding traveling circuses when what we need is serious help for this country; a nation celebrating Labor Day with the biggest gap between rich and poor since its inception; the man playing the Biblical patriarch, Noah, who helped save mankind and all the Earth's animals, as well, from the horrific floodwaters, and sailed to safety, enlightened and emboldened by God, finds himself ten miles off course, marooned on an island, off NYC, in a single person kayak, with another mis-matched male compadre. He hoots himself to safety as a passing vessel goes by in the thickening dark, and then hitches a ride back to the city...

I know it's 2012 and we may all be headed for destruction--at the very least, "lights out"--however, these ironic cartoon scenarios that keep cropping up around us are getting old, very fast. If the survivalists are correct, I may even welcome zombies...

Russell Crowe, respect the sea, Man.  

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF ANY KIND

Viewing Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" for the umpteenth time, it still makes my throat get raspy at certain scenes. No, it's not when the Disney movie music and merchandising floods the screen nor even when the little white dwarf aliens grab the hands of the American scientists in a loving way. It's about the idea of visions and dreams. Holding on to both when everything seems to conspire around you, re-inforcing self-doubt or fear.

I think the power of the film (Whatever your personal "takes" on it, critics that we all tend to be, it has held up, all these years and it is based on the pantheon of ufo lore...give it that much!), you have to consider the philosophical premise about the power of the individual vision. Even the "craziest" among us can be motivated by something beyond their own dementia--beyond the mood altering substances they may have ingested in the recent past. When we accept that all of us can actually carry an honest-to-God dream of "something better"--or a pure vision of something "bigger than ourselves", then we can't dismiss ...well...anyone, really.

What a world when even the dreams of the disenfranchised are given audience! Where would it lead us? How would it lead us? Perhaps it is the fear of being taken to a strange new existence that stops us dead; makes us regulate and create rules of conduct, of dress, of language and culture that homogenize us--try to make us all a bland culture, from sea to shining shore. Terror of the unknown, of "the other", of anything which hides just out of sight, or grasp, is a human hallmark. Only when we venture beyond the fear does anything really change.

On the other side of that wall, though, is the equally human tendancy to assimilate what's exciting and new...How many of us were born before cell phones, I-pods, I-pads or 4-G technology? How many of us first rode in a Prius, unnerved at the silence when the engine shut off--or seemed to? How many of us still doubt the authority of an on-line college-level class? These ideas have recently rocked the world. They are the continuing tide of technology that surely would have seemed alien, or at least "other worldly" a decade ago. Yet, none of us remain untouched by these innovations.

What once seemed crazed or in the realm of science-fiction/fantasy now is part of our daily lives--and we are thankful, demanding ever more of the same sort of "stuff". We learn how to work the technology into our schedules to make our schedules less unwieldy; to make our lives "simpler". Yet we don't consider "going back" to simpler lifestyles...hmmmmm.

What is a true vision and what is a true breakdown? Who is crazed and who is gifted? When do innovations that seem "out there" become trends that are demanded and necessary? More importantly, when will we stop ridiculing those among us who see things from a different slant? Who hear a different melody coming from the heavens? Who look or speak or think about more than the latest gossip sites and t.v. shows? Who treasure what we haven't yet been able to decipher for ourselves?

It's mainstream now, but the seeds that set-off "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" were anything but when the project began. How soon we forget...      

BATTING BATS

"There's a bat in my room! It almost hit me in the face!" Ann runs out of her bedroom, make-up mirror in one hand, eyelash curler in the other, dressed on top in hospital scrubs because she is getting ready for the ER nightshift, and her undies. "OMG, I left the dog in the bedroom!"

Ann hurriedly cracks the door about six inches and calls Maeve out. Maeve, yawning, taking her sweet Maeve-ish time, saunters into the hallway, unclear what the rumpus is about.
Ann slams the bedroom door shut, and hollars down to Dad.

"A bat just flew into my bedroom!"

"I thought I saw one down here a little while ago," Dad calls upstairs from his lounge chair--the baseball game on full volume behind him.

"Why didn't you tell us?!!" Ann is quite perturbed, barely having escaped the infamous "bat-caught-in-long-hair" scenario.

"I was waiting till it calmed down and landed..." Dad calls back upstairs.

Leaving Maeve to me, and belly-rubbing duties at the top of the stairs, per usual, Ann rushes downstairs to help Dad locate several fishing nets with handles; several heavy-duty, ultra thick leather and kevlar gloves (which reach to the elbow and are probably best used when welding metal), and to call my cop brother, Kevin, who has wrangled bats out of several houses in Gardner, while on duty. (The most reknown was the home of two of his ex-nun's from Sacred Heart School, years and years ago...)

I sit with the dog.

Mom comes out of her adjoining bedroom, garbed in a summer nightie, her reading glasses on, her slippers firmly covering her feet in case of the need for flight. "I think there's a nest in the attic--I've thought it for years! Does your father have some fishing line? Where is the thing? Ooohh...." she runs downstairs.

"Mom, they don't have nests...we haven't seen any bat dung in the attic...it probably came inside when someone opened the back door to let the dog out or when Dad brought in his American flag from the porch..."  Nobody listens. I scratch the dog's ears. She grins. We hear no bat sounds behind Ann's door. We just sit and wait on the stairs, observing.

Ann rushes back upstairs.
"Karen, you have any sweat-shorts around? I have to put on something before Kev gets here--we're gonna take the bat down...Man, I'm going to be late for work for sure!" Ann has lost the eye-lash curler and the mirror and now has her cellphone in her hand.

I leave Maeve to bark at Ann and Dad, who is yelling instructions upstairs. Mom has retreated to the livingroom and turned the baseball game down a notch. I can hear her over the din: "I'm telling you, they have a nest in the attic! They have been nesting there for years! I just know it! I get the heebie -jeebies everytime I go up there! We need an exterminator!"

Locating my trusty Old Navy sweat-shorts, I hand them to Ann. She tugs them on, conversing with Kev, who is on his way over from God-knows-where. (He isn't going to be happy.)

He arrives, post haste, screaming his truck into the darkened driveway. Ann and Dad show him the arsenal laid out on the kitchen table: fishing nets with handles; three industrial pairs of huge gloves--fingers stuffed and thick as sausages; newspapers; plastic bags.

Kev grabs gloves and a net, followed by Ann. Mom stays where she's sitting, feet up, in the livingroom. Dad is at the bottom of the stairs, giving "instructions". (Ann has forbidden him to come up to her room--too many things to trip over in the excitement of the chase.) Meanwhile, Kev opens the door a crack, then slams it, refusing to go into Ann's room. (I'm not sure exactly why...fear of stacks of videos and cds? ) He pushes Ann to the forefront, after she makes a crack about this...

I exit: to the laundry room. Maeve stays to watch. (I have found that whenever there is nothing I can do to help, which is often...sigh..., doing some laundry is at least a calming and positive action.) It is also quiet and cool down in the cellar.

Twenty minutes later, Kev stomps downstairs. He doesn't say "hi" or even "good-night"--just a grunted, "I got the bat."  Then, he replaces Dad's fishing nets. Upstairs, Ann has returned my sweats and is finishing getting ready for work. Maeve is barking, just for the fun of it. Mom has continued to regale Dad about exterminators in the morning. Ann fills me in on the "hunt": Kev and she swatted the bat down, between a dresser and some books. They got the nets over it. Kev began to beat it with the gloves and the other net. Ann stopped him. By then, the little critter was dazed and more than confused. Ann made Kev take it outside and put it up high, on the picnic table, to recover, untangled from the net. "I just hope nothing eats it before it comes to..." Ann tells me, snapping her cigarettes into her backpack.

In the morning, the bat has disappeared.

Now, I have helped remove many wild and semi-tamed animals from classrooms, friends' homes, outbuildings on farms and ranches--both in the West and out here. However, my family gets much glee from "misadventures". Everyone is a fan of "Animal Planet". Tangling with animals is something I am not going to be invited to if someone else can jump in. But what they don't know is that I am also a believer that wild animals can be messengers. Like Native American Indians I have studied with and known, I have come to trust that there are reasons God sends wild things into our lives--and perhaps, if one ascribes to patterns of observation which have come down through the ages, one can decipher those messages. For me, bat coming to visit, and ending up in Ann's room, was carrying a message for Ann--and possibly for Kev, too.

Bat's presence has many meanings. Depending on the tribal teachings of any particular group, bat can bring all sorts of dimensional information. Most common, however, is the idea of rebirth--a necessary step in the creation of a healer or a shaman. Bat signifies the need to "get rid of the old" in order to be tranformed into something new: one's destiny.

In many cultures, especially in Central America, the initiation rites for healers, involve painful trials, humiliations (to destroy old ego), even sometimes a ritual "death"--the burying of a person in a shallow grave, covered by a blanket, for a whole twenty-four hours. When the person emerges, sane and intact, divested of old bad traits and habits, they have new-found healing powers and insights to help the tribe.

Ann is a psychiatric head nurse in a major metropolitan ER, on the night shift. Her trials are unrelenting. Her persona is hard-core "NURSE", and it sometimes gets in the way, after her shift is over. But her better side is gentle, caring, uber-generous and nurturing. She is everyone's "favorite Aunt"--and is a godsend to my parents, even as they are sometimes not so nice to her, in return. (That ongoing eternal critic we suffer with). Bat might be signaling to her that it is time to change a few old patterns and to accept the power that she has at her center. To acknowledge who she has been "in training to be"--and not to "bat away" her talents; to take in the positive that is offered to her and around her, not just the negative.

But, only Ann can know, for sure. Bat didn't come to me.
I also didn't remove him/her.
In the morning, I saw only the empty net on the picnic table.

Besides: I'm from California...

(I wish bat gave ME such a clear message and positive insight!) 
  

THE HUNGER OF TONY SCOTT

One of my all-time favorite movies remains Tony Scott's "The Hunger". It raised the bar for contemporary vampire/horror films, as well as romantic story-lines. Having Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and David Bowie as lovers didn't hurt, either. Based loosely on Whitley Strieber's novel, with a soundtrack that was perfect for the time (still holding up, today), Tony Scott combined this painterly look with a violent story--violence and action scenes that became his hallmark. Unfortunately, except in the arts communities, "The Hunger" was a mere cinematic "blip" on the films-for-profit American scene. But, for moi, it will remain a seminal film that haunts me, still. (In fact, if any of my vampire novels ever became a movie, the cinematography and editing would have to emulate "The Hunger", or I would pass...)

"Top Gun" was Tony Scott's most successful mainstream enterprise. Surprisingly, it played to a similar audience...for different reasons. While the gut-clenching flying shots, and the cool-as-beans soundtrack mark it for the time it flew into our consciousness, it is more remembered as the least- likely- successful- "romance" movie to come down the pike. However, the excellent cast pulled all that Hollywood- make-believe- passion off. I have rarely (pre-Twilight)seen so many posted movie clips as I have seen on Youtube with "Top Gun". Tony Scott had an audience, whether he understood who he had or not, and should have cultivated THAT garden...

Thanks for the memories, TS.

I am saddened you took a fast train out of here. (We surely could use another "thrilling romance" in these hard days.) You will be hugely missed--by more than your family, by a "family of fans" perhaps you didn't understand, but for whom you created fantasies that pulled us through some bleak times. You offered us new heroes. Wish we could have offered the same.

Be at peace. You WERE an artist; you will be remembered.

WAITING ON GOD

First, let me say, as I ponder what is going on around me--and my helplessness (or so it feels) to change a single thing--except my own acceptance of the situations--I have been considering all the angles...Perhaps it IS the best/cleanest approach to simply "Let Go and Let God". Clearly, I cannot change a single person's attitudes or beliefs--nor am I trying to change anyone but myself. Frankly, I don't have the energy--or the tool kit needed! Hah! Finding uninterrupted space, and time, to "sit" is problematic, but not unattainable. I may need to retreat to the middle of a lake, somewhere, floating out in my possum-scented kayak, Tortuga...but it is attainable.

Of course, part of the struggle is justification to my family--who is being supportive of my "in between time" right now. I believe part of them trusts that the many hours upstairs on my computer is surely not spent playing video games or exploring Spotify...however, their trust of the System of networking for one's next position is about as sturdy as my own...My mother still insists that I need to go around town banging on the few businesses that remain in operation, demanding interviews with the ever-absent general managers and forcing my resume down their throats...of course, she, herself, never attained a single job in this manner. But she clings to the scenario.

In her defense, when I was a teen, decades ago, and this town was a thriving furniture manufacturing hub (Gardner: Chair City to the world), I did get a couple of part-time positions for summer employment exactly that way. I also got some "after school" jobs--mostly through word of mouth--in the same vein. But that was when Gardner had an excess of employment opportunities if one was willing to commit one's life to the factory scene. At times, it seemed as if half of Quebec came to town, to push out Early American furniture. This meant the town's stores, service related industries, etc. also need to be powered up and kept growing. So, we did. But that was thirty five years ago--and the entire world has changed. Mom is well read and keeps up with t.v. news, several newspapers, and radio news...but her excursions into the world pretty much revolve around daily trips to Wal-Mart, Stop and Shop, the hospital and Church. In her eyes, I am being "lazy". Sitting with that, being patient with that continuing withering gaze and vocalized judgment, more than anything else, is the hardest lesson to deal with. My use of prayer beads, drums and chanting haven't alleviated Mom's wrath.

Fellow blogger, Terry Wolverton, points out a particularly American trait of "do it now, do it fast" and "take charge" actions to relieve our sense of pout. When things don't go as we had envision, or even as some of the metaphysical philosophies promise will occur if only we visualize clearly enough--as Americans, we take this turn of events personally and try to bulldoze our way through. Our human vision is short sighted, of course, always, and who knows what the real "best practice" or "best end" will turn out to be. (There is the Buddhist fable about the boy and the bull--check it out!)

Parts of myself (probably the parts that still need cleansing...) agree--with Terry and my Buddhist friends--but add the "if" clause: if I sit and breathe and relax into the Greatness, allowing what I cannot see to gently unfold, to trust this Void, this Invisible this Creator AND I also get right online after I meditate or chant or drum or dream or pray, continuing to rant and rave and network and reach out for human assistance--perhaps I can cover all bases. Do all things open to me. Become manic enough that even my mother will see and smile at my efforts...

It surely seems, that among my American friends, I am already sitting in the dust on the side of the road, waiting for God...for the next best thing to unfold. 

WHAT'S A WRITER TO DO?

Writers' block is not a disease that I seem to succumb to. For me, writing has been like breathing--not a wholly conscious act--but something that my body does on its own. I'm not being metaphorical here. Even before I had the alphabet down, my mind thought in story-lines and images. Since childhood, falling asleep has been a chore: how to stop those "movies" in my head: how to slow down the plots and the sensory input?

As I've grown, I have questioned if I might be suffering from any of a number of diagnosable mental illnesses. However, two bouts of long term therapy and a plethora of psychologist and psychiatrist friends later, I find that that is not a valid answer. A few psychic acquaintences have also warned: 'Minns, you may, in your adult years, be accused of being crazy--rest assured--you are very sane--just 'different'... This was less helpful.

But, even as God sends angels to watch over the little children, I have been surrounded by other artists: dancers, filmmakers, painters, musicians--and of course--wordsmiths. I highly recommend finding one's "pack"--whether they be wolves or writers...

So, even as years have gone by without a major "publishing event"--the words have not dried up. The urge to put down my impressions of what was bubbling up around me hasn't lessened. The activity of the pen--now also the electronic keyboard--flourishes. (As Rita Schiano says: "Live a flourishing life!") However, a writer needs an audience. More than friends who are also struggling with putting down thoughts on paper (or in cyberspace), a writer needs readers--someone out there curled up on a lawnchair, on the beach, or in bed, with a flashlight!

Like Stephen King, I visualize my reader--see her/him scrinching their toes up in horror when I create monsters in the dark--or gasping at a particularly surprising ending. I need the "juice" of my audience, or I get parched. Other writers can offer some encouragement--or criticism--but they can't quench the thirst of being "unpublished". Luckily, I do publish smaller pieces--short stories and poetry--and of course, this blog. But it has been a long, long time since a novel of mine has hit Amazon squarely in the jaw.

On my hands, and newly revised, the most recent novel out of my brain. It is the story of a middle-aged academic on sabbatical--finding not only answers to her hysterical blindness--but also to cryptozoological questions that have plagued mankind for centuries. It takes place off the coast of Maine--on a tiny island. There are old people, young people, fishermen, cops, college students, college professors, witches, Indians, pirates, shipwrecks and huge howling storms rolling in...a village hiding a decades old mystery...murders and mayhem and voodoo aplenty...and of course: MONSTERS! 

Personally, after four years of re-writing this opus, I'm finally pleased. It is a short, intense, scary novel--with some sex and drugs and violence, of course--but mostly, a scary story. Perfect for October reading. Perfect for beach-side getaways in summer, too. And though the main character might not  be the person you imagine yourself to be, she is fiesty and funny and pretty and smart and worth following through her own adventures. So, what now?

I don't have an agent. I don't have a regular publishing house. The market has gone sour, along with all other markets around. But I do have this novel. It is ready to be read and ready to go out into the world, I think. I hope. (I pray.)  I don't want to self-publish--though that is getting more and more respectable each passing day. However, all of my novels were sold and brought out by paying presses. I'd like to keep that impetus in my life. God knows, it isn't about the monies! It's just a bit of ego and vanity--perhaps all that I have left! Hah!

I have been "shopping it around"--but it is a hard book to pigeonhole--as have all my other novels. I don't fall into a specific genre. No niche has ever fit. (My teen vampire stories were way before their time--and that has always rubbed me wrong--as I was taken over the coals by everyone, except the critics who actually read the novels. Hmmm..."Twilight",  you were nowhere near "the first".) I'm not tooting my horn, just making a point. So now, I'm looking for a press with somewhat Gothic sensibilities, open to characters on the fringe who don't usually populate your average cliff-hanger. I think the writing is thoughtful--which should appeal to women readers of a certain age, in particular (though not exclusively)--and to anyone who enjoys actual historical research into the cryptozoological realms incorporated into a riproaring good tale!

(Did I mention there is some sex, drugs and rock and roll? Yeah...well...I AM a writer of this century...) So, if there are any AGENTS, or friends of agents, or PUBLISHERS or friends of publishers, I am willing to cut a very cool deal. The novel isn't too long: about 270 pages. It moves quickly. It's intense and interesting and covers areas I haven't seen covered very much in contemporary fiction.

Contact me! karenminns@yahoo.com
This writer wants to boogie! (For reals!)