What Else Don’t I Know?

I had a conversation today with an old friend of my mother’s. I am not sure where Annie is from, but her accent is thick – possibly Germanic. Though she’s been in this country for most of her life, I often have difficulty understanding her, but today, when we were speaking, I understood every word.

My mother passed away on October 6^th, and Annie misses my mother and thinks about her all the time. She left a teary message on my mother’s phone a few weeks ago that I had a hard time understanding. To me, this is utterly perplexing. These women hardly spoke over the last few years, but Annie is so genuinely moved by my mother’s passing that I hate to even imagine what the reciprocal would have been if Annie had died first. The woman I know would not have cared very much. Or at least I don’t think she would have. But maybe I don’t know her like I think I do.

I spoke with another of her friends who is also a cousin by marriage. Bernice misses my mother terribly as well, and I’m glad she can’t see me shaking my head. My mother used to yell at Bernice, at least during the last year or so. Bernice called all the time, and would send my mother lots of cards, especially when she found out that my mom was ill again. The cards were fun, and heartfelt, and nice.

When my mother got the cards she would say nasty things and belittle the gesture. Her frequent calls were not welcome, and Mom sometimes yelled at her on the phone and told her to stop sending the cards.

Bernice called my sister and told her what had transpired, and that there was already a card in the mail that could not be retrieved. My sister called me, and I confiscated it when it arrived so that my mother wouldn’t see it and get angry. Now I wonder if the receiving of the cards was to my mother a harbinger of bad tidings. One more indication that she was sick, that life was no longer good, that life just might be coming to an end.

Mom sent cards, lots of them, to lots of people. She sent many cards to Bernice’s daughter who was going through really hard times physically and emotionally. She was willing to be kind to others, but didn’t want that same kindness returned, at least not from Bernice. She did want that from her daughters and would freak out if we didn’t call daily, or even if we called at ‘the wrong time.’

I made a final call to a friend of my mother’s. As Mom is no longer around, I seem to want to call her friends – this call was to Joyce who lives in New Jersey. She and Mom had been good friends since their young motherhood days. Joyce is also still having a hard time with the fact that my mother is gone.

Both of my sisters are also having a hard time, but I guess that makes more sense, unless my mother’s passing portends to her aged friends their own mortality. When one’s peers start dying, perhaps the inner child begins screaming, “Shit, does this mean I’m next??!?”

It seems that I am the only one who is not completely broken up by my mother’s passing. I must assume I did not know this woman at all.

Paulette, our banker told me that almost every time my father sat at her desk he told her: “Marrying Sherry was the best thing I ever did.”

Who was this woman and why wasn’t I allowed to know her the way all these other people did?

I knew her angry critical self quite well, but today, when I was speaking to Annie I heard a story that actually made me cry.

When Ronald Regan signed the bill closing Agnews State Hospital, many people with various mental and emotional illnesses were released from their incarceration. My mother went down to Agnews to see what was happening. She saw many people, now displaced, setting up housekeeping under the Dumbarton Bridge near the hospital. My mother called Annie, who was a caterer, and said that they needed to make food and bring it to these people. She and Annie made sandwiches and other easy-to-eat foods and took it to the camp. I am curious about this incident. I am curious to know if she did anything more to help, not that feeding them this one time wasn’t enough. I am now in complete and unreserved cognitive dissonance about my mother. I wish I could talk to her about this and ask what other ‘crazy and kind’ things she did. This is not the woman I know.

Annie also talked about their larger group of friends and described these bridge playing mavens as highly opinionated. Apparently, another of their group who never would have gone out of her way because she thought it had nothing to do with her, declared my mother and Annie crazy.

I knew that my mother had done a lot of volunteer work in her life, but this spontaneous desire to help threw me off kilter. This is not the woman I know, but it is definitely part, and a large part, of the person that others seem to remember. Perhaps my memories will need to be reshaped by the stories of others. Perhaps that is much healthier than remembering an angry, bitter, woman with whom I thought I had very little in common.

Building A Road

by Susan Cameron

Back in 1993, I wrote about how I made my living in 1981...wow, I've been alive a long time! Whoo-hoo!

In the old days, before I worked on a road crew, I never gave a thought to the streets I drove upon. Streets were simply there, like smog and palm trees. My perspective changed, however, when I became an apprentice operating engineer and went to work building roads.

I discovered that there are good road crews and bad road crews, and you don't want to work on a bad one. A bad road crew looks like an anthill that just got stepped on -- there's mass confusion, people getting in each other's way and on each other's nerves. On the other hand, watching a good road crew is like watching a good sports team or ballet company -- the workers have strong individual skills combined with excellent teamwork. Each worker has to perform the right task in the right place at the right time and then get out of the way. A good crew works smoothly and -- dare I use this word when referring to construction work? -- gracefully, with a minimum of wasted time and effort.

Actually, the creation of a street begins long before the construction crews arrive. The street is designed in accordance with local regulations, blueprints are made, and the land is staked out by a survey crew working from the blueprints and existing benchmarks (points of reference). Next, any water pipes or sewer lines that will run under the street have to be installed. If the pipe crew loses or destroys too many stakes, the survey crew will have to return to restake the job site for the concrete curb and gutter and for the grading crew.

Ah yes, the grading crew, the road crew. These are the people you curse under your breath as they block your car's path with their orange cones and delineators, the people who screw up your commute by tearing up what seems to be a perfectly good street on just the day you're running late for work. Let's take a closer look at the members of this rogue's gallery while the traffic backs up.

You see quite a few laborers. They do the hand work, the pick-and-shovel work, and they assist the heavy equipment operators. There's a person sitting in a little tractor with a bucket on the front and a row of metal teeth on the back. This machine is called a skiploader, and it is adept at getting into corners and tight places that bigger equipment can't reach. There's a water truck and driver. You spot a steamroller, but they're simply called rollers now since they're powered by diesel fuel, not steam. And is that a woman operating it? Yes, and her title is roller man -- gender be damned. You can't tell by looking at her, but she is also the grade checker. The grade checker reads the blueprints and survey stakes, then pounds markers called hubs into the ground with a sledgehammer to show the operators how much to cut or how much to fill in order to reach grade. A mathematical miscalculation could cost the construction company thousands of dollars. (Grade checkers are very careful people who become addicted to Mylanta as they age).

There is one more piece of equipment, the biggest on this job site. Its tires are as tall as a man, and it stretches out like a long, yellow grasshopper clutching an 8-foot-long stick under its body. That stick is a cutting tool called a mowboard, the entire piece of equipment is called a blade, and it is operated by the blade man. On this type of job, the blade man is God. The rest of the road crew assists and supports the blade man's work like an operating room team supports the surgeon's work. A good blade man can wield that mowboard like a surgeon does a scalpel, delicately peeling off a layer of compacted soil or rock less than half an inch thick, just like peeling an apple with a half-ton knife. That same mowboard can lay down tons of roadbed base rock in minutes.

Okay, back to work. The roller compacts the soil subgrade, the grade checker stakes it, the blade and skiploader bring it to grade. It passes compaction tests administered by an independent soils-testing laboratory, and it passes city inspection. Now it' s time to add the layers of compacted rock that make up the roadbed underneath the asphalt layer we see on top. The belly-dump trucks roll in, dropping their loads of mixed rock and "fines," tiny particles of crushed rock and sand that will lend cohesion to the roadbed. The blade knocks down the rockpiles into flat layers; each layer is sprayed with water by the water truck, then compacted by the roller, then another layer is added until rock grade is reached. The grade checker stakes it, blade and skip grade it, soils man and city inspector pass it, and then comes the asphalt.

The asphalt is usually laid down by an asphalt crew with a special paving machine and finishing tools. However, if the asphalt crew is unavailable, the grading crew can do the job with its own equipment, though everybody hates it very much. (Asphalt is hot, sticky, stinky, and difficult to remove from equipment and boots). Asphalt is usually laid in two layers, base and finish; rolling finish asphalt is an art form learned after much practice.

The new road has to pass final inspection and get striped by the painters, if necessary. Then the road barricades are removed, and the traffic is waved in. The commuters are happy again -- at least until they run across the next road crew.

copyright 1993, Susan Cameron

Leaving Home

Cassie shares a little bit about where she came from.

Last Sunday morning at work Sarah was telling me how heartbroken she was to leave her eighteen-year-old daughter at college two thousand miles from home.

“I keep going into her room, expecting to find her sprawled on the bed talking on the phone to her boyfriend,” Sarah said. “It’s funny. I didn’t realize what energy she sparked in the house until she wasn’t there anymore.”

Tears welled up in Sarah’s eyes, and I couldn’t help wondering if my mother’s heart was broken when I left home for good at eighteen. I can still see her face right before I backed out the kitchen door. Her eyes were dull, her green and white gingham apron tied double around her waist. A wisp of dingy hair threatened to obscure her vision. She was cooking dinner – oxtail soup. One hand held the wooden spoon she used to stir the onions, celery and peppers that were frying in Crisco before getting thrown into the soup pot. The other hand held her glass of Coke, which I knew also had a good slug of rum in it. The soup would have a bottle of beer in it, but only after she had taken a long gulp from the bottle. Her cigarette burned down to the filter in the brown glass ashtray next to the sink.

I don’t think she believed me when I said I was going to Chicago with Billy. I don’t think she understood that I wasn’t coming back. She stared at me with her head cocked toward the rum and Coke, midway to her next sip, the wooden spoon poised above the frying pan.

“Do you understand me, Mama?” I asked her. “Do you understand that I’m leaving town?”

“Will you be home for dinner?” she asked.

“No, Mama. I won’t be here for dinner anymore,” I answered.

“Do you want me to make you a nice sandwich for the road?” she asked me, as if I were a child going on a field trip.

“No, Mama. I don’t need any food. I’m leaving now,” I said. I shifted my suitcase from one hand to the other. It felt heavier than when I packed it.

“Goodbye,” I said, taking a step toward her instead of away.

She put her drink down on the counter next to the ashtray, picked up her cigarette and took a long drag, blowing the smoke out the side of her mouth away from the food. She stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and picked up her drink again. Turning back to the stove, she said, “Well, goodbye then. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I would have expected that comment from my father, but from my mother? Stunned, I backed up, suitcase in hand, until I stood with my back against the screen. I took one last look at my mother in her kitchen, stirring and drinking and smoking, her back to me, fixing dinner for her lost family. I pushed the door open and fled down the back steps of the farmhouse toward freedom, emancipation.

Was my mother’s heart broken? Not that I could tell.

Copyright by Liz Zuercher 2010

The Artichoke

The artichoke has no fashion sense.
It dresses in olive drab splotched with brown
like a raw recruit in jungle fatigues.

Camouflage is second nature to the artichoke.
It hides its tender heart and sophisticated tastes
under a tough-guy exterior of thick waxy petals
and thorn-tipped leaves in overlapping layers
like rows of sharks' teeth.

Overly sensitive to criticism,
the artichoke has a prickly personality.
It's given to barbed responses
from its sharp-tongued thistles,
stiletto-like bayonets fixed to the tips
of its concentric leaves.

The artichoke is sturdy.
A hefty compact globe,
it looks like the accidental offspring
of an amorous adventure
between a cactus plant and a pinecone.

Intensely private, the artichoke is hard to get to know.
It demands patience and pampering,
prefers a thorough manicure
to prune its sharp nails
and luxuriant lemon-juice massages.

A steam bath eases its defensive posture;
its uptight petals relax and recline
like sunworshippers in pool-side lounges.
The artichoke shows its softer side then,
becomes vulnerable to touch,
secure in offering up its secret self,
its tender-hearted core.

Procrastingation

Yahoo! I read in a recent e-mail that procrastination does not equal laziness. It only means that I am not aligned with my desires. Could this be true and how DO I align?

Here is what I read:

“What is the definition of procrastination? It means: I can feel within my Energy sensor that this action is not in perfect alignment at this time.” Abraham (Abraham-Hicks.com)

Okay, so this is the biggest woo woo statement I’ve heard in ages (and I LOVE and agree with much woo woo), but it seems to give all the lazy butts in the world an out: we can’t do it, we’re just not aligned! I guess we just need to hang out here in front of the TV until our alignment ship comes in!

This sounds like my students and one of the reasons I don’t really want to go back to teaching: “Sorry Ms. Grossman, I just wasn’t aligned enough to do my homework.” Truthfully, that IS what they were saying, and they were right, maybe my job should have been to help them get more aligned. When I don’t want to do something, when it feels forced and chore-like, if I do it anyway, it’s often a painful experience and the result is often shoddy or half-assed; therefore, I might as well not have done it at all.

‘But HOW????!!!’ I asked myself, after thinking that I can’t just play games, watch movies, hang with friends, and read books all day …am I supposed to do that? If I wait until I’m in alignment to do something, I’ll never do anything – what then? Dirty toilets, bills unpaid, work incomplete, letters not answered, meals not cooked, cats not fed, taxes not paid, clothes unwashed and un-ironed.

SO HOW??? “Ah, there…,” as Hamlet reminded us as he was trying to decide whether or not to be – “…is the rub.” How do align myself? This once joyful news turned to instant depression as just thinking about HAVING to align myself felt like hard work. I started to wonder if I was just going to succumb to loser status and never line up with anything, or if there was a magic button that I could push to get me into alignment.

I decided that I was NOT a loser, and that this magic button was my holy grail! How will I enthusiastically align myself to the tasks that I must do? This process is still in its infancy, but I have made progress. I first looked at ways that others have used – rewards and punishment. If I do this, then I get that. If I don’t do this, I CAN’T get or do that. Been there, done that – doesn’t work.

What about ideal scenes and visualizations? These are tools I’ve learned and not used to their fullest extent. I started to fantasize an outcome that would enhance my life and make me feel good. It took some creativity and brain power as I thought about my house which has been neglected for some time. I was having trouble finding a compelling enough vision for cleaning the house. I couldn’t seem to visualize with any level of believability that Brad Pitt would show up at my doorstep. But as I began to visualize my home nice and clean, I realized that that is how I really do like it (I miss my housekeeper who is not working because she is seriously ill).

I didn’t want to overwhelm myself because I wanted this to work, and procreation, at this point, has become more or less a life style, and cleaning the house is not a 15 minute job. So, I remembered an old phrase… “three-foot-tosses.” I didn’t have to do everything now. Sitting comfortably in my meditation chair I clearly visualized my sinks clean, the counters clear save for a few toiletries and my bamboo plant, the floor free of cat littler, the mirrors glistening, the carpets sweet and cat-hair free, and low and behold – I actually wanted to clean my bathroom! I got up and immediately started on the task. The joy I felt when I actually finished was quite amazing, and the volume of cat hair collected in my vacuum was quite exciting! I loved looking around. My reflection was smudge free, the counter tops and sinks were hair-free, gunk-free, and shiny. I was immediately motivated to go to bathroom number two, but by the time I had completed bathroom number three, I was ready to bestow sainthood on my housekeeper! How on earth does she do bathrooms and floors and everything else and so quickly?!? I guess I know what career I will never pursue. I can housekeep, but I need my visions and three-foot tosses. Having accomplished this mundane task, I started to look at another task that would need aligned motivation.

I’ve been saying I want to write for years, and November 1^st was the 11^th inauguration of NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth (NANOWRIMO). I have done it successfully twice before, so I know that I can. But last year was a race to the finish. I got it done at the 11^th hour. The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days and on the 1^st I took my first step toward my latest novel, or more accurately, the first step of stringing together 50,000 words that will all, more or less, have something to do with each other.

NANOWRIMO motivation is actually quite un-writer-like, but it works. I love the process of competition and I love being around people, and there are NANOWRIMO groups in every town in America. So far, there are 172,000 aspiring novelists signed up. Many of us apparently like to write together. Isn’t writing supposed to be a solitary endeavor? Not in this venue apparently. I love being with people, I love writing, and I love competition.

Day one of NANOWRIMO: I, from my California home, wrote with a group in Cape Cod. Actually, it was me and one person in Cape Cod. She was with others at the Hyannis Borders, but she and I were in textland together.

“NOW!” She would text, and I would start my intensive writing until I heard the text tone on my cell phone 30 minutes later. I looked down, and the text said “STOP.” I then texted over my word count and when our two “word wars” were done, I was happily on my way – Day 1: 3631 words. Someone else in Cape Cod beat me by about 200 words per round (rats – when I was with them two years ago, I won many of our word wars). My total after day two is 7,279 words! No “word wars” in Mission Viejo, but there were a bunch of people, and the breaks were fun. The required number of words per day to “win” at NANOWRIMO (50K/30Days) is a measly 1667. Of course, now that I have sung the praises of my wondrous daily average (3640), I have a built-in motivation! If I continue at this rate, I’ll hit a grand total of 109,200 words!!! That’s more than the 76,944 words of a favorite: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (I am not saying that what I am committing to paper will rival that book, but AHHHH, I can dream). My goal – okay it’s not really a goal, 50,000 is still the goal, but IF I do manage to keep my current average, I will have written even more words than another great favorite: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which clocks in at a proud 107,253 words.

Okay, so I get it – to align with my desires I need a deadline, a vivid mental picture, people (even if they’re just on the phone), enthusiasm, and passion (even if they are just manufactured). I’m glad I finally know this about myself at 58 years old! I wonder what my students would have needed to get aligned with writing their essays.

So… can I build up passion for cleaning out my guest bedroom closet? No problem, if I can build enthusiasm for clean toilets, I can build it for a closet. If I build it – it can be done.

The Robbery

by Susan Cameron

When I turned sixteen, I landed a part-time after-school job with a loan company. I did the usual office grunt work (which perfectly suited my limited capabilities), and I felt so happy. I loved going to the office. I enjoyed practicing my new typing skills and actually getting paid for it. I had fun answering the phone in my most professional, grown-up voice: “Beneficial Finance. May I help you?” I got along with the boss and enjoyed the joking and office camaraderie of my half-dozen co-workers. At sixteen, I liked my job, I liked school, I liked my boyfriend – in other words, I believed I had the world by the ass.

One beautiful spring afternoon, I bounced happily into work as usual, did some typing and filing, made some phone calls, then took over the front desk so Claudia, the receptionist, could take a break. A man walked in and told me he wanted to take out a loan. I smiled my cordial, professional smile. “Of course, sir. Please have a seat. Have you ever had a loan with us before? Yes? Your name, sir? Robert W. Jackson? Fine, I’ll get your file. A loan officer will be with you in just a moment.”

I searched the files but couldn’t find his old paperwork. Damn! I must have misunderstood his name. I walked back to him. “Excuse me, sir, did you say your name was…” My voice died in my throat as I stared at the blue steel revolver pointed at my heart. I looked up.

He smiled his own cordial, professional smile. “Have a seat,” he said. I sat down and froze in the classic holdup victim position, hands open and raised, staring at his gun, at his face. He stood up and roared, “This is a holdup! Do as I say and nobody gets hurt!” Two more men with sawed-off shotguns ran through the door.

Not again! I’d looked down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun just a month before, when two other robbers burst in. I was talking on the phone and didn’t even know they were there until the gun was in my face. “Put down the phone,” the man had said. I did, and the robbery was over in a flash. And here we were again.

“Everybody down on the floor! NOW! Except you,” he said softly to me. (Except me? Why not me?) “Who has the keys to the safe? Get off the floor and give me the money!”

I heard Mr. Bond’s voice behind me. “No problem, man, no problem. We don’t have a safe, we write checks, but just stay cool and I’ll give you what we’ve got, including what’s in my wallet.” I heard him get off the floor, heard some fumbling, saw him hand money to the thief. The manager backed away out of my peripheral vision, and I heard him lower himself to the floor again.

The thief pocketed the money. “Everybody take off your shoes!” he yelled. Then, quietly, he said, “Except you.” (Why not me? Why me?) I heard the others moving on the floor behind me, shuffling noises, muffled sobbing; stillness. Then the gunman spoke to me again. “Now, I want you to take off your blouse.”

I looked at his face, in his eyes. I heard someone gasp; I heard Claudia start crying. Then I heard myself speak – not with my professional, grown-up work voice, but with my real voice, the clear soprano voice of a sixteen-year-old virgin who had decided that today was a good day to die.

I said, “No sir, I won’t do it. But I’ll take off my shoes like everybody else, though. And I’ll get on the floor, too.”

I looked away from him. I removed the first shoe, then the second. I heard him say, “All right, then.” I lay down on the industrial-grade carpeting and shut my eyes.

I heard the men leave. I heard Claudia break down completely, heard a man saying, “Jesus Christ, oh, Jesus Christ.” I felt my breath come in; I felt my breath go out. I opened my eyes and shakily got off the floor.

Pandemonium. Police. I felt calm. I gave precise, highly detailed descriptions to the cops: facial features, three different shades of brown skin, heights, weights, clothing. Mr. Bond, giddy and incredulous: “It’s like you took their fucking pictures! Kid’s got a fucking computer for a brain!” Nods of agreement from my co-workers. “Why didn’t you take off your shirt, though? The only good part of the robbery, and you had to fuck it up!” Hysterical laughter all around. “We never even had a robbery until you started working here! Are these guys all buddies of yours?” The laughter got even more hysterical, especially mine.

I crawled under the desk in the fetal position and laughed until the tears ran down my face. So this was how life was going to be from now on. It didn’t matter. I wanted to live anyway.

“I quit!” I screamed, laughing. “Seventeen! I want to be seventeen some day!”

Joyce and Tim went down to the liquor store and bought vodka and orange juice, and when they got back I crawled out from under the desk and pounded down the very first screwdriver of my life. I wasn’t drunk when my grandfather came to take me home, but I felt much better.

* * * *

I recounted the robbery story to my mother a few days later. She was out of the hospital again, taking her meds, working at a downtown Detroit dive bar slinging shot-and-a-beers. Upscale establishments would not have hired a middle-aged ex-mental patient to tend bar, but she was still reasonably pretty and most definitely white, which made her an anomaly and a major draw. I told her the story, and gave her a detailed description of the man with the gun.

Her eyes grew wide, and she gasped, “Jimmy! That son of a bitch! Am I ever going to give him a piece of my mind!”

“Who’s Jimmy, Mom?”

“The man who robbed you. He’s a customer who comes into the bar.”

I smiled. “Oh, come on, Mom. What are the odds somebody who comes into your bar just happened to rob us?”

“I know it was him. He just got out of prison. It was definitely Jimmy. I told him where you worked.”

It took a moment to sink in. “Uh…what?”

“I told him where you worked. When I passed your picture around the other day, I told him where you worked.”

“You…what? Did what? Passed my…what? What?”

“Your picture, from school, the one where you look so cute. I brag about you all the time, my smart, pretty daughter. Guess I shouldn’t have told him what a cute figure you have.”

“You passed my picture around the bar? You told them where I work?” It felt like somebody had tossed a hand grenade inside my head. “Mom. Do not pass my picture around the bar. Do not talk about me. Do not tell anybody anything about me. Do you understand me?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I won’t do that any more.” Her lip trembled, and her hand shook as she lit another cigarette and drew the smoke deep into her lungs. She looked at the cigarette, cocked her wrist, the way the glamorous movie stars once did it, and slowly exhaled. We sat and watched the smoke curl around the silent room.

copyright 1993, Susan Cameron

First Light

This piece was written as part of a collaborative effort with all the ladies of Tasty Sauce. Each of us has worked on a particular character, and mine is Emma Braddock, a sixtyish woman who has recently been widowed. Here’s Emma’s answer to the question: How well do you sleep?

First Light

I used to sleep like a baby, but now there’s the nightmare that comes every night, the one where James is dead and the heart monitor is screaming its single sustained note. It’s been a year since that awful day, a year without a good night’s sleep.

When the nightmare haunts me, I startle awake and fear going back to sleep. I get up and write in my notebook, hoping that if I write it all down, it will be out of my head for good, drained from my brain, through my arm and hand to the pen and onto the paper. But so far that hasn’t worked. I think the words must run back up my arm and back into my head to whatever corner of my brain they inhabit. In a perverse way I think James still lives in there with the words, and maybe I don’t really want to empty out all the words, because that would empty James out, too. It’s a dilemma I admitted to Georgie and Louie last time we met for dinner.

“That’s absurd,” Georgie said in her don’t-mess-with-me voice. “You could never forget James.”

“It’s not about forgetting,” I said. “It’s about losing him altogether, like he’d be emptied out of my head. I know it’s nuts, but in some way it feels like he’s still alive if I have this dream every night. If I don’t have the dream, I don’t have anything of James left.”

“It’s not about your brain at all, or emptying your brain of James,” Louie said. “James is in your heart and always will be.” She paused and studied me before she said, “His aura is still here, you know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Louie,” Georgie said. “Don’t get off on that stuff again.”

“But I see it all around Emma,” Louie said calmly.

“What’s it look like?” I asked, looking around and behind me. I couldn’t see a thing.

“Warm and protective,” Louie said. “I see James with you all the time, looking after you.”

“Shouldn’t he be crossing into the light?” I asked. I have become a big fan of Melinda on The Ghost Whisperer and I was suddenly worried that if James was still with me, he hadn’t gone into the light to his eternal rest. I didn’t want to be the one keeping him from heaven.

“Would the two of you stop with the mumbo jumbo,” Georgie said.

Just then the waiter came with our dinners and the clink of forks on china replaced the talk of auras and crossing over.

I took a sip of my wine and glanced over at Louie, who smiled at me and mouthed the words, “He’s fine,” like she really knew that he was. For some reason that comforted me, and I dug into my pasta as if I hadn’t eaten in weeks.

That night I slept undisturbed until the morning sun shone through my bedroom window onto James’s side of the bed. I placed my hand there on the covers and turned it in the sun until the diamond on my wedding band caught the light and gleamed.

Copyright 2010 by Liz Zuercher

Why I Love New York

I love New York because of the architecture...

The neighborhoods...

The museums and the art...

The theater...

The street fairs...

The people...

And, well, I could go on and on, but let's just say...

Courage

by Susan Cameron

I had a friend who did a tour of duty in Vietnam. He came home with only one functioning eyeball and over a dozen medals testifying to his courage. He thought the medals were incredibly funny. "We were on patrol and got ambushed. Shrapnel hit me in the eye, but I kept shooting. What else was I going to do? Of course I kept shooting! When it was all over and I was about to leave the hospital, there was a big ceremony, and I had all these medals pinned to my chest. Hey, a bunch of guys were shooting at me, and I shot back. What choice did I really have? Is that courage?"

I think my friend was excessively modest, but I understood his point. To say that he acted courageously implies that he had a choice to act cowardly; since acting cowardly would have resulted in his death, acting courageously required no conscious choice at all. My friend was amused by the bits of metal and ribbon his country gave him for his bravery, but at least America acknowledged his suffering and his sacrifice. Most people who perform acts of courage remain anonymous and unrewarded.

For example, look at the business executive hauling his briefcase into a conference room full of hostile faces, about to give a presentation that will decide his career's future. Walking into that room takes courage. He is as fearful as a grunt humping through the boonies cradling an M-16 in his arms, wondering if he's going to be ambushed today. If the businessman does well, he may get a raise or a promotion, but nobody will praise him for his guts. Look at the laborer working in the hot sun and cold wind, enduring the daily grind so he can put food in his children's stomachs and keep a roof over their heads -- no medals, no glory, but doesn't he have courage? Isn't a man who endures the hardships of the workplace year after year for his family's sake as brave as a man who faces bullets once in his life for his country's sake?

There are no medals for courageous neighbors who band together to fight crime rather than put up "For Sale" signs, or for whistleblowers who risk their jobs or even their lives when they expose their employers as polluters or crooks. There are no congratulatory ceremonies for brave women who slap their bosses, or sue them, rather than tolerate sexual harassment. Fifty years ago, white southerners who courageously defied their community's standards and fought for civil rights for blacks were ostracized, harassed, or murdered, not lauded in speeches; today, black children in America's ghettos who dare to attend school, study and get good grades in defiance of their community's standards often meet the same fate. Examples of courage are all around us, if we stop and look.

Leo Tolstoy said, "Any idiot can face a crisis. It's this day-to-day living that wears you down." Everyday life can require more courage, tenacity and resolution than warfare on a battlefield. Courage is the will to endure, whether the extraordinary hardships of war or the mundane hardships of ordinary life. Courage is choosing to do the right thing even when it's easier or safer to do the wrong thing.

Robert Louis Stevenson summed it up: "The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat."

copyright 1993, Susan Cameron

Appearances

Cassie's been busy selling houses, but now she's back with a whole new look.

Skinny Bitch has been obsessed lately about how everything looks – the models, the sales offices, even our clothes. She’s decided it looks better, more professional, if we’re all dressed alike.

“That way people coming in will know right away who works there,” she said at the Monday sales meeting.

“Does that mean we have to wear uniforms?” Mandy Sherman asked. Mandy’s our resident fashionista and wouldn’t be caught dead in anything approximating a uniform, especially if it didn’t involve spike-heeled sandals.

“Not exactly,” Skinny Bitch said, her lips all pursed. “Men, you will wear dark suits, preferably black, with white shirts and conservative ties. Women will wear black skirts or pants with a crisp white blouse. Everyone needs to wear black closed toe shoes. And ladies, no low cut tops or short short skirts. Nothing too tight, either. We have an image to maintain. If you look professional, people will feel more secure, more trusting. Any questions?”

The room fell silent as each of us took a mental tour of our closet. I was thinking that my only white blouse might have been crisp once upon a time, but not anymore.

“When does this start?” somebody asked.

“This weekend,” Skinny Bitch said to a uniform groan.

“I can’t afford a whole new wardrobe,” Mandy said.

“Surely, you have some black pants or a black skirt and a white blouse,” Skinny Bitch said.

“Pants and skirt, yes, but I think I only have one white blouse,” Mandy protested.

“That’s what washing machines are for,” Skinny Bitch replied, looking down at Mandy.

A whispered undercurrent charged the room, but no one else spoke up.

“So, does everyone understand that?” Skinny Bitch said.

Heads nodded in grim unison.

“On to the next thing,” she said as she reached into a box she had on the table in front of her. “We are unveiling a new financing program that we’ll be advertising heavily, and to make sure your prospects know about it, I’ve had these made up for you all to wear.” She pulled out a saucer sized bright yellow metal badge, the kind soccer moms wear with their kids’ pictures. She affixed it with a magnetic strip to her filmy coral top with the deep v-neck. The words, “Ask me about our new loans!” formed a smiley face on the badge.

There was an audible gasp from the group. If visitors to our models couldn’t pick us out from our professional clothing, they sure weren’t going to be able to miss this.

Skinny Bitch stood before us smiling broadly as her badge tilted slowly sideways and fell with a loud clatter onto the table. The magnetic strip must have fallen into her bra, because she clasped her hand to her chest before she turned away from us and reached in to get it. Turning back around, she reattached the badge – upside down.

The room erupted in laughter, but Skinny Bitch’s frown matched her badge. The woman has no sense of humor.

“You get the picture,” she said stiffly.

Yes. Yes we did.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Be sure to pick up your buttons before you leave, and start wearing them today.”

“What are the terms of the new loans?” Jack Porter asked.

“I don’t have that for you right now,” Skinny Bitch said. “I’ll send an e-mail.”

So armed with a wardrobe edict and bright smiley buttons touting loans we knew nothing about, we scattered to our neighborhoods.

We’d been looking professional for nearly a week when the word went out that Skinny Bitch was making surprise visits to the sales offices. She’d take a quick tour of the models, make sure everyone was properly attired with smiley buttons in place then wheel her Mercedes off to the next place. By the end of the second week, Skinny Bitch sightings were on the wane and heading into the weekend, I forgot about the inspections. Skinny Bitch never ventures out on the weekends.

Sunday morning I was running late by the time I got dressed and checked myself in the full-length mirror. My black pants and crisp white blouse looked way perkier than I felt. Pink fuzzy slippers poked out below the pants, because I always kick off my shoes at the garage door and switch footwear there in the morning before I go.

Downstairs I had just grabbed my purse when the phone rang, startling me so much I tossed my purse in the air. The contents scattered everywhere. Sarah was calling to say she was sick. I called the temp service to line up a sub for Sarah, then picked up the stuff from my purse. I found everything except my car keys and spent the next fifteen minutes on my hands and knees until I spotted them behind the sofa. Crawling under the end table, I grabbed the keys and slithered clear of the table. I thought. When I stood up, my head cracked on the corner. Now I had a headache and my crisp white blouse was filthy. With no clean white blouses left, I put on a blue one. Who would care?

I finally pulled into the model parking lot twenty minutes late. A crowd waited at the door - a family of four, a couple on bicycles, and oh my God, there was a scowling Skinny Bitch. I looked down at my blue blouse and sighed. Late and out of uniform, I was busted.

With all eyes on me, I took a deep breath, opened the door and swung my legs out of the car. That’s when I saw, in all their glory, my very pink, very fluffy slippered feet. So unprofessional.

I braced for the wrath of Skinny Bitch, but when I looked up, she was laughing as hard as everyone else. Maybe there’s a real person in there after all.

Copyright 2010 by Liz Zuercher

How to Write a Poem

First, cultivate daydreaming:  lie on the couch, stare at the stains in the ceiling, browse a bookstore, wander the woods, climb a tree, hide under a lilac bush, lunch at the zoo with zebras and monkeys, soar over the city.

When an image taps you on the shoulder, take it by the hand and hurry home. Make a cup of tea, sit down and chat, just the two of you. You can even flirt a little—smile, flash your dimples, give a sly wink, chuckle low and sexy.

Next, once you’ve charmed your guest, throw a party to celebrate. Issue invitations to your favorite words. You know so many, but be picky. Invite only the sturdy nouns and vigorous verbs. Insecure nouns and verbs dress dowdy, hang their heads, and act like wallflowers. They don’t make the best party guests. Most important, include only a few adjectives—they’re always fun, but such a rowdy, flamboyant bunch. They tend to talk too much and take over the conversation.

Now gather the necessities—the dictionary, the thesaurus, the rhyming book, pens and paper, snacks, cold drinks. Don’t forget those orphan lines and images you loved, but had to cut from other poems. They’ve been living in the basement, stuffed in the files. Dust them off. Place them around the room.

Make sure to introduce the guests to each other. Work the room, mix with everyone, poke a little here, provoke a little there, tell a joke, sing a song, turn a cartwheel. Don’t forget the music. Play a polka, a country-western stomp, a ballad, or a jazz trio. How about a symphony or piano solo? Play them all.  Let the guests cavort, romp, tumble, tangle, debate, discuss, chatter, and cavil.  Don’t turn out the lights until the moon goes to sleep.

Finally: do not clean up when the party is over.  Put your feet up. While nibbling on left-over bonbons and tasty bon mots, describe how the black knight boogied with the ballerina, the fireman squashed a lost flame, and you caught the frog and the princess kissing in the hall.  Don’t forget to note the spinster drank too much and left wearing the chip dip bowl on her head.  Close by expressing what a good time you had.

Susan Matthewson

A Poem of Grrrrr-atitude

Thanks to you
I have hated myself
Thanks to you
I have wished I were dead
Thanks to you
I have learned how little value I have
Thanks to you
I have demanded the impossible of myself
And resented you for my own inadequacies
Thanks to you

Thanks to you
I have failed
Thanks to you
I have not gone after my dreams
Thanks to you
I do not even know what my dreams are
Thanks to you
I have allowed myself to become mired
in a web of confusing and constricting emotions and thoughts
Thanks to you
My anger flairs and I want to lash out
Thanks to you

Thanks to you
I have had to learn self control
Thanks to you
I have had to learn not just to bite my tongue
(“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”*)
but to bite my thoughts – allowing my breath to become louder than they are
Thanks to you
I am learning to allow the awful just to be – apart from myself
Thanks to you
I am learning the lesson that life is what I make it,
that my life is what is inside my head
and that you really have no control at all –
All thanks to you

Thanks to you
I have had to find the quiet place, the sweet place, inside myself
Where you are not as you are and yet where you are allowed to be just as you are

Thanks to you

*Thumper in Bambi (repeating his mother’s words)

Another Modest Proposal

by Susan Cameron

Just because I was laughing when I wrote this does not mean I don't mean every word...


While perusing the usual litany of crimes against women in the Los Angeles Times the other day, I ran across a particularly appalling statistic. If a woman lives in Los Angeles County her entire life, her chances of being raped are better than one in three. I gave that figure some serious thought. If I had a one-in-three chance of winning big money in the lottery, I’d sell my house to buy tickets. If I had a one-in-three chance of winning big money at the racetrack, I’d sell my car and hit the bettor’s window. A better than 33 percent chance of being raped is, statistically speaking, a pretty good bet.

This led me to wonder: What if the average man had a one-in-three chance of being sodomized by the winners of the Mike Tyson and Hulk Hogan lookalike contests? Would any man ever leave his house without a gun at his side? In fact, since so many rapes take place within the home, would any man live without a gun in his house in the face of these terrible odds? I think not. Therefore, is it reasonable for women to remain unarmed and unprotected under these dangerous circumstances, which amount to a state of undeclared war? I think not.

So, I would like to make the following modest proposal: Every woman should be required, by law, to carry a gun; to take shooting and weapon safety classes; to practice at a firing range at least twice a month; and to serve and protect the other members of her community. In short, every woman should be armed.

I believe there is ample philosophical and legal evidence to defend my proposal. The Declaration of Independence states that all men have certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founding fathers used the word “men” in the generic sense, as was the custom at the time. Women like me also have these rights, and our rights are being violated by criminal terrorists and a judicial system that is unable or unwilling to stop them. Our right to life? Criminals shoot us, stab us, rape us, torture us, mutilate us. They kill us quickly; they kill us slowly. Our right to liberty? The threat of victimization keeps us locked up in our homes and cars, restricts our movements, restrains our schedules; we don’t even have the liberty to wear certain hairstyles, makeup, or clothes for fear of drawing the attention of some misogynistic bastard. Our right to pursue happiness? We do the best we can, in spite of our restricted lives as meat for the predators; but I believe my proposal would facilitate our pursuit of happiness by empowering us to fight the criminals pursuing us. The Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms. I am suggesting that we do exactly that.

Now, in contrast to the existing situation, imagine every adult female citizen ready, willing, and able to kill criminals in self-defense! Imagine a woman being able to walk in her own neighborhood unafraid – not calculating whether or not she can return before dusk falls, not concerned if her friends can’t walk with her, not worried about some rapist jumping her – because she has a .357 Magnum in a holster on her hip and she’s capable of defending herself! Imagine armed women everywhere – offices, banks, grocery stores, shopping malls – jogging anywhere they want, anytime they want; striding through parking lots without fear; using public restrooms without dragging their girlfriends along! Imagine women and children congregating at parks and beaches, playing and laughing, unconcerned about child molesters; after all, if any pervert were to touch a child, the mommies would rise as one and blast him into ground beef!

I realize my proposal will strike some people as too radical, and potentially dangerous. What if some women take unfair advantage of their power, and start behaving like bullies? What if some women start swaggering around with guns at their sides, awash in a sea of hormones, arrogant, belligerent and rude, utterly contemptuous of the rights of other human beings, in love with their power to destroy and their own massive egos? In other words, what if women start behaving like male criminals (or some male non-criminals, for that matter?) I believe any woman inclined to behave that way is doing so already. The vast majority of women would simply feel relief at having a legal, effective means of self-defense. Women need to start carrying guns now, before the Los Angeles Times calculates our odds of being rape victims at fifty-fifty.

copyright 1993, Susan Cameron

At the Festival

I push through the Personnel Only gate at 5:30 and walk over to Gary’s photography exhibit. Grabbing the dust rag, I spruce up the display. I’m straightening the big sign that says Joshua Tree National Park, when a man comes up behind me.

“Is this the Alabama Hills?” he asks.

“No,” I say, pointing to the sign. “Joshua Tree National Park.”

“Oh,” he says. “Sure looks like the Alabama Hills.” He shrugs and turns away.

So begins another night at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts.

It’s Thursday - soft jazz, wine and chocolate night. Out on the grass people eat picnic dinners at tables with checkered tablecloths. A cool breeze rustles the tablecloths as the late afternoon sun glows on surrounding walls of art. While picnickers talk softly, a trio plays “The Girl from Ipanema”.

Last night the band played the Star Spangled Banner while we all stood at attention, hands to hearts.

I get a sausage flatbread pizza at Gina’s and sit on the concrete planter wall behind Gary’s booth to eat it. Bill the security guard plops down next to me and starts talking. Tonight I hear about how he used to work at Home Depot where they treated the lumber with a poisonous powder and cut it with a power saw and people inhaled the dust and got sick. On any given night he might tell you about his daughter in law school, his wife’s job search, living in Michigan or another job he used to have. He’s had a lot of jobs.

“Gotta see if those folks want to buy a print,” I tell Bill, even though the people are already walking past Gary’s exhibit. I jump up and leave Bill on the wall.

Across the way from Gary’s desert pictures are Elizabeth’s pastels and Margo’s photos. Cynthia’s prints are behind me. Carol’s pottery is around the corner and Mitch’s Colorado photographs are just past Gary’s on the same wall. I sit at one end; Mitch’s chair is way at the other end. So far I’m the only one here tonight.

People come in tour buses. Men in polo shirts with binoculars around their necks carry blankets and jackets to keep warm during the pageant later. Bald men with white beards and potbellies sport Hawaiian shirts, shorts, socks and sandals. Their wives wear white cotton pants, colorful blouses and New Balance walking shoes. Some have canes. Some are in wheel chairs and seem concerned about how they’re going to maneuver through the narrow passage between my chair and Cynthia’s table.

Margo arrives and says she feels like a sale tonight. We all wish for sales, but that’s not everything. It’s also about connecting with people. Elizabeth likes when someone feels her soul in her art. She has trouble parting with her creations, pieces of her soul.

A teenage boy with a serious camera around his neck studies Gary’s photos for a long time. Other people walk by with only a quick glance toward the desert photos. One of them is a lady in aqua head to toe – aqua sandals, slacks, shirt, purse, jewelry. We have no aqua pictures, so she probably isn’t interested in stopping at our booth.

It’s funny the way people look at art. They stand up close to Gary’s photos, examining them carefully. I’m not sure what they are looking for. Some people turn their backs on Gary’s pictures and look at Elizabeth’s. Others turn their backs on Elizabeth’s and look at Gary’s. If people are drawn to Mitch’s colorful photos, they’re not interested in Gary’s black and whites. And vice versa.

Margo takes pictures of people in mid air, falling onto a trampoline. The backgrounds are dark and the falling subjects are lit from above with a single light. To view her art, people tend to lean sideways, usually to the right. Margo sets up a camera in her booth and takes a video of all the people leaning sideways to look at her mid-air people. She has a wry smile as she watches the people looking at her work.

We decide we could give each other’s spiel.

“They’re falling onto a trampoline,” I’d say.

“Joshua Tree National Park,” she’d say.

“Taken in a studio, lighted from above,” I’d say.

“High dynamic range digital photography,” she’d say.

Lots of the women carry big black purses slung over their shoulders, and when it’s crowded and their backs are to the artwork, I suck in my breath and hope the purses don’t scratch the glass. The women don’t notice where their purses are. Carol’s husband, Wes, holds his breath, too, because one swing of a big black purse could send Carol’s teacups crashing to the concrete.

A thirtysomething man is talking intently to Margo. I think they must be good friends, but when he leaves she says she has no idea who he is. She’s glad he’s gone.

A woman in a sparkly leopard print top and matching ballet slippers wants to know how she can buy one of Elizabeth’s pictures. I direct her to the Sales Booth. Elizabeth will be happy to have the sale, but there goes another bit of her soul.

Mitch arrives, sits in his chair and assumes a stern lifeguard face.

“Where were these pictures taken?” asks a man whose shirt says United We Stand and has an American flag on the sleeve. He should have been here last night for the Star Spangled Banner.

“Joshua Tree National Park,” I say.

“Did you put those round rocks there?” he asks.

“No, that’s just they way they are.”

“How big are they?”

“Huge.” I stand up and circle my arms above my head, though I have no idea how big the rocks really are.

Margo’s got some interested people now. She’s telling them about the trampoline and the studio and the single light above. Maybe this is her sale.

A trio of women pulls out the print of “Desert Surreal” featuring a lone tree caught between two boulders. They prop the print up against the wall and stare at it. This looks promising, so I mosey over there.

“It’s a great photo,” I say.

“Yes,” says the middle lady in a dreamy voice. She caresses the print, sighs and puts it back. They are gone before I realize I’ve forgotten to give them one of Gary’s cards. I’ve fallen down on the job. No sale for me tonight.

A young couple wants to play pool with the boulders in “The Billiard Table”. We all laugh and wonder how big the pool cue would have to be.

A lady all in gauzy white says she just went camping in Joshua Tree. “Amazing place. Amazing photos,” she says and smiles as she walks away.

A peal of laughter erupts behind me and I turn to see a whole tour group sitting on the concrete planter wall. They’re having a good time at the Festival.

Margo’s people don’t buy and the guy who was hitting on her is back.

“Don’t you want my phone number?” he says.

“No,” she replies.

He keeps on talking, leaning toward her, hanging on the side of her chair. When people walk up to her booth, she slips out of the chair and turns her back on him.

A middle-aged couple turns the corner behind my chair and stops to look at Gary’s photos.

“Rocks,” the man says.

“Yes,” his wife says.

“Rocks and sky,” he says.

“Yes,” she says and they move on to Margo’s booth where they both lean to the right.

At the other end Mitch is smiling now, because a woman with a big belly, a pearly necklace and a USC tote bag likes his photos. He retrieves the skinny little sales box he has tucked under the shelf and writes up the sale. The lady has two chins and a really nice smile. Her mother has white hair, a white pantsuit and a purse in primary colors with rhinestones. She’s smiling, too.

It’s almost 8:30, almost time to go. Before I leave, I put out more business cards, straighten the pictures and tidy up the prints in the bin. A couple, chewing gum in unison, approaches the wall and together they stick their noses within inches of the bottom two photos.

“It’s the Alabama Hills, right?” he says

One more time I say, “Joshua Tree National Park.”

“Ah,” they both say. “Beautiful work.”

On that note I call it a night.