You Know It Don't Come Easy: Writing the Hard Stuff

For several years I've enjoyed writing about the lighter side of my life...the funny or inspirational incidents, usually involving family members, pets, and friends. But when I started to near the three quarters of a century mark, my own personal diamond jubilee, I reflected on telling those other stories. Go deeper, my inner voice urged.

I started a few years back with "Dreaming as the Summers Die," about the last time I saw my birth mom. "Not suited for our audience," said most of the traditional anthology publishers. When I read the rejections I nearly could feel the distaste, the pulling back, and I envisioned how I'd spoiled some editor's morning. Even a friend or two who read my story suggested I should concentrate on more cheerful topics, and that perhaps I'd better get over something that happened all those decades ago.

But I persevered and resubmitted. I wanted to see this story in print. It finally found a home in Dream of Things' debut anthology collection, Saying Goodbye. An online magazine, The Fertile Source, also printed it, and Five Minutes More picked it up here: http://www.fivemoreminuteswith.com/2011/03/dreaming-as-the-summers-die/ Additionally the story will appear this fall in Joy, Interrupted, from Fat Daddy's Farm. How encouraging to find that not every publisher shies away from more meditative pieces.

I continued with "A Ruffled Mind," about what it was like to be six years old and scared witless by crossing the street or going to the playground. This story appeared this past spring in Anxiety Disorders: True Stories of Survival by Hidden Thoughts Press.

Soon I found that I'd wake up at 2 a.m., wondering how I'd gather the courage to put other intrusive thoughts and feelings on paper. Did I really want anybody to know why I held on to a hopeless love for years and years? Did I really want anybody to know how diminished I felt when my tiny little adoptive mom called me an elephant? What about those feelings of resentment during my late husband's last weeks? Shouldn't I be ashamed? Filled with guilt?

Maybe there's others who've shared those experiences, I decided. So I bit the bullet, and wrote those stories, too. And now they're seeing publication.

"Needs" will appear soon in Jonna Ivin's book, Loving for Crumbs, "Elephants Never Forget" in Virgie Tovar's Seal Press publication, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion, and "Wheels and Deals" in Hidden Thoughts Press, It's Weighing on Your Mind.

I don't dwell on the dark side a hundred percent of the time, though. Today I plan to write a story intended to elicit squeals of delight...but, hey,  it don't come easy. 

All Those Years Ago...June 28 and July 1

The kilted laddie above is Pat the Piper, who bills himself as the "Official Piper for the London 2012 Olympics." I left a pound in his bagpipe case in Trafalgar Square a couple of weeks ago...and ever since have been wondering what the old bromide, "He who pays the piper calls the tune," really means. Would Pat have changed his tune from whatever highland ballad he was playing had I suggested he switch to "Rolling in the Deep" instead? Somehow I doubt it. But he gave me a wink and a wave.

Pipes have been on mind today...but not necessarily bagpipes. I've been remembering marrying Ken Wilson a dozen years ago today, where we played a tune from my organist grandfather Jesse Crawford's cassette at the wedding, "Mendelssohn Wedding March." Grandpa during the '20s and '30s recorded for Decca, and played The Mighty Wurlitzer at Radio City Music Hall, the Rainbow Room and even at Wanamaker's in Philadelphia.

Here's a photo of Grandpa Jesse in his heydey...dapper, hey? There's lots more about Grandpa Jesse here, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Crawford

I've always thought my son, Steve, definitely inherited the brooding Crawford good looks. What do you think? Here's Steve with the Stanley Cup when it made the rounds to the Los Angeles Times last week where Steve is chief copy editor for the Sunday Calendar.

But back to calling tunes and paying pipers. My son mails me cassettes that he records from his huge collection of CDs for my birthdays and for Christmas. This past week, as I turned 75 on June 28, I received several more tapes.

Steve wrote, "Here is the latest batch of birthday tapes: 1965, 1966, 1983, 1984 and 1985. I had thought this would be the end of the series, but it turns out I have most of the records from your 1986 and 1987 birthdays. So I will plug the holes of the half-dozen or so that I lack, and you'll get those next year. That will take you through to when you left for Belize in l987."

The birthday tapes go back to 1955, shortly after Steve's dad and I got married, include my 21st birthday in 1958, when Steve was still a babe in arms, and continue throughout the next several decades. The Christmas tapes highlight certain periods of my life...the years I taught at Jordan, when I first started to work for DPSS, and other memorable experiences.

Fortunately, my son makes these tapes for me out of love...I never could have paid anybody to do it, even if I'd wanted to call the tunes. As it is, Steve consults the Los Angeles radio show charts to pick the songs he then records...and there's always lots of surprises.

Here's a story I wrote a few days before an earlier birthday when I was thinking about Steve and the tapes. This tale originally appeared in Patchwork Path: Treasure Box. 

All Those Years Ago

                                                                            

“I’m talking all about how to give.” --George Harrison

As my birthday neared this year, I wondered what my son would choose this time. What events would he recreate…which of my life’s milestones would he bring into sharp focus through the medium of music? Heaven knows, and Steve, too, how much I need some cheering.

In l964, when I Wanna Hold Your Hand hit American pop charts, Steve was only six, but he listened raptly when I chattered about my high school journalism students dancing the Frug and the Watusi on the Lloyd Thaxton Show, airing from nearby Los Angeles.

Because his dad worked nights, Steve and I had evenings to ourselves. While I corrected homework papers, we listened on the radio to legendary sportscaster Vin Scully call the play-by-play for our beloved Dodgers. Or we strolled to the library to stock up on his favorite Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak storybooks.

Now we began to follow rock and roll. We tuned in the dance shows of the day, Shindig, Hullabaloo, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Steve spent his allowance joining Beatles fan clubs. I heard empathy in his voice as he read to me from the newsletters about children in Kenya and the Philippines that the clubs sponsored for tuition and books.

Sometimes we brought our BLTs and lemonade into the living room, dining while we caught up on the latest scoop. “Listen to what George Harrison’s sister says!” Steve would exclaim, excited at having a personal connection with one of the Fab Four.

In the meantime my students too transitioned from the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean to the British Invasion. “Which side would you take?” I asked Steve, discussing debates on the merits of The Dave Clark Five versus Herman’s Hermits. Steve remained loyal to the mop top Beatles, his “fave raves.”  We lamented not securing tickets to the Hollywood Bowl appearances, and in l966 envied our neighbor who took her sons to the concert at Dodger Stadium.

By 1968, Steve hunkered down at the kitchen counter every Wednesday night as KHJ’s Sam Riddle counted down the Boss 30. He meticulously recorded the hits one by one in his blue notebook. He already had been collecting singles for well over a year. In the meantime, I had changed jobs, so now raced down the 405 towards the Cudahy Department of Public Social Services office, also tuned to KHJ, grooving on the Beatles, the Box Tops, Linda Ronstadt, and even all 7 minutes and 11 seconds of Richard Harris’ MacArthur Park.

“I hear music in my head,” Steve once confided. I asked if he wanted to take piano or guitar lessons. “No,” he confessed, “I just love to listen.”  Over the years his collection stockpiled. He turned from singles to LPs, and then to 8-tracks, cassettes, and finally to CDs. In recent decades he has shared some obscure cuts with Southland Golden Oldies radio stations.

When I joined the Peace Corps in l987, Steve provided me with the first of his special gifts. He transferred to cassette all of the Beatles numbers from his albums. On balmy Saturday mornings in Belize City, I hand-laundered my towels and sheets, listening to Your Mother Should Know and Magical Mystery Tour.

Three years ago on my birthday, the first time capsule arrived. Steve went through his collection and made me a tape of the top songs from fall l967 to spring l968, my first year with DPSS. Now retired in the country, I played the tapes every time I made the seventy mile drive to Spokane. As I listened to The Cowsills, Lulu, and other chart toppers of that era, I felt the years rolling back. Once again I become 30 years old, driving around Los Angeles, waiting for my future to unfold with each song, each mile, each day.

At Christmas, another tape arrived. This time Steve chose my 21^st birthday, just months after he had been born. Until I played my gift tape, I had forgotten carrying infant Steve around the house, boogying to Bobby Darin’s Splish Splash, and two-stepping to Laurie London’s He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

Shortly thereafter, my son’s dad died. When Steve visited me here, I dragged out a duffle bag of old photos to show him pictures of his father and me in l955, the year we got engaged and married. “You looked so happy,” he said. We had been.

 When I opened my package on my 70^th birthday, memories of 1955 flooded back. Steve had labeled the tape, “Terri’s 18^th Birthday—Plus,” and had recorded “a nice mix of the old music fighting for time with the new rock ‘n roll,” with highlights from that summer and fall.

And sure enough, there it all was, the songs that his dad and I courted to, Roger Williams’ romantic ballad, Autumn Leaves, following Chuck Berry’s Maybelline.  As if it were only yesterday, I remember getting seasick on the Catalina ferry as we sailed back from our Avalon honeymoon, decorating our first apartment with the wedding gifts, snagging my first full-time job at Pacific Tel and Tel.

My second husband died this past spring. Steve’s collection does not extend up to the late ‘90’s when Ken and I first met. Nonetheless, my son has promised some treats. “I’m going to take you through four decades this time, Mom,” he e-mailed. And when my birthday came, just weeks after my husband’s death, I found solace in listening to the tunes of happier days. Here were the June 28s of 1957, 1961, l971, l975, and l981, plus a note that promises more happy moments to come.

I play l981 first, what I should remember as a sad birthday, the first after Steve’s dad and I divorced. At first I sigh as I hear All Those Years Ago, George Harrison’s tribute to John Lennon, killed just six months earlier, but soon my heart lifts as the Oak Ridge Boys rock Elvira. I suddenly recall how songs that year eased me through a difficult transition. I believe that they will do it again through this year, as well.

The recollections of Marcel Proust’s hero in Remembrance of Things Past were triggered by the taste of a madeline cookie. Other people claim to remember best through scents. For me, though, nothing tugs the elusive shadows of my past into the shimmering sunlight of this current moment like the songs on my time capsules. Steve’s tapes are candid snapshots of my life, framed in melody.

Even Foolish Hearts Can Learn

Way back in the '50s one of my favorite songs was by Joni James..."How Important Can It Be?" If you're too young to recall it the first time it came around, or don't remember it from the movie LA, Confidential, here it is...song sublimely in the shuffle beat style by Joni:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEnGUG_Nhbk

Just a couple of weeks ago I sat trying to look as important as I possibly could at the Geffrye Museum of the Home in London. If you aren't in the mood to dash off to London this summer...perhaps you fear the crush of the Olympic crowds...or you haven't yet fallen in love with one of the world's greatest cities...then take a virtual tour here:

http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/period-rooms-and-gardens/virtualtour/

Today I've been sitting on another chair that sometimes makes me feel important...that's the one at my writing desk. I feel pleasantly important when I finish a story, but that isn't always the case. Today I only got half way through and then stalled. I've toyed with this stubborn story for three hours, but it's taking a turn I'd not intended. I'd foolishly set my heart on finishing it today...but it won't cooperate. So I'm putting it to bed for now, and will revisit it another day soon.

Sometimes stories can get unruly. They have to be disciplined by their owners, and shown who really is the important one. Oh, I know. It's them, of course. But shhhhhh....don't let on. If you give your self-important stories half a chance, they'll be sprawling over every chair, sofa, loveseat, bench and ottoman you have in your house. You know them...they move right in and take right over. Except when they don't, like my naughty story today. Perhaps in a day or two it will be more cooperative. Then I can send it out to find a home...and that's what's important.

Even foolish hearts can learn!

Rub a Dub Dub...Let's Pop into a Pub!

 Over thirty years ago I wrote a piece, "Posies, Pubs and Poets," for Uncle Jam, an arts and entertainment tabloid, about my first trip to London. In it I quoted a sign in an Edgware Road pub, The King's Head: "This bar is dedicated to those excellent gentlemen who make drinking a pleasure, who reach contentment before capacity, and who, whatever they drink, can take it, hold it, and remain gentlemen."

Just back from England for a week now, this gloomy, chilly Saturday afternoon I already wish I could teleport myself back to London...or the Isle of Wight...for a lazy afternoon of sipping a cider and chatting with old friends and new friendly gentlemen. Instead I have a list as long as a dragon's tail of tasks that need to be completed over the next few days. But none of them seem as tempting or as tasty as just relaxing, unwinding, and ordering an Old Rosie or a Thatchers Gold, and watching the world wander by.

This trip our Road Scholar Dickensian group dined at The George, on Borough High Street, Southwark, a pub frequented by Shakespeare in his day, and Dickens in his, and me in that first 1980 visit. This time I enjoyed steak and kidney pie with my pint of cider. The George is London's only surviving galleried coaching inn. Right around the corner is where Chaucer's pilgrims set out for Canterbury. It stands on the south side of the River Thames near London Bridge, for centuries the only bridge across the river.

 Later that evening we visited The Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, where we gazed out at the Thames and wished for a slightly warmer late spring evening! Fans of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen may remember that Mina Harker pauses in front of this pub and says it brings back memories. She's alluding to the beaching of the Demeter at Whitby in the novel Dracula. In earlier centuries this pub had a reputation as a meeting place for smugglers and villains

On Charing Cross Road in the West End, twice I dropped in at The Porcupine, a pub with a history, as well as great fish and chips. Its website proclaims "The Porcupine has proudly stood its ground since 1725. In years gone by we were a haunt of the freemasons and in 1807 became the meeting place for another group; the 'Lodge of Confidence'. In 1822 a gang of thieves came here for a celebratory drink, after burgling at the house of Lord Ashbrook. They were nabbed after asking the landlord to put their equipment behind the bar for 'safe keeping'!"!!

This has been the third summer in a row that I've headed for England....there's the lure of the University of Cambridge International Summer School, the wonderful theatres of the West End, the ciders of Somerset...and now, my new love, that "obsure little island," the Isle of Wight. Might be back once more next summer! I've read that actor Ian McKellen is buying The Grapes, the pub where young Charles Dickens used to stand on the table and sing to customers. This is the same pub that later became "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters" in Our Mutual Friend.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20110912/ian-mckellen-pub-purchase-110912/

Here Comes the Sun: Celebrating the Solstice

Summer begins this afternoon, here in the Northern Hemisphere...at 4:09 pm (PDT). Somehow the sun has broken through today, after nearly a month of solid rain here in Colville. I'd spent much of June in England, but the rain followed me there, as well, so I splashed through the streets of Newport and Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and splattered through the streets of London, Portsmouth, Broadstairs and Rochester.

Though my sweaters and jeans may have been soggy, my spirits never sagged. What a vacation this was indeed! Not only did I get to see the very room where Charles Dickens was born at One Mile Terrace in Portsmouth, but I also gazed at the house at Gad's Hill Place where he died. Well, at least it's the official recorded place of his death, though rumors abound that he might have died at Slough, as rumors are wont to do.

But that's not all! I also celebrated the Queen's Diamond Jubilee with a country fair and band concert in Kewstoke and viewed her Thames salute at a Chinese restaurant on the Isle of Wight. Her Majesty is a very nice girl, indeed! But not the only English queen I like, so I attended a recreation of Victoria's Jubilee at Osborne House, her winter home on Isle of Wight.

And I soaked up my share of musicals....from a rowdy music hall version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood and a community theatre production of Oliver! to the full scale razzle dazzle of the West End's revival of Singin' in the Rain.

New experiences to write about include:

1. Girls' night out at The Castle with Heather Bird, longtime friend from Weston-super-Mare, where we befriended two exuberant young lads, one a "caulkhead" (Isle of Wight native) and gravedigger, and the other a "overner" (Englishman mainlander settled on Wight) and VSO demolitions expert. Here I learned that I'm regarded as a "grockle," a term for tourist. We gabbed about Cheech and Chong, the merits of Old Rosie vs. Thatcher Gold cider, and the ghosts that inhabit this most haunted of all the world's islands.
2. Close encounters on planes. On the journey over I met a man from Wenatchee, WA, who fashions his own bows and arrows and was on his way to hunt long horned cape buffalo outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. On the flight home I met a Unity chaplain who'd fallen in love at a retreat in Scotland that she'd wanted to attend for decades.
3. Surprises of my Dickensian "The Best of Times" trek for Uncle Jam, and additionally, at publisher Phil Yeh's request, a remembrance of Ray Bradbury, my high school inspiration.
4. Museums and why they continue to enchant me, whether they're all-inclusive like the Victoria and Albert, or just plain quirky, like the Old Operating Theatre Museum.

Though I've been singing in the rain, now I'm ready to hum in the sunshine...and yes, I'll take advantage of a sunny evening to sow my Weed and Feed on the front lawns!

A final note...George Harrison, too, had tired of the English rain when he wrote his song:

"Here Comes the Sun" was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'sign that'. Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever, by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote "Here Comes the Sun".

Twist and Shout and Shake It Up, Baby!

One of the continuing delights in writing for the Chicken Soup for the Soul series remains in finding that one of my stories has been selected for the daily newsletter that goes out to countless subscribers and 536,301 Facebook followers. (Yep, I just checked.)

 Not that all of those half a million Facebook "likers" will actually read today's Chicken Soup offering. But even so, it's a tickle to think that Peace Corps Nurse Jackie Waight's advice to me in Belize City over 20 years ago will be useful to others who are in danger of back damage from weeding their spring gardens or, as I did, incorrectly hauling luggage out from under a plane seat.

This is the third time one of my stories has been selected as Chicken's daily sip of soup. My other featured stories include "Forced to Face the Facts," which appeared in My Resolution. That story related how I quit smoking through hypnosis, back in 1985 when I worked for an HMO in Long Beach, CA. It celebrates the talented psychiatrist I worked with, Dr. Eric Auerbach. Additionally, "Withstanding Winter's Woes," also has been showcased. It's about Chico, my optimistic black cat, who appears to be a big fan of Bob Marley's ditty, Three Little Birds.

I've had more than one friend raise an eyebrow when I explain why I invest so much time in writing for anthologies, when the financial reimbursement seems miniscule, considering the time devoted to composing and revising. It's true you don't get rich writing for anthologies. But there's other payoffs:

• Platform. More people will see your byline in such series as Chicken Soup for the Soul, Thin Threads or the upcoming series, Not Your Mother's Book, than will read your hometown newspaper column, unless you live in a big metropolitan area.
• Posterity. You have an opportunity to enshrine your most memorable  moments, which include relatives, friends, and even chance acquaintances, in a bona fide book that somebody else will read and enjoy. It's not easy getting your memoir published if you're not a household name. But a slice of your life can be preserved in an anthology.
• Promotion. You have an opportunity to be featured at local library events, book fairs, schools and at book store signings. Even in this age of e-books, book lovers will buy a hard copy of a book with your story, if you're willing to sign it.

You can purchase Say Goodbye to Back Pain here:
http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Soup-Soul-Goodbye-ebook/dp/B006L99PKK

You can find out how to contribute to Chicken Soup for the Soul here:
 http://www.chickensoup.com/cs.asp?cid=guidelines

You can read the guidelines for Not Your Mother's Book, the new anthology for a new century,  here:
http://publishingsyndicate.com/publishing_syndicate/submissions/nymb_submit_guidelines.html

May Daze for Booklovers

Tonight I'll be at the Chewelah Golf and Country Club, signing books with my stories for a fundraiser for the Libraries of Stevens County Foundation. I'll be one of ten writers hoping to interest the general public in our wares.I've done readings before, at literary teas and other gatherings, and conducted workshops in writing for anthologies. But this Book Fair is my first official "book signing" event.

One of my late husband's old friends remarked that he'd known a writer in the '90s when the Chicken Soup for the Soul series was new, who packed suitcases full of books carrying his stories, and dragged them from one literary event to another.

"Must be hard work," he'd remarked. "Imagine having to hawk your books to pay the mortgage."

 Fortunately I've other sources of income to pay essentials, so don't have to depend on writing for anthologies for those basics. But I'm delighted to sign books and chatter with readers if it supports a good cause. I can't think of a better one that keeping our libraries open in these hard times. So I've filled my suitcase with copies of half a dozen recent Chicken Soup for the Soul titles, and will hope I've chosen wisely. I'm taking:

• Think Positive
• Grieving and Recovery
• Grandmothers
• Inspiration for the Young at Heart
• Say Hello to a Better Body
• Say Goodbye to Back Pain

The event will run from 6 to 8 pm, and includes a silent auction. I believe its a bodacious way to spend an early May evening!