Symbiosis

If I’m enthralled with bookstores, my significant other has a grocery store fascination. Unlike some husbands, he enjoys shopping and will agreeably spend hours in the aisles, comparing prices with or without the application of coupons, checking point of origin and size of cans. When he’s feeling low because the Packers have failed him again, we can perk him up with a trip to the grocery store.

Our family stories are twined with where we found the dinner entrée or the dessert; our road trips involve unique grocery stores and small town specialty markets. Where did we find the beef sticks? Which dairy produced that cheese?

All this creates another marvelously symbiotic part of our relationship. I don’t need to plan ahead, or even act responsibly. When I discover that I’m 10 eggs short because I’ve suddenly decided that today is the day to bake fruitcake, he will putdown the tv remote and head off to the store for a dozen (Phil’s cage free. Laid in nests). If the boys are coming to work on a building project and have lunch, he will get their favorite hot dogs (Usinger’s, all meat, ¼# each) before we assemble the cedar or the tools.

This is Wisconsin-Minnesota. We build celebrations and relationships at the table: eating, sharing stories. Listening to each other. Food is love, my grandma used to say. Guy and Julie’s visit is friendship and laughter. It is also apricot Hamantaschen, Groppi’s deli salad, marinated olives, and salami-onion-cheese cubes from Sendik’s. It is asparagus wrapped in specially cured bacon and broiled. It is pots of Berres brothers coffee and books and talk. “Try a little of this.” Tina’s visits are Greek foods; Dick and Millie’s, a choice piece of beef; Deone’s sugar cookies with fondant. There are foods for holidays, old recipes and new experiments. Gran was right: food is love. Love is also someone taking time from the middle of a football game to go to the grocery store.

Giving

We move into the holidays with gifts for others; we come through the holidays with our eyes on the future and our resolutions focused on new: new times, new year, new plans: gifts for those around us, gifts to ourselves.

Teaching overflows with gifts, often comments made by students that illuminate life far beyond the required readings. During one of our discussions, Lori commented, “There’s always that tug of ‘Do what you want,’ versus responsibility, ‘Do what you gotta do.’” We nodded in acquiescence, and I used Lori’s comment at the top of the exam page, and ideas about her comment in the exam directions:
Consider the four major readings of this semester: Othello, The Metamorphosis, The Glass Menagerie, and Neighbour Rosicky. Select one character from each reading. Discuss the character’s most significant decision and its consequences – for the character, other characters in the play, the play/story, the reader. Are the decisions of these characters what they want to do, what they believe they must do, what they are forced by others to do? Explain. Support your thesis.

There were many exams (aren’t there always); from those many a few stood out. Jody’s concluding comments stayed with me:
“Rosicky is a good, honest man. Plain and simple. His decisions are based on what he wants to do. All of his decisions are based on what he should do. There is no separation of the two. He does not have a conflict this way. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be a little more like Rosicky? Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had a Rosicky in our life? He does die at the end of the story, which is sad. However, we are all going to die someday. Rosicky makes sure everything is taken care of for everyone. He did what he had to, which is exactly what he wanted to.
“In conclusion, I believe we are defined by our actions in life. Some of the characters’ decisions were based on what they should do, while others were solely based on what they wanted to do. One was lucky enough to have both.”

During the holidays and the coming year, may our shoulds and our wants coalesce beautifully, in love and caring. May the peace of Anton Rosicky’s love for his family and his life; the selfless sacrifice and commitment of Gregor Samsa; the creativity of the Wingfield family; and the willingness to love and pursue dreams shown in the characters in Othello bless us all. Peace.

The Cigarette Depot Acts of God Bible Ministry Church - excerpt

This is an excerpt from a novel....

Mary Magdalene: Sweet Reason

Everybody had a reason for being at Mo’s that December Friday night, with dark slush sifting across sidewalks and into coat collars outside, and fish and grease smells clinging to anything inside the bar.
Mine wasn’t as good as most, but after three hours of dark sidewalks with no customers, no traffic, and no halt to the snow, I hunched myself out of a doorway, and trundled into Mo’s. When you’ve forgotten to watch the weather forecast, decided to wear a leather skirt and your black patent leather shoes (recently resoled), it’s better to safeguard your investments than wait on a man who's not coming.
Cigarette haze hung pink and the speckled Hamms sun revolved eternally across blue lake and green trees. Mo had the music turned up high and the heat on medium. Dim humps leaned over their barstools. In one corner poker players slapped cards between themselves, and elbowed the beer bottles dividing them. Couples nursed drinks and grudges. The table by the door had one customer and an empty chair.
Lucky break, I thought, a dry customer. But when I slid onto the chair and tilted my head into a smile, I saw it was George.
“Oh. You.” I told him, taking back the smile.
“Hi, Toots. How’s it going?”
“Lousy. Snow, dark, cold. People have money to spend on Christmas presents, but none on me. At this rate I can’t make the rent, much less pay for my shoes.” I lifted one foot so George could see the resoling job.
“Nice. You know if you keep your leg up like that, you could get muscle cramps.”
“Yeah, well, I was hoping that maybe one of them guys would notice, and you know ... maybe.”
“Them guys at the poker game are duking it out over the cards. Have been since saaay, seven or so.”
“Maybe the ones at the bar?”
“They’re too busy drinking. You don’t want to mess with a drunk.”
Drunk men don’t pinch or bite like mean men, but their fogged clumsiness, coupled with their misplaced chuckles can be just as painful. I don’t know which are worse: mean men or drunks, but it’s probably whichever I’m with. “How drunk?”
“So drunk that even I might look good to them.” George shuddered and drew a circle on the table with his forefinger.
“That’s tough, George.”
“Yeah, I know.”
We sat quietly except for George’s offer of shared beer, and my nod of refusal. “I don’t
drink on the job.” George bent his head inside his coat collar. I tried to keep the conversation going. “So I’m not working because there’s no customers. Why aren’t you working tonight?”
He held up the hand that had been hidden in his lap. “See? I was trying to open a trunk last night and the blade slipped: cut me right across the knuckles.”
“Looks like it hurt.”
“Isn’t the first time, but I thought I would lay off for a day. Business is okay, and it’s going to pick up before Christmas.”
“What’s hot this year?”
“Easier to tell you what’s not: Slot Derby. Everybody’s getting their kid Slot Derby. So many stolen Slot Derby cassettes, they’re not worth anything. What a shame: Millions of kids all
going to grow up alike from playing the same game.” George lifted his hands in resignation, then tucked a small smile into the corner of his chin. “Game controllers are good. Purses. The darndest thing: TV runs a spot on shoplifting, so women are locking their purse in the trunk. Just take their wallet into the shopping center. Sometimes, though, they forget the wallet in the purse. You know: they’re used to taking everything, and they lock the purse in the trunk, but they forget they left the money in the purse.”
“I got it George.”
“I guess it’s because those purses are so big, you know: you lose stuff in your purse. Why do women carry such big purses anyway?”
“So we can use them to hit guys in their nuts when they get fresh.”
“Does it work?”
“I don’t do that any more, so I can’t tell you. I guess so.”
George sighed and let his slow smile slide across the tabletop. “When you do carry your big or small purse, be sure you don’t lose your purse in your car trunk.”
“I don’t have a car anymore. One of the things I gave up with my ex husband. He took that too.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not so bad. Once you get used to it.”
“Yeah. Well. If you ever decide to get one, let me know. I can tell you about thievery and how to keep your car safe.”
“Thanks, George.”
“Hit me!” one of the card players yelled.
“Quiet over there in the corner,” Mo shouted back. “You want another round?”
The poker players hunched over their fists, ignoring us, so we could look at them. One was Hal Martin, one was Pete Tiesel, and there were three others. Pete’s okay. He’s predictable. I’ve never seen him without two-day-old whiskers, his navy cap, or his white T-shirt. His belly has the same circumference as Dolly Parton’s chest. Pete’s wife Laura, who’s built the same as Pete, wears curlers and stirrup pants to the grocery store. They got married just out of high school when Laura was pregnant. My cousin Tracy went to the wedding fifteen years ago. Now, Laura goes shopping at K Mart for excitement, and Pete comes over to Mo’s for cards. K Mart was past closed, but Pete apparently hadn’t wanted to go home. Pete’s loud, but he’s okay. Martin’s mean: his wife left him, and other than beer drinking or spitting contests, the card table was about the only place people tolerated him.
“And you’re a crook!” one of the poker players yelled, slamming his palm across the table. “I seen what you’ve been doing all night.”
“I don’t cheat.”
“I saw you cheat.”
“All this over a two dollar bet,” George murmured. “What some people do to amuse themselves.”
“Looks like it’s going to get nasty.”
The second man said something fast and low, something so dark that the first man, the shouter, rushed upward, tipping his chair with a clatter. “You son of a bitch!”
“Your mother!”
“Look out,” George mumbled, leaning closer so his words stirred my coat collar. “Here it comes.”
Three of the poker players shoved their chairs from the table, balling their fists against its edge. Tiesel leaned over the table jabbing his thumb toward Hal. “Double crossing son of a bitch liar!” he screamed. His swing overbalanced his body and for longer than it took George to pull the collar on his coat higher, Pete grabbed air.
Hal stood high and still. The Hamms light slid green across his forehead. He laughed from his belly.
“Watch it!” George snapped his head backward. A beer bottle missed Pete’s throat and slammed into the floor.
We could hear sirens, faint, but rising, whining higher. “That’s the Doppler effect,” George pointed out, leaning across the table to thrust his voice under shouts of encouragement from the other card players. “You know, just like weather radar when they show those blue and green patches on the television screen.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You know how sirens sound different when you’re driving and the cop car passes you?”
Normally they stopped for me, but I nodded.
“It’s the same thing. You’re traveling toward them, and they’re traveling toward you and the distance is always changing, getting closer. And then both of you are right there, and you
wait, sort of hoping you don’t get seen.”
“Yeah.”
“And then the cop car goes on, and the sound changes again.” George flickered one hand triumphantly.
“Usually I’m just so happy it goes past I don’t listen to the sound.”
“Yeah. I know how that is. But if you know how the Doppler works, you can slow down just before the cop gets there. Use your reasoning. Sort of become invisible.”
Hal slammed a fist into Pete’s stomach. Pete was so surprised he bit the tongue that was sticking out the corner of his mouth that he was using to concentrate on. Blood leaked down his mouth corner, and his eyes opened wide. “Look what you made me do!” His knuckles
walloped into Hal’s stomach thudded flat, like somebody pounding meat across a cutting board.
“This isn’t going to end soon,” George said. “I think they forgot about the cops.”
“You’re saying we better get out of here.”
“Unless you want to test the invisible Doppler effect.”
“Not tonight.”
We ended up at my place, where George excavated a plate dried to tomato sauce from the sink and began scrubbing it. I grabbed one of those crocheted knot dishrags and rubbed it across the table. “Like this,” George said, taking the cloth and kneading the table. “Do you have any bleach?”
“Under the sink.”
Bleach ran colorless and pungent across the tabletop, welling in cracks and dents. “Like this,” George grunted, leaning his arm into the rag so from the wrist to the shoulder he was one straight line. “My ma taught me this. Keeps the germs out.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I put away the clean dishes while George gave the kitchen sink his bleach treatment. Then I made a pot of tea, and we sat on chairs at the living room window with our hands around the blue flowered tea cups my former mother-in-law had given me as a wedding present, watching the snow turn to pink and grey slush under the streetlights. Other than the wandering
spit of car tires, the world was quiet.
“Nice,” said George finally. “Peaceful. No dirty car trunks. Good company.”
“Thanks, George.”
“No, it’s true.” Then he saluted me with the teacup, drank the last swallow of liquid, and washed his teacup before he walked down the stairs. His shadow in pale grey snow walked like any man’s going home from a night's work.
For a while longer I watched the snow as it sunk heavily into itself. Then I went to bed.
It was a good evening. I didn’t earn the rent money, but I didn’t have to bail myself out of jail. And I didn’t get the shoes wet or a run in my almost-new black stockings, either.

How I Write

On little pieces of paper, left on the kitchen table, the dining room table, the computer table, the hallway, the breakfast bar: bits of paper which sometimes remind me of that crucial idea and sometimes are stolen and gobbled by the dog.

In segmented choices, so the flow of words is not stopped/interrupted/halted/faltering/xxxxx. It’s much easier to go back / change the words in the editing phase than it is to figure out/attempt to figure out/decide/evaluate which words are the best/most inspiring/clearest/best communicate while I am writing. Editing while creating does not work.

Stealing time. Dishes clean up better after they soak for half an hour (when I sit down at the computer to record an idea mid-way through the pots and pans). I don’t mind getting up half an hour earlier (before the rest of the house needs me) to have composing time. Accepting help from others. (Thank you for taking that burned food off the stove: who would have thought that the one minute I needed to write something down would turn into twenty, as the scene in the story grew and the rice in that pot boiled over in revenge).

Searching for inspiration, that idea which will make the writing incandescent. I want to be caught up in the ideas. I want the words to flow. I want people to “get” what I mean. I want them to feel and see the scenes I create.

In awe of what others have done. James filled notebooks with his ideas for writing; Leonardo wrote his famous notebooks; writers keep journals. Ransome wrote that he needed to write the Swallows and Amazons story. His note was, “It wrote itself.” So many words, so many ideas. So much raw material.

With editing. Judy said, “I can’t see the stairway,” when I wrote about the library of TerraeAndrae. I could – but then I can conduct complete conversations in my mind. I rewrote the stairway scene, and Judy reread: she could see the grey stone steps, lit through stained glass windows.

With humor. With attention to detail. Thinking of my audience. Being true to my vision.

With others. Researching new fields is one of the joys of writing. When I write about the cop’s experiences, I work with a cop. The story is not only more realistic, it’s better because I see the characters through his eyes. When I write about medical situations, I ask a doctor, “What do you call this injury?” or “How would you diagnose?” When my characters are insane, I go to a psychiatrist for help in diagnosing. I hunt for books and people: Tiffany lamps; guides to the stars; Calculus made Easy (it wasn’t); The Writer’s Guide to Character Traits; Will’s methods on burying a body; Greg’s science; Kent’s theories on magic.

As much as I can. The more I write, the better I am able to write. I can look at what I wrote yesterday or last year and think, ‘I can do better.’ I could not do better if I did not practice.