goldenhills, an introduction

Mom used to read all the time. Now she occasionally reads the exit sign. Or part of the menu printed on the whiteboard next to the kitchen. She’s forgetting how to read. She’s forgetting how to walk. She’s forgetting how to feed herself. But she still looks at us with the love that is inside of her, at least some of the time. She takes my face in her hands and kisses my cheek. Sometimes. And other times she’s angry and she hits. She’s often loud. She’s more and less of the woman who raised me with saintly devotion.

She lives at Goldenhills now. She needs attention every moment of every day. They have taken us all in, not just Mom, into their family. Our new family grows and shrinks, grows and shrinks. Right now our family is the cowboy and the happy lady (they’re an item), the knitter, the moaner and the opinionated one (they’re an item too, even when his wife is visiting), the one with the big eyes, the bossy teacher/nurse (it depends on the moment), the kissing lady, the runner (they found her in the next town once), the fbi. The spicy one is gone. The conductor is gone. The man who wore his belt backwards is gone. The lady who walked and walked and walked is gone.

One day Mom will go too and I’ll have to deal with that final loss and the loss of my Goldenhills family. In the meantime it’s a very touching, a very funny family. They love me, even though they can’t remember my name. They tell me I should be a movie star. I’m sure each one of them would have wonderful stories to tell if they could remember them. But since they can’t, they create new stories every day. Every moment. They meet one another over and over. They have conversations using sounds that don’t make words and they smile and commiserate. They hug and kiss and they argue.

It’s just like life outside of Goldenhills but magnified and shrunk down all at the same time. It’s more and less of life before alzheimer’s. I like being there and when I’m not there I like thinking about being there and writing about being there. You may hear about it a lot if you choose to.

it is Titanic cold…

Yesterday was a Titanic day and it’s been Titanic cold here in northern ca.  We saw the Titanic exhibit then rented the movie (not the real one, the Leo diCaprio one) which is very long, by the way, and today I am tired and cold.  And images of people bouncing off giant rudders and into foamy waves are rolling around in my head along with the frozen icicle haired people gently holding their no longer cooing babies.  Bless their little unfrozen hearts, both my kids now want to see the “real” movie.  You know, Mommy, the one with people who were really on the boat.

I’m reading “A Night to Remember” by Walter Lord which is about the real people.  If you have interest in the story, not just the facts, of the people on board that famous boat, this is a great book.  It was written in the fifties, long before the wreck was found (1985 I think).  The story is based on hundreds of interviews that the author did with survivors.  It reads like a novel, although you don’t follow just one person through the story.  You bounce from person to person, situation to situation on all of the various decks from first class down to third.  Between the book and the exhibition, I’ve learned all kinds of interesting facts:

sos was first used to call for help by the Titanic.

the saying “and the band played on” probably came from that fateful night.  The musicians on the ship played until the boat sank, taking them down with it.

the Unsinkable Molly Brown kicked some upper class butt in her lifeboat, getting the ladies to “row, row, row”.

salt water freezes at a lower temperature than ice, so the water that people floated in once off the boat was colder than the iceberg itself.

most people who survived the sinking, but were not in lifeboats, only lasted about twenty minutes in the freezing water.  The longest survivor in the water was a man who had been drinking all night.  He lasted over two hours.  My son (he’s seven) says that if we ever take him on a cruise he’ll stay drunk the whole time.  Possibly a good reason not to take him on a cruise….

partial full disclosure

I don’t tell anyone (until now), but sometimes I listen to a very conservative talk radio show.  I spend a lot of time alone in my car and probably should listen to classical music or NPR all the time.  I do listen to them, too.  And sometimes the more centrist talk radio.  And sometimes rock and roll.  But this one conservative show sucks me in like bad tv. People call in to ask the host for her solutions to their problems.  I won’t mention her name because I don’t want to give her any play.  But she believes that the “morals and ethics” she spouts are the only ones that exist.  She apparently doesn’t realize that morals and ethics are culture driven, not determined on a cellular level.  Occasionally I don’t disagree with her responses.  But only when the questions involve some aspect of personal relationships or raising children.  I don’t agree with her positions on almost everything.  So I yell a lot.

I have no sympathy for the schmucks who call in to ask her advice.  For heaven’s sake, if you have a real problem are you going to call someone on the radio and ask for help?  Especially someone who will likely yell at you and insult you?  But they do.  It’s like listening to a train wreck.  I like to listen to the caller explain his or her problem then guess at the tone the response will take.  I’m nearly always right.  But I have to be careful.  Sometimes, in my real life, I find myself wondering what her response might be to one of my dilemmas.  Then I try to justify taking the opposite course.  That’s when I realize that I’ve got to take a break.  I don’t want her voice influencing my life.  I know better.  It’s my life.

Now I just need to find some literary use for her verbal onslaughts. 

stop saying I

It’s late and very much time to turn out the lights, but all of your fabulous, and some not so fabulous (like I’m any sort of critic), blogs keep pulling me in.  But if you don’t mind, and maybe you will but that’s okay, can I gripe just a moment?  The blogs that bore are the ones that begin most sentences, and every paragraph anyway, with the word “I”.  Didn’t we all learn in high school english classes not to begin every sentence with “I”?  There’s nearly always a better way.

Gripe over. 

who are those people?

One of my many chores is going through all of the digital photos I’ve downloaded onto my computer, printing them and putting them in some sort of order.  Unfortunately my artistic talent doesn’t always translate into fabulous photos.  I’ve got some amazing foreground pictures with all kinds of weirdness in the background or off to the side of whatever I found interesting.  Very often I get a shot of people I don’t know taking up more of the frame than the ones I do know.  So what to do?  Toss them?  Oh no.  First of all, I toss very little.  It can all be used for something.  I might need it someday.  My favorite thing to do with those odd pictures is to make up stories about whatever I didn’t intend to take.

story writing exercise:  Find a photo or a picture in a magazine or on the internet that includes people that you don’t know.  Write their story….do they know each other?  are they friends or lovers?  enemies maybe?  will they meet?  is one of them a criminal?  are they brothers who’ve never met?  Write in enough detail so that your reader can see the people without ever seeing the photo.

write a birthday letter

I’m not one of those people who sends out birthday cards on time to everyone I care about.  It’s not an indication of my level of caring.  There have been times, lots of them, when I’ve tried to be that person.  I usually make it through about the third week of January.  Then the cards begin to arrive a week or two late.  Then I finally give up and stop sending them all together and just make a phone call.  I don’t think I’ve ever sent out a November birthday card, except to my niece who is a special exception.  And her card is usually late.

 I do have one friend, though, that I send a birthday letter.  We have been friends for many years.  Now we live in different countries.  Her birthday is New Year’s Eve.  I just began her letter today.  It usually takes me a few days to write the whole letter.  It’s long and juicy and does its best to lessen the miles between us.  This is the way she gets to meet my children and my husband.  This is the way she gets to see my home.  And in this incredible technical age, I handwrite this one letter.  It’s a sentimental thing.  This way she gets to touch the same page that I’ve touched.

letter writing exercise:  Choose someone you care about whose birthday is soon and write them a long letter.  You can stick it in a birthday card if you need to.  If this is a literary exercise for you, create two characters and have one of them write a birthday letter to the other.  Maybe two characters that you’ve written about before but in separate stories.  Check out rivertrout.com for some inspiring literary letters.

 I’d like to begin to post your exercises on my blog.  Feel free to send me your write.

My first real post….am I getting it?

Writing prompts can be a word or a thought.  Some of the most interesting prompts can be found in the subject line of spam email.  Who thinks of these things?  Not that I’m recommending spam as an entrance into great literature, but it can spur the mind in interesting directions.  Have a look at your junk mail before you delete it next time.  Then, for ten minutes, empty your mind and write whatever comes into your head.  Use a timer.  If nothing else it will clear out all of the garbage that would have ended up in your great american novel had you not taken the time to dispose of it.  If you like, share it with the rest of us.  Writes can be anything, comments only positive.

I’ll go first…”something’s burning” was the prompt.

She’s sitting alone.  Her cigarette between her first and second finger, floating a foot above the table.  Her fingernails are perfect.  Perfectly manicured.  Perfectly pink.  There is no nicotine stain.  She doesn’t smoke often.  She is trying to create an impression.  And she doesn’t really like to smoke.  He can tell.  She rarely inhales and when she drops her hand to flick her ashes they tumble sideways out of the ashtray onto the old linoleum floor.  Finally the cigarette burns down and she stubs it clumsily, looking out cautiously from under her blackened lashes.

She sees him watching her.  Looks away.  Maybe relief crosses her brow as she lifts her coffee cup and sips.  Finally the cigarette is done and she can go back to her real vice.  He gets up and walks toward her table.  He has to turn sideways to avoid the woman’s purse at the table next to hers.  He’s going to the restroom.  He turns toward her.  Her hand is resting next to her coffee cup at the edge of the table.  She feels the rough fabric of his jeans brush her knuckles.  She doesn’t look up.  Her other hand slides quietly under the table and rests in her lap.  Her fingertips brush the top of her thighs.