Category: Thoughts and Reflections

A Conversation with my Family

I spent time with my family for the first time in over two years (longer in a couple of cases). COVID and distance kept me away from them; time passed faster than I noticed. But here I am in my hometown, catching up with my family.

My family, for the most part, talks a lot. Much of our communication manifests itself in storytelling. Seldom does someone ask a leading question like “How was your hotel?”, although those happen, particularly from the men in the family (outnumbered by females.) We tell our business through stories, we relate to each other through stories.

My older niece Robyn pointed out that the meaning and context of words is very important to our family. She’s right; we pay attention to these things and pride ourselves on the use of words. It would be understandable to think we’re a college-educated family, yet I am the only one who has gone to college.

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As an illustration, Robyn launched into a discussion of swear words and what they mean in context. In a church-run coffee shop, with judicious use of the F-word. (I thought we would get thrown out of the place because the owners didn’t understand that F*ck meant different things in different contexts.) My niece Rachel expressed her preference for non-swearing creative phrases. As she is an artist, this is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that Robyn, who plays on a co-ed hockey team, dropped an approximate 18 F-bombs. My F-bomb use was limited to six or eight.

The introverts in the family (my dad and sister) ask questions and impart information. I suspect they despair at getting a word in edgewise. My husband is also an introvert, and he sits in the corner and interjects things so that nobody can hear him over the loud conversation. I thought I’d become an introvert in my old age, but if I can hold my own in my family, I figure I must be an extrovert still.

I find myself tired after a conversation with my family. Stretching back into our histories, slipping into challenge, playing with words, putting forth ideas — all that invigoration takes a toll on me. But I’m spoiled with conversation like this, so I have to get it when I can.

Moulage, or How to Make Volunteers into Victims.

Sorry I haven’t written lately, but I spent the last two days riding cross-country in a van in order to spend three days making volunteers into victims. It’s New York Hope time again, and my skill set in moulage gets a workout at a disaster training center nicknamed “Disaster Disneyland”.

I don’t have any pictures to post because they’re just too gory. For example, a long gash down one’s arm with plenty of blood. Or a broken leg with the bone sticking out. A crush injury with lots of bruising. That kind of thing. No burns on this round, but those are fun to make too. We make the injuries with wax and paints and gel and prop impalements.

Not a real burn.

What do we do with the made-up victims? We train them to emulate victims in a big exercise where emergency and disaster management students work in teams to search and rescue in various habitats, triage, and provide basic first aid. We want to make this as believable as possible, so we have the volunteer role-players.

I do two major exercises a year, this one here in upstate New York, and one in Maryville where I live. I also do some smaller exercises like the docudrama in Savannah this year.

This is something I live for, a hobby that means something, and appeals to my creative side.

Wouldn’t you like being made up as an injury victim?

As the End of the Summer Approaches …

I can feel the end of the summer. The County Fair is over, the weather is boiling, and I’ve done all my digital setup for the fall semester. I always do it early, according to my Facebook posts from years past, mostly to prepare myself for the fact that my days will be fuller and more carefree, and there will not be nearly as much free time to write.

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School starts August 17, less than a month from now. Meetings start a week before that, and there will (hopefully) be a beginning-of-semester cookout for faculty and staff which represents the beginning of the semester more than any ritual could.

What have I accomplished? I’m a quarter of the way through one book, an eighth of the way through another, and I don’t know which one to write. I have finalized It Takes Two to Kringle, which is waiting only for some last minute putting together before I submit it to Kindle. I have edited an old but (in my opinion) outstanding book called Prodigies, which I hope to send off to agents soon. I neglected my garden again. I relaxed.

Life is good and I passed through the summer doldrums without much damage. Soon I will go through the beginning of semester highs (If this sounds like bipolar, it is, sort of). But it’s my cycle of the year and I will do my best to meet it.

Blessings in Disguise

I have a tendency to feel rejections keenly, thinking that they are a personal judgment of me. But what if they’re blessings? What if they’re there to keep me from really embarrassing myself with a mediocre (or worse) submission?

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I’ve been going over old works I have written. I’ve written so many half-developed character sketches that aren’t stories, so many poems of the same, with no hook. Novels with plot twists that became deal-breakers.

I’m not a poor writer, but I want to be a better one. I want to be accepted for publication more often. Someday I want to have a novel professionally published. This won’t start happening unless I see these rejections as blessings in disguise. (Or even if I do, I suppose, but I’d like to be optimistic.)

Some Days We’re Not So Lucky

This errand trip is zero for three so far.

First errand: Get the car bra replaced on our ’09 Honda Fit. I don’t know why the car needs a bra, having no breasts, but there you go. We’re waiting for the dealership to call back. The dealership hasn’t called back.

Second errand: Get a digital picture for online application for passports. Walgreens takes passport pictures. They do not take digital passport pictures because there’s no such thing. So much for experimental government programs and red tape.

Third errand (current): Go to coffee and write. The atmosphere is fine, with its rough brick and floor tile and surplus of wood. The coffee is too acidic for me, as is every coffee I get here, which tells me their brewing parameters are off. For me to reject a coffee is strange; in consolation, I ate half a honey lavender bar. So there’s writing, but no coffee.

Fourth errand: I hope this errand goes better. There’s now an Asian food market in town. That might go well, if by well one means purchasing half the store. I cook Thai food enthusiastically, Indian vegetarian food casually, and Chinese food lackadaisically. I have a goal of picking up a package of frozen durian to make a durian custard over sticky rice, and some cans of curry paste, and some seaweed, and maybe some vegetarian chow mein, and some Thai eggplants, and … good news! They’re open today!

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So I guess 1 out of 4 isn’t bad.

In Defense of Ugly Days

Can I compare thee to a summer’s day?

This day does not belong in a love sonnet. The skies are a mid slate-grey; the air is so humid it feels like I could wring a cup of water out of it; and I am underwhelmed by a scenery dominated by weeds.

Today is not a beautiful day by any measure of “beautiful” unless there is something in it to attract hydrologists. But I find something about it appealing.

This day is my inner child

Somewhere at home I have a stuffed toy whose fur sticks up in every direction and has a googly eyed smile. (See below) This is how I envision my inner child, so homely it’s delightful, ingratiating, happy.

Today is like my inner child. Nobody would seek it out or list it among their best days of summer. Yet I sat on the porch swing earlier, feeling attuned to the endless clouds and the slight breeze. Smudged nose, scraped knees, unkempt day. My inner child mirrored in the day.

Learn to love the imperfect

I am reminded to love the imperfect. The gloomy summer’s day, the homely stuffed toy, the scruffy child. They have their own appeal.

Contempt

What the overturning of Roe vs Wade comes down to — not protecting the unborn, not improving the supply of children to adopt, not any moral stance.

It comes to contempt of women. “How dare you sleep with me!” the voice demands of a woman, as if he did not sleep with her. “I should punish you for this transgression.” It is contempt for women that extends back to the tales that became the basis for the Garden of Eden.

I, for one, am tired of the contempt. And angry. I am angry.

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I am not alone. Women are angry because of being marinated in this contempt all our lives. You, the individual man reading this essay, may not be one of the guilty parties. Women are still subjected to contempt as a low simmer.

I am hopeful of my anger. Compliance has not solved the problem — in fact, it increases the contempt I am exposed to. Maybe my anger will clear the way for resolution — or maybe it will foment a fight. Either way, I will feel the power of facing the contempt.

Action = Opposite Reaction

Actions might have unexpected results that are the opposite of the intended results. Milton Friedman, renowned neoclassical economist, would say that the unexpected results would be probabilities, not possibilities.

Romania tried the “no birth control, no abortions” laws (and Clarence Thomas has signaled for birth control to be on the axing agenda). Even with the threat of death, birthrates did not go up. Romania couldn’t legislate birth. The fear of raising a child in an oligarchy prevailed over the fear of death.

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China legislated a one-child policy. This led to a nation of unacknowledged daughters in the country and a shortage of females. Matrimony is a woman’s market; men are finding themselves short of money to captivate a woman’s heart. An unintended consequence.

In the US, angry voters who feel disenfranchised will overwhelm the gerrymandered conservatives. People vote for the status quo unless it sneaks forward to destroy the rights they have become used to, and then they will fight back. More people will vote, having an issue to fight for. Anti-choice states like Missouri may lose much of their populations, which will lose House seats. Companies may boycott Missouri, losing much of its revenue.

Maybe this will lead to National Healthcare, to stymie all those who want to box children and families into an impoverished circle. The grass roots women’s networks will exist again. Women will fight together. We may even see the Equal Rights Amendment passed.

All the tense “good faith” of politicians has crumbled. From this, although I grieve, good things can begin.

On a Trip to Kansas City as a Writer

Why am I in KC?

I’m on an internship trip overnight, getting some away time in. I saw three interns yesterday, and will see another this morning. It’s part of the job of being their internship director. It’s fun seeing where my students are working.

I’m thinking about writing as I sit in a coffeehouse (Opera House KC) waiting for one of my favorite stores to open. I need some spices at Planters, and to look at gardening gadgets. I will also shop for Asian foods and eat Ethiopian for lunch. Life is good.

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Thinking about writing

As I think and drink lavender latte, I realize that, for me, thinking about writing isn’t thinking. It’s more like a sense of interest that envelops me, and I feel like following that interest in writing. Maybe that’s been my problem, thinking that thinking about writing was what I needed. No, I need to be a writer and follow that up with what I need to do to write.

It sounds bogus. First, be a writer; second, write. It’s not, in a way I have trouble explaining.

But it’s that way.