a pelican in the wilderness,
an owl in the desert
(Psalm 102)
Month: December 2019
On our front door
An alternative to suburban sprawl
For a while, she yearns to live in a normal neighborhood, somewhere near the golf course, rather than in their family’s little compound between the courthouse square and the college campus.
In my novel What’s Left, her close-knit extended family revolves around a large pink Victorian house her great-grandparents purchased when the neighborhood was falling into decline. In Greek-American tradition, though, it was perfect for housing more than a nuclear family, plus any number of guests. Not just grandparents or great-grandparents, either, but siblings and their spouses and children. What a circus!
I can’t really imagine this in a typical suburb, though maybe a little further out on a farm. But then, in Cassia’s case, they’d be too far from the restaurant where they work.
I’m so glad they saved this from becoming a funeral parlor or law offices, aren’t you?
~*~
The neighborhood’s one thing. The homes within it, another.
What’s your favorite place in the house?
Northern cotton balls
Ten surefire gifts
Who are we trying to fool? Selecting the appropriate gift requires an uncanny understanding of the intended recipient, and even then and in the right hands, it’s highly risky.
The closest success in this field that I recall hearing involved a coworker who was at a unique point in his love life. He wound up buying three identical items at Victoria’s Secret. Need I explain? Things were quite different after Christmas.
And even then, not everyone would want to receive one of those wrapped intimacies.
So let’s think of ten factors to consider.
- Does the recipient already own this? Oops! How well do you know this person, anyway? Well enough to go through their shelves or closet?
- Or even want it? Not every woman likes getting flowers or chocolate. Not all that many guys do, either. As for kids?
- The dollar signs. Some people measure your affection by your willingness to shell out on a big gift. Others see it as trying to buy their love. Gift cards, by the way, often go unused. Retailers are not a charity. Don’t go overboard, OK?
- Is it a suitable surprise? One they might actually use? Your grandmother will likely be surprised by that box of golf balls but never set foot anywhere near a tee. Yard sales are full of these misfires, often still in their original wrappings.
- Does it say something about your relationship? Some of the best gifts are things you can enjoy together. Jigsaw puzzles, for example, can keep everyone going, especially during the holidays.
- Not everyone appreciates receiving a homemade present, but for others, it’s the ultimate. One friend’s woodworking skills are especially anticipated. Pie boxes, anyone?
- There’s something to be said for gifts that won’t take up space. Things you can eat or drink, for instance. Tickets to upcoming events. (In my part of the universe, few things would beat a pair of seats at a Red Sox-Yankees game.) Museum memberships or contributions to causes they support may also be welcome.
- Does it improve the quality of their life? My family has edged me upward in the digital world this way.
- Hobby gear. Think sports equipment, cooking gadgets, sewing supplies, arts and crafts, gardening, and so on.
- Dream fulfillment. Was there something they wanted as a child but never got?
What other considerations would you suggest?
Ol’ Blue Eye
If music’s the soul of Russia …
… the automobile’s the soul of America.
Countertop still life
Whatever ‘it’ is
As Nora Ephron once wrote in the New York Times Book Review, “Fiction is chance to rework your life so that you give illusion of being intelligence at center of it.”
I’d settle for being either somewhat intelligent or at center of it – either one.
How ’bout you?
Why tribe? As a poet once asked …
In my novel What’s Left, she has every reason to proclaim:
Nobody breathes a word about hippie. We’re simply ever so hip.
She and her brothers and cousins had their own style and direction, apart from whatever their parents had done. And the quip didn’t survive into the final version of the text.
Still, though, if you look to the time of the pivotal Woodstock music festival , you might ask if we were trying to be neo-mountain men or newly converted Amerindians or spaced-out yogis or cool Victorians (without the inhibitions) or liberated urbanites or … ? Well, a huge stream of historic inspiration fed into the movement, and we were willing to play with just about any wild expressive fashion.
What’s easily overlooked is how huge the role of the Gypsy – or, more correctly, Roma – was.
The very term Boho or Bohemian – as in Puccini’s opera, La Boheme, dealing with starving underground artists in Paris – has far more to do with the Roma than with any geographic region of eastern Europe. Even Brahms’ famous Hungarian Rhapsodies are code words for Gypsy violin music. As for Spanish flamenco? Ditto. Play your guitar, if you will, or dance wildly.
So underground artists are …? You got it.
And here, drafting and revising my novel I found myself forced to ask:
Why are they so widely romanticized?
And why are they so widely reviled?
As Cassia investigates her father’s reasons for moving into the extended family where she’s grown up, she digs far beyond his counterculture inclinations.
Well, for a hint, here’s something else I cut from the final version:
The scandals, according to Nita? I’m not going there. Not that any of it was bad, on the contrary. There’s just too much to delve into now. And then, despite herself, she does.
~*~
Like Cassia’s father, I did live in a rundown farm where we all split the rent. And like him, I later lived in a monastic setting, where ours was based on yoga and its Hindu writings rather than Buddhism.
Not all hippies veered off in those directions.
Have you ever wanted to live in a Gypsy wagon? How about a tree house?
Jnana's Red Barn 