A little profusion
When home is almost a castle
In my novel What’s Left, the home life of Cassia’s extended close-knit family revolves around a large Victorian house they call Big Pink. It’s just a block away from their restaurant, and sometimes it’s hard to count just how many generations and their guests are living within it.
~*~
This passage, though, didn’t quite fit on their plates:
Baba tells us of a dorm buddy who once bandied about the idea of taking an old house and serving intimate dinners in the various rooms. Be like eating in somebody’s private home, he’d said.
Well, Dimitri says, we have this imposing but monstrous citadel in our project. (Meaning Big Pink.) We could move the restaurant right here, but I rather like it as the center of something better. He reaches for a piece of paper and hands it to Baba.
See, if we enclose the porch, like this, and put a grill in here … uh-huh, they grin as Baba pencils in this creation. An entryway here. Steps leading up to an enlarged dining room, which goes here. The kitchen, you see, builds into this area, and …
Oh, I’m so glad she stopped talking like this! In the final version, she’s pretty snippy and Big Pink remains filled with children.
~*~
As I’ve learned the hard way, old houses demand a lot of repair and maintenance. One like Big Pink could be a full-time job. Fortunately, Cassia’s great-grandfather Ilias left his imprint, and some of her cousins follow suit.
Traveling about, it’s always fun to look at different kinds of dwellings, especially where people have made their signature marks.
Tell me what you’d most want as your dream house.
A spotlight for new talent
In the years after World War II, many older neighborhoods fell into neglect as home buyers and developers fled for the suburbs. You could buy up in-town properties for a song in some places – districts that have now become quite trendy, even chic, especially when gentrification takes place.
In my novel What’s Left, her great-grandfather quietly snapped up many of the sites around the family restaurant – storefronts and offices, old houses and apartments – and, as a result, added real estate rentals and leasing to the family business. He saw the ‘hood as his own urban village, one he nicknamed Mount Olympus.
One of its anchors was a big pink Victorian house with the witch’s hat turret, the imposing dwelling that became the family headquarters a block away from the restaurant. At the time, it would have been more destined to become a funeral home or law offices or a flophouse than a revived mansion. It was too large for the typical nuclear family, and developers would have deemed needed renovations and maintenance too costly for the existing market. If it sat a few blocks closer to the hospital, it might have found use as medical suites.
So Cassia’s family’s timing was right. Victorian came back into style, in part as a reflection of hippie style.
Another twist in the story involves the building next door, an old white-frame church her uncle buys up on a whim. Apart from its location, there was little to support the decision as a business move. Another uncle, in fact, wanted to see the money used for a more promising development – there was a no-brainer payoff in that option.
When I introduced the church to the story, I had no idea where it would fit. Would it become the Tibetan institute Cassia’s father was helping establish? Or a hippie hangout of some sort? Or an underground theater? So it kind of sat there for a while, largely as the kids’ indoor playground, probably sapping up money that could have gone elsewhere.
And then it took off on its own, in part inspired by tales I heard of another restaurant and its live music influence. But that one was in a big city and was set in an old movie theater where the staff would party in the balcony.
What would you eat in Kittery Foreside?
Kittery, Maine, is a few miles downstream from where I live. It’s also across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, which is loaded with eateries – maybe as many per capita as Manhattan.
For much of its existence, Kittery has been pretty blue-collar. It’s home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard – the U.S. Navy’s oldest continuously operating yard – and now tasked with the upkeep of nuclear submarines. It’s also home to a lot of lobstermen.
When I first came to New Hampshire, the Kittery Grange Hall was the scene of a monthly contradance – both the grange and the event now ancient history.
Oh, yes, and its strip of discount outlet stores along U.S. 1 is a major tourist attraction. Seriously. As is the adjacent sprawling Kittery Trading Post.
But with Portsmouth booming and the cost of its retail space skyrocketing, Kittery has been undergoing a transformation. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Wallingford Square, which used to be a gritty cluster of bars around one of the shipyard’s two gates. Today it’s been rechristened Kittery Foreside and is the center of some enterprising fine dining and food sellers.
Here’s what you’ll find.
- Anneke Jans. Upscale trendy dining with a devoted following. It’s the culinary anchor.
- Rudders Public House. Specialty: Kittery Fried Chicken.
- Lil’ s Café. Crulers, anyone?
- AJ Wood Grill Pizza. Get the picture?
- Anju Noodle Bar. For that Asian touch.
- Wallingford Dram. Artisan cocktails in “that walk-in closet, timeless gem of a bar,” as one critic describes it.
- The Black Perch. Duck-gravy laden pontine.
- Festina Lente. Rustic Italian.
- Authentic India. As it says.
- Tributary Brewing Company.
~*~
Nearby is the Beach Pea bakery, the best baguettes around, and Loco Coco’s Tacos, with its wonderful fine Mexican cuisine.
Pole beans
Kinisi 9
Community. Vision. Hard labor.
Morris men in a ring at the autumn equinox
Ten threats to the hippie vision
When I first started to reflect on his, I was inclined to cite the obvious big forces – the superrich, their military-industrial-financial complex, and a host of similar drains on the common good. I’ll let Bernie Sanders carry that side of the argument for now.
Instead, I’m thinking of some of the themes that play out in my novels Daffodil Uprising and Pit-a-Pat High Jinks.
- Individualism. The do-your-own-thing outlook had its upside, but it also dampened our ability to come together for sustained work toward shared goals. Ultimately, it lessened our common identity. Like Kenzie’s housemates at the farm, finding much common ground could be elusive.
- Fuzzy goals. Knowing what we were against, often fueled by anger, was rarely balanced by knowing what we were for – nobody had a clear idea of how to go to the better world we sensed was possible. Lifting the draft, for instance, was only one step toward making a more peaceful world. And not wanting to have a marriage or a job like those our parents endured wasn’t the same as raising children in a new way or running a small-is-beautiful successful business.
- Disrespect for labor. Yes, I know the “lazy hippie” slur, but I did see a lot of effort put forth, too. An expectation of something for nothing, though, had a divisive impact. Respect for labor also means knowing how to perform a job well and how to earn a livable wage. We were so naïve on so many fronts here.
- Drugs. Admittedly, passing the pipe had a tribal quality, but too much simply removed an individual from action. In that sense, the rumors of CIA involvement in the importation of hard drugs as a way to blunt the peace movement begin to sound deviously rational. And LSD left a lot of wreckage.
- Sexism and racism. It was there, one way or another. By the way, we didn’t see a lot of black hippies, did we? That in itself could be another topic of discussion.
- Free love fallout. For many, it was fun while it lasted. Some even ended up in marriages that have lasted. For many, though, it led instead to betrayals, breakups, and bitterness – not exactly the ideal image when you define hippie as happy.
- Irresponsibility. Think of the vanishing food from your shelf in the refrigerator or the things that got permanently borrowed without anyone asking. The list of examples will be long.
- Aging. It was a youth movement, maybe the first generational tide in history. Geezer is not part of the definition of hippie – never has been, never will be. Besides, can we trust anyone under 30?
- Violence. Few of us have turned out to be as consistently gentle as we’d like. Even if we never crossed over into physical hostility, we’ve likely been verbally wounding. Anyone else remember a few from back then who bought a gun – for self-defense, as they always argued? Especially if they were involved in dealing?
- Global warming. I’m not kidding. This will completely thwart any Revolution of Peace & Love as everyone runs for the hills. Or tries to swim in the riptide.
What would you add to the list?
Ten perspectives on Tibet
It’s not just Cassia in What’s Left who wants to know about her father’s fascination with Tibetan Buddhism. It plays a big role in his movements in Pit-a-Pat-High Jinks and Subway Visions, too.
- Number of Tibetans in U.S.: Estimated at 9,000.
- Buddhists in U.S.: 3,860,000 (Pew Research Center, 2010). Other estimates range from 1.2 million to 8 million.
- Number of converts: 800,000.
- Buddhism in Indiana (scene of What’s Left): Includes the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center and Kumbum Chamtse Ling Temple, both in Bloomington and founded by Thubten Norbu, brother of the Dalai Lama.
- Other major Tibetan Buddhist centers in U.S.: Barnet, Vermont; Berkeley, California; Boulder, Colorado; Chino Valley, Arizona; Red Feather Lakes, Colorado; Poolesville, Maryland; Portland, Oregon Seattle, Washington; Sedona, Arizona; Woodstock, New York.
- Population of Tibet: 6 million Tibetans, 7.5 million Chinese settlers.
- Estimated number of Tibetans killed by Chinese since 1949: 1.2 million.
- Number of monasteries destroyed: 6,000.
- The Dalai Lama: Its spiritual leader has more than 13 million Twitter followers.
- Most Tibetans fear the spirit world and its demons: They’re blamed for illness, bad luck, and misfortune.
You need to visit this ‘Bootcamp’
My newest novel takes place in a Yoga Bootcamp. It’s run by an unorthodox American swami who’s also known as Elvis or Big Pumpkin, for good reasons. His followers think he’s divine, and they’re out to spread the word as yoga itself is first becoming popular across the nation.
Each of them has moved to his farm to intensify their practice. What they find has as much to do with cleaning toilets or weeding the garden as does standing on their heads in exercise class. Even a single day can embrace eternity as well as a cosmic sense of humor.
Mysticism? It’s largely quite down-to-earth, as you’ll see.
The novel is being published and released today at Smashwords.com. And that certainly has me levitating.
Be among the first to read it!
Jnana's Red Barn 