Cassia’s aunt Yin reinforces a San Francisco connection established with Cassia’s uncle Dimitri and his companion, Graham. In time, it’s one Cassia herself comes to experience, so far from her native Indiana, as I relate as early as the third chapter of my new novel, What’s Left.
~*~
A single visit to the Golden Gate city put it high on my scale. I’d return in a flash, given the opportunity. These days, living a hour from Boston, I’m near another great center with many valued connections to the world. And, yes, I still miss Baltimore.
What’s your favorite city? What would you urge people to do when they get there?
~*~
Octopus sun-drying at the Mama Thira restaurant in Firostefani, Santorini. Photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis via Wikimedia Commons.
In her family, her great-grandparents would have known scenes like this.
My final revisions of my new novel, What’s Left, heightened the role of her best friend forever and first-cousin, Sandra – short for Cassandra. She’s now active from age 11 on (rather than being central to the final chapter alone) and provides some punchy counterpoint to Cassia’s discoveries and questions during their adolescence.
Some vital exchanges occur when Cassia is railing to be in a “normal” family, unlike theirs, and Sandra points out her own struggles fitting in – her mother’s Japanese-American from San Francisco, after all, rather than from Indiana where she and Cassia live.
Sandra also has a heated perspective on their three great-aunts that Cassia doesn’t quite understand. As for their Barbie dolls? You’ll just have to see.
Defining just exactly makes someone a best friend can be rather elusive. But here’s a stab at it from my end.
That is, someone I can deeply respect and trust. Included would be honesty, confidentiality – a gossip, never, and kindness.
Gentle sense of humor or playfulness.
Mutual interests. There doesn’t have to be a complete overlap, but having activities and causes we undertake together is vital. For me, it’s typically Quaker Meeting or the music we sing together in a choir. Oh, yes, and I can’t overlook reading itself.
Curiosity – and a delight in learning. A desire to understand the world around us also opens my eyes to so much I’d otherwise not know.
Shared friendships and community. If they reject you – or you find them annoying – there’s trouble.
Equal give-and-take over the long haul. Yes, there will be rough stretches where I’ll need to be quite supportive and other times when I’ll be the needy one, but it can’t always be one-sided.
Appropriate tone. I have difficulty being around a loud individual. I prefer a good listener, someone who can also be comfortable with silence.
Generosity and caring. Just look how they treat others for a clue.
Good taste. That is, a touch of class and style – nothing vulgar.
Not too picky. They’re dealing with me, after all.
~*~
What qualities would you add to your list? Which ones would you delete?
~*~
Continuing the poetry parade, see what’s new at THISTLE/FLINCH.
In my new novel, What’s Left, she’s grown up taking much of her family and its restaurant enterprise for granted. After all, every kid in her extended close-knit family has had to work shifts there. After the death of her father – her Baba – when she’s 11, she uncovers what had attracted him to the home she’s known.
Early on, his input into the expansion of the restaurant must have felt invigorating. Beyond its pure financial calculations came some intense consideration of spiritual values, growing culinary awareness, and out-and-out-sensory delight. Could you put these together as an artistic experience? That kind of thinking.
Among her mother’s male ancestors in my new novel, What’s Left, my personal favorite is clearly Ilias the Cypriot, even if I might hope to be less obvious in my telling. Ari, Perry, and Stavros all have their better qualities, but I doubt I’d get along with any of them for long. There are reasons, though, that Ilias is also known as the Philosopher, even when he’s become a successful construction contractor in Chicago before he and his wife relocate in what they erroneously assume will be semi-retirement.
He’s gentle, curious, generous, and instills in grandson Dimitri and granddaughter Nita, at least, qualities they ride to success in their own fields.
If only he’d been present to comfort Cassia in her grief after her father vanishes in an avalanche halfway around the globe – we would have had a different novel. Is there a point where the elderly are simply too weak to lend comfort or guidance, even when they’re still breathing? In the novel, unlike some of the more dramatic deaths, Ilias and Maria simply fade into a past. I imagine them going off arm in arm, smiling, but leave that to the reader’s discretion.
~*~
Think of the circles around you. Who do you look to as your favorite male authority figure?
~*~
A large Queen Anne-style house with a distinctive witch’s hat tower something like this is the headquarters for Cassia’s extended family in my new novel, What’s Left. If only this one were pink, like hers. (Manchester, New Hampshire.)
As a little kid, I hated going to the barber. Was it really that painful?
I don’t know when my mother took over, but I doubt it added any style. This was the ’50s, remember, and then the early ’60s.
Looking at those photos, I see a vast improvement when my girlfriends took over.
And then the hippie movement hit. I let mine grow out. It was wild, felt free, and even attracted chicks. One, who’d known me in high school, kept voicing her disbelief, “You’re so cool now.” Like what happened?
Looking at the photos, though, I should have had it styled. Really. It’s embarrassing, even with the headband.
Sketch of me by the late Douglas Dorph,, 1971 or ’72.
Once I moved to the ashram, it started getting shorter. Not all at once, but by degrees. We were cleaning up our act, as Swami said.
By the time I was back out “in the world,” mine was mostly about sideburns, and then my locks were in the hands of my first wife, the artist.
Flash ahead a decade, right after the divorce, and I was visiting the Big Apple for a job interview. A good friend who always looked great in a new ‘do arranged for me to visit her hair stylist in Brooklyn. The session was quite the revelation, even after he ran his fingers through my mane and declared with disgust, “Dis hair wasn’t cut in New York.” I mumbled a dumb apology akin to groveling.
Well, whatever he did worked. I landed the job.
A second current was running through many of those years. It started at the temples, the receding hairline. Invisible to me was what was happening at the crown. Shortly after I relocated to New England, I was starting to look like a medieval monk there.
Well, when I was walking with a good friend who’s a family physician, he quipped that a popularly advertised shampoo or daily pill wouldn’t do any good in my case. I had the wrong patterning or some such for it to address. Alas.
And then, once I’d remarried, my daughters warned me of dire consequences if I ever grew my ponytail back. So the thinning continued.
After the younger one had gone off to college, my roommate from my own first year after came up for a visit. I was in shock. His eyes were still the sparkling blue and his voice and laughter were as musical as ever but – gasp – that naturally blond Afro he had sported was totally gone, leaving a shiny dome in its place. Something was off, seriously wrong.
Deciding to move the family restaurant into the old textbook building next door opens the door for all kinds of changes. Playing around with the possibilities was fun for me – hey, I wasn’t really constrained financially, was I? Could we even use building blocks or construct a movie set? Alas, the story needed to move along faster. Besides, it’s about Cassia ultimately and what she and her generation would inherit. Here’s a passage before I boiled it down for the final version of my new novel, What’s Left:
Graham’s the first to admit the structure will need to be expanded, not just renovated. Adding to the rear will allow for the central cookery. The traditional Carmichael’s burger joint would then take the strip facing the campus, while Carmichael’s Bliss could run along the side street that bisects our holdings. The second floor would allow for function rooms, while the new Carmichael’s Stardust could sit above Bliss. Adding a third floor would provide for offices, and above that, a penthouse Dimitri and Graham, along with a small rooftop garden.
~*~
Among the many considerations that went into envisioning the new design was just what kind of ambiance they wanted. Would there be booths, and if so, would they have high backs for privacy or lower ones for visibility? There are actually a lot of questions like that, when you start investigating. I realized that would be better served in a restaurant trade magazine than in my new novel.
Still, it’s fair to ask. Do you want privacy when you dine? Or do you prefer being able to watch people? Is there a particular design statement you think would fit the new Carmichael’s?
~*~
A view of a Noodles & Company kitchen from the counter. Photo by Malcolm Tredinnick, Sydney, Australia, via Wikimedia Commons.
In my novel, the family restaurant could have been like this.
Well, it was fun trying to envision the possibilities of the new operation. But I left plenty of detail in the final version of my new novel, What’s Left, as it is.
In contrast to her father’s desire for a bold contemporary design, here’s a whimsical touch from an earlier draft:
Graham suggests we plant climbing ivy. Says it’s subdued, reflects the campus across the street and softens the harshness of the old textbook building itself. He’s right.
Why stop there?
In the emerging design, a permanent awning extends over the sidewalk. Graham’s suggestion of not just ivy on the wall but flowerboxes under the windows meets widespread approval. And the entry opens into a light-filled atrium.
~*~
Well, I’m starting to like the look of it. Now, to see what happened to this.
I do have to remember that all of this is a backdrop for a bigger story – Cassia herself.
Which reminds me. There are many fun movies about food, wine, and restaurants. Which of your favorites would you suggest we see?
~*~
A Greek Orthodox icon of St. Nicholas by Nicholas Hartmann. (Via Wikimedia Commons.)
