Tag: Relationships

WHEN YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD TO THE RESTAURANT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

A central suggestion arising at the end of my first novel, which then shapes my new one, What’s Left, is that her father will be crucial in guiding the family in its embrace of Buddhist practice. Even if I cast that as spirituality rather than religion, it’s a big challenge.

In the course of multiple revisions, this was greatly toned down and redirected.

While Cassia’s concerned with more fully defining who her father was, the novel’s primary focus is on her. Here’s some background that’s much fainter in the final version:

Where had he come from, what prompted his interests, what were his pet peeves, what made him truly angry or truly delighted?

To make this little more concrete:

Some people contend my Baba was a lama. Not the camel-like pack animal from the Andes but a Tibetan Buddhist born in a humble city along the Mississippi, of all places. After college in Indiana and a broken heart, he looped into Dharma by way of, well, a hippie farm where Thea Nita also lived. And then he found refuge in something like a monastery. And then he magically returned here. You thought a monk couldn’t get married? Technically, no, though we’re dealing with an American twist in the mechanics of reincarnation. Or so they’ve told me.

In the end, much less of the responsibility falls on him. Rather, he helps establish an institute having a resident teacher, Rinpoche, who becomes his colleague.

~*~

For Cassia’s father, religion is a way of engaging life more fully. He might even say it is liberation from the tangles of daily life.

Let’s open our range of focus a bit wider.

Where do you go or what do you do to be free? Can you describe the feeling?

~*~

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.

AS A FOOTNOTE AT THE TABLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I wonder if the longstanding tradition of morning cleansing of marble steps at the front door in many inner city neighborhoods of Baltimore has survived the stresses of two-income families or single-parent households? Who knows when it started or in how many other locales it’s also practiced. This has been a custom of row houses, connected to each other – blue-collar communities, in fact – and not of detached suburban housing. And that makes the foremost difference.

These poems consider what women do and preserve – though not always exclusively. Yes, I’ve known women who bale hay or decipher monastic manuscripts, and I’ll also admit men can know nothing of bearing children or nursing. Yet, somehow, many women seem most at home around the kitchen, even if it’s nothing more than a teacup or a picnic. Even her garden, should she be so inclined, seems to extend from that table or the alchemy of her oven. And that goes for flowers, as well as vegetables and berries. (Remember, though: not all mothers and daughters can stand to be in the same kitchen at the same time, though they both be masterful cooks.)

Looking back on Baltimore, I remember my next-door neighbor, each morning in season watering the black locusts between our houses and the street. Maybe she did her stoop, as well. But the trees, which seemed to have always been there, were beautiful and timeless, as if spreading their own table.

Returning 1

~*~

For the poems, click here.

A MODEL COUPLE, IN THEIR OWN WAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I suppose I need to issue a spoiler alert. I cut this from later revisions of my new novel, What’s Left, since it felt redundant:

To be honest, most of my memories of Dimitri and Graham are fuzzy. Remember, I was little at the time.

Curiously, I have more early memories of Graham than of Dimitri. He was very gentle and knew how to play along. He would have made a great preschool teacher, I think.

~*~

Some of you will have vivid early-childhood memories, while for others, these will be a fog, at best.

I’ll be candid, I have few early memories of relatives when I was little. Who stands out most for you in your own family?

~*~


Koulourakia, melomakarona, kourambiethes, and kourambedes by Andrea Wright via Wikimedia Commons.

In the family, Cassia may have had sweets like these.

THERE’S PASSION AND SCANDAL IN THE MIX

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to sex, love, and relationships, my new novel, What’s Left, offers a full range of examples over its four-plus generations of her family.

Her mother’s line in the New World begins with a round of scandal. Her great-grandfather and his brother break tradition by marrying sisters against the wishes of their parents and their village, and then flee Greece altogether for Indiana. Her other great-grandfather marries a non-Greek, a Cuban he loves intensely amid another scandal, and relocates to Chicago.

Her grandparents’ marriage includes sibling rivalry and another scandal, as well as a packet of letters from the war years that Cassia discovers wrapped in lace ribbon.

Her parents’ generation includes sparkles of free love before her father-to-be is introduced to the family in what might be considered both love at first sight and an arranged marriage, thanks to her aunt Nita’s role as a matchmaker. Then there’s the whirlwind when her uncle Barney falls hard for her aunt-to-be Pia. In contrast, her uncle Tito and aunt-to-be Yin present a much more restrained story off in San Francisco. As for her uncle Dimitri, we’re back to scandal, as far as many in town would be concerned.

Cassia’s father leaves a rich photographic history of these events, along with three years of daily love letters to his wife-to-be. Maybe there are things a daughter would rather not see? Or is temptation too much to resist?

Well, however much their story can resemble a fairy tale, not everything turns out happily ever after.

As for her own generation? Times and traditions have changed, right?

~*~

Cassia’s is a much livelier family than many I see around me. I imagine it could be pretty demanding, as well as rewarding in its own way.

Would you like to marry into this family? Why – or why not?

~*~

Cassia’s family restaurant has me looking more closely at the ones around me. (Rutland, Vermont.)

ARISE AND SHINE LIKE A HERO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I suppose you’d want more details, even if this prompt’s redundant. So I cut it from the final version of my new novel, What’s Left:

Dimitri’s too alpha for all that. And too much a center of attention to observe anything long from the sidelines.

~*~

Some leaders are simply too competitive to stay out of the fray, but that doesn’t mean they have that extra glow, one sometimes described as charisma.

Certainly you know someone who usually winds up in the spotlight, especially at the helm of what’s happening. Tell us about him – or her! Are they good lookin’? Or is something else the attraction? Do they get your vote when it’s asked?

~*~

Closing time at a diner in Waterloo, Ontario. By Stefan Powell via Wikimedia Commons.

In my novel, the family restaurant could have been like this.

FROM ONE EXTREME TO ANOTHER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the original draft of my new novel, What’s Left, her aunt Yin is a quiet, reserved character who remains largely in the background. Yes, she’s a certified public accountant and the mother of Cassia’s best friend forever, but she doesn’t venture far beyond that.

I have no idea what made me think of her as Japanese-American, other than a possible Buddhist connection – as it turns out, I’d say her faith is nominal. I do remember an incident in a Boston art museum where one visitor instinctively bowed in front of a statue of Buddha, which inspires the way Yin meets Cassia’s uncle Tito in my story. She’s dutifully impressed by his gesture.

But then I met someone who totally changed the way I envisioned Yin. She had some commonalities with Cassia’s aunt, including a career in big numbers. But she was brilliant, talented, and way-off-the-wall opinionated. Voila!

What a perfect foil for straight-laced Tito, even before I added her love of hard rock music or her taking over management of the events at the old church the family bought on a whim.

And then, in the ninth revision of my novel, she takes teenage Cassia under her wing as her assistant running the live shows.

~*~

My, how I’d welcome the return to my circle of the woman who changed Yin for me! She was such a breath of fresh air.

Have you ever met somebody who turned out to be quite different from everything you’d been led to expect? Care to spill the beans as to why?

~*~

Orthodox icon of St. Joachim of Ithaca hand-painted by monks at the Monastery of Osios Nikodemos at Pentalofos, Kilkis, Greece. (Via Wikimedia Commons.)

Cassia’s roots included inspiration like this.

SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT TEACHER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Bella brings a love of reading to the family. She comes to campus to become a teacher, but other events intervene and she instead becomes the anchor of the family and its restaurant, where she runs the front of the store while her husband, Stavros, manages the kitchen. It doesn’t take long before she seems to know everybody in town. She’s that kind of person.

But that doesn’t prevent her from usually having an open book close at hand. She always manages to find time to read.

I’d credit both her daughter Nita’s success as a newspaper columnist and daughter Manoula’s founding of an influential small publishing house to her inspiration. The family does buy a bookstore, for one thing, before sending it on its own anew.

~*~

Bella also has enough Greek heritage to pass along some of the tradition. Here’s a bit of interaction between Cassia and her aunt Nita I cut from the final version:

They always called me Koukla, by the way, the same thing I sometimes call you.

What’s it mean, exactly? I know it’s a term of endearment, but I’ve just never followed up.

Thea Nita laughs. Oh, something like beautiful doll or baby doll, but it’s always full of affection. Koukla!

~*~

For many of us, daily life includes a lot of juggling, one activity or interest in contrast to another. Are you a multi-tasker? Or do you look at the term with derision? Tell us two or more things that frequently compete for your time. Do you have any tips for pulling it off?

~*~

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. (Rutland, Vermont)

SHOWING UP AS THE HEAD OF THE EXTENDED FAMILY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Though he’s the youngest of three brothers in my new novel, What’s Left, her uncle Tito winds up as the family patriarch.

As much as Cassia would love for him to fill the emotional void created by the disappearance of her father in an avalanche halfway around the globe, he’s not naturally inclined to be the warm supportive figure she desires. Even her best friend forever Sandra, Tito’s daughter, would agree.

Still, he’s physically present, usually in suit and tie, when required.

And he’s married to Yin, for added friction.

~*~

A passage I trimmed from an earlier version gives you a taste of his sensibilities:

Tito, in turn, confirmed Baba’s astonishment at the amount of waste in the food chain, from the way a big pile of an ingredient might cook down into a condensed quantity – that, in addition to all the leftovers that came back on the plates to be washed.

~*~

There we have it, quantity over quality! Or appearances over essence. How crass it seems now!

Is there a significant event in your life when you really hoped someone in particular would be there for you – but wasn’t? What happened, and how did you react?

~*~

Louis and Michael Pappas preparing Greek salad at Riverside Cafe in Tarpon Springs, Florida, April 12, 1947. (State Library and Archives of Florida via Wikimedia Commons.)

In her family’s past, there may have been scenes food like this.

A VITAL FAMILY IS MORE THAN FLESH AND BLOOD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As Cassia investigates the workings of her extended family, she finds that much of its vitality has resulted from the colorful members in her father’s generation who freely chose to join in. She could say their role was as important as the siblings who were born into the family.

Her father, her uncle Graham, and aunts Pia and Yin all advance the family fortune. It’s a powerful ring, one where they all get along together. Is it too much to expect? Or more good luck?

And then the cracks appear.

Continue reading “A VITAL FAMILY IS MORE THAN FLESH AND BLOOD” →

THE ULTIMATE FLOWER CHILD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my new novel, What’s Left, her aunt Pia is the epitome of bohemian possibility, even after being scorched by its downside. She’s the one who’s lived on communes; in contrast, Cassia’s father and aunt Nita had merely paid their share on an abandoned farm filled with other hip renters. Pia’s the one who witnessed drug busts and overdoses or worse, she simply went hungry.

As she recovers in the midst of Cassia’s extended family, her bohemian tastes find welcome expression in food and fabric and childlike wonder, especially. She’s hardworking and responsible, especially amid the circus she creates.

For Cassia’s generation, of course, hippie is old hat. But her aunt Pia is someone they see as special. Wouldn’t you?

~*~

Watching Pia was like watching a flower emerge from the soil and then bloom. The girl arrives destitute and broken and is given space to heal or regroup.

Whatever haven we offer is gratefully embraced.

She mends clothes. Tends the garden. Sits with us as we ride our White Cloud thrones.

~*~

I can’t evade the question any longer. What comes to your mind when you hear the word “hippie”? Do you prefer “boho”? Or does some other term work better these days? Is it positive … or negative?

~*~

Pikilia, an assortment of Greek appetizers. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

In the family, Cassia may have had food like this.