Friday, May 21, 2021

Road Rage 2021

 

Stories don't have to be made up; sometimes they just fall into my lap and it's my job to record them (fictional elaboration allowed). Wednesday I was leaving Subway (the one near Walmart here in Hillsborough). Stopped at a stop sign in the parking lot, looked both ways, and proceeded. Whiz! An aqua blue car barreled toward me on the right, doing at least 45 mph (in a parking lot—okay, it's a road that runs through a parking lot, but still…). I slammed on my brakes, narrowly avoiding a collision, and as she flew by the woman driver honked her horn and gave me the finger. The scowl on her face became a photo in my mind. I went on to my next short errand, and was on my way again in about 10 minutes.

I turned left onto Highway 86 ("new" 86, as we call it here). Crossed over I-85 where a sign on the overpass always gives me a smile, "Tolerance Ends."

And came to a stop in a long line of cars before the entrance/exit ramps; soon realized that the holdup was an accident a little way ahead of me. One of the two cars involved was the aqua car that had raced by me in the Walmart parking lot. The driver stood by her car, apparently unhurt, assessing the awful damage to the front end: hood accordioned and popped open, a smashed-up mess. The other car had damage to the rear end. Several people stood there, and I assumed whoever was in the other car was okay, but I really don't know.

 

When I got home I told Jean-Michel about this, and in the telling said I felt oddly sorry for the woman who'd almost collided with me. She must have had a reason for going so fast in a parking lot, and for slamming into the rear end of another car just minutes later. An emergency? A bad day? A broken heart? A death in the family? Or just a distracted, out-of-sorts, angry woman using her accelerator to express her fury. I've been there, have driven that way, hell-bent on demonizing the highway in my rage. I'm so grateful to be an old woman whose anger switch is mostly turned off. And deeply thankful that I wasn't a split second faster leaving Subway.

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Writing from the Dark

I was eleven when Mama and Daddy built their new house at 1869 Queens Road West, Charlotte 7, NC, on a lot that was half an acre; 4,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3-1/2 baths in the main house (including the toilet and sink under the basement stairs for use by black maids, yard people, etc.), and a 500 SF studio over the two-car garage--the "rec room" or "wreck room" as Daddy referred to it. The property cost $40,000 in 1951, when realtors sold houses at a list price/SF of $10/SF--the median list price/SF today is $152/SF). Our original house was torn down in the 1990s, all except for the garage and rec room, and a new house was built; it recently sold for $2,140,000.



The main house was redwood and brick; it comprised a half basement, ground floor, second floor, and full attic. In the entry hall on the ground floor was a wall toggle switch that turned the attic fan on and off. In the spring, after turning off the furnace, Mama would open several strategic windows and doors (namely the kitchen door on the back of the house away from the afternoon sun, and with a screen door) and turn on the attic fan. Thus until nightfall the house was dark, with a pleasant breeze running throughout. We didn't turn on the air conditioning until late June, and turned it off in mid-September.

 

Now it's early May in the middle of North Carolina (near Chapel Hill), where my husband and I live; we share 1,700 square feet on the main floor, and our A/C quit a week ago. So every day I close the blinds in the morning and turn on our 4 ceiling fans...the resulting dusk at noon reminds me so much of growing up, adapting as Southerners have done for several hundred years to the heat of noonday. In the past we adapted with high ceilings (10-12') and heavy drapes and (once we had electricity) fans. Now we're dependent on A/C, and have little ability to adapt otherwise.



Monday, March 11, 2019

TIME TRAVEL

Random thoughts on writing, my writing:

I've never questioned why my novels are set in earlier times, have only followed my instinct to set my stories 50 or 60 years ago. A burden comes with that decision: research. But I compose from character, and when I'm beginning a project I don't worry about getting the facts straight, or about the research that will inevitably be necessary. I just write. In a strange way, when a character is really yammering at me, it's like taking dictation, and I get as much down as I can before collapsing into bed, both excited and worn out.

Have noticed recently that my short stories are, for the most part, future set. Just observing here, not judging, but fascinated that my long works (novels ) are set in the past and my short works (stories) are set in the future. Wonder what a psychologist would make of that.

I have advice Scotch-taped to the top of my monitor: "Trust the process. Let go of the results." That's something I've repeated to the members of my writing groups (the three I led for many years and the one in which I have been led for 32 years now). It's time, once again, to heed that comment.

When I can't/don't write



Here I am again, on a bright March morning, not writing. I gaze out at my empty back yard that's usually teeming with wildlife--squirrels, deer are the most frequent inhabitants, but I've seen groundhogs, raccoons, beaver--and my mind is blank. No characters begging for release back into the lives I've created for them.
I bought 3 boxes of pens 2 weeks ago in a fit of optimism that the way they glide across the paper will facilitate my writing—that the ease of getting words on paper will make it not just possible to write whatever's next, but will inspire me, will create characters, PLOT—ah, there’s the rub…WHERE IS THE STORY GOING?? I am so restrained by not knowing when the story is and where it is going. An exercise, finally, started the character table DOB and DOD…this is SO important! Get to know these people.
Who are they?
What do they want?
What stands in the way, individually, for each?
Establish a TIME LINE.
Thoughts on a character, Mr. Blank…is he married? I think not. I think he’s in his late 20s, still living with his widowed mother, who is not well—she’s a good woman who would NEVER put demands on him, but who is ill and helpless and has no one else (Mr. Blank has a sister in California who leaves care of their mother up to her brother…maybe mother and sister suspect he might be gay, but never address that thought). His mother will somehow/sometime meet his sweetheart. Mr. Blank's mother intuits the closeness between her son and this young woman. Mr. Blank, as a single man tied to his mother, is more appealing than a married man cheating on his wife and children; he also shows a willingness to stick with someone when the going gets tough.
DO THIS. DO THIS. Stay with the not knowing. Be willing not to know where I’m going. Be uncomfortable. Go into each “exercise” willing to be uncomfortable, willing not to know where I’m going. Practice what I preach…i.e., when I go to my crayon box I should stop looking at the colors...just take whatever my fingers find; be willing to have opposing colors together. Don’t question whether I can or have the right to tell this story.. Don’t let myself get railroaded by doubt. BE IN TODAY. BE NOW!
What is it that keeps me from working on a new novel or on old short stories? Why am I not NOW sitting at my keyboard and—AT THE LEAST—transcribing notes from a year ago? I sit here icing my recently wounded left shoulder, heating pad on my lower back, 79 years old and otherwise CONTENT with my life, and, in fact, contemplating the launch of my second novel; the only thing lacking in my life (aside from a cure for my daughter's cancer) is my inability—at this moment—to write. Many years ago, as I approached the final draft of Dry Grass, did I have the same reluctance to write? Did I daily come up with reasons not to write? Did I plan so much—so many things—in my daily life that constant writing was impossible?
I sit here in a different recliner (the former one is downstairs, still functional, and the current one is in its place—the identical footprint). I look out at the same tree—just budding now—that rises at Matt and Cheryl’s house. None of their three daughters had been born. Through the window I see the enormous pile of split wood from the half-felled tree that—if allowed to continue to age and eventually rot—could take at least Charles and Nancy’s roof, if not ours, but which has never been a threat or fear for me. There are so many things to fear, but fear of not writing is my greatest.
How do accomplished writers of many novels do it? Why am I not writing? There is so much ease in my physical position, lying in this recliner with a fine pen in hand on these cheap legal pads. An occasional car passes. Earlier the mail truck—J-M went out and collected the mostly junk and mostly tossed it. As I wait for the ice and heat to soothe my ancient joints, I have thoughts of how “we” might direct traffic from our street after the construction at the end of Mitchell is finished, houses erected and sold. But it is certainly two years before any noticeable increase in traffic here, so why do thoughts of directing it so consume me?
Why can’t I live in today, grateful for my remarkably good life—it is indeed quite remarkably good—is it because I still fear success? Surely not.
Another gratitude is that I share my life with a man who—though quite noisy—puts no demands on me.
Afterthought: I’ve just discovered that doing this handwritten page and a half (transcribe to this blog) has greatly relieved my angst. This (the scribbled pages) IS writing.

Don't Panic

August, 2017: I was heading east from Carrboro to a Raleigh address south of Garner, about a 50-minute drive. Chose to take Highway 64 instead of the interstate so I could cross Jordan Lake on the gorgeous afternoon. I rolled down the windows, turned up the volume on my book on CD (Thirteen Ways of Looking, a collection of novellas by Colum McCann, delicious in every way). South of the lake a thought hit me. There's a BIG box of books in the trunk, and I'm on my way to pick up a dinette set purchased on Craig's List...no way the table and four chairs would fit in the trunk with that box of books. I'd forgotten to take the box out before leaving my home in Hillsborough. So I pulled well off the highway onto a grassy verge that bordered a forest. I opened the front passenger door, struggled the heavy cardboard carton from the trunk, dragged it across the grass and managed to heft it onto the front passenger seat. All was well until I decided to shove it onto the floor, thinking maybe one of the chairs I was picking up would fit in the passenger seat. The box slipped, pinning my right wrist between it and the dashboard. A bracelet on my wrist was caught on something I couldn't see, and I was well and truly stuck. Couldn't stand up to flag down a passing car for help, besides which there was little traffic on this rural road. The more I tried to free myself, the more my back ached. I thought about the "Drama in Real Life" section of Reader's Digest, that I could well be fixed in this ridiculous position--butt skyward--for days. I heard the rumble of something approaching, tried to wave with my left hand, which barely cleared the hood of my Prius, and despaired as whatever it was rolled on by.

I am not the panicky sort. I am self-sufficient and confident in most situations, but I admit to panic that afternoon, to thoughts of animals in the forest along the road. Sweat trickled down my face--HOT doesn't describe August in North Carolina--and the pain in my back became more of a focus than my trapped hand.

Again the noise of something approaching. I straightened enough to see a pickup truck in the westbound lane, and again I lifted my left arm, certain the driver wouldn't be able to see my hand above the top of the car, waving. But I heard the squeal of brakes, strained upward to see a man getting out of the truck. "You okay?" he hollered. "No," I shouted back, trying not to sound desperate. "I need help."

He walked up, assessed the situation, and moved the carton as if it were no heavier than a box of Kleenex, and saw that my bracelet was caught on an industrial-size staple that had worked loose from cardboard box. He bent the staple and I was free. As I straightened, I laughed. "Well, I'm 77, and I guess my age has finally caught up with me."

Then I got a good look at my rescuer, who was no spring chicken. He said, "I've got you there, be 80 in the spring."

I thanked him as he turned to leave, saying, "No problem, any time."

I got back on my way to Garner, wishing I'd asked his name, had properly thanked him. I chided myself for making more of the mishap than it was, thinking I really could have moved the box of books if I'd just tried harder, all the while rubbing my bruised and scraped wrist, the bloody scratch from the staple. I finally came to realize that there are times when I'm helpless, when I cannot fix a problem, and that most of my life my independence has been a character defect that has prevented me from admitting my helplessness.



Monday, June 15, 2015

Tall Motel Beds--Form Over Function

Here's a picture of the bed in the Comfort Inn where we stayed last week in Marion, NC. There's a trend in motels now to make the beds tall--maybe to save the backs of the housekeepers, who have to make dozens of beds every day. However, I'm paying to sleep there, and even though I'm tall (5'8"), I cannot get in and out of the bed (and I need to do that 2-3 times a night). Sitting on the bed (like to put on socks) is NOT an option. I pulled the desk close to the bed for perspective. The desk is 29" tall--the bed is a couple of inches taller--so imagine trying to sit on the desk, then swing your legs up to lie down on it. I asked for a stool and all the inn could offer was a booster seat (it's on the floor by the bed). Also note the pillow--dollar bills are 6", so the pillow must be 8" or more--they look great at the head of the bed but are impossible to sleep on. I bring my pillows when I travel by car (not an option on flights).

Here's a quote from a site that popped up when I Googled standard bed height: "The average bed height today is about 25 inches. At this height, your feet can reach the floor when you're seated on the edge of the mattress."

This bed is at least 31".

One other really weird thing--there are no towel racks. Not one. The linens are stored on shelves below the bathroom counter, and there's no place to hang them when they're damp. We prefer not to get the room cleaned every day and to re-use the towels, so we've been draping them on chairs.

At breakfast Saturday there was a couple with their two children, a boy 5 and a girl 2-1/2. I asked the couple if the kids could get up on the bed. The father answered, "No, I have to lift them up every time. They get down by sliding off. Our daughter sleeps between inflated cushions that keep her from falling off, but we were concerned about our son rolling off the bed in his sleep, so we put pillows on the floor on his side."

Sigh.

The above was written 6-13-15; since then I've corresponded with Choice Hotels, the company that manages Comfort Inns. Their response was boiler-plate CYA, and they obviously will not deal with the tall beds. In response, I sent them this link: https://adata.org/factsheet/accessible-lodging

Note particularly:

To improve accessibility of places of lodging, best practices include:

  • Ensure beds are of an accessible height (recommended bed height is between 20 to 23 inches from the floor to top of the mattress).
For my next out-of-town stay, I'm booked at the Hampton Inn in Brevard, NC, which also has tall beds. I don't really need a handicap room, but that's what I've booked, because it has regular height beds. Thus, if others follow my solution, there will be a dearth of handicap rooms.

As for pillows in motel rooms, again it's the motel's choice to put huge pillows on the beds--they look so nice, those fluffy pillows on those tall beds, but are impossible to sleep on. I wish the president of Choice Hotels had to sleep on one of those pillows.

That's a "before" photo of a pillow in a motel in Nashville, meaning before I operated on it and removed the excess cellulite:

That's the stuffing I removed (after carefully opening a seam on the pillow). Then I had something I could sleep on:


I of course replaced the stuffing before we left, and repaired the seam...the good night's sleep was worth the trouble.

Ah, well, I've accomplished nothing other than to get these issues off my chest. Now I go back to work, and will sleep this evening in my 25" tall bed on my 50-year-old feather pillows. Lovely.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

In de Stilla de night

Stilla, Our Odd-Eyed White

She was a flea-bitten mess when we got her from a farm in northern Orange County, NC, in 2003. Our first day with her was spent mostly at the vet. She was seven weeks old, barely weaned, and weighed all of 2 pounds. Two of the other cats in her litter--both white--were deaf. Her odd eyes--one blue, one gold--saved her hearing; in this photo she is about five:



For years when I left the house, I sang "Bye, girl. Talking 'bout bye-i-i girl." Then upon returning home, I sang walking up the ramp to the back porch, "Hi, girl. Talking 'bout hi-i-i girl." Opened the door, and there she was. Whether she knew the difference in the "Bye" and the "Hi," singing to her gave me enough pleasure to justify it.

We killed her yesterday. Had her put down. Put her to sleep. Euthanized her. Committed pet-icide. Watched while a kind veterinarian gave her a lethal dose via a needle inserted into the only vein they could find. Saw her eyes glaze over as I sang her away, cheek to cheek, "Bye, girl..." This time it was she who was leaving.

She had a lovely bed. 


But any open bag was an invitation she accepted over and over.



I used to teach a writing class on Tuesday evenings; one of my students had allergies. About half an hour before class, I'd start trying to get Stilla into the laundry room (where her litter box and food awaited her). She'd run wherever I wasn't. From the kitchen into the hallway. Then as I got to the hallway, back to the kitchen, then the living room. I'm chasing her all the while, calling, "Stilla, damnation, it's Tuesday." Eventually I got Jean-Michel to help me catch her, then deposit her in her room. One Tuesday evening we're about to go through this ritual, frustrating for all involved, and as soon as I say, "Stilla, it's Tuesday," she sedately turns and walks into the laundry room. From then on, no matter what day of the week it was, if we needed her to be shut off in the laundry room I'd call out, "Stilla, it's Tuesday!" then watch her run into the laundry room. No chase. In her own inimitable way, she won.

In the fall of 2014 we were gone for five weeks. Our cat sitter visited Stilla regularly, kept her litter box clean, played with her, etc., so she wasn't abandoned. But upon our return, she stayed by my side for several days. This photo shows her at my elbow as I worked, and her naps on my desk gave me a good excuse not to deal with the stacks of mail that had accumulated in my absence.

And for about a week after our homecoming she slept with me at night (unprecedented)--in this photo I'm reading while scratching her belly; she fell asleep and stayed there until my hand went to sleep, too, and I had to disturb her.




For several years we had a portable humidifier in our living room, a water tank on wheels, maybe two feet square. After some trial and error, Stilla discovered that if she ran and jumped onto it, she could ride it for several feet across the floor. Jean-Michel didn't believe me when I first told him about this game, but one morning at breakfast he got to witness our cat turning our humidifier into a carny ride. (Never got a photo of it...)

Her most steadfast post was in the window of our laundry room, where we'd installed a board above the dryer for her to sleep in the sun. I wish I had a better photo, but am glad I at least have this one.



The thing I admired most about our odd and odd-eyed Stilla was that everything she ever did was on her own terms.

'Bye, girl. Talking 'bout bye-i-i girl.