writers and writing

When I was growing up, summer vacations were often two-week road trips to scenic destinations.  Our family of four would stay together in motels and eat in restaurants—which seemed exciting at first.  After a few days, however, I wasn’t feeling well—with a stomach ache and no appetite.

My first husband called himself a “box salesman” and started his own company, selling corrugated packaging.  Some of my savings helped launch this enterprise and I very much wanted it to do well.  Thus, as a supportive partner, I learned to call the product “corrugated,” not “cardboard.”

“What is that thing in the driveway?” I asked my mother.  It looked like a little flying saucer with a round metal body and four spindly legs.

“It’s a charcoal grill,” she said.  “Dad’s going to cook hamburgers on it tonight.”

I was guessing that Dad didn’t know about this yet.  None of us knew anything about charcoal grilling which was something my mother had heard about on television.

When I was a little kid, I spent Saturday afternoons at the movies with my friends.  Somebody’s parents would drop us off at the theater and we would sit through two Westerns and a dozen cartoons, passing boxes of jujubes and milk duds up and down the row.

Our neighbors have put a fence around their yard. They have a good reason, wanting to protect their toddler from wandering into the street.

When my daughter was a baby, everyone remarked that she looked just like her father—which  annoyed me even if it was true.  Then, as Sara got older, people observed that she looked just like me.  I was delighted but Sara was not. “I don’t want to look like you,” she said.  “I want to look like me.”

When I was young, my parents showed me photos of themselves when they were young and I would laugh and shake my head.  How old-fashioned they looked!  My mother’s hair with its elaborate artificial waves, her hats and gloves and fancy dresses.  My father’s three-piece suits with striped ties and the classic fedora that he wore everywhere—except indoors.

I walk by a school and see a boy on a swing.  Not a little boy but a young man of about sixteen, swinging in broad arcs—up and down, up and down.  He is all by himself on the playground and I wonder what has prompted him to get back on a swing.  Then I remember that I did the same thing, not so long ago.

I wanted to feel it again, the soaring magic of tilting up into the sky, of leaning back and pumping myself higher and higher until I am sure I’ll go right over the top.  Until I am sure I will catapult myself onto a cloud.  

I am stirring onions in a frying pan when I hear a piece of music on the radio.  It has a brooding, soaring melody that seems to express all the joy and sorrow I have ever felt.

Turning off the onions, I sit down at my kitchen table to listen, convinced that this music has the power to change my life, to supply all the missing pieces, to redeem the losses and renew the dreams.

And I am poised with pencil and paper to get the title and composer:  “Adagio for Strings,” the announcer says, “by Samuel Barber.”

Somewhere in the midst of the pandemic, the local newspaper published a survey, asking readers what they were missing most—things like restaurants, bars, theaters, barbershops.  Nowhere on the list was what I missed most:  my local library.

Sure, I wish I could stop in at J&S Hamburg or Sleder’s Tavern.  And even more, I wish I could get a haircut.  But if I had to choose, I’d rather have a book.

When I walk into my yoga class, I notice that there’s a different teacher and I’m immediately upset.  Where is our regular instructor?  Who is this substitute?  Why weren’t we told?  Maybe I should just leave.

The new instructor introduces herself as Laura and offers no explanation.  Instead, she invites us to sit cross-legged on our mats and center ourselves.  Center myself?  Impossible!  I’m churning with irritation.

Many years ago, my husband gave me a blue nylon windbreaker—very simple and lightweight, with side pockets and a hood.  I loved that jacket and wore it everywhere—jogging, camping, canoeing, and just hanging out on the back porch.  I had washed it a hundred times and it always came out looking like new.

It was long ago now, but I remember it vividly because I still use her advice.  I was taking a workshop on “Assertiveness Training” and the instructor was talking about saying no.

“Let’s suppose your neighbor asks you to watch her kids tomorrow and you can’t do it or don’t want to do it.”  Everyone in the class nodded; we were all women and we’d all been in this situation before, either asking or answering.

My mother had a lovely vanity table with a three-way mirror and fancy bottles of perfume and a little dish where she kept her diamond ring.  At the edge of all this elegance stood a small wooden statue of the Laughing Buddha.  

Fresh out of college, I took a job teaching eighth grade English.  One of my classes was a group of students who were struggling, academically and socially—and I quickly discovered I was not prepared for this challenge.      

You’d never mistake U. S. 31 South for the scenic route.  It’s as ugly as its name and U.S. 31 North isn’t a lot better.  Still, this is the highway you have to take to get to Traverse City—unless you know the area and can slip in on some side road.

I am picking out something to eat in a coffee shop when my eyes linger on a plate of  brownies.  

“The mocha frosting is to die for,” the salesperson says. 

Several years ago, I heard a woman give a talk about a trip to Greenland where she lived with theInuit people, traveled by dog sled, ate raw seal meat. It wasn’t the kind of vacation most of us would choose—but for her, it was life-changing.

I am sitting in my car waiting for the light to change so I can turn right.  It’s a long light and I have a short fuse, feeling irritable and impatient.

This morning I’m driving my daughter to a dentist appointment and she complains about everything—the weather, the traffic, the bagel she had for breakfast.  Neither of us talks about what’s really bothering her, of course. Her private worries about the dentist.  
 

I was walking downtown to meet a friend for lunch and tried to kick a chunk of ice off the sidewalk.  The ice didn’t budge but I fell straight down onto the concrete, cursing my stupidity. Slowly, I sat up and felt my forehead, seeing my hand covered with blood.

My husband and I are playing Monopoly with our granddaughter, Emmy. She’s 11 years old and loves the game, although she rarely wins.

I live near Traverse City’s Central Grade School and whenever I pass the playground during recess, I can’t help but marvel at the noise.  There is almost constant screaming—but not unhappy screaming.  These are young kids having fun

My good friend Kay has been asked to do a reading at her granddaughter’s wedding.  She sent me the passage which is from a popular novel called “The Alchemist.”

When I was young and single, I lived in Chicago for a few years and worked in an office downtown.  Every day at noon, I grabbed my book and my lunch and found a place where I could read and eat.