The First Memoir I Ever Read…

The first memoir I ever read was Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. It caught my ear as I was waiting in the car while my husband popped into an auto parts store. We were parked at the intersection of Route 412 and Butterfield Coach Road in Springdale, Arkansas and the auto parts surely had something to do with flat tires. I changed many a flat on our chert-laden Washboard Hill.

But given my love of wild places, it was a no-brainer that we were raising our children in a cottage located down four miles of dirt road and across two creeks (and no bridges) on a lake in Arkansas.

It was ten miles by road to the closest school bus stop. Or a mile by canoe to the closest bus stop as the crow flies. This option was down in Hogscald Hollow, as soon as they were old enough to paddle alone—at ten and twelve.

But back to Angela’s Ashes. It was a beautiful sunny day and on that day, October 6, 1996, NPR was interviewing Frank McCourt—another late-blooming memoir writer. I think what impressed me the most was the way he laughed and chuckled as he spoke about some of the most dreadful events of his childhood.

He couldn’t do anything about it. He was a kid in Ireland, living in The Lanes.

If ever there was a personification of perseverance, I suppose the late Mr. McCourt must surely be on the list. This was a man with grit and joy.

To hear it from the man himself and his lovely accent, listen to the 1996 NPR interview with Frank McCourt below.  He wrote Angela’s Ashes at 66.

R.I.P. Frank McCourt.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1045022

Barkeep! Another Round of Hugs, please!

After another long COVID week, I am longing for some refreshment. Liquid? Virtual? Physical? Any kind of refreshment. I think I’d like a Lemon Drop Martini. It’s been many years since I’ve ordered one. If the barkeeper has been careful passing it to the waitperson and the waitperson has managed to get to my table without a jostling, I will have a lovely sweet-tart beverage without the lemon sugar syrup sliding down the stem of the glass. Maybe too sweet, but refreshing nonetheless with a hint of summer on this grey day. Better yet, a Lemon Drop Martini made with Limoncello—for flashbacks to Italy and Italian places. I had my first limoncello on the island of Capri after taking the funicular to the top of the hill and walking along a stone path that clung to a hillside shaded by a bougainvillea-covered pergola. Fuchsia bougainvillea demands that you remember it. Then there was Prosecco and crisp calamari near the square. The memories of beverages sipped—or thrown back— in foreign places keep alive the faint promise that we shall leave home once again. In the meantime, there are virtual visits where we see ourselves mask-less and unadorned. This new normal is not welcomed, but it is necessary. What I miss most are hugs. One day when we are free, I’ll cross the sunny threshold of a cafe. “Barkeep! Hugs all around!” I’ll say. And then I’ll throw my arms around you and I won’t let go.

Well, here we are…

…having crossed into the second month of 2021.

What do you think? Are we better off? Do we see positivity on the horizon? Are we feeling better? Healthier? Mentally more stable? Are you at work on any resolutions?

I’m just glad that I’m not toggling between CNN Live and MSNBC 24/7. Although I did appreciate and enjoy the content between 9 PM and midnight—that I had little previous exposure to.

I got my first COVID-19 vaccine innoculation this week. Whew.

I’ve been listening to more music. Mostly 60s and 70s material. Thinking about those times, and missing live music. Very much. No sense looking for 2021 Bands On Tour.

However, I’ve been taste-testing podcasts. Some that I had forgotten about.

Flowers are blooming here in the rain. Time to think about the garden. I decided to dig a 12″ deep trench, 2′ wide, 8′ long. Maybe tomorrow. I want to drop my compost bins into the ditch so the worms can get in through the slots.

Dieting. Semi-successfully. I’ve taken off my “Covid Nine” but am having a difficult time getting past it. Weighing my food and abstaining from alcohol. Boo.

Can’t resist flipping through details of wild places to visit in 2022.

Oh yeah… Definitely writing more and taking Restorative Yoga classes.

Hiking in the woods, alone with my thoughts. Lost. Not Lost. Beating back depression with a trekking pole.

Baby steps. Thumbs up! 🙂

A Message from my Past

This morning, I opened a journal that I began several years ago, and revisited the opening entry.

“Intro to Survival. The night I realized that the writing was going to be my redeemer, I dove in head first. I’ve never jumped head first into anything. I always feel like I have to explain why I go down the ladder off the boat, or push myself off the stern into the sparkling depths that others embrace with such enthusiasm.

This time I didn’t hesitate. I started typing at 10 PM. Tap tap tapping. The words flowing like the creek after a rare drenching rain. I couldn’t slow them down and I couldn’t stop them from spilling out.

Suddenly there were no more tears. Just staccato sentences. No more exclamations points. Just declarative honesty. I shut off the light and lay my head on my pillow. But it kept coming. I turned on the light and wrote some more.

At 2 AM, I closed my eyes to the moon and the stars, to the soft breeze on my cheek.

I didn’t have a nightmare that night. I didn’t even dream at all.

I got up the next day and began my life anew.”

Linda Summersea, September 8, 2012

I vividly remember that night, although I had no way of knowing where it would take me. On New Year’s Eve (12/31/2020) at 11:53 PM, I completed the final reading of the seventh and, hopefully, final draft of my childhood memoir, The Girl with the Black and Blue Doll.

I closed my laptop with a feeling of decisiveness. Of completion. And happiness at being pleased with where the journey took me.

Happy New Year! I’m looking forward to seeing what 2021 brings for all of us.

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Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I haven’t posted in a while because here on the home front, beyond politics and Covid-19, I’ve been riding the roller coaster of Life. I’ve been hanging tight… It wouldn’t be Life if we didn’t have a few lessons to learn, right?

I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year 2021! And without further ado, here’s a happy memory from Christmas week, 1966.

“I was sixteen. I was driving myself to Denholm’s Department Store in a city twenty miles away on a school night. I must have told Mum and Dad what I was up to because I had to ask permission to borrow the car.

As proof of my emotional immaturity—and my hesitation to leave childhood behind—I was on my way to fulfill a childhood fantasy. I had always wanted to have my picture taken with Santa Claus.

On the second floor of the store, I saw Santa sitting on a golden throne in the Toy Department. His throne, hung with fragrant evergreen swags and a string of twinkling white lights, was the centerpiece of a green-carpeted platform placed three shallow steps above the rest of us. I joined the line of small children and their mothers, and they paid no attention to me. Well, maybe they did.

I was wearing an A-line, mint green, silk shantung dress. It was the prettiest dress I have ever owned in my life—bar none. I even felt pretty in that dress.

I was a little nervous and somewhat intimidated. I had my coat unbuttoned, ready to shed it quickly as I got closer to Santa.

When it was my turn, I handed my coat to an elf. I tiptoed up the steps to Santa and sat on the edge of his lap, just barely touching his red velvet thigh. I told him I didn’t want anything for Christmas except the photo, and I directed one of my rare smiles towards the elf with the camera. Santa didn’t say too much. Maybe he ho-ho-hoed. After the camera flash, I stepped down from the Santa throne and a few minutes later, my Polaroid was ready and Santa’s elf handed it to me in a Merry Christmas photo card.

I liked it. I did. There I was—carefully seated with Santa in my pretty green dress. My long brown hair looked just right. It was perfect. Even in my self-conscious state, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I stared at the photo as I rode down the escalator and floated out the door to where it was snowing lightly, just a scattering of fluffy flakes under the street lights to dust this fairy tale evening with Christmas magic.

I drove home on auto-pilot, parked the car in the driveway and before anyone had time to question me, I hung my coat in the hall closet and made my way upstairs to bed. I never shared that experience with anyone before now. Maybe I’ve always been a little embarrassed at being so lonely and emotionally withdrawn, but having my photograph taken with Santa Claus at age sixteen had given me Joy. I’m glad that I was brave enough to realize that it’s never too late to make something right.”

Summersea, Linda. The Girl with the Black and Blue Doll.

Swimming in the Dead Sea in Summer

Yesterday was my 70th birthday. Rather a big one, I think, and worthy of a big celebration. I don’t mean a big party or big money spent. I prefer to celebrate a significant transition with some kind of adventure, big or small or in-between.

I had hoped, if all went well, to be swimming in the Dead Sea this month as part of an expedition to Jordan to visit the ruins at Petra. It would be exhilarating to hike for a couple days in and around the ruins, then camp under the stars in the desert near Wadi Rum.

The same company that handled my return to Morocco to walk with Berber Nomads in 2017 and last summer’s 22-day Uncharted Expedition to Kazakhstan, Siberia, and Mongolia offers a “Women’s Expedition” to Jordan.

At first I ignored it because I thought in terms of the specialized women’s activities that one sees here and there. I surely didn’t want a frou-frou trip with shopping, make-up demos, and wine tasting. Definitely NOT my thing!

It turns out that their Woman’s Expedition involves hiking around Petra and Wadi Rum for a couple of days, camping under the stars (Love!) and, as they say in their materials “the best opportunity possible for developing a deeper understanding of Middle Eastern women – with full respect for their traditional cultural values.”

That’s what I want. Meeting Jordanian women in their homes for Middle Eastern cooking lessons, tea, the kohl experience, talking and socializing.

Of course, COVID put an end to all that. I’ve spent my days hiking familiar trails, gardening, harvesting vegetables, berry-picking, baking, installing 300+ feet of drip irrigation, bird watching, and—boring—repairing my dishwasher.

As the individual days of COVID blurred together, I decided to, at least, try one new-to-me adventure: stand-up paddleboarding.

This is what I emailed to my sons:

“It was great fun and a super workout. 100% positive experience. I loved it. I fell off three times. Lost my center of gravity, and the board shot forward out from under me. Then, Bang! Hit the water feet first and WHOOSH, rocket down Deep Deep Deep, followed by Glub Glub Glub, returning to the surface. LOL 
Getting back on the board isn’t too difficult, but I wouldn’t want to be 50 lb heavier.
Quartermaster Air temp was 61 F and water temp 65 F  (10 degrees warmer than Puget Sound). I wore my long-sleeve performance shirt under my sunblock shirt, with quick-dry river pants. Was perfectly comfortable even when wet. Actually quite refreshing.
Basic skills: Knees slightly bent.  Don’t grab the board with your toes or you’ll get cramps. Most important: Keep your core tight to control board wobble.
I knew I’d certainly be falling in. Brought a change of clothes.”

I perhaps should have been writing about my COVID experience these months. That’s what “everyone” says we should be doing—for the sake of documenting these days. But I haven’t.

I’m just trying to keep my head above water. I’ll continue to listen to the trees rustle in the breeze with the occasional scream of a gull in the distance.

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A Covid-19 Survival Story

My mother tested positive for Covid-19 on April 11, 2020.

A week later, she experienced difficulty breathing, coughing, but no fever. After days of being very ill, she was moved to the Positive-Covid-19 floor of her nursing home in Massachusetts.

She was on oxygen continuously for several days, then periodically as needed.

Then– she got better!

I called Mum today, May 23: SIX weeks after that diagnosis and also her 92nd birthday!

She sounded perfectly normal. Mind blowing!

She, of course, is the same baby girl who was born in 1928 at home in a third-floor, walk-up apartment, 2 months early, weighing 2 pounds (or was it 3 pounds?), and swaddled in a shoebox.

The doctor said, “Keep her in the oven with the door open.”

It was a gas oven.

There’s no other explanation. Simply put, my mother is a survivor.

P.S. Due to her dementia, she knows nothing about COVID-19. All she knows is that she can’t play Bingo because “we have to stay 6 feet apart”.

One Eye Open

This morning I awakened like a sleepy dog, one eye open, a bright new day rising up from the east. I wonder what today will bring. Will I learn to breathe through the morning news without a rise in blood pressure?

“One day at a time”, one of my brothers tells me via Messenger.

My sister is an EMT who drives the ambulance in a small summer village on Long Island. When I ask, she sends me a photo of herself in her N-95 mask and face shield.

I think that I’m going to need more than my usual 1 liter of black French press this morning.

On Sunday, I realized it was Easter.

On Monday afternoon, I called my 90-year-old mother. She’s in a nursing home. I asked if the Easter bunny had brought her anything.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Same here,” I said.

Monday evening I enjoyed a fun and inspiring night. I participated in a story-telling event via Zoom. It was stimulating and relaxing. “Yes” to both. A paradoxical experience.

Like cruising down the highway at 75 mph in your Volvo station wagon in the middle of an 8-hour drive to a teaching residency in the Mississippi Delta when you see your rear driver’s side tire suddenly roll past you at breakneck speed onto the median strip. Been there.

In the storytelling, I enjoyed once again having an active role, instead of my current semi-passive existence, writing and keeping house in these pandemic days.

Today is Day 35 of my self-imposed quarantine.

We have plenty of food, plenty of sharpened pencils & black ink drawing pens, empty sketchbooks & journals, shovels & rakes, compost and packets of sugar snap peas. Tools for every whim of creativity.

Groceries are delivered to the porch. It’s like Christmas when I bring in the bags and wipe down the boxes. Tillamook Coffee Almond Fudge.

Thriftway doesn’t deliver alcohol.

I joined a wine club yesterday. At least it was a bargain offer for the first round of bottles. They’re probably getting a lot of short-term members like me, those who are unable to mingle in stores. On my last grocery stock-up day in February, I remember thinking that I should get wine, but then I’d have missed the ferry…

But the wine club was a decent bargain. Just days earlier, cruising the internet at midnight, I found myself scrolling through Katz’s Delicatessen in New York City, craving pastrami. I have all the ingredients to brine one here at home but I wouldn’t be able to select the brisket first hand.

So I came this close to buying a pound of Katz’s pastrami (all natural with 7-days brining and smoking) for $35. Or a whole four-pound pastrami for $83.95. The whole one would have been a better deal. Even with the $70 shipping cost.

Was I insane? I shut off the light and pulled up the covers. That was close.

There’s plenty of gardening to do. And a fence to mend. Both of which give me time to think as I ponder past, present, and future. Present tense is the important one. Nevermind the others.

On Tuesday, I learned that my mother has tested positive for COVID-19.

Like my brother says, “One day at a time.”

Day 17. Self-quarantine and what have I learned?

Day 17. Self-quarantine and what have I learned?

  1. It’s not that different from my regular routine. Introvert here.
  2. I’m not accomplishing as much as I thought I would.
  3. Gained 3 carb pounds but lost them as soon as I realized I was foraging in the pantry too often.
  4. Walking the yard is more fun than the treadmill.
    1. I can listen to my first audio book. (Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez)
    2. I can do mental gardening, deciding which plants need pruning and such.
    3. I can even stop and pluck weeds—if I want to.

Biggest achievement: I wrote my first piece of Fiction.

That may sound surprising, but my formal background is in Art Education. Only in recent years have I begun to put my life’s desire into practice. I’m finally growing into the writer that I’ve always wanted to become.

I’m still a tender seedling. I identify as a fresh, green vine of snow peas. I’m pulling myself up by my fragile tendrils and reaching for the sky.

One of our island writers suggested that it might be fun if some of us wrote a piece together. She wrote a scene. Created a list of characters, both animate and inanimate. The first fifteen volunteers would have four days to submit 500 words and she would combine our work into The Flame Flickers and post for our fellow islanders.

I signed right up. Any writing challenge excites me.

(Confession: Self-quarantine makes me an easy target.)

I loved my assigned character, enjoyed the fantasizing involved, and sent it in. Am looking forward to seeing the other writers’ contributions.

Amazingly, I’m pretty sure that I could tackle a bigger piece of Fiction.

Writing Memoir is by design an “all about me” genre. I like the idea of using Fiction—as many writers do—as a way to write about things I’m uncomfortable sharing in Memoir.

For example: XX XXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX.

There. I said it.

Well, I tried, but I just couldn’t rip off the Band-aid.

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CGI in “The Call of the Wild”

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was unaware that the animals in The Call of the Wild are CGI until I was a few minutes into the film. Computer-Generated Images.

Had I known, I doubt that I would have gone to see The Call of the Wild yesterday. I like my animals living and breathing. This turned to be a good thing because, had I known, I would have missed out on a very good (not great) film.

I had read nothing in advance of going to the theater. I watched the trailer. Looked pretty good. I checked the Rotten Tomatoes ratings. 72% from the critics. 90% from the audience. The critics’ rating has since dropped to 65%.

My two reasons to see it:

I never got around to reading Jack London’s book and I have always loved wild places.

The prospect of a couple hours near horizontal in a heavily-upholstered Dad-chair before a mammoth curved screen seemed like the way to go.

A few minutes into the film, I began thinking “This is weird”, followed by “This dog doesn’t seem normal”, followed by “Wait. This is very odd.” As more animals joined the scenes, I realized they were definitely not normal.

It wasn’t just a matter of imaging. It was the animals’ ability to respond in a human manner. Buck the dog is beyond smart-dog-intelligent, and it was unsettling. The animals interact with each other in the same way that animated animals do. Think Bambi.

It was obvious that no animals were harmed in the making of this film. CGI enabled its animal cruelty and dog fights. Animals with evil intent. Animals with loving interactions. CGI makes personification possible on every level.

Which leads me to the “Kid-Friendly” label. I certainly wouldn’t take a child to see The Call of the Wild without making it very clear to the child that these are not real animals, even though they are physically perfect.

As the film progressed, I wanted very much to Google “making of Call of the Wild 2020”. I waited until I was in the car, waiting for the ferry home.

CGI has been used for lots of films. The difference is that we know the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were not real.