ANATOMY OF AN ESSAY


I’m peacefully driving along the street and am suddenly attacked by the title for an essay. At the next stoplight I scribble it down on the stack of scratch paper on the passenger seat. Percolation begins -- subconscious in charge.

I finish driving to the swimming pool. As I dog-paddle back and forth in the lap lanes, related words and phrases bubble up into my consciousness. My fraying memory puts in for battle pay. I resort to a variety of tired mnemonic devices to help me hang onto whatever bits I can until I finish my swim. Finally, back in the car, I jot down the word salad as best I can. I drive to the grocery store and then home. I pull into my parking place and collect my notes to carry upstairs.

Once inside the door, I turn on the computer, open up Microsoft Word, and, using the hunt-and-peck system, begin to keyboard the notes, often finding them completely illegible. I save the keyboarded notes, hang up my swimsuit, and put my groceries away. All of a sudden I seem to be brain dead, so I close down Word. I tell myself I’ll work on the writing after lunch.

Life gets in the way. Three days later, writing class is galloping toward me. I do not know what happened to the week. It doesn’t matter as the deadline demands action. I encourage myself to sit down at the computer and open up Word and the saved essay notes.

I sit there and reread what I already have. It’s anemic, inadequate, lackluster at best. Whatever made me think this topic was substantial enough for even a lightweight essay? But, over the years I’ve learned that writing is more about the willingness to continue to engage with the material than it is about inspiration. So, I sit there and sit there and sit there.

Eventually I eke out a paragraph, or two, or three. I surprise myself with a cogent thought, or two, or three. I keep at it until it begins to approximate the idea I started out with. Maybe this will work after all.

I cut words and phrases. I look to make sure I have as many action verbs and precise nouns as possible. I remind myself to narrow the focus, be specific, and find places to use dialogue. I add examples and anecdotes. I look up dog-paddling in the dictionary; is it one word or two? Is it hyphenated or not? Back to the dictionary; does mnemonic mean what I think it means? How the hell do you pronounce it, anyway?

I finally reach the point where it’s not necessarily good, but good-enough. I print out copies, and drag the essay, freshly killed, to class.

Listen up, now!

WANDERLUSTING


This time of year a plague of symptoms assails me: itchy feet; compulsive daydreaming; restless nights. I’m obviously spring feverish, drunk on sunshine (or the lack of it), longing for a road trip. Just call me wander-woman, a kindred spirit to the legendary rambling-man. Wander-woman wanderlusting.

I wax nostalgic for the days I lived in a vehicle and could leave town when things didn’t suit me. For over seven years I lived in a 19-foot Itasca Spirit designed for weekend outings -- not for fulltime living. I slept in a bunk over the driver’s cab, and there was no room for nocturnal pacing much less room to swing a cat even if I had had one. (Not that I would actually do such a thing!) There was, however, a decent kitchen including oven, and a full-service bathroom on board.

Then my former mother-in-law offered me an older 21-foot motorhome with an actual double bed in the back, and much more suitable for a full-timer. So, I sold my Itasca Spirit and, for another five years, continued to travel around the country in more comfortable style.

I thought of myself as technically homeless, my address just a post office box. I stayed overnight in RV parks, state parks, and the friendly driveways of friends, friends of friends, and various aunts, uncles, and cousins. I also visited my two brothers from time to time. When in the Seattle area I parked in what my oldest daughter-in-law called “the mother-in-law driveway.”

I spent twelve years wandering these United States, mostly in the west, writing and teaching adult education workshops during my travels. I earned a marginal living between workshop fees and book royalties, and it was a satisfying life. Some people felt sorry for me, but I loved my gypsy lifestyle.

Then my books went out of print, my motorhome needed more and more repairs, and the price of gas kept climbing. A serious problem since the motorhome only got five or six miles per gallon at best. So I was content to move into senior housing, but every spring I hear the call of the open road. I remember with pleasure the faint odor of skunk roadkill, the postcard glimpses of the ever-changing landscape, the adventure of the challenges of everyday life.

On the other hand, these days I can hardly afford the gas for my ten-mile daily roundtrip to the swimming pool; traffic has gotten worse by the year; and I’m better at being an armchair traveler. My travels to the library to get books on true adventure feed my gypsy soul, and quiet my wanderlust.

Almost!

TWEET ME NOT


I’m no technophobe, but please don’t tweet me, text me, or “friend” me. As far as I’m concerned those are all forms of cyber-bullying. I love my computer (that I mostly use as a fancy typewriter), am content with my basic e-mail, and obsessed with the occasional computer game, but I only have a dial-up connection to the internet.

The tweets of Twitter do not intrigue me. I do like epigrams, and the challenge of reducing one’s message to 127 characters has some appeal, but I suspect few tweets attain epigram status. Texting with its arcane abbreviations and acronyms just seems juvenile at best.

Facebook and its kin are mysteries I’m not interested in solving. I don’t need friends that badly. I ignore those requests that purport to be from friends or relatives. The one request I did respond to in a cursory way resulted in my e-mail mail list getting compromised.

I tried to set up a web page for myself, but even the sites that claimed to be user-friendly, quickly attained enemy status in my hands. I had to settle for doing an idiot-proof blog that lacks the bells and whistles of the web page I originally sought.

Computers, smart phones, and their apps have taken over the known universe. Google is now a verb, and, despite the recession, sales of I-phones, Kindles, and their ilk prosper. Newspapers are shrinking both in number, and in their physical dimensions. Libraries are short on actual books, and long on audio books, DVDs, computers, and e-books. I’m conflicted because, despite my antipathy for tech talk, I do love Google.

I’m beginning to think that the issue for me is not just the pervasiveness of technology in my life, but the change it demands from me, and, worst of all, the rapidity of that change. Just as I think I’ve got some computer thing mastered they change the format, the protocol, or the password. I’m often asked by my computer, or whatever is dictating terms, to authorize “updates.” I don’t want updates. I want down-dates; I want boring dates; I just want things the way they used to be.

Nevertheless, although I think movement for movement’s sake is what passes for some tech progress these days, the tsunami of change has already wreaked its havoc, and now some of us have to pick up the few pieces we understand and get used to it.

Until I do that, please do not tweet me, text me, or friend me. I’m not feeling all that friendly these days anyway.

THE APRIL FOOL CHICKEN


One spring morning I walked into our suburban house just as Richard, my seventeen-year-old son, dashed past me out the door. “Where are you going?” I hollered.

“Gotta pick up my chicken,” he said, saying something about a friend who had a bantam rooster needing a good home. He revved up his ’56 Chevy and screeched out of the driveway.

“Oh sure,” I muttered, reminding myself that it was April first -- April Fool’s Day. I thought no more about it until the middle of the night when I heard this terrible noise outside my window. The middle of the night turned out to be pre-dawn -- four AM. The terrible noise turned out to be the promised chicken.

At breakfast I turned my bleary eyes on Richard and said, “Why?” pointing toward the sliding glass door to the patio where the colorful rooster could be seen strutting around as if he owned the place.

Richard met my gaze. “You know I’ve always wanted a chicken,” he said, as if it was something that all teenage boys wanted.

“I have never heard you mention this before,” I protested, trying to ignore the fierce stare of the beady-eyed rooster outside

A few months later Richard graduated from high school and moved into a tiny apartment with his buddy Mark. Guess who got temporary custody of the April fool chicken!

That evil-eyed rooster continued to wake me up in the middle of the night. Richard continued to promise that he was looking for another “good home” for the chicken. That chicken continued to terrorize all of the neighborhood cats and dogs that dared to approach our backyard for the next year and a half.

I finally sold the house and moved into a small apartment. The April fool chicken moved across the back fence into the yard of a neighbor who had grown fond of it.

I’d been looking forward to a different kind of alarm clock – one I could actually set and control. The first night in my new apartment I suddenly woke to a strange noise. I looked over at the clock. Four a.m. The strange noise was silence. Even stranger was the fact that I found I sort of missed that feisty April fool chicken.

THE SCREAMING IN MY HEAD

I’m listening to someone explain or complain, lecture or pontificate, or just ask
stupid questions. “Fool, fool, fool,” I mutter under my breath. Then, the screaming
inside my head starts. I obviously do not suffer fools gladly. I do suffer from the
screaming inside my head.

Other people cannot hear the screaming. I usually do not look like I’m hearing screaming either. I usually look like a somewhat grumpy senior citizen – a fairly quiet, somewhat grumpy, senior citizen. I think the screamer has always been there, sitting in judgment on my fellow man. It’s automatic. I don’t remember turning it on, so I don’t know how to turn it off. Personally, I’m used to it by now, but knowing about it might help others understand why I tend to avoid social gatherings and people in general

In high school I often zinged fellow classmates with stinging remarks. I thought I was just being clever until a friend warned me: “If you don’t stop being so sarcastic you’ll end up with no friends at all.” At home both my mother and grandmother would say, “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.” So, I didn’t. I didn’t say anything at all much of the time. Ultimately I developed a reputation in the family for being “silent and sullen.”

I’ve been wondering why I have the screamer in my head, and think I’ve pretty
well figured it out. It comes from too many years of not complaining in situations where
complaint was called for -- too many years making the best of unacceptable things -- too
many times where I made excuses for bad behavior both my own and that of others. Too
many times when I was trying to be nice, and stifled myself (and my true feelings), lest I be rude to family, friend or stranger.

I once made the mistake of mentioning the screaming in my head to a table of
cousins at a family reunion. Louise, who has a mean streak, made wisecracks at my
expense. Harriet was curious and kept asking me if it was happening “right now?” Her no-win question was really annoying. If I said “no” she might assume she wasn’t a fool. If I said “yes” she might assume I thought she was a fool. I finally learned to deflect that kind of question by saying “not yet” with a hint of warning in my voice.

Ruth, who tends to be compassionate, asked, “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I laugh,” I said trying to turn it into a joke.

I keep wondering if I had told Louise she was rude and offensive, and told Harriett her question was insensitive at best, and told Ruth, “yes, it hurts,” if those expressed truths might have diminished the screaming in my head.

But here I am years later still afflicted by a grudging niceness in the presence of others. And still afflicted by screaming in my head.

GREETINGS FROM GUATEMALA

Am settled in for the next 8 weeks. Trying not to fall down in the cobblestone streets and uneven sidewalks. It's been colder here than usual, but there are more hours of daylight and plenty of sunshine each day. The nylon windbreaker I brought for wearing to and from the airport in Seattle is now a 24/7 garment. I even wear it to bed over my nitegown! Guatemala not only has no central heating, it has no heating at all (except in the fancier hotels).

Fortunately I packed a small space heater down here some years ago and my friend Sarah stores it for me when I'm gone. It's been chugging its little heart out every night. My days are busy with important things like Scrabble with John, and lunch out with other friends.

Hope you all are warm and happy for the new year Love Jean

THE DICTIONARY CHRISTMAS


In September 1944 a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman had stopped by to show our family his treasures none of which we could afford. But there had been this library-sized dictionary weighing at least ten pounds that I coveted in a silent and intense way. Even though we were poor, I may have mentioned something about how useful it would be for the whole family.

That family consisted of my mother, my younger brother and me. We lived at 355 Hillside Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico just beyond where the pavement ended. We were poorer than most of the kids in the private religious school I attended, but not poorer than many others in the area. I had just turned nine and Christmas was mostly the lackluster school pageant and gift exchange.

At home a pinyon tree sat in a corner of the living room flanked by two small painted wooded Mexican chairs with rattan seats. The previous Christmas the chairs had held a doll for me that I neglected and may have lost, and a bear for my brother that he still slept with. We had decorated the tree one evening, stringing white popcorn together with a large needle and thread to drape back and forth across the branches; we also pasted construction paper strips in bargain-table colors (no red and odd shades of green) into loops to make chains. As the twenty-fifth approached a few tiny packages and Christmas cards clustered around the white sheet at the base of the tree.

Then one day I saw that my little chair held a huge rectangular gift, wrapped in shiny pink paper. My mother loved anything pink. I knew the gift was for me and I hoped I knew what it was. Maybe, just maybe…

So, for the first time I could remember, I eagerly anticipated Christmas morning.

Two days before Christmas, my mother of gypsy habits and rampant impulsivity had heard that the geometry teacher from school was driving to Los Angeles for Christmas. Suddenly she decided we just had to visit her sister Ruth who lived there with her family. Mr.Chidester was a hapless soul who never had a chance once my charming mother set her sights on his transporting us to California.

In a scant hour we were packed up and picked up and off on another of her last-minute adventures. Neither my brother nor I had even met Auntie Ruth; we didn’t know our cousins or uncle; we did not want to leave home. “It’ll be such fun,” my mother kept saying.

I remember us driving straight through, stopping only once for several tedious hours for Mr. Chidester to take a nap. .

On Christmas Eve day we arrived on my aunt’s big fancy house doorstep. Of course Mother had not bothered to inform Auntie Ruth that we were coming. I felt the terrible awkwardness of it all as Auntie Ruth said and did all the right things, but her lack of sincerity was palpable to my sensitivities.

At least my cousin Joanie, six months older than me, was honest in her impatience with her mother’s “poor relations.” I suffered through the fuss to get us settled for the two nights we would be there and the patronizing small talk of the dinner table. The following morning as they opened their lavish display of presents, my mother, my brother and I received hastily wrapped gifts. We had brought nothing for them, of course. All I could think about was my big shiny pink package waiting at home.

My present from Joanie was a copy of Heidi. Although a book was normally the best sort of present for me, as I opened it up I saw a bookplate on the inside front cover declaring, “This book belongs to Joanie Stanton.” My humiliation was complete when I saw her smirking face. I said the obligatory thank-you, but couldn’t wait to leave the next morning.

Mr.Chidester’s car finally liberated me from the horror of family obligations. The drive home was still tedious but made bearable by putting distance between Joanie and I. It seemed as if we had been gone weeks instead of just four days

Home at last, the first thing I did was to tear into the shiny pink paper despite my mother’s entreaty to be more careful and save the paper for next year Of course I got my much beloved Webster’s Unabridged dictionary. Pure joy! And I’ve been wallowing in words ever since.

At the time I couldn’t understand how come my worst Christmas ever had produced the best gift of my whole life. Later I realized that it was a perfect real life mixed bag-- bittersweet and satisfying all glopped together.