A Thousand Words

Some images and reflections from my recent road trip.  Good thing I am a truck driver's daughter and driving is in my bones.  To Melbourne, the Sarasota and back in three days.  Not a record, but not bad, either!

A mother truck and her baby in the wild.  When you drive more than 1000 miles in two days, you can get a bit punchy...

I had forgotten how hard Florida rains are.  There is a special place in my heart--not a nice one--for people in white cars who drive in blinding rains with no lights on....

The beach.  I don't miss it but felt compelled to take this photo for my husband, who does.

Total mistake, but interesting.  Taken by accident at the book signing at Our Lady of Lourdes.  I happen to like this particular image of me.

The best ice cream shop in the entire world, gelaterias in Italy included.  Siesta Key.  Go if you ever have the chance!

Pennies

I think one of the qualities of a writer is the ability to step outside his own skin and see things from a different perspective--to turn events into stories.

Many years ago, I remember reading a story about a woman who remembered her father every time she saw a penny on the ground.  The reason is a little more shrouded in mystery; I think he probably gave her pennies for candy or some such thing.  Whatever it was, making that connection turned a mundane and easily overlooked event into a connection with memory.  Ever since then, when I encounter a stray penny, I think of my own dad, not because of pennies but because of a storyteller.  it warms my heart and there are a lot of stray pennies out there.

By way of contrast, I once tried to read The Red Dragon and gave it up early on (but not early enough) because it was so graphic and connected too closely with the ME world I worked in.  Sometimes, unbidden, those images surface even now and I shudder--a story once told cannot be un-told and the images it raises are forever in the mind.

The power of story teller is to shape the world, one heart and one relationship at a time, for better or for worse.

Making Jelly

The entire cohort of Harty sibs (my family) were fortunate enough to grow up with parents whose life on the farm imparted to us certain rapidly disappearing skills, among them making jelly.  On his last visit here, my brother raided a neighbor's blueberry patch and left us two jars of his best jam (pictured)

The side of Little Cone, outside of Telluride, is covered with wild rose bushes that, in the fall, yield a bumper crop of rose hips.  Unlike their robust cousins from the East, these hips are small and hard to pick, buried as they are amidst thorns that have not been tamed for commercial purposes.  It takes hours to pick enough hips to make jelly and because I never remember gloved, my hands are left scratched an bleeding.

But what a joy to spend an autumn morning picking and the afternoon, especially if the mountains grace me with the gift of a storm, cooking up rose colored jelly to pass on to family and friends.    Here's a recipe if you want to give it a try:

4 quarts rose hips
5 quarts water (add more if needed to fully cover the fruit)

Wash and stem the rose hips, then boil until soft.  Mash (or process) the rose hips and strain through cloth to produce rose hip water.

1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored and finely diced
1 cup golden raisins


Add the apples and raisins to the water and cook on reduced heat until the apples are tender and the raisins are plump

6 cups (or thereabouts) of sugar)
1/2 c chopped walnuts
Pectin according to box directions (1-2 pouches, depending on the acidity of the fruit.  Too little pectin will result in loose jelly)


Add sugar to the mixture and bring to a rolling boil and continue to cook for several minutes until mixture thickens a bit.  Add nuts and pectin and continue on heat for another minute.  Put into clean, sterile jars, close with lids and process in a hot water bath.

Storytellers

Among my nick-nacs are several storyteller dolls.  These are traditional Pueblo motifs, open-mouthed adults with children gathered around to listen.  It's an image of passing on the wisdom of the elders, cultural literacy in clay.

It strikes me that, as a culture, we've lost control of our storytellers.  

All of us have stories to tell and those stories either build up or they tear down.  Either they bring community or they tear it apart.  There's very little middle ground.

What stories do you listen to?  What stories do you read? What stories do you tell?  

It makes a difference in where you are going.

In the Company of Friends

I've just returned from Catholic Writers' Conference Live!--the Catholic Writers' Guild meeting in Schaumburg, IL.  Great fun!  I had the chance to give a couple of interviews and schedule another. High cotton indeed for a first time novelist.

Dying for Revenge actually began its journey at a similar meeting a few years ago.  I went, along with my literary agent, to pitch the book to several publishers who were holding court.  I remember the butterflies--I was as twitchy as a drop of water on a hot skillet.  But the folks I talked to were kind and interested and it was the start of the road to publication.  Interestingly, my publisher was the president of the CWG that year.  (She doesn't remember me from that meeting, but I remember her..particularly when she took the podium and asked whether we could see her behind it.)

Writing is such a solitary occupation, just a person and a computer.  It's really the perfect occupation for an introvert, but even introverts need to get together with like minded folks once in a while.

Like minded we may be, but not at all alike in our work.  At the books signings, everything from children's books to well-researched references were on display.   And the authors, all there to meet and greet:  Here a priest, there a friar, a mother who lost a child, another who's a dynamo and prayer warrior, a teenager, a surfing champion, a successful businessman, a television personality--it would be hard to find a more diverse group, but one drawn together by their love of writing and their faith.  And next year I will remember to bring a rolling cart for the books I bring home.  I have my reading list for some weeks to come.

I'm not well enough recognized for anyone to ask me advice about writing, but just in case someone does, here's my first suggestion:  Find a writer's conference and go! There's something exciting about being among other writers, sharing stories.  It's what writers do, after all.

Going Home?

I am headed back to Sarasota for a book signing this weekend.  I called Sarasota home twenty years before a new job opportunity for my groom took us to cooler, mountain climes.  It will be fun to see old friends, but I confess, I am not looking forward to the midsummer heat.

It's no accident that Jane's story starts in Sarasota.  Like Jane, I raised my children there and made a home that was mostly happy and always chaotic.  Just in case you are considering a trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida, Sarasota is a great place to stop and visit a while.  Stay on Siesta Key (the best, most Bohemian of the various beach communities).  Must sees are the beautiful white sand of Crescent beach and no visit to the village is complete without a trip to Big Olaf's Creamery--my son's favorite for many years was "green" ice-cream (mint chocolate chip).  We used to take the kids across the street from our condo on summer evenings and let them exhaust themselves running n the beach and splashing in the water.  Sometimes we'd head down to Point of Rocks to visit the tide pools, a guaranteed way to wear them out as it was a long walk.  After sunset (watch for the flash of green as the sun dips below the horizon) we would head back with them in the trusty radio flyer, stopping by the pool to toss them in for what passed for a bath in those days.

On the mainland, Marina Jack's is a nice spot to spend the cool of the morning or the evening, watching the bay and the boats.  Mote Marine on City Island is a rite of passage for all kids raised in the area.  Nearby is the little sailing club where my kids learned to sail (one of them VERY reluctantly).    The Old Salty Dog is an old mainstay for beer and local seafood.

St. Armand's Circle is a chi-chi place to shop and worth the trip--but not really Jane's style (or mine).  However, the Columbia Restaurant serves up great Cuban food.  Years ago there was a waiter who used to entertain the diners with his ventriloquism--he could "throw" a bird whistle all around the dining room.  Kids especially loved. it.

Heading north along the bay, you'll see the Van Wezel concert hall--a giant purple building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  If more conventional architecture is your style, head up to the Ringling Museum and John Ringling's home Ca' D'Zan.

But just don't spend any time looking for Jane's Victorian in the vicinity of the local hospital.  It isn't there.   On the other hand, if you find a likely looking candidate for Jane's digs (or Kiki's)--send me an image!

Free Box Give and Take

(Originally Published in the Telluride Times Journal--many, many moons ago)

 Of all the institutions that set Telluride apart, the Free Box is one of the most defining. It sets up a paradox that takes a bit of experience and investigation to unravel.  Why, after all, would a community as wealthy as Telluride have a give-away station in the midst of downtown? It is possible for the casual visitor to miss the Free Box: We did on our initial forays into town.

            I learned about it only after reading of various and sundry Free Box adventures reported in the paper. From my distant vantage, I wondered about the contents of the Telluride Free Box. Slightly used Guccis, perhaps, or chipped Waterford? Could I find an old script with margin notes by Tom Cruise, cast aside? Maybe a pair of presidential long-johns? (No, that’s Jackson Hole.)

            I also wondered about the practicalities of such an undertaking. I imagined the reaction of the city fathers in my own town (Sarasota, Fla.) if the citizenry started leaving castoffs in the middle of town for anyone to take.

            Aside from the fact that items left unattended in the Florida heat and humidity either melt or are overtaken by jungle in a matter of hours, local sensibilities simply could not tolerate a year-round, 24hour flea market, even a small one, on the city streets.

            Not only did Telluride have a Free Box, the mere mention of outlawing it seemed enough to raise an armed insurrection among the populace. I made it my business to seek out this venerable institution on my next trip.  Necessity actually forced me to the Free Box.

            The Family had decided to make a pilgrimage from Fall Creek into town to hide up the Bear Creek Trial to the falls. Unaccustomed to the sudden changes of summer weather, we found ourselves stranded by a violent thunderstorm.

            We hunkered down in our 99cent Wal-Mart emergency plastic rain ponchos, in high-visibility orange, and perched under the rim of a huge boulder just below the falls.  The overhang of the boulder was slightly less than my own, so I spent an hour or so crouched under a few tons of rocks, water dripping onto my head and oozing around my boots. I personally prefer watching nature’s pyrotechnics from the safety of a dry, cozy house.

            We distracted the children from the fact that the trail is surrounded by lightening-rod sized trees by spinning a tale about the origins of the big, flat stones that cover the trail (leftovers from a bear who was carrying them up to build a fire place for his cabin, in case you’re interested.) When we finally unfolded ourselves from our roost, we were tired, cold and soaked to the skin.

            Back at the trailhead, a quick inventory of our rented chariot confirmed the worst - no dry clothes.

            Aside from a premature end to a day we planned to spend moseying about Telluride and enjoying one of its summer festivals, the possibility of pneumonia loomed large. The storm had been the leading edge of a front, and the temperature was dropping even as my groom and I exchanged light hearted invectives about whose fault it was that the sweatshirts were not in the car.

            Never on to be thwarted by circumstance or to ask permission when forgiveness would do, my son disappeared up the street and returned a few minutes later, pulling a clean, dry Telluride Blues Festival T-shirt over his head and clutching a chipped Boy Scout cup that he announced would form the nucleus of a collection of “Boy Scout stuff.”  When queried about its origins, he replied, “The Free Box.” Hypothermia overcame any residual timidity about using a local resource, and the rest of us followed. My daughter found an oversized cotton sweater and a rakish beret, and immediately became or resident beatnik for the remainder of the trip.  

         

            My own treasure was a fuchsia pullover that has become the staple of my camping clothing. It’s warm, comfortable and makes me easy to spot in a crowd. I also discovered after being repeatedly dive-bombed by tiny, aerobatic birds, which is a great attraction to the local hummers, who think of me as just another giant flower, rather than an aging flower child.

            Thus provided for, we doffed our wet gear, decked out in our Free Box duds, and spent the rest of the day at a magic festival enjoying a Telluride summer day. Since then, the Free Box has provided a swimsuit for a visiting relative who wanted to take a soak in the local hot springs, reading matter for inclement days, and most recently the gravalox recipe I’ve been searching for all my life.  

 

            In return, we’ve taken to packing with an eye for what we can leave at the box as we depart sort of and offering to insure a good and timely homecoming. I’ve come to appreciate (I think) the integral part the Free Box plays in Telluride culture.

            Everybody seems to take, and everybody seems to donate. I came to understand that it is not just an exercise in largess from the well off to the deserving needy. The Free Box is an expression of neighborliness among friends who share among themselves out of their abundance, inherent thriftiness and community.

            I’ve never left Guccis- or seen them there, for that matter. Free Box donations really seem to be pretty ordinary, but with a Telluride slant. The same well-used baby toys I remember my kids playing with turn up in the Free Box alongside a syllabus for an advanced course in physical anthropology and the latest New Age literature; ski boots with built-in heating units and first children’s hiking boots lie beside cheap sneakers with little wear left in them.

            An enterprising graduate student could do a thesis about Telluride’s economy from Free Box leavings. After all, the dearth of Waterford proves that despite its over-the-top prosperity, Telluride’s strength is in people who wear ordinary clothes and do extraordinary things. Like keep the Free Box working against the odds.

Signings

We combined our usual Western trip with the opportunity to sign a few books along the way.  This business of selling books--not just writing them--is all new to me and a little overwhelming for an introvert who would much rather spend time in her study.  Talking to strangers is a tall order.

But I've found out a couple of things.  First, independent bookstores are welcoming places and the staff are eager to help out the uninformed and uninitiated when it comes to books signings.  Good thing.  There's a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into setting up events and a novice like me has not a clue.  Thanks be that these folks are patient with mistakes and understanding of the mis-steps of a first timer.


More than that though are the folks who own and staff these places.  The people who own indie bookshops are simply amazing, with very interesting stories usually involving a life-long love of reading and a series of happenstances that bring them to selling books for a living.  Bobbie Smith, one of the owners of Between the Covers, started out as a baker for the cafe that is part of the enterprise, then a bookseller in the shop.  When an accident forced an change in her husband's career, the opportunity to purchase opened up and she's been going strong ever since along with her co-owner, Daiva Chesonis, who has a master's degree in conflict resolution.  Sitting in the shop for a couple of hours the afternoon of the signing and watching people come and go, it's even more evident to me how important BTC is to Telluride. It's not just a place for books; it's a place for community and it is clear that these two dynamic women are a good part of the reason. They know their clientele, they like them and the shop reflects that.  No one, not even a tourist, leaves the shop without feeling unwelcome or apart.

That's really one of the more important functions of books, I think: creating community over space and time.  A writer sharing ideas and something of himself to people he may never meet.  Unexpected commonality. Meet a stranger, discover that you've read the same book and there's instant common ground. The broader your reading, the more community you have.  If you look at the contents of the average indie bookstore, you'll find that there's a wide variety of thought represented.

Go, explore!  Buy!  ( I came back from the tour with The Death of Conversation and a tote bag emblazoned with a 7-panel precis of Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find.  The groom bought a coloring book.  See what I mean?)

Then there is ambience.  Every bookstore has a place to sit and ponder your purchases, but there is something special about indies.  They are often paired with cafes, usually have eclectic decor, and they are inviting, as individual as the visions of their owners.  Go to Nightbird Books and you'll find a comfortable seating area with a floor to ceiling cage of finches--and nobody minds if you just hang out a while checking out the inventory.  In the back room is a long table perfect for the many book clubs that meet there--one of which, the foreign poetry group, came in as I was leaving.  Look at their calendar and you'll see how Nightbird brings people together.  There's nary a week week on the calendar without a signing, a reading, or a club meeting.

We've started to realize the value to our health of fresh, local food.  Perhaps we need to remember that there's a "heathy, fresh, local" version of book selling, too: places where community happens in so many ways.  Here's to the indie bookstores who make all that possible!

Cabin Fever

Just for the record--this is not our cabin, though to hear our daughter tell it as a child, it might as well be.  On the wall of the Colorado manse is a routed sign with one of her trademark whines: Welcome to Crummy Old Colorado.  Every year we get to head to our little place on Little Cone, for a couple of weeks.  It's never enough, but it's always refreshing.  And now that she is grown up, the girl-

child agrees.

Spring can be tough.  There's often enough snow left at 10,000 feet to be troublesome and it's no longer pristine and pretty.  The runoff can create prodigious mud.  In the old days, before the road was so well packed, chains front and back could be required to negotiate the way up the mountainside.  These days, mostly just a good slathering reesults, but enough to make one think twice about hiking when returning to a cabin with no way to wash muddy clothes except in the tub.

Summer is wonderful: long, lazy days, never too hot (at least by comparison), plenty of hiking and, if inclined, lots to do in town; lightning storms converging over the Wilsons.

Fall is better: cool weather, the mountainsides covered in color;  between seasons, so that the town is not over-filled with tourists; and the occasional light dusting of snow to remind you that the season will change again, soon..

But the best is winter, when we can get it.  Winter is a challenge.  Being 8+ miles form the main road means that the way to the cabin is not always plowed.  We've had to snowshoe in the last mile on occasion; a couple of years ago in February we were first snowed out --hiking in from the driveway without benefit of snowshoes in knee-deep snow--and then snowed in.  That time was particularly interesting because we were hosting guests--5 of them--who were valiant and made the trek and had a great time.

The cabin in the snow is magical.  Apart from Point Reyes, California, I've never been to a place more silent.  In winter, all the sounds of life are absent and the quiet emerges almost like a being of its own.  It's worth the risk of weather to get there.

A cabin in the woods.  What better place for a writer to be?

More Providences

It's surprising the folks you meet on the writing path.

This is an image of a friend, Wes Ely, who is a professor at Vanderbilt University College of Medicine.  We met as a result of some of my other writing--PewSpective, a blog on topics spiritual.   He invited me to talk to a CMA meeting, where I met yet another remarkable man, Fr. John--and by extension, a remarkable palliative care nurse in Australia, AnnMarie Hosie and a prominent bioethicist, Ashley Fernandez (who is neither female nor Hispanic, as he is fond of pointing out).  

We began collaborating on a topic near to our hearts: End of Life Care.  The end result?  A paper on the topic of feeding tubes, just accepted for publication in the Journal of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, high cotton indeed.  This is not to mention a wonderful and collegial friendship that permits us to talk about all manner of topics, heady and mundane, with great comfort, knowing that disagreement is permitted and disparagement is not.

All because of a little blog that only about eight people in the whole world actually read.

It makes me wonder where Dying for Revenge might lead.  Certainly it will be an unexpected path!

Providences

Looking back over the creation of Dying For Revenge, so many things fell perfectly into place, not the least of which, oddly enough, was losing my job in January, freeing me to do what I wanted to do: keep writing and along with that, market the Lady Doc series.  Even my literary agent was a gift--an old friend reconnected with after many years.  The decision to keep the story much as I had first envisioned it led to finding a publisher whose mission encompassed my vision.  On and on, one knot after another untied.

Soon after I lost my job Br. David returned to  our lives.  We've known him for several years, since a couple of Christmases ago when he joined the family tribe for Christmas festivities.  On his way to his last gig at Camp Buck Toms as camp chef, then on to a new stability at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, he graced our home with his presence for a couple of weeks.  Just in the nick of time.

I am reasonably computer savvy but not all that great at troubleshooting and fixing.  Brother David is the machine whisperer.  There is not a machine, instrument, or electronic gadget that he does not have some deep kinship with.  He can fix anything and within a day had all the limping electronics in our house up and running--including a perpetually anemic network.  A good network, let me tell you, is an absolute necessity for a writer.

When I realized only a day or two before I was off to Ireland that I needed a book video trailer, he stepped in to the rescue.  I gave him some of my groom's images of Telluride and a little text.  He snuggled up to his computer and created a first class video, with help from Fr. Carter on the details of the story and the text of the video.

Thanks, everyone, but here and now, especially Br. David whose name did not make it into the acknowledgements because of timing.  It takes a village, it seems, to write a book!

And he forgot the book!

In response to my request for photos of folk reading Dying for Revenge, a friend sent this one--from the wilds of a Louisiana swamp--with the comment, "Can you photoshop the book into this?"

It's the thought that counts.  And for the record, I'd probably leave the book behind, too--and I prefer my swamps in the dead of winter.  Fewer critters to hassle with when the water is cold(er).

Reading Chairs

Reading chairs are important.  Almost the first thing my daughter did in her new home was to set up a reading corner with a comfortable chair.  For those of who love to read, a reading corner, complete with reading chair, is a sanctuary in the midst of the bustle of life.  An escape, perhaps, but one right in the middle of where we are supposed to be and therefore, connection rather than isolation.

I've had many such chairs in my life.  As a teen I used to drape myself over the arms of the wing-back chair in the living room.  In college, I had my spot in the stacks, not comfortable but at least cozy. When my husband and I first had kids, a leather recliner was the reading chair, with the children balance on our laps at first, then later, on the arms when they got too big to sit, both of them at the same time, in the seat with us.

These days it's either the settee on the porch or one of the many rockers distributed about the house, my favorite perhaps being the platform one that reminds me of my grandmother's reading chair.  I can still see her by the dining room window, lit by morning sun, her white hair luminous as she read whatever devotional material was her fare that day.  She was a hard woman, formed of a hard life, but in those small moments, or when she was teaching me to cook, bake, can or make preserves, she was a gentle and refreshing as a morning breeze and I knew that in her way she loved me dearly.

But the first chair, that might be the best. It sets the pattern for all the rest of the chairs.

My two brothers are much older than I; I came a child late in life to parents who were not expecting me.  From my perspective, it was like having three fathers and both my brothers gave intensely personal gifts to me, each in his own way.  The older one dropped out of his senior year to care for me when our mother was bedridden with tuberculosis, of his own accord.

The reading chair was a gift from the younger of the two.  He saved his lunch money to by a child's rocker for me, so that I'd have someplace to sit and rock and be safe and disappear into the books I was learning to read.  That little chair started out red and went through a legion of colors over the years.  It still sits in my office, laden with picture books, waiting for a grandchild, the only piece of furniture that I have from the family home.

I wouldn't trade it for all the world.

One Picture, 1000 Words

A few readers have sent me photos of them, taken while reading Dying for Revenge.  I really enjoy seeing them, so if you are willing to share (and permit me to post), send them along.

This one is of my sister-in-law, Jeannie.  Her husband sent it with the note that he was anxiously waiting for her to finish so he could read it as well.  Isn't family great?  I wonder whether my big brothers (13 and 15 years my senior) realize that all those stories they read to me as a child helped form me as a writer?

And that the little rocker that one of them bought for me out of his lunch money that still graces my office?  I used to sit in it and look at picture books by the hour.

You know what makes a writer?  A reader, that's what makes a writer.

Of Tortillas and Love

One of the great joys –and challenges—of writing Dying for Revenge was giving voice to Isa and her companions.  I’ve had a love for Hispanic culture ever since Mrs. Mildred Hankemeyer came to our second grade class to teach us Spanish—something almost unheard of in those days, even in Florida.  She not only taught us the rudiments of the language (sadly, I still speak it rather like a toddler) but also stimulated an interest in Mexico, where she went every summer to study.  She brought back all sorts of exotic memorabilia, fascinating to those of us who had never left the US, most of us having spent our young lives in our home state, some of us all in the city of Jacksonville.

Isa is the more prominent character but Pilar is probably my favorite.  I went to college in Arizona and was mothered by more than one woman like Pilar who took pity on lonely college students, in part to fill up a space in their own generous hearts.  More often than not, they did so by filling up spaces in our perpetually empty stomachs.

I’m passing on Pilar’s recipe for Tortilla de Papas.  Forgive her, she doesn’t measure much!

Eggs
Potatoes
Onions (yellow ones, the hot Spanish kind, not the sweet kind)
Olive oil (Pilar would say the Spanish kind is better—who am I to argue?)
Salt and pepper
Grated cheese 




Cut potatoes and onions into thin slices.  Put enough oil to cover the bottom of a fry pan; heat and then add potatoes and onions.  Fry until tender and a little brown.  You can add a little water and cover the pan to steam if needed.

When the potatoes and onions are soft, beat the desired number of eggs together, season with salt and pepper, and pour on top of the onions and potatoes.  Either finish on the stove (covering helps) or put in the oven (350 degrees) and bake until set and fluffy.  If desired, top with cheese and melt before serving, though cheese is not traditional.

Turn out onto a plate, potato side up.  Cut into wedges and serve with warm flour tortillas (or good bread and butter if you insist), and coffee.

By the way, Pilar would tell you that your grandmother’s cast iron pan works best.