Nancy Martin's Blog, page 28

Climbing the ladder of my dreams

Climbing the ladder of my dreams

By Nancy Pickard

 

There were two recurring dreams in my childhood:

Recurring dream #1:  I'm climbing a ridiculously rickety ladder to a great and terrifying height.  Often, the ladder is one of those metal construction types with holes manufactured into them, and flimsy handholds.  The ladders in my dreams are barely held together.  There are wide spaces to traverse.  Nothing but space surrounds these ladders.  I am scared out of my mind, paralyzed with terror.

Recurring dream #2:  I'm in a dark basement or attic.  Frightened of I know not what.

I've been fascinated by dreams for nearly forty years.  I've kept journals of them.  Studied Carl Jung until Archetypes were coming out my ears.  Had Jungian dream analysis just for the fun of it.  Belonged to a "dream group" where we discussed our dreams.

But the most satisfying dream work" I've ever done didn't involve talking about them or studying them.  It was all about living them in real life.

I have a professional photographer friend, Roy Inman, who was doing a photographic journal of the renovation of Kansas City's magnificent Union Station several years ago. 

It's our elegant old train station, which I remember from the days of the Harvey Girls, and train porters, and long wooden benches under a vast ceiling.  That ceiling in the Grand Hall is 95 feet high.  I know that fact now. . .because I climbed a metal construction ladder up to the top of it.

One day, Roy called me and said, "I go over to the Union Station every Friday night to take pictures after the workmen are gone.  There's a construction ladder in the very center of it that goes all the way to the top where there's a false ceiling where the painters work.  Sometimes I take a friend along.  Want to go?"

I remembered my dreams.  I felt my fears.  I thought, I have to do this, or I will forever regret that I didn't accept this challenge.

"Yes," I said to Roy, and my heart began to pound long before that Friday.

When the day came, I was excited.  This was gong to be my chance to overcome something major, a terror going back a long, long way.  I felt shaky; I felt determined.  I met Roy in the parking lot and we entered the huge building, now dimming in the twilight.  Our voices echoed in the vast emptiness inside. 

There in front of us was The Ladder from my dreams.

It was silver metal.  It had manufactured holes in its steps.  It had railings made of two thin horizontal bars fastened to the stairs by vertical bars.  There was space between the bars.  A lot of space.  You could look down through the holes in the steps to the floor, or up through the holes above you to the ceiling.  It twisted and turned.  Eight steps up.  Small platform. A turn to the next eight steps up.  The next platform.  And on and on, up and up.

It was my nightmare ladder.

My knees weakened, my bowels did, too.

I planned to hang on tight with a hand on each railing.

"Here."  Roy handed me a bulky black tripod.  I stared at it, uncomprehending.  What did he want me to do with it? 

"Carry this up for me, will you?" he said, making his wish all too clear.

Then he also handed me a large light bulb, one of those things with shutters and clamps.  I began to understand why Roy invited friends along.  We were his ladder-climbing pack mules.  Weak laugh.  With all that stuff in my arms, I was barely going to be able to grasp one railing.  I thought of the hoary old plot device: make it bad for your heroine, now make it worse, now make it impossible.

"Ready?"

"Okay," I whispered.

He went first.

"Don't look down," he said, but that was impossible.  I had to look at my feet to be sure each one landed securely, and every time I looked I saw through the holes in the metal. All the way to the floor.  Alllll the increasingly long distance down.

Because it was metal, the ladder vibrated with our steps.  It trembled, like me.

Halfway up, I whispered, "Roy, I don't think I can do this."

"Yes, you can," he told me in a  calm, firm tone.  "Just keep telling yourself you can do it.  You've already come halfway. "

 I'm stubborn.  It's hard for me to quit if I believe I'm doing something that could change my life for the better, even when everything in me is screaming that it wants to STOP! I inhaled a shallow, shaky breath and put my right foot on  the next step.  My left ankle gave a little.  I really really wanted to cry.

I told myself, construction guys run up and down these steps every day.  It's nothing to them. 

It was something to me.

Up, we climbed, up and up.   My hands were sweaty.  The tripod and light were slippery in my grasp.  My legs were quaking.  I thought I was going to drop Roy's property.  I thought it would slip from my hands and tumble all the way to the bottom, clanging against the ladder, and I'd scream until it crashed to the floor.  And I'd be glad that I didn't have to carry it any futher!  I thought I was going to drop me, too.

One more step, another one, another one.  Panting.  Sweating.  Roy talking me up.

"We're here," he said, quietly, and then he turned and grinned at me. 

 We stepped off of the ladder and onto the false ceiling!  A floor!  I was standing on solid wood!  Okay, there were maybe 87 feet of empty space below us, but it was solid ground, sort of!  I suddenly felt so joyous!  I did it!  I made it all the way to the top!  I was so flushed with triumph that when I saw a small, ordinary painter's ladder going to the very tip top of the ceiling, I climbed it, too.  And up there was my prize:  the original ceiling painters had left their painted signatures there in 1914.

And then we had to go down.

It wasn't as hard.  It's supposed to be harder, right?  It wasn't.

Only when we were once again on the floor did Roy say, "Most people I bring here can't do it.  They get part way up and have to come down again.  You're one of only three people who made it to the top."

"You could have told me that earlier!" I yelled at him, and then laughed hysterically.  But I realized that if he'd told me that most people don't have the nerve, I might have used that as an excuse to give up. 

"Me, neither," I might have said, and turned carefully around to go back.

We toured the whole place then, and I practcally skipped through all the long halls and ornate galleries.  I was giddy.  I'm still giddy about it.  I triumphed over my nightmare—in real life.  And those basement dreams?  When I wrote my first novels, I did it in a basement office, working a lot of the time at night, with the light on only in my office.  Creativity emerged from down there.  I realized a few years ago that I'm not afraid of the dark any more. I can walk into a pitchblack room—basement, attic, any room—with no hesitation or fear.

  When have you faced a fear and stared it down?

Do you think it changed you in any way?

 

 

 

 

 

The Club

The Club

by Nancy Martin     

This week, I was a guest at a lovely and venerable women's club in my city.  This club has been around for more than a hundred years and has its own gracious building--a stone wedding cake of an edifice surrounded by a fence of wrought iron curlicues and deep flowerbeds tended by someone other than the members.   The building has a real ballroom on the second floor and a pretty, hushed dining room on the top floor. Their mission statement mentions "intellectual pursuits" and the promotion of "science and literature and art," which is a noble calling, right?

The dining room features tall windows with swagged draperies, Chippendale-style chairs upholstered in mint-green fabric, and round tables set for eight, which is the perfect number of people at a luncheon. The waitstaff knows the names of all the members and what beverage they prefer to drink.  The napkins were folded into fans. (No napkin rings, Josh.)The lunch menu included chicken salad, tuna salad or beef stroganoff.

The ladies of the club are all well-spoken, intelligent women of a certain age who are free to attend morning lectures before enjoying a nice luncheon together.  It was clear to me that they've all known each other for many years. At the table, they were all chatting about the dinner dance a few nights earlier. On the wall, a bronze plaque listing former club presidents featured the names of wives of captains of industry--not their own names but rather "Mrs William Taylor So-and-So."  These days, a great many of the members seem to be widows or part time realtors or both, but they are all well-read, well-informed, and practised at making a newcomer feel welcome. Most wore suits. Many wore lapel pins.  Not a single string of pearls in the room.

You might have already guessed that I wasn't there as a potential member (the membership fee is more than my car is probably worth right now)  but rather as a crass writer selling my books. The actual plugging had to be delicately done, of course.  Nobody in this group responds well to a hard sell.  We talked about books and documentaries and favorite Shakespearean plays, no kidding. (What's yours?)

For a while, my aunt belonged to a similarly elegant club down the same street. She joined the other club because the amenities included a swimming pool and athletic facilities, but as far as I know the only perk she actually used was the masseur.

My visit got me thinking about women's social clubs. My grandmother belonged to a "sewing circle" at her small town church, but I don't remember a stitch of sewing undertaken. She also belonged to the Eastern Star, but her daughters made terrible fun of her for that. Since we didn't have fancy social clubs in my small town, my mother belonged to a bridge club when I was a girl, and once a year she dragged out the card tables and the Bridge Mix and the ashtrays to entertain the ladies in our home.  (The whole house stunk of cigarettes the next day.)  She also briefly joined The Circle at our church, but I'm not sure what the purpose of The Circle was. Mostly I remember they put on musicals in the spring, which I loved.  Seeing my mother sing and dance (not just singing hymns in the choir, but tap dancing!) was a real treat. 

My husband belongs to the Rotary, which considers itself a service clubm not a social organization. My father went to Republican Party meetings, but I think those folks would be horrified to call themselves "social."

"Men's clubs" with buildings of their own, of course, are much more prevalent than similiarly real estate-rich women's clubs. My husband probably goes to such a club once or twice a week for business meetings.  In those clubs, he drinks manhattans.  (In other restaurants, he usually has whatever's on draft.) Men's clubs still feature hunter green carpets and pictures of horses or trains or idyllic landscapes, usually with heroically muscular Native American depicted in the foreground.  The men are very polite to visiting ladies.  Nowadays, most men's clubs are required to allow female members.

Tangent: Men's clubs are light years' different from "gentlemen's clubs," let me tell you.  Not that I've ever set foot in a gentlemen's club.  (Have you?)  For one thing, men's clubs do not have neon signs. They do tend to have valet parking.

Anyway, I think the time of women's social clubs is coming to a close, and that's a sad thing.  Nowadays, most women can't spend a morning at a lecture or devote two hours to a luncheon with friends.  That lifestyle seems as distant as that of a Jane Austen novel. Most of us eat at our desks and communicate via email or Faecbook.  By Facebook, we keep in touch with more people, I think, but we don't see their faces anymore. Many profile pictures seem to include pets.

Of course, I grew up in a small town where the only true social clubs were the Moose and the Elks and the Vets.  My parents didn't belong to any of those clubs.  In the summertime, they did join the local country club because they played golf.  (My mother was club champion a couple of times. There's a plaque with her name on it over the mantel.) But the country club in my town had a major drawback as far as potential members were concerned, because it was located in a "dry" township.--In other words, they couldn't serve liquor, and even now it seems most people join a social club so they can have drinks with friends.  It was not a fancy country club.  The emphasis was on "country."  There still isn't air conditioning in the club house. Knotty pine paneling and hot dogs.  No pool, so dinner dances. But it's a place where my mother and her pals can still hit golf balls and have a sandwich afterwards, so it's a club where she can be social.

I'm sort of sad that social clubs appear to be on the wane.  Do you belong to any?  Did your parents?

Today, though, I'm meeting some good friends for lunch, and I plan to stay late.  Although we don't meet at the same place every time we get together, we are close friends, and I want to maintain that social network. Talk amongst yourselves.  I'll be back this afternoon.

Sticky Fingers is selling   well, by the way.    Thank you for all your support!  Spread the word?

The Royal Wedding

The Royal Wedding

By Kathy Sweeney, who will be there

It is all anyone wants to talk about, isn't it?  The Wedding (Cap W). The breathless anticipation as we waited for the invitations.  The endless speculation on what the bride will be wearing.  We all try not to ask questions, out of respect and truly, in fear of being banished from the event of a lifetime. It is the culmination of decades of waiting and wondering - who would he choose?  

And now, it is less than two months away.  The Crown Prince is getting married.  I will be there.  I mean, assuming this blog doesn't get me in too much trouble.

But let's go back to the beginning.  The year was 1972.  In a lovely hamlet full of Christmas trees, there sat a white house on a hill.  In the house lived four lovely and talented girls.  Life was good.  The Godfather premiered in theaters.  George Carlin debuted his "Seven Words" and got arrested.  Nixon went to China and his 'plumbers' broke into the Watergate.  Shaq and Karl Pilkington were born. And then, it happened.  Life as we knew it was forever changed.

The mother of the lovely and talented daughters went to the hospital and gave birth to HIM.  The only son of the only son of the only Reschini in the United States.  The celebration reached biblical proportions.  In fact, given the advances in technology, it is safe to assume that this July birthday was received with more fanfare than the one in a manger some 2000 years before.  No offense intended. In fact, there was no star in the sky in Western Pennsylvania on that July night, but the glow from the reflection of lit cigars bouncing off the scotch rocks was something to behold.

I was 12.  It is the only time I have seen all of my relatives - from both the Irish and Italian sides - Republicans and Democrats - blue and white collars alike - completely schnookered for about 48 hours straight.  The whole town was at our house.  Blue blankets waved on flagpoles all over the neighborhood.  Finally, they said, finally after five tries, a BOY!

Did I mention the existence of the four lovely daughters, heretofore the highly treasured grandchildren?  Not that we resent it or anything.  Typical patriarchal bullshit and so forth.  Not that it matters.

Time passed and the Crown Prince mastered the fine arts of faking out the parents to skip school (Oh, Ferris Bueller - did you really think you invented the clammy hands?) and acting completely innocent.  The kid got away with murder.  It helped that our parents, who for some reason were completely exhausted getting us older kids through high school, just threw in the towel.  Our brother had carte blanche.

Even to this day, we could be bleeding from the eyes but no one would care if our brother was on his way over for dinner.  His response to our semi-regular reminders that he was completely spoiled: "I can live with that."  Smartass.  I don't know where he gets it.

So the years turned to decades, and the four lovely and talented sisters found mates (some took more than one try, but it was annulled so it never really happened anyway, right?).  The daughters produced lovely and talented grandchildren to the delight and amusement of the rest of the family.  But still, the Crown Prince did not find his Princess.

38 years, nearly 3000 miles, and heaven knows how many full novenas (that's right, the whole mass, every day, St. Jude, the works) and another miracle occurred - this time at Alcatraz.  The Prince had to go all the way to California, where one can be sued by his or her own cat, to find his beloved.  Years after many had given up, and during which at least one sister asked her brother if, perhaps, he was looking for a prince -- not that there is anything wrong with that-- the Crown Prince found his heart in San Francisco.

His fiance is blonde and blue-eyed.  She looks nothing like his sisters. Coincidence?  She is lovely and she works out all the time and does extreme sports.  She acts nothing like his sisters.  She is quiet and reserved. She sounds nothing like his sisters.  In fact, she does not like being the center of attention, and was reticent about even having a wedding.  I don't even need to say it.

Our parents are delighted.  Our mother is fussing about shoes and clothes.  We are trying to learn as much as we can about our new sister without freaking her out completely.  This is why we ask Barbara Walters questions like: "Which do you like better, Strawberry Shortcake the desert or Strawberry Shortcake the cartoon?" instead of Jon Stewart questions like: "Are you aware that your soon-to-be-husband only uses his fancy JennAir oven as a pizza box holder?"

The invitations are out.  The plane reservations are made.  This just got real.  It is the wedding of the century.  We can hardly wait.

Oh - for those of you expecting to hear about some other wedding, please.  Monarchs.  Really?  Nothing against these two lovely royals, but can anyone tell me why a Catherine with a 'C' is also a Kate with a 'K'?  Just asking.  

 ***

Okay, here is a photo of the Reschini Clan (USA branch) from the mid-80s.  

 

 

 

 

 

Rite of Spring

Yeah, it's Spring. Oh, you might be having blizzards or you might've hit the 100-degree mark and had a mosquito sighting, but March madness is underway, chocolate rabbits and matzoh are front and center at the market, and Harley, Heather and Hank engage in serious philosophical discussions about this controversial season.

Q: What does Spring remind you to do?

Harley: Sign up the kids for summer camps. Because 6 minutes after school's out, it's their cue to say, "I'm so bored. There's nothing to do." They always assure me that it won't happen, but it always happens.

Heather: Try to figure out Chynna's spring break, Derek's spring break, and Easter. And Spring seems to begin the "initial" season of conferences . . . RT, RWA, BEA, HWA . . . ALA in there somewhere. I lose track!

Hank: You know, when I was a kid, the time went by so slowly. Now, it just races. (Is there some sort of theory of aging relativity?) So at times, spring reminds me that winter is over and the time is going by and I just want to hold onto it. But then the crocuses come up, and the tulips, and our wild ducks return to the pool in our back yard, and it starts to smell good outside, all lilacs and dogwood---and I think, okay. It's how the universe works.

Harley: Hank, how do you deal with duck poop? Have we discussed this?

Q: Spring Cleaning?

Hank: Um, what? Fine, I put away my heavy boots, and take my coats to the dry cleaners. And I call the window-washing guys. Because really? Clean windows are fantastic, but I'm not gonna do it myself.

Harley: I change Bob, the family mannequin, from his winter tuxedo to his summer outfit of swimming trunks and tank top.

Heather: Nothing, sadly. Every day of every season is trying to remember what might be under what was last tossed down.

Q: Does the phrase "swimsuit season" strike fear into your heart? 

Heather: I live in Miami! It's always swimsuit season here, even for the hefty gentlemen in Speedos and thongs who . . . well, who should never be in thongs. This goes for a number of women as well. But, hey, if they're happy, that's great!

Hank: Dying. I have bathing suits from—Land's End. Tankinis. I love them. But I am never trying on or buying another bathing suit in my life. Why do that? Why look in one of those mirrors that's designed to make you look fat (why would they do that?) and all green in the fluorescent lighting? NO. I'm done with buying bathing suits.

Harley: "Swimsuit season" is a marketing ploy to make me buy some weight-loss product or join a gym. Are there people who look at their watch and say, "well, time to get in shape"? And then in the fall, do those same people say, "okay, time to pig out"?

Q: Gardening?

Harley: I just keep watering things and hope for the best.

Heather: I live in south Florida. Stuff just grows--unless I try to touch it.

Hank: Okay. Our gardens are really beautiful. I wish you could all come visit. Tulips and lilacs and pale pink roses and lavender and pink thyme… How they all get so lush and gorgeous is a blog for another day. Okay?

Q: Allergies?

Hank: To everything. The trees start to bloom, I start to sneeze. Grass? Forget it. When I was growing up, my dad had a cool riding mower and one day I mowed the front lawn into the shape of the United States—I mean, why not?—and got in a lot of trouble. But the point is, I spent the next two days in bed with an allergy attack. So that was the end of that. Now I take a lot of Allegra.

Harley: None, thank God.

Heather: Cats. But, hey, they're here. It's Cat Season all year round.

Q: Easter candy-Peeps?

HANK: Disgusting. But funny.

HEATHER: They're marshmallow, right? Don't care for marshmallow, so it doesn't matter if they're chicks, rabbits, or big pink and yellow blobs.

Harley: No Peeps. However, and despite being a vegetarian, I am obsessed with frosted animal cookies.

Q: Spring Break?

HANK: It wasn't a big deal when I was in high school. I stayed home. Going to Cancun in a bikini and getting crazy on beer? My parents would have killed me, but, sadly, it would never have crossed my mind to do it.

HARLEY: I don't think Spring Break had been invented when I was young.

HEATHER: I don't really remember spring break. I'm sure that it became spring, and that we broke!

Q: Tanning?

HANK: Never.

                                                                HARLEY: No. Boring.

HEATHER: When I was a kid, we were always in the water, and we even oiled our bodies. Now, they know heavy exposure causes skin cancer, so I certainly never try to tan. I scuba dive, but I actually wear a light skin, even in summer. (Keeps jellyfish from your flesh!)

Q: Stockings or bare legs?

Heather: Legs. Spring means that in a few months, well be sweltering. And we don't cool off much at night, and stockings just add to the--sweltering.

HANK: Legs, because I guess that's hip. Don't laugh, but I wish stockings would come back.

Harley: When I did TV and we had scenes with skin, they'd always slap a whole lotta body makeup on us. I could use some of that now. After my twins were born, I got blue veins in my thighs. Sexy, huh?

High Camp

 

By Elaine Viets

My parents couldn't afford to send me to summer camp. I didn't feel deprived. I went to day camp in the local park and made Popsicle stick jewelry boxes.

Cousin Perfect ruined my summer. That girl succeeded at everything: Ballet lessons. Blond flips. She had more Girl Scout merit badges than I had zits. Then she got a job as a camp counselor and her perfection imploded my world. Camp counselors' relatives could go to summer camp at a discount.

"You should go," my mother told me. "It will be an enriching experience."

"We could send the boys to your mother's house for the week," Dad said. He had that glint in his eye he usually got after a six-pack on Saturday night.

The next day Dad woke up whistling. Mom got her hair done. I knew my fate was sealed. Years later, I realized I was packed off to a mosquito-infested swamp so they could have honeymoon sex.

"I don't want to go away to camp," I said.

"How do you know if you've never been?" Mom was busy inking my name on seven days' worth of socks, shirts, shorts and underwear. She bought me a green one-piece swimsuit that emphasized my flat physique. I looked like the Geico gecko.

Mom and Dad looked unnaturally cheerful as they drove out to South Shinbone, Missouri, and dropped me at the camp. I felt like a puppy left at the pound.

"You'll have a great time, honey," Mom said, her voice oozing false cheer. "You'll enjoy the fresh air in your cute little cabin."

It was the size of a tool shed and didn't have air conditioning. I got the bunk under a bedwetter.

"And the camp has horses," Mom added. "Girls love horses."

Not this one. Call me a traitor to my sex, but I thought horses were big, scary and stinky. They dropped mountains of manure while we pretended they weren't doing anything disgusting. I regarded them as four-legged fly-infested versions of my baby brother.

"Don't forget the spring-fed pool," Mom said, giving me one final shove toward the camp reception.

That's what they called it in the brochure. Glacier-fed was more like it. Swimming in that pool was like plunging into an ice bath. My green swimsuit was embarrassing enough. I turned blue when I dipped a toe in that water. I wasn't going in there. I didn't care if swimming lessons were part of the enriching experience.

"I'm not going," I told the lifeguard.

"Get in the water," she said. "You have to learn how to swim."

I didn't think much of her lifesaving skills, despite the Red Cross badge on her tank suit. Her makeup was immaculate. Her lips were plump, pink and permanently glossed. She spent most of her time flirting with the cute guys who worked at the boys' camp on the other side of the lake.

 "You are swimming," the lifeguard said.

She picked me up and dropped me in the deep end. I sank like a block of concrete in seven feet of icy water. I heard splashing and cussing. Finally a manicured hand pulled me out.

The lifeguard didn't look so perfect now. "I have a date tonight. You ruined my hair," she shrieked.

I had, too. She looked like she had a wet cat on her head.

"You poor baby," said her sister lifesavers. They tried to console the blond lifeguard while I ran shivering to my cabin. My ordeal was over the next day.

I understand that some people enjoy summer camp. There are even camps designed for kids' special interests: science camps, computer camps, arts camps, and adventure camps.

I looked up my old camp online and found the Catholic Church now uses it for girls considering religious vocations.

That seems right. For me, it was a place of suffering and mortification.

 

 

 

THE SEDUCTION OF SECRETS

This is Holly from behind the scenes of These Lipstick Chronicles (but across the country from Her, Margie, so I can't tell you any of her secrets). I was cook at a writer's retreat in Washington State. Every once in a while, I would bond particularly with one of our guests. Sally Brady is bonded to me with an epoxy of humor and experiences.

 

By Sally Ryder Brady

         Ever since I can remember, I have been drawn to the dusky power of secrets – mine and the ones other people have asked me to share – my close childhood friend's abortion when she was 20; infidelities among brothers when one gets the other's girlfriend pregnant; a roommate's theft of small objects d'art. In my writing, secrets are catalysts: Who fired the gun?  Did she have a lover?  Who knew and didn't tell?  Why?   In my workshops, I ask writers to explore the deepest secrets of their characters, a sure way to give a person or a plot more texture and muscle.  But until my husband died three years ago, I didn't viscerally know, first hand, the wrenching guilt or isolation of life secrets.

         Upton and I had been married forty-six years, and like most long relationships, ours was complex, and often highly charged with passions, good and bad.  But our long life together was built on love and, I wanted to believe, also on trust.  How could you have one without the other?  Our four children and I knew Upton had a darkness in him.  We knew that he drank to relieve that darkness and the pain it caused.  When he stopped drinking, he was less angry, and no longer frightening.  But the shadow was still there, and if anything, darker.  Sometimes, he would remove himself from me, even while we were holding hands.  For almost thirty years he worked hard with a skilful therapist, delving into his past and, I assumed, into the darkness.

         But weeks after he died three years ago, I found out about the secret that he had carried for life. My husband was both homophobic and gay.  This was his secret burden, one he carried with infinite shame and fear; one he kept even from his trusted therapist.  It was an erosive secret; one that isolated him from all of us who loved him.   Looking back, I think the strain of secrecy may have been a large part of what killed him; its toll as crippling as his congestive heart failure.  

         Since he died, I've been pondering the nature of secrecy in marriage or any committed relationship – don't we long for a partner with whom we can share everything?  Someone from whom we hide nothing? Someone with whom we can be as happily naked spiritually and morally as we are physically? Isn't openness what drives us toward one another? Or am I being too black and white?  Because each one of us has some secrets, that's human nature.  And we distinguish between benign secrets and malignant ones.  It's a matter of degree;  like a "little white lie."  But as one white lie makes it so easy to tell another, I wonder if one secret inevitably leads to another, and another, until we build a scaffold of  half-truths.   

         Has knowing his secret changed how we feel about Upton?  Yes and no. As one of our sons said, knowing Upton's secret is like "lifting a veil" and finally seeing the real person beneath it, the person Upton was so desperate to conceal. Our love for him is as robust as ever.  And at the same time, we now see that the real tragedy we share is that Upton believed that if we knew his secret, we wouldn't love him.  Because he, himself, did not love that secret self.  But he was wrong.  We did love him.  We do love him still.  What I don't know, is whether discovering the toxic properties of keeping secrets will change our lives.  Will we become completely, perhaps embarrassingly open?  Will others stop confiding in us?  And if they do, will we welcome no longer being "in the know?"

          I suddenly see how I have valued secrets; how I was raised to keep certain things hidden.  When my father was fired from his job we were supposed to say he had decided to move on, pursue other interests.  My sister and I had scholarships to fancy schools, but no one was supposed to know we were poor kids.  My mother was raised by blue collar grandparents on the wrong side of the tracks and all her life tried to hide this, even changing the way she spoke.  Sex and money seem to be the major magnets for secrecy, and I think it will be almost impossible for me to ever come completely clean.  Maybe this is not only okay but desirable.  Quite possibly, you do not want to know my bank balance or erotic fantasies any more than I want to share them.  But I wish I had been brave enough to spill the beans with the love of my life.  If I had spilled my beans, maybe he would have spilled his.           

A BOX OF DARKNESS by Sally Ryder Brady, published by St. Martin's Press is in stores now.

The Vortex Gene

by Joshilyn Jackson 

Today was the day I was going to REALLY go by the office of the nutritionist I paid to see and then rescheduled and didn't see and rescheduled and so forth to the tenth power of etcetera.

DIGRESSION: I am having some post-op trouble getting my body back into ANY of my clothes. Been a year since the surgery now. I am doing all the right stuffs and nothing is moving, so it's time for outside help.)

So I have paid all this money to get this special program with the tests and the thyroid check and the monitoring and the complimentary boob refluffment surgery; NOW I just have to GO BY and give them blood and drop off my paperwork.

Digression: I could just mail the paperwork, but they acted like I was a weirdo when I asked if I could also just mail the blood.

Digression 2: I don't really get complimentary boob refluffment surgery with this package, alas. I just threw that in to tantalize Sarah.

Anyway I have to take by the paperwork and give them blood for a cholesterol check and who knows what all other repulsive bodily whatnots they want to sample...

Digression: MY mind immediately went to, "MAYYYBE they want a piece of hair from my arch-nemesis to make a nutritive-fat-vampire spell? I would pick Donald Trump. He would be a great arch-nemesis. And the way the spell would work is, I would eat things, and the excess calories would go on HIS hips. But how would I get a slice of his hair? His hair is so FAMOUS. That's like the world's most famous comb-over. I bet it is insured by Lloyd's of London."

So today, like every other day for the last two weeks, I was REALLY going to actually go by, instead of just planning to go by and then spending ten hours flipping my screen back and forth between copy edits and spider solitaire and not going.

Announcement: If anyone at my publishing house is reading this, it was probably 90% copy edits and only 10% spider solitaire. *truthful nodding* ANYWAY.

I did not go. Because I could not find my keys.  I am an amazing key loser. AMAZING. World class.

Scott is---perhaps luckily, perhaps simply as a result of the practice afforded him over the last 17 years---- an Olympic-level key finder. He has found my keys in the yard beneath an azalea (on a day when I had no clear memory of going outside), IN MY PURSE (which is where they ACTUALLY GO, so I had not thought to look there, and in my heaviest winter coat (it was June), and once in the meat-n-cheese drawer of the fridge.

Today he found them in my car, which was sitting in the driveway with the passenger door open. The keys were the slot for keys. The car was running. I had this vague memory of GOING to the car, then realizing I needed a cup of coffee, going back in to GET the coffee, and then not being able to find my keys.

SO I did not make it to the nutritionist today.

There is only one clear conclusion: God wants me to buy A LOT of really cute jeans. One size larger. Preferably made by 7 for All Mankind.

No?

Scott says this is definitely not the message. He says messages from the Divine generally tell wives to go buy jeans from Kohls or Target.

Okay, how about this: The real message has nothing to do with commerce. The message of the keys is...

I cannot murder my son for losing his $200 pair of super-special-corrective glasses today because the only reason he lost them was that I have genetically poisoned him.

Now THAT is sadly true.The kid is as absentminded as me, and it's hard to justifiably slaughter him for an offense I perpetrate as egregiously with 30 years more practice at life than he has had. I also think the message has a PS, which is Scott has to go to the middle school and FIND the glasses, which are probably tucked neatly in the spoon receptacle at the front of the lunch line, or resting sweetly in the square tank of a toilet in the second floor boy's bathroom, third stall from the left.

What genetic "gifts" were you given that you wish your parents had damn well kept? And for my fellow parents---what horrors or wonders have your genes perpetrated upon your hapless little children?

Baseball With Passion

 

By Elaine Viets

Baseball is an emotional game. I learned that from my grandfather. Sunday afternoons, he would stretch out in his recliner and listen to the legendary sportscaster Harry Caray announce the St. Louis Cardinals games.

Grandpa hated Harry Caray. Harry would go into his classic holler: "Holy Cow! It might be. It could be! It is! It's a home run! Look at him go. Holy cow! This is his best game yet!"

Grandpa would shout back, "Damn it, Harry. You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

It was a one-sided argument, since Harry couldn't hear Grandpa through the TV. It didn't matter. They were like an old married couple: joined forever, but unable to listen to each other. For more than twenty years, Grandpa despised Harry and told him so. When Harry was fired in 1969, Grandpa was a happy man. He never got mad at Jack Buck. But the passion was gone from his baseball games.

I like baseball, too – minor league ball. The best game I ever watched was a Triple A league. The players weren't as polished as the big leaguers, but they had heart. Forget the plush corporate skyboxes and fancy scoreboards. I want baseball with emotion.

The major league baseball season opens today. That's four days early. It's supposed to eliminate a 
November World Series, when the fans are colder than the beer. With the baseball world slightly out of sync, it seemed a good time to consider "The Unwritten Rules of Baseball," which were written down by my friend Paul Dickson. (Collins, $14.99)

 
When Grandpa roared at Harry Caray and watched the Cards on TV, he ignored one of those unwritten rules, The Baseball Principle, discovered by a New York physicist: "You can't help the Mets by watching them on TV." Grandpa knew he couldn't protect the Cards from Caray's stupid statements. But he dutifully sat in front of his TV, drinking Falstaff beer, smoking cigars and screaming abuse at Harry.

If the Cards' performance during this spring training is any indication of the upcoming season, St. Louis fans are in for a dismal summer. Carter's Conclusion says otherwise. "They don't put spring-training statistics on the backs of bubble-gum cards," was the explanation Blue Jays' Joe Carter gave reporters after his lousy spring training.

Remember the movie Bull Durham? That was a major league movie about a minor league team. Even people who yawn at ball games loved it. Besides baseball, there was candlelit sex with Susan Sarandon and a hunky Kevin Costner. Costner played Crash Davis and created what Dickson calls Davis's Distinction: "Strikeouts are fascist. Ground balls are democratic."

Sarandon played baseball groupie Annie Savoy and recited her credo. "I believe in the Church of Baseball," she said. "I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshiped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us . . . the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball."

That's baseball with passion.

Bull Durham leads to another two more unwritten rules: (1) "Movies about baseball tend to be better than movies about other sports, except for boxing." (2) "One can have only one good baseball movie per acting career. Corollary: This assumes that one believes that Kevin Costner should have quit while ahead. (e.g. Bull Durham versus Field of Dreams and For Love of the Game)."

As the baseball season heats up, remember the Fourth of July Rule: "The team in first place on July 4 will win the division."

Maybe. But I prefer the wise words of another Cardinals' great, Joaquin Andujar. Dickson calls it Andujar's Constant. The Cardinals' pitcher told Sports Illustrated: "There is one word in American that says it all, and that one word is 'youneverknow.' "

 
                

Getting the Giggles

Getting the Giggles

by Nancy Martin    

My dear Aunt Nancy fell into quicksand and nearly died . . . laughing.

She recently told me her story because I've been thinking about the concept of stickiness---my new book, STICKY FINGERS, was released yesterday!  Buy it here!  Or anywhere!--and I've been figuring various ways to use "sticky" to sell the book to anyone who'll stand still long enough to listen to my pitch.

Anyway, what happened is this:  Aunt Nancy--who was a young, single traveller of the world with her many girlfriends--(they drove up to the front door of the Vatican in her VW bug, left it there and went inside to look around) found herself in Mexico with no, uh, necessary facilities, so she stopped the car (yes, another VW bug) and wandered off to find a private spot to take care of bizness.  In a sylvan glade, she stepped onto a nice, smooth-looking patch of ground which immediately swallowed her whole leg. Naturally, she lost her balance and fell headlong into quicksand.  It was definitely sticky--very liquid and goopy, and she couldn't get out.  She flailed around and finally got the giggles.

Now, this story would be a lot funnier if you could see Aunt Nancy, so let me do my best to describe her:  She is a Very Buoyant Person.  Does that give you the mental picture of a large, apple-cheeked, curly-haired lady who used Nice n Easy Lucille Ball Red #3, bobbing like a cork in a picturesque pool of green slime? That was her--large and laughing while her girlfriends howled with hilarity at her predicament.

Now, we all have stories about inappropriate laughter.  (Mine:  At the moment the funeral director ushered my family into the presence of my grandmother's coffin, his stomach let out the loudest, gurgling growl I have ever heard, and my sister and I went into hysterical laughter. I thought my father was going to strangle us.)  I want to hear your stories today. So, tell, tell.

In the quicksand, Aunt Nancy laughed and laughed until she was totally exhausted, whereupon she floated on top of the quicksand.  Her friends managed to grab her foot and drag her out, and she was fine.  Saved by laughter. The mental picture of Nancy and her three equally large friends climbing back into the VW---well, I can't help thinking the green slime was a good lubricant.

Here's a video of some newscasters who lost their self-control.  Watch it without laughing. Go on, I challenge you.

I'm hoping STICKY FINGERS provides a few laughs for readers.  (If you've read it and enjoyed it, how about going out into the world and plugging it for me? Tweets, online reviews, mentions on Facebook--I'd appreciate any of that and would do the same for you.) As the TLC regulars know, the first week of sales in really important, so your support would be lovingly accepted.

Meanwhile, tell me about the time you got the uncontrollabe giggles.  Can't wait to hear.

STICKY FINGERS is the 2nd book in Nancy Martin's chick-a-boom-boom Roxy Abruzzo series.  When Roxy is asked to kidnap her high school nemesis, all hell breaks loose in Pittsburgh.  Starred review in Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus.

 

I Enjoy Being a Girl...Or Not.

By Sarah

Lately, I've been paying particular attention to women's breasts.

I know what you're going to say - there's nothing wrong with that. And I agree because I live in Vermont where we openly embrace - and marry - couples of all sexualities. But there's a downside  to living here - it's isolated, rural, cold and extremely fashion challenged.

Which brings me to breasts.

My latest obsession began during two three-hour flights back and forth to Florida on Jet Blue where
I watched back-to-back episodes of The Real Housewives of Orange County. I don't know if you've seen this show, but if you're stuffed in a plane with 37 toddlers rehabbing from Disney World and/or you're recovering from a frontal lobotomy, this is the entertainment for you.

At first I couldn't keep the housewives straight. They all had long blond hair and they all appeared to be about the same age. Thirty, uhm, maybe fortyish. Their lips were grotesquely inflated, like they'd just been socked in the mouth. And then, of course, there were those breasts.

Flotation devices was more like it. After six hours, these poor mishapen circus freaks turned into a whirling blur of cat fights and tossed white wine and puffy lips and bobbing boobies. I thought, surely no one looks like that in real life.

Two weeks later, I went to New York and realized I was the freak, not them. Granted, the signing/party I attended for my absolutely favorite author Emily Giffin was not your usual affair. It was 89% pure estrogen and for me, who'd been stuck in flannel and red plaid doping out on wood smoke, being suddenly immersed in a sea of fluttering femininity was like plunging into a deep turquoise Caribbean bay. Refreshing and inspiring.

I'd forgotten what it was like to be a girl, to wear a cute dress and high heels and bare legs and jewelry. I'd forgottten how much fun it could be. The women with whom I stood in line for over two hours - gulp! - may have had some things "done," but they were hardly ditzes. Nor were they the Real Bitches of Orange County. Far from it. They were smart and funny and way independent. They were too good for any guy who snuck in to Pranna hoping to take advantage of the math.

Note on that: Don't be a single woman in New York City if you want to get married before age 35/40. As far as I can tell, any guy a tad more fit than John Goodman at least a part-time job can pick and choose from women with Ivy degrees and Ford Model features. If she so much as dares to ask for a commitment, or that he pay the tab,  he can drop her toot sweet and hook up with someone even better within five minutes.

My advice for those who want to get married: move to Cleveland. Lots of guys with jobs looking for wives. But you have to live in Cleveland. I'm just saying.

Anyway, back to my point and I do have one. When you get to my age - 48 - it's no good walking around with the twin set God gave you. They've lost their luster, their bounce, their joie d'vivre. I have only to glance a few generations back at my oppressed Lithuanian ancestors to know where they're headed.

So should I get them done? I mean, I'm not dead yet. I was a relatively young mother and with my kids grown and out of the house, I have a lot of living yet to do. Isn't 50 the new 25? That's the rumor. I figure as soon as I get this latest rewrite of my YA novel done, I can devote myself to working out, hydrating, starving, peeling and waxing.

Okay, so no one will appreciate me in downtown Montpelier upon the approach of mud season - not the good kind you smear on your face. The bad kind that swallows your car.

But there are trains to New York. And five-hour flights via Pittsburgh. There's incentive, right? Is getting a little of this done, a lift here, a tuck there, a boost in between so wrong?

Or will I end up a Real Housewife, tossing wine and sharpening my claws?

 

Sarah