Memoirous

EMPATHY AND NEW YEAR James Schuyler A notion like that of empathy  inspires great distrust in us, because it connotes  a further dose of irrationalism and  mysticism. Lévi-Strauss Whitman took the cars all the way from Camden and when he got here or rather there, said, “Quit quoting,” and took the next back, through the Jersey meadows which were that then. But what if it is all, “Maya, illusion?” I doubt it, though. Men are not so inventive. Or few are. Not knowing a name for something proves nothing. Right now it isn’t raining, snowing, sleeting, slushing, yet it is doing something. As a matter of fact it is raining snow. Snow from cold clouds that melts as it strikes. To look out a window is to sense wet feet. Now to infuse the garage with a subjective state and can’t make it seem to even if it is a little like What the Dentist Saw a dark gullet with gleams and red. “You come to me at midnight” and say, “I can smell that after Christmas letdown coming like a hound.” And clarify, “I c

Recently an American Masters about Laura Ingalls Wilder aired on PBS. Her life spanned Conestoga wagons to the nuclear age. Maybe not apples to oranges but my life has gone from television to streaming. Anyway, it sparked a memory of the time I was first introduced to the LIW books. My big brother Steve had taken me to the library. Of any in my family, Steve shared my affinity for reading. He said, Let me show you a book you might like. I can still envision the corner, the row, its location on the shelf because I returned to it again and again, first one book, then the next, the whole series, then rereading it. I was quick to buy a biography of LIW by William Anderson. There was the controversy over Rose Wilder Lane and the mother/daughter collaboration. There was Rose’s Libertarian politics and odd decisions over the Wilder literary estate. I could have told PBS the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was no angel, as is the story with every writer. Yet she told her story and that

 My daughter used to spend hours playing with her Fisher-Price peoples, the one’s with the wooden head, lining them up and world building. In fact by dinner time and she was asked to pick up and get ready to eat and then bath and bed, she’d cry—“But I was just getting started!” I knew exactly what she meant. I’d do the same thing with my Barbies. I’d go over to a friend’s house with several carrying cases and we’d sit on the floor and dress them and decide who was who and what was what and then my mother would call and say she was on the way to pick me up. I’d wail—“But we haven’t had a chance to play!” I didn’t know that world building was play. That the actual narrative was subordinate to the setting up. All the time invested in dressing and characters, stage setting WAS the play. Sometimes we lose the forest through the trees. We forget that it is all part of the fun, the eventual outcome=all those fuzzy details. I think 2021 is going to be about mindfulness to the process,

                                                                            Jane riding away

 I remember as a little kid waiting in line for Santa. This is one of my earliest memories so I was very young. I must have been told who Santa was and that he was responsible for bringing my presents. I understood I had a duty to tell him what I wanted. So we showed up at the department store and rode the elevator up. We got off into a cottony world of sparkly snowflakes. We wandered through colored lights and fabricated gumdrops. We winded through what looked like a workshop manned by elves with jingle hats and bells on their toes. It seemed to take forever. Finally we made it to a studio where there was a camera and helpers, and sitting on a throne was a fat man in a red suit with a fake beard. The Big Kahuna. The main event. Santa.  I climbed aboard his lap and whispered what I wanted for Christmas and then it was over. Leaving, I realized that all those places we walked through, Winter Wonderland, Elf Workshop, Santa World was all part of the experience and I had missed it by on

A friend and I (we’re both old ladies) have developed a habit of calling each other at dawn to tell the other all the stuff we’ve already accomplished before sunrise. We’re in that post-menopausal period of life where we wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. worried about the state of the world and can’t go back to sleep. So I get up and putter. Sandy clears out the basement and puts up the Christmas tree, hangs garland, and strings lights under the cloak of darkness. When others are just getting up or thinking about getting up we’re halfway through out day. I didn’t ask for this, but if it is my reality I might as well use it. It’s how I’ve written almost 200 blog posts this year, ridden my bike 2,400 miles, and finished a manuscript and revisions, plus published some stories and flashes. So we each check in and give the morning report, vying with each other for the most insane list of activity like vampires feasting before the sun sends them back to the crypt. It is our way of taking control

 Lately, while listening to Christmas music—yes, I begin listening way before Thanksgiving—I’ve been struck by the relevance or how certain lyrics have taken on new significance. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, written in 1943 during war-time is just as relevant today under a pandemic where we cannot travel, must stay socially distanced, and DO NOT eat figgy pudding together! Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let your heart be light From now on Our troubles will be out of sight *** Through the years We all will be together If the fates allow So hang a shining star Upon the highest bough A merry little Christmas now O, Holy Night is another one. I’ve blogged about this before—here is a link ,  https://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2019/12/o-holy-night.html Some bright (not really, maybe a little) examples:  Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till he appeared and the soul felt it's worth The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glo

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(Adapted from a talk I gave at the 2019 Illinois Reading Council Conference for teachers and librarians.) After writing and publishing my middle-grade novel, Cloud of Witnesses ( Golden Alley Press ), I discovered that it is but one of a handful of books currently being published that represents rural life. Most books coming out today for youth is set in cities or suburbia. Think Jason Reynolds whose books address themes of gang violence and inner-city living. I’m also reminded of Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, herself a product of the exburbs of New York City. Books such as these transport readers into their world very successfully, and are indeed very popular. Yet, it seems that forgotten landscapes, hard-scrabble, rural, rust-belt are falling away from the American consciousness. After the Election of 2016, journalists and political analysts sought to understand what they termed “fly-over” country. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance shot to the top f the bestseller list and was a

A short story: my friend’s 11 year-old daughter said that she has to leave her cell phone in a bucket by the door to her classroom. Like some old lady I said that they didn’t have those when I was in school. She responded, “Buckets?” Yeah, it’s funny, but also speaks volumes into our current political/global situation—without context there is no understanding. We shake our heads: How are we going to describe someday life under a pandemic? I can add to that a long list of other things that unless you lived through it no one would understand. I certainly don’t understand and I’m living it right now. How 72 million people could have voted for a man who said he likes to grab pussy, paid off porn stars, and even said his own daughter was hot. How Christians can vote for someone so diametrically opposite of what/who a Christian should be and say they are voting their conscience, their values. How folks can vote against their better interests by trying to overturn the Affordable Car

I sort of hate it when movies, books, media reduce complex issues down into easily digested bites. That’s the trouble with Hillbilly Elegy, the movie now playing on Netflix: distilled into the Hatfield and McCoys. In fact that piece of mountain myth is referenced in the first 15 minutes of the film. My book Cloud of Witnesses and Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance follow the same character arc—sort of. Hillbilly Elegy came out in an election year, 2016, and talk shows turned to it as a way to understand how Trump became President. I’m still not sure how that happened or why still 74 million people voted for him this time. Vance’s memoir served as an in-road to understand people who live paycheck to paycheck in forgotten, dried up manufacturing towns. I guess. I was simply irritated by the book. Because no one story tells the whole story. But from Elegy people (media, Ron Howard) derive memes. The truth depicted just as in Cloud of Witnesses is that Appalachia births resilient peop

 Yesterday while walking past the Jewel parking lot I smelled pine. Already the Christmas trees have arrived. Suddenly I was engulfed in a James Schuyler poem “December” by James Schuyler The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound, this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center. I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey. Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event” and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids, Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be friends It’s like what George and I were talking ab

Go to the recycling center or visit your local trash can. You’ll need a cat food can and one slightly bigger, such as a tuna fish can  Using a can and bottle opener, cut out several spaced wedges, like slices of pie. These are for air flow. The smaller one inside the larger, you can either line up the holes for increased air or stagger them to moderate. Inside the smaller can place some fiberglass insulation and cap it with a mesh screen. You’ll need something for the pot to sit upon over the flame. At the hardware store I bought a length of sturdy wire netting or screen that would place the pot about an inch above the flame. Next you’ll want a windscreen to protect the operation in windy conditions and make the stove more efficient. At the hardware store you might buy some double-reflective insulation or garden edging, but since I only needed a strip of it instead of a whole roll I simply use heavy-duty tin foil each time I go out for a tour. Voila: the cat-food can stove!

 What began as a simple ride across Iowa (nice and flat) with a few hundred cyclists became RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). Through the years the tour has grown to 8,500 week-long riders and 1,500 day riders. Because of the overwhelming number of applications, selection is now done by lottery. In Ohio we had the Tour of the Scioto River Valley, started in 1962 by father-son duo Charles and Greg Siple, TOSRV runs along the Scioto River valley from Canal Winchester to Portmouth—trying to avoid the hills of southern Ohio. At one time it was the nation’s largest multi-day group tour. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were around 6000 to 7000 riders. A number of books also promoted the “just do it” everyman/woman approach to cycling. The Whole Earth Catalog and Foxfire books diagramed and explained woodcrafts and ways to source and build all kinds of cool useful stuff, such as shelter in the woods, your own hammock, and a tin can stove.  

 I came of age in the 1970s, some of the peak years for bicycle production and cycling enthusiasm. In 1974, 60% of bikes sold were for adults.Carlton Reid, Bike Boom, pg 110 Being from Ohio, I’d heard of the Tour of the Scioto River Valley also known by its acronym, TOSRV. There was a flourishing culture of get out and go at that time. By this I mean even if you didn’t have all the equipment or training, you still saw people getting out and doing things—such as riding across the country on heavy clunker bikes with no prior touring experience. Bikecentennial was conceived by Greg and June Siple and Dan and Lys Burden, two married twenty-something married couples and touring partners. In 1972 while on a cycling Hemistour, beginning in Alaska and finishing in Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, they cooked up the idea that, in addition to the elaborate plans already in motion for the USA to celebrate its bicentennial anniversary of independence, they’d initiate a cross-country bike project

The 1970s was a hotbed for all things bicycling. There were the bestsellers: The Complete Book of Bicycling by Eugene A. Sloane and Richard’s Bicycle Book by Richard Ballantine. I personally poured over the repair manual, Anybody’s Bike Book . In 1977 Rodale purchased Bicycling magazine. My first real date was going to see Breaking Away , a 1979 film about an underrated ragtag team of friends from the stone quarrying area of Indiana (right next to Ohio!) who aspire to race bicycles. This movie exemplifies the 70s “can do” spirit.   Of course, for anyone around at the time, there was Bikecentennial.  

Today we are experiencing under the pandemic a bicycle boom. The first bicycle boom was in the 1890s after the advent of the “safety” bicycle. By the mid-1890s, some 300 American companies were churning out over a million bicycles a year.* New York Times article, 2015/07/14  By 1897, about 300,000 people — 1 of every 5 Chicagoans — were riding bikes, a city official estimated.*Chicago Tribune article, https://www.chicagotribune.com › news › ct-bicycle-craze-flashback-0427...May 3, 2014 I came of age riding in the 1970s—another bike-mad time. Wheelmen clubs began sprouting up all across the country. In Dayton, Ohio there was a wheelmen club that I contacted after going through the city phone directory. (Remember those things?!) A gentleman who answered the phone told me about a weekly ride in Kettering I could join. There was no official uniform or jersey; we rode in whatever was comfortable. A few people wore the cycling caps. Back then no one wore a helmet. I’m not sure if h

  $8.99 paperback Some glad morning, I’ll fly away. Who cares if he’s “gifted.” Roland Tanner wants to escape his life. He’s stuck in a broken-down trailer in the hills with his family, the sorriest characters he’s ever met. At his new middle school, his classmates only see him as a hillbilly. He has a secret crush on Patty, but so does his friend Hassan, the new kid from Iran. But then comes the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. And Roland’s father’s health takes a turn for the worse while he’s away in jail. Will Roland accept the cloud of witnesses—the saints and sinners all around him—and realize that his future can be whatever he makes it? Perfect for fans of Erin Entrada Kelly, Sharon Creech, Cynthia Rylant, and Firoozeh Dumas, Cloud of Witnesses is a poignant, humorous book about coming of age in the foothills of the Appalachians. “Weaving fiction and historical events together, this book made me laugh and cry. The characters jump off the page. A great read for all middle school st

I’m lucky living in Chicago. Bike paths, like arteries, lead out of the city to the north, south and west. Also bicycles are allowed on trains. We could wind out of the city and head to Milwaukee or to Indiana Dunes. Through the years accessibility to recreational paths has only gotten better as they have been extended and further developed. The I & M Trail started out life as a path worn down by mules towing flat-keeled boats along the canal dug from the Chicago River to the Illinois. The 60-foot wide and 6-feet deep trench was dug by Irish immigrants most of whom died of exhaustion and sickness and were buried in anonymous mass graves along the way. The work was completed in 1848 and though in service until 1933, the railroad killed the canal less than 10 years after it opened. Tracks run parallel to the trail today. Several locks and a lockkeeper’s house remain, though the small settlements that sprang up in the canal’s heyday have vanished. The towpath is crushed limestone

In the summer of ’76 some friends of mine answered the call of God and went to England to accompany a traveling evangelist. The boys had just graduated from high school and were from my youth group at church. They would be gone for the whole summer. One night me and Barb went over to Rhonda Owens house out in the country for a sleep-over. Rhonda said let’s make a tape for Keith and Mike and send it to England for them to listen to. We set up a tape recorder out in the backyard and lay down under the stars and just gabbed. If I recall it was a lot of nonsense. What I also remember is the brilliance of that night sky. Crystal clear. The whole universe pinwheeling above our heads. A smudge of Milky Wave. A plethora of falling stars streaking across the sky, more than I could count. Comets trailing tails of colored gases. It was as if the heavens were giving us a show. Every other exclamation on the tape was: There’s another one! And another one! I wish with all my heart to hear that

I was eating a hard-boiled egg and had this thought: Proust was right—what a strange world we live in full of memories and all kinds of people. Meaning: we just had a very divided election, with winners and losers and stark lines drawn. While eating a hard-boiled egg I remembered riding my bike through Alabama. A friend and I were riding the Natchez Trace which winded through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. As has been my MO I crave protein on these rigorous rides. We’d stop at small general stores in small towns along the way. Often the food choices were random and scant. At one such place there was a gallon jar on the counter with pickled eggs. Yes, please!! We continued down the road with the eggs in our packs and for miles I could not stop thinking about them. At our designated break I dug them out and relished my egg. That sweet and sour pickle taste and creamy yolk middle. We ate them on salty saltines and washed them down with Gatorade.  Since then I’ve ridden many, m

I was confused about where to start. November 5 th was my birthday and as we all know it has been chaotic. It is hard to think back over the year. I mean sooooo much has happened. Friendships have unraveled; there have been breaks and new alliances formed. With the advent of the pandemic there have been life-altering decisions. This much I know: it is impossible to know. I’ve stopped saying anything is for sure.  So after working as an election judge on Nov. 3 rd and making it through a long day of possible Covid exposure and in general a long day of work, I decided to reward myself by signing up for a writing craft class through OCWW. It was a breath of fresh air, reminding me of my “old” life—BUT, chaos broke through. I got a text that someone I knew had tested positive for Covid. I immediately was thrown in quarantine.  Even the person dropping off a present at my door had to hurry away as she was also exposed to this same person. We were caught up in a Covid dragnet. But fi

Reeni’s Turn Carol Coven Grannick Fitzroy Books, Regal House 2020 2020 needs a brave, honest book. I looked forward to Carol’s debut, but lost track of it’s pub date in the midst of the pandemic—imagine my surprise to see it in REAL LIFE! A likely pitch would be a coming-of-age story, a book about body image, about the daily practice to excel—in this case the world of dance. I’ve known a few young ballerinas and immediately recognized the tremendous pressure these girls are under to “look the part.” They’d work out all morning and come home to half a grapefruit. I remember the audition in the movie Billy Elliot—where the fancy school physician takes the boys and checks their spines. There is an invisible line running from the shoulders to the core, a certain body type that is acceptable in order to make the cut, for the next step up. Yet, there is also that line after Billy Elliot has flubbed his audition where they ask him what it feels like to dance and he answers existentially: it i

In my reading of Sister Corita and her techniques I came across the ultra-simple finder. The finder is a square or rectangle—THINK: a projection slide with the film part removed—used to focus or narrow down onto a detail. It allows us to visually exclude in order to see more clearly a smaller part of a whole. When is a bottle more than just a shape made of glass—when we can re-frame it as a blue sky or luminescent lake surface. So many things become Other. Tatsuya Tanaka is a Japanese artist who has been using masks and other household items to create pocket-sized scenes. He is an example of someone using Covid to make something new. The ordinary suddenly takes on new meaning—and for a moment we can chuckle, our minds wandering elsewhere.  https://www.designboom.com/art/tatsuya-tanaka-escapist-miniature-scenes-face-masks-household-items-08-03-2020/ You can find Tanaka on    Instagram  . do you see? staples!

  These days . . . . I wish for a crystal ball, a Google button for an internet search into the future, a tarot card reader. When I was twenty, on the cusp of several major life decisions, I went to see a prophet. My evangelical church was holding Holy Spirit week, a series of revival services and a woman known to be a prophet was scheduled to speak. So many thoughts were rolling around inside my head. I was thinking about dropping out of college Changing churches Actually quitting religion I was considering leaving the country and had applied for a passport I believe all of the above would have blown my parents up, but I was grown and living out of the house. I’d already gone down a couple of blind alleys, figuratively, and was unsure of what lay ahead. I just wished I could see a mile or two down the road. I needed a map because I was afraid of making a wrong turn. I just wished I knew what it was I wanted  Now at age 61 I’m back here again . . . at the same fork in