You can sort of go home again

My older brother, John Peckham, called last night to say Sunday he will be moving from a rehab facility where’s he’s been doing PT back to his ranch outside Tolar. He will need the big, clumsy electric wheelchair that is taking up way too much space in my closet, and I am delighted to give it to him. Christian determined make and model last night, and I called Colin who is smart about these things so he could look online about new battery, etc. As a bonus, Christian found all the original paperwork in a pocket on the back of the chair, but he reported when not turned on, the chair is dead weight. Moving it will be a problem, and we are still working on that.

But it was much on my mind when I went to bed last night, and so, of course, I dreamed about it. We (not sure who we was) were at John’s, waiting for word to come get the chair in a truck, but John said first he wanted to go to the Dunes. A word of explanation: when we were growing up our family had a time-share on a rustic (operative word) cottage in the Indiana Dunes State Park. Dad and a colleague had owned it years before in their bachelor days. At some point, the State of Indiana exercised eminent domain and took over the cottage, but every year Dad got a rental contract for the season. He said each year he held his breath until that contract came.

The cottage really was rustic. On a high dune, three flights of stairs above the beach, it had a commanding view of the length of Lake Michigan to the front (I loved to watch storms roll down that lake and to this day I trace my love of a good storm, sans tornadoes, to the Dunes) and a dense forest to the back. It also had no running water (a cistern pump) and no electricity. There was an outhouse down the hill in the woods, and at night you went to bed early because Dad was paranoid about burning the mantle in the Aladdin lamps. It was too dark to read. And you didn’t just drive up to the cottage—you had to pack in your clothes and groceries, either a mile down the beach (too hot) or through the woods (our preferred route).

So in my dream we were talking about going back to the Dunes. John and I and my ex-husband went in the late sixties and had not been back since. When I went to Chicago with my children six years ago or so, they scheduled a morning trip to the Dunes followed by lunch at a North Side restaurant. I had to explain that the time schedule did not work, but their intentions were the best: they knew how big a place the Dunes hold in my heart.

But suddenly, in my dream, it dawned on me that I couldn’t go back to the Dunes. There is no way to maneuver a walker either through the woods or down the beach and up all those stairs. That made such a huge impression on me that I sat bolt upright in bed.

My rational mind has known for a long time that neither John nor I are very mobile. We haven’t had a contest, but in a walker race, I think I would win. Besides there is no there at the Dunes for us anymore. Sometime around 1969, the state stopped renting cottages to long-term leaseholders, rented them to weekenders for a while, and then tore them all down. So I guess in some deep way that aha! moment I had was sort of a Thomas Wolfe You Can’t Go Home Again bit of reality, a recognition that John and I are older and different, and we can’t ever recapture the past. We can remember, but we can’t relive.

Over the years John and I have sometimes been close, sometimes almost estranged in recent years. There’s an elephant in the room with us—politics. But we have much more that binds us together—our Chicago background, our families past and present, osteopathic medicine, Texas (we both like dogs—he can have the cattle). We had grand, huge family celebrations, until both our families grew too large to do that. Since his health has taken a turn, I think, without ever talking about it, we are closer. We talk on the phone often, and I have taken all four grown children to see him. From his hospital bed, a wink or a look with a smile tells me he’s glad I am there, and we are still brother and sister. He is, after all, the one who used to protect me from all kinds of evil, like bad boys who teased me when I was little and very shy. And he is the one who said, “You need to get away from home” and took me to Missouri to graduate school. He had a hand in shaping my life, and I have always known he was there for me.

I think he will like this story. But now about that blasted wheelchair ….

Texas on my mind

 

Given that much of my career has been built around the literature and history of Texas, I suppose my dream last night was not a surprise. I notably have colorful dreams—yes, in technicolor, and I hear sounds and smell good things. And sometimes I remember them well into the next day. I used to say my best writing was done at three in the morning when I was asleep. Alas, that’s not true anymore, but last night’s dream has stayed with me.

I was getting ready to go to school, though I wasn’t certain if it was high school or college or what I was doing there. (I frequently have that college dream where I haven’t been to class all semester and now it’s finals and I’m in a panic, but this was different). I remember putting on makeup, including that horrible blue eye shadow we used to think was so smart. And then, somehow, I was teaching a class—in an outdoor classroom with a huge body of water in the background (the Gulf?). I had to go back inside to get my sunglasses.

The class was on Texas culture, and I decided to let the students teach the class. (That’s a favorite technic of mine: I once taught a writing seminar using the City of Fort Worth as a focus and even took the kids on a bus tour and supper at Star Café in the Stockyards—medium successful). This time I said each would be asked to do an in-depth study of some aspect of Texas culture—not just the usual broad categories of food, music, geography, but digging deeper. And then the class and I began to come up with topics: how do Texans raise their children? What are Texas religious values? How does geography shape our lives—divided into regions like coastal South Texas, the High Plains, etc. Now I can’t remember all the topics we came up with, but at the time they were brilliant.

I decided this dream is worth mentioning because it illustrated to me what a wonderful place Texas can be. And knowing my sympathies, when I woke it led me to the next thought: we must not, we cannot let hardline, alt-right conservatives constrict Texas with their tight laws on abortion trans kids, LGBTQ lifestyle, school curriculum and library books. Texas has a wonderful and rich heritage—okay some myth, mixed with a lot of truth. And today we are a rich and diverse culture, with contributions from many heritages that blend to make a remarkable whole. We cannot let that be erased and consigned to the dump heap because Greg Abbot, Dan Patrick, and Ken Paxton want to play to their base and further their political careers. Folks, our ancestors (okay, I’m not a native Texan and can’t claim them but many can) fought and died in the Texas Revolution for the life they wanted to live in Texas. I’m not at all suggesting we take up arms, but I am suggesting we have to fight—and fight hard—at the polls, in public meetings, in school board meetings, any place we can make our voices heard.

I was impressed with many articles about Madeline Albright, several of which repeated her statement that she was late in coming to make her voice heard, but once she found her voice, she would not be silenced. I so agree with her, and I think it’s up to each of us—particularly Texas women—to make our voices heard. Women are so involved in abortion, child-raising, education, and we can make such a difference.

That thought logically brought me to Ukraine, where women are fighting alongside their husbands and sons. I cannot say strongly enough how overwhelmed I am with the spirit, determination, and resilience of that people as a nation. The world has not seen anything like it since the resistance fighters of WWII. But you know what makes me love those people all the more? The ones who flee to safety, leaving loved ones behind to fight, take their dogs and cats with them. I find that a remarkable show of loyalty and courage. That they would look out for their pets is such an important statement of who they are.

Pray for Ukraine, for the people, for the animals, for their charismatic leader. Who knows when the world will again see such courage and determination? And pray for Texas, that we can be free to live our lives as we want and not according to dictates from our state government. Make it happen!

 

Dreaming a novel

Last night was one long dream for me. I was telling myself a novel in three parts—three parts because twice I got up to use the restroom, not out of necessity, but because I wanted to leave the world of that dream. But the characters were persistent and kept returning, although they changed considerably from segment to segment.

At first, there were three people, two men and a woman, incarcerated at a prison in a desert, presumably for nonviolent crimes. They escaped disguised as employees (more like cleaning people or someone in scrubs than guards) and spent the night in a nearby empty house. Then they took off in a van.

Sometime during the night they morphed into three women. Think Thelma and Louise or a “Golden Girls Take to the Highway” episode. While they were always on the run and in some perilous circumstances, including snowbound in a cave, they agreed it was the best time of their lives. (Don’t anyone get Freudian on me!). Finally, they ended in a twin city area—two small towns. They grocery shopped in the lesser town figuring they would not know anyone. But they ran into the husband of one; then another met the love of her life, and the third asked for a ride to the bus station. I woke up, and my mind finally went back to my WIP.

I know I’ll never turn the dream into a novel, what with changing characters and a lot of unexplained things like the snowy cave, but the kernel of a story is there if I wanted to pursue it. What I found interesting is the process involved, the way the story flowed in spite of my efforts to stop it. I thought of Elmer Kelton, the late dean of Texas fiction. He once described writing his award-winning novel, The Good Old Boys, saying he was sitting at the bedside of his dying father and listening to stories of the old-time cowboys at the turn of the twentieth century. Suddenly, he began writing, and the words wouldn’t stop. Elmer used to say that it was like a horse with the bit in its teeth, and he was just along for the ride.

Elmer wrote that way. One of his favorite pieces of advice was, “Listen to your characters, and they will tell you what’s going to happen.” He did not use Scrivener or Grammerly, a story bible, or any other devices and aids designed to help novelists tell a story. He simply told the story. A graduate of the University of Texas, he was not some unlettered genius but was knowledgeable about structure and the need for a story arc. He just never let those things dominate his storytelling.

For me, the three-part structure of my dream is significant, because I too learned about structure in school. Not so much the arc within an arc and subplots and all the intricacies that guide us today, but the basic Shakespearean pattern of rising action, climax, and denouement. To this day the parts of a novel to me are the beginning, middle, and end. 

To say that storytelling should be natural is not to jump into the pantser vs. outliner controversy. I’m a pantser who works best from a page of rough notes. But I know everyone has to choose the way that works best for them. Perhaps what I want to suggest about storytelling is that it should be less of a science and more of an art, more instinctive and organic.

If you’ve never read Elmer Kelton, you have a treat waiting for you, whether you think you’re interested in cowboy literature or not. Start with The Good Old Boys, move on to The Wolf and the Buffalo—Elmer set out to tell the story of a particular buffalo soldier, but a Commanche chief kept taking over the story. And then move on to his classic, The Time It Never Rained, described as one of the twenty or so best novels by an American of the twentieth century.

Me? I’m going back to sleep and see what happens next.

A happy hour kind of day

A slanted view of happy house

Happy hour on the patio. In truth, I needed that sociability. Happy hour was a welcome break from a long day in which I was getting tired of my own company. I did work—my usual thousand words, and I was pleased with them. I’m finding my brain tires after a thousand words, and I best give it up. Today I was deep in cattle drives of the 1860s, from Texas north to Abilene, Kansas, and then points ever closer until the railroad got to Wichita Falls. Not sure if tomorrow will be a working day or not, since it’s Sunday and church is on my agenda. I hope to go in person, but if that doesn’t work out, I’ll be a virtual attendee.

But at any rate, the next workday will be devoted to a study of the “Indian depredations” in nineteenth-century North Texas. The trouble with writing about this is the problem of politically correct language. I know better than to refer to Native Americans as Indians—they should be referred to by tribe or called Native Americans, but the latter does not roll off the tongue easily, and it sounds downright awkward in some passages in writing the kind of history I’m writing. On the other hand, I can only say “Comanche and Kiowa” so many times, and I end up using the word Indian which is inaccurate and derogatory. I tell myself it’s okay because back then it was the current usage.

I worked hard this morning, wore my brain out, and had a nice nap dreaming of preparing to take a cruise, with Jordan, to Alaska  For some reason we were staying in an upscale hotel for several days before departing, but Jordan had left my walker in a field where we’d parked to load the VW van (don’t ask). The worst of it was that she’d left Sophie tied to the walker. That image alone sent me into the giggles, because a walker would never stop Soph—she’d just go where she wanted, dragging the thing along with her, albeit somewhat unhappily. Tonight on the patio, she wormed her way into the passageway between our yard and the neighbors, and Jordan and Jay (yes, the handsome neighbor I haven’t blogged about much lately) had to go fetch her. When I scolded her, she refused to look at me.

Jordan, who has been working all day helping clients even on a Saturday reminds me of myself at that age. She doesn’t sit still but pops up to feed Sophie, water a plant, get the wine bottle, let her June Bug out and then in when Junie changes her mind. Jordan’s moments of peaceful rest are few and far between.

We did have a nice visit with Jay, who we don’t see much these days. Mostly we talked about garden matters, and it left me with a list of things to do. Some tree branches are threatening to fall on my car and must be tended to, there is nut grass in the lawn, and the lawn crew needs to weed eat in that narrow strip behind the cottage. Sigh. It’s always something.

I came inside and fixed myself a squash casserole, which was really good and will, I’m sure, show up in a “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog sometime soon. The innovation I am proud of? I topped it with crushed Cheez-Its, those crackers I remember from a childhood addiction. Neighbor Mary likes them as much as I do, and I keep them for our Tuesday happy hours. Tonight, when I went looking for Ritz crackers, the Cheez-Its seemed like a perfect solution—and they were.

Sweet dreams, y’all.

Celebrating and a Dream

I’m proud as punch of the picture above. The lady is Jude Walsh, another internet friend I’ve never met. We belong, with Pat Bean of last night’s blog, to a small writing group within the larger umbrella of Story Circle Network. And three of us published books this month. Jude found a way to celebrate all three in one picture. Yay! The other two are Pat Bean's wonderful Travels with Maggie, reviewed yesterday in my blog, and Linda Marshall's memoir, A Long Awakening to Grace, next on my reading list.

And that of course segues easily into my excitement for tomorrow night’s signing. I hope it’s on your calendar and in your plans. 5-7 at the Wine Haus, 1628 Park Place. Cash bar with snacks provided. I so hope you can come join the fun. I may even have a special costume for the event.

Pigface and the Perfect Dog is the second of my Oak Grove Mysteries, following The Perfect Coed. You may remember Susan Hogan—she is associate professor of English at Oak Grove (Texas) University; her partner, Jake, is Chief of Campus Security. Aunt Jenny, the maiden lady who raised Jenny, came to Oak Grove to help Susan, who was accused of murdering a coed in The Perfect Coed. How much help Jenny was is debatable, but she made a fast friend in Judge John Jackson and stayed in Oak Grove.

This time around, Susan thinks she’s about to meet her maker when she confronts a rifle-carrying man, who looks like a pig, in a grocery store. Jake investigates the body of a young college student, shot in the back and found in an empty pasture. Aunt Jenny showers love on the new puppy a young man from the grocery gave her but she must get rid of that heavy collar.

Before it’s all over, there’s a shooting, breaking and entering, threats and an attempted kidnapping, a clandestine trip to the woods late at night. Will Susan land in trouble…or the hospital…again? Will Susan and Jake survive this as a couple? Susan is still prickly but she learns some lessons about life, love, and herself. And which dog is the perfect dog? You’ll have to decide for yourself.

Writers lives may be solitary, but they are never dull. I had the craziest dream last night. It had to do with a crime that could only be solved by a horse. If the horse was scared when left alone with a certain person, then everyone knew that person was the villain. In my dream, I read that final scene in a book—a real cliffhanger, and the scene only came at the last two pages. In a semi-awake stage, I tried to remember what book it was because I wanted to go back and re-read it. But then it dawned on me that it was not in someone else’s book—I wrote it. For much of the night, asleep I’m sure, I wrote and rewrote that scene And then it grew into a story that branched off from the first scene, although I don’t remember much of the story.

Strange for me, a committed dog person who’s more than a bit uncertain around horses, to have that dream. Perhaps it will show up again tonight, and I can figure it out.

Hope to see lots of you tomorrow at the Pigface celebration.

A day of trivia

There’s nothing like being completely relaxed and confident of your safety, as Sophie demonstrates in her favorite chair. I’m thinking of switching chairs around, so that the two matching club chair wear evenly from her attachment to them. This thought became more insistent today when I crawled into my unmade bed to nap. Did you ever sleep in a beach bed? One with sand that you could not brush entirely away? That’s what this felt like—gritty, only there’s no sand around. It was grainy old dirt from the back yard. My bed is another of Sophie’s favorite spots. She’ll teach me to make it earlier in the day, though my mom taught me to let a bed air out before you pulled the covers up.

I come from a family of nappers. We believe in good, solid afternoon sleep. My dad walked a mile home from his office for lunch every day, took a 20-minutes power nap, and walked back. My power nap today stretched into an hour-and-a-half of solid sleep. In my own defense, because such a long nap makes me feel lazy or guilty or something, I will say that I didn’t sleep well last night. But I dreamt heavily this afternoon. My family was caravanning in several cars—no idea where we were going, but we were in mountains. And I ended up in a small pickup, going at a high speed down a steep mountain road, with son-in-law Brandon driving. It was not hairpin curves but a road that clung to the side of a mountain and wound around it. B is and was in the dream a good driver, but the dream was so intense that I lay in bed for 30 minutes, trying to get rid of it. I think it may having automatically converted my heart back to a sinus rhythm!

I am a bust at radio interviews—there’s no way around it. After confessing the mix-up on my last interview and detailing the preparation I’d done for today’s, nothing happened. I called the designated number two minutes before the show was to start and got a recorded message that the show had not yet started; please call back within 15 minutes of show time—did that mean 15 minutes before? After? For the next 17 minutes, I called at least 17 times—and got the same message. Emailed the publicist who said to let it go; she’d find out what happened.

My rant for the day: every day I think the man in the White House cannot do anything more outrageous, but he exceeds my expectations. Now he’s demanding a rush to a tax bill because it is urgent after the hurricanes. I’m sorry, but how were the rich damaged, other than a few wrecked Caribbean second homes? It’s the poor, those who live at the edge of poverty, who were pushed over that edge. The bill does nothing for them, not one blessed thing. The NBC coverage of the devastation on Tortula only emphasizes where America needs to put money—and it’s not in the pockets of the rich.

And I’m puzzled as I can be by the news of the deal Senator Schumer and Representative Pelosi made with Trumpf about DACA recipients. Trumpf alternately denies it and confirms his support for DACA recipients. How do we know what’s true?

I’m now following the daily newsletter of high-school student Gabe Fleisher, and I’m in good company—a lot of well-known political journalists also read “Wake Up to Politics” every morning. I’m hoping young Gabe can do what others can’t and get us the straight of the story.

Not a rant but a sad obituary: I know many of my friends disagree with my stand that we are being hasty in dismantling Civil War statues, but I am saddened by today’s removal of the General Robert E. Lee statue in Dallas. Fellow mystery author Janis Patterson put the case best here: https://ladiesofmystery.com/2017/09/14/privacy-responsibility-and-general-robert-e-lee/  Read it and weep, because I really believe we will come to regret this haste to change history, which cannot be changed. A GIF on Facebook also says it well: We will change nothing by taking down statues until we can change what’s in people’s hearts.

An unsatisfcatory day...and a wild dog

There’s no other word for yesterday—unsatisfactory. I capped it off by falling as I stood up from my desk. My shoe had come off, and I didn’t realize how slippery the brace bottom is—it scooted out from under me, followed by the walker, and I was flat on my back. Christian and Jacob came to get me up and are my heroes—after several tries, and after I calmed a bit, we got me on my knees and then Christian seated me on the coffee table. I rested, caught my breath, and headed for the bathroom which is where I’d been going all along. No damage done but it’s disquieting to fall.

Earlier Jordan and I had a good visit with my family physician—at least mostly good. He took over my meds and became traffic director which is just what I wanted him to do. But it turned out that what I saw as lovely middle of the flights of imagination, he was as hallucinations and changed a prescription. It was because of the dog.

In the wee hours Thursday morning I looked out and saw what I presumed was a plastic bag flapping in the breeze. It looked like some large and majestic wild dog—or wolf. I stared for a long time, and of course the more I looked the more real it became. I was convinced there was a wild animal—peaceful for the time, but who knew?

I called Christian who is a sound sleeper (understatement) and said, “Okay. I won’t let the dogs out in the morning.”

Me: You don’t understand. We have to get it out of there. You collect yourself, and I’ll call 911.

Christian: do we have to deal with this right now? (hear plaintive tone).

Just as I was about to say we did, I saw a bit of bag flap in the breeze and confessed it was, after all, a trash bag. “But be sure to tell Jordan just in case.”

Christian: Oh I will. I undoubtedly will.

I think what he intended to tell her was that her mother was bat-shit crazy. In the morning she quizzed me, and I asked if she couldn’t see the dog—I still could. No, she couldn’t.

I had no idea this would come back to bite me at the doctor’s office, but it did, and my protests that I wrote fiction fell on deaf ears. So now the doctor probably has the same opinion of my sanity as Christian does, and I left the appointment feeling neurotic. (There’s a sequel to te story, but I’ll save it for another day.)

I truly think the doctor thought it was a medication problem, and he adjusted things for that. But like the fall, or not, crossing a street canbedsietig \ was disquieting.

The dog was there again last night. Shhh! Don’t tell.