Love is in the Air...

Whenever Valentine's Day rolls around it's hard not to hearken back to the days when whether or not I had a Valentine was a very big deal. Back in high school, the day was synonymous with the distribution of carnations in homeroom. Carnation Day was the brainchild, of cheerleaders and anyone else in high school whose birthright was a gorgeous loving Valentine every year. It was a perfect event, humiliation in disguise of a fundraiser.

Right after the morning announcements a bundle of carnations would arrive for the teacher to distribute. While there were always more than enough to go around, that's not how it played out, like most distribution in a free market, the most carnations went to the fewest girls.

While the sentiment of Valentine's Day is pure, the execution of it is more about showing the world how much you are loved than actually expressing or feeling it. Walking the halls in high school with no carnations felt like a statement of worthiness.

The acknowledgement of being loved is a wonderful thing and almost as valuable as demonstrating your love to others but love is not something that can be felt from a box of candy, a carnation or a diamond necklace. And love doesn't always come in the form of the captain of the high school football team, sometimes the carnation comes from the quiet guy who eats alone in the cafeteria.

This sounds fundamental and yet, it took me many years to understand it.

As I approach fifty I feel the force of love in small things and in the ways my friends and family care for me and hold my best interests in their heart. Instead of believing that love is something you earn or deserve, I understand that it is like air, there for the taking if you just open up and breathe it in.

If you believe you are loved, you are.

While it would have been nice to have gotten dozens of carnations on carnation day, in the cosmic universe of love we are drowning in them.

Our Relationship to Reading

While so much in my life has changed over the years the one constant has been my love of books. A passion for reading is a thread that connects me to so many friends, extending all the way back to elementary school where my friend Julie Rucker and I shared our love of books.

Recently Julie shared an essay she wrote on reading that reminded me of how important it is to share our favorite stories with each other. Like most of us, Julie has gone through lots of changes over the years, while husbands and jobs have come and gone, her boo

k collection and emotional connection to the stories remains true. I hope you will connect to her passion as much as I do and please feel free to share your thoughts as well...

Julie's Reflections on Reading

Read-such a simple word that has so many implications, connotations, emotions and goals. There should really be eighty unique words for it, like the Inuit have terms for types of snow. There are casual reads and forced reads, private reads, and those done for the appearance of privacy like on a crowded airplane, administered purposefully to avoid talking with the guy in the seat next to you. Where did the peaceful exploration of a new novel go with its fresh, inky smell and crisp virgin pages? “No time to read,” “Have to read,” these are the phrases going through my mind now. I long for the time when the hubbub of the day was merely interference to settling down with that novel that my sister just sent in the mail. But chaos runs its course and I know another novel will find its way to me. Maybe simply out of exhaustion I’ll put down the tools of the job of daily living and pluck one of the many mysteries from high upon my plant shelf, plump a pillow and be absorbed by a new place, another time, and an exhilarating adventure that I just would not otherwise have time for.

Growing up, books were everywhere in my family’s house. Mom and Dad were always building or dragging in new book cases for the ever expanding library. Each holiday, birthday, and any day for that matter, books were customary gifts for us. Even the tooth fairy brought me a book once. It was Nothing Ever Happens on My Block. I still have it. I still have nearly every book ever given to me which explains the plant shelf overflow. There’s an entire novel assortment given to me that I’ve nearly made a dent in and books categorized by subject. My library is noticed immediately, but not always favorably by those entering my home. Several people have suggested I get rid of them, but with the exception of gifting one now and then, the collection remains. It has outlived two husbands (they’re still alive, just no longer my husbands) who just could not fathom why I would keep a set of encyclopedias published in the 1950’s. Either you get it or you don’t. I’m sure there’s still valid information in those resources that not only did my older siblings and I use to do school reports, but my own kids have used them as well. And why would I keep those novels given to me by a dear elderly friend? Alright, some books are kept for sentimental reasons, but I swear I will get around to reading them someday.

There is a beautiful consumption that swells over me when I’m immersed in a new book. Almost obsessively I cannot wait to return to it again, and it’s such a rewarding moment when reading that last page. That is true of the good ones, anyway. For those that border on lame the compulsion is an optimism that it will get better, so I finish those too, generally. But that lovely, faraway place between the pages might as well be in someone else’s house when life gets just too darn busy.

Why isn’t reading a priority? It certainly should be. It calms the body and sharpens the mind, an anecdote to the stressors and pressures of all those other things like working and raising children. The read does take a back seat to the looming responsibilities. I think if there is indeed a literary crisis today that it is an issue of time management, not so much empathy for the practice. Understandable too is the interference of stimuli such as electronics. If I am not currently absorbed in one tale or another I’m more likely to turn on the television or play a game of Texas HoldEm on the computer to end the day. That is really a little surprising to realize given that just a few months ago those lonely novels were my sleep aid of choice.

It was a passion for a while of which I give the credit to a childhood friend who had just published her first novel. I couldn’t attend the debut and book-signing, so I sent my sister from New York in my place. Soon after that I received my autographed copy of The Last Bridge by Teri Coyne in the mail, and I gobbled it up like a box of Cheez-its. The read launch me into a whirlwind of books, one after another. That era continued for quite a while. Looking back, it may have ended right around the time that I lost my job. Also my rickety, old, wooden ladder broke, so I couldn’t reach the plant shelf anymore.

Come to think of it, there must be plenty of dust up there. Note to self- buy a new ladder and start reading again; the dust can wait.

The perk that unemployment has awarded me is the freedom to return to school, thus the forced read comes into play. I was awaiting my Mentor’s arrival at the café and reading bits and pieces from a book on a Pueblo ruin that I had just picked up at a used book store in town when he arrived. Having chosen a text for his course that won’t arrive for another week, he asked me to finish reading the one in my hands. “The whole thing?” I said to myself. While it is my desire to absorb the information, I planned for the technical compilation to be a behind the scenes reference support, not an assignment. Alas, the forced reading has begun. It’s funny the way components of life fall in to place.

Already this LAS class has been good for me. It has reminded me of a constant throughout my life-books. I can picture the day Mrs. Heinz took our first grade class to the Washington Elementary School library where I watched Caps for Sale waiting for me on the shelf while the librarian spoke. (Teri Coyne was there too.) I remember a Fiction and Fantasy class years later when my proposal for the subject of a book report was denied because The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was too short, so I wrote the report on the entire seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia series. I can recall my Mother telling the story of how she and her cousin, Dolly, would make butter and lettuce sandwiches, gather a stack of books, and read for hours. Reading is a wonderful thing, really. It transcends time, binding humanity together in the literary universe.

I’ve always admired those who take, or make as it were, the time to sit down with a good book. It’s a pleasant past time for sure, but there is also a certain beauty in coming across someone reading; they appear serene. I imagine others notice the peace in such a view. When my daughter was learning to read, and struggling with her fluency and expression, I heard her talking one afternoon on the back porch. As I came closer to the door, I noticed that she was not only seated beside the littler boy from next door, but that she was reading to him. Her words flowed like music. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I crept away and snatched up my camera to capture the glorious event on video.

She, like her mother, wrote her name completely backward for the longest time. My mother used to marvel at the way my writing was in a complete mirror image of how it should be. While teaching Gracie, I often thought if Mother wondered if my dyslexic ways would carry on or subside. Eventually and gradually letters face in the right direction, and someday the little girl will be sharing the wonders of a book with another child, maybe her own. For now, she’ll keep mixing her d’s with b’s and p’s with q’s just as I did, but before she knows it she’ll be engaged in a forced read for a college class, eating a butter and lettuce sandwich.

What's Old to You?

I don't think too much about getting older. For the most part I think of it as a good thing and although I have my moments, I wouldn't trade the benefits of self-acceptance for the advantages of youth. Still, some parts of aging are harder to take than others.

A few years ago I went for an eye exam and was told by the doctor I had the eyesight of a thirty year old woman. This pleased me to no end as I confessed to him that I did not want to wear glasses as that would be the milestone that would make me feel old.

The doctor was at bit older (and wiser.) He assured me I did not need glasses yet, "BUT," he said, "I suggest you find something else to feel old about because sooner or later you are going to need glasses, at the very least, for reading."

"But not today," I said as I enjoyed three more blissful years of reading fine print, menus by candlelight, and emails on my phone.

A few weeks ago, I was engrossed in a biography of Dorothea Lange and noticed it was hard for me to get into reading at night. That nagging voice told me it might help if I put on some magnifiers. I told myself my eyes were tired and since I had no problems reading in the morning but come nightfall it was a struggle.

I put on a pair of magnifiers I got just in case this day would come and presto I could see clearly. And just like that I was old.

I could lie to you and say it doesn't bother me, but it does. I accepted sagging skin, drooping body parts, gray hair, strange spots, night sweats, and falling asleep on the couch before eleven o'clock. I understand what is happening to my body and for the most part I am happy with how well I am holding up -- that is until I put on the glasses. It's only a matter of time before I wear my glasses on a chain around my neck and stuff tissues in the sleeve of my sweater just like Grandma Coyne used to do - -hell -- I got her flabby upper arms I might as well have her eyesight too.

I'll get over it. Just like I got over all the other transitions. And like most aspects of aging, when you consider the alternative -- adapting is always better than perishing.

Dealing with aging is a lot about wrestling with your pride and vanity. I don't want gray hair -- it doesn't look good on me so I color mine -- but I cannot give up reading just to appear to not need glasses.

The only thing worse than wearing glasses was having a book in my hands and not being able to read it. Reading is one of the great loves of my life and there is no end to what we are willing to do for love. I guess I'll just have to pick something else to feel old about...

Any suggestions?

One door closing...

On Thursday I said good-bye to my New York apartment and moved everything out to my house on Long Island. Although I was ready to make the move, I did not expect it to be as difficult as it turned out to be.

I lived in that apartment for over fifteen years and before that I lived in the studio next door. Moving to that building was a big step in my adult life. I was in my late twenties and until then I had lived with roommates from the time I came home from the hospital with my mother. I was afraid of living alone, I wondered what I would do with myself without someone to eat with, make plans or be annoyed at.

The movers were barely in the lobby before I realized that living alone was one of the most fantastic experiences I would ever have. I loved my L-shaped studio and reveled in the luxuries of being independent including drinking the milk out of the carton and knowing whatever I left in the fridge would stay there. Television and movie choices were not negotiated and I never had to wait for the phone to free up or the bathroom to be empty.

When the one bedroom next door opened up I was ready for more space and moved myself in by dragging my furniture across one threshold to another. I brought my boxes and my memories and settled in to a space that allowed me to have more guests, space and freedom. I had four large closets in that apartment and over time I filled them with stuff, lots and lots of stuff.

When I turned forty I yearned for more outdoor space, to be more connected to a community and to finally own something of my own so I bought my house and instead of moving everything out of my apartment I gradually brought the essentials and left the "stuff" there.

It was only a matter of time before I started to realize that I wanted to be at my house more than I wanted to be in my apartment and in the city and last year after losing my job and getting my book published I knew it was time to let go.

The process of packing forced me to go through the documents, trinkets and mementos of my life. I found my college ID and remembered that first day at NYU when I wondered how I was ever going to find my way in the city and a few papers I had written with incredibly supportive comments from my professors that helped me see my own potential. I found birthday cards, one from my father whose box-like distinctive printing made me tear up. It wasn't a big birthday just an average one, back when I thought we would never get along and he would be around forever.

I found my Aunt Rosemary's chocolate cake recipe which we thought was lost, in her hand writing that was so hard to read and so undeniably her. She is gone now and suddenly that recipe card felt more precious.

I found love letters, gifts, and incredibly sweet notes passed to me from men and boys I have loved and dated. Drawings from all the amazing children I have loved and I marveled at how silly some of their baby outfits were and how joyful my life became when each one of my nieces and nephews were born.

I found pictures so many pictures and so many good times spread out over so many years.

I found myself overwhelmed with sadness for all the people who have passed or have drifted out of my life (some for reasons I can't remember and others for hurts that still sting) and amazed at how fast all the years have gone.

I asked my Aunt Rosemary a few years ago on her eightieth birthday if she felt different. She said she didn't, that in her mind she was always the same young person in her twenties and often when she looked in the mirror she was surprised at what she saw.

I understand what she means, going through the small touchstones of your past it isn't so much remembering as it is reliving, as if the past is not gone but still with us, I am still that NYU college student and still a stand-up comedian, still me.

Yet, holding on can fill up too much space in your life can't it? And what if that leaves less space for more adventures and more love and light?

In the end, I took what mattered most, gave away a lot and tossed even more and a took a moment before closing the door behind me to say good-bye.

I would have stayed longer but the future is waiting.

The Stragedy of it All

Among the many things I used to do to pass the time in long, frustrating planning meetings back when I worked in IT was to come up with new words to describe the awfulness of whatever was happening at the moment. While most of the words are lost to me now the one that has stayed with me was "stragedy." I accidentally said that in the midst of discovering a major project was collapsing under the weight of bad planning and poor decision making. I said, "so this is our stragedy?" What I meant to say was, "strategy" but mashed it with tragedy and made myself a fancy new word to describe exactly what happens when a lack of strategy meets reality.

At the risk of stating the obvious, we got ourselves a whole big stragedy going on right now in this country.

Shortly after 9/11 when I had heard one too many conspiracy theories about what happened, I realized I had been working in the Corporate world too long as I no longer believed that anyone was smart enough to plan a conspiracy let alone execute one.

I guess you could say I had an "aha" moment when it finally occurred to me that the people running the government, post office, hospital, Oil Companies, etc. were not a different grade of human than the ones I had been working with all these years.

Oh sure maybe you get more of the best and the brightest at the White House level but that is just a matter of degree. There are just as many people at the White House who don't respond to email, just like in your office.

Once you realize this, everything you hear on the news and know about the world changes. It's kind of like finding out Santa Claus doesn't exist, it's hard to imagine how you believed in him in the first place.

So although I believe there are people who conspire to do evil (usually in the name of God) I am not surprised that BP did not have an adequate contingency plan and that they still don't. I am not surprised that Congress doesn't seem to know what to do about it. And the New York State Government not passing a budget? Well who can blame them for thinking it's all about their agendas and not about their constituents. How is that any different from the folks you work with who don't care that they are leaving you high and dry when they punch out at 5:30pm and leave you to finish the project?

The stragedy of it all is that we want to believe there is someone, a leader, a guru, a teacher, a boss, a company, an institution that will show us the way and in doing so, make our lives and the world safe. We assume everyone who makes more money or has more power is smarter than we are and we definitely don't think our government is run at all like our places business, but guess what, it is.

I guess it's easier for us to feel outrage at BP for not having a better handle on the situation, for showing an astonishingly low amount of concern for safety over money, for not fixing the problem sooner (if they can ever fix it at all.) The alternative is to feel complicit. Our hunger for oil got us where we are and the people we sanctioned to drill for it are not going to get us out of it.

Everyone is talking about who is going to pay, who will be responsible and no one, has really stood up and said, I am, We are.

In my time working in Technology I had many successes and failures but what I was most proud of was taking over the management of a project that had gone horribly wrong and was causing a tremendous amount of pain for everyone in the company. We had a huge technical issue we were prepetuating without understanding how or why. On a team of eight support people, I had five quit in one day. I had chest pains and a lot of moments in the ladies room where I wondered why I wasn't drafting my own resignation, but I didn't.

The problem was beyond the scope of my technical abilities, or so I thought, until I met with the engineers who were stymied. Suddenly the high paid experts were not so expert anymore.

The solution took the combined efforts of all the IT people on our team, it took collaboration, respect, an openness to new ideas and most of all it took a lot of guts to suggest a solution and be wrong. I was wrong a lot, but I was determined to get to the bottom of the problem, I did not want the situation to defeat me.

We all have those moments in our lives when our best laid plans or intentions go terribly wrong...sometimes we run or point the finger or shut down but sometimes we rise to the occasion and show ourselves and the world our best. We say, enough. The buck stops here. It stops with me. You don't need a degree, a fancy job or permission to do that. You just need balls.

Philadelphia Stories

On Sunday my friend Stephanie joined me for the day at the Philadelphia Book Festival. While we were there to sell books and meet people, the best part of the day was having so many folks stop by and tell us their stories. I've recounted a few of the highlights of the day. I am grateful to everyone who stopped by and shared their stories with us.

Most Beautiful Kiss of my Life
An African American gentleman came by a took a handful of tootsie rolls declaring they were his favorite candy as a kid. Then he asked us if we ever lived in Israel, we said, "No." He asked me where I was from originally, I told him Pittsburgh.

He then told us a story of how he was in Pittsburgh years ago at a club called Disco 2000 where he met this woman. She was beautiful and they ended up back at his hotel room. When he wanted to see her again she told him it was just a one night stand as she had no intention of ever falling in love again. Another man broke her heart.

"Some people are like that," he said. "They can't take the heartbreak so they just want a one time thing. She was a beautiful kisser," he said. "The best kiss of my whole life."

He said as soon as the weather got warm he was going back to Pittsburgh and, "who knows?" he said, "maybe we'll all meet up there."

Come to my Party
I had to weigh down my handouts with bottles of water. A woman came over dressed in her church clothes, including a hat and was trying to get my information sheet. I told her why I was using the water bottles, she said, "I would have to be crazy to not understand that. I have lived in this city all my life and I know what kind of wind can come whipping up behind you and surprise, take everything on this table down. You don't have to explain to me."

She then went on to tell me about how much she loved books and the library and how having a place to go to read books saved her as a child. She took two of everything saying that was her policy, to always give what you find to someone else. Pass the good along.

She told us she planned on living to 125 and then shocked me when she said she was 67, the woman looked almost younger than me. She said as she walked away, "I'm going to do it and when I do I want you to come to my party. Everyone is going to be there."

Thank God, The Last Bridge!

A man who looked like a skinnier version of Santa Claus carrying books on computer programming and wearing a kelly green tattered sport jacket stopped at the beginning of the table and declared, "Thank God, The Last Bridge. We have way too many of them to begin with - the last one at last."

Man on a Mission

A retired electrical engineer came by to ask me if he could take my picture to post on Library Thing. I told him I was already on LT with my picture. He said it was one of his missions to get as many author photos on Library Thing as possible. He was a man with many missions including updating relevant Wikipedia articles, keeping track of the 1000+ books he has and trying to document as much local history as possible.

"My wife thinks I'm crazy," he said.

There were lots more stories and conversations and connections. Oh and we sold some books too!

Meddling with Mid-Life

I will be turning forty-nine this week, and although it's not fifty, it's close enough to ponder what that might mean to me.

When I was in my thirties I scoffed at stories I heard about men and women hitting their fifties and doing outrageous things and calling it a mid-life crisis. A few of my friends parents split up, one ran away with a younger woman, another sold their family home and bought a condo away from their children. Still, others bought fancy cars, boats, motorcycles while others went back to school, changed careers or slipped into a funk that took a few years to get out of. Over time, any change someone in their fifties made to their body, career or life was attributed to this mysterious thing called a mid-life crisis. I scoffed at many of the choices -- plastic surgery, sports cars, younger spouses. Mid-life crises were for people who weren’t happy, that wasn’t going to be me.

Then I hit forty-eight, published my first novel and left a job I had for eighteen years. Welcome to the mid-life crisis. The term mid-life feels silly and hopeful at the same time. If I’m having a mid-life crisis in my late forties that at least implies I will be living well into my nineties right? Although I am in the midst of re-charting the course of my life is it really fair to call this a crisis? If it is a crisis, shouldn’t I be wearing protective clothing?

Whether you like it or not, change happens. In mid-life many of those changes happen in your body, and while I strongly recommend living in denial for as long as possible, sooner or later you look in the mirror and notice something strange looking back at you, someone a lot older. It’s not all depressing, you also find yourself with less tolerance for doubt and if you had a hard time suffering fools in your youth well let’s just say you can barely be in the same room with them once you hit mid-life.

For me though, the big burning question is, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” Notice the distinction from the “What do you want to be” of my youth. The first half was all about the what, the second half is about the who, and when I say that I don’t mean the band.

There is a scene in The Last Bridge, when Cat wakes up in the hospital after almost drinking herself to death and the nurse asks her who she is, she goes through a list in her mind of all the roles she has in her life and finally lands on a definition of who she is that changes the course of her life.

Some days my definition of who I am is not so simple or flattering, other days the printout of it would require several toner cartridges. Some days who I want to be is within reach, other days it would be easier to try to be someone else.

I think of my “mid-life” project like I did the renovation of my 100+ year old house, it was a great house the way it was, solid foundation, strong bones, welcoming vibe but it was even better with a bathroom on the second floor, a new kitchen and access to the garden in the back. In fact, what made my house better was the way I opened it up, the way I took what was great and made it better.

Seems like that is the model. The “who” I want to be is more open, accessible and welcoming for what comes next.

Women of the World

If you had asked me as a young girl in the early 70s that the first time a woman would win a Best Director Oscar would be in 2010 I would have laughed in your face. By 2010 I would have imagined we would have had a least our first, if not our second woman president, had seen significant enhancements in the economic equality for working women and watched the quality of life for women all over world improve.


Yes, as a young girl growing in the 1970s, I believed women were on their way.


Last night I was proud that Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for best director not only because she deserved it but because she was honored for making a film about men in wartime. The success of The Hurt Locker is evidence that sometimes the best person to tell a story is a woman.


Today is International Women’s Day. We should pause to think of how far women have come in having their voices heard and we should also think about how much further we need to go.


I am one of the lucky ones. I was raised by a working mother and a father who believed in the equal rights of women. My parents did not bring me up to believe there was only one role for me. I did not grow into adulthood thinking I had limited opportunities. Unfortunately, the experiences of my life have revealed something very different. Too often, being a woman is a liability.


While I felt tremendous pride in the election that brought us our first African American president, I also felt sad that it took as long as it did and even sadder that it would take even longer to see a woman in the White House. (For the first time I wondered if it would even happen in my lifetime.)


These are minor concerns when you look at the statistics of women in this country that continue to be abused, and/or sexually assaulted, by the numbers of single working mothers that live below the poverty line and by the gender disparities in high ranking positions in government and corporations. Yes, we have made progress but we have miles to go and perceptions to change.


According to the website, the purpose of International Women’s Day is to celebrate the positive advances women have made in their fight for economic and social equality. The website goes on to explain that recently the tone of IWD has shifted from being a reminder of the negatives to a celebration of the positives.


While I’m all for celebrating the advances women have made I think that’s missing the point. It reminds me of taking a tour of a plantation in the South and hearing the guide boast that the slaves on that property were educated, this was after visiting the squalid conditions of the slave quarters. Was that really supposed to make us feel better?




Maybe we should spend a little less time patting ourselves on the back and little more time listening to the voices of women crying out for recognition and respect. I’m pretty sure that the rising number of Afghan women who set themselves on fire to escape a life of domestic abuse and torture would prefer it if we paid attention to their plight and did something about it.


When all is said and done, treating women with respect and as social and economic equals boils down to one thing and one thing only, when women do well, the whole world prospers. When women suffer, we all suffer.

Discovery vs. Distraction

Some days writing feels like factory work. You set a goal, sit down and have at it until you either reach the goal, give up, or get distracted. While there are days when you feel you are drawing from a well of divine inspiration, there are many more that just feel like you are a day laborer sorting words into sentences.

I've been stuck for the last two days on a scene where one of my main characters visits Goa Gajah, or the Elephant Cave in Bali. Although I was there (ten years ago) I was looking for confirmation on what is actually inside. Seems simple, but it wasn't. No matter how many resources I checked, I was not satisfied I had gotten the information I was looking for. I spent hours reading websites, looking at strangers holiday photos and re-reading guidebooks but I wasn't feeling anything click.

See, my character has a moment in the cave, this much I knew. How did I know that? I can't say other than it was a hunch, there was a reason this needed to happen but I was damned if I knew why or how (or even what the big moment was going to be.) I just knew something happens in that cave.

Research like this is like following breadcrumbs into a dark forest hoping it's going to lead you to a gingerbread house. The deeper you go the harder it is to give up but the darker it gets.

About an hour ago I was thinking about changing the story and having her go somewhere else, my breadcrumb trail was going stale. My research was a bust. I was not following a hunch I was creating a huge distraction.

And then, BINGO. One phrase, describing the deity Ganesha, changed everything. I knew why she was there, what was going to happen and why that moment is so important to the story.

What was the phrase? "Ganesha is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles."

Just like that the obstacle was removed in both the story and my writing process. (I think I may have been getting some divine inspiration after all!)

Heroine Worship - Part Three -- Getting high on heroines

I’m hosting an evening in New York City at KGB on Thursday night with three terrific women writers (Masha Hamilton, Stacy Parker Aab and Louisa Ermelino) We will be reading from our own work and sharing the incredible true stories of women from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. The title of the evening is Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines. Our goal is to get you to think about your favorite heroines and if possible, to begin to think of yourself as the heroine of your own story. Over the next few days I will be blogging my thoughts on being a heroine.

Part Three -- Getting high on heroines
I was reminded the other night of the many lectures I heard during high school and college about the "hero's journey." As any good English teacher will tell you it is the stuff of all the great literature. Let's face it, The Odyssey wouldn't be much if there wasn't...well...a journey. The great stories of the ages and the lessons of history are filled with men who have struggled to overcome great obstacles to triumph.

I grew up on these stories and as much as I could I was inspired by them. I have to admit though, it was hard at times to relate to these men. The problem wasn't their story, their challenge or their choices, the problem was more basic, they were all men.

You don't hear much about the great women of our time when you grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh in the late 60s and early 70s. Sure it was a time of "female liberation" but that didn't mean public school curriculum was ready to put the spotlight on anyone other than caucausion men.

Sure there were a few notable women, but they were treated as a fluke or novelty. The apporach was less reverential and more "hey sometimes women can help too!"

I was lucky to have some solid female role models in my life and a father who believed his daughters should be seen, heard and respected (except of course when he was speaking) so although I sought out some of the great women of history and literature I never understood what it was like to feel the power of a heroine. That is until I saw Sigourney Weaver in Aliens.

My sister dragged me to the sequal and promised that I wouldn't be lost even though I never made it through a whole viewing of the original Alien. From the moment Ripley comes back to life I was hooked. Here was a flawed, jaded, intelligent woman thrust into a incredible situation and forced to dig deep and fight the aliens.

Imagine my surprise when I, the fierce gun control advociate, found myself routing for her to blow those suckers away. At last I understood what my brothers were getting from Batman, comic books and Clint Eastwood movies. When there is someone like you on the big screen or in the center of a big story you connect to their struggle, to their fear but most of all you connect to their power.

Ripley digs deep and comes out a fighter. She doesn't cower in the corner and weep over a superficial wound and she doesn't look pretty while kicking alien butt. She looks strong and powerful and beautiful. She embodies everything a heroine should be to me.

Aliens made me hunger for more. If a hollywood movie could make me feel this way, certainly there were books and women from history that could do the same. Since then I have actively sought out stories that give me that feeling of connectedness and of power. In a way it has become part of a practice I think of as Heroine Worship.

My heroines come in all shapes and sizes and are women from all walks of life. Like their "hero" counterparts, they too are on a journey of discovery. I marvel at the accomplishments and challenges of so many women and yearn to have our stories reflected back in literature, movies, art and the media. I want my nieces and all the young women in our lives to access these stories, to understand the full breadth of experience women can have and most of all I want them to fell that exhiliration when their heroine seizes her power and rises to the challenge.

The stories are out there, the heroines are everywhere, ordinary women doing extraordinary things not waiting for the spotlight of recognition or the acknowledgement of history. My guess is you know a few of them yourself. In fact, you might just be one of them.

Heroine Worship - Part Two - Ordinary Women

I’m hosting an evening in New York City at KGB on Thursday night with three terrific women writers (Masha Hamilton, Stacy Parker Aab andLouisa Ermelino) We will be reading from our own work and sharing the incredible true stories of women from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. The title of the evening is Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines. Our goal is to get you to think about your favorite heroines and if possible, to begin to think of yourself as the heroine of your own story. Over the next few days I will be blogging my thoughts on being a heroine.

There is a cashier at my local supermarket who greets me with a big smile every time I load my goods on her counter. She is short and a little stocky, has died short red hair that is lightly teased to cover some thinning patches. In the winter she wears a long green sweatshirt under her maroon smock and always has a few tissues stuffed in her left cuff. Her cheeks are pocked from a rough ride with acne during her teen years but a light pink blush highlights her soft brown eyes.

Her son and daughter work part time at the supermarket with her. Her husband is on disability from his job working for a local builder. He is recovering from throat cancer. She has survived two bouts of breast cancer.

She tells me she is grateful for every day as she passes my yogurt, bananas, milk, cookies, eggs, potatoes, cans, jars, and paper goods past the scanner with lightening speed. She doesn't even have to look for the bar code on most of the items, she tilts the packages as if she sees it in her minds eye.

She spent some time in foster care after her mother died and her father drank himself off the grid for a while. He cleaned up, took her and her brother back home for her remaining teen years. She married her high school sweetheart when she got pregnant, had her first baby at eighteen and took her father in when he got too sick to take care of himself. Three years later her daughter was born and her mother-in-law moved in with them.

Her son is diabetic, she shot him with insulin until he was ten and then taught him how to do it. She wants to go to Italy one day but doesn't know when since there is so much to do every day. She thinks I should eat more beets and tells me if I pickle them they will taste better.

She said she misses the sound of her husband's voice, the way he growled a little right before he laughed and in spite of all the rough days they had together they laughed a lot. Now he wheezes a bit when he laughs, his voice is repairing and it will be a while before they know whether or not he will be able to speak.

She works the register like it is an extension of her, another limb that can calculate quickly. She troubleshoots the other cashiers problems and shouts out prices without turning to see the item in question. Her conveyor belt is clean, if your chicken spills juice she wipes it down before the man behind me unloads.

She is taking a class at night, trying to slowly earn her undergraduate degree. She reads two books a week and the paper every day. She likes Hummus now after I told her to try the Horseradish flavor.

She is one of the cashiers at my local supermarket, a mother, a daughter, a student, a friend, a wife and she is a heroine.

Heroine Worship - Part One - It's a bird, it's a plan, it's YOU!

I’m hosting an evening in New York City at KGB on Thursday night with three terrific women writers (Masha Hamilton, Stacy Parker Aab and Louisa Ermelino) We will be reading from our own work and sharing the incredible true stories of women from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. The title of the evening is Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines. Our goal is to get you to think about your favorite heroines and if possible, to begin to think of yourself as the heroine of your own story. Over the next few days I will be blogging my thoughts on being a heroine.

Part One -- It's a bird, it's a plane, it's YOU!
What comes to mind when you think about heroines? Is there a book or story that inspired you or is there someone in your life you consider a heroine? Have you ever thought about the women that have influenced you over the years? What qualities do they possess that you admire?

Now think about yourself, what qualities do you like about yourself? What is heroic about you? Have you ever thought of yourself as a heroine (or hero?) If so, why? If no, why not?

The word heroine is expansive. When I give myself permission to think of myself a heroine I have the urge to stand with my hands on my hips and my face pointed toward the sun (exactly like the graphic on our poster!) Heroine is a word that has power. It makes you feel like you are the captain of your ship, the pilot of your plane, the CEO of Corporation You. It feels that way because it is true. You may play lead or supporting roles in other stories but there is no other story in which you are the hero but your own.

Take a moment and imagine a movie or book being written about your life, who would play you? How would you describe YOU as a character in a novel? What would the story be about?

The greatest stories ever told are not always fantastical adventures, in fact, if you want drama, heartache, battles with dark forces, adversity, pain and suffering, chances are you can find it in your own story. The trick is to decide whether you triumph in the end and “live to tell your story” or whether you wither in the background and let fate determine your destiny.

We are all ordinary people and extraordinary heroines. Keeping our stories to ourselves is kind of like having a cape and not using it. So dare to tell your stories with you as the hero, struggling and achieving, and ultimately triumphant. Share your truth with the world. It may just be the most radical thing you ever do.

Books Are Great Gifts

Books have changed my life. It is hard to measure the degrees or the effect, but it is clear, a good book has a way of altering or enhancing your life experience

I love getting books as gifts, especially from people who are passionate about the story, the author or the subject. I am always touched when someone seeks out a special book for me or takes a chance on a story they think I might appreciate it. Over the years some of the best gifts I have gotten have been books. While the list is long (and I am not in front of my bookcase at the moment) I thought I would share some of these treasurers. Feel free to share some of your best book gifts as well.

Next week I'll share some of my favorite books from this year with you (and please send me your favorites as well.) In case you haven't noticed I want you to BUY BOOKS!!!

The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham – FIRST EDITION

I read this book right after college on the recommendation of a friend. It was an example of the right story at the right time. When my brother Patrick graduated two years after, I got him a copy and urged him to read it. Twenty years later, after searching for several years, he presented me with a first edition of this great story. When I opened it he said, “I never forgot how much that book meant to me at the time and wanted to give you this as a way of saying thanks.”

Miriam Webster Dictionary – with name embossed in gold on cover.
This was a high school graduation gift from family friends who owned a bookstore. At the time I thought it was kind of a silly and heavy gift but throughout college and even now I pull it out to look up a word or discover a pressed flower or two. Yes, the Internet gives me more options, but the heft and history of this book reminds gives it power.

The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien Leather bound edition
On our way to South America for a family vacation, I picked this paperback up in the airport to have something to read on the long flight. I was twelve going to a foreign land reading a book about a magical world, it was a good fit. My mother bought me this leather bound edition for Christmas a few years ago, it took me back to that wonderful story and a life changing trip.

Very Personally Yours – Kimberly Clarke
Talk about the power of words. When we were given our big puberty talk in sixth grade the girls were given this special booklet produced by the Kimberly Clarke company (the makers of feminine hygiene products) as a way of introducing girls to their periods. This was the early seventies, the book had not been updated since the fifties and was filled with so much misinformation that it was funny to me even then. My intrepid friend Gwyn hunted down an original copy of this for my birthday a while back. It is a prized possession. (The link takes you to a scanned version of this booklet!)

Hatchet – Gary Paulsen
My oldest nephew Wyatt gave me this book as a young lad after reading it and loving it. It is a great story by a writer who knows how to write for young adults. I treasure it as an example of how a love a reading gets passed on from generation to generation.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues – Tom Robbins
I got this as a gift for my fifteenth birthday along with a red blank journal from another family friend. I immediately started writing in the journal and became a lifelong fan of Tom Robbins. The combination of the two felt like a promise of things to come for me as a writer.

A Portrait of the Theatre by Frederic Ohringer
This is a big sprawling coffee table book of black and white portraits of New York theatre people. It was in the window of Brentano’s on eighth street the first Christmas I was in New York studying acting at NYU. I wanted that book so badly but it was too expensive to consider. I worked as a secretary for a Professor at the time, his assistant bought it as his gift to me. I thanked him but hugged her!

Germinal – Emile Zola
I got this book from a friend in high school who said I had to read it. My father worked for the Steelworkers Union at the time and was active in the labor movement. This book about striking coal miners was one of the most heart wrenching and moving books I have ever read and to this day is one of my all time favorites. This one got passed around everyone in my family.

Like Wings – Philip Shultz
This was a book I bought for myself right after I met with Philip Shultz to get into his graduate poetry class at NYU. I studied with this great poet for a year and read the poems from this book at least once a year. As a teacher he gave me a lot of “tough love” that changed the way I thought about writing and about poetry. As a poet he never fails to get a deep sigh out of me.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
My sister claims she did not find this book it found her. She passed it on to me and let’s just say I still think I see glimpses of Lestat in my window at night. I never got the appeal of vampires before this book and after reading it I got it. All this fuss about team Edward or Jacob? I’m on team Lestat and cannot WAIT to turn my nieces on to this book in a few years. I’ll throw in a night light with this one!

Reunited and it feels so good...

The weekend of October 16th I returned to my hometown of Pittsburgh to attend my thirty year high school reunion and to do some author events. The weekend kicked off with my reading and talk at the Mt. Lebanon Pubic Library. While the building has changed dramatically over the years, the soul of it is the same as I remembered as a young girl. Mt. Lebanon library was a frequent stop for me growing up. It was within biking distance of our house and provided me with unlimited opportunities to learn more about the world and to plan my future.

The room filled up with friends, family, and library supporters. As I looked out in the audience I saw people from my past, high school buddies, my Mom, best friend Gwyn and her husband Lester and many new faces. It was a highlight of the whole book tour.

Gwyn hosted a lunch back at her house after the event with a group of friends from high school. Many of them we had not seen since our ten year reunion or even high school. It was startling to see how quickly we all fell back into our high school banter and reassuring to know that once you are connected to someone it rarely changes just because you lose touch. We ate, talked and most of all did what made us all friends in the first place, we laughed.

The reunion that night was overwhelming. The turnout was great. Thank goodness for the name tags with our high school photos on them as that helped a lot. I spent the evening sharing memories from grade school through high school with lots of classmates.

Sunday I signed books at Barnes & Noble and was visited by a few more friends from high school, including a friend who missed the reunion due to flight delays. Again, it was such a good feeling to reconnect.

Driving back to New York after the weekend I realized I don't really talk a lot about my time in high school. My memory of it was filtered through my burning desire to get out of Pittsburgh and get on with my life. I had forgotten about how rich and important my bonds were with those amazing people. In high school, those friends helped mold me into the adult I became, they accepted me for who I was and encouraged and supported my creative endeavors. They helped me believe I could have a life in New York.

In my haste to move on, I had forgotten that...until now. I am grateful for those days and the love of so many accomplished classmates!

Back to the Future?

I'm heading to Pittsburgh this weekend for a few author appearances and to attend my 30 year high school reunion. As the date has gotten closer I find myself thinking a lot about the past and the girl I was in high school and how she became the person I am today.

I have to admit I have never been someone who lived in the past or thought very much about it. I don't believe in regret and strive to make the most of all my experiences both good and bad. I keep many stories in my repertoire and enjoy reminiscing every now and then but for the most part I am all about the future, often at the expense of the present.

Back in high school, all I wanted was to leave Pittsburgh. This started around the time I was twelve and was my primary focus until I landed in Greenwich Village in the fall of 1979. My focus was on my future, away from my town, my family and the pain of my childhood. I was sure my life was in New York and wanted it to begin as soon as possible. Every day I spent at home felt like time served before my release into the real world.

That drive affected how I approached everything from school to extra-curricular activities to relationships. Every test, homework assignment, paper and course needed to be good, my grades had to be the best they could be. When I discovered my creative passions, I knew they would be a lifelong pursuit and I wanted to make full use of the opportunities afforded to me. I took every performance seriously, studied every facet of acting and writing I could. Even in my relationships with boys I kept things casual. Although I had deep feelings for a few incredible young men, I didn't want anything to keep me from my goal.

Yes, I had good times, formed a lifelong bond with my friend Gwyn, and enjoyed my accomplishments but still, I was living for the future.

As news about the reunion spread to my classmates, I reconnected with so many wonderful people from that time, many of whom have commented that my life turned out exactly as they had thought it would and that I "haven't changed at all."

While this is incredibly flattering (especially the comments about still looking the same) it has made me think a lot about the past. It is one thing to have goals and another to not be present in the here and now. As I was focusing on the future, I was not seeing a lot of what was good in my life. I was waiting for my life to begin in New York rather than seeing it was already blooming in Mt. Lebanon.

On Saturday I will be doing an author talk at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library, the same library I used to ride my baby blue banana seat bike to on the weekends to return books and find new, exciting stories of women living adventurous lives in faraway places. I would sit back in the stacks imagining and manifesting my future, never knowing decades later my adventures would lead me right back where I started. I worried then, as I still do, that I will not get to where I want to go, that my dreams are not attainable. Again, it is hard to see what is when you are focused on what could be.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a young woman who had learned about my appearance at the library and went to my website. "Tell me more about yourself," she said. I responded and asked her about herself. She said she loved the library and was a dedicated reader and an aspiring writer, she told me about her plans, her goals and her dreams. She said she couldn't wait to get there.

I know she wouldn't have understood if I had said, "take you're time," anymore than I would have so many years ago. The desire to succeed, to make a name for yourself is a powerful one but as I am learning it should never come at the expense of standing still and taking in what is good now.

After my talk, I'll take a walk back into the stacks and think of that girl I was then and let her know she did okay...hell she did better than okay. I will take a moment to remind myself, as I do every day, that the journey is better than the destination and throughout the weekend I will do what I couldn't do back then, I will appreciate being home.

Live to tell the story...

I have officially put myself on a television blackout on anything related to the Jaycee Dugard case. I cannot sit through another interview where a reporter asks an expert, friend of the family or distant relative the question, "Why didn't she get away?"

Every time I hear the question I feel my blood pressure spike as my hands ball into fists. While I understand all the reasons behind the question, I still cannot handle its' implication and our societal ignorance of the realities of abuse.

While we all like to say we have empathy for the victims of these atrocities, it is easier for us to wonder why they could not save themselves. (By extension save us the huge discomfort of having to face the horrors that some people are forced to endure.) Asking this question, or even wondering about it, is the same thing as trying to imagine what it would feel like to have cancer. We can say we would fight it, do everything necessary to live, but do we really know what we would do when the pain hit us? Do any of us ever know what we will do until we are tested?

Victims of violent crime struggle with many things after rescue, one of them being guilt. Either guilt for surviving when others didn't, or guilt for not fighting hard enough to get away. This thinking is a factor of being safe, when you are in danger or struggling to survive you do not have the luxury of hindsight, you only have moments to endure. When you are free, you question what you did to survive. When you are enslaved, you merely survive.

Perhaps the harder questions to ask are "how did you survive? what was it like?" but who really wants to know that? In speaking with survivors of sexual abuse during the writing of The Last Bridge, this was the comment I heard most often, "no one wants to know what happened. When I try to bring it up, people change the subject or they tell me it's too painful."

Imagine something awful, unimaginable happens to you and when you are returned to your family and friends you feel their hesitation, their fear and resistance. What has happened to you has not only broken you in ways you will spend your whole life healing but has separated you from everyone and everything you know, for ever? What do you do when no one will hear your story?

Anyone who has ever been in therapy knows this, what heals us more than anything is the power of listening. While we cannot make the atrocities so many people suffer go away, we can listen, we can open up our hearts and let the story come out and live in the open. Instead of focusing on what they should have done (get away, call the police, etc.) we can focus on what they did do, they stayed alive.

Perhaps it is the belief we all cling to that bad things do not happen to good people that gets us in to trouble. The truth is bad things happen to everyone all the time. What happens to us is not a judgement of our worth, what we do about it is what defines us. When we can embrace the notion that there is no "normal" we can free a lot of people from emotional suffering. What is normal, after all, is what happened to you.

Which takes me to the hero's journey. If we are all the hero of our own story, our job is live to tell the story. It is to survive the obstacles that are put in our path. I read the stories of Jaycee Dugar, Shawn Hornbeck, Elizabeth Smart, Elisabeth Fritzl and all other survivors and I am amazed at the power of the human spirit to endure, to survive. While what became normal to them is unthinkable to us, it is what they experienced and it deserves to be acknowledged openly and with love and understanding.

We don't ask people who survive cancer why they didn't have it diagnosed sooner. When they survive we congratulate them on fighting the good fight. We should treat survivors of abduction, violent crimes and abuse in the same way. We should honor their courage and hear their stories.

Your Personal Best

Last Wednesday, I watched my nephew Christoper swim laps for charity for two straight hours. When the whistle blew he had traversed the pool 191 times. He wanted to hit 200 but needed 150 to collect his sponsor money.

As I watched him and the other BlueFish on his team, I was struck by how swimming is a sport where one is always striving to beat the clock, to do better than we did before. While it is hard to ignore the bodies swimming next to you, what matters in the end is what you do against the clock. While many of us compare our "race" in life as a competition with others, it really is more about our personal best and not about someone else's.

During the two hours, Chris had moments where he appeared tired and would use his arms more than his legs, other times he would get a burst of energy and zip down the lane. Sometimes he would flip at the turn, sometimes it was enough to touch the edge and head back. He said he kept track in his head of the laps but at times lost count or started counting by tens rather than ones. Even when he wasn't sure of how many laps he did, he kept swimming.

While it is a cliche to say life is about the journey not the destination, it is true, isn't it? Our expectations of ourselves are constantly shifting. Chris may have started out wanting to swim 200 laps but by the time it started raining and he got into the ice cold water he may have thought, "I just want to do 150," as the second hour wore on, he may have wanted to just make it to two hours without quitting. How his goal changed doesn't matter as much as the fact he kept going.

I wake up every morning with a goal of what I want to get accomplished. A plan for how I will wrestle form from chaos. I always plan on doing my best. That plan is usually in the crapper by the time I finish my first cup of tea. Sometimes the day takes unexpected turns that lead me to places I never dreamed, other days the toilet backs up, the dryer breaks and your car leaks. It is on those days we have to remind ourselves that this is the journey to a destination that is constantly changing. We may have started the day wanting to go to the beach but ended up waiting for the plumber. We may have wanted to be a princess but ended up living in Queens. We may have wanted 200 laps but surprised and pleased our self when we did 191.

That's the thing about a personal best -- it's personal. You decide what it means to you, you can make your life about failure and defeat or you can make it about discovery and reward. That is up to you.

As for me, I'm taking my cue from Chris, I'm shooting for the stars and jumping in the pool. Ready, set, start swimming.

Alien Invasions

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

There are lots of ways to face your fears, even more ways to avoid them. I am not a theme park kind of person. I get no thrill from thrill rides and am usually the one holding the jackets and drinks while everyone else waits on line for the roller coaster.

Last year, I went to Splish Splash, a water park on Long Island, for the first time and discovered that although I don't love water rides they are more manageable. At the urging of friends (in the form of children) I got my courage up and went on one ride called Mammoth River which shoots you down a winding flume. I ended up liking it more than I thought I would. Although I was happy with my small achievement (and believe me I had to really push myself to do it) I knew there was no way I would EVER be able to do the biggest ride there...Alien Invasion. After all, who really wants to shoot down a winding enclosed tube in a four person raft, then get shot out into a giant funnel where you swing wildly from side to side and then splash into a pool of water? Just hearing the screams coming from the ride was enough for me to know, I would never do it.

A lot can change in a year.

On Monday, I went on Alien Invasion, not once but twice. Saying I liked it would not be accurate. I was terrified both times and each time I spent most of the ride wondering why I was doing it (when I wasn't wondering if this was how I was going to die.) So why did I do it?

It's good practice.

I guess it would be nice to think we could have a life devoid of fear or challenges. Sometimes it would be nice just to have one day without a struggle of some kind but as we know -- a life without fear, or the triumph over it, is hardly one worth living.

So, while riding Alien Invasion may not make my top ten list of life achievements, it pushed me past my comfort zone and reminded me of that intense, wondrous satisfaction you can only feel when you have done the very thing you thought you could not do. I'm considering it a trail run for the weeks and months ahead as I begin life as a published author (I promise I won't scream!)

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Who's Your Daddy?

What makes a person a parent? Is it a genetic link? A choice? Or a combination of the two?

This is a central question in The Last Bridge and an idea I continue to explore in my second novel. To what degree does it matter if the people who raised us are related to us by blood?

Last Thursday, author Lennard J. Davis appeared on the Diane Rehm show to discuss his new book, Go Ask Your Father, a memoir describing his journey to discover the truth about who his father was. Davis discovered shortly after his father's death that he was not his biological father.

In the interview Davis details the events that lead him to the conclusion that his "crazy" Uncle Abe (his father's brother) was his biological father. He had been a donor for his mother after they had trouble conceiving in the late 40s. Davis talked about the evolution of artificial insemination and how, in the beginning, it was considered pretty "out there" and quite often the woman's OB/GYN would be the donor. He recounted a story he had heard about a town in Ohio that had a lot of red headed children (the OB/GYN was a red head.) Quite often the mother did not know who the donor was.

For a while, Davis wondered if his mother's OB/GYN was his biological match but after researching it he was finally able to determine that his Uncle was the match.

During the show listeners called in and told their stories, many of which were similar to Davis' when they said that they had always felt different or separate from their families. One woman said she had discovered in her late twenties that the man who raised her was not her biological father and although it took her years to make contact with her natural father when she did she said, "it was like looking in the mirror."

Listening to these stories made me think more about the nature of self and how we are formed from our understanding of some basic facts, who are parents are, where we came from, etc. Imagine what happens when that foundation shifts and what we thought was the truth turns out to be something completely different.

I used to believe that nurture was more important that nature but as I have gotten older I have started to wonder how much of who I am is based on my genetics or on choice. I know I am allergic to the same things my father was, and that I react to medications the way he did. I also know I have his sense of humor but was that learned or inherited? And what about my creative abilities? Did I learn them from my mother or inherit them?

What are the basic concepts you have formed your sense of self on? Is it your heritage (Irish? Italian?) Religion (Jewish? Catholic?) If that information changed would you still be you?

And what is a parent exactly? Is it the person who gave you your DNA or bandaged your knees or paid for college? Is it two people? One? A grandma? An aunt? Can it be all of the above?

I think it can.

At the end of the day it is hard to distinguish all the ways we are shaped by our ancestors, loved ones and peers but it isn't hard to know how we are affected by a lie. In the end what matters most is the truth.

After all, what we do with that is entirely up to us.

Pulling the Thread

One of the most thrilling things I experience when I'm writing is when I think I know what is going to happen next and then I find a detail dangling or missing like a thread on a sweater. I pull it and everything changes.

This happened yesterday as I was working on a scene from my second novel. In a previous section I had described the main male character in a fairly nondescript way and decided I needed to paint a more accurate picture of his physicality and openness. As I started, I noticed the more I wrote about how he looked, the stronger sense I got that he was not doing what he was supposed to be doing -- his back story was all wrong.

I've learned not to fight this when it happens. When a character goes left when you meant for them to go right you do NOT steer them in your direction, you go with it. There's a payoff, you just don't know what it is. In other words, you pull the thread hoping to make the fabric smooth again while also being willing to let it all unravel.

After about an hour of reworking his physical description, his name changed, his back story deepened and what was once a short scene, became a pivotal moment. That pesky little thread turned out to be an invitation to go deeper.

It strikes me that life is like this too. If we are the hero of our own story, then we are the main character and the author all at once. While the author side of our self wants us to go left, the hero ventures right.

The road less taken, perhaps? No stone unturned? Who knows why we do it, only that we are pulling the thread of our own story, looking for something deeper, richer and most of all unexpected. Just like in writing ,we have to have faith that it will enrich the fabric of our life even if we can't see that yet. We have to be willing to take the risk.

In the end, as the authors of our own story we get to choose if we are on a heroes journey or a fools errand.

If you're like me, you're stilling pulling at that thread.