Threads

Grandma used to pick up threads. And hairpins.  And safety pins.  She fastened the safety pins down the front of her cardigan near the button holes.  There were buttons on her sweater, Aunt Jule would make sure of that. I think she picked up bits of thread and pins because she was raised to be thrifty, to save, to never waste.  Grandma seemed so very old to me.  The big blue veins that sat on the back of her hands were covered by thin loose skin, her wedding rings held on more by her bony knuckle than by any plumpness of her fingers.  There was thread wrapped around the rings to keep them safe below her knuckle.  In their steel grey hair these sisters used hairpins, not bobby pins.  In old family pictures  I saw they once had thick plentiful hair, like I had.  Now there scalps were visible and those wide wire hairpins had so little to hold on to that they fell, into the carpet, on to the linoleum, and stayed behind when they arose from a chair. And so they had to be picked up. When I was with them, I could feel my youth--- strong, vibrant, smooth skin, fresh faced youth. 'Bursting with life' would not have been an exaggeration from these days.   I could move freely, run and jump and play all day, ride my bike with no hands, just steering with my will and the strength of my body.  I'd get up to such a speed and then glide, the air rushing through my thick hair, the breeze on my smooth skin, the muscles in my legs strong after the exertion. Sometimes Grandma would sit next to me and take my hand in hers, my hand covered in smooth pink skin, and she would just rub the back of it.  She would hold my young hand and look at our two hands together and sigh, sometimes a tear in her eye as she patted my arm.  "So nice and round you are."

Not so many years ago, I was brushing my own mother's hair, this grandmother's daughter.  My mother had more than abundant hair--- so thick and dark all my growing up years, now silver with a lovely sheen.  She kept more hair than her own mother did, but when I brushed it, I saw the patches, her scalp exposed just in places.  She grew into a similar old age to her mother, forgetful, confused, softer.  Not as formidable as the mother of my youth, but still herself.  And, as with my grandmother, I think this condition, this senility, Alzheimer's, opened a door on her life that might have stayed closed otherwise.  As with her mother, she spoke of the past, her childhood, her youth, the events of yesterday much fresher than what she just had for lunch or the names of her family who sat at the table with her.  This doorway, the defenses crumbled, brought its own gifts along with the heartache.  She would speak of things from years before, looking to find people long dead, but not to her.  They were just there, waiting for her.  And so she had to find them.

Now I am a grandmother.  My daughter has a child, a little boy.  To hold his plump little hand, his round toes, rub his soft soft cheek against my own is more than a delight.  It is a renewal of life, and yes, of course, a reminder.  Now I am the grandmother.  The one with the stories of long ago, that seem not so long ago for me--- no, long ago was for my grandmother, but of course that is ancient history to my grandson.  My youth will be the 'good old days', my daughter's youth just parts of stories we will tell.  And we will show him pictures and tell him about his Mommy when she was a little girl and his uncles will give him piggy back rides and tell him things I didnt know about his mother, things only brothers would know.  His grandfather and I will tell him stories of growing up in New York-  in that far away place he will  see on TV in any number of cop  and lawyer shows.

I have spent my life collecting stories, listening for the history and characters of grandparents and aunts and uncles I never would meet otherwise.  I have collected these treasures by asking questions, studying photographs, listening at Christmas and Thanksgiving when the older people would join us.  I suppose I am something like my Grandmother, picking up threads so as not to waste the legacy of all those we come from.

Going Green

Writers are pretty good at the whole re-cycling thing.  Memories of people, places, things, of smells and touch, impressions and observations made over the years are used again and again in the stories we create and the characters we "invent". Nothing is wasted.  Our whole lives feed our work. Our way of being in this world, I think, is different than people who don't write.  Of course, that's just my theory, a theory that has been tested on anecdotes and observations I have accumulated these many years. Kind of a self proving theory, but never the less, there it is. I'm pretty darn sure musicians and visual artists approach and absorb life in similar ways, molding and shaping bits and pieces of history and flashes of cinema that run through our heads, whether awake or asleep.  I have my own laboratory for developing this theory.  Each one of my children is an artist of some kind;  they draw, paint, write and perform music, craft inert material into something beautiful and make movies.  I have learned so much from them over the years on how to "do" this writing thing.  They are wonderful converters of the energy that has been expended on life experiences.  They recall, re-use, recycle.

When I was young--- about 8 or 9 years old--- I loved spending a few days in the summer with my Grandmother and Aunt Jule.  Everything in their house was old.  Everything was neat and orderly.  And delicate.  Or so it seemed.  Most of the furniture dated to the late teens to the early thirties (that is from World War I through the Depression).  Each chair, table, china cabinet, all the silverware, the chipped kitchen plates and the lovely china in the glass cabinet in the dining room, seemed to me to be full of stories.  These two elderly sisters lived with no clutter, no waste.  They carefully put away linens and mended all the ancient items they owned.  They had little use for the new while the old still had use and life.  Aunt Jule would make the little girls of the family summer dresses, or 'shifts', on the black enamel Singer sewing machine that she used for making clothes for my mother when she was a girl.

Because the houses were so close together-- two attached houses with an alley between the next set-- the house always was in shadow. This added to the allure of stories to be uncovered and listened for in my young imagination.  I would play on the little stairs of the side door of the alley just outside the alcove that once upon a time housed the "icebox".  The ice man would come around on a regular basis in his truck, park at the curb and heave a block of ice through the alley doors to the alcoves of the identical houses.  For some reason this bit of domestic life of the 1920's seemed so romantic, so other.

I would listen as my Grandmother and Aunt spoke to each other.  I was hungry for names and events of times past, of people who died before I was born, but who were part of who I am.  I was hungry for history.  Hungry for story.  When my grandmother's Alzheimer's progressed she would often ask for people from her childhood.  I would not correct her and try to focus her in on the here  --- her here and now was better spent in reminiscence.  She would speak of the house where she was raised, speak of my great-grandparents and assorted aunt and uncles whose faces I would look at in old sepia photos, looking for some traits, some characterictics that maybe I inherited or that I recognized in one of my brothers or sisters.  These stories made me part of that history, giving me roots in a world of the immediate. I still gather the threads of all that came before me--- all that is within the grasp of  my imagination that is--- to re-tell old tales or take those threads and weave something new.  My own recycling program.  Now if I could just remember to put the plastic bottles in the blue bin.......

So this is what creativity looks like

Sunday morning.  Gene usually gets up earlier than I do and he usually does something useful or educational with that time.  Me, I like to get back to whatever dream I was in the middle of and see where the story is going.  This morning, though, I grew tired of the dream I was having, got up and left our room to get my morning coffee.  First thing I see is a young man that I met yesterday asleep on one of the couches in the family room.  Gene is over at his desk, writing an article or researching something I cannot begin to understand, and there are two more sleeping bodies on the couches in the living room.  Since none of these lanky young men are John, our 19 year old son, we can only assume that upstairs in the bedrooms and game room there is a simliar scene. The thermometer hit 102 yesterday, with who know what heat index.  John and his crew have been filming in the garage, coming in from time to time to cool down, get some water, melt into the couches.  The numbers of the crew keep changing and we are introduced occasionally to someone new, but trying to keep their names straight is a losing proposition.  Our kitchen has leftovers of their movie makeup---- bloodshot wounds in shades of red, plastic ware filled with fake blood, pizza and donut boxes and empty glasses.  I filled the dishwasher with what seemed like all the mugs we own.  Coffee and energy drinks apparently fuel the creative process, especially when the creative process is in action  from 2 in the afternoon til 6 the next morning.

This is what we do.  Gene and I consider ourselves patrons of the arts in our small contribution of encouragement, permission to overrun our house and bowls of spaghetti and meatballs to nourish the hungry artists.  They all seem to be genuinely excited, despite the heat and the long hours, to get this movie made.  There is no money involved, but there certainly is investment.  They have all brought equipment, enthusiasm, artistry and much sweat equity to get this project completed.

Their goal is to get this movie viewed in Film Festivals around the country, with the hope of launching their various careers.  I believe someday I'll be able to say I knew them when: when they were exhausted and sweaty and slept the sleep of the wrung out on our couches.

Creativity is often messy, but there is no doubt that this crew will work just as hard in post-production to make this movie tight and as perfect as their considerable skills can make it.  Ars gratia artis?  Yeah, and hopefully for careers being born.

Present Tense

I've had a house full of film makers for more than a week now.  My youngest son John, who turned 19 yesterday, announced when he was 4 years old that he is  a director.  Not going to be a director someday in the far off future, but that at that moment he is a director.  Returning home from Independence Day he asked for the telephone book.  Why? we asked.  So I can look up Jeff Goldblum and ask him to be in my next movie, was the reply.  Duh. I said a prayer, and I proclaimed to my young son, I hope you always have that confidence, that self-assurance.   He was not waiting for anyone to place a mantle around his neck that declared him movie director, or wait for a school to hand him a piece of paper with such a claim--- no, he knew and knows himself enough and has since he was a little boy.

So this current project, the filming of a script which John wrote, has grown into quite a community effort.  He is the director and an actor in the movie.  He has attracted assistant directors (who came complete with fabulous professional equipment) make-up artists, gaffers, special effect makeup artists and what seems like an endless parade of young people coming in and out of every door in the house with their own talent and excitement for the project.  My little dog Frankie is almost overwhelmed with all the stimuli.

One of my favorite theories is that young children will let you know who they are before they ever enter a classroom.  You just have to pay attention and let them show you.  If you don't pay attention when they are really young  you may miss the revelation.  Too often school wears out the natural talent of a child before they have a chance to develop.  That's something I have noticed with my four kids and I bet I can extrapolate that my kids are not so unique, but that every child has a talent or a mission or a way of being in the world that was whispered in his or her ear before they showed up in this life.

Most of us, I think, spend the rest of our lives trying to remember what that whisper told us.

Supposed To

I'm supposed to be writing a novel.  I say supposed instead of the more definite I am writing a novel because that's too much of what my work looks like.  Supposed to covers an intention, a duty, a job I have accepted, but have not really given enough energy and brain power to.  Supposed to keeps me tethered to the long rope of obligation that at least makes me give thought to my work in progess, even if the progress is hardly discernible. Oh, I give this novel thought.  I sit in front of my keyboard for long stretches of time.  I sit with my puppy Frankie on my lap and my feet up on my desk.  Frankie has become used to this, it's an arrangement that seems to work.  Again, seems to, supposed to---- does not imply that a lot of actual work is getting done around here, does it?  Why am I supposed to be writing a novel in the first place?  Why don't I move on to something more immediate--- like getting the laundry done or the refrigerator cleaned?  Well, those homely tasks come in handy as a distraction.  Sometimes they even come in handy as a device to let my brain float a bit-- just engaged enough to keep me awake and somewhat alert without turning the engine on full blast. My usual form of minimum engagement activity is to play hand after hand of computer solitaire.   The screen behind the game holds my little word gems while I try to sneak up on my thoughts for the next chapter or some character development or maybe some revealing conversation.  Once in a while it even works and I get a paragraph or two down and I can feel I have accomplished something.  Oh, but I am too easily pleased.

I say I am supposed to be writing a novel because for years, since I sat on the basement floor in my parents house, books piled around me, children's books, picture books, classic fairy tales and shelves filled with the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Hemingway and so many others, the magic of producing and telling stories has been my biggest delight. the black letters on the page were more real to me than toys.  I would caress the words with my fingers and understand, so glad for this gift of reading.  I could not count the number of nights I fell asleep with a book folded across me, or mixed in with the blankets because my eyes gave out before I would willingly set the book down for tomorrow.

Also, I say supposed to write becasue my darling husband set this blog up for me because he knows this about me. He knows that I delight in words and thoughts and sounds and ideas.  So often I dispel this energy through talking and then find I have little left over to put on the page.  So, yes, I am supposed to write because I am supposed to write.  If it sounds okay, great.  If it doesn't, well, that has to be okay too, because if I waited for Shakespeare of Hawthorne to use me as a scribe, nothing would ever be done.