Sixty-one years. Where to start?

In January, my parents will be moving out of their home of sixty-one years to a retirement community located near my sister. Their home, my home, is filled with sixty-one years of memories and junk, both of which are hard to seperate. My father was a machinist, so the basement alone is lined with tools, drills, lathes, you name it. My mother has suggested lighting a match and using a broom to sweep up the remains. I informed her that metal is difficult to burn...

Countless people have seen their parents through this process, so why do I feel like I'm Lewis and Clark, venturing into a foreign land?

My sister and I went back to NJ last month with the idea of cleaning out the eaves and attic and to check up on our parents. Two things reared their ugly heads pretty quickly. One, a single dumpster wouldn't be enough, and two, my parents could no longer deal with maintaining a house. There is something that grabs your guts at those words. Parents, especially mine, are supposed to be eternally strong and able. They can answer all the questions and do the heavy lifting tied to captaining a tiny human through childhood and beyond. They possess secret powers of helping with science projects and creating baking goods that should come with an addiction warning label. Now they are daunted by a body that is not obeying, and a mind that may wander (although that could just be the deafness -- don't get me started -- how loud can one TV set get? Have you ever had to listen to Judge Judy till your eardrums bleed?)

So we're parenting our parents. That's okay. Circle of life, part of love, I get that. Then why am I waking at night from dreams of a house where I can no longer tresspass? The plants of the garden grab at my heart the most. They marked the passing of the years; they were part and parcel of my childhood. And that perhaps is it. My parent's house is my home, my childhood, and even though in the light of day I can see this move as a tremendously positive event for both the safety and health of my parents, I find myself tearing up as I did when I was pregnant. When a TV commercial would send me into wails. Christmas songs are brutal --- "I'll be Home for Christmas," just kill me now.

But a house is not a home that old song said. At 86 years of age, my parents may still have a few good years left. God knows, my mother deserves a break from the endless years of cooking and cleaning. Snow on the front steps is a disaster in the making for my dad's hip. Rationally, this move is the right thing to do, and my parents are showing incredible strength to move to MN, and move away from their few remaining friends. They seem enthusiastic. Let's not get into moving to MN in January -- the apartment came up, it's fantastic, you get it.

It's me who's the chicken.

So, dear readers, for the next month you're my free therapy. In the next few weeks I have to prepare and celebrate Christmas, help my son finish his HS applications (including of video biography, ai carumba), have minor surgery, arrange the plethora of workers needed to clean and and prepare my parent's house for sale, and oh, the book is being published in February. Book? Oh, it's fantastic, it's escapism, you'll love it, but I'll deal with it on it's own.

All of that is doable. I can handle that. What I'm not sure I can handle is driving my parents and sister to the airport. You see, I'm remaining behind a few days to oversee the contractors. Pulling away from the house with my parents in tow as they stare at their memories. Then returning to the house, oh hell... Then locking the door and smelling the essence of home for the last time. Alone. That's the hard part.

Yet humor is the balm of the soul. So you will hear of all the insanity of this process, trust me. If we can laugh together, we can get through this. Yes? Sure.

And if anyone wants a cute, 4 bedroom on 1/2 acre... I'm here.

Smitten by two Sherlocks

For those of you who love the man from Baker Street, I offer up two distinct but equally delectable takes on my second favorite detective. I am late coming to the party with both but I can't help but shout their praises.


First Sherlock:















The BBC Sherlock series co-created by the beloved Stephen Moffet. To quote him: "Conan Doyle's stories were never about frock coats and gas light; they're about brilliant detection, dreadful villains and blood-curdling crimes – and frankly, to hell with the crinoline. Other detectives have cases, Sherlock Holmes has adventures, and that's what matters."

And seriously, Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes. The fantastic verbal gymastics of speaking his name is enough to tune in. He channels a 21st century version of the shrewd, brilliant, perhaps Asperger laden yet passionate genius. So prepare to lose yourself for several hours over the first season. My favorite moment is when a bomb explodes at the duo's flat. The shout of glee from a previously bored Holmes sums it up rather nicely.


Second Sherlock:


"The Beekeeper's Apprentice" by Laurie King. I had heard the title and knew that people had raved. Recently (I'm really late to the party here) a friend of mine laid out the premise: Holmes has retired to the Sussex Downs to raise bees (part of the Holmesian canon). One day a fifteen year old young woman trips over him and manages to (by a combination of genius and tenacity) become his apprentice.


The series continues (I am half way through), and I adore not only how well Laurie King writes in general-- very reminiscant of Dorothy Sayers, but how well she captures the voice of Holmes. She also manages to create a version of Holmes within a woman's body, Mary Russell, the narrator of the story and the young woman who falls over and eventually for the detective. Gah, you say -- Holmes in love??? Believe me, I was there. Huge age difference aside, Ms. King creates a vibrant and tender bond between two people of the same mind.

A Short Story for a Great Cause

Grab a perfect beach read and contribute to a great cause at the same time. Omnific Publishing has partnered with the Save the Ta-Tas Foundation and all proceeds will be donated to the charitable organization. Read the romance and do your part to Save the Ta-Tas.

Within Summer Breeze, a lovely collection of summer romances, you'll find a short story I wrote in memory of my times in Maine.  The story, Whatever It Takes, was inspired by a photo of  a young Aaron Eckhart, a killer bottle of chardonnay, and the Westminster Dog Show.  Intrigued, grab a copy.  It's for a very worthwhile cause.

Missing home

By 11:30 p.m. I had given up any hope of making it home.  Snow and ice had crippled Newark, with the threat of more on the way.  My backs were packed and I was itching to give in to the hell that is travel.  "If only they could beam me there," my mother used to say.  And I agree, like some Star Trek technique, I could stand in my doorway and zoom, off to another.  Another home, a place I can still call home, although I have lived in this old house in San Francisco for nearly the same amount of years.

But why do childhood years seem so much longer?  They are epic in their sprawl and emotion.  Christmas mornings, snow covered streets, summer nights thick with fire flies and skinned knees.  And it is for this home that I ached to be.  To be mothered when all I seem to do these days is mother others. To have a shoulder to lean against, to have someone who bakes an apple pie because she knows how much I love it.

My daughter, the iron butterfly that she usually is, fell victim to the clingy "you can't go" tears over her Cheerios yesterday morning.  So here we had mothers and daughter, each missing the other, linked together like those beads on a string that knock eachother closer or farther away, depending on the force.  And here I was in the middle, wishing I could keep both nestled against me.

To change the subject, my apologies from being absent from the online world.  I've been writing in an self-imposed exile.  Last night, as I reached out to my friends on Facebook to determine how bad bad was in NJ, did I realize how much I miss it.  But one novel is done, another may be dusted off, and a short story is nearly complete, so there's something to share to make up for my negligence.  Will post more about that very soon.

Love to all.

Mother's Day

There is a story I remember (but not the title, unfortunately) where a woman is on trial for the murder of her mother.  At last the woman is allowed to take the stand in her own defense, to testify why she couldn't do such a heinous act.  She does not confess, nor does she incriminate herself, she merely states that she did not understand how different the world would be without her mother:  the silence, the lack of grounding, the abscence of someone who loved her in the very best way she knew how.

The very best she knew how.  What does that mean?  We often hold up mothers to pretty tough scrutiny.  They must love unconditionally, they must be willing to die for their children, they must sacrafice without complaint.  Wide, melodramatic statements that should have a breast beating in there somewhere.  But what if that's not the case? 

I hazard to say that it's a dirty little secret, but not all mothers love their children smack out of the shoot.  And for the collicky, screaming, no hope for sleep infants, she might be ready to walk out that door.  But it is that very ability to stick to it, to get up at 2 am when she's had 2 hours of sleep and walk and rock and walk and rock until she can't see straight, to allow her robe to absorb blood, spit, puke and tears, to be willing to have her heart broken a million times just to feel that pang of overwhelming love that defines what it means to be a mother.  The ability to be there.  The ability to stay.

Mothers are oft the first to be judged and the last to be forgiven, but they know us, or knew us.  They understood what dust mosts looked like dancing on the last of  the afternoon sun rays coming in from the den's window; they understood why it was so necessary to give a home to that flea-bitten stray cat with bad teeth and a worse temper, they understood why you had to say goodbye and drive away to college.

My own mother has the most amazing hands.  Small, slight, nimble things with perfect half moon nails.  They have sewn, cleaned, typed, and probably flipped the bird to some poor New Jersey driver during her eighty plus years.  They are quick witted things like their owner.  Despite the ying and yang of mother daughter love, I cannot look upon my mother's hands and not be moved.  I reached out to those fingers, I reach out to them even now.

And She is there.

Men's literature?

My husband read over something I'm currently working on and said, "This reads quite male."

The water from the tap had run over my glass before I knew how to respond.  "Male?  And how would a female story play out?"  I didn't say it with criticism, just curious, and also tickled as somewhere in there, I believe there was a compliment -- I think, maybe...

Hard hitting, short sentences, action packed versus copius description and flowery dialogue?  Hemingway versus Austen?  Rock and rollers versus nannies?  But didn't The Hurt Locker walk away with the Oscars?  What constitues female and male writing?  And can it be defined?

I finished Possession the other night -- I had tried to make it last as long as possible, like some piece of chocolate stashed in your night stand that you bit off inch by inch.  Books alter you -- or at least the truly fine ones do, and I love the imprints they leave behind.  This one did, so much so that I gasped at the end, gasped -- like some Victorian lady corseted into suffocation.  Now I am bookless, homeless, drifting -- suggestions -- please.

A full week of writing ahead.  Rejoicing at the prospect.   Also having my picture taken in a cemetary.  I will leave that to your imagination.

Guilt at not doing enough

For the past few weeks I've been awol on this blog as well as all the other electronic homes where I reside.  It's not because my muse has gone on a bender, but because my other social committments, aka, school auctions, those great time sucks that force you to spend most of your time nodding your head like those bobble head dogs on the dashboard of cars, have taken the center stage of my life.

This got me thinking -- as women, how much of our time is spent doing for others?  Now, don't get me wrong, this world could benefit from a ton more "doing for others."  Yet, at the end of the day, don't we ache for that one moment that is ours and ours alone?  We are someone's wife, mother, daughter, co-worker -- our names are shouted early in the morning and in the middle of the night, usually linked with a "can you, I need, where is, have you seen."  For me, the late night wailings make my eye twitch like something out of a Pink Panther movie -- hard wired to some remote part of mybrain that forces me upright when all I want to do is get three hours of sleep.

And the guilt, oh the guilt.   It's bad enough I was raised Polish Catholic with a German mother -- a veritable kilbasa of heart beating guilt right there.  Asserting yourself was not high on the menu -- where one did X,Y, and Z in that order if one wanted to be happy in life.

Virginia W. was right.  A room of one's own.  Where one can remember what is like to look at the sky, to swing on a swing until your lungs and legs hurt, to feel the heat of the ground on your back and smell the promise of spring below you.

What do you do that let's you remember who you are?  Tell me.