Southern Love

      So this weekend, being the NPR nerds that we are, my hubby and I were listening to a show about obscure 1940s Cajun musicians in the Louisiana bayous whose riotous and infectious Zydeco melodies carved a unique spot into musical history. During this program I felt an old  familiar yearning for the deep South, a place that I have never visited outside the memories of family members and the pages of a book.

I have spent time in Virginia and West Virginia, well below the Mason Dixon line and experienced firsthand the lush greenness, the almost tangible and self-aware humidity of the Southern air. I have drawn in the exhale of a mountain’s night breath deep in the woods of the Shenandoah Valley, but I have never stepped foot in the South of my ancestors; Georgia, Mississippi and of course, Louisiana.

I have a theory that my compass points towards the Gulf of Mexico because of some subconscious stirring in my blood. I am both Cherokee and Choctaw and before they were forcibly removed to Oklahoma, my ancestors spend thousands of years in the lush green wilderness of Georgia and Mississippi.

 I also blame a love of Southern writers, particularly Pat Conroy (Prince of Tides) and Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood). Through their eyes, I have shucked a perfect oyster raw from a Carolina marsh and spent hours twined in a heavy limbed bundle beneath the watchful gaze of flowering myrtle trees and bougainvillea.

I love how these writers engage my senses and make me yearn for a place thousands of miles away. It made me think of the Northwest that I live in-how could I bring someone into my world? What is it about the Pacific Northwest that draws me here?

 If I were to say the Northwest had a taste, what would it be? Perhaps salmon brought in still thrashing from the Columbia River covered in herbs and grilled between cedar planks. Could I make my counterpart in the South taste the almost buttery pink flesh formed in the clean cold waters of the Pacific?

If the Northwest had a smell, what would it be? Rain may be too obvious, but as a girl who grew up in the desert of New Mexico and Arizona, rain is still a precious thing. The mineral tang has a sweetness to it that is released when it hits the ground, opening up hundreds of tiny wildflowers.

If the Northwest had a sound, it would be scratchy acoustic guitars with dust in the frets and scratches in the finish. I would bring my readers the smell of roasting coffee served at all hours of the day and help them feel the warm contrast of the paper cup on a cold day.

This ability to time bend space and time with words is one of the things that I love about being a writer. We live such busy, disconnected lives, it is nice to fall into  a good book and be transported into a community of familiar places and friends…even if you’ve never stepped foot there.

What about you? What images would you share? How would you bring a reader into your world?

Balance....or a lack there of........

Okay Universe, you got me. I give up. You have broken my glasses and dragged my homework through the mud. You have convinced the world that I have cooties and wretched a massive wedgie into my life. You win Universe. I am crying Uncle.

I have been reflecting this past week on balance, or more accurately, my lack of it. Rather than assail you with a whiny tirade of the nearly comical amount of misfortune that has befallen us this week, I am going to focus on my point. Balance. As modern women, we walk a razor fine line of expectation and execution. If you are a career mom, you are expected to excel at your job, pursue that promotion, join the PTA, make it to multiple sporting events all while somehow feeding, clothing and keeping your family from general chaos and maintaining a spotless house.

Stay at home moms don’t have it any easier. I have quite a few friends who stay at home with their families and almost all of them home school or volunteer massive hours at their children’s schools.  In some ways many of my SAH mom friends are expected to be perfect wives and mothers, educators, sibling referees, counselors, and lego feud arbitrators…all while maintaining perfect households. For those of you who have never stayed home for long hours with small children (I only worked part time when my kids were little) let me tell you, there are times when you yearn for a cubicle.

So why do we do it? Who is holding us to these expectations? Is it TV? Or social media and movies?  Or   is it….gasp….ourselves?  Women have always been seen as the backbone of the family. Like the generations that came before us, we are the glue that holds our household together. Many of us would probably honestly say that we take care of all the details of family life because we are convinced that no one else will get it right. I see this in my own crazy schedule. I pack everything that I can into the smallest possible time slots; eager to make sure that my family doesn’t miss out on anything.

The truth of the matter is that my husband and children probably wouldn’t mind if I slowed down a bit and took time to wrestle and giggle on the couch instead doing the dishes right after dinner. I have to remember that I have a supportive spouse who is willing to help out (even if he doesn’t always fold the towels in the way that I like) and two children who are perfectly capable of helping with household chores.

So Universe, I hear you. I need to change my ways and seek balance. I will lecture less and smile more.  I will let the laundry stay unfolded for another day so I can enjoy watching my kids on the soccer field or snuggle with my hubby on the couch.  Now if you’ll excuse me, Universe, I have a big glass of wine and a good book awaiting me in the next room, it’s time to get some “Me” time worked into my schedule.

Supermoons and Supermoms

I have to give my dear friend Heather kudos for the title of this week's blog. About a week ago, Heather turned to me and said "We're going on a camping trip to celebrate the first day of spring." It was an idea pitched by her adventurous seven year old son and I have to say, I was impressed by her willingness to just run with it. Ten minutes later, I had invited myself and my brood and we were talking logistics, campsites and menus.

Now, those of you who live anywhere near the Northwest probably know that if you have the audacity to head to a  campsite before the month of May, you are just begging to be hit with rain, sleet, cold wind and maybe a grumpy predator or two waking up from hibernation. My incredibly nature savvy friend (who is a biologist, former forest ranger and general bad-ass) had scouted out an excellent camping prospect on the Deschutes river in the desert of Oregon (yes, there are deserts in Oregon) that would be full of wildflowers, steep canyon walls and hopefully some big horn sheep.

Our trip out Saturday morning was beautiful, we found the perfect pair of adjancent campsites and spent the day with the kids checking out the herds of big horn sheep,  spotting mountain goats perched precariously on the screamingly steep basalt cliffs and counting four gigantic golden eagles that circled the valley like huge feathered jet planes.  Since our husbands had to work, Heather and I set up the whole camp and got everything ready for dinner, braving a brief bout of rain to wrestle a waterproof tarp into submission above us. We roasted hot dogs and smores, cooked beans on the stove and ran the camp like clockwork while keeping four children between the ages of four and eight safe and out of danger. We were women warriors out against the elements and it was fantastic.

This trip was perfectly aligned for another reason as well. Saturday night was the closest the moon had been to the Earth for the past 400 years, known as the Supermoon. We were about an hour from civilization in the middle of the desert with zero light pollution. It was incredible. As we watched the moon come up over the black spines of the surrounding cliffs, each stone was perfectly illuminated. I swear there was a feminine energy that radiated from those silver rays bouncing up from the ancient basalt and flowing  back into our camp. A small space set up by women in the wilderness with our children, immersed and independent and fierce. My friend let out a hoot that startled the sleeping children in our arms. For a moment I felt the urge to join her and dance around the camp fire.

I wish I could say that the next morning went well and that we spent the day showing our husbands the wonders of the canyon. After a bitter cold night, the mercurial weather decided that she did not need our company and drove us to pack up in a hurry. Our scrambled eggs were filled with freezing water and our rain tarp broke it's bonds and almost blew into the Deschutes river. While I was proud that we had set up the camp, I was very grateful for my husband who calmly broke down the tent and loaded everything in the car with humor and grace. It's good to know that we did it alone, but I am also just as happy to admit it's nice to have a partner out there willing to do the heavy lifting and help you chase after a tent in a windstorm.

We left behind  hillsides covered with delicate spring flowers and the fresh tracks of mountain goats to follow the winding dirt road back into civilization.  I like to think  that I  took a part of that moonlit canyon back with me, a little bit of fierceness woven into a tapestry of stark and stunning beauty.

Stress Baking and Snappiness

This week  the juggling did not work out so well and I found my plates slipping and shattering around me.  I struggle with a horrific perfectionist streak, which both helps and hinders me. If I can’t do it all in one week, I find myself wondering-why not? Just what is your problem? This was a particularly interesting and challenging week at work and I found myself exhausted and brain dead at the end of each day. Of course, I also recently started a new workout regimen, a blog, and a strict editing schedule for my completed book chapters. Needless to say, there was no possible way to get everything done.

          I pride myself on priority, so work and family commitments come first and then all the rest of it should fall into place, providing there are no bumps in the road-which there invariably are.  This weekend, I found myself stress baking( a terrible and delicious habit of mine) snapping at everyone and passively aggressively cleaning the whole house. I was mad at myself because I blew my remaining weekly Weight Watchers points on a two tier layer cake, grumpy with my husband for well, everything under the sun and frustrated that I had let my writing fall way behind schedule. This week, I only finished three pages of writing when my normal output is ten to twelve pages a week.

          Everything came to a head last night. We had gone as a family to attend the annual anniversary party of a local restaurant and brewery. There was a ton of people and a live bluegrass band with a whole army of kiddos dancing their hearts out in the front. Yes, it was loud and crazy but the kiddos were having a blast. I was so entrenched in my foul mood that I failed to enjoy the adorable silliness of a whole group of munchkins dancing around and bumping into each other and just having a moment of sheer kid joy.

          This morning, I realized that I need to let go and just relax. Enjoy the messy, imperfection of the moment and laugh when it all goes wrong. I am not superwoman. I do not always need to be right or perfect. My goal for the next couple months of this crazy journey is to breathe, dance my heart out when the opportunity presents itself and just enjoy the damn cake!

Research, Reservations and Revelations

There is something about a public Library that invokes a sort of holiness.  I love to think of all the tiny worlds housed inside the glue and paper bindings perched so innocently on the metal shelves,  just awaiting the grip of a new explorer.  This weekend I found myself leaving my happy little mountain perch to visit the immense Central Library in the heart of Portland’s Pearl District. The historic building is beautiful with gorgeous high ceilings,  ornate marble floors and three floors of books to explore.  I have to say that I was very impressed with the lightning fast database that helped me to quickly and efficiently find the subjects that I was researching for my book . The overwhelming amount of information available made me aware of how I have neglected  our Library system in favor of the quick and easy allure of the Internet.

                One excellent feature of the Central Portland Library is that they offer a special room for writers, with plenty of private tables, hook-ups for your laptops and help in finding the books you need for research. This amazing service is free of charge but it does require an application process. I found myself stumbling into a packed third floor reference section weighed down with about fifteen thick encyclopedias  facing the prospect of sharing a table and wishing that I had thought to reserve a private room a few weeks earlier.

                I am a person who appreciates a wide bubble of personal space. I  hate sitting close to strangers on airplanes and feel awkward in the tight squeeze of public transportation.  The place was packed and I gave up on trying to find a small table where I could work alone, settling for the uninhabited half of table towards the back.  I began to wonder, what is it about our modern life that makes us feel so territorial? We are so incredibly connected to each other electronically, but in our face to face encounters we shrink into our personal bubbles, terrified of real interaction.  I am just as guilty of this as the next person.  When the people sitting across from me began coughing, almost in unison, I actually reached for the hand sanitizer in my purse, as if I could designate an antiseptic safety zone behind the thick stack Celtic encyclopedias.

                It was about this time that I noticed the armed security guards walking in slow circles around these tables toward the back, keeping a close eye on the coughing occupants.  As I caught a glimpse of the plastic bags stuffed under the tables and noticed the threadbare jackets, it hit me that my tablemates were possibly part of the homeless population that wander the streets of downtown Portland, always in the corner of the public eye.  The portrayal of America’s homeless in popular culture is that of  crazy, dirty people yelling on a street corner.  The people sitting around me were not any different than anyone else. They were not smelly, or crazy or talking to themselves. They were sitting quietly, respectfully reading stacks of books and keeping to themselves.

                Jasmine and I used to teach a poetry workshop at a local alternative high school in Spokane, WA. Many of the girls that we worked with were survivors, tough young women who had endured more trauma in their first fifteen years of life than I had experienced in a lifetime. We taught these young women that  words can be weapons, tools to break through the barriers that enclosed them. Sitting in the quiet of the Central Portland Library surrounded by the peaceful stacks of books and the grateful concentration of my tablemates, I realized that words can also be a sanctuary.  Our libraries are precious resources  for the shelter they offer us emotionally when we lose ourselves in books. Sometimes,  they are important for the physical shelter they offer as well.  Our Libraries are closing at a record rate, leaving a whole segment of society without the means to purchase books stranded.  Here in Hood River our Library closed last year, and although the community voted to re-open it, I have to wonder how many young minds were left out in the cold this winter without the sanctuary of words and the comfort a warm and quiet space can bring. 

Sleep, Sacrifice and Sweet,Sweet Coffee

                 I spent most of my twenties participating in spoken word poetry competitions and workshops, scamming beers off cute guys in smoky bars and trashing famous poets.  In 2008, I published a book of poetry called The Ghosts of Anne and Sylvia with one of my best friends, the author Jasmine Paul. I had never actually  considered writing a fiction novel until about nine months ago when I found myself exploring  the seeds of a story that just wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to shake it loose.  There was nothing that could have prepared me for the gripping obsession that powers a fiction writer until I found myself immersed in the book that I am writing now.

                I am lucky enough to have a day job that I enjoy,  working remotely in project management with  mostly East Coast based clients. My office hours are 9:00-5:30 EST which translates to 6:00-2:30 PST, just about the time my kids come barreling down the driveway.  As schedules go, it is early but pretty ideal. I have the flexibility to spend time in the afternoon with my two  kiddos and make dinner for the family.  After working a full day, helping with homework, running errands and picking up the house I am pretty much brain dead when bedtime rolls around.  I originally tried writing in the evenings, but found myself either snoozing in the recliner with my laptop sliding towards the floor or else sucked into the brain numbing  joys of evening television.

My solution to the time crunch? I set back the alarm and changed my writing schedule to Monday through Friday from 4:30 AM to 6:00 AM with time for editing on the weekends.  The problem with being a writer is that the story inside you is always hammering for a way out.  It doesn’t go away because you are tired, or you need to do the dishes or get  just one more email sent out before the morning. Writing to me is more than a compulsion, it is as much a part of me as the freckles on my nose or my crooked pinky toe.  Each morning when I feel the urge to reach over and add just a bit more time to the alarm, I ask myself; “How badly do you want this? Are you willing to sacrifice?”  As long the  coffee pot is set to auto-brew, I know I can push past the fatigue and enjoy the quiet breath of a sleeping house and the sweet staccato of my fingertips on the keyboard.