Category: life on the Oregon Coast

Look up from that screen; it’s amazing

I stood at the threshold of Gate B1 at the Portland airport and looked down the line of passengers. Every single one was staring at a cell phone. Around the room, people stared at phones, tablets or laptop computers. As I joined the row, I itched to look at my own “electronic devices,” but I pulled out my notebook and my pen instead.

I had over an hour to kill. Flying these days is a matter of hurry up and wait. Having made it through security, I was now free to eat, drink, and stare at my phone. Or surreptitiously watch other passengers.

Across the room in a square of sunlight by the window, a little girl about 5 sat on the floor with her mother. I assume it was her mother. What happened later made me wonder.

The girl stared at a tablet while the mom combed her long blonde hair. I could hear a cartoon voice coming from the machine. Look up, I thought. Look around. Each stroke of the mother’s comb seemed like a devotion. Outside, planes warmed up on the tarmac. The Portland sky was a mass of clouds forever changing shape. Soon we would be flying above those clouds. Look up, little girl.

At least the mother wasn’t staring at a screen. As I watched, she divided her daughter’s hair into sections and braided it into a long thin braid that hung nearly to the girl’s waist.

I looked down at my notebook for a minute. When I looked up, the mother had put the comb away and was staring at her phone. Mother and daughter sat in perfect parallel, both cross-legged on the floor, all attention on the devices in their hands.

No! I don’t have children or grandchildren, but I imagine if I were the grandmother, I’d be arguing with my daughter about taking away the screens. My daughter would probably respond, “Oh Mom, she’s fine.”

Maybe it’s not so bad. After all, I grew up always staring at a book. I still don’t go anywhere without something to read. Maybe it’s just a different form of distraction. Sometimes reality is just too hard. But I worry about what all these screens are doing to our minds.

Just before we were called to board, the mother and daughter got up, approached the gate, and talked to the attendant. To my surprise, the girl ran toward the jetway onto the plane by herself. The mother gathered her things and walked away. The child was going to fly alone. Off to see her divorced dad? Visiting the grandparents? My youngest stepson traveled on his own between parents when he was young. It’s a sad thing. The flight attendants take good care of the unaccompanied children, but he was always sick with stress when he arrived.

At the end of the trip, as I got off the plane, I saw the girl again. The plane-cleaning staff were already at work as she waited for her escort off the plane. She looked so alone in her pink leggings, white top, and braid coming undone in front.

Four days later, at Gate 29 in San Jose, I waited with people of all nationalities and races. Plenty stared at their phones, but this time I noticed the man across from me was reading a book while his wife typed on her laptop. Two teens nearby carried fat paperback books. Two Asian boys huddled over what I assumed was a phone or tablet. But no, it was a Rubik’s cube.

Here and there among the gates, I saw tables and play areas set up for kids with books, games, and coloring supplies. That gave me hope. Kids get bored and cranky. Hell, I get bored and cranky. But let’s all look up. There’s so much to see.

***

My dad turned 96 on Tuesday. I had to be there. It was a quick trip boxed in by my church job obligations. My father and I sat in the sun watching the squirrels and robins. We talked and talked, and we ate so much cake—five times in three days. We also ate tamales, raviolis, and Yankee pot roast. Hand me my stretchy pants and my stomach pills. I felt my heart rip open as I climbed into the taxi to go back to the airport, leaving Dad watching from the door. But it was worth it for the time we had together.

I realize if you’re reading this, you’re looking at an electronic device. When you finish, put that device down. Look around. If there’s someone else nearby, give them a hug. Who knows when you’ll get another chance?

Fred Lick, RIP Seven Years Ago Today

We lost Fred A. Lick, seven years ago today. 5:15 a.m. Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. He was my husband, father to Michael, Ted and Gretchen, friend to all he met. Smart, funny, optimistic, and musical, he changed my life in so many wonderful ways. His death is hitting me especially hard this year. But we were all blessed to have him in our lives for as long as we did. Let’s remember him today. We miss you, Fred.

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New novel coming, buy it, pass the word

PD is coming.

What? No, not the police department. PD is what the protagonist in my new novel Up Beaver Creek is calling herself these days. It’s her initials, and she’s not saying what they stand for. Back in Missoula, people called her Cissy, her nickname, but she does not want to be Cissy anymore. Widowed at 42, she is determined to start over with a new name, a new look, and a new home on the Oregon coast, where she will pursue her career as a musician–if things ever stop going wrong.

Eight wonderful, brilliant, generous beta readers have given the book a careful going-over, finding numerous typos and a few discrepancies I need to clean up. Next steps: Finalizing the cover and formatting the inside pages. I’m starting to get nervous. I want everyone to buy the book. I want to do readings here, there, and everywhere. I want everyone to say they love my book. I want to show the IRS and my father that I do actually write and sell books.

I want . . . what every writer wants.

For Oprah to love it.

Why am I telling you all this? Because these days, whether you’re published by one of the big New York publishers, a small indie press, or doing it yourself, authors are required to build “buzz.” We need to become salespeople drumming up interest and doing everything possible to make sure everybody knows about their books and can’t wait to read them.

That’s Up Beaver Creek, coming in June from Blue Hydrangea Productions.

This sales business is tough for writers who prefer to sit quietly at their computers and get lost in the worlds they’re creating. We prefer art over commerce, readers over buyers. Once upon a time, publishers did all the marketing while urging writers to hurry up and write the next book. Not anymore. Promote, tour, build that audience high and wide.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Our Willamette Writers Coast Chapter meeting yesterday was all about building buzz. Jennie Komp of Myth Machine talked about building one’s “fandom.” Cultivate one loyal fan who loves everything you write, and that fan will attract others who attract more. Pretty soon you’ll have thousands. At least that’s the plan.

It can work. I got an email on Saturday from a writer who has a new book coming out. I ordered it immediately. I haven’t read a word of it, haven’t seen the cover, and I don’t usually pay that much for a book, but with this author, I’m buying it. I buy everything he writes. I’m part of his fandom.

Up Beaver Creek, coming in June, read an excerpt here.

Komp used J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books as an example of maximum merchandising. Fans don’t just buy the books and see the movies; they buy the tee shirts, the little cauldrons, the round glasses, and all the other swag. The books have turned into an industry.

We can look at our own books for things we can promote: songs that appear in the book and might be used in the movie, merchandise that could be sold in conjunction with the book, real-life locations to which we can direct our readers, articles we can write that will direct people to our books, outtakes we could sell, and quotes we can combine with images to create “memes” that we post on social media several times a day. We can create YouTube videos about something in the book, invite our fans to post testimonials, and set up “meet-ups” for our fans to get together. In other words, sell everything you can from the world you have created for your book.

I thought I was doing well to write blogs and list my books in my email signature. I feel old and slightly nauseated. Would Mark Twain have done this? When does a body have time to write? Of course, we can hire Myth Machine or another publicity company to do it all for us.

Up Beaver Creek, coming in June. Meet PD and her friends. Did I mention the tsunami?

Buzz, buzz, buzz

My twenty-five favorite rest stop walks

Palm_Springs_rest_stop_3918B[1]I spend a lot of time at rest stops. Those blue road signs promise relief and a break from driving. It’s really nice when they add “Next rest xx miles” so I can plan ahead. Can I hold it? Yes. No. Maybe. Can I stay awake that long? I hope so. But will the rest stop be open? On my recent trip to Tucson, half the rest stops in Arizona and California were closed. Come on road guys. Don’t promise relief and not deliver, especially when there’s no visible reason why it’s closed. I can’t tell you how many times I have scanned the roadside thinking maybe I’ll have to find a secluded tree or bush.

Most of the rest stops I have seen look pretty much alike: parking lots, buildings with Men and Women signs on the sides, picnic tables, dog walk area, maybe maps and soft drink machines, maybe a coffee concession. Sometimes people camp out front with backpacks, bedrolls, dogs, guitars and signs begging for money.

People walking around rest stops often have that disoriented look we all have coming out of movie theaters, a kind of wow-where-are-we-everything’s-so-bright-what-just-happened look. I have come up with a list of walking styles I have seen—and done—at rest stops throughout the American west. Perhaps you have seen them too. I welcome your additions in the comments.

(I know where the hyphens go, but I’m too lazy to add them. Consider them implied.)

  1. The oh my god I forgot how to walk walk
  2. The hunched over it’s freezing here walk
  3. The oh shit it’s raining walk
  4. The ah, sunshine leisure walk
  5. The I really don’t know where I am walk
  6. The hey, wait wait wait dog walk
  7. The don’t judge just let me smoke walk
  8. The I’m on the phone don’t anybody talk to me walk
  9. The oh my god I have to go so bad walk
  10. The I don’t want anybody to see me in my pajama bottoms walk
  11. The shuffling in my flip-flops walk
  12. The toilet paper stuck to my shoe walk
  13. The I see you with your need-money-for-gas sign but I’m not going to look at you walk
  14. The you scare me so I’m going to walk really fast walk
  15. The I’m so late hurry hurry hurry walk
  16. The shaking my hands because the blow dryer doesn’t work walk
  17. The slow can’t I just live here walk
  18. The I’m looking at the river because I don’t want to get back in the car with you walk
  19. The watching the ground for snakes in the desert walk
  20. The coffee coffee coffee walk
  21. The I can still feel the car moving walk
  22. The I meant to trip like that walk
  23. The swatting mosquitoes dance walk
  24. The where did I put my car walk
  25. The it’s my turn to drive get out of the way walk

BTW, the rest stop above is on I-5 near Palm Springs, California. Bet you couldn’t tell by looking. Happy travels.

Why mess with poetry when it doesn’t pay?

In her book Poetry Will Save Your Life, Jill Bialosky takes an unusual approach to memoir. She pairs short passages about her life with poems that she connects with those times. She begins with nursery rhymes and Robert Frost poems and moves through the poetic cannon to the more challenging poems of Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, Denis Johnson, and others. After each poem, she offers information and interpretation of the poet and the poem. In many cases, these are poets to which I never paid much attention, but the poems take on new meaning here. The snippets of Bialosky’s life are intense. She has gone through some hard stuff, but she doesn’t wallow in it. Instead, she reaches for a poem. As she writes on the last page, “[poetry] gives shape to those empty spaces within us that we have no words for until we find them in a poem.”

For Bialosky, life and poetry have always been intertwined. She reads it, she writes it, and she layers it into her memoir to enhance the memories and sometimes to say what she could not say in ordinary prose.

April is National Poetry Month, a time when poets become more vocal about reading and writing these nuggets of thought crafted into lines with metaphors and juxtapositions that infuse them with meaning. We also compete in numerous poem-a-day challenges. I’ve got two new poems so far.

I credit my Grandma Rachel Fagalde for hooking me on poems. She showered me with books of famous poetry from the time I was a little girl. She wrote poems herself and read them aloud when we visited. It drove my parents nuts; they were not poetry people. They did not understand why I was always scribbling in my little notebooks.

But I was a poetry person. I wrote my first poem at 7, something about the joys of Thanksgiving. I often turned in poems for my homework at school. The teachers weren’t thrilled. They weren’t poetry people either. A wooden plaque with Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” sat on my desk throughout my childhood. Written in rhyme with a sing-song rhythm, it sticks to me even now. “I know that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree . . .” A good poem, like a good song, stays with you.

Most of the people I know are not poetry people. Few have read a poem since they were forced to do it in school. They can’t imagine voluntarily reading poetry. And writing it? Anything beyond “roses are red, violets are blue” seems impossible and pointless. But look at the Bible. Look at the book of Psalms. Those are poems, too, and we revere them.

The statistics about poetry reading are staggering. We who cling to it seem like a small community of weirdos. But we keep at it.

Because so few people read poetry, poets don’t make much money writing and publishing it. Agents won’t represent poetry books. Mainline publishers won’t publish your poetry books unless you’re Bob Dylan or Maya Angelou. Or Bono. You publish it yourself or get published by small independent publishers that do it for the love of poetry. You send your poems to literary magazines edited by college students or volunteers who edit on nights and weekends, supporting their work by grants, donations, and contest submission fees.

Yet there are thousands of us poets writing and sending out our work in the hope of getting it published. I’ve been doing it off and on, mostly on, since I was in high school. Rejections still outnumber acceptances. In fact, I’m participating in an online group that strives to get 100 rejections in a year. The theory is that if you submit enough to get 100 rejections, you will also get some acceptances. And I have. So far, three poems have been published this year. You can read “An Ordinary Afternoon” in the Winter 2018 issue of The MacGuffin. Read “Widow’s Rags” and “Smoke Signals” in the spring 2018 issue of the online journal Willawa. 

But still, why bother? The chances for acceptance and profit in poetry are so slim they make the music business look like a sure thing. I can make more money standing on a street corner singing for tips. At least someone will hear me and toss a dollar or two into my guitar case. And yet, because poems are freed from commercial considerations, I feel freer with poetry than with any other type of writing. I can focus on writing the poem instead of wondering who will buy it.

Why poetry? It’s magic. In a few lines, you can say so much. You can paint a picture, share an idea, express a feeling that you can’t express any other way. You can say things you wouldn’t dare tell anybody in plain English.

Poetry today is not the poetry of nursery rhymes or Shakespeare. It doesn’t need to be silly or incomprehensible—although it can. It definitely does not have to rhyme. It just has to say something.

I just drove all the way to Tucson for a poetry master workshop. Why would anybody spend the time and money to do that? Shouldn’t I be studying something useful? Ah, but to me poetry is useful. It keeps me sane. Besides, I turned 66 March 9. I’m not retired. I’m always writing, and I’m still doing the music thing at Sacred Heart, but I have enough retirement-type income to go write poetry in the desert if I want to.

Looking at the poets in Bialosky’s book, I find myself compulsively checking their birth and death dates. So many died before they got to my age. John Keats, Percy Shelley, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath didn’t live to age 40. I see the young faces featured in Poets & Writers magazine. Just kids. I worry that I might be too old. But it’s also encouraging to see a new generation embracing poetry.

We older folks keep going. It’s never too late. Billy Collins is 76, Donald Hall is in his late 80s, Mary Oliver is 82. Robert Frost was 88, Carl Sandburg was 89, Maya Angelou was 86,and Lucille Clifton was 74.

These days, you can read poetry online any time you want. Check out The Poetry Foundation,  Famous Poetry Online, or Poetry Daily. If you lean toward politics, especially in the era of Trump, try New Verse News. Or try one of the sites listed here: http://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/10-places-for-daily-poetry/

It’s like guacamole or quinoa. Just try a little. Maybe you’ll like it.

If you’re a poet looking for prompts, there are plenty online. Here are a few:

Megan Falley’s “Dirty Thirty” Writing prompts

NapoWriMo.net

Robert Lee Brewer’s poem-a-day challenge

Take a chance. Read a poem or write one. I welcome your comments.

Don’t call me sweetheart if you don’t know my name

The young Irish waiter called all the women at Thursday’s church ladies luncheon “dear.” On my trip last week, the waitress at Denny’s called me “hon.” The young man taking away my used plate at Sizzler asked, “Would you like to keep your knife, sweetheart?” I got sweethearted at another Denny’s farther north and at a Black Bear Diner just south of Bakersfield.

The waitress at the Black Bear called the young adult male in the booth behind me “young man,” which I suspect is insulting to any male over age 10. I know I have always hated being called “young lady.”

I also got called “sweetheart” at a gas station where I had trouble with a malfunctioning pump. The woman clearly thought I was an idiot.

I’m a 66-year-old woman. Why are strangers calling me sweetheart? I can’t help but think of the nursing home employees who call everyone honey, sweetie, darling, etc., or use their first names even though the residents are elderly adults deserving more respect even if their minds have turned to Jell-O.

But let’s get back to restaurants. I ate out approximately 20 times on my recent trip, so I got a pretty good survey of low-budget sit-down eateries, the kinds of places with sticky menus and tables wiped down with dirty wet rags. The servers, mostly in their 20s, mostly Mexican south of San Francisco, gave out the “sweeties” and “hons” freely. (They were also prone to rate my orders as in “awesome” or “perfect.”) I don’t expect them to know my name. I know I’m just the “club sandwich at table 12.” Even at my favorite local restaurant, they don’t know my name, just that I’m the solo diner who wants iced tea–no lemon, lots of ice.

I know the words trip out automatically. The servers don’t mean anything by it. But why not call me “ma’am?” I know some women bristle at that term because it makes them feel old, but I’m okay with my age. If I were dining in a Spanish-speaking country, I’d like to be called “Señora,” because that’s what I am. For me, the terms of endearment should be reserved for one’s lover, spouse or child, not for a stranger eating a waffle at Denny’s.

We in the U.S. are casual people, probably more so on the West Coast. Earlier generations were taught to address adults as “sir” and “ma’am.” When did it degenerate to “sweetie,” “hon,” and “dear?”

Then there’s the waitress at the truck stop in Corning, California, who probably should have retired a few years ago. I remember her from eating there with Fred back when he was alive and healthy. She walked as if she might fall over any second. She was already confused, and it didn’t help that it was a Friday in Lent, so I couldn’t eat meat. I was craving a tuna sandwich, but the menu was a meat-lovers dream, not so good for even seasonal vegetarians. She recommended the buffet. I served myself a hard piece of mystery fish, salad and a brownie, wishing I’d gone to my sixth Denny’s instead.

One of the great things about this truck stop restaurant is that they give you a whole pitcher of iced tea. I watched my waitress walk toward me with a glass and a pitcher. She gave me the glass but walked away with the pitcher. Then she got busy with other parties. I ate and waited. She wandered around, sort of serving the group of six men nearby. I waited some more. Eventually she brought my tea in a to-go cup that was already leaking.

“You should have thrown something at me,” she said.

I considered what I would have thrown. My book? My phone? My pen? She looked like she would bruise easily.

She walked away and came back. “Did you have the buffet?” Yes, yes, I did. She handed me my bill. She did not give me my senior discount.

But bless her heart, she didn’t call me “sweetheart,” “honey,” “dear,” or anything else, at least not where I could hear it.

So, darlings, what are your experiences with strangers calling you by terms of endearment? If you have waited tables, I’d love to read your comments on the subject.

I’m back from my Tucson adventure

IMG_20180315_113328079_HDR[1]I have just returned from driving to the Tucson Festival of Books and the associated master workshop in poetry. Three thousand miles. Eight days of driving. Three days of Tucson, Arizona. I know. That’s nuts. I wanted an adventure. I got one. I wanted to see the territory between here and there, not just fly over it. I have seen it.

I’m flailing in an avalanche of receipts, dirty clothes, unmowed lawns, uncleaned rooms, undone chores, books, written notes, typed notes, recorded notes, and memories I don’t want to lose as I sink into the overflow.

I want to hold on to that first sight of desert cactus, the winter-green hills of California where the cattle grazed, the llama watching freeway traffic, the woman at the Canyonville, Oregon gas station who was eating German chocolate cake at 8 a.m. and who called me “Sweetie,” the new writer friends with whom I ate, drank, laughed, and learned, the big hugs from cousins Adrienne and John in Tucson, the excitement when I found the street in Burbank, California, where my late husband Fred grew up, watching the cowfolk in Coalinga, the quirky antique shop at Chiriaco Summit, the incredible banana chocolate chip muffin from Mimi’s in Casa Grande, eating Denny’s chocolate lava cake and talking to my dad while sitting by the pool on a warm night in Blythe, California on my birthday. And so much more.

IMG_20180311_153719123[1]I don’t need to hold on to the traffic in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Stockton; the rain, wind, snow, and fog; the disappointment of the Royal Sun Best Western Hotel in Tucson and the hurt in my feet when the walk to the book festival proved far longer than these old feet could handle in tennis shoes; the really terrible shrimp-bacon-creamed avocado flatbread I ate for dinner one night; the Mexican restaurant run by Chinese people; the tight schedule that made it impossible to turn off I-5 to visit my father or my brother or my cousins; having to leave Annie in “doggie jail,” or the worrisome amount of money I spent. Nope. Let those go.

The Tucson Festival of Books was huge and amazing. I entered a raffle and won a $50 Amazon gift certificate. I bought a few books. I used up two pens and wore out the batteries on my voice recorder. The poetry workshop blew my mind.

IMG_20180308_151037105[1]Was it worth it? I won’t be driving that far on such a tight schedule again. Having to go 400 miles a day in order to arrive at the festival on time and get home in time to play the piano for Saturday Mass took some of the joy out of it. Much better to take time to explore the side roads, see the family, and sit still for a while.

Annie is overjoyed to have me home. My bed feels so much better than every other bed I slept in. The pellet stove is still a pain. The trees look the same. Everything looks the same, but I’m not the same. I think that’s a good thing.

Last night on the phone, my dad, who is 95, asked how old I was. When I told him, he exclaimed, “66! How the hell did you get to be so old?” He counseled that the way to stay healthy into old age is to keep active. If you sit in a chair and do nothing, you die. I agree. Where shall I go next?

The stories this old blue stool could tell

IMG_20180302_085515703_HDR[1]Sitting on my loveseat snuggling with Annie, I notice the blue stool sitting by the window near the piano. It’s all wood, a perfect height for playing my guitar—although last night I played Bach and Hayden sitting on the floor and now my back hurts. I have had that stool since 1974. My first husband Jim’s mother gave us that one and its twin for our newlywed apartment. The stools were orange then. Perched by our kitchen counter, they matched the orange “love” hanging I put up in the kitchen and the orange lamp an aunt gave to me. I probably sat on them when I talked on the orange wall phone hanging nearby. It was 1974. Orange was in.

I’m not sure how I got the stools in the divorce. They came from Jim’s mother, and we divided things along family lines. But I took them. It’s possible my friend Arley and my brother didn’t know they weren’t supposed to go with me and just loaded them in their vans. It’s also possible Jim didn’t care what I took. He wasn’t around when I packed up, taking all the bedroom furniture, leaving him nothing but a pile of blankets and clothing and the busted-up wicker hamper. I took the yellow Formica kitchen table, too. What came from my parents’ house went back to my parents’ house. We weren’t married long enough to acquire furniture together, and I was too broken-hearted to be generous.

Did I take both stools? I don’t remember. I only have one now. I have a vague memory of the other one being broken, but was that after the divorce or before? Let’s say before.

The thing I remember most is trying to strip off the orange with some kind of chemical in my parents’ patio. For some reason, I suddenly hated the color orange. I planned to repaint the stool with blue spray paint. The paint-stripping chemical just made bubbles in the paint. I tried sanding it by hand, making minimal progress. I worked at it for hours. Then my father took pity on me. He brought out his electric sander and de-oranged that stool in a hurry. He showed me how to spray on the paint, and voila, I had a blue stool. It’s a rich color-crayon blue that has lasted almost 40 years, through 10 different homes. Even now, its blueness feels like a victory, me claiming my own color, my own life.

The stool came in handy in my Pacifica post-divorce apartment, where the main furnishings in my living room were a desk and a beanbag chair. I used an upside box for an end table.

The stool went into storage when I left to sing with the Billy Vogue Country Singers and came out again when I got another apartment in San Jose, just before I married Fred. After that? I probably used it at the counter in the house on Madison Drive. But where was it on Safari Drive? Where was it in in Lincoln City, in Newport? It’s scary that I don’t know. It’s like I can only access the memories I knit into stories or poems.

After we bought this house in South Beach, the stool became a nightstand in the guest room. I bought a blue lamp to match. When I slept in there after Fred got sick, the stool held my clock, notepad, water, and pills. I no longer saw it as something to sit on. Nor did I seriously consider buying an actual nightstand.

The stool stayed in the bedroom until a few months ago. My back had gotten persnickety. Everywhere I sat to play my guitar was too soft or the wrong height. After pricing stools made for guitar playing (expensive!), I realized I already had the perfect stool pretending to be a nightstand. I traded a TV tray for it.

Now the stool sits by the front window, its blueness clashing with the green and mauve décor chosen by the previous owners. Sometimes I sit on it to play guitar. Sometimes I perch on it to look out the window, feeling the cool air that sneaks in despite the double panes of glass. Sometimes I pile music books on top of it, then scold myself and remove them. The stool is for sitting.

Is a stool just for sitting? Can’t it also be a table, a shelf, a symbol or a work of art? This one has lived so many lives, outlived so many people. I haven’t seen Jim since 1981. His parents are both long gone. So is my mother. So are Fred and his parents. The cats that used the stool to jump from the chair to the counter back in that apartment on Vermont Street crossed the rainbow bridge long ago.

Jim is still going, as are Arley and Mike, my movers back in the days when you could fit all of my possessions into two vans. Dad is hanging on at 95. Do any of them remember the stool? I doubt it. But it’s still here, calling me to come sit and play.

Do you have things that have stayed with you a lifetime, that have meaning a person can’t see by just looking at them? Please share.

Technology takes away our surprises

IMG_20180223_084948404[1]Nothing surprises us anymore. Not so many years ago, when the phone rang we had no idea who was calling. There were no displays, no numbers flashing on a screen, just the cold hard plastic phone. We picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?” a question in our voices. Family, friend, colleague or stranger, we had no idea. If we didn’t answer the phone, we would never know, especially back before answering machines and voicemail. In fact, if we weren’t around to hear the phone ring, we would never know that it had. Does the phone still ring if there’s no one to hear it?

It was up to the caller to identify him/herself. I have always been chicken about cold-calling strangers. But now the phone identifies me before I have a chance. For example, I call my friend Pat’s house, and before I can spit out, “Hi, this is Sue,” her husband John says, “Hi, Sue. How are you?”

This can be good and bad. Back in my newspaper days, we didn’t always want people to know the press was calling. Sometimes we could get more information if we pretended to be ordinary people. Now the phone blows our cover. You’d be surprised how many people with seemingly nothing to hide don’t want to talk to reporters.

I have five landline phones, two with caller ID. I will run through the house to my office or kitchen to see who’s calling before I pick up the receiver. Caller ID may not give a name, but at least I have a phone number with an area code that tells me where the call is coming from. Newport? Okay. Florida? I don’t know anybody there. San Jose, where my father lives? Uh-oh. And then there’s “anonymous,” which 99 percent of the time is Dad.

Once I see who it is or might be, I have a choice: Answer it or not. If I’m not around the phone when it rings, I can still see who called, even if they don’t leave a message, so I can always deal with it later.

My cell phone also tells me who is calling. I can look and say, “Hello” or nope, don’t want to talk to them. Or I can tell yet another stranger that this is not the Sanchez family. I guess they had the number before I got it.

The only hiccup in this system comes from robocalls. Those clever robots have figured out how to call me with what appear to be local numbers. I look at the number, see South Beach or Newport and think: I don’t know that number, but it’s local, so I should answer it. It might be a friend or someone from church. “Hello?” Here comes that chirpy voice wanting to offer me a new credit card or a resort vacation. Grr.

The other night when I called my father, he didn’t answer the phone. This always scares me. While I leave a message and wait for him to not call back (he rarely notices the blinking red light), I go through the litany of possibilities: He’s in the bathroom, he’s outside, he’s talking on the cell phone, someone took him out to dinner, or maybe he’s lying on the floor and nobody will see him for days. If you have elderly parents, you know the drill.

But Wednesday night, he called me back. He said my call was the seventh that evening. The others were all salespeople, but he had to answer them because he didn’t know who it was. By number seven, he had decided to ignore the phone and finish washing his dishes.

Dad does not have caller ID. He has barely graduated from dial phones to push buttons. Plus Caller ID costs a few more dollars. Yes, I put his number on the “do not call list,” but the calls come anyway. My father still lives in the age of surprises. His cell phone will tell him who’s calling, but in letters and numbers too small for him to see. The landlines in the kitchen and bedroom tell him nothing. This drives me crazy because I’m not used to surprises anymore.

The phone isn’t the only non-surprise these days. For example:

* I get an email every day from the postal service showing me pictures of the envelopes that will be delivered to my mailbox. Today it’s a charity plea from the National Parks Conservation Association, plus the local newspaper. If you want this service, sign up at usps.com.

* When I submit stories or poems to publishers, I immediately get an email that they have arrived. Sometimes a rejection shows up the same day. Before online submissions, I had at least a few days of suspense while the work was traveling through the mail.

* If I go out to lunch and use my debit card, the charge appears on my online bank statement before I get home.

* We don’t have to wait for the morning paper anymore to know about the latest shooting or presidential tweet. It’s on our phones, pads and computers. I have to avoid the Internet if I don’t want to know who won “Dancing with the Stars” or any competition that has already aired on the East Coast because the results go online before we can watch the show on the West Coast.

Sort of like my mother’s mother, who could never keep a secret.

No surprises. That’s kind of sad.

I welcome your comments.

Copyright 2018 Sue Fagalde Lick

And they poured out their joy in song

She looked a little dowdy in her white Salvation Army shirt and blue skirt. Her guitar was too loud as she strummed it in plain down-strokes, but oh the joy in her face as she closed her eyes, smiled, and sang of her love for God in a clear, high voice that could have been an angel’s. Her name was Corrin. Her husband Nathan, a fuzzy-faced man also in Salvation Army garb, sang along behind me. The Holy Spirit was there, I swear.

Corrin was one of several acts at the Christian music festival and potluck held Saturday at First Presbyterian in Newport as a benefit for Inter-Christian Outreach. I was the opening act because I had to scoot to Sacred Heart to play piano for the 5:00 Mass. Like Corrine, I played alone. Getting our choir together for Mass is challenge enough; with their busy schedules, an extra performance requiring extra practices was not going to happen.

I played guitar and sang “Pescador de Hombres (Lord You have Come)” and “Alleluia! Give the Glory.” My voice was better at the dress rehearsal. My throat felt dry after the long wait for the show to begin. But it was all right. Used to singing from the corner or at the piano, I stood up on that polished wood altar in front of the fancy organ, the grand piano, and all kinds of sound equipment facing an audience of mostly Protestants and represented the Catholics. The words to the refrains for my songs appeared on giant screens behind me, and people sang along. We didn’t have as much of a crowd as I had hoped. The other performers made up most of the audience, but we all sang and shared the joy.

I introduced the next act, the group from Newport Christian Church, some of whom I knew from the monthly South Beach open mic. They had fiddle, bass, and guitar. Two women sang harmony in the middle. A tall barefoot woman sat on a box drum and kept the beat. None of them dressed up, but they led with a prayer and finished their songs with heartfelt amens. They were good. Tight. In tune. Filled with grace.

Even better was the group from First Baptist. Such harmony! They had several guitars, a young man on a box drum and another man on the piano. They sang without sheet music, one of the altos often raising her hand toward heaven. I didn’t know the songs, but I found myself singing along anyway.

Then came Corrin, followed by First Baptist’s Hispanic group, all dressed up in red and black, including a little girl who played a massive white tambourine. They had guitar and piano, too, with one man and five women singing. Their sound was a little shrill, but they too seemed to be filled with joy, the older woman closing her eyes as she sang.

As I left to play at my own church, four girls in flowy white costumes did a liturgical dance. I knew a collection and a sing-along would follow. Then folks would adjourn to the hall where plates of cookies, vegetables and fruit awaited.

It was warm at First Pres. I was sweating under Mom’s teal sweater and shaking a little as I snuck out with my ratty duct-taped guitar case, breathed in the cool air, and drove to Sacred Heart. As I put up the song numbers, Father Palmer sat in the back room hearing confessions. Gregorian chant played through the speakers.

Catholics are different. They are not comfortable showing their faith or talking about it outside of church. We don’t know the same songs the Protestants share. We do chants and our “services” are the same every time. We don’t do Christian rock songs that go on for 10 minutes. They don’t fit into the liturgy, and in Fr. Palmer’s view, they’re not appropriate. There’s comfort in the familiar routine; we always know what to expect, but sometimes I worry that we’re lacking the joy I saw in the others at the concert.

SB open mic 7917CThat joy doesn’t exist just in church. Yesterday we had our monthly open mic and jam session at the South Beach Community Center. A friend  of mine who tried it last month declared it too noisy, but I loved it. This month, we had two mandolins, a ukulele, a cello, two fiddles, three guitars and a saxophone. Renae Richmond, who announced her retirement as our leader, traded among her mandolin, flute and harmonica. We all sang and played on everything we could. Sometimes it came together beautifully. Sometimes it was just a joyful noise, not always in tune or in time but full out. My fingers and my strumming arm are weary. My vocal cords, too, but it doesn’t matter.

We sat in a circle around the green rug in the center of the hardwood dance floor. Spencer, the Beckers’ dachshund, visited everyone then dozed at Randy’s feet. We sang bluegrass, Jackson Browne, Keb Mo, Rod McKuen, a jazzy “Summertime,” old-time fiddle tunes, an original, “Worried Man Blues” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” It was raucous and wonderful. It didn’t matter if you screwed up. In fact, it was almost required.

Some of us just met while others have known each other since the turn of the 21st century. People have died, babies have been born, and marriages have begun and ended. We just keep playing. It’s never the same two jams in a row, and that’s the glory of it. Like a big soup into which you add whatever you have, whether it’s delicious or so-so, you can’t quite duplicate it ever again.

The South Beach jam takes place on the second Sunday of the month from 2 to 5 p.m. at the South Beach Community Center on Ferry Slip Road across from Pirate’s Plunder.

Don’t be afraid to sing. Whatever voice you have, it’s the one God gave you, so to Him, it’s beautiful.

Copyright 2018 Sue Fagalde Lick