'Tis the season to get your read on

It's almost October. Which means November is right around the corner. And then my favorite month: December. Duh. Christmas trees, Christmas cookies, Christmas carols, Christmas sweaters, Christmas presents.
The 'Ber months are always good for my writing, for my reading. Temps have finally dropped to agreeable numbers (I would much rather be cold than hot.) Summer recipes have given way to crockpot meals and soups and stews. Pumpkins and gourds and magnificient fall colors delight the eyes and simmering pans of cinnamon and cloves tickle the nose.
I am more inside the house than out, so let's just say that I get a lot of page work done. Typically, I blog more frequently, write more often, and read with feverish intensity, trying to reach my fifty-book goal before January One arrives. Typically, I re-read several favorites. In October, I reach for Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Fall reminds me of Scout and Jem, who finally find courage to peek into mysterious windows,  and thus begin stalking Boo Radley. ("Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. ...) Fall is when mysterious gifts begin appearing in the knot-hole of a nearby tree standing tall in the Finches sleepy Southern neighborhood: "That fall was a long one, hardly cool enough for a light jacket. Jem and I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knot-hole stopped us again. Something white was inside this time." I won't tell you what the secret and sacred item is; I want you to read the story. I believe strongly that every single human being in the world needs to read To Kill A Mockingbird. It teaches you never to judge books by covers; it teaches you to stand up for what you believe in; it teaches you that you must walk a mile in another person's shoes before you can truly understand him or her. When I still taught high school English, I always began teaching Mockingbird when October arrived. It was fun to tell students that Dill, in the book, is based off Lee's real-life neighborhood pal, Truman Capote, who came to Maycomb, Alabama, several months out of the year to live with his Auntie.
Speaking of Capote, who is my favorite dead writer ...Once mid-November rolls around, I head to A Christmas Memory, which is the most bittersweet short story I have ever read. It makes me smile; it makes me weep. Although it's about a Christmas memory (hence the title), the story opens with this line: "Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. ... A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. ... 'Oh my,' she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, 'it's fruitcake weather!'"
Well, fruitcake. Yes, fruitcake! There's much maligning of the lowly fruitcake, which, to me, is an extraordinary dessert chock full of nuts and diced stained-glass fruits. I love me some fruitcake. My best childhood friend, Michelle, for years sent me a delectable fruitcake each holiday season, all the way from Santa Clara, California, from a beloved recipe her sweet mother-in-law employed in her own sunny kitchen. Probably I wasn't thankful enough; those (fragrant) cakes, dowsed in strong brandy, ceased arriving several seasons ago. I tell you: If you too enjoy fruitcake and reading about imaginative children, you need to get your hands upon Capote's coming-of-age story.
And then there's December, my favorite month. Time to revisit David Sedaris's hysterical Holidays on Ice, which is an accounting of the lovably neurotic essayist's experience working as a department store Christmas elf. This holiday collection of essays opens with this: "I was in a coffee shop looking through the want ads when I read, 'Macy's Herald Square, the largest store in the world, has big opportunities for outgoing, fun-loving people of all shapes and sized who want more than just a holiday job! Working as an elf in Macy's SantaLand means being at the center of the excitement' ... ."
This opening paragraph gives little clue to the hilarity that is forthcoming: "... I am a thirty-three-year-old man applying for a job as an elf. ... I am trying to look on the bright side. ... In order to become an elf I filled out ten pages' worth of forms, took a multiple choice personality test, underwent two interviews, and submitted urine for a drug test. The first interview was general, designed to eliminate the obvious sociopaths. ... I am certain that I failed my drug test. My urine had roaches and stems floating in it, but they still hired me because I am short, five feet five inches. Almost everyone they hired is short. One is a dwarf." Sedaris does not disappoint. When I read him, I have to be at home, alone, so that when I laugh and snort and say lines out loud and gesticulate wildly, no one pulls her kids closer and whispers into their ears: Children, there's something wrong with that woman.
Sedaris does not know this about me, but I will state it here, publicly. If I ever have a terminal illness and death is approaching and hospice nurses are setting up a final life request for me, I am going to tell them (through the wheezing and approaching death rattle), that I must get a chance to Skype with Sedaris. I want him to be talking to me and making me laugh as I go gently into my good night, which, hopefully, will also feature my children and grand children gathered around my hospital bed that's been set up in the hearth room of the family home.
Also on my December reading list is a collection of Christmas poems, essays, and short stories (Capote's Christmas Memory is here, too), selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy (yes, that Caroline Kennedy). The hardcover book, red and dressed up with a silver bow as though it is a present in an of itself, is simply called A Family Christmas. The book contains nine chapters, and though each is rather boringly titled ("Deck the Halls," "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," and "Joy to the World,") there's a nostalgic familiarity within that will lead you to the grocery store, where you will plunk down approximately $200 for holiday baking supplies; you will play Christmas music when you get back from the store to unload your flours and sugars and various chocolate chip pieces.  In addition to reveling in feel-good holiday sentiments, you will also learn what the exact words are to certain Christmas songs -- you know the ones, where only the chorus is obvious and you simply hum along to other parts. For example, I offer this educationally fulfilling musical nugget. (If you start studying now and commit to memory the hard parts, you'll be singing the loudest at church in a few short months.)
                                                           O Come, All Ye Faithful
             (Translated by Frederick Oakeley & William Thomas Brooke; Music by John Francis Wade)

O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him, Born the King of angels:
O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

      (This is the part you already know. Get ready for the lesson.)

God of God, light of light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin's womb;
Very God, Begotten not created:
O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

       (I know, I know, you already know the last two lines there ... ).

Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heav'n above;
Glory to God, In the highest:
O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, Born this happy morning,
Jesus, to thee be glory giv'n;
Word of the Father, Now in flesh appearing:
O come, let us ....
            
          (You know the rest.)

Happy Halloween! Have a blessed Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas!

I thought nervous breakdowns weren't real

Is the entire world going crazy? Children, gunned down in American classrooms; children, gassed in their homes in Syria; children, slaughtered inside a mall in Kenya. Here in the U.S., Congress can't make a decision and President Obama looks like he's going to lose his shit every time he stands behind a podium. Here in my home in suburban Kansas City, two adult children, both college-educated, are pulling in eight bucks an hour pulling espresso shots at the local Starbucks. Groceries are costing thirty dollars a bag and gas is $3.40 a gallon. Our electric bill last month was $360. My husband wants to retire in eight years, only it's looking like he won't be golfing five days a week anytime soon. Since leaving the classroom, it's been damned near impossible to find full-time work for me: I'm pushing fifty, and outside of knowing how to diagram a sentence and explain plot structure, my career skills are behind the times. Luckily, I have several nanny gigs that pay well and I go to work each morning delighted to be in the presence of children, sweet and innocent kids who board the school bus daily and plan on arriving home, alive, later that day.
Two of my friends currently are undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Another continues to grieve the loss of her eighteen-year-old son (the worst loss of all); my sis just got slammed with child support and wage garnishment because her ex had a better lawyer than she did; my parents are both dead (I continue to feel orphaned); cute little Hannah Montana has morphed into a stripper; my 21-year-old is fawning over that pot-smoking loser Wiz Khalifa; my MacDowell days are behind me and my bologna book is still unfinished; somehow I ended up in a Republican Bunco group; my dogs won't stop barking; I haven't been to Mass in almost a year; my computer has a virus and typing this post is taking me nine hundred times longer than it should.
I told myself today that I would not turn on the television because the news is so distressing; I told myself today that I would eat five servings of fruits and vegetables; I told myself today that I would get a big poster board and plan out my book's structure. (I am a visual person and if I can't see something directly it doesn't exist.) I told myself I would try to walk the dogs and even if my right foot began throbbing I had to at least circle two cul de sacs.
It's a plan. I'll keep you posted.

Regrets? I've had a few, but fall at MacDowell is not one of them

It's been a summer of reflection. The heat here in the Midwest is oppressive, and as such I avoid going outside. I become delirious with rage when I have to venture out. Friends know not to request pool visits, or even porch talks; a movie invite is accepted, or perhaps a dinner in a highly air conditioned restaurant, but only if the parking is close, or I am dropped off at the door. Every August I ask myself, Why the hell do I live in Missouri? I am not blooming where I have been planted; I am withering on a hellish summer vine.
I want to go back to New Hampshire. I was preparing my suitcase this time last year, to head to the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough. At MacDowell, the grounds were beautiful, decked in fall foliage; the New England air was crisp and lacked humidity. When evening came, I opened my studio windows inside Mixter and reveled at the keyboard as my fingers cramped from the cold. I slept with the windows open and awakened at seven to cold tile in the bathroom and fresh excitement as I powered on the Asus. When temps dropped into the forties at night, I went into town one morning to purchase fingerless gloves that some enterprising soul had knitted.
Bliss, bliss, bliss, writing in a quiet and cold studio.
And here I am, not writing and unable, even, to finish reading books I have begun because I'm cranky all the damned time because it's so fucking hot in Kansas City. Normally I would use a more polite modifier, but when I am miserable in the heat, fuck is my favorite word: It is so fucking hot in this car I am going to fucking lose my fucking mind. Please turn on the fucking air conditioner right fucking now.

I have other regrets. Inside time spent in front of a fan, a cold washcloth in hand, offers time for reflection, and my rambling regrets have boiled down to this: My life has not turned out like I had planned. When I was a fourth grade girl sitting crossed-legged on my chenille bedspread, mapping out my future, which was a color-coded virtual map/timeline, brought to life with colored pencils that I sharpened frequently, that future did not include sweating my way through a grocery store half a million times, anxiety building at the register that I wouldn't have enough money to pay for meat and produce and dairy; that future did not involve barking dogs who demanded to be let inside and out, inside and out; that future did not once account for being consistently broke and forced to use inferior bath soap and generic laundry detergent; and most certainly, that future did not feature being married to a man who rarely talks. Also, I had not planned on having a menopot and wiry chin hairs.
My hopes were grand, and chief among them was being famous. When one is told repeatedly by elementary teachers that one is different and exceptional and talented and filled with creativity, one does not accept easily a struggling middle-class existence featuring four-door sedans and too much month at the end of the money.
I thought I would be a famous writer who went on extensive book tours and slumbered in fancy-schmancy hotels. I thought I would be wealthy enough to own purebred dogs that hired help would take outside for the pooping and the peeing; I thought I would have someone to cook for me and ensure that I was consuming green leafy vegetables and delectable fruit plated on china dishes that were drizzled with high-quality chocolate sauce imported from Switzerland. I thought I would live in a high-rise apartment building in New York City or possibly LA; I thought I would marry a witty man who wore argyled sweater vests and corduroys and sported an attractive five o'clock shadow. This professorial gentleman would buy me expensive jewelry, read to me aloud in the evenings as he puffed on a highly scented cigar, and compose love poetry on the fly. (Alternately, I thought I might never marry and instead compulsively date compulsively charming men who held important positions with banking or architectural firms.)
I have none of this. I have a dusty and hot house situated on a concrete cul de sac in a middle-class suburban neighborhood; I have a husband who gets excited about football season and a sale on bratwursts; I have some spare bucks in my coin purse now only because I hocked my class ring last week.
Like I said, I have some regrets.

Here's where things started to unravel: College.
I invited boys into my door room and fornicated. (There was alcohol involved.)
I got pregnant before I became a Missus and got married at nineteen because my parents made me. I wore a marked-down wedding dress from Penney's Outlet, which my mother bought without my knowledge or approval.
I became a mother at twenty and promptly changed my major from journalism to education, thinking that June, July, and August would be good for the baby, that I would be home for those extended weeks to cut up grapes and hot dogs so the wee one wouldn't die before she started preschool.
Soon, two more children followed, and before I knew what was happening to me, domestic life took over. I became Mommy and the little fourth-grade girl with stars in her eyes crawled into the dark recesses of a closet and stayed there for the next twenty-eight years.
Like I said, I have some regrets.

Now what?
I'm forty-eight, dumpy-fat, virtually unemployed save for part-time nanny gigs (which I do, really do enjoy, because it turns out I'm fantastic working with children), I'm married to a non-talking man, and, and this is the kicker, I am very, very EXTREMELY not famous.

On the importance of being gentle

It's been several weeks since I read the obituary that stopped me in my tracks. Although I never met Dr. Andrea Beerman, I felt connected to her. I saw in her my sisters, my daughters, my nieces, my cousins, my younger self. Since writing about the "mystery" of her death, many people contacted me, through my blog or personal email. Everyone expressed profound sorrow. Nearly all posed questions. Many, like me, were questioning how she died ~ and for those who knew that she had taken her own life, they too were looking for answers. Several shared personal stories of loved ones who had passed, and the questioning that came with those suicides, and the wrenching grief that accompanied the losses. Others wrote of the necessity of kindness and the awareness that each of us humans is suffering in some way. "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle," one woman quoted. Truth, on the page.

One writer in particular, a woman who attended the Center for Spiritual Living in KC, the same church as Andrea Beerman, had much to say. Her name is Sharon Riley, and I have her permission to post the following:

"So if there's anything to be learned from this ~ tell your children to risk being vulnerable when they are in a rough or rocky place.  Share.  Talk to someone.  All my friends and I are re-affirming to each other:  Please, if there is ever a time when you need to talk ~ know that I am here.  We all have trials, we all have issues ... no one is perfect.  We aren't meant to be.  We need to know that we have each other's backs and will be there for each other.  But first we have to be vulnerable about our 'stuff.'  True friends will never judge.  They will only listen.  My prayers now each day for Andrea are that no person ever has to feel this alone while surrounded by many many others that are just longing to help or listen.  My prayer is that others will be open and be vulnerable when they have to ~ so that we can help and heal each other. 
I will never forget Andrea or her story.   I just wish she could have talked to me. Or to anyone.  But I know that everyone at CSL and all her friends and family are feeling that same way right now.  So tell your children not to be afraid to be vulnerable.  And tell them they don't have to be perfect.  None of us are.  It's ok.  Tell them to take joy in whatever they choose to do and to measure success only by how they truly feel, not by any other society standard.  Tell them to risk ~ risk making mistakes, risk being vulnerable, risk sharing their problems and pain as well as their joys with friends and to be as forgiving as they can.
Because everyone is doing the best they can ~ given what they know at any given time.  We have to be gentle with each other."

Amen.

How did she die, and why do I care?

There are many obsessions in my life, chief among them finding great cups of coffee, outstanding chocolates, and off-the-beaten-path yummy eateries. These obsessions are socially acceptable.
What bothers people, namely my husband and children, is the obsession I have over figuring out how  young people die. My husband and daughters tell me that I am moribund and waste my time investigating the deaths of people I do not know, nor have ever met.
Look. I read obituaries with the same kind of interest that others hold when they read biographies of famous people. It is my life's philosophy that every person, no matter how long he or she has lived, has a story to tell. As such, I truly enjoy a well-crafted obituary. The Sunday Kansas City Star is my favorite source, as no fewer than seventy-five death notices are published then. Between discovering interesting names (Syd Sidebottom) and amazing achievements and/or actions ("When she was eleven years old, Melinda cut the word impossible out of the dictionary."), I am generally inspired to go out into the world and Do Something Important by the time I've read the final obituary. Besides, by the time I'm finished with the listings, my coffee has run cold.
 
This obsession isn't a fun one. I get depressed when I read the obits of children who have passed, especially the ones who die during their teen years. Having raised three children into adulthood, it strikes me as particularly crushing and soul-wounding, to have loved a child into his high school years and then  lose him right before it's time to graduate, to head to college, to realize childhood ambitions. At its core, I believe it is wrong for a parent to have to bury a child, no matter how old that child is. I am reminded of a saying: You bury a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, in the ground. You bury a child in your heart. There is not a day goes by that I do not worry about my children, that I do not have anxiety over all the What-ifs that befall young people. I pray to God that they are safe and out of harm's way.
Still. Young people die. Parents bury their children. I have a close friend whose son died riding his beloved motorcycle on the Fourth of July. A brand-new high school graduate, he and a friend were taking a quick bike ride before heading over to a relative's house for a celebration. A drunk driver turned right in front of him on a country road. He died instantly. The drunk driver walked away, unscathed.
My friend has never, will never, be the same. Her marriage ended and her joy dwindled. Three years later, I cannot look at her without thinking that she is a mother who buried her child. It is my first thought. I wrote this young man's obituary and typed through my tears. I also wrote my dad's obituary and my mother's. When my sweet aunt died a few months after my mom's passing, I said to my sister, You have to write Aunt Jannie's. I can't do it again.

Still, I read the obits. In a way, I feel that readership is necessary, that it is important to read about the people who were here on a Tuesday and gone on a Wednesday, and that by reading about their lives, their lives have meaning and they will be remembered. For many people, the only time their name is in the paper is in an alphabetized fashion on that page of remembrances.
I am particularly sad when I read about a young mom taken by breast cancer, who leaves children of the home, or a young father who fights for his country and never comes home, or for the young father who drowns in a lake on a Saturday night and is survived by two boys, ages three and six.
Sometimes, I experience anger, when an obit of a three year old is sandwiched between the obits of a ninety-one-year old named John and a ninety-four-year-old named Josephine.  Little Allie Fisher never started kindergarten. Where is the justice for her? Why do some people get to be so old and others die before they've barely begun to live?

There are cancers and accidents and house fires and military deaths (Army Staff Sgt. Jesse L. Thomas Jr., 31, of Pensacola, Fla.; Army Lt. Col. Todd J. Clark, 40, of Evans Mills, N.Y.; Army Maj. Jaimie E. Leonard, 39, of Warwick, N.Y.) There are deaths from natural causes, like with the Johns and Josephines of the world who get to be in their nineties, and, hey, let's face it, that's pretty damned old. There are homicides and suicides and heart attacks and folks who die peacefully in their sleep, surrounded by family. Usually, the cause of death can be determined by the context of each obituary: "The family requests donations to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers" ... "Contributions may be made to the American Heart Association."

And then there are the obits that don't make any sense, the ones that make me go all Nancy Drew trying to figure out why the person died. Someone like Andrea Beerman, a thirty-four-year old dentist of Westood Hills, Kansas, who passed away June 11, 2013. She wasn't old, that's for sure. We can rule out natural causes. Newly married, Andrea Beerman had a thriving dental practice in the Kansas City area.
Why is she gone? She was educated and ambitious and had her shit together. She volunteered in Honduras and El Salvador to provide dentistry to the underprivileged. She ran marathons and practiced yoga. She served on the board of the Timber Creek Retreat House.
There's nothing in the obituary that explains her passing. She is pictured, young and beautiful and healthy-looking, an enormous smile on her pretty face.
How did she die?
Why do I care?
***
I don't know the answer to that last question. I guess I want to try to make sense of things, to intellectualize that thirty-four-year-old yoga-running women don't just die randomly. It's something I need to make sense of. I've got children in their twenties. I want to think that if they lead healthy lives and make good decisions and stay away from drugs and crack houses and abusive relationships, and always wear their seatbelts and never drive drunk, they'll be okay. They'll live to be old people and they will bury me, not the other way around.

Oldest love, sweetest love

Last night I dreamed, again, of an old love. Since turning forty, this guy in my past drops by in my dreams with wonderful regularity. It is though he is telling me, Hey, I'm still around. We had a good thing when we were kids, didn't we? Don't forget me. Don't forget us. My psyche agrees: You need never to forget him; you are not too adult to discount the most romantic relationship you ever had. Enjoy yourself, Kathleen. Wrap yourself in the memory of that love.
Yes, we did have a good thing. He was my first love, and therefore my sweetest, most uncomplicated love. We were young and unencumbered. We never fought over money or children or his golf club purchase or yet another expensive face cream showing up on a bathroom counter. We didn't have middle-aged spare tires and aches and pains. We had each other's youth and ambition; we had endless summer days and nights when school was out. We had hand-holding and stolen kisses and the occasional titillating grope sitting next to each other in the dark of his basement. We never had sex, which tends to ruin things, complicate matters. We had childhood innocence and the kind of kid happiness that is prevalent until the realities of adulthood start to wear on the natural joy of being alive.
If we ever fought, I don't remember why, or when, or how we might have made up. All of my memories surrounding my first love ~ when we were together ~ are positive and happy. When he would leave, for a summer afternoon, or a holiday event with extended family, or even for a nightly baseball game with his father, I would pine and wallow in a private misery that would have no audience. I didn't have the most supportive family, and had they known of my heart's allegiance to this backyard boy, they would have teased me mercilessly.
As many first loves go, this relationship ended in no official manner. There were no I-don't-like-you-anymore-leave-me-alone declarations. Neither of us stalked the other. There was no public tantrum complete with name-calling and tears. Our love withered on the vine of adolescence, and although we saw each other every now and then through the years, we were only socially polite and pretended that the love we'd shared was an immature alliance and nothing more.
We each married other people and became parents. I put my first love on the back burner of an old stove in a basement and pledged undying love to my husband, who is my best friend and my lover and my life partner. I am happy in my marriage. (Well, mostly happy, as is anyone who's been married nearly thirty years.)
These days, I do not put too much brain-time into analyzing why it is that my first love comes to see me so often in my dreams. I know with certainty, however, that I awaken 100 percent of the time with a heart happiness that makes me feel fifteen again. As I approach fifty ~ my goodness, I am getting old ~ this nighttime nostalgia hits me in my solar plexus, a sweet reminder that I have given, and received, love.

Bye-Bye, Time Sucks

Well, one could guess. It's Facebook that's distracting me from writing and reading. Here it is, nearly June, and I've only read six books. Grr. At this rate, I will not meet my goal of reading 50 books by December 31.
And then there's this little game called Bakery Story, a sweet little app the little guy I nanny for introduced me to several months ago. It's a virtual bakery, and for the chubby girl inside me who could eat coconut layer cake every day for the rest of her life, Bakery Story is a daily dose of deliciousness. I'm pretty damned good at this game, based on my Four-Star Rating, and dozens of other players who requested I "add" them to the "neighborhood."
By the time I bake croissants and cinnamon rolls and brew espresso and whip up chocolate soy shakes, it is no hyperbole to state that I probably spend anywhere from ninety minutes to five hours a day attached to my iPhone and "Kay's Place." (Speaking of which, I just opened the app, only to find that I earned 14,368 coins while I was away ... having been absent for about one hour.)
Although I have never met BigMama or Aleisha in person, they send me virtual gifts daily (chocolate cake and cappuccinos). I tell you: Bakery Story is a Time Suck like none other. At least with this game, though, I feel good about myself.
Facebook? Different story. I need to get away from this sucky social app because every time I read about someone's awesome job, or amazing raise I get a little jealous. And, I get A LOT jealous when I read about a friend's new publishing contract, or her newest book release. Of course she's earned her Writing Life and isn't spending hours a day in the "kitchen" turning out celebration trifles and black forest cakes.
In a (candy-coated) nutshell, Kay needs to get away from her fake bakery and facebook page. Soon. Like, maybe, today?