Another Widow

St. Pete Times Story

It began with the sound of sirens, many sirens, followed by my dogs announcing people in the streets, an uncommon sight at eleven PM. I asked the neighbors what was going on and they pointed toward the Interstate.

“A big fire,” Claudia said. “It’s huge.”

I walked out to join the group. At the end of our street, where the I-375 forms a comma off I-275, a blaze lit up the night sky. Explosions rat-a-tat-tatted in a staccato rhythm not unlike the machine gun sounds I’d heard in movies.

“A truck is up there. That’s what’s burning. The sounds you hear, they’re from the fire hitting stuff in the City’s Maintenance lot.” Richard said.

I began walking, joining the throng of people at the far side of the field. Traffic was being redirected away from the area. The people in the cars asked us what was happening. Jay shouted that there’d been an accident, that the fire was hitting the spot where the city stored equipment.

A man on a motor scooter tried to bypass the police barricade. They yelled at him, he pretended he’d never intended to go in the opposite direction they’d demanded. Another guy on foot tried to cross the street into the open field. The officers yelled for him to get back on the side of the street where he belonged. I was astounded that these people were making the job of the police tougher.

I stood quietly. I watched. I realized the magnitude of what I was experiencing. Someone had died up there. Someone’s wife had just become a widow. Someone other than me, this time.

“They probably store all kinds of stuff there that’ll go up. Paint, diesel fuel, all kinds of stuff.” Another neighbor, Jay, offered while we all stared skyward at the billowing clouds of black smoke roiling through the night.

More rat-a-tat-tatting.

“Did the truck fall over into the lot?” I asked.

“We don’t know yet. I think it was a semi.”

“Somewhere, someone is going to find out they’ve lost a son, a brother, a husband, a father.” I said, to no one in particular. “I wonder, how many. I wonder, was there someone sleeping in the cab? Was there more than one vehicle?”

“We don’t know.”

I said a prayer. I went home, and turned on the news. It was a tanker, they said. The odors of burning rubber and diesel fuel wafted through the windows as the wind shifted. I sat on the couch until well after two, unable to get the horror out of my mind. I realized I’d witnessed some other woman becoming a widow.

Elected Official or Bully?

Equality Florida’s email newsletter brought to my attention the actions of Representative D. Alan Hays, R. Umatilla , which prompted me to send this letter:

Honorable Representative Hays,

I have learned that three students, including Jessica Osborn attempted to speak with you regarding the anti-bullying bill, "Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up For All Students Act." The bill is named for Cape Coral teenager who killed himself in 2005 after being bullied for years. Those taunts often included anti-gay insults and accusations. If passed, the law would define "bullying" and direct schools to set up clear rules for how to handle threatening behavior and provide training for teachers.

According to Jess Osborn: "After telling him my story he proceeded to say he was repulsed by homosexuals and we needed extensive psychological treatment."

Your actions, your verbal attack on students poignantly illustrates exactly why specific prohibitions of anti-gay harassment are needed. Your response is appalling, sir.

In 1986, the diagnosis of homosexuality was removed entirely from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., Revised) commonly referred to as the DSM. The only vestige of ego dystonic homosexuality in the revised DSM-III occurred under Sexual Disorders Not Otherwise Specified, which included persistent and marked distress about one's sexual orientation.

Your assertion that Jess Osborn needed “extensive psychological treatment” is both inaccurate, and bigoted. Inaccurate because there is no illness, and bigoted because you are apparently extremely narrow minded and unkind. Perhaps you might benefit from speaking with a mental health care provider about your persistent and marked distress about others’ sexual orientation.

I would hope you would publicly apologize to Jessica Osborn and the other students for your unkind and inaccurate remarks. No citizen should be subjected to such blatant cruelty from any adult, never mind an elected official such as yourself.

Sincerely,

SelahWrites

Recent News

Yesterday, Claudia and I joined The KayakGirlz of Tampa Bay for a paddle around Weedon Island Preserve , a four mile canoe/kayak trail among mangrove islands in Tampa Bay.

The KayakGirlz were a warm and welcoming group who seemed like the kind of people who would have a good time no matter what the weather.

The canoe trail is magical. It transforms me, transfixes me, energizes and pacifies me. Try doing the trail in reverse, going from the 38^th marker backwards to marker number one. You won’t be disappointed. Do the trail at high tide, and be certain your paddle comes apart. There are places so canopied, so narrow and dense, that getting the full length of the paddle into the air is difficult. I would regret breaking off any of the branches, so I took my paddle apart and used it to skootch through the shallow tight spots.

There is a place, I believe around the seventh marker, where there is a fork in the road. Go to the right, and you’ll circle around and be about thirty yards from where you entered the mangroves. Go to the left and be rewarded with the vision that I have come to think of as “The Cathedral.” You’ll find yourself in a natural place of worship. The trail, here is completely surrounded by a Chantilly lace, leafy canopy reflected in the mirror smooth waters spreading out before you, interrupted only by the slice of your paddle, the flight of startled birds, the sharp intake of breath as you become aware of the majesty nature has provided for your pleasure. Stop. Savor it. Listen to your soul breathe.

What’s on the iPod

Mercy, by Alanis Morissette Read the lyrics here - Mercy lyrics Why Alannis? Read the lyrics. We are all energy. We are all in this together. We can create the world we want to see, the world we want to experience.

Where is this heading?

Tomorrow, I will be joining Move On.org for a Iraq War Anniversary Vigil. I hope you’ll find a vigil to participate in. I pray for an end to these horrors.

What am I writing?

Not writing so much as revising. Revisions have to be the toughest part. I find myself giving away too many choices. Someone else, someone who may or may not be right suggests I change this, that, the other thing, I give them too much power. It is my manuscript, after all, my vision, my heart on the page. The hardest part is taking a short story, and sifting through the suggestions to see which ones really mesh with my intentions. But that’s the hard part, the necessary part, the most unfunnest thing ever.

Marketing Monday strategy

On tomorrow’s slate for the revision knife:

* No Happy Endings. I like this story. I like Willie Lee and her grandson, Booker. I like the plot. Tomorrow – I swear – Tomorrow No Happy Endings will get treated to the spa treatment revision process.

* Two chapters of Tallulah and Posomotor, The Familiar, The Curse of CREGA

* Tallulah cover letter and synopsis. LCW says I can have someone do this, if I’m willing to pay big bucks…. If it gets me in TOR’s door, it might be worth it. I’ll send the cover and synopsis to LCW and see what she thinks. Hers is one of those opinions I count on the heaviest. She’s been published about 7 million times, (no, I do not exaggerate) and she doesn’t pull any punches with my work.

What I’m grateful for:

I’ve been thinking about a bunch of individuals whom I used to allow to make me angry. It used to be that I’d have said “that person made me angry”, but the truth is, I was the one who gave them the power to make me angry, upset, etc. They were not meeting my expectations, they were not playing nice, they were not thinking about how what they were saying was impacting ME! I’ve begun to get it, that I am giving away my power when I worry about whatever, who thinks what about me, etc. Whatever! The thing is, the barometer to determine whether I really have forgiven someone is to be able to thank them for the lesson learned. So, today I am thankful for those who showed me how much of my life I was frittering away worrying about what they were thinking, writing, and talking about me. It got me moving in new directions. It showed me I should be more trusting of my own instincts as a writer. So, I’m grateful to them all.

In other news:

National Geographic has revealed that Gorillas gave pubic lice to humans This news fascinated me; I’m not certain why – on any number of levels.

Thank You For the Lessons I've Learned

Part of the process of ‘letting go’ is to get to the point of thanking those who I’ve perceived as causing me harm. To that end, I’ve been thinking of the value of lessons such as: when you try to skirt laws designed to protect both parties, such subterranean ‘contracts’ frequently come back with a rabid bite. I got to learn this lesson not by doing, but by observing. I also learned that judging others should be left to those with lofty moral principles, a bit higher in the heavens, than, say, your average individual who assists in sketchy business dealings with one hand, and wags a judgmental finger with the other. I’m learning that my expectations for others, produces little other than pain and suffering when they don’t meet them. They are, after all, my expectations. I need to remember to be a southern girl and keep my hair high, my expectations low, and I won’t be disappointed.

The Zen garden looks particularly splendid this morning. Perhaps I shall rake up another 10 bags full of leaves.

Let’s Go Shopping

I was thinking about the weekend, how my daughter tried to pass off her desires as those of the children, how I was reluctant to call her out on it, and the eggshells I seem to have permanently attached to the bottoms of my Birkenstocks where she is concerned – and making coffee, feeding the dogs, wondering if I were codependent, wiping up the counters, when I picked up a flyer from Stein Mart http://www.steinmart.com/ announcing an additional 20% off for “preferred customers.[1]” That’s me, preferred customer. You too can be a “preferred customer” merely by making purchases. The more frequent, the more you will be “preferred.”

Recently, I’ve been focused on decluttering my home. I’ve become interested in Feng Shui, mostly when I read Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston http://www.spaceclearing.com/ As a result, I’ve cleared out a great deal of clutter, in the attic(s) – yes, I have TWO attics! I’ve cleared out my closets (again, two!) Linen closets, cabinets, and am currently working on the storage sheds, of which I have, not one, but, you guessed, two.

I tossed the Stein Mart preferred customer card in the trash. There is nothing I need that they carry. They sell clutter. I’m not buying any more.

I harkened back to my first foray into the land of Stein Mart in 1990, right after the release of Julia Roberts’ Pretty Woman.

I reported a conversation I’d had with a clerk in the home décor department to my sister and mother, a conversation similar to one Vivian had with the woman in the dress shop. The store manager overheard, asked me about the clerk, and asked me to stop by the guest services department prior to leaving the store. When I was prepared to leave, he’d seen to it that there was an onyx egg in a wooden stand gift wrapped for me. For years, I kept that hideous egg on my desk to remind me of what bad customer service looked like.

So, this morning, I was thinking about Stein Mart, shopping in general, and why it was so utterly important. I realized that shopping was what we did because my mother and my sister used it to fill the hours that we were together. Instead of sitting face to face, and really talking, we deluded ourselves into believing we were spending “time” together. What we were really doing was wasting time and spending money. There were a million things we could have been doing, physical activities, but no, we couldn’t do anything physical because we all had to stop and smoke countless cigarettes. Moreover, doing anything physical would get us all winded, and remind us of how out of shape we were. So we shopped.

I quit smoking in 1997. I quit shopping ten years later, in 2007

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[1]Does this qualify as a run on sentence, or what?

Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?

Selected early stories by Joyce Carol Oates – is one of the current books I’m reading. It contains the short story of the same title, one of my all time favorites.

Today is: Purim. That Esther, eh? So later, I’ll have to share some of my latest chili conflagration, (I used a bit of Ajwain from Pakistan for the “digestive benefits”)with Lt. McCann, of Snakehead fame.

I’m listening to: Hotel Tara – The Intimate Side of Buddha Lounge www.sequoiarecords.com and very much like it. Five stars, no, six stars for this one.

I’m Reading:

F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Life In Letters – edited and annotated by Matthew J. Bruccoli

Sacred Space by Denise Linn

Voices of Savannah – Selections from the Oral History Collection of the Savannah Jewish Archives – Valerie Frey, Kaye Kole and Luciana Spraecher

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Passing In Light by Sharon Ewell Foster – whose first line dragged me right into the book.

I finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and had the bittersweet pleasure of closing the covers for the last time. It was one of those reading experiences that will stick with me for a while.

Some things I dug about The Kite Runner – the description of Hassan, I could see him in my mind so clearly! A China doll, his moon face, eyes like bamboo leaves, his hairlip. The symbolism of the kites, the pomegranate tree, the watch given to him by Baba, and his subsequent dismissal of that watch followed by the reaction of the two little boys, whose actions were misinterpreted by Amir that they wanted his watch, and not what was in his bowl, the gorgeous descriptions of actions which revealed rich detail, a Bukhara carpet of characters.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been thinking a lot about my next writing project, and as usual, my mind travels in directions that are apparently written in Farsi or Cantonese About Bukhara carpets http://www.bukhara-carpets.com

A young tribal girl who has been taught the art of carpet weaving from a young age would probably have the following carpets and weavings in her dowry:
One Main Carpet (ghali) 9ft.10in. x 7ft.
Two small rugs (dip ghali) 6ft. x 3ft.
One engsi
One decoration for over the engsi (kapunuk)
12 small personal belonging bags 2ft.x1.5ft. and 4ft.x 1.5 ft. (mafrash & torba)
two large bedding bags (chuval or Juwal) always made in pairs
three decorated tent-bands (aq yup) 50 ft long and 2 inch to 1 ft wide

Understand, a six foot rug takes well over six months to make. Say she begins to weave shearings from her family’s sheep when she’s seven or eight – how much of her life is spent creating items necessary to appeal to a husband? He shows up sporting wood, she gets to spend years of her life weaving, shearing sheep, combing and sorting wool.

This is her dowry, her ‘hope chest.’

Dowry: Huge word, huge concept.

More later

What’s On My Mind

Ecology, the environment, global warming, that Al Gore (my personal hero) won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, employment discrimination in Largo, adoption and foster child inequities in Florida, Mel Martinez’ amazing ability to send out non-hunting dogs, Savannah, book clubs, friends, and revising my novel - Tallulah and Posomotor, The Familiar, The Curse of CREGA.

I’m also concerned with the pressure on little girls to be all sexy way too soon. I watched my daughter putting fake fingernails on my ten year old the other day, and I am unconvinced this could be a good thing. Within minutes of the final nail application, the girl is complaining that she is relatively helpless. I see this in the same category as high heels, shoes that make me rely on a steadying arm on occasion. Then I read an article in the Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com titled

Goodbye to Girlhood

As Pop Culture Targets Ever Younger Girls, Psychologists Worry About a Premature Focus on Sex and Appearance

By Stacy Weiner

Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; Page

Since I live in Florida, specifically on the gulf coast, I am in the epicenter of the hurricane scare tactic selling methodology of everything from storm shutters to generators. The thing is, according to a recent study, hurricanes and typhoons have become much stronger in the last thirty years due to global warming. By my reckoning, had everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina purchased hurricane storm shutters, there’d be a boatload of hurricane storm shutters on those drowned homes instead of plywood. Sort of like using paper plates on the Titanic so no china would break, don’t you think?

Currently reading: The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Regarding, The Secret – DVD, book, website, et al, the naysayers and skeptics have got to have their audiences, after all. Here’s my take on it. It works for me. When I am in a place of feeling good, a positive energy attracts other positive people. I get more smiles, more hugs, more of what I want, than when I am walking around bitching about my lot in life. Yes, I’ve had some Cat 5 hurricanes in my life, who hasn’t? The difference, is when instead of saying, ‘why me?’ I say, ‘why NOT me?’

I’ve personally experienced what can happen using Creative Visualization ( Shakti Gawain’s book that I’ve had since about 1912 or so…. ) when I created a page about a relationship I wanted. Within six weeks of making the “visualization board” I met my beloved husband of blessed memory.

So, to all the critics and naysayers, I say have at it. Don’t believe, if you don’t want to. I, like millions of others realize that The Secret works – IF and only IF I do the work. No one is denying that action must follow the desire. They are simply pointing out the obvious, that in order to get what you want, you have to first determine what you want, and then send out the vibes, wishes, whatever you want to call it, and the universe will conspire to give you the tools to make it happen. And that, my friend, is all for now.