The Sweet Life

I’ve been writing a nonfiction picture book on a topic I consider myself an expert on (sorry for the misplaced preposition for all you grammar Nazis out there). The book is about candy. I confess that I have a terrible sweet tooth. Combine my love of candy with my love of travel, and over the years I’ve become something of an international connoisseur of sweets.

The salty licorice of Amsterdam, the marzipan fruits of Scandinavia, crack seed in Hawaii, Turkish delight in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul—I’ve tried them all. But a new candy variety came to my attention last fall when my daughter, Jennifer, was in Italy. She stayed with a couple in their 16th century house in Bugnara, a small village east of Rome in an area called Abruzzo. Not far away was a town famous for its candy (and, incidentally, for the fact that Ovid was born there). Sulmona has been producing an Italian delight called "confetti" for centuries. The rest of the world knows this candy as Jordan almonds. The photo attached to this post is not of baskets of flowers outside a shop. Those are baskets of confetti!

I’ve not come across many candies that are too pretty to eat, but these certainly are. A few of these beautiful flowers sit in a vase on my desk, just providing inspiration for my writing. (Okay, so I ate one petal off!) I’ll keep you all posted on the manuscript, which I’ve submitted for critique at the August SCBWI Conference in L.A.

Waiting for the Mail

I'm not the only one who's ever waited for the mail. This spring I had the pleasure of taking a memoir-writing class, even though business demands forced to me to drop out before the end of the semester. It was taught by a friend, Marilyn Donahue, well-published children’s author, local SCBWI Schmooze coordinator, past co-director of the Inland Writing Project and writing instructor-extraordinaire. One of our assignments was to find an old family photo and write about it. While digging through shoeboxes of old pictures several years ago, in preparation for creating scrapbooks for my two brothers and me, I found one I especially liked. I’ve posted it here, along with the memoir piece it inspired. Those ladies knew what waiting was all about.

Waiting for the Mail

Every afternoon the women gathered in the yard of the housing project. With hair done up in bobby pins and wearing flowered house coats, they shared gossip and recipes for casseroles the kids would eat. Children played lazy games of kickball in the dust. Les Brown’s music drifted down from an open upstairs kitchen window. Washing could wait; so could the ironing. Babies were napping, but still the women listened with only one ear while they chatted. Some rubbed their lower backs, standing with that unique posture of the pregnant—the backward lean to counter the baby weight. Others had grimy toddlers tugging on their skirts. They were more than friends; they were sisters. And so they waited together.

No men were there. The husbands were in Italy, France, North Africa, or somewhere in the Pacific. Some were pilots, some were cavalry. Others were foot soldiers sleeping in foxholes across Europe or sailors on battleships off the shores of Iwo or Saipan.

Well, it’s not entirely true that there were no men. There was one, and every afternoon he became the most important one in the world. He was the mailman, and when he arrived on his bicycle, there was always a hopeful, smiling welcome committee. Each woman desperately prayed he’d have a letter with her name on it.

When he did, she was jubilant. When he didn’t, it was impossible not to ache with loneliness. Those fragile, papery sheets of scrawled handwriting were all she had to hold onto, all that connected her to the man she loved. Parts of those letters were shared with her sisters over late-afternoon cups of weak coffee, sweetened with rationed sugar. But other parts were saved till later, tucked into housecoat pockets. Those parts would be savored over and over again in the dim light of the bedroom during the long solitary nights.

And tomorrow she and her sisters would wait again for the mailman.

Jacarandas

The calendar says it’s the 11th of June, but I’ve just turned the heat back on. It’s gray and in the low 60s outside. I know that when summer arrives, it will do so with a vengeance, so I am trying to appreciate the fact that spring is lingering. One delight I have is in the abundance of blooming jacaranda trees in town right now. God must have been celebrating something special the day he created jacaranda trees. Their airy branches and clouds of purple blossoms take my breath away. The carpet of purple strewn beneath the trees must be a bother for the owners, but it makes me think of confetti left along a parade route after the bands and floats have passed by and the flag-waving spectators have gone home.

Just get out of the way. . .

I recently discovered a documentary on DVD called “Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott." Yeah, I know that it came out in 1998, but ten years ago I hadn’t yet realized I was meant to be a writer, so this recent discovery was both timely and exciting. I sat down to view it last night, and as I watched the life story of this incredibly talented and funny writer unfold, I was reminded of a tee shirt I once saw at a writer’s conference. Across the chest, it read: “Thanks a lot, Mom & Dad, for my happy childhood. Now I’ll NEVER be a writer!”

This woman who has inspired many beginning writers with her book, Bird by Bird, has been down the road a piece. An odd looking child who always felt she didn’t belong, she began drinking at the age of thirteen. By nineteen she was a raging alcoholic, as well as a drug user. She had a “come-to-Jesus” turn-around in her thirties, had a beautiful little boy out-of-wedlock, and has gone on to become a productive writer and sought-after public speaker. Hell, what excuse do I have? I guess I can always blame my happy childhood.

But thanks to Annie, I came away from the documentary with a little prayer I should offer up to God and my muse on a daily basis. She says “Just let me get out of the way and write what wants to be written.” Great advice for any writer. And I swear, no more extension cord excuses.