The rain no longer raineth every day

Flapdoodle?*

When we first moved to Florida, we were in a drought. I had to buy sprinklers and remember my watering days to have any hope of getting the grass in my lawn to recover.

And then we got Tropical Storm Debbie.

Tons of rain!

The grass–it was so happy! It grew and grew. (So did the weeds, but that’s another story.)

And then it kept raining. And raining. And raining. Almost every day. It’s a good thing the grass started to grow to help keep the dirt from washing into the creek. (A lot of it did, anyway.)

It has rained so much that the split-leaf philodendron is turning yellow. The tomato plant has shriveled up. And one of the vincas has given up the ghost. (That’s a shame, because it was a pretty pink one.) The hydrangea, on the other hand, is thriving.

I know the Midwest is having a terrible time with a drought right now. The cost of everything is going up because of it.

So, I feel guilty saying this, but it seems like a miracle that we’ve had a couple of days without rain. It’s hard to do yard work when everything is soggy. Thunder and lightning interfere with my ability to use my computers. They interfere with my ability to use my treadmill! They just interfere.

It is fascinating to watch the rain over the creek. So, there’s that. It has a habit of raining over the water for a good 5 to 10 minutes before it comes on land–which is weird. Part of that weird Florida phenomenon where it can rain on one side of the street and not the other. (I once drove into rain at a red light and out of it when the light changed. That’s how localized a storm can be here.)

But I’m tired of watching walls of water move. I’m really glad it’s stopped raining–even if only temporarily.

* Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will Act VI, Sc 1. Also, King Lear, Act II, Sc 3. (If you got both of them, you get two Flapdoodle points!)

Untidy Murder

A Maybe Miracle

I may be premature in announcing this to be a Monday Miracle, because it hasn’t actually arrived yet. However, I did get an email notification that the book has shipped.

Shipped, I tell you!

And you tell me, “We don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Explanations are in order.

Once upon a time, when I was about twelve, I discovered a series of murder mysteries written by Frances and Richard Lockridge. They featured a pair of amateur detectives, Mr. and Mrs. North. They featured them, in fact, in a series of 26 novels, a Broadway play, a film, and a couple of TV and radio shows.

I don’t remember which book I read first. I do remember I got it out of my grandmother’s library one summer. And then another and another.

They were smart books. Funny. Full of the flavor of NYC in the Forties and Fifties. Unusually for the time period, it was usually Mrs. North who figured out who the murderer was.

Over time, I read them all. And I wanted to be able to re-read them all at will. Thus, they were high on my list at used book stores and flea markets. I picked them up here and there, and then, some time ago, a number of them were re-released. I was able to find them at regular book stores.

For years now, I have had 25 of them on my shelves. Untidy Murder, written in 1947, was the lone volume missing. Twice, I have nearly had it. The internet greatly facilitates the search for ancient tomes. When I have remembered to check, copies of it have appeared to be for sale. But twice, I have ordered, had the order accepted and, subsequently, gotten a “We’re sorry, we no longer have that book” email.

Just two weeks ago, I decided to spend part of the $40 I did not have to pay my doctor (thank you, President Obama) on Untidy Murder. It was a splurge. Out-of-print and in demand books are not cheap. I ordered it. And five days later, I got the “We’re sorry” email.

Undaunted and determined–it’s the last book in a forty year search–I remembered that another copy was available, for a higher price, and I ordered it again.

Yesterday, I got the email that it had been shipped.

Hooray!

I haven’t read Untidy Murder in a long time. How great to finally, finally, finally have the whole series! I’m excited.

Now, it should be noted that these are not first editions or anything. They are simply good reading copies of “good reads.”

But isn’t that what a book is for?

Minn-Kota and Manatees

Waterfront living.

We’re finally getting our waterfront lifestyle together. We’ve had a small boat for a while. And our house has a boat ramp. It’s not so easy, however, to put the boat in and out of the water, since we don’t have a truck with a hitch (and since I don’t really want a truck running over my labyrinth several times a week).

So, we had to put up a boat lift.

No sooner did we get that done than all kinds of things got in the way of excursions. We had company. We had to go on a series of trips. The weather has been god-awful hot, and who wants to be out on the water in the baking sun under those conditions? We had other house projects that needed work. And then, it rained. Day after day. (The grass is looking good–but then, you have to mow the grass.)

All of this is leading up to today’s Monday Miracle–which is the latest improvement to the whole boating thing.

We got a trolling motor. A Minn-Kota Edge. Yesterday, we took it on a shake-down cruise.

It works great!

It’s bow-mounted, and so easy to put in and out of the water. Five speeds, forward and reverse, so it can get you moving pretty fast–if that’s what you want. And it’s so quiet.

This is how I like to travel by boat. I prefer the slow speed. And the quietness is great. We came right up on some manatees just hanging out in the back part of the creek where there are no houses. Because the motor is quiet, we could get fairly close. Because it is slow, we were in no danger of injuring them.

I love having manatees in the back yard. (The alligators–not so much.)

(Speaking of alligators and manatees, you can check out the Manatee Web Cam. It’s off-season for manatees at Blue Spring, so they are alternating live manatee-less streams with some videos. I like the one where the manatee chases the alligator out of the water — althoug, at my house, I’m hoping they just leave them in the water.)

The Sound of Silence

…isn’t really so silent

This morning, I happened to wake up around 5 am. Unable to get back to sleep, for some reason, I got up to do my morning pages and read for a little while. (I’m reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. This fact has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this post.)

Just as I was about to fall asleep again–because the new revelations, while actually quite fascinating, are not spell-binding (okay, so it has a little to do with the rest of this post)–I heard a heron.

Have you ever heard a heron?

It sounds like the worst violin lesson ever. (I should know. Once upon a time, I took violin lessons.) It sounds like Harpo Marx’s horn. It sounds like–well, not unlike–a donkey braying.

I thought to myself, This is the silence I moved 1000 miles to get. This caw. These croaks. These cicada songs and squirrel chirrings.

And then I thought to myself, It’s a miracle.

Because this is exactly the silence I moved 1000 miles to get. Even the distant traffic, the occasional shotgun blasts, the boat motors, pump motors, a/c motors–all of those are infinitely preferable to the shell shock of living beneath an undisciplined toddler.

The difference is I was awake by the time I heard the heron honk. It wouldn’t have startled me out of a sound sleep with a bang, a thud and the earthquake rattle of the walls. The battle fatigue of those days has abated.

I can wake up when I set my alarm clock. I can write this blog post in peace. I can anticipate an owl’s hoot or a heron’s honk instead of strain to block out the shake, rattle and roll.

I shouldn’t have had to move 1000 miles to get a few minutes of silence, but the miracle is –it worked.

Gate crashing

“No fate but what we make for ourselves.”*

Thanks to the Internet and to technology, we are getting closer and closer to those words being true. Where once upon a time it was extremely difficult to get your work–by which I mean, for the most part, your art–out where people could see it, it is becoming easier and easier. The gatekeepers have less power. If you are willing to take the chance and invest a little sweat equity, you can bypass them.

It’s not always a good idea. Perceptions change more slowly than technology, and the seal of approval provided by being selected by a reputable publishing house or signed by an A-list agent still has value. I’m not advocating “going rogue” entirely.

What I am saying is that the delivery channels are not as narrowly held as they once were. If you think you have something to offer, there are ways to offer it without waiting for the over-worked and over-solicited gatekeeper to realize its value and pluck you out of obscurity.

I’ve been considering self-publishing for some time, and this Monday’s Miracle is that I have made some significant progress in that direction. Like the builders of the Six Million Dollar Man, I “have the technology.”

And I’m a little closer to making it work now that I’ve figured out how to turn a standard word processed bit of writing into something that can be delivered in the formats used by the all the major eReaders.

If you want to to the same, you can check out Calibre–a terrific free software for eBook management. It’s not all I’m going to need. There are some limitations to its conversion processes, but I’ve solved one of the major difficulties. I’ll be talking about that tomorrow in Tuesday’s Tips.

Meanwhile, this is a big step forward in what is shaping up to be a major project. The goal is to take much of my writing and make it available for purchase and download at the bookstore on this website. Instead of spending my energy trying to attract the attention of literary managers, agents and publishers’ assistants, I can spend it on making the work as good as I can and making it available as quickly as I can.

There are many, many hurdles to overcome before I get there–but getting past the gatekeeper isn’t going to be one of them!

* James Cameron, Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The play’s the thing*

And good actors don’t hurt

Today’s Monday Miracle actually happened yesterday when I went to see the last performance of The 5 & Dime’s production of Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts.

Now, I’d seen Next Fall previously, in New York, in its Off-Broadway incarnation, produced by Naked Angels. That production moved to Broadway–with the help of some perceptive commercial producers who recognized a good thing when they saw it. Clearly, they were not the only ones, because it was nominated for two Tonys: Best Play and Best Direction of a Play.

I’m on a mission to see what kind of theatre is being produced in and around my new home in the Jacksonville, FL area. Google led me to The 5 & Dime, among other theatres, and they were the first one with a show currently running.

I’ll be honest and say that my expectations were not high. (They weren’t especially low, either. I suppose they were non-committal.)

The 5 & Dime is a nomadic company. They don’t have a space of their own, and they mount their productions in various spaces in and around Jacksonville. At best, that says to me that they are a young company. At worst, it conjures up memories of the seediest of black box theatre off-off-off-off-broadway. (I’ve worked in some of those off-off-off. . .offs. The quality of the work can be very high. Or not. The spaces, though, are almost uniformly in a state of what we might describe as “run-down.”)

Their name. . .well, I loved Woolworth’s and the other five-and-dime stores. . .but you have to admit calling a theatre company The 5 & Dime doesn’t give it the same aura as calling it, say, the Nederlander or the Schubert or the National. A rose by any other name. . .,** however.

In addition, it didn’t appear from their marketing material that the cast is made up of Equity actors. Again, this does not mean it can’t be good. There are some very fine non-union actors.

So, I went–hoping for good theatre but prepared for the possibility of something somewhat less. I knew it wasn’t going to be bad. After all, the script is terrific. But was it going to measure up to the version I saw in New York?

How wonderful to find a little gem of a show in a great space with high production values and a very strong cast! Deserving of special mention: Antoinette D’Amico was really terrific as the mother, and Kevin Roberts and Joe Walz turned in excellent performances as Adam and Luke.

And I can’t remember her name, but the president of their Board gave what is possibly the best curtain speech before a show that I’ve ever heard.

It was a lovely afternoon at the theatre — funny and moving and thought-provoking — and I am definitely going back to see their next show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

In fact, I’m looking forward to it!

* Shakespeare again! It’s always a good day when I get to quote Shakespeare. This one’s from Hamlet, Act 2, Sc. 2.

** And again. Another Act 2, sc. 2. This time it’s Romeo & Juliet.

The world in motion

Constantly.

Something I’ve noticed since we moved to Florida from New York City: the natural world moves.

There’s a lot of activity in NYC. People are constantly scurrying here and there, running for the subway, flagging down a cab, squeezing into an elevator. Pedestrians and taxis and buses and cable cars and subways and ferries. And, of course, they all move.

But the environment is fairly static. Rectilinear. The prevailing impression is of hulking, stationary objects hemming you in. Great, solid constructions of stone and glass loom over you. Other than the occasional pigeon, there’s not a lot of motion that isn’t man-made. (Okay. There are occasional rats on the subway tracks and roaches — but ugh! And shiver. We don’t dwell on those.)

But here, everything moves all the time.

I wake up in the morning, and the sunlight reflects off the creek onto the ceiling, and the whole house shimmers as the water moves. Looking out the windows, the leaves flutter in the breeze, the Spanish Moss swings from branches that bend and sway. A cardinal skips from the ligustrum to the sweetgum tree, and a squirrel strolls past the glass door on the patio. Chances are there will be a butterfly on the gardenia and lizards scurrying from one place to another.

It’s an extraordinary thing to be surrounded by such constant motion. A little vertiginous, even.

But I’m getting use to it.

It’s all constantly changing.

Full of motion and miracles.

Like life.

Back on the treadmill…

Nose to the grindstone.

It’s Monday, and the miracle is that I am back on the treadmill. My commitment to exercise, which has risen from the ashes more often than any phoenix, has been resurrected once again.

I was never a particularly active kid. ‘Bookworm’ was the term of choice in those days rather than ‘couch potato.’ I guess the term had to change when it became a near certainty that the kid who was not outside running around was also not inside reading a book. TV, Nintendo, iTunes, Netflix maybe–but not many books. That, however, is a subject for another time.

Today’s subject is exercise. Blccch!

In New York, I walked everywhere. Plus, I went to the gym. Then we moved to Florida, and now, the most walking I do is behind the lawn mower around a .38 acre yard once every ten days or so. During the summer. You can’t really say that makes me a candidate for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. (I also eat more than I need to because a snack is always a good excuse to stop painting, or mowing, or cleaning, or writing. [Almost anything is a good excuse to stop writing. That is going to have to change! One step at a time, however.])

I thought I would walk a lot down here. It’s the Sunshine State, right? Decent weather year-round. My plan was to wander the neighborhood every day. Even, perhaps, walk to local stores or the library. Nobody really does that here, but it is certainly possible. They are no further away than many of my NY destinations were. No reason I couldn’t take a hike.

I was reckoning without the humidity, however. All those places are walk-able, but holy cow! I never intended to do laps in a sauna. Plus, there are two big dogs roaming my neighborhood that are bigger than the Shetland ponies my grandfather raised. They seem friendly, but… And there’s another dog—smaller, but ferocious—that charges the fence in an extremely loud and business-like way every time I walk by his house. (I like dogs. I just prefer their owners to be around when they are taller than I am and I am encroaching on their territory. The first time, at least. And that fence—it looks awfully low when there is a snarling, snapping and all-too-powerful bundle of unfriendliness on the other side.)

Outdoor rambles were clearly not going to become a regular thing.

So, after a week or two of mining Craigslist, I acquired a treadmill and an elliptical. We set them up in the laundry room. (We have a big laundry room.) And we already had weights, which my husband had set up in the garage.

Our own gym!

Kind of cool, right?

The trick, of course, is not only to have the equipment but to use the equipment.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to walk to work–like in the old days. The idea was that I should get up, have breakfast, spend 20-30 minutes on the treadmill and only then check my email and Facebook and all the million other time-wasting sites I lived without for an unspecified number of decades but which are now indispensable.

It was working.

Then I went to Maine.

Even in Maine, I managed to get to the fitness room at the hotel twice. Twice! That, in itself, was a miracle.

But I came back from Maine, and the fitness schedule fell apart.

I’m back on the treadmill, though. As of last Wednesday.

This is a good thing. In and of itself, it’s a good thing. I feel better, and I will probably live longer. (No cracks, please, about it just seeming longer.)

It’s also a good thing because discipline in one area reinforces discipline in others. I heard an acting career coach once talk about how the actors who were working were all actors who went to the gym. Her point was not that they looked better, although they probably did, or had more energy, although they almost certainly did–but that the same things required to make it in show business are the same things required to keep you going to the gym.

Commitment, discipline, a willingness to suffer. Dedication to a result that isn’t immediately apparent.

With apologies to the lyricist of New York, New York,* if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.

And if you don’t make it the first 800 times, that’s no reason not to try again.

So…I’m back on the treadmill.

* Fred Ebb of the fabulous Kander & Ebb.

Daunting Deadlines

Daring to dream

I’ve been thinking about deadlines a lot lately. Not surprising, really. After all, I’ve just started a blog. People can talk all they want about “blog” being short for “weblog.” It’s really short for “OMG! I haven’t written today’s post yet!”

The really ironic thing about this plunge into blogging is I hate deadlines. I don’t join writers’ groups because I have such a horror of them. The idea of 10 pages a week freaks me out. I can’t imagine being a journalist with a story due every day.

And yet…here I am.

I didn’t think about the deadline part of the blog when I began. I thought about the social media aspects, the marketing possibilities (eek!), the opportunity for self-expression. And, yes, I thought about giving myself a reason to write regularly.

This never translated in my mind into having to write regularly.

You know.

A deadline.

The odd thing is that when I have a deadline, I am more than capable of meeting it. I have pulled all-nighters to write papers and computer programs, to get a website up, to learn software and/or 17^th Century French history (L’etat c’est moi – and that’s about the extent of my French¹), to learn lines, and to drive to Charleston.²

So, why does a writing deadline seem such a burden to me?

I honestly am not sure.

But I guess I’m going to get over it, or crash and burn here. And I guess it’s also true that you always invite into your life that which you need to learn.

So, today’s Monday Miracle is that I made this deadline. And I haven’t run screaming into the night at the thought of all the other deadlines to which I’ve committed. (We used to call them “drop dead dates” at one place I worked. It doesn’t make it sound any better.)

I’m giving myself this opportunity to get past my dread of deadlines. It wasn’t what I thought would come out of this blogging adventure, but it should be useful. After all, as Napoleon Hill once said, “A goal is a dream with a deadline.”

Deadlines are good.

Only, let’s think of another word, okay?

(Comments open for suggestions.)

¹ Except for that tour I did of The Little Prince and those few scenes I learned phonetically.
² Charleston. Also The Little Prince tour. Van broke down, transmission had to be rebuilt overnight, 8 am curtain at a school – long story.

Touchdown!

Today’s Monday Miracle is that I am back home in Florida.

(At least, I hope so. This post was written ahead of time–so I wouldn’t forget. But unless you’ve heard of something unmentionable involving airplanes yesterday, it’s a pretty safe bet.)

And thank goodness.

Because I have a hard time believing in air travel.

And it is disconcerting to participate in something that seems so unlikely.

I mean, have you ever seen an airplane?!

Usually, I don’t really look at the airplanes I’m boarding. I walk down an enclosed jetway through a portal and sit down in a seat inside a tube (sort of). But when you travel to and from Maine, you get to be bussed across the tarmac, hand your rollaboard over to a guy with a cart (because even the carry-on won’t fit on the plane), and climb a set of stairs with the airplane attached.

Large as life and twice as natural.

Now, a plane to Maine is small. But it’s bigger than anything I know how to get up into the air.

So it seems unlikely that air travel is actually possible.

But it must be. Because here I am. Back home in Florida, when yesterday I was in Maine.

Whew!

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Monday Miracles