A Moving Tale

We were moving my parents into assisted living, so the destruction done by the mere passage of time, was on my mind. I was still stunned and reeling from the changes in my parents, just in the couple of months since I'd seen them last. It was heartbreaking to see them like that, and terrifying to imagine going that way myself.

That can happen? Was it time to plan my preemptive suicide?

Meanwhile, our goal was to create a mini-version of my parent's house as quickly as possible so they'd sleep in a semi-familiar setting that first night, diminishing the confusion. Among the things being moved was a picture of me taken when I was in high school. It had hung in my parent's bedroom forever, so it would hang again.

The movers were four beefy blond boys in their twenties who chatted to each other about their gyms and work-out regimes while lugging boxes and dressers.

My brother was in the new living room. I was around the corner unpacking the bedroom when I heard one of the movers say, "Whoa!" and make  hubba-hubba noises.

Another one of them added his male appreciation grunts, and asked my brother, "Who's this?"

"It's her," my brother answered, indicating me.

A stunned silence fell. The silence of young brains confronting  the cruel ravages of time. The awkward, lengthening, silence of troubled minds asking: "That can happen?"

Ha!
xo Amy

Home

Long ago I lived in Grand Ledge Michigan with a bunch of other sweaty, hopeful, unpaid, summer stock apprentices, and a dead rat in the pipes that stunk up the flat when any fool turned on the faucet.

The moment I remember most about that summer came after hearing a shriek of brakes and maybe a thud. Out the window, on the black street, I saw a very white dog in a pool of very red blood.

At the sight of me running toward him, he lifted his head and wagged his tail, splashing it in the blood. He believed I was coming to help him, to make it all better.

This image repeats on me like acid-reflux: the trust in his wag, the hopelessness and powerlessness of reality.

I'm back home, in bed in California now, having left my parents waving bravely from the door of their strange new apartment in assisted living in Michigan.

Images meld.

xo
Amy

One Black Ant

Back home in California I never saw a lone ant. 
 
Sometimes I'd unsettle a swarm in the garden and they'd spill like liquid in all directions. They occasionally made their long jagged march across my kitchen wall or descended like a brown fog on the dog food. But here in Michigan, at my parent's house, there seems to be one lone ant; a big, waxy-looking black one.

I noticed him for the first time a few weeks ago, struggling across the pile of the beige living room carpet. It seemed a dry and miserable trip so I scooped him up and rushed him out the door. But when I opened my hand, he was gone. I assumed I'd dropped him along the way and I didn't think about him again until I was sitting on the toilet a few days later and saw him hurrying across the white bathroom counter. He circumnavigated the sink then headed across the rough wall paper toward the towel rack.

His mission was a mystery to me, but his pace was clearly that of someone with a plan. Other than stopping briefly to rub his abdomen, and another time to rear up on his tiny hind legs to take the long view, he moved with the same certainty on his circuitous return trip to the sink.

I didn't grow up in this house, I've only known it as a guest. But this is where I've brought my children every summer of their lives, it is where they grew up and my parents grew old.

Since that day in the bathroom watching the ant, I've been distracted by things like my dad's four day stint in the cardiac care unit with swollen purple feet and Sun Downer's syndrome, and the near-impossible search for non-smarmy, bullshit-less advice for my mom's Parkinson's and vision problems.

But now, I just saw the ant again on that small nude sculpture in the den. We'd been discussing the possibility that the den furniture might fit in their new assisted living apartment. We haven't yet received the exact dimensions of their room. We hope it will accommodate the big brown chair, the coffee table and both small green couches, although we all secretly suspect that just one couch will fit, and even that will be a squeeze.

A moment later, the ant was hurrying across the brick of the hearth. Next, he veered off toward the blinds across the sliding glass door. 

I wonder if that ant has been at his thorough exploration every moment between the times I'd noticed him. The den is a long way from the bathroom. Was it a four day hospital stay away in ant distance? Had he covered every room between the two with equal energy and focus? Does that make him better prepared for moving day than the rest of us are?

When I think back to these goodbyes, will I remember the deep, dry pile of the beige carpet? The smoothness of the bathroom counter? The coolness of the small white marble sculpture? The black waxy ant? My parents as they once were?

xo Amy

A Contest!

Dear Dears,

        I was sitting in a beige, windowless, conference room at the local homeless shelter last week when I realized that what made the place so dreary was that there was no art on the walls. 

        That got me to thinking: If you're a homeless kid in transitional housing you don't have a refrigerator to hang your drawings on, or a bedroom wall to decorate with your stuff.

        So how about if we bring in some art supplies and have the kids paint some pictures to cheer the place up? And how about (since I'm of the kid's book world) if we get an illustrator in there, too?

        The full dream goes like this: When the kids come in (the shelter opens at 4:30 daily) an illustrator is there with a pile of books. He or she shows the kids some drawings and talks a little art, then signs a copy of the book for each kid to keep forever.

        Dinner is served at 6:00.  While the kids eat we set up painting stations with drop-cloths, paints, brushes, water, nice big pieces of thick paper for each kid.

        After dinner they paint. Wheeeee!

        At 8:30 the children go off to shower, homework, bed. While they sleep we frame their paintings and hang them up around the shelter. So when they wake the next morning they see their bright, beautiful, colorful, framed art on the walls! 

        The shelter will be a prettier, homier place for them having been there. And when the kids return that night, their art will be waiting! 

(we art-elves go on to the next shelter with another illustrator)     

        Here's where you come in: We need a fabulous name for this event. A warm, homey, arty, fun name. The sub-title can be, "Home is where the art is" But what is the title of the project?

        What would you name this thing? Any ideas? All you writers out there????? If you have one, please put it in the comments here, or email me at AmyGKoss@sbcglobal.net or note it on my facebook page. 

        The winner will be announced with great fanfare and he or she will receive my undying gratitude and boatloads of admiration!!!!!

        Many THANKS!!!!! and sticky kisses 

        xo Amy

        P.S. Why do we need a name? Because we don't want to go from store to store rattling our cup and begging for donations. And we do not want the illustrators to donate their time or books. That means we must apply for grants to pay for everything and make this happen, for that we need a wonderful name. 

Shelter

(This piece ran in the LA Times a cupla days ago. xo Amy)

When I appear at the fence of the Glendale homeless shelter with my rolling suitcase, I hear cries of "It's the book lady" or, if I'm with my daughter, "It's the book ladies; let them in!"

At that point, we are allowed to cut to the front of the line and pass through the gate without being wanded or searched. We then head for a table in the hall where we empty our suitcase and spread out our books.

Since I'm on the board of the Friends of the Glendale Public Library, I collect most of the books I bring from the red-dot, super-sale bookshelf at the library. These are donated books that no one purchased at the library's sale.

I also tell neighbors and friends that I am collecting gently used books for the homeless.

The response has been ... interesting. One friend, an otherwise intelligent person, dropped off a bag of glossy, hardcover coffee-table books. One that sticks in my mind was about Roman Polanski. What is a person who trudges through life like a hermit crab, with everything he owns on his back, supposed to do with 10 pounds of Polanski?

Other friends have asked me what kinds of books the homeless like, which is kind of like asking what kind of books tall people, or redheads, like.

"I assume," one friend said, "that they want easy, escapist stuff?"

Another said: "I don't think I have the right kind of books for homeless people."

This year, the Glendale shelter moved from near downtown to a funky industrial side street of concrete and cyclone wire. It has a 77-bed capacity, and it's first-come, first-served, which means that if you are the 78th to arrive, you lose.

As the lucky 77 souls enter each evening, they pass through security, which is handled by volunteers; then they sign in, and then they walk past my table.

At the beginning of the season I spent the whole time calling out "FREE BOOKS!" to everyone who came by. Now most of them know the drill. Some march right past, in a hurry to sign up for showers and get their cots. Others say they are satisfied with their Bibles. But many fall upon my book offerings as if they've been offered a feast.

One guy snaps up all the science fiction he can; another is always on the lookout for nonfiction science. One woman asks for poetry but needs large print because she has lost her glasses. As a glasses wearer myself, the idea of moving through the day without seeing clearly is nightmarish.

Some pick quickly, based, on author or cover art. Others pore over every book, examining the backs and blurbs, reading the first page, and asking me or those who have gathered around the table what we know about the books.

One man who looks like a young Santa Claus asks, winking, if I have "Fifty Shades of Grey." But he ends up taking mysteries. A woman, who wears her hair wrapped in a high, red scarf, always wants psychology books. After being there every Monday night since Dec. 1, I know to hold certain titles aside in case certain people show up.

The books are theirs to keep, to trade, to do whatever they like with but one woman always pushes her walker up to my table and returns last week's book for something new.

In less than an hour each Monday night, my books have been picked over, and dinner is being served in the other room, so I pack up and roll out.

Driving away from the shelter, I worry about the people I see walking around. Are they homeless? Did they miss the 77-person cutoff and now have nowhere to sleep? But I also feel glad that at least some guests at the shelter that night won't have to just stare up at that institutional ceiling, listening to 76 strangers snore. They'll have a book to get lost in as they lie on their cots.

I know that the shelter is only open from Dec. 1 to March 1, but it hadn't really sunk in what that meant until one of the guests asked me on Monday if it was my last time coming. That's when I realized it was the last Monday of February.

Where would all these people be next Monday night? And the Monday after that?

As I rolled my remaining books out through the gate this week, there was a small group of people who hadn't gotten beds for the night. Among them was the red-scarfed woman who reads psychology.

Never mind next Monday; where would she sleep that night?

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-koss-homeless-glendale-books-20140227,0,2580045.story#ixzz2uqrYjDpA

Facebook op-ed from The LA Times

The 10th birthday of Facebook last week caused me to recall my miserable pre-Facebook existence, when methods of procrastination were sorely limited.

As a stay-at-home writer, phone calls were unruly and hard to control. What if the other person wanted to tell a long story? What if she wanted me to really pay attention?

I could have a bit of contact with the outside world by scanning the newspaper or listening to the radio. But for me the switch in media was too jarring and tended to trigger frantic snacking, which often led to napping.

I needed a way to remain in my chair, at my screen, but be able to check in on friends without having to make small talk or even hold up my side of the conversation. Although I didn’t realise it, I also needed a chance to spy on semi-strangers and relatives and people from my past without breaking any laws.

I needed access to video snippets and newsy bits that someone else thought were funny or touching or bizarre. I needed a simple way to keep up with neighbourhood gossip and industry rumour. All while investing precisely as much time and attention as I wanted to, with no reciprocal responsibilities or guilt.

In short, I needed Facebook.

Satisfying the semi-social, procrastination needs of middle-age writers may not have been what Mark Zuckerberg had in mind when he launched Facebook, but he can count that among his accomplishments nonetheless. Thanks to him, with one click I can leave work, get out of my own story for exactly as long as I wish, then return to work. Better than ruby slippers!

I assume all Facebook users find their own community. I write children’s books, so the people who “friend” me tend to be teachers, librarians, other writers or readers. And they’re there for me.

Just the other day, I couldn’t remember the title or author of a book that I wanted to recommend to a friend, so I asked the communal Facebook brain. All I had to go on was the general subject and my memory of the cover art.

Within minutes I had the book’s title from a middle school librarian in Massachusetts whom I’ve never met. She probably came across my question while doing her own procrastinating.

Another time recently, I posted a picture of the grubs I found infesting my flower beds. By nightfall they’d been identified, remedies had been suggested, similar insect stories shared, sympathy extended.

What I didn’t expect when I first started using Facebook was that just through the accumulation of “status updates”, which are rarely more than a sentence or two, distinct personalities would emerge. Not all, but many of my 1,429 Facebook friends who began as total strangers have become virtual friends.

There’s also something wonderful about the ease of ending Facebook friendships. I can simply block anyone I find annoying, and they never know.

And when blocking isn’t enough, there is the delicious joy of unfriending.

The overzealous debut author who believed that relentless self-promotion via social media really was the path to success: One click, and he’s gone! The NRA kid whose response to school shootings was that the teachers should be armed: Unfriend! The antiabortion and marriage protection fanatics: Click, bye-bye!

But Facebook friendships can also pull you into real-life dramas.

I have one Facebook friend who is suffering from severe depression. She recently checked back into the “whack shack” (her words) for electric shock treatments, which she described in detail. She writes about her plight with humour and charm, but it tears my heart out. I find myself as anxious about her illness and treatments as I would be about an actual blood-and-bone friend.

Recently, a sweet guy I’d never met, and only knew from his Facebook posts, died. I learned this when his brother announced his sudden death - on Facebook. I was stunned, and totally blindsided by the depth of my emotion. But I wondered if I was entitled to be sad over a total stranger. Was it voyeuristic? Ghoulish? Inappropriate?

The sorrow felt entirely real, but it was embarrassing.

I secretly went to his Facebook page and found that I was not alone.

Alongside his real-life friends and family, many people who had only known him on Facebook posted condolences and memories and prayers. His online community mourned. We comforted one another. Some of us eventually became Facebook friends.

Maybe those of us who connect on Facebook care for each other and cry over each other in the same way we do over beloved characters in novels and movies.

As a fiction writer, I take those relationships seriously. So even if the whole Facebook world is just a new kind of fiction, the laughs are real, and so are the sorrows.

And the procrastination is exquisite.

xo Amy

P.S. This first appeared as an op-ed in The LA Times.

Here is the link:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-koss-facebook-anniversary-20140216,0,188628.story#axzz2tgY5SMxE

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