The Empty Lot

The empty lot behind my house, where my kids flew on a rope swing and tobogganed on cardboard down the dirt hillside, 

Where Sweetie-the-dog went from pup to old lady to memory, 

Where the avocados drop from the tree and the pomegranate grow for free... 

Where we picnicked on the flattened grass where deer had slept the night before. 

And where I once found the perfect skeleton of a young coyote who'd died curled up, as if asleep with his head on his paws.

And the leg bone of a deer, who’d died much less peacefully.

The empty lot that we referred to as “the lemon store” in season,

Has just been sold and scrubbed of all life, and fenced off. 

I don’t know who bought it or what they plan to build there.  

I’d always meant to take one photo of it a month for a year to make a calendar, to show the folks back home in Michigan who think we don’t have seasons here. 
The empty lot went from a field of tender baby grass, 

to a mass of yellow flowers, 

to towering weeds that a pup could get lost in,

to a crisp tangle of burrs and dried seed pods. 

The perfect southern California field. 

Ah well. Another ending.

And my house was probably once someone's empty lot. 

Perhaps some day, I’ll be able to see it as a beginning. 

Maybe marvelous new friends will move in. 

Maybe the new place will have magic ponies, or... or...

But right now, I can’t imagine any replacement being an improvement over the birds, and butterflies and wild flowers and bunnies and deer and silence -- The full emptiness of our empty lot.

xo Amy 

Homage to Audio Books!

When I was a child, the only good thing about getting sick was being read to. 

My dad used to read the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, and Dr. Seuss' The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. 

My mom read me A.A. Milne poems, and Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline. 

Actually, my parents must have read other things to me as well, but those are the ones I still hear in my heart.

My fourth grade teacher read Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Doolittle to our class if we were good. I remember that as the best thing about being nine. 

And when my husband and I were young and newly in love, he sometimes read out loud on long drives. 

Once the babies came I read to them of course, but no one read back. So eventually, listening to stories because limited to talk-radio and the occasional campfire ghost story. This left many too many years of blank emptiness in my life where listening to stories should have been.

Then recently, my daughter, who lives six hours away, got sick and hospitalized. 

I had to make that drive several times, stressed, sleep deprived, jumpy and alone. Luckily, a librarian friend suggested checking out the audio book collection at the library. 

I rushed in, grabbed an arm load of funny books, and serious books, classics and contemporary short stories -- audio versions of books I’d been meaning to read, and others I’d read long ago. Everything was, of course, free.

All the way up north, and all the way back home, I listened. Being read to calmed me, distracted me from my anxiety, and kept me company. 

The readers never tired, they waited while I got gas, they resumed reading from exactly where they’d left off, and they weren’t offended when I cut them off to switch to another book. 

The stories carried me safely up and back, up and back, up and back. 

My daughter is fine now, and I’m regaining my balance. I’m grateful to medical science for my daughter’s recovery. For mine, I credit the healing power of audio books. Those stories got me through.     

xo 

Amy 

Mom-Up!

A friend of mine is being stalked by a mixed up ex-friend in college. 

The stalker has a history of troubles, and has been diagnosed, medicated, and locked up, but is currently off his meds, and on his own. In discussions of restraining orders and such, the conversation often turns to questions about his mother...

Where the hell is she and what is she doing about her son?

I feel for the mom. I had a paranoid schizophrenic uncle who blamed and tormented my mom all his life. Their own mother was dead, or I assume he would have blamed her instead. But my mom had to take her mom’s place. My childhood memories of my uncle’s calls and visits were of my mom’s helpless despair. 

That was when I learned that untreated mental illness was wildly contagious and could burn through an entire family, bringing the household to its knees. As a kid I only wished my uncle would get hit by a truck.

 

Every time my uncle got a new case worker, they’d call my mom wondering how any sister could be heartless enough to let her own brother wander around being so miserable and crazy. 

They’d barely conceal their contempt for her. 

After they’d tried to help him for a while, however, the accusatory calls would slow and eventually cease. There would be peace, until my uncle was either arrested again, or got a new case worker some other way. Then the shame and guilt inducing calls would begin again. Even the hospice nurses on his death bed judged us harshly.

So, where do I get off asking about this stalker kid’s poor mom? You’d think I’d take pity on her, and I do. But still, I believe there's a difference between sisterhood and mother hood.  

As my own mom once said; “You belong to your child from their first breath to your last.” There's no time off.

On one hand, I hate it that mothers get blamed whenever their kid does anything bad.

 On the other, I don't think moms are allowed to shrug and walk away. 
The stalker's mom doesn't get to say, "I tried, but this is hard and my kid is a mess, so I give up." Giving up on your kid is not an option.

Elsewhere in the news, (this may seem unrelated, but it's not) I recently had a gig teaching writing to "at risk teen girls." Today I learned that one of those girls, age 16, 17 at the most, has just become a mother.
  

To me this kid had seemed like an immature, semi-pathetic but not quite tragic girl with a crappy family and no particular skills or dreams. I know there are wondrous stories of people turning their lives around, but it’s hard for me to imagine this particular kid having what it takes to do much besides whine.

True, some moms leave their babies in dumpsters. Some species eat their young and there are times in every mother’s life when she totally gets why some moms run away from home. But for the most part, some super strength kicks in, and moms pull on their mom-pants, and do their best.  

I just hope my ex-writing student can Mom Up when needed. 

And I hope the mom of my friend’s stalker will, too.

xo Amy

By Self!

After my daughter's graduation I crawled into bed and watched home movies. On the screen, an earlier version of the same daughter fumbled with her chubby baby hands, determined to zip her own jacket. 

"By self!" she'd insisted in toddler duck-speak, shunning any assistance. "BY SELF!" 

As a broke, newly minted college grad, she'll now have the chance to do plenty 'by self.' Looking around, however, it's clear that many otherwise independent adults want the least 'by self' possible. 

 Pedicure from my point of view "Thuy!" by Debra Blake

Although we are well and capable, we hire people to wash and dry our hair. We pay strangers to file and paint our nails, to massage our naked flesh with oils, to pluck or shave or rip unwanted hair from our faces and bodies, to spray on our tans, to clean our homes, wash our clothes, sweep our walks, cut our lawns, and park our cars.

Eventually, many of us will have to hire strangers to feed, bathe and dress us, but I doubt we'll be all that proud or happy about it. I suspect that we'd much prefer to wipe our own asses, and in moments of lucidity  will long to proclaim 'BY SELF!' once more. 

From wee babes who insist on zipping their own jackets -- to befuddled elders flummoxed by button holes -- and everything in between -- aren't we quite the critter?

xo Amy

Mothers

I have nothing against motherhood -- it's the holiday that pisses me off.

Anne Lamott wrote more or less the same thing I was going to write for mother's day.

My point was gonna be that Mother's Day (like so many other holidays) causes more pain on average than joy, and that all days that are designed to leave people out, or make them feel like shit, would be banned from the world I rule.

Meanwhile, here's Ann's post:

http://www.salon.com/2010/05/08/hate_mothers_day_anne_lamott/

and that is all.
xo Amy

Seething-with-hatred blog

If you’ve ever waited for medical test results for yourself or someone you love... 

And had the business day end with no one bothering to call you with those results... 

And if the next day no one returned your messages.

And the office closed, without word... 

Than you know how frustrated and furious I am.

How dare they be so cruel?

So cavalier?

So utterly unthinking?

I know it’s not fair to judge the entire medical establishment by a few utter shit-balls... 

And I suppose it is remotely possible that some people in medicine might not be reprehensible assholes... 

So, instead of wishing slow, writhing agony on all of them...

I restrict this curse to every doctor, technician and nurse who ever left a patient dangling, frightened and powerless... 

prolonging their patients' suffering...

I dearly hope they soon find themselves stuck for a nice long time in that patient’s place of extended emotional agony and uncertainty. 

That’s fair, isn’t it?

Amy 

World Book Night II

Dears, I HATE to miss it, but I'm outta town this year during WBN. So, am posting a rerun of last years WBN blog in case you're interested.
Lots of Love, Amy

Here's all I knew about World Book Night, when I applied on-line to be a book giver --  I'd be volunteering to hand out 20 copies of one of 30 titles especially printed for this event, authors foregoing royalty, publishers foregoing profits, everyone just spreading a love of reading to people who don’t normally have easy access to books. The idea was to hand out a half a million free books, in 6,000 towns and cities across the country, all on the same day.

On the application I said I’d leave the books on park benches and bus stops & I chose to pick my books up from Vroman’s, an independent book store where I teach. Picking the book was a little harder, it was a great list.  

I decided not to do a teen book, because that was too close to my real life. So I chose Tim O’Brian’s brilliant Vietnam novel The Things They Carried, because I could remember exactly where I was when I’d read and loved it many years ago, and for a compulsive reader like myself, that’s saying something.

I’d asked a few friends if they wanted to give away books with me. Many said they’d love to, but it ultimately whittled down to one pal saying she'd try to join me for an hour or so in the late afternoon, and my husband agreeing to go with me at night.

I pictured one of us driving the get-away car, trolling the streets, slowing by a park bench and idling while the other one pops out, places the book at a tempting angle, and we zoom away.

That brings us to World Book night - day.  It was rainy as I drove to Pasadena to pick up my box of books. I figured I’d stop on the way back and get plastic bags to wrap each book in.  In my minds eye, however, they looked a whole lot less tempting in bags on soggy benches.   

At Vroman’s will call, I was given a small black pin with white letters that said, World Book Night, Book Giver, April 23, a xeroxed thanks and congratulations, a sheet of hints and reminders of no significance, and, ta-da! My box of books!

I tore it open the second I got back to the car. Then pulled out of the parking lot, suddenly so giddy, that I rolled down the window and offered a book to the first person I saw. 

“Want a free book?” I called out through the drizzle to a guy waiting at the light. His eyes darted for a second, but then he shrugged, “Sure,” and stepped closer to take the copy I was waggling out the window. 

“It’s World Book Night!” I shrieked in explanation.

I pulled away, thrilled with my first triumph, until I realized he'd been wearing a snazzy bright green jogging kind of thing and was probably a rich Cal Tech student with more books in his library than I had in mine. 

I had to be more selective. But really, my adrenalin was pumping and I suddenly knew how Santa must feel with his big bag of presents. 

So, too excited to wait, never mind my plans to take people with me later, I immediately got on the freeway and headed straight for Skid Row. 

As I drove, ok, sped, I decided two things. 1.) I would pace myself and only give out 10 of my remaining 19 books down town, saving eight for my originally planned park benches and bus stops.  And 2.) There’d be no more impulsive giving to people who might possibly be rich.

But as I got off the freeway at Hill I had to stop myself from rolling down the window at every light and hysterically hurling books at whoever passed by. I did let myself give one out at a light in China Town, but then I took myself firmly in hand and sternly reminded myself to face the grim reality of already being down two books. 

I found a parking meter a block and a half before the mission on 6th. I only had enough change for 15 minutes, so I hastily stuffed eight books in my purse and two under my arm, and hit the street. 

A few dampish folk, sitting beside their blue-tarp tents said, “no thanks,” or “I’ll get it next time,” but others accepted my books with pleasure. Some looked a teeny bit suspicious, one asked if the book was of a “biblical nature.” But in no time my ten books were gone.  I hadn’t even made it all the way to the mission, where a crowd of rain-soaked people were waiting outside. 

I  returned to my car and dealt a few more books out to people passing by. One woman pulled the book she was reading out of her cart to show me that she was almost done with it. Another told me he didn’t want a Vietnam story, “Vietnam was boring.”

Good! I thought. I'm giving way too many out down here anyway. But trying not to give any more away, was like trying to save the last few cookies for later. Ha! The next guy who passed wanted one.  And then, there were only two left.

I’d wondered earlier if it would be considered stealing for me to keep one commemorative copy, since this was a special one time printing, and the first World Book Night in the States, and all... But fate answered for me, as the last book left my hand. 

My parking meter hadn’t even run out, and all I had left was my Book Giver pin, which I hadn’t even put on yet, and an empty cardboard box that I’d bequeath to my Guinea pig as a new hidey-hole when I got home. My World Book Night -- over by noon!

xo

amy

P.S The WBN facebook page is full of great stories. 
 https://www.facebook.com/worldbooknightusa