California Dreamin

I felt from the onset, upon returning to Minnesota, that this season would be different. I wasn’t wrong. Waleed, Sweetpea and a host of other characters made it one memorable summer. The work flow continued unabated and kept growing.

Waleed, my loveable skinny hippo, kept growing with two additional languages added to the storyline. In addition to English in every book, there now will be a choice of a second language; Swahili, Spanish or Hmong.

My new kind of comic strip called ‘Sweetpea and the Gang’ continued to morph in many different directions. Rather quickly, Sweetpea gained newfound traction with four comic strips completed, a sampler going out for review to prospective readers, and a growing inventory of story ideas for the strip. There are still many miles to travel before a clearly focused marketing plan is finalized.

While I wasn’t able to produce a new play in Minnesota this summer, I struck gold in California. ‘Widow’s Waltz,’ a different kind of love story, was accepted by Script2Stage in Palm Springs, California. Chosen for one of eight performance slots out of more than eighty submissions (from as far away as Germany and Thailand) my new play will be performed in November.

There were a number of other projects in various stages of development or marketing efforts. Both the PTV and Tangled Roots are at the head of that writing bundle to be completed.

I started out this summer with high hopes for a continuation of my ‘Coffee and Chat’ sessions. Very quickly, reality crept into the picture and several past participants choose to go their own separate ways. My remaining cerebral partners shared a wonderful summer, meeting up at parks, beach fronts, patios, and coffee shops, to engage in a wide variety of verbal bantering, mental jousting, and comradery.

The number of my blog readers seemed to rise and fall according to the subject matter; always a mystery to me. I also lost several long-time faithful readers who gradually disappeared over time; who knows why?

All of which leaves me entering this fall with a growing portfolio of projects; all of them in various stages of development or marketing phases. My transition to the desert should be a smooth one given my second lifestyle inside my head. While it’s not the land of milk and honey as envisioned by the refuges from the dust bowl back in the thirties, there’s definitely something about California that is calling me.

I have had a long and fractured romance with California. Its part delusional, part opportunistic and part magical. Mostly it’s a comfortable relationship that seems to bring out the flip side of me that a lot of folks never see. It is at once my friend, advisor, irritator, and councilor. It forces me outside of my Midwestern comfort zone.

We’ve been going there for more than twenty years. It’s like some intermittent love affair within a diverse community of characters in an environment of fascinating amenities. As much as the state changes and evolves, and stumbles and leaps ahead of others, it remains a pathfinder to me in so many ways.

It’s the cradle from which my imagination gives birth to creative, frivolous, silly, and enlightened ideas, concepts, and storylines. It inspires me and mocks me at the same time. It’s the flip side of that routine called lifestyle. If ever there were a strange balance in my life it might be labeled the Minnesota-California connection.

There’s a quote I love that goes something like this: “At some point in the journey, you realize it’s time to head back home. It doesn’t matter where you are in the journey, the Gods begin calling and you must return home.” I think there is something about that mysterious force called ‘home’ that calls to all of us. It happens to me every fall and then again in the spring.

Every fall, my tenure in Minnesota is challenged by my West Coast other-half knocking on the door of residency. Now that I’m part-time Californian, my perspective about my home state has changed. I love California. It appeals to my restless youth, errant and wandering mind, free soul, sometime corrupt and tranquilizing imagination. Come springtime, I feel the same way about Minnesota.

I live in two different worlds and I’m comfortable in both. One is progressive, adventurous, and sometimes a bit outrageous but always leaning forward. For half a year I wear my Southern California flip-flops as comfortably as any other seeker. But I also live in the Midwest and I’m darn proud of that too.

Starting this fall, there will be a new play to produce, more work on ‘Sweetpea’ and ‘Waleed’ and more involvement in the theater scene here. There will also be new trails to explore and more distant attractions like Joshua Tree, Laguna Beach, and Idyllwild to add to that list.

It’s a different environment for me here among the bobcats, cougars, coyotes, and bear-state mentality but the workload continues on unabated. I have a plethora of writing projects that are screaming for my attention.

Yet I know for a fact that come next spring, the same magical force will once again draw my attention back to Minnesota. I’m born and bred Minnesotan with a strong streak of California to taint my mind. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Both states have become home in more ways than one. They’re like a cradle upon which my imagination gives birth to creative, frivolous, silly, and sometimes enlightened ideas, concepts, and storylines. It’s the flip side of that routine called your average lifestyle. If ever there were a balance in my life, it would be called the Minnesota-California connection.

What can I say; it works for me.

Nobody is From Here

One of the many unique things about living in Palm Springs is that nobody is ‘from’ Palm Springs. We/they all come from someplace else. While not unique to other American outposts like Key West, Las Vegas and Taos, New Mexico, it’s certainly different than most rural and many urban communities.

Historically, the many ‘faces/facades of Palm Springs’ seems to congeal into this melting pot of divergent personalities through many different pathways. It might be as a tourist destination or a weekend getaway. Many folks have second homes in the desert and seek a different kind of life style out here.

This ‘not from here’ phenomena continues in the many diverse neighborhoods of Palm Springs. Each seems to attract an eclectic collection of personalities from ‘other places.’ Like a mountain man rendezvous, the folks come from many different directions to gather and socialize and share in like-minded attitudes towards life.

Festivals like Coachella and Stagecoach bring in the masses from all over the country. Local Palm Springs specific events like the International Palm Springs Film Festival and Modernism Week also bring in a plethora of attendees from around the country. You get an even more intimate peek into these phenomena when the locals cross paths with one another.

It might be at an early morning Starbucks run or around poolside or on top of a local mountain hiking trail. Wherever folks gather, the conversation usually circles around to where they came from and how they got here.

This is not surprising, since in the past, the average population of Palm Springs had usually hovered around 47,000 year round. Early on, the demographics were usually heavy in the blue collar, working class ranks. Since the mid-forties and forward, more and more folks have moved to the area on a permanent basis. Thus ‘born and raised here’ started to become the rarity it is today.

I experienced this through my involvement with the Palm Springs Writers Guild. Even after ten years of engagement, I have yet to meet a ‘native Palm Springs person.’ My fellow writers come from across the country with a large percentage from the West Coast area. Sharon found the same thing with her fellow early morning swim class participants.

None of our neighbors are from the area. They come from Texas, the Midwest, the East Coast, the Deep South and the Southwest. The single thread that seems to connect all of them is their disdain for winter weather as well as the inclusive nature of our community.

Our bi-annual Indian Canyon Neighborhood Organization parties are another example of this on a much larger scale. Of the four hundred and fifty homes in our neighborhood, very few are passed down generational abodes. The vast majority are permanent retirement homes or second homes for folks from someplace else.

Like Snowflakes Come and Gone

There seems to be three kinds of folks who reside in Palm Springs.

Aerial View of Palm Springs

The year-around residents who are seldom called natives since very few of them were ever born and raised in Palm Springs. Then there are the snowbirds who migrate here every fall and leave in the spring. Finally there is that curious tribe of part-timers who live here during the winter months and then go back to their other world when the air begins to bake. They’re neither full-timers nor are they just casual visitors. Most of them would bristle if you call them snowbirds but they haven’t endured the brutal summer heat so they can’t wear that full-time moniker either.

Palm Springs, like a lot of other resort communities, has a transient nature about it. Since its inception in the mid-30s it’s been that place most folks visit but seldom stay. The migration is heaviest during the winter months when a lot of visitors come here to pretend they’re in the playground of the stars, they’re someone else and reality is just that dirty snowbank blocking their driveway back home.

Unfortunately some of the natives find friendships with part-timers akin to those fleeting friendships in the service or temporary companionship on a cruise ship or tour bus.

While some of the locals, confident in themselves, can easily say: “It was great seeing you again. Let’s get together next fall when you return” there are others for whom part-time friendships are tainted by absence and waning interest.

It’s a curious kind of limbo that straddles two worlds; here and back there. The real challenge comes in establishing friendships or relationships amid a juxtaposition of a limited time frame, an artificial environment and focused commitment to the essence of what it means to be a friend. Some of the natives (full-timers) can accept these conditions while others can’t quite grab hold of that concept. I’m not sure why.

I’ve experienced some of those confusing relationships during the three seasons that we’ve spent here. In some instances, I think we’ve became casualties of unrealistic expectations in the land of make-believe. That or some resentment over the fact that we don’t have to endure the harsh summer months here.

My first season here I belonged to a great screenwriting group led by an energetic woman named Judy. Our meetings were lively, entertaining, informative and challenging. Unfortunately that spring Judy left for upstate New York and the group dissipated over the summer. Everyone had disappeared by the following fall.

Over several seasons, my wife and I have met several couples who live in our neighborhood. We quickly became fast friends…for a relatively short period of time. Then much like elementary school ‘best friends’ they disappeared over time and never reappeared. Now when we see them at neighborhood gatherings it’s as if we never met them in the first place. Very strange behavior indeed.

Last season, our fitness center became a casualty of the demolition of the Spa Hotel downtown. When the swim group went looking for another place to exercise it turned out that no other hotel wanted to take on a group of older men and women who simply wanted a place to exercise each morning. The hotels were very clear that they’d rather pander to sometimes drunk, usually half-naked twenty-one year olds around the pool rather than a group of steady customers serious about their exercising each morning. It was strictly for insurance purposes we were told.

Eventually another pool was found but within that group a growing chasm between natives and part-timers ended any hope of reunification. So the old group of year-round residents has their pool and Sharon and her friends found another one in town.

Over the seasons, some members of our loose federation of friends and associates became very comfortable with parties and events at our house. They loved coming here because (to be quoted) “Sharon is such a great hostess and you folks have the space.” But over time the idea of having reciprocating events at their place is no longer became part of their lexicon. A curious turn of events.

On a more personal level, I’ve met several fellow writers with whom I shared some great moments over coffee. But they also seemed to vanish into the background and never reappeared again. I’d like to find out why but their cyber door hasn’t been opened for quite some time now.

So this curious quest for new friends on a part-time basis continues.

2015 Palm Springs Writers' Expo

Fortunately there seems to be a growing cadre of new friends who are unhindered by time spent apart. My mantra is to seek them out here and there. I’m always searching for new ones while trying to hold on to the old ones; even tougher for an introvert like me.

Next season I hope to get more involved in local theater and play-writing. There is a new screenwriting group with the Palm Springs Writers Guild that I want to examine. It should be an interesting journey.

But I’m not interested in ‘empty calories.’ I want substance over distance and honesty over cocktail pleasantries.

Life is too short to expect anything else.