Pain of Coming Home

After completing my basic training, I was advised ‘not to go home on leave’ while in the service. “The pain of leaving again just isn’t worth the trip back home,” several RAs (regular Army) friends told me.

Never the less, after basic I returned home. I had a week to kill before traveling west to my next assignment. It was a surreal experience because all my friends (and girlfriend) were still in school and had little time for socializing. The short time period hardly permitted any substantive projects or endeavors. I was like a fish out of water. It was almost as if I had jumped off the train of my past life but it was still rolling along and I was sidelined in the process.

Six months later another transfer came through. This time I was heading south; Louisiana in the middle of summer. That stay at home was another week of torture. My girlfriend was busy in school. Old friends were scattered about and mostly unavailable. I swore I would never do it again and I didn’t.

After that second venture home, I stayed away until I was discharged and returned home for good. I spent my leave on trips to Mexico City and Acapulco. I spent weekends in Washington, D.C. and Beaumont, Texas just to get off base. It wasn’t ideal but it was a break from military life and it wasn’t home. My friends were right; the pain of leaving was just not worth the trip back home.

Recently I returned home early for a workshop and some business meetings. The same phenomena happened to me. Returning home briefly on business / pleasure brought back all those old feelings. I was out of my element once again.

Rosemount Book Festival

It was the Second Annual Rosemount Book Festival. Unlike the first year, I didn’t set up a table to sell books but I did my writing workshop instead. The workshop went well as did the meetings with several folks talking about theatrical venues for this summer. I got to see my grandchildren on several occasions and a couple of quick coffee connections if ever so briefly. Once again, those old feelings came back.

In some very surreal mysterious way it reminded me of several incidents when the same feelings crept back into my consciousness. After graduating from high school, I was working one summer at the CYC, Catholic Youth Center, in downtown Saint Paul. I was on a crew cleaning their gym. Six months earlier, I had been there with my girl dancing some slow dance and wondering about my/our future. It brought back a wave of teen angst.

Another time we were at our children’s band performance at a football game. I saw several seniors who had graduated that spring back at the game reliving their past. ‘Glory Days’ by Bruce Springsteen immediately came to mind.  I felt sorry for them.

In a recent blog, I talked about ‘living in the past’ and my revisiting old haunts, times and relationships in an attempt to connect the dots that define my past and present life. This time it was different. I wasn’t trying to reconnect with any old feelings or past experiences. Instead I was like a stranger in a strange land. I was like a fish out of water. I was out of my element.

It wasn’t just the sun-drenched Mountains in my backyard verses the snow piled up at home. It wasn’t just the bone-chilling temperatures that were average and comfortable for the native Minnesotans. It was deeper than that. It was the feeling that I was on temporary leave from my other life. I had been taken out of my regular routine of writing and exercise and reflection. I was on leave from life as I had come to define it.

We’ve become one with the community down here and unlike snowbirds or visitors; we live as residents and not seasonal visitors. That comfort level and familiarity with my surroundings made a return to Minnesota even briefly a bit of a surreal experience. Much like, I realize, being on leave from the service.

Like life in the service, it was a temporary experience. Soon I’ll be able to transfer my background scenery and another space for writing and now woods to tramp through. The settings will be different but I’ll be home once again.

Pool House & Black Caddie

For the first time in several years, our Indian Canyon neighborhood wasn’t included in this year’s home tours for Modernism Week. In years past, Sharon and I had volunteered to be docents. It was a great opportunity to meet more of our neighbors and peek in on the lives of the design-conscious, artsy-types who created these one-of-a-kind homes in our South Palm Springs neighborhood. Those homes are as much a statement as anything else. They speak of great taste in design, opulence, class, and status.

Beginning in the mid-40s, architects originated a design movement specific to the greater Palm Springs area. It became known as Desert Modern. Their buildings featured ground-breaking techniques such as post-and-beam supports, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and a wide array of colors to match the surrounding mountains and desert. Now famous architects such as William Krisel, E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, William F. Cody, Richard Neutra, and Donald Wexler were among the masters of this design.

Modernism Week is a signature event held every February in Palm Springs. It attracts thousands of modern architecture lovers from all over the country and the world. There are a host of events to showcase and highlight the very best of modernism designs and trends. There are art fairs, a modernism yard sale, vintage car show, lectures and films on historical Palm Springs arch-itecture, as well as many events at the convention center. Every year one of the highlights of the event are the neighborhood home tours.

While we didn’t get to tour homes in our neighborhood we did have a chance to visit the West Elm house designed specifically for this year’s Modernism Week. West Elm (a branch of William-Sonoma) offered a home tour for a vacation rental property that had been entirely decorated with West Elm furniture and dressings. They called it the Pool House and it was stunning.

It was fascinating to see what had been done to one of these retro houses and how the other half lives. Most of these homes were owned by interior designers…no surprise there. Each was a designer’s delight. Stunning is not too strong a word to describe some of those settings.

Fortunately, my taste doesn’t lean toward mid-century modern architecture or eclectic furnishings. I’m too old-fashioned for a $10,000 sofa designed by some ancient Italian or a chair made out of Plexiglas. Give me a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee and the mountains as my backdrop. That’s all I need.

Still it’s fun to look.

Ophelia's Daughters

Writers write for themselves or at least I think they should. Much has been written about a writer understanding the audience he or she is writing for. There’s a lot of misinformation (for newbies) about emulating the best sellers and giving their audience what you think readers want in terms of characters, settings, etc. In the words of one ebullient philosopher, ‘That’s all hooey.’

I believe you write what you want to write about, what drives your interest, what gets you out of bed in the morning and plants you in front of your keyboard. You should write from the heart and hope there is an audience for your work.

I’ve never tried to write with a specific audience in mind. In the beginning, I was mildly surprised to learn that a lot of women liked my western novels. I had foolishly decided who my audience was and totally missed an important segment of the reading public in the process. If you asked me about the YA, young adult market, I could honestly plead ignorance.

My last novel, ‘Follow the Cobbler,’ is a suspense thriller that follows my protagonist Brian, and his fellow traveler Katherine, around the world in pursuit of an elusive character simply known as ‘the cobbler.’ They are, in turn, being pursued by hunter-assassins known only as ‘the druids’ (named after a religious sect from early Roman times in ancient Britannia.) The novel contains some scenes of violence, sexual tension, romance, intrigue and many references to ancient times. It would hardly seem to be the fare for younger minds. Vida, my editor, thought differently.

I’ve been down that long arduous road called ‘being a teenager’ before. Teen angst is nothing new to me but it’s certainly not a back road I’d care to retrace at this stage in my life. So I was more than a little taken aback when Vida suggested that ‘Cobbler’ might be a good YA novel if edited properly. And she knew just the teens to do it. Imagine that, me writing for teens? Turns out the notion wasn’t that far-fetched. It just took a set of younger eyes to see it for me.

Amelie and Nedda are a couple of precocious twins with fearless hearts and critical eyes who were able to turn my 566-page juggernaut into a novel for the YA market. Other YA novels such as the Twilight series and The Hunger Games have proven immensely popular with teens and pre-teens. Upon reflection, I think there’s no reason why this newly revised version of ‘Cobbler’ might not do the same.

The twins spent last winter editing my manuscript, designing a new book cover and changing the title from ‘Follow the Cobbler’ to ‘Chasing Ophelia.’ They had carte blanche freedom to go as far or as easy as they wanted to in editing my work. My reasoning was simple. If they were Vida’s daughters, I was in good hands. I love the new book cover and title. Readers will very quickly grasp the significance of the cover and its background of Celtic symbols.

Now the real work begins. Vida has written a press release which we are actively sending out to local newspapers, magazines, tabloids and anywhere else we think might print it. We have beta readers reading the novel right now and giving us feedback on the YA marketplace. I hope to place the book in local bookstores and libraries upon my return to the Twin Cities. I have a ‘Meet the Author’ presentation scheduled for October 18^th at the Rosemount Library.

Of course, it was only fitting that my eldest granddaughter, Maya, be the first in the family to read ‘Ophelia.’ Her twin siblings are clamoring for their chance at the book, as are the Minnesota cousins. Their time will come with, I hope, that of a lot of other teens and pre-teens.

Recently our local newspaper picked up the story of the girls. A nice tribute to Amelie and Nedda and the great job they did on creating my newest YA novel.

Link to Sun ThisWeek newspaper Article