Under the Influence of Short Stories

How many times have I heard the question, "What book has influenced your life?" My comment is, in reply, "Tell me about a short story." I remember the story which changed my mother's life. The Dream Dust Factory, first published in 1947. Apparently, it was about a man who transported himself to this magical location when the going got tough by pushing an imaginary button in his brain. My mother even had a little hand signal when she was about to drift off from some tedious conversation; it involved touching her face with one finger and shooting me a wisp of a smile. Traveling on the train last week reminded me of a cautionary tale about expectations: a man working on a train route passes a house by the tracks on his run and waves to a woman and a child. Over the years, he begins to think of this as coming home. Eventually, the man retires and decides to go visit the woman. I don't recall whether the woman had also fantasized about the man waving at her through the years; I only remember the disappointment and shock (for the man, for the reader)when the man discovers the woman is not at all what he had hoped. Because of that story, I have been careful not to build up expectations, although generally, events in my life have exceeded the wild white mares of dreams. Another story which influenced me was O'Henry's, The Last Leaf. It taught me that death is an appointment we all have. The story saved me the wrenching, "If only I had..." In the story, the bedridden woman looks out the window at a tree in autumn and knows she will die when the last leaf falls, not before, not later. Nothing can prevent or alter this appointment. Poe's stories testified to the importance of mood and Isak Dinesen's, the spell of place. Arthur Conan Doyle made plotting and deduction as essential as a title. A short story is what my friend, Ellen, calls a "baklava event"--small, sweet, intense... and I would add, the taste lingers. Henry thought of Ray Bradbury's Golden Apples of the Sun and Billie Lu talked about the metaphorical imprisonment of women in The Yellow Wallpaper. Jenny said Gogol can't be beat for understanding the nature and propulsion of "habit" in our lives, that the world could be changed by discarding the pettiness of these daily decisions. Another form of entrapment? Frank O'Connor influenced my writing simply by his love of revision. His widow wrote a preface to a collection of his stories in which she said it would be the final version since he was now dead. I didn't know this about him but applauded when she said he rewrote stories after they were published. Like Mark Twain, Frank was a believer in getting the right word in the right place and having the lightning strike. John wrote: "I know you're looking for a short story by a writer who -- as Joyce might have put it -- succeeded in crafting an epiphany to fit into an economy size package. Perhaps like a small toy box in an animated cartoon. It opens and up pops a gigantic, fearsome clown. Two stories -- both read a hundred years ago and reread from time to time -- helped open a universe-sized door for me. The first was Salinger's A Perfect Day for Bananafish. I didn't know you could do that! It was a just a little grenade, but the shrapnel could have leveled a city. The second was William Faulkner's The Bear. Granted it's really a novel in disguise, but great writers deserve to get away with anything. Let bean counters color between the lines. Faulkner says 'Here is life in a universe that happens to be set in a place called Mississippi.' And it was and am I glad I got in." Will said he was affected by the struggles in Toilers of the Sea. Charlie's vote: "When I was in the Navy I read a Hemingway short story called, I believe, Up in Michigan (or maybe Minnesota). It made me realize how awful a woman's lot in life can be at the hands of a callous man." Perhaps because I am a descendant of the southwestern peoples who sat around fires under starry, expansive skies and told stories complete in one night is why I love a short story. Or it could have come from parables, as I thirsted for sermons using the illustration of a mustard seed or the lilies of the field. This is not to say I don't like novels. They are my favorites but if you list your ten best, one of them will always remind me of a short story. Short stories are the candy eggs with the dioramas delicately constructed inside, fragile ships in a bottle, or geodes cracked in half in a display case. They are exquisite miniatures bringing a particular lesson from the outer world. They are a wink, a blown kiss, a sudden smile, a notebook with extra pages, a tiny gift of prophecy, a brief concentrated glance of recognition. In their brevity lies their strength. They are the poetry of prose.
................
...may the blessings of fleeting golden moments be yours...

Setting the Stage

I was born in the late evening on the eve of the summer solstice, south of the equator(12 degrees, 58 minutes) where summer is winter during the time of the Festa da S?o J?o, a harvest festival.Throughout June, there are fireworks. I arrived to the sound of forro bands (accordions, hand-drums, triangle)and starbursts in the city by the Bay of All the Saints of the Savior. In the short form Portuguese, we called it Bahia. On a map, it's known as Salvador.
Salvador overlooks a bay. There are 38 islands in that bay. I probably never went to one but the view shaped my outlook. I am an islander at heart--enriched by an enclosed environment requiring a different kind of transportation so visitors would have to want to go there. It's not a loner existence but a special, set apart one. The state of Bahia is bigger than Texas.The cobbled streets near our house were steep. There was an elevator, Lacerda, built from the cidade alta to the cidade baixa (upper and lower city). It looks like a construction project in progress jutting out streamlined, modern, a rival to Rio's more famous massive protective Cristo with outstretched arms. I doubt that I rode the elevator or sailed on the bay. I was content to nest and sing in our beautiful house. I was given the name Christine by my father who had seen Greta Garbo in a talkie playing Queen Christina of Sweden. My godmother didn't like it. She had a silver baby cup inscribed"'Irene" and wouldn't change it. How did I get a godmother when my parents were agnostics? Leo Wrench, married to "Big Bob" Wrench, was a good friend and influential. Leo didn't like the name Della(my mother's name) so Della was arbitrarily changed to Judy, which stuck for forty years. My parents were also good friends with the British consul, a Catholic. Within a month of my birth I was christened Christine. The certificate is elaborately embellished. The christening dress could fit a tiny soft animal. It's curious that the agnostics branded me with a destiny-- follower of Christ. The Hindus say the awaiting soul chooses its parents. I can see it. I can see me also choosing that house in that place. The house was stone and, strangely for a South American house, had a large fireplace. It was a lesson in contrasts. There is a picture of me in front of the wintry fireplace dressed in summery batiste with my favorite object, a flyswatter. No blanket or doll for me. Judy said the bathrooms were like Grand Central station. I laid claim to the garden and my mosquito netted nook where I could hear the birds. I was carried about by the cook and her assistants, Alma and Zsa Zsa. My world consisted of music, comfort, my necklace and my flyswatter. My brother's existence was opposite to mine as he was going to a German school where he tackled his work dervishly and was first in his class by the end of the year. He spoke German & English. I spoke Portuguese in a waterfall sort of way. He was very busy and accomplished. Our encounters were friendly but we were already on differing paths. I preferred to sing all day and sew. Except for the times I almost died (of a fish bone stuck in my throat, a tropical fever going too high) my days were pleasant. My observational skills were honed by the visiting dignitaries. My mother thought it significant that Walt Disney was one of them. The Magic Kingdom coming to me.

.......
.....may the blessings of an island, a summer garden be yours..

ELEGY FOR A HIGHLAND MAN

photo credit: http://healingwoman.blogspot.com

.........

Douglas C. Taylor 1/16/1919-6/18/1999
.....

...........

Each year on June 18th, I have set aside a day to do Everything Douglas. I listen to Douglas music (no pop, rap, rock,blues, jazz, or Stravinsky) and play the cd of The Magic Flute which I received as a gift for a donation to WCPE after he died. The Magic Flute was his favorite opera and a highlight for him was when he was cast as a monk in Appalachian State's production. He made a good monk with his beard, basso profundo, and beanpole height. He was amused when at a restaurant someone came up to him asking for a blessing rather than an autograph. My remembrance reading for this day includes parts of a mystery such as something by P.D. James or Tony Hillerman and Psalm 100. I go to a cafeteria. Eureka had a buffet but not a cafeteria so Greek food was the alternate choice. My much loved theory was that Scotland was settled by Greeks rather than Romans. Douglas taught Humanities and was partial to the Greeks. I guess Romans didn't have as good a salad. He was a train lover and said the best part about living in Durham was that one could go anywhere from there. He hated cities. The closest he came to liking a city was Halifax, Nova Scotia. I think that was probably because of his chance encounter with a Greenpeace vessel and the subsequent conversation with a doctor on board. When they became overly animated, I told him that Douglas couldn't be spared as he needed to drive me home to Carolina. It was a close call and a few years later, Douglas was on a freighter going to New Zealand, taking a route very like that of the Rainbow Warrior. As to my attire for this day, I make sure when going out the door that I have my peace earrings and I think about Normandy. How could someone so sensitive and shy and bookish have managed all the horror? He had frequent nightmares about a particular German soldier. I imagine it was his first "kill." He would sob, "He was only a boy!" On the night Desert Storm was announced, we were at choir practice, a small choir at the Presbyterian church in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, as lovely and peaceful a place as one could imagine. I got up and left. I couldn't sing. But I wasn't the first one. Douglas was first. At the end of my remembering day, I try very quietly, Abide with Me, which Douglas sang for his father's funeral, a man who had been "saved" at the Boston boatyards, fresh from Scotland at the age of eighteen, by a Salvation Army quintet and later went to the Philippines to lead the singing at a YMCA. As far as I know, he did not play an instrument and discouraged Douglas from continuing his clarinet after graduating from New Rochelle High School. He didn't play for four decades until I found this out and suggested he return to the stage with the Watauga County Community Band. A lot of no's followed but I could see it was what he really wanted to do so off we went for clarinet buying. When he and my mother and I moved to Durham, he played in three bands and kept three t-shirts for the summer day when there was a gathering of bands. Personally, I thought he should wear his Scottish Country Dance tee. I was overruled. I think now of the evenings at the cabin when the fireflies came up at nine o'clock and the stars shone brighter than anywhere. I pretend he is dong an Amtrak loop or a Friendship Sloop adventure. I expect a postcard to come soon and I say goodbye all over again.

.......

.....may the years of your life bring joy enough to assuage the sorrow...

An Extravagance of Adjectives, Gently Placed

I like playful words, whimsical words, words with haloes of sparkles around them. I avoid what I call crudities and aspire to gathering images so beautiful that my bucket overfills with a sweetness comparable to a Round Meadow morning. My mother was wont to say, (yes, I like those old fashioned Shakespeare expressions which a Shakespearean scholar friend of mine claims it's good I don't understand as they would be banished from my lexicon forthwith). I like fabricated words and monikers. Sometimes I forget if what I have made up is make-believe until Spell Check asks if I want to "Add to Dictionary;" I always respond with Yes! In a notebook, I have some drawings of my Faerie's Dictionaerie. I'm getting sidetracked (again!). I was about to quote my mother quoting Oscar Wilde, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oh, and that bucket? It's not an ordinary bucket. It's a pail with tin punch cutouts of forget-me-nots and a poem written around the brim in burnished gold calligraphy catching the light. It has the sound of twigs knocking against each other in a summer storm. Oh-oh. I can feel a lecture beaming in about my not living in the Real World. I've heard that one before and before and before. Who needs Tell It Like It Is? This is my Real World. The perfume is heady and the sights dazzling. And it's a catalyst. I received an e-mail while in Eureka which began, "Fear not, my Friendly!" How delightful. How mimsey. How transforming of the day. It caused me to go out and say, "Hi, Friendlies!" to the owners of Dog and "Hi, Friendly!" to Grumpyette and "Hi, Freckles!" to what appeared to be a spotted owl pinata on a porch. And so I say to you, my fine feathered readers, embellish what you write. Decorate your day. I quote my mother quoting Mark Twain: "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." Say it better, flufflier, huger, nicelier..you can seed your garden one phrase at a time and the world will come to see it. Butterflies will inhabit it and crawly creatures with crimson dots on their tails will slither amidst its rockery. Imagination will be its maiden name and yours will be the joy. Etymology. What a lovely word. The etymology of exhilaration: it comes from two Latin words, ex "thoroughly" and hilarare "make cheerful."
....................
.....Add Sides
Stir the pot.
Keep it hot.
Let it not
be all we've got.--CT
......................

...the blessings of kindely, exuberant words and pineapple mornings be yours...