Group Writing

In the 90s a group of women and I formed an on-line writing group.

We came from Switzerland, US, Germany, the UK, Israel and Australia. We had met through our membership in the International Women's Writing Group whose goal it to "empowering women writers with innovative and diverse professional resources, mentoring, and support."

We are still in contact, although we've lost two of our members.

What bonded us together was putting together an anthology of interlocking short stories all set in Camden Market in London.

The book was written prior to the internet so we had to rely on descriptions of people who had been there. 

We developed our characters, shared them and then decided which ones would appear in the work of others. Emails burned up the internet as we shared our progress.

A cover was decided on. 

The book is available in Kindle and paperback https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Found-Camden-Ann-Hacker-ebook/dp/B00IMHJH8Y

Although we never did a second project, between email and Facebook we are in contact with varying frequency. Some of us who are geographically close have met in person. We know of each other's successes and frustrations, our moves, our kids. 

How lucky I was to run across these talented, kind women. It would be lovely if we could all be in the same place at the same time, but time, money and distance make that unlikely. It's not important because we been in the same place for decades whenever we open our email or Facebook. 

They are there in my computer and my heart.

travel vs. home

My grandmother was a homebody, literally. Weeks would go by and she'd never go out except in the garden. When she did, she always put on her best dress, hat and gloves even in the 1950s

She had lived in Chicago when she was first married. In her 50s, she and her girl friends trained to D.C. where they giggled like teenagers and short sheeted each other's beds.

Her only other travel was to her brother's in N.J. where she broke her ankle and spent the week in his house at least enjoying his and her sister-in-law's company.

My grandfather never wanted to leave his beloved garden, an engineering feat.

They were happy.

Likewise my mother thought Reading, MA had everything she needed. No need to go on vacations. The country club was only five minutes down the street, the Quannapowitt Players put on four plays a year, the town symphony held concerts. Sometimes she might venture into the next town for a restaurant. Later in life business and her later career as a journalist took her up the road a piece about a half hour to Lawrence.

I dreamed of owning a suitcase and packing it to roam the world.

At 20 as a new bride, my dreams started to come true. I went to Stuttgart, Germany where my then husband was in an Army Band. He and I did a little travel: D.C., Niagara Falls, Nashua NH, mainly to visit friends.

Only after my divorce did I get to travel as I wanted. The urge must have come from some rogue DNA.

We are just back from Edinburgh where my now and wonderful husband played in a hickory golf tournament. We stayed near Trinity, for the second time and in the same house. Edinburgh is a city I can't get enough of. As soon as we got home he left on business in Berlin. I had gone with him last time. I wanted to get cozy with our dog and the flat I love.

In about two weeks we will return to other home on Lake Léman (Geneva) with its view of the Alps and Jura where we will spend the winter with a two week trip to Boston to spend Christmas with my daughter.

We said we would cut down on traveling, but we managed this year to go Davos (not when the World Economic Forum was there), Charlie Chaplin's museum inn Vevey where we also attended the once in every 20 years Fête des Vignerons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeQEaEZSYXM

We sang with a hologram of ABBA in Stockholm and were gobsmacked by the Vasa ship museum.

Next year we have plans for visits to Toronto, Nova Scotia, Reading, MA, several places in Switzerland and France. London is also a realistic probability. It is not unreasonable to decide to think it is possible to go to Paris from Geneva for lunch. From Geneva we could also go to Italy or Germany for a day.

Rick will also do Orlando.

I love these trips but I also love snuggling down in either home with a sorta routine. Walking past a painting, seeing flowers on the desk we found in a depot vente. It was hand carved. I love being in my kitchen and looking at the stone walls. So I guess there's a bit of my family's stay-at-home DNA along with the stranger's DNA.

It's wonderful it is not either/or.

food

I never ate Oreos until 1990 when I moved to Switzerland and couldn't get them. Then I wanted them desperately. (My husband has the same desire for spedis from Endicott, NY-a special sandwich) or poutine from Montreal.

Recently, I enthused about New England/New York corn-on-the-cob and Dunkin' Donuts raisin cinnamon bagels which my husband brought back from the States. In Scotland last week I was able to get the bagels at Morrison's along with crumpets, which are not possible in our little French village. Rarely, we could find crumpets in Geneva. Paradise! And then there are scones.

In Germany where I live, I long for wurst and hot potato salad.

Now with a trip looming for Boston, I have my taster set for what I consider these hard or impossible to get items. My daughter is already on safari to stock them just as when she comes to visit, she shoves treats in her suitcase.

As for the cider, I found a recipe for homemade. I will try it Wednesday night to have for my husband when he comes home.

Would I want these things if I could just walk around the corner and buy them.

YES!!!!

Good bye

We are leaving the land of Irn Bru tomorrow. Sigh!

Good bye Adam Smith and all the other historic figures and their statues. I am smug that I know about so many of them.

Good bye Walter Scott and all the writers living and dead who have walked these streets. I half expect Bertie (44 Scotland Streeet series by Alexander McCall Smith), Tony and Carol (Val McDermid characters not my friends the Andersons) Harry Potter, Bobbie Burns ghost, Rebus (Ian Rankin) and hundreds of other writers and characters I've read about and given me months of enjoyment to walk by me. It is even more pleasurable that when a writer mentions Princes Street, North Bridge, the Firth of Forth, I know exactly what it looks like.

Good bye all the cake shops and tea rooms. Good bye Pub Grub (and quizzes).

Good bye reminder of the Fringe and all the festivals. You are a draw to come back.

Good bye all the touristy things, plaids, woolens, puns.

Good bye No. 23 bus and Edinburgh's great public transportation system.

Good bye to the bagpipe players sprinkled tragically around the city.

Good bye to the castle that we can see as we wait for the bus.

If I had my life to live over, I would try and live in this city at least for a while. I love Geneva, I love Argelès and I love Edinburgh.

The writing life

There are writers who sit down in the morning and don't get up until they've completed X number of words.

I wish I was one of them.

I envy their concentration.

I find it easier to write in Geneva. When I poke my nose out the door in Argelès, I run into so many people whom I know and enjoying talking with. No one forces me to sit down and drink a cuppa with them. I want to.

However in Geneva, the walk to the lake, the view of the Alps or Jura -- well who wouldn't want to take in that beauty? But it is still a distraction that I don't fight. The time of the distraction is shorter than in France because of lack of people.

No one forces me to make sure the house is orderly, the laundry hung up, the dishwasher empty before I sit down to the computer. Nor does anyone put a book in my hand and command "READ!"

Rick and I share lunch duties. I do enjoy cooking since it isn't a three-meal-a-day-seven-days-a-week chore. Either of us can select a restaurant for "my day to cook let's go to (fill in the blank)"

And there's the world news to check never mind Max Keiser and democracynow.org.

Computer games? Guilty.

Sherlock needs walks and even if Rick takes him the most, I relieve him sometimes and often it nice to go as a family of three.

As night settles in, snuggling on the couch with my husband, my dog and maybe some ice cream -- nothing better.

When all this is going on, however, I am still writing in my head. My characters are with me. Brenda is happy to learn she will finally meet her patron and Anne-Marie no longer trusts Liam but should she go back with her husband? Why is Medora continuing to live with her abusive husband and could Ashley be more understanding? I am thinking of getting them altogether for a mega-chat session that will never be in the book but will focus my thoughts. Often writing to clarify works.

There's the technical part, the rewriting. Cut this, add that. Strengthen those verbs. search for ly and try to rid the ms. of adverbs. Move that paragraph if not that chapter to another place. Show don't tell, dummy, I know better. Rewrite it.

There are projects that I've written like Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles that obsessed me for almost a year as I did the research. I'm not sure I ever want to be that caught up again.

I read that the poet Rilke missed his daughter's wedding because he was writing a poem. I don't want to live that way.

Living is as important as writing and I can't do one with out the other -- either way.

Thus so far this morning I've...

• Cuddled with my husband
• Made the bed
• Eaten breakfast
• More or less cleaned the kitchen with the emphasis on the less
• Seen my husband off to his golf tournament
• Showered
• Dressed
• Checked both email addresses
• Checked and commented on Facebook
• Taken a photo
• Uploaded photos to Facebook
• Sent three emails to my husband on communication
• Written this blog

I am out of excuses. I'll post and then get back to Daycare. The women are waiting for me.

Mary's locks

In 7th grade I won a costume prize as Mary Queen of Scots AFTER the execution. My grandmother had made me a period style dress where the ruff instead of being at my neck was on top of my head. The hole was covered in a blood red cloth. I had a peep hole so I could see where I was going.

Dar (which I called my grandmother) had taken a cornucopia and covered it with cloth including a train. She covered a ball with skin colored cloth and drew an anguished face which filled the cornucopia's opening. I carried it under my arm.

Mary, Queen of Scots, had always fascinated me. As a reward for being good at the dentist, I was allowed to buy a book.

The Landmark series for children covered many historical topics all written by talented writers.

I selected the one on Mary and devoured it in a couple of days.

The TV show "You are There" which took historical events and treated them as on the scene current news, did a program on Mary's execution. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNIvFfwEieI

It shows the politics and how Mary refused to enter the hall without her ladies in waiting. It describes every movement that was recorded of the execution.

I never expected as a child to get up close to any place Mary had been. I was so wrong.

Twice I've been to Holyrood Palace where her alleged lover David Rizzio was killed in front of her.

I've also been to Stirling castle and stood at the place where she was crowned as a baby upon the death of her father.

This trip to Scotland, I was not expecting to see anything of Mary.

I was wrong.

On a bus trip to we ended up at the Mary Queen of Scots House in Jedburgh. I walked through her bedroom where she had spent a few weeks. The room is smaller than my bedroom in Argelès.

Other rooms were also small.

It is a modest house made of brick. Fireplaces are in almost every room, much needed against the cold weather of Northern England.

One display had a lock of her hair. A fragment of the dress she wore at her execution was next to the lock. On the other side of the room was her death mask.

I feel over the years I've been as close to Mary as anyone can be when separated by centuries.

Reading history is one thing. Touching it? A true privilege.


Another version of her life/death is here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU89DSRirb4 

The movie that is out about her is full of inaccuracies. Her real life was dramatic enough, they didn't need to change events.

Darn! Sunshine

Darn it today it is sunny.

Let me explain.

We're in Edinburgh where it rains. A lot.

I belong to a Facebook group called With Flying Colours, started by Karrie Barron, a woman whose life is an art form.  Way, way back she posted yellow subject photos for a week. Then another colo(u)r the week after. Karrie is a Brit therefore, the u in color.

The Facebook page morphed into a group which now has 163 members from all major continents.

Each week, a member selects a theme and not just colors. We've done triangles, shadows, reflections, clouds, etc. When a new theme is announced Rick and I often go on photo safari to find photos fitting the theme. It makes us look at things that we might never "see" otherwise.

This week's theme is raindrops.

Wonderful we thought. Easy Peasy! This is Scotland. It always rains. The day before we had been on a bus tour to Hadrian's Wall where the weather was everything from mist to downpour.

What has the weather been since we needed raindrops?

Sunny.

It is not the first time the weather has changed our plans.

A few years back we were going to spend a week in the Andora mountains. We heard the weather was going to be rainy. We were thrilled because we both had writing projects and we thought holed up in this B&B where we stayed the year before would be perfect.

What was the weather?

• Monday Sunny.
• Tuesday Sunny
• Wednesday Sunny
• Thursday Sunny
• Friday Sunday
• Sunday Sunny

We did take advantage of the lovely days to the detriment of our writing. I even played a round of golf with my husband.

At least it is sunny for my husband's golf tournament, but a little rain near the Firth of Forth just over the area long enough to shoot a few photos would not go amiss.

Pretending

 View from our bedroom window in Edinburgh.

This week I'm pretending we're living in Edinburgh. We're staying in the house where we stayed last time, only this time we met the owner.

About four years ago we were going to cat sit for them. They said they were also interested in a house swap. All arrangements were made, but then I was diagnosed with the cancer and their cat died. Since we went from Argelès-sur-mer to Geneva for my medical treatment, we suggested that Alison and her friend stay in our Southern France house just the same. They did, saying someday we could stay in their Edinburgh home.

From then on whenever Alison traveled we were offered their Edinburgh home. We took them up on it for a month and had a wonderful time. We each told the other about travel plans and away from home time.

This year Rick is playing in a Hickory Golf Tournament in Edinburgh and we asked by chance if they were going away. She replied, "No, but we can." Thus we ended up in the same place, which we love for the house and the neighborhood.

Although she apologized for not being able to leave her car this time (no need at all), they waited for us for the turn over of keys.

We oooed and ahhhed over the new kitchen and settled in.

By now we are totally at home in the city: Morrisons, pub quizzes, Georgian buildings, restaurants, Scott's statue, kilt-wearing bagpipe players, plaid, haggis, the great bus system, etc.

This is a shorter stay but happily we are joined by my kid and her/our Swedish friend. Even if it were just two of us, I can pretend this is my home full time.

And yes I would miss Geneva and Argelès, but I am so greedy. Anyone know of a place I can be cloned twice so I can live in all three places all the time?

Hope

The young have dreams. I've run into two young people who are doing what they can to change their dreams into reality.

PAULINE 

This young woman has opened a tea room full of her baked goods in Argelès-sur-mer. But she is also a talented cake baker and decorator. Some of her cakes are more classic but she can do create fun ones to for children's parties (or adults). Her enthusiasm and friendliness adds to the pleasure of nibbling one of her creations in the shop but she will as quickly wrap them up for enjoyment later.

CAMERON

I had to find out why he was offering free tours. He told me he wants to open his own tour company, and is doing his tours for tips to finance it. We were too hungry to take one and want to find a restaurant more, but his warmth and enthusiasm made me hope he succeeds.

Both Cameron and Pauline have dreams and are doing everything possible to make them reality. May they succeed.

Style

There is no right or wrong, but Rick and I have a major difference in style of problem solving.

We were on the 23 bus on our way to the Edinburgh castle. We needed to know where the bus stopped and if we needed to change.

Rick pulled out his phone.

I went up and asked the bus driver.

One of the things I like about traveling is talking to people: eye to eye, face to face, human to human. Sometimes it results in more in depth communication where we share a bit of ourselves. Other times it is just a change of information. Most times it includes a smile, person to person. It makes my day richer.

Rick hadn't found the information by the time I returned to my seat, but it didn't take much longer after my return. I let him take control of our stop because it was the same information that I had gleaned.

However, when we came to the Royal Mile stop, the driver called it out and pointed us the direction where we had to walk. The phone did nothing, although Rick said he could have set it to do that.

Rick said he doesn't necessarily want the human contact. I do. A difference in style. Either way we get where we are going.

Quiz Night

"The theme is torture that should be given to those who cheat on quizzes," Mark, the bulky quiz master said. "That will be the name of your team." We decided our team of two would be Exile.

We were at the pub around the corner, The Inverleith, from where we are staying in Edinburgh for the second time. It was Rick's first pub quiz.

It was rather crowded but we found a seat. We knew we were at a disadvantage because larger teams would have more knowledge, especially of things like local sports and music. As for TV we have seen enough British TV to have a fighting chance, except that category never came up. Nor did sports. Whew.

The first ten questions were about movies. Easy Peasy the first three questions. Then it got a little more difficult. Our results were acceptable.

Then came music -- 10 for 10 -- blank.

Science as slightly better and thank goodness for Art and Literature.

All in all it could be worse. We came in second, from last.

But we had lots of fun. We'll do it again sometime, some where.

Rick did a dueling blog http://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com/2019/10/dueling-blog-read-d-ls-version-at.html

American wish

Llara, Rick and I were at Carcassonne airport waiting for our flight to Edinburgh. I took my daughter's passport and started thumbing through, checking her border stamps. At the top of each page was a sentence.

They were what I USED TO BELIEVE my birth country stood for.

"The principle of free government adheres to the American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains." Daniel Webster

"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair." George Washington

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
U.S Constitution

"We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God that America will be true to her dream." Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Let every nation know,whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,,support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." John F. Kennedy.

"This is a new nation, based on a mighty continent of boundless possibilities." Theodore Roosevelt

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the word must first come to pass in the heart of America." Dwight D. Eisenhower

"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest of sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say, 'Farewell?'Is a new world coming? We welcome it -- and we will bend it to the hopes of man." Lyndon B. Johnson

"May God continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great oceans of the world."
Golden Spike, Promontory Point 1869

"We send thanks to all the Animal Life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are glad they are still here and we hope it will always be so." Excerpt from the Thanksgiving Address, Mohawk version.

"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party of a class -- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." Anna Julia Cooper.

I hope it gets back to living those ideals.

Genetic talking

"How do you know them?" As a preteen decades ago, I had stood by and listened to either my mother or father talk-talk-talk with someone on the street, in a store, at an event, anywhere.

"I don't know them," they would reply. "It doesn't matter." They didn't say they knew them a little bit after the conversations.

This morning with my husband in London, it was my duty to walk Sherlock, who graciously waited until six.

Outside, the smells of baking bread and roasting chicken made getting out of bed worthwhile.

Vendors were beginning to set up their tables and stalls for the Saturday marché.

One vendor, a woman, looked at my pup and said in French, "He's so cute."

"Dis merci," I told Sherlock than wished her a good sales day when his tail wag was the closest thing to a thank you he could find.

After many pee-mails and sniffs around the village we passed the vendor again. "It's a lot of work setting up and taking the stuff down," I said in French.

"Yes, but I love it. I've been doing it 30 years."

We then chatted about how work can be satisfying compared to doing nothing, their freedoms as a self-employed despite the uncertainty... a week of rain can mean no marchés and if the veggies are already bought a double loss. She asked about me and I shared my checkered nationalities, my writing, my husband, where we lived here and in Geneva.

I talk to strangers regularly if they are open to it and most are. I kinda look for those that will be open. I have discovered fascinating snippets of peoples' lives which in turn have enriched my life.

I can't help myself. It's in my genetic makeup.

A proud wrinkly

I first heard the term wrinkly before I was one.

My friend (a man whom I call the brother I always wanted) and I were about to go to a Barclay James Harvest concert at the then Noga Hilton Theatre in Geneva. He had introduced me to the group when I was first in Switzerland.

At the time he was 29 and I was 47. Not wrinklies by any means. They were playing in Lausanne and I loved them.

We were then in our 50s and 60s. They were doing a reunion concert.  His wife didn't want to go saying, there would be "too many wrinklies."

Thanks to good genes, my skin has been slow to wrinkle. Strangely my left cheek has a few more lines than my right. I've been told that I look younger than my years, but who in their right mind would tell someone they looked older than their years.

Still, the term wrinkly fits for those of us who are aging. I don't mind it although others may.

Years ago, when still in my early 40s I read an essay by a woman who claimed she never lied about her age. She asked that if she lied, which year of her life would be eliminated and went on to name important events, good and bad. Those years made her who she was that moment.

My hair is white. I wanted to stop dyeing it for years but hated having to see roots as it grew out. Chemo helped by removing all the old red number 666 (yes that was the number on the box). I've read that more and more women are preferring to go gray. It looks more natural.

Even when I am shocked at how many years I've lived, I am equally happy at how well I've lived. Not because I'm rich in money, but rich in all the things that count and especially in love both received and given.

So call me a wrinkly. I've earned every little crevice...

A special gift

It was a simple gift, but a very special one, a book: Images of America Reading. I grew up and spent about a third of my life in that Massachusetts town which was founded in 1639.

My roots, even as a Swiss and an ex-American will always be New England Yankee, right down to my great grandmother’s bean pot.

Many of the photos I recognized, some I did not. Words like Torre, Willis Drug Store, Harrow’s chicken pot pie, Red Farms, sent warm wriggles through me.

I noticed how many small businesses were in existence and not just stores. It represented a different economy, a local economy. Only a few days before being given the book, I’d talked to my husband about Ace Corners, those little triangles we used to fasten photos into albums.

I’ve been back to Reading in the last ten years and it was different while being the same. It was like almost remembering where things were. Unlike many towns, it has not been deserted with boarded up storefronts abounding.

The book is one of a series about towns in the US. Each has a personal history as important to preserve as the big events. It’s like lots of pennies make up a dollar. Lots of stories about people make up a country.

Marché musings

There are so many reasons that marché shopping is so rewarding rather than just going to a supermarket. Yuck

A Catalan lady had pumpkins. Unlike in the US, they aren't everywhere. We noticed next to the pumpkins and gourds, a green veggie that we didn't know what it was...so we asked. Not only did she give us the name (which I can't spell) she told me to boil it, peel it, and then mash it adding olive oil (preferred), butter and maybe parsley. It can also be roasted, she said. Then she asked where Sherlock was. She agreed the marché with all those ankles and feet is not a good place for him. I  will try it Monday.

When I got them home, I added  a couple of googly eyes. Maybe I should have done a third.

Going back out we ran into our friend/builder and discussed the project for the Nest: minor repairs and painting.

We gave empty cartons to the egg lady as we bought her eggs. She has lots of chickens but we always recycle our cartons. Another woman came by with empty cartons. The egg lady says she either has none or a surplus. Surplus is better.

We met two friends from Provincetown, MA who are visiting. They were buying marché clothes for their winter in Mexico.

A quick stop at the art gallery to see the latest exhibition. The curator (also a friend) explained why the paintings were so dark. The artist lost all his family in the Holocaust. She applauded that I likened them in style to Rembrandt who was an influence.

At the librarie (bookstore) the owner pointed out that they had another writer who also had English Translations  and she was signing. She is a dual citizen and we had a long chat and I hope we can get together when we can arrange it.

We stopped by Les Gourmandise de Pauline. We'd seen on Facebook that she had made oreo cheesecake and we bought two for our afternoon tea. In chatting with Pauline, a lovely and hard working young woman, she talked about visiting her brother in Lake Havasu City. I told her I had worked for them in Boston. At the time sales people working from leads decided who might be a perspective buyer and then sent them on their private planes to see property. Mondays when the sales results were in was always exciting. Getting people on the flight didn't count. Getting buyers on the planes did.

We looked at scarves from one of the stands and told a couple of buyers how there are youtubes to show all the ways to tie scarves.

We stopped at L'Hostalet, the hotel/café near us. Hot chocolate for Rick, tea for me and their special mini cakes was great.

Why

I don't understand.

Why do those who have so much begrudge others who have so little.

Take Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world. Yes, he build a tremendous empire often on the backs of others.

Why then would he refuse medical insurance to his part time workers. It would only cost him a couple hours of his pay, if that.

It is not just Bezos. U.S Congressmen who have great health care and pensions want to reduce or eliminate both to those that live ordinary lives. Most are millionaires.

This is just two examples of too many.

Years ago my roommate and my three-year old daughter were on the way to the swimming pool. My roommate picked up the ball.

My daughter grabbed the ball. "Mine."

My roommate said nothing until my daughter reached for the towel. "Mine,"  my roommate said. She repeated the same thing to everything my daughter touched. My daughter got the message.

We are all better when we share some of our surplus. I don't understand why others don't think this way.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Voting

Imagine voting for you government without craziness.

I just did.

My Swiss landlady mailed me my ballot package to where I am on vacation. It came with an instruction booklet in my language of choice, two ballots and two envelopes to put the ballots in. The envelope used to send it to me, also can be used to return it. If I were home in Switzerland, there would be no postage due.

If I would be in Switzerland I could vote in person. In my commune we are given croissants and coffee.

We are voting for the upper and lower house members in Parliament, which is set up like the U.S. Congress. Out of this group comes the seven heads of departments and each year one of them become president.

No hysteria, no months of years of wondering who is going to do what and how with talking heads ad pollsters ranting.

Yes, sometimes we do have scandals. Not all the people serving are wonderful but some are. Of course if the people don't like what these leaders do, a petition will guarantee that the decision will go to the people for a vote.

Let's say the government works more than it doesn't, but mostly it lacks hysteria.

There is another advantage. Rick can use the instruction booklet when he works with his French tutor and to learn more about the Swiss system of government.