I've continued writing DVD reviews after a month away from them to readjust my priorities, to remind myself that I'm still writing them in order to keep an updated portfolio, but this time reviewing only what truly interests me, despite the temptation to ask Acorn Media for everything they have, which would put more pressure on me to review everything I've requested and to spend more hours in front of the TV than I'd want to because I have more books I want to read than DVDs I want to watch. As long as I don't look at the wholesale section of Acorn Media's website, which includes a list of upcoming titles, the temptation passes.
However, a month's hiatus means nothing in this blog because I just realized, while thinking about posting links to my latest reviews, that I haven't posted any links since August 8, a month and 6 days before we moved.
Here we go then, with my reviews since August, up to today's review of the Michelin Guide documentary Three Stars:
The Devil's Needle and Other Tales of Vice and Redemption
Dennis the Menace: 20 Timeless Episodes
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Lisztomania
Holy Flying Circus (One of my favorite reviews of late)
The Sinking of the Laconia
The Decade You Were Born: The '40s
Red Green Show press release with a little from me at the top
The Callers
Master Qi and the Monkey King
8:46
Airport
The Decade You Were Born: The '50s
James Bond Gadgets
50's TV Classics
Secret Access: The Presidency
The Good Wife: The Third Season (My final review before we moved to Las Vegas)
The Halloween Tree (My first review after we moved to Las Vegas)
Battle Circus
Kiss Me
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Complete Series
The Raw and the Cooked
The Clintons: An American Odyssey
Hazel: The Complete Fourth Season (My other favorite review of late)
A Simple Life
Three Stars
Next up for me is seasons 5 and 6 of That '70s Show and The Carol Burnett Show: Carol's Favorites (Collector's Edition), which came out on September 25, but I'm catching up on earlier DVDs since moving took priority as well as seeking full-time work.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
A New Collection
When I was eight, nine, 10 years old, I had a baseball card collection. I don't know why. I never watched baseball and I liked basketball more. It didn't make any sense. The bottle cap collection I had from Publix milk and orange juice made more sense. I even collected the rings around the caps and those came in handy when Mom helped me make a science project in elementary school that was a ring toss game.
I had a few pet rocks, and when I was heavily into aviation in my teens, I wrote to airlines and got from them those emergency information cards. I also got issues of their inflight magazines which led to my first published writing: A sidebar about Y2K prevention for Meridian Magazine, the inflight magazine of the now-defunct east coast-based Midway Airlines, when I was 14.
On our first or second visit to Las Vegas, when we ventured into Henderson, we stopped at the Smith's in a shopping center that includes a AAA office, Brooklyn Bagel, Popcorn Girl, the Cracked Egg restaurant, and Ohana Hawaiian BBQ, our favorite Hawaiian place so far in Southern Nevada. In that Smith's, I spotted a toy flour truck, which was hauling sacks of flour, and I bought it. It reminded me that when I was in kindergarten, I collected Matchbox, Micro Machines, and other kinds of toy cars. But this time, I wanted to do it differently, and so about a year before we moved, I began collecting toy working vehicles. I have a garbage truck, a school bus I bought at Six Flags Magic Mountain, a gas truck, an ice cream truck, a food truck (hot dogs, hamburgers and sodas), an airport fire truck, and countless others. I haven't found a taxicab yet, but I want one. Maybe construction vehicles, such as a cement truck, but I'm not sure yet. The only police car I've bought is a vintage Nevada Highway Patrol one that I ordered online, and will likely be the only one for me since it relates to my home. I'm not sure about fire trucks. I see them around all the time anyway. Maybe a Nevada one.
At Sprouts late this afternoon, I pulled basil from the rack of one of the refrigerated cases, basil that you can grow. I opened it up so I could smell the salty complexity of my favorite herb, and Mom asked, "Do you want to grow it?"
Me? No. Not here anyway. If I eventually decide I want to, I'd rather wait until we get to Pacific Islands in Henderson, after we get settled. But I'd rather buy ready-grown basil to use right away.
As we walked into the aisle where lip balm, ointments, pollen, and other natural products were, I thought about another collection. But nothing I'd have to physically collect. Something different from the norm of collecting.
No matter where we go shopping, be it Sprouts, Walmart, Smith's, Vons, Target, or even when we're just visiting shops on the Strip, I always look at the back of products to see where they come from. In fact, I did that at Sprouts, finding out that some kind of orange-infused lotion came from Salt Lake City.
Then I hit upon it: I want to collect city and town names. I don't mean Googling a state and copying those names into a Word file. I mean looking up whichever cities and towns I spark to and studying them, learning their history, even if I might not want to go there, such as, say, a town in Alaska (it always sounds too damn cold for me). The real beginning of this can be pinpointed a few months back, when we were new here and I decided that I wanted to learn more about Florida than I felt I did when I was there. I was born in Plantation, but we lived in Sunrise at the time. I really don't know anything about Plantation, nor what it was like in 1984.
Odd-sounding names will of course be part of it, as well as cities and towns in New Mexico, including, naturally, Taos. I want to do more than just looking at the back of a product and seeing a city name. I want to know where it is, what it looks like, what the population is, what kind of government they have, all of that. I'm already doing that with Boulder City, having begun studying it long before we moved, and I always have a yen to go back. But I want to know more of the United States. The biggies, such as New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others, stay out. I want to know about the not-so-obvious cities, the history of those that are content with the size they are. It might help my writing, since I have two road trip novels in mind, but mainly, I want to know about what I can't see, what I can't experience every day because I'm here, and those cities and towns are there, over there, way over there, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over there. I think this collection will be as fun to maintain as my toy working vehicles.
I had a few pet rocks, and when I was heavily into aviation in my teens, I wrote to airlines and got from them those emergency information cards. I also got issues of their inflight magazines which led to my first published writing: A sidebar about Y2K prevention for Meridian Magazine, the inflight magazine of the now-defunct east coast-based Midway Airlines, when I was 14.
On our first or second visit to Las Vegas, when we ventured into Henderson, we stopped at the Smith's in a shopping center that includes a AAA office, Brooklyn Bagel, Popcorn Girl, the Cracked Egg restaurant, and Ohana Hawaiian BBQ, our favorite Hawaiian place so far in Southern Nevada. In that Smith's, I spotted a toy flour truck, which was hauling sacks of flour, and I bought it. It reminded me that when I was in kindergarten, I collected Matchbox, Micro Machines, and other kinds of toy cars. But this time, I wanted to do it differently, and so about a year before we moved, I began collecting toy working vehicles. I have a garbage truck, a school bus I bought at Six Flags Magic Mountain, a gas truck, an ice cream truck, a food truck (hot dogs, hamburgers and sodas), an airport fire truck, and countless others. I haven't found a taxicab yet, but I want one. Maybe construction vehicles, such as a cement truck, but I'm not sure yet. The only police car I've bought is a vintage Nevada Highway Patrol one that I ordered online, and will likely be the only one for me since it relates to my home. I'm not sure about fire trucks. I see them around all the time anyway. Maybe a Nevada one.
At Sprouts late this afternoon, I pulled basil from the rack of one of the refrigerated cases, basil that you can grow. I opened it up so I could smell the salty complexity of my favorite herb, and Mom asked, "Do you want to grow it?"
Me? No. Not here anyway. If I eventually decide I want to, I'd rather wait until we get to Pacific Islands in Henderson, after we get settled. But I'd rather buy ready-grown basil to use right away.
As we walked into the aisle where lip balm, ointments, pollen, and other natural products were, I thought about another collection. But nothing I'd have to physically collect. Something different from the norm of collecting.
No matter where we go shopping, be it Sprouts, Walmart, Smith's, Vons, Target, or even when we're just visiting shops on the Strip, I always look at the back of products to see where they come from. In fact, I did that at Sprouts, finding out that some kind of orange-infused lotion came from Salt Lake City.
Then I hit upon it: I want to collect city and town names. I don't mean Googling a state and copying those names into a Word file. I mean looking up whichever cities and towns I spark to and studying them, learning their history, even if I might not want to go there, such as, say, a town in Alaska (it always sounds too damn cold for me). The real beginning of this can be pinpointed a few months back, when we were new here and I decided that I wanted to learn more about Florida than I felt I did when I was there. I was born in Plantation, but we lived in Sunrise at the time. I really don't know anything about Plantation, nor what it was like in 1984.
Odd-sounding names will of course be part of it, as well as cities and towns in New Mexico, including, naturally, Taos. I want to do more than just looking at the back of a product and seeing a city name. I want to know where it is, what it looks like, what the population is, what kind of government they have, all of that. I'm already doing that with Boulder City, having begun studying it long before we moved, and I always have a yen to go back. But I want to know more of the United States. The biggies, such as New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others, stay out. I want to know about the not-so-obvious cities, the history of those that are content with the size they are. It might help my writing, since I have two road trip novels in mind, but mainly, I want to know about what I can't see, what I can't experience every day because I'm here, and those cities and towns are there, over there, way over there, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over there. I think this collection will be as fun to maintain as my toy working vehicles.
Monday, February 18, 2013
The Generosity at Hoover Dam
On the same page in Boulder City: Passages of Time that made up the previous entry, I also found this, which deserved its own entry:
"One of the unique features is the cafeteria-style lunch-basket room. The men file through, take an empty box, and fill it with whatever they wish. Sandwiches, pieces of pie, etc., are all wrapped in waxine bags. If a man wants only six pieces of pie, he can have them. By this method all are satisfied and there is none of the proverbial grumbling about the grub in the lunch boxes." -- New Reclamation Era, November, 1931.
Under that paragraph is this, which shows that generosity is possible anywhere, even during the hard work of building Hoover Dam:
"...We work it this way. I bring the sandwiches, another fella brings the fruit, another the cake. If we have anything left we give it to the guys who don't have anything to eat." -- Buck Blaine, Nevadan Magazine, Las Vegas Review Journal, 8/26/73.
"One of the unique features is the cafeteria-style lunch-basket room. The men file through, take an empty box, and fill it with whatever they wish. Sandwiches, pieces of pie, etc., are all wrapped in waxine bags. If a man wants only six pieces of pie, he can have them. By this method all are satisfied and there is none of the proverbial grumbling about the grub in the lunch boxes." -- New Reclamation Era, November, 1931.
Under that paragraph is this, which shows that generosity is possible anywhere, even during the hard work of building Hoover Dam:
"...We work it this way. I bring the sandwiches, another fella brings the fruit, another the cake. If we have anything left we give it to the guys who don't have anything to eat." -- Buck Blaine, Nevadan Magazine, Las Vegas Review Journal, 8/26/73.
They Began Badly, Too
Yesterday, I wrote about how I ate badly during our first few days as residents in Las Vegas, and that it eventually took its toll on me. Only after our mattresses were delivered, and when we began shopping for groceries, did I improve and turned my attention to becoming acclimated to Las Vegas as a resident, away from my days as a tourist.
In state history, I'm not the only one who did this. I put a book on hold from the Boulder City Library, commissioned by the Boulder City Library in 1981, called Boulder City: Passages in Time by Angela Brooker and Dennis McBride, the latter Boulder City's most famous historian. I checked this out of the Whitney Library last Saturday.
There's no page numbers in this book, but I found this at the beginning of the chapter about construction of Hoover Dam:
"It is a fact that there were a great many heat deaths in the canyon during the first summer down there. That was for two reasons. One was because of the heat, and the second was that the people working in the canyons had been on one or less meals per day for quite some time. And when they got down there and saw the Anderson Commissary there, with all this food stacked up to eat, they just couldn't believe it. They just gorged themselves and then went down in the canyon, and the heat'd hit 'em, and they'd keel over. The government, at that time, when all the deaths were occurring, asked Harvard University to send out some scientists to see what could be done to combat the heat. And they came up with the salt tablets to prevent dehydration. And every employee at the dam working in the canyon and those that weren't too, I guess, were required to have salt tablets in their possession at all times, and to take about one an hour. And it was determined that this did a great deal towards combating the heat prostration, although, once the people got used to eating regularly and not quite as much as they did when they first came there, it was all right." -- John F. Cahlan, Reminiscences of a Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada newspaperman, University Regent, and public-spirited citizen: typed transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted by Mary Ellen Glass, Oral History Project, Getchell Library, University of Nevada, Reno, April 1968.
That's exactly what it was, with the food, but without the heat. I had gorged myself when I was a tourist and did it again without care in our first few days here, just for energy, while rapidly becoming exhausted at the same time. I can relate to those workers, and thankfully, just like they were, I'm settled here, and much more mindful.
In state history, I'm not the only one who did this. I put a book on hold from the Boulder City Library, commissioned by the Boulder City Library in 1981, called Boulder City: Passages in Time by Angela Brooker and Dennis McBride, the latter Boulder City's most famous historian. I checked this out of the Whitney Library last Saturday.
There's no page numbers in this book, but I found this at the beginning of the chapter about construction of Hoover Dam:
"It is a fact that there were a great many heat deaths in the canyon during the first summer down there. That was for two reasons. One was because of the heat, and the second was that the people working in the canyons had been on one or less meals per day for quite some time. And when they got down there and saw the Anderson Commissary there, with all this food stacked up to eat, they just couldn't believe it. They just gorged themselves and then went down in the canyon, and the heat'd hit 'em, and they'd keel over. The government, at that time, when all the deaths were occurring, asked Harvard University to send out some scientists to see what could be done to combat the heat. And they came up with the salt tablets to prevent dehydration. And every employee at the dam working in the canyon and those that weren't too, I guess, were required to have salt tablets in their possession at all times, and to take about one an hour. And it was determined that this did a great deal towards combating the heat prostration, although, once the people got used to eating regularly and not quite as much as they did when they first came there, it was all right." -- John F. Cahlan, Reminiscences of a Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada newspaperman, University Regent, and public-spirited citizen: typed transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted by Mary Ellen Glass, Oral History Project, Getchell Library, University of Nevada, Reno, April 1968.
That's exactly what it was, with the food, but without the heat. I had gorged myself when I was a tourist and did it again without care in our first few days here, just for energy, while rapidly becoming exhausted at the same time. I can relate to those workers, and thankfully, just like they were, I'm settled here, and much more mindful.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Breathe Deep
"I now live in a village in the desert. Although we have left the city, it has taken my body months to slow down, to recover a rhythm in my heart that moves my body first and my mind second. I am learning that there is no such thing as wasting time, as whole days pass inside the simple tasks of making a home, meeting new neighbors, watching the ways of deer. My ears have just now stopped ringing as they adjust, accommodate this quiet, this calm in this landscape of time." -- "Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert" by Terry Tempest Williams
In Florida, I smelled the rolling ocean, the salt lingering invisibly in the air. I smelled suntan lotion and the dampness of the sand in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach. In a stroller at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, smoking was permitted more widely in the park and a certain brand of cigarettes today, though I don't bother to find out which, triggers memories of Walt Disney World, because those were the cigarettes in the Magic Kingdom, like the brand was a proud sponsor of Walt Disney World. I remember walking into the late Lox Haven in Margate and the heavenly heavy and salty smell of lox hit you as soon as you pushed open the door nearest to the carts on the inside. You'd have to push past the old Jews to get a number at the deli counter and then wait, and jostle them some more after your number was called and you wanted to get the attention of the man behind the counter before he went on to the next number. Being a young Jew long removed from Florida, I miss those old Jews, may they rest in peace, which seems likely by now. You never know what you miss about a place until you're existing where you don't want to be.
For nine years, I forgot how to smell, I forgot how to breathe. I couldn't bring myself to make more of Santa Clarita than was already there, which was a nothing of epic proportions. I'd go to the Pavilions supermarket every Friday and get close to the roast chicken, just to smell something different than nothing. The flower displays at the Ralphs supermarkets looked so dismal that I feared if I got near them, they would dramatically collapse ("No! Don't come near me! I'm hideous! It's not going to get any better!"). Malaise is the right word, the only word, for those nine years. I was relieved whenever we walked into the restaurant at IKEA in Burbank because Swedish meatballs, the way they had them, were at least a welcome change for what I usually faced every day, and every week. One of our last visits to anywhere outside of Santa Clarita before we moved was Golden Corral in Hesperia, our beloved buffet that we hadn't seen since Florida, this being the closest location for us in Southern California. The others were in City of Industry and El Centro, as close to the Mexican border as you could get without crossing it.
When we walked into Golden Corral, I wanted to fall to my knees and thank god for recovering part of the life that I knew, although it was a temporary relief. No matter, though, because we moved to Las Vegas not long after this visit. I still believe there should be a Golden Corral in Henderson, along with a White Castle on the Strip, and an IKEA somewhere in Las Vegas. There are plots of desert that would suit it perfectly. And besides residents' dollars, IKEA would also enjoy tourists' dollars. I think they forget about that when they say they're not going to put one here. But they should.
Finally escaping Southern California after nine years, we arrived in Las Vegas as residents last September 14, which now makes it five months that we've lived here, Valentine's Day being that marker. And yet, even though I was mindful that I was going to be a resident, I still traveled badly. Breakfast at McDonald's at Barstow Station in Barstow was two Sausage McMuffins with Egg, a hash brown, and a caramel McCafe Frappe.
I wasn't thinking. All we had in our empty house in Saugus on the early morning that we moved was a box of Cookie Crisp. I was starving. I just needed energy. Surely a bad way to go about it and it got worse, because that night, we picked up dinner from the Hawaiian place in Henderson that we like, in that shopping center on North Green Valley Parkway that includes Smith's supermarket and Brooklyn Bagel. The next night, we went to Wing Stop. You can see where this is going, without vegetables, without fruit. Add to that unpacking boxes and sleeping on the floor for a few nights after arriving and after ordering custom mattresses from a nearby mattress maker (which thankfully only took two days), and changing our licenses at the DMV, and getting my library card at the Whitney Library while totally exhausted, and I was a mess by the fifth day. I quickly learned that you have to immediately establish yourself in some way when you arrive in Las Vegas as a resident, some kind of routine to establish even as you're moving in. Otherwise, this city will eat you alive. After the mattresses were delivered and I finally got some decent sleep that night, I found my footing. I began the process of applying for a full-time job in the Clark County School District, first as a campus security monitor, and now as an elementary school library assistant. The process still has a little more time to go, but it will happen soon, and it needs to happen soon because Blue Shield of California is cutting off the medical insurance I pay for on my own, being that they've found that I don't live in California anymore. Well, duh. Four months since I've moved and they've only just looked at the address they were sending my bill to?
However, it took more time to become accustomed to the landscape around me. No matter how much I read and studied while I lived in Santa Clarita, while waiting impatiently to move to Las Vegas, none of it compared to actually being here. Now, I'm not an in-a-rush type of person like Dad is. I want my life to be as easygoing as possible. But silence here is different than silence in Santa Clarita. At our house in Saugus, you might hear a train whistle in the distance in that bowl-shaped valley at two in the morning, but you'd hear basically no traffic. Some coyote howling during the summer months, but not as much as the dark morning hours stretched on. No traffic in the neighborhood.
Here, you have to listen differently. Being that this is a 24-hour town, there's a nervous energy, a nervous humming underneath all of Las Vegas. It's constantly moving. When I walk the dogs at 11 p.m., there are cars still going by on the street outside my mobile home park. People are going to work, people are coming home from work, people are going out to gamble, whatever they're doing. Anything you want to do here, you can do. But even in Florida, living in Grand Palms in Pembroke Pines, I never heard this much traffic at night either. Things slowed down, tucked themselves in for the night, left whatever needed to be done until the morning. Dad was more surprised about this than I was, but I was still a bit flummoxed by it. I'm still amazed at how people manage to live, those who work at night. And yet, there's my North Carolina neighbor at the end of my block who's a member of the cleaning crew at the Thomas & Mack Center, coming in after the event or basketball game is over to go to work. He comes home early in the morning and goes to sleep until the afternoon. That's where the work is for him and so he goes.
But it's not so much that. There's a slower rhythm to the desert. You can go to the Strip and have a blowout time, but you can also search for the Las Vegas of old. There are museums here for that. They allow for reflection. And libraries in Las Vegas, Henderson, and my dear favorite in Boulder City all carry books about what Las Vegas used to be. The city gives you a choice. You can do whatever you want here, even drive out deep into the desert and let out a primal scream. I've never done that and have no reason to do that since I'm content here. Yet the desert looks after me just as it would look after you. Slow down. Take your time. Figure out what of Las Vegas would fit you and then pull it close to you to enjoy. Whatever you want, you can have it. That goes for residents just as much as tourists. As a resident, once you've balanced yourself soon after arriving, you're good to go.
That all ties into my learning how to breathe again after nine years of nothing. Soon after we got here, one of our early nights saw a steady wind throughout the valley and I was first relieved because this wind couldn't potentially spark a wildfire like the winds in Southern California could, what with all the mountains, but then I was so happy because I had waited so long to feel a true desert wind. It's always windy in Palmdale, just part of the landscape, but here, the wind feels like it dances with the landscape. There are nights when it's still and calm and yet when we drive toward Las Vegas from Henderson, we can see all those lights in the distance and they're all twinkling, seemingly without the aid of any wind. When I felt that first wind, I stood totally still when I was out walking one of our dogs and let it wash over me and all around me. I wanted to feel every moment of it, and I wanted to know it well. I breathed it in and it felt like the wind was made of all of us in Las Vegas, present and the past. Frank Sinatra was in the wind and so were the blackjack dealers on the Strip. Liberace was in there somewhere, and the cocktail waitresses at Caesars Palace were taking drink orders from in there too. The water show of the Bellagio was also dancing in that wind. Also in that wind, Bugsy Siegel was barking orders. I believe that the ghosts of Las Vegas only make their presence known when it's gloomy and raining. But the wind lets off a tiny bit of them, a reminder that we are here because of them, because of what they did before, because of what came before. I like that. It broadens my love of history.
Last Friday, I finally mastered learning how to breathe here and how to smell again. The day was calm when I went to get the mail and I walked to the left, to the end of my street and then turned right onto Lane I, as it's called, passing one street and then entering the next one on the right, my favorite street in this mobile home park because how close the houses seem to be across from each other, but how homey it feels. This street feels like it's protected from the rest of the park, interrupted by little traffic, not hearing much of the traffic outside the mobile home park, with other houses bordering it.
As I walked my usual route, I smelled perfume which seemed like the Macy's kind. If it was a plant that I had overlooked, I would not be surprised because plants here have a certain kind of power, few as they are, but that they're few may be why they inspire awe. Hardiness in the desert. Survival. I'm not quite sure yet what I'm supposed to smell in the desert. I know I haven't smelled sagebrush, the state flower, yet, because I would definitely have noticed. Scents do linger here, though. I've smelled fresh wood, dust from the remodeling of bathrooms in the clubhouse, stagnant pool water, tree scents from the wind blowing as I've walked around, and a lot more that I should work to categorize. I've never thought about smells as much as I have here, but it's the kind of state that makes you thankful to have a sense of smell.
I know to breathe slowly here. Life happens, as it will, and there are tense situations and responsibilities to meet, but there is also such joy in the simplicity of things, of standing outside and taking in all that's around you, especially on days when pollution from Los Angeles doesn't create a haze over the Strip. I walked around my neighborhood that Friday, so content, so at peace. I'm not sure where I would belong in Northern Nevada, as I haven't been there yet, but I know I belong here in Southern Nevada, and in Nevada entirely. I feel like there's so much for me to explore each day, and so much for me to see and smell and hear and even taste at times.
Then yesterday, Meridith and I walked five laps around the large perimeter of our mobile home park, covering every corner from the dumpster near the gate that separates us and the senior mobile home park from the inside, to the maintenance area where those guys and gal store all their stuff for repairs in the park, to the two RV lots where RVs are usually parked, but most of them are gone, their owners having gone to explore whatever of the United States they like. We walked twice around the mobile home park, and then at the beginning of the third time, after we passed the clubhouse, we were walking by the first house after that, and I stopped. The door of that house was open and something smelled so good! It straddled the line between a roast something and barbecue, but without the grill outside. Or maybe there had been a grill in the small yard covered up by that wooden fence and I didn't notice. I couldn't hear anything sizzling, though. It had to be from the oven in the kitchen. After the fourth time, Meridith jokingly suggested that I call Mom and Dad, tell them that they can have dinner without us (pork roast, stuffing, and cranberry sauce), and we invite ourselves in for dinner at that house. I was sorely tempted. It was 72 degrees today in Las Vegas and it was that kind of day. Doors were open, windows were open and a lot of people were outside, taking advantage of this unexpectedly warm weather that leaves us on Tuesday. This was the warmest day out of the past three days, which was why Meridith and I went out for a walk. And as we did those laps, and Meridith was telling me about her cafeteria job lately, I felt that same peace I achieved on Friday. I know now that it's in me and it's not leaving. Every time I walk outside now, I'm curious about everything. I want to know if those currently empty mobile home lots might have been occupied years ago. I want to know what holds a carport up. I want to know what kind of plants I'm looking at across from the beginning of Lane I. I want to know what in that maintenance area hasn't been used in years, but that they don't throw away because they don't feel like it. I want to know more about the RVs parked here. I want to know what kind of bulbs are used for the noirish orange lights on my street and all around the mobile home park at night, how long they last, and when they possibly need to be replaced next. In our first week here, I saw the maintenance people with a cherry picker, one person on it, rising up to the lights, opening the glass to that light, and cleaning the glass on the inside and the outside. I had never seen anything like that before.
Finally, I can breathe without worry, I can breathe without boredom, I can breathe knowing that every breath carries the full weight of the desert and all that it entails. I know that it gets mighty unfriendly in the summer, and I will experience that in due time, but to breathe this easily, and to really smell things, for them to linger like they do, this is where I belong. This place requires a thesaurus, but there are times when no thesaurus can ever help describe my experiences. I've done a little of that in this entry and in others, but it's not even a quarter of what I feel when I walk the dogs at night, which I'll be doing in a little while, nor when I visit Boulder City, nor when I'm on the Strip. I've said before that if you can't find anything to write about in Las Vegas, you should quit. I still believe that. But now I know that there are times when words can't do it. You can only stand still and let the wind embrace you. If there's wind tonight, or even a breeze, I will gladly give myself to it. Peace has never felt so good.
In Florida, I smelled the rolling ocean, the salt lingering invisibly in the air. I smelled suntan lotion and the dampness of the sand in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach. In a stroller at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, smoking was permitted more widely in the park and a certain brand of cigarettes today, though I don't bother to find out which, triggers memories of Walt Disney World, because those were the cigarettes in the Magic Kingdom, like the brand was a proud sponsor of Walt Disney World. I remember walking into the late Lox Haven in Margate and the heavenly heavy and salty smell of lox hit you as soon as you pushed open the door nearest to the carts on the inside. You'd have to push past the old Jews to get a number at the deli counter and then wait, and jostle them some more after your number was called and you wanted to get the attention of the man behind the counter before he went on to the next number. Being a young Jew long removed from Florida, I miss those old Jews, may they rest in peace, which seems likely by now. You never know what you miss about a place until you're existing where you don't want to be.
For nine years, I forgot how to smell, I forgot how to breathe. I couldn't bring myself to make more of Santa Clarita than was already there, which was a nothing of epic proportions. I'd go to the Pavilions supermarket every Friday and get close to the roast chicken, just to smell something different than nothing. The flower displays at the Ralphs supermarkets looked so dismal that I feared if I got near them, they would dramatically collapse ("No! Don't come near me! I'm hideous! It's not going to get any better!"). Malaise is the right word, the only word, for those nine years. I was relieved whenever we walked into the restaurant at IKEA in Burbank because Swedish meatballs, the way they had them, were at least a welcome change for what I usually faced every day, and every week. One of our last visits to anywhere outside of Santa Clarita before we moved was Golden Corral in Hesperia, our beloved buffet that we hadn't seen since Florida, this being the closest location for us in Southern California. The others were in City of Industry and El Centro, as close to the Mexican border as you could get without crossing it.
When we walked into Golden Corral, I wanted to fall to my knees and thank god for recovering part of the life that I knew, although it was a temporary relief. No matter, though, because we moved to Las Vegas not long after this visit. I still believe there should be a Golden Corral in Henderson, along with a White Castle on the Strip, and an IKEA somewhere in Las Vegas. There are plots of desert that would suit it perfectly. And besides residents' dollars, IKEA would also enjoy tourists' dollars. I think they forget about that when they say they're not going to put one here. But they should.
Finally escaping Southern California after nine years, we arrived in Las Vegas as residents last September 14, which now makes it five months that we've lived here, Valentine's Day being that marker. And yet, even though I was mindful that I was going to be a resident, I still traveled badly. Breakfast at McDonald's at Barstow Station in Barstow was two Sausage McMuffins with Egg, a hash brown, and a caramel McCafe Frappe.
I wasn't thinking. All we had in our empty house in Saugus on the early morning that we moved was a box of Cookie Crisp. I was starving. I just needed energy. Surely a bad way to go about it and it got worse, because that night, we picked up dinner from the Hawaiian place in Henderson that we like, in that shopping center on North Green Valley Parkway that includes Smith's supermarket and Brooklyn Bagel. The next night, we went to Wing Stop. You can see where this is going, without vegetables, without fruit. Add to that unpacking boxes and sleeping on the floor for a few nights after arriving and after ordering custom mattresses from a nearby mattress maker (which thankfully only took two days), and changing our licenses at the DMV, and getting my library card at the Whitney Library while totally exhausted, and I was a mess by the fifth day. I quickly learned that you have to immediately establish yourself in some way when you arrive in Las Vegas as a resident, some kind of routine to establish even as you're moving in. Otherwise, this city will eat you alive. After the mattresses were delivered and I finally got some decent sleep that night, I found my footing. I began the process of applying for a full-time job in the Clark County School District, first as a campus security monitor, and now as an elementary school library assistant. The process still has a little more time to go, but it will happen soon, and it needs to happen soon because Blue Shield of California is cutting off the medical insurance I pay for on my own, being that they've found that I don't live in California anymore. Well, duh. Four months since I've moved and they've only just looked at the address they were sending my bill to?
However, it took more time to become accustomed to the landscape around me. No matter how much I read and studied while I lived in Santa Clarita, while waiting impatiently to move to Las Vegas, none of it compared to actually being here. Now, I'm not an in-a-rush type of person like Dad is. I want my life to be as easygoing as possible. But silence here is different than silence in Santa Clarita. At our house in Saugus, you might hear a train whistle in the distance in that bowl-shaped valley at two in the morning, but you'd hear basically no traffic. Some coyote howling during the summer months, but not as much as the dark morning hours stretched on. No traffic in the neighborhood.
Here, you have to listen differently. Being that this is a 24-hour town, there's a nervous energy, a nervous humming underneath all of Las Vegas. It's constantly moving. When I walk the dogs at 11 p.m., there are cars still going by on the street outside my mobile home park. People are going to work, people are coming home from work, people are going out to gamble, whatever they're doing. Anything you want to do here, you can do. But even in Florida, living in Grand Palms in Pembroke Pines, I never heard this much traffic at night either. Things slowed down, tucked themselves in for the night, left whatever needed to be done until the morning. Dad was more surprised about this than I was, but I was still a bit flummoxed by it. I'm still amazed at how people manage to live, those who work at night. And yet, there's my North Carolina neighbor at the end of my block who's a member of the cleaning crew at the Thomas & Mack Center, coming in after the event or basketball game is over to go to work. He comes home early in the morning and goes to sleep until the afternoon. That's where the work is for him and so he goes.
But it's not so much that. There's a slower rhythm to the desert. You can go to the Strip and have a blowout time, but you can also search for the Las Vegas of old. There are museums here for that. They allow for reflection. And libraries in Las Vegas, Henderson, and my dear favorite in Boulder City all carry books about what Las Vegas used to be. The city gives you a choice. You can do whatever you want here, even drive out deep into the desert and let out a primal scream. I've never done that and have no reason to do that since I'm content here. Yet the desert looks after me just as it would look after you. Slow down. Take your time. Figure out what of Las Vegas would fit you and then pull it close to you to enjoy. Whatever you want, you can have it. That goes for residents just as much as tourists. As a resident, once you've balanced yourself soon after arriving, you're good to go.
That all ties into my learning how to breathe again after nine years of nothing. Soon after we got here, one of our early nights saw a steady wind throughout the valley and I was first relieved because this wind couldn't potentially spark a wildfire like the winds in Southern California could, what with all the mountains, but then I was so happy because I had waited so long to feel a true desert wind. It's always windy in Palmdale, just part of the landscape, but here, the wind feels like it dances with the landscape. There are nights when it's still and calm and yet when we drive toward Las Vegas from Henderson, we can see all those lights in the distance and they're all twinkling, seemingly without the aid of any wind. When I felt that first wind, I stood totally still when I was out walking one of our dogs and let it wash over me and all around me. I wanted to feel every moment of it, and I wanted to know it well. I breathed it in and it felt like the wind was made of all of us in Las Vegas, present and the past. Frank Sinatra was in the wind and so were the blackjack dealers on the Strip. Liberace was in there somewhere, and the cocktail waitresses at Caesars Palace were taking drink orders from in there too. The water show of the Bellagio was also dancing in that wind. Also in that wind, Bugsy Siegel was barking orders. I believe that the ghosts of Las Vegas only make their presence known when it's gloomy and raining. But the wind lets off a tiny bit of them, a reminder that we are here because of them, because of what they did before, because of what came before. I like that. It broadens my love of history.
Last Friday, I finally mastered learning how to breathe here and how to smell again. The day was calm when I went to get the mail and I walked to the left, to the end of my street and then turned right onto Lane I, as it's called, passing one street and then entering the next one on the right, my favorite street in this mobile home park because how close the houses seem to be across from each other, but how homey it feels. This street feels like it's protected from the rest of the park, interrupted by little traffic, not hearing much of the traffic outside the mobile home park, with other houses bordering it.
As I walked my usual route, I smelled perfume which seemed like the Macy's kind. If it was a plant that I had overlooked, I would not be surprised because plants here have a certain kind of power, few as they are, but that they're few may be why they inspire awe. Hardiness in the desert. Survival. I'm not quite sure yet what I'm supposed to smell in the desert. I know I haven't smelled sagebrush, the state flower, yet, because I would definitely have noticed. Scents do linger here, though. I've smelled fresh wood, dust from the remodeling of bathrooms in the clubhouse, stagnant pool water, tree scents from the wind blowing as I've walked around, and a lot more that I should work to categorize. I've never thought about smells as much as I have here, but it's the kind of state that makes you thankful to have a sense of smell.
I know to breathe slowly here. Life happens, as it will, and there are tense situations and responsibilities to meet, but there is also such joy in the simplicity of things, of standing outside and taking in all that's around you, especially on days when pollution from Los Angeles doesn't create a haze over the Strip. I walked around my neighborhood that Friday, so content, so at peace. I'm not sure where I would belong in Northern Nevada, as I haven't been there yet, but I know I belong here in Southern Nevada, and in Nevada entirely. I feel like there's so much for me to explore each day, and so much for me to see and smell and hear and even taste at times.
Then yesterday, Meridith and I walked five laps around the large perimeter of our mobile home park, covering every corner from the dumpster near the gate that separates us and the senior mobile home park from the inside, to the maintenance area where those guys and gal store all their stuff for repairs in the park, to the two RV lots where RVs are usually parked, but most of them are gone, their owners having gone to explore whatever of the United States they like. We walked twice around the mobile home park, and then at the beginning of the third time, after we passed the clubhouse, we were walking by the first house after that, and I stopped. The door of that house was open and something smelled so good! It straddled the line between a roast something and barbecue, but without the grill outside. Or maybe there had been a grill in the small yard covered up by that wooden fence and I didn't notice. I couldn't hear anything sizzling, though. It had to be from the oven in the kitchen. After the fourth time, Meridith jokingly suggested that I call Mom and Dad, tell them that they can have dinner without us (pork roast, stuffing, and cranberry sauce), and we invite ourselves in for dinner at that house. I was sorely tempted. It was 72 degrees today in Las Vegas and it was that kind of day. Doors were open, windows were open and a lot of people were outside, taking advantage of this unexpectedly warm weather that leaves us on Tuesday. This was the warmest day out of the past three days, which was why Meridith and I went out for a walk. And as we did those laps, and Meridith was telling me about her cafeteria job lately, I felt that same peace I achieved on Friday. I know now that it's in me and it's not leaving. Every time I walk outside now, I'm curious about everything. I want to know if those currently empty mobile home lots might have been occupied years ago. I want to know what holds a carport up. I want to know what kind of plants I'm looking at across from the beginning of Lane I. I want to know what in that maintenance area hasn't been used in years, but that they don't throw away because they don't feel like it. I want to know more about the RVs parked here. I want to know what kind of bulbs are used for the noirish orange lights on my street and all around the mobile home park at night, how long they last, and when they possibly need to be replaced next. In our first week here, I saw the maintenance people with a cherry picker, one person on it, rising up to the lights, opening the glass to that light, and cleaning the glass on the inside and the outside. I had never seen anything like that before.
Finally, I can breathe without worry, I can breathe without boredom, I can breathe knowing that every breath carries the full weight of the desert and all that it entails. I know that it gets mighty unfriendly in the summer, and I will experience that in due time, but to breathe this easily, and to really smell things, for them to linger like they do, this is where I belong. This place requires a thesaurus, but there are times when no thesaurus can ever help describe my experiences. I've done a little of that in this entry and in others, but it's not even a quarter of what I feel when I walk the dogs at night, which I'll be doing in a little while, nor when I visit Boulder City, nor when I'm on the Strip. I've said before that if you can't find anything to write about in Las Vegas, you should quit. I still believe that. But now I know that there are times when words can't do it. You can only stand still and let the wind embrace you. If there's wind tonight, or even a breeze, I will gladly give myself to it. Peace has never felt so good.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
The Right Time
Last Saturday, at the end of a few hours in my fantasy home of Boulder City that included Goatfeathers Too (annex to the main, sprawling antique store across the street), Goatfeathers (the main store), lunch at Mel's Diner (a middle-of-my-best-list patty melt with onions and swiss cheese), lots of chocolate covered things ordered at Grandma Daisy's, and finding out that TuTu's Books was closed for maintenance until Tuesday, we stopped at the Boulder City Library, my temple, my sanctuary, possibly above all other libraries in this valley. I don't think other libraries to see in Henderson could possibly compare to this one, even though I'm fond of the tall bookcases at the James I. Gibson Library.
With no room on my library card, I used Meridith's for three books I wanted: Finding Casey by Jo-Ann Mapson, which I saw was set in New Mexico and wanted it right away; Father O'Brien and His Girls by David Chandler, set in Las Vegas, and which I found in the Nevada Room (I want to read all the books in there); and Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper by Traphes Bryant with Frances Spatz Leighton. Bryant was the White House electrician who was there from Truman through Nixon, but took up taking care of the First Dogs from Kennedy through Nixon.
Meridith checked out those three for me along with a few books to read to Tigger and Kitty, and then I spotted The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway, a novel about a regimented 36-year-old biology teacher who severe kidney ailments who's a rose breeder. I'm interested in flowers, but those other details seized my attention, because I am as regimented as her in my reading. Nothing can get between her and her roses (though that will likely change), and nothing can get between me and my books.
I decided that since three books from the Boulder City Library seemed like enough since I had all those other library books at home, and more books on hold to pick up the next day, I would put this one on hold and pick it up at the Whitney Library, my usual branch, the Sunday after the following one. I did, but after we got home from that day, which afterward included exploring the M Resort in Henderson, I wished that I had given that book to Meridith to check out as well. I badly wanted to read it, and that copy belonging to Boulder City, that should have been enough incentive for me since I prefer Boulder City copies of any books whenever possible.
But, as has been my experience in the past, there are times for certain books, and they may not be right away.
Take today. I picked up The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns at the Whitney Library, along with my other holds. I was finishing Finding Casey and determined that that would be the next book I started, since I had waited a week and couldn't stop thinking about it during that week.
It has been such a nice day today. Recently, I finally became accustomed to the slow rhythm of the desert, which merits its own post soon. I have learned to breathe slowly and really smell the desert around me, and I feel good. Finding Casey was a gentle, understated wave of a novel that made me more curious about the plants of New Mexico and its customs, and what better atmosphere in which to start The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns?
I am where I want to be, living a life that will soon be fully formed with the arrival of the job I want, and finished a novel that held such promise and delivered on it. And the middle of the afternoon was just as gentle as that novel, as the desert, unseasonably warm, but a welcome break from sweatshirts, which I don't like, having been born and raised and spectacularly spoiled in Florida. I'm now on chapter 4 of The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns, on page 40. So far, it has been worth the wait.
With no room on my library card, I used Meridith's for three books I wanted: Finding Casey by Jo-Ann Mapson, which I saw was set in New Mexico and wanted it right away; Father O'Brien and His Girls by David Chandler, set in Las Vegas, and which I found in the Nevada Room (I want to read all the books in there); and Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper by Traphes Bryant with Frances Spatz Leighton. Bryant was the White House electrician who was there from Truman through Nixon, but took up taking care of the First Dogs from Kennedy through Nixon.
Meridith checked out those three for me along with a few books to read to Tigger and Kitty, and then I spotted The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway, a novel about a regimented 36-year-old biology teacher who severe kidney ailments who's a rose breeder. I'm interested in flowers, but those other details seized my attention, because I am as regimented as her in my reading. Nothing can get between her and her roses (though that will likely change), and nothing can get between me and my books.
I decided that since three books from the Boulder City Library seemed like enough since I had all those other library books at home, and more books on hold to pick up the next day, I would put this one on hold and pick it up at the Whitney Library, my usual branch, the Sunday after the following one. I did, but after we got home from that day, which afterward included exploring the M Resort in Henderson, I wished that I had given that book to Meridith to check out as well. I badly wanted to read it, and that copy belonging to Boulder City, that should have been enough incentive for me since I prefer Boulder City copies of any books whenever possible.
But, as has been my experience in the past, there are times for certain books, and they may not be right away.
Take today. I picked up The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns at the Whitney Library, along with my other holds. I was finishing Finding Casey and determined that that would be the next book I started, since I had waited a week and couldn't stop thinking about it during that week.
It has been such a nice day today. Recently, I finally became accustomed to the slow rhythm of the desert, which merits its own post soon. I have learned to breathe slowly and really smell the desert around me, and I feel good. Finding Casey was a gentle, understated wave of a novel that made me more curious about the plants of New Mexico and its customs, and what better atmosphere in which to start The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns?
I am where I want to be, living a life that will soon be fully formed with the arrival of the job I want, and finished a novel that held such promise and delivered on it. And the middle of the afternoon was just as gentle as that novel, as the desert, unseasonably warm, but a welcome break from sweatshirts, which I don't like, having been born and raised and spectacularly spoiled in Florida. I'm now on chapter 4 of The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns, on page 40. So far, it has been worth the wait.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
At First, Disappointment, and then Realization and Contentment
My subscription to New Mexico Magazine began today with the arrival of what I thought would be the Valentine's issue, but turned out to be the March issue. I was disappointed because I wanted to read about what's considered romantic in New Mexico. It would be the logical thing to get the next issue after I subscribed in January, but I guess I didn't subscribe early enough. I'll either see if a newsstand around here has it, or I'll order it from the website, as I did with the 90th Anniversary issue I bumped into at the Boulder City Library that introduced me to New Mexico Magazine.
Then I looked at the March issue: "25 Reasons to Love Taos." And it came to me: When I was 11, a confluence of events made me become a writer. It must have been brewing since 1992, when I was 7 years old in Casselberry, Florida, and copied by hand onto a sheet of posterboard an Orlando Sentinel review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids. That also eventually made me a film critic, but seeing those words come alive after each letter was attached had apparently made a deep impression on me.
That 11th year, in South Florida, I found in a thrift shop a huge book called The Most of Andy Rooney, bringing together his previous books A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney, And More by Andy Rooney, and Pieces of My Mind. I had seen him on 60 Minutes, when I knew the show to be a magnet for car commercials. There were a lot of those during the broadcasts. But reading Rooney's commentaries, about restaurants, woodworking, tools, winter, how cold it gets at night, I was amazed. I didn't know writing could involve all this! I thought you simply go to restaurants, you eat, you enjoy whatever of the experience you like, and leave. But to write about it? To dwell in corners, to notice decor, to see whether it's food or atmosphere that's most important? I never thought writing could be like that! I wanted to do it and after reading that book, I tried writing like Rooney did, but learned quickly what writing style is, that his voice isn't my voice, that my voice can be anything that I feel I am.
Then came Natalie Goldberg. I was gradually learning more about writing, and at my local library, I found Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life. Here was a writer telling me to be playful, be bold, be daring, be free. Remembering some of the books I had read up to that age, including bringing John Grisham novels with me to class to read in 3rd grade (and I could read them, which made my teacher actually call my parents in for a conference, concerned that I was reading on a level far above my classmates, which never made sense to me), I thought writing had to be mostly formal in execution. You had a viewpoint, you pinpointed that one story you wanted to tell, you wrote all you could about it, and that was it.
But here was Goldberg, telling me to write about home, to go back there in my mind, to read my writing aloud to understand the rhythm of words, to write about spiritual experiences. Still surprised at what Andy Rooney wrote about, Goldberg made me want to write about everything on the planet, to discover who I wanted to be, to think, really think, about my life and what made up my life.
I checked out Wild Mind a lot. I wanted to absorb her book in my body and know it without picking it up, always guided by it, always prodded to do my best and my worst in my writing, and make that my best too.
Goldberg wrote about New Mexico, about Santa Fe, about Taos, because she lived there, and in other books of hers, it was noted that she lived, and possibly still lives, in Taos. I didn't think about it much at the time. I only knew she was the spirit I wanted to follow.
And then, in September 2011, came The Secret of Everything by Barbara O'Neal, who wrote How to Bake a Perfect Life, which I had only read because the front cover had a blurb by Erica Bauermeister, author of the deeply felt The School of Essential Ingredients, and that was enough for me. I loved How to Bake a Perfect Life and wanted to read everything else that O'Neal wrote, starting with The Lost Recipe for Happiness which was wonderful, detailed, emotional, vividly realized. But The Secret of Everything was it for me. It cracked New Mexico wide open. It is the reason I want to travel throughout New Mexico. I learned that the fictional Las Ladronas was a combination of Santa Fe and Taos, and I want to visit both. I fell hard for the beauty, the peace of New Mexico through O'Neal's descriptions, and out of everywhere I want to travel, I want to know New Mexico the most. I want to see every inch of it.
Reading it a second time last year, I realized that Natalie Goldberg started me on this path, but I hadn't known it yet. The Secret of Everything sealed my fate.
Walking back to our house from getting the mail, I quickly got over my disappointment of not getting the Valentine's issue when I saw "25 Reasons to Love Taos." As I learned just now from her Wikipedia page, Natalie Goldberg no longer lives in Taos. She lives in Santa Fe. But when I discovered her books, when she made me want to write and write and write and write, she lived in Taos. It's appropriate that "25 Reasons to Love Taos" is one of the stories of this issue. Goldberg gave life to the beginning of my writing life. This issue marks the beginning of my eventual travels to New Mexico, my desire to read the literature of the state, its history, its poetry, its desert, and its other landscapes. This subscription and this first issue is when I get serious about going there, moreso than before. Taos is here again, as it should be, another introduction, another path to begin.
Then I looked at the March issue: "25 Reasons to Love Taos." And it came to me: When I was 11, a confluence of events made me become a writer. It must have been brewing since 1992, when I was 7 years old in Casselberry, Florida, and copied by hand onto a sheet of posterboard an Orlando Sentinel review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids. That also eventually made me a film critic, but seeing those words come alive after each letter was attached had apparently made a deep impression on me.
That 11th year, in South Florida, I found in a thrift shop a huge book called The Most of Andy Rooney, bringing together his previous books A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney, And More by Andy Rooney, and Pieces of My Mind. I had seen him on 60 Minutes, when I knew the show to be a magnet for car commercials. There were a lot of those during the broadcasts. But reading Rooney's commentaries, about restaurants, woodworking, tools, winter, how cold it gets at night, I was amazed. I didn't know writing could involve all this! I thought you simply go to restaurants, you eat, you enjoy whatever of the experience you like, and leave. But to write about it? To dwell in corners, to notice decor, to see whether it's food or atmosphere that's most important? I never thought writing could be like that! I wanted to do it and after reading that book, I tried writing like Rooney did, but learned quickly what writing style is, that his voice isn't my voice, that my voice can be anything that I feel I am.
Then came Natalie Goldberg. I was gradually learning more about writing, and at my local library, I found Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life. Here was a writer telling me to be playful, be bold, be daring, be free. Remembering some of the books I had read up to that age, including bringing John Grisham novels with me to class to read in 3rd grade (and I could read them, which made my teacher actually call my parents in for a conference, concerned that I was reading on a level far above my classmates, which never made sense to me), I thought writing had to be mostly formal in execution. You had a viewpoint, you pinpointed that one story you wanted to tell, you wrote all you could about it, and that was it.
But here was Goldberg, telling me to write about home, to go back there in my mind, to read my writing aloud to understand the rhythm of words, to write about spiritual experiences. Still surprised at what Andy Rooney wrote about, Goldberg made me want to write about everything on the planet, to discover who I wanted to be, to think, really think, about my life and what made up my life.
I checked out Wild Mind a lot. I wanted to absorb her book in my body and know it without picking it up, always guided by it, always prodded to do my best and my worst in my writing, and make that my best too.
Goldberg wrote about New Mexico, about Santa Fe, about Taos, because she lived there, and in other books of hers, it was noted that she lived, and possibly still lives, in Taos. I didn't think about it much at the time. I only knew she was the spirit I wanted to follow.
And then, in September 2011, came The Secret of Everything by Barbara O'Neal, who wrote How to Bake a Perfect Life, which I had only read because the front cover had a blurb by Erica Bauermeister, author of the deeply felt The School of Essential Ingredients, and that was enough for me. I loved How to Bake a Perfect Life and wanted to read everything else that O'Neal wrote, starting with The Lost Recipe for Happiness which was wonderful, detailed, emotional, vividly realized. But The Secret of Everything was it for me. It cracked New Mexico wide open. It is the reason I want to travel throughout New Mexico. I learned that the fictional Las Ladronas was a combination of Santa Fe and Taos, and I want to visit both. I fell hard for the beauty, the peace of New Mexico through O'Neal's descriptions, and out of everywhere I want to travel, I want to know New Mexico the most. I want to see every inch of it.
Reading it a second time last year, I realized that Natalie Goldberg started me on this path, but I hadn't known it yet. The Secret of Everything sealed my fate.
Walking back to our house from getting the mail, I quickly got over my disappointment of not getting the Valentine's issue when I saw "25 Reasons to Love Taos." As I learned just now from her Wikipedia page, Natalie Goldberg no longer lives in Taos. She lives in Santa Fe. But when I discovered her books, when she made me want to write and write and write and write, she lived in Taos. It's appropriate that "25 Reasons to Love Taos" is one of the stories of this issue. Goldberg gave life to the beginning of my writing life. This issue marks the beginning of my eventual travels to New Mexico, my desire to read the literature of the state, its history, its poetry, its desert, and its other landscapes. This subscription and this first issue is when I get serious about going there, moreso than before. Taos is here again, as it should be, another introduction, another path to begin.
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