The Secret to Marital Bliss (SMB)

I’ve found the Secret to Marital Bliss: sharp, crisply ironed creases in sleeves.

Central California has been “enjoying” a heat wave for a couple of weeks – it’s been hell. Ed and I have done nothing but lay about and groan (and drip). Dishes have piled up. Dirty clothes overflow the hamper. The trash can is full of the packaging for microwaveable dinners. Mellie the Homemaker has been OFF DUTY (and Ed the Tool Man, as well). That's why this is coming out on Monday rather than last Thursday.

Then, last night, a storm front came in and brought with it blessed coolness, sweet freshness, frickin’ energy!!! Today I did all the laundry, edited a story, unpacked (more) books, actually cooked lunch for Ed when he came home at noon, and ironed all of his shirts. That’s when I realized the Secret to Marital Bliss.

I was standing at the ironing board, pressing the last of his shirts when he walked into the kitchen and around to my laundry area. The look on his face would have set off fireworks if there had been any lying around on the counter. Fortunately, we are sans flash powder at the moment so our little house is still intact. I wish I’d had a camera to catch that look, though. If Ed dies before I do, that is the picture I want to remember. If I ever doubt his love for me – that look will eliminate all doubt.

It’s not that ironing is any special thing, it’s just our thing. Ed loves an ironed shirt. I’ve always hated ironing shirts (if he could only wear handkerchiefs to work, I’d be fine). But when I got laid off and money got tight, it saved us $60/month for me to wash and iron his shirts instead of sending them to the cleaners.

At first, I hated it and had to play games while I ironed: “Ok, that sleeve was 75 cents, this sleeve is 75 cents, these flat bits are $1.50 for all…” But the more shirts I did, and the better I got at them, the more pleasurable it became…(when it wasn’t hot!) There’s the smell of hot fabric, the smooth feel of pressed material, and the industrious whooshing sound of the steam when I rest the iron upright. And, of course, the satisfaction of the well-executed performance of a mastered skill.

Blah blah blah. I could be painting or reading or playing a game. Who am I trying to kid? What’s the real secret? When are we gonna get to the Secret?? WE WANT THE SECRET!!!

Ok, ok. Be patient. I’m almost there…I never used to like creases in the sleeves of dress-shirts. I thought they looked hokey. But now, I carefully put a hard crease in the sleeves of every one of Ed’s shirts – cotton, silk, rayon, dressy, casual, whatever. If I iron it, long or short, it gets a creased sleeve. That's my little secret.

Now, if Ed were writing this, he’d say that the Secret to Marital Bliss is a spanking-clean stove-top. He does the dishes after dinner, and I always appreciate it, but what really makes my eyes light up is when the stove is cleared and polished after the dishes are done.

Here's The Secret:

He does the dishes just like I iron his shirts: it’s a job to be done.

But he does the stove like I do the creases in his sleeves – it’s the part that makes my eyes light up.

Every morning I walk into the kitchen and look at that clean stove and I’m reminded of how much he loves me. And every day at work, when he reaches for his keyboard or his phone and he sees the crease in his sleeve, it’s a reminder of how much I love him.

Ed and I are extremely fortunate. We are a perfect match. Love comes easily between us and we mean the same things when we use the same words (that’s not a common thing).

But we still have to PRACTICE our love. That’s the real secret. And if a couple isn’t perfectly matched, their need for practice is just that much greater. It doesn’t require a great deal of work, just a regular, every-day kind. And, of course, it doesn't have to be irons or stoves. It could be the remote, the toothpaste, making the bed, washing the car...it just needs to be something that thrills him or her, not necessarily something you'd love.

That may not be as exciting as some big, Herculean, Hollywood kind of effort, but if one-time, prove-my-love feats actually worked, a whole lot of divorced couples would still be married!

Well, I'm done writing. I think I'll go cook something up on my clean stove. Oh, and I think I may have left the iron on...!

Fight the Tide

I’ve written essay after essay tonight, all of them heavy and philosophical, and none of them what I want to share with friends. This is a fairly common occurrence for me, which might be a surprise to most of those who know me.

I have a really dark side. Depression is a constant tide that pulls at me, incessantly trying to draw me into the deep waters, and under. That is my natural bent. But I am not a slave to my bent nature. I learned many, many years ago, that just because “that’s the way I am,” that doesn’t mean that’s the way I have to act. And the way I act has a profound effect on the way I feel.

So on nights like tonight, when the tide is rushing high and that deadly undertow is pulling at me, I consciously resist my natural bent by doing something really silly, or writing a nonsensical poem or story, or playing with marbles, or building castles out of marshmallows. Unfortunately, I’m completely out of marshmallows at the moment, so I’m going to have to write a poem.

Summer’s finally burning out

The days are getting shorter

I might be sad to see it go

Cuz it was a rip-snorter

But since it scorched me every day

And never gave me quarter

I’m glad to see the hot-shot go,

That’s not true for my daurghter :)

She’s wild about the hottest days

And hates the cooler night

She’d live in her bikini if

I told her that she might.

But since she knows that goose-bumps

Are not a lovely sight

She’s pulling out her sweaters

And grins because they’re TIGHT!

(those poor boys don’t have a chance!)

Ok, so I didn't say I wrote good poetry - but I feel so much better now. I think I'll let this be my Thursday-ish and take myself off to bed.

School Daze blogfest

Blogfest Participants - please skip the first two paragraphs - my story is below.

This week, I'm participating in a blogfest thrown by Roh Morgon from Musings of a Moonlight Writer. For those who don't know, a blogfest is a mixture of writing contest and party. The Host sets the contest parameters: subject, length, required attributes, and length. Participants sign up, committing to write, then everyone posts their stories on the designated date. We'll all go around to all of the blogs of the participants and.....then I don't really know what happens! This is my first one. My understanding is that a third party judges the stories and selects a winner, and they get the prize offered by the Host, our dear Roh Morgon.

So, why don't you go around and check out the other submissions, too? The theme is School Daze: a story that happens on a school campus. Even if you don't read them all, you should read Roh's. She's got a great book completed and is busily collecting rejection notices from agents/publishers who are going to be kicking themselves later. You'll be able to say, "Yeah, I read Roh back before she was famous!"



SCHOOL DAZE

I’m not a morning person. I’m cheerful in the morning, because I don’t like grumpy people and I refuse to be one, but it’s all an act, really.

I got into college on a voice scholarship, everything paid: tuition, housing, food, everything. This meant that they owned me, and all of my time. I carried 24 or 25 credit hours every semester, toured with the Chorale three months every summer, and went on two-week-long singing tours twice a year. It was busy—crazy busy—but I loved it!

The real problem, other than not being able to have any kind of regular job—hence, no money—was that Chorale practice had to be at 6:00 every morning because there was no time the rest of the day. Six o’clock in the morning. Did I make that clear? An hour before 7:00 am. To sing. And classes started at 7:00, so I couldn’t go in my jammies with messy hair. No. I had to get up at 4:45 to shower, dress, do the hair and makeup, and get to the auditorium to sing. It was hell.

My college was on the old Voorhis Campus in San Dimas, California. It was an old, beautiful place originally built as a School for Boys, with large individual houses set among fragrant orange orchards in steeply rolling hills. Each of those houses became dorms when the campus was bought by my college, all different, and all very home-like.

As an upper classman, I was finally housed in one of the smaller dorms, probably sixteen rooms, total, and bunked with only one roommate. It was heaven. But that 6:00 practice every morning was still the bane of my existence.

Every morning, every stinking morning, my alarm would go off at 4:45 and I’d grab my clock, wind up to throw it—and remember that I couldn’t have regular work, so I couldn’t buy another. Gritting my teeth, I’d carefully return it to its place, climb down off my upper bunk, and go muzzily to the shower.

My roommate was a wonderfully perceptive person, who really appreciated my generally cheerful outlook and my morning restraint. So she bought me the perfect gift at Christmas: an alarm clock encased in a thick rubber ball—designed to be thrown at the wall to turn off the buzzer in the morning! No one, ever, has given me a better, more timely gift!

So, every morning, every delightful morning, my alarm would go off at 4:45, and I’d grab my clock and fling it at the wall! We’d both laugh hilariously, and I’d go off to the shower chuckling. Except one morning….

It was a day like any other. The alarm went off. I grabbed the clock and flung it at the wall. But this day, I must have held onto it a little too long, or perhaps I twisted a bit, or I was just a little too eager, but, for whatever reason, the clock didn’t smack into the wall like usual. Instead, it zipped off into the corner and ricocheted right back at me and smacked me right in the middle of my forehead! Like Goliath, I measured my length on the ground—from the top bunk. Boink. And bounce. Uhhhhhhh….

I’m pretty sure my roommate had a heart attack, because when I came to, she was lying there on the floor next to me. I had a huge knot on the top of my head, and she already had a black-eye. To this day, neither one of us knows what happened.

That’s not the best part, though. Our neighboring dorm-mates were used to my morning routine: the alarm, the bonk, the laughter. So this morning, when they heard the alarm, the bonk, a scream, things falling, and then silence, they came rushing to our room. I believe it was their screams that brought me to consciousness. When, slack-jawed, I turned my head to look toward the door, I watched both girls—both—roll their eyes up under their eyelids and fall, face first, in a dead faint.

I missed practice that morning; I believe for the very first time. But I made all of my classes--in the company of three girls...each of whom had great, big, glorious black-eyes. Man! I loved that alarm clock!

Wrinkles Attract Publishers

Ed and I live in a small, Victorian house: two bedrooms, one bath, no garage, less than a thousand square feet It’s almost like living in a doll house—except that every bit of wall-space that is at least two feet wide has a bookcase in it…so it’s more like living in a library. There are several thousand books in here, so it’s a real challenge, sometimes, getting from one room to the next without seeing something that begs to be picked up and enjoyed. It’s almost like a house full of children!

Anyway, I’ve been going through all these books, trying to find some to swap with other readers online (if you’re interested in that, drop me a line) and realized that I needed to see what books we were missing from our favorite series. Serieses. Hmmm, that’s funny. How does one make the word “series” plural? This series. And another series. There, that did it.

Like I was saying, I needed to know what books we were missing, impossible as it seems that there could be any book in the world missing from our shelves. So I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours looking at the book lists of our favorite authors, and I noticed something interesting.

None of my favorite authors are young. And none of Ed’s are, either. Once I noticed that, I started paying attention to how old they were when they first started writing—no, when they first started getting attention for their writing (some of them were scribbling stories when they were in second grade!) You know what I discovered? Almost all of them got their first stories published after they were forty.

I’ve been thinking that I was coming late to the party with this writing business, but apparently I’m right on target. And as I gave that a little thought, it made sense to me. To write convincingly about life, one needs to have lived it a bit. We all write best about things we know, after all.

Coming up with a story, creating a world, developing its details, technology, society, religion, mythology, politics, sewer system….that’s all just fun. It’s a glorified form of playing house. They call it con-worlding in my writing group. (This is the gamer term for constructing a world for a role-playing game or a story.) But the best-constructed world in the universe won’t make a story real to the reader. That requires characters who act naturally, have normal fears, hopes, ambitions, who understand (and misunderstand) the actions and motivations of other characters….in short, act like real people.

It takes a while, sometimes a very long while, for humans to mature to the point that we quit obsessing about ourselves and start noticing the people around us. Usually, this happens when children knock us out of the center of our own world. The lessons we learn once we start looking outward are the ones that breathe life and color into our stories. They’re the ones that turn our Pinocchio puppets into real boys.

So, I’m suddenly thrilled to say that I am no longer a youngster with little experience and less water under the bridge (are you enjoying all my mixed metaphors?) I’m going to spend my wealth of experience lavishly on my characters, endowing them with all of the depth and richness that years of living has supplied, knowing that the wrinkles on my face also add expression to theirs. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll catch the eye of some publisher since it’s obvious that Publishers find wrinkles attractive!

OCD or Nirvana?

I’ve practiced avoidance my entire life. As the youngest of four girls, I learned early that conflict would seldom resolve my way. And I hated conflict to begin with, so, with Cheshire-cat-like ability, I learned just to not be where conflict was happening. That particular kind of avoidance stood me in good stead for a long time, both at home and at school. At church, of course, I was always in the front row with my hand up – Goodie-Two-Shoes had nothing on me! (No doubt I caused plenty of other people to practice avoidance, though.)

But the kind of avoidance I’m practicing now is of a different flavor – one not so savory, and a little pathetic. The bottom has dropped out of our financial world and I’ve got bills that I have no way of paying, so I’m not taking calls, not opening mail: it’s all just being placed in a folder for “later.” And I have a friend who’s gone off the deep end, politically, and has said several very hurtful things. Ordinarily, I’d be going to her privately and talking this out – but I’m not. I’ve had enough. It’s too much effort to reanimate a friendship that is only good when I agree. My long history of not fighting back, of avoiding conflict has come back to bite me but good (and bite me butt good, too! LOL)

So what is it that I’m doing instead of dealing with these issues? What important activity has all of my focus and attention? Um…FrontierVille.

What?

You heard me, that Facebook game.

Farmville????

NO! Frontierville. Farmville’s flat and boring. FrontierVille’s all woodsy and fun.

Oh. Heady stuff.

Yeah.

It’s pretty embarrassing, really. I have lots to do. My Writing Group is putting out an Anthology this year. I’ve had stories to review, and now edit. I’m working on the cover art. I have another story I’m working on of my own. I have two wedding portraits that I’m trying to get finished for weddings this month. And I should be out pounding the pavement, submitting flyers and passing out business cards to build up my Facepainting business. But what am I doing? I’m rearranging my cabins and crops and animals, laying down “roads” and putting up fences, visiting my “neighbors” and earning energy to spend on my own homestead.

And not only my own homestead. FV requires plenty of “neighbors” to play well, and I really only use Facebook for family—so I started a homestead for my husband, too, because he plays all sorts of FB games and has over 2,000 friends on his list! That was very effective, and I even got several of his friends to become my friends, also. But there came a time when I really needed "a third hand," so I started another homestead in the name of the main character in the book I’m writing. “Danae” became, almost, an alter ego for me. She has her own friends list—several of whom are on neither mine nor Ed’s—and has conversations with her new friends and everything! Is this healthy?

Then Ed’s two kids each started homesteads of their own and played for a while, got bored, and quit……so their homesteads were just sitting there not doing anything……and my daughter, Emily (who was the naughty little vixen who got me to play FrontierVille in the first place!) really needed something—five somethings…and Mellie, Ed, Danae, Meagan, and Drue added up to five. So…I did the obvious thing and started using their homesteads as “feeder” stations, funneling good stuff to Emily and me.

Now, I realized long ago that I was playing my own homestead obsessively. So, when I found myself handling five of them (pretty well, I must say)—I knew I was hiding from something.

I can be completely and totally wrong, on occasion. And I can be stubbornly adamant about a misunderstanding, too. But I’m not one to lie to myself. In fact, I’m usually too harsh in my self-judgment. So, if I’m hiding something from myself, it’s not likely to be a moral issue or something important like that. It’s far more likely to be something distasteful or uncomfortable that I’m avoiding. Something really dumb.

I started digging around in my psyche, a little worried about what I might find there—really, there’s just no telling—and, to my delight, found that I was being perfectly rational! What a relief!

I have several things happening right now that are completely outside of my control. Several things that I must do, by law, that I have no possible way of doing. No-win decisions to make, not between bad and worse, or good and bad, but between bad and bad. And several serious worries that I can do nothing about. Whew! I’d have to be psychotic not to want to avoid those things!

So, I talked about it with Ed, bless the man, and he reminded me of why I put together jigsaw puzzles. When my life is chaotic and I feel like I’m at the mercy of unmerciful circumstance, I pull out a 300 or 500 piece jigsaw puzzle—just the right size to do in an evening after dinner—and I put it together; I bring order out of chaos. For a few hours, my effort has visible effect, which is resolved (finished) with a tangible result. I practically achieve nirvana. This has been my therapy of choice for over forty years, and this is exactly what I’ve been doing with FrontierVille. I’ve built a little bit of beautifully-ordered paradise on my little homestead, and I’m in complete control of it.

In the usual, lovely way the Universe has of bringing understanding at the appropriate time, my homestead (and Ed’s, too) is finished. Everything is just the way I want it. Now all I have to do is visit it occasionally to harvest my crops, feed my animals, visit a few neighbors, and enjoy how well I’ve created my little frontier town. And I’m going to do just that and allow it (guilt-free) to work its magic for me: my own little ordered space in a chaotic and out-of-control world. So, if you’re looking for me and I’m not answering my email, head over to Facebook and FrontierVille and ask for Melanie Ann Smith. You’re welcome to drop by my town anytime and say, “Howdy!”

Is Her Name Muse?

Creativity is a slippery little devil. It cuddles up to me and whispers in my ear just as I’m falling asleep, all promises and blandishment. In the morning, however, it is all rumpled and its eyes are crusty and it squinches up its face and says Go away.

So, I go about my house, doing small chores and cleanings, keeping one eye on the grumplepuss and hoping that it will work out the kinks and come play. Finally, giving up, I sit at my computer, play some game, edit a story, look at images I’m considering for a book cover—and the little stinker just lays there and snores. Hmph. I’m staring deadlines in the face, and it can’t be bothered.

Grumbling under my breath, I wander into the kitchen thinking about dinner. I could come up with something tantalizing and tasty that would make my husband sit up and bark if I could only get some help from the lay-about in the other room, but noooo. Fine. I’ll just reheat the chicken and dumplings we had two nights ago and make some rice with…

I’m standing at the refrigerator, door open, with my eyes fastened on the pot in my hands, but my mind is juggling three different ideas for the book cover I’ve been contemplating. Coming to myself I hear the giggle behind me and smell the sweet breath of Creativity washing over me. Poor Ed. His dinner will have to wait. I have a will-o’-the-wisp to follow….

Uses of a Cauliflower

Making dinner tonight – Friday, by the way…not Thursday – I was slicing cauliflower very thinly and admiring the fine tracery its silhouette made against the dark background of my cutting board. Of course, my mind immediately jumped to how a fairy might use thinly sliced cauliflower as a backdrop for their nightly theater (wouldn’t your mind jump there, also?) They’d use broccoli for tree props, naturally, the “trunks” wrapped in brown grass to simulate bark, but to get that suggestion of distant birch trees under the moon, cross-sections of cauliflower would be just perfect.

I explained this to Ed over dinner. Bless the man…he just smiled, and nodded, and said, “Of course.” Then I told him a little story….

In 1988, my little family moved to Kentucky. We bought a great little property: an acre or so in the middle of town, with a sparkling creek that ran through the back at the foot of a steep hill. My husband and I built a darling little bridge with 2 felled trees and a bunch of boards, and we put in a garden on the other side of the creek.

The garden had several beds, with upright supports at one end for beans and peas. One morning, I walked down to the creek, over the bridge, and into the garden to do some tending and found a massive, beautiful spider web strung perfectly from one pole to another. It must have been three feet across, and it was jeweled with dew that sparkled in the early morning light. I stood, transfixed, for long minutes, taking in the lovely symmetry, the elaborate design, the perfect execution—then finally turned to do my chores.

Later, I stood before the web again, thinking of ways I could preserve such a magnificent specimen. I thought, perhaps, I could spray it with silver paint and carefully use black posterboard to “scoop” it onto; or maybe I could…

As I was considering options, a small, flying beetle blundered into the web, shaking it violently. In the time it took for me to gasp and for my mouth to form an “O,” the spider zipped over to the beetle and gave it a practiced bounce. I never saw how she did it, but in no time at all, that beetle was wrapped up and hanging from one of the cross-pieces of the web and the spider was back in her place as though nothing had happened at all. I was shaken, though the web was now still.

My experience with spiders had been limited to Daddy-Long-Legs that got into the house and strung scrappy webbings in the corners of the ceiling. Detroit didn’t have black widows or brown recluse spiders, or any other scary spiders that I knew about. Spiders were funny old-man-like things that wobbled comically across their artless stringings. I’d seen beautiful gossamers before, certainly, but had never understood their purposeful design or seen the spider’s deadly expertise.

Just after that incident, I read The Hobbit for the first time. When Bilbo and the dwarves got to the Forest and had their encounter with the spiders, I felt that encounter viscerally. The stickiness of the webbing, the quickness of the spiders, the bobbing figures on the lines overhead, even the smell of the loam underfoot as Bilbo jumped and scrambled and dodged about—all was so immediate and personal. I read the entire section with eyes so wide open that they stuck when I finally tried to blink!

The Hobbit lead right into the Lord of the Rings, of course, and my heart contracted with horror when the monstrous Shelob stalked the hobbits in her lair. I felt the sting of the venom with Frodo, and shouted out with Samwise as he battled the malicious beast. This was what it had felt like for the beetle!

What does this have to do with thinly-sliced cauliflower? Nothing, and everything. Imagination is a POWERFUL thing, and creativity relies entirely on the imagination. I cannot create something until I can see it in my mind, and neither can a reader. I look at cauliflower and see fairy props. Presented properly, I can make a reader see that too if he's ever seen cauliflower. That’s the difficulty with fiction—fantasy and sci-fi in particular—points of reference are essential, they give the reader a connection, an image, a reason to care. I CARED about Bilbo and Frodo because they were battling a spider—if they’d fought a wombat or a horned-gruntlebeast I’d have been “ho-hum…another monster.” But I FELT the sticky web, the burning sting, the sweaty fear of a known (if much smaller) danger.

[Raise my right hand] So, I solemnly pledge from this day forward to have faith in the imagination of my reader, and to supply adequate reference points of a familiar nature (and no wombats). Amen.