Solo road trip 1971

Driving to an appointment at a strange new location brought back memories of my first experiences tooling around alone in a car and the sense of freedom it brought - on my own - calling all the shots! The joy and hesitancy of making all the decisions myself. I recalled my first big solo trip. I had taken several short jaunts here and there for a few days away from home either accompanied by a friend or a little sister, but the trip in November of 1971 that went on until late December was the 'biggie'. There was a sense of freshness in being alone behind the wheel. It's been 40 years, yet I still have all the postcards and letters home, a few photographs, some notes and a joy of joys! a sketchbook! Thumbing through them now as an adult with grown children, I wonder what worries went through my parents minds? Communication was not instant then, parents awaited weekly letters or the rare and costly collect call home. I hadn’t a camera at the time, or pocket moleskin notebook - much less a computer or smart phone. I wrote my impressions on a yellow ruled tablet and drew what I saw in a cheap sketchbook, my cash outlays notated on the back of a papersack.

After completing school at UCLA, I was discouraged about continuing, having abandoned the painting program and taken my BA in art history instead. I had worked at a couple of jobs that quickly revealed their shortcomings, so it was a perfect time in my uncertain-about-the-future young life to go on a road trip. My family had travelled cross-country together many times, so it was not a prospect totally alien to my experiences, and I had grown up in LA, driving its notorious freeways and was comfortable behind the wheel. To venture off on my own for several thousand miles and for more than a long weekend was a bit more intimidating a challenge for me. I made plans. I went armed with a list of names and addresses of friends, sorority houses and relatives, useful as potential stops along the way, figuring on cheap motels when and if those places didn't work out. I drove a shiny new orange 1971 VW Superbug, that would take me 200 mi on a full tank of gas, which in those days cost about $3. So off I went, my trunk filled with oil paints and canvasses ( I was always consciously an artist) a Styrofoam cooler, a variety of clothes in a suitcase, a pillow, and a couple of hundred bucks in cash. Now when my own daughters go we remind them to have chargers for cell phones and cameras, debit cards, and are worried when they don’t text us hourly….how did my Mom keep her cool? I think she was confident in my sensibility and the fact that as oldest daughter I had built up a resume of competency that was reassuring. My game plan was reasonably structured - yet had enough mystery to qualify as an adventure. When outlining my upcoming trip plans to a newly married husband at a party, I recall the jealously wistful look in his eyes. Stopping for gas in Meridian Mississippi midway through my journey, the kid pumping my gas waved good bye and called “take me with you!” – I knew I was doing the right thing taking this trip.

I completed it unscathed by tragedy with a little money still in my purse, and a slightly altered perspective. In the months following, I applied to graduate schools, got a job as a waitress, stockpiled my tips, and gathered myself up for the next chapter in my life.

I didn’t always date the sketchbook pages as I drew on them in those days, but they are still intact and sequential. The postcards and letters have fairly legible postmarks to compensate for my hasty handwriting. I was 22 years old, full of myself, both excited and wary about what lay ahead.

In the posts that follow, I will retrace my now 40 year old adventure through the sketches notes and letters home.

Ayla

I went to a Jane Auel reading in town to get an autographed copy of her latest and last volume in the Earth’s Children series for my younger daughter. If Elizabeth were in town, we would have been going there together – one of our little pilgrimages. I did drawings while listening and jotted down a few comments to relay later over the phone. I did snap a picture or two with my phone (I was reluctant to be the pest with a camera attendee, so I hadn’t brought a real one; my phone was probably just as distracting). I got a nice shot of the author inscribing Elizabeth’s copy. The Book signing was as usual, at the end of her talk. I was situated up in front, but alas, they decided to reconfigure everyone into a line starting from the side opposite to mine. The afternoon was uncluttered for me, so I just went to the end rather than be one of those butt-in-skis that I despise. Some of the attendees had several copies of books to be autographed; a few were even toting filled book bags. I waited at the end of the line with a couple of other ladies who had found themselves in the same situation of being displaced. We all made small talk, but one woman behind me was chatting up a storm. She needed to vent and I was happy to be - as Mom used to call me - a listening post. She was coping with a recent divorce and clutched a paperback copy of the first in the six volume series. Her ex had kept the entire set as his part of their divorce settlement. He had been mesmerized by them and read them all several times as had she. They had been so obsessed with the books that they had named their firstborn daughter Ayla – after the series’ central character. Getting an inscribed copy of that initial book to present to her became her mission. Her ex hadn’t unpacked everything since the split and when she told him she wanted to get one of them signed – couldn’t locate any of them. So she bought a paperback of the first volume, The Clan of the Cave Bear, and waited in line with it. She had come up from a small town south of Iowa City, where she kept horses and did rodeos, describing how she had injured her knees during barrel racing. She said in her day the barrels were steel drums and not the plastic ones they use now. Her daughters (I think there were two) rode and did shows and competitions and she had become the horse custodian – doing the prepping and brushing and whatever has to be done to horses before competitions - my sister Susie would know. Anyway she was adjusting to her new single status and had gained weight and was worried about an upcoming high school reunion and being fatter. She always had had a good figure and used to say no to a cheeseburger with ease, but now had drowned her sorrows in food for a year and was a bit hefty. She had tried to adopt a few new interests and bought a Harley - which she didn’t have to comb and shovel after - of course it didn’t look at her with big brown eyes and nuzzle her, but she liked how it stayed clean in the barn. She admired its shiny chrome and was getting acquainted with that new mistress reflected in it. So she chattered on, punctuating the conversation with alternating complaints about her former husband, her blossoming figure, and her eagerness to meet the writer who had been so critical a part of her life. She was excited about the opportunity to tell the author how they had named their daughter Ayla, how important the book was to her, and how fitting it’s presentation to her daughter would be. If I hadn’t moved to the back of that line, Ayla would have stayed just another character in a book, never stepping out from its covers, journeying into reality and leaving her footprints on my turf.

Shelf Life

My daughter was given a lovely red leather bound sketchbook by her boss, a souvenir of his recent trip to Spain. He knew she kept a book with daily entries and drawings and felt this was the perfect gift for her. I so hope she uses it and doesn’t save it for some special more deserving later point in time. I have always had a forward looking temperament, one that is preparing and planning and setting aside for the future. I have a fear of making hasty decisions and carelessly squandering anything. The downside of this nature is that too often the saved items are never used, never enjoyed - never have a life beyond their ‘newness’. They sit on the shelf, awaiting some more appropriate, more worthy moment. Over the years, we sent my Father’s Mother nightgowns and housecoats that she kept folded in tissue in their original gift boxes, occasionally pulling them out to look at, forever feeling that they were too ‘nice’ to wear, to potentially wrinkle, to possibly soil, to taint with life. It was as if donning them would deflower them. My other Grandma told me a story of setting choice parts of her dinner on the edge of her plate to savor at the end and lord over siblings who had eaten all of theirs first - only to see those treats snatched away by a sister, devoured and gone forever - the downside of hoarding. My husband Mike and I felt that way about ‘retirement’. We watched older friends and relatives save up ambitions and wishes for after they retired. By the time they did, they were too aged or tired or gripped with illnesses to embrace those dreams with the zest with with they had been envisioned. In many cases they had not done the necessary ground work to facilitate switching over to dream pastimes at that later age. So we decided to live as if we were retired now, doing what we truly liked - living scrupulously and sparsely so that we didn’t NEED a large financial support system for our lives. There was never ‘when we retire’ we’ll take up photography, paint, write a novel, garden or ‘when we strike it rich’ we’ll live in the country, travel, build a bigger house. We didn’t need a large chunk of money or time to pursue those goals we saw on the horizon. We live on that horizon. We told ourselves “it’s not getting what you want, but wanting what you have” that’s the key and if you don’t have it now –do you really want it? I think most of us do what we want to and if we put off things, maybe we don’t truly want them all that much, and if we put them off too often, or for too long, our desires wilt. So lest your ambitions fade - or be snatched away - live them now. I so hope my daughter’s new leather journal becomes filled with her life and not shelf life.

HoneyMoon Trip

This is an account the 'Honeymoon' trip Mike and I took after we got hitched- followed by a Shark poem I wrote to accompany a sculpture for a show that required that sort of thing.

This is a change from my usual postings. I have been working on a sketchbook for the Fiction Project - which requires handwritten stories with illustrations. The original book must be turned in to the Brooklyn Art Library, where people can check them out.

Tattoos

Maybe I am working things out on paper in an effort to resolve issues that I have been carrying around with me. The scars of the past are etched into and under my skin - indelible tattoos that commemorate achievements, mark indiscretions, and document misunderstandings. Rather than beaming with pride, polishing the trophies of my successes, I instead find myself fretting over the missteps I have made, and look for long sleeves to cover the marks. The prized possessions and unwieldy burdens of my past seem to persistently buzz around in my mind like those summer gnats that are unswattable - that no matter how fast you walk away from them seem to stay a part of your airspace. Am I looking for the 'undo' button, so I can back-track to that pivotal moment or phrase that set me onto a slippery emotional path towards future remorse? While attending an art reception years ago, I made some harsh comments about a few pieces on display - wondering out loud why on earth this piece of crap had been selected for an award and not some other. I later found out that the artist had been standing behind me with her two young daughters. There those kids were, all dressed up and here on a special trip to see their Mom get an award - only to hear some mean lady trash talking her beautiful creation. We've all put our foot in our mouth at times and this is one I replay again and again, wishing to be able to hit the mute button on myself. In front of her kids, Jeeze! What a jerk I was. No I hadn't burned down a church or strangled a puppy, but I cringe every time I recall that incident. Now when I am ready to shoot off my mouth in public, I remember those two little kids and put on the safety, lest I harm them or my feet. My memory is a creation that I return to and tweak, sometimes with the insights of maturity, sometimes with a new piece of information which skews things into a different arrangement, most times with a sigh of resignation. But every once in awhile, a new revelation shines a light on previously darkened passages and I find a pathway to serenity. In a never ending process of mending tears and holes in the suit that clothes me for life, those patches become hard-earned badges that commemorate lessons learned.

15 Books

I was recently asked to name my top ten books and was at a loss as to how to narrow my choices - loved then - loved now - coming to the conclusion that it would be best to go with the Facebook note qualification - 'which ones stuck with me'. I am still loath to limit myself, different books for different times, the list would change over the years, but some would keep finding their way back into the queue - some would stick. I remember getting one of my first books as a gift, a golden book of Frosty the Snowman. I loved singing the hit 50's song along in my head as I read it. There was another children's book about a beaver that dug his own swimming pool, patting down the sticks and mud on the sides with his flat paddle tail, I later used his technique of sticks and rocks and mud to create little lakes in our sandbox. There were walks to our little local library with Mom, at first she read to me the books we brought home and later on I read them all by myself. She would tell me how as a child I would get so excited about whatever current book I was reading that I would follow along beside her, relating choice excerpts to her while she weeded. A favorite as a kid was Miss Pickerel Goes to Mars. A chapter book that I could read! - and I owned it! It was about a little old farm lady who inadvertently rides along on a spaceship trip - outer space was a favorite topic at our house. Dad's old paperback science fiction collection was stored up in our attic in cardboard boxes and I remember getting distracted reading through them trying to decide which ones to bring down to my room, It was Southern California and perpetually summer, our attic was a stifling crawlspace, sweat poured down my neck as I sped through each smelly yellowing paperback, stopping occasionally to look at the lurid cover graphics - the cool ones were the double editions where you could flip the book over and the other story was printed upside down, both ends meeting in the center. Two for the price of one! Dad couldn't resist a bargain! As I grew older and had acquired more books of my own, I catalogued them, putting numbers on their spines with a blue felt pen and writing out an index card for each so that when my sisters and friends 'checked' them out I had a record of their whereabouts - the ying and yang of possessing and sharing. In my high school years I would drive a carload of little sisters to the library once a week to exchange books, wandering around the stacks as the ding ding of 'library closing in ten minutes' sounded and rounding up little strays amongst the piles of books. When stuck at home, we would park ourselves in the short passageway that connected the entry hall and our living room. In that narrow passage were floor to ceiling bookshelves that held novels, biographies, magazines, math books, travel books, and various Time-Life series. There we would lose ourselves in our search for something for a school report, or spend hours distracted by the pictures in National Geographic Magazines. Sometimes we would expand our range, meandering through Dad's old college math books, with their odd numbers and graphs - such fascinating gibberish, magical in it's indecipherability. we'd climb up the shelves seeking out obscure texts - every so often finding a long lost Easter egg that had been a little too well hidden. Mom loved historical fiction - books with characters that actually lived through epic events. She was continually shoving books at us. I refused to enjoy The Bobbsey Twins and found Gone With the Wind's heroine not a strong role model, but an irritating bitch. Years later she sent her very first Bobbsey Twins volume to my young daughters. It was given to my Mom when she was 8yrs old by her Aunt Nida. Mom enclosed a letter with it describing how she and my sister found it propping up one of the bunk beds at our cabin - obviously no longer the cherished tome of her youth, but still playing a supportive role in our lives. I wish I had the WWII first aid manual we kept in our family room. Mimicking the diagrams I would use torn sheets carefully rolled up into bandage rolls and truss the wounds of willing little sisters who played war casualties. After they had endured hours of binding they were dispensed medication in the form of 'smarties' candies to speed their recovery. My list includes some of my parent's favorites and others I found by following the paths they carved out for me in my youth. Some of these I made my own kids read and they expressed their gratitude with a mix of tears and kisses and groans and curses. Years later when we children gathered to divide our parents' possessions, it was the book collection that took us the longest. As we read excerpts and shared memories together, one in-law declared that they could read one in the time it took us to sort through them.

here's my list - in a random order and omitting oh so many

Barthomew and the 500 Hats by Dr. Suess

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth

Franney and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

Tarzan of the Apes series by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

Island by Aldous Huxley

Fahrenheit 451 and the short stories by Ray Bradbury

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Fatu-Hiva by Thor Heyerdahl

Julian by Gore Vidal

any and all Agatha Christie

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Our Mutual Friend and lots of others by Charles Dickens

Morning Doves

Having been an only child, my father wanted to have lots of kids - I guess he had been lonely a lot. I remember him telling me about going on fishing trips with his folks and sitting alone in the backseat during the long journeys wishing there had been someone beside him. He grew up self-reliant, his fertile brain developing hobbies and projects to pursue. That unflagging curiosity and initiative continued to sustain him into adulthood and his career as an aeronautical engineer. When he became a father, his practice of solitary diversions provided a restful and stabilizing counterpoint to the bustling activities of our busy home. He would retire to the living room with his magazine or sci-fi book after dinner while the rest of us watched cartoons and bickered and did the dishes and our homework. His other retreat was to his bedroom where the built-in vanity for the 'lady of the house' had been transformed into his stamp desk, a wall of photographs and diplomas hanging above it where the mirror had been. Mom - not one for ritual self-adornment - easily gave up that throne, opting for a centrally located nook in the laundry room for her desk and phone. There she could keep one eye on all of us while doing the household accounts and writing countless letters. At his desk Dad would immerse himself in the world of stamps, making his own albums to hold them, creating pages for each series on sheets of notebook paper. He catalogued them by continents or countries - I can't recall his system - but they were in some order of color and sequence. Each page was ruled with boxes to hold the denominations of an issue with extra spaces for the ones he lacked. If a fresh stamp in an existing series came out and altered the layout of the page, he joyfully grabbed a ballpoint pen and ruler and laid out a brand new replacement page with enough slots to accommodate the increase. He was excited when 'Nifty Notebooks' came out in the early 60's, loving the magnetic flip around covers and their capacity to hold removable sheets as well as their special compartments for pens - plus the cheap price was impossible to resist! Gleefully he bought a dozen or more for himself and us kids. The notebooks were used by all of us, but we soon found their flaws. They popped open when dropped and pens and papers went flying, their colorful vinyl covers cracked over time from continuous exposure to sunlight and abusive schoolchildren. Before long, we returned to the old standard blue canvas three ring binders. Separated by section dividers with colored tabs, they held all of our class subjects and their fabric covers were less resistant to our ball point pen designs and messages than the slick vinyl had been. Dad never gave up on his, perhaps because they stayed at home safe in his cabinet, perhaps because they embodied his do-it-yourself approach to hobbies, perhaps because they were just so 'nifty'. His stamp world was a calming mental sanctuary where he could insulate himself from our chattering houseful of women. A morning person, he was up at the crack of dawn, dressed for work, drinking his coffee and watching 'sunrise semester' on TV, absorbing a wide variety of useful topics while the rest of us were fast asleep. Now that I am grown, I too am a morning person and have activities that I pursue in solitude while loved ones sleep. At times anxious for company, but more often at peace in my seclusion, planning the days and weeks activities, designing sculptures, solving newspaper puzzles, drinking coffee, my daily wake up routine is a legacy from my father. On visits home Dad and I would have our coffee in silence together as the rest of the household slowly came to life. Sometimes we would talk, but usually we would be quiet together - and that conversation was a richer brew.

The Reindeer Sweaters

Looking through a collection of old photographs of my Grandfather, I stumbled across a snapshot of him wearing one of the reindeer sweaters.





I had always assumed that those matching powder blue and white sweaters belonged to my parents first, having seen them in old photos of Mom and Dad as newlyweds. Now I realize that, even then, they were hand-me-downs. They were kept in a box of 'snow clothes' for our occasional winter trips up to the family cabin near Lake Arrowhead. In that collection were old fashioned jackets, mittens, boots, hats and various other bizarre cold weather apparel alien to our warm Southern California lifestyle. When we were up in the mountains, we would dig through the box trying on various articles of clothing, looking for a good fit. During this process, Mom would chatter away about whose boots those had been or whose hat that was and as those histories were recounted, regrettably we paid little attention. We were too keenly focused on colors and styles, fighting over especially interesting items - like the sweaters with the reindeer on them. Being big enough to wear those coveted sweaters, much too large for the little kids, marked our passage into adulthood. Over time, they became itchy and less pliable, much like our aging bodies. They had been worn by a doting father and his lovely daughter, next by a youthful couple unaware that they would one day parent our rowdy brood, then by an older brother and sister who were caretakers for four little sisters, and lastly by twins, who felt that logically the matched set go to them. The reindeer sweaters are long gone - preserved only in an occasional photo. Their woolen fibers have stiffened and crumbled into obscurity, but are forever woven into our collective memories.

Catch of the Day

Our Family would often go to the tide pools after church on Sunday afternoons. We wore our beat-up old tennis shoes and carried buckets in hopes of bringing them back brimming with treasures. The rocky ponds were filled with creepy gooey sea life, an occasional sea slug, but mostly anemones. Our local variety was a dull grey green in color and had hundreds of wriggling tendrils. When we dropped a pebble in them they would close up around it trying to swallow it - which naturally led us to try larger stones on bigger anemones, leaving them struggling under way more than a mouthful - ah the cruelty of youth. Sea urchins were everywhere, a deep purply-red in color, their mostly empty shells eaten out from the underside. We'd sometimes take them home and boil them in bleachy water to kill the remaining smelly innards, leaving us with a nice shell for our collections. Our buckets would fill up with all manner of creatures picked up with the scientific zeal of 10yr olds. Once home we would lay out our display of prizes on the sidewalk to admire. We would play for the rest of the day with any live crabs we managed to smuggle home. Building walls with blocks to form a racecourse, we'd goad them on cheering and screaming and poking them with sticks. We regarded them with fascination and fear, never daring to pick them up with our bare hands. Getting them to grab onto a stick was our technique for moving them around and threatening younger sisters by waving the scary sea spiders in their faces. If they let go and got loose, we all scrambled to safety, rescuing out bare toes from those treacherous pinchers. During the week they would mysteriously disappear from their corrals in the yard - usually right after trash day - by then we had usually lost interest anyway. At that time I was in my Marine Biologist phase, obsessed with the sea and all of it's strange inhabitants. I remember coming up with the idea of splitting anemones for a science project in Jr.High. My premise was that they might be able to regenerate from pieces - like starfish are able to re-grow a lost leg. With the feverish perseverance of a 12yr old, I cut them apart by endlessly sawing back and forth with one of our hopelessly dull kitchen knives. They lay in pieces, limp and suffering at the bottom of the tank. They sat for weeks in a salt water aquarium with the filter bubbling, ugly and smelly and doing nothing. Creepy and repulsive as they were, I still have pangs of remorse about what I did to them in the name of 'science'. I watched and waited, taking daily notes, eventually concluding that they did not possess the same capabilities as starfish and at long last they were joyously disposed of by my Mother. How she put up with my research I cannot imagine. It didn't end there - years later my youngest sister boiled down a horse leg in the kitchen to study the bones for a class. The tradition continued when my own daughter dissected a road-kill possum for a college course. We cooked the skinned carcass down in a canning pot on a Coleman stove OUTSIDE on our deck. I was not going to do it in our kitchen - Mom's spirit guiding me against going down that road.

Moustache Night

Like my Grandmother before me, I had two daughters a little later in life. They are close in age, but wide apart in temperament. They cope with life's adversities, picking and choosing differing weapons from their arsenal of responses. The elder is prone to swift untempered reactions, while the younger one diplomatically bides her time and moderates her replies - perhaps as a result of years of witnessing the consequences of her sister's rash outbursts. Attempting to assemble some very upscale hanging lamps inherited from her elder sister, daughter number two sat up in her room sweating amidst a pile of wires hangers and folded paper shades. The instructions were long gone. Usually the whiz-kid of the family, she sat alone seething with frustration and disbelief - she had been beaten by a lamp. Fortunately her sister was living across the street at the time and was summoned over to assist in sorting out the tangled mess of parts. Up the stairs stomps elder sister, grumbling about this disruption of her personal life. Her upper lip was etched with marker and we stared at it surreptitiously, afraid to comment lest we irritate her further and trigger a sudden and premature departure. All too aware of our guarded curiosity she announced, "it's moustache night", in the same way one would say "it's Saturday" - and promptly, deftly assembled the mass of parts into several fixtures, turned and disappeared across the street.

Bad finger

One afternoon during her first year of elementary school, my daughter came home and gravely took me aside to reveal some new found knowledge. Holding out her chubby hand and speaking in a lowered, reverent, confidential tone, she said - " Mom, did you know that one of my fingers is a 'bad' finger?" One of her ten fingers was arbitrarily singled out to be given a life sentence by some ancient schoolyard morality codex. The finger that yesterday was an innocent appendage today has been branded as corrupt and evil. What crime did it commit? It will look just the same as it did yesterday, but from this day forward it will forever bear a stigma and serve as a reminder of lost innocence.

Unwrapped

I make specialized hand carved and painted wooden sculptures for a living and just finished another Holiday season. The biggest giving time of the year when Yuletide trees fill underneath with presents, charities ring bells and inundate us with telephone solicitations and our mailboxes overflow with catalogs. There is no escaping the call for gifts. Our emotions are played upon with the tunes of holiday favorites, seasonal renewals of friendship come with each card, co-workers friends and family gather and the pressure is on to give tokens of affection, respect, fealty, and kindness. There is little escape lest we be branded a Scrooge or Grinch. We 'must' give - and that we 'must' somehow diminishes our gift. So we are compelled to annually exchange presents, burdening one another with mementos of relationships. Periodically I attempt to scale back these accumulations, sorting them and setting aside the 'keepers' while tossing out items never really liked or wanted. I hold fast to some if they were given by a loved one, or perhaps remain the only physical token of a long ago friend, or just because they possess that magical aura of having been a 'gift'. And yes, there are a few things that I have guiltily passed on to others. Re-gifting seems to me a cheaty way of dealing with an unwanted object. We'd like to convince ourselves that the item will find a loving home and useful purpose. Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't. Perhaps instead it will carry cooties of distaste from every hand that held it, bacteria of repugnance growing with every transfer. When my creations leave my hands what do they become? a cherished keepsake or an embarrassing white elephant? And do I really want to know?