The Right Writer

My brother thinks he’s a writer. He caught the bug recently, and now his favorite line is, “I can’t not write,” whatever that means.

Gary got the idea to write a column for a hot rod magazine he subscribes to after the death of one of their columnists. I’m pretty sure he subscribes to every hot rod magazine in publication. His beard has been graying for years, and lately he reaches for his “readers” when he opens the latest issue. But I’ll bet he’s still more entertained by the pictures of all the pretty cars painted in crayon box colors, with shiny chrome blowers protruding from flame-striped hoods, than he is in the actual stories. You know, “I buy ‘Street Rodder’ for the articles.” Personally I’ve never understood how big tires and bellowing engines could appeal to anyone over the age of sixteen.

He sent me a draft of a story he had written, chronicling a 10-day trek to the Bonneville Salt Flats in his recently restored lime green ’48 Plymouth, with a fellow hot rod aficionado. He wanted my opinion of the story, and some advice on how to get it published. You see, I really am a writer, and he knows this. I have taken countless writing courses, entered contests too numerous to mention, placed respectably in a few, and have indeed been paid for my work.

I am always happy to share my expertise with any fledgling writer, even Gary. I willingly put aside the decades of contempt I held for the relentless teasing he and our older brother, Bill, subjected me to as a child. Curled up on the pink chenille spread covering my bed, my head buried in a book, I asked for nothing more than a little peace and quiet. From periodic popcorn pelting to the stinging spray of a transparent yellow squirt gun, there seemed no end to their infantile pranks. I can’t begin to count the number of times my mother responded to my plaintive cry, “MAAWWM!” I can still picture her running from the kitchen wiping her hands on a dish towel, screaming, “Now, you boys, leave her alone!”

But I digress.

He asked me the best way to approach a prospective publication to pitch his idea for a recurring column. He said he had had a number of letters to the editor published in one particular magazine, and thought he had developed a rapport with the editor. So rather than continue to supply his captivating turns of phrase for free, Gary decided, why not start getting paid for his “work.”

After reading his piece, I emailed a reply. “Good first draft. I like your folksy, down-to-earth style, not unlike that of Mark Twain.”

I lived to regret that comparison. He now signs all his emails, “Sam.”

My reply continued. “First, get the guidelines for submission from their website. Find out, if you can, how much they pay. You’ll need a query letter. I can help you with that. Since you want to write a recurring column, you’ll need to bundle several pieces together, to provide a sample of your work. Send them to me first to polish – you know, check the spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc."

God knows Gary never got higher than a C- in his English class at Castlemont High in Oakland. I, on the other hand, skipped 3rd grade, excelled in English throughout my formative years, and indeed earned a multitude of certificates of excellence in spelling bees.

I patched that missive off and waited for Gary’s reply.

The next day, I received this. “I couldn’t wait, so I just sent my story idea to the editor in an email. Was that okay?”

Horrified that he had blown his first (and probably only) hope for a paid writing gig, I dashed out a quick email back.

“Slow down, Bro, you’re gonna look too anxious! The publishing world has rules, and these rules must be followed. But I think we can salvage this if we just take our time.”

Before I could hit the Send key, a new email message landed in my Inbox. Another one from “Sam.”

He had forwarded to me the response from the editor to the one he had originally sent. “Looks good. I might be interested. Send me the complete story, with pictures, when it’s finished, and I’ll be in touch.”

Damn.

It’s not supposed to work that way! What about the query letter, the polishing, the bundle? And wait a minute, he’s not the writer in the family, I am. We all have our designated roles. Bill is the artist, I am the intellectual, and Gary is...well, the middle child. A sort of place holder, a temporary distraction, until the baby, Mommy and Daddy’s little princess, is born.

Still, he was seeking my guidance. What’s a good sister to do? I couldn’t just abandon him there on the threshold of his newly discovered ambition, however unsuited to it he may be.

Before long, I was correcting spelling, unsplitting infinitives, inserting verbs where no verb had gone before, and generally spit-polishing Gary’s Twainesque works. I even started recommending other publications for him to submit his work.

When he got the check in the mail, I was the first one he called. “I owe you dinner,” he said, after he shared the news. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

You’re darned right, you couldn’t, I thought. But I kept this to myself. After all, he’s my brother. And besides, he knows that no matter how successful he becomes, I’ll always be the princess.

Steve Del Masso

Back then, we called it Jr. High - the school years of 7th through 9th grade. Jr. High was not at all like elementary school. For the first time, we had a different teacher for each subject, in a different classroom. We had lockers with combinations we had to memorize, and gym class, in which we had to undress, shower, then dress again, with no privacy. We also had one hour each morning called "homeroom."

Homeroom was the class period in which we were informed of the day's announcements. I don't remember much about homeroom except that we were assigned to this class alphabetically, by last name.

My best friend, Jan Davies, who had also attended elementary school with me, landed in the same homeroom class with me. So did a lanky, sandy-haired boy with piercing blue eyes named Steve Del Masso. I'm not sure if we shared a homeroom class all three years. But I'm certain I fell in love with him the first time I looked into those blue eyes.

My memories of Steve are, admittedly, vague. It was a long time ago, after all. Pictures help to bring back the images of our young love. He used one I posted on my Facebook page many years later as his profile picture. It's of the two of us standing on the school ground the last day of 9th grade. In it I am wearing my middy, an atrocious white sailor style blouse with a black tie around the collar. According to tradition, 9th grade girls wore them to school on Fridays. I don't know how this tradition got started, but I do remember feeling proud to be among the privileged few permitted to wear this hideous garment. Steve is wearing a navy double-breasted jacket and matching tie. I'm pretty sure he wore that on every dress-up date we had. We have an arm around each other's waist. His expression resembles that unmistakable deer-in-the-headlights look. Judging by my ear-to-ear grin, I was over the moon.

I don't remember much about the day's activities, except that the teachers had organized all sorts of silly games for the 9th graders to play on the lawn. We all competed against each other in a sack race, hopping along to the finish line inside burlap sacks we held up to our waists.

My most vivid memory of that day is when we were paired off to run the three-legged race. For this race, two students each put one leg in the sack, held each other around the waist for balance, then raced together against other pairs. Steve and I were partnered. I could hardly contain my excitement at being permitted to be that close to Steve.

We also attended a couple of Job's Daughters dances. I have a picture of us pressed up against each other dancing to a slow song. I'm sure he wore the same jacket and tie. I don't remember noticing that then, and if I did, I didn't care. I was with Steve Del Masso. That was all that mattered.

We dated a few more times in high school, and the following summer, when he got his driver's license and pickup truck. I remember one double-date to the drive-in. It was the summer of 1970, and the movie was "Mash." The four of us climbed into the bed of his truck, and bundled up under sleeping bags to stay warm in the cool, Bay Area night air. He pulled out a can of Coke, poured something into it, then handed it to me. Rum & Coke, he told me. I remember liking the taste of the sweet drink. I also remember feeling a little dangerous and daring drinking liquor for the first time.

We lost touch after high school. I remember seeing him at our 10-year reunion with his wife. I don't even think we spoke. Divorced by then, I probably saw no point in wasting my time with a married guy, when there were plenty of single ones to chat up.
39 years after our high school graduation, and my first rum & coke in the bed of his pickup, Steve's name appeared on my Facebook page. All my Jr. High emotions came flooding back. I couldn't get the pictures of us together posted quickly enough! I sent him a message confessing my school girl crush. We exchanged a few more communications, then agreed to meet for old time sake.

He remembered two double dates in his pickup. I teased him that, thanks to him, I never did see "Mash" all the way through. As we caught each other up on our lives, I was surprised at how little I knew about him back in our school days. Remarkably, he was a straight A student through high school, was president of Phi House, played tuba in the band, and won a music scholarship.

Years later, he took over his dad's produce distribution business, and built it into a highly successful enterprise. He introduced me to his dad when I visited the shop one day.

"Dad, remember when you took me to the store to buy that blue jacket in 7th grade?"

Mr. Del Masso nodded.

"It was for me to wear on a date with Camille," Steve said with a smile.

Early draft of an introduction for my memoir

Our assignment for this week's memoir class was to find a theme running through our stories, then write an intro to our memoir expressing the theme. Patty, our instructor, had explained that if we worked with them long enough a theme would reveal itself. I struggled with this for a few days, reading, sorting, then rereading and resorting. I was in the middle of writing an email to Patty, questioning whether a memoir was actually what I intended for my end product, since it seemed my stories had no common thread. As I tried to explain to her how my stories seemed unrelated to one another, I realized I could no longer figure out how I had separated them earlier. They all seemed to speak to one theme - Relationships. Below is an early draft of my memoir's introduction.
==========

Relationships are not stagnant. They change with the seasons of our lives.

My two brothers are much older than me. When we were young, they played cruel tricks on me, often bringing me to tears, then laughed as my mother scolded them. Many years later, one of my brothers, Gary, introduced me to a good friend of his, Jerry, who would become my husband. The other brother, Bill, the oldest, and the instigator of most of my childhood teasing, suffers from Parkinson's Disease. Now bedridden, he resides in an assisted-care facility. Gary and I visit him regularly, though not often enough. At family gatherings, Bill used to chase our squealing kids around the house, threatening to kiss them. If he caught one, he would grab her up in a bear hug and plant squeaky kisses on her neck and face until she wriggled free. Someone always seemed to be hollering at Bill to leave the kids alone.

Relationships mold our lives. Never a demonstrably affectionate family, my brothers and I seldom hugged each other over the years. And I can't remember a time when either of my brothers kissed me, or I, them. Now I plant a quiet kiss on Bill's forehead before I leave him at the end of each visit. Gary and I exchange a hug whenever we get together.

Time warms some relationships, and cools others. Gary and I have a closer relationship now than I'm sure we would have had if I hadn't married his good friend. My mother and her sister, Ruby, were close as children. As Ruby's alcoholism escalated, my mother's disdain for her grew. I'm sure they both suffered from the resulting estrangement.

No one is immune from the effects of relationships.

This is a story about relationships.

GOOD DAUGHTER

I open the door to the bright, expansive common room. Warm autumn sun beams in from windows on the opposite wall high above the door that leads out to the tidy garden patio. I steel my churning stomach against the smell of disinfectant poorly masking the urine odor. Bent bodies barely supporting lonely, vacant faces are scattered about at the round tables that fill the large room. Reminding myself to smile, I greet those whose expressions flicker with comprehension. Weaving through the wheelchairs and shuffling slippers, my steps are quick and light. I am ashamed of my forty-something agility.

I ascend the staircase and find my mother’s room. The bathroom door is propped open, nearly blocking the entry doorway. This is undoubtedly to ensure some privacy from the nosy residents who stroll up and down the hall and peer in at her.

I nudge the door and squeeze through the narrow space silently so as not to startle her. She is dozing in the recliner my brother, Gary, and I bought her two weeks after we moved her here.

Mom awakens to my soft touch on her shoulder and gets up to offer me her seat. It’s the only chair in her half of the shared room, so she sits on the end of her twin bed. The flowered coverlet does little to cheer up the dormitory setting.

I offer her a piece of the raspberry scone I bought on the way over. She spreads open a Kleenex and lays it across her trembling outstretched hand. I set her portion of the treat in it. Mom nibbles the scone and comments that she doesn’t get sweets much here. I notice that her tremor is not bad this morning. It may be the hour, I tell myself. Her Parkinson’s medication causes noticeable peaks and valleys of effectiveness over the course of the day.

“Did you pay my bills?” she asks.
“Yes, Mom. I paid them.”
“Well, do you have the receipt for the rent?”
“They don’t give me a receipt.” I know this answer will not satisfy her.
“Then how do you know if they got it?”
I stifle a sigh of exasperation. “I bring the check when I come to visit you the week it’s due. I hand it to them in person.”

She asks nothing more; her eyes register uncertainty. I wonder if I’ll trust my daughter to pay my bills when I’m too ill to pay them myself.

We engage in small talk for a time. She asks about Kristen, my twenty-two year-old daughter. I tell her she’s fine, still dating the same guy.

After awhile she comments that it’s really not so bad here. That she doesn’t really mind staying here.

“That’s good,” I reply, unable to think of anything else to say. I am relieved she’s not unhappy. I think maybe she has accepted the change as permanent.

It was a difficult decision to move her, one that my brothers and I put off too long. When we finally accepted the fact that she needed more care than we could provide her on a drop-in basis, we convinced each other it was time to relocate her to a facility that provided twenty-four-hour care.

We never convinced Mom. She didn’t go willingly. Wouldn’t let go of the notion that one of us could care for her in our home.

I don’t tell her that I’ve begged Kristen never to put me in a place like this, just as Mom begged my brothers and me. I temper my pleas with reassurances that I will trust Kristen’s judgment, and go quietly if there is no other option. I won’t be difficult.

Still, I can’t imagine being bathed and fed by strangers, however friendly and pleasant they seem. I can’t imagine sharing a bedroom and a bathroom with a woman who wets and soils herself, whose expressionless face is the last thing I see when the lights go out.

I glance down at Mom’s bare feet and notice that her nails need clipping. I wonder if other daughters take care of these personal needs for their mothers. Mine doesn’t ask, and I don’t offer.

A young woman with a caring smile, dressed in a white uniform, looks in on us and reminds Mom that it’s time to go downstairs for lunch. I thank the woman and gather my things together, grateful that the awkward visit is over.

I descend the stairs slowly, so as not to get too far ahead of Mom. At the bottom, I kiss her soft cheek, tell her I love her and that I’ll see her next week.

“Love you,” she replies, then turns to make her way haltingly to her assigned seat.

Again I remind myself to smile and nod at the other residents as I glide toward the door to freedom.

Riding home in the car, I cannot erase the image of my mother and her lonely existence. I resolve to take nail clippers with me when I visit next week.

The Lavalier

I don't know how the lavalier came to be owned by Aunt Ruby. I do know that it was a gift from my grandfather to my grandmother on the occasion of their wedding.
A tiny diamond twinkles at the center of the delicate gold Victorian-style pendant. A crescent shaped natural pearl dangles at the bottom. Hanging in our family room is a cherished photo of my grandmother wearing the lavalier.

There was always some disagreement among my mother's siblings about who should have inherited which family mementos. There weren't many. Our family was not well-off. My grandfather, a grocer, died in his late 40's of pneumonia following gall bladder surgery. My grandmother managed to raise her four young children by gradually selling off property my grandfather had aquired during their marriage.

If there was a will, it didn't specify who would get the few trinkets left behind when my grandmother passed away. Her wedding band went to my Uncle Curtis' eldest daughter, Claudia. My mother got granny's engagement ring, which I now have. Ruby ended up with the lavalier. Sounds fair enough now, but my mother and my aunt always bickered with their brother about the wedding band.

When I married the first time, at nineteen years old, Aunt Ruby came out for the wedding. She let me wear the lavalier during the ceremony as my "something old." It fit perfectly against my antique white high-necked gown, and accompanied the headpiece I wore, my grandmother's, that my mother had updated for me. Aunt Ruby made it quite clear that the pendant was just a loan, that she wanted it back at the end of the day.

Twenty-three years later, I invited Aunt Ruby to my second wedding. I asked if I could borrow the lavalier again. This time the pendant rested against my skin, framed by the cream-colored jacket that topped a matching soft, flowing skirt.

After the photographer finished posing my new husband and me with all the combinations of attendants, relatives, cake and bouquet, I found my aunt chatting with my mother at a table near the buffet.

I reached around my neck to unhook the precious memento, when my Aunt stopped me.
"Honey, why don't you keep it? I don't dress up much anymore. You'll get more use out of it now than I will," she said. Then she leaned in a little closer and winked. "Besides, I don't want Curtis' girls to get it when I die."

Cupping my hands on the sides of my face, I’d press my nose against the bowed screen door and peer into the dark room.

"Come on in," Aunt Mabel would call in her raspy voice, as she slowly rolled her heavy body upright on the sagging, threadbare couch, and slipped her bare feet into worn rubber thongs. Carrot-colored strands of hair streaked with gray cascaded across her generous bosom.

Pulling me close with pale, fleshy arms cinched in the sleeves of a red and yellow muu-muu, she would plant a squeaky kiss on my cheek. Then through a gravelly chuckle, she would mumble an apology in Mom’s direction for not having tidied up before we arrived.

"I just couldn’t get started this morning," she would say. Fact is, she never got started. A thick layer of dust covered the plastic flower arrangement atop the TV/stereo cabinet, and the collection of movie magazines, creased open to half-read articles. The sweet smell of bacon hung in the air and mingled with the stale odor of soiled carpet and yesterday’s trash.

Mabel’s first four children were all aspiring make-up artists, their skills honed from years of applying various shades of blue eye shadow, black liner and mascara, pasty facial powder, and pink carnation blush each morning before school. When they returned home in the afternoon, they could count on her being there, curled up on the couch, half-listening to the drone of a soap opera.

Lisa, the last girl, chubby and warm, toddled around barefoot in a faded outgrown cotton print dress, and dingy, hand-me-down panties. Her curly chestnut hair and brown skin, in stark contrast to that of her blonde, fair-skinned sisters, exposed her mixed ethnic background. Her father was Samoan, we were told, though she shared her siblings’ surname, and she called their father, "Daddy."

The three eldest of Mabel’s children, Sonya, Paulette and Diane, formed a singing group in the 70's and performed at a number of local country-western clubs. All their costumes were sewn by their mother, without dress patterns, on an old sewing machine she had set up in the kitchen.

They cut a record once, "How Much, How Many", a tale of love lost. It was written by Aunt Mabel.

Over the years, battered hopes and broken marriages brought the girls home to their mother from time to time. It seemed Aunt Mabel was never without a household of offspring, and their offspring.

Aunt Mabel bore one more child in her mid-forties, her only son, Warren, before Mother Nature mercifully imposed her fool-proof method of birth control. Warren lived with his mother until she died, at first for her support, then later to care for her.

Sometime back, while sorting through a box of old photos, I came across a portrait of myself as a grinning, dimpled two-year-old. Printed in soft sepia, it had been brought to life by the feathering of subtle shades of gold, blue and pink into the hair, eyes, cheeks, and clothing. I remember being told that Aunt Mabel earned a salary at this for a time in her life.

Aunt Mabel’s death didn’t make the six o’clock news. She left no mark on the world. Her quiet legacy is only the portraits she endowed with a soul, and the love with which she enriched the lives of those lucky enough to be a part of hers.

The Line

We all sat primly in our designated positions in the large hall, dressed in our flowing, virginal white gowns, white stockings and white leather scuffies. Having just marched in, and spoken our required pronouncements in turn, we listened quietly as Mrs. Vitale, the bethel guardian, read through the day's announcements.

This term I was running for "the line," which in the vernacular of the Job's Daughters organization, meant that I was vying for the elected position of Honored Queen. In order to become Honored Queen, one must first be elected by the other members of the bethel (the organization's term for a chapter), then progress through the four lower positions, each held for six months, before being crowned Honored Queen.

The process is very somber and dignified. We were instructed not to tell anyone of our decision to run until the nominees were announced by the bethel leader. A secret ballot election would be held a few weeks later, and the winner would be announced.
Mrs. Vitale began to read the day's announcements.

"I find it necessary to remind those girls who are running this term that you are not to tell anyone of your decision to run. Campaigning of any kind would be unfair to the other candidates and is strictly frowned upon."

I hardly heard anything after she spoke the first few words. Though she had not mentioned my name, I knew her remarks were directed at me. I felt the heat of my humiliation radiate through my body. I froze in my seat, praying to just disappear and never be seen again. For a moment I couldn't see anything around me, as if I had lost all peripheral vision. At the same time, I felt as if all eyes were fixed on me.

My mother had worked hard during my first few years as a Jobie. She volunteered to chaperone events, bake cookies and cupcakes, and generally do all she could to support me during this time. Believing that politics were involved, she thought it would help me to win if she was an active volunteer.

"Don't worry," she told me. "It's okay to tell a few friends you're running. No one will find out. Just drop a hint here and there. I'll bet everyone else does."

Wanting to win, and trusting mother's intuition, I hinted. And hinted.

After the election, a few friends came up to me to offer their condolences. One even said, "I would have voted for you, but I couldn't spell your name."

I will never know whether my flagrant disregard for the solemnity of the process was cause for my defeat. But I'm sure it was around this time that I began to see my mother as fallible, and that her advice should be considered carefully, and not followed blindly.

I'm taking a memoir-writing class. My posts for the next few weeks will be the class assignments. I'm compelled to add a disclaimer for the benefit of my writer friends that these are early drafts, and I promise to edit and polish them mercilessly before compiling and shipping them off to all the major publishing houses and await the many 6-figure offers that are sure to pour in.

The first assignment was to write two pieces inspired by a list of topics we brainstormed in class.

Aunt Ruby

Every Christmas, we anticipated the big package from Aunt Ruby. Among all the toys and clothing packed inside, was always at least one thick, red and white striped candy cane. Mom would hand it to Dad who would take it off to the kitchen and hammer it into bite-sized pieces for my two older brothers and me to share. I didn't really like the taste of peppermint, but I was always excited to get one of the jagged pieces to suck on.


With Ruby's slender frame and large round slightly protruding eyes, she bore a resemblance to Olive Oyl. Her high-pitched voice, laced with a mid-western drawl was always a source of teasing from her young niece and nephews.

Ruby was Mom's younger sister. Only 18 months apart in age, they shared a close relationship.

We always enjoyed Aunt Ruby's visits. Every few years she would fly out from her home in Dallas, where my mother's family grew up. I remember waiting in the terminal for her flight to land. We all craned our necks and peered out the large windows trying to spot her as she stepped off the plane onto the portable staircase in line with the other passengers.

Back then airline passengers dressed up for flights. Aunt Ruby usually wore a slim suit, matching hat and bag. Her job in the gift wrap department at Neiman Marcus required that she dress stylishly. Since none of the adult women I knew at that time had jobs, I considered Aunt Ruby very worldly.

One year Ruby brought a good friend with her on the trip. She and Rosa stayed in a hotel in San Francisco on that visit. I remember hushed conversations filled with innuendo between mom and dad about the men Rosa and Aunt Ruby met in the City.

From time to time, mom and dad would pack us all up and drive back to Dallas to visit the family. One such trip took place when I was about 12 years old.

This trip was special to me because Aunt Ruby took me to Neiman Marcus for a fashion show and luncheon. I felt grown up, sitting at the table with my Aunt, waiters bringing our luncheon to our table, refilling my ice tea whenever I took a sip. I remember hesitating over the salad drenched in poppy seed dressing. I wasn't sure what to do in this fancy setting with a plate of food in front of me that didn't taste good.

"You don't like the dressing, do you?" Aunt Ruby observed. "That's okay. You don't have to eat it."

Over the years, I remember hearing mom and dad talk about Ruby's troubled marriage. Roy was a rich cattle rancher who lavished her with gifts. I remember her showing off a solid gold brooch in the shape of a longhorn steer. Though divorce was considered shameful back then, mom and dad seemed to understand that the beatings made this one unavoidable.

Ruby finally found her true love, Billy, a simple farmer who owned land some distance from Dallas. Her marriage to Billy turned her from a high-class woman to a farmer's wife. She seemed to enjoy her life, though she seldom had the money to visit anymore.

Mom paid for a couple of her trips out. On these trips her attire was much different. Certainly air travel had become more commonplace by the mid-90's and the dress code had relaxed considerably. But Ruby had changed, too. She was no longer the bon vivant I remembered from my childhood. Her clothing was casual, almost tattered, her hair no longer perfectly coiffed, and her belly had begun to protrude.

She always seemed to have a beer in her hand. And wherever mom planned to take her -- to visit me or one of my brother's families, Ruby always took a six-pack along.

Mom finally got fed up with Ruby's drinking, and refused to pay for her flights. We heard that she had become ill from the alcohol, was hospitalized for a time, and had quit drinking. Then we heard that she was drinking again.

Ruby found a way to finance one last trip to visit after mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. She stayed with my husband and me for a couple of nights, then with my brother's family. Mom only let her visit for a short time.

I felt sorry for my aunt, who only wanted to be close to her favorite sibling, and probably her best friend in the world. Ruby seemed satisfied that she had at least had a chance to see mom one more time.

Ruby died a few years later from complications of alcoholism. Her adoring Billy cared for her until the end.

Badger Pass Barbie

After the 45-minute drive down the mountain to the valley floor, we unloaded the car and settled into our room at the lodge where I immediately crashed to sleep off my Dramamine stupor. I woke in time to join our outdoorsy friends, Austin & Joanne, for dinner at The Mountain Room restaurant. Then we headed back to the room for a few hands of Rummy with our friends before hitting the sheets for the night. Whew! Day one down, three to go!

Next morning, we met up with our fellow adventurers at the Food Court for a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast. No marmalade? Boy, I thought. Now we're roughing it!

Time to prepare for our first hike of the trip. They encouraged me to pack a lunch just in case I decided to join them for a majestic wilderness meal out in…well…the wilderness. With assurances that I could hop the shuttle and return to the lodge at any time if I'd had my fill of majesty, I helped my hubby, Jerry, pick out a couple of lovely roast beef and cheese sandwiches on fresh hoagie rolls, a bag of chips, a couple of sodas, and headed out.

As soon as my sun-screened cheeks met the chill of the mountain air, I was transformed! I felt a sudden oneness with the outdoors, as if I knew every rock and tree and creature had a life, had a spirit, had a name.

Using my newly acquired oneness and its accompanying nature skills, I determined due North by observing the moss growing on a nearby tree. I led our expedition party along a snow-covered path, around a grove of trees, through dense brush to our first milestone, the shuttle pickup point.

As we disembarked from the shuttle, I called a hearty goodbye to our sherpa (driver) and waved him on his way.

I beckoned my fellow explorers to come run the hidden pine trails of the forest. Retrieving the baggy of trail mix I'd packed, I summoned them to come taste the sun sweet berries of the Earth, and paint with all the colors of the wind.

About then Jerry ordered me to either turn off my IPod or find something to listen to besides the soundtrack from Pocahontas.

The rest of the trip was incredible. Snow blanketed the sheltered groves. The falls roared and boomed as huge chunks of ice broke loose and landed among the rocks below. Deer grazed so close we could almost touch them. Mirror lake was rimmed with ice, but still reflected the tall pines that surround it.

I came away with a new appreciation for the outdoors in general, and the natural beauty of California in particular. Thanks to Joanne & Austin, I learned that every now and then we need to sing with all the voices of the mountains, and paint with all the colors of the wind.

Where's the Majesty?

So, I've agreed to a trip to Yosemite with my husband, Jerry, and our outdoorsy friends, Austin & Joanne. They "love" Yosemite. There's so much to do! So much to see! Ahhh! The majesty! I've been there a couple times before - once one summer in the 70's. Okay don't remember much about that trip except that we slept in a "lean-to." Whatever.

Then two years ago we went with the Wandering Winos -yes, that's what they call themselves. It was a three-day wine tasting extravaganza - probably quite entertaining for the Winos - not so much for me. That trip I remember a little more about. It was cold, very cold. And there wasn't much majesty as I remember. Evidently, December following a two-year drought is not the best time to see Yosemite at its majestic best. There was nary a drop of water coming off the falls - just cold, gray stone. The creeks were dry, the plants were dead. So I really had to search for the majesty. I did get a really nice pic of the sun peeking out behind Half Dome. And I managed to capture (on film, that is) a group of deer (herd? pride?) grazing nearby. And I do remember it being quite cold, did I mention that?

So this trip oughta be just chock full of majesty, what with all the rain/snow we've been having lately! Our friends have been preparing us for the trip. "Bring every pair of walking/hiking shoes you have, in case they get wet or muddy when you're out hiking. You'll have another pair to change into for the next outing." My take? If the walking/hiking shoes I bring get wet/muddy, that's my cue to stay in the cabin until they're dry/clean. Oh well! No more hiking today. Shoes still wet! Anybody know who's on Oprah?

I asked if there would be a coffee pot in the room (again don't remember much from last trip except the coooolllld). No, Outdoorsy tells me. But she's pretty sure there's a hair dryer. So, no coffee pot, but maybe a hair dryer. Room amenities? One. One room amenity - MAYBE...

The next time I talked to Joanne she asked me if I had a backpack. She didn't wait for my answer, clearly reading my look of bewilderment. Not to worry, she has one I can borrow. For what, I ask. To carry my lunch and other incidentals for our hikes. No, no, no. She again misunderstands my interpretation of "hike." A hike is a longish walk that one takes BETWEEN meals. Hikes are planned and timed to return participants to the vicinity of the Food Court in time for the next meal. So maybe an hour to an hour plus, if it's not toooo cold. And if it is too cold, the hike will consist of the distance between our cabin and said Food Court. And I'm sure I'll find all the majesty I can digest right there, thankyouverymuch. This is going to be one memorable trip. Stay tuned.