Quilts -- A Writer's Love

When I was a little girl my family would make an annual trek to Minnesota to visit family. The change in altitude and humidity usually laid me low for a couple of days, but when I was about four I did actually get sick enough to be put to bed in my grandmother's house.

I lay all alone under the sloping room of the spare room with nothing to do and did not feel at all like sleeping. My eyes strayed across the patchwork quilt. All of the different patterns and colors caught my eye. I started out picking and choosing my favorites.

From there I began making up stories for the different patterns -- which ones came from dresses, which ones from house coats or aprons, a blouse, a shirt -- whatever. Chances are that my mother set me off on this path or I wouldn't have known that quilt fabrics had a previous incarnation. Still, I liked to think that the purple floral print had once been Grandma's favorite summer frock.

It helped me pass the time when I would rather have been outside looking at the hollyhocks in the garden or taking a walk down to the lake with Grandpa -- or my favorite past-time -- "bumping" down the stairs. This was sitting on the top step and proceeding to descend by bouncing down on my butt.

Perhaps this was the start of my fascination for writing and storytelling, but I kind of think I was born hard-wired with the gene for that kind of self-punishment.

After many years that quilt is now mine. It is very old and the fabric is rotting in a few places, but it is still beautiful. I know that it was carefully hand-stitched by my great-grandmother. The pattern is Grandmother's Flower Garden. To me ir represents a history of the women in our family -- a long line of very strong people.

I also know now that much of the material was purchased rather than saved from clothing, though some is.

When my mother passed away and I was going through the many things that my mother had saved from the family I knew that I could not keep much. So I chose to keep those few things that meant the most to me. I kept the quilt and the china-faced doll, and a ceramic collie that my mother had been given as a teen for dog-sitting. Most of what I kept from my mother is the love of writing -- and a disc she left behind with the manuscript of the book she had been writing. Something left for me to finish.

Paranoid Prepping

Back in the 50s and 60s people were so freaked out about nuclear proliferation that some were building emergency bunkers in their backyards. They wanted to be prepared just in case the Cold War suddenly heated p. Most of them were more like storm shelters in the Midwest rather than something that would be able to withstand nuclear fallout and "the end of the world." But people felt safer when they had one.

These days bunkers are back in style and they are getting pretty extreme -- not to mention being extremely expensive. However, now people are putting in filters to collect the radioactive fallout, communication systems, arsenals, food stocks, and living amenities knowing that it isn't just about surviving the initial event, but the aftermath as well. They also build with the knowledge that there are any of a number of events that could bring civilization to the brink of anarchy and survival.

I have a friend who is paranoid and is working on her own prepping plan. Not having the money or the land to build a bunker she is doing more of her own thing. She has had no survival training and is in her 70s with some serious health issues, so it would be interesting to see if her plans would ever work. Her basic plan at this point is to have a bug-out bag for herself and one for her cat. A few weeks ago she informed me that she was making me a bug-out bag as well. Somehow I managed not to roll my eyes, and just asked her not to.

I am definitely interested in prepping, but for me it is fodder for the writing grist mill. I like to ponder the possibilities of what it would take to survive and the issues that might arise. When I was 11 I started writing a book I titled "The Day the World Started Over." It was crap, of course, because I had no real notion of what it would take to survive with only a handful of people left on the planet. Nor did I have much of a clue about the things that might lead to such an apocalypse. The subject has always interested me, but I don't walk around with enough paranoia to think that this is something that is likely to happen -- not on that scale anyway. 

It is not that I don't want to have a bag for emergencies, it is just that I would rather create my own. This is because I know her. She gets ideas that she thinks are really good and they may work for her, but they don't necessarily work for other people. If you don't like the idea she gets terribly offended on top of it all.

Another part of the conflict here is that I have had survival training and so I am aware of things that she isn't. So I know what I want in an emergency bag -- like the one I've had in the car for years. Ever since the survival training I have tried to keep a few basics in the car just in case the car breaks down in a tough place.

Since her packing is based on watching television and mine on training I don't know what I will think of what she comes up with. I know that she has been all up in the air over packing paperwork that she thinks she will need.  I have no plans for that beyond what I usually carry in my purse.

The actual emergency planning I have done is having some extra canned goods and water on hand, as well as some candles. Most of what is most likely to happen will not take me out of my home. Same for her, but her head is filled with all of the things that could go wrong.

To me there is one most important thing you need to have to survive and that you have with you all the time anyway -- right between your ears. If you aren't thinking straight you can have all of the tools, food, and arms in the world and still end up as a spot on what's left of the pavement.

So if the worst happens she may be more prepared, but I'm okay with that. I'm more interested in being prepared for today.

Orphans -- The Story of Us

The hard truth of life is that almost all of us will become orphans. I'm not talking about little children wandering the streets looking for someone to take them in. I'm talking about us -- all of us.

Except for those few who will die before one or both parent, the majority of us will end up as orphans.

Okay, that is kind of a strange thought for me to throw out there, but there it is. We all will end up alone. For those of us who have not had good relationships with our parents this may be no real big deal. If your parents were horrible and abusive this may even seem like good news.

For most of us this will be a gut-wrenching realization. No mommy, no daddy. It is not about who is going to take care of us now in the physical sense. It is a level of emotional support that is suddenly missing from our lives.

For the last couple of years of her life I had to do quite a bit to help Mom keep going. I would buy her groceries every week and would put most of them away. I would take her to doctor's appointments. Most of all I would listen. She was trying to write a book of her life during the Depression and so she was moved to tell me all sorts of stories that were cropping up because of that.

I can't really tell you what many of the stories were about because she was easily drawn off-topic into tangential areas. This happened often enough that I sometimes didn't bother to try to follow the story, but would let her ramble through the past. I usually did these conversations by phone so that I could take care of stuff on the computer, chop vegetables, or go through the mail.

We were best friends as well. She was also the biggest fan of my writing. So when she passed away it left a huge hole in my life. My father had passed 13 years previously so there was nowhere else to really turn. I am an orphan.

I do still have my step-mother, but, as Cinderella taught us, that is not always the best option. Though she is a kind-hearted woman, she is not the best at communicating that -- or many other things. She is rather judgmental and not afraid to voice those thoughts. Based on what my father would tell her about my mother, she could not stand my mother and would tell me as often as possible. For example, she once told me that my mother had never wanted me. I knew the truth behind the statement that she undoubtedly did not and ignored it. So this is not a place to find the support I am now missing.

When my mother passed away my step-mother first said that she wouldn't help me clean out her old apartment, but next thing I knew, there she was helping out. Perhaps her curiosity got the better of her, but I really appreciated her help (and that of her current husband). At one point she was trying to be supportive (in her way) and she started to congratulate me on no longer having my mother. It was coming out wrong and she stopped herself, but I knew where she was going. She wanted to acknowledge that the positive side of this situation was that I would no longer need to spend so much time taking care of my mother.

My step-siblings are a great source of support. They are better and communication than their mother, and have not placed judgment on my mother or my relationship with her. The possible exception to this is my step-sister who had had the opportunity to get to know my mother a little bit before my father and stepmother ever met. So she knows my mother was a good woman with a kind heart.

I also have some great friends who are a huge source of support. Wonderful as they are, there is just no one who can REALLY take the place of your parents in your life. Your parents have been around in one way or another all of your life. They taught you all the basics to get going in life -- you know, all that walking and talking business. You were a hero to them when you started using the potty on your own.

All of that history is exactly that now -- history. There are no future chapters to be written unless Mom or Dad start haunting the house. Now when I really want my mommy I can't even pick up the phone.

The time has really come when "You can't go home again."

Never Forget -- Memories of the Holocaust

Last night I was watching yet another documentary of survivors remembering their experiences during the Holocaust. I know that there are people who are tired of the subject and others who don't believe that it ever happened.

Trust me, it happened. How do I know? Because I am one of the other kind of Holocaust "survivor."

Say WHAT?

You read me. I am a Holocaust survivor. Okay, technically I died in the mud of a prison camp in Poland. I was then reincarnated into this life time. I am not alone. There are many of us out here around the world. Okay, to understand my story, it helps if your believe in reincarnation. Even if you don't you are likely to be entertained.

During World War II my mother was in her formative teen years. As she eventually learned of what had happened to the Jews she wished with all her heart that she could help at least one of these people. She got her wish years later, but hardly as she would ever have expected.

She started by marrying my father, a man who, though all Scandinavian, looked VERY Jewish. During WWII he had been in the army and faced anti-Jewish bigotry himself in the form of another soldier who hated him with a vengeance and went out of his way to be mean to my father. Then one day the guy found out that Dad's last name was Olson. He then apologized to my dad adding "I thought you were Jewish." Because of that Dad could hardly accept any apology.

It was to these two people I was born. Perhaps my soul had chosen these people in part because of these issues. I could be a baffling little kid, too. When I was in pre-school I would demand that my mother explain to me why we weren't Jewish. I would also seek out Jewish children to befriend in the early years of grade school. That was not an easy task back then since there were almost no Jews in Boulder, Colorado at the time. They had to drive to Denver to go to Temple. I still managed somehow.

As I got older I would have dreams I could not explain. In them I would often be wearing a green woolen coat with a yellow star on the breast. I could dream in fluent German, though when I studied it in school I was crap at it while awake. When I finally learned of the Holocaust I was shocked by the accuracy of my dreams.

As an adult I entered psychotherapy to deal with many of the issues that were turning my life upside down. After awhile I ended up asking my therapist if she could recommend a past-life regression therapist after having read about how successful it was and believing that I had been in the Holocaust. It turned out that she was able to do this kind of therapy. We began the next week.

The memories she brought up in me. I now remember at least the basics of more than a dozen lives from the past. Those lives did include an astonishing and, at times, horrifying life under Nazi rule. When we started this therapy I had been suffering from bulimia. As soon as we started that problem vanished, never to reappear.

I won't go into all of the details of the memories, that would take ages, and kind of defeat the purpose of the novel I am writing based on these regressions.

During these years I took on obsessively reading biographies and autobiographies of survivors. I was amazed at what strong and resilient people these folks were, despite still carrying obvious emotional and sometimes physical scars from their experiences. My therapist's office was just a couple of doors down from a large bookstore and if there was time before my appointment I would stop and shop.

One evening I was looking over the books for a new autobiography and there wasn't much of a selection. I finally settled on a slim volume and I started to walk away from the shelves, not terribly happy with my choice. All of a sudden, at about three feet away, I stopped, turned around, walked back and stuck out my hand. Beneath it I found a book I had somehow overlooked. It was Beyond the Ashes: Cases of Reincarnation from the Holocaust by Yonasson Gershom.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was my subject. I dropped the other book back on the shelf and grabbed this one. It was like I was having some sort of a religious experience.

In that book I discovered that not only was I not alone, I was also right in line with the statistical norm of those who reported these memories and certain behaviors. Rabbi Gershom had noted that most of the people telling him about their experiences were baby boomers and had baffled their parents with unusual questions and/or behavior as children. That was me.

The people who had survived the Holocaust alive are dwindling as the years go by. Many of them have left their stories for us, but we still run the risk of forgetting one of the most regrettable and horrifying events in history. The duty of remembering is falling to those who remember in a different way.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." ~ George Santayana

Men, Men, Men, Men, Manly Men

Many years ago I created the "Heckuva Guy Awards." I would print out certificates and give them out to guys I knew who went above and beyond in being wonderful, caring human beings while not compromising an inch of their masculinity.

I didn't give out a whole lot of them. My list of truly manly men is fairly short because I am quite discriminating in my choice for the awards.

On Saturday I had to say goodbye to one of the men on this list. He was my "second" godfather. For some reason my parents couldn't decide for sure who to make my godparents, so I ended up with two sets. We lost contact with my "first" godparents after my parents divorced. My "second" godparents were amazing people who managed to stay friends with both sides.

Dewey was one of the sweetest and kindest men who ever walked the planet. He was the man who put the gentle into gentleman. The only time that I heard of him raising a hand to one of his children was when his eldest daughter was a toddler and she made a run at the street. The thought of her ending up as a spot on the road scared him so much that she earned a spanking for it. My mother used to tell this story to demonstrate how kind he was. The spanking of his daughter just about killed him.

When he was a young man he met a young woman named Sonja from Sweden who was in the United States for a short time. He dated her during her time in Colorado. It wasn't until she was on a train going to New York to catch a ship home to Sweden that he realized that he was in love with her and couldn't let her go. He hopped a plane to New York (this was the early 50s and not something one did lightly) and met her train at Grand Central Station. It was like a scene from some Hallmark movie, though Sonja said it wasn't quite as romantic as it sounds. It was a hot and dusty day and they found out that the state of New York had a three-day waiting period for a marriage license. They ended up taking a train back to Colorado and making a beeline for a Justice of the Peace.

They scraped and saved and bought a tiny cracker-box of a starter home right next door to my parents. When their first daughter was about to arrive in this world it was my mother who drove them to the hospital. The story goes that a skunk wandered into the path of the car and Sonja started moaning that the hospital would never let them in if they all smelled like skunk. Mom managed to miss the skunk and Gina came into the world without further incident.

When I came along over a year later Mom and Dad not only brought me home, they brought me to THEM, my other family. Gina was enamored of me and called me "Boo Boo," which is toddler speak for baby.

For many years our families traded Christmas Eves -- one year at our house and one year at theirs. Part way through the evening Dewey would disappear and like magic a Swedish Santa Claus would show up and hand out our gifts. Of course I always knew it was him. Though one year their son, Tom, showed me the mask and Sonja got mad at him for ruining Santa for me. No one really understood that I never believed that Santa was real. It was just that to me it was a wonderful time of year when even the adults were playing my favorite game of let's pretend. It was more about believing in miraculous possibilities for me.

Dewey was a very hard-working kind of guy. He worked at the Borden Dairy in Denver for many years. One Christmas Gina and I both got toy Elsie the Cows from there. Elsie would moo when you turned her over. I remember the times when he was working the night shift and we would try to play as quietly as possible so as not to disturb his sleep. He was the kind of man that made even us little kids want to be nice to him, even when you'd rather be running around screaming.

He always had a smile for a friend and a story to tell. He was a cowboy somewhere in his heart and away from work you would find him in boots and hat. He had, indeed, come from old Colorado pioneer stock.

He eventually went from the dairy to working for Itsy Bitsy Machines. For a few months I worked there as a temp and would occasionally run into him in the halls of an extremely large building. He always had time to stop and talk with me.

He passed his love of horses on to Gina and her daughter. He helped his granddaughter when buying a horse. He would get her to horse shows and help her curry the horse.

At the time of his passing he and Sonja had been married for more than 60 years. All three of his kids had good relationships with him. At his funeral his daughter Lisa said that she had learned the importance of silence from him. Everyone laughed because she had once been known for being a motor-mouth. It was a long education.

The world is a little poorer now that it has lost one heckuva guy. I wish I had gotten around to giving him one of the certificates. I hope he knew that was how I thought of him.

Live Long and Prosper -- Confessions of a Trekkie

I was a Trekkie as a kid. Not that I'm not one now because it is one of those things that you are for life, but when I was a kid I was more your rabid insane fan sort of Trekkie and now I am more your incidental, retired sort of Trekkie. I would rush home every day after school just to watch the reruns of the show ad nauseum. This was long before the days of video tapes and VCRs. I would try to audio tape episodes so that I could listen to them when the show was not on. Okay, that didn't work so well since even cassette tapes were still in their infancy.

Just to be clear here, I do now have the entire original series on DVD. Most of my collectibles have gone by the wayside, except for an original script autographed by Walter Koenig and IDIC necklace. Oh, and a stuffed tribble.

In high school my nickname was Spock. My best friend was Captain Kirk. I didn't know that her real name was Diane until I had known her for several weeks because we met in a Star Trek moment. That moment was also when we got our nicknames.

She was sitting with a mutual friend and saying "This is MY starship!" I walked up and said, "Logically, Captain, the ship belongs to Star Fleet." It was kismet.

(In the interest of full disclosure, Leonard Nimoy himself nearly died laughing once when I was introduced to him as Mr. Spock at a car show in Denver.)

Eventually we had two Captain Kirks as more kids from previous Trek groups joined us. The other Captain Kirk could have been the inspiration for the Big Bang Theory as he went on to be a university physics professor.

My interest in science fiction was hardly limited to Star Trek, but I was often frustrated by the lack of female characters in popular science fiction literature. As an aspiring writer this led me to try to write stories for and about women. The first short story I had published was a sci fi piece about a male astronaut dying alone in space after the destruction of his spacecraft. He is rescued at the last moment by a beautiful alien woman who removes him from his body. Her species had been watching over earthlings for many millennia and we had come to refer to them as angels.

But I digress.

Being a sci fi geek and a Trekkie helped me get through some very difficult years of my life. Back in those days these things were not as mainstream as they are today. We existed on the fringe of society and worried our parents. We endured many jokes of how we were doomed to live in our parents' basements for eternity without ever having sex. While I am sure that happened to someone somewhere along the line, it didn't happen in our group -- that I know of.

I would have happily married the second Captain Kirk in our group, but he turned out to be gay. I never married because I never found the right person. That, and I am unwilling to repeat the marriage mistakes my parents made.

I am still a geek and a nerd and it still makes me happy. It also makes me happy that both sci fi and I are both more mainstream now. Back then we never would have guessed that we would have not only Sy Fy as its own network, but also BBC America loaded with Dr. Who.

Life is good.  Live long and prosper everyone!

Kilts and Kin

Okay, men, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Women find a man in a kilt very sexy. I don't

know exactly why, but we do. It can't be the knees really, because shorts don't do it so much.

It could be that we hope for a windy day, but since you are all built with pretty much the same equipment, I don't think that this reasoning holds up either.

My favorite reasoning gets into Scotsmen and Irishmen being secure enough in their manhood to be able to wear a skirt, but I've had to rethink that when you consider that men have been wearing kilts far longer than women have been wearing short skirts.

Now I am wondering if it isn't some sort of cell memory handed down from our fore-mothers and the men they fell in love with centuries ago. That or past-life memories we harbor of men we loved in a previous existence. I don't know

What I do know is that I can go to the Scottish/Irish Highland Games in Estes Park, Colorado each September and sit and watch the caber toss for hours without realizing that I am actually watching SPORTS. Okay, men hurling telephone poles isn't exactly the sort of sport that saturates ESPN and there is definitely something overtly phallic about the event, but it is still sports. I rarely choose a single man to cheer for. I seem to just sit and enjoy the view (and I'm not talking about the mountains, which ARE fantastic).

My friend Randi would be sitting right beside me and noting the same thing, trying to hold back the drool and laughing at herself.

Randi doesn't know if she has any Celtic blood, but I know I do. I am descended of the Davidson clan in Scotland. For anyone who really knows me, it should come as no surprise that the Davidson lands are in Glen Ness, not far from Loch Ness. For anyone who is reading the Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon, the Davidsons were/are neighbors of the Frasers and McKenzies. For anyone who isn't reading the series, I highly recommend it.

I do not possess a kilt in clan tartan. Instead I have a modest woolen scarf. The tartan strongly resembles the more popular Black Watch tartan. While wearing it at the Games I found that Davidsons and those from the Black Watch frequently mistake each other for clansmen, which can prove quite amusing. A Black Watch gentleman and I stopped short once and sized one another up. Then we exchanged clans, laughed, and moved on.

While I'm confessing my drooling attraction to men in kilts, I may as well make one other confession -- I LOVE bagpipe music. Yeah. I never claimed to be sane.