Jefferson City, Missouri, who knew?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by sheilawill

After driving across Oklahoma (I can cross it off my list, leaving only South Carolina and Hawaii to still visit) I craved both decent chocolate and coffee.  There was no Trader Joe’s along the way. Then we arrived in the quiet, distinguished capitol of the boring state of Missouri, Jefferson City.

Missouri's governor's mansion, downtown Jefferson City

Missouri’s governor’s mansion, downtown Jefferson City

Much more so than zillions of churches along the way. Grace Point Assembly of God, Fine Point Church, The True Believer, Faith For All, Cavalry Evangelical Church, Baptist churches galore. It got so that a United Methodist or Lutheran place of worship seemed normal, even friendly. The hold these churches have on people in this unfamiliar part of the country is scary. At the Rib Crib in Enid, Oklahoma, a couple held hands and prayed before munching on their pulled pork.

But oh how I suffered not having a good cup of coffee or dark chocolate between Albuquerque and the Walgreen’s in Republic, Missouri. And the last time anyone mentioned liking my purple hair was in Reserve, Arizona, at a feed and seed shop that also carried “bling” flip-flops. There’s something wrong with that.

There’s also something wrong when Walgreen’s saves me with a chili dark chocolate bar. But as Dan pointed out, I’m in the minority driving across the Oklahoma plains and the Ozark plateau in Missouri, with my purple hair, my dependence on Trader Joe’s, my disdain for public display of prayer.

Yet I was pleasantly surprised by the wonderful bike paths of Tulsa, the gentle green hills of eastern Oklahoma, and the stately architecture of Jefferson City.

Riding across the Arkansas River via the Tulsa bike path

Riding across the Arkansas River via the Tulsa bike path

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It had no vibe

Posted on June 13, 2013 by sheilawill

Choosing the restaurant for my birthday dinner is not a simple matter. Someplace new or tried and true? Sounds somewhat like a bride’s wedding directive, right? Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue…I’ll get to that in a bit.

So much is going on now. Heading cross-country in the early sunlight.

Yesterday was my birthday. Return to Feast with its tried and true creative chef? Try  Cafe a la C’Art for dinner? We like it so much for a luxurious weekend breakfast on their patio, but they’re not open on Tuesday evenings. After much deliberation, I decided: Go downtown to the new Proper.

It had no vibe. Our nice enough waitperson brought us a bottle of water; the size reminded me of those propane tanks used for camp stoves. Its contents were tepid on a very warm Tucson evening. I had to ask for ice. This did not bode well.

No bread was delivered to our table.  A large slice of French-like bread sat on each of our entrees, unadorned with butter or a side of olive oil. Seemed odd. I had Greek sea bass with capers, which was very tasty. I imagined it was the fish of choice for dining by the Mediterranean Sea.

The highlight of my birthday meal — as it usually is — was the chocolate dessert: a chile-dark chocolate tart. Yum. So spicy, so perfect.

And now for the wedding. My daughter, Brook, is marrying Gian in Southwest Harbor on July 5.  They’ve done all the planning for a spectacular celebration. I can’t wait. Just look at her shoes.

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A Mother’s moments

Posted on May 12, 2013 by sheilawill
Brook and Ethan as teens with their mama at our Southwest Harbor home.

Brook and Ethan as teens with their mama at our Southwest Harbor home.

Years ago I would fall asleep calculating — when Brook is 8, Ethan will be 5, when Brook is 28, Ethan will be 25. Now Brook is 35 and Ethan is 32. Somehow the years have flown by, and I’m still on the greatest adventure of all. Being a mother.

Just two days ago, I said to my pregnant friend Julie, “It’s the end of an era.” She was about to hop on that ship of motherhood, which may pitch headlong into huge waves, be calm on windless days, but there’s no turning back. You can only go forward.

Yesterday, at 2:17 p.m., Mira Clementine Ray was born. Welcome little Mira!

I’ve spoken to Brook and Ethan today. I’m grateful for their amazing selves, the flowers, the blingy card, the pedicure, but most of all I’m grateful for all they’ve taught me about life, myself and being a kind, caring human being.

I’m also grateful for my dear women friends who have helped me become a better mother: Kathleen Bowman, Andrea Gabel-Richards, Martha Dudman, Olivia Hurd, Kate Russell Henry, Claire Kohrman, Barbara Cooney, Phyl Brazee, Penelope Starr, Chris Graves, Faith Ball, and all those insightful, strong women I  haven’t mentioned.

Julie, deah, welcome to the club!

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A tall, grande or venti coffee story

Posted on May 2, 2013 by sheilawill

I never thought that Starbucks would be my local coffee hangout. But it is. For a few years, Julie and I walked through El Encanto neighborhood chatting about our lives. Strolling around the hood sipping coffee was the perfect early morning walk, around three miles. The more we drank, the more ideas we came up with for networking, changing the world, and simple everyday solutions to tiny practical problems.

Julie and her husband will have their first tiny baby this month. I’m excited for them.

Over the years, we’ve become friendly with other neighbors over coffee, chai, and even green protein drinks brought from home. The forty-something couple are a kick. He’s often glued to his laptop, in supposed serious work mode when we arrive but is always ready with a funny story. He’s easily distracted. Just start talking in a Boston accent — he’s from Worcester — and we’re off. Probably too loud for everyone else, but hey, we’re regulahs.

An older, elegant neighbor is usually there reading the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She’s an old-time Tucsonan who’s quick to talk about local history, tell us where to get the best mojito and lament the United States “turning Communist.” My attempts to find common ground, like about the mojitos, make me proud.

Then there’s the cheerful, retired couple. They’re playwrights, former international teachers who walk around Reid Park before treating themselves to their daily coffee. They’re such fun, always interesting and attentive. I’ll bet they were terrific teachers.

Since Julie hasn’t been walking lately, Dan walks with me a few times a week. We both enjoy our coffeewalks.

The owner of the most extravagant home renovation I’ve ever seen stopped by this morning. I count the number of work trucks parked in front of his house as we pass — anywhere from 13 to 19 on different days. I’d like to see what the place looks like when it’s done. Tucson’s Taj Mahal?

Mark Kelly came in with his teenage daughter once before she went to school. They were fast, quickly getting their coffee and taking off. It would be lovely for Gabby to be able to walk that far.

Today our around-the-corner neighbor arrived mid-conversation with the playwrights. I introduced them. He mentioned that his wife thought it was too far, and she  would prefer to walk to the Rincon Market. Their coffee is better and cheaper than Starbucks, I’ll admit it.

So why do we go to Starbucks, the corporate giant? It’s not the coffee, that’s for sure, it’s the caffeinators. They’re the best.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Posted in Bopping Around Tucson | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

If it’s good enough for my kid…

Posted on March 30, 2013 by sheilawill

Then, and only then, is it good enough for yours…otherwise blah, blah, blah. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) decides that his kid should have the same opportunity to love someone and make a commitment like the senator and his wife have had for the past 26 years.

Until Portman’s son came out to his parents in 2011 — and Portman really had the chance to think about it — the senator was adamantly opposed to gay marriage.

I hate this hypocrisy.

And who else but former Vice President Dick Cheney advised Portman to “follow his heart”  when considering his political stance? Who knew the evildoer Cheney had a heart? Guess he discovered it when his daughter Mary came out as a lesbian and married another woman.

(Gee, perhaps if one of Cheney’s daughters had deployed to Iraq he wouldn’t have been so intent in fighting the longest war in U.S. history, searching for those elusive weapons of mass destruction.’)

09/10/2006, Dick Cheney, Vice President
“If we had to do it over again we would do exactly the same thing.” Q: Exactly the same thing? Cheney: Yes, Sir.

Poof! If a politician’s own kid is involved, everything changes. All of a sudden these hard and fast, deeply held convictions, “I believe marriage is only between a man and a woman,” this is how society has been for a gazillion years… blah, blah, blah, disappear.

How can this be? How about an ounce of empathy for someone else’s kid who also deserves to be happy and have the same rights as everyone else? It’s always been about the 14th Amendment — its glorious “equal protection under the law”  clause — and it is for same-sex marriage.

Posted in Family Matters, Fight wimpiness, For Love of History, politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Kurt Vonnegut says it all

Posted on March 24, 2013 by sheilawill
That's right babies, "be Kind."

That’s right babies, “Be Kind.”

I’ve became a mini-patron of the arts. Here and there I pick up real artwork that adds to the personality of our home. I was in Houston visiting Ethan and Steph when we came across this comic-book style poster/print of Kurt Vonnegut’s well-known saying. I had to have it.

“Be Kind” is the ultimate advice to ourselves and our children. While I’m handing out advice, I’d add, try not to be paranoid or take everything personally, which I often do. This reminds me of a recent Stephen King quote on all the inane political accusations hurled around today: “Sometimes I wish they’d just grow up, shut up and go about the business of helping your fellow men and women.”

I’m a blurter. I appreciate when others just spit it out. How to be a blurter and remember to always “Be Kind?” The Vonnegut poster now hangs in our bedroom and I look at it every time I walk in the room, so  I’m working on it.

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Mysterious woman slinks through Topkapi palace

Posted on March 19, 2013 by sheilawill
Who is she and why is she stopping in every room to get her picture taken?

Who is she and why is she stopping in every room to get her picture taken?

Wish I were a fiction writer. A mysterious woman poses in every room in Istanbul’s magnificent Topkapi palace. Click, click. A photographer follows her. I watch. She doesn’t change her expression, which is devoid of emotion. 

She’s a celebrity or a Turkish politician or a model. A cover story will appear in next month’s Vogue. And I won’t even know about it, although I followed her until I tired of guessing her identity.

I like to know what’s going on. A young mother from Staten Island was found dead in Istanbul the day that I left the city, returning to Tel Aviv to catch my flight home. A photojournalist, she had walked all the places I had walked alone at night. It was her first trip out of the United States and she was excited, her husband said.

She had stayed in a supposed “seedy part” of the city. She had written to a few men via the Internet before leaving home, unfortunately, on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Quite a story. 

Apparently a homeless man who had sniffed glue “excessively” the day she was murdered was responsible for this hideous violence. There’s something odd about his confession, my friend Gail told me. The man wasn’t sure of how the killing took place. Seems like homeless people are often accused of crimes they didn’t do.

I want to know what really happened. Her husband reported there was no hanky-panky between his wife and the men she contacted online. Maybe that’s true. Maybe the real story is different. 

I make up stories all the time. Sometimes I wish I wrote fiction. But not very often. What I really like is asking questions. 

 

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Moving forward into herstory…

Posted on March 12, 2013 by sheilawill

Yes, I’m still basking in the afterglow of the Tucson Festival of Books. We celebrate the written word, ideas, stories at the festival. But lots of people do their celebrating  by listening to books on tape, or reading books on kindles, iPads, Nooks and other devices that allow them to download e-books and take off. 

I personally haven’t been a fan of audio books and I don’t have a reading device. I like to hold a book in my hands and turn the real pages. But that doesn’t mean other readers aren’t enjoying books as much in their own ways. 

We can’t stop history. To think we can is folly. 

Sharon, a friend of many years, commented on my last post about the joy of seeing so many book-lovers at the book festival this weekend, which is testimony to the future of books, however they’re read.

 The progress that women have made and the current retrogressive attacks we’re experiencing — you know, from those old white male politicians who don’t know the definition of rape and don’t want women to have control of their own bodies — is shocking. Women must speak out, which means the use of social media.

 To disregard Facebook, texting, tweeting and other online ways of communicating I haven’t tried yet, is also folly. I love Facebook; it’s an effective way to voice your thoughts to as many people as you choose, and to find out what your “friends” are thinking.  Although I don’t pay much attention to Twitter I check it out every once in a while. 

Sure, the Internet is intrusive, can take up too much time, foists unwanted advertising on us, but it’s a phenomenal way to learn about the world. No old reference librarians shushing us. The reference library is now at our fingertips. 

And texting? I figured it wasn’t for me. But I learned.  Does it help me make appointments, let people know where I am, where to meet and allow me to quickly ask a question, like do we need more eggs, is texting my friend? Totally.

Does it irk me when I see a lovely young couple out to dinner, looking down at their phones, thumbs going a mile a minute? Sure. But we have a choice how we use these new tools. We must speak out using every tool we have. That works for me.

 

 

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Hanging out at the Tucson Festival of Books

Posted on March 10, 2013 by sheilawill

You know how certain subjects help organize periods of your life, like who your boyfriend was, what kind of car you drove or places you’ve lived?

Now that the Tucson Festival of Books is in its fifth year it has a history for me.

I don’t remember the first year of the festival. The second year, my friend Phyl, who teaches at the University of Maine, was here. The next year my friend Martha Dudman, who wrote “Black Olives” and “Augusta, Gone,” was here for a panel I set up on the ’60s.

Last year, my daughter, Brook Wilensky-Lanford, author of “Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden,” was here. Of course, I was bursting with pride.

(Did I say that I’ve been on the author committee for the past three years?)

This year I invited Mazie Hough, a historian from the University of Maine, who spoke on a terrific panel, “Pregnancy, Birth and Choice Across Cultures,” along with historican Mary Melcher and University of Arizona professor Patrisia Gonzales.

My friend Gwen, who’s also on the author committee, came up with the panel idea. We were faced with the onslaught on reproductive rights during the presidential campaign. Very scary stuff. (You remember the Republican rape buffoons, who didn’t understand the definition of rape.)

Today I thought about a woman in her 90s whom I recently interviewed and asked about how — as a feminist and sociologist — she saw her life. “I can’t believe we’re still arguing about contraception and abortion,” she said. “Didn’t we already fight those battles?”

Today I couldn’t get angry about retrogressive history. The festival has been such an enormous success. It’s become the fourth largest book festival in the country in a very short time; last year 120,000 people attended in two days.

I’ve heard people ask, “Who knew there were so many book-lovers in Tucson?”

Many pundits say books are dead but it’s hard to believe, looking at the lines waiting to get into panels at the festival. I was five minutes early for a session with Douglas Brinkley, a historian from Rice University who wrote “Cronkite,” an acclaimed biography of the once most trusted man in America.

There was already a sign posted on the door: “Session full.” The volunteer told me the room was packed with 300 people. That makes me happy.

All I could think of was how incredibly wonderful it is to be surrounded by so many people who love books — itching to be writers themselves, listening to authors, learning more about the world.

 

Posted in For Love of History, Tucson Festival of Books/good books | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

“You must be a good mother…”

Posted on February 28, 2013 by sheilawill
Standing in front of Ataturk's statue after luxuriating in a Turkish hamam, my last night in Istanbul.

Standing in front of Ataturk’s statue after luxuriating in a Turkish hamam, my last night in Istanbul.

What else could I say to a Turkish hamam matron scrubbing me with bubble bath? But I’m getting ahead of myself. My Tucsonan/Istanbul friend Gail suggested it: “Would you like to go to the Cemberlitas Hamami the night before you fly home? They’re having a special.”

“Sounds perfect,” I replied. And it was.

Tucked away on a busy Istanbul street, across from a mosque hundreds of years old, near both a MacDonald’s and a Burger King, I found it. There was no way of knowing that the heavy doors next door to an  outdoor stand squeezing fresh pomegranate juice would lead downstairs to a 15th century Turkish bath.

After putting my clothes in a locker, I wrapped myself in what seemed like a big cotton dish towel and went out to the common room.  A dark-haired, short woman in a flowered cotton housedress — like my mother wore in the ’50s — greeted me.

A number was pinned to her dress. I asked her name. I think it was Ulsa, but I couldn’t tell because she didn’t speak much English.

We entered a chamber into another world. In the center was a giant marble slab, covered with half-naked women of all sizes. In a moment I was one of them. Ulsa had pulled the dish towel off me. “Lie down,” she said.

I did what I was told. Next she poured a bowl of warm water over me. She left. I saw Gail waving to me from her spot across the slab. I couldn’t really relax, not knowing what would happen next. Around 15 minutes later Ulsa reappeared — unabashed — in a bikini that barely covered her plump body.

More warm water poured over me.  Mounds of  bubble bath somehow appeared over the front of my body. Ulsa donned her scrubbing mitt and went to work, flipping me over, this way and that, as she did her job.

Somewhere along the way she started to sing a lullaby. I figured she was singing to me. I smiled at her and said, “You must be a good mother.” She smiled back. I was ready to go home.

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