Platform

I started this blog more than a decade ago. My first post was about my humiliation at doing the sprinkler dance at a work gala. The writing is just okay. Looking back, I think it had a nice energy. And a voice. That's the most important thing in my opinion. You can learn to write and hone your craft, but the question really is whether you have something to say. A perspective. An attitude. A lens.

My blog writing has improved. Looking back at at some of my blogs, I think, wow I wrote that? But blog writing is not about perfection, it's about getting it out there. For me, I think of it like a diary aimed at an audience. It's very personal and active. 

Everyone knows that I think in song lyrics and love weaving music in. There's a whole subset of my blogs focused on music and the intersections with my life. And occasionally, I sneak in a political essay. 

Every blog takes about a half hour to no more than an hour with editing. No more than an hour because that's the point. It should be quick and easy. Breezy. 

After all these years, I've written over six hundred entries. That's 600 stories people! I've memorialized my life and I'm so glad I did. 

In my blogs, I've dealt with death, grief, infertility, weight issues, body image, pain management, forgiveness, trauma, love, mental health, my writing path, relationships and more. The one overarching theme is really about how to find your path and purpose in life.

My blog became a way for me to process. It's something I can look back on to remember how it felt. How I felt. Who I was. 

It took me years and years to build an audience. At first, I was happy if ten people read a blog. Hovering around fifty hits a month for years and years. Then, something clicked. 

Finally, I have a following. A thousand hits a month may not sound like a lot, but when it's consistent, it's enough. It's enough to know that this blog matters. Plus, my lovely micro audience is loyal, educated, creative, super literary and a tad political. My audience is people like me, inside wise that is. 

So I'm writing this to urge you all to write a blog. I'm planning on producing and teaching a class soon about audience building and how to use a blog, along with a podcast and social media, to create a platform (what I call "an identity" in the writing world). I'll announce it here and on my Life of JEM Facebook page when it drops. 

Remember that this public identity is a version of you. It's really whoever you want it to be. Be authentic and true, and always vulnerable, or don't bother. Keep something for yourself too. I call JEM my alter ego. At times, she's my better self.

I didn't start out thinking about platform. It happened organically, but it's paying off now that I finally finished and published my books. 

So think about it. And then make it happen. You can do it. Promise. 

Rough

It's been a rough couple days. I'm recovering from surgery and have been in a lot of pain. It's not unmanageable like my last surgery where I thought I would stroke out from the pain. This is pain I can grit my teeth at, and try to breathe my way through. I'm not a big pain pill person so have been using pills sparingly. Last night, I woke up covered in sweat after taking a pill yesterday late afternoon and I hate that groggy feeling. 

Back to roughness, the world is rough man. So damn rough. The US Supreme Court, in an act of judicial activism that I saw coming, did the unthinkable. Never say never. They took away women's reproductive choices with the stroke of a pen. The scariest thing to me is the idea that they will prosecute women. The next scariest thing, or maybe they're equally terrifying, is that the US world will become a place where pregnancy is coercion. These are frightening times and we will feel and see the horrifying results for years to come. 

Yet, don't lose hope. The world went backwards but we will move forward. For in these rough choppy waters, all we can do is row. 

Feelings

I'm so angry. This is righteous anger. As a woman, as a feminist, and as a lawyer, I am appalled, terrified, heartbroken, and more. Words don't suffice really in times like these. These scary, dystopian and apocalyptic times.

I'll try to articulate how I feel.

This is how I feel. 

I feel as if the world is now irrevocably broken. Look, I know it already was broken. 

I'll say it again. In a whisper this time to myself. It already was broken. 

But for the highest court to take away a woman's right to choose. To say our body is not our own. To undo decades of binding precedent. To say there is no right of a woman to make her own decisions about her own body. It feels surreal. It feels horrible. 

Where do I go with my rage? Where do we go with our rage? 

There are so many who feel this way. 

I feel... helpless. Yet, I know I am not helpless, and we are not helpless. I am a lawyer, and a writer, one with a voice, and a pen, and a mission. 

Know this. We all have power to bring to the table. 

You see, the world is broken but we are not. So we need to mobilize and organize to be the heroes and heroines who will defend the marginalized, oppressed and persecuted. 

Because know one thing, know this, that this ruling will be used to prosecute poor women of color. Believe it. 

History has showed us what can happen, as have books, and we need to be ready to act. I feel it. The urgency. 

It's not a pleasant feeling, but it's real. It's now. So feel it. Feel it. 

The girl who sold the world

Life is so short. It is. Fleeting. Precious. 

And usually, at least for me, when I'm caught up in the day to day routine with work, it goes by like a film on fast forward. I can typically only remember fragments of my day. 

Yet, there are times when life moves slow, like now. 

Here at home, in recovery, time moves so beautifully slow, like floating on a lake, not traveling a rushing river, I linger. I have music on in the background of course. The Shins, Bowie and Queen. 

The moments come and I ease into them and am present. 

In these times, I notice the mysteries of life. The gorgeous cinematic quality to it all. The blue sky. The sun shining on me. My dogs' faces. I cherish my husband's quick kiss goodbye. His teasing me about the way I dance and I laugh after he leaves and give a tiny karate motion in the air. 

My shih tzu Frodo walks around the house, and he's doing much better this week. I sing along to Bowie as I sip my coffee. 

When it's time to feed the dogs, I sit and wait. There's no pressure. Taking my time, I make another cup of coffee. Two sugar cubes. Splash of cream. Sip. Sip, and sing.

Today, I have all time in the world.

Ode to Coffee (In recovery room post surgery)

 Ode to coffee

Oh coffee I love you so

Let me tell you how I like you

Black and bitter warmth

Or with a splash of half and half 

One sugar cube, ok two

Down the hatch

This addiction 

Started when I was little

I would beg mom for a taste

She would hand me the mug

And I would take gulps

Until she grabbed it back

From my greedy hands 

Making herself another

That taste of Folgers, 

or was it Maxwell House

Is a hallmark of my childhood

Sitiing at our small kitchen table 

It still sustains me every morning

I drink as many as I want 

Fiending for it 

I have no kids to ask me 

for a sip. But if I did, 

I'd definitely pass my cup

To let them taste what 

smells like perfection 

At 5 am in the morning

While I write

It's the best part of my day 

Sipping my double espresso 

While remembering France 

downing those tiny cups

At my cousin's house,

devouring buttery croissants

Dip it in 

Savoring the sweetness, 

the aftertaste lingers  

Today, post surgery savoring 

my first cup in 24 hours

It's bland heaven, 

smooth on my tongue 

Probably Folgers

Something that is hard for me

Sitting here, at 4 am after surgery, I am thinking about a prompt that I was given recently to write about something that is hard for me to deal with. 

Reconciliation is part of everything I write about. Writing my memoir was itself a journey of recollection and reconciliation. To remember, is to reconcile. You must. How you remember and frame the past is a way of recovering from your past trauma. It's not as if you can change the past, you can't, but you can change your perspective. 

People who aren't writers sometimes ask me how to explain what I write and often ask me if I write biography. Usually, I respond that I write creative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction is a broad umbrella that encompasses essays, memoir and other forms of "true" stories. 

My memoir pieces tend to focus on a specific time and place. These pieces, which range from essays, to poetry to stories, are always a way for me to write with purpose on issues such as what is memory? It is also a way for me to discover who I am now, and who I was back then.

Writing is a process and a practice and a way to understand the inherent fragmentation of memory and the challenges of how to capture time, place and character. It's not easy. Especially hard for me is the choice in my first person stories of whether to write in present or past tense. I prefer present tense because it's more active, but it's a fallacy because I'm writing about the past... get it?

Writing memoir is ultimately a way of capturing myself as a character back in the day and now. It's a way to bring my father back to life, as least on the page. Memoir was, and is, a way for me to forgive others and myself. It's also a way to celebrate the good times. 

What I think is ultimately hardest for me is not reconciling the past. What's hardest for me is being in the present (despite my somewhat ironic preference for present tense in my stories). As a writer, I'm always writing about what has happened, and as a person, I'm constantly focusing on the future, and on what WILL happen. 

I have so many goals as a writer and performer, and I try to visualize them into being. What some call manifestation. But I want to be in the now, in the here and now. Yet, the now is so fleeting. And it's more difficult to write about.

Here's to being in the now. The here and now. Right here. Not where I will be or where I was. 

Let's talk about where I am. 

Tomorrow tomorrow

I'm having surgery tomorrow. I'll be out of touch for a bit. So if anyone needs me that desperately, just message me. I'll get back to you eventually. For the next three or four weeks, I'll be focused on health and wellness! So give me a break! 

When I walked thru the open door

When I walked thru the open door of our community center, I saw the pool. The water was a deep sparkling aqua blue. There was no one else there. Just me. The sun shining, the water and me.

It was so inviting that I tore off my shirt and dove in and started to swim lap after lap. Swimming has always been my zen. My go to. I remember living in Houston and swimming in the pool in our community center. I was a depressed and stressed out corporate lawyer, so I swam after work. Laps and laps. Looking back, I swam to escape the lack of a life I'd made myself. My unhappiness with corporate law. My loneliness in a city with no family. My sadness.

Swimming started when I was a kid. My parents bought a pool when I was in elementary school. It was the greatest gift. Me and my sisters were so happy. We literally jumped with joy when we found out. We would swim for days. It was our summer. And winter. Even in the rain. Jumping off the roof into the pool. Racing each other. Diving into water on hot summer days after barbecuing. Those are the memories that linger. 

I can still remember laying on a floatie in the haze of summer for hours and hours. My skin tanning from the golden rays and then turning the floatie over to swim underwater. The coolness of the water rejuvenating me.

In high school, I was on the swim team. I loved swimming freestyle and backstroke. I wasn't the best swimmer but I was super enthusiastic and always amazed at how swimming freed me. It showed me the possibilities in life. Swimming helped me escape the chaos of those years. And when I quit the swim team, I lost myself.

Writing this, I realize that I want to find that joy again. Joy in my body. In being connected. When I was younger, in moving through water to find myself, I was able to find that connection with my mind and body. Now at 50, I feel like I've lost it. It's funny that at 30, I was miserable at work and needed a change. and that now at 50, two decades later, as a stressed out deputy public defender, I've come to understand that change is needed again. Perhaps what feeds us, does not always feed us forever. 

But swimming does feed me. Will always feed me. So into the water I will go. Stroke by stroke. I will go.

Writing with Magic

The other day I had my friend, teacher and writer Stephanie Barbé Hammer on my podcast. Check it out. https://juanitaemantz.com/life-of-jem-season-2-episode-9-writing-with-magic%EF%BF%BC/

She talked about using magical realism to allow oneself to write fiction in a freeing way. As a memoir writer I needed this inspiration, so here goes... part memoir, part fiction, but magic.

My shih tzus started talking. Truly. Not just in my head which is usually the way they talk. Which I translate into their voices occasionally for my own amusement.

But this was different. This was real. As soon as my husband left for work, Chewbacca looked at me and said in a quite human sounding high voice, "More toast please Mom." Then Frodo cleared his throat like an old man and said with an English accent, "I'll have some more too please." They both wagged their tales and acted like this was completely normal.

I shook my head and said aloud, "What the hell?"

Chewie looked at me, and waved his furry ears and blinked his caramel colored eyes at me. He repeated himself in that same high voice, "Toast please." 

Frodo walked up and turned his black and white back up at me to scratch and said, again in a strange English almost Cockney accent , "What are you waiting for my lady? Toast time. With jelly."

So I made toast. They never spoke again that morning or any other. I still don't know whether they ever will again. But at least I know Frodo sounds British and Chewie sounds like a high voiced pixie. 

You get what you need

You can't always get what you want. You can't. It's not always what the universe wants for you. In other words, it's not meant to be. Sometimes it takes years to understand why.

When I went through in vitro years ago, I wanted it so bad. So bad that I couldn't see any other reality in my future. When everything failed, when I had no more options of conceiving a child naturally, it devastated me.  I really thought for a bit that my life was over. That I didn't want to be here anymore.

But then with time and therapy, I realized that I still had a great life and a wonderful husband, fantastic friends and family and my beloved dogs. 

Now looking back, I totally understand why the world had something different in store for me. Having my books, finishing them and putting them out into the world, along with performing and interviewing other writers, is my life's purpose. It was meant to be all along. I just couldn't see why back then. 

Are there moments where I wish I had a little girl with curly ringlets and Adrian's eyes? Of course. Maybe in another world and universe she exists. 

But for the present, the here and now, I only have this world. This reality. And I'm good. I'm good.

Fro Fro

My dog Frodo has sundowners. When the sun goes down, he gets confused and will bark nonstop. He gets disoriented and paces the house. It's been a hard week of sleep interrupted nights.

So after speaking with his vet, we gave him Tramadol. The first night, it worked okay. He slept through. But tonight, he's even more out of it. He can barely walk and keeps losing his balance. His back is already shot so while trying not to panic, I take him outside and steady his legs for him. He nips me. Then he seems to calm down. He seems comforted with my presence.

I bring a blanket downstairs and sleep on the couch with him on his blanket on the floor below me. He's sleeping and I sigh, trying not to weep. While my mother-in-law watches Netflix, I listen to a podcast and meditate. I breathe in and out. 

Leaning down, I rub his back and scratch his ears as he snores. Snuggling his little black and white shih tzu body, I cradle his face in my hands and kiss his black nose, whispering to him, and to myself, "I love you Frodo. I love you dammit."

Tiffani

Yesterday, I attended a remembrance for my friend Tiffani Willis. She passed away a few months ago. We went to law school together. Lived together as roommates for a year. I will miss her so. 

She was such a good friend. I usually consider myself a pretty good friend. Usually I am. Not this time. 

Because I hadn't seen Tiffani in a few years. What with Covid and life, I hadn't reached out for a while in person. We used to meet in LA for lunch periodically. Have sandwiches and talk about life, books, and music.

Instead, for the last few years, we kept up on social media. Occasionally, I messaged her. Knew she was a librarian. She had quit corporate law to follow her bliss. Her bliss was books. Always. She went to UCLA for library school. It made complete sense. I admired her for it. To remake yourself in your forties is not easy, but she did it. With grace. She was so brilliant and a fantastic lawyer. but also a creative. 

Tiffani was also a wonderful writer. You could see it in her blog posts on passport books. She wrote about so many books. Beautifully wrought discussions and in depth reviews of an eclectic mix of books. 

So when my memoir came out I messaged her. I told her I'd love to see her at my book party at the Garcia Center. And she came. Walked in with long colorful braids. I hugged her tight and got misty eyed and wept to see her and my other roommate Bridget there along with our law school buddy Katherine. It meant so much to have her there. 

In retrospect, seeing her that last time was everything to me. So thank you Tiffani for being a great friend to me for all those years. For being a wonderful person. A terrific lawyer and teacher. A dear friend to Maggie Hall and so many others. A stellar academic. A beloved daughter to your mom Sjeanay, a supportive big sister to Tocarra and an awesome auntie to her daughter. You are loved. You are missed. We all know that. The world shines a little less bright now. I hope you're snuggled in a corner reading a book in the big library in the sky friend. 

Everyday is Like Sunday

Today is Sunday. I'm listening to the birds sing. I've been awake since 5 am and have had too much espresso. 

My mother in law sits across from me. It's quiet until Frodo starts barking incessantly. So I throw dry food on the floor for him. I call it our 52 pick up game. He's already eaten but he's old. Another round of food won't hurt.

I'm old too. But not too old. I'm not too old to focus on health and wellness. I'm not too old to go to concerts. Or write. Or play and perform. Most of all, I'm not too old to dream. 

Dreaming has always been my freedom in life. I've always imagined new things and adventures. They have, more often than not, come true. Some call this manifestation. I call it dreaming. Dreaming is free, as Blondie once said. It's everything. In some ways, dreaming is life.

And my next dream is to write a third book and then teach writing. Full-time. Not just in bits and pieces. Now, I know I still have things to do to make this happen. Change takes time. And I'm fine where I am. 

But I have to dream it first. So this Sunday. I'm gonna daydream my butt off. I'll light a candle and pray. Breathe. And dream. Then, I will dream some more. 

Crooked

When I was a kid, I had crooked teeth. I used to cover my teeth when I smiled. I also had impacted eye teeth. I remember people making fun of my teeth. Calling me a snaggletooth. My frizzy hair never seemed to curl right. I probably wasn't using the right product or conditioner. 

In my twenties, I was very insecure about my weight. Looking back, I was trim and slim but didn't know it. I got braces so that helped my smile. In my thirties, after law school and working at a large firm, I gained an extreme amount of weight after getting on an anti-depressant. 

In my forties, I lost the weight, some of which I've gained back during Covid and menopause.

It wasn't until recently that I've accepted where I am and tried to make the best of what I've got. I still want to lose weight, but know that I have to be happy where I am. Makeup has become my friend and I'm having fun with it. I wear what I want and try to be confident. 

I think back and wonder if my insecurities is why I never tried acting. To be on display. To be judged. It's something I was terrified of. But now, all that fear is gone. I don't know if it's turning fifty or publishing my books, but I have no fear of public appearances or speaking on stage.

That's not to say I'm not still insecure. I am at my core or I wouldn't be writing this. But I'm trying to be confident. And happy. Performing makes me happy so I'm leaning into it. Crookedly maybe. But leaning still. 

Boredom

There's a Buzzcocks song called boredom. I keep thinking of it as I sit here in my punk t shirt drinking coffee. There's this line that has always spoken to me, 

"You see, I'm living in this a-movie

But it doesn't move me..."

I feel like that a lot. As if I'm watching myself. And I'm so bored with all of it. With the 8 to 5 job, with the daily routine, and with the suits in court. 

The law profession can be very male centered at times, despite the fact of so many fabulous female lawyers. 

Men take up more space. They take it as their right. Their privilege. They define what people think of as a lawyer. A white man in a dark suit and tie is what people think of as a lawyer. That and an undertaker.

The other day, I was asked in court by both lawyers and clients if I was an assistant to a lawyer or a paralegal. I thought to myself, why is this happening? I'm fifty years old, I've been a lawyer twenty years, I went to USC Law and I wore a suit to court today. But it's not me, it's them. 

They're all so fucking boring. One of these days, probably when I'm near retirement, I'm gonna wear a plaid punk suit with zippers and safety pins to court just to show the absurdity of it all. They may kick me out, but it will be too late. I'll just give them the bird and sing a little song, 

"You know the scene, very humdrum
Boredom, boredom
B'dum, b'dum"

(Buzzcocks, circa 1977)

Breathe baby breathe

Right now, I am giving my mind space to breathe writing wise. No new writing project on the horizon. I did finally finish a first draft of my play adaptation. And I always have this blog which I update weekly to flex my writing muscles.

It feels good. To rest that creative side is important at times. Stories usually come to me. My favorite way to write is in a generative workshop with prompts. I am not an organized writer. I'm a scribble or type furiously for hours writer, then I take a breath slowly and edit later. 

Let me say this. Fuck outlines. For those of you who use them, goody for you, I'm glad they work for you, but for me, personally, outlines stifle my creativity and feel too much like my legal work.

What is so interesting is that even in my day job as a deputy public defender, which is hectic AF right now, I don't outline. I write openings, closings and motions in a fury then go back and organize my writing. Maybe I'm backwards that way.

When I was in college, learning how to write essays, which I think I already instinctively and naturally knew how to do, the thing that helped me most was the idea of a topic sentence and a theme. 

To this day, when I write an essay, which I can often do in a flash, I start with that and add my research after. Yes, things can change based on my research but my theme always remains the same. As Jackson Maine, a character in one of my favorite movies (the recent version of "A Star is Born"), said:

"Look, talent comes everywhere, but having something to say and a way to say it to have people listen to it, that’s a whole other bag."

Yesterday

Yesterday, I submitted my memoir/book "Tales of an Inland Empire Girl" to a "books for movie" contest. If your book is chosen, it goes to the movie studios to be considered. It was a last minute thing. It popped up on my calendar and I just made the deadline. 

I also started watching the "Pistol" series on Hulu. It's so damn good. The guy who plays Johnny Rotten is perfect. As is the Steve Jones character whose memoir "Lonely Boy" the series is based on. I'm about halfway through and it's so epic. You see all of the Sex Pistols in their beginnings along with their visionary and controversial manager Malcom McLaren, (who was also involved previously with the NY Dolls before the Sex Pistols) as well as the other characters pre rock star status of Chrissie Hynde (who had traveled to London from Ohio to be inspired) and Siouxsie Sioux. They're all obsessed with Bowie and hoping to create something. They're anti establishment. And somewhat anti Beatles and anti long guitar solos. They're pro chaos. They're blue collar and punk rock. They just don't have that name for it yet. 

It reminded me that not everyone, or mostly no one, thinks their dreams will come true when they're in the midst of it. You just have to focus on the tasks, whether it be touring or reading or workshopping or learning to play guitar, that get you there. To that place you can see, but it's an unknown. Then your life will change. Fuck the naysayers. Just do it. 

So here's to yesterdays. And tomorrows. Cheers.