An IE Girl In Mourning

I am many things, especially an Inland Empire girl.  It is in my blood.  I was born in Great Falls, Montana but raised in Ontario and I live in unincorporated (outside city limits) San Bernardino.  This was the hardest week since I moved home after my dad's death almost nine years ago.  The week was filled with sadness and tragedy.  Deaths and destruction.  I am in mourning.

It is hard as a memoir writer not to make this deadly shooting about me.  I was supposed to be at Inland Regional Center ("IRC") that day, but my hearing got continued.  I represent people with developmental disabilities and I was reeling with shock when I got the news in court on December 2, 2015 at 11 am.  Our deputy told us someone had shot a number of people at IRC.  They are our sister agency and I work hand in hand with IRC's case workers to craft plans for clients in the criminal justice system.  My first thought was, I hope all my clients are OK.  Later, I found out that no clients were harmed nor any staff.  The Department of Public Health (restaurant inspectors) of San Bernardino was having their holiday party and their ranks were decimated.  So many people killed.  Gone in an instant.

I left work early that day and cried all the way home listening to it all on the radio.  When I got home, I stayed on the couch for hours watching the news.  My husband came home early after he heard me crying on the phone and we sat together, our eyes glued to the television.

Everything was transpiring mere miles away and I kept thinking, is this really happening? I have a close friend who left San Bernardino's Public Health Department months ago and many of her friends are dead or injured.  She could have been there but I am grateful she was not.  It seems selfish to say that, but it's true.  I am so happy she was home with her kids.

There is not much else I can say other than I am still reeling and my community is still reeling. The things that help are my writing and an ice cold Modelo with lime and salt, along with holding my husband's hand and petting my shih-tzus.  There is something about the warmth of touch that comforts me.  I am glad my Dad isn't here to see the world we live in.  Maybe he is playing a game of cards in the heavens above, oblivious to all that is going on down below.  For now, I know what people mean when they say hell is on earth, an earth filled with guns.

But, God only gives you what you can handle and offsets misery with miracles. Tonight, I attended the VONA writing workshop orientation. And, it was there that I saw speckles of light in the darkness, rays of light beckoning me to see the beauty in the world and in others and the possibilities that still exist.  In art, we find our better selves.  And for me, that is enough for now. It has to be.

Holiday Daze

There is something that comes out during the holidays, both good and bad.  I see the best side of people.  But, there is also a dark side, a side of the holidays in which depression takes it hold over people.  It must be the expectations people have during the holidays.  And having to deal with family.

Family is difficult because with family it is all about expectations.  And dynamics.  A teacher once told me about a study that showed that if you are in a group of people the same size as your immediate family, you take on the same role in that group that you take on in your family.  I always found that so interesting.  Are we hard wired to be who we once were as children and young adults?  Am I doomed to always be the oldest child bossing everyone around? Or only in groups of five?

Lately, the holidays have brought out my introspective side.  It has made me ask, what do I want out of life?  What's important?  Is being a public defender (i.e. social justice) really my calling or is teaching my destiny? Or writing?  I have so many interests that sometimes I can get sidetracked, but there are some things I just know are true.  I know that my mom and I have better relationship than ever. She makes me smile with her independence and her grit.  And I am blessed to have my sisters Roberta, Jackie and Annie.  They never let me forget where I came from and who I am.

What I also know is true is that I have the inability to say no sometimes.  It is both a blessing and a curse, but last night at my mock trial team's holiday banquet, it was a blessing.  I was so glad I had said yes.  The kids make me happy.  Their enthusiasm for life is infectious and it reminds me of what is important.

What  I am getting at (in a very roundabout way) is that kids are the whole point of it all.  As a morose punk rock girl in my teens and a non-believer in my twenties, I thought procreation was for the self absorbed egoists who needed to see themselves in another.  But as a forty-something true believer in both God and people, I see that it is not procreation that is key, it is creation.

We meant to create and a creation can take the form of a book, a painting and of course, it can take the form of a child, the ultimate act of creation.  And, how you create is irrelevant.  If a child was created the natural way, or through IVF or adoption, it doesn't matter.  In the end, what is meant to be is meant to be and it was meant to be that way all along.

I guess I am here to say I still believe.  Despite all my heartache and tears over my infertility, I know there is meaning to all of this.  I was meant to go through everything I have for a reason and will appreciate every moment all the more as a result.

What I know is true today as I sit here watching my holiday Hallmark movie is that something is in the air.  And it feels like Christmas and I am hopeful for what is to come.

The Hallmark

Have I ever mentioned that I am addicted to Hallmark Christmas movies?  It is similar to the way in which I was obsessed with my mom's Harlequin romance novels when I was little.  There is a similarity in the narratives.  There is almost always a happy ending.  And, Hallmark movies always make me cry.  Especially the ones with "special" people or dogs.

When I was a little girl, I remember wanting a happy ending to my life.  I would daydream about what my life would be like when I escaped the Inland Empire to the big city.  Even as a young girl, I was restless.  I wanted more than what I saw in my one horse town.

The Ontario of the 1970s was pretty barren.  There was a Pizza Hut restaurant, a McDonald's and a Yum Yum Donuts along with a string of other fast food options that no longer exist like Pup N Taco and Pioneer Chicken.  I wanted to get away from all that to Hollywood.  Hollywood was magical to me because it was the place movies were made.

As a young girl, movies were my escape (along with books).  My dad would take us to the drive-in and we were not allowed to speak once the movie started.  I can still picture my father in his Wrangler Jeans and blue pocketed cowboy shirt, his Kent cigarettes in the front pocket.  He would take us to the drive-in on Saturday nights because my mom had to waitress until late in the evening.

I have written about that drive-in many times.  The one located in Montclair on Holt and Central.  I can't help myself from writing about it.  For me, it is pure nostalgia and writing about it it brings back this feeling that I can't quite capture in words.  It is like smelling my dad's homemade popcorn and hearing his voice.

For me, those were the best of times.  Watching a movie and losing myself in it despite the static filled speakers and the plethora of car antennas sticking up into the air.  None of that mattered.  It was magical.  I saw most of the famous movies from the seventies at that drive- in.  The Superman movies, Star Trek, Star Wars and my favorite, The Bad News Bears with Walter Matthau.  My dad also loved the Herbie the Love Bug movies and anything with Richard Pryor.

I think that is why I love Hallmark movies so much.  They are the purest form of escapism.  And they make me happy.  Isn't that the hallmark of a good book or movie?  That it gives you joy.

So call me a sentimentalist.  A sappy mess.  Or even a lover of cheesy movies.  I don't care.  I'm just watching TV.  And smiling.

I'll Be You

"A dream too tired to come true
Left a rebel without a clue
Won't you tell me what I should do?"

from I'll Be You by The Replacements with lyrics by Paul Westerberg

The punk band The Replacements have a song called "I'll Be You" that came on Pandora this morning.  It is about the wanting and the yearning to be someone else.  To do something else.  The song is about the inherent boredom and monotony of every day life which is like poison to us dreamers and restless hearts.

I have always had a restlessness, I have written about it before on this blog, but I have noticed that I have settled down in my shoes a bit.  Is it age or just fatigue?  And, I cannot tell you whether this is a good or bad thing.  I no longer see the possibilities like I used to, but I also no longer have the extreme anxiety that comes with wanting to accomplish so much.  

About eight or nine years ago, I started writing stories again, stories from my childhood and teenage years growing up in Ontario, California in the 1980s, and I thought I would have the book done and published within a couple of years.  I daydreamed that I would be the next Frank McCourt, whose Pulitzer Prize winning memoir took the literary world by storm.  

All these years later, I have seen how hard it is for some dreams to come to fruition.  That said, I have never stopped working on my craft and I have had some successes.  A number of those early stories have been published and that was something I could never have foreseen while I was writing them.  Perhaps, the little successes mean more to me now as I get older.  For me, writing really has never been about fame or money.  I'll never get rich as a deputy public defender, but I have enough.  

For me, writing is about the need to write.  It acts as a salve to all of the grief in my heart.  I don't know if I would have survived my dad's death or my infertility struggles without the written word.  

Maybe the key is to buckle down, somehow cure the restless tapping of my feet and just write and edit my way into my dreams.  The possibility is there. I know it.  Just like how I know that in another universe, I am parenting a little girl.     

So here is to being who we are.  And to this rebel who needs to get a clue.

Writing Las Vegas

I can write anywhere. To prove that point, I am writing while sitting on a bathroom floor at five am in a hotel room in Vegas.  The door is closed lest I wake my slumbering husband.  I feel like crap. The medical issues I thought were in remission from two years ago are back full force.  I am trying to be subtle here. My goal is not to gross you out dear reader. It's just to let you know that I am in physical pain. Actual pain that makes me grind my teeth together.  The only things that help are sleeping and a healthy lifestyle.

But I'm in Vegas. Where smoke and slot machines ruled me last night. Work has been hectic. I'm coaching mock trial. I have too much on my plate. It's all an excuse for why I needed to decompress. Pouring money into a slot machine while sipping on a Coors Lite is the only way I know how. Blame my father. I come from a long line of gamblers and drinkers on my paternal side.

Do I seem as if I am not self aware of how I sound? Don't worry, I'm fully aware of my justifications. I'm a lawyer as well as a writer and can smell bullshit a mile away.

In my head, I'm calling bullshit on myself.

Now I'm lying on the tile in the bathroom floor stretched out looking up and pecking at the keys of my phone to write this. This is ridiculous. Akin to my clients writing in tiny scribble in pencil. But it's all I know how to do well. When I write, something is let loose in my brain and something else is quieted. My brain rarely stops spinning unless I am engrossed in something. And writing (and reading for that matter) engrosses me to no end.

I often wish I was the kind of person who didn't need this.  It is a cross of sorts. It's as if I am not really feeling anything unless I am writing it down. And I know that can't be healthy. But I know no other way.

Yet, I suppose it is also a blessing that I have this release.  What would I do if I couldn't write it all down? Would my life have any meaning? It must be that writing is my attempt to give my life perspective and form. In shaping my experiences, even when those experiences are as banal as sitting at a slot machine in Vegas cigarette in hand, I give substance to the nothingness.

And that is something. Right?

Unhappy Birthday

Are birthdays supposed to be a happy day? Well today is my birthday and I am feeling a bit melancholy.  I am thinking of everything I haven't done this year. No book. No baby.  Those are the two things that stick in my chest. There's a rock there right now. A stone that hinders my breathing no matter how much I will it to go away.

Funny thing is, I don't think sadness is always a bad thing. At least for me, sadness can be motivating and inspirational. Some of my best stories were written with tears streaming down my face so fast I couldn't catch them. In fact, I used to cry quite often, deep heaving sobs that acted like a catharsis. It may be a bad omen that I feel like I can't cry anymore. Perhaps, I am wrung dry by it all.

I am going to date myself now. I am forty-four, born in 1971. I grew up in Ontario, California in the era of free range parenting. My childhood wasn't perfect. But, it gave me much story making fodder and I would not change it for the world. I have a twin Jackie who (obviously) also turned forty-four today. I am childless but not loveless. I have much love from friends and family. I am blessed in so many ways. I know this.

I represent the mentally ill and feel a special empathy for them. When I visited the state hospital the other day, it made me realize how glad I was to be able to leave.  My husband joked that I better get out quick or they would keep me there. I quipped back that I felt oddly at home there because I grew up with crazy.

My dogs are my kids. I love them so much that it hurts. And it also hurts to admit that I talk to them out loud when we are walking in the mornings. To others, I must seem like the eccentric lady who thinks her dogs can understand what she is saying (I actually believe they do in their own way), but in reality I am just an (almost) middle aged lady whose affection must go somewhere.

This morning, when I walked outside to write this, I looked up into the sky and it was filled with stars and a bright white, gleaming crescent of a moon. It made me hopeful. As if the stars and the moon were put there for me to see this morning. I stared up into the sky for at least a full minute. Searching for something.

Me on the page

I am thinking about who I am on paper and who I am in person.  They are two vastly different things. I don't write much about work or my day to day as a deputy public defender handling incompetent clients who are the most mentally ill clients of all.  These are the clients who think they are Jesus or that they are being abducted by aliens.  I am there to protect them and their rights and talk to the doctors and hope the incompetency evaluations come out accurate.  But, I don't write about it because I have no space from it.  Every day is a new day yet the same day in a weird Groundhog Day kind of way and I just try to do my best.  I spend at least eight hours a day, five days a week doing this kind of work, but if you read my blog or my Facebook you would think my day is filled with renovating my house, traveling and going to concerts with my husband.   I don't write about the work not because it's not interesting, but because it is too interesting in the saddest kind of way.

Aside from my work, there are other things I leave off the page.  I try not to write about the squabbles with my husband.  They really are not anything anyone needs to hear.  Doesn't everyone fight about who does what chores, driving (my bad driving) and of course, money?  Occasionally, a fight will be so inane that I have to write about it (for instance, a huge fight we had in New York City over a piece of pizza).

What interests me more is what is in my head.  I think that is how I am so different on the page.  On the page, I am the person I wish I was at times and at other times, I show the person I wish I wasn't.  I look back at old blogs and think, wow, you were a mess.  And I still am a mess.  I have a tendency to wear a jacket with food on the collar or a shirt with a hole in it.  I just don't notice these kind of things.  But I do notice other things.  I notice the homeless guy on the corner and the people coming to court in tattered clothing and the families crying in the hallways.  If I ever fail to notice these things, it is time to retire.

I guess what I am trying to say is that writing for me is my relief, my escape and my haven.  I may not tell you everything dear reader, but I talk about the important stuff: how I still yearn for a child on a daily basis (who am I kidding, probably ten times a day), how I still struggle to moderate my drinking, how I wish my dad was still here so we could go to the casino together and how much I love music and writing.  That is who I am.