Tag: Scottsdale

American Fiction

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I don’t usually write film reviews. I prefer to leave the nuances of critiquing movies to my cinephile husband. However, in this case, I will break the rules. You’ll understand why in just a moment.

In American Fiction, Jeffrey Wright plays Monk, a frustrated novelist who feels his books have been lost in the bluster of less literary works that fly off the shelves on the wings of tired stereotypes about the Black community.

Against the advice of his agent, he decides to prove his point by writing a one-dimensional, inflammatory book under a pen name.

He considers it garbage, but ironically the story wins immediate acclaim. He finds himself faced with the conundrum of accepting his financial windfall and hypocrisy or coming clean.

No spoilers here. You’ll have to see the movie to understand the permutations of his dilemma.

However, the story–written and directed by Cord Jefferson–is a dazzling bit of witty screen writing, laced with well-drawn, believable characters navigating painful personal traumas.

It’s been a long time since I was so entertained watching a movie. Tom and I laughed. Out loud. And so did the fifty or so others who sat around us in the theater at Camelview Theater at Fashion Square Mall in Scottsdale on Friday night.

I even shed a few tears, because there is a story thread about Monk’s mother–played by Leslie Uggams–that hit rather close to home.

But what resonated most for me was the brilliant way the film explored the world of a writer. We tell our stories, hoping our truths will land with readers.

We spill our guts (or those of our fictional characters) on the page but have no control over the tastes and proclivities of readers.

We do it because we love to write. It’s what we were meant to do. But secretly–or maybe not so much–we pine for our books to blaze a trail and rake in the royalties.

For those of us with dreams and scruples, we want our books to sell … but never want to sell out.

Ripe with Possibilities

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We begin with a fresh slate.

As we embark on this even-numbered journey, the season reminds us that we get to decide what to keep. What to build upon. What to change or cherish.

It’s time to relinquish extra pounds, unhealthy habits, and heavy losses. To let them fall away so that we can focus on luscious fruits, ripe with possibilities.

***

Happy New Year! Join me on my 2024 blogging journey. Just fill out the information on my Contact Me page and I will add you to my subscriber list.

On January 1, 2024, I plucked ripe tangelos from one of our community trees in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Ten Things I’ve Learned This Year

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From time to time, it’s important to take stock of where we’ve been and how we’ve grown. In that spirit, as December’s light wanes, I look back over the fence at 2023.

Here are ten important things–in no particular order–I’ve learned (or been reminded of) this year. Each is connected to one or more blog posts I wrote in the past twelve months.

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#1: Creative opportunities are rare butterflies; grab them when they appear.

#2: Music transforms the human heart with joy and hope.

#3: Cats are resourceful, cuddly, and conniving characters.

#4: Losing someone you love to suicide is devastating.

#5: Trees keep us rooted to the places we love most.

#6: Good poetry simply IS; no explanations are required.

#7: My husband is a sweet guy, who really knows his movies.

#8: Carol Burnett is a national treasure and a kind human being.

#9: You can’t replace your mother or father, but you can remember them fondly.

#10: We all need a sense of community to connect and nourish our souls.

***

Join me on my blogging adventure in 2024. Just fill out the information on my Contact Me page. I will be sure to add your email address to my subscriber list.

That After-Concert Feelin’

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My friend Adele Singer captured this glorious musical moment during the second act of Thanks for the Memories: A Gay Christmas Carol, on Saturday afternoon, December 16, 2023.

Today I find myself straddling two worlds: the joy of what was (three fabulous, sold-out holiday concerts last weekend with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus) and the reality of what is (a post-concert malaise and head cold).

Minus the minor illness, this is a feeling I’ve become accustomed to as a writer and performer. You work tirelessly to tell your story, edit it, publish it, and wave goodbye as it bobs on the waves of readership.

Or, in the case of a stage performance, there are the weekly (and then daily) rehearsals that crescendo on opening night–and all the behind-the-scenes machinations of memorizing notes, lyrics, and choralography at home in your robe or underwear.

Then, standing on stage with your chorus mates. All of you wearing black accented with a sparkly, sequined, rainbow-colored vest–mine was blue–waiting with anticipation for the curtain to rise before the opening number–That Christmas Morning Feelin’–and the applause of a full house that followed.

Then, ninety-minutes later, realizing the show is over. Making your way to the lobby to hug and thank loyal friends and family who attended and (based on their enthusiastic response) were most-definitely entertained.

Even listening–as a total stranger who smiles through her tears–grabs you, looks directly into your eyes, and tells you how moved she was by the music and the transformative holiday tale.

She told me it was something she and her partner desperately needed to experience–see, hear, and feel–away from this frightening world.

For me, there is also the added component of savoring my libretto. Remembering when it was a kernel of an idea. Developing characters (three flamboyant-and-visionary Celestials who would visit one lost-and-misguided protagonist).

Then, writing lines of humorous and topical dialogue–that cascade like a string of colorful Christmas lights connecting the branches of each song–in July and August when it was 115 degrees outside in the Phoenix area.

These are the memories I savor on a post-concert Wednesday, five days before Christmas.

***

It rained in Scottsdale early this morning. Heavily. That’s a novelty in the Valley of the Sun, but we’ll take the moisture whenever it comes. More is expected Friday.

As Tom and I sipped our coffee in our den, I read an article Making Space, written by poet and author Christopher Soto, in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers.

In it, he artfully acknowledges the act of fully embracing the process of letting go, once your creative work has landed. In his case, he traveled to Joshua Tree and the desert of Southern California for a farewell ritual for his debut book of poems, Diaries of a Terrorist.

After considering the success of his book, he pulled out his journal and began to write something new.

I haven’t read his book. Maybe I will in 2024. However, his story certainly resonated with me–now that this latest libretto/performance–and my five books that preceded it–has sailed away.

The best thing all of us writers can do as 2024 approaches is to set our sights on writing another story, essay, poem, or libretto.

After all, the world–especially now–needs its artists to step forward and paint a picture of what the world is and what we hope it will become.

***

P.S. I’ll be taking a break until early January. To join me on my blogging adventure in 2024, send a message via my Contact Me page and I will add your email address to my subscriber list. Happy Holidays!!

Tom snapped this photo of me outside the Herberger Theater in Phoenix after our final performance of Thanks for the Memories: A Gay Christmas Carol on Sunday, December 17, 2023.

December’s Delight

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Nature’s mid-century palms rose early without caffeine’s jolt. The quartet whisked breakfast into curls of golden cotton candy best consumed in a wondrous hush.

Perched on sprinkled pavement and slanted roofs, a mix of mourning doves, misplaced pigeons, and I marveled at December’s delight beyond distant flurries.

***

To enjoy more of my poetry, buy my latest book–A Path I Might Have Missed–on Amazon.

Thankful Every Day

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Today in the United States we celebrate Thanksgiving. It is easy to become consumed by the preparations for this holiday. To focus on the feast we will consume, while many in the world aren’t as fortunate.

But there is greater meaning–in our bodies, hearts, and minds–when we pause and recount what makes life satisfying beyond the things that adorn our days.

I am thankful every day for the love of family past and present, friends and neighbors near and far, good health and the ability to write and sing, gorgeous trees and furry critters that grace our lives, and most definitely the world Tom and I have discovered and created together inside and outside our Arizona home.

Wherever you live, thank you for joining me on this journey. I am thankful for the ability to connect with you–for this opportunity to share my voice through words, images, ideas and memories–every day.

Thanksgiving in the Desert

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Grief is a strange, but reliable, motivator.

With Thanksgiving 2013 approaching, Tom and I knew we needed to change things up after my mother’s slow-and-painful exit the previous January. We decided to escape our suburban Chicago home.

In the wake of our significant loss, we wanted to create a new tradition and plan a week-long Thanksgiving holiday in the desert (in our cozy Scottsdale condo) with my twenty-something sons Kirk and Nick, and Nick’s girlfriend Stephanie.

Early November came. Each of us cleared our schedules. About ten days before our flight from Chicago to Phoenix, Tom developed pneumonia. He was hospitalized for a few days, but insisted he would be well enough to make the trip.

Remarkably, Tom recovered enough for his doctor to clear us for take-off. When we landed at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix just west of the Papago buttes, I felt relief.

Over the next few days, Tom’s health continued to improve. We even climbed a portion of “A” Mountain in Tempe near the ASU (Arizona State University) campus.

On Thanksgiving Day 2013, Tom, Nick, Stephanie, Kirk and I dined outside under an orange tree on the patio of Mission Palms hotel, also in Tempe.

In those cool-but-sun-soaked moments–still a year before Tom and I would marry and four before we would move to Arizona permanently–I realized that the space created by my mother’s passing would mean more than a horizon shrouded in tears.

It would mean new possibilities … new chapters … for all of us.

Why We Live Here

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The longer, hotter summer of 2023 in the Valley of the Sun claimed countless trees and plants–not to mention hundreds of human lives.

Now that November has settled in, we are reminded that cooler mornings and evenings–with warm, sunny afternoons sandwiched in between–actually exist in central Arizona from October through May. This is why we live here.

Unlike most of the United States, fall is a time of renewal in the Sonoran Desert. It is more like spring with an autumnal twist–minus the crunch of rotting leaves underfoot.

We desert rats can now focus on revitalizing our gardens and spirits. Perhaps a Barbara Karst or Torch Glow bougainvillea here–or a crested cactus there–to dress up the back patio in time for Thanksgiving.

Whatever your potting preference, it is growing season despite the advancing darkness. While old plants and trees lick their wounds, new ones pose with the promise of buds to endure winter–a foreign concept for most of the Northern Hemisphere reconciled to the shiver of ice and cold.

Our New View

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Trees connect us to the earth and sky. They adorn our natural spaces with character, continuity, and shade. Though they never speak, trees–if we listen–whisper wisdom in the wind.

***

Tom and I have missed the presence of a tree in front of our Scottsdale home for nearly six months.

In May, carpenter bees sawed our fifty-year-old fig tree, selected and planted by Tom’s grandfather in the early 1970s.

Sadly, it split in two and tumbled down in the darkness. Only a stump remained for nearly six months.

During the long, hot summer of 2023, I missed the solitude and protection of a tree outside our north-facing window.

Each time I walked past our fig tree’s stump, it reminded me of other recent losses: our friend Dave last December; Frances (my mother’s sister) in July; then another friend Chad … suddenly in September.

Strange as it sounds, the space where our fig tree once stood felt like an open wound or incomplete canvas. But that changed in September when Tom and I shopped for a new tree.

I felt the exuberance of nature’s possibilities as we walked through Moon Valley Nursery in Phoenix–sizing up the options: Hong Kong Orchid (flowers in the spring); Chinese Elm (strong shade tree); Ficus (evergreen and can be trimmed to stay small); and Red Push Pistache (drought-resilient with a pop of color in the late fall).

Jonnie was our escort and sales rep. She helped us compare and contrast the leading candidates. By the end of September, the choice was clear for Tom and me.

We picked the new tree of our dreams, a hearty Red Push Pistache. It is best known for the vivid red color it produces in late November.

In that sense, it will remind us of the Burning Bush we planted in the front yard of our home in Mount Prospect, Illinois in the summer of 2013.

It turned blood red every October (and still provides a splash of color though we left in 2017), after the Blue Spruce that preceded it died in the spring of 2013 … a few months after my mother left this earth.

***

On November 1, a crew from Moon Valley Nursery arrived to remove our fig tree stump. As they dug up the remaining gnarly and decaying roots and hollowed out the hole, Tom and I could feel relief pour in.

The following afternoon, our new, mature, Red Push Pistache tree arrived on the back of a long, flatbed truck. A team of five men from Moon Valley maneuvered it through the gate and down the sidewalk. Moments later, the crew enlarged the hole to accommodate our new tree’s three-foot ball of roots.

By five o’clock they had anchored our durable-and-drought-resistant shade tree in the ground in front of our condo. Soon after, they left to deposit another tree for another customer.

I imagine, in a few weeks–as Tom and I prepare to sit down at our kitchen table and give thanks on a Thursday–our new tree will lavish us with a blaze of red leaves.

But even before the redness appears, it feels as though some semblance of balance, normality, and renewal has returned to reveal our new view in south Scottsdale outside our north-facing window.

Then and (Nearly) Now

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I know some of you are like me. You have positive, vivid memories–as a child and adult–of visiting your local library and leaving with a few titles that piqued your interest.

My earliest library memories lead me back to suburban St. Louis, where my mother drove my sister and me to the Tesson Ferry Library on summer Saturday mornings in the 1960s. It was her attempt to sustain our thirst for learning away from the classroom.

More recently, now that I am in my 60s and living in Arizona, Tom and I stop by our local library in Scottsdale to discover books. Sometimes they are contemporary novels, sometimes they are classics.

For instance, I had never read any of the writings by Willa Cather, so I picked up her book, The Song of the Lark. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I’m enjoying reading her mostly autobiographical tale about a character’s quest for artistic excellence in the desert southwest.

Meanwhile, back to this blogpost … I’ve found that local libraries (in Mount Prospect, Illinois, where I lived for many years and now here in Arizona) offer important opportunities for me as a writer–agreeing to place my memoirs and poetry on their shelves and (when the time is right, and pandemics aren’t running rampant) share my stories with those who may connect to their themes of love, loss, transformation, truth, and triumph.

For instance, on this day four years ago, I hawked my books at the Mesa Public Library’s Local Author Fair at Dobson Ranch here in the Valley of the Sun. It was the perfect opportunity to talk with readers, sign a few books, and compare notes with other writers.

Just a few months after that experience, a little thing called Covid-19 emerged and paralyzed the world. Of course, face-to-face opportunities to do anything became impossible for all of us. Even though I continue to write, I’ve felt my literary presence shrink during the past four years.

Since 2019, I’ve exhibited my books on a few occasions, but the opportunities have become less frequent. For instance, the Scottsdale Public Library decided to discontinue their annual author event permanently. However, there is a silver lining for me to report.

On Saturday, December 2 (noon to 4 p.m.), I’ll be selling and signing my latest two books (completed between 2019 and 2023) at the Mesa Public Library again … this time at the Red Mountain Library location, 635 N. Power Road, Mesa, Arizona 85205 … for their 2023 installment of the Local Author Fair.

Arizona authors across all genres–memoirs, mysteries, science fiction, thrillers, westerns, children’s books–will be there.

If you live in Arizona–or plan to visit the greater Phoenix area in early December to escape the cold in other parts of the country–I hope to see you there, too!

Me sans glasses, standing outside the Mesa Public Library at Dobson Ranch for the Local Author Fair on October 24, 2019.
Me on October 24, 2023 in Scottsdale, Arizona preparing for the Mesa Public Library Local Author Fair on December 2, 2023.