Tag: Valley of the Sun

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.

Janu-weary

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We all endure specific days–or months–that test our best intentions and weigh on our psyches. January is that month for me.

Long before Tom’s father died January 14, 2012, and my mother followed January 26, 2013, the first month of the year represented a period of Midwestern malaise, forced hibernation, and cold, lingering darkness.

Of course, I live in a warmer, brighter climate now (despite freezing temperatures the past few mornings). I am thankful for that, especially as Tom shares images of his sister and brother-in-law snow blowing and shoveling outside their suburban Chicago home.

Since my mother’s death nearly eleven years ago, the years have passed with a gauzy flutter like pages of a book swept away by a winter’s squall.

Yet January’s weary sensations–grief masked in a cocktail of Christmas memories, vanilla lip balm, and her last graceful smiles during breathing treatments designed to ease her congestive heart failure–appear on cue.

Last weekend, Tom and I packed away our Christmas decorations and recounted cherished memories of quiet holiday moments together and the adrenalin rush of my holiday concert. Adjusting to the rise and fall of this season is always a bittersweet process.

But this week I was eager to recoup our less-cluttered space. To move ahead. To read and write new pages. To protect, nurture, and regain a more normal rhythm away from the madness of news that reminds me–frequently–just how fragile our democracy has become.

My mother and father–who survived the Battle of the Bulge in World War II–would be horrified.

In the depths of 2020, my husband and I began a tradition of buying bouquets of flowers to place in a vase in our living room. As the walls and woes of Covid and our political angst closed in, it gave us hope to see a splash of color on our coffee table.

Less than ten days into 2024, like each of you I have my dreams and doubts, wonders and worries.

But writing about this spray of lavender carnations Tom and I brought home (then displayed in a smoky-blue ceramic pitcher my mother left behind, and placed atop a Spring-like, bird-laden runner my sister gave us for Christmas) helps me breathe, reflect, and relax.

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.

***

#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.

World AIDS Day

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Since 1981–the beginning of the epidemic–about 40.4 million people have died of HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Another 39 million were living with HIV at the end of 2022.

These are staggering numbers, especially when you consider the emotional and economic ripple effect across all the families and loved ones of the victims, who have suffered along the way.

Tonight–on World AIDS Day–I will join other members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus at the Parsons Center in Phoenix. We will sing as part of a vigil that will remember those lost … and provide encouragement for those who live with HIV every day.

We will be surrounded by the quilts you see here–just a sampling of those created in the 1980s and 1990s–which pay tribute to victims of this horrible disease.

Ironically, this is also the space where we rehearse every Tuesday night, as we continue to prepare for our holiday concert, December 16 and 17 at the Herberger Theater, and a weekend of holiday musical fun and inspiration.

Still today, the quilts prompt a sense of sadness and reverence for lives snuffed out. For people we will never know and never meet. For people we loved and lost. For the beauty they brought and the art they never created.

From my spot on the back row of the tenor two section, I captured fellow members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus–surrounded by AIDS quilts–rehearsing on November 28, 2023.

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.