scarlet o'hara

This Thanksgiving holiday the AMC channel has been airing "Gone With the Wind" -- a classic, and one of my favorite movies. Sure, it's long, the music is cheesy (as is some of the acting), and it's rife with stereotypes. But I still remember when my parents let me stay up late to see it on television -- in the 1970s, the first time it was aired by the networks -- and how later I tried to carry my sister up the red-carpeted staircase at the Jefferson Hotel (on which, legend has it, the staircase in Rhett and Scarlet's Atlanta house was based); I only made it up about six steps, but the diners looking down on the lobby from the balconies above seemed entertained by my young effort.

I've often seen in astrological texts how willful Scarlet O'Hara was the perfect embodiment of a Scorpio -- intense, passionate, stubborn, and resilient. As a Scorpio myself, I've seen some of the best and worst parts of myself portrayed in that character. But since I caught the movie on the television last night, I've been reflecting on her thrive-at-all-costs drive; Scarlet didn't just survive the war -- and everything else that life threw at her, including the struggles she created for herself -- but she was wildly successful. Perhaps this was a reaction to the starvation and outright desperation she experienced during the latter part of the war and the immediate aftermath, but simple survival wasn't enough for her. Although Scarlet's most heartfelt wish turned out to be nothing more than a dream in the mist, she fought tooth and nail to save and then restore what was the core of her strength: the plantation of Tara.

So what does this have to do with anything? I'm a Southern Scorpio whose own good manners and ingrained subservience have often gotten in the way. Yes, those who know me will laugh at the word "subservient" applied to me, but it's not a bad description for what is produced by the ingratiating politeness and internal self-deprecation so common in the South. Though we may strain against the bit, it takes more than simple strength and determination to break free from that harness. In many ways, I am much like my home town of Richmond, Virginia -- a city that burnt itself to the ground at the close of the Civil War (so that there would be no supplies or munitions left for the Yankees to claim); I have often played the role of the phoenix in my own life, cycling through an ever more benign pattern of dramatic destruction followed by increasingly hopeful rebirth.

This is a big reason I had to leave Richmond, to get to a place with a different psychology behind it.

But I am still looking for Scarlet's no-holds-barred quality in myself, that determination that neither asks for nor requires anyone else's permission. As far as I've come in my thirty-some years, there is still that "not wanting to do it wrong" and "not wanting to bother anyone" that can get in the way of just doing it; though I do remind myself of the Nike slogan, there has still been this sneaking need to stop and gauge approval every forty feet. As flawed a character as Scarlet may certainly be, perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea to follow her example from time to time, and to mold from her literary depths a model for my own clear manifestation, for continued success in the twenty-first century.

family traditions

[As the Thanksgiving holiday is fast approaching, I wanted to share this quick article published in this month's Tanasbourne Times, and written by yours truly. Best wishes -- and safe travels -- to everyone this Thanksgiving! :)]

I don't know how it is in your family, but when I was growing up, holiday traditions were often more important than the holiday itself. The Fourth of July finds the Willis clan down on the boat dock, sitting in lawn chairs and covered with several layers of OFF, listening to a chorus of croaking frogs while a disorganized display of pyrotechnics is set off over the creek in Stafford County, Virginia. There is a touching rite of passage as the children grow old enough to help light the fireworks, all the while pretending that they're not really trying to set their cousins on fire.

At the huge family Christmas party, the men convene in the den for the annual singing of "The Boar's Head"; given that it's sung but once a year, few of the singers have any real familiarity with it, and this tradition seems to delight more in their embarrassment than the song itself. I imagine this event has prompted more than one young man to decide against marrying into the family.

And Thanksgiving has recently been host to a new tradition within my blended nuclear family: the annual mashed potato complaint.

We always had mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving when I was a child; my mother -- such the culinary rebel -- later spiced things up by adding turnips. But twelve years ago, following my parents' divorce, my father re-married, and the contest of potato traditions began.

My step-mother's holiday table is traditionally graced not with a generous bowl of mashed potatoes, but with a tasty dish of sweet potatoes baked with pineapple and marshmallows. This caught my father by surprise the first year, though he kept silent. I told him that next time I would bring the mashed potatoes as my contribution to the meal.

So as next year's dinner approached, I asked how much mashed potatoes I should make, to which my father responded, "No, Suzy will make them." Again, there were no mashed potatoes on the table, but this time, my father gently complained. As the holiday rolled around the following year, I again offered to bring the potatoes, and again, I was rebuffed. And, yes, again, there were no mashed potatoes on the table.

What started in 1992 as a simple casualty of blended family traditions has now become a hallmark of the holiday. What Thanksgiving would be complete without my father proudly serving his mountain greens (a Greek, sautéed spinach dish), then looking around the table incredulously and asking, "Where are the mashed potatoes?" It's almost as fun as carving a turkey.

As I've recently relocated from the East Coast, I will be in Oregon for Thanksgiving this year and so will be absent from the annual mashed potatoes complaint. However, I have the opportunity to start a new, West Coast holiday tradition.... mashed potatoes and carrots, anyone?

pie

Last night, I decided that I wanted a pie. Not just any pie, of course, but a peach pie (I am from the South, after all). I'd had "pie on the brain" for a few days and finally was going to do something about it.

I went to the grocery store, and being so close to Thanksgiving, the place was filled with pies! The bakery had fresh-out-of-the-oven selections of cherry, minced meat, pumpkin, apple, sweet potato, strawberry, marionberry* -- you name it (and with "no sugar added" varieties as well).

But no peach pie.

Sure, peaches may be out of season, but so are cherries. Undaunted, I headed for the freezer section. Surely, there would be many peach pies to choose from there. Again, I was presented with all of the above flavors, in addition to meringues and turnovers.... "You've got to be kidding me," I said aloud. There was only a single peach pie in the freezer. And it's not like all of the others had sold out. This was it.

Is this an Oregon thing? Is peach pie truly a Southern oddity?

Sure, I was grateful to have found what I was looking for. I would have preferred a fresh pie, but I took what I could get.

Now, the reasoning behind the pie escapade -- although, yes, this doesn't truly count as an "escapade," does it? not even close.... I am fast coming to the 50,000-word goal in this year's NaNoWriMo. The deadline is November 30th, and I've just crossed to 46K-word threshold. I'm fairly confident I'll finish. So I wanted to have something on hand to celebrate. Once I'm done with this first draft of Witches' Brew -- and I may well have to write a few more than 50K words to complete the story arc -- I plan to sit down and have me some pie.

After I bake it, of course. Frozen pie ain't so yummy.

When I posted of my impending pie celebration on one of the NaNoWriMo forums, another writer directed me to this web page:

I like pie.

Rather appropriate, I thought. Perhaps I should send this link to the grocery store manager, demanding more peach pie options.

*Marionberry is an actual berry, native to this area, and bears little or no resemblance to the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

on birthdays

I realized this morning that this is only my 3rd birthday outside of my native time zone. One when I was living in California, one when traveling in Ireland, and this one.

As I approached my 30th birthday, I felt all the pressures of society over reaching that particular milestone. The anxieties over growing older, being an old maid, all of it. But when the day finally came, it was a relief. I realized that none of those concerns had come from me, and I didn't have to deal with those stereotypes any more. I spent the day writing a letter to family and friends, thanking each one of them for being a part of my journey up to that point. It was really a wonderful experience.

But that was five years ago. Today, I am 35.

For the past few months, I was flashing back to an episode of "One Day at a Time" that I'd seen as a child. Anne Romano sits at the breakfast table, holding her head in her hands, having an official mid-life crisis. She knows that the average life expectancy (at that time) is 70, and it is her 35th birthday. She is lamenting the ordinariness of her life, now half-over.

I am not having a mid-life crisis. I did that on my 22nd birthday -- easily the worst birthday of my life -- and got it over with. I was living in Los Angeles, far from friends and family, and didn't really know anyone. It was a Sunday, so I didn't even have the distraction of work. My roommate had taken off for the day, leaving my car blocked in our double parking space, so I was pretty much housebound, but it was nasty outside anyway.

My roommate's mother called looking for her, and spoke to me for a good hour instead. I felt ridiculous, caught in such a lonely moment, but she was a ray of light for me. She was the one who suggested that I just get all of the crappy feelings, identity crises, anxieties, and fears out of my system right then and there. I could use that birthday as my midlife crisis, she said, and then would never have to do it again.

So that's what I did.

Today, I am again a new resident on the West Coast, living in Oregon and far away from (most) friends and family. I work from home, so again, there wasn't the distraction of work. But today, I didn't need a distraction. I liked being completely alone today. I generally don't like being the center of attention anyway, so not having anyone around for once to make a big deal out of my birthday came as a welcome relief. I spent some time writing (still doing the NaNoWriMo thing), took a couple of celebratory phone calls, meditated under the tall pine trees, took a nap, and went shopping (albeit for cleaning supplies).

This morning, I stood in front of the mirror and said to myself, "So, this is what 35 looks like." Of course, you wouldn't guess my age by looking at me, so I didn't gain much from that brief exercise. But what is 35? That much closer to 40? So? When I get right down to it, I realize that this number doesn't mean all that much to me.

Except that it reduces down to an 8 (3 + 5 = 8), and 8-years are generally good, power years for me. Cool.

I am being treated to dinner tomorrow night, at a local Hawaiian place. I've never had Hawaiian food. Let the new adventures begin!

iron jawed angels

I feel especially lucky to have noticed that Dish Network -- my satellite provider -- has been running a "free movie channel weekend" as an inducement to customers to upgrade their service packages. Lucky, because they aired "Iron Jawed Angels" on one of the HBO channels just this morning.

If you haven't heard of this movie before, it is the dramatization of the women's suffrage movement 1912-1920. It was very well done and is quite a powerful movie. See it if you can. I've recorded it on my DVR, so you can come over here and watch it, too.

You can check out the "Iron Jawed Angels" profile on the Internet Movie Database.

The feelings coursing through me just now are overwhelming, and I wouldn't know where to begin to describe my experience watching this movie just now. There is so much that we take for granted as American citizens, particularly the right to actively participate in our own government. "Iron Jawed Angels" is about extreme patriotism -- the good kind. It is about standing up for what you know to be true and just, regardless of the consequences to yourself. It is about perseverance, obstinance, courage, and vision, and it is a powerful reminder to us, not even 100 years later, of both the bitter cost and sweet victory of freedom.

You would do yourself a great favor if you sought this one out.

seeding action

I received a lot of e-mail yesterday regarding the election, from both sides of the fence. Largely, however, I was hearing from folks who had worked very hard for a change in the presidential administration. Most of these family members and friends had spent Wednesday, November 3rd, in tears, deep depression, and rage.

I want to take a moment to thank all of you for writing me to share what you were experiencing in the aftermath of the election. I had been worn out from the frustration and excitement of election day, and while you were looking for consolation, you gave me the opportunity -- in crafting my replies to you -- to sort through my own feelings and come out feeling (while still disappointed) more at peace and even hopeful, determined.

The simple conclusion I came to was this:
Even though this is not the world I had hoped to wake up to Wednesday morning, I am not powerless within it.

On a National Public Radio call-in show yesterday, I was hearing reactions -- from those who supported John Kerry -- that ranged from complete devastation to outrage and indignation. Many of us are trying to understand how such a large group of Americans would not only buy the lies and deception that have been fed to them for the past four years, but would actually ask for more of the same.

We need to keep in mind that many people voted with their fears in mind, rather than with hope.

I believe that Bush keeping the White House isn't so much validation of his presidency as it is a signal to the country that we need to take our power back into our own hands as citizens. And that starts, quite simply, with you and me.

I am bitterly disappointed that eleven states, including Oregon -- OREGON! -- passed the gay marriage ban. This is the equivalent of a constitutional amendment endorsing and legalizing racism. I have good friends who, in the aftermath of this travesty, feel they no longer have a place in American society, that the entire country has told them that they aren't acceptable human beings deserving of the same rights as "real people." This angers me and breaks my heart.

One of these days, the "moral majority" -- or whatever this group is called -- will realize that they have created God in their own image. I believe the following from Anne Lamott pretty much sums it up:

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.
-- Anne Lamott

With positions on the Supreme Court up for grabs in the coming years, I fear that it could be a generation or two before there's is any meaningful reversal on this.

But you never know. Californians passed a stem cell research measure by a large margin on Tuesday, and there are new Democratic governors in former Republican strongholds of New Hampshire and Montana.

There is a great opportunity for individual action and larger mobilization right now. Despite his proclamation that, "America has spoken," Bush did not win by a landslide. This is still a deeply divided nation in need of some real healing, and we each have to be willing to stand up for our own very real "moral values," instead of just quietly sitting by while someone else presumes to tell us what is important.

Sometimes we need deceptive, manipulative people to hang around in power for awhile, to get the rest of us to stand up and claim our own power, after finally having had enough. Sometimes we need help reaching rock-bottom before we begin to climb back out of the pit we've dug for ourselves. Sometimes we need to dig even deeper into the wounds in order to extricate the poison.

For whatever reason, we still need this guy to be sitting in the Oval Office. I do not hope the second term of this administration will be more sensitive and caring than the first, given that Bush wasn't sensitive to such divisions the first time around. However, we don't know what's coming down the pipe for him, and we don't know how even he might be changed by the events of the next four years.

I'm realizing that I personally might want to get more active behind my own principles moving forward, because no one else is going to do it for me. It's time for each of us to stand up for ourselves. This is a call to action. This is your invitation to the 21st century's Boston Tea Party.

Yes, it's time to reclaim our power as citizens. I don't have a guidebook handy on how to do that, but I know that it happens in all of the little moments, in the smallest choices we make, of whether we choose to give our power away or stand up and "speak truth to power." It happens in the tiniest decisions we make in how we treat each other every day, how we treat ourselves, and whether or not we accept our stewardship of this planet. Because recylcling that one milk bottle instead of more conveniently throwing it away does make a difference. Letting that person move into the lane ahead of us in traffic instead of cutting him/her off does make a difference. Choosing to voice an unpopular opinion instead of remaining silent does make a difference, because we could be speaking for more people than just ourselves.

Hope is not a denial of reality. But it is also not some kind of spiritual elixir. It is not a placebo infused out of nowhere. Hope is a series of small actions that transform darkness into light. It is putting one foot in front of the other when we can find no reason to do so at all.
-- Joan Chittister

And so on.

I'll stop preaching now.

falling back in time

Yesterday was double-bonus day for me. Not only was it Halloween -- my favorite holiday -- but it also marked our return to Standard Time.

I'm kind of funny about the things that excite me.

The Halloween part was a bit disappointing, but it wasn't a total bust. I made sure my pumpkins were blazing and out by the front steps, the gate to my courtyard standing wide open so no one would miss the invitation. Although my neighbors had warned me that there simply aren't any trick-or-treaters in this neighborhood, I still saw ten different kids on my doorstep last night. Not the droves I had hoped for, of course, but still a decent haul in comparison to no one showing up.

Now I'm stuck with this big bowl of Kit-Kats, peanut butter cups, and Sweetarts. I suppose I'll just take it all down to the homeowners association office for the work crews to snack on; I might just keep some of the Sweetarts for myself.

On to "falling back".... Everyone loves summer. Everyone loves bright sunny days. Everyone loves Daylight Savings Time. Or so everyone keeps telling me. I gotta find a new "everyone" who agrees more with me, and not so much the kind that keeps telling me I should move to Ireland.

I prefer cooler weather and darker days. After all, I did choose to move to Oregon. On purpose. I like getting up in the dark and walking the dogs under the stars as morning's first light is but a vague hint on the horizon. I also love foggy mornings, when the mist swirls off of the lakes and up over the grass. I like steady gentle rains, and wind.

Everyone tells me that my "perfect weather" sucks. Except one grocery clerk at Ukrops in Richmond, Virginia. We were having one of those perfect mornings, overcast with misty rain, a mid-level breeze blowing leaves about. I commented to the clerk how perfect the day seemed to me, and he said, "I like this weather, too. It's relaxing and poetic."

It also happened to be my birthday that day, but who's counting.

But back to the time change.... I had a friend several years back miss the time change completely. We were "springing forward" at the time, and she missed the cue on Sunday. She is a real estate agent and didn't realize until Monday evening that she had been showing up an hour late to all of her appointments all day long. And no one had said anything to her. It's a good thing she has a healthy sense of humor about herself.

Anyway, I love the return to Standard Time. It seems to jive better with my natural rhythm. I find it easier to rise in the morning, and I sleep better at night. I don't know what it is, but I rarely feel quite myself when we're on Daylight Savings Time. Then again, I wonder if I am more naturally nocturnal, and if I should just give up daylight living altogether.

But I imagine that would make getting doctor's appointments and haircuts difficult.