Nat King Cole and the LDS Church

The sad news of Natalie Cole's death reminded me of my mother's encounter with the famous Nat King Cole.

Kay was a buyer for the record department at the former ZCMI during and after World War II. It was a time when records were hot and when the recording artists were hotter. Kay heard about Nat King Cole touring through Utah, and thought what a coup it would be to have him come to the store to sign records. It was kind of a thing, like authors holding book signings.

And she did it. She was ecstatic, and started preparing for the big day. Until the church stepped in.

Kay was called "upstairs" to the LDS church offices. Zion Cooperative Mercantile Institution ZCMI (now Macy's) was the first department store in the United States, and it was owned and operated by the LDS Church. In 1999, the church sold ZCMI to May Department Stores, which became Macy's.

Negroes were not allowed in the store, and certainly not to sign records. Kay was devastated. What could she say to one of the most sought-after musical artists? Nothing.

Instead, Kay tore up the department and contacted Cole's publicist saying that unfortunately, they were remodeling and wouldn't be able to accommodate him. Still, she was able to get a photograph with him when he came to Utah.

Kay was so excited with the photo that she took it home, ran up the stairs and showed it to her mother. Her mother tore up the picture on the spot.

As we remember his daughter Natalie, her invitation to sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for their Christmas concert in 2009 cannot be overstated. This was the church that spurned her father, but that lifted racial bans on the priesthood in 1978, and with them a a shadowy piece of history.

Turning it off

I went in today for my personal make-up session for Nanowrimo, and discovered that I am not the only failure in our group. In fact, no one hit the 50,000-word mark. This is disappointing on a number of levels, but mostly because I looked forward to reading some of these slap-dash epistles.

Bill, the guy whose great-grandfather was involved in that Civil War lawsuit, never came back after the first session. I won't know if the woman working through a suicide actually worked through it, or whether the homeless guy made progress with his story.

We talked about the future today. There will likely be a follow-up to our feeble attempts at novel-writing in the spring. This is good because it sets another deadline for me.

This type of writing requires a setting aside of scholarship. It requires pretending that you don't care what the world, or even your mother, thinks. It requires turning off your mind to the desire to fact-check, to edit, to research, or to do just about anything but write.

Having been through the editing process many, many times, the prospect frightens me. It's hard enough to edit a GOOD piece, much less formless and pointless drivel.

But in another way, it makes eminent sense. Sometimes you just have to plow ahead, keep the goal in mind but don't worry about the path you take.

And if this is truly an exercise of your mind, it's good to let it take off in whatever direction it will. And there's solitary solace in turning it off.

P.S. I did manage to eek out the URL for Keaton's finished book:
mylifeasahuman.jimdo.com

We should check it out and remember that it's no longer a draft.

Sadly Thankful

She knocked on my window as I was backing out of the parking lot. She was small, bundled up in a parka and shaking. She was pulling an empty roller bag with an incongruent flower pattern. She offered me a paper she had: Thanksgiving Giveaway - Indian Walk-In Center, Wednesday, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

She didn't speak much English. Practically nothing. She said she was from Ukraine. Not good. She used her fingers, pointing like a gun. War, she said. My country not good. I sick, she said. Yes, her hands were shaking and she looked pale and tired.

Family, I ask? She shakes her head.

Then the thank yous. Her hand went to her heart. Thank you. You are my baby. Thank you. And she kissed my hand. Over and over.

There was a long line, around the corner and into the street, of people waiting at the Walk In Center. She would have to wait for hours. She got out, kissing my hand again, kissing my cheek. She takes a few dollars I gave her and hold them to her heart. Then she leaves.

After dropping her off, I take some clothing donations to Crossroads Thrift Store. Not a lot, but some heavy coats. The clerk comes out and tells me this is just what they need - coats and clothing for men. She hugs me.

What I've done is nothing. I am trying to be thankful, sadly thankful for what I have. What's the difference between feeling thankful, lucky or guilty? They overlap in curious ways.

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, I feel thankful for all that I have, all that I was born with, and all that I can give. And I feel sad and helpless for the world.

Draft

Draft. That's what I've labeled my "book," so that might tell you something. It also implies the thoughts that are blowing through my mind - in no particular order.

Today, we had a creative writing professor come talk to us. Interesting stuff. I am somehow stuck on the stream-of-consciousness piece. When I came back to the United States in the late '70s, one of my first jobs was with some magazine in San Francisco. They asked me to cover a fashion show, which I did - in stream of consciousness. I'm sure it was one of my best efforts ever, but I can't even remember the name of the publication now.

As we talked about SOC, I couldn't take my eyes off one of our facilitators' tats. There were lips on his left arm and somewhat hidden under his sleeve you could see a woman's legs and I really think she was riding on the back of some fish. This is the stuff that makes you crazy - wanting to rip off his shirt to see the rest of the story.

OK, this is what happens with SOC. You lose track. You move in different directions. Not necessarily the right ones.

Our exercise for the day was to write from three different perspectives - 1- totally impersonal, just the facts ma'am, 2- a little closer now, descriptive, and 3-way inside the mind (this is the SOC thing). Here's how it went:

1. Zacharia wakes up and walks up the hill to tend to his cattle. The day is bright, the earth is cold and broken. He has a whip. He doesn’t use it. It just hangs from his side.

The cattle graze on almost nothing. Rain hasn’t come to the village for months.

Zacharia, his lips parched and his feet calloused, often walks with other villagers to places far from the hill, where they can find water, kill a gazelle, eat for a day.

2- Zacharia wakes up, exhausted, and walks up the hill to tend his cattle. The day is bright, too bright, and the earth is cold and broken, like the village. Like Zacharia and his cattle.

He has a whip but he has no interest in using it. Why? Where would he send the cattle? They are grazing on almost nothing. Rain hasn’t come to the village for months, and everyone has forgotten the feeling on water on their faces.

His lips are parched and his feet calloused. He knows this is how it should be. There’s no other option.

3- Zacharia wakes up, exhausted. What happened to  make him so tired when the day is beautiful, bright. A bird is flying by. The cattle are moving. He’s moving. Slowly. Where is everyone else? Did he get dressed today? Oh, he’s carrying a whip, but what to do with it? A woman gets whipped sometimes. That man in the village, he’s bad. The cattle bray and Zacharia pays attention. Maybe he should use the whip. He took a whip with the other villagers. That girl wanted to come but she was too young and soft. The bed wasn’t soft.

I'm a failure

Well, it's looking like I'm not going to make the 5,000-word expectation for the week. More like 2,000. I have every excuse in the book. Which book, you ask? The one I haven't read yet. And surely, the one I haven't written yet.

Hey, there's a lot out there to read, and apparently a lot yet to write.

I got bogged down in what I'm not supposed to be bogged down doing — research. I'm guilty.

But there's no way on earth I can write about Sudan without knowing the tiniest bit about it. Reading about it, watching YouTube explanations. It all reminds me of why I was a history major. Too bad I've forgotten more history than I'm going to make, for sure. I also have a date with a Sudanese man. I'm sure he'll tell me everything I need to know, although I couldn't seem to explain what it was I wanted to know. Maybe osmosis will work.

Then there were the distractions. A cover story I've been stressing over for weeks, finally being published and getting some reaction. The difference in the kinds of writing here is that the cover story was real life; the book is real life reimagined.

I do want to give credit to the people who are helping me with this, although I'm pretty sure they have no idea that they're involved. One is a priest who gave a sermon, oh it must have been 10-15 years ago, and the story stuck with me. He has since written several versions, and they are certainly worth a book.

Another is the YouTube guy who explained the history of Sudan in 10 minutes. Really. I had to listen to it several times, which made it Sudan in 30 minutes, but oh well.

I've been taking my husband to doctors' appointments, taking part in board meetings I wish I'd never joined and finally, fighting off a cold with zinc, zinc and more zinc. Oh, and I got my snow tires put on. Now that's a real feat.

Is there a book in this?

For some time, I've been churning about turning a story I heard into a book. There's never any time. Isn't that a great excuse?

So I've joined NaNoWriMo, a crazy proposal to write a book in a month. It's been less than a week, and I can't say that I've been amazingly successful yet. Oh, I started it, and surprise, surprise - it's turning into something I really hadn't imagined.

I've been thinking my beginning is boring, but you're not supposed to "think" too much during this process. Instead, I've been thinking about the other writers who are joining me in this ridiculous venture. And yes, I did tell them all I thought it was ridiculous - but compelling.

I'm a deadline person, so maybe this is just what I need. To hell with research and facts. Just get it down on paper.

I've told the others very little about my idea, but here's what they're thinking about:

One woman had a brother who committed suicide. She's going to work through that in her book. Another woman, who by the way looks great, had had a horrific car accident in which there were broken bones and other things I can't repeat. She quit her job in health care to write, and will be working through all this. 

A very gregarious man, who may or may not be one of the facilitators, was homeless once, but not now, and wants to write a "homeless mystery." I can't wait. 

Another young man talks really fast, as millenials do, and said something about Napster, so I'm thinking he's going to write a technology something-or-other. 

One woman is writing a dream sequence where she goes back and forth from high school to the present. This, of course, sounds like an utter nightmare to me. I think there are visions of the future in this, although that may be another writer's thing. 

We have someone doing horror. We'll see what that means. And then there's the writer who's doing a Peter Pan in the Regency era story. I had to look up Regency Era. I don't think we studied this in school, did we? Here's what Wikipedia says about that:

The Regency in the United Kingdom is the period from 1811 to 1820, when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent. On the death of his father in 1820, the Prince Regent became George IV.

The term Regency (or Regency era) sometimes refers to a longer period than the decade of the formal Regency. 

There is a man, I'm going to say of my generation, who is writing about his great grandfather during the Civil War. There was some kind of trial, so he has all manner of material, but is struggling with voice. Like, aren't we all? 

Finally, there's a woman whose story I want to read right now. She has a friend whose son, Drew, was adopted. They got to talking and found that he was interested in finding his birth mom, but all he knew was her first name — Kevin. Not a common woman's name. 

Well, the writer freaked because when she lived in southern California, she knew a woman in the apartment complex named "Kevin." So somehow they trace back to California, actually find this Kevin lady, and hear the story of how she handed her baby boy to someone through a car window in a parking lot. Wow. 

Meanwhile, I'm struggling with the barriers I always struggle with — TIME, husband, health (meaning that I fade fast in the evening) and all the stupid obligations I've created for myself. 

I'm doing the unthinkable - research - by meeting a man from the Sudan on Saturday. We'll see where this leads me, if anywhere. 

From Ray to Ray

Just a few days ago I acknowledged another anniversary of my brother's death. Ray was killed in 1981 in a car crash with a drunken driver in Sacramento. I try not to think of this too often, this horrific turning place in my life and the lives of my parents. Of the fact that he died on my best friend's birthday and that every year now, I celebrate her life while I mourn his death at 29.

But I also thank God for the miracle of my own son, Ray - after the uncle he never knew. My Ray went off to college this year. Responsible, creative, motivated ... far from home. Boy, do we miss him.

I remember my mother telling me once that she felt responsible for my brother's death. He had wanted to come home from law school, and she and Dad encouraged him to stick it out. If only he had come home, she said.

But that was fruitless talk. Perhaps the crash would have found him wherever he was. No sense in going after if's. My Ray is nonetheless not my parents' Ray. And maybe neither of them really were ours anyway.

We and our loved ones belong to the world, and I am learning now to see Ray as my gift to that world. I can't harbor him in my arms forever, but there is that place in my heart.