Cave Life

September 29, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 6 Comments

Elizabeth Peters once wrote that there was something about a pair of hairy legs next to you in bed, even if they were attached to someone completely useless.

Last week there was a discussion between myself, another woman, and a couple guys in uniform, about why so many women like men in uniforms. The person I was with said it was because the men represented safety, someone who knew what to do in an emergency and could take care of you when zombies attacked. I said it was because I coveted their guns.

Another woman, a while back, told me she thought my husband was ‘hot’ because he looked like the type who would know what to do when ‘the world went to shit’.

All of this has made me think about something other than writing. Such as:

Hey, I know what to do when the world goes to shit. I know what to do in an emergency. I might be terrified, but I know what to do. In most emergencies. I admit to not knowing how to replace a transmission in a car.

The kid.

But hey, I got ‘Firefighter of the Year’ once. My pantry is stocked. I can bake bread. I know how to shoot. I may not be able to hit much, but that’s why I have a shotgun.

But if I’m honest, I do feel safer when Art is around. More secure. I do trust him completely to hold it all together. He told me once on a fire I was nervous about, that I was his highest priority. I asked him how he’d tell me apart from everyone else in bunker gear. His response – he’d look for the shortest firefighter.

I am not someone who believes women are helpless little women, and I dislike it when women think that. One of the stupidest things I heard a woman say, during a boat fire at Disneyland, was ‘I don’t know what to do, I’m a woman!’. Seriously. She said that. While the boat’s engine belched smoke and the boat was full of children. While she was the tour guide responsible for those children that she ran right by to get to the far end of the boat. My husband put the fire out.

So if I feel self-sufficient and capable, why is there still that tiny piece of me that wants the scruffy guy to save the day? I mean, I don’t even read romance novels. And obviously there are a lot of women who think the same way, even if we are ashamed to admit it. Look at the post-apocalyptic movies out there. How many have women saving the world? I wish there were a few more.

Is it some sort of inherited genetic programming from cave-man days when reliance on the hunter meant survival? I’ve read that the male who could guarantee survival of offspring was the preferred one.

Is it that women are not as independent as we think we are? I refuse to admit that. Not only because I don’t think it’s true, and for reasons above, but also because there are plenty of guys out there who wouldn’t have a clue how to fish.

I don’t get it. I can stand on my own two feet, but admit to admiring a man in a uniform. Heck, I’ll admit publicly to admiring scruffy men no matter what they’re wearing. Just like I admire a nice looking truck when it goes by.

Seriously though, I wonder what the reason is. My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with gender or uniforms. I think it has to do with companionship, a sharing of responsibility, a person to take away our fear and tell us it’s all going to be okay. A deep-seated desire to not face life alone.

What are your thoughts?

Or maybe the dog saves the day…

What Fun

September 19, 2014 / Lisa / 3 Comments

A recent debate on the public school system got a bit heated. Well, a lot heated. In the middle of the heat, I said ‘Just because someone has an opposing viewpoint, don’t assume they are uneducated on the subject.’

Afterwards, when things had cooled and both sides apologized and laughed together, I went home and had a little bubble of pride go up. Because I’d stood up for myself? Nope, I can do that easily.

Why then, you may ask?

Because I came up with the perfect thing to say, at the right time.

I didn’t have to go home and think, in the wee hours of the night, ‘dang, I should have said…’ or daydream a new version of the event where I say exactly the right thing. I actually did it for a change.

Normally that only happens in writing. Which, it dawned on me, is one of the most fun parts of writing. Our characters will say for us the things we wish we’d thought of. Or say the things we’d never have the courage to say. Such freedom.

Of course characters don’t always have the perfect response. To be real they need to stutter and stumble and go away wishing they’d acted differently. That makes them human because it’s what we all do. But at the same time I do love letting a character do the talking for me.

My work in progress at the moment has a female protagonist who’s dialog appears to be channeling my husband. For those who know him, you know his ‘Art-isms’ can be rather…interesting, shall we say? I’m having more fun writing dialog for this character than I’ve had in a long time. I simply sit back and think, ‘what would Art say?’ Actually, at the risk of offending someone, in my above school debate, Art, defending his opinion, would have said, ‘I’m not just pulling a hair out of my ass here!’

So maybe I didn’t come up with the perfect response after all.

I think I’ll go add that ‘hair’ line to the work in progress…

Action vs. Soul

September 4, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 9 Comments

After getting quite the talking-to from my oldest sister last night, I decided to tackle another question. Several posts back I listed some that people felt were too hard to answer, and thought it might be easier to take them one at a time, answer them myself, and see if that primed the pump. Well, everyone’s right. These are hard.

So, can I say who I am, without saying what I do? I’m sure you’re all familiar with my point here. That every time you meet someone new, the first thing they want to know is what you do, as if that defines all that you are.

Okay, following the theme of the bawling out I got (that I am pondering, honestly), I will start by saying I’m probably closer to the thorn than the rose.

More rose than thorn

I’m someone more at peace around less.

I relate to trees more than to some relations.

It’s obviously tempting here to start listing things I like versus things I don’t. Things that make me happy, or sad, or mad. All of that is part of who I am, but they don’t take the question to a broader scene.

I am residual genetics filtered down through generations of Germans and Scots. I am descended from Montana pioneers. I could go on with history, but it makes me realize that I am trying to say who I am by saying where I came from, and that isn’t right either.

Cherry Creek with generations of family

The labels I’ve talked about before start to surface: mom, writer, sister, wife, daughter…but those don’t say who I am. They only say what I am to others, and almost slide into defining self by what I do.

The easy way out right now is to simply write that I am the sum of all these things. That kind of feels like cheating. It also feels like a cliché and all writers hate clichés. Or should.

So whom am I? Someone who is loved. Someone who loves. Someone who also dislikes, and gets pissed, and cusses too much.

Oops. Slipping into defining by listing.

I am part of the earth, I gain balance from the places that feel like bone-deep parts of me: mountains, rivers, forests. I want to return to that earth some day, no coffin, no barriers, just part of the whole.

Dramatic sunset backdrop for dramatic words.

That sounds wonderful, but is rather dramatic. And there’s that pragmatic side of me that’s laughing at the dramatic side.

So who am I? I really have no idea. Someone who tried sandpaper to get rid of freckles so long ago that the majority of the people who remember that are gone. Someone who just realized those freckles have faded like those people.

Who are you? How do you define yourself? Please show me you would answer this.

‘Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is who we are.’ – Jose Saramago