Ramblings. As in: Have Words -Will Ramble. As in: Ramble: to write or talk aimlessly or without sequence of ideas, to proceed with turns and twists; meander As In: observances of an everyday life in passing through the spectrum of extraordinary.
Meteor hits Metropolis
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The rain has stopped. The sun woke me this morning with such strong surprise I was about to shout "Turn that light out of my eyes!" But it turns out it was God. Turns out it was the universe. A rock of fire. Life itself. Rising, cresting over the city, falling on me like the meteor it is hitting Metropolis saying,"Wake up. Wakeupwakeupwakeup." So, here I am. Awake. Contemplating a cappuccino. Contemplating reading the Sunday NY Times while I'm actually in New York.
"So," friends ask me, "how is New York?"
New York is like this.
Seems last Tuesday afternoon on my way to the Algonquin Lobby lounge to meet author friends I turned to a man on the corner of 5th Avenue and 37th street and said something like, "Would you happen to know where the Algonquin hotel is?" He looks at me for  a second and does his best to send me in the right direction saying that he knows he has passed it a few times but can't remember now EXACTLY where it might be. Then a few  days later, this email shows up in my box.
Dear River,
Last Tuesday, in the late afternoon, I was standing on the corner of 5th Avenue and 37th Street and you asked me for directions to the Algonquin. Attempting to be a helpful angel, I pulled out my street map of Manhattan but no hotels were marked on it.
Not expecting to see you there, I wasn’t sure it was you until you walked away. Then I was sure. Wow, I’m so glad I didn’t send you off in the wrong direction!
We have met twice before, once at Davis-Kidd (I was with Bonnie Hodge) and again earlier this year at the Clarksville Writers’ Conference.
I hope you found the Algonquin and are doing well in NYC.
Best regards,
Bill Boakes
Clarksville, Tennessee
Well, as I reported on Backstory (the radio program is being produced from New York for the next few weeks) sometimes the strange just shows up in your backyard. And right there, of all the millions of people in the city, I just HAPPEN to be standing on the same corner at the same moment as someone from Tennessee who has met me, knows me. Angels, you know. Sometimes you  just gotta believe. And yes, I found the old, historic Algonquin where friends Carolyn Turgeon, Rona Berg and I stepped back in time and had delicious wine and great laughs and then Carolyn and I walked in the rain to the Afghan Restaurant and ate a delightful dinner and talked about writing fiction, magical realism and how life is full of the real and equally full of the magic and sometimes how the dividing line is so thin it disappears completely from sight.
New York is like this.
I needed to get to the Mac store STAT the other day for an appointment in Soho so I jumped in a cab and asked the driver to take me to 103 Prince St. Then I noticed he wasn't exactly following my Googled directions. Then I noticed it was exactly following any directions. Then I noticed he couldn't exactly figure out where we were or where we were going. Then he turned down the wrong end of the street (one way of course) then he finally asks me if I just want to get out. I say, Hmmm - No. It's raining. I'm carrying a laptop. I'd like to go to 103 Prince St. As cousin Deb would say, Whachagonnado? I tried breathing, thinking it's about the journey, thinking what's 2.50 more as we circle the block 3 times? Life goes on.
New York is like this. I can't figure out the bus schedule. My friend Alix thinks this must be some defect of a country girl. I waited an hourish in the rain for the bus going the wrong direction but hey - I had hopped and stopped direction for the bus on the net and I followed those direction EXACTLY. Okay, after wind, rain, and waiting - I hopped in another cab and came 'home'. This time the driver had been driving for over 20 years in New York. As we squeezed in between impossibly tight spots at 50 miles an hour the first question that came to my mind was "Have you ever killed anybody?" But I didn't ask. Instead I listened. He wanted to know if I had read an author from his country. Told me about his cat who was smarter than his x-wife and all his children put together. How much he loved the Bronx, loved getting out of the city to go home. And kept telling me to, "Be careful!"
New York is like this. Met my beautiful and brilliant friend Alix Strauss for a quick dinner (yes, this is her having a bad hair day as she says - but hey it had been raining and blowing wind for 3 solid days) who also doesn't think that civilization exists beyond the borders of Manhattan. She also tries to help me count my change, point me in the right direction, make sure I get in a cab on the right side of the street so that I feel five years old and like my name and address need to be on a string around my neck. She's thinks I'm a helpless, hopeless, bus missing, Manhattan newbie. "I've been here before Alix," I tell her. "Numerous times." But she isn't seeing the kind of evidence she needs to feel comfortable. I still seem a little day dreamy to her. Not maybe a good quality in the city in her book. But hey, I'm trying to teach her to saunter down the avenues (she says we don't do that in Manhattan and I say, But Alix, you CAN DO IT. And I take comfort in the fact that I have introduced her to a Waffle House in Jacksonville, Florida at 2 am in the morning at a writers conference (which was like taking her to Mars) and that given a chance, I'll walk her through the woods on a moonless night, let her listen to a chorus of crickets, coyotes, owls, and the strange rustlings of the underbrush and she'll soon forget all about me not making that bus stop. We had burgers on the corner of 5th and 55 or something close enough where they were playing Neil Diamond over the sound system to a packed crowd on a Friday night. Giving soul that Alix is, she endured The Darjeeling Limited so that I could laugh my way through the entire thing.
New York is like this. You can step outside the door and have it, get it, find it. Need  a dry cleaners? Boris is right next door not only pressing but tailoring to a t. Will deliver. Chinese food? Cuban beans and Rice? Afghan maybe? Thai? Mexican? The smells meet you when you hit the streets, intoxicate you, run right through your rainy chilled bones. I ducked into the Sunflower Diner owned by a troupe of Greeks that are serving food like they know what they are doing and I guess they are since the place stays packed from open to close.
New York is like this. Everyone has their thing, their story. Some a little more visible than others. The old people look a little fragile, vulnerable. I want to pick them all up and move them somewhere a little warmer, slower, safer. Maybe Tennessee. Maybe Georgia or Alabama.The young people look full of life and energy. So much so I don't know if the city is feeding them or if it's the other way around. Those 30ish look determined, seasoned, aware and intelligent. And the fashion? A little of this, a lot of that and some other thing. Best look so far. A woman walking arm in arm with her man, her date, her amore, last night. White trench coat cinched at the waist, high heels (not those kind but the kind that are ultra chic), her hair in an updo, and smoking a cigarette with such style and grace even as she walked that she made it look like the thing wouldn't kill you. Think Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly all rolled into one and she made everyone else on the street no matter how beautiful they were pale. If my camera had been in my hand I would have proved it to you. My guess is she came out of the womb like that. No, just like that. Updo. Trench coat. Cigarette.
New York is like this. It's Sunday morning. I hear Cathedral bells ringing in the distance. And when I step out in the streets in a minute and into the sunshine I know I'll walk a country mile, or two, or ten just to soak up the faces and the facades.
posted by River Jordan at 8:01 AM
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The Big Apple and the Bogeyman
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
I'm in New York by way of Georgia. Peaches and the Big Apple. It's all about the fruit. And fruit was the plenty at the Gwinnett Country Reading Festival. It was the first year for this event and I was delighted to take part and I assure them it won 't be the last. They had an AMAZING turn out and some of the nicest readers I've ever met.
Here's a few shots of me with very tired eyes but some lovely friendly faces (okay my new found friend Frank - you and I both look like zombies but ain't it fun being human?) The lovely smiling lady, Tasha, to the right was my escort for the day and serves as a reference librarian in Gwinnett County. She also had some of the most wonderful words to say about my novel, The Messenger of Magnolia Street that I've ever heard and it's those kind of words that keep a writer returning to the lonely page time after time. Author Creston Mapes was kind enough to share a s my camera is always broken, missing, in the car and I've been SWEARING TO REPLACE it for many blogs back (hmmm, about 2 years!) so I should just give you a list of the things that I've missed taking pictures of. The best shot of my life was the Mexican young man sitting behind his flower stand this morning at 5 am in the New York darkness. Sharply dressed and sound asleep. And I'm thinking, oh, what a picture that would make! So I think I'll buy a camera and sneak back over there at 5 am in the morning and see if he's maintaining that pose.
What am I doing in New York? Stuff and things. Visiting those lovely New York writers who are friends of mine like Alix Stauss, Carolyn Turgeon and Rona Berg. Producing and Editing BACKSTORY on the road. Surviving strange things that go bump in the night which is exactly what happened in the middle of the darkness and why I was wandering the streets at 5 am in the city that never sleeps and I just want to tell you oh yes, it does. It kinda snoozes because just about everyone but me and the homeless lady on the corner of 28th street was alseep. Heck even STARBUCKS wasn't open yet.
Now, I have to tell you something. I can walk up on a rattle snake in the middle of him shaking those rattles and he can be 88 feet long and 44 feet wide and I will say, well hello snake, and CALMLY walk backwards. I am not afraid of spiders, snakes, or many things that give people the willies. The only thing that makes me jump is the unexpected sight of ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. Like when a PERSON jumps out from behind a thingamajing like a wall, door, car. Or suddenly I see a person walking towards me when I wasn't expecting someone in the hallway and that makes me jump and want to scream. Animals and insects do not have this affect on me. (except for big, black ROACHES that some people in Florida call Palmeto BUGS but that is a lie because they are supersized sonic, gonna live through nuclear attack creatures and I can't stand them and moving to Tennessee where they are NOT is reason enough to move to Tennessee.)
So - when I am suddenly awakened (from a strange sleep anyway) by a door slamming (I'm supposed to be alone in the apartment) and I jump up to find out what door has slammed and then I find out that it was the bathroom door and that it is now LOCKED FROM THE INSIDE what do I do but begin to knock angrily with my hair hanging in my eyes saying, "Who's in there? Who's there? You better say something right now!" Now, what might I do you might ask if some psycho babe with a butcher knife threw open the door and said, "Me, what you gonna do?" Heck if I know. My only hope would be to morph into some alter ego. The beautiful, strong, self assured, uber-confident black woman and my friend, Anne, that I used to work with in the restaurant would be my first choice. I would hope her voice would be my voice, that her power would be my power, and I know that sniffling butcher babe would be backing up AND apologizing for even thinking about murdering me in my sleep and hogging the bathroom. (And yes, I sometimes say African-American but many of my friends don't prefer that term and if Anne heard me say that she would roll her eyes and give me a piece of her mind so I simply respect the preferences of the person I'm with or referring to.)
But- the psycho bogeyman on the other side of the door remained silent so I slipped on shoes and tripped down to the lobby where the doorman looked at me like I'd lost my mind and I wandered out into the street in search of coffee because I was awake and locked out of the bathroom and the 'super' doesn't show up for the first call until 8 am so whatchugonnado? Walk the streets of New York. Wish you had a camera. Watch the sun rise from the terrace of the 20th floor and wait for the city that never sleeps to ever so gently, wake up. Labels: Bogeyman, festivals, New York, Reading
posted by River Jordan at 4:50 AM
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SOUTHERN MYSTIC
Sunday, October 07, 2007
I was raised by women who believed in Jesus and could tell the future. The Jesus part was easy. It was as expected as heat lightning on a summer night. We were southern and Jesus ran through our blood like pine sap through the trees. You would think the nature of God would draw more questions for the asking. More back-chilling, spine-tingling mystery but this was not to be the case. That was the black and white of it. The cut and dried. Family Bible on the table. Prayers called out over food and footsteps. Sunday go to meeting. Jesus was no mystery. Jesus was real. This future shrouded in forebodings and signs of all kinds, that was the mystery.
(This blog was orginally contributed to and continues at
A Good Blog Is Hard To Find, a regular gathering of southern authors rambling about writing and whatnot. And can also be listened to as an audio podcast) Labels: families, future, mystical, southern, writing
posted by River Jordan at 7:05 PM
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Heartbreaker Blues
Monday, October 01, 2007
I started out this morning before dawn. Sitting outside with coffee, tiki torches lit, waiting for the world to wake up around me. There's that fall wind in the trees thing going on and the birds are calling like crazy. A male cardinal lands a foot away and stares at me. Okay, I get it. Up to get birdseed. Scatter. Sit back down. Now, I am like Tarzana, the woods alive with scappering and scatterings and chatterings of all manner. The light is coming and the night is being peeled away, layer-by-layer, all too soon.
And then, for reasons that escape me, I'm thinking about a good boy that I done wrong. Just a nice boy that I had liked 'oh, so much' then had stopped liking for reasons I cannot remember that had nothing to do with anything other than being too young to be liking anyone and being at an age where Fickle is a four letter word. I had told him, Yes I'd go to his senior high dinner (dinner instead of a prom because his school was from back up in the woods and they weren't having a prom) And I bought a dress to go (a long green thing that I can now see made me look like Kermit the Frog) but somewhere between the buying of the dress and the wearing of the dress I fell out of like and the falling had a great, ugly resounding crash. I fulfilled my committment as if it had been a cold business deal with a handshake. Not smiling very much. Not seeming to having a good time. And later refusing to join the groups of young couples that made their way to the beach to do young couple stuff. Drive around. Ride a few rides. Laugh a little. So for the remainder of the night my young date had to sail forth stag and I put on my pajamas and happily stayed home. Now, I look back and think of all the things that a penitent sinner might think of on their death bed. Or from the place of being a mother, a better human being, a grown-up, I think great cosmic thoughts like, "Oh, my." And, "Poor boy," and "Shame on me," for being whatever young, petulant age I was and breaking that boy's heart. And the only thing left to me is to lift up a small prayer of blessing over his life today. Something southern and simple like, "Lord, if that boy is still alive just bless him, bless him, bless him." So I'm now spiritual Tarzanna surrounded by the torches and birds and chimpmunks offering up prayers for this old beau.
And then immediately I flash forward a few years and think of another boy. One that I had a crush on the size of Texas. He used to stop into the drugstore where I worked selling lipsticks and gifts for the holidays and wrapping Christmas prsents, and he would hang around and talk with me and my crush just knew no bounds. It grew everyday like the Grinch's heart until the glory, hallelujah of days when he finally asked me if I'd like to go out with him to the movies or some such thing. He could have said to walk his dog and I would have been nodding, "Yes!" I remember telling my mother about this upcoming event with great excitement. I remember buying a new shirt for the occassion. I remember him coming into the store that most anticipated high and holy day of 'the big date' and telling me as I stood behind the drugstore counter that he couldn't go (wherever) afterall because his aunt had come to town and his mother said he had to stay home to visit. I stood there just wiped away. In a flash one big eraser had crossed the chalkboard of my happiness and then blam, happy dream date is gone. The disappointment lay in my mouth like bruised fruit. Tangible, overripe, sour. So later, at my mother's encouragement to help me over the hump of this teenage tragedy, I went out with a group of friends to the local Pizza place and who do you think I saw there sans the old aunt come to visit? That's right, it was His majesty with a group of laughing friends having a great, big old time without me. Two things happended at once. He broke my little heart and broke that crush thing right off of me at the same time, he did. And the only thing I can do when I think of him now is offer up that southern prayer saying, "If that boy is still alive, bless him Lord, just bless him," through slightly, gritted teeth because praying is not the first thing that comes to Tarzana's mind this time.
Which all makes a good case for not allowing kids to 'date' until they are thirty or married whichever comes first. And it also shows me from a long way off, something I couldn't see at that young state. Which is that from here I can tell who grew to be the stronger man. I can put those two boys side by side and I can tell you the one that was overlooked, was pushed aside, was the better of the two.
But now,surrounded by sunrise and peaceful morning, I realize that in our beautiful and broken human state we always manage to go through life hurting a few people and being hurt by others and sometimes the best we can do is to try to be decent, fair and truthful to that circle of friends and new found strangers that we're fortunate enough to meet. And to keep well the ones who know us with all our good, bad, and ugly, and somehow continue to make a choice to love us anyway in spite of ourselves.
And all I can say to that is Bless us, Lord, just bless us. Bless our broken and breaking hearts as we keep treading the daily waters of our existance.
posted by River Jordan at 7:04 AM
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