The Coconut Chronicles

Hello from Mountain Mecca & Hippy Heaven!

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh, fresh air! Sorry, couldn’t help myself, I’ve been gulping in the clean, mountain air since we arrived at our latest home – Nelson, BC. For the next month we will be residing at “Chalet Ripple” – I just love saying that word, “chalet”, chalet, chalet, chalet – while we explore the possibility of living and working here.

The chalet (ooooh, I said it again!) is beyond cool and I’m still pinching myself over our great fortune. It was built, many moons ago, by our dear friends, Tim “The Ripster” and his wife Becky aka “Supreme Mountain Goddess”. The land it sits on is a tiny pie at the edge of a huge swath of park land – meaning there will be no condos or McDonalds anywhere near here in our lifetime (hopefully), yippee!

Although the chalet (fun!) now functions as a vacation rental, it was the Ripple’s home for years and their presence permeates the log walls. There are photos everywhere of the Ripster, Becky & friends climbing, trekking and skiing around the world. My favorites are the ones of the Nepalese people that Tim and Becky have cultivated a loving relationship with. On the kitchen cupboards, climbing rocks (the ones you find on the indoor climbing walls) function as handles and there is even rock climbing finger-board mounted on one of the overhead beams if you want to test your climby-ness. Railings are made from smoothed saplings and branches, tap water comes from a stream, river rocks line the paths, and Tibetan prayer flags criss-cross the property, waving welcome to guests and friends. This is a very tranquil place.

We haven’t told our hosts yet but, we are actually never moving out. They’re reasonable people, I’m sure they’ll understand. Right?

Emily, our pot-bellied, North American Carpet Panther, is in her glory. I was worried how she’d take the move from her position as chief of Security at the Kozak Mansion (we miss you guys!) but here she has acres of wilderness to patrol and the extra responsibility doesn’t even seem to faze her. It helps that she has cozy rugs to sleep on and huge windows to look out of. Believe me when I say there are some very nervous mice around these parts!

Chalet.

Come on, say it! It’s fun huh?

The drive here was interesting. Well, I should say packing for the drive was interesting. Seeing as our main priority was tools for work, tools which already take up most of the truck, we had to be quite creative with the rest of our gear. There was a bit of a tense moment when the Prez looked at my pile of shoes and said, “So which ones are you bringing?” and I, timidly, replied, “Um, all of them?” And I am by no means a shoe hound, but space was limited.

We had a lovely sunny day for the trip east. Unfortunately, the section from Manning Park to Osoyoos was so choked with smoke from the Tatoosh forest fire that there wasn’t much sight seeing. It was incredible, and frightening, really how much smoke there was. Even with our windows rolled up and the A/C on, we were all coughing at points along the way. I hope the recent rain has helped out.

So here we are (in the chalet!), settling in and waiting to see what kind of response we’ll get to our newspaper ads. We’ve already got two potential jobs and if the market for handy people is even half as good as it is in the city we’ll do just fine. I’m taking advantage of the quiet time to get some edits done on the novel. The feedback I’ve gotten on my baby from my test readers, so far, has been insightful and helpful. Now I’m frantically making the changes I want so that I can have a semi-polished manuscript ready for the Surrey International Writer’s Conference at the end of October.

And speaking of test readers, one of that much appreciated bunch, Terri Casey, will be coming to visit us, with her beau Gary…at the chalet (tee hee)…this Sunday. Terri is not just a beautiful woman with a great attitude; she is also a professional freelance writer and author of the book, “Pride and Joy – The Lives and Passions of Women Without Children” which I am pages away from finishing. Wow. Great book. As a woman without children (not counting cats and husbands) it was wonderful to hear my thoughts echoed by so many other women of all different ages, races, and cultures.

One of the most profound comments in this book was made by Terri: “What would it mean for our society, I wonder[ed], if women without children were as valued and celebrated as mothers are?” That’s a good question. Most of the women I read about make tremendous contributions to society on both a large and small scale. They are educated, hard working, creative women who feel an urge to give back and make life better for others – many work, in some form, with children. Yet, the overwhelming opinion out there seems to be that a woman is not ‘complete’ until she gives birth to a child. I know, I’ve heard about it for thirty-seven years.

“Oh, you’ll change your mind!” “Who’s going to take care of you when you’re older?” “How can you say you don’t want children?” These are just some of the comments that have been made to me over, and over, and over throughout my life. Trust me; you don’t have to tell what a beautiful thing motherhood is, how unique the bond is between mother and child, how important a role mothers play in society. I know and respect the whole deal 100%. I love kids. I just don’t want to look after them 24/7.

Men don’t get those comments made to them. An older childless man is not considered less than a man. Dads are every bit as important as moms so why don’t we harass guys like we do gals? I think it all comes down to choice. Men have always had a choice. Even if they knocked a girl up they could always take off. Socially acceptable? No, but doable. Not so easy for the knocked-up-ee. Thanks to accessible birth control and legal abortion, women can now choose if and when they want to bear children. I celebrate this choice.

Another common thread that runs through these women’s stories is the role of education and role models. Regardless of their economic background, books, school, museums & art, were like windows to other possibilities for these women. Through these windows they could see that they didn’t have to simply get married and have babies like they were expected to, like everyone else did; the world outside these windows was overflowing with wonders for them to experience. And that mirrors my experience exactly. My bookcase was my “pride and joy” as a child. I read voraciously and loved the worlds the writers took me to. As far back as I can remember, I knew I wanted more from my life than what was expected of a middle class girl growing up in the ‘burbs. My mom burst into tears the day I announced I was never having kids (I think I was about fourteen). “Haven’t I given you a good life?” she cried, “How can you say you don’t want children??” I wish I had the presence of mind back then to say, “Yes, you’ve given me a fabulous life and that’s why I’ve made this choice! Thanks to you I have a thirst for discovery and a passion for exploring the world and myself. You’ve given me more than having children ever could. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” But, instead, I think I just mumbled something about how she didn’t understand.

I recommend this book to all women. For those who are deciding between motherhood or not, it’s a good way to examine a point of view that is not the majority. If you’ve already made the “not” choice, these tales will give you the sense of community and support that mothers get and the rest of us seem to miss out on. For women with children, this book will help you understand that crazy friend of yours who just won’t settle down and have kids. And for parents with intentionally child-free children, the stories in this book may help enlighten you about why your offspring has made this choice.

I know I’ll miss out on a lot of things by not having kids but, hey, if I did have kids I probably wouldn’t be sitting in this fabulous CHALET right now!

Anyway, I’ll be happy to lend out my copy of “Pride and Joy” – right after I get it signed this weekend! Yes, it will be a very authorly weekend as one of our other guests – at the chalet (love it!) – will be Sue Carlson, aka Miss Sue (and hubby “All-in-Jim”), who wrote the Children’s book I Chronicled about a ways back, “Why Do Donuts Have Holes?” You will find a link to both Terri and Sue’s books on the left side of this screen. And soon you will find a link to my book, “Why Building a Lego Bridge to the Moon is Less Work and More Fun Than Editing Your first Novel”.

Well, speaking of editing, sigh; I must get back to it. Next week I will put on a ton of pictures featuring…

The chalet!!!

Question: What book are you reading right now?

Until next week, I hope this finds you all healthy, happy & lovin’ life!

The Princess

Hello again from a Kozy place!

OK let’s make a deal, if you don’t see an updated Chronicle within say, oh maybe, two and a half weeks, then please call the police, coast guard, whatever. Up until the two and a half week mark though, you can assume that I am busy being a Handy Person with no life to speak of. Yes, I am still embroiled in work and when I am not doing such useful tasks as passing power tools or sweeping sawdust I am frantically working on editing my novel.

But joy oh joy! Prez is off on the annual Boy’s Club Fishing Trip (aka, the Boy’s Club Lots of Drinking, Loud Talking, and Bullshitting Trip) so I have four whole days to myself (two of which have already been consumed by chores).

I sent an email last night to Mickey and Minnie. You may remember them from waaaaaaaay back as the two friends who I discovered, through the grapevine, had lots of not so nice things to say about the Prez and I. You may also wonder why I have waited nearly two years to deal with this issue. Well, it’s my “Thing”.

Everybody has their Thing – good and bad. We all know the friend who dates one loser after another and refuses to see that they’re making the same mistake over and over. Or how about the parents we know who believe their child is an angel when the rest of us can see quite clearly that “Spawn of Satan” would be a more accurate title. The friend who can’t be relied on for anything, especially showing up on time. The friend whose spouse down talks them at every turn and yet they still worship them. These are our bad “Things”. Our glaring faults that we cannot see, will not see, or see and ignore. And we all have a Thing, trust me.

My Thing, or one of them, is my fear of confrontation. Oooooooooh confrontation, scary. Well, it is to me. I detest confrontation, and so I avoid it.

When I am angry, hurt, scared, offended or all of the above, I swallow it. All my bad feelings get jammed down inside, out of sight but not out of mind. Imagine getting to the checkout with a week’s worth of groceries and the cashier handing you only one bag to put them all in. You’d get some of them in, sure, but sooner or later they’d all be spilling out. That’s kind of how it is with me. I try to stuff every bad feeling I have inside but sooner or later they start spilling out in weird and frightening ways.

Shortly before my marriage to The Ex, I had one of these bad “spills”. The Ex did a pretty good job of losing every single friend we had, and one of the few good ones left was slowly backing away. Of course, being young, stupid and in love, I blamed all the friends and not my alcoholic hubby-to-be. Well, I received the wedding invite RSVP from this friend – I’ll call him Mr.Misunderstood – and in the part where it says “___ guests will be attending” he marked down a big, fat zero. My nerves, which were already stretched far past breaking, snapped. All the anger, frustration, humiliation, and rage I’d pushed inside during two years of a very bad, abusive relationship erupted.

My whole body was shaking as I drove to Mr. Misunderstood’s place of work. (It gets embarrassing from this point on, ugh). How could he not come to my wedding? After all we’d been through, after me being such a loyal friend, how could he do this to me?!? All my higher thought processes shut down; I was on autopilot with a terrorist at the helm. Storming to the front desk I saw him there and I wanted to scream. Oh wait, I think I did scream. A torrent of garble came out of my mouth and then…(truly embarrassing)…I said, “You want to treat me like dirt? Fine, I’ll treat you like dirt too!!” and threw a handful of actual dirt in his face. Then I stomped out and cried all the way home. (Told you it was embarrassing).

The worst part of all this is that it turns out Mr.Misunderstood, not being up on wedding etiquette, had made a simple mistake. He thought that when he put down “0” it meant that he was coming but he was not bringing any guests with him. (Groan). We did, eventually make up and I apologized profusely. And he came to the wedding! We remained friends even after my marriage disintegrated.

I’ve learned to be a little better with confrontation and there have been no further dirt throwing incidents…but it’s still tough. I recognize my Thing and I’d like to change it but I’m a realist, I will probably always have a hard time confronting people. Except…something very interesting happened last Sunday.

I am a proud member of the Shoreline Writer’s Society and we meet one Sunday per month to talk about writerly things, discuss upcoming events, read our work and have it critiqued by the group. I love it. I live for that Sunday meeting. This past Sunday I read a short story I wrote recently that I was feeling quite proud of. It was good. From the moment I hit that final key I knew I’d written a powerful story, what a feeling! And my fellow writers seemed to agree with me.

Now, I usually accept critiques of my work graciously. Even if I don’t use the suggestions, I am thankful for them and say so. This story was no exception, almost. One new girl spoke up and made a comment about a detail she thought needed to be added and I was getting ready to do my usual smile, nod, thank you routine (knowing I would never use this suggestion) when a little person inside of me started poking me in the ribs. No way! the little person said, This is a damn good story and you know it, so defend it! Stop playing nice and start sticking up for yourself!! And, wow, I did. I actually confronted. All by myself. And it felt good, no, it felt GREAT!

What gave me the power to do this? My good “Thing” – my writing.

You see, we all have a bad Thing but we all also have a good Thing. This Thing is a natural talent or ability, and we all have it but few of us act on it and many of us never recognize it.

All my friends have a good Thing. Martha should be running a botanical garden with her ultra-green thumb; Ironwoman Benson has a drive and determination that most Olympic athletes would kill for; Mo should be nominated for mommy of the year (motherhood actually oozes out of her pores); we should send Miz Liz to the middle east to clear up that whole mess (with her negotiating skills she’ll stop them from shooting and soon there will be a decorative mural program to bring tourists to Lebanon); CB needs to quit that high level corporate job of his and start offering seminars on trolling with cut plugs (J); I’m nominating Patty-Cakes to replace Oprah when she goes, what a way with people that man has; and Kozy, you mean Diamond Chef Kozy? I could go on and on and on…but talking about Kozy reminded me of something, something to do with how few of us see our good Thing.

At one of our ClubFred barbeques, we were sitting around an impromptu fire (in the middle of our lawn, long story) playing a game called “If”. Basically I read questions from a book and everyone takes turns answering them. One of these questions was, “What is the one thing you are best at?” and it was surprising, and a little sad, as we went around the circle how few people could answer this. “Well, I’m kind of good at this but, um, I don’t know, um…” was the usual answer. Even I couldn’t answer definitively at that time. (Prez said his was ‘sex’, that was unpredictable huh?).When it got to Kozy he paused, then asked if we could skip him and come back. We did. Once everyone was done we returned to a stern faced Kozy. He began, “I know materials. I know polymers, and molybdenum, and…” he went off naming material after material, growing more excited as he went and finishing with, “I f&%$ing know materials!” The crowd went wild. I’m smiling just remembering that moment. And now I know how he feels.

When you finally find your Thing, your good Thing, it sets you free. It gives you the confidence to look your bad Thing in the eye and say, “You ain’t so tough, I can whup you!”

I know writing. I f&*%ing know writing. Now, when my grocery bag of bad emotions gets too full, I simply empty it onto the written page. And I am free.

So, what’s your Thing?

Until next week (or thereabouts), I hope this finds you healthy, happy & lovin’ life!

The Princess

p.s. – I want to make a book recommendation. Recently, I read “Oryx and Crake” by Margaret Atwood and I cannot get it out of my head. Set in the future, it is haunting simply because it is a future that is all too similar to our present. Fabulous, fabulous book.

Hello again from a Kozy place!

My little noodle has been jammed full of thoughts this week. An awkward meeting with ex (?) friends, the highs and lows of our latest handyman project, reconnecting with old friends via cyberspace, why my cat drives me insane after dark, etc. etc. But what’s foremost on my mind is my baby and my preparations to send it off into the world.

My baby was conceived while watching Sex and the City on the couch of a rental house in Key Largo, Florida. I’m not sure what the episode was about but it stimulated a part of my brain, started me musing about what it means to grow up as a female. In a frenzy, I found myself grabbing the laptop and rushing to the bedroom. There I struggled to type out the words that were flooding my brain before they disappeared forever. In the heat of passion I didn’t realize I was witnessing the creation of my baby…my very first novel.

Like real babies, a novel is a lot more work than you think it’s going to be. It would be two and a half years before that first draft was complete and another five months of editing before I had a version good enough to let someone else read. There will be many, many more edits and rewrites to come but what an amazing feeling watching my baby take its first step – off the computer and onto the page!

Now comes the difficult part, sending my baby out into the world on its own. It must be done though. I have read and re-read those pages so many times that I don’t know what’s good or bad anymore. At the risk of sounding like an unfit mother I will even confess that at several points in the editing process I HATED my baby. On the fourth complete rewrite of one chapter I wanted to toss my laptop in the garbage bin and go watch bad television instead. Well, no one said going through labour would be easy.

Now, when your baby takes its first solo trip you don’t just give it to anyone. I chose six people to be my first test readers. My selection was based on the quality of feedback I felt I would receive. I have no problem hearing that my baby is bad but I need to know exactly what makes it bad and maybe a suggestion or two to help make it not so bad.

In that group of six there is one person who does not know me. This is critical.

Criticism is easy, except when you have to give it to a friend – to their face.

We’re all critics. Finding fault with others is as natural as breathing to humans. I remember an exercise from my eighth grade drama class. It went like this: We all stood in pairs facing one another. Taking turns, we first had to observe our partner and compliment them on what we saw. It started out easy enough, “Your hair is so shiny. I love your jeans, etc.” but within moments we were all struggling to come up with nice things to say. This did not happen when we reversed the exercise and had to criticize the other person. On and on we went, the put downs grew more and more creative. It was fun, kids were laughing. And we never ran out of bad things to say. Eventually our instructor had to call an end to the exercise but it’s a lesson that has stuck with me.

In real life, it is still easier to find the bad in people than the good but we reserve expressing our opinions for when the object of our criticism is not present. Life quickly teaches us that we don’t like hearing bad things about ourselves, even when they’re true. So when Mary Joe shows up at our house with a hideous new hair cut we smile and tell her how nice it looks. But when we’re sitting with friends having cocktails (without Mary Joe) we are happy to share a good laugh over her Frankenstein-like coiffure.

Does this make us bad? I’m not sure. No one wants to hurt Mary Joe’s feelings, she’s a super nice person after all, but that hair, I mean, come on, how can you not say something about it? And if Mary Joe never finds out that you were laughing at the new do that she is so thrilled with, then no damage done right? Hmmmmm.

We all talk about people behind their back whether what we have to say is naughty or nice. If we had to wait for someone to be in our prescence to talk about them, our conversations would be very limited. When does talking about someone behind their back become harmful? Only when they find out? And when is it right to tell a friend what people are saying about them behind their back? I’m not entirely sure but I know that sometimes the “friend” who goes out of their way, calls you up out of the blue, to let you know what awful things are being said about you is far crueler than the backtalkers. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

No, we don’t like to hear bad things about ourselves but sometimes we NEED to hear them. Sometimes we can’t move forward until we deal with our faults; faults not obvious to us but painfully so to others.

And in the case of my baby, I NEED to know what’s wrong with it. As much as I’d love to hear everyone say “Bravo! What a masterpiece! Look out Da Vinci Code!” I know that there’s lots wrong with it that I can’t see. I need brutal, honest, jarring truth or my baby will never learn to walk. Someday my baby will be sitting on the desk of a potential agent or publisher and I want it to be its absolute best. And hopefully (fingers and toes crossed) someday my baby will be all grown up and interacting with scores of people (readers) I’ve never met – I sure want it to make a good impression.

So now I wait. Good, bad or ugly, I will take all comments and use them to help my baby grow. Yes, motherhood is challenging but oh so rewarding!

QUESTION: Have you ever heard something bad about yourself from behind your back? What did you do?

Until next week, I hope this finds you healthy, happy & lovin’ life!

The Princess