AI? Pffffffttttt....

 

"Let sleeping dragons lie," by Eirescei, can be found on DeviantArt.com. (Used with permission.)

I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how new apps recently released can write English papers and even books. “It’s the way of the future!” is what we’re hearing proclaimed, with some suggesting that “anyone” will be able to write a book simply by telling the AI software what they want. Yeah. Right. Just as we were told twenty years ago that books would soon be obsolete because we’d all have Kindles (or similar digital readers), which would do away with paper books forever.

Yeah. Good thing I didn’t hold my breath for that to happen.

If you’re a writer who is sweating this stuff, please stop. Your craft is safe. Trust me. If it helps, consider what I wrote some years ago as a submission to a “Flash” contest for nonfiction. Maybe it will help. Here ya go:

(Prompt: Write 250 words on why writing is a mystery.)

Why is writing a mystery to me? Because when Shakespeare wanted Hamlet to express the depth of his depression, he could have written his line as, “Man, I’m just so sad about it all.” Instead, he wrote, “O God, God, how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of the world.” And when Milton described the domain of Satan as “darkness visible,” he reached for a phrase that had never been used before… and it worked for generations to come, as did Frost’s choice of the road “less traveled by” and Whitman’s cry of “O Captain, my Captain!” Writing is a mystery to me because we cannot resolve scientifically—even with all our super-technology—why one particular word order is more pleasing, more poignant, more profound than another. Nor can a machine, given every dictionary entry known to the language, replicate the creativity, the subtle dance with words that a writer produces with a simple pen and paper. Writing is a mystery to be because a craftsman with words can so set the stage that two words may bring us to tears… or to our knees:

“Hey, Boo.”

“Jesus wept.”

Writing is a mystery to me because when I write, I become enthralled, and when I emerge, finally, there lies my soul upon the paper—for all the world to see.

Rising with the Day

 

Bread is such an amazing food, isn’t it? Take a handful of ingredients—salt, sugar, flour, water, yeast—maybe some olive oil and rosemary—combine it, then watch as it does its magic.

I woke to snowfall on Thursday. We’ve been expecting this storm, here in Calimesa, hoping for snow because we rarely get real snow. When I opened the door to take the dogs out at 4:00a.m., big, fluffy flakes were falling. Did the dogs mind? Not a wit. They had to pee! Out into the yard they raced, returning to me on the patio ten minutes later, their coats dusted with flakes that were already melting.

It rained and snowed on and off all day—a good day to hunker down and produce some good work.

So after breakfast, I started some bread rising. The night before, in anticipation of the storm, I’d plucked some sprigs of rosemary from my back yard shrub, washed it, and minced the leaves. (The entire house smelled like fresh rosemary, and I remember catching a whiff of the scent as I went to bed.) I added salt, sugar, water, flour, yeast, and some olive oil, stirred, mixed, and kneaded until a dough was formed. (When people ask if I have a bread maker, I always answer in the affirmative as I hold up my two hands. I’ve been making bread this way for 50 years. No reason to change it up now.)

With the dough in the bowl, rising nicely, I opened my laptop. I know I don’t talk about it much—I consider it bad form to do so—but since I retired, I’ve been working on a series of children’s books. (Not a Young Adult novel, as I’ve done before, but a Middle-Grade series, for kids 10-12.) The idea came to me years ago, when I lived in Mt Baldy. I intended to write one fun book. Then I heard a fellow writer talk about the advantage of writing a series—in order to sell more books.

Huh, I thought. I could make it a trilogy. (Which is how it started, but well into the second book, I knew there had to be four, as it follows the seasons.)

But finding the time to write it was nearly impossible while I was still working. (Though I did write the first 30 pages and hand them off to one of my favorite brilliant ten-year-olds, Matthew Confer, who read it and gave me the best feedback I’ve ever gotten from a first reader. Matthew is 19 and in his second year of college now.)

One week before our rainy snowstorm, I finished the last chapter of the fourth book. All that was left to write was a short epilogue. But some things happened… some good, some bad… and I didn’t get back to it until Wednesday night. After I chopped up all that aromatic rosemary, I wrote the first half of the epilogue.

On Thursday, while the bread was rising, the house now filling with the scent of yeasty dough, I put some soft music on for the fur kids, then, as I mentioned, opened the laptop. And cried. And wrote the final words of the book. And cried some more.

It may seem like a tired trope of egocentric writers, so forgive me if that’s the case, but I absolutely love my characters. Writing fiction is damn hard—you have to create lives and back stories and scenarios out of thin air—truly like pulling a rabbit out of a hat where none existed previously. But a decade ago, when I had the idea, one snowy, wintry night in Baldy while I lay in bed in the loft with my tiny cat, Sugar Plum, curled beside me, I began to tell her a story. A story about a cat… and a dragon. And in the years that passed, the story took shape in my head. And I knew exactly how it would end. Ten years and four books later, that story ended exactly as I had envisioned it.

To celebrate, I took a long nap. When I got up, I shaped my lovely mound of dough into four smaller mounds, let them rise one more time, and then put them in the oven.

Imagine the joy in my house: The quiet snow falling… the scent of fresh baked bread… the satisfaction of seeing a vision come to fruition….

Storytelling is much like making bread. You only need a handful of ingredients—a few characters, a setting, a bit of conflict to get the story churning—and, with patience, you can produce something wonderful. Something magical.

Now the hardest part of all begins: Finding just the right publisher to get these books out into the world for kids just like me who love to read books with cats, dogs, dragons, and a wee bit of fantasy.

While we wait, here's a tiny sample from Book One, just to give you a taste: (FYI: I have this section printed and thumbtacked to my writing board.)

"Little one." The dragon stopped, turned, and spread her enormous wings to embrace the small girl who had halted in the middle of the path. Softly, she continued. "Here is my blessing of peace to your heart. It matters not whether this person at this time chooses or does not choose you. Let that be the furthest from your mind. It has been asked of you to sing. This is a sacred gift. You honor us all--your ancestry and yourself--when you do so. At the time given, let go of 'what if' and celebrate what is."

The DirecTV Guy

 

Okay, I’m going to palaver on about my hellacious weekend, but really, all that mess is just backstory to what I really want to say about the DirecTV guy. Please be patient….

In the middle of the night on Thursday night, I was heading for the back yard with Thomas when I walked through a large pool of water on the floor. It was coming from under the refrigerator.

But that’s not what this post is about.

The next morning, I called an appliance repair place, and they scheduled someone to come out and fix the fridge the same day. Booyah!

So I’m thinking, I’m on a roll. Might as well get this over with and call DirecTV. My receiver had essentially quit working days before. I was so done with DirecTV. But wait! The lovely young woman I spoke with made it all okay, said she’d send someone out the next day to install a new receiver, and we did a fancy-dance work-around on the cost. Boom!

Fridge repair guy, Ruben, comes out, pulls the fridge out, clears the defrost drain tube of all the accumulated ice, charges me a fair price and heads out, mentioning as he does that “there may be some residual condensation there on the floor.” Huh. So I just keep putting down dry towels, rinsing the wet ones, drying them, repeating the process.

At 3:00a.m. the next morning, taking Thomas out, I step into nearly-a-lake on the kitchen floor. Many, many towels are removed from the dryer and thrown on the floor to try to sop it all up. I do not go back to bed.

At 6:45a.m. I call the appliance repair place and am surprised when someone actually answers. I explain that I still have “huge amounts of water” on my floor, and I’m told the technician “will call” me. And, eventually, he does. When he comes back out and pulls the fridge out again, he discovers that the water is not coming from the refrigerator. It’s seeping in under the wall. What’s on the other side of the wall? My water heater.

But that’s not what this post is about.

Ruben takes some pictures, tells me his company can replace the water heater (which is what I should have done last summer, due to age, and I knew it), and they’ll call me with an estimate.

So now I’m sopping up water in and around my water heater. And there’s no shut-off valve for the incoming cold water on the thing, so to stop it would mean turning my water off at the main. No. Hard stop.

Overwhelmed, I call my next-door neighbor, the very cool and heroic Gustavo, who hurries over, assesses the situation, hurries back to his place, returns with channel locks, a pipe wrench, some plumbers tape and a pipe cap. Fifteen minutes later—I kid you not—he’s shut down my water heater. Finally, the water stops seeping under the wall. I don’t have hot water, but I can deal with that. I have water. I have pans. I have a stove. I once went two weeks without hot water while living in Mt. Baldy. What I don’t have is water accumulating along the baseboard and pooling on the floor. Bravo!

Just as Gus is picking up his tools, the DirecTV guy shows up. Whew.

That’s what this post is about. It’s about the DirecTV technician, Luis.

He introduced himself, showed me his badge, then trudged in, carrying a new receiver. As he went to work doing the install, I went in the kitchen and started getting organized for who-knows-how-many days without hot water.

When I finished, Luis was sitting idly on the living room floor, scrolling through his phone, waiting for the system set-up on the receiver to do its thing. I asked him if he was having a good day.

“I’m not,” I said, “so I hope your day is going well.”

He shrugged. “Saturday is always easy.” Then he looked back at this phone.

Hmm. Definitely not a chatty guy.

I persisted. “Because less traffic?”

He shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess.” Then he pointed to my typewriter. “I used to have one. In school. For homework.” His accent was heavy, his English imperfect. I wondered if he found it easier not to engage in conversation with people who weren’t likely to understand him.

I told him I was a writer, and it’s like this quiet gentleman just came to life. “You do art, then,” he said. “I am artist, too. I paint.” He picked up his phone again, excited now, poking it a couple of times to bring up Instagram. He started to show me his pictures, but I told him to wait while I got my phone so I could follow him on the platform. As I scrolled through his beautiful beach and forest scenes, I told him how much I loved the mountains, how I used to live in Mt. Baldy. He told me he drives up to Idyllwild as often as he can just to be up in the mountains and look for scenes to paint. He told me how he was bored during the pandemic so he watched some YouTube videos and picked up a brush and started painting with acrylics. His wife took one look at what he was doing, he said, and she charged off to Hobby Lobby, buying him more paint and canvasses. He started posting pictures of his work on Instagram, and people commented. So he set up an Etsy account, and now he sells them. His wife, he said, likes to go to bed early and get up when the world is quiet. (Sounds familiar.) After she goes to bed, he paints. For two or three or five hours. He showed me a picture of his wife and son, talked a bit about his wife going through some health problems in recent years. She didn’t want him to sell any paintings—because she loves all of them.

Finally, he asked if he could see a copy of one of my books. I grabbed one and showed him. He asked where he could buy a copy. I took that one back, signed it, and gave it to him.

“I will read it,” he said. “I promise.”

And I believe he will.

Given the “Salvi Pride” tag on his Instagram profile, I’m guessing Luis is from El Salvador. I don’t know how long he’s been in the U.S. or what he had to go through to get here or what it felt like to leave his homeland, hoping, as he came to this strange new country, that he would somehow make a better life for himself and his family.

But… consider this: His Instagram handle is @luis_vichez_art. What if, like, a whole lot of people read this post and decide to follow Luis on Instagram? And maybe even some people buy a painting from him? Wouldn’t that be amazing? I’m telling you right now, it would make all the insanity of the past couple of days worth it.

And oh—the appliance repair business called while I was talking to Luis. They gave me a reasonable estimate on replacing the water heater—on Monday, so I would only have to be hot waterless through Sunday. Which is when I’m writing this. And guess what? They called back this morning to ask if they could please do the job today. A day early. And yeah, it gets even better. They did the whole job in an hour and a half. Done, cleaned up, water heating as I wrote the check.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about Luis, the painter. @luis_vichez_art

Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, Nine Years In

I know. I can’t believe it, either. This fuzzy boy has been with me for one year shy of a decade. Amazing.

If you don’t know his background, clicking here will give you some perspective. And if you also read the post from January 4^th, 2014, you’ll have a more complete picture of how far this dog has progressed from the frightened feral creature he once was.

Now, when I post his picture on Twitter or Instagram, I get far more “likes” for his cute mug than I do for anything I post about myself, whether that is some bit of wisdom for writers or a photo of the hills where I hike. Thomas has the GQ good looks to get him noticed—even though he still hates having his picture taken.

At fifteen, my boy is an old guy now, with arthritis in his shoulder and hips and back. Last year I spent a thousand dollars on tests to try to discover, once and for all, what initiates the on-going issues with his sensitive gut. Turns out he has Irritable Bowel Syndrome due to his chronic anxiety. So now he has multiple meds for anxiety, IBS, and arthritis. Some days are tough, when his belly hurts. Some nights are even tougher, when we’re up four or five times—especially in winter—going out to the yard. Good thing I’m retired and I can nap during the day….

Last year around this time, I wrote about how Thomas has come to love our bedtime ritual, wherein we sit on the floor of my bedroom and he is petted, massaged, and/or brushed before it’s time to say goodnight. A year ago, it was Purrl getting in on the attention. Now, with Purrl gone, Jenny has stepped in, insisting that she, too, be the recipient of all this love and affection.

And Jenny has made up her own bedtime ritual for Thom. She loves to ambush him. When I tell them it’s time for bed, she runs ahead toward the bedroom, but ducks into the guest bathroom, hiding there in the dark until Thom comes trotting down the hall, at which point she jumps out at him, batting him with soft paws. He has no idea that this is a cat game, and that he is supposed to react by jumping in the air and chasing after her. So he just ignores her. Which he pretty much does all the time anyway. Even though she loves him and rubs on him.

Thomas was six when I adopted him. I told him then that I just wanted him to live six years, to have as many good years of safety and love as he had starvation and abandonment. I was surprised and happy when he reached that landmark. Now we’re three years past that. In some part of his brain, he still remembers the awful time; he still occasionally cries out in his sleep as if he’s being wounded. But as the years go on, those times are fewer and farther between.

May he never have another bad dream. 

The Darkest Evening of the Year

 

I wrote the following short piece for Fresh Ink, my writers club journal, but I decided to share it here because... it's the Solstice. And why not?

     In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost describes a reverie he’s had on the night of the December solstice as he stops to watch the snow fall on a neighbor’s woods. It’s a lovely image—the white flakes falling, dusting the trees with winter icing. As his “little horse,” impatient to move on, shakes himself, his harness bells—sleigh bells—jingle. Apart from that, they are in a place so isolated, it’s quiet enough to hear the snow falling. (“The only other sound’s the sweep/of easy wind and downy flake.”)

We love this poem because, the Christmas season being what it is, with its frenetic activity of shopping, wrapping, preparing, cooking, and so forth, we relate to the final lines of the poem: “But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep/And miles to go before I sleep.”

Until I memorized this poem long ago (along with a freshman English class I was teaching), I didn’t fully appreciate the line that comes before those final lines: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” It seems there is a certain reluctance here to push on, get those chores done, those promises kept, get out of the cold and into a warm bed. Why? What drives a man to sit in a sleigh and stare, when he has so much at home compelling him to get moving?

This is what I relate to, the dragging of his feet, the lure of the woods. As much as we would love to remember Frost as the kind, grandfatherly man who wrote of nature and farming, he was a profoundly troubled individual who possessed the requisite tortured soul of many poets. Consider this: His sister spent her last years in a mental institution, as did one of Frost’s daughters. One son died of cholera at the age of four; the other committed suicide when he was thirty-eight. Frost would outlive this son by twenty-three years, which is a long, long time to carry such grief.

Suffice it to say, the poet experienced his share of sadness and depression. What comforted him, we assume from his work, was the beauty and resiliency he observed in nature, the constancy and routine of the seasons’ change.

Many decades ago, when I had recently emerged, battle weary and deeply depressed, from the worst year of my life, two friends stopped by my house and nearly dragged me out to hike with them. I had no hiking boots, only sneakers. It was January, and while the golden California sun was shining, it had snowed in the mountains the night before—which is where they insisted on taking me, up to the nearest mountain, Mt. Baldy, for a long walk up a winding fire road that eventually led to a crystal-clear view of the valley below.

The snow was the brightest white I had ever seen. The trees, warmed by the sun, gave off an aromatic scent of pine you will never find in a cleaning product or deodorizer. And after miles of hiking, endorphins flooding my brain, I was hooked. Here was solace. Here was comfort. The sights, the smells, these two goofball friends who told stories and laughed and kept me moving until I was (finally!) warm, gave me the gift of hiking to achieve balance and perspective, to be reminded that, as nature endures, so will I. The hours we spent were more memorable than I can describe, and I will be grateful for it through the rest of my days.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” During the holiday season, this line will come to me at the oddest times—standing in line at Target, sitting on the floor wrapping gifts, breathing deeply in heavy traffic as I try to remain calm and get to my destination alive. They will draw me out, those woods, and offer me quiet moments of solitary, serene walking in between the frenzied times. And I will remember Frost and his work with much gratitude.

988

 

Before I jump into what I want to say here, let me assure certain family members and friends—you know who you are, the three of you who check on me after I talk about this sort of thing—that I am feeling fine and on the bright side of the rainbow today.

Some weeks ago, I called the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. I didn’t call because I was in crisis, so I wasn’t on the phone very long. I just wanted to see how the system worked and how long it took to actually speak with a caring person on the other end. Turns out, not long. In less than a minute, I connected with a gentle-voiced woman who asked, “How are you feeling today?” I told her that I was feeling fine, that I only wanted to try the system so that I could write about it. I thanked her for her time, and we ended the call quickly so that she could help others who were actually in need.

It’s been a long time coming, and I’m glad the number is now available. Three digits. 988. Easy to remember in a crisis.

It was decades ago that I wrote my first article on suicide prevention. At the time, I was living in Rancho Cucamonga, and I wrote occasional columns for the Daily Bulletin newspaper. Days after that first piece was published, a gentleman called my home, apologized for having obtained my number from information, and went on to thank me for writing the article. He’d lost his fifteen-year-old son to suicide the year before. We talked for an hour. The man was broken, and he said what I’ve heard repeated so many times since then: “We just didn’t see it coming.”

This is what I know about those who are serious about ending their lives: They try very, very hard not to let anyone know. So, my “I’m feeling fine” at the top of this post would be something I would definitely say if I were definitely not feeling fine. It’s a conundrum, I know.

What is critical, if we are to help those we love who consider taking their own lives, is paying attention, and paying attention long before plans are made. If someone talks about feeling hopeless, or giving up, or having no purpose, or of experiencing unbearable pain, that’s when we need to listen. To care. To reach out nonjudgmentally.

A trained therapist can help, but unless you are one, please don’t offer advice to someone who is hopelessly sad. Offer a hug. Offer unconditional love. Offer time—to listen or just be with that person.

And, bear with me; it’s not my intention to preach or instruct, but if I could just make a suggestion from personal experience about taking the time to be with a person who is feeling hopeless or sad or depressed. Listening is key, if your sorrowful friend or family member feels like talking. But it’s not necessary to draw them out about what is troubling them. If you ask, “What’s bothering you?” you’re apt to receive a nonspecific answer like “Everything.” Let them talk if they feel like talking. Be silent, if that’s what they prefer. Or talk about the mundane aspects of your life, what you saw when you walked your dog or how you need to get the oil changed in the car. What’s not helpful is trying to “joke” a person out of their sadness. Please, I beg of you, don’t ever say, “Ah, come on. Cheer up!” Understand that it is beyond the realm of possibility for someone in this state to switch on the happiness chandelier.

You may have heard that this time of year, the holiday season, is the most critical time of year for depressed individuals, that the suicide rate increases around Christmas. In fact, it does not. Statistically, the most suicides of the year occur in April. Yep. Right when spring is springing, and everything seems new and fresh. I would speculate, however, that those feelings of loneliness and isolation that often lead to a suicide attempt begin months earlier and simply reach their peak by springtime.

We have this time, however, during the holidays, to check in with our friends and family members who lean toward melancholy. And for my friends—you know who you are—who find your loneliness deepening through these winter months, I’m here for you. Reach out, however you care to, by text or phone or email or whatever. I’ll listen. Or just sit with you. Or tell you what I saw when I walked Thomas or Maya. Or, if you’re willing, call 988. You don’t have to wait until you’re in crisis to call. There are kind people waiting to listen anonymously to anything you have to say. And don’t forget that I love you… just as you are.

 

Progress

My dog made me cry today.

I took Maya to a very large dog park. I used to do this with Thomas from time to time in the first years after I adopted him, take him to a dog park very early in the morning when no one else was there, then let him off the leash just to see if he would come back to me. Nope. He'd trot away to the farthest corner, then huddle against the fence. I knew if he ever got away from me, he'd just take off. Not until I'd had him nearly three years, and I'd retired and had much more time to spend out in the hills with him did I finally trust him to be off leash. Sort of. One day on a hike, descending a steep hill as we made our way back to the truck, I simply unhooked his leash, and he stayed right behind me, picking his own way down. I was very, very proud of him that day, as he stopped and waited when I asked him to so that I could hook him back up. But he has always felt safest when he's connected to me, so that's the way we keep it most of the time.

I knew Maya would be a flight risk when I brought her home, and boy howdy, did I make sure to watch her every second, to check the gate every time the gardeners left, to tighten my grip on the leash when we left the house, to always be aware of where she was when a door opened anywhere in the house.

Not so anymore. A few months ago, I was walking her with Thomas, and as we neared the house, she shook the leash out of my hand. I tried not to panic as I watched her trot ahead up the street--and go straight up onto our porch. Whew. 'Okay,' I thought. 'She knows where home is now.' I tested this a few times, dropping the leash a few doors away, and she will always run right home.

But out in open spaces, yeah, that's a different story. Many's the time we've stood on a rise overlooking a long stretch of rolling hills, and she has leaned into that. I know if I unhooked her, she'd be in the wind, running for miles until she either denned up in the wild or a coyote had her for lunch. Scary, scary thoughts.

So today was somewhat of a test for her. Did I mention this is a very big dog park?

That black and white dot, center of the pic, is Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, off leash. As soon as we were in, I unhooked the leash, and off she trotted. Away, away, away, almost to the back fence. I didn't follow. I just waited. Finally, she stopped. Turned back. I walked to the middle of the park and stopped. She doesn't really know the come command. But she knows "Wait." So I gave her the hand signal and told her, "Maya, wait." And she did. She sat her sassy derriere down and waited for me to approach her. I petted her--something that she never used to let me do if it were outside the confines of her crate, but she has decided, in recent weeks, it's actually quite nice. So she got some pets and head rubbies, and then I said, "Let's go," and we walked around the expansive park some more, Maya sniffing and peeing and being a dog. Pretty fabulous. Of course, I had to stop for a while and wipe the tears off my face and blow my nose. This is huge progress for her. She's learning to trust, and I know, with everything she experienced in the past, humans have shown themselves absolutely untrustworthy. (I hear ya, girl.) But she's trying.

All this was after I had walked her through the kid part of the park, around the playground equipment, and then asked her to walk up this bridge with me:

It would require her to take a big step up, and I knew that the thing would probably move, but every time we hike, I ask her to do something difficult--climb up on a boulder or cross a small stream or duck under a fallen tree. She amazes me every time with her courage. So without hesitating, I asked her to follow me up and over, and damn if she didn't do just that. On the way back, we did it again, but this time we stopped in the middle for a photo op.

It's important to note here: For most of every day, Maya still stays in her crate, by her own choice. (The day is coming when I will close it off during the day and only allow her to den up at night, but not yet. She's not ready yet.) She doesn't interact with me or Thomas or Jenny the Cat. She listens to the household routine, emerging for potty breaks when asked to do so. She is still very shut down.

In fact, just this past month, she finally began taking treats from my hand. For eighteen months, she has gotten a treat for going outside--at least four times a day. But, just as Thomas did in the beginning, she would turn her head away as I offered her a treat, even if she had returned to her crate. In the first weeks after I brought her home, she wouldn't eat the treat--even if it was sitting under her nose--until I left the room. She still won't eat food from her dish or drink while I'm in the room. But miraculously, a few weeks ago, after I'd been sitting with her for a while, petting her, she finally took her favorite treat from my hand. Of course, I cried that day, too.

But these carefree mornings when I hook her up to a fifteen-foot leash and let her wander in safe, isolated places--these are healing for her. She gets to be a dog, but she is reminded that we're in this together. Someday, I hope, she will see our connection as a good thing.

Good girl, Maya. You are a very good girl.