Gulf Coast Alabama! I sold my latest book, Dead Investigation. That was the main purpose of the writer-in-residence program – to work on a piece that would be published. YEA! Is it possible to have one foot in Fairhope and one in California? Not likely. Joanie will affirm that I’m not known for flexibility. The people we met in Fairhope were gracious beyond any previous experience and so much fun! I still hear the echoes of women’s laughter. We treasured the gulf, the causeways and bronze horizons and houses on tall stilts. Pelicans stood in the bayside parking lots, hands on hips like irritable ship stewards daring us to park near them. At night, the town lit trees on Main Street making each branch a golden icicle. The glow blending with tropical neons suggesting restaurants and taverns, Irish and Cajun music leaking through half-closed doors. Every weekend a different parade, a fundraiser in the park, kids in strollers trailing balloons and knots of young women arm-in-arm witty and critical, couples drifting friend to friend, sharing umbrellas and movie tips and news about the freshest shrimp in Baldwin County. Pretty good. Hat’s off to you Fairhopia! And now we’re back in California letting the river smooth the wrinkles from our days. We often sit hypnotized by the gliding water, no single inch ever repeated. Joanie is painting, oils bright and blended, boats and buses, fir and old buildings, aspen and trucks abandoned in western fields. I sit at a desk looking down on the riffles hoping some words will mimic that rhythmic flow. In Fairhope we stayed in motion, floating in social currents. In Dunsmuir, the river’s in motion and we are still. Solitarish. Busy in mind. Maybe. Or more likely in my case, absent in mind, and it’s good to be back.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 00:23:37 +0000
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