Monthly Archives: May 2013

Moccasins of Shame — An Outtake

Sometimes, for the sake of narrative flow, style, character–any number of reasons–a writer has to cut passages in order to make a better book.  As Faulkner said, “Kill your darlings.”  In memoir your darlings are not simply scenes you made up, they are part of your life, part of you.  This passage had to be cut from Chanel and I think it’s a better book for its absence but it doesn’t make it less meaningful for me.  Thanks to the modern miracle of blogging (like the extras section of film dvds) I can share it with you.

Moccasins of Shame

The hospital was bright and clean inside and smelled like a swimming pool. Mother’s room was all bleached white and glowing with sunlight. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bun. Looking at her in the skinny hospital bed, I didn’t think she looked sick at all. She looked beautiful, like a fairy princess.
Mother laughed and smiled and was so happy to see us. Daddy stood against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, as we climbed up onto the bed to hug her and kiss her. She told us that she got to eat her breakfast in bed and that most nights they showed movies in the dining room after dinner. She told us about a woman she’d met there who had been a famous Olympic diver, but had then dived into a swimming pool with no water in it and now she had problems thinking straight. I wondered aloud why someone would jump into an empty swimming pool in the first place, but Mother said it had been an accident.
Before we left, she gave us each a little pair of moccasins that she had made for us during recreation. I asked what that was, and she said it was a time when everyone at the hospital got to make something with their hands—baskets or pot holders, for example—and that she had decided to make something for us. The moccasins were brown suede and had little beads sewn onto the tops of them—they were so pretty. I told her I loved them. Then a nurse came in and said that visiting hours were over and we kissed Mother good-bye.
“I’ll be home soon,” she promised.
I rode home in the car smiling the whole way with my moccasins on my lap. I told my father that I planned to wear them to school the next day to show everyone. My father said nothing; he just looked out at the road over the steering wheel.
The next day, I pranced into my classroom wearing the moccasins to show everyone how clever my mother was and how much she loved me.
“Look! See?” I said to anyone who would listen.
“Gee,” said Carol Rulnick as I modeled them for her.
“My mom made me these pretty Pocahontas shoes!” I sang.
“Those are nice,” said Tommy Flatto.
“Is your mom an Indian?” asked Phillip Braxton.  He was so dumb.
“Can I try them on?” asked Carol but I pretended I didn’t hear her.  I was crazy in love with those shoes; there was no way I was going to let her.
 I basked in the attention of my classmates and struck a few dramatic foot poses to show my moccasins off to their best advantage.
“Wendy Lawless, you come here this instant,” said my first grade teacher Miss Entus.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said skipping up to her.  I figured she just wanted a better look at my beautiful shoes and maybe to ask me where I got them.  But she didn’t.  She took her glasses off and stuck her hands on her hips.
“Wendy, I am appalled that your parents would allow you to wear bedroom slippers to school.”  She looked down at me sternly. 
“But…” I said. 
Until this moment I had loved Miss Entus with all my heart.  She was thin and blonde like my mother and she gave us lollipops during the spelling test.
“I’m afraid that it’s against school rules,” she said folding her arms across her chest.
I wanted to tell her that they weren’t bedroom slippers and that my mom had made them for me, that she had sewn the little beads on herself.
“You go to the office right now and you tell them that you are to be sent home,” Miss Entus said.
“But…” I tried again.
She pointed to the door.  I looked down at my feet, heartbroken.  There was hush as I walked out of the classroom and down to the office to wait for my father.  
Apparently no one had told Miss Entus that my moccasins had been hand-made by my crazy mom during her recreation period at the loony bin. 


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Valerie Harper and Chanel Bonfire

We interrupt this holiday weekend to remind you that…

So if you live in Southern California or you’re visiting the Los Angeles area for the Memorial Day weekend, check out Vicki Abelson’s website and get a ticket.  In Chanel, I describe visiting my father in the summers and him taking Robbie and me to Dayton’s department store in Minneapolis to buy playclothes which we never had in New York.  Dayton’s is the store in front of which Mary Tyler Moore tosses her hat into the air in the opening credits to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, co-starring none other than my reading buddy this Tuesday, Valerie Harper.  Small world.

http://www.vickiabelson.com/site/Women_Who_Write/Women_Who_Write.html

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Random Sightings, Connections and Book Group Skypes

A terrific looking woman caught reading Chanel Bonfire in Grand Central Station.
As the publication date for my book came closer, I began to realize that I was about to expose myself and my life to many (if I was lucky) complete strangers as well as people who knew me or had known me and yet did not know very much about my childhood.  It’s not that I didn’t realize what I was doing as I wrote the book; I just didn’t realize how completely exposed I might feel.  
And when the book was published in January and people began to read it, I did hear a lot of expected responses: I had know idea, You seemed so normal, I did wonder…, I had the same experience, My mother too was insane, I’m glad you wrote this, I don’t feel so alone.  What I didn’t expect were the little joys of random sightings of the book and people reading the book.  Friends and strangers started sending pictures of the book in airports and bookstores and peoples hands like the one above (Sent by my step-sister Mary while she was on a long weekend trip to New York from her home in Detroit.).  I also did not expect the heartfelt praise and gratitude from readers who had also had difficult childhoods and nowhere to turn, or the reconnections with some people who knew me as a kid or are characters in the book.  
I like hearing from readers — their reactions to the book, their own stories.  One of the most fun things I’ve been doing is Skyping with Book Groups.  These Skype sessions are even better than book tour and book store readings and events because they’re so much more intimate.  People always have questions or ideas I’ve never thought of.  And they like hearing stories which, for narrative reasons, I had to leave out of the book.  In a way I suppose these Skypes are like the director’s commentary in the special features section of dvds.  Often I get to hear stories from people in the groups too which I would never get to do at a book store.
So if your Book Group is reading Chanel and would like to get together, please email me at chanelbonfire@gmail.com and we can set up a Skype Chat.
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Summers Away from Georgann

Flower Children: Striking a pose next to Daddy’s Mustang convertible.

One summer, before Mother took us away to London, Daddy had some time off from the Guthrie and rented a little place in Wisconsin.  He’d drive along the back roads at what felt like a hundred miles an hour with the top down and Robbie and I jumping up and down in the back seat as the wind blew back our hair and rushed through our fingers.  I still get that feeling of freedom sometimes on a long drive.

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Saturday Night’s Alright

One of my musical heroes and great crush when I was a girl…

Here he in Central Park in 1980.  I first saw him at benefit at my school ASL in London.  Kiki Dee opened. It was before their “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” duet.  Our concert was in the fall just after the release of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road which of course became a very important album for me.  He appears briefly in CHANEL BONFIRE or at least his bottom does!

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Connie Martinson Talks Chanel Bonfire

The Doyenne of the West Coast Literary Scene, Connie Martinson.

I had a wonderful time discussing Chanel Bonfire with the wonderful, insightful reader Connie Martinson on her show “Connie Martinson Talks Books”.  She’s read everything, talked to everyone and truly appreciates a good story well told.  Her shows are all archived on her You Tube Channel and it’s a wonderful way to hear authors, including Barack Obama, talk about their work, their process and much more.

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