SWEPT AWAY - IN REMEMBRANCE

Not much to look at but still, a Prince is a Prince. When news of a new girlfriend began to develop and the serious nature, I knew my chances at being Queen were up. Diana was a year younger than me. While I was working on an English Degree, reading 300 pages a day, from Shakespeare to Lord Byron, she was learning the fine etiquette required for eating bouillabaisse with four utensils while in polite conversation with a Head of State. My Prince was just around the corner studying architecture and her Prince was the world's most eligible bachelor.

I quickly became the expert on all things Lady Diana. Two months after her engagement, I had my own Lady Diana haircut. Fashions quickly began to reflect her style - ruffles, bow ties, sweet prints, sheer white hosiery, white collared dresses and blouses - romantic flounces in soft colors. She was a young, natural beauty. And now she was marrying the future King of England.

Young. Not even twenty years old when she was engaged to the thirty-two year old Prince. They had been formally introduced in 1977 by Diana's sister, Lady Sarah. Lady Diana was a sixteen year old girl and Prince Charles was a twenty-nine year old man but their families had known each other forever.

At the time, I never batted an eyelash over the age difference. It was cool to think of marrying an older man who was also the maybe, King of England, someday. Adults who knew me tried to discourage me over the whole affair.  You would have thought I was the one marrying the older man. But they saw how swept away I was in this romantic endeavour and humored me. I knew Diana and Charles loved each other. That's why people get married. I can understand how a diamond tiara and the Royal Yacht could turn a head.

But did any adult involved really think a marriage with a twelve year age difference would work out, much less be any fun after the heir and the spare reached preschool?  Not a single adult acted in the best interest of Lady Diana. Not a parent, priest or Prince.

Yes. She said yes. That's what you do when you are madly in love with life and a Prince and a gorgeous, huge sapphire and diamond ring. Yes is the easy part. Twenty is still so new to be learning life. But it is the best time to try without reservation. Bold and brave. Swept away.

Diana's tilting head and endearing blush were innocently given up for the photographers as she and her Prince stood on the grounds of Buckingham Palace, posing for the official engagement pictures. Moments later they returned inside for a news interview. While holding Diana's hand, Prince Charles laughed slightly and said in response to a question, the game changer, "Whatever 'In Love' means." The cameras were rolling and so were the thoughts of most rational people watching.  But in another spot, say fetching some fish and chips, a smaller ring would have been bouncing off the cobblestones.

But this is not a regular deal. Royals don't throw rings and marriages are perfectly planned. A twenty year old woman can be crushed but more determined to go for the fairytale, the expected route for a Queen-to-be.

And she still said yes. 750 million television onlookers are anticipating a beautiful wedding as her carriage pulls up. Wrapped in clouds of glorious silk taffeta and tulle - a vision of bridal joy. Flat, delicate silk, mother of pearl slippers with suede soles, so she doesn't slip, measure her steps toward a future of choice. We didn't know what we didn't know, thankfully.

And we can be carried along on this fairytale ride in an open carriage full of flowers and balloons because we want love to work. We want a Prince and Princess to really live happily everafter. And maybe for awhile, they loved and were happy. This romantic likes to think so.

Along the lane of my Wales' obsession, I have collected sixteen lovely books detailing everything from the Princess' fashion, including maternity fashion and nursery handbook, to the book by her butler and the book written by Andrew Morton with Diana's secret tapes, revealing anything but a fairytale existence.

My favorite book is the very first book, Charles and Diana, The Prince and Princess of Wales by Trevor Hall. It begins right before their engagement and goes through the announcement of her pregnancy. Their first official walkabouts as the British people fall "in love" with Lady Diana, discovering her gift of ease and warmth and interest in the people and world around her.

Three weeks after the Royal Wedding, Charles and Diana met seventy photographers at Balmoral on the Brig O Dee. These are my favorite pictures. They look happy and relaxed. Finally, it appears that Charles has figured out whatever in love means. Soon they will have a young family, reinforcing the fairytale.

Princess Diana is beautiful, the most photographed woman in the world, ever. In time, she will not need anyone's permission to be her own person. She has poured herself into her two sons and they will continue her legacy of outreach.

I would rather celebrate the person instead of an anniversary. However, with time, I have questioned the world, including myself, which bought the books and magazines. Sadly, I don't think we ever realized the vicious power of pursuit until the ending of the frenetic desperation in a Paris tunnel.

The Althorp family presented a touring exhibition of Princess Diana's personal things: her wedding dress and other clothing, along with memorabilia from her childhood. Diana: a celebration. A very simple and elegant exhibit.

Behind the quietly lit glass, the yards of silk taffeta and tulle were breathtaking. Her dress was a fluffy concoction of bows and lace and poufs - a wedding dress fit for a young Princess. She was tall, tall enough to carry the twenty-five foot train behind her. Her preserved wedding attire looked as if she could slip the dress over her head and replay the events of that day.

 I remember as a young girl, my mother, grandmother and I going through a trunk of my mother's things. When she reached in to pick up her veil, the tulle netting disintegrated like a dandelion in a whisper.

I looked at Diana's wedding slippers. They were silk and embroidered with mother of pearl sequins with suede soles. My wedding shoes are in the top of my closet.  They are white leather sandals with a cut out trellis pattern. They are tucked away to stay, forever. No one will wear them again. But I know they are there.

I am sentimental romantic. Sometimes on my anniversary, I will get a step ladder and get the box down, open the red Bandolino box and pick one of them up. I look at the tiny shoe from another day. I turn it over and look at the scuffs on the sole. I didn't have a carriage to carry me. It's as if holding that shoe in my hand can bring back the magic of August 1982 at three o'clock in the afternoon. And some years, I have needed the magic of the memory.

Nothing but the most exquisite for the wedding of the century. From the top of a sparkling diamond tiara to the bottom of a suede sole. So as not to slip on the royal red rug at St. Paul's Cathedral or the step out onto the festooned balcony of Buckingham Palace. Never let her sole touch the ground. Angel flying too close to the ground.*



*Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground, Willie Nelson, 1981

Originally posted September 4, 2017

BJORN BORG HAS A PIMPLE ON HIS TEMPLE

When people ask me what I do, I say I’m a writer. I don’t say I’m an author because that would mean there was actually enough money to deposit into my account. According to my mother, I have been holding forth before I could speak real words. Preaching it, sister.

I was afraid to write a blog. The worldwide web is big and terrifying. I didn’t do it for fame and fortune. I didn’t have a target audience. No agenda. After a little contemplation, I decided to start a blog for my own need – a place to put my stories. My very own island of creativity.

Somewhere, in all of this plenty, is a journal from young motherhood. I had written the word RANDOMONIUM to describe a typical day. And it wasn’t out of kindness. It was underlined. A good name to cover everything I wanted to write about - stories, opinions, recipes, pictures, poetry.

Of course, I have never turned down the opportunity to swirl in the middle of a room for an admiring audience. But I began writing very simple do-dads in grade school.[1] At some point, I began thinking of items as genders with stories - the dice in a Yahtzee game, marbles in Chinese Checkers and even the keys on the piano. It was so common to me, I never mentioned it. I was a mother when I found out not everyone sees the world in numbers and genders.

Being a writer can be very distracting. Having a blog should be easy. Yes and no. The inspiration is usually easy. The discipline is not. Especially for some of us. Standing all day at a desk, waiting on a word or two to type or covering the walls with notes or scribbling ideas onto the wall. I am not that brilliant. Brilliant is as brilliant does.

I do remember standing on a slight rise of black soil, trees and grass freshly turned over in preparation for new homes, farmland which had been sold to the highest bidder, just one more piece of Texas soon to be seeded for double named real estate developers selling seven floor plans, three styles of bathroom tile and five types of front windows. Watching the sun set, looking out at a city reflected all around us. I was holding my little cousin’s hand.  This was my first instant inspiration. I 

have never forgotten it.

I came home and wrote furiously in my three ring binder. I wrote in class without getting caught. Scribbles, really. My friends wanted to read my stories but I was protective.  The binder is in a box under the bed, somewhere. I have theories on the different locations of my precious handwritten anything. I thought I would be famous but the museum never called. I don’t envy my daughter after I go to glory.

When I was thirteen, I began writing poetry. Almost daily until my sophomore year of college. Of course, it was a lot of fluff. Every now and then, I would see a spark. Nothing dark and foreboding or mystically symbolic. Just as you see it, to be read and enjoyed by people who usually fear poetry because it is mystically symbolic. I have always loved to read and write poetry.

I went to three schools in four years, and graduated, and only changed my major for one semester. Teaching. The professor was so boring; I couldn’t take two more miserable years.[2] Now I know I would have loved teaching English.[3] We are not very smart when we are twenty-two.

No one officially asked me what I was going to do with my life or offered any direction. It was a different day and your life did not have to be figured out before ninth grade second period class for the next thirty years. We barely knew what a computer was but the really smart cookies were getting those first degrees in computer science (sexy). The only home computers were built by geniuses on their dining room tables. So a little English major (not sexy) could just find her own way. I held on to my English Major and dared anyone to make me change. “I want to be a writer.”

And then life just happened, unexpected and unwanted. But where you are is where you are. Poetry and journaling kept me writing. I also wrote a children’s story, occasionally submitting it to small publications.  

Before all of this, there WAS a defining moment for the writer in me. My Daddy said, “You can always be on the newspaper!” the crushing after-second I found out I did not make the drill team at my new school.[4] I probably fell out on the floor. My life was over. Never mind that I had practiced for two weeks and then try-outs. With an undiagnosed case of raging mono. We won’t investigate that back story.

The newspaper changed my life. I found my spot. I was a staff writer. My senior year I was the editor for my high school newspaper. Late nights, a lightbox and diet Dr. Pepper. Typewritten articles. Everything done by hand – layouts, counting headlines, measuring columns. Assignments. Interviewing. Checking proofs.  

I know Bjorn Borg had a pimple on his temple because I saw it when I was sitting right next to him in a press conference. He was the second ranked tennis player in the world and had won Wimbledon the year before.

I was very nervous in my first press conference, a room full of sports reporters and one other woman. My trusty cassette tape recorder was shaking in my lap. His fur coat was draped across a Razorback director’s chair. I was sixteen, he was twenty with brilliant blonde hair and blue eyes and his Swedish flair.[5] With a pimple. We are all human.

I asked him a question about his recent loss to Jimmy Connors. He answered in a manner I still am unable to publish. But I had my picture made with him, anyway.    

After five years, I just write. Inspiration. Hard work. (Sometimes days.) Stream of consciousness. In the car, pen and paper, writing about the winter landscape, driving up the road to Christmas. It can be an obsession. The more you write, the more you want to write. Somehow squeezing life – a new grandson, dirty laundry, knitting and Mah Jongg (brain teasers), car insurance, eggs milk butter bacon into all the folds of this accordion life.

Numbers aren’t everything. So I say. But it is amazing to me that readers all over the world have hit the button, five digits worth, to see about Randomonium, making up a true United Nations, our stories swirling around the world. 

Thank you for five years of reading. I am just a storyteller with the opportunity to put words on paper. 

Years ago, at a small, casual event, I met a popular newspaper columnist. For years, I was a faithful reader of her stories in the state newspaper. Naturally, I was excited to meet her. After introducing myself, I told her how much I enjoyed her stories. There were no other people standing with us. She said, “Thank you for your readership.” That was it. She slipped out of the conversation like the saucy barbecue ribs she was making a b-line for. The Queen had spoken.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for the occasional person who mentions a post. I have a friend who still chuckles when he asks me about a bride wearing red tennis shoes. Thank you for your 

comments. Thank you for letting me.

We are not going to meet at the barbeque. You’ll be my invited guest. I’ll be throwing it down for your encouragement and support for these five years. And more to come!

In my office August 10, 2018

---

[1] Fred the Tom Cat – The First , Randomonium 4-22-18

[2] My sister and sister-in-law are both loving, giving teachers on the frontlines of teaching.

[3] I would only qualify for teaching literature because my blogging style has devastated my grammar and punctuation skills.

[4] I had been on a drill team in another state the year before, meeting the qualifications of kicking way above my head and doing a cartwheel split, important talents for young Southern ladies wishing to twirl in the middle of a football field or a  basketball gymnasium. Also impressive party tricks for the rest of your life until you have ankle surgery.

[5] Borg may have obtained a Computer Science Degree between matches.

THEY ONLY FOUND HER HEAD - WHAT A STORYTELLER HEARS Part 1

They didn't touch his brain. A sentence to get your attention, Overheard during a layover at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport. A family of three were having this serious conversation, oblivious to my presence. I had a small notebook out for the long layover. I usually carry one because I don't like to sit without doing something. Most writers will admit to being careful eavesdroppers.

The story proves people will say anything in a crowd - a party, a movie theater, waiting rooms. We don't think anyone else is listening except the person standing next to us.  Mind you, these are not stories we would get up and share in a hushed dinner hall. These are things that could hush a room in full throttle.

Are our spoken words safer in a crowd? Does a public space give us courage to say things we only think in private?

One afternoon I was waiting in my doctor's office with my Sudoku puzzle book. I usually carry one in my bag. Besides being addicted to nine squares, it makes me invisible.

Two ladies were sitting nearby, maybe a grandmother and her daughter. I already knew the grandmother had seventeen children. Reeling from that kicker, in this quiet waiting room, the grandmother offers out of the blue, "They only found her head." She had good timing because I almost fell out until she said "the cat."  Of course, that was not a pleasant thought. You never know what people will say.

My hair salon is rich with details. A friend says every good stylist knows where the bodies are buried.
In one afternoon, I was privy to these two partial discussions. I was getting my hair shampooed, one of my favorite luxuries.

And let us not forget the complete, nothing private, barn door open cell phone. This was the one sided conversation. Verbatim. Because I always get to my book and write these things down.

"You need to eat humble pie. This is not going to fly. He is mentally unstable. I told her "Girl, that's not a diaper, it's your panties." Strange. Minds flipping back and forth.

As I was getting my cut and color, drama in the next chair. I had to listen. I pulled my puzzle book out later when my color was working. 

"Are you in love? Ever been to Europe? Getting dry - so long. All my friends lied to me... I said that but he said no... Last year it was Mexico."  After a lengthy discussion of her lovelife and travel, her overprocessed hair and her lying friends, she actually started talking about greenbeans, okra and tomatoes. Non-stop even through the blow-dry.

This is what people are talking about. Outloud to the whole world.

Everyone carries a story. But not everyone tells their story in the waiting room or airport. I think if you asked most people, they would say nothing has ever happened to them, at first. But then they might remember. Long ago ancestors walking the Trail of Tears. Watching a favorite aunt fry up a baloney sandwich. Lying on blankets,under a country dark night with cousins, listening to "Close To You" over and over and over. Flying a plane at eighty years of age. Milking a cow during a marriage proposal. Painting a red room two and  a half times. Jumping in puddles one afternoon. Riding in a private jet with Coach Bear Bryant. Most are not earth shattering but the back stories could be phenomenal. Inspiration is out there.

I have been a storyteller all of my life. A wise mother once told me to write what I know. When I was probably twelve, I taught myself to type on my Pa's typewriter. A new sheet of paper, slipped into the typewriter, was a thrilling possibility. Almost the first place I headed when we got to my grandparents' house. Uninterrupted time to sit at the typewriter desk. Space for my imagination to grow. Encouragement for my toddling gift.

 My love of storywriting pushed me out into the unknown world of blogging. Five years later I'm still here.


Part Two to follow.