Tag Archive | PERSEPHONE IN HELL

Bitter Cold

Jan5

MOTHER NATURE

snowy-road

The weather outside is frightful. Oops, those are lyrics from a popular holiday song. Let me start again. The weather outside is hateful…no, the weather outside is unbearable…no, it’s horrible…no. Let’s start all over. The weather outside is exactly what it should be for winter in northern climes. It’s difficult. It’s cold, frigid, frosty, snowy, icy, windy, freezing. My character Glory in PERSEPHONE IN HELL is somewhat more eloquent than I in her thoughts about winter. She’s hitchhiking her way to school, just got picked up by a trucker who is very pleased to host this gorgeous teenage girl in his truck.

“I’m so damn cold. Will spring never come? She closed her eyes, willing Persephone, the goddess of spring, to arise from the dead. Nothing happened.

Should know better than to trust in the gods. Maybe I’ll thumb my way to Florida.

Her fingers moved up and down her frigid skin, trying to create some heat. The trucker’s hand left the steering wheel and inched across the vinyl seat toward her. “It’s like ice in here,” he said softly so as not to disturb her reverie. “I can help with that.”

Glory gave up on the gods for the moment and stared out the steamed up window. She counted the side streets they slowly passed – Forest Street, Chestnut Street, Spring Hill Lane. Such vernal, innocent places, green and natural. Merry and naked, nothing like winter; no snow drifts ever on Spring Hill.”

Ah, just the thought of the idyllic Spring Hill makes me wish I could thumb my way to somewhere else. Anywhere else. A place where Mother Nature reveals her softer side on a more regular basis. Where ice is mostly associated with cream, and cold with beer. Where a young girl can walk to school past inviting green lawns. Where truckers drive on by and no one misses them. Where cool, invigorating winds come to visit but don’t stay long. Where without the crushing weight of a hard bitter cold, the spirit can float free.

Slapping the Dough

Dec15

DREAMS AND MELANCHOLY

Apparently I’m obsessed with food. Completely obsessed. I hadn’t a clue how true that statement is until I wrote my book, PERSEPHONE IN HELL. The subject of food permeates my every chapter. Good times, ugly moments, difficult relationships, innocent encounters – food is everywhere in my story.

In Chapter Nannie and Sadie, Glory visits her grandmother and aunt in Boston for school vacation week. She looks forward to this annual trip which helps her escape, if only temporarily, from her cow town out in the country. But this time, Nannie and Sadie aren’t speaking to each other. Glory hasn’t any idea why.

“I should have stayed home. Why did I even come this year? Glory wondered as she sat watching Nannie knead the dough for the challah. Nannie was a good baker. Not as good as Ma, whose cinnamon bread, served warm with melting butter, filled the house with the scent of heaven.

Maybe it was in the forcefulness of Ma’s kneading that the spirit of bread in its full Platonic sense was revealed. Ma always said that slapping and pushing the dough around the breadboard was therapeutic. The idea is to get the dough as smooth and soft as a baby’s bottom, she’d say. Nannie’s hands were old and weak compared with Ma’s. But to give Nannie credit, her bread was good too.

Today, Nannie was silent as she lifted and pushed the dough with the palm of her hand, turned it, lifted and pushed again. Her eyes were angry but she wouldn’t say a word.

…Meanwhile, the silence was deafening. Glory couldn’t hold out much more, waiting for the new world she longed to see. I am bored, so very bored. And savages, all around and deep inside were stirring, moving to reclaim their lost land.”

Glory is a troubled girl. That’s evident right from the beginning of the story. Perhaps if she had learned to slap the dough instead of holding all her anger in, she might not have cut herself. It’s unfortunate that while Ma has learned a way to release some of her stress and anger, she hasn’t taught that trick to her daughter Glory. Slap the dough ‘smooth and soft as a baby’s bottom’ – now there’s a message not so subtle! There is no handing down of sympathies in this family. Each wrapped in her own distress, no one takes notice of another’s. Glory is on her own, truly.

 

Primal Scream

Dec8

AS SPIRITUAL AS I GET

I was reading a blog, the subject being Christmas. Unlike most blogs of the season that wish everyone good cheer and talk about the wonder of the holiday, this writing is different. The author feels alienated from Christmas. He can’t wait for it to be over. He believes religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is a power forced on people who don’t want it, something that causes unnecessary divisions between people. He believes that much of the hatred in the world is caused by those who believe their own faith is the only true faith. Perhaps that point of view, hating Christmas and all it stands for, sounds extreme to you.

I recently experienced a bit of the negative power of extremism in religion myself. An author on my writing site left me an email promoting her book about her Christian beliefs. It started out ‘you need to find the ugly truth about your life’ – something to that effect. I froze. I was shocked and scared by it. It sounded so threatening! I was having a bad day anyway; her words to me, a total stranger, literally seized me up with fright. After I regained my breath, I replied back and told her what I thought – that I was threatened and frightened by her words. That telling me I need to change my life, that my life is ugly, did no one any good. That it was harmful and didn’t make me want to read her book either. Us versus them – not good for humanity.

To her credit, she wrote back to apologize. She said she had no idea her message was offensive and that she would revise it for future emails. I know she won’t change her essential belief that I cannot be her equal if I can’t follow her Christian beliefs. I guess I’ll never be saved! At least she found out, though, that I am a real human being with feelings. And I found out she felt badly for upsetting me. But she couldn’t have discovered that if I hadn’t challenged her message. A little communication goes a long way. Makes us realize we are the same in more ways than we are different.

Religious belief, or the lack of it, is a consistently occurring theme in my novel PERSEPHONE IN HELL. Though my main character Glory doesn’t believe in God, she spends a great deal of time thinking about the subject. Glory’s mother Joyce is an atheist, and has passed her belief system on to her daughter. In this passage which happens close to the end of the book, Glory is agonizing about her loneliness and alienation. She desperately wants friends, to make human connections, find happiness. But there is no one left who cares enough to make communication possible. Glory is incredibly alone.

“I don’t have God. I don’t pray to the blue lights, or the cigarette gods, or the god of good fortune, or even to the goddess Persephone who raises the cruel spring.

It isn’t Persephone’s fault the spring brings chaos and disharmony. She ate three of Hades’ pomegranate seeds – big deal. That’s no reason to bind her to hell. That’s no reason to give up on her. Hades is the mean one, the gross and disgusting pig of an underworld god. Persephone isn’t much more than a child, Hades, though she looks adult. She’s just a girl, Hades. Leave Persephone be.”

Underneath every chapter of PERSEPHONE IN HELL is a cry for people to care about each other. It’s a primal scream of the most basic kind. A shout to the heavens to see who might be listening.

The Gray Lady

Dec2

DREAMS AND MELANCHOLY

I have to admit to being a tad weird when I was a teen. I grew up in a pre-Civil War era house with no insulation and lots of cracks and crevices where mice, rats, squirrels, and spiders roamed. I’d often hear scurrying in the walls and the creaky groans of a cold and tired old house. Once or twice, I recall even stranger sounds, perhaps cats that got stuck in the wall joists and died there. Something sounded like human babies moaning and crying in the dark. There were enough strange sounds emanating from my old home’s walls and attic eaves over the years to permanently scar my psyche.

And then one night when I was 13 or 14, the Gray Lady appeared. I’ll let my character Glory in PERSEPHONE IN HELL describe the experience.

“Gloria woke up with a panic. She tried to calm herself. Just then, the closet door next to her bed opened, and a ghost, all in grey, appeared from the dark.

She is floating into my bedroom. No, walking – well something in between. The ghost has a sternness on her face and a pointer in her hand. But she isn’t menacing; she doesn’t seem to mean any harm.

The Gray Lady didn’t stop or look around. She didn’t appear to notice the girls in the bedroom. She walked right past Gloria, took a turn at the bedpost, and passed by Penny sleeping in the next bed. Then she floated out of the room with a whispered wind-like tune. “Sur le pont d’Avignon, l’on y danse, l’on y danse…”

In the course of a few seconds, the ghost was on her way to someplace else. Glory was in shock. Her forehead burned. Her cuts felt razor sharp. I don’t believe it. I must be going off my rocker. In la-la land, for sure.”

I took to keeping a baseball bat next to my bed just in case I had to defend myself. And I was visited by the Gray Lady for many years, though no one else ever saw her. Was I insane? Psychotic or schizoid? Simply bursting with an imagination that couldn’t be controlled? Or, perhaps, I was in tune with an underworld I couldn’t begin to understand. Hades, messing with Persephone yet again. That old goat just can’t leave her alone.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

 

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Nov28

CALMLY RANDOM

thanksgiving-table-2

I don’t count the pounds anymore as it’s too depressing, but surely I’ve gained a few over the last weeks! What with the whipped cream, maple walnut rolls, turkey with stuffing and gravy and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with maple syrup, butternut squash with brown sugar, green beans with almonds and mushrooms, corn bread, broccoli with cheese sauce, corn pudding, chocolate raspberry cake, apple pie, and pumpkin pie (not to mention the assorted appetizers, nuts, wine, champagne, and hot mulled cider I consumed), I suppose one could say that I enjoyed the holiday to its fullest! Yes, I handmade from scratch almost everything on that list. Other family members brought the desserts, to give them credit. I am a good cook, probably not a great cook, certainly not a gourmet cook. But I think it all turned out well, very well. We’re still eating the leftovers, and I shall be wearing them proudly on my hips, thighs, and tummy for several months to come!

If you’ve had a chance to read through my book PERSEPHONE IN HELL you’ll find that Glory thinks about food a lot. Her family is poor, there are no luxuries, with six kids in the family one has to move fast to get a fair share. Food in the end is something to remember and savor.

“…let moonlight and soft pines in, blueberries and corn on the cob; strawberries in summer, crisp apples in fall…You’re not too old to run after the ice cream truck, and the breadbox can be clean. It can be full with homemade fudge and devil’s food cake now and again. There’s cinnamon sugared bread for the making.”

Some people eat to live. I live to eat. It’s a cliche but true. In a world that sometimes seems uncontrollable, hard, even cruel, a fine meal can keep a person’s spirits strong. Good food – Mother Nature’s finest work.

 

Chinese Food For Thought

Jul29

AS SPIRITUAL AS I GET

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

The secret’s out – I eat Chinese food fairly often. How do we know? The frequent references to my fortunes, of course.

Tonight’s revelation: “Focus on trusting your intuition and you will get through it.” This fortune seems rather appropriate and timely. I like to think that I have an intuitive sense about myself and the obstacles I face. But what about conflicting intuitions, those instances where communication appears to be real and yet the people involved are light years apart in understanding? One person’s intuition is another’s indecipherable attitude. In this 1968 scene from PERSEPHONE IN HELL, Glory and her physics teacher couldn’t be further away from understanding each other.

“Stay a minute, will you, Gloria?” Mrs. Standish asked.

What’s important enough to make me late for my next class?

Madeline Standish looked at Glory. She saw a vibrant girl with a movie star figure, startling violet eyes, and wild dark hair strung with colored beads. Those hippies, Madeline thought, out to change the world. Our perfectly good world.

“Miss M_____, you simply must pay more attention in my class. Your grade depends on it. You want to go to college, don’t you? Well, of course you do, a bright girl like you. Not that girls need college. But you don’t want to end up a nobody, do you?”

I’ll never be a nobody.

Glory drew herself up out of her self-indulgent slouch. Her eyes turned dark and piercing. She looked at Mrs. Standish with the wrath of the high born.

I am Elizabeth of England, the great queen, and being talked to as a lowly sailor.

Madeline sensed she had said the wrong thing. She tried again.

“Glory, as a member of God’s Chosen People, you have a special obligation. You have to try your best. We know that all Jews are smart. That’s God’s truth. God expects a lot of you.”

Oh, is that all this is? I’m not about to let on to Mrs. Standish that I don’t believe in the god of the Jews, or any other god for that matter.

She’s complicated and interesting, Madeline admitted to herself. But Jews are tricky. I much prefer our normal girls. Still, I treat everyone the same and I’m proud of that. It’s a modern world, after all.”

Tonight, along with my Singapore rice noodles, beef with broccoli, and Peking ravioli, I contemplate my life. I sit in front of this computer with a glass of red French wine and wonder where the world will take me. What trust should I have in my own intuition, when it’s clear that intent can so easily be misinterpreted? Even one’s own mind must be subject to scrutiny. How long, how deeply should I think things through? What about feelings? Am I thinking too much? Focus…trust…intuition – Chinese food for thought.

Messed Over

Jun20

MAD RAVINGS

I just can’t control it lately. I’m messed up, messed over, crazed and running in circles, can’t figure it, so messed up. I suppose you’d never know it. Because you never guessed how difficult and savage the teen years were, how cruel. You can’t see me even now in this old, graying body. We only see ourselves; we know no one else’s despair. We don’t know each other, not really.

 

[Excerpt from PERSEPHONE IN HELL]

“[Sir Billy’s steel]

Billy was insistent. If Glory was ready to puke, he didn’t care. “Aw, come on,” he said with a nasty whine. “You know why we came out here. Don’t play all innocent with me.”

So much for chivalry. I’m tired and I just want to go home. The bleachers are damp. My foot aches.

He pulled her toward him and kissed her with an ugly impatient passion. “Stop it, Billy! Cut it out!” she demanded. He wouldn’t listen. He held her with one hand while the other pushed its way under her shirt to her bra. He shoved his hand under it and felt her naked breast. Gloria tried to pull back. I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. I’m not ready for a boy like Billy.

She slapped at Billy’s face, and as she did, he suddenly let go. “No broad is worth this!” he snarled. She fell onto the bleacher seat. She hit her back and tumbled down the steel steps to the ground. She lay on the damp dark grass.

Billy was infuriated. He said, “I only went out with you on a bet to see if I could get you laid. You’ll never be popular. You’re a joke, always in la-la land. You’re probably a lesbian, that’s what everyone says.” Billy the Cruel walked away as though he were king conqueror of the world, back from a successful crusade. “I showed her,” he announced to the dark field and hidden woods. “Must be a lezzie.”

When he was gone, Glory pulled herself up off the ground and slowly limped through the field, past the diamond, past the carnival, past the gate, and home. She couldn’t remember ever feeling worse. Couldn’t recall a time when she felt less like the queen she had always imagined herself to be.

She closed the bathroom door, and with a dull razor she found in the drawer, cut fifteen slashes on her thighs and on her breasts. One slash for each year of my failure of a life.”

 

Strange

May16

MAD RAVINGS

Sometimes my emotions sit right on my skin. Sometimes they stick in my brain. Sometimes my thoughts are so muddled with unidentifiable emotion that they flood my head and sweat my skin. I don’t know what I’m doing; I don’t know where I am. Where am I? Where the hell am I? Crazy. Strange. Strange, old friend, inscrutable strangeness, you’ve been with me a long time.

“How I hitched into Boston just the other day. How the glare of the sun in the trucker’s eyes had blinded him for a moment, how we’d almost crashed into the guard rail. It was lucky – he’d had his hand on my leg for balance; I grabbed the wheel and turned us back onto the pavement until he could recover his sight.

It’s pure luck I have a body so many men want to touch, so many seem to need. Like the guy on Tremont Street who confused me for a street walker, who offered me thirty bucks to have sex. When I said no, you’re confused old man, he looked sad as he walked away, as though he had missed the experience of a lifetime. I would have been so lucky to be with you, he seemed to be thinking.”

In this excerpt from PERSEPHONE IN HELL, teenage Glory is confused too. She’s wondering what her life amounts to. She can’t think of what she’s worth. Her thoughts are all muddled up, circling round and round that grey matter, searching for a way out. Circles never end; there’s no way out. It’s crazy, weird. Strange, damn strange. No way out.

 

A Waiting Game

Apr9
 CALMLY RANDOM

It takes solid perspective and a certain maturity to wait. Waiting for something good to happen, like getting an offer for a better job or a HarperCollins editorial review. Waiting for your children to grow up and become independent adults. Waiting to retire to start living. Waiting for the next phase of your life to begin. Truth be told, I’ve never been a patient person. To wait is to hope for life to be better one day. To wait is to wish for an improved future. One day…I’ll get that Mini Cooper I’ve always wanted…my novel will be published…thousands, no millions of people will buy and appreciate my book…those extra pounds will disappear…I’ll buy my luxury city condo and that isolated cave by the salty sea…I’ll make my living by writing.

Hope. It’s a waiting game. Some find hope easy to come by, while others like me get annoyed and impatient, bored and dissatisfied with the endless infinity of a disembodied future. But Ancient Glory takes a practical approach in my novel, PERSEPHONE IN HELL. Forty years after her coming of age, Glory reckons that both hope and impatience are misplaced emotions. Her years have gone by; her life is almost over. It’s time to get real.

“Perhaps I have a bit of a real queen in me after all. Because I decided that I wanted to live. And I’ve learned something, not from all my imaginings and escapes, my fractured histories. I’ve learned there is nothing to be done but accept the explanations. Block out the pain. Go on. Even a queen can only wait so long for good news from across a wide ocean. At some point, she’s got to move on.

And scars will lighten, they’ll pale unless you keep rubbing at them. Best to let them be, let them fade away in their own good time, in their own difficult and savage, cruelly dissonant way. Wait long enough, they’ll fade – it’s the law of nature.”

Wait long enough…no, that’s Ancient Glory. That’s not impatient, impulsive, impetuous me.

 

Morning Has Broken

Apr5

CALMLY RANDOM

This morning my phone rang at 8 o’clock and woke me up. Out of a deep sleep. On a Saturday, which is one of my two sacred days of morning rest. No one messes with my sleep on a Saturday morning – no one. It’s my sabbath, n’es pas? I value my sleep so much that when my kids were small (and I mean prop-up-in-baby-carrier small) I’d stick them at the end of my bed with bowls of Cheerios and let them watch TV for hours at a time – Bozo the Clown, The Magic of Oil Painting, Jack LaLane. Anything that was on TV on a Saturday morning at 5 a.m. was fair game so long as I could sleep through it. Call me a bad mother, I don’t care. I needed my sleep then; I need it now.

This unflagging self-centeredness reminds me of my character Joyce, Glory’s mother in PERSEPHONE IN HELL, You’ll recall that while Glory craves beauty and power in her fantasy queendom, all Joyce wants is to be Cleopatra and sail down the Nile by herself with no one to mess with her. In this scene, Joyce is smoking in bed on a hot and humid Sunday morning.

“Joyce propped herself up in bed and looked around the room at the piles of her beloved books. They were mostly science fiction. She liked books better than she liked most people, maybe even better than her own kids. In fact her books were like her children in many ways. She treated them the same. Just like her kids, her books were not well kept. Not put properly back on the shelf at night, not always read cover to cover or contents appreciated.

Rather, Joyce’s books were dumped in piles surrounding her. Some with torn covers, others fallen behind the bookcase, pages splayed open with coffee stains. Or in a corner, dust covered and crawling with daddy long legs.

When she chose a book to read, she would devour it with pure pleasure. Nothing else would matter. Then, she’d throw it onto the discard pile where it would lie unseen, quite literally for years.”

Sleep, science fiction, kids…what deep dreams are made of.

PS The call was not important.