I’m reading “Fall of Giants” by Ken Follett. 802 pages long, the first in his trilogy about the 20th century. Since he is 62, I suspect this trilogy will take years of research and writing, and may be his swan song after a long, successful career that began with “Eye of the Needle” when he was 27. Prior to this, he had already published five books before striking the mother lode. He is one of those dedicated, working writers who can now choose to write the books that he wants to.

After reading about him, I ask myself, What if I had stayed on the writing path that I started on when I was 12? Would I now be a recognized author? Maybe, but I would have spent my life doing something that I loved. While I also loved my advertising career, the difference is that I worked for others to promote other people’s products rather than my own.

When I was 12, and reluctantly living in Mexico (after being informed that we were not going home to England), I sat down at my mother’s Remington and typed my first book, “The Glass Stag.” 240 pages, double-spaced. Then I revised and rewrote it three times. My next book came at 13 (considered and rejected by MacMillan as excellent but no audience for a book written by a teenager). At 14, I joined an adult read and critique group, where I wrote my third book.

I knew for certain that I would become a writer.

Then why did I stray from that path?

Young love, having fun, moving, a career, New York and London took over my life. Until I was 21 and in a dull marketing job where I wrote lots of poetry. One day, I looked out of the filthy office window and thought, Is this how I want to spend my life? I quit, typed scripts at the BBC part-time for a living, and spent several months writing a book. This time, I was on track.

Until the day I met the love of my love who whisked me off for a year of high style living and travel before we broke up.

Back I went to a high-flying job as PR for an airline (pun intended) until marriage and a kid led me back to the corporate world and to Mexico, another marriage, another child, and then as a single mother supporting my kids.

Once, a friend from my first read and critique group, who had published several books, took the manuscript written years before in London to his top New York agent who got all excited about it. “Just clean it up and send it back,” he asked. It was a week before my second marriage, I was about to start a new job, and I had a two-year old to look after. The timing was off. I never did.

Fast forward to forced early retirement from advertising, a failed business, and the urge to create came back. In a golden four and a half months, I typed out (yes, an electric typewriter) the first draft of my opus, “Recognition.” As I rewrote 2nd and 3rd drafts, I supported myself with part-time work teaching English and selling my belongings. The agent from before, one of New York’s best, agreed to read it twice, both times sending me encouraging rejection letters. Over the following years, I wrote another seven drafts, joined several writing groups, and often followed up on comments made by agents in the numerous rejection letters. My first chapter won an award. But after seven years with “Recognition,” I wasn’t getting anywhere. So I stuck it in the closet.

I wrote another first draft of a novel, and a personal memoir (five drafts) that everyone, except for me, in three writing groups praised and loved. I was a weekly newspaper columnist and had shorter pieces published.

Next, inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed”, I took a Writers Digest book proposal course. When I approached several agents, they all wanted to see the book. For several years, while working freelance as a Hispanic report writer, I wrote “Don’t Hang Up!” Initial response from agents: great book, excellent writing, current and relevant theme, “but you need credentials for a publisher to be interested in it.”
An impasse of sorts until online opportunities unfolded before me.

Another writers’ conference and I knew where I was going: Found a small publisher willing to publish my book if I’d promote it. Put up my website, contacted a publicist, ready to go, and …

Hit by the economic downturn that depleted my resources, left me jobless again. And book less.

However, I still had a blog so I decided to make a go of that. Try to create interest in “Don’t Hang Up!” and then publish it.
I became addicted to blogging, not so much writing posts as to reading other people’s blogs and commenting on them. Many blogs inspired me or filled me with such enthusiasm that comments flowed, and I’d spend the better part of a week happily blogging.

I realized I’d lost my focus.
I wasn’t looking for or doing much work.
I got hustling and found freelance work. A lot.
That issue solved.

The other, my writing has been on hold. Meanwhile, several friends have published their books. Where am I with mine? What have I done to get it published? Too busy blogging.

Do I want to be a blogger or a book writer?

I already asked this question in a blog post months before, “Out to Sea. To Blog or Not to Blog.”

The answer is right in front of me.

I’ll never have the time or experience to aspire to reach Ken Follett’s level.
However, I do have two finished and edited memoirs, one first draft, and the outline for a trilogy that starts with “Recognition” (needs another go round/editing).

For me, at 68, time is at a premium.

So I’d better get going – and fast – with my writing.
And I can’t let life and work get in the way again.

Photo credit: Jacob Tron

What does “It is as it is” really mean?

Is it just a cliché?

Or a useless phrase to shrug off something that can’t be explained, which I guess, might make it seem profound.

I heard it again, the other day in a movie, “Company Men.”
And on TV at least three times in the past week.

I heard it from someone I care about who had lost his job and couldn’t find another. “You know, the economy is lousy, no one wants older people. It is as it is,” he told me.

There you are. Defeated by one phrase. All he could say.

For me, it’s a sign of helplessness, giving up, and – a lack of imagination. I’m resigned, can’t do anything about it, and therefore, I’ll just accept things the way they are.

Vanquished by a worth-nothing cliché.

Or is that what “It is as it is” really is?

So I decided to research it and yes, “It is as it is,” has been used/is used in everything from transcendental meditation to motivational courses to TV series and movies, etc.

Voted by USA Today as the #1 cliche of 2000.

Motivational Books/Speaking<
“The past has no power over the present moment. ... It is as it is.” Eckhart Tolle, author of the bestsellers, The Power of Now and A New Earth. In 2008, an article in the New York Times referred to him as “the most popular spiritual author in the United States.” According to a 2009 article in the New York Times, Tolle is “not identified with any religion, but uses teachings from Zen Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism and the Bible”.

Agnosticism
Thomas Henry Huxley: “Is there a God? I do not know. Is man immortal? I do not know. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.”

Scientific
Stephen Hawking: “My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

Religious
“The Way It Is” by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho “We can observe the sensory realm for what it is. We’re not trying to get rid of it. We’re not complicating it by trying to add to it – we’re just being aware of it as it is. This is what we mean when we use such terms like: ‘It is as it is.‘

GuruBob’s Posterous Blog – It is…as it is!
Are you ready to do away with the phrase “it is what it is”, where did this come from and how did most of the country including actors, news commentators, and politician adopt this phrase?

Movies
The movie “Heat” (1995) that made it big! A scene between Al Pacino & Robert De Niro. Pacino then says, “That’s pretty vacant.” De Niro replies with, “Yea, it is what it is… That or we both go do something else pal.”

Literature and Poetry
1983 poem in German by Erich Fried: “It is What it is.”

Philosophy
At least in Parmenides’ contemporaries Pindar and Bacchylides, that involves tracing it to its origins, showing how and why it is as it is. …

“The Original Sun of God” – Dennis Diehl “Something that bright got humanity’s attention. Venus always was and always will be a planet on the inside orbit between earth and the sun. It behaves as it does because it is as it is ever sparkling, ever steady, unmoving and unchanging…”

Answerbag
“Are you ready to do away with the phrase “it is what it is“, where did this come from and how did most of the country including actors, news commentators, and politician adopt this phrase?”

Some replies to that were:
“A phrase that seems to simply state the obvious but actually implies helplessness.”

“It is what it is” can be considered rude within the context of its use. It’s very passive and can show a lack of concern for human interaction on a more personal level, and it lends itself to condescension. It’s a phrase that asserts that sometimes people have to simply accept the way something is, which I think too many people refuse to do anymore.”

Do I have to say any more?

How do you interpret, “It is as it is”? Do you have another take on this or is it all a lot about nothing?

Picture credits:Veronica Valades

Job loss often signifies much more than simply that. It can be an emotional loss – especially after long-term employment – or as bad as losing a dear friend of family member.

Many people experience something similar to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) as a pattern of adjustment.

What I saw, and experienced, were reactions that varied from anger, resentment, confusion, disappointment, mourning, fear, and bravado to sometimes, but not always, acceptance and/or renewed motivation. Unlike Kubler’s stages, these reactions had no specific order, tending to jump around or back and forth between one and the other, until settling into a specific mode.

I had bravado – oodles of it.

I could not admit to anyone, least of myself, that I was also out on a limb. No, I had to show them that I knew where I was going, and I told all and sundry just that. It helped that a lot of other co-workers had also been laid off at the same time.

So I pretended and then my pretense became fact and I chose to ignore that little inner voice warned me against it.

In other words, I had to show the world and to convince everyone, including myself, that I was not a loser.

“Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” Tom Stoppard

Here is another excerpt from my book about midlife job loss and making a new start Don’t Hang Up!

What Do You Do When the Good Times End?

Our favorite word is: “Salud.” Over drinks and lunch and more drinks, a group of the Ax Man’s victims share our dismissal from Paradise.

Most of us, in shock and disbelief over our situation, have dawdled in our job searches, blaming the delay on elusive contacts who promise and promise, but don’t fulfill. In the meantime, we live off our severance packages, while convincing ourselves, and each other, that we will find work before the money runs out. Some talk about potential interviews as if they were fact, and behave as if they are being pursued with job offers when they are, in reality, the seekers.

We are lost souls wandering through an unknown jungle. Stripped of our trappings, we have few survival skills. We are sinking, drawing down each other under our mutual load of delusions of past grandeur.

“Stop deceiving yourselves,” I tell them. “Once word gets out that you don’t have a job, ad agencies aren’t interested in you, just give you the runaround. I’m not willing to go through that hassle.”

They turn angry eyes on me for bursting their imaginary bubble.

Truth is, for me, the vista is barren. I can’t look for a job in another ad agency – they would have to call me first. And if I’m not seated behind a desk in an office, it’s doubtful they will. Nor can I, a former top executive, stoop to lower levels or bow my head before people who have been my inferiors. It would give the impression I’m a failure or have lost my edge – and who wants leftovers?

“I’m going to set up my own business,” I tell my friends. “And I can use any help you can give me.”

I have no clear idea how I can use them – the words came out before I could stop them – but I need my comrades beside me. They make me feel that I’m still someone.

“A restaurant and catering business.” I outline my plans as if they were fact and not being made up as I go along.

Their faces are eager, grasping at this hope I extend to them.

“Call it Pennie’s.”

“Pennie’s Deli sounds better.”

“Everyone in the advertising business knows you and they’ll flock to it.”

They all want a finger in my pie. It will give us a mutual goal, like working together on an ad campaign. The difference is that, in this case, I’m the one who will put up all the money. They assume I got a good severance package, and I did. Little do they know that a chunk went on taxes. Or that I’ve lost my focus and have only a vague notion of how to replace it.

Keeping up appearances and my five-bedroom house is important. I can’t give it up; it’s my children’s home. Their rooms are intact for when my older son, who lives in Dallas, and my younger one, studying in Italy, come to visit. For company, I have a live-in maid, a collie, a rottweiler, two chow-chows, and a floundering relationship with my long-time boyfriend.

After years of devoting my energy to the workplace, it’s hard to sleep at night. I stay up until the wee hours drinking Scotch, sleep late in the morning, and nap whenever I feel like it. No reason to keep regular hours. No kids to awaken, no office to go to. Who cares if I’m half sloshed? I dream of making a splash in a new field, and conduct a (frenetic) search for cooking ideas, scouring recipe books and magazines, and making lists, lists, lists.

Nothing will deter me from turning my restaurant project into reality. Not even if I have to invest all of my severance pay in it.

How did you react after job loss? Did you make some bad decisions?

Picture: Gustave Dore

When I worked in the phone room, I often misjudged people, assuming they were something they were not. I found out that many were very different from what I thought them to be at first, and vice-versa, others wondered what someone like me was doing there. Below is an excerpt from “Don’t Hang Up!”

“You Never Know Who You Will Meet in the Phone Room”

“Don’t you people have anything better to do on the Sabbath?” the man on the other end of the phone asks. “Today is the Lord’s Day. To be kept holy. Not for material gains.”

He hangs up before I can give him an answer as to what “material gains” represent to people in low-paid jobs. Things like a week’s groceries.

Why should I give a damn? I’ve had a good day. Not like the young man next to me who is struggling to get surveys. Perhaps it’s the slow, hesitant way he reads the opening statement. From his appearance, he doesn’t seem to be “one of us” phone room people. More like an executive doing a weekend stint here. Too well groomed. Trimmed dark hair and beard, suede jacket. Mid-thirties. Attractive.

It sounds like he got a survey until, throwing up his arms, he stands and shouts, “That f… computer just cut me off.”

Hope he’s not freaking out. I’ve seen interviewers break down over surveys gone wrong – bursting into tears, shrieking, or wrecking a phone. Crazies smash computers and one assaulted a supervisor.

“Don’t worry, that happens to everyone.” I try to keep my voice calm.

Anger recedes from his face. He nods and sits again. “What did I do wrong? I was half way through the survey and it went blank.”

“Sometimes it cuts you off for no apparent reason,” I tell him. “Ask the supervisor.”

He returns with a dispirited expression. “She gave me some half-assed excuse about how this happens when a quota’s full. Let me see if I got it right. First, to qualify, the respondent has to be between forty-five and sixty. Second, he/she ate dinner – no lunch or takeout – at this Chinese restaurant chain at least once in the last three months. Third, only week nights, but not Fridays. Come on. Talk about looking for the proverbial needle.”

In the next two hours, I dial over a hundred times, twenty people answer, four agree to do the survey, and only one qualifies.

Would it really affect results if a respondent went to that restaurant on a Friday? Or had lunch instead of dinner? Or is sixty-one instead of sixty?

By this point, I’m sure many interviewers, desperate to get surveys, are twisting answers. It’s tempting.

Every so often I glance at my neighbor to see how he’s doing. Only two surveys vs. my ten. The supervisor is sure to send him home yet, when she checks, all she says is, “Pick up the pace.”

Another sign he’s special? Lucky man. It’s not as if his livelihood depended on this. Tomorrow, he’ll be back upstairs thanking God he doesn’t have to work down here for a living.

Great. I get another survey.

I feel his eyes on me. Probably feeling exactly what I felt not so long ago. “You really know how to get them,” he says.

Why should it matter if he’s an executive posing as an interviewer? I say, “Let me give you a tip,” and tell him what I learned from Lucky León, our Star Performer, how to tweak the opening statement. “And put a smile in your voice.”

“Hey, thanks, I really owe you.”

Talk about coincidence. On his very next call, he gets a survey.

But with the quota filling, every interviewer is struggling with the almost impossible task of finding someone who fits the profile – and agrees to do a survey. My neighbor is literally begging people, a tactic that rarely works.

I hear him slam down the receiver. “Why can’t those high-and-mighty bible thumpers understand that people like us need to work on Sundays?”

“People like us?”

“Working poor, who else?” He gestures at other interviewers.

“Is that what you consider us to be?”

“What they pay here is just one step above poverty level.”

“How would you know?”

“My paycheck, for one. I’m almost embarrassed to cash it.”

“So you are working here?”

“As far as I can tell, though who knows about tomorrow?”

“Why this job?”

“Because it’s all I could find, and it’s work, and a lot better than being homeless.”

“Homeless?”

“Yes, homeless – as in people who live on the street. I’m sure you’ve seen them around, kind of a blot on the landscape of America’s finest city.” Sarcasm shades his voice. “Last month, I was one of them. Not that a lady like you would know anything about that lifestyle.”

“I can’t imagine you sleeping in a doorway next to filthy drunks and bag ladies.”

“I couldn’t imagine it either”

“Why the streets? Why not a shelter?”

“Ever tried to get into one of those places? Let me tell you, I did and on cold nights they’re stuffed to overflowing. I was afraid to sleep – they steal your shoes right off your feet – and there’re guys crying out from booze or drug withdrawal, or honking away because their noses are clogged up with shit. You get used to the smell but it sticks to your clothes even after you go outside. So I found a couple of homeless, interesting guys – one plays chess in the park and the other reads anything he can lay his fingers on – and hung out with them a few days.”

I shiver. Being homeless seems only a couple of steps from the phone room. “Dressed like you are today?”

“Course not. Hocked my watch, left my bag in the Greyhound terminal, except for an old army jacket and sleeping bag. You’d never tell the difference between me and the real thing, though people don’t look at the homeless – not if they can help it. Finally, I got hold of some cash and rented a room in a downtown hotel. Not the swankiest in town, but it’s heaven after that.”

As the day wears on, the room becomes silent. Surveys have tapered off. It’s hard to be cooped up in here while the California sunlight beams through the front windows. Three hours before our scheduled leaving time, the supervisor tells us, “Everyone, clock out for the day.”

I step into the bright, semi-deserted downtown. After the refrigerated phone room, the March sun on our side of the street is warm and welcoming.

“Isn’t this great?” My neighbor smiles as if we were old friends. “Days like this, who cares about leaving early?”

“$24 less on my paycheck.”

“Didn’t think of that.” He shrugs. “Hey, wanna go for coffee?”

“Why not?”

“This your regular work?” he asks. “You don’t sound like you belong in a phone room. More like you should be upstairs with the executives. Sure you’re not just posing as an interviewer?”

“Funny, I thought the same about you,” I say and we both laugh at how misleading appearances can be.

“When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.” Wayne Dyer

I already had a pretty good idea of which blog posts would fit the seven categories listed below. However, in one case, I’m including a guest post that is particularly relevant to my message and because of the outstanding person who wrote it.

My most Beautiful Post was the hardest to choose, a toss-up between three, but eventually I decided on, “Farewell, Old Friend!” because of the reactions and comments that it received.

My most Popular Post was a tie but I chose, “Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight.” This post seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people who are making late life new starts.

My most Controversial Post, “I’m Mad as Hell!” occasioned a flurry of e-mails that varied from “Are you O.K.?” to “I recommend you seek help.” Probably the only time I ventured to air my political views, it was based on a journal entry two years earlier. I didn’t dare post the entire entry, which broke every politically correct rule in the book.

My most Helpful Post was one of my earliest, “I Never Thought This Would Happen to Me.” Words uttered across the country and indeed, across the world by many bewildered men and women who have lost jobs, home , status, etc.

Who knows why this post was Surprisingly Successful (not in comments but it has had more views than any other)? A funny little true story, “What A Slip!” about an unfortunate New Year’s incident. The only reason I can think why it’s had so many views – and comments that I haven’t dared approve – is the bright red pantyhose photo that must have appealed to every porn or physical services site in the world.

A post that Didn’t Get the Attention It Deserved was, “Better Late Than Early.” A guest post written by bestselling author, Elle Newmark, about her Cinderella story that led from self-published author to a multi- million dollar book contract two weeks later. Her second book, “The Sandalwood Tree” recently came out just before her death two months ago. At least, she lived long enough to see her dreams fulfilled.

The post I am Most Proud of is, “I Will Not Go Gentle Into the Night.” In this, I ranted, raged, spoke my mind, gave it my all, lifted my – at that time – sagging spirits, and received the kind of responses I needed to hear – both times it was posted.

Now for the four Bloggers whom I would like to nominate to carry on the baton – if they so wish.

Giulietta Nardone at Giulietta, The Muse constantly exhorts her “rebellious” readers to “Take Back Your Life” and not be a follower.

Sonia Marsh at Gutsy Living wites about gutsy people, gutsy accomplishments and gutsy ways with her own special blend of humor and dedication. She led the way when she uprooted her family from American culture and comfort to live a year in a shack on a beach in Belize.

If you want to read about travel and living in Turkey, read Mary Holan’s “The Adventures of Cilgin Kiz.” Her posts always have both beautiful photos, lots of information, and her crazy descriptions and antics make me laugh.

Aaron Offord for raw, honest writing that is also, surprisingly, uplifting on Aaron Outward and in his more recent venture, StreetoGGROFFY.

I hope that you will enjoy these four bloggers as much as I do.

Again, thanks to Thom Brown at To Gyre and Gambol for choosing me and to Hajra at Hajra Kvetches who started this challenge.

Before, I’d heard Tijuana described as “a hellhole” and “a den of vice,” a city of whores and drug dealers. Now, I’ve discovered the real Tijuana. Apart from being a tourist spot and red light border town, it also has a burgeoning middle-class with the same family values as any others. Just don’t get mixed up with shady characters and mind your own business. And better pretend not to know what your neighbors are up to.

In the afternoon, I rest on the balcony that runs around the building. On one side, shacks cover barren hills and, on the other, the elite inhabit white condos in a residential area way out of my league. Next to our building, a junkman has his yard piled with growing mounds of trash. I keep the window shut so that the giant cockroaches climbing up the wall don’t get in, but they drop off the roof at night onto my balcony and I have to sweep up their smashed corpses.

A burning odor from the mechanic’s shop hangs in the air adding to the stew of gasoline, tar, dirt, and fried food. In front, two neat little yellow middle-class homes stand side-by-side to the house where a drug dealer – a narco – plies his trade. I know because my neighbor overheard men knocking on the door and giving the password, “Es el mero-mero,” meaning, “It’s the big boss.”

I watch the goings-on in the drug dealer’s house below. It’s intriguing to have such a neighbor, almost as if I’ve become part of a secret and dangerous clan – if only by proximity. What does a Tijuana narco look like? A normal person? A gangster? A corrupt politico. No way to tell.

He’s had a busy afternoon; Friday is good for sales. By my count, the two men knocking on their door are numbers ten and eleven, and it’s only four p.m.

A car tears into the street and comes to a shrieking halt in front of his house. The driver jumps out and runs to the front door, making it inside just before another car zooms to a stop. Four men leap out brandishing shotguns and splatter the house with fire. Windows shatter behind iron bars. Someone inside retaliates and I hear bullets thunk the assailants’ car as they crouch behind it.

I have a balcony seat to the Wild West, Mexican style. A rival drug gang? No, probably cops. Maybe a raid. Like in a TV series.

“Pendejos!”

“Salgan, hijos de la chingada!”

The men outside regroup and shred the door with gunfire, then use brute force to break it down. No more return fire from inside. From my vantage point, I see two narcos emerge behind the house. One jumps over a fence and disappears into the maze of backyards while another zigzaggs sideways and crosses into the junkman’s yard. Four attackers enter the house followed by shouts and gunshots.

Not a sound on the street and nobody sticks out a head to see what’s going on. Let the gangs kill each other or the cops catch the narcos; they don’t want to get involved.

I hear a scuffling sound at one side of the balcony. Next thing, a skinny young man is climbing over my railing; he’s managed to get up to my second floor. Looks like a teenager, trembling, tears in his eyes – one is bruised and half-closed, a finger across swollen lips for me to be quiet. Not scary enough for me to scream. Anyway, I’m not the screaming type. So I just watch as he crouches at the end of my balcony. A smell surrounds him in the dusty air, a smell of fear and sweat.

He looks too young to be a narco. But are they ever too young? Rather, he reminds me of those mangy curs that roam the city, stalking food, growling if you get too close or groveling if you give them something. He could be armed and dangerous, only he doesn’t look dangerous, more like vulnerable, standing in the shadowy part of my balcony so he can’t be seen from the street.

Maybe that’s why I don’t scream at him to go away or maybe it’s because I’m rarely afraid of anything. Not of bomb scares, or life-threatening accidents, or earthquakes, or machine gun assaults – I’ve experienced them all and more – and he’s just a narco teen on the run. Though for all I know, the young ones are the worst. Probably has a weapon tucked under his shirt.

He hangs back while two men from the car yell at each other, glancing up and down the street and no, please not at my building. Then their cohorts reappear dragging a couple of drug dealers. My mouth opens, in surprise that they caught them so fast.

The boy whispers, “Please, Señora, don’t you scream.”

I’m not about to. Those men are busy taking turns kicking the dealers though they are huddled over on the ground. Crunch, howl, crack, yelp. Cuss words. Screams, moans. I’ve seen scenes like this on TV, and they are bad men, but I scrunch up my body as if they were hitting me. When, finally, the men pull-drag the narcos into the car, I close my eyes and rub my head in relief. What will happen to them? Prison? Or bodies left in the desert for the vultures?

The boy sits on his haunches, back against the wrought iron railing. “What’s happening?” he asks, in the jerky voice of a nervous teenager caught in the act.

“You heard.” Why should I play lookout for a narco? Because he’s young and scared or because, in a way, he threatens me and I can’t move to help myself. “Looks like those men are taking them away. Who are they?”

“Cops – drug squad,” he said. “Bad men, cruel. Find us, hurt us, our families. Say they know things about us. I don’t want to tell them, Señora, but they force me.” That explains his swollen lips, half-closed eye and bitter fear odor. “They tell me if I not help them, they kill my sister – rape her first, my little sister, she only twelve.”

“The cops would do that?”

No expression, and his eyes are so dark that they aren’t giving away anything. “The drug squad. They all threaten, make you do what they want. No choice. I must get to el otro lado, los Estados Unidos, and hope they never find me.”

“What about your sister?”

“To save her, I tell them what they want. If I go away, they not hurt my family. I will pray to la Virgencita every day that they will be safe.”

“What if you get caught as an illegal and sent back?”

“They will kill me.” He glances around, up and down, reminding me of a trapped animal. “Senora, how I get out from here and they no see me?”

“Only through the front gate. Or the way you got in.”

“Perhaps over the roof and across there.” He points to the junkman’s yard and beyond, the mechanic’s shop.

We watch for about twenty minutes while the cops probably tear apart the drug house, finding or not finding whatever they are looking for. Obviously, they do because they haul out another man, and at last, take off in a swirl of dust and screeching tires.

“They’re gone,” I tell him. “Now, you can leave.” If he wants money, I don’t have much. Nor much of value here.

He must sense my thoughts. “Don’t be concerned, Señora. You save me from those hijos de puta and for that, I am in your debt. Before they arrive, we have a good day. I have cash.” He shows me his wallet, stuffed with bills, and pulls out, counting them, five hundred dollar notes. “Here, for your trouble.”

I stare at the money, speechless, then shake my head. No way. It’s drug money, blood money. Don’t even want to touch it. “Thank you,” I say, “but I can’t,” wishing for all the world that I could accept them. Get another cartilage shot. And another pain relief one.

“Are you sure, Senora?”

I manage a smile. “When you get to the other side,” I tell him, “no more drug dealing. If they catch you, they will send you back here.”

“I promise,” he says. “My cousin will give me a job in construcción.”

Maybe he just tells me this to please me. I’ve heard that once a narco always a narco and, as he turns to leave, I notice the gun – tucked into the side of his pants.

Today, Friday, August 5th, 2011, seems the perfect day for this post. A good time to take a good look at my life and find reasons why I am thankful.

(Originally, I wrote this piece for “Hajra Kvetches” at www.Hajrak.blogspot.com
“Fridays will be different” where people gave five reasons why they were thankful, but she ended the series before I sent it to her. )

I’m thankful that I can walk. Yes, put one leg in front of the other and so on for several miles without needing a cane or any form of support and most importantly, without it being painful.
Often, especially in downtown San Diego, when I see people with physical impediments struggling to cross the road or walk a block, I remember the two years that I was like them. I’d take 10 minutes to hobble, grit-my-teeth-and-bear-it, two short blocks to the corner grocery store.
The other day, an old friend who is having leg problems told me how he envied people the freedom to walk without cringing at the idea of having to go from A to B. I could understand and empathize because that was exactly how I had felt when I had that problem. All those carefree walkers have no idea how fortunate they are to be able to walk whenever and wherever they want.
So use your legs while you can and glory in the fact that you have them.

I’m thankful that I still have work coming in. The same as many others, I was affected by the economic downturn in 2009 when my work source dried up. I’m glad that I looked into other options, became active online, started learning about SEO, and am now finding work in the field I like most, writing. Also, some of my former clients are again sending me projects.
Having work also gives me a goal to go after more.

I’m thankful that my generation of the 60s is still going strong in their sixties. They are an inspiration to all of us especially in this age group. I won’t mention names because there are too many, but the sheer number of outstanding writers, actors, activists, musicians, film directors, politicians, pundits, businessmen, inventors, scientists, leaders, innovators, commentators, physicians, etc. who are still active and highly productive in their sixties speaks for itself.
These people motivate me to keep trying to achieve my goals.

I’m thankful for my family who have always encouraged and supported me, even during my crazy years. A loner by nature – despite my many friends – the two things I valued most were my privacy and independence. I loved doing my own thing, having a routine, sleeping in my own bed, and living in my neighborhood. All this changed when, due to the economic recession, I came to stay at my sister’s home. She has a big house in a very different (high-class) area from my former downtown one, with seven people currently living here: her and her husband, her daughter and her two teens and one pre-teen, and a part-time housekeeper. With me, we’re eight, and then nine, as my son turned up four months ago.
When I first came to stay, I feared that any privacy would be out of the question. To my surprise, my family has respected it, though they are always there when I want company, help or advice.
This is an opportunity to get to know the kids – rather than be the isolated aunt of yore who only saw them on special occasions. I’m almost used to things like their penchant to jump out at me and shout, “Boo!” a family trait that we owe to my father’s naughty streak.

I’m thankful for my many friends – the kind who last a lifetime. They are spread all over the map and I’m glad to be able to keep up or in-touch with them. Due to modern technology and social media, I’m rediscovering or being rediscovered: in the last two days, two former very close friends turned up after years (8 and 15) of not knowing anything about them. When I go to Mexico City, the fact that I’m there means it’s party time, or at least an excuse for a bunch of us to have a reunion.

I’m thankful that I am still writing. That I can still experience the same crazy out-of-the-world high when I write something good. And that ideas gush out all the time – when I’m walking down the street, or I wake up in the middle of the night, or I’m driving – anywhere and at any time. I hope I will write all the books still inside me. I hope that my books, when they are published, will make a difference, even in a small way, to people’s lives.

I’m thankful that I still have the same illusions and hopes for my writing that I had as a child and young adult.

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” Oprah Winfrey

There are some days, I admit, when I see little except for a gray existence ahead for me. At 67, I wonder if I will ever fulfill my life’s dream to become a published author. I fear that I will never find security in my old age. The aches and creaks of age wear me down. And I fall into “stinking thinking” that I’ll never find my way back up again.

None of this lasts for long. I don’t let it.
I can’t waste time on negative feelings. Rather, I have to use the next years of my life to accomplish as much as I can.

We all have our gray days. As we get older, we may feel age has caught up with us and overtaken our dreams to achieve what we set out to do. Maybe there isn’t enough time left, or we’re just too old, physically unable, mentally unwilling, or tired.

On the other hand, if we’re interested in the world and passionate about certain subjects, then we can still accomplish what we set out to do.

History and the arts are full of men and women who made surprising comebacks, achieved greatness, or who revived/had prominent careers at an age when most would have given up. And there must be a myriad of other less known or unrecorded cases.

“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in.”
Winston Churchill, after an up and down career, and ten years as a political pariah or, as he put it, “Out in the wilderness” during the 1930s, returned at 66 to serve as a wartime Prime Minister in 1940. His leadership and great speeches helped inspire the nation’s morale against the would-be Nazi invaders that were pummeling the cities and coast of England. He told the people of England, “If you are going through Hell, keep going.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist in white dominated South Africa, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962 and served 27 years, 18 as a classification D prisoner – the lowest scale – in the notorious Robben Island Prison. Released in 1990, he returned to lead his party in negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. He was 72 when he became South Africa’s first democratically elected South African president in 1994.

“You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.”
Golda Meir came to the U.S. from Russia at the age of 8, and was brought up in Milwaukee, WI. In 1921, she emigrated to Palestine where she worked on a kibbutz and as a teacher before moving up in the political ranks. At 71, she became Prime Minister of the State of Israel in March, 1979. The world’s third woman to be head of state (after Shri Lanka and India), she was portrayed as the “strong-willed, straight-talking, gray-bunned grandmother of the Jewish people.”

“I made a resolve that I was going to amount to something if I could.”
Colonel Sanders started Kentucky Fried Chicken at 65 when his restaurant folded and because his pension was so small; after two years, he went on to wild success. A Kentucky Colonel (in-name military designation only), he gave the chain an image by dressing up in that all-white southern gentleman garb.

“Painting’s not important. The important thing is keeping busy.”
Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) didn’t begin to paint until the age of 76, when her hands became too crippled by arthritis to hold an embroidery needle and she found herself with nothing to do. She’s usually cited for succeeding for the first time at her art work in her nineties and up to her death at 101. Her paintings were shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as well as in museums in Vienna and Paris.

“I never had a great role in a great film.”
Gloria Stuart, a movie actress in the 1930s, returned from obscurity at 86 when she landed the role of 100-year-old Rose in James Cameron’s “Titanic.” She remains the oldest person ever nominated for an Oscar. The above quote must have been before “Titanic.”

“You cannot just waste time. Otherwise you’ll die to regret …”
Harriett Doerr finished her Stanford degree at 67. In 1983, at 73, she became a darling of the literary world with the publication of her first novel, “Stones for Ibarra,” which went on to win a National Book Award.

“If I had not lived until I was 90, I would not have been able to write this book. God knows what other potentials lurk in other people who keep going into old age.”
Harry Bernstein published a short story when he was 24, in 1934, but it was not until he was 96 that his well-received debut novel, “The Invisible Wall” was published. Bernstein turned to fiction only after his wife of 67 years died, as therapy for his loss and loneliness. He published two more books after his debut.

“If I had known at the beginning of my life that this is where I would get to, I would have said, “Not possible.”
Jessica Tandy, a well-respected actress came out of a career slump in the mid 1980s to a career revival in her seventies when she won both a Tony Award and an Emmy Award for her role in “Foxfire.” She became the oldest actress to receive the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1989.

There are many other such stories of late life success that I’d have liked to include but then I’d have to write an e-book about them. It’s a fascinating subject – what drove these men and women to not give up despite rejection, imprisonment, lack of education or opportunity, sexism, ageism, defeat … you name it.

Do you know of someone who “made it” late in life, particularly after overcoming problems, losses, rejection, or other setbacks?

If you do, please share their stories with us.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

At 67, I am not dying. Yet. However, my age group is often treated as if we were at the start of a prolonged death march.

And I will rage and rage against the dying of my light and that of my generation.

We gave light and warmth to a world darkened by war and oppression.

Our generation was the offspring of The Greatest Generation, those who fought in WWII. My English father and American mother met during the war, and I was a war baby born in England to the sound of bombs, and spent my childhood in grim post war England.

Meanwhile, the 50s generation in the U.S. were smug, conservative in their victory, swathed in security and newfound luxuries, and determined to lead lives centered on doing the right thing. A woman’s place was in the home and a man’s in the workplace. Frank Sinatra sang, “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage.” Then Elvis shocked the nation with his, “I’m all shook up!” until the bosses found a way – military service, movies – to calm him down, and eventually turn him into an overweight, drug addicted Las Vegas entertainer.

We grew up to become the generation of the 60s. We changed popular to have meaning – Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Peter, Paul and Mary. Women lifted their hemlines from mid-calf almost to their thighs, men were released from hats and formal wear, changed customs and attitudes relaxed – men and women could actually sleep or live together openly, and we protested when we disagreed with politics and national policy (Vietnam). Women aspired to and found work in former male only professions.

We overcame a stuffy Establishment to start the modern world, the one inherited by the current generation.

Then we stopped raging and protesting, and most of us settled into respectability, using our creativity and energies to create a better world for our kids. Women carved careers for themselves in a male dominated world so that nowadays, female executives are as much a part of the corporate world as their male counterparts.

We never thought we’d reach an age when the younger generation would start to shove us aside like old relics. We never dreamed the day might come when formerly successful professionals would be out on a limb, scrabbling for work – any work – in mid-life. Or that many of us would be no longer employable despite our qualifications and experience, or broke because of lost jobs, or family homes foreclosed or, except for some notable exceptions, shunted aside. We never thought we’d become victims of another depression caused by the greedy generation that followed ours.

Perhaps some of you can accept this and go gentle into the night of your life.

Or the alternative:

Rage, rage against the dying of our light for as long as we can.

I, for one, prefer the latter choice. What about you?

We raged when we were young and got things done. We still have our voices and we can rage again.

One voice added to another. Mine added to yours added to someone else’s and so on can build up to a lot of middle age voices clamoring to be heard.

Just imagine if a large number of us protested, for example, age discrimination in the workplace.

The same way we used to.

For one thing, it would shock the younger generation. That we still have it in us. That we’re not going out without a fight. That we’re capable of moving again in tandem, but this time against the entitled younger generation that has not learned from history that it repeats itself over and over again.

What awaits them in 30-40 years?

I’m not ready to be shoved aside. Nor are many of my generation or even older.
Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa at 67 after 28 years’ imprisonment.
John McCain was a presidential candidate (a grueling ordeal) at 72.
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi may be making a long overdue return after years of house arrest.
The world is rife with people over sixty who have more than enough energy to go around.
To mention a few: Hilary Clinton, Diane Sawyer, Martha Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington, Isabel Allende, Doris Lessing, Steven King, Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and Richard Branson
How about the entertainment world? Jeff Bridges, Harrison Ford, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese, Cher, Mick Jagger, and Paul McCartney.

I could add a lot more names and so can you, to that list.

Join my voice that you will not go gentle into the night.
Instead, you will rage, rage against the dying of your light.

Photograph courtesy of Veronica Valades

“Your friend is your needs answered.” Kahlil Gibran

There are no words to fully express how much I will miss you, but I will try.
• I’ll miss your welcome, the fact that your arms were always open to me.
• I’ll miss the fun and enjoyment I found with you.
• I’ll miss the comfortable shoulder to lean on for advice, help with difficult projects, information, and the knowledge from your 40 years of experience.
• I’ll miss your way with words.
• I’ll miss hearing about and meeting all the great and outstanding people you knew. For example, you introduced me to Barack Obama when he published his first memoir.
• I’ll miss our regular meetings, the many teas I drank in your company.
• I’ll miss the refuge I found whenever I sought you out.
• I’ll miss exploring new worlds, new ideas, new authors, and new books with you.
• I’ll miss the heady feeling of being in the presence of greatness.
• I’ll miss your smell – that comfortable mixture of warmth, age, tranquility, understanding, powdery paper, and something indefinable that always permeated your surroundings.
• I’ll miss the friend I made in 2002 and who added greatly to my personal enjoyment and development.
• I’ll plain old miss going to visit you in downtown San Diego.

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” Jerry Seinfeld

Yesterday, when I read the announcement that Borders Books was closing all its stores, I felt not surprise but resignation. Ever since it started closing stores several months ago, I knew its time was limited.

The end of an era.

For me, personally, Borders became part of my downtown San Diego experience. It was too good to last – and I sensed it almost from the start. A big bookstore set in the pleasure-seeking Gaslamp District mainly populated by young people out for a good time, tourists, cruise ship sightseers, homeless, and ball game lovers seemed out-of-place. The aisles were often empty as was the large music area upstairs.

Downstairs, the comfy armchairs and tables next to the coffee shop were occupied more by students who used the bookstore as a library, people reading the books and especially the magazines for free, or taking a rest/having a snooze. How often did I get angered to see someone defacing a new book, pulling back the pages and thus rendering it unsalable? How often did I wonder at the high maintenance and overhead of such a place, and how long could Borders accept their losses?

Of course, as a budding book author, I dreamed of the day that my books would grace their shelves. Even when I realized how illusionary this dream was, I still held on to my hopes.

For me, Borders downtown (which closed several months ago thus signaling the fast approach of the Borders Books’ demise) is akin to losing one of my close San Diego friends. A gap in the tooth. My old neighborhood is changing.

This comes as a result of two dominant forces: the dramatic switch to online book purchases, mainly Amazon. And importantly, it signals the change in book publishing – the almost overnight switch to e-books and readers (Kindle, Nook, etc.) in little more than a couple of years.

People will continue to buy print books but in less quantity. I foresee the day when I will also use a Kindle, simply because it’s more convenient even though I belong to the dwindling group – mainly older – who prefers the touch, feel, enjoyment of turning real pages. It will be the same as replacing the typewriter with a computer – I balked at first – but as everything else in this rapidly changing world, I’ll get used to this new book presentation. Almost.

Is the print book, the one we have known all of our lives, on its way to be relegated to the world of typewriters and radios and CDs? The printing press has been with us over 500 years since Johannes Gutenberg invented the it circa 1439. How many more years will books, in their current form, exist? Maybe just table top books, picture books, and a few special ones. Maybe limited press runs.

Or am I predicting too dismal a future for print books? Perhaps Harry Potter fans will grow up and this industry will rebound, though never to the same level as before.

For now, Barnes & Noble reigns supreme and long may they live to carry on the baton in this world of dying print books.

And long live those bastions of immortality: the independent bookstore, and the second-hand bookstores, and even the book sections in your local supermarket.

Photo credits: Mary Osborne