Endless Knots

Published: "Some Peculiar Errand," my novel excerpt; Finalist, Solstice Fiction

I'm delighted to announce that an excerpt ("Some Peculiar Errand") from my novel, The Quintessence, about the return of the 19th-century phenom Margaret Fuller (Bucky's aunt), has been named as a finalist in the Solstice Literary Magazine Fiction Prize, and published here. Two excerpts from the novel have now been published; next up, the novel itself (hello, agents; hello, publishers). Thanks, Solstice.

Happy 205th, Sarah Margaret Fuller

Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself.
--Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845

On this day in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, the singular genius and most prolific writer among the Transcendentalists was born. The first child of Margarett Crane Fuller and her husband, the Massachusetts legislator Timothy, Margaret, as she chose to be known, was an autodidact--a child who learned Greek and Latin, who read Shakespeare while others her age were struggling with the alphabet, and who became the first woman in the US to file articles as a foreign correspondent was a nonpareil. Biographies of her abound, including the 2013 Pulitzer-Prize winner by Megan Marshall, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.

I first became entranced with Margaret in the 1970s while researching women in the American Revolution for Addison-Wesley, whose best-selling American history textbook needed some updating. Joan Labby, who was editing that book, asked me and a few others to write features for the book and one of us, either she or I, came up with the idea of bringing some feminist history into greater relief.

I did, penning a straightforward account of such women as Deborah Sampson, who donned men's clothing, picked up arms, and fought in the American Revolution, serving 17 months as "Robert Shurtliffe." But before I could learn all there was to know about Deborah, I was stopped in the Encyclopedia of American Woman by another even more fascinating entry, the brief biography of Margaret Fuller.

And thus began my lifelong obsession with Fuller.

For many years on this day, I've visited her monument in Cambridge's Mount Auburn Cemetery, usually inviting others to go with me, sometimes going alone, and one year making a film with Cambridge filmmaker Ron Mortara (2008). Here are links to those visits. Today I'm traveling to my partner's parents' graves and there I will read a few words of Margaret's. Spirit knows no geography.

With John Halamka, whose birthday also is May 23, and who has attended several Margaret birthday celebrations with his Shakuhachi

And, for the record, Margaret is also a central character in my novel-trilogy-in-process, Woman in the 21st Century, of which the first volume, The Quintessence, is complete.

 

On the 25th anniversary of my mother's death...

Here, from seven years ago, a repost with the letter she left for her funeral.

And a just-discovered Pottstown Mercury news item from Oct 30, 1945, announcing that this 34-year-old Brooklyn transplant, who'd been in Pottstown less than a year and who had an 18-month-old child, would teach adult ed classes in introductory and advanced lipreading for three hours each Tues and Thurs night at the Y. My mom.

And now the blog repost from Sept 9, 2007:

Eighteen years ago today, my mother, Ethel A. Lipnack, died at the age of 78. This morning, I had the chance to stand on the doorstep where she had passed so many times--at the corner of Myrtle and Clinton Avenue, where she was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. A Connectict Muffin shop occupies the candy store that my grandparents ran at the edge of what was then a very posh neighborhood. I write this tonight from our daughter's apartment, just a few blocks from my mother's original home. In all the years since she died, this is the first time I've been nearby on this anniversary. Sad and happy, all at once.

My mother liked to say that she started working at age five, delivering newspapers along Clinton Avenue. She was just 20 years old when she graduated from Hunter College at the height of the Great Depression. With a German major and a French minor, there weren't many jobs available yet she managed to turn her love of language into a lifelong career. She was one of the first teachers of lipreading in Harlem, a skill that she took with her to Pennsylvania when my parents moved there in 1945, founding the first lipreading school in the Philadelphia area. Coincidence: I married a man with major congenital hearing loss (60% loss in the speech range). My mother called my husband one of the greatest natural lipreaders she'd ever met.

In her late forties, my mother turned her attention to teaching high school English, where she got to spend her days with the age group she loved most--teenagers. She taught for many years at Daniel Boone High School, in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, where she eventually chaired the English department. After she retired, she continued teaching reading and English. She was leaving the business school class she'd just taught when she had a massive stroke on March 26, 1984; she lived for five-and-a-half more years, requiring round-the-clock care, but never losing her sense of humor and or her love affair with cigarettes.

I found a letter she'd written for her funeral in a drawer the day she died. About the young people she so admired, she wrote: "Teenagers are great sources of joy, but most people don't know that. They should take time out to discover this."

One paragraph from her letter stays present across the years, the last sentence so compelling that we made it the epitaph on her gravestone:

My big fight with our society has been against bigotry. It is unfortunately pandemic. I wish I had had a magic formula for eradicating it. I didn't, but I do think I raised people's consciousness about it. So we're different from each other. Good! Let's learn about the differences. They're fascinating. At least I've found them so. This is my legacy:

Love each other despite differences and because of them.

And now my mother's letter in full, which my cousin read at her funeral:

1989 

Dear Family & Friends,

I hope this is not a sad day for you. If I were with you, I would not shed one tear. I would, instead, say that I am glad for her. This is what she wanted and she finally got it. One can live too long and I think I did. When I could no longer work, I felt no need to go on. Life seemed pointless and endless, let alone empty.

My children and grandchildren have been a great source of joy to me. They are beautiful people and should be treated like fine crystal. These are the true values in life. The rest is all hogwash. Along with them were my students. I hope they knew how much I loved them and how I profited from knowing them. Teenagers are great sources of joy, but most people don’t know that. They should take time out to discover this.

Grieve appropriately but not too much. Just be glad we knew each other.

My big fight with our society has been against bigotry. It is unfortunately pandemic. I wish I had had a magic formula for eradicating it. I didn’t, but I do think I raised people’s consciousness about it. So we’re different from each other. Good! Let’s learn about the differences. They’re fascinating. At least I’ve found them so. This is my legacy. Love each other despite differences and because of them.

Let’s not have any more wars. They seem never to solve anything. All they do is make a shortage of men for our beautiful young ladies. O.K., I think I’ve said it all!! Make love, not war, grow and understand. Be happy today and in the future. I wish you all well. I’ve had the best of it—my children, my friends. I owe you all a great deal. I hope I’ve been a good friend to you—I wanted to be.

If I’m in Pottstown, I’m happy. It’s where I wanted to be. It’s not Paradise but it’s been home to me for over 40 years. Brooklyn is where my heart has been.

Your confidences were always safe with me as I’m sure mine were with you. OK—get it over with. Do not cry. I’m relieved—truly. Please respect my things, my books, my art, my collections. I enjoyed them. I hope you do too.

                               Ethel A. Lipnack

 

PS. Try to find an alternative to nursing homes. To do this, you’ll have to take the profit out of them. They’re horrors in their present state. People are segregated by age and they have very little in common. I have found them a terrible home. I’ve done the best I could but that’s not good enough. Had I been in this last mausoleum much longer, I would have gone mad.

What is a newspaper?

I was chatting with two media advisors earlier today. Clearly, they know a lot about media--both new and old. Witness:

Ostensibly, we were talking about planets, i.e. Lake and Finn's collection of stuffed celestial bodies: the sun, Jupiter, the Moon, "Earf," Mars, "Satur-in," and Mercury, all of which accompanied them out of bed.

We got talking about why Mercury has wings on his feet, which led me to talking about my early career as a reporter at the Pottstown Mercury. 

As soon as I said the word newspaper, I wondered whether they knew what I was talking about. After all, it's been two years since I found them reading one.

"What's a newspaper?" I asked.

"It's something grown-ups look at but don't read," Lake said.

 

Roland's July Newsletter (with a "Note from a Reader," i.e. me)

A few months ago, Peter Sarno, Roland Merullo's publisher for Lunch with Buddha, among other titles at PFP Publishing (here's the story of how Roland came to publish with Peter -- and check out the PFP site, some great authors including another Endless Knots favorite, Askold Melnyczuk), wrote asking if I'd contribute a "Note from a Reader" for an upcoming newsletter. It's in the July newsletter (scroll down to the picture of me looking like I'm on TV, which I was when this photo was taken), just out, and available here. It doth begineth:

I recently received an email from a friend.

 

It wasn't the first I've received on the subject of Roland's books because I have recommended his work before - many times before. I've bought his books for friends...and been a bit of a volunteer one-woman marketing agency for his work. "I am so indebted to you," Sarah's email began. "I have been reading Roland Merullo's books and savoring them. I really enjoyed his memoir, moving and so honest with wonderful reflections. I like the way he writes and his choice of content...He is both honest and reflective."

 

I agree.

 

As many who follow what Roland's been up to know, he turned down a six-figure advance with a major publisher to bring out Lunch with Buddha with PFP/AJAR Contemporaries. He's on to other projects now, as he always is, prolific and tireless.

 

Coffee up!

Latte from my 2009 post on Taste Cafe (now George Howell Coffee)

I knew it. Coffee is my favorite food. Now comes science to support my natural desire. Thank you, Lindsay Abrams, for "The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like" in The Atlantic. She's reporting on research just published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (credit due to Harvard School of Public Health Department of Nutrition Research Fellow Shilpa Bhupathiraju, the study's lead author).

As we joe-vistas believed, coffee seems to be right up there with blueberries and broccoli. Some clips from Abrams's article:

• "8 percent decrease in the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. In men, the reduction was 4 percent for regular coffee and 7 percent for decaf."
• "An inverse association between habitual, moderate consumption and risk of heart failure" [the benefit appeared to peak at 10 cups per day]
• "Caffeine might also function as a pain reliever."
• Depression! "While a small study this month found that concentrated amounts of caffeine can increase positivity in the moment, last September the nurses' cohort demonstrated a neat reduction in depression rates among women that became stronger with increased consumption of caffeinated coffee."
• And this: "So aside from caffeine, just what are you getting in a cup, or two, or six? Thousands of mostly understudied chemicals that contribute to flavor and aroma, including plant phenols, chlorogenic acids, and quinides, all of which function as antioxidents. Diterpenoids in unfiltered coffee may raise good cholesterol and lower bad cholesterol. "

Best nutritional news I've heard in a long time. Now I'm waiting for the study proving how beneficial my second most favorite food is: salt.

But excuse me for the moment. I'm going to brew my third cup of the day.

 

 

"Glass cliffs," baby bottles, and Feminism 3.0

There's an interesting subtext arising from Yahoo's having selected a woman in her third-trimester (Marissa Mayer, whose first child, a son, is due in October) as its new CEO. Eagle-eyed Tom Stewart has directed us to a good piece from strategy+business, "Gender Bias in Leader Selection," published in December 2010. The article is based on research conducted by Susanne Bruckmüller at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Nyla R. Branscombe at the University of Kansas. The term that it named has suddenly become common parlance: glass cliffs. I will explain...

But before we get to that, this morning's news about Mayer's selection: "'My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I'll work throughout it,' Mayer said," as reported widely, including on MSNBC.

OK. Unlike most working mothers -- and as many have quickly pointed out, Mayer has the resources to hire a staff to manage home, baby, work, and all that comes with being a human mother in a super-tech society. If she's nursing, someone can hand her the baby and then take him away for burping, changing, and rocking to sleep. If she wants to pump, a Silicon Valley friend is surely to have the most high-tech equipment that she can lend her -- or, as an engineer, she'll invent a new one herself. If she needs to be "present" for a meeting, her company can provide super hi-def video conferencing. If she needs to attend a meeting in person (how quaint), a driver can be waiting on either end, eliminating the extra effort required to think about whether she might have a dead battery caused by having failed to close the car door properly after hauling out the car seat with sleeping baby, the diaper bag, her laptop, her briefcase, and the pile of papers that she just threw on the seat next to her, not to mention having to think through how close she can park -- or how late the train will be, thus cutting a few minutes off the commute. Laundry? Someone else can be responsible for the endless loads that babies bring with them. Meals? Trips to the dry cleaner because the baby is guaranteed to spit up right after she's gotten dressed? Need I be more explicit?

Don't misunderstand. I am thrilled that 37-year-old Mayer has been selected for the Yahoo post -- and I wish all new mothers a small army to help. Mayer's appointment signals another peak that's been summited in the glare of the cameras, er, bloggers. Being punished for providing another contribution to the continuation of the species is ... no words for the anger this evokes in those of us who've been sidelined, penalized, and insulted for committing the crime of working while being pregnant or the mother of a newborn. And in the interest of self-relevation, I speak as someone who took five weeks off when my first child was born and took virtually no time off when my second was born (we'd just signed our first book contract) -- but note that I was working in my own company and had the ability to do whatever I wanted. (Comment to former pregnant employees: I'm proud that we were able to provide paid maternity leave; my only regret is that it couldn't have been longer.)

So that's a lot of what's roiling around in my and other minds about Mayer's appointment and announcement. But before I dismount the podium, I feel compelled to restate what I've seen elsewhere and which was my very first thought: You just don't know how you're going to respond when your baby is born. As important as work seems beforehand, it pales in the face of the human being who will change your perception of just about everything. A meeting as compared with an embrace of that little person? Strategy in dealing with a pesky investor vs. the feeling of that tender skin against your cheek? Let's check in again on that in early November, Marissa. What you have to say about the experience of being a working mother has a major megaphone and your words will be well heard.

OK, back to Tom Stewart's prompt that got this post to happen. The article he references draws on a research experiment that looked at how people might choose leaders when situations are described in different terms. The result? The subjects chose women over men to lead in troubled situations. People recognize, it would appear, that turnarounds require good relationship skills more than they do sharpened pencils (implements that you may remember -- they have graphite in them, used to made of wood and painted yellow, many of us liked the #2s). The "glass cliff" comes in because when women are chosen for these posts: they're put in very precarious positions, ones on which it's very easy to loose one's footing. (Remember Carol Bartz, former CEO of Autodesk who tried and failed at Yahoo, reportedly ultimately being fired over the phone by the Yahoo board chairman?)

Now to the so-far unspoken but obvious subtext: isn't all good business about relationships rather than iron fists? About getting people to get along rather than telling underlings what to do? Aren't people in happy workplaces more likely to get things done than mean awful ones? Only our own prejudices stand in the way of hiring more women -- who, before I get this comment, are not the only ones with good relationship skills. I've met my share of great CEOs who happen to be of the male persuasion, people who really know how to bring people together. The poor ones I've met are precisely the opposite and fit the typical stereotype of the successful male CEO -- arrogant, head bashing, narcissistic, and often hypocritical. Just check the business page headlines (or should that be the white-collar crime report)? But that's another topic altogether.

--PS: I didn't realize when I wrote the title to this post that there's a website dedicated to Feminism 3.0, and even one for Feminism 4.0. Rather than just keep escalating, I'm sticking with the old-fashioned 3.0.

 

 

 

 

 

The way to do it: "I waited to write"

A little over a year ago, I received an unexpected package in the mail from someone I barely knew. Amy Reece had heard about our situation and her impulse was to send a gift, a warm and snugly gift, a creamy blue pashmina which I wore today. Since then, there have been many gifts of kindness from people we know well, some whom we barely know, and some whom we hadn't heard from in years. One such came through last week, a letter from Alexandar Randall V, whom we first met in the 1970s and whom we haven't seen since the late 1990s. With his permission, I'm excerpting the letter, omitting all the truly personal material, including many observations Alex has about Jeff and about Jeff's and my life together. I'm posting the letter for a simple reason. It's an example of what helps after someone dies, in this case a little more than four months after my spouse has died.

Thank you, Alex. (NB: Alex is often credited with having conducted the first act of ecommerce through the Boston Computer Exchange, the very early bulletin board system that he started with his wife, Cameron--"Camie," see below--Hall, who died in 1998.)

Dear Jessica:

I waited to write. When my wife Camie died, it seemed that everyone had words of condolences and joined my grief for the few days immediately after her passing. Yet I was still mourning weeks later and by then I was all alone. So I waited to write when the throng has finished sharing your grief – so I could be here for you when you are more alone...

...I observed when Camie died that there was no one left who shared our mutual stories. There was no one with whom I could say “remember that day in Spain at the Sherry festival” and have her nod and remind me of the rhythm of the drummer in the dances. Or “Remember when we were still doing the business in the living room…” and have her remember the buy and sell cards.

Because we were together 24 hours a day at work and at home, our whole history was a shared history. My deepest loss as the loss of the mutual memory, the shared stories. There is no one else who shared it all and with her, I felt as if my memories had been removed. I lost my stories when I lost her. I can remember but there is no one with whom to share the memories. I assume you are experiencing just such a loss now....

Someone came to me after Camie died and said “She has given you a new life. You may not have asked for it but you have the gift of a new life.”

Jeff has given you a new life. You may not have asked for it, but you got it! You will have new adventures, new projects, new working partners and more. It may not have been your life plan, but it is now.

I send you deepest condolences on the loss of Jeff and I wish you all the best as you explore the new life upon which you have embarked.

If you need a vacation sometime, please make plans to come to our guest cottage and perhaps we can roll you into a special presentation at the University of the Virgin Islands.

May he rest in peace and may you thrive in your new endeavors. Godspeed!

Alexander Randall 5th
/sig/

"A Different Way to Die: How Jeff Stamps Stared Down the End"

And, as per the previous post, another event at Saybrook's conference this weekend. Tomorrow I'm presenting a workshop with the title of the post. Here's the poster:

Phone alone 2

I don't know who took this photo (thanks, Wired) but they must have been in my kitchen in the past week. Same phone. Same plastic container. Same rice. Same reason.

For the second time in my two decades of cellphone use, the terrible thing happened. Phone ends up in water. In this most recent case--and in a ridiculous fit of faux efficiency--I was using the phone as a wedge between the cover of my computer and its keyboard. I didn't want to take the time to shut down--or apparently the difficulty of placing the phone in my pocket.

Oh well. I was carrying too many things from room to room and watched as the phone slipped out from its well-chosen perch (ha!) and, in what seemed like slow motion and without even grazing the rim, into the glass of water in my other hand.

Others might have reached into the glass and removed the phone, then rushed to put it into rice, the very sophisticated method by which people, of which there are many googling reveals, dry out their phones. My advice to do the same came from an offspring whose phone suffered the same fate last year.

I, brilliantly, took a different path. After shaking the phone violently in the effort to get rid of any "loose" water, I then, stupidly, decided to plug my phone in  "to make sure it was still working." Dumb, dumber, and dumbest. I saw the phone, which was still on, go to off - and then I rushed to the kitchen to give it the deep rice treatment.

Well, two days went by and then I tried turning it on again. Having read up in the meantime, I was pretty pessimistic. (Plugging it in while wet, as I'd originally done, is the anti-treatment, sure to fry the phone.) It didn't start. But it appeared to be dry so I attempted to plug it in again. It wouldn't take the plug. So I figured that in my having plugged it in when still wet, I somehow caused the connection to swell - or something...who knows? I'm not very technical.

I waited a mournful week, lamenting how much this little act of efficiency was going to cost. And then I went to the Apple store. "Oh, just take it to the Genius Bar," John, the store manager said, "and they'll swap it out for you for $200." A lot better than the $600 I was expecting...but still a hefty bit for a phone that merely took a swim.

But, before I could even get to the Genius Bar, an itinerant Genius, named Ben, who was wandering the store helping forelorn customers like myself, said, "Let me have that for a second." He tried plugging it but was unable to. He turned the phone up to inspect the connection, and said, "Well, look at that. There's a piece of rice in there!"

Which he promptly removed. And the phone turned right on. Then when he tried putting the SIM card back in, guess what? Another piece of rice. Which he also kindly removed. And I was back among the hyper-connected.

My advice now to people whose iPhones have chosen to go swimming? USE VERY LARGE GRAINS OF RICE. Arborio, one Apple employee observing this drama, proposed.

And to friends whom I'd emailed immediately saying what had happened -- particularly to those who text frequently -- I'm back. Or my phone is back. And to my hubby, who was kind enough to let me use his phone in my hour, I mean, days, I mean week of need, thank you so very much.

Last point: I used the phone to which I'd forwarded my calls much much much less than my own phone. I texted only once or twice in genuine moments of "the person really needs to know this." I stopped carrying the phone around with me, even leaving it behind when I left the house on a number of occasions.

Hmmmmm...this indispensible device, indeed.