On The Road With Friends

Biggs Junction.
Doesn't that sound like a name for a place from one of those old cowboy movies? Doesn't it make you see a dusty, lonely railroad station in the middle of nowhere, dust devils ambling across tracks that start somewhere beyond the horizon and lead into an unformed, unknown distance? Isn't "desolation" knit into those two words, don't they whisper to you that this is their real name?

Biggs Junction is probably the last place in the US you'd pick as a tourist destination. And yet, I wanted to go there, and badly. Here's the reason why.
Last year, before I went on my long trip across America to visit Twitter and Facebook friends, a conversation on Twitter happened that made me want to see that place more than anything else. I had just introduced a friend from Portland OR to my Ellensburg WA friend, and they were chatting about meeting up somewhere for lunch. Somehow, Biggs Junction was mentioned. And my Ellensburg friend, Jane, who is married to a trucker and has seen many, many places, moaned a desperate "Oh Lord!"

I, as a bystander, across the Atlantic and all of America, the European, googled Biggs Junction, and this is what came up.

nowhere to go

The thing to read here are the comments from "nowhere to go" and "poker slim".
This place I wanted to see!
Some more twitter moaning, and the sentence, "But there's NOTHING to eat in Biggs, just greasy, awful fast food!"
See, here's where unbiased googling comes in. My American friends, who didn't have the smallest inclination of ever going to Biggs, perked up when I pointed out that there seemed to be a really, really nice restaurant in Goldendale, not too far away from Biggs.
Even Sue from Vancouver who so far had loudly protested that she would stay in Ellensburg and wait for the rest of us to return  - or not - was suddenly quite willing to come along,

So we went.

Along the Yakima River, on the old Canyon Road, and the landscape was enough to make me, the German, gape. So much open space, so much... COUNTRY, and not another car or human in sight.
We drove for hours, and nearly always there were the mountains marching away to our right.

I shouldn't say mountains, or you'll think of a mountain chain. This is what we saw:

Volcanoes. Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens.
All this space...  it made me feel as if I could stretch out my arms and lift off, stretch out and drift away in the hot, country-fragrant air until my fingers touched the snow on those mountains.

At some point, the hills closed in on us, we were driving on a winding road through arid land, bushfire land, and the trees and grass were so dry I could smell the smoke even though they weren't burning, almost as if they were having nightmares of a fire that hadn't happened yet.

It came as a relief when the land dropped away, quite suddenly too, and the gorge of the Columbia River opened up before us.
What a drama!

There it was, Biggs Junction. Perched on the side of the river, caught between highways and a railroad track, forgotten in the middle of nowhere.
All roads lead away from it, lead into kinder places, and the river rushes by on its way to the Pacific.
We crossed the bridge and stopped outside the trucker mart.
Heat welcomes us, dry, relentless heat like a wall that dared us to step forward, leave the comfort of the car. There were no other tourists. No one goes to Biggs Junction as a tourist, only me, the insane German. There were some trucks, some cars at the gas station across the parking lot. No one looked up from their business of refueling, getting a cold drink or dashing to the washrooms, no one cared about the surroundings they were in, intent on getting away as fast as possible.

Sue, as always the one with the most determination, said that I needed a souvenir. Anything, even a napkin, a paper cup, but something that said, "Biggs Junction".
We went into the mart.
There were no souvenirs. Biggs doesn't exist on the souvenir map.
The store manager came up to me after I'd circled the store for the third time and asked me if she could help. I said I wanted a Biggs Junction souvenir. She was ready to reach for her phone and call the cops.
Bemused, she shook her head. No one, she said, no one ever had asked for a souvenir before.
"This is like a prison," she told me, "Everyone wants to get away."
Back out on the baking parking lot, we looked around.
A MacDonalds, a Burger King, a gas station, the mart, and this little jewel of a motel:

"Psycho," Sue mumbled, "That's such a Psycho setting." (And took out her camera to take this pic.)
The longer I stood there, the number I got. The constant drone from the highway along the river had a hypnotizing effect on me. I was ready to lie down right there on the oil-stained, baking asphalt of the parking lot and go to sleep.
It was hot, and it was lonely. Jane, leaning against her car, started to hum "Hotel California", and that was when we all moved at the same time, jumped into the car, and drove off.

"Maryhill," Jane suggested, and so we went.
It's a museum now, but it was built by Samuel Hill, the same man who dreamed up the highway along the Columbia River.
We sat on a bench in the shade of some pine trees, right at the edge of the gorge, and looked down at Biggs, now across the river, and its cave of metal and asphalt.

Right below our feet, among the gorse and dry grass, bees and crickets were battling the dull hum of the highway. The heat was just as relentless as it had been down there in Biggs, but it didn't smell of gasoline and sweat. There were peacocks in the park, sculptures, neatly trimmed grass, clear paths. A defiant stand of civilization against the cruel call of the desert wilderness around it.

"Lunch," Susan suggested, looking at her watch, and we left.
We turned our back on Biggs, the river and even Maryhill, and drove off to Goldendale and the Glass Onion (the restaurant I'd found online).

I can tell you this: If you EVER - for whatever reason - happen to be near Goldendale WA, STOP HERE.
Trust me on this. Do it. You'll have one of your best meals ever. And I'm not talking about the normal American fare, either. This is a jewel of a restaurant, and they'll serve you amazing food, fresh food, local produce, and all of it utterly delicious.
I'd go back all the way to Biggs just to have lunch there again.
This was dessert:

I know. It looks amazing. It WAS amazing.
We came out of that place with smiling faces. No one complained about coming to Biggs anymore, this had been so worthwhile.

It's been a year now since I was in Ellensburg, visiting Jane, her sister-in-law Susan, together with MY Sue from Vancouver. Sadly, I won't be going back this summer. There just isn't enough time.
But I have to go back.
Not to Biggs, mind you, or even Goldendale.
But to see my friends.

Insights. The Healthy And The Wise. Random.

You may have figured this out by now: I'm not the world's best blogger. I'm not even in the top fifty percent.
Blogging is awkward.
There is this deep anxiety of having to write something profound, something that will mean something to others, instead of blabbering about myself or my writing or whatever else I'm doing, or what I had for breakfast. Blogging, for me, means someone else should profit from it. 
And that's something I rarely can provide, because my life is so boring and slow, there's just nothing anyone else could learn from me.


Take the writing. 
What do you want to learn from my path to being published? Nothing.
One morning three years ago I woke up, and while I was lying there in bed, staring at the early spring sky and the geese passing by outside my window on their way back home, way up in the North, I decided I'd get up, make coffee, and start writing a book.
Just like that. And that's what I did. I got up, made coffee, opened my new laptop, and began writing, and I didn't finish until the book was finished.
Then, when that was done, on another random morning, I posted a page of it on this blog. Hours later, I was talking to my publisher, and weeks later I had a book deal.
End of story. Boring. 
By now, I have two more books written, signed, and on the way to being published, and a new project is looming on the horizon.
It's a job. I work for Buddhapuss Ink. 
I get up in the morning (as before) make coffee (also, as before), start writing, and stop when it's time to stop. It's a fun job, and I do it with a passion, but it's a job and pays my bills.


So if this counts as an insight, I'm fine with it.


My husband is sick.
Not mortally sick, not invalid sick, he just has what many men of his age have who like their food and drink too much and don't go for regular checkups: the famous "metabolic syndrome". In normal speak: high blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol. 
Last Sunday, he had to be taken to the ER in an ambulance because we thought he had a stroke, but no, it's only a paralysis in an eye muscle, thank you, diabetes. It was a huge, loud, cannon ball shot of a warning, and I'm quite certain he'll take all those pills and stick to a sensible diet and all those things.
But.
For a while there, while I was waiting for the first results at the ER, all by myself, I was wondering how our life was about to change.
It COULD have been a stroke. An aneurism. A tumor. All those were real possibilities. 
This Sunday could have changed our lives forever. 
He'll have to change his diet and lose some weight. He'll have to learn that a meal without meat is still a meal, and that a bowl of fruit for dinner is enough, you don't need a pastrami sammie to feel full.


The insights I've won from this week for myself, though, are wonderful. 
I've learned that whatever happens, I'll never be alone.
Even while I was waiting at the ER until my kids arrived, my publisher messaged me and asked if there was anything I needed.
The darling woman, I wonder what she'd have done if I'd replied, "Come here! Come here NOW! I need you here!!!"
But anyway, that would have been mean, and I know what she meant  - she was there for me. 
As were all the others. My Facebook friends, my Twitter friends, those I've met in person, those I'm going to meet this year, even those in places I'll never go to, people I'll always only know through the internet, they were ALL there, virtually holding my and my husband's hands, praying, sending good thoughts, asking how it was going, offering support. Quite a lot of them messaged me their phone numbers, asked me to call them if I needed someone to talk to, a couple of doctors offered medical advice.


Just so you know: the first thing I did when my hubby had his diagnosis and I saw him there in his hospital bed was to slap his arm, and hard.
He smiled at me and called me "darling". He knew I did it because I was so relieved to see him well.
He's home now.
After the Easter holidays, on Tuesday, he'll have to go and see our own doctor for his medication, and from now on,  go for regular visits to the lab. It's a small price to pay for a big, big scare.
We are still a family.
I am grateful today.
And that is the most important insight of all: don't take your loved ones for granted. 
Never, for a moment, believe you'll have them forever. Tell them that you love them, every day, all the time. Show them you love them, by caring about them.
Because, you see, there may come one Sunday when you look into their eyes and see something is wrong, just like I did.
Only maybe you'll not be as lucky as I was.
It may just be too late then.










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All Over Again

A year ago today it was snowing.
It had been frosty and cold for days, and that day, December 1, it began to snow.
I remember how I looked out of the window in the early morning and cursed a bit because it meant I'd have to put on my very comfy and very warm, but also very ugly winter boots to go out.
At that time, I was still working at school, and the Christmas Show we had been rehearsing for was only five days away.
So I dressed, made coffee, stared out of the window some more, admired the neighbors' holiday decorations, listened to the hubby grumble about having to scrape snow from the car, and then I turned on my computer.
There was one important task for me to do that morning, before I set out for school and the cold auditorium for another round of rehearsals: I was going to submit my first book ever to a publisher, for the first time ever.
I knew nothing about submitting.
I had no proper synopsis, no query letter, only a hastily slapped together summary in the "you know, and that's really all that happens" manner, I had no bio other than that I'd been born and was still alive, and my pitch was "I'll do what I have to do, except dance naked on tables". Yes, I really wrote that.
And slapped an unformatted, very lengthy manuscript into an attachment.


I'm kidding you not, that's how it went. I was in a hurry, the publisher had requested the book, and they kept asking for it. So I sent it off. I remember being totally ecstatic for about three hours, and then the panic set in.
The book was too long. I hadn't done my best with the editing. I hadn't found a good ending.
I HAD NOT WRITTEN A GOOD BOOK AT ALL AND IT SUCKED AND THE PUBLISHER WOULD NOT EVEN BOTHER TO REPLY.


My hubby, patient, loving soul that he is, bore it all, and more of his hair turned silver.


A day before Christmas I fell into depression. And I MEAN depression.
My older son, a medical doctor, came around, took one look at me curled up on the couch, a mound of used tissues on the carpet, and went out to get me a pack of antidepressant.
Totally listless by then, I watched my family put up the Christmas tree. The presents weren't wrapped, there weren't even presents for everyone, and I hadn't done any grocery shopping for the holidays.
And it didn't mean a thing to me.
I wanted that book deal. I wanted that email telling me I had that book deal.
My older son kept telling me, "Why are you making such a fuss? Of course they'll take it!"
Only I didn't really think it was going to be that easy.


I had to wait until the middle of January until I got THAT reply, and a little longer until the contract was finalized, but it really was that easy, in the end.


The reason why I'm writing this now is because last night, exactly a year after submitting "The Distant Shore", I finished writing the sequel, "Under The Same Sun".
And I'm full of gratitude and blissfully happy because I'm allowed to do this, I'm allowed to be a writer. I have the best publisher in the world.


I think writing one book and getting it published is a pretty cool thing. I mean, it's VERY cool.
But finishing a second is way cooler. It's a totally new dimension. It proves you have more in you, writer-wise, than just one burst of creativity. It proves you have a chance of being in it for the long run, have that career as an author.


So I'm sitting here on my couch, my favorite red velvet cushion in my back, my cat beside me on his favorite red fluffy plaid, hubby has made fresh coffee, and I'm opening the "Same Sun" file to start the editing of my brand new novel.


Come on, Santa. Try and top that.






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Sense and Nonsense of twitter #ff

Good morning, Friday, as always you bring us the joys and tribulations of the twitter #ff lists. There are  many who refuse to do the #ff honors completely, some who believe they only work of you do a few, individual #ffs, and some who do nothing but send out long lists with recommendations all day long.

Just now a discussion about the value of the FollowFriday  cropped up on twitter. There seems to be a general tiredness about the whole thing, and a doubt that it does any good at all. I think originally the #ff were meant to connect people, to get a chance to easily meet friends of friends, but that's not how I see it anymore. With the many, many tweeters out there right now, and growing numbers in followers, introducing ALL of your friends is insanity, would take about twenty-four hours and bring on the infamous twitter whale for two days.

No, here's what I think.

There is a whole different meaning to the thing, and that's why I still do them.

By giving people a #ff shout, I show them how much I appreciate their tweets. This might be for different reasons: because they are my publisher, and I want to promote them (and myself, ahem), or the authors I connect with most (because by talking to them on twitter I feel a little more like an author myself), they tweet delicious recipes (yeah, I like to eat; who doesn't), they send beautiful photos (Paul Steele; the grand-master of amazing links!), they tweet funny stuff (ScoDal; follow or die!), they are literary agents (Janet Reid; hilarious, useful blog! And Rachelle Gardner, twitter friend, full of good advice.), or simply because they are beloved, friends.  There are many others, not listed here now because this is only supposed to be a short, dashed-off blog and I want to get back to the REAL writing.

So you see, I do #ff. With them, I tell people, "Hey, I know you. I read your tweets. I like them so well that I think others should read them too. I love being your friend. I love that you think my tweets are worth your time. In this very second, typing your name, adding #ff, pressing "enter", I'm thinking of you. Have a wonderful day, and thanks for talking to me!"

That's all. Please proceed with your Friday. :)