Getting Published

 

Chapter 25

Getting Published

I loved the publisher of my Hawaiian book, The Frog's Song. While she was doing a line-by-line edit, we got to know each other. That she published the book was an honor. I'm sorry it didn't make both of us rich.

 One must note, though, not as an excuse, but as a fact that first books rarely hit a home run on the first try. I have noticed, however, that if I give the book to someone, they like it and give it to someone else. That pleases me, but it bypasses both the publisher and me. And the publisher is disappointed that it didn't sell well. Me, too.

 If it had a subtitle, perhaps One Year off the Grid on a Tropical Island, people wouldn't mistake The Frog's Song for a children's book.

When we moved to Temecula, California, we gradually regained the confidence we had lost in Hawaii. We felt something odd there, often felt lost, and longed for home. 

 Strangely, the ache in our hearts, (DD's and mine) lingered in California. DD and I would drive to a beach where pelicans flew up and down the coast in groupings of twelve or so. And when they glided overhead, I felt a definite lift of energy. They slowly flew down the beach and then gradually returned over our heads again. When I looked up, I could see fluttering fringe on their wing tips.

We performed clearing ceremonies at the water's edge to rid ourselves of the heaviness we were carrying. We were confused about what we had encountered there, how we felt "Called," and then felt we must leave. Undoubtedly, negative energy existed there. It depended on where you were. On the Kona side of the Island, it was light and fun. Not so in Hilo.

 We wrote "Goodbye Hawaii" and whatever else we wanted rid of on rocks and threw them into the sea. 

 In Temecula, Neil worked on a project with a fellow he had worked with earlier when we lived in California. And Neil was available to do Clinicals on their current optical instrument.

 We were there for two years until the project was shelved. Neil contacted a Microscope company in Eugene he knew of and got a job there. Thus, we arrived back where we started. It was good. We were close to our first-born daughter, her husband, and my eldest grandson. 

 But Hawaii was where Coqui frogs sang us to sleep at night. And then, when we rented a house in Junction City, Oregon, we heard the not-so-melodious singing of bullfrogs at night.

 "Frog sings the songs that bring the rain and make the road dirt more bearable."

  --Medicine Cards, by Jamie Sams & David Carson, Illustrations by Angela Werneke.

 One Literary Agent told me he hated the Coqui frogs of Hawaii. Hated? That's a strong word for a frog no larger than a thumbnail. The Coquis don't croak. They sing their own name and don't harm anything—except in large numbers, they can keep some people awake at night. They eat bugs and insects, and their singing is to call a mate. They were accidentally imported from Cuba on plants—some residents don't like imports. 

 Temecula was an excellent location to drive to the beach, LA, Disneyland, and Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, DD and I discovered Mandalay Bay's Lazy River. What fun, a quarter mile-long swimming pool that ran in a loop with a current that would push you along. It was perfect for a two-year-old to ride on mom's or grandma's back and dip under waterfalls.  

 The Temecula location allowed us to visit my friend Sylvia from our college days, and her husband, Greg. Sylvia and I connected in a Spanish class at UCR, remained friends, and kept in touch no matter where we were. Sylvia loved to travel and often visited us in Oregon. Our stay in California allowed us to visit and restaurant hop. Who wanted to cook at that stage? Sylvia once rented a bungalow at the Winery, where they had excellent food and view of a glorious countryside.

 I treasured a long metaphysical talk with Greg, Sylvia's husband, while Sylvia pretended to be my grandson's second Grandma.

 DD found our Temecula house when she and her son traveled from Hawaii on a house-hunting mission.

 Earlier on, we had looked around the LA, Burbank, and Pasadena areas where DD had considered getting a job. She chose Temecula, a central place and a lovely house, and we rented it from a nice man who would allow our two dogs and two cats. A 150-pound dog is a problem for landlords who don't know and wouldn't believe that Bear was the gentlest dog who never damaged anything. He was much safer than a little twenty-five-pound dog.

 Newfoundland dogs, so I’ve heard, are natural babysitters. Wendy's dog in Peter Pan was Newfoundland. In Hawaii, Bear placed himself between the baby, walking by then, and the neighbor's Doberman, barking that Doberman bark that can curdle your blood. The Doberman must have thought we were invading his territory, for we were right over his fence line. However, he was invading ours. The neighbors rescued us and kept their Doberman home after that. 

 I wondered why many Hawaiians feared dogs until I found that many had macho or hunting dogs. When I took my little poodle, Peaches, with me, people went gaa gaa over her.

 The Temecula house was on three acres containing a grapefruit orchard the owner didn't tend. Later, he started a turkey and chicken farm on site, but out of sight from the house. When the birds came, I offered to feed his flock, as I was experienced with chickens, and he agreed to give me the job plus a reduction in the rent.  

 The turkeys became accustomed to my voice and would gobble when I called out to them. Coyotes killed many turkeys until the owner shored up the fence sufficiently. However, some mornings, I would still find a headless turkey who got too inquisitive about who was marauding their fence line. 

 One day, from the front yard, I watched a machine prune the orchard across the street. They used a humongous device with a giant blade that cut the sides of the trees while traveling down a row. Coming back down the row, it cut the other side. Finally, the blade rotated to a horizontal position and cut the tree’s tops. The result? Square trees.

 The property was at the top of a long sweeping hill from town, and on the slope, vineyards stretched out in rows green with summer foliage. Wineries along the highway offered fabulous brunches, and from our house in the fresh morning hours, we would watch colorful hot air balloons drift lazily on the air currents. 

 As twilight fell on our Temecula home one evening, Little Boy Darling, somewhere between the ages of two and three, looked up through the Eucalyptus tree branches and said, "It's making a net for the moon." A poet in the making.

 As was my habit, I often went out in the truck to write. One Temecula morning, with Peaches by my side, we happened upon a hot air balloon lying on the ground slowly deflating while being held down by two men holding long ropes.

 I could see through the opening at the bottom of the balloon to its top, where it had another hole and a closable flap. The air was streaming through the balloon and out that hole, slowly deflating it. Presently, from over the ridge came a man riding a horse with a dog loping along beside them. The dog trotted up to the men holding the balloon, then padded on doggy feet from one man to the other, gathering loving scratches.

 The men chatted a bit, and then the man on his horse with the dog trailing him disappeared back over the ridge.

The men continued their job, and when the balloon was flat on the ground, they rolled it into a ball, stuffed it into the wicker gondola that was once filled with adventuring people, and loaded it into their pickup. 

I thought of Greg, Sylvia's husband, who died last week.

 

 

It's Up to Us

 

 

We Care

 

Most of this content comes from a blog post I wrote on Feb.1, 2019, then I put it away and virtually forgot about it. Having it come up in my email by a commenter made me curious to see what they found of interest.

That post impacted me so much I had to write about it again.

Here it is: What do you think? Any comments?

 “We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. 

"So, we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”

― Buckminster Fuller

 I heard Buckminster Fuller speak in San Diego California, and my mouth dropped open when he said he made $300,000 a year and spent every penny of it. He knew he would make another $300,000 the following year.

 How cool is that!

 That was 30 years ago.

At the time of that blog post, I was taking a course which begun in Portland Oregon, called The Right to Exist. Later it moved to another location and to new writers named Dominika and Cedric. Their course is The Trailblazer.

When I first began following The Right to Exist site, I thought about how people work like slaves, often hate their jobs, go home tired, grumbling, watch television and fall into bed, only to repeat the same procedure the next day.

And working mothers get their three-year-old child up at 7:30 to take her to day-care, drop her off at day care, or later on at school, work for 8 hours, pick up the child, or children, and go home to whatever happens in the evening. Only to begin it all over again the following day. Some young children spend over 40 hours a week in day-care.

And our social system, in giving any financial assistance, keeps the participant at the poverty level, for we have the belief that if a person doesn’t work, they are lazy, and the state/government/whatever social service doesn’t want to support laziness. One must justify their right to exist.

 “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

—Nelson Mandela

 On the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum are individuals who rush to “jobs” they love so much they say, they would do them even without pay. These individuals often make an enormous amount of money, buy jets and such, send cars into space, and are the envy of others sitting at home watching TV.

 Of course, those glorious ones got off their butts and worked for the thing they loved. As a result, some received high financial rewards. However, some have a problem. In their effort to reach the top, they forgot that inner work is required to become a whole human being. They became despondent, couldn’t handle the pressure, their relationships fell into the toilet, they used drugs to calm the savage beast and some ended up killing themselves.

 It’s a dilemma.

 And crap, this will break your heart:

 “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.” –Nelson Mandela.

 

We care.

 

While working my way through The Trailblazer processes, I hit a spot where I questioned what I wanted to do, where my strengths lie and found, that while I thought I knew what I wanted—to write, to blog and to write books. Another possibility came pecking at me.

 I wanted to write my own course, not to copy others those who have gone before me, but my own—to work through it with my participants, for, you know, there is more than the external trappings of life.

 There is also the inner work of how we relate to other human beings and to ourselves. Few of us have escaped life unscathed, and most people feel they aren’t good enough.

 If one’s psychology is 80% of the battle in living the life we choose, then the place to begin is with clearing the path to our greatness.

 I have taken more seminars, workshops, courses, and training programs than you can shake a stick at. (Words of my mother. Although I still don’t know what that means.) It is time to stop soaking up information and to pour some out.

Nelson Mandela said that while in prison, the rocks they were bashing glistened in the sun and hurt their eyes, so he asked the guard if they could have sunglasses. Well, you know the answer/ "No." Later Mandela asked if they could have books, and the guard said, "You are here to have sunglasses and books." So, Mandela and his fellow inmates decided to tell what they knew to one other person. (Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.)

Share what you know. We need to hear it.

 Like spaghetti thrown to the ceiling, I will throw out my information to see if it sticks.

 Thank you for being here. You are awesome!

 So, how was your week?

Love,

Jo

P.S.

Panama has declared that nature has ‘the right to exist’ in a groundbreaking new legislation.

After a year of debate, the country's National Assembly, President Laurentino Cortizo signed off on the new ruling last week.

It grants nature the “right to exist, persist and regenerate its life cycles” meaning Panama’s parliament will now have to consider the impact of its laws and policies on the natural world.

The legislative text defines nature as “a unique, indivisible and self-regulating community of living beings, elements and ecosystems interrelated to each other that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.”

 Panama now joins countries including Colombia, New Zealand, Chile and Mexico which have granted nature legal protection, either through their constitutions or the court system

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