A glimpse

Yesterday I mentioned in the comments that I'd be spending the day tagging along with my friend who is looking for an apartment for her mentally ill, alcoholic, unemployed, impoverished brother-in-law who is being treated for cancer (of the tongue, just to make things worse!). Whew. That's a load o' trouble. Fortunately, as I also mentioned, my friend is experienced in dealing with social services, but even so she was flying blind to some extent, never having done this particular task for him before.

It was, as perhaps only a writer would so cold-bloodedly say, interesting.

We went into four apartment buildings, all of them low-income, subsidized housing. (His total income is about $500 per month; our understanding, possibly faulty, is that they'd take 30% of that, which is really good compared to what he had been paying for years in the building where he had insisted on living before he got cancer.) We drove past four other places, too, but looked over at each other, said, "No way," and kept driving. In those cases, we were turned off either by the disrepair of the building, the crime rate of the neighborhood, or the appearance of the clientele

The four we investigated were nice, to the extent that we could see them. We didn't see any of the actual apartments, but only the lobby areas, because either they were full with no units available to see, or they required an appointment, which my friend hadn't learned from her extensive research on the internet. (I held a lapful of her printouts for all the places she'd selected to check.) The public areas were, in all four cases, clean and neat, inside and out. If there was landscaping, it was attractive; if there was a big lobby area, it looked comfortable and appealing, too, if you don't mind protective vinyl coverings on furniture. At least one of the buildings has a grocery on the premises.

These buildings were all well-located on bus lines. One was a downtown high rise, two were big old converted apartments in mid-town (where he lived previously and was badly beaten up once), and one was a high rise on the edge of town.

We were impressed with the employees. Every one of them was friendly, helpful, and efficient. They were stymied a bit by a new HUD regulation that requires an applicant to fill out the forms on the premises, and won't let you take them away with you to fill out, but we all worked our way around that.

Three of them have waiting lists, one has available units (He won't be ready to leave the nursing home he's in for at least a month, though he *really* wants out now.) The waiting list in one was 3-6 months, but it was clear to us in at least one case that because we look respectable, that could help move him up the list faster. Huh. Wait until they meet him. They're going to be screaming "false advertising."

In other words, because there were two of us--intelligent, fairly well-informed, middle-class women driving around a large area in a nice car, armed with internet research--it went very well. We found places we think he could live. The employees in those places couldn't have been nicer to us, or more helpful.

What if he were on his own? Sick, crazy, smelly, unable to speak (which doesn't keep him from trying). I don't think he'd have had to do it on his own, even then. Because he's in a nursing home, a social worker would have done this legwork. Somehow, he'd have been found a place to live somewhere. But this whole process--starting with his hospitalization and surgery--started because he has a brother and sister who care about him. He's not easy to find when he's on his own. He doesn't communicate well, and doesn't much want to. But his brother managed to track him down, get him in a car, and take him to a doctor, and from there the rest of it has unfolded. On his own, even with a bleeding mouth, I doubt he'd ever have gone for treatment.

The point of all this is not to make judgements about the system, but merely to write an account of some of what it's like out there, in the place where probably most of us have, at one time or another, secretly worried that we'd end up. As my friend said, with a smile, "I used to wonder how I could get one of those shopping carts." And I've had moments when I wondered, "Okay, so how do you actually get to a soup kitchen?" Haven't you had times of financial insecurity when those were your fears, too? In this society, material security is an illusion. For some, the illusion holds; for this man--from an upper-middle-class family, it broke when he broke.

In many ways, for some people, the social service system works okay, all things considered, though it sure helps to still have family who don't give up. And this is no judgment on families who do give up. Nobody knows their particular circumstances. Nobody walks in their shoes. I might give up, too. Most of the time even this man's family has to just let him be. When they can help, they do.

All we did was view that life, in mere glimpses, from the lobby. Even that tiny glimpse was enough to remind me that the only real security any of us have lies in whatever degree of acceptance and peace we feel inside, and in the love of our friends and family, and the good will of strangers.

Sisters In Crime, Part 1

Note to readers: Every now and then I'll do posts, like this one, that may interest only mystery writers/readers. The comments will carry on, as usual, though. Thanks.

Years ago, Sharyn McCrumb, who was a mystery writer at the time, made the now-famous remark that the mystery world is like a village. "Tony Hillerman is the mayor," Sharyn quipped, much to the amused agreement of the rest of us, "Mary Higgins Clark is the rich, gracious lady in the big white house on the hill, and the rest of us live in the little shacks down on The Flats."

True dat, lol. It's a village where everybody knows everybody else, or nearly. We have our own conventions, our own awards, our own magazines, chat rooms, and blogs. And scattered throughout the Mystery Village are "lodges" where mystery writers, editors, publishers, librarians, book store owners, and our BELOVED readers can meet to laugh a lot and to get down to the business of discussing our common interests. Most of those "lodges" are strictly for professionals in the field. There's the big group, Mystery Writers of America, which is the umbrella organization for all of us. There's The Private Eye Writers of America. There's the Crime Writers League, and the new International Thriller Writers, Inc., and others.

And there's Sisters In Crime, which also includes readers as members.

Devoted to promoting "women of mystery," it was the brainchild, twenty years ago, of Sara Paretsky. I was lucky enough to be one of the founding members, and I was the second president, after Sara. Two girls from Kansas, in a row. :) Over two decades, it has grown from the original 40 members to more than 3,600 members worldwide. We're not exclusive--anybody, including men, may join. (At the beginning, there was much merriment over the idea of "male members." We settled on "brothers.") The only thing we ask is that members and chapters remember that we're dedicated to supporting the work and careers of women in the mystery field. It's not just a reader's club, or a writer's group, therefore, but is aimed at a larger goal--helping women who write mysteries, which in turn keeps those books coming for the millions of people who love to read them.

But why even start such an organization devoted to women?

Because twenty years ago there was a revolution in our mystery village. What happened next was, I think, a microcosm of the women's movement in general. I'll talk about that revolution next Thursday in Part 2.

Photo: Ex-presidents of Sisters In Crime, looking silly in our 20th Anniversary Party caps. From left: Margaret Maron, me, Carolyn G. Hart, Joanna Carl (aka Eve Sandstrom).

Awwww

This week I put up my very first hummingbird feeder, and they came almost immediately.

If we ran the world

If I ran the world, of course it goes without saying that we'd have all the big stuff we want, like peace and health care and food and decent jobs and wages and housing for anybody who wants them. But after doing that in my first week in office, then I'd like to settle down to what really matters. . .

1. Garden nurseries wouldn't stop selling little plants by the end of June. They'd understand that we still want to be able to buy cheap little darlings and watch them grow, even in August. None of these $4.99 eight-inch pots for us, please; keep giving us those $1.99 six packs of babies.

2. We'd get paid for doing our hobbies. We'd get paid for planting our flowers and then watering them. I'd get paid for pursuing this new passion of making jewelry. If you love to cook, you'd get paid for that. Oh, and you'd get paid for reading. More for fiction. :)

3. Dogs could run free again.

4. There would be double-feature movies with news reels and cartoons again.

5. All tomatoes would taste like tomatoes.

6. There would be Cuban Coffee available in Kansas City. Close to my home.

7. If we got sick and tired of our jobs, even ones we once loved, even ones for which we went to 120 years of college, we could quit and do something else new and interesting, and everything would be fine.

8. Middle school wouldn't be hell and high school would be interesting.

9. Nobody would talk on cell phones in restaurants or on airplanes (except after they land). There wouldn't be a law, there would just be more thoughtful people. :)

10. If you were working on a book and having a hard time with it, you could toss the damned thing, and the publisher would say, "That's okay, sweetheart," and pay you anyway.

What if you ruled the world.?

The unexpected

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, or for Alberto Gonzales to resign today, or landscape like this in Kansas. This used to be an ancient ocean bed, and then later a river ran through it, but geologists say it was erosion from wind and rainfall that carved out these monument rocks. This is where the book I'm working on is set. It speaks to me of contrast, beauty, the unexpected, isolation, inspiration, danger, peace, time, and timelessness. Sometimes it feels as if my book is taking as long to write as it took for those rocks to erode into those shapes. Next time, I think I'll try to be inspired by a rushing river. :)

I wish us all a happy and inspired Monday.

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Friends Don't Let Friends Write Alone

You know how, when very young children first start to play together, they do what's called "parallel play"? They play side-by-side, but not interacting. I've done that with writer friends for years. We sit in the same room, each of us writing, both of us agreeing on no interruptions until an hour or so has passed. Then we might stop for coffee or a snack, maybe some chitchat, maybe not, and only for a little while. Then we get back to writing. We never read our work to each other, or critique it, though we might brainstorm a little. We're there to write. The stereo sound of our tapping fingers spurs us on. It's a companionable, satisfying way to work sometimes, especially if we're tired of isolation, or we're stuck in our writing. Today I'll be over at my friend Sally's house, on a porch very like the one in the photo, and she'll be sitting on her wicker couch working on her novel, and I'll be nearby in a wicker chair working on my novel. We'll work like that off and on for hours, and then again tomorrow. If I'm lucky, I'll get to stay for supper. :)

I hope your Saturday has good friends and good work and good rest in it, too.