Of Fairies, Witches, Gypsies, My nourrice sang to me, Sua Gypsies, Fairies, Witches, I alsua synge to thee

I have been tinkering (pun intended--don't worry, you'll get it in a second) for quite a while with the idea of writing a series of books populated by gypsies. Except that every time I start, the research swallows me whole. There is both a dearth and a lack of information. Or, more accurately put, there is all the misinformation you could ever dream of and a lot of question marks for accurate information about gypsies throughout history.


I can't even find an a list of Gypsie names. They had private names in their own tongue, and then names they would adopt for the country the lived in or traveled to. Names that were normal for that time period in place. For example, if they came to America today, they would choose John or Jack or Matt or Will. Actually, I suppose that it would have been similar in the past as well. But no one outside the traveling people ever seems to be trusted with their privates names. Or, perhaps, they were just very accurate in choosing who they told. Because no one wrote it down anywhere, apparently. 


All that to say, this is the beginning and I have done research, but compared to how much research I will have to do in order to actually write the series, it's just a drop in the ocean. Future installments subject to changes in name, occupation, and a host of other things. Comments and criticism welcome. Though if you're really going to rip it to shreds, maybe just e-mail it to me. 


Enjoy!

Although he comes and cuts me down,

    I'll grow next spring, 'tis plain,

But if a virgin wreath should fade,

    'Twill never bloom again.

"What does a tinker whore know?"

She'd been nervous, scared even, from the moment he'd walked into her wagon. The incense that was supposed to lend an authentic mysterious ambiance had clawed at her flared nostrils and made her eyes water. The cool, enigmatic dark had transformed into shadows concealing antagonistic intent. But now her senses closed and what she felt was...not anger. No, that would come later. But strength. It built within her, warming her thin limbs, stilling her imperceptible tremors, clearing her eyes. 

She lifted her chin and met his gaze evenly for the first time. His head snapped back. She let the silence grow, filling it with her strength, allowing the warmth brimming in her core to spill between them. 

"Whether you believe or not is not my responsibility, gadje. I have done what you paid me to do. Now go."

His arm twitched, as if he might slap her. She let the full measure of her disdain to enter her eyes, so thick in her aura even a gadje like him must sense it. He grabbed his hat, crushing the expensive velvet between thick strangler's fingers, and left.

A heartbeat, two more, and then a giant crash as the table hit the plank floor. Tarot cards fluttered, fell, and flailed in every direction. It wasn't enough noise to satisfy the angry god inside her. She rained down expletives on the cards, on the city, on their cursed, greedy leader.

"Hazle?"

She whirled, fists clenched. "What?"

The tent flap was opened a bare inch. Sunlight came into her tent, but that was all.

"D-did that man...? W-what d-did that man--"

She sighed loudly and slumped onto a pillow. Elek's stutter had melted her anger and left in its wake a niggling impatience, as it always did. 

"It was nothing. A bad reading." For a dangerous man, she thought but kept to herself. The caravan had to leave, that was clear, but a story about a scary man wouldn't convince Ursa. Not in such a profitable city. Not when things were finally getting better. Not when it was her, an untried fortuneteller, who was doing the telling. Only Momma D believe she had "the gift"--possibly because she was the only one, including Hazel, who still believed in such things. 

A curly brown head appeared in the sunlight. "Y-you're okay?"

She smiled wanly and then returned to rubbing her forehead, badgering herself to think of a way to get Ursa to move the troupe without exposing herself to censure for giving the bad reading. She had been desperate to prove her worth, to contribute and pull her own weight. Always she had felt beholden. And now, with Eamus sniffing around her skirts, she especially didn't want to feel as if she owed anyone anything to the troupe who had taken her in as an orphan. Momma D had had to harangue Ursa for a full year before he would allow it, and only then because the troupe was so hard up for money. Her first week of telling fortunes and already she had screwed up. Why had she told him what she'd seen, and why had she seen it?

A cry made her jump, her nerves taught as violin strings.

Elek stood sucking his finger, a few cards in his other hand. Hazel sighed again. "Leave it. I'll clean up my own mess. Momma D would say it's only what I deserve after making it in the first place."

Belated Father's Day

When I got back from my three-months-long vacation with my parents, right before Father's Day, my thoughts were none too charitable toward either of them. Thirty-three uninterrupted days with my parents, the last ten days of which were spent in the car on a road trip. Thus, for my card to my father (which is all he got from me seeing as I don't have a job and am trying to start up a company), I borrowed sentiments from someecards.com. Something to the effect of "Sorry I can only afford the same Father's Day gift I got you when I was seven, but I'd be honored to buy you a celebratory meal with the credit card you pay for."

On previous Father's Days I've been sentimental, and this has been brushed off. None of our immediate family is too comfortable with emotional expression. So I didn't feel too bad about my lighthearted card. But this past Sunday I learned that a couple of guys I went to school with, brothers, had lost their dad in an accident during a trip to celebrate one of the brothers getting into med school. This is the fifth dead father of school friends--that I know of! And I don't think we're at the age that our fathers should be dying. They're not even retired yet!

Ever since this terrible news, I've been inundated with a feeling of gratefulness. I'm so grateful my dad is alive. But even more than that, I'm grateful that he's such a good dad.

When I was little, it was taken for granted that all dad's were tall, good at sports, and smart. I even thought that my dad might be a little worse than other dads because he had a terrible temper. The number of times I can remember that temper being untempered, though, is less than mine ten fingers. In fact, whenever me and my two brothers really pissed him off by being too annoying or wrestling too much in the car, he would give us the option: "Do you want me to pull over now and spank you on the side of the road, or wait till we get home?" We of course always opted for when we got home because a) he wouldn't be pissed anymore, so the spanking wouldn't be as hard, b) who wants to be beaten on the side of the road--embarrassing, and c) most of the time he would forget!

Although, the older I get, the less I think the forgetting theory is likely. He probably just didn't want to beat us once we were behaving for once. Who wants to listen to wailing children? And boy, did I holler whenever I was in trouble. All he had to do was look at my crosswise and I'd begin welling up, sobs backing up at the bottom of my throat. One false move by him and they'd be released. More of a punishment on him and anyone in my vicinity than on me, really.

The older I get, the more women I know who had poor relationships with the fathers. My dad was great in many ways; some I have, I'm sure, unfortunately forgotten. The things that stand out clearest to me now are those things that are so dramatically different from what other women have experienced with their fathers.  

One of my friends had a father who assigned all women to one of four categories: beautiful, pretty, cute, ugly. He would tell my friend, his daughter, she wasn't beautiful or pretty, but she was cute. It made sense that she would have a dysfunctional relationship with her body image. 


My father always complimented me and my mother, and it never made me feel that beauty was something to be sought after nor was it a competition I was in. By no means am I the most beautiful or the most attractive woman. My dad's compliments didn't make me vain or preoccupied with my image. Every woman has her own innate beauty, and I am confident in mine because of my father's attention. And he still compliments me. I painted my fingernails and toenails hot pink on Sunday. At lunch when we held hands for prayer, he said, "Oh! That's a pretty color. What's it called?" And I replied around a mouthful of food, "Pwinksh." (The sh sound is the sound of me sucking spit back into my pretty mouth. I'm sure he's as proud of me and I am of him.) Not only did he notice a change in my appearance, but he complimented the change and asked for information about it. Which I didn't know because I really can't be bothered with details. But it made my day.

Another friend of mine has a father that "tells her like it is," often remarking, "Stop being such a bitch." And she says she likes, even needs, that sort of straightforward talk in her life. My father, I'm sure, has had to have had the passing impression that I'm acting like a b****. And that's probably a kind thought. My teenage years were not pretty, ya'll. But he has never, ever, ever called me that. Nor would he! You do not call the people you love degrading names. Instead, he instructs me (most patiently considering my headstrong behavior) how to be a lady and a godly woman. I am almost never grateful for this instruction, but when compared to the alternative, I think I'll change my tune. And because of his respectful way of talking to me and my mother, I've never sought a verbally abusive boyfriend or had those acidic thoughts about myself. I might be awful or mean, but I never view myself in subhuman terms.

Play time. I rarely hear my friends talk about playing with their fathers. My dad played with us. We would wrestle. We would swim. He would make up stories about Walter and Penelope (although that was more of a way to get us to go to sleep instead of staying up till all hours chasing each other with squeals of addled excitement). He coached us in sports (though those good memories are mixed with uh...other memories, pretty evenly). And I have a couple of very fond warm rain memories.

Oklahoma gets warm rain. Sometimes the sun is even out when it rains. Warm rain requires the temperature to be 75F or warmer, and the rain is about air temperature. The benefit of warm rain is that it is excellent singing in the rain weather. But that's not what we did with our dad. One morning, when we were all still very small, he piled us into one of my brothers' wagon and pulled us all around the neighborhood in our pajamas. It was a very small parade, but the memory of getting pulled around in the rain by our zany father remains one of my fondest.

The other warm rain memory began too early on a Saturday. There were thunderstorms, and Father pulled us out of bed before we ready, before we'd even had breakfast, and instructed us to put on grubby clothes. We were going to dig trenches. This, dear readers, probably doesn't sound like much fun to you. Nor to us! Oh the bellyaching that met my father's ears as he tried to roust us from our warm roosts. Once outside, the digging began. But we had to use our hands. And there wasn't any apparent system to Father's trench scheme. The need for the trenches was also beyond our ken. The backyard wasn't flooded, had never flooded, so why did it need trenches? I don't know who threw the first mud ball. I have my suspicions that he stood a head taller than the rest of us and had a better arm.

After a couple hours, we resembled the Swamp Monster more than children. Mom made us bathe outside with the water hose--which was quite a bit colder than the rain--before coming inside. This, of course, led to a water fight, with our father having control of the only weapon the majority of the time. After seeing what little progress we made, she demanded we disrobe outside and  provided us with towels to hide under as we ran, giggling, to our rooms to properly bathe and put on normal clothes.

I love the memories I have of my dad, and I appreciate the way he parented me then and now. Sometimes I'm misunderstood, but I'm always loved. Sometimes I'm hurt, but he always asks forgiveness. Sometimes I'm angry, but he's always willing to explain. No one is perfect. But my dad is the perfect father for me.

Share some of your childhood memories below or discuss how you feel about your dad.

*P.S. Next month I will post some fictional writing I've been working on. Be sure to come back and let me know your thoughts!

Priorities: Harry Potter Had Them

I am twenty-six years old and just finished the Harry Potter series. Does the shame I feel come from reading juvenile fiction at my age, or the fact that it took me so long to read the HPs? I'm just kidding. I don't feel shame. I'm talking to all of you pressurers who have tormented and hounded me about reading Rowling's books. I am not ashamed, you hear me?!

But my shame is not what I want to discuss. I want to shame others. I want to shed a light on priorities. It's something that's been consuming my mind in recent years. Yes, even before I quit my job and became an impoverished parasite living at my parents' house with way too much free time on my hands. But again, this isn't about my shame--or my current shame.

The first year I was promoted to management, I worked eighty-hour weeks on average. I was twenty-four. An old friend (as old as you can have them at twenty-four) contacted me out of the blue and wanted to go to lunch. I was absolutely delighted to see him and threw all thoughts of work away for three hours in order to grab a bite and catch up.

We talked of many things, but what he came back to again and again was our friendship. "If anyone had told me we would lose contact, wouldn't talk for years," he said, shaking his head, "I just wouldn't believe it. You were one of my best friends. I still consider you one of my best friends. We can't let this happen."

And it was true. He was the beginning of my priority purgatory. We left filled with plans of getting together and how we would somehow work around my insane work schedule. But reality and responsibility and other reprehensible things constricted me. Weekend after weekend I canceled our plans. Too much work, I couldn't come. It was true...but only if you're looking at it from one angle. I let work, work for an employer I disdained, work for clients who often did not appreciate it, work for a company that did not value me or the value I added to their products ahead of a friendship that could have lasted a lifetime. But it didn't. I didn't prioritize it, and I haven't heard from him in two years.

After that year of hell, my supervisor finally realized that I was near dead and would quit out of sheer exhaustion if not from finding another job (which I had no time to do!). So my work load gradually decreased to the point where I was working an average fifty-hour week. I had time to breathe, look for other jobs, and reevaluate my priorities. The only friends I ever saw were my work friends, whom I loved and still love, but that's not a full life. I had let that blimmin' job fill up every nook and cranny. I used to go home every Sunday and eat lunch with my family, but that all stopped when I got promoted. I had to work on Sundays. I used to go visit my out-of-town friend (the aforementioned Tulsa dweller) at least once a month, but after the promotion, it was more like a couple times a year. Even when I did see her, I would have to bring my work with me.

What good is whining that you have too much work to see people when you detest that work? What good is it to the people you love who want to see you? Who want to be there for you? What will your life look like, years down the road, if you keep choosing work? Is it the life you want to lead?

Harry Potter knew this. He valued friends and family over his life. That's why Voldemort couldn't kill him. (Oh. Spoiler alert.) But we aren't talking life and death here, in our reality. We're talking prioritization of time. But that can be in the HP series as well. I think I'm too much like Hermione. I value learning, but even more than learning, I like applying what I've learned and showing off what I've learned. I like being smart. I'm sure pride is part of it, but it feels like it's more about what you do well. An artist paints and draws and displays it because that's what he loves and what he does well. Like Hermione, I learn well. So I slave over books and apply it through my job or studies. But Hermione had Harry and Ron to pull her out of her studies and out of her head and keep her grounded. She prioritized her friendship with them above her studies. Every time she broke a rule or paused in her school studies to help Harry with some quest, she was choosing her friends over her studies. Sure, she helped them through her knowledge, because that is what she's good at. But she made time for them; she broke out of her "work" to nurture the friendship and simply be physically and mentally and emotionally present when they needed a friend.

Harry was only a mediocre wizard. Perhaps he could have been incredibly powerful, if he had studied. But he valued his friends much more than he did studying. In the end, it served him well.

Of course priorities require balance. You can't only spend time with friends and family. They'd get sick of you. But think, whenever someone asks to meet up, whether or not you can't set aside an hour, just one hour, to see that person. Every time you tell someone "no" because you choose work or an office party or some other obligation that you aren't even particularly happy about, you are prioritizing those things you don't love over those that you do. And the things you don't prioritize, no matter how much you tell yourself you love them, will feel unloved and eventually leave. Because how you spend your time shows your priorities. And what you prioritize above all else is, actually, what you love the most.

Now that I'm an unemployed loser, I plan on spending as much time doing the things I really love as possible.  I'm going to find a church. I'm going to do those little chores my parents want me to because I want to show that I love them. I'm going to help my brother start a business (more to come in subsequent posts, I am sure). I'm going to walk my dogs. I'm going to say YES! every time someone wants to hang out. And I'm going to read and write and edit and enjoy my life. I am determined to shape a present and a future I am happy in. What's the point of suffering through a present for an uncertain happy future? Both are possible as long as you keep your priorities in order.

Teddy, Nick Cage, and Shrimp

"By acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid." --Theodore Roosevelt 


For the last year I've been stretching my boundaries. I made the resolution to be adventurous. This was explored in many areas of my life: work, hobbies, friends, food, activities, social situations, etc. Instead of feeling trepidation, seeing only the awkwardness in any new situation, I vowed to pretend as if I was not afraid. You own twenty cats and always smell a little like urine? Sure! I'll try your brownies. A party that neither you nor I was invited to? Let's do it. That's what the most interesting man in the world would do, right? Oh? It isn't a party after all? Just an intimate affair. Well, I'm not an introverted weirdo. I'm sure this will end with me making friends or something...

After nearly a year of this, I propose that getting out of your comfort zone and experiencing adventure are not the same thing. In fact, they rarely overlap. It's also nigh impossible to find adventure. Adventure or, as most oft occurs to me, misadventure finds you. As will be illustrated in stories of things that have actually happened to me.

A picky eater at birth, I've challenged myself to try new foods and be open. No palatable epiphanies of yet. But I was going on a trip to new countries. Surely if I was going to have a victuals inspiration, it was going to be abroad.

When vacationing in Italy, we went out for pizza. We were greeted by hearty buono seras and ushered to a red check bedecked table. It was all very genuine, and the menu was filled with a variety of meats: salami, prosciutto (raw and cooked), sausage, and marine beasties of all sorts. Well, I was in Italy, was I not? A peninsula rumored to have wonderful seafood. I had not yet had seafood during the trip. True, I don't particularly enjoy seafood, but this was a TripAdvisor-endorsed restaurant and I was on an adventure. As my family members ordered their safe combinations--the 4 formaggio for my parents and the salami for my brothers--I smugly congratulated myself for taking a risk. They were all going to want a piece of my shrimp pizza and rue the day the stayed in their comfort zones.

Except the pizza smelled like it had been dipped into a polluted harbor. And the shrimp tasted exactly as they smelled.

One might be tempted to say, "Well, but you had an experience!" or something to that effect. We experience things constantly; why should we experience uncomfortable things that don't actually enrich our lives? This is not an adventure or even misadventure. Just another epicurean fail. The only thing gleaned from the "experience" is perhaps that one should not eat shrimp that were not harvested from the Gulf of Mexico. My palate was not expanded, my eyes not opened, nor my horizons broadened.

This is one of many stories I can tell about being purposefully adventuresome not working. At all. But non-adventures are boring. So lets talk about real adventure! Or, again, misadventure, as the case will probably be.

My closest friend in thought and behavior lives in Tulsa. I visit her as often as possible, and nothing is ever normal. This is probably because two weirdos weeble-wobbling all over Tulsa, which is no stranger to weird, will naturally attract a certain kind of attention and interaction. We never say to ourselves, "Let's go do X. It will be an adventure!" Both of us are quite a bit more comfortable reading or imagining adventure. Even acting it out with one another. We once had a full-fledged soap opera with the guy who lived across the street from her with his mother. We named him Steve and never once spoke to him in real life. But we had quite the sordid triangle going with me vying for his affections while his out-of-town girlfriend was...out of town. But all my imaginary book donating, leftover sandwich giving, and pants offering was for naught. A few weeks later he packed up his pirate's treasure chest, lashed it to the top of his Kia, and headed for parts unknown. Probably that skank in Vermont. Whom I also never met.

But real life adventure finds us nonetheless. On a trip to New Orleans, we of course scheduled a ghost tour. Stop after stop on our tour was disappointing. The squatty tourguidess regaled us with facts about old buildings, disproved ghost stories, and described pictures that reflected the glare of souls. Or lens flares as they are known by professional photographers. The high point of the tour was when she stopped in front of a gray stone mansion.

"This is Nicholas Cage's house."

She paused significantly, peering up at the group. It was as if she was surprised we weren't running to kiss the stones or swooning at the proximity of such a screen god. As the awkward pause lengthened she gathered herself, round shoulders heaving upward to add height to her toadstool frame.

"As you may have heard, he is in financial difficulties. Lost millions. He'll lose the house. Of course, the house was the problem to begin with. If he had come to me, I could have told him it was haunted, bad luck. Don't buy the house, I would have said. But he didn't, and now he's losing millions. Speaking of Hollywood, did you know Angelina and Brad have a house here? Oh no it isn't haunted. They love New Orleans. Treated like one of the locals."

And so we talked about Brangelina for twenty minutes till we hit our next stop. A school house.

"Isn't this beautiful?"

Her short arm lifted to display a classic French Quarter brick building. It was pretty, and it had nothing to do with Brad and Ange. We all nodded appreciatively, encouraging her toward this new topic. Some even ooooohed in response, remembering the awkward pause at Nick's house.

Her smile fell in sync with her arm. "Well it wasn't built for you."

You could hear the collective intake of breath. Now she had our attention.

"The French Quarter has people who live here and make a living here. Don't throw trash where we make our livelihoods. This isn't Disney World. That concludes the tour. Remember, us in the hospitality industry survive on tips. Thank you in advance for your generosity."

She had snookered us! The ole lead with a question and then thrash you with righteous indignation when you answer positively. We didn't stick around to see if anyone tipped her; just sauntered off, hands in pockets, whistling softly. But I would garner a guess that she doesn't make very much in tips.

That is adventure. It is the unexpected. That's why it can't be sought. But when you're in the midst of it, you can make the decision to stick through it and pretend as if you're not uncomfortable, committing to the unfolding of events; or you can drop out, as many in that abysmal tour did, and miss out on memories and one of my favorite verbal tricks to play on people.

You like this blog? Well I didn't write it for you!

The Witching Hour: An Introduction

It's three a.m. I've been up since two. Well, technically I've been awake since six a.m. yesterday because I never went to sleep tonight. Last night. It's jet lag. And I'm all riled. My brain hops from one thing to another, and I've already made myself cry once. I always do that. Create daydreams that make me cry. Counting sheep is a futile exercise. I create dreams and, if I'm lucky, the day dream becomes a sleep dream sometime before I get maudlin. But my feet were too hot. Hot feet are the worst when you're trying to sleep.

In order to escape the agony of staring at a dark ceiling and to allow my feet some respite I have begun blogging as I always meant to do. I suppose I always meant to but never did because of a lingering distaste of those who blogged in high school. It seemed so self-involved and also horrifyingly vulnerable and open to attack by your peers or, even worse, your parents. But now I'm up at an ungodly hour and what else is there to do? (I suppose I should insert a caveat here: I live in Oklahoma. There really isn't anything to do at 3 a.m.)

So an introduction: The Youth Papers is a blog about youth today and our struggles as illustrated by my struggles. Our economy is tumultuous, our parents are the Baby Boomers, and we were spoon fed empty promises. College doesn't guarantee a job, let alone a well-paying job. Doing what you love doesn't mean you'll be successful. Finding what you love isn't as simple as it was made out. And being a responsible adult is for the birds.

Perhaps we'll find that these struggles transcend youth--but lordy, I hope not.