Thanksgiving, Shop Girls and Eyeliner

One of the biggest surprises to me this year was that I ended up working in retail.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

But typically, I don't enjoy waiting on people; I would rather they wait on me.  Its part of the reason I didn't become a nurse.  Selfish, I know.  But I recognize it for what it is. 

Even more surprising to me was that I would come to love the job in retail. 

First off, the store is owned by one of my dearest friends, who is not your typical store owner.   Jim and Carla Froehler own People's Pottery in Pittsford, NY (Google it) and they are one of the reasons I have not lost my mind since I couldn't find a full time job since the wunderkind said he created 10,000 jobs.  

Carla has made "customer service"  a cross between an art form and a religious experience.  She truly cares about who walks into her establishment, and wants us to care as well.   Leading by example, its ok if we spend two minutes or twenty minutes with a customer - all depending on what they want and need. 

The store is a fine gifts gallery and jewelry store - but there is something for any budget if you are looking for quality merchandise.  The door is left open (sometimes to our chagrin) if there is a customer still shopping inside and we are not allowed to tell people we are closed.  Its a brilliant marketing strategy and we have wrung up major sales due to last minute shoppers. 

The girls I work with are a mix of experienced retailers themselves.  Some of them are older and retired from full time jobs, while others use it as a second income.  Very few work full time.  It's a chance to dress up and wear nice clothes, jewelry and have our hair done.  We are more social than anything, and the happy relaxed atmosphere is contagious.   It's hard work, but we flourish.

There's also a few younger ones, of which I suspect she hires to keep US young.  Being on your feet for 6-7 hours a day can wear you out, and if you're not wearing the proper footwear, its torture.  Having someone standing next to you barely breaking a sweat is invigorating. 

These "Shop Girls," as I affectionately refer to them, have become close friends that I know I will continue to correspond with once I leave here and move on.  The Saturday after Black Friday is my last day, and we are already getting melancholic in our approach to each other.  

I can't believe how quickly we bonded.   Its yet another reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving.  For good friends old and new, and the opportunity to make even more. 

I also went to St. Louis to meet a new friend of my sister in law, who quickly and adeptly made me up in the makeup she was selling.  She is a big proponent of not wearing eyeliner, the staple and mainstay of my cosmetic existence. 

Really?  No eyeliner? 

"We are too old" she advised - "it makes our eyes look smaller and squinty, and we need them to look young and open." 

I looked in the mirror after she had done her magic, and I did indeed look younger without the eyeliner.  I always imagined myself to look like Cissy Spacek with those freckles and eyes that had no definition.  She can pull it off, but I never thought I could. 

"Pace yourself" she offered again.  "Its like withdrawal from drugs.  You can't do it cold turkey, you'll end up hating the results." 

I looked in the mirror again and thought about all those years I practiced putting on black eyeliner every morning from the first instance when I was allowed to wear it at 16 years old.  Can you believe how quaint that sounds now?  

Teased hair up to the sky, blue eye shadow and black eyeliner were the uniform of my teenage years, and I swooped out the corners with a flourish.  My mother always commented, even though I knew she liked it.

"You look like Elvira" she smirked.  

I didn't care.  I felt pretty. 

Years past and I did begin to tone it down a bit.  Black went to gray and then brown, or sometimes not at all when babies were calling.  Sleep took the place of a full face of makeup, and eyeliner was usually the only thing I had time for.  My daughter always laughed and said I put on lipstick to go get the mail, and its true.  

Soon I will have to go get ready for work, as this is the last week at the store.  It's Tuesday and I have one more day to work until the Thanksgiving holiday.  I will be working the Black Friday shift and then it will be goodbye shortly after.  I can feel my heart hitch as I write this. 

I don't if I can't give up the eyeliner just yet, even though its the right thing to do. 

But I'm thankful for the gift of good friends, makeup and a house full on Thanksgiving Day.

May you always appreciate what you have, and never miss what you really don't need. 

Traveling With the Liminals

I woke up early this morning, 5am to be exact. I haven’t done that in quite a while.   My stomach is growling, but not yet a desperate roar to fill it with cereal or soft-boiled eggs.

Wrapping my bathrobe around me to guard against the chill of the morning, I let the dogs out the front door to take care of their business.  When back in the house, they returned to the big bed, warm and comfy from the night’s sleep. Even they weren’t ready to get up yet.  Feeding time for them wasn’t until 7:30 and they were content to wait until the sun was shining through the bedroom windows, the signal to get me up and out of bed, and start nosing around for breakfast.  Within two minutes of laying their heads back down on my still warm bed pillows they were snoring like old men who had left their teeth on the dresser.

As I listen to the coffee maker spitting out the last of my morning elixir into the pot, I’m amazed at how wide awake and alert I am.  Could this be yet another example of what menopause had wrought? Or was something else happening?  I decided I probably should eat something, as it was going to be a busy couple of hours before I head off to work.  Next week is my last week there, and I laugh to myself as I have developed yet another skill to add to my repertoire of jobs I never thought I’d have.  It has been fun there, a nice diversion after the loss of my mother and a jolt to my marriage.  I feel guilty that I am leaving right before the Christmas rush, but at least I will be there for Black Friday. 

The house is quiet, but the lake is softly rolling, waves hitting the shore louder than usual.  There are no whitecaps, but it is definitely awake.  It sets the tone for how the day will be, I think.  There’s a lot to do in a short period of time and most of it can’t be done until the last minute.  I’m still trying to decide what I need to take with me to the new house and what I can leave here.  I know that I will be returning; the question is when?

I’ve decided to ship the majority of my clothes to our new residence, as the RV will not hold much more besides the three dogs and us.  The vehicle is our own covered wagon heading west; it and the house and our last big purchases for a while.  I can only fit in it what I really need.

I guess that’s what has me up so early this calm morning.  The age old question that has probably tweaked the hardiest of travelers. 

What is it that I really need to take with me?

Most of the intangibles are easy; what I carry around with me in my heart will most certainly be easy to make the journey.  Memories of my children, my grandchildren, and my friends, both old and new, are ready to set up shop in yet another kitchen.  That’s the easy part. They will always be with me, no matter where I end up, sitting beside me as I drink another cup of coffee.

The physical and the obvious are more difficult to put my arms around.  I will have just the memory of the lake to soothe me as I sit to write, to continue the stories that were born here and nurtured, but not really ready to show the world.   I will have to make due with the sunrises and sunsets I have captured in photographs, encompassing all seasons in a single moment.  Yes, I know there are sunrises where I am going and the most amazing sunsets, or so he claims. 

“Wait until you see how big the sky is here” he chides me, reminding me of how overwhelmed I felt at the first viewing of the northern lights over the lake one summer, what now seems like a life time ago.  It felt like the sky was pressing down on me, and for just a moment I was afraid.  Sensing my discomfort, he started to name the astrological formations of the stars and tried to distract me, chit chatting about Orion and the Big Dipper.

Suddenly taking my hand he whispered, “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of you.”  From anyone else it would have sounded condescending; but I knew he meant it.

The sun is starting to peek over the horizon, the start of “the liminal,” reminding me of what an old friend once coined the time between night and sunrise.  I suspect there will be many more liminals for me to witness, even though I will not remember them like I will this one.

The day will be here soon, the dogs will be underfoot looking for their morning meal for the ritual of the day to begin.  But for just a few more moments, I will sit and watch the sunrise as it moves from one phase to another, reminding me that another day has passed and a new one is beginning.  I will travel with the Liminals, and they will be with me. 

Another opening, another show

Me & Nikki Rudd 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of appearing on News10NBC to tape an interview for the Sunday morning show "Focus On Rochester." 

In keeping with trying to promote my brand, I have finally learned how to speak in 'sound bites' so that pieces of what I want said can be taken as ads. 

This interview was different, however.  Much longer than the 2-4 minutes I am given to fill, (less than doing a comedy bit!) we spoke for about 12 minutes about me, the book and what I wanted the readers to get out of it.  They even showed a photograph I took, a sunrise setting to further enhance the title of the book "Stories From the Lake."  

From the opening tease promoting it as a great Christmas gift, to the understanding this is a book for anyone at any age, and at any stage in their life, I thoroughly enjoyed myself this time.  

I just wish my hair looked better. 

I Wrote This

Nothing beats the thrill of holding in your hands for the very first time a copy of your first published book. To see your name on the cover, to smell the ink on paper, and feel the binding across the spine, are feelings akin to giving birth.  You labored and fretted over what you put to paper; nurturing it and feeding it regularly making sure that it looked and felt just the way you wanted it so when it was time for you to show it to the world, you hoped you had done a good job.

“Look at that” you can preen proudly.  “I wrote this book.”  And then you hope they think you are wonderful and that they will buy it.

Of course, that’s only the beginning of the story.

You may have written the thing; now you have to sell it.

Authors like me are small time and know it.  I don’t have the financial backing of a Simon & Shuster or receive an advance on the sale of my manuscript to Penguin.  I don’t have the drawing power of Stephen King, or even Larry King, for that matter.  But I know who my audience is, and it is them for whom I write.   I find them at the local bookstores, the markets and the little shops along the roadways, in little towns and hamlets tucked away from the rest of the world.  They are you and your friends, your siblings, your grandkids and your parents.  Your worst enemy and your co worker – they read my books and I recognize them all the time.

They are part of my America.

I am a brand, and every day brings new challenges to learn new ways to promote myself, as well as my books.  Television, print and radio interviews certainly help, but it is the face-to-face contact with people who read my books that will eventually help me build what I want my brand to look like.   Whether it be the face of a grandmother or a toddler, the eyes into which I look when I say “thanks for buying my book” are part of why I write what I write.  They are people just like me and who relate to what I have written.

The bigger chains like Barnes & Noble, Borders and online giants like Amazon, are all good ways to promote my books, of course.  But that is a whole other animal, and I recognized long ago for it for what it is.  They are a business, and need to make a profit if they “book” me, no pun intended.  The larger chains that have held books signings for me in the past are wary and will only purchase 20 copies at a time, with the hope that I will sell 10.  Fortunately, I have always sold all the copies.

But there’s something about the small bookstores of my America that draws me back to them, again and again.  The mom and pop operations, long thought to be dead and gone, are still there.  They thrive along the roads of many small towns, where people like to read and share what they feel about issues.  They look for similarities in their own lives and perhaps, what they can learn from another’s.

They all have their own personalities, but the variables are all the same.  Small, with storefronts boasting the newest author of the week, and what is on sale.  When you enter the store, the rooms are somewhat choppy and misshapen, with a new hallway added as if an afterthought to take you down to still another hallway, another direction.   Many of them smell like bookstores, and most of them have books stacked from ceiling to floor.   The bathrooms are always hidden behind a screen or stacks of books.  One room with a toilet, a door, a sink and toilet tissues stacked above a cabinet over the sink.  They are old, but they are always clean.  Always.

Further into the store, there are always comfortable overstuffed, high back chairs, the smell of coffee permeating the room.  Nearby end tables and coffee tables hold real ceramic coffee cups and remnant coffee rings may have stained them.  The reader has been there awhile and has enjoyed what he or she is reading, even letting their coffee grow cold.

I had a book signing today in family owned bookstore, and I realized that I would miss this place as well as the owner.  She reminded me of what its like to own a bookstore and why they do.  They are not in it for the money – it is for the love of books, story telling, reading, and the people who enter there.

I will be traveling out west with my husband soon, loading up an RV and making our way across America.  I hope to write about our journey and the people we meet along the way.  I hope we have time to stop in some local bookstores, shake the hand of the owner and offer my books for sale.  Maybe someday I can return to see them again.

But even I never see them, I will have done what I have set out to do.  I hope that I have touched them with my words, and shared what was dear to me.

Although my move west is tinged with sadness, I am excited to be traveling across this great country to see who’s out there.  I hope to sell them a book, just by smiling and saying “See this book?  I wrote this.”

Hope to see you soon!

Mona Finds True Love

I recently returned from Chicago where I spent time with my sister-in-law and her significant other, which in itself is significant. 

They were high school sweethearts who broke up in college, but never lost their love for each other, even though they went on to marry other people.  All these years later, after children, divorce and rethinking, they have found each other again and are slowly filling in the blanks.  Their lives would have been so different had they remained together during those years, and it is only now that they are realizing what a true act of God their pairing has become.

Several years ago I wrote about a woman I named “Mona” and how distraught she became after seeing a lone, caged sheep secured atop a truck going off to the slaughter house one winter afternoon.  It became a metaphor for her life, and although it took a while for her to understand that Mona herself was the lonely sheep, she took the steps to finally break free of her own cage.

With the help of her own beloved and those who loved her, she is on her way to becoming the person she was always supposed to have been. As you might have guessed, my dear sister-in-law is Mona.

Believe me, there’s a book here.  But it would be premature to write about their adventures, since it’s not really finished yet. 

But it will be one helluva story. 

http://eileenloveman.blogspot.com/2008/09/its-not-about-sheep.html

http://eileenloveman.blogspot.com/2009/02/mona-saves-sheep-herself.html