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WHAT DARWIN SAID ABOUT MUSIC

This post relates to a choice I made that prompted me to write my novel, THE BLUEBIRD HOUSE.  Future posts will reveal other choices, and how there's a fine line between bravery and foolishness--but also how "bad" choices can result in "good" books.

“So, do you make bad choices so you’ll have something to write about?” a new acquaintance once asked.

It was an honest question, one that set me to thinking about my life.  I had made some bonehead decisions.  When any sane person would “just say no,” I’ve often said, “Oh, why not? What the hell.” Maybe it’s because I grew up in rural northern Idaho in the 1950s, where there were no fences, and very few boundaries. Besides, how do you know what works or doesn’t work for you unless you don’t try new things?  It’s a good way to evolve.

In the 1990s I worked in Helena, MT, for the U.S. Forest Service. During this time, I made several choices that would come to haunt me.  Or, as a former boss would say, “We’d better watch out what we do here, or this is gonna rise up and bite us in the future.”

One choice that turned out to have real teeth was this:  For the price of a used car I bought a collection of derelict buildings in an old mining camp about sixteen miles southwest of Helena. You can see ramshackle buildings like these all over Montana, slowly returning to nature. My two log cabins and one-story timber frame structure sat without foundations on the banks of Ten Mile Creek. It was May, 1992, when I first saw the place. The sun was shining and the birds were singing.

I scratched my head and said, “Oh, why not? What the hell.”

Soon after signing the papers, I learned that the two-story building had been one of the seventeen brothels in the Rimini Mining District. I found a newspaper article in the walls, How to Turn a Hotel into a Brothel and Break All Ten Comandments in One Night.  Oh, the novelty.  And the old girl needed me. If she didn’t get a new roof before winter, the whole shitteree would fall to the ground in a pile of kindling.

A new boyfriend said, “What this place needs is a can of gasoline and a match.”

I stopped dating him.

I found a local carpenter, one with vision.  He entered the building, stepped carefully over the rotten floor boards, looked around and announced, “First you’ll need all new rafters to support a new roof.  But see here? The walls are wowed-out half a foot on each side. Before we can do anything, I’ll have to use winches, chains and pulleys to see if we can square the building.”

It worked.  Then after the roof, complete with skylights, was installed, he said, “Now you need a foundation to support the weight of the roof.”

“Oh, why not?  What the hell,” I said.

But I learned you can’t get a home improvement loan on a pile of boards. I’d have to pay cash for all materials and labor.  As I poked around my old building, pondering my dilemma, thoughts of Darwin and his theory of evolution kept entering the picture.  I found another article in a tattered magazine, stuffed in the wall:

WHAT DARWIN SAID ABOUT MUSIC 

“If I had to live my life again I would make a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week, for the loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

That sealed the deal.  However, in order to afford my project, I had to give up my nice apartment in town and move into the brothel.  Friends helped me move my bed upstairs under the skylights. I brought my stereo system, an antique rocking chair, and my two cats.  Winter was coming on, so I had a wood stove installed and bought firewood. Only a few amenities were lacking--indoor plumbing and running water.

Soon after moving in, the spook factor kicked in.

This tale of choices I’ve made that resulted in three different books will continue.

For more info on THE BLUEBIRD HOUSE at Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/7yansvo
For print edition see:  http://createspace.com/3772762

What choice have you made that some might call “bad,” but turned out to be good, or at least prompted you to write a book?

WHY NOT APPLY FOR AN ARTISTS RESIDENCY?

Artist-in-residence programs have been part of the international art world for over a century. Some residency programs cover all costs, some offer stipends, others don't cover any costs at all, still others provide lodging reserved for artists but require that you pay rent.  In most cases, artists are required to apply. Documents may include a curriculum vitae, references, and sometimes a project statement or proposal. Participation is planned well in advance, often six months to two years.

I’ve been participated in three residencies.  The first one, The Montana Artists’ Refuge, in Basin, MT, was for the month of September, 2005.  I didn’t have a place to live for a month. I contacted them a month in advance, and they had an opening—a one-bedroom apartment in an historic building, for which I paid $250. (Note: This residency program no longer exists.) I enjoyed interacting with the two other residents and the townspeople. We participated in a fun artwalk/ evening in Butte, MT, and met other artists from the area.  One of the other artists told me about Jentel, another program she’d been to.  She said, “You’ll love it there.”

So I applied to the Jentel Foundation for the Arts in January 2006, and was accepted for the period April 15 – May 13, 2007.  Jentel is located on a working cattle ranch near Banner, WY.  The closest town of any size is Sheridan, WY. While each of the six residents (two writers; four visual artists) paid our own way to/from the residency, Jentel paid a stipend of $100 a week. They took us to Sheridan once a week to buy groceries, which we cooked cooperatively in a lovely kitchen. Our private bedrooms were suitable for visiting royalty, and the common area featured soaring windows facing the Bighorn Mountains.  Separate studios were provided. Besides the time to focus on a project for the month (I wrote 20,000 words on my second memoir), I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the other residents in the evenings. We had bicycles to ride, and over 1000 acres to roam.  More information on this incredible place can be found at http://www.jentelarts.org.  Also, we visited back and forth with artists in residence from nearby Ucross Artists Residency, on another working cattle ranch. The link to Ucross is http://www.ucrossfoundation.org.

Because I’d been a resident at Jentel, I received an invitation to apply for a new program in southern Wyoming, The Brush Creek Ranch Foundation for the Arts near Saratoga. I completed my application package in the fall of 2011 and was accepted for a two-week residency for April 3-17, 2012. The artists’ residency is a philonthropic program that is separate from the guest ranch and spa, all on a working cattle ranch of 13,000 acres. The website with information is http://www.brushcreekarts.org. Residents pay their travel expenses to/from the ranch (or the Laramie airport), but there are no other charges. Meals are provided. There are eight residents at a time (writers, visual artists and composers). This is where I'm at right now. The other residents include a brilliant young composer originally from Hong Kong and a visual artist, age 72, from Santa Fe. Again, interacting with the other residents has been stimulating and enjoyable. In this particular group, I believe I'm the only one without an MFA or PhD, but we've all “let our hair down,” so to speak. We talk and play and eat chef-prepared meals well together. Lodging and studios are furnished with upscale ranch décor and are totally comfortable. We can wander most places on the 13,000-acre ranch (except the bison range), and last Friday afternoon, we were treated to a guided horseback ride.

Another residency, where I visited a friend one time, is the Wurlitzer Foundation for the Arts in Taos, NM. There are three-month residencies are free for eleven artists at a time. The individual casitas are furnished, and you sleep and work in the same unit. You purchase and prepare your own meals. I’d apply for this situation except that pets are not allowed, and I don’t want to leave my dog for that long. That link is: http://www.wurlitzerfoundation.org/.

If you’re interested in a retreat where you can focus on your writing (or other creative discipline), I highly recommend applying for a residency (or maybe several, to increase your chances). There are hundreds of opportunities worldwide.  A simple search online will turn up several links, probably even blog posts and Facebook entries by various residents, but one umbrella organization to check out is: http://www.artisticcommunities.org/residencies/directory. There’s competition for these situations, of course, but if you can demonstrate that you’re earnestly working on a project and can fulfill the application requirements, you have as good a chance as anyone.

WHY ST. JOHN & WHY DOESN'T THE ISLAND FLOAT AWAY?

The first time we visited St. John we said we were doing research for a novel. When we left Helena, Montana, that day in late November, 1996, it was minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The moment we stepped off that airplane into the warm, moist, 80-degree F air, we were goners. The next thing you know, we were no longer wearing underwear. And we were drooling slightly out of both sides of our mouths.

By the end of our ten-day visit, during which time we forgot to do book research, we found ourselves pondering life’s big questions: how could such a small piece of land sustain so many feral cats, goats, safari taxis, bananaquit birds, roosters, and massage therapists?

Life’s big questions remain a mystery, but I have uncovered some facts and made some observations. For instance, the number of visitors to St. John during the last 20 years has ranged from 700,000 to 1 million a year, many of them doctors and lawyers and such. If your personal physician or legal advisor was among them, he or she probably experienced “vacation brain,” the way we did. This syndrome is caused by the cells’ reaction to the sudden change of climate, especially when said cells have been working overtime to keep the host body alive in a frosty climate. After encountering a big red rooster wandering out of an open shop door, visitors from The City have been known to say, “Oh . . . I didn’t know you had peacocks here.” Or, standing knee-deep in the ocean, he or she might look puzzled and blurt, “Where are we in relation to sea level?” It’s true. Perfectly intelligent human beings, including those who claim status as the valedictorian of their high school graduating class, have asked, “So, what keeps these islands from floating away?” The Tradewinds newspaper police log once reported that a visitor renting a villa at Peter Bay, where the millionaires stay, called to report a dinosaur on his deck. Don't let this happen to you. Those prehistoric-looking creatures are iguanas, and they’re quite harmless unless you're wearing I’m Not Really a Waitress Red toenail polish.

The 2010 census registered a population of 4,170 (plus or minus) assorted human beings on St. John, including Fred the Dread, Boiler Al, and Hermon Smith, characters you’ll meet if you hang out on the island for a while.

There are many reasons people come to live on this nipple of land in the Caribbean. Some of those reasons are, obviously, weather related. I’ve read that if you are a person of character, you’re not so apt to be needy when it comes to climate. But why not be somewhere consistently warm and moist and welcoming? Why not live where gentle rains caress your body, and tree frogs and other strange noises tickle your ears in the night? Why not be surrounded by a turquoise sea as warm as bath water to swim in, among green turtles and bright blue fishes, and lie on warm sand the color of honey?

According to a quote by Captain Phil of the s/v The Wayward Sailor in an article in Tradewinds by Allison Smith, “Some people are looking for their destiny, some are looking for their truth, and others are just looking for a parking space.” Others manage to engineer their own witness relocation program, although I enjoy substituting witless for witness. On our second visit to the island, in January 2001, Tom and I rented a car one day, and gave a Bordeaux Mountain resident a ride. He told us that police still come looking for people on the island by their alias or nickname, and that you don’t always get to know someone’s real name until after they die. Then you might learn they’re on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Occasionally, the secret that someone is hiding from the rest of us is the same secret he’s hiding from himself.

MY NEXT HUSBAND WILL BE NORMAL

I'm pleased to announce that after working on the manuscript off and on for five years, the book is now available for Kindle as well as in paperback.

From the back cover:

"In the memoir My Next Husband Will Be Normal - A St. John Adventure, Rae Ellen Lee and her husband, Tom, ditch their sailboat on the West Coast and fly to the U.S. Virgin Islands with a down payment for a mom and pop business on St. John. The plan: when they aren't sewing canvas bags at their little shop, The Canvas Factory, they'll be beach potatoes. But there are risks to living in paradise one cannot anticipate. For soon after unpacking their flip-flops, the husband--a former Republican state legislator with a silver crewcut and solid traditional values--realizes he is really a she. Convinced the world needs more humor, Lee rations the angst in favor of the picturesque and absurd. Adding heat to the story is a cast of colorful cats, customers, and Caribbean personalities. Toss in a few sex toys, some steel pan music, a pinch of voodoo--and stir."

Reviews are rolling in. A podcast interview with Maura Curley from Virgin Voices is in the works and I'll include it here as soon as it's available. In her review, Maura said, "Adventurous readers will relish Lee's outrageous revelations." For the full review click the link: http://tinyurl.com/7hqcoqc.

Podcast interview (15 mins.) here:  http://virginvoices.vi/st._john

To purchase this book in print please click here:  https://www.createspace.com/3793650
To purchase this book for Kindle please click here:  http://www.tinyurl.com/6wrge85

Or visit me at my website:  http://www.raeellenlee.com

Also from the back cover:

Lee's first memoir, I Only Cuss When I'm Sailing (first published as If the Shoe Fits by Sheridan House in 2001), chronicles her move with husband Tom from Montana to the West Coast to live on an old boat, fix it up, learn to sail and set off for the Caribbean.

 ". . . charming, witty, beautifully observed, and above all delightfully genuine." Living Aboard Magazine

To purchase this book for Kindle please click here:  http://www.tinyurl.com/6s52wap

Still Not Gathering Any Moss

No, I'm still on the move -- this week at my son's new house across the Clarkfork River from Thompson Falls, Montana -- looking out the window at tall Douglas fir and Ponderosa Pine trees. A group of deer are bedded down in the grass not far away, and an exotic donkey just ran through the yard. This is open range, don't forget. All my belongings are currently stored in my son's garage, under a tarp, while I housesit (and dog, cat, yard sit) while my son and his little family are on vacation. They are visiting his father -- who I was married to briefly several decades ago -- in Michigan. Casey the black lab dog and I are having a great time. The orange cat is okay, too, although Scoobey looks like a special needs cat. The yard is another creature altogether. Besides the herd of deer I have learned from the neighbors that we are situated smack dab on top a gravel bar. Landscaping -- or rather trying to keep trees alive during the drought -- is how lots of people while away their retirement years here. And I'm supposed to be writing, but I have become yard-obsessed too. I took the lawnmower in for a tuneup and I am oh so excited to get it tomorrow so I can mow the front yard. It has to be set up as high as possible to mow OVER the donkey droppings and pinecones and rocks.

Did you know that white vinegar will kill spotted knapweed, just like Roundup will? That's what a neighbor tells me. And deer will not eat herbs or plants with aromatic leaves -- or that everywhere shrub, the potentilla. Isn't that interesting?

Today I ordered a pair of Talon binoculars. The guy asked, what kind of birds do you look for. Well, there are little gray birds and there are big flappy birds, and I like the big ones best. Mostly I want to look into a moose's eyeball at a safe distance, see if there's a reflection. I want to hike high into a cirque basin and look at the rocks walls -- like I'm in an art gallery.

The temperature was up to 100 degrees a couple days ago, and now it is about 45. When it warms up again, after I mow the front yard, I'll load up my kayak and drive up to Fishtrap Lake -- high in the mountains northeast of here. I won't have my binos yet, but I will take my sketch materials and lunch and spend the day. There is a hiking trail around the lake too. And a free Forest Service campground.

Yesterday I drove into Thompson Falls and poked my nose into a pottery shop called Mud Magic. The shop owner, named Eric, looked like he just crawled off a Harley motorcycle but was really nice. He does workshops, hosts art and writing events, sells art supplies -- and coffee roasting devices, green Fair Trade coffee beans, and of course his lovely pottery. I didn't even know I wanted a coffee roaster -- although I adore good coffee -- and I bought one, a Fresh Roast + 8 Coffee Bean Roaster. For $79.95 I got the roaster, a lb. of coffee beans and the most wonderful pint-sized off white mug with a lid that doubles as a coaster. Eric showed me how to roast beans, but I haven't worked up to doing it myself. My son has a satellite TV, which I am unable to operate, hard as I've tried to follow instructions. So I can't bear the thought of failing with the coffee roaster quite yet. I'm researching sources for green beans, learning all about coffee roasting, even learned today that you can roast coffee beans in an air popcorn popper just fine. Imagine that! Why don't more people KNOW about this -- and actually DO it. They would drink far superior coffee and save money too (unless they prefer Folgers). I wonder how many other things I don't yet know about -- like this "alternative" way of dealing with coffee -- that is better and cheaper and more fun to do? Like using white vinegar to kill spotted knapweed.



I will insert photos when I get set up in Bellingham, WA, where I'm moving to the week of June 18. I will also post pictures and information about my books.