Electric Surprise!!

"I don't want to read a poem. I don't want to read a short story. I want to read Chapter One. That's it," said my friend Allison cruelly.

"You should write your book this weekend," said Dan, as if writing a book and making a beef stew were one and the same (to be fair, he just means I should be writing on the weekend.)

"Why aren't you writing a book? Where's the book?" asked my Dad. "Your book should be about an electrical systems operator who accidentally teams up with terrorists by destroying the power grid."

"Dad...do you think I'm writing a book about you working at Con Ed?"

"It could be called Electric Surprise," he declared, a gleam in his eye. "And the guy...let's  say he has gambling debt, a working class Joe, like me..."

"Lord help us, " said Mom.

"And so he tells these guys for a certain amount of money...he'll shut off the power grid in New York for a little bit. And he doesn't realize they're terrorists."

"That's a great idea for a book," said Mom. "Like Dirk Pitt. Or that other guy. Those books make a lot of money."

"I don't know if I have the technical expertise to write that kind of book," I replied. "I usually write stories about unfulfilled middle class white women who long for adventure. Oprah type stuff. "

"You could have the guy's daughter be that character. She could, like, infiltrate the terrorist group and avenge her dad..."

"Sweet!" said my husband.

"Electric Surprise?" I repeated.

"You can change the title. It's a working title," said Dad, waving his fork dismissively. "Send me Chapter One."

Anyone know anything about the power grid?

Ocean Grove Woman's Club

We rented a beach house in Ocean Grove; I was tickled to see it was a former Woman's Club at the turn of the century into the 1930's, complete with framed receipts for three dollar rooms and an elegant back story. It was a place for single ladies to stay when traveling without the indecent dilemma of sharing a hotel with men.

I can imagine these women on a Methodist Camp pilgrimage-- and of course I thought I could feel their ghosts banging around the great old living room. My bed was actually on an enclosed portion of what used to be a twenty foot stage, and that was, well, quite sexy (lolling around in the place where some virgin stood announcing the day's agenda of beach strolling and prayer? It's a bit sexy, right?)

I wrote a sestina-- that's six ending words rotating around in a specific pattern. I did cheat a little, though. (Side note-- throbbing star is a Keats reference, I can't claim that one. Hot, hot, hot! You get the notion.)

The Women’s Club Hotel (est. 1870), Ocean Grove, NJ

   (Plaque reads: A Respectable Hotel for Chaperoned Single Gentlewomen)

I’m staying in a Victorian where women

once boarded with valises and maps alone,

long before my time. They must have burned

some bridges to gage that distance

from social rules. They couldn’t touch

any man besides their fathers; they might’ve fallen

prey to fortune hunters,  or fallen

into disgrace,  even from other women.

But surely they longed for the feather touch

of a lover’s glove on their arm, like a lone

blackbird dipping the distance

between valley and silt:  how he dives and burns.

I’ve seen their umbrellas: these girls didn’t burn

from cobwebs of late sun, they fell into

shaded flocks like flitting moths,  with distant

white smiles and white umbrellas teasing good men

with a lemonade stroll; but never with a man alone.

It must have been so hard not to touch.

But I’m probably wrong about the need for touch,

especially back then.  Even the word “burn”

seems too sexy regarding my great grandmother, who alone

crossed the ocean, gave a strange man everything, falling

away from love like a fever. She was a woman

who knew marriage—a way to survive that distance.

All I really know about her is 2,756: the nautical distance

between Galway and New York (it was in my father’s papers. Don’t touch).

But, really, only longing measures the heart of a woman—

I can see everything in her signature.  Irish women didn’t burn;

they were fierce and hard. God forbid your husband fell

off his horse. The women might whisper you were better off alone.

Maybe that’s always the real fear: being alone.

Or being that woman who needs distance

from her house and parents or risk falling,

like a throbbing star, into the touch

of a stranger’s mouth and hands, burning

for some unnamed thing. That’s being a woman.