Moving From Place to Place - Mar Preston

The Brits say “up sticks and moved house.” I like the way it makes moving sound—active and positive. For several months now that’s what I’ve been  to stay active and positive.

I am moving away from Pine Mountain Club after 17 years, a village in the central California mountains, where I’ve been very happy. But the mountains—probably the mountains anywhere—are cold and the arthritis is getting me down.  It’s hard to type with cold, crabbed, blue fingers.

I know I could be happy somewhere else, preferably somewhere warmer. Many places beckon, Ecuador, Florida, Ontario, San Diego. I know I can’t go back to Santa Monica where I was happy for a generation and was the inspiration of my five  Dave Mason mysteries.

Ventura beckons.  It’s commuting distance from Pine Mountain Club, coastal California, and warm enough in the winter. I can keep a hand in with all the arty events that I love so much in Pine Mountain.

Many times lately I’ve had the image of picking up this  house and decanting all my belongings into cardboard boxes and driving off the mountains down the hill to Ventura on the coast. But anyone who has ever moved, and  that’s all of us, knows the reality is quite different.

The prep work starts with shelves high up in closets going through old boxes of papers and photographs, each of which contains an emotional bomb. A copy of the review of my first novel No Dice.

http://www.amazon.com/Dice-Detective-Dave-Mason-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00BYDMNN4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1462126767&sr=8-3&keywords=mar+preston

Old play programs, ticket stubs, clippings?  Keep or throw out? Fondling a broken figurine given to me by someone whom I loved dearly? How could I throw that out? I made terrible decisions and reduced many boxes into a few.

 I’ve devoted  little bandwidth to worshiping my Domestic Goddess. And it showed. However, people will clean for you, if you pay them? Great, huh?

The downstairs of this house is so chilly, and heating so expensive, I’ve spent little time downstairs. The upstairs where I live was a little better.

I try to change a light bulb and the neighborhood blacks out. But you can hire fix it guys too and I found a great one. Better even, his wife is a set designer, and loved the challenge of rearranging my house. I obviously have no taste and less imagination because what she created astonished me.

And Mel Weinstein, a photographer of renown, did a photo shoot that made every room appear lofty, cavernous, and vast. Well, it is a big house, but it is not Versailles.

The rest is up to me. I have to keep this house uncluttered and clean--not my natural bent. Buyers can visit any time, any day. The cat boxes must be attended, my old dog’s pee pads disposed of instantly. I must nourish and maintain the flowers I’ve planted.

In these last few months my ambition to finish my sixth mystery has dimmed. I'm deciding on a title between Pounce and The Most Dangerous of Species. Ventura may fire up the ambition once again.

Writing gritty police procedurals will be the most important thing in my life. I hope. I've missed it.

How Could You Ignore Something Like This?

 By Mar Preston

Years ago a group of spiritually-minded forest lovers began hanging mementos of on the branches of a semi-circle of pines high on the side of a mountain here in California. Over time, it was called the Shrine of the Five Maidens.  Here people found solace, and buried their pets.  Others came, a drum circle, solstice worshippers among the New Age folk, the curious,  dog walkers and hikers, and the environmentalists tut-tutting over this misuse of Forest Service land. I thought it was weird, peculiar, and wonderful. Standing inside that circle of pines at dusk was a little creepy though.

Then in the dark of a moonless night vandals destroyed the Shrine.  The circle of stones was scattered down the slope of the meadow. A sign was posted that evening: Fundamentalist Christian Taliban We Know Who You Are. Then some unknown person nailed up a copy of The True Believer by Eric Hoffer on the trail of pines leading up to the meadow. Then came a religious tract nailed up on another tree.  The desecration of the trees continued in a battle between secular and sacred. Then came piles of teetering stones like cairns set in the middle of the path. This was followed by 5s painted on the trees farther up the mountain in commemoration of the Five Maidens.

This is a small enough village that everyone knows everyone and what faction they belong to. The local weekly began printing Letters to the Editor. The Christians as a bloc wisely did not respond. I have no idea who desecrated the Five Maidens Shrine.Then came a specific accusation against an environmentalist who had expressed the personal opinion that the Shrine was just a "bunch of junk." This was vociferously challenged in the stream of Letters to the Editor that followed. A national environmental organization was one of the accused perpetrators.

There is no way I can stay out of the controversy that is whipping around. I read every email and Facebook posting with scores of comments, gossip at the post office, and go to meetings where this is the hot topic. I can’t help myself.

I heard Jane Yolen at a conference once say: "I tell my children.  Don't bother me unless there are broken bones protruding or hemorrhaging." 

Please tell me how you get keys moving on keyboard no matter what? 

* Details have been obscured because feeling is still intense. 

 http://www.amazon.com/-ebook/dp/B00I82BFVK/