Daily Archives: May 6, 2007

Things That Make Me Go Mmmruh

.
Rrrrrr! vs. Mmmruh

by Geralyn Ruane

It wasn’t my day. Or my week, month or year, apparently. Ants were taking over my kitchen; my cat was so sick I had to spend most nights at the emergency animal hospital; I’d lost my voice so I couldn’t teach and make rent; I got my summons to do jury duty; and to top it all off, I owed taxes when I’d been counting on a refund.

So, head pounding, nose running, sweats not at all fashionable, I went to Trader Joe’s to buy myself some junk food (it’s healthier if it comes from Trader Joe’s, right?) And as I was walking to the one open checkout stand, I nearly ran into this guy heading for the very same open lane. This GORGEOUS guy. He looked like an older, more roguish version of the character Peter Petrelli from Heroes. Seriously. We stopped and looked at each other in total acknowledgement that we were both racing for the same open register. Then he stepped back, smiled, and said, “Go ahead.”

Mmmmmruh! Is that the opening to a romance novel, or what?

The moment passed, but I’ve got to say, it’s these random drops of mmmruh – absorbing them into my life and incorporating them into my writing – that keeps me bouncing around in this maelstrom we call life. Endless war, random shootings, rampant indoctrinated prevarication, escalating gas prices, a widening gap in the ozone, an insane media circus. How can a warm spring evening that reminds me of home or a student telling me she’ll miss me compete with all that? How on earth does the creative spirit prevail?

Attitude, plain and simple. We just have to allow ourselves to drink in those moments of mmmruh, savor them, remember them, and make them matter.

Geralyn Ruane’s favorite Hardy Boy is whichever one Parker Stevenson played, and these days she writes romance, chick lit and women’s fiction. Last year her short story “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants” was published in the New York Times Bestselling anthology The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2.