Homefire
October 10, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go Mmmruhby Geralyn Ruane
I’m going home!!! In October!!!! Mmmruh!
There is nothing like autumn in Pennsylvania. The smoky smell of the air. The cold damp of the days. Orange and yellow and red – everywhere! The scraping of leaves skidding along the street. Snuggling into sweaters that have been packed away all summer. Raking the yard into crunchy piles, again and again. Apples falling off the tree. Football games on Friday nights. Getting dark at five o’clock. The pungent glow of the kerosene heater. Mmmruh!
Autumn back home sparks my imagination, soaks me with a sense of longing . . . just like it did back when I lived there . . . mmmruh. I was a kid growing up in a small town on the side of a mountain in Pennsylvania – I wanted to be anywhere else. Clueless as I was, though, I still slipped under autumn’s spell. That sense of . . . incandescence – boundlessness – the feeling bubbling down deep and sparkling up to my skin that something wonderful is on its way! Maybe the scoundrel who sits in front of me in chemistry secretly likes me back, even though I’m not size two a cheerleader. Maybe I’ll win the diva part in the play. Maybe we’ll get another dog. Maybe my parents’ll buy new living room furniture, like the kind they give away on The Price Is Right! Maybe . . . oh, just, maybe something . . . anything! Mmmruh! Autumn back home just always had me on the edge, leaning over the brink, looking out for . . . something!
And the good news is, I’m still looking. There’s still so much out there. I want so much out of life – a house, a book contract, a TV show as good as Veronica Mars, Season One. The scent of autumn reminds me that it’s all still out there, holding back, waiting for me to give chase. Mmmruh!
But you know what? Fall, especially fall back home, reminds me of something else, too. Something that is all too easy to forget when I’m trapped in a cloud of smog as I race around trying to keep up with myself. In the fall, I remember my teenage dreams, and I realize that some of those dreams have come true. I have cats and a dog all my very own. And a helluva guy who loves me for the me-ness of me even though I’m not a size two cheerleader. Mmmruh! I hardly ever have to get up early. Plus, I buy my own clothes now, so I like what I’m wearing almost every single day. Mmmruh! I really like all my friends, and I’m pretty sure they like me, too, since they are, after all, patient enough to explain football to me and field my questions during a game, and not just cuz we ended up in the same clique and now can’t get out ‘til graduation. Mmmruh! I don’t live with my parents anymore so I can have sex in my own bed as much as I want. Mmmruh!
But you know what’s the best thing about moving away? I can always go back home. Mmmruh!
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.
THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!
September 10, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go Mmmruh
Help!
by
Geralyn Ruane
In High School Musical 2, (mmmruh!) blonde teen queen Sharpay tells Troy, “We can all hold hands around the campfire later! Right now we have a show to do!†But Troy chooses decency to his friends over fame and fortune with her.
Gosh, I wish everyone were like Troy Bolton!
Because I don’t think we can wait until later to be nice. The world is going to hell in a friggin’ huge shopping cart NOW. Know what I mean? Can you feel it? A bloody quest for nothing noble. An election with no hero on the horizon. A bridge that collapsed because nobody bothered. Sports records broken by cheaters. Animal cruelty defended as status quo. Another year another size. That rejection letter in the mailbox. Everything is so messed up, and I can’t fix it all! Neither can you.
But I can help. And so can you.
All we have to do is be nice. Seriously. Just because living history throbs with the cadence of “Screw or be screwed, screw or be screwed,†doesn’t mean I have to march to it. And neither do you.
Help whenever you can. However you can. Some people look at the big picture and drive hybrid cars or picket on behalf of neglected Katrina survivors. But it doesn’t even take that much energy. Be friendly to the waiter even after he forgets the garlic bread AND the ketchup. Let the over-processed diva who thinks the world revolves around her go before you in the checkout line just so she doesn’t bite off the cashier’s head. Get out of the handicapped stall right quick when somebody disabled comes into the restroom. Don’t flip off the jerk who nearly side-swipes you. Give the one-armed guy offering to wash your windshield a buck or two. After all, how can he shoot heroin with only one arm?
A homeless guy I met last February refused the soup and sandwiches I’d brought him saying he had food already. He told me to go to the park and give the food to the homeless folks there. Gotta say, there’s a wrenching kind of clarity in a man with no shoes telling me to go help others.
A few weeks ago, as my guy and I were changing the tire to our twenty year-old tank of a car, the jack slipped.
Rrrrrr!
A truck screeched to a halt, two men jumped out to help us catch the car. Thanks to them, the whole shebang didn’t crash to the ground in a tireless crunch of sparking metal.
Mmmruh! They saved us! For no other reason than that they were THERE and they COULD! Do I think these two guys helping us was some sort of karmic payback for the blankets we’ve given homeless people or for stray cats we’ve fed? Does what goes around, come around?
Doubt it. I don’t think the cosmos is that fair. But at least each one of us can make the world GO around. Even if it never swings back our way, at least we can tilt it in the direction we want.
So go ahead. Give it a push.
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.
THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!
August 13, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go Mmmruh
Off on a Tangent
By
Geralyn Ruane
Huh?
But I don’t even like Billy Idol. I mean, I had some eclectic crushes back in middle school, from Richard Dreyfuss to Tommy Lee to Face Man from the A-Team, but Billy Idol was never one of them. And his music never did anything for me. So why was I suddenly so chipper, getting my groove on to a song I never liked?
After a few minutes, I figured it out.
Spike!
Platinum blonde British rocker Billy Idol reminded me of platinum blonde British vampire Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, seasons two and three of which I watched in marathon stretches with my two best friends. Mmmruh! What fun that was, just hanging out eating Chinese food and popsicles, indulging in and critiquing Joss Whedon and all things Buffy. Just like that, on a few beats of vintage eighties rock, my mind went off on a tangent and instantly made the connection for me.
I’m going off on tangents all the time, in conversation, in life, in home décor. I can never seem to keep myself on a linear path of any kind because, as Katherine Hepburn says to Spencer Tracy in Desk Set, “I associate many things with many things.â€
The orange paisley comforter I picked out. My guy stood there in Bed Bath and Beyond looking at me warily. “Really? You want that one?†Heck, yeah! It reminded me of the bedspread I’d had as kid in the seventies, a riot of big orange flowers. Oh, to be six again, to have no reason to get up more pressing than that of watching Deputy Dog. Mmmruh.
Seem silly? Then again, life can come to feel pretty colorless and devoid of meaning if you just live it, getting through day by day, then just forget it all. Remembering, connecting, associating, whether deliberately or viscerally, add vibrancy, hue, flavor, compassion. Tapping into other times, places, feelings, worlds, even right within yourself – mmmruh. Going off on a tangent – a nifty knack for a writer, no?
To this day, I cannot hear the word “waffle†used that way without breaking down, without remembering how she was still warm when we went down to get her.
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.
2 0 Read moreTHINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!
July 12, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go Mmmruh
by Geralyn Ruane
Taking Back the Magic
The water in my Sam’s Club backyard pool looks green, feels suspiciously silky and comes up only a little higher than my waist. Not exactly Bel Aire luxury, but so what? In this blistering sauna of summer in the Valley, I flop around my pool with the abandon of a breaching whale. I let the chlorinated water buoy me, engulf me, and go up my nose! Mmmruh!
I HAVE SUMMER BACK!
Fourteen years ago, I lost it. I graduated, got a job, and became an official grown-up. No more breaks from school. JuneJulyAugust became nothing more than a block of ordinary days during which I had to crank the AC in my car. Like Jackie Paper, I let my beloved magic slip away through neglect.
But one good dunking in my improperly pH-balanced pool opened the flood-gates to all the mmmruh! I’ve been missing:
The smells of freshly cut grass, sunblock, and hot dogs getting crispy on a neighbor’s grill – mmmruh!
The sounds of fireworks, laughing, whistles and splashing – mmmruh!
The taste of an ice cream cone, a lover’s sweat-salty skin, or a combination of both – mmmruh!
The carefree feelings of reading in a shady hammock, eating supper outside, or wearing nothing but a bathing suit all day – mmmruh!
Now that I’m awake, I can bite into the succulence of summer almost anywhere. The flavor rolls across my tongue, sweet and fresh, and so, so familiar.
The sight of a young woman taking her little girl to the Community Pool, reminding me of how Mom used to pack the four of us kids into the car and drive forever, just so we could spend the day swimming at the State Park – mmmruh!
Geralyn Ruane’s had a crush on MacGyver since the middle school, and these days she channels all that fantasy energy by by writing 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.
Things That Make Me Go . . . Mmmruh
June 19, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go MmmruhFOCUS
by
Geralyn Ruane
Focus? Focus on what? I think I’ll try focusing on those silky moments in life that make me tingle with an awareness that something beautiful has happened. These are the moments that make me go mmmruh.
One day during the recent long weekend, I sunk into an unintentional nap. Just laid down on the bed for a sec, and drifted off near an open window. The breeze rifling through the branches outside reminded me of ocean waves lapping onto shore. And I was transported – to the windy beach where I fell asleep years ago. Nothing amazing happened – no half-naked Navy Seal washed up on shore or anything – but I recall that drowsy afternoon as the most relaxing of my life. Mmmruh . . . it was just so nice to be reminded.
Hours after my glorious nap, I was talking to a woman I know in her kitchen. Her husband came home, walked in through the kitchen door, and touched his wife’s hair at the nape of her neck in way of greeting. Mmmruh . . . the contact was so simple, so intimate! After over twenty years of marriage, he’s still touching her hair, still looking at her with a sweetness that made me blush.
Another day this same weekend, I heard the song “Eternal Flame†by the Bangles. How I loved that song when I was in high school! The song was popular just around the time when suddenly I had such a crush on this kid who’d been in all my same classes for ages. And mmmruh! I remembered that tingly sensation you can feel when out of nowhere everything in life is new, different and unspeakably wonderful.
Now, here’s what I haven’t told you about this wonderful holiday weekend: I worked four fourteen-hour days in a row and I actually fell asleep at the one party I managed to get to by 10pm. The nap I mentioned earlier? It lasted about five minutes and happened while I was waiting for my cat to get done in the litter box so I could scoop before I left for work. The happily married couple? Parents of a student – I saw them while I was reviewing geometry with a sixteen year-old and both of us wanted to be anywhere but studying on a gorgeous Memorial Day. The song I heard? In the car driving between one student who lives in Camarillo and another who lives almost 100 miles away in Diamond Bar.
But the nap was still delicious, the couple still sublime, the song still incandescent. These are the moments I want to remember about that weekend.
Shakespeare once wrote, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.†Too often, I tend to think about the BAD stuff. And I TALK about it. To anyone. It’s as though I’m trying to one-up any competitor with a tension-riddled tale of my own. I can become intensely poetic about the fff-ing traffic, the annoyances of work, the incompetence of . . . well, the world in general. Do I think this way and talk about this stuff because I’m cranky and I need more sex? Or do I always feel so beleaguered because I think and TALK TALK TALK about pervasive ickiness? It’s a modern day chicken-egg conundrum, and nobody cares what the miserable answer is.
So from now on, I’m going to think about, focus on, and TALK ABOUT the mmmruh. Instead of bemoaning the traffic jam that made me late, I’ll wax gleeful about this week’s Hero of the Week lauded on news radio (like the local teacher who said she’d shave her head if her students raised a certain amount of money for books for the school. Her bold declaration provoked them to raise triple the stated amount, so she shaved off her beautiful mane of hair to jubilant cheers, laughter and clapping). Though I won’t forget the depressing report I watched chronicling how the US let bin Laden escape (he just walked to Pakistan, supposedly), I’ll fall asleep remembering instead the jubilant choreographer who danced his way on stage to accept his first-ever Tony. Though I sometimes feel my father has just never understood the me-ness of me, I’ll remember instead how after a week of working two jobs, he still found time on weekends to coach my basketball team, my softball team, my soccer team. No matter the season, he was always there. He still is. It’s on this that I’ll focus – and all the things that make me go mmmruh.
Geralyn Ruane’s had a crush on MacGyver since the middle school, and these days she channels all that fantasy energy by by writing 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.
