Claudia

  • Claudia

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Claudia

    by Nona Smith

    We held our wine glasses up and tapped their rims together. Clink.

              “Do you know why that’s done?” Claudia asked.

              “I have no idea,” I said.

              “The French began the custom centuries ago. It’s to make us appreciative of all five of our senses.”

    Claudia had a treasure trove of that kind of information.

     “Ahhh, les Francais; ils savent tout,” she added.

              She spoke three languages fluently and had enough vocabulary in others to find bathrooms in foreign countries and order wine in restaurants. Born in Germany and well-travelled, Claudia had European sensibilities and a sophisticated sense of style. Her hair was cut by a Sassoon-trained stylist, she wore only Italian-made shoes, and the walls of her dining room were painted Chinese red, seasons before that trend appeared in Architectural Digest. She owned a few expensive, elegant gold pieces, but most of her jewelry was purchased during her travels from local artisans or at art fairs at home. It was this we bonded over.

              On her first day working as a travel agent at Trips Out Travel, I admired her earrings: thumb-nail size, straight-back chairs, crafted from black metal. Definitely not gold, but certainly expensive. Something she might have found in a museum gift shop.

              My compliment caused her to tuck a strand of red hair behind her ear and caress her earlobe. “I found them in Taormina. I had to sort through all that cameo crap they sell there before I found anything interesting.”

              Claudia had opinions. Very firm opinions. About food and clothing and what was worth spending money on. Her generous smile drew people to her; her sharp tongue sent them away. She possessed a quirky, wicked sense of humor and had a flare for the dramatic. She’d once been married and had a son Adam she adored, but when I met her, Claudia was living alone in a one-bedroom gem of a house secreted into the Berkeley hills. She took her cockapoo Milo, a yappy attention-grabbing dog, with her almost everywhere. And Claudia was devoted to the game of What If… What if you weren’t a travel agent; what else would you be? What if you didn’t live in this country; where else would you like to live? What if you knew how to play a musical instrument; which one would it be?

              Milo was not with us the afternoon we dined at our favorite dim sum restaurant in the City. We’d already polished off a bamboo steaming-basket of shrimp dumplings and a platter of al dente Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce when Claudia nodded to the waitress rolling another dim sum-laden trolley towards us. “We’ll have the shu mai and the pork buns,” she said with authority.

              We held our wine glasses up and tapped their rims together. Clink.

              “What if,” Claudia began, “you were on Death Row and going to order your last meal; what would it be?”

              I don’t recall what I answered, but Claudia’s answer came quickly and definitively. She waved her chopsticks over the bountiful table. “This is what I would order.”

              Late the next morning, Adam called. “It’s bad news. It’s Mom. She died yesterday.”

              “Oh, Adam,” I said. Tears sprang to my eyes.

              He continued to speak, “… alone in the house … Milo was with her … brain aneurism …”

              I heard his words, vaguely, but the picture in my mind was of Claudia, her chopsticks held aloft, pronouncing the dim sum her last meal of choice.

    “Claudia” by Nona Smith is one of the featured pieces at the Artists’ Co-op of Mendocino, Traditional and Contemporary Fine Arts 2021 Ekphrasis X Exhibition, where writing is paired with visual arts. You can see the artwork inspired by “Claudia” and the other winning entries at 2021 Ekphrasis X Exhibition.

    Ekphrasis: Art describing other art. Writing is paired with visual arts.

    Nona Smith is the author of Stuffed: Emptying the Hoarder’s Nest and numerous short stories, humorous personal essays, and bad poetry. She was a long-time board member of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference and currently sits on the board of the Writers of the Mendocino Coast and is editor of the club’s annual anthology. Nona lives with her patient husband Art and two demanding cats.

    Her writing is featured in many anthologies including The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year. Available at Gallery Books in Mendocino, Rebound Books in Mill Valley, Book Passage in Corte Madera, at Amazon, and through your local bookseller.

    Marlene C

    , , , , , , ,

  • I Scream, You Scream

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    I Scream, You Scream

    By Nona Smith

    It’s been well over a year since I’ve done any grocery shopping at Safeway. Early on in the pandemic, it was Harvest, our other local supermarket, who quickly adopted safety precautions: it made mask-wearing mandatory, limited the number of shoppers inside the store at any given time, provided handwashing stations outside, and offered free Latex gloves. Safeway was slow to adopt protective measures, making me feel unsafe in Safeway.

    Fast forward eighteen months, and I’m fully vaccinated and in need of a cake mix Harvest doesn’t carry. Being as health conscious as it is, the shelves in the baking section at Harvest are laden with organic, gluten-free, paleo, KETO, dairy-free cake mixes. There are only a handful of non-organic, full-on gluten, white sugar mixes on the very bottom shelf. I’m guessing their placement there is to give the consumer time to re-think their unhealthy choice while bending over to reach one of those boxes. So, I’m off to Safeway to find my cake mix.

    Of course, it’s there, nuzzled amongst dozens of others of its ilk, within easy reach. I pluck it from the shelf and decide to do the rest of my grocery shopping while I’m already in the store. I pull out my grocery list.

    When all the items are checked off, I crumple the list and stuff it into my purse. Then I go in search of the shortest check-out line, which––because shoppers are encouraged to stand on the six-feet-apart circles painted on the store floor––brings me half-way down the ice cream section of a freezer aisle. And, because I have nothing else to do while waiting for the line to move, I begin perusing the freezer cases and discover an ice cream trend. The highest end ice creams––Haagen-Dazs, Ben and Jerrys, Talienti––have adopted “layering” as a new marketing gimmick. Only pint cartons are offered this way: four layers of different textures and flavors. I’m imagining plunging my ice cream scoop far enough down into the container to reach all four layers at the same time. Nope, I determine, it can’t be done. One would need a spoon to get the effect the product promises. I suspect the idea really is, to sell more product by encouraging shoppers to have their very own pint to dip their very own spoon into. I can’t imagine this trend will last beyond the summer.

    The line moves, and I find myself in front of a section containing lesser-known brands, such as Fat Boy and Fat Boy Junior. I’m wondering what kind of market research led someone to name their product that when the line shifts again.

     Now I’m in the popsicle section and looking at a product that reminds me of the summers of my childhood. I can almost hear the tinkling notes of the white ice cream truck as it announces its tour through my neighborhood. And here it is in Safeway’s freezer: the Good Humor Creamsicle, orange popsicle on the outside, velvety vanilla ice cream on the inside. I’m tempted to put a package in my shopping cart. The only thing that stops me is knowing the Creamsicles would melt before I got out of the store.

    Another five minutes pass, and I’m now standing in that spot between the end of the aisle and the conveyer belt, leaving enough space for shoppers to pass through with their carts. An idea strikes me, and I reach into my purse for the crumpled shopping list and a pen. Smoothing out the list, I jot some notes about what I’ve just discovered. As a writer of personal essay, I know that anything––and everything––is fodder for a story. Why not ice cream?

    By the time I’m wheeling my cart out of the store, I’ve decided to make a stop at Harvest on my way home and do a little market research of my own.

    Standing in front of the ice cream freezer at Harvest, it’s just as I suspected. Yes, the high-end, four layered, products are there, but there’s no sign of Fat Boy or his son. Instead, there’s a product called Skinny Cow. Also, it appears there’s an equal amount of low fat, sugar-free, nonfat, nondairy ice creams made from soy, almond or coconut milk as those made from actual full-fat cow’s milk. The Rebel label promises “high fat/low carbs” for people on a KETO diet. There’s even an ice cream designed for kids who don’t like vegetables. It’s called Peekaboo and is made with “hidden veggies:” vanilla ice cream with zucchini, chocolate with cauliflower. Who knew? The freezer is filled with organic, health-conscious choices, seemingly designed to keep the Harvest shopper living a nutritious lifestyle.

    I tuck the note-filled grocery list back into my purse and head home. Maybe one day I’ll write a piece about ice cream.

    Nona Smith is the author of Stuffed: Emptying the Hoarders’ Nest and numerous other short stories published in various anthologies, including The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year, journals and the St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times.) Currently, she is writing a mystery about a woman named Emma whose dear friend goes missing. In her search for her friend, Emma finds herself. Nona writes personal essays and memoir pieces as well as fiction, always with an eye towards finding the humor in situations. She lives on the Mendocino coast with her husband Art and two mischievous cats.

    Stuffed: Emptying the Hoarders’ Nest and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year are available at Gallery Bookshop and on Amazon.

    Marlene C

    , , , ,

  • Organizing a Writing Project

    Organizing a Writing Project by Guest Blogger Nona Smith, author of Stuffed, Emptying the Hoarder’s Nest,  A True Tale.

    Nona tells the story of writing Stuffed:

    I didn’t start out with the idea of writing a book, but from the get-go, I was aware we were onto a unique experience. In late November of 2010, my husband, Art, became the executor of his friend Linda’s estate. Linda was a hoarder. Not your run-of-the-mill hoarder, but a collector of unique stuff as well as plain ol’ junk.

    We felt it prudent to document what we found because in addition to being the executor, Art was the only on-site heir. So I took photographs of the plethora of original artwork by a famous botanical printmaker, the rare mechanical music machines and closets of musical scrolls, tools and computers and even of the life-size teddy bear reclining in the bathtub. I also photographed the stuff that had no value: old piles of crafting supplies, a jarful of unmarked keys, moldy, outdated textbooks. I saved emails from our friend Dan who helped us clean things out, and I took notes on research we conducted while trying to ascertain the value of one collection or another.

    There was so much of everything I was afraid we might lose track of the details, so I bought an accordion folder and divided it into loosely organized categories. I was in Organization Mode. Writing about this hadn’t yet occurred to me.

    Each time we entered Linda’s apartment and surveyed the chaos, my stomach clenched. Every horizontal surface was littered with things, every room was jam-packed. Stuffed animals were her particular passion and they were everywhere; literally hundreds of teddy bears, rabbits, monkeys, turtles and an occasional pig filled the place to overflowing. Three other apartments in this building plus a computer repair shop, a warehouse and two houses in southern California were similarly stuffed to the rafters.

    The disorder was unsettling, disturbing, and invaded my dreams. I would have liked to simply walk away from the mess. But we needed to deal with it in a methodical manner until it was all disposed of and converted into cash. In the end, it was this disorder–––and the teddy bears–––that drove me to writing. Writing became my therapy and helped me process the experience.

    In order not to get crushed by the telling of the story, I decided three things. First, I wanted to introduce my readers to Linda and her husband Al, also a hoarder, who had died years earlier. I wanted them to be known as people, not simply hoarders. In addition, I wanted my audience to understand the malady called hoarding as I myself learned about it. Second, I didn’t want this tale to be depressing, so I made it a point to look for humor where I could find it. The third decision was strictly an organizational one. I chose to isolate each collection or problem and write about it as we encountered it. That accordion folder helped me follow a single story line and not drift anywhere else.

    The stuffed animals, with their sad, accusatory eyes, had the first story to tell. I stuck with them until they all happily found new homes. Then I introduced our friend Dan who played a major role in assisting us with our responsibilities to this estate. Dependable, loquacious Dan weaves in and out of the tale. Whenever he turns up, there’s food involved, and I was able to make that a kind of repetitive, happy theme. He also writes funny emails, so I saved those in the appropriate accordion file sections.

    If Dan is our “hero,” Mike Em is his evil counterpart. Mike Em’s story-thread involves the mechanical musical instrument collection. He comes into the story early on and he was such an abrasive person from our first encounters with him that I knew intuitively I should keep his email correspondence. It served me well when writing about him later.

    And finally, I never began writing about a problem or a collection until that issue had been settled. As each thing resolved itself, I contained it in a chapter. Sometimes, one chapter spilled into two, such as finding the hidden safe, which turned out to be safes. However, knowing the story line from start to finish was a strategy I believe helped me find the humor I hoped to maintain. Occasionally that humor came from a single adjective, such as Mike Em’s “turd-colored suspenders.” Sometimes I had to search further and exaggerate a bit. But not having to worry about the story’s conclusion freed me to look for the lightness.

    Stuffed. Nona SmithIn the beginning, the teddy bears’ happy endings encouraged me to write on. Toward the end of our adventure, I felt compelled to tell the tale to its finish in order to honor the time we’d spent and the people who’d helped us along the way.

    Note from Marlene:  I read Stuffed and enjoyed every bit of it. What could be a sad story is told in an upbeat, positive way, with a satisfying ending. Well-written and entertaining.

    Nona Smith writes memoir and short stories with a humorous bent that show how life’s foibles connect us to each other. She lives on the Mendocino Coast with her husband Art and two spoiled cats, Missy and Buster.
    Photo by Rosalie Winesuff

     

    Marlene C

    ,