Greetings Dear Ones!

Ever since I started writing this blog, I have looked at Trouble in a whole new way. What is a story without a central trouble? To this end, every character that enters the shop who provides me with a trouble, also provides me with a story. I LOVE stories! So, I am starting to appreciate Trouble. When something “bad” happens to me, I now think “Oh, Goody! Something to write about. Something for this Glamorously Heroic Heroine of mine to do battle with, or to feed Prudence as a snack that will upset her stomach…” Sometimes I actually say (if only for a moment) “This [problem] isn’t good enough. How can we make it Worse?” The results are sometimes tragic, sometimes comic, as I set about my days dealing with unforeseen plot twists, seam-rippers, bobbins, menopausal sheep or mis-placed car keys. I particularly enjoy watching as each character in the shop comes forward to share the back-story of the chapter I will be working on for the next few hours. Unlike some of my colleagues, I love getting the “history” lesson. I enjoy the long, detailed rambles about how they came to have this or that garment and its challenges. We are, all of us, story-tellers by nature. We are Dreamers, Wishers, and Explainers. Some among us explain rather too much. It’s the curse of the novice. It’s Ok.

A Sci-Fi Murder Mystery confused about his plot direction but assuming that most females between the ages of 18-45 want to get between his covers, shows up to have his jacket mended. He has been lifting weights and burst the center seam between his shoulders in the back. He flexes his bulging muscles to demonstrate the hulk-like grandeur that overcame the tweed but I demure. Prudence rolls her eyes heavenward and reaches for her rosary. We write up the slip as he departs, leering awkwardly at a group of Chick-Lit-Lite that is walking in the door. They are talking already, asking us if we have heard the news about so-and-so. There is a considerable amount of gossip in a small-town tailoring shop where most of the clients have known each other for generations. Most of it is what anyone but the Topic of the Conversation herself would insist is “harmless.” It occurs to me that Listening to Gossip is like going with a Critic’s review before we have even read the book ourselves. (Prudence hates the idea of gossip but she cannot help listening!)

In the dressing room, a woman is staring at herself in the mirror. She is middle-aged but something about the awkwardness of her fawn-like elegance reminds me more of someone very young. She is alternately frowning and then smiling, playing with her facial expression the way a toddler might to amuse herself.

“A Horrible Thing is happening,” she announces. “I look in the mirror and see my mother. I am turning into my mother!” Instantly, I think of the Oscar Wilde quote, “Every woman becomes her mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy. I laugh. She smiles at the quote then turns serious again.

“I look in the mirror and I see my mother so much that it is like she is squinting at me from the other side, telling me I am no good. I see the face from my childhood that was never happy when it looked at me. So! I remind myself to smile. See?” She smiles with exaggerated force. Through gritted, absurdly grinning teeth she explains, “When I smile, I look nothing like my mother. My mother never smiled. But as soon as I smile, See? I look like someone completely different. I look like ME.”

After she leaves, I ponder the burdens that we each are carrying in the stories we tell ourselves and the editing we must help each other do. Some of the strongest characters I know are not people who openly display their strength for all the world and unfortunate tweed jackets to see. They just smile. Through practice and gritted teeth, they smile. They have won battles we know nothing about.

By all means, we say, “Please don’t judge this book by its cover until I change it out of its pajamas! Or do it Very Kindly. Have you read it yet? It’s a tragic-comedy—don’t the plaid and polka-dots say so? It’s sometimes slapstick, sometimes just plain sticky... Please, please enjoy it. Tell me it was worth it,” we beg our Fellow Authors who are so busy scribbling they ignore us.

Some books, we cannot wait to read—their covers are so enticing. Some, we come to find out are just part of a series, written by multiple authors under the same Pen name. Some books make us think “ooooh, if I could spend an hour, a weekend or a lifetime reading that book, I would finally understand all the secrets of the Universe, or at least of Love and what it means to truly Cherish. I would really KNOW something after reading that book.”

A Sappy Romance Novel marketing himself as a Thriller comes in to the shop to have his suit tailored. “I want the jacket to say a few things about the Author,” he tells me. “It should say, ‘this Guy is a Classic, but with a modern twist. He could be more trendy if he wanted to but he doesn’t need to be.” We agree to shorten the length of the coat and sleeves a little but not take it in too much. Thankfully, the trousers are not pleated so we can update them by simply re-hemming them without cuffs.

Next in is a cheery little Cookbook—the old-fashioned kind with pictures of lattice-work pies, Sugar, Humility, and Gluten—not the Arrogantly Clean & Vegan. Her shoes, slacks, and coat say “I am a fearless Adventuress--Bargain Shopping Where Others Fear To Tread” but the spaghetti stains on her blouse say “just kidding. We never get out of the kitchen.” Inside her tattered pages, there is much to be discovered, Savoured. She does not have a very complicated plot but she knows the ancient secrets of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme—of True Love and having the Sunday Roast turn out perfectly every time for forty years in a row until everyone around the table either dies or moves away. The holidays are coming up and she wants us to make aprons for all of her grandchildren.

A retired couple entitled “War and Not Much Peace Because HE Doesn’t Load the Dishwasher Properly” come in to collect their dry-cleaning and drop off some mending. It’s clear that theirs is a long and bitter saga, punctuated by fiercely tender paragraphs and glimmers of hopes that were dashed. They aren’t about to quit co-dependently co-authoring now, since Death and the Final Edit are looming, though both of them kinda, sorta, wish they’d crumpled up the first page years ago and started over then. But they didn’t want to waste the paper.

Who ever said we were NOT to judge the books by their covers? Isn’t that what covers are for? Who DIDN’T look at the cover of their fifth-grade math textbook and see some good-looking multi-ethnic students frolicking happily and think, “hmm… maybe this year math will be fun?”

But we all do it. Recently, I attended a village contra-dance and overheard a much younger friend of mine telling a novice dancer how to choose his partners. “While you are learning, you want to dance with people better than you. Look at their feet,” she instructed. “See those shoes? Those are called ‘character shoes.’ I’m not sure why… But if a woman is wearing those, it’s a pretty good chance that she knows how to dance. At least she has invested in the right foot gear. Stay away from anyone in Keds—it’s a crap shoot. They are either amazing or awful, especially if they are under 25. Don’t gamble on this. Avoid Wellies like the plague. No one can dance in Wellington Boots; I don’t care who you are. Stick to middle-aged women in Character Shoes!”

I love that. Stick to middle-aged women in character shoes. Apparently, we are the training wheels of the dance floor! Remind me to put that slogan on a T-shirt and wear it to the next dance.

We judge, we peruse, we collect…Many people don’t even read at all. “Books are awfully decorative,” says the bimbo character “Gloria,” in the film “Auntie Mame.” It puts me in mind of a dear man I used to know who purchased a bookshelf for his new home. He wanted to fill it with impressive-looking books. He went to a used book store and asked them what they had in “Brown Leather.” The shop attendant was confused. “We have lots of books with leather bindings, Sir,” he said. “What subjects interest you? India? Literature? An anthology concerning the Native Bees of New England?”

“Oh, it doesn’t really matter,” said this dear man, spreading his hands apart to indicate a space of about two feet, “I just need about this much in brown leather!”

Some people are so much of a “series” that to read one is to have read them all. We meet, we chat…we think, “hmmm, I’ve read this one before. It had rather a nasty plot twist after the third date.”

Recently, I had coffee with a fabulous new Novel—a “novel” Novel, as it were.

“There’s a really great book coming out at the moment,” I told her. “It’s fantastic. You really need to read it.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Well, so I’ve heard.”

“What?! You haven’t actually read it?”

“Well, no, not really. I know I am supposed to—trust me, it’s on my list. I wrote the first part myself but then other people took over.”

“Well, that’s not really good enough.”

“I suppose not… But YOU, darling, you must read it! You will love it. I know you will. In fact, you MUST.” At this, she wrinkled her nose and flashed me a look of vexation and sighed.

“I think I will wait for the Movie version. Or maybe the Spark Notes or Readers’ Digest version. It looks like rather a BIG book—sort of heavy to carry around. I am always wary of books in flashy Red covers. I really wish you would just read it and tell me the basic plot up to the present moment. I wonder if there is an audio version I could just listen to while I’m doing something else. Maybe I could get someone to read it for me?”

“No, dear, that won’t do. You need to read the whole thing yourself, cover to cover, correcting or making note of everything you would like to see changed. Haven’t you heard? The project isn’t finished. You get to be Editor in Charge!” (I once worked at a publishing house where the Editor-in-chief insisted she be called the Editor-in-Charge, and I’ve preferred that title ever since.) “Only you can make it You-nique.” She groaned.

Don’t let your stories tell you who you are, Dear Ones. The stories are not writing you. You are writing them. Revise as necessary. There is no such thing as a story that has no trouble. What kind of BORING story would that be?? So take it that the troubles you have are a pre-requisite for your eventual triumph or disaster. Embrace them as the literary tools they are. Your story is not about your trouble. The story is about how you RESOLVE or reconcile or forgive or grow or learn or teach by your trials. And don’t think you could never be a best seller. You already are. You just need to market yourself differently—perhaps a new book jacket?

Let me know if it needs tailoring. I am at your service. With so much love and gratitude for your Good Work,

Yours aye,

Nancy (a middle-aged woman in character shoes)