Oh, the perils we face

Garfield Falls

Trailhead: N45 3.1032  W071 7.8642

In the New Hampshire woods you'll find what you're looking for. I seek high drama, preferably from a distance and especially this time of year. For instance, I like to feel the roar of the falls. That  thunder underfoot reorients the soul nicely. For extra impact, the spongy soil broadcasts the boom of the falls through a network of porous bone. The more grounded you are, in my case that means size 10 boots gripping the soil, the better to receive the full effect. And, yes, massive water still pours off the boulders, mushrooms push through the thin carpet of leaves and well-fed fox trot along, cocky as ever. As for the horny bull moose, they are gearing up....

I am interested in tenacity, which is probably why I see it everywhere. Here is a leaf that has fastened itself in the bough of a fir. Hang in there! Said leaf is unwilling to let go quite yet. Someone else will read this scene quite differently. Perhaps an artist will find that it is reminiscent of a dynamic composition: The leaf provides near garish relief amid so much brown and green.

This tree fungus is opportunistic. It found a weak spot, a canker on a sturdy trunk, and burrowed in. Perhaps the relationship is symbiotic but what I see, and I spot this intrusion from a great distance, is persistence. This little life form has found a place to dig in. Hurrah! In time it may compromise the tree. I wonder, though, how a fungus gets a foothold on a healthy tree? In time this tree will fall and cede its substance back to the soil from whence it came.

Not everything is deadly serious. I encounter frivolity here — stark white fungi sprouting milky frills all over the forest floor. Lighten up, everyone. Lose the drama for a second. Have some lunch!

Life hangs in the balance. There's no other way to interpret this wrenching struggle as the once great tree clings to the bank, tilting ever closer to the east branch of the Diamond River. I'm seeing that tenacity only gets you so far in some dire scenarios. On the other hand, what better way to explain this feat of balance than sheer tenacity?

Buried in a small crevasse, bounded on all sides by rock, a small brown mushroom prospers. Protected from the elements and rodent teeth, this little domed soldier digs in for the duration. 

Adios, little wonderland full of stories. Surely you'll have more after another winter in the North Country.

Life lessons from a senior sexpert

'It takes intention to keep
movement and sexuality in our lives.'

Happy Birthday to Joan Price, author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex and Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty. You are like a sister. And, sister, you make me proud.

It’s your birthday on Nov. 10 and you are at the top of your game. You work it like no one else I know. At 68 you live more in a day than most people do in a week.

How is that? How can someone who once was in such a serious automobile accident she shocked doctors merely by surviving, who suffered injuries that plague her still, how can that person go on to teach aerobics six days a week and, later in life, teach line dancing three and four nights a week for hours at a time, walk for one or two hours a couple of times a week, lift weights when time allows and do advanced Pilates with a personal trainer every week? That was a long sentence with few pauses because that is the kind of life you lead. Then there are the speaking engagements, the workshops and television appearances, the writing of books, the social media updates and maintenance — you have 774 friends on Facebook, the blog, the testing of sex toys for their makers and for the readers who buy them. What have I forgotten? You review books, you’re compiling a book of erotica for Seal Press, you respond to emails in a timely fashion. I’m sure there’s more.

Your answer is that you exercise so that you can exercise, if that makes sense. You move to stay mobile is another way to put it. You are a vegan and you eat delicious, nutritional foods. You say you don’t want to be bored so you commit to doing what you are passionate about. And because nothing beats boredom like acquiring knowledge, you’ve made learning a priority. And you teach others what you’ve learned. Because of you, because you talk out loud about senior sex, we know how to maintain our vaginas to keep them in good working order. That’s just for starters. Recently one of your readers said you helped save her marriage.

When you had a reading in early July at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan, you were a guest in the NYC apartment where I spend time with Jim. We gave you the couch, a blanket and a space at the table for computing. In the mornings Jim made you strong hot coffee the way you like it, without cream or sugar. The only time you weren’t working or making connections with others throughout the city was when I was talking or when you were sleeping. You are a marvel. You model the way it should be done.

You had a profound loving relationship later in life. Robert Rice, your husband, died just as you had begun working on Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex. How hard that must have been but you got through it, found ways to grieve, work and carry on. Because of you and your book Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, we got to see for ourselves how true love and sexual intimacy are bound by no rules and heed no expectations.

Here, for those who are interested, are excerpts from a conversation I had with Joan over the telephone in mid-October. I wanted to present the woman behind her two most recent books.

The “ick factor”

“I found that people didn’t want to look at senior sexuality, face it or address the problems in a positive way. It isn’t just the youth-oriented culture that has stereotypes about sex. We seniors have them about ourselves. We think we lose enjoyment, we lose function, we lose our appeal. For every problem, there is a solution.”

Work

“I think of myself as a hard worker. I thrive on challenges and sometimes on confrontation. Ninety percent of the people I speak with say thank you for the information. Ten percent say, ‘Tell me no more’ or they make fun of it. That just spurs me on even more. Bring it on, I say.”

People are shy

“I spoke at my 50^th high school reunion recently. People listened attentively but no one asked me a single question. I know why. The last time we saw each other was when we were 17. So I told them if they had any questions, I’d consult with them in the corner of the room. People came up to me throughout the reunion saying, ‘I want my consultation in the corner.’ Every time I speak, I learn something.”

Being physical

“With regard to enjoying the pleasures of our bodies, it’s not just line dancing or having sex or walking in the sun. We need to be in relationship with our bodies.”

“People ask me: What’s the best exercise? I tell them: The one that you’ll do!”

“Exercise should be a treat, not a treatment.”

Senior foreplay

“One way to get started is to do something physical together like dancing in the living room. Walk or bike ride together. This lets you enjoy your bodies together and lets the blood flow. By the time you begin making love together, you’ve already started. Part of what makes us pull away from sex is the depletion of blood flow to our muscles, our brains and our genitals. Exercise reverses that.”

Aging

“People aren’t aware that it’s happening little by little, week by week, year by year. Athletic people I knew at 17 are now 75 pounds overweight.”

“It takes intention to keep movement and sexuality in our lives.”

Solo Sex

“Make a date with yourself.”

Joan Price’s contact information
website: http://www.joanprice.com/
Blog: http://www.NakedAtOurAge.com <http://www.nakedatourage.com/>
YouTube: http://youtu.be/MN6_HVD-Jdg <http://youtu.be/MN6_HVD-Jdg>
Naked At Our Age Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/JoanPriceAuthor <http://www.facebook.com/JoanPriceAuthor>
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JoanPrice <http://twitter.com/JoanPrice>

You can contact me at rae.francoeur@verizon.net. Read my book, “Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair,” available online or in bookstores.

How Sex Found its Way into 'Free Fall'

Part I of an occasional series on writing about sex



I didn’t set out to write about sex. I wanted to write about a cathartic love affair in the context of a life swamped by mounting complexities. I had a story to tell and themes I wanted to explore and comment on. Because I’m a journalist and have a journalist’s desire to share important information, no sooner had I grasped the significance of the affair than I began to draft essays about it.

The “context” I mention — the details — included a combative relationship with a hair-trigger boss, a significant other who wound up in ICU — the first of seven hospitalizations in 2007, a creative and fulfilling career in an art museum, euphoric runs along the ocean near my home in Rockport, writing projects, reviewing books, frequent travel, good friends, aging, mental illness, music, joy. The fact that sex ended up in the book doesn’t surprise me since sex was a big part of the love affair. And sex was the model for letting go, for having a free fall and, ultimately, for making change. It seemed essential to the story.

One journalist who read the book and wrote an article afterward said, “It’s a unique book. I’ve never read anything like it.” As a book reviewer and the writer of the book proposal that included a “survey of literature,” I came to see why she made that statement. “Free Fall” is 100 percent me, in my free-falling voice, written in the most honest way I could find. I wanted to paint 2007 for readers as sensually and as impressionistically as I had experienced it. This took work and numerous rewrites.

I recently looked at a blog titled “Bespoke Erotica” that Harpers.org linked to in May. The writer, Joshua David Stein, barters with readers who would like their own personal erotica. They provide him with three words and he writes an erotic story for them.

From his April 25 story on Tumblr, he begins:
Rhys felt the warm Caribbean breeze against alabaster ass cheeks, exposed westerly as Abel knelt also westerly with Rhys’ knob betwixt his lips. Things were going well for the lovebirds. Rhys moaned contentedly; Abel hummed and drooled. To read more: http://bespokeerotica.tumblr.com/

In “Free Fall,” there’s no cum or alabaster ass cheeks or fantasy islands, though breasts and a penis are referenced a number of times. But I had to be careful because I didn’t want jargon and the mechanics of sex to get in the way of what was going on emotionally or psychologically. On the other hand, the act of sex was how I found my way to some of the deeper issues I’d begun to reconsider, such as my penchant for control, dependence vs. independence, the experience of joy. Not to mention, the mechanics of sex, presented with less grit and more authenticity, can be erotic but challenging for most writers to pull off.

With regard to Joshua David Stein, I would not barter for one of his personalized stories. Why did Harper’s link to his erotica? Do men like different erotica than women? Why are some people offended by writing about sex while not about watching sex in movies and on television? These are questions for other essays in this occasional series of writing about sex.

I couldn’t have guessed that sex would trigger major life changes. I didn’t pay attention when reading Freud in my sociology classes and I hated it when my mother espoused Freud. I was naïve. I thought I was going to have a fling. Think again. Sex causes big things to happen, like babies and marriage and the end of marriage … and everything I wrote about in “Free Fall.”

Part I: Men I’ve Run Into With Exceptional Bodies

It seems I’m always running into startling-looking men with exceptional bodies. Some of these incidents I will share here today; others, like the naked man in the ladies bathroom in Oak Park, I’ll save for Part II — Crazy Men Who Use Their Exceptional Bodies to Ruin Women’s Appetites Including Peeping Toms and Roadside Pee-ers, Drive-By Exhibitionists and Nudists Who Shouldn’t. Keep in mind: There are lots of ways to define ‘exceptional.’

I encounter men with exceptional bodies in the karmic sense, like maybe I was Michelangelo in a past life and infatuation with the male physique isn’t entirely out of my system yet. It’s something I do, like being the first one in a carful of leaf-peepers to spot a ceramic gnome in the woods or being the only Padilla in my Mexican family to understand that cilantro tastes like soap.

Once, I ran smack into Mr. America in a Sears and Roebuck in Santa Barbara. He was talking to some men fans about weightlifting but it wasn’t easy for him. First, he could not gesticulate. Balls of muscle mounded at elbow and shoulder joints. Tendons were taut as towlines. And since stretching exercises probably hadn’t been invented yet, the trunk of a live oak was probably more bendable than Mr. America’s knees.

Mr. America traumatized me. I was an innocent 7 prone to panic. When he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a raspy squeak. You must strategize placement of muscle. You cannot pile it on, willy-nilly. Bulging neck muscles can strangle as surely as a noose. Mr. America was a freak. I bolted with a shriek when he slowly shifted his bulges toward me, the only one shorter than he was, and squeaked, “Would you like to see my biceps?”

Another time, again in California and again while quite young, I strolled a back street toward home when lo and behold, there was Jack LaLanne (or his doppelganger) lifting weights in a carport. This, a post-Mr. America sighting, was quite intriguing. I didn’t know who Jack LaLanne was at the time, but I liked standing there, watching him change the weights on the bar, then lift, squat, lift. Stretch. He was working hard in an industrious and upbeat way. He caught sight of me and asked if I’d like to give weightlifting a try. “This is enough weight for you,” he said, placing the bar in my hands, sans weight. “Now, lift.” I did and he seemed very satisfied. “Good job. Good job.” Maybe weightlifting wasn’t’ so bad.

Another amazing muscle man is Mountain Bike Steve. I read his book about mountain biking on the hilly Pittsburg NH logging roads — no man’s land — using a specially made one-speed mountain bike. Enthused by his passion, I wrote him. I love Pittsburg NH and the logging roads, though even with my 12-speed, I can’t begin to approach the feats he performs in the wilderness. We maintained a correspondence for several years. I still recite his important mantra: “Weight-training is the fountain of youth.”
Today it happened again, the sighting of a startling-looking man with an exceptional body.

Jim and I were leaving Border’s bookstore on 7th Avenue and 33rd Street in Manhattan. At the bottom of the stairs I noticed a small, swarming hive of paparazzi encircling its prey. I’ve seen lots of movie stars — gorgeous, famous, and otherwise — on NYC sidewalks, walking alone, unnoticed, but never this kind of frenzy. I expected Angelina Jolie adopting street urchins or the Pope apologizing.

But, all I saw were 10 or 15 male photographers positioning and repositioning themselves, snapping, flashing, eddying, squatting. Whatever they had square in their viewfinders was down close to the sidewalk. Lassie? We were at Madison Square Garden. Maybe it was copulating clowns. Arty from Glee?

None of the above.

When I worked my way into the fray, I was startled by a man with an exceptional body. He was about 5 feet tall and weighed around 110 pounds. He was poised, tough, perfect, mostly muscle. He’d raised his knuckles and radiated ferocity. He moved like a caged tiger. Wary. Slow. Eyes wide. Head rotating imperceptibly. He held out a thick belt with a dish-sized gold emblem in the middle. This thing was proof of his world championship. Welterweight? Bantamweight? Lightweight? There are many boxing championships and many weight categories. I embraced my near-6-foot Amazon, stretched tall to get a better look (and perhaps to flaunt my advantages a bit), and he accessed his inner fisher cat and narrowed his eyes.

We inhabit our human selves some of the time, our mythical selves at other times. Having witnessed this silent dance between accomplishment and adulation, I walk over to my towering Zeus, another of the startling men with exceptional bodies I’ve run across (and latched onto). We leave the champ to the eddying photogs. He reigns — silent, serene, unabashed. Maybe he’s silent for a reason.

With the help of friends....

For me, writing is solitary and, once engaged, pleasurable. I like to be in a quiet place, alone, and I like to keep at it for three or four hours at a time. Even if I stop to pour a cup of coffee, I avoid anything that could break my concentration. I don't turn on the radio while reheating coffee. I don't check e-mail. I don't glance down at newspaper headlines. I don't even let the sound of my own voice escape. Silent sneezes! Toilet flushes? OK, I do that out of courtesy to Jim. Cats meowing? Well, I haven't tried muzzling them yet but I have made Lila a bed beside my computer to keep her off my keyboard and by extension, off my

Lisa, Scot and I get ready to record a clip for YouTube
and my Web site (to come mid-February).

Here, we talk about the questions Lisa will ask.

hands that are working to export my thoughts. A 12-pound cat that insists on napping on my forearms can be accommodated for maybe a graph or two, but after that, enough.

There's something I do in my head, too, a kind of brain activity holding pattern where I stop thought momentary while I tend to my physical needs. Then, once back at the computer, I open the spigot again. If I do it right, I can re-enter right where I left off.

The part of the writing process I'm thinking about this morning has to do with how you get your writing to be read by an audience. Writing must not remain a solitary experience. The process isn't complete until you publish and subsequently interact with your readership. Publication and readers inform the process, like a circuit that completes and reinvigorates itself. Until "Free Fall," I've had ready-made audiences — through a magazine or newspaper's circulation, for instance. "Free Fall" has no readership awaiting when it rolls off the presses. It's up to the publisher and me to let people know that "Free Fall" is available and worth checking out (publication date: April 6).

A lot of this is done, not on book tours, but virtually. It's a proven tactic and I need to embrace it and find a way to develop social media habits that feel authentic. That's hard when you've not done this for yourself before or when you aren't even sure if your friends, often Baby Boomers, tweet and blog and create Facebook pages. It turns out some do and it occurs to me that part of the process is educating others like myself who are sandwiched between work and parenting and significant others and parents who need their attention, as well.

This post-writing process with "Free Fall" has been much harder than I expected. I have amassed hundreds of links — "you should read this before you start tweeting" or "develop a presence on this Web site" or "get to know these excellent book bloggers" — that are important to be aware of when you start publicizing your book. Also, Jim and I bought a bunch of books from Amazon about marketing books, blogging, tweeting, Web site design. One book alone provided a lifetime's worth of excellent tips. Combine all the research and learning with getting a Web site up, a blog or two going, figuring out how to get a Twitter following when most of your friends don't tweet, etc., and my reliably calm, organized and systematic functioning exploded. I've been a zombie, groping about, day-in, day-out, in a state of paralytic static. It's been awful.

There's simply too much to do that's new. And (this is huge) one link leads to another link to another link and before you know it, a precious hour has passed and that first task on the to do list is still unchecked.

So I picked up my phone and began calling friends and asking for help. The Web site alone has been a major stumbling block because I vacillated between using an iWeb template and designing it from scratch. I attended several iWeb workshops in SoHo and realized there was no reason for me to re-invent the wheel when all I had to do was use the software I already had. My very creative friend George (his design business is called, in fact, Courage Creative) agreed to help and since then we've made great progress. I think I'll have the Web site up in another week or so.

Every person I've turned to has said or done something I feel I couldn't have thought of or done on my own. My daughter Ardis, a feisty and smart library manager who has a large Twitter following of authors, bookstores, librarians and others, and uses social media often and deftly, came to Chelsea and sat next to me for three days as I got this blog, my Twitter and Facebook accounts up and running. I'd still be spinning my wheels if Ardis hadn't conducted this rescue mission!

I got a great idea for a Web page from Lisa. That one idea takes my Web site from "normal" to something fun and playful. Stephanie told me to be sure to work in the right search words and more importantly, she advised me about how much is too much. George is doing a second round of wonderful, colorful design. Hope, our library director in Rockport, has given me many of the most important and useful of all the links I've come to amass, as well as names of author Web sites to check out, and so much more.

And last night Lisa and Scot, two editors and journalists I've known and worked with for years, came to my house in Rockport. I provided a Tex-Mex repast, Jim made the fine martinis, and Scot taped the interview Lisa conducted. What I thought would be scary and downright impossible turned out to be easy and fun. From his winter digs in the Florida Keys Rod Philbrick (just awarded the Newbury Honor Award for his book "The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg") has been sending me suggestions for proven publicity tactics. Lynn, Rod's wife and a good friend, calls and writes and offers stabilizing assurances and information I act on.

Jim is the best cheerleader on the face of this earth. Last night he stood beside Scot, as Scot set up the camera, to help out. He reads my book reviews, even via pdf from his truck on a construction site, to make sure there are no typos. He brings me coffee when I won't do it for myself. He cleans the cat litter and washes the dishes and takes my side, even when I screw up.

My publicity agent Andie from Seal Press has given me hours of her time and made numerous calls and conducted investigations on behalf of "Free Fall."

Authors of first books and readers everywhere: Moving the book from the printing press to the hands of not just any reader but the readers for whom the book is intended is a big and daunting task. For me the paralysis wouldn't have relaxed had it not been for friends, family and the help of Seal Press.

This blog post is one way I can say thank you this bright Sunday morning.

Describing "Free Fall"

The 'erotica' tag

I've publicized books, events, art exhibitions, plays and even a movie. So when the time came to help with the publicity of my own work, I wanted to be an asset to my publisher. My own expertise was only a part of why I thought I could be helpful. I quit my job to become a full-time writer. I need to prove to myself that the last two years were worth this investment. And I, like most of us, need to earn money. I've earned very little in the last two years and cannot afford to put my home or my life in financial jeopardy. Finally, "Free Fall" is my baby. I want to work hard for her.

Writers can certainly help, if not drive, their book's publicity campaigns. But before that can happen, they need to step back from their work a bit and look at it from varied perspectives. I wrote "Free Fall" as a story about a love affair that ignited as my 18-year relationship with my mate flamed out. One of the themes has to do with the vulnerabilities we all experience when mental illness touches us in some way. After I wrote "Free Fall," I ran a focus group in NYC, only to discover that the participants disagreed with my take on the book as the story of a passionate love affair. They said the book was about a heroine's struggle to make moral choices under chaotic circumstances, when nothing seemed black or white. They were more drawn to the themes of mental illness than to the love affair, it seemed.

Then, more recently, I noticed that on the back cover of the bound galleys, my book had been categorized as erotica. In future postings I want to talk about what has been like to write erotica and how erotica is seen in this society. "Free Fall" will become available on April 6. Then I will begin to see how it's received and how I will deal with it.

For now, though, I need to stick with this one thing: "Free Fall" is erotica and that changes things for me. A month ago, I sent several authors I know, some fairly well, requests for endorsements for the back cover. Many have not responded, which I find uncharacteristic. Now I realize they may have seen what I did not, that the book is erotica and they are not in a position to endorse erotica.

To properly market anything, whether it's an artificial sweetener or a baby diaper, you need to understand the product's intrinsic value and create the brand from that core understanding. I needed help understanding what "Free Fall" was about.

A friend, also a marketer and a writer, talked to me about this the other day. "That 'Free Fall' is classed as erotica is to be expected." I agree with her. Intense erotic bits wind through "Free Fall." "Free Fall" is a year in which I lived an erotic life, after all. I was highly sensitized, sexually. The substance of my sexual experience — a certain relinquishing of personal power — was the metaphor for the new way I had chosen to conduct my life. "Psycho-sexual" is an apt descriptor of my mindset, the world I inhabited, the view from me, so to speak.

Yes, I wrote "Free Fall." And, yes, I write a book review every week that runs in newspapers around the country. Writing book reviews means that in 500 to 1,000 words I try to glean a book's essence and pass it on to people interested in reading about books. But artists can never really know how their own work is going to be perceived. In the twelve years I wrote a weekly personal essay called "Opening Remarks" that ran in some of the Ottaway newspapers, I was often surprised when readers would come up to me or write me about something I wrote. What they took from my essay and what I intended were sometimes quite different.

So now, no doubt, my mission will be to find a way for "Free Fall" to take its place, at least in the way I present it, side by side with other contemporary literature. I think its value is in the way sexuality is integrated with day-to-day life. It's said that women think of sex once a day while men do so every 54 seconds. In "Free Fall," I hope to remind Baby Boomers how much pleasure our bodies can bring us. To do that, I have to come to terms with what my book is about. I'll be a better marketer and messenger once I can comfortably discuss the book's intrinsic value.