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California Dreamin’
It was a significant birthday for my Dearest Husband. Since his life’s ambition was to play golf at Pebble Beach, I made the terrible sacrifice and accompanied him to California’s gorgeous Monterey Peninsula. During his first golf round, I suffered through a session at the spa. During the second, I went kayaking on Monterey Bay where I encountered marvelous marine life.
The sea lions. Incredibly noisy, they are surprisingly nimble on the rocks and sleekly beautiful in the water. They paid no attention whatsoever to my little kayak.
The otters. These furry aquatic mammals sleep floating on their backs with their paws crossed on their chests and their back flippers sticking straight up. They wrap strands of kelp around their middle to anchor themselves in place. Occasionally, one would rouse from sleep to groom herself before snoozing again.
The harbor seal. My guide and I paddled over to the rocks where the seals usually hang out, but there were none to be seen. Disappointed, we headed to where a raft of otters were sleeping in the kelp and stopped to get a good look at them. As I floated there, a harbor seal’s head popped up five feet away from my kayak. I looked at him and he looked at me and I said, “Hello.” He disappeared under the water. I bent over to peer down into the water in hopes of seeing him swim by. All of a sudden he came up from under my kayak so we were virtually nose to nose. I’m not sure who was more surprised, but it was a magical moment as we looked into each other’s eyes. He disappeared again in a flash of spots, and then I felt my kayak start to vibrate back and forth. My guide laughed. “He’s scratching his back on the bottom of your boat,” she explained.
They call me the Seal Whisperer.
I wanna go back to college!
Parents’ Weekend at Darling Daughter’s new alma mater, Kenyon College, reminded me of how true it is that college is wasted on the young.
First, the food. When I was in college, we had a stainless steel tub of meat, a tub of vegetables, a tub of starch, and a tub of stale bread. They were labeled but we never believed what they said except for once when the tub of stewed tomatoes bore the label “Biology Experiment”. Amazingly enough it was still full at the end of dinner.
At Kenyon, they choose from a Mongolian barbecue bar, a salad bar, a grill, a special daily entrée, and, most important, a dessert bar. My daughter complains about the lack of variety.
Second, the athletic facitilies. Look at this picture of the Kenyon Athletic Center pool, affectionately known as “the KAC”. Only the varsity athletes had facilities like these when I was in college. Nowadays everyone gets access.
Third, the classes. How’s this for a classroom?
This is where my Darling Daughter’s Shakespeare course is held. I was happy to discover that they still teach the same things in English (my major), and it made me long for the good old days of theme and imagery. I love that stuff and so does D. D., a chip off the old block.
Fourth, study abroad. In my day, you had to sell your firstborn to study off-campus. Now it’s almost expected that students will spend at least a semester out of the country. D. D.’s planning to go to England. I’m in favor of this because I plan to go visit her. Don’t tell her though!
Life is Good, Part 2
Last night was Opening Night at the Rock for the New Jersey Devils, or “my guys” as I affectionately call them. And we won, 2-1, beating the New York Islanders without a whole lot of trouble. Wahoo! It’s hockey season again, the most wonderful time of the year.
That’s Zach Parise at right, our young, tenacious scorer, celebrating his first goal of the season. I love Zach because he never quits, mostly because he’s too young to know when he should. You need your veterans for toughness and stability, but you also need that marvelous reckless youth that never gives up.
The first game is so important psychologically, especially because the Islanders beat us last year over and over again when we had no business losing to them. This was a great start.
Honestly though, even if we’d lost, life would be good because now almost every night is Hockey Night.
Life is Good!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! My Darling Daughter is home from college for four whole days! This is the first time I’ve seen her since late August, and I’ve missed her a ton.
D.D. is a freshman at Kenyon College in the cornfields of Ohio. She loves it there, having settled in with not a moment’s homesickness, much to my relief. She’s an English geek, like me, and Kenyon is noted for its English and Creative Writing program, one of the reasons she chose to go there.
Our children can be very wise. When my husband asked D. D. what stood out for her about her experience at Kenyon so far, she had a great answer. She said she loved being part of a whole group of people who are passionate about the same things she is. Isn’t that one of the great things in life?
Meet the newest member of our family
Brodie
Heeeeere’s Brodie! We just picked him up from his foster home with the lovely folks of Golden Retriever Rescue. He’s fourteen months old and has a few discipline issues–not surprising for a youngster who’s had four homes in his short life–but he’s a total sweetheart. And so handsome!
My wonderful readers probably remember me talking about Max, my much loved rescued golden who died two years ago. There’s been a hole in our family ever since, but it was hard to “replace” such a wonderful dog. We had to grieve for awhile before we could think about a new canine companion.
However, we decided the time was right this summer. We sent in our application to Golden Retriever Rescue, had a home visit, and were approved. Then it took a couple of months to find the right dog for us. But Brodie is definitely “the one”.
My garden is looking a little the worse for wear as Brodie likes to dig, especially around the resident chipmunks’ burrows. He has also attacked a couple of bushes for no apparent reason, but we’re working with him to stop those bad habits. On the other hand, he loves to ride in the car, go on walks, be brushed (something Max hated for some reason), play with tennis balls, and, of course, be petted and fussed over.
I’m wondering if anyone can guess why we named him “Brodie”. Hint: it has to do with the New Jersey Devils ice hockey team.
Hawaii Chronicles: Giant Sea Turtles
This fellow was quite focused on chomping down the seaweed on the rocks. He didn’t stop chewing when I snuck up and took his picture. I was SO excited to see him up close. Then I noticed that there were about four more turtles grazing in the surf. So I took their pictures too! Back at our hotel, I was strolling along the beach and spied two turtles paddling in the waves and chowing on the seaweed there. It was a sea turtle convention evidently. However, I never got jaded about spotting their big domed shells along the edge of the ocean.
C’est Moi!
Yes, it’s me, your friendly neighborhood romance author. I’m transferring the “From the Garret” page from my website (www.NancyHerkness.com) to this blog. That way I can update it whenever I have something new to say without bothering my webmaster. I hope to have something to say once a week or so; check in often and leave a comment. You never know when there might be a new contest!
Cheers,
Nancy
The Science of Love, Or What Romance Writers Have Known All Along
In February, every media outlet in the U.S. focuses at least part of their attention on love, a nice change from murder, politics and war. Time Magazine chose to discuss the scientific aspects of romance, and, yes, it was interesting. It was, however, nothing new to any romance writer or reader.
According to Time, Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University says, “People live for love, die for love, kill for love. It can be stronger than the drive to stay alive.” Well, duh! Why do they think over 51 million people read romance novels every year? Because falling in love is one of the most intense experiences a human being can have and these books allow us to experience it over and over again, even once we are married and happily settled into what Time calls “companionate love”. (That’s the emotion which allows us to unselfishly raise our children together.)
Some of the most cherished conventions of romance have a solid basis in scientific fact. For instance, our heroes are often broad-shouldered and deep-voiced. Our heroines frequently have well-curved figures. Scientists have proven these traits are highly attractive to a member of the opposite sex who’s interested in a viable mate. In the male, a substantial chest and shoulders indicates the ability to bring home the bacon, literally. The deep voice promises lots of testosterone for good reproduction. For women, ample hips mean easy birthing while a healthy bust-line shows the ability to nurse off-spring.
And kissing! Ah, kissing! It serves so many Darwinian purposes. Gordon Gallup of the State University of New York says, “At the moment of a kiss, there’s a rich exchange of postural, physical and chemical information. There are hardwired mechanisms to process all this.”
Smell, for instance, is integral to sexual attraction. Getting close enough to kiss magnifies your potential mate’s fragrance. I always describe my hero’s distinctive scent. Sometimes it’s just clean and male and sometimes it holds hints of the soap he uses; it depends on the character.
Scientifically, the nose picks up a lot of information. We’ve all heard of pheromones, of course, those scent signals that a female is interested and fertile. However, there’s an even more complicated process going on here: the processing of MHC, or “major histocompatibility complex”, which influences tissue rejection. If two people’s MHC is too similar it increases the likelihood of miscarriage. While MHC can be judged by inhaling, an even better test is tasting: saliva contains the same compound. So a passionate kiss allows you to both enjoy your lover’s arousing scent and to analyze his or her immune system.
Of course romance writers know that kissing often leads to more intimate contact. There’s a scientific reason for this as well: men’s saliva contains testosterone which is a natural aphrodisiac for women. And you thought a kiss was just a kiss.
Why is love so intense, so obsession-inducing? It turns out that love activates not one, not two, but three areas of the brain, stimulating them to produce some very rewarding chemicals. Dopamine incites craving, motivation and ecstasy. Oxytocin induces an overwhelming sense of connection with the person who’s around when it’s flooding through the brain. To give you an idea of how very powerful oxytocin is, this chemical creates the mother-baby bond. The comfort of serotonin adds to the romantic’s sense of well-being. To cement love, twin parts of the brain called the caudate nuclei light up. These brain structures are where patterns and mundane repetitive skills such as driving a car are stored. So our lover becomes an addictive, ecstatic habit.
Of course, eventually this early thrill settles into something more stable and less distracting so we can raise our histologically compatible off-spring together. “You’ve got to make a transition to a stabler state,” says psychologist Barry McCarthy. That’s why we writers put our lovers through some major conflicts: to make sure their relationship is based on something more than a few addictive chemical reactions. We believe in the reality of “happily ever after”, and we need to show that our characters love each other for an even more complex set of reasons than the scientists posit. Broad shoulders, narrow waists and MHCs aside, our lovers seek sparkling conversation, shared values, and an ability to see each other through the tough situations in life when kissing isn’t an option.
However, it’s nice to know that science has finally caught up to the romance genre.
All scientific information and quotations in this article are drawn from “Why We Love”, Time Magazine, February 2008.
The Hottest Sport on Ice
The Hottest Sport on Ice
When I say I like ice hockey, a) it’s an understatement because in fact I’m passionate about it, and b) people look at me in perplexity. “You like ice hockey?” they ask. “Why?
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Three reasons: speed, focus, and intensity, the same things I like about romance.
Hockey pucks sail through the air at 100 miles per hour. Players fly down the ice at 30 miles per hour. Think of what cars look like in collision tests when they hit a wall at 15 miles per hour. Now imagine a human body hitting the boards of a skating rink at that speed. And then getting up and taking off at the same velocity all over again. It’s a game that stops only for commercial breaks (and the players complain about those!) and an occasional video review of a goal. Timeouts are taken rarely and then only at the very end of the game when one team is desperate to beat the other. It’s grueling and utterly breathtaking.
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That’s Martin Brodeur, one of the sport’s great goalies. He’s got three strapping hockey players piling on top of him but what’s he focused on? Stopping that puck. Nothing distracts him from that task. The same is true of three forwards ripping down the ice with the sole purpose of scoring on that goalie. With the puck and players moving at lightning speed, focus is critical, not just for success but for survival.
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“Do or die.” That’s the tag line for the Stanley Cup playoffs, hockey’s Holy Grail. The players believe it. I watched in awed disbelief as Devils’ defensive center John Madden stopped a puck with his face (to keep the opposition from scoring), skated to the bench leaving a trail of red splatters behind him, stuffed some Kleenex up his still-bleeding nose and flew back out on the ice for the next shift. He ended up with numerous stitches, a black eye and who knows what other damage but he wasn’t going to sit out a minute of the game. Is he insane? Probably. Is he intense? Unquestionably.
This is a team sport. No superstar, not even the Great Wayne Gretzky, single-handedly carries a hockey team to victory. The lines rotate in and out constantly so the players sitting on the bench are just as involved in the game as the guys out on the ice. Because they’re not just benchwarmers; they know they’ll be out there in the next six or seven minutes and they need to jump in seamlessly. Their attention never wavers.
And isn’t this what great romance is all about? Two people focused on each other with an intensity that won’t let them think of anything else and a passion which draws them together instantaneously and inexorably.
So when people ask me why I like ice hockey, I say, “Because I write romance.”
Of course, that makes them look even more perplexed.
When teenagers go right
Who says that teenagers can’t make a commitment? Anyone whose child is a marching band member knows it just ain’t so.
Marching band is a Cult. The rites begin with Band Boot Camp the week before school starts: five days of practice from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with two short meal breaks (which are just to prevent damage to the instruments from students collapsing due to hunger). Once classes begin, practice goes for three hours most days after school and on Saturdays when there’s not a football game. These kids eat, dream, and breathe their band music and drills.
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The band director sent out a list of ways you know you’ve been in the marching band too long which included:
1. You accidentally call the band director “Dad”;
2. Cold hot dogs, warm Coke and stale popcorn are a gourmet meal;
3. You pivot on every corner;
4. The band goes on a road trip and no buses break down;
5. The teachers excuse your mistakes by saying, “It’s all right; the poor thing’s in band”;
6. You think an “armed guard” is a girl with a flag, not a man with a gun.
Sadly, my entire family found this list hilarious. That’s because the Cult sucks everyone in. My Darling Daughter is the cause of it all: she plays the trumpet and is the band’s Drill Captain. My husband is the treasurer for the music parents’ association. I am the head roadie which means that I’m in charge of getting instruments on and off the truck and on and off the field for performances. My son has to listen to his sister practice and occasionally even gets roped into helping review a drill.
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Although I am hugely relieved that band season is almost over (which is why I have time to write this), the truth is that I enjoy working side by side with this incredibly dedicated group of kids. The marching band is home to a very diverse group of personalities. I use the word “home” deliberately; it truly provides a place where all of these children feel valued for their contributions and comfortable with each other. The bonds forged among them are amazingly strong.
When I see them out on the field, resplendent in their uniforms, working together in a cohesive unit to create both beautiful music and a grand spectacle, it makes my heart swell with pride. There’s no place for slackers in the band: everyone does their part with joy, with passion, and, most of all, with complete commitment.
We grownups could take a lesson or two.
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