“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”    Helen Keller

I was driving along the other day, my mind on the errands at hand: return a shirt ordered online, pick up wine and a hot mustard dip for our holiday party, locate a few more stocking stuffers. Brenda Lee was belting out “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” on the CD player, and I was feeling pretty good about crossing off a few more items on my never-ending to-do list. Suddenly Brenda’s voice grew growly, then inaudible. What the? The music blared, deafening, then faded once more, and I knew in that weird way you do that my car was about to seize up. Which it promptly did. Completely. Died. It was a real X-Files moment, the one where people are driving along through endless woods and their car is hit by an electric zap! that literally stops time just before they’re spirited away by aliens. Except I was not on a deserted road. I was on a congested state highway, twenty yards from a major intersection, and no shoulder to pull off the road, even if my car had been capable of limping a few more feet, which it wasn’t.

I tried turning over the engine. Nothing. Ditto for the radio. At least the flashers still worked. Keeping one eye on the endless stream of cars steering wildly around me, I hit “2” on my speed dial. My husband picked up.

“The car just died,” I wailed. “Right on Route 9. I’m sitting here blocking the road and I can’t move.” A large Target truck barreled down on me. I hoped his brakes were working. How much stopping distance does a truck require?

“You have your Triple-A card?” my husband asked.

“Triple-A card,” I repeated, trying to remember if I had put the card in the purse beside me or my turquoise leather bag. Perhaps it was still in the plastic ziplock with the other stuff I left at home when we last traveled overseas.

“I’ll call Triple-A,” my husband said. “And then I’ll come get you.” With these assurances, I flipped through my wallet, found the Triple-A card, then dialed 911 to get a squad car to the scene. Traffic, by now, was seriously snarled. Twenty minutes and a second squad car later, the police had pushed my Ford wagon to the intersection, around the corner, and off the road. My husband arrived shortly after, his red Hyundai cheering me greatly even as he waved and smiled.

“I called Triple-A,” he reported, joining me on the curb. “But the local operation’s small and they won’t be able to get a tow truck here for another hour.” The hour came and went as the afternoon light faded to night and the mist became a steady rain. We called Triple-A again. Were put on hold. Promised the tow truck would only be “five more minutes.” Just as my toes were growing numb, the truck roared out of the dark. I gave the driver instructions on where to take the car. Almost two hours had passed since my husband had arrived. During that time, he never once complained about the interruption to his day, the rain, the interminable wait for the truck. We chatted. We joked. He was, as always, his wonderful, generous self.

It’s all too easy in the mad dash of 21^st century life to get caught up in the pressures to do more, be more, especially at the holidays. All the trimmings, the trappings, the stuff. But none of it, none of it is half so important as the people we love. I was reminded of that when my car died on a busy road. I had the Triple-A card, and I eventually did dial 911, but my first call was an emotional SOS to my husband: Something crap has happened and I need you. Knowing you will not be abandoned—you can’t put a price on it, this greatest of gifts.

I count myself lucky in this life to love and be loved by some amazingly wonderful people, dear friends all. This post is for them. As Clarence reminds George in It’s a Wonderful Life: No man is a failure who has friends.

“I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.”

William Carlos Williams

A blast of chill air and the roar of London traffic accompany the man’s entrance to the Bloomsbury eatery. I return to my paper, but a moment later he’s there. Five, six feet away, arguing with the hostess. He doesn’t want one of the small café tables. He wants a booth. The hostess explains—twice—that booths are for parties of three or more. The man holds his ground. His voice rises. I take in his agitation, the untidy shock of dark hair, the furtive eyes. I think: He wants a booth where he can’t easily be seen. I notice one café table tucked into a corner near the register just as the hostess offers him that very table. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepts.

A second man enters. Fair-haired, tall, better-dressed than the first—his sweater cashmere, his haircut expensive. He talks to no one and takes a seat in the opposite corner. Now, both men are at the front, facing each other across the expanse of the restaurant. Each can see the street while remaining in shadow. My gaze returns to the first man. Why was a booth so important to him? Is he angry or just nervous? And if the latter, what is he jittery about? Is he waiting for something or someone? I notice his smartphone on the table. Is he expecting a call? He might have pushed for a booth because the call he expects is not a conversation he wishes to be overheard.

I glance over and see the posh man also has a smartphone lying on his table. Coincidence? Likely. Everyone gets out their phone when they sit down in a restaurant. But, what if the two men are connected? What if they’re planning something. The wild-haired one keeps glancing toward the street, his fingers drumming ceaselessly on the table, his eggs over toast growing cold.

The tony guy picks up his phone. Who is he calling? If the anxious man picks up his phone now…  He does. Another coincidence, or are the two men communicating? Planning a heist of some sort? The British Museum is just down the street. What are they after? The Rosetta Stone? No, too large, too heavy. Maybe the Lewis Chessmen. Will the men leave now (singly, of course)? Go in separate directions, one of them preparing to create a distraction, maybe detonate an explosive with the touch of a button: SEND? Who are they working for?

My husband returns from the restroom before I’ve figured out how they’ll fence the theft. I tell him the story I’ve concocted in his absence. We laugh. Then we pay the bill and walk out into the May morning, heading for the Russell Square tube station. I take my husband’s hand, my eyes alert for a new cast of characters.

Writers see stories in everything. A woman walking along, sobbing, amidst throngs of holiday shoppers (Was she just dumped in a love affair? Did her grandmother/sister/best friend die from a tragic illness/accident? Has she simply received one too many rejections from agents on her latest novel?).  Almost every situation suggests characters, a plot. The real-life couple on that HGTV show—ever notice how she shrinks from that hug he gives her? How she doesn’t laugh when he’s trying to be funny? What’s the story behind that?  And the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York—the way it sort of buckles and bounces as you drive across it? Hmm. Corruption at high levels? Is the public’s safety hostage to a bevy of tough legislative players, each with his or her own secret hopes and vices?

My husband says it’s a trip being with me: Nothing occurs that is not part of some larger tale. It is funny, but in truth, it’s the only view I know. I believe the Bard nailed it when he wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Every moment is a beginning for “Once upon a time.”

People often ask, “Where do you get your story ideas?” Well, where do you not find stories? Personally, I’m curious about most things, but the top of the list is people. How they choose to present themselves, what they attempt to hide. Their desires, fears, loves, insecurities. And behind each of these, the big question: Why? As the National Enquirer is fond of reminding us, “Enquiring minds want to know.”

So, let this serve as fair warning. If I spot you in a café or a subway car, if our paths cross on an urban street or a country lane, you’ll likely become a character in a plot of my devising. But whether you’ll be the unlikely hero, time-traveling villain, defrauded heiress, or prophetic clown—well, that’s a mystery.

I had a different post planned for this week, but the atrocities in Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad, as well as the Syrian refugee crisis demand a response. This is mine:

Violence is always a negative. Hatred is always a negative. Most of the peoples of this world–Black, Brown, White, Yellow, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists–are good, want peace, treasure their children, value life. We are all depending on the kindness of strangers.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 

John Donne

 “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”   Albert Einstein                                                                                  

While chatting to a service rep at my local bank, I marveled at her clean desk. It truly was impressive: a mammoth horizontal surface with nothing on it. She told me a memo had recently come down from the higher-ups: No papers. No knickknacks. Not even a photo of the kids. She said she missed the photos. I sympathized. Personal touches remind us we are dealing with humans. They transform a faceless routine business matter into an interaction between people. But I got the message behind the memo: We are efficiency. On top of things, ahead of things. Enviably perfect.

My desk, by (severe) contrast is an item-diary of my life. One of those old oak banker affairs, it is the Velveteen Rabbit of desks—worn corners and sun-bleached surfaces, “finished” in a charmingly random pattern of coffee cup rings. Its topography shifts almost daily, but the volume of items remains fairly constant. Today, this includes:

• A boxed hard copy of a completed manuscript.
• Two large binders of spiral notebooks filled with research for my W-I-P.
• A kitschy Shakespeare action figure (with detachable quill and book).
• A guide to literary agents.
• A smooth, round clay Buddha that fits in my hand and has no purpose but to be wonderful.
• A rolodex from a bygone era stuffed with still-important phone numbers, memos, and a matchbook            bearing the name of a fabulous Spanish Rioja I’ve never been able to find in the States.
• My plug-in Passport Ultra for “Files That Must NEVER Be Lost.”
• A waterfall of Post-its (descending in order of critical importance).
• A thick folder detailing every aspect of my website/blog and its attendant social-networking sites.
• A jar of Pilot gel pens (love these!)
• Legal pads for the psychology textbook I’m editing.
• Invoice for same (essential to life support systems like food and shelter).
• A scattering of little “wish stones”—Dream, Grow, Hope, Magic, Love.
• A pair of truly decent Sony headphones.

In this space, I daily strive to give the characters in my head a vibrant world on the page that is worthy of their story.  It is a messy, marvelous struggle, but it is light years away from anything resembling perfection. The two don’t even share a universe.

I must confess here that I have often been attracted to the clean, absolute symmetry of perfection. That illusion of a tabula rasa without past baggage, on which one may write the future free of mistakes—it’s a siren song with a powerful allure. And yet . . .

Several years ago, when my husband and I were house-hunting, the realtor took us to a newly built home. It was all sparkling bathrooms, unscuffed hardwood floors, and pristine appliances, but the real shocker was the basement. I had never encountered a new basement. It was beyond clean. You could have literally eaten off its floor. I stood there gaping, awed. But we didn’t buy that house. Didn’t even make an offer. Instead, we threw in our lot with the 1895 Victorian, a house of clanking radiators and a list of “ailments” long enough to suck up the contents of our bank account for years. Why did we pass up 2,200 flawless square feet for this money pit? Because it felt like an old friend, weathered and full of endearing idiosyncrasies. It called to us: Come bring your crazy lives and wayward cats, your jumbled furniture and dreams-in-progress to flourish within my crooked walls.

Perfection, I have come to realize, is something I flirt with in those moments when life threatens to overwhelm, when the way ahead seems a path I must beat in the wilderness with nothing more than the compass of my own experience. Perfection promises a sense of clarity. Like a clean desk. But a clean desk is also an empty desk. Its uncluttered surface a suggestion of a life lived in small, controlled increments with precise beginnings, ends, and no dovetails. That’s one kind of life, but it’s not mine. I will always be writing one book and revising another while building shelves in the attic and baking tins of Christmas cookies for friends. I’ll be planning next year’s garden and packing for a trip to London or Paris while reading a book on Venetian history and a Gillian Flynn thriller.

So here I am, in the middle of this big messy life, embracing it more and more, exactly for its colorful chaos, its jumble of demands. A to-do list seemingly without end.

May it never end.