Part 9 (1/2)

From: Carrie

To: Mama

Sent: Jan. 1, 2001

Subject: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Was up late last night, watching the ball drop on TV. Since I have no TV at home in Colorado, it's always fun to watch in hotels-it's a guilty pleasure.

It was good to hear your voice tonight. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I began to work on ”Sunrise” again and more pages flowed easily and readily last night and this morning. What a relief. I just pray that I have more in me. I thought I had avoided putting any of myself into this story, but now I'm seeing that I have to marry my feelings and experiences with Kate's. I've started to see her as I was when I was in my twenties, which makes it easier for me to get into her head. I'm not sure where her adventure with the cowboy is going from here, but I know the feeling I wish to evoke.

I've also come to the conclusion that the act of writing is almost as important to me as the result (not a bad way to look at it, or at life, for that matter!).

XO, C

To: Carrie

From: Mama

Sent: Jan. 1, 2001

Happy New Year, Honey! Got your pages. Loved the church scene where everyone was happily singing gospel music. I missed out on that kind of churchgoing in my youth. Whenever we'd go to church everyone seemed to be so d.a.m.n serious all the time. I never got it when someone would say, ”I really enjoyed today's sermon.” It sure didn't look like it to me!

Going to church with Nanny on Sunday mornings was something else entirely. WOW. I remember hitting the Christian Science Church on Hollywood Boulevard. Nanny would go to the service for the grown-ups, while all of us little ones would be herded downstairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt to read Bible stories. I was probably seven, and at that age I hated being separated from Nanny because I was afraid she might drop dead on me. Even though she claimed to be a Christian Scientist she was constantly feeling her pulse, complaining that her heart was skipping beats. If her symptoms didn't improve after quoting sections of Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she would ask me to give her the bottle of phen.o.barbital she kept as backup. She would pop one or two pills and then conk out for an hour or so.

I remember one Sunday when I decided to skip Sunday school and sneak upstairs to locate Nanny's whereabouts in church. She had made me a navy blue felt hat that sported a red feather that stuck way up in the air. I opened the big doors into the main area of the church, promptly got down on all fours, and began to crawl down the center aisle looking from left to right at everyone's feet. That way I could see if she had keeled over on the floor during one of her spells.

Then I figured if Nanny had keeled over, n.o.body would know it in church because a good Christian Scientist never gets sick; they'd just think she was taking a nap. I was beginning to panic because I hadn't found her yet. I was about to scream for her when someone spotted me and piped up, ”Why, look at the little Indian!” The whole congregation began to laugh, and I started to cry. Nanny popped up out of the blue and ushered me out of there. As happy as I was to see her, I cried even louder.

”Now what's the matter?”

”Everybody was laughing at me!” I was mortified.

Nanny said, ”They weren't laughing at you; they were laughing at that big red feather sneaking down the aisle.”

Now, of course, I love it when I can get a laugh-and it's mortifying when I don't!

From: Carrie