Being Cindy: Rose-Colored Glasses in Orange County

I seldom allow myself a quick, casual post, and this will be just that. That last one was awfully long and dense…wasn’t it? It was a true story (although of course I changed the names), something I started a long time ago, and I decided to use the excuse of a blog to finish it, but now that it’s up, I’m wondering.In any case, I think I need to loosen up a bit with this blogging thing -- enough of those long, formal pieces. Maybe.

I sometimes wonder, too, if I’ve wandered a bit from my original intent. This blog was supposed to have been an optimist’s transcription, a search for things that give me hope, or at least that make me smile. But it often seems to take on a very different tone.

On the other hand, the last time I deleted a post because it seemed too dark and intense when I re-read it, one of my original readers sent me an email with this comment: “The hope stuff that writers such as you present only has validity with the accompanying shadow.” He had other good insights, too, and then, in a final flourish, he used the word “Cindy” as a verb, so that “to Cindy” something meant to censure, devalue, or delete it on the basis of its not being sufficiently cheerful and upbeat. I had been guilty of Cindy-ing.

Funny how he happened to come up with that “Cindy” term! I still wince when people call me that. Even when I was young, it was a nickname that evoked perkiness and pigtails, and I never answered to it, despite the common assumption that it automatically trumps Cynthia. The people who know me best, in fact, have always called me Cyn. But Cynthia is fine. And oh, how I digress.

But today I am taking a moment to venture into Cindy land. I just got back from Orange County to tend to some depressing stuff, and it would be very easy to slip into the abyss. Instead, I want to note below, for the record, a motley handful of things that made me feel better while I was there.

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Poetry, naturally. It always appears when you need it, assuming you are receptive, and yesterday it came in the form of this odd little excerpt from a poem by David Lehman:

0 was there ever a man who felt as I do like a pronoun out of step with all the other floating signifiers no things but in words an orange T-shirt a lime green awning

I wasn't even certain what this meant, but I loved it because I too felt out of step, and definitely unclear about my own significance, floating or otherwise. So I looked outward and focused instead on the colorful concrete nouns. And if I did not quite achieve pronoun status, well, perhaps I became a preposition, trying to relate...over, under, to, beyond...

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There’s a place along Bristol that sells piñatas, or at least that’s how it seemed to me as I drove past. They were hanging from the ceiling in rows, colorful and festive, in an otherwise bleak building. Note to self: Find it again. Bring camera.

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While we’re driving along Bristol, why not stop at the Goodwill store? Clean and organized, with groups of vases and other décor objects actually organized by color, and someone is walking through with a washcloth and feather duster making it all look nice. I didn’t buy a thing (I’m in a purge mode), but I am intrigued by all the random stuff that finds its way to such places.

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How about Harvey? He is a resident in the assisted living facility where my mother lives who wears a toy badge and a policeman’s hat and always grins and says hello. He’s like a one-man welcoming committee, and it is such a delight to see him.

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The Chili Pepper on Main Street in Orange, a Mexican restaurant that’s been there for years: impeccable service, kitsch décor in Frida Kahlo colors, food that’s fast and filling, local couples, kids, families celebrating birthdays, and someone always posted at the door to greet you and say good night.

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Annie, who has been doing my hair lately – she’s a pretty Vietnamese woman who works in one of those “hair and nail” places in a strip mall on Main. When she’s done with you, she hands you a mirror and steps back with pride, and you look like you had your hair styled in Beverly Hills. She's an artist.

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Wireless access in the motel room and at the coffee shop across the street. It works. It’s wonderful. Remind me never to take it for granted.

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And the coffee drinks they serve in Kaffa are embellished with a leaf design drawn with milky foam.

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Hearing Italian opera in the waiting room of Dr. Chung’s office, and people talking in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean (not that I can tell which is which), Spanish, even occasionally English. (Anyone who still thinks Orange County is filled with tall blonde white people is very mistaken.)

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I loved the way that one young Asian woman leaned against her tiny ancient grandmother and gently stroked her hair.

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And there’s that cute little card for a free car wash that Monte left for me on the console between the seats. Sorry, hint not taken this time around.-

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Those old bungalows in the back streets. The road to the train station with its shambling buildings and wooden fences painted turquoise. The Pine Tree motel sign. The locksmith shop. The Orange Circle. The black silhouettes of tall palm trees against the sunset-filled sky -- classic California, and I AM still amazed.

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I can add to this later, but I need to go now. Yes, it’s been a Cindy thing. Worse, maybe an Oprah thing. But it’s all in the way you look at it.