take five

"Take Five” is many things, from the title of a classic jazz piece—composed by saxophonist Paul Desmond and made famous by Desmond and the Dave Brubeck Quartet as the first jazz instrumental to sell a million copies—to, on a much smaller stage, the title of a column that I write for Words of Paradise, the newsletter of the Aloha chapter of Romance Writers of America.

The phrase, as we shall soon see, also has meaning for writers, God bless them and their smoking keyboards.  Why are those keyboards smoking?  Maybe it’s because their masters are hot and heavy into yet another rewrite, perhaps the fifth rewrite. Maybe it’s “take five” because the first take, the first draft, was a start but only that, and now it’s months later and you’re in the middle of a fifth draft, and you could have listened to the Brubeck piece a million times until it was stuck in your head for all eternity, and you could have learned to play the piano and mastered the 5/4 time of “Take Five,” but you didn’t because you’re lost in yet another draft of yet another story.  Don’t get me wrong, I love writing.  It’s in my blood and bones.

“Take five,” of course, is simply a way of saying “take a break.”  Take five minutes and then come back.  The original Brubeck recording of “Take Five” lasts five minutes.  It’s as cool as Desmond’s sax, and the seldom heard lyrics, composed by Brubeck and his wife Iola, open with these cool lines:  “Won’t you stop and take a little time out with me, just take five; Stop your busy day and take the time out to see I’m alive.”

To take five, then, is to take a little time out from your day to do something vital but often overlooked.  

I usually think of time management in terms of hours, thinking “here’s what I can accomplish in the next hour,” beginning when the big hand is on the 12.  We get 24 of those each day.  

Looking at my watch, however, when I see all the numbers that mark the big hand’s hourly journey, beginning with one, I begin to see time in five-minute segments.  “Here,” time says, “take five.”   Then five minutes later, time says, “Take five more.”  It’s as if time tosses us a nickel tip, and then feels a bit cheap and returns to the table to toss us another nickel.  But time keeps on tipping.  The nickels keep landing on our table.

What can we do in five minutes, besides listen to “Take Five” or take a short break from whatever we’re in the middle of at the moment?  Here’s a short list.  Just one list of many.  Feel free to make your own.

1. Dream.

2. Dream some more.

3. Write down the dream, as a story title.

4. Give the dream to a character.

5. Write to find out what happens to the dream.

That’s five nickels, 25 minutes.  That last five minutes will be just a start, of course.  The big hand makes one circle, then another, and another.  Three hours later the story is all you can think of.  It will be there the next day, waiting for you to follow it down the winding road of dreams.  When you’re done, take five.  You’ve earned it.

does romance have a chance?

So there I was last Sunday, watching the final day of the Masters golf tournament. April in Georgia. Hypnotic just to take in the beauty of Augusta—its fame well deserved, unrivalled among golf courses, except perhaps for that part of Pebble Beach that runs alongside the mighty Pacific.  All that green, green grass, the azaleas, the water, the classic stone bridges, the white bunkers, the tall trees.  Ah yes, so relaxing to sit back in a recliner, with a cool drink in hand, and observe spring in Augusta. Listening to the soft music of birds in the pines.

It’s all perfect. But then they put the golfers on the course and give them clubs and little white balls to try to hit down those long fairways and onto the emerald greens, and see who can get home with the fewest number of strokes.  Without having a stroke, because it’s not so relaxing for the golfers. Especially if it’s late on a Sunday and you’re in a three-way playoff and you’ve already been through the wringer trying to get home on the back nine without totally falling apart.  Especially if you’re Angel Cabrera and you’ve taken the scenic route with your tee shot on 18, the first playoff hole. Kenny Perry and Chad Campbell are both sitting pretty in the fairway, but you’re off in the woods, and your ball has come to rest behind one of those tall pines and there’s no way out, you’re toast, and the gods of Augusta have laughed at you and gone off to ride to glory with the other two guys. 

You have no chance. All that work for four days, outplaying Tiger and Lefty, the two best golfers in the world, and now you’re behind a tree. Everyone expects you to just pitch out into the fairway, but you’re looking into the woods.  More trees.  You can’t be serious.  What’s your plan, to say a prayer and try to get through those trees and on up the fairway?  

Spectators have scattered.  Make way for the crazy man!  Angel is like a man suddenly lost and looking for a miracle.  What is he thinking? Nothing to lose?  He stands next to the tree, plants his feet, and prepares his club for the Hail Mary.  I hold my breath.  He brings the club down hard on the ball and it flies away.  Then we hear the sound of golf ball on wood.  He’s hit a tree.  His next shot, no doubt, will be from another zip code; is that the 10th hole on the other side of the woods? The camera zooms in on Angel’s face.  His eyes are big.  What has happened? Has his prayer been answered?

And then the camera spots the little white ball in the green fairway, its journey through the woods over now, and it’s in the 18th fairway, and the gods have laughed at Angel and given him a break. Maybe they will let him scramble in on this first playoff hole just to see what happens.  What happens is that Perry and Campbell have trouble hitting the green.  Angel, however, having seen the tall pines up close and personal, having emerged from the woods a wild man but somehow blessed by the gods, proceeds to show the other two guys how to finish a hole. He scrambles to make par.  Campbell misses his par putt and is eliminated.  Perry and Angel head for the second playoff hole, and the gods—having seen something they like from the Argentinian they call El Pato, the Duck—ride with Angel Cabrera to glory and the Masters championship.  "Here," the gods whisper in his ear, "have a green jacket."

Quite a ride.  An amazing Masters finish.  Tiger and Lefty, playing together and attracting huge galleries, charging all day to catch the leaders and coming up just short.  Then three mortals, underdogs like the rest of the world to Tiger Woods, battling down the stretch.  And on that first playoff hole, lost in the pines, his hopes apparently shattered, at that moment the biggest underdog of all, Cabrera going for an improbable, desperate shot, and taking us all with him on an unlikely finish.

I watch as they replay that shot.  Again he attempts the impossible.  Does Angel have a chance? You’d have to be a little wild and crazy yourself to bet on him at that point, although the odds would be tempting.  

Why do I think of that moment as romantic?  Maybe because there’s something wonderfully romantic about challenging the gods, shunning the safe, logical path, and opening a window for luck.  Sports fans for ages have cheered on the underdog.  We love unlikely happy endings. Does romance have a chance? Sometimes. There are so many obstacles in its way.  Maybe it’s a game for underdogs.  Maybe the gods smile on us when we dare to be a little wild and crazy.  Just a lesson I learned last Sunday watching an Angel.