I went to hear John Irving speak the other day. If you've ever read him, you will know what I mean when I say he writes the same way he speaks. He's extremely entertaining, but takes a very long time to get to the point. In his latest book, apparently he touches the issue of psychotherapy, particularly the use of antidepressants.
A year ago, a doctor of mine, ex doctor I should say... prescribed antidepressants for me. I suspect she was just trying to avoid more questions, but it is quite an experience when you are presented with that prescription. Like getting a ticket to the big game, or admission to some exclusive club.
I filled the prescription. I have it in my vanity drawer (no, not THAT drawer) as a reminder. I don't believe in them, though I'm willing to accept that some people need to have them. I knew that what I really needed was someone to talk to, someone who cared, not someone I paid. It always reminds me of that scene in Pretty Woman, the movie, where Julia Roberts has her legs wrapped around Richard Gere in the bathtub and says "that's 29 inches of therapy wrapped around you" (or something like that)
Anyway.... Irving says that depression is like plotting. It is all about the connections:
We don't really have any control over where events take us emotionally. A small argument takes on proportion that no one anticipates because it dredges up the feelings of another time in our life when bad things happened, and that feeds on itself to remind us of another and another and another until our emotions are spiraling so far that we are officially depressed. The options are to work through it, or distract our minds or bodies with something else... some people are compulsive exercisers, for example ... Irving was a wrestler. Others turn to drub abuse, still others turn to other addictive behavior... gambling, sex, whatever. The difference is that when introducing the chemical substances, whether legal or illegal, you redirect the mind from the connections ...the emotional issues that spiraled into the depression in the first place, severing the one-to- another links of the unrelated events. So for a writer, that is creative suicide, (in his opinion.)
It is the same theory I've always tried to explain... that emotional highs and emotional lows go hand in hand with writing. if I am happy, I am rarely able to string sentences together. It seems only in the rollercoaster ride, either up or down, that I personally can spend time creating worlds.
So depression isn't always a bad thing. And truly, I'm not an unhappy person. I tend to use my friends though, so if you feel used, I guess I owe you a bath. My legs are a little shorter than Julia's, I'm sorry to say.
I have more notes, but I'm feeling nerdy enough already.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
beach journal
These may not seem coherent at all, but until i post them i can't write more.
(more photos here, but i've screwed up the sizing and am out of time. Crystal Beach)
--The routine is the same, wake, coffee, journal. Walk to the bluff with coffee, assess the day. Take cups back to cottage, put on swim suits. Walk for an hour or so, to the state park or thereabouts, depending on the crowds, the number of dogs on the beach, whether the flies are biting or the sand stinging. Relish knees working again, the way they should. Spend the morning either visiting, or reading on the beach, or playing in the water, with kayaks, sailboat, skim boards, sand. Talk to people.
Afternoon, realize too much sun and the dog is tired and tends to get grouchy. Return to the cottage for lunch, then read, sleep or go to town for whatever.
Wake, go to the bluff for sunset.
--From AWAD- oneiromancy (o-NY-ruh-man-see) noun: The practice of predicting the future by interpreting dreams.
And this:
Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go
hand in hand. -Emily Kimbrough, author and broadcaster (1899-1989)
--Dream notes:
-Paralyzed. Watching as the needle is inserted into the spine and fate sealed. Though mind is fine, no way to communicate. Watching as the man takes first your spouse, then you child and tortures, rapes in front of you. Who is the man?
-Walking along the beach and finding the body. From the cigarette boat races, when one flipped. "I can't go home without my son," his mother said.
-Camping. (why so many things in my dreams that I just don't do?) Coming so close to kiss …but being told no… no. you are married. Knowing yet being consumed with a need to touch, be touched. The kiss so tender, so clean, that my mouth waters to remember it. Lovemaking so powerful and intense … the full moon effect?
--I woke on the couch with a start to the phone ringing, only I thought it was a cell phone and answered mine, my son's and his best friends, only to put together that it was the land line when I picked it up and it stopped, no one there.
I fashioned all sorts of possibilities in my head. It was my husband, who'd stepped out to buy toilet paper or something else that would look odd in the small town blotter, arrested for speeding or reckless driving or something and using his one prison call to call me on the land line, cell phones somehow prohibited in jail.
But it was my friend, to whom I'd sent email that morning.
--Later, in the single digit morning, I went to bed. The air had cooled so much that the fans created cold wind, and I burrowed beneath quilts. What a luxury, fresh air and quilts in July. I fell asleep immediately, the northwoods night like a drug, the sleep REM filled and colorful.
--More dream notes:
--And then I was going down an escalator in a mall someplace, and fell. The falling startled me. I was fully awake and disoriented. I imagined I heard the phone ringing again, and stayed there in bed trying to decipher its jingling ring from the sounds of the night birds and the neighbors, whose cabin had been singing loud country western tunes through the open back window for hours before I went to bed. I am sure now that all that phone ringing had to do with traveling without three of the four children. They grow up. They stay behind. But just as I still hear cries in the dark when they are hurting, I still hear the phone ring to tell me they are home safe and fine. And they are. Mother's ears, I guess, we just don't outgrow them.
I didn't get up. Eventually I went back to sleep. The bed was hard, too hard for my softness. No matter which way I turned, the circulation seemed constrained where I laid upon my own flesh. I thought about dying in my sleep, and wondered if that is how it happens, the strangulation of oneself on mattresses too hard to give. Or so soft one cannot breath. Like Sids, only for adults. Sudden Adult Death syndrome. SAD? Yes, I believe people die from being sad. Especially in their sleep.
The next thing I knew, Scout was nuzzling my hand. Full daylight had broken and she was ready to trek on the beach for hours, ready to make friends with anyone, her tennis ball ready.
--Again the morning was perfect, 72 degrees. I've spent too many hours driving to escape bitter cold in the winter in the north, stifling heat in the summer in the south just to get to 72 degrees. The only thing I worried about were the bugs that had started to take over the beach. They blew in across the lake with that cool wind from the corn fields of Illinois, droves of yellow cucumber beetles. They don't really do anything other than land on us and crawl. They don't bite. Still the sight of them, the thickness of them is disturbing.
I went outside with Scout, and returned a smile to the scowling neighber who watched her. She pointed to the posted, typewritten list of rules. "Keep dogs on leash" is number 12 on the list. Only there have been dogs here longer than I've been here, and I've been here for seventeen years. Whoever posted the rules has neither the right nor power to restrict access to anyone, including dogs. I know my dog too, and know she'd never defile the beach. She goes into the woods like any civilized creature. The dogs are not the problem. Are they ever, really?
---The shadows are long this morning already, I've lain (is that really a word?) in bed too long again, but it was probably 3 before I fell asleep. That is six hours, not too much I think. It was so late because we had a disagreement about sex. (scene deleted)
So that stands between us this morning,
--Thunder is making its way closer, rumbling on the slight breeze that barely ripples the surface of the lake. The air is heavy and damp with anticipation, the night pregnant with the storm that promises cooler weather.
There is nothing quite like a storm coming across the lake. Lightning cracks the vista like the sunset, highlighting the striation of the clouds and sizzling into the water the way the sinking sun does. We can watch it from where the lake curves on the horizon, and can tell within minutes when it will hit the shoreline. The speed with which the storm approaches warns us if we will lose power. Not this time for us, but they do in town.
We leave the decking that leads down the bluff to the beach when our wine classes are empty, and when we are tired of swatting away the flies and mosquitoes. Scout left at dusk with the boys; none of them have patience for friendly chatter. Tonight it is the neighbors who bought the cottage of our closest friends out here…Bill and Molly. Odd that our best friends were in their seventies. Bill taught us to sail when our children were still small enough to all fit comfortably in the sunfish sized boat, and sold us his Hobie cheap when he moved to Florida full time. I miss them. I miss the boat. It stayed on the beach one beautiful fall clear into October. We didn't want to bring it up and put it away… just one more sail. Then the storms came, and it was gone.
--more dream notes:
--In the next dream I was throwing a party for people from my husband's office at my mother's tiny house. Distributed very fancy invitations, vellum paper inserts and tied with satin ribbon… 5-8:30, dinner. Then had to clean the house… my mother was a lot of things but never much of a housekeeper. As if anyone with seven children, a full time job, widowed at 45 ever could be. I pull the party together, everything from plates to bathroom towels; I am good at this. Her bathroom was the same as when she died, handicap equipped, in fact, everything seemed the same as when she died but her. She was two-legged and sober and helpful, even taking me to the factory where she'd worked to get plates from the Employee Club closet. We didn't end up doing that because she clearly thought it was wrong and really, what did plates matter to me? In the end, the plates were the plastic ones with seashells that I'd bought for my daughter's graduation. Nothing fit together in the dream.
--Cool cloudy morning, gentle waves on the lake and the whole neighborhood seems to be sleeping in. I've done some research this morning on the Resort Era in South Haven. Famous Jewish resorts. Some of them world renowned: the Catskills of the Midwest, they said, from 1910 to about 1960. Only a few still standing, most destroyed by fire or the greed of people wanting to own a piece of the lake. Am I any different?
The resorts were torn down, mostly in the sixties, condos, private homes and in one case a parking lot replaced them. At least now I understand the city flocking to the north beach…the north side of the River. It is where all the resorts were, across a drawbridge; there is no bluff to speak of there. Our side has the lighthouse. We also have trees and the state park, and the bluff and no crowds, most of the time, but we are a few miles out of town so the comparison isn’t really fair.
--The boys are interesting this year. They aren't eating as much as boys their age and size should eat, and they are staying up til one a.m. every night. Strawberry pop tarts, blueberry pancakes (the blueberries are amazing this year) and taco pizza sustain them. The term 'beach brothers" comes to mind. I am very fond of the boy my son has chosen as his friend… he is middle child sweet and so easy to get along with. His favorite phrase: "You’re funny."
--The air has finally changed back to typical Michigan air… the morning was in the sixties and everyone complained that there weren't enough covers on the beds. Over our heads is the question of whether we leave today, controlled inmterestingly enough, by the girls even though they aren't bere. If my closing is Friday, then we must leave today. If not, we can take one more day. It feels like we are stealing time. We take it.
We build a bonfire on the beach, roast hot dogs that somehow ended up without sand (unheard of!) and watched the beginnings of the meteor shower. We note how we've seen the stars from so many angles this year, it seems like different skies. Four shooting stars should be good luck, shouldn't they?
After 20 hours of driving, more stops for fast food than I can in good conscious count, and listening to all 17 discs of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on cd, we are once again at our permanent address.
When we arrived, the back door was standing wide open. One of the cats was in the front yard. The trash container was lying on its side in the street, it's lid in the neighbors yard. After determining that no one had broken in, we ventured inside.
Stacks of mail were strewn all over the kitchen. In the family room, cables for x box and computers and tivo webbed their way through furniture. Paper cups and sandwich wrappers decorated every flat surface. An air pump, from the garage was lying on the rug a friend sent from Turkey years ago, and a gold toned soccer ball, fully inflated, was nearby. A chocolate cake from the grocery story, 80% gone, sat near the stove. The TV was on, 19 messages lit the voicemail box. My bathroom was littered with the paraphernalia of a teenager. The drawer… yes, THAT drawer, in my vanity, was ajar.
You see, my son stayed home to "house sit."
He was at work when we got home.
It's a good thing.
My younger son ventured upstairs, but came back down right away. "Something happened in Jon's room."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything is like… messed up… and there's a blanket over the window."
My son later explained that he "decided" a few days ago to "take over your bathroom."
And that since he was not going to bed until 5 am any night, that even the sun that filtered through the wooden venetian blinds bothered him sleeping. To his normal "wake up hour" of 2 . PM.
When I left, there was fruit, cheese, milk, and meals he could warm up in the refrigerator. When I returned, not only was that still "there"… but also left over sushi, pizza, chicken wings, pasta….etc.
Did I mention he leaves for college in two weeks?
-Quote from my best girlfriend D: "I was the one that found that man. He was still making noise, but everything was crumpled, arms, leg, neck. It was so apparent that he was dead, even with the noise. I was the first responder. It was a long fall. But a short jump."
(more photos here, but i've screwed up the sizing and am out of time. Crystal Beach)
--The routine is the same, wake, coffee, journal. Walk to the bluff with coffee, assess the day. Take cups back to cottage, put on swim suits. Walk for an hour or so, to the state park or thereabouts, depending on the crowds, the number of dogs on the beach, whether the flies are biting or the sand stinging. Relish knees working again, the way they should. Spend the morning either visiting, or reading on the beach, or playing in the water, with kayaks, sailboat, skim boards, sand. Talk to people.
Afternoon, realize too much sun and the dog is tired and tends to get grouchy. Return to the cottage for lunch, then read, sleep or go to town for whatever.
Wake, go to the bluff for sunset.
--From AWAD- oneiromancy (o-NY-ruh-man-see) noun: The practice of predicting the future by interpreting dreams.
And this:
Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go
hand in hand. -Emily Kimbrough, author and broadcaster (1899-1989)
--Dream notes:
-Paralyzed. Watching as the needle is inserted into the spine and fate sealed. Though mind is fine, no way to communicate. Watching as the man takes first your spouse, then you child and tortures, rapes in front of you. Who is the man?
-Walking along the beach and finding the body. From the cigarette boat races, when one flipped. "I can't go home without my son," his mother said.
-Camping. (why so many things in my dreams that I just don't do?) Coming so close to kiss …but being told no… no. you are married. Knowing yet being consumed with a need to touch, be touched. The kiss so tender, so clean, that my mouth waters to remember it. Lovemaking so powerful and intense … the full moon effect?
--I woke on the couch with a start to the phone ringing, only I thought it was a cell phone and answered mine, my son's and his best friends, only to put together that it was the land line when I picked it up and it stopped, no one there.
I fashioned all sorts of possibilities in my head. It was my husband, who'd stepped out to buy toilet paper or something else that would look odd in the small town blotter, arrested for speeding or reckless driving or something and using his one prison call to call me on the land line, cell phones somehow prohibited in jail.
But it was my friend, to whom I'd sent email that morning.
--Later, in the single digit morning, I went to bed. The air had cooled so much that the fans created cold wind, and I burrowed beneath quilts. What a luxury, fresh air and quilts in July. I fell asleep immediately, the northwoods night like a drug, the sleep REM filled and colorful.
--More dream notes:
--And then I was going down an escalator in a mall someplace, and fell. The falling startled me. I was fully awake and disoriented. I imagined I heard the phone ringing again, and stayed there in bed trying to decipher its jingling ring from the sounds of the night birds and the neighbors, whose cabin had been singing loud country western tunes through the open back window for hours before I went to bed. I am sure now that all that phone ringing had to do with traveling without three of the four children. They grow up. They stay behind. But just as I still hear cries in the dark when they are hurting, I still hear the phone ring to tell me they are home safe and fine. And they are. Mother's ears, I guess, we just don't outgrow them.
I didn't get up. Eventually I went back to sleep. The bed was hard, too hard for my softness. No matter which way I turned, the circulation seemed constrained where I laid upon my own flesh. I thought about dying in my sleep, and wondered if that is how it happens, the strangulation of oneself on mattresses too hard to give. Or so soft one cannot breath. Like Sids, only for adults. Sudden Adult Death syndrome. SAD? Yes, I believe people die from being sad. Especially in their sleep.
The next thing I knew, Scout was nuzzling my hand. Full daylight had broken and she was ready to trek on the beach for hours, ready to make friends with anyone, her tennis ball ready.
--Again the morning was perfect, 72 degrees. I've spent too many hours driving to escape bitter cold in the winter in the north, stifling heat in the summer in the south just to get to 72 degrees. The only thing I worried about were the bugs that had started to take over the beach. They blew in across the lake with that cool wind from the corn fields of Illinois, droves of yellow cucumber beetles. They don't really do anything other than land on us and crawl. They don't bite. Still the sight of them, the thickness of them is disturbing.
I went outside with Scout, and returned a smile to the scowling neighber who watched her. She pointed to the posted, typewritten list of rules. "Keep dogs on leash" is number 12 on the list. Only there have been dogs here longer than I've been here, and I've been here for seventeen years. Whoever posted the rules has neither the right nor power to restrict access to anyone, including dogs. I know my dog too, and know she'd never defile the beach. She goes into the woods like any civilized creature. The dogs are not the problem. Are they ever, really?
---The shadows are long this morning already, I've lain (is that really a word?) in bed too long again, but it was probably 3 before I fell asleep. That is six hours, not too much I think. It was so late because we had a disagreement about sex. (scene deleted)
So that stands between us this morning,
--Thunder is making its way closer, rumbling on the slight breeze that barely ripples the surface of the lake. The air is heavy and damp with anticipation, the night pregnant with the storm that promises cooler weather.
There is nothing quite like a storm coming across the lake. Lightning cracks the vista like the sunset, highlighting the striation of the clouds and sizzling into the water the way the sinking sun does. We can watch it from where the lake curves on the horizon, and can tell within minutes when it will hit the shoreline. The speed with which the storm approaches warns us if we will lose power. Not this time for us, but they do in town.
We leave the decking that leads down the bluff to the beach when our wine classes are empty, and when we are tired of swatting away the flies and mosquitoes. Scout left at dusk with the boys; none of them have patience for friendly chatter. Tonight it is the neighbors who bought the cottage of our closest friends out here…Bill and Molly. Odd that our best friends were in their seventies. Bill taught us to sail when our children were still small enough to all fit comfortably in the sunfish sized boat, and sold us his Hobie cheap when he moved to Florida full time. I miss them. I miss the boat. It stayed on the beach one beautiful fall clear into October. We didn't want to bring it up and put it away… just one more sail. Then the storms came, and it was gone.
--more dream notes:
--In the next dream I was throwing a party for people from my husband's office at my mother's tiny house. Distributed very fancy invitations, vellum paper inserts and tied with satin ribbon… 5-8:30, dinner. Then had to clean the house… my mother was a lot of things but never much of a housekeeper. As if anyone with seven children, a full time job, widowed at 45 ever could be. I pull the party together, everything from plates to bathroom towels; I am good at this. Her bathroom was the same as when she died, handicap equipped, in fact, everything seemed the same as when she died but her. She was two-legged and sober and helpful, even taking me to the factory where she'd worked to get plates from the Employee Club closet. We didn't end up doing that because she clearly thought it was wrong and really, what did plates matter to me? In the end, the plates were the plastic ones with seashells that I'd bought for my daughter's graduation. Nothing fit together in the dream.
--Cool cloudy morning, gentle waves on the lake and the whole neighborhood seems to be sleeping in. I've done some research this morning on the Resort Era in South Haven. Famous Jewish resorts. Some of them world renowned: the Catskills of the Midwest, they said, from 1910 to about 1960. Only a few still standing, most destroyed by fire or the greed of people wanting to own a piece of the lake. Am I any different?
The resorts were torn down, mostly in the sixties, condos, private homes and in one case a parking lot replaced them. At least now I understand the city flocking to the north beach…the north side of the River. It is where all the resorts were, across a drawbridge; there is no bluff to speak of there. Our side has the lighthouse. We also have trees and the state park, and the bluff and no crowds, most of the time, but we are a few miles out of town so the comparison isn’t really fair.
--The boys are interesting this year. They aren't eating as much as boys their age and size should eat, and they are staying up til one a.m. every night. Strawberry pop tarts, blueberry pancakes (the blueberries are amazing this year) and taco pizza sustain them. The term 'beach brothers" comes to mind. I am very fond of the boy my son has chosen as his friend… he is middle child sweet and so easy to get along with. His favorite phrase: "You’re funny."
--The air has finally changed back to typical Michigan air… the morning was in the sixties and everyone complained that there weren't enough covers on the beds. Over our heads is the question of whether we leave today, controlled inmterestingly enough, by the girls even though they aren't bere. If my closing is Friday, then we must leave today. If not, we can take one more day. It feels like we are stealing time. We take it.
We build a bonfire on the beach, roast hot dogs that somehow ended up without sand (unheard of!) and watched the beginnings of the meteor shower. We note how we've seen the stars from so many angles this year, it seems like different skies. Four shooting stars should be good luck, shouldn't they?
After 20 hours of driving, more stops for fast food than I can in good conscious count, and listening to all 17 discs of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on cd, we are once again at our permanent address.
When we arrived, the back door was standing wide open. One of the cats was in the front yard. The trash container was lying on its side in the street, it's lid in the neighbors yard. After determining that no one had broken in, we ventured inside.
Stacks of mail were strewn all over the kitchen. In the family room, cables for x box and computers and tivo webbed their way through furniture. Paper cups and sandwich wrappers decorated every flat surface. An air pump, from the garage was lying on the rug a friend sent from Turkey years ago, and a gold toned soccer ball, fully inflated, was nearby. A chocolate cake from the grocery story, 80% gone, sat near the stove. The TV was on, 19 messages lit the voicemail box. My bathroom was littered with the paraphernalia of a teenager. The drawer… yes, THAT drawer, in my vanity, was ajar.
You see, my son stayed home to "house sit."
He was at work when we got home.
It's a good thing.
My younger son ventured upstairs, but came back down right away. "Something happened in Jon's room."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything is like… messed up… and there's a blanket over the window."
My son later explained that he "decided" a few days ago to "take over your bathroom."
And that since he was not going to bed until 5 am any night, that even the sun that filtered through the wooden venetian blinds bothered him sleeping. To his normal "wake up hour" of 2 . PM.
When I left, there was fruit, cheese, milk, and meals he could warm up in the refrigerator. When I returned, not only was that still "there"… but also left over sushi, pizza, chicken wings, pasta….etc.
Did I mention he leaves for college in two weeks?
-Quote from my best girlfriend D: "I was the one that found that man. He was still making noise, but everything was crumpled, arms, leg, neck. It was so apparent that he was dead, even with the noise. I was the first responder. It was a long fall. But a short jump."
Sunday, July 31, 2005
home
I've kept a running journal off line the last two weeks, taken dozens of pictures and even got some work done. Mostly though, I've spent time thinking.
That isn't always a good thing.
Tomorrow I have to close one of those transactions that should have been clean, simple and easy for everyone. Of course Murphy's Law is in full force and effect, so I will lose a day tomorrow trying to patch tears from loose ends that never should have been dangling. At least none of them were my fault.
Then I will edit my journal entries, and post them. I'm sure everyone here is just waiting to read what I have to say in my own version of "how I spent my summer vacation"... but trust me, it's okay to breathe. Just how exciting can walks on the beach be, after all?
That isn't always a good thing.
Tomorrow I have to close one of those transactions that should have been clean, simple and easy for everyone. Of course Murphy's Law is in full force and effect, so I will lose a day tomorrow trying to patch tears from loose ends that never should have been dangling. At least none of them were my fault.
Then I will edit my journal entries, and post them. I'm sure everyone here is just waiting to read what I have to say in my own version of "how I spent my summer vacation"... but trust me, it's okay to breathe. Just how exciting can walks on the beach be, after all?
Thursday, July 21, 2005
lake thoughts
Laughter. What a sweet sound … genuine, spontaneous laughter. My son and his friend are caught in that boy world that I always expected to be found here, that my older son didn't find as he spent his days reading and sleeping. They've found streams pouring into the lake and rather than be content to build sand castle damns, they follow them into the woods and chase frogs and look for turtles and arrowheads. They found a wild tom turkey yesterday, and you'd have thought they'd discovered gold. Priceless.
They go into the lake, the temps in the mid seventies and they are fearless. In reality, they teach swimming lessons, work as lifeguards. Between them, they have more medals than I can count. Yet two days ago, a nineteen-year-old boy drowned, while his two friends sunbathed on the beach. One must never ever trust the lake completely. So I make arbitrary rules… "Don't go out farther than the sandbar" I tell them, though I know that the water is barely five feet deep between the shore and the sandbar, and as shallow as one foot on it. Doesn't matter… they accept the limit and turn into human dolphins diving the waves, arching tight backs while their near-man rippling muscles glisten under bronzed skin. I want to take their picture, film them the way I did the dolphins in Maui, because there is some sort of metaphor there that I've not quite got yet. Something about connections I think. Instead, I watch them and hold the photograph in my mind.
I've been having odd dreams since I came here, which means I've been sleeping. I am not sure what that means either. That the air is easy to breathe, that I get enough exercise to be tired? That I feel at peace here in a way I haven't at home for so long? Or does it have more to do with the need for the nightmares to assert themselves, get their message across? Do you believe there are other lives in your mind that have either lived before, live concurrently, or are yet to be set free? I just don't know. I know that there are words there whose origin I can't trace, so I try to honor that as much as I can.
I jot down the bits I can remember in the mornings. I am forced to in a way, because I have to connect to the internet by phone. Waiting gives me a chance to write without interruption or the addiction of email.
I've been reading, luxuriously slow reading. Savoring bits and pieces of novels to steal, as my last writing professor advised. Putting together a house leaving messages of what should be attended to for its new owner, taking off sunglasses to hear better. And this from Baxter: "If God appeared on this earth again, lawyers would sue Him."
I've started talking to people too, something I've been criticized for here. That I am aloof, lost in my head and not the friendly one. I am asking for their stories, quietly, casually, and have learned much from the two lesbians, both in their sixties and bleach blond, though different from the blonds from Texas, these two are beefy, full figured women, though I note that their legs are really quite shapely. It is from the hips up that they balloon, almost identically, and I wonder if it is what they do, or how they eat or if in fact it is heredity. They tell me about the weather and the gossip of people I'm supposed to know, but have forgotten.
There is also a nice looking man down the beach a ways, hair mostly white, with a touch of the blond it once was showing. I like him mostly for the pace at which he walks, slow, languid, as though there are things on the beach that must be found and nothing much up ahead to worry about. That seems to be the right way to walk on a beach such as this.
He likes my dog.
They all like my dog. She's well known before I arrive, a stick slut for whomever will toss whatever piece of driftwood she can hold between her teeth. Only these strangers who toss it for her, these people charmed by her intelligent eyes, don't know she has no sense. They have not put salve on her bloodied paws or given her analgesic to make the pain of getting up and lying down easier at night when the sun has gone down and she aches. I tell them, she doesn't know any better, and they simply think I'm mean, not to throw for her myself.
She knows though, and comes with me.
They go into the lake, the temps in the mid seventies and they are fearless. In reality, they teach swimming lessons, work as lifeguards. Between them, they have more medals than I can count. Yet two days ago, a nineteen-year-old boy drowned, while his two friends sunbathed on the beach. One must never ever trust the lake completely. So I make arbitrary rules… "Don't go out farther than the sandbar" I tell them, though I know that the water is barely five feet deep between the shore and the sandbar, and as shallow as one foot on it. Doesn't matter… they accept the limit and turn into human dolphins diving the waves, arching tight backs while their near-man rippling muscles glisten under bronzed skin. I want to take their picture, film them the way I did the dolphins in Maui, because there is some sort of metaphor there that I've not quite got yet. Something about connections I think. Instead, I watch them and hold the photograph in my mind.
I've been having odd dreams since I came here, which means I've been sleeping. I am not sure what that means either. That the air is easy to breathe, that I get enough exercise to be tired? That I feel at peace here in a way I haven't at home for so long? Or does it have more to do with the need for the nightmares to assert themselves, get their message across? Do you believe there are other lives in your mind that have either lived before, live concurrently, or are yet to be set free? I just don't know. I know that there are words there whose origin I can't trace, so I try to honor that as much as I can.
I jot down the bits I can remember in the mornings. I am forced to in a way, because I have to connect to the internet by phone. Waiting gives me a chance to write without interruption or the addiction of email.
I've been reading, luxuriously slow reading. Savoring bits and pieces of novels to steal, as my last writing professor advised. Putting together a house leaving messages of what should be attended to for its new owner, taking off sunglasses to hear better. And this from Baxter: "If God appeared on this earth again, lawyers would sue Him."
I've started talking to people too, something I've been criticized for here. That I am aloof, lost in my head and not the friendly one. I am asking for their stories, quietly, casually, and have learned much from the two lesbians, both in their sixties and bleach blond, though different from the blonds from Texas, these two are beefy, full figured women, though I note that their legs are really quite shapely. It is from the hips up that they balloon, almost identically, and I wonder if it is what they do, or how they eat or if in fact it is heredity. They tell me about the weather and the gossip of people I'm supposed to know, but have forgotten.
There is also a nice looking man down the beach a ways, hair mostly white, with a touch of the blond it once was showing. I like him mostly for the pace at which he walks, slow, languid, as though there are things on the beach that must be found and nothing much up ahead to worry about. That seems to be the right way to walk on a beach such as this.
He likes my dog.
They all like my dog. She's well known before I arrive, a stick slut for whomever will toss whatever piece of driftwood she can hold between her teeth. Only these strangers who toss it for her, these people charmed by her intelligent eyes, don't know she has no sense. They have not put salve on her bloodied paws or given her analgesic to make the pain of getting up and lying down easier at night when the sun has gone down and she aches. I tell them, she doesn't know any better, and they simply think I'm mean, not to throw for her myself.
She knows though, and comes with me.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
In the morning before the maid comes.
Maid…what a misnomer. She is really the Woman in Charge. The lady that actually cares about the dust and cobwebs in this monster of a house, with the power to send me cowering in my office, behind my precious stacks, while she takes aggressive command of the rest of it. I have to scurry about gathering all the books and papers I've left all over the place before she comes, or risk never seeing them again. So the office grows worse and worse… (grammar police, please check that word usage?) I've banned her from that room you see. For me and the papers, it is safe haven. But of course I end up losing everything in the attempt. Eh.
Even now I am not in my office. She will be here in half an hour or so, but I can have these moments to sit with my coffee in the short silk robe the color or the sky, greeting the words while my girl cat, who spent the night outside, cuddles against the laptop's warmth. The coffee is Costa Rican today, fresh ground. I sent the last of the coffee I brought from Hawaii to a friend yesterday. That's okay though. He did introduce me to Costa Rican coffee after all. ahhh.
I'm practicing a writing strategy this week, that of just typing in the journal to get the words flowing. I'm dreadfully behind on my personal deadlines, and worse, I've let myself get out of the habit of writing. I'm immersing myself writing books, determined to actually read one of them. This weeks choices include Ann Lamont, Bird by Bird, William Zinsser, On Writing Well and The Gotham Writers book on Fiction. I decided it was time to get back to the basics. Or maybe I'm hoping that if I bore my self with the how to books I will write just to win the right to read fiction again. Yes yes. I do play games in my head, don't I?
Enough about that. I may have to break a rule and write about my trip. But only if I can find an angle that makes you feel… something. For now, I have to get dressed because the enemy is approaching and I have to save the lives of some dust bunnies.
Even now I am not in my office. She will be here in half an hour or so, but I can have these moments to sit with my coffee in the short silk robe the color or the sky, greeting the words while my girl cat, who spent the night outside, cuddles against the laptop's warmth. The coffee is Costa Rican today, fresh ground. I sent the last of the coffee I brought from Hawaii to a friend yesterday. That's okay though. He did introduce me to Costa Rican coffee after all. ahhh.
I'm practicing a writing strategy this week, that of just typing in the journal to get the words flowing. I'm dreadfully behind on my personal deadlines, and worse, I've let myself get out of the habit of writing. I'm immersing myself writing books, determined to actually read one of them. This weeks choices include Ann Lamont, Bird by Bird, William Zinsser, On Writing Well and The Gotham Writers book on Fiction. I decided it was time to get back to the basics. Or maybe I'm hoping that if I bore my self with the how to books I will write just to win the right to read fiction again. Yes yes. I do play games in my head, don't I?
Enough about that. I may have to break a rule and write about my trip. But only if I can find an angle that makes you feel… something. For now, I have to get dressed because the enemy is approaching and I have to save the lives of some dust bunnies.
sounds
Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again,
Do you remember Simon and Garfunkel? The voices of my angst ridden youth.
Yes, it is dark now, well past one a.m. Time seems caught on a wheel that hasn't decided yet if it's going forward or backward.--too much travel. Tree frogs or bats are squeaking outside, … it's an eerie loud sound, like so many mice up in the trees. No, that's not it at all. It's the sound of clean athletic shoes changing direction on a gym floor. I am fond right now of images that evoke a change in direction.
Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping
I was a geeky college kid, always writing poems and staying up all night just to listen to music. I'll even confess most of it was chick music… Carole King and Melissa Manchester and Elton John. The Moody Blues were setting trends then… An aside: I forgot to mention that I saw them in concert on Father's day… the music was the same, the guys were no longer hot…. And the crowd. Oh dear. Just as you'd imagine. Wrinkled hippies with gray hair. The women should have kept those bras they burned in the sixties… gravity didn't treat them well. And they still wanted to groove to the music. I'm still processing that… always the observer you know?
And the vision, that was planted in my brain, still remains.
My journals from that era are introspective, as though I was aware of metamorphosis and hadn't yet decided what to do with it. Then, as now, I wore as many hats as I could…. I was a sorority girl, but served on the political science counsel (apartheid was our issue, and oil. Sigh. Oil.) I was an editor for the literary journal for three years, but don't think I ever missed a frat party. I was a Serious Student. I was open minded (ha!) about sex.
I just realized what a mess this entry is becoming. Feels good. I'm not a tidy person. I do love a good stack of books and papers to burrow behind on my desk. I enjoy the clutter in my head. There are so many interesting corners to dwell in.
I have one more trip this summer, and it isn't really a trip as much as it is respite. My place at lake Michigan. No fish out there pretty enough to swim out to see, no salt. Just beautiful waves, miles and miles of unspoiled beaches, and if I'm lucky, quiet.
Within the sounds of silence.
Do you remember Simon and Garfunkel? The voices of my angst ridden youth.
Yes, it is dark now, well past one a.m. Time seems caught on a wheel that hasn't decided yet if it's going forward or backward.--too much travel. Tree frogs or bats are squeaking outside, … it's an eerie loud sound, like so many mice up in the trees. No, that's not it at all. It's the sound of clean athletic shoes changing direction on a gym floor. I am fond right now of images that evoke a change in direction.
Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping
I was a geeky college kid, always writing poems and staying up all night just to listen to music. I'll even confess most of it was chick music… Carole King and Melissa Manchester and Elton John. The Moody Blues were setting trends then… An aside: I forgot to mention that I saw them in concert on Father's day… the music was the same, the guys were no longer hot…. And the crowd. Oh dear. Just as you'd imagine. Wrinkled hippies with gray hair. The women should have kept those bras they burned in the sixties… gravity didn't treat them well. And they still wanted to groove to the music. I'm still processing that… always the observer you know?
And the vision, that was planted in my brain, still remains.
My journals from that era are introspective, as though I was aware of metamorphosis and hadn't yet decided what to do with it. Then, as now, I wore as many hats as I could…. I was a sorority girl, but served on the political science counsel (apartheid was our issue, and oil. Sigh. Oil.) I was an editor for the literary journal for three years, but don't think I ever missed a frat party. I was a Serious Student. I was open minded (ha!) about sex.
I just realized what a mess this entry is becoming. Feels good. I'm not a tidy person. I do love a good stack of books and papers to burrow behind on my desk. I enjoy the clutter in my head. There are so many interesting corners to dwell in.
I have one more trip this summer, and it isn't really a trip as much as it is respite. My place at lake Michigan. No fish out there pretty enough to swim out to see, no salt. Just beautiful waves, miles and miles of unspoiled beaches, and if I'm lucky, quiet.
Within the sounds of silence.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
vacation
It amazes me really, to wake in paradise yet another day, and find the words still hiding. Everywhere I look, from a double rainbow over the mountain to the indescribable blue of the sea, my eyes water with a sweet orgasmic ache, manifestation of the need to see it all. I am beginning to believe the only place I can really write at all is tucked away in a closet or an attic with no windows, where the words are the only sensation of pleasure there is. Perhaps this is why "happy" people don't do much writing. I keep telling myself that I am filling the well with beauty, but I still feel like such a fraud.
Yet even in paradise the small motors hum and manicure of the grounds, the garbage truck grinds the same loud growl of garbage trucks everywhere. Tennis balls plunk against the sweet spot of the rackets on the courts outside the lanai, and the expletives of the players are universal as well. I am still charmed by wind in the palms, though here on the sixth floor they are at eye level and look more like prairie grass swaying in the wind.
And the only thing more seductive, more intense than the land, is the sea, my friends beneath the water: A sea turtle, diameter about 4 feet, as he gulped for air, then dove for food. He and I alone on the edge of the circle of swimmers, not unlike last years nurse shark. No one around to hear my exclamation of joy at his grace. The dolphin who broke surface a few feet away, flirting like a waiter looking for tips.
I would write more, but there are colors to absorb, neon blue racing stripes on black spines and cartoon colored fins waiting for me to come and play. There is sand waiting to smooth the citified calluses from my feet and the sun waiting with its paintbrush of bronzes to lighten my hair and darken my skin. There is coconut oil to smooth over the merging freckles of my arms, aloe to cool my overcooked shoulders and when all that is finished, there is sweet dark rum.
If I'm not exhausted after dark, I'll try to write again, but it has already been a week and I've not adapted to that yet. I can hear the waves kick up on the night wind and the lullaby is irresistible. It amazes me most, waking in paradise, that it is from real sleep that I awaken. It's been a long, long time.
Yet even in paradise the small motors hum and manicure of the grounds, the garbage truck grinds the same loud growl of garbage trucks everywhere. Tennis balls plunk against the sweet spot of the rackets on the courts outside the lanai, and the expletives of the players are universal as well. I am still charmed by wind in the palms, though here on the sixth floor they are at eye level and look more like prairie grass swaying in the wind.
And the only thing more seductive, more intense than the land, is the sea, my friends beneath the water: A sea turtle, diameter about 4 feet, as he gulped for air, then dove for food. He and I alone on the edge of the circle of swimmers, not unlike last years nurse shark. No one around to hear my exclamation of joy at his grace. The dolphin who broke surface a few feet away, flirting like a waiter looking for tips.
I would write more, but there are colors to absorb, neon blue racing stripes on black spines and cartoon colored fins waiting for me to come and play. There is sand waiting to smooth the citified calluses from my feet and the sun waiting with its paintbrush of bronzes to lighten my hair and darken my skin. There is coconut oil to smooth over the merging freckles of my arms, aloe to cool my overcooked shoulders and when all that is finished, there is sweet dark rum.
If I'm not exhausted after dark, I'll try to write again, but it has already been a week and I've not adapted to that yet. I can hear the waves kick up on the night wind and the lullaby is irresistible. It amazes me most, waking in paradise, that it is from real sleep that I awaken. It's been a long, long time.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
waking to water
The sprinklers were my alarm clock today, leaving the palm fronds dripping like paintbrushes. The mist that hangs in the already too saturated air lets the flowers thrive: plumbago, oleander, impatiens, begonias –Their names like a foreign language rolling off my tongue, without even adding the meanings gardeners of the old world would give them.
The sun is not quite up yet, though I can tell that it has cleared the horizon somewhere beyond my line of sight. The glowing is just-after-dawn light, no romantic rose tones or violet clouds to soften it. Mid-summer, past solstice, I prepare to do what all Houstonians who can do…escape. West, first, to find the mystique again of the islands, see if it will charm me from this slump in mind and spirit. Then north, add to the list of discovery a place I've never been, and try to see through the eyes of a twelve year old (and a dog) again. Then back to my beloved Lake Michigan. Back home.
The strange thing is there isn't that call to go this year. The existence of people makes the difference… the ones I knew are more distant, the ones I know now becoming closer. I suppose I could relate that to the sunrise, too, seeing things clearly. I've certainly done my share of complaining. Reality is this; there is beauty no matter where I look. I just need to accept it for what it is. So the ocean here is not blue with waves to surf and sugar sand beaches to walk on. It is still the sea. The seaweed that clutters the shore may look like detritus to the casual observer, but I know it is Sargasso grass, washed in from a meadow on the ocean. Full of life. I've seen the sea turtles come home here; I've seen the dolphins dance. I've seen the pelicans dive with graceful precision, smashing the image of awkward bird into a thousand tiny droplets shining on their wings. How can I not be home wherever there is the sea?
In two days, though, it will be the Pacific. My first ocean, and yes, my favorite. There are some fish friends waiting for me there, out in a crater below the surface. I'll tell them hello for you.
The sun is not quite up yet, though I can tell that it has cleared the horizon somewhere beyond my line of sight. The glowing is just-after-dawn light, no romantic rose tones or violet clouds to soften it. Mid-summer, past solstice, I prepare to do what all Houstonians who can do…escape. West, first, to find the mystique again of the islands, see if it will charm me from this slump in mind and spirit. Then north, add to the list of discovery a place I've never been, and try to see through the eyes of a twelve year old (and a dog) again. Then back to my beloved Lake Michigan. Back home.
The strange thing is there isn't that call to go this year. The existence of people makes the difference… the ones I knew are more distant, the ones I know now becoming closer. I suppose I could relate that to the sunrise, too, seeing things clearly. I've certainly done my share of complaining. Reality is this; there is beauty no matter where I look. I just need to accept it for what it is. So the ocean here is not blue with waves to surf and sugar sand beaches to walk on. It is still the sea. The seaweed that clutters the shore may look like detritus to the casual observer, but I know it is Sargasso grass, washed in from a meadow on the ocean. Full of life. I've seen the sea turtles come home here; I've seen the dolphins dance. I've seen the pelicans dive with graceful precision, smashing the image of awkward bird into a thousand tiny droplets shining on their wings. How can I not be home wherever there is the sea?
In two days, though, it will be the Pacific. My first ocean, and yes, my favorite. There are some fish friends waiting for me there, out in a crater below the surface. I'll tell them hello for you.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
lessons from my animal companions
It is perfectly quiet this morning. No electronic noises other than the fan in this computer and the constant whoosh of the a/c. I'm sitting in an armchair in the family room, the sun streaming in the window behind me and the cool touch of the air-conditioned air sliding down my bare arms like a blanket when rising. One cat lies on the footstool at my feet, the other in the chair next to me, and Scout is still sleeping up on my son's bed. It makes me smile every time I go wake them, to see them sharing a bunk. She knows she's not supposed to be there, but it is so soft, she risks it. She also knows no one will get mad at her. She's just too sweet.
Wouldn't that be lovely? To have the kind of personality that no one ever got mad at? To always be welcomed with physical touch, a hug, a scratch behind the ears, on a good day a full body rub, complete with tummy pats?
Yet, to always be the dog wouldn't work for me. Lately I've struggled with my sideline roles in relationships that are important to me. I've spent my life behind the scenes, in the center of the action, but often in charge of what goes on "onstage." Why now then? Why do I ponder the reality of it? I don't know.
Last night I met friends for dinner. Writer friends. We were in class together for about seven months, but as I've seen with many such classes, a bond was formed. Perhaps because we trusted each other with that creation more delicate even than children: our words in fledgling form, still undecided if we would let them fly or give them up. I feel protective of these people, knowing that as soon as we venture beyond this circle there are chinks in the wall, someone else to say, "no, this point of view doesn't work," or "your grammar is atrocious," or "this is not credible." Writers are supposed to be tough, I know, but not with everyone. We have to have heart, somewhere. Besides on the page. Don't we?
I've gotten out of the discipline of writing. I used to be able to say, when asked, that I spent about four hours every morning, writing. Words that I save from day to day to let me understand what it is around me that matters. And too often when I let the words free to someone else's eyes, they lose what it is I wrote them for. That happens, that is fiction, but when I start listening too much to the outside criticism and too little to the word whispers in my own head, then it stops being my creation. I have to get better at listening. To myself.
The cat at my feet is curled into a position where his little paws are crossed and curled toward his soft body, and he looks so very vulnerable… not the big brave lion who can chase squirrels from the yard and capture any bird he wants with his speed, but a kitten again, trusting that so long as he stays close to me, he is safe and can rest. It gives him the courage to be that other cat. I think that is a metaphor.
Wouldn't that be lovely? To have the kind of personality that no one ever got mad at? To always be welcomed with physical touch, a hug, a scratch behind the ears, on a good day a full body rub, complete with tummy pats?
Yet, to always be the dog wouldn't work for me. Lately I've struggled with my sideline roles in relationships that are important to me. I've spent my life behind the scenes, in the center of the action, but often in charge of what goes on "onstage." Why now then? Why do I ponder the reality of it? I don't know.
Last night I met friends for dinner. Writer friends. We were in class together for about seven months, but as I've seen with many such classes, a bond was formed. Perhaps because we trusted each other with that creation more delicate even than children: our words in fledgling form, still undecided if we would let them fly or give them up. I feel protective of these people, knowing that as soon as we venture beyond this circle there are chinks in the wall, someone else to say, "no, this point of view doesn't work," or "your grammar is atrocious," or "this is not credible." Writers are supposed to be tough, I know, but not with everyone. We have to have heart, somewhere. Besides on the page. Don't we?
I've gotten out of the discipline of writing. I used to be able to say, when asked, that I spent about four hours every morning, writing. Words that I save from day to day to let me understand what it is around me that matters. And too often when I let the words free to someone else's eyes, they lose what it is I wrote them for. That happens, that is fiction, but when I start listening too much to the outside criticism and too little to the word whispers in my own head, then it stops being my creation. I have to get better at listening. To myself.
The cat at my feet is curled into a position where his little paws are crossed and curled toward his soft body, and he looks so very vulnerable… not the big brave lion who can chase squirrels from the yard and capture any bird he wants with his speed, but a kitten again, trusting that so long as he stays close to me, he is safe and can rest. It gives him the courage to be that other cat. I think that is a metaphor.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
plain old summer heat
I've been neglecting this journal. Not intentionally, but it has historically been where I've written just before sleep, and frankly, this week sleep is on no schedule at all. I'm almost over the terrible sinus infection that disabled me earlier, but the allergies and the HEAT are keeping me inside, and thus my bio rhythms are all screwed up. Blah blah blah.
I am missing my Midwest summers. They get hot too, just not so thickly hot as it is here, nor for as long. Cooling off becomes a challenge, a game of sorts, of putting fans in just the right windows, wetting palms and feet and inner elbows. Sleeping nude with no blankets, staying up late because it is too hot to sleep. Here, it is all… artificial. Just dial the a/c to the temp you want it to be and voila! There is no reason to be uncomfortable.
Today I'm making sun tea out on the patio, and have promised myself time in the sun on a raft in the water, just to remember it is summer. Maybe it's because I'm all tied up with this age thing… I have a birthday coming up, but I'm so damned nostalgic these days. I want to make out at a drive in movie and feel the thrill of just one button unbuttoned… remember that? When just –that much- would make you feel so turned on you could just melt? Or am I the only one who ever has those conversations in my head? The little games where you tell your self… if he does .. x…. then I will do … y…. and if he does… z… I willllll…
Sigh. Summer romance used to be something I enjoyed. Three of my most significant relationships began as summer romances, including my marriage. Something about the freedom to be yourself in the summer that made it more intense. Did you have summer romances? How did they get started?
I'm very far behind in my work, so I'm going to end this now. I'll try to get back in the habit. Soon. I promise.
I am missing my Midwest summers. They get hot too, just not so thickly hot as it is here, nor for as long. Cooling off becomes a challenge, a game of sorts, of putting fans in just the right windows, wetting palms and feet and inner elbows. Sleeping nude with no blankets, staying up late because it is too hot to sleep. Here, it is all… artificial. Just dial the a/c to the temp you want it to be and voila! There is no reason to be uncomfortable.
Today I'm making sun tea out on the patio, and have promised myself time in the sun on a raft in the water, just to remember it is summer. Maybe it's because I'm all tied up with this age thing… I have a birthday coming up, but I'm so damned nostalgic these days. I want to make out at a drive in movie and feel the thrill of just one button unbuttoned… remember that? When just –that much- would make you feel so turned on you could just melt? Or am I the only one who ever has those conversations in my head? The little games where you tell your self… if he does .. x…. then I will do … y…. and if he does… z… I willllll…
Sigh. Summer romance used to be something I enjoyed. Three of my most significant relationships began as summer romances, including my marriage. Something about the freedom to be yourself in the summer that made it more intense. Did you have summer romances? How did they get started?
I'm very far behind in my work, so I'm going to end this now. I'll try to get back in the habit. Soon. I promise.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
a taste of a day
The sun is melting into the sky today, the light growing thin and colorless the higher it rises into the heat of the day. The houses and trees are in silhouette, no detail visible, except their shapes, and those in sharp contrast of black against the pale. There are no shades of gray at all it seems, only dark, and light.
The infection in my head runs the same course, either I am completely out, or completely awake, there is no gentle waking or quiet falling asleep. Coughs wrack, and I fear I will keep my partner awake. I know that I have time to rest later, and he doesn't, so I let the sunrise coax me from slumber and remember my routine.
In reward, a splash of rose on the horizon reminds me that it is when things seem most clear that we sometimes get surprised. There may be color to this day after all.
Even as I begin to close this page, insert the date and move to more productive projects, the morning dove and songbirds remind me to use all of my senses. Light or dark, hot or cool, those are easy. Melodious, fragrant? Harder. But the hardest, and thus most interesting, is how does the day taste? Today it is clouded with the salty taste in my head, diluted with fresh water, "natural" (from a bottle?), and soon coffee. Bitter, beautiful coffee. And now, it is full light and the day has arrived.
The infection in my head runs the same course, either I am completely out, or completely awake, there is no gentle waking or quiet falling asleep. Coughs wrack, and I fear I will keep my partner awake. I know that I have time to rest later, and he doesn't, so I let the sunrise coax me from slumber and remember my routine.
In reward, a splash of rose on the horizon reminds me that it is when things seem most clear that we sometimes get surprised. There may be color to this day after all.
Even as I begin to close this page, insert the date and move to more productive projects, the morning dove and songbirds remind me to use all of my senses. Light or dark, hot or cool, those are easy. Melodious, fragrant? Harder. But the hardest, and thus most interesting, is how does the day taste? Today it is clouded with the salty taste in my head, diluted with fresh water, "natural" (from a bottle?), and soon coffee. Bitter, beautiful coffee. And now, it is full light and the day has arrived.
Friday, June 10, 2005
unwell
I seem to have acquired ocd from hanging around people online. I've had no discipline to finish anything lately, except perhaps this last glass of cab for the night. Hmm.
Part of it is the heat. Sultry baking days. I am reminded that the summer here is like the dead of winter up north, dangerous to be out in, and interminable. Even the pool is over 90 degrees. That isn't refreshing.
It is all relative though. In Michigan, the air rarely gets to 90 and if the water gets into the seventies, we think of it as warm. I need to get back there. My toes curl at the thought of that soft sand.
I've had trouble staying awake today. The sinus infection seems to have control, and if not that then the drugs. Don't talk to me about mixing my wine with my drugs, I'm not driving.
People have been asking me what happened to Megg. I wish I could summon her on a moments notice, feed her a little alcohol and set her loose with her knives and poisons and oh yes those long nails of hers, I do. She's apparently still pissed though, because all I've seen of her in a while is this little fascination with Moths:
They were thick, smoke smudges flitting from the ceiling of the pantry, their casual flight long enough only to choose another place to land. I could close the door and pretend they weren’t there, but even the knowledge that they were there, feasting on the staples, breeding, hatching, multiplying, made me feel dirty. They had to go.
Yes yes, a long way to go. Insects and snakes seem to be what has Megg's attention right now, and sadly, not even the one eyed ones. That concerns me most of all.
Part of it is the heat. Sultry baking days. I am reminded that the summer here is like the dead of winter up north, dangerous to be out in, and interminable. Even the pool is over 90 degrees. That isn't refreshing.
It is all relative though. In Michigan, the air rarely gets to 90 and if the water gets into the seventies, we think of it as warm. I need to get back there. My toes curl at the thought of that soft sand.
I've had trouble staying awake today. The sinus infection seems to have control, and if not that then the drugs. Don't talk to me about mixing my wine with my drugs, I'm not driving.
People have been asking me what happened to Megg. I wish I could summon her on a moments notice, feed her a little alcohol and set her loose with her knives and poisons and oh yes those long nails of hers, I do. She's apparently still pissed though, because all I've seen of her in a while is this little fascination with Moths:
They were thick, smoke smudges flitting from the ceiling of the pantry, their casual flight long enough only to choose another place to land. I could close the door and pretend they weren’t there, but even the knowledge that they were there, feasting on the staples, breeding, hatching, multiplying, made me feel dirty. They had to go.
Yes yes, a long way to go. Insects and snakes seem to be what has Megg's attention right now, and sadly, not even the one eyed ones. That concerns me most of all.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
expo observations
What do I say about book expo that hasn't already been detailed by the experts? I suppose that my perspective is as legitimate as anyone's… and as a "writer" perhaps I saw things that the publishers, agents, booksellers etc didn't see. I saw people.
Some that made an impression:
~~a younger writer… very good looking, who hadn't quite gotten the hang of the autographing scene, because he took time to talk to me about his book. The themes in it were disturbing, the kind that made me turn my head and look back into his eyes. "is it autobiographical?" I asked. "Not most of it." he replied. I will read it. If it's good, I'll even pimp it a little. He had beautiful eyes.
~~an older gentlemen, with a wonderful British accent, a few years older than me, or maybe not, maybe he was just significantly taller, who didn't "get" the joke of the promo items in the erotic writers booth that said "got sex?" I tried to explain about the whole "got milk?" phenomenon, but I suspect he was also a writer and had never paid any attention to American advertising. Either that or he wanted to keep me in conversation, as I'd picked up a handful of the promo items …I wanted to take them back to a writer friend who'll think the slogan is clever. I thought they were matches and hard candy suckers. It wasn't until I returned to the hotel that I actually looked at them… and discovered they were in fact brightly colored… and flavored? Condoms. I thought the gentleman was lingering a bit long…
~~peripheral connections. As a lawyer, wannabe writer and prospective publisher, I wasn't sure I was legitimate to attend the expo. The registration materials didn't have a specific category for me, so I could only lump myself in with the ubiquitous "industry professionals." It was only when I got email from Author's Guild offering a huge discount on the registration that I decided it was okay. I didn't need to worry. Seems that if you've ever read a book you qualify, despite the warnings that it is not open to the general public and that you should be prepared to present business cards to prove that you are, in fact, an industry professional. Reminded me of the advice a multi-published author gave to a crowd at a workshop regarding publishing houses that read only "agented" material. There is no restriction on who can be an agent. If they want only agented material, you print yourself some letterhead that says Your Name Literary Agency at the top and mail your manuscript. So if you are reading this, and interested in going to Expo next year, go. It's May 19 in DC. Lots of great entertainment, we saw both Billy Crystal and Bill Maher. hearing writers talk about their books, meeting some of them, learning about issues… great fun. No comments on how easy I am to entertain either.
~~as in all conventions, it is clear that the meat and potato meals take place at the private parties after hours and the meetings set up beyond the exhibition floor. The value to someone like me is in the contacts made, and the perspective, honing still what I want to be when I grow up. There were many moments when I wished I'd had a book to peddle, as the offerings don't seem that daunting. There were times when I wished I had YOUR book to peddle… yes, you. And you. There is a market. There is.
~~between Erin and I, we managed to pick up over 50 advance copies of books, many autographed by authors. When we surveyed the loot back in the hotel, we felt like any freshman at such a show. We hadn't considered how we were going to get them all home. Adding that we took the cheap though convoluted route, there was a lot of schlepping on trains and planes, and my weightlifting muscles were taxed beyond comfort. As I'm committed to actually commenting or otherwise responding to anything I read, it's going to be an interesting and eclectic summer.
I'll have to do another entry on New York outside expo, just because there are images I want to capture and there isn't a story to do it with yet. I'm sure there will be though.
Some that made an impression:
~~a younger writer… very good looking, who hadn't quite gotten the hang of the autographing scene, because he took time to talk to me about his book. The themes in it were disturbing, the kind that made me turn my head and look back into his eyes. "is it autobiographical?" I asked. "Not most of it." he replied. I will read it. If it's good, I'll even pimp it a little. He had beautiful eyes.
~~an older gentlemen, with a wonderful British accent, a few years older than me, or maybe not, maybe he was just significantly taller, who didn't "get" the joke of the promo items in the erotic writers booth that said "got sex?" I tried to explain about the whole "got milk?" phenomenon, but I suspect he was also a writer and had never paid any attention to American advertising. Either that or he wanted to keep me in conversation, as I'd picked up a handful of the promo items …I wanted to take them back to a writer friend who'll think the slogan is clever. I thought they were matches and hard candy suckers. It wasn't until I returned to the hotel that I actually looked at them… and discovered they were in fact brightly colored… and flavored? Condoms. I thought the gentleman was lingering a bit long…
~~peripheral connections. As a lawyer, wannabe writer and prospective publisher, I wasn't sure I was legitimate to attend the expo. The registration materials didn't have a specific category for me, so I could only lump myself in with the ubiquitous "industry professionals." It was only when I got email from Author's Guild offering a huge discount on the registration that I decided it was okay. I didn't need to worry. Seems that if you've ever read a book you qualify, despite the warnings that it is not open to the general public and that you should be prepared to present business cards to prove that you are, in fact, an industry professional. Reminded me of the advice a multi-published author gave to a crowd at a workshop regarding publishing houses that read only "agented" material. There is no restriction on who can be an agent. If they want only agented material, you print yourself some letterhead that says Your Name Literary Agency at the top and mail your manuscript. So if you are reading this, and interested in going to Expo next year, go. It's May 19 in DC. Lots of great entertainment, we saw both Billy Crystal and Bill Maher. hearing writers talk about their books, meeting some of them, learning about issues… great fun. No comments on how easy I am to entertain either.
~~as in all conventions, it is clear that the meat and potato meals take place at the private parties after hours and the meetings set up beyond the exhibition floor. The value to someone like me is in the contacts made, and the perspective, honing still what I want to be when I grow up. There were many moments when I wished I'd had a book to peddle, as the offerings don't seem that daunting. There were times when I wished I had YOUR book to peddle… yes, you. And you. There is a market. There is.
~~between Erin and I, we managed to pick up over 50 advance copies of books, many autographed by authors. When we surveyed the loot back in the hotel, we felt like any freshman at such a show. We hadn't considered how we were going to get them all home. Adding that we took the cheap though convoluted route, there was a lot of schlepping on trains and planes, and my weightlifting muscles were taxed beyond comfort. As I'm committed to actually commenting or otherwise responding to anything I read, it's going to be an interesting and eclectic summer.
I'll have to do another entry on New York outside expo, just because there are images I want to capture and there isn't a story to do it with yet. I'm sure there will be though.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
chaos
I hear the sea in the wind this morning, the applause of waves in the leaves and the depth in the monotone sky. Off to the south there is a lightening of sorts, where the storm gray gives way to platinum, polished by the sun wherever it is. It is like the beach, where the sand is dark and soft near the water, but as it dries, the darkness disappears. Far up on the shore the wind can pick it up grain by grain and toss each one to chaos, or, I suppose, order.
The words are going there for me, some in chaos, some tamped down on the hard packed edges of my mind. The best part about those is that it is easy to walk on the sea soaked shoreline. The better exercise comes from the part of the beach where the loose grains are tossed in the wind though, where I have to close my eyes to the chaos to avoid tremendous pain, and where, when I can successfully make the trek, the muscles in my thighs scream of the burn that comes from broken down tissue. I like that pain. It means that tomorrow, I will be stronger. It means the words were worth fighting for.
I glance back to the sky to see if the sun is going to make its appearance, cursing the full moon a bit for the fatigue I am flooding with a strong hazelnut brew, and see that instead the sun has gone back to sleep, and the sky softened like the eyes of a lover beckoning me back to bed as well. Tempting, oh so tempting.
The words are going there for me, some in chaos, some tamped down on the hard packed edges of my mind. The best part about those is that it is easy to walk on the sea soaked shoreline. The better exercise comes from the part of the beach where the loose grains are tossed in the wind though, where I have to close my eyes to the chaos to avoid tremendous pain, and where, when I can successfully make the trek, the muscles in my thighs scream of the burn that comes from broken down tissue. I like that pain. It means that tomorrow, I will be stronger. It means the words were worth fighting for.
I glance back to the sky to see if the sun is going to make its appearance, cursing the full moon a bit for the fatigue I am flooding with a strong hazelnut brew, and see that instead the sun has gone back to sleep, and the sky softened like the eyes of a lover beckoning me back to bed as well. Tempting, oh so tempting.
reading the dictionary for fun
In the workshop I finished in March, there was a student whose work included a character he wanted to portray as "nerdy"… to do so he, the author, gave the character what he considered an odd habit; reading the dictionary.
I hate to admit this, but if that is characteristic, then I'm very guilty. I just opened the list like dictionary in Word to make sure I was using the word estuary (the wide lower course of a river where the tide flows in, causing fresh and salt water to mix) correctly. When I got through the fifth Latin definition down the alphabetical list beneath the word, I realized what I was doing. It was bad enough that I was reading them. Much worse that I had to retype them into a document. You can't copy and paste from the Word dictionary, at least my version on my computer.
I hate to confess that if that is the definition of nerdy, it fits.
I've not written a word of fiction since The Rejection. I expect another one on Tuesday/Wednesday, Then I leave for New York to hobnob 9to socialize in a familiar manner with somebody, especially somebody considered to be of a higher social class) with The Publishing Industry, including my own daughter. At that point, I will feel not only nerdy, but fraudulent as well. Except I do know a lot of "stuff."
I am most concerned with the designation of wannabe. Iff I do it, I want to do it on a grand enough scale to be taken seriously. Truth is I've done quite a bit of research on the Publishing Company, and know that it is something that can be done. One publisher I talked to told me that he was in the industry solely because he wanted to be… at least I have a concept I want to pursue. That publisher sent me to Book Expo last year for more information. If you don't know, I was well on my way, literally on the threshold of the Expo, when I was called to my mother's bed to witness the pulling of the plug. Everything went on hold then. It is time to get back into motion though; a year of stagnation is too much.
Ah but back to the dictionary. I went to Kemah the other day, in a veiled… or perhaps I should say shrouded… attempt … to entertain my in-laws. Kemah can be fun but has a sense of knock-off Disney about it. Tourists like it. I liked it when I was a tourist too. The good thing about company is seeing the city through their eyes, and remembering why you don't live where they are. My father in law, ever the daredevil, wanted to go up in the Tower… which was little more than a glassed in elevator with a view of the Bay. Mother in law didn't of course…. Afraid of heights… so she chose a bench to sit on while the rest of the family went up. A good Daughter in Law would have stayed with her on the Bench and talked about… I don't know; I've never been a good daughter-in-law.
The tour guide intoned through loudspeakers that we were on a bird migration superhighway, and that the area was an estuary. (See the connection? I know, lame, but it's late.)
Moving water: creeks, rivers, waterfalls, are a source of aquatic joy for me, so much so that I chose my college in part based on its view of the Ohio.
Generally now, a river is not enough, not even the Mississippi. To find the aquatic release I need it takes waves, and lately even my freshwater Lake Michigan waves have seemed second rate.
Maybe I have combined, the tides rolling in with the decades, the fresh water and the salt. (We don't need to comment on wide bottoms btw) ...so much with the salt that I don't fit anywhere. I'm not comfortable anymore in Boardrooms because I just don't take it seriously now. Nor am I quite artsy enough to fit the vagabond writer's world. So perhaps this company is the blend I'm looking for. Perhaps.
If you play Texas Hold'em you know how frustrating it is for my opponents to continue to lose to me on the River. If they only knew about estuaries.
I hate to admit this, but if that is characteristic, then I'm very guilty. I just opened the list like dictionary in Word to make sure I was using the word estuary (the wide lower course of a river where the tide flows in, causing fresh and salt water to mix) correctly. When I got through the fifth Latin definition down the alphabetical list beneath the word, I realized what I was doing. It was bad enough that I was reading them. Much worse that I had to retype them into a document. You can't copy and paste from the Word dictionary, at least my version on my computer.
I hate to confess that if that is the definition of nerdy, it fits.
I've not written a word of fiction since The Rejection. I expect another one on Tuesday/Wednesday, Then I leave for New York to hobnob 9to socialize in a familiar manner with somebody, especially somebody considered to be of a higher social class) with The Publishing Industry, including my own daughter. At that point, I will feel not only nerdy, but fraudulent as well. Except I do know a lot of "stuff."
I am most concerned with the designation of wannabe. Iff I do it, I want to do it on a grand enough scale to be taken seriously. Truth is I've done quite a bit of research on the Publishing Company, and know that it is something that can be done. One publisher I talked to told me that he was in the industry solely because he wanted to be… at least I have a concept I want to pursue. That publisher sent me to Book Expo last year for more information. If you don't know, I was well on my way, literally on the threshold of the Expo, when I was called to my mother's bed to witness the pulling of the plug. Everything went on hold then. It is time to get back into motion though; a year of stagnation is too much.
Ah but back to the dictionary. I went to Kemah the other day, in a veiled… or perhaps I should say shrouded… attempt … to entertain my in-laws. Kemah can be fun but has a sense of knock-off Disney about it. Tourists like it. I liked it when I was a tourist too. The good thing about company is seeing the city through their eyes, and remembering why you don't live where they are. My father in law, ever the daredevil, wanted to go up in the Tower… which was little more than a glassed in elevator with a view of the Bay. Mother in law didn't of course…. Afraid of heights… so she chose a bench to sit on while the rest of the family went up. A good Daughter in Law would have stayed with her on the Bench and talked about… I don't know; I've never been a good daughter-in-law.
The tour guide intoned through loudspeakers that we were on a bird migration superhighway, and that the area was an estuary. (See the connection? I know, lame, but it's late.)
Moving water: creeks, rivers, waterfalls, are a source of aquatic joy for me, so much so that I chose my college in part based on its view of the Ohio.
Generally now, a river is not enough, not even the Mississippi. To find the aquatic release I need it takes waves, and lately even my freshwater Lake Michigan waves have seemed second rate. Maybe I have combined, the tides rolling in with the decades, the fresh water and the salt. (We don't need to comment on wide bottoms btw) ...so much with the salt that I don't fit anywhere. I'm not comfortable anymore in Boardrooms because I just don't take it seriously now. Nor am I quite artsy enough to fit the vagabond writer's world. So perhaps this company is the blend I'm looking for. Perhaps.
If you play Texas Hold'em you know how frustrating it is for my opponents to continue to lose to me on the River. If they only knew about estuaries.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Catching a ride on the upswing.
Sounds like a title that should be about golf or something, but in truth, it is about moods. Ever notice how when you are on your way down to the abyss that the people most likely to pull you out of the funk are the people you are least likely to find around? But like golf, when you actually figure out the issue, make contact with the ball so to speak, there those people are, laughing with you, moving back into that arc of sunshine aimed at the green, looking for that flagpole raised high and straight where the grass is trimmed neatly into a triangular… oops. Wrong flagpole….
Okay, so I didn't quite hit bottom, didn't quite feel the depth of depression that I know exists before I consciously turned it around and changed direction. I'm sorry Moods, I just don't have time for that right now.
There are snakes in the story I'm working on this week.(it had to be snakes. i hate snakes!) I used to think snakes were fictitious. My step grandfather… grandma's fourth, remember?… had a farm in Indiana in a place called Clinton Falls. I've written about some of the memories from that place before, but I'd forgotten about the snake until I just typed that. (See what journaling can do?) If you've never spent time on a farm, and by farm I mean one of those places where the family that lived there actually depended upon the fruits of the land and labor to support them, then you probably have never heard of a corn crib. A corncrib was a place to store field corn… as distinguished from sweet corn which is what you eat, whether fresh from the field on the cob, or frozen or canned. Sweet corn. Field corn is hard and dry and ground into meal or fed directly to livestock… seems to me that grain fed cattle eat it cob and all. Field corn is also the basis for many of the consumer products we find in the grocery store.. Everything from the tortillas I used to make enchiladas tonight to the dr pepper my boys are addicted to (since the seventies, high fructose corn syrup, or hfcs, has been the basis of the sweet taste in soft drinks. Not cane sugar. Corn.)
Anyway, on the small farms that prevailed in Indiana, usually less than 200 acres, in increments divisible by 80… we can talk land units another time if you want… the point was to keep back enough of a corn crop to feed the livestock kept on the farm. The rest of the crop was sold at a Co-op, where generally it was transported by train or barge to a larger market, where processors would buy it at "free market" (we can talk about subsidies another time too if you want) rates.
A corncrib was where the saved corn was stored. The one on Grandpa Charlie's farm was rectangular, had a tin roof and slats of old wood pieced together like Lincoln logs, so that air could circulate I suppose.
The biggest problem was that a corncrib was not airtight or secure. And all manner of rodents loved to come there for a quick and easy supper. So Charlie got himself a pair of snakes.
I knew they were there, in the corncrib. But I never saw them. I believed in them though. It is true that things you can't see are still real.
I've spent too long on my feet today, pretending to be something that I'm not. I'm physically tired, yet hesitate to close my computer and go to my bedroom. I wonder if I have more in common with the snake or the mice tonight. And with those references, I know it's time to stop.
Okay, so I didn't quite hit bottom, didn't quite feel the depth of depression that I know exists before I consciously turned it around and changed direction. I'm sorry Moods, I just don't have time for that right now.
There are snakes in the story I'm working on this week.(it had to be snakes. i hate snakes!) I used to think snakes were fictitious. My step grandfather… grandma's fourth, remember?… had a farm in Indiana in a place called Clinton Falls. I've written about some of the memories from that place before, but I'd forgotten about the snake until I just typed that. (See what journaling can do?) If you've never spent time on a farm, and by farm I mean one of those places where the family that lived there actually depended upon the fruits of the land and labor to support them, then you probably have never heard of a corn crib. A corncrib was a place to store field corn… as distinguished from sweet corn which is what you eat, whether fresh from the field on the cob, or frozen or canned. Sweet corn. Field corn is hard and dry and ground into meal or fed directly to livestock… seems to me that grain fed cattle eat it cob and all. Field corn is also the basis for many of the consumer products we find in the grocery store.. Everything from the tortillas I used to make enchiladas tonight to the dr pepper my boys are addicted to (since the seventies, high fructose corn syrup, or hfcs, has been the basis of the sweet taste in soft drinks. Not cane sugar. Corn.)
Anyway, on the small farms that prevailed in Indiana, usually less than 200 acres, in increments divisible by 80… we can talk land units another time if you want… the point was to keep back enough of a corn crop to feed the livestock kept on the farm. The rest of the crop was sold at a Co-op, where generally it was transported by train or barge to a larger market, where processors would buy it at "free market" (we can talk about subsidies another time too if you want) rates.
A corncrib was where the saved corn was stored. The one on Grandpa Charlie's farm was rectangular, had a tin roof and slats of old wood pieced together like Lincoln logs, so that air could circulate I suppose.
The biggest problem was that a corncrib was not airtight or secure. And all manner of rodents loved to come there for a quick and easy supper. So Charlie got himself a pair of snakes.
I knew they were there, in the corncrib. But I never saw them. I believed in them though. It is true that things you can't see are still real.
I've spent too long on my feet today, pretending to be something that I'm not. I'm physically tired, yet hesitate to close my computer and go to my bedroom. I wonder if I have more in common with the snake or the mice tonight. And with those references, I know it's time to stop.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
back to basics
I get complacent, used to things going the way I want them to, in life even if not in my interpersonal relationships. So I was not prepared for the email I got yesterday, advising me that I'd not been chosen to participate in the workshop for which I'd applied.
Rejected.
Okay. Rejection is normal for writers, but this is a new level of rejection. The piece I sent in was not finished... I knew that. But the class was in advanced fiction, not "show me you already know it all fiction." My sense was that they wanted samples that showed you knew the basics.
Maybe I was wrong.
I'm okay with not finishing first, but not even to be in the honorable mention list is harsh.
Yesterday, I was ready to quit. Yesterday, I let the full moon come in my bedroom window and sparkle off tears that were self indulgent and stupid. "Real writers would be up writing," I whimpered. (Oh to be able to live in purple prose!)
To which my bedmate inquired, "Do you want to go write?"
And I replied no. But didn't sleep. Or anything else for the voyeurs out there.
Today, I resolved to get back to the things I know. To reestablsh the confidence in my work that I've let slip away. I'd sent the piece to an old friend who used to be a fan, and got back insult upon injury. "You can do better than this. Who are you listening to? I see a lot of voices in this piece, but not one of them is yours."
He's wrong of course. Mine is there, but it doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing. It is confused.
I opened up my most recent paper journal this morning, and wrote the obligatory three pages. It was even legible, which clues me in already that there is a problem. If my words aren't coming faster than I can pen them, they are forced, unnatural. I read back over what I've written and see mostly masochistic lashings... all the things I said I'd have done by "now" that I've not even begun. Plenty there to kill all the creativity.
Then I open the word-a-day email, with this quote: Grasp the subject, the words will follow. -Cato the Elder, statesman,
soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)
So that is the question of the day. WTF is the subject? Pretty sure it isn't complacency.
Rejected.
Okay. Rejection is normal for writers, but this is a new level of rejection. The piece I sent in was not finished... I knew that. But the class was in advanced fiction, not "show me you already know it all fiction." My sense was that they wanted samples that showed you knew the basics.
Maybe I was wrong.
I'm okay with not finishing first, but not even to be in the honorable mention list is harsh.
Yesterday, I was ready to quit. Yesterday, I let the full moon come in my bedroom window and sparkle off tears that were self indulgent and stupid. "Real writers would be up writing," I whimpered. (Oh to be able to live in purple prose!)
To which my bedmate inquired, "Do you want to go write?"
And I replied no. But didn't sleep. Or anything else for the voyeurs out there.
Today, I resolved to get back to the things I know. To reestablsh the confidence in my work that I've let slip away. I'd sent the piece to an old friend who used to be a fan, and got back insult upon injury. "You can do better than this. Who are you listening to? I see a lot of voices in this piece, but not one of them is yours."
He's wrong of course. Mine is there, but it doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing. It is confused.
I opened up my most recent paper journal this morning, and wrote the obligatory three pages. It was even legible, which clues me in already that there is a problem. If my words aren't coming faster than I can pen them, they are forced, unnatural. I read back over what I've written and see mostly masochistic lashings... all the things I said I'd have done by "now" that I've not even begun. Plenty there to kill all the creativity.
Then I open the word-a-day email, with this quote: Grasp the subject, the words will follow. -Cato the Elder, statesman,
soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)
So that is the question of the day. WTF is the subject? Pretty sure it isn't complacency.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
on the outside
I'm depending on water today. Not just water, Ozarka bottled water. The allergens are overwhelming today, so I gave in to the need to breathe and took the zyrtec my doctor scolds me for stopping at all. "You aren't in the Midwest anymore" she says. "The air is not good and the secondary infections are dangerous."ugh.
But it makes me tired, and thirsty, and vulnerable. None of those are conducive to functioning in modern society. Even virtual society.
I know I could avoid the symptoms of whatever it is in the air by staying indoors. Just going to my nice office, where the air conditioning and the hepa filters keep things clear… bur I can't. It is criminal to be indoors when the weather is nothing less than orgasmic. I know that is a silly use of that term, but its been stuck in my head for days and I had to type it out so it will move on…. Well. . maybe that is a little to Hemingway-esque itself.
Moving on.
A-word-a-day is focusing on eponyms this week. Monday's was Gresham's law, the theory that bad money drives good money out of circulation. The theory extrapolates to other areas as well; politics of course come to mind. Who in their right mind would run for office?
And writing. If one or two biographies of celebrities weren't making it to the shelves, those resources might be going to something memorable.
I'm waiting up for Tubby the cat to come back. I opened the door to call him inside, and he went out. I don't need more legless lizards or de-feathered birds in the living room. I do need his overstuffed cuddling. And for his sister, Buffy, to stop crying at the door. They only really miss each other when one is on the outside.
I guess I understand that, too.
But it makes me tired, and thirsty, and vulnerable. None of those are conducive to functioning in modern society. Even virtual society.
I know I could avoid the symptoms of whatever it is in the air by staying indoors. Just going to my nice office, where the air conditioning and the hepa filters keep things clear… bur I can't. It is criminal to be indoors when the weather is nothing less than orgasmic. I know that is a silly use of that term, but its been stuck in my head for days and I had to type it out so it will move on…. Well. . maybe that is a little to Hemingway-esque itself.
Moving on.
A-word-a-day is focusing on eponyms this week. Monday's was Gresham's law, the theory that bad money drives good money out of circulation. The theory extrapolates to other areas as well; politics of course come to mind. Who in their right mind would run for office?
And writing. If one or two biographies of celebrities weren't making it to the shelves, those resources might be going to something memorable.
I'm waiting up for Tubby the cat to come back. I opened the door to call him inside, and he went out. I don't need more legless lizards or de-feathered birds in the living room. I do need his overstuffed cuddling. And for his sister, Buffy, to stop crying at the door. They only really miss each other when one is on the outside.
I guess I understand that, too.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
remembering
My earliest memory was of a day when I was two years old. I know that is unreasonable, but I recall it in such detail, recall the emotion, the scents, the way the afternoon sun was hot against my cheek, my hair sticking to the sweat beading there, that I know it is genuine. I had awakened from a nap, on my parent's bed, in the back of the two-bedroom trailer where we lived, only five of us kids at that point. As I did with my children, my mother would sometimes lay down with me in the afternoon, hold me close and let me rest, that sweet slumber that babies have. I remember her scent, dove soap, and probably bacon grease in which she cooked everything it seems. I remember the scent of dust on the window screens, and the heat of August in Indiana. I remember waking alone. I remember crying. I registered the sense of real loss for the first time.
In an honored place in my office there sits a simple statue, circular almost, of a mother and child, facing one another. It is carved of wood, was given to me by someone very special. I've seen some like it in museum shops around the world, but only fine ones. This one didn't come from a museum shop though, it came from the hands of a mother in a place where there is no denial of the way things are. She has no mimosa to fog the morning, no burned toast or flowers. Chances are good she has never tasted orange juice, nor had the luxury of sending her children off to school. Never met a friend from the world we create here on line. I wonder if she ever fell in love, but then I see the gentle curve or the child on her knee, and know that of course she did. Of course she did.
I've never had to live like that mother. There were days when my own mother must have felt a similar desperation. Raising four children alone, having already sent three into the world, working nights in a factory for $88 per week, before taxes. Dealing with her own loneliness with nicotine and Canadian whiskey. She did what she could though, and never lost her sense of humor.
In her last week of life, she was on all kinds of medicine to help her heart stabilized, lower her blood pressure. By then, she could barely communicate, but her mind, her quick and caring mind, was still intact.
She'd lost all sense of caring about appearances. The medicine made her hot. Very hot. It was freezing in her room and as we grown up children gathered at her bedside, she kicked off the sheets and even pushed her gown aside to get as much cool air on her skin as she could. She had nothing on beneath the gown.
My brother had to tease her. Humor is what we resort to in our family, to cover the tears. He said to her, "Gee Mom, you've lost weight."
And mom, in her weakened state, with her heart not working, her kidneys shutting down and her lungs mere days from collapse and failure, flipped him the bird.
She still had the ability to make us laugh, to make even that time okay. That my friends, is what mothers do.
Me? I'm in denial. I don't have a mother to call tomorrow, to send rose plants to, or even call the florist when I realize I've waited too long again. I really did wait too long.
It wasn't until I stopped myself from putting cash in the pocket of that bag I bought last week...(bad luck to give handbags or knives without cash) and packaging it to send, that I had to accept there was no one there to open the package.
I sent another package last week, to the person who sent me the statue. I fear that there was no one there to receive that one either. The message wasn't clear I suppose. It should have been. But when we register a sense of loss, one thing I've learned is that it is unforgettable.
As are the people who touch us so deeply.
In an honored place in my office there sits a simple statue, circular almost, of a mother and child, facing one another. It is carved of wood, was given to me by someone very special. I've seen some like it in museum shops around the world, but only fine ones. This one didn't come from a museum shop though, it came from the hands of a mother in a place where there is no denial of the way things are. She has no mimosa to fog the morning, no burned toast or flowers. Chances are good she has never tasted orange juice, nor had the luxury of sending her children off to school. Never met a friend from the world we create here on line. I wonder if she ever fell in love, but then I see the gentle curve or the child on her knee, and know that of course she did. Of course she did.
I've never had to live like that mother. There were days when my own mother must have felt a similar desperation. Raising four children alone, having already sent three into the world, working nights in a factory for $88 per week, before taxes. Dealing with her own loneliness with nicotine and Canadian whiskey. She did what she could though, and never lost her sense of humor.
In her last week of life, she was on all kinds of medicine to help her heart stabilized, lower her blood pressure. By then, she could barely communicate, but her mind, her quick and caring mind, was still intact.
She'd lost all sense of caring about appearances. The medicine made her hot. Very hot. It was freezing in her room and as we grown up children gathered at her bedside, she kicked off the sheets and even pushed her gown aside to get as much cool air on her skin as she could. She had nothing on beneath the gown.
My brother had to tease her. Humor is what we resort to in our family, to cover the tears. He said to her, "Gee Mom, you've lost weight."
And mom, in her weakened state, with her heart not working, her kidneys shutting down and her lungs mere days from collapse and failure, flipped him the bird.
She still had the ability to make us laugh, to make even that time okay. That my friends, is what mothers do.
Me? I'm in denial. I don't have a mother to call tomorrow, to send rose plants to, or even call the florist when I realize I've waited too long again. I really did wait too long.
It wasn't until I stopped myself from putting cash in the pocket of that bag I bought last week...(bad luck to give handbags or knives without cash) and packaging it to send, that I had to accept there was no one there to open the package.
I sent another package last week, to the person who sent me the statue. I fear that there was no one there to receive that one either. The message wasn't clear I suppose. It should have been. But when we register a sense of loss, one thing I've learned is that it is unforgettable.
As are the people who touch us so deeply.
Friday, May 06, 2005
five oh five oh five
I had my last session with the trainer on Tuesday… ten weeks for the same cost of one hour with the physical therapist and she did know as much about rehabbing my knee… though she really wanted me to train to be some martial arts babe, and that just isn't going to happen. I felt a little bad, I know she needs the money, but she had started giving me attitude about being five minutes late and really. It's the gym. I'm not going to tell a client who calls that I can't talk because I've got crunches to do. And I'm still not convinced that ball crunches… on a support ball... are that instrumental in recovering from knee surgery… but … whatever. Not like I don't need them.
When I told her I was finished, except for maybe a monthly check in for a couple of months she was sad, because she fancies herself as something I "do" for myself. Her words: "You have to make yourself a priority. You give and give and give and there is nothing left over for you." I shouldn't have been flattered by that, but I was. I'd rather be a giver than sculpted.
One of my favorite movies is playing: Good Will Hunting with Robin Williams and Matt Damon. "It's not your fault."
Mother's Day is Sunday, and I'm still in denial. Today I went and bought a gift for my Mother in Law who hates me because I read and don't mind clutter and she was the "homemaker of the year" in high school. In her house the only thing there is with printed words is the Bible, and it is artfully arranged in a curio Cabinet with a pair of antique glasses sitting on top. Please.
But I'm a get-along girl and so I bought her a Brighton straw bag that I will overnight tonight. She'll be visiting for graduation this month, and the bag will be nice for traveling. That isn't the weird part though. The weird part is that I bought one for my own mother too. Well not really. She's been gone a year in June. Mother's day last year was our last normal conversation, not preceded with, "but what does the doctor say?"
I wrote the play by play of her last illness and death last year to a friend who is no longer a friend. I kept all of the letters and pasted them together in one long document, taking the references out. I believe in preserving raw emotion as best i can, and then calling upon the preserves when I need it later. I never posted or published any of it, lots of sad stuff regarding my siblings in there, but I'm thinking it might be a way to acknowledge the continuing grief. Perhaps I will post it here when it's been a year. I'll think about it.
I'll take the bag back. Or keep it. But it was for her, and well. I'm strange.
I was going to close tonight with a memory, and a phrase with which I am mesmerized, but the memories are hurting right now, and I've been advised that the phrase is copyrighted. I'll have to get a license I guess.
Instead, I'll use a paragraph from a story I'm working on.
They nearly tripped over the carcass of a deer, its body half buried in the sand. The snout of its nose was bleached white in the sun, and the skin picked clean, so that there was a skeleton head attached to the fully preserved body. The breeze from the lake sterilized the air and Susan couldn't look away. It was like an abstract painting whose meaning she couldn’t get, a poem too metaphoric for her to decipher. She wondered if it had chosen this place to die, or if it had been killed. Above all, it seemed at peace.
When I told her I was finished, except for maybe a monthly check in for a couple of months she was sad, because she fancies herself as something I "do" for myself. Her words: "You have to make yourself a priority. You give and give and give and there is nothing left over for you." I shouldn't have been flattered by that, but I was. I'd rather be a giver than sculpted.
One of my favorite movies is playing: Good Will Hunting with Robin Williams and Matt Damon. "It's not your fault."
Mother's Day is Sunday, and I'm still in denial. Today I went and bought a gift for my Mother in Law who hates me because I read and don't mind clutter and she was the "homemaker of the year" in high school. In her house the only thing there is with printed words is the Bible, and it is artfully arranged in a curio Cabinet with a pair of antique glasses sitting on top. Please.
But I'm a get-along girl and so I bought her a Brighton straw bag that I will overnight tonight. She'll be visiting for graduation this month, and the bag will be nice for traveling. That isn't the weird part though. The weird part is that I bought one for my own mother too. Well not really. She's been gone a year in June. Mother's day last year was our last normal conversation, not preceded with, "but what does the doctor say?"
I wrote the play by play of her last illness and death last year to a friend who is no longer a friend. I kept all of the letters and pasted them together in one long document, taking the references out. I believe in preserving raw emotion as best i can, and then calling upon the preserves when I need it later. I never posted or published any of it, lots of sad stuff regarding my siblings in there, but I'm thinking it might be a way to acknowledge the continuing grief. Perhaps I will post it here when it's been a year. I'll think about it.
I'll take the bag back. Or keep it. But it was for her, and well. I'm strange.
I was going to close tonight with a memory, and a phrase with which I am mesmerized, but the memories are hurting right now, and I've been advised that the phrase is copyrighted. I'll have to get a license I guess.
Instead, I'll use a paragraph from a story I'm working on.
They nearly tripped over the carcass of a deer, its body half buried in the sand. The snout of its nose was bleached white in the sun, and the skin picked clean, so that there was a skeleton head attached to the fully preserved body. The breeze from the lake sterilized the air and Susan couldn't look away. It was like an abstract painting whose meaning she couldn’t get, a poem too metaphoric for her to decipher. She wondered if it had chosen this place to die, or if it had been killed. Above all, it seemed at peace.
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