Writing Lives

2002-07-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

Patron and host Heather Blakey is always encouraging her writers, young and old, to work with collage in their writing work. I've experimented with it a few times, making a giant collage that helped me focus my goals for a year. When I had achieved what I wanted, I took the poster down.

Now I have another challenge in front of me: I'm moving again. The boxes are stacking up, and sometimes I wonder if there will ever be an end to it. Then comes the day when we will load up the truck, drive to our new -- smaller -- home, and unload, unpack. A new beginning, all over again. I've known for a while that my husband and I would be moving. Still, now that its almost time to actually get up and go, I find that I am sad. I've put down roots, even in this short time. I'll remember this old place as the home I shared during the first few months of my marriage -- and I've been very happy here.

To help ease the transition along, and make me feel more at home with all my belongings tucked safely in boxes, I collaged a special journal to use during the move. On the back of an ordinary notebook I glued pictures that say "home" to me -- a house scene, part of a garden, some chairs arranged as if awaiting a cozy conversation, a couple of tea cups and statues. When I see this, I tell myself that even though the apartment is a disaster of the moving process, it won't always be like this. Sure, when we get to the new apartment, things will be disorganized for a while. But with a little time, effort and love, it will become a good home.

Its helped me to be able to look at the collage I made, and remind myself of these things.

2002-07-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

Gone Fishing -- (A Guided Imagery)

Wet scales, sharp-smooth. The gasp of wiggling that proves we all have the instinct to fight for life both attracted and revolted me. There was something in that flesh, firm yet gelatenous and slimy, that held and an answer for me.

The problem was that I still didn't know the question.

Yet that gaping mouth seemed to speak to me; the tiny jaw clenched and unchelnched as the eye rolled around. Almost as if it were not merely a fish, but an old seer peering into the mysteries beyond the veil of time.

If only I could understand the question, all the answerss I longed for would be confirmed by this strong being I had pulled from another world by my own hand.

2002-02-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

Singing in the Kitchen

My husband and I received a new bread machine as a wedding present. In the two months we’ve owned it, we’ve only been able to make two edible loaves.

My husband made the last loaf, and it was a complete disaster. I think he must’ve gotten the yeast wet (a big mistake with bread machines – it kills the yeast, and the dough will not rise.)

I sent an e-mail to my parents, telling them of our bread woes. My mom replied with an order for cookbooks, some bread recipes, a website on bread machines, and some instructions on the use and storage of yeast.

My dad replied that it was probably because my husband didn’t sing to the bread, so it didn’t know it was time to rise.

“There are two times to sing,” he said. “In the shower, and when you’re cooking.”

I remember being a little girl, sitting in a kitchen chair on my knees so I could watch while my dad made spaghetti. He’d take a fistful of raw noodles and crack them in half with a yell like a kung-foo fighter. As he went through each step of the process, he’d tell me about the best way to strain away the grease, or why you should run cold water as you dump out the boiling water so the steam doesn’t scald you.

But most of all, I remember him singing. They were always silly little ditties he’d make up on the spot, unrhymed for the most part, with a simple catchy tune. Sometimes they would be about a particular step: “Now we dump in the noodles, stir and stir the noodles . . .” But often they would be about anything that came to his head while cooking.

After my grandmother passed away, my Papaw came to live with my family for about two years. In the mornings, I could hear him singing softly to himself as he made coffee and poured his cereal. I realized that was probably where my dad had picked up the habit.

It wasn’t until I moved away to college that I realized I had picked up the family tradition. A roommate jokingly pointed out that she could always tell when it was me in the kitchen, because I would sing these silly songs.

As family habits go, I could’ve done a lot worse. Somehow, its very comforting to stand in the kitchen of an evening, singing as I make supper for my family, knowing that I am carrying a spark of hidden creativity passed from generation to generation.

2002-01-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

The Smell of Old Memories

I was writing a letter to my Papaw with an old pen. I’m surprised it wasn’t dried out, because its been shuffling around with my various things, moving from place to place, lying unused in the bottom of cardboard boxes and school-issued desk drawers for at least four years.

I got it free as part of signing up for some give-away that I never won. The barrel is thin, white with pale blue writing, and a nub that sticks out just a little too far. I never use it because its awkward to hold, causing me to write slower.

But it was the only pen I could find when I decided to write my Papaw; all the good pens have either been put away in proper places from which I was feeling too lazy to fetch, or snitched for purses, backpacks and pockets. My husband is a great one to keep pens in his pockets, and he always looses them.

It didn’t matter if it was a slow-writing pen, as I was writing to my Papaw. For my writing practices, I always use a pen I can glide across the page with like ballroom dancers at a competition. I hate to be hindered with slow, precise movements when I’m trying to catch my thoughts before they float away, never to be seen again. But for this endeavor, writing more slowly was best. It made me write the words larger, carefully formed, easier for his tired old eyes to read. And I found myself thinking more about the solid weight of each word.

As I was writing, I realized the ink, old and cheap as it was, smelled faintly like peppermint. When I was little, I loved peppermints. And Papaw has always kept some in his pocket, rustling in their cellophane wrappers, gladly dispensing them to any of us grandkids who might stop by after church on Sundays.

When she was alive, Mamaw believed peppermint was good for the stomach. She always had the thick, round, pink ones, in the bags you buy two for a dollar. She kept them by her side all the time, and thinking back on it, I realize that even then, when I was small, she must have been suffering from the stomach cancer that eventually killed her. She’d slip them to us on the sly, when our parents weren’t looking.

So it seemed right to me, to have this old pen, and write my Papaw about how much I missed him, in this place that’s too far away to stop in for a visit, and sneak a couple of mints.

2002-01-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

The Agony of Discarding Books

"Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Journals"

I recently emptied out a whole cardboard box full of books that was in the basement of my parents’ house. They were an assortment of books stored up over several years; many of them had been given to me by the grandmother of an old friend, when she had to move out of her house into a retirement home. I kept more of them than I intended to, and now I struggle to find room for them on my shelves. But there were many that I did get rid of. For me, its just hard to give up a book.

Which is the more difficult goodbye – one read or unread? A book that has been read and enjoyed becomes a friend. You’ve learned from it, been moved by it – a book I qualify as good always changes me in some subtle way, so that I am not the same person I was before reading it. How can you simply abandon this channel from one soul to another, ever to be consulted and enjoyed again?

Yet the unread book holds mystery and potential. Something great, as yet undiscovered, could be lurking between those unassuming covers. Knowing there is an unread book on your shelf is a silent challenge. It beckons, and provides you with a measure of safety and reassurance – there is always that book, there, waiting. It can be grabbed on a moment’s notice, to be packed surreptiously among other travel essentials, like your toothbrush and a change of clean underwear.

Though I often find myself traveling with old friends. In times of stress and uncertainty, they are relaxing and somehow calming. And best of all for the distracted mind, the plot is already familiar, so it is more easily set down and picked up again later.

I suppose ideally, I would be able to keep forever every book that fell into my hands. But if I did that, I’d need a separate home just for my books.

2002-01-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Conversations at Midnight

“Ugh. I can’t breath. I’ll never get to sleep if I can’t breath.” She tossed in bed.

“What’s the matter?” He stifled a yawn.

“I’m all stuffed up.” She rubbed her eyes sleepily, emitting a peculiar squishing sound. “Hear that?”

“Gross. What is that?”

“It’s snot. All the snot has filled up my head, and my eyes are floating in it. When I rub my eyes, it squishes the snot around.”

“That is so gross. Medically impossible, and gross.” He pulled the pillow around his head and over his ears.

“No, its true. That’s why my ears hurt so much – the pressure of too much snot. It’s medical fact that the sinuses connect to the eye cavity.”

“Uh –huh.” He flipped over on his stomach.

“Hey, did you ever see that show on TV, where they show people with a hundred body piercings, or the old man who can stay under water for like half an hour at a time? Well, I was watching it this one time, and this guy was squirting milk out of his eye.”

“His eye? Oh, come on.”

“No, really! He has this rare condition. Just like snorting milk out your nose when you laugh, he can drink milk and shoot it out of his eye. Comes out the tear duct. He has to be careful not to get it infected, but he can shoot milk twenty feet.”

“Twenty feet?” He repeated dubiously.

“Well, ten or fifteen feet, anyway,” she waved the numbers aside. “He shot it across this bar like a squirt gun. His friends all put bets on how far it’d reach in front of the cameras.”

“And you’re going to do that with snot.”
“I’m not going to shoot it out of my eye! Snot’s too goopy and clumpy. Besides, I don’t know how.”

“Do we really have to talk about this? I’m trying to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep if I can’t breathe! I gotta figure a way to empty some of the snot out of my head.”

“Just go blow your nose.”

“You don’t understand; I’m all stuffed up. And I don’t have any tissues left, anyway.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Do you want me to go to the drugstore for you?”

“Oh, would you? She nuzzled his shoulder. “And get me some cold medicine, too?”

“Alright, alright,” he sighed. He staggered out of bed, tripping over a shoe in the dark.

“And a bag of chips,” she added brightly.

“Chips!”

“I’m hungry. I couldn’t eat anything at dinner, with such a bad cold.”

“I suppose you want ice tea to go with the chips.” She beamed at him, and he sighed forbearingly. “Alright. Cold medicine, tissues, chips, ice tea.”

“And maybe some throat lozenges.” She smiled up at him lovingly as he put on his coat.

An hour later, after three stops to find a drugstore open after midnight, he came back with a large grocery sack in his arms. There she lay, curled up on her side in the center of the bed, her cheek on her hand. She was fast asleep.

2001-07-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Missing Pieces

Last night, I could have wept because my grandfather is dead. I can never go to him, sit with him again in his brown living room, with NASCAR on the TV. I can never ask him his side of the story. Who was he – to himself?

No one will tell me what he was to them. There are too many past hurts that they can’t get beyond. I cannot blame them; they suffered too much, too many memories piled up, and it would be more hurtful to them to break open those wounds again, just for the sake of my curiosity. They cannot tell me – and he so he is completely dead. I can never know him at all. He died when I was in tenth grade, and I am only mourning him now.

Back then, a teacher thought to console my grief. But there was no grief in me then – only anger and shame. He couldn’t understand. I only met my grandfather three times in my whole life. I didn’t know him, only vague allusions to the things he had done to hurt my mother, my grandmother. I only know the whispers that surround the story of his life, not the life itself. That’s worse than nothing.

And yet even the whispers are fascinating. Who was he? He was a logger; he had a bad leg from an accident working among the rolling logs. He couldn’t write his full name, only his initials. He was a hard bargainer; he had a violent temper. He set me to ride a giant plow-horse when I was only three years old; he drove a semi-automatic, back in the days when they still made such things.

If I understood him better, if I knew who he was, would it make me understand myself any better? Would the knowledge of him help me to know who I am? I don’t know how it could, yet I am afraid that the loss of that knowledge is somehow a loss of myself. That somehow, a part of the puzzle has been lost, and so can never be the way it might have been.

2001-07-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

A Bear Day

Everyone has those times when it seems that one chore after another is the kind of thing that you'd rather put off so long that it doesn’t get done at all! When I get a stack of disagreeable errands that all have to be done about the same time (and there’s no getting out of them) I take what I call a Bear Day.

You know that old joke: Where does a 300 lb. grizzly bear sleep? Anywhere he wants to! I take it for my motto for the entire day. (Or at least as much of it as I can lay claim to.) If I want to sleep, then I sleep in. If I want to spend the day "hibernating," reading in bed, watching TV, and generally being pretty lazy, then that’s what I do! Natalie Goldberg talks about this as a necessary step in the writing life in Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind (though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t call them Bear Days!) She talks about how it is important to be balanced – and that means that sometimes, you don’t have to be productive. Its enough to just be.

Amazing things can happen when you claim a day for yourself once in a while. I never make myself write on these days, but I’m not a writer for nothin’. Sometimes, writing is all I want to do. The last time I had a Bear Day was on the Fourth of July, Independence Day. I thought it was a perfect time: I had the day off from school and work, but since it was only one day, in the middle of the week, I really couldn’t go anywhere. It might have been a disappointment, but I turned it into a Bear Day.

I brewed a pot of coffee, sat down at the kitchen table in my pajamas, and journaled for a while about what independence meant to me, what I felt I had gained independence from. I moved into the living room to read for a while, then came back to write for another couple hours. In the evening, I watched a video I had rented the night before in preparation for my Bear Day. (You don’t want to run errands and pick out movies on your Bear Day!) The movie reminded me of an old friend, and I wrote an Unsent Letter to him. At the end of the day, I was astonished to find that I had written ten pages – on a day that I wasn’t going to make myself write at all! Sometimes just knowing you have the freedom not to do a thing helps you to be able to do it.

When was the last time you gave yourself a Bear Day – and freed the writer in you to be lazy, kick back, and dream?

2001-06-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

A Day Moon

Sometimes you can see the moon above you even in the middle of the day – pale, wraith-like. It is always a strange thing. Like walking into the finest art museum, only to find they have decided overnight to turn the place into a low-budget Chinese buffet. It’s like seeing a world famous actress in the local deli across from your house.

Actually, the last part never really happens, unless you happen to live in Hollywood or something, I guess. But sometimes, you get lucky, and you’ll see minor celebrities. Or you just think that you see them. The other day I saw this beige sedan with vanity plates that said "Furlan" and I wondered it if was Mira Furlan – who was once on a show I loved passionately (and in fact, still do.)

I couldn’t pull up next to the car to tell for sure, though. But I was convinced at the time that it was really her. What she was doing there, I could not even begin to guess (which makes it rather more likely that it wasn’t actually her, but that’s not really the point.) I spent the next hour or so of our trip daydreaming about what it would be like to meet her.

Would I really want to meet the real person behind the character? To have all my illusions shattered?

That is truly the heartbreaking thing about celebrities: They are people too, and more like us than anyone would like. We get so in the habit of thinking that they are grander than ourselves that we want them to be that – to be what we cannot even be ourselves. Perfect.

So I guess I’m glad I never met her – that she, and more importantly the character I so admired, remain forever just a bit distant. Rather like the moon in the middle of the day.

2001-06-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

My house is not 200 years old. It is not some grand mansion from an earlier day of glory. It is brick, one story, three bedrooms, one bath, with a kitchen so small it can hardly contain four comfortably. I believe it was built in the 1940’s, boom-town years, perhaps after the war.

When I was small, the kitchen was painted a sunny yellow. There was a divider between the kitchen and the living room, with shelves for knickknacks. My mother hated knickknacks.

The carpet in the living room was an orangish-brown, from previous owners. The walls were green. In the front door was a diamond-shaped cutout, with blue, pink and yellow abstract designs. I thought it was stained glass, but it was only a plastic privacy cover. My bedroom was pink. I hated pink.

When I was small, I believed my room was haunted. There were four ghosts – three gentlemen in old-fashioned clothes and Derby hats, who made fun of me and tormented me to no end. They were like the Three Stooges, and that is where I probably dreamed them up from.

And one lady ghost. She didn’t belong with them. She was wispy, clad in white, and so sad. Her hands were very motherly, more so than my own, almost. When I was about to cry, she would comfort me, making all the bad things go away, and she would sing to me.

Sometimes I think she is still there, when I catch a strange flash of white out of the corner of my eye. It is always when I am alone, late at night, and afraid of the dark – as if she wanted to tell me not to be scared, but knew I’d be even more frightened if I saw her now that I am all grown up.

2001-05-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when you least expect it, good things happen.

I had been blue all weekend. There really wasn't any reason for it; I just didn't feel very enthusiastic about anything, and I had just a vague feeling of sadness all the time. To be honest, I just sort of moped around the house, feeling neglected, though I didn't even try calling any of my friends, who could have snapped me out of feeling sorry for myself pretty quickly. Maybe that's why I didn't call; who knows?

At any rate, I was forced out of my bad mood, whether I liked it or not. I was woke up by a call from my finace. Now, it is hard for me to ever be mad at him, whether I'm sleepy or not. And of all the ways that a person can be awakened, one of the nicest is the sound of your loved ones voice. With him 2,000 miles away, an early morning phone call is a rare thing indeed.

Then my dad and I went to the grocery store togther, came home, and cooked dinner together. I hadn't had an afternoon like that with him in a long time. It was just like when I was a little girl again, with him teaching me how to cook, although I don't think he realized that I had prepared the meal we had tonight several times, without his being there. It doesn't matter; the fact that we were able to spend some time together, just me and him, laughing and talking, is what really matters. And he feels proud of himself for "teaching" me something. And he has taught me -- that being with someone, spending time with them, is the best gift you can give to someone you care about. It is a lesson he's been teaching me through example for as long as I can remember.

But it doesn't end there. Nope, this wonderful day of mine gets even better. The mail came. I got a postcard in the mail from my friend in England. I haven't heard from her in a month. She's doing great, and packed as much information about the joys of her trip as can be fitted on to a standard sized postcard. And a note from my future sister-in-law, welcoming me to the family, and telling me how much she is looking forward to the wedding.

Then I checked my e-mail. And I had two e-cards waiting for me, as well as an e-mail from my fiance. The cards were wonderful; a beautiful one congradulating me on my engagement, and the other one of the nicest things anyone has said about my writing in a long time. Both from the same sweet angel who knows good and well who she is.

So what is the point of all this? You never know when your words can change someone's day, even their whole life. Call up an old friend, or drop in on a loved one you haven't seen in a while. Send that card, today, not tomorrow. I have been inspired by all this to catch up on my own correspondence, and I was amazed at the number of letters that I had piled up. I thought that I had just written everyone, not that long ago, and instead I see here all those people who I "owe" letters to. But it isn't a burdensome debt. Its more like a circle. Today, those friends who surround me pulled me out of a pity party they didn't even know I was having. Tomorrow, you could do the same for someone else.

All we have to do is take the time.

2001-05-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

"The poet refuses to let things merge, lie low, succumb to visual habit . . . she hoists things out of their routine and lays them out on a papery beach, to be fumbled and explored . . ."
-- Diane Ackerman

I was driving home yesterday through a maze of construction. The roads around my house are completely torn up, the orange cones directing traffic in every direction but the one the driver wishes to go in. As I was making my way through all this, at about half the speed usually allowed, it came to me that I could turn bits and pieces of this into a poem. Fragments started to come to me, the way I write all my poems.

I held these pieces loosely in my mind until I got home. But when the pen and paper was in front of me, I shook off the inspiration as being too dull and ordinary, too much like every day life and not enough like poetry. I thought it would be silly to write about construction. Orange barrels are not poetic enough, I thought to myself.

The poem is gone now, and will not likely come back to me again. I happened to look at my calendar sometime later in the day, and found the words above, and realized that I had let a perfectly good poem slip through my fingers because it did not conform to what I thought a poem should be. If nothing else, I should have written it down, and not tried to force it to be anything other than what it was.

I suppose every writer has had these moments, were something gleamed brightly for a few minutes, but because they did not stop to pick it up, it was lost to them forever.

Somehow, there is no poem as beautiful as the one that got away.

2001-05-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

"Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit."

-- Norman Mailer

Today I hate answering machines.

Until today, I have been as numbly accepting of them as anyone else. When I call to talk to an old friend, and instead of hearing their warm, welcoming voice on the other end of the line, I hear the mechanical whir that distorts their clear tone, I accepted it, as everyone does. As we all know, it is next to impossible to talk to a human, nowadays. Certainly not to be expected on the first try.

My family has an answering machine, and we leave it on all the time. A lot of people do that now. Not because we are so rude or uncaring, but more of a defensive measure. Telemarketers – people who do not know us, nor care about us anymore than we know or care about them. Yet they would call us by the hour, trying to sell us something we do not need nor want. They will not talk to a machine, either, so we are spared that, the heartbreaking, soul-numbing "No" you must give to cut their speech of, the one so routinely memorized and emotionlessly delivered, over and over again until you wonder what can be left of their minds, after hours of such a dehumanizing job.

But that is not what makes me hate answering machines this day. Today is different – and yet, in a way, it is no different from any other day. Only that a lady I knew from church, always kindly and smiling, has passed away this day. Not unexpectedly, or at the hands of tragedy. She lived well into her nineties, a good full life, with her children and her grandchildren, and even a sweet great-grandbaby near her.

It was the way I learned of this that distresses me more than anything. I came into the kitchen, with the small counter where we keep the buffer between ourselves and the rest of the world. And there, between someone calling about linoleum tile my mother had ordered from the store, and a request from the college for a payment for the summer class I’m taking, was a message from a church member: "Sister Ruth is gone home to be with the Lord today."

Surely someone who has been as kind to me as she has deserves something more dignified. She always had a smile for me, and a grandmotherly hug. She would tease me about my boyfriends to make me blush, then tell me how pretty I looked with the color on my cheeks. To be slipped in between all the other nagging routines of life is incongruous, and I rebel against this. Not that I blame the lady from church; it is not her fault that our culture has made this acceptable.

I remember a call that came on the old answering machine I used to keep in my bedroom, for the calls on the phone my sister and I used to share. It sounded like an elderly gentleman’s voice, heavy with sorry. He left a long message about the church where the services for someone else’s grandmother were to be held. But I was not "Denise," the unknown girl who may never have found out that her grandmother had passed away until it was too late. He didn’t leave a return phone number, and it was a long time before I stopped feeling guilty about it, wondering if the girl it was intended for ever found out.

There are some things we just shouldn’t leave in the unpredictable hands of machines. At times it seems that it is just too easy to disconnect ourselves from the lives of others, to turn a shoulder of apathy and disregard. Too easy to see ourselves dying a little bit every day, instead of making it a point to seek life and connection and the true reality in ourselves, and those around us.

2001-05-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

"Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them."

-- Leo Tolstoy

It was the most perfect atmosphere for writing. A dark, rainy evening, cool enough to have the windows open so I could listen to the sound of the rain falling outside. Not a terrible storm, the kind which often frightens me, but a gentle, springtime rain. A scented candle burned on my one side, fresh cut lilacs from the tree outside on my other. And no one to bother me, no other work pressing. At last, I could be alone with my writing, and devote myself to it entirely . . .

And no words would come.

Somehow, this is probably not as surprising a statement as I would hope. As long as there have been writers, there has been writer’s block. In the movie Shakespeare in Love, Joseph Fiennes gave a wonderful depiction of the great playwright himself, stumped for the next scene of his play.

It was nearly enough to make me want to curl up in bed with a good book. But, somewhat guiltily, I thought to myself – what if all the other writers had done that when the going got tough? There would be no books to curl up in bed with! True enough, but that did not make me very inclined to keep pushing myself, when it seemed so much more tempting to give in to the weakness, to stop pushing myself for some great masterpiece, or even to have a page of good writing appear on the screen. At this point, I would even have settled for a good idea to put into words poorly, in order to fix later, but nothing would come at all.

Not very long ago, I was reading a book called Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser. The author insisted that when you felt like giving up, you should time yourself ten minutes by the clock. Work as much as you can, as hard as you can during those ten minutes, and at the end of them, if you still wanted to give up, you could do so, guilt-free. Now was my opportunity to put those words into action.

And what was my results? I did indeed come up with an idea for adding a scene to a story I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. Its too long to share here, but I am pleased with the way it is shaping up.

2001-05-16T23:42:00.000-07:00

Games poets play: to see everything in a new light. What color is my light – what is the quality of it? Vague, shadowy, uncertain. A lot of high-contrast. Poetry noir. I do not write in a pastel world. Black, gray, white – dim light and shadows, strange spotlights from out of nowhere. I must think more visually. That’s my greatest failing in writing right now.

I am all feeling, and no perception. I am living in the moment, but seeing nothing. I am denying what is around me because it does not fit the ideal of beauty that I want.

I must see the harsh light of the gas station, the tire tracks in the mud, the peeling paint, the skeletal frame of the building not yet born – born in reverse, from the outside in, the bones open and exposed. I must see the faces of unknown strangers, the trash upon the ground.

Everything I hate. Why can’t I live in a beautiful world?

I wish that today felt more inspiring than it actually does. To know that on this day, seemingly ordinary, something spectacular happened: a grand poem was born – a breakthrough in writing made.

I come to the page – who meets me here? Am I all alone in the writing, a barren landscape with flat words? Or will the skittering of literary rabbits dart around me, a wind of inspiration blowing softly against me . . .

2001-05-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

"The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off."

--Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), Letter, 7 March 1947

For more quotes, I reccomend Barbara Bretton's site.

2001-05-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

A lot can happen in a week. Sometimes, in the day to day struggle of planning, and meeting obligations, you forget that a single weekend can change your whole life. At any rate, that’s all it took to completely change mine.

A week ago Friday, my boyfriend asked me to marry him. Saturday was the first meeting of our parents together at a dinner we planned just for that occasion, so we could formally announce our engagement. And Sunday was my long-awaited graduation from college.

In the midst of so much change, it takes all I can manage right now just to process everything, let alone come up with interesting articles to post. I still write every day; now, however, the pieces are things that are steadying and grounding to me, and not necessarily great reading, or terribly inspiring to anyone else. That will take a bit of time returning, once I feel more settled. In the midst of realizing how much work I have in front of me, writing every day becomes more important, and more of a challenge.

It makes me stop to reflect how important writing actually is to me. I know it will always be a part of my life, and having a fiancé who respects my writing, who believes in me and encourages me to pursue this dream of mine means all the world to me.

Even though it is easy to become overwhelmed with all the plans I must make, all the changes I have still before me to go through, I am determined to keep writing as a daily part of my life, and I will continue to share the better portion of what I come up with. It will be good practice for the years ahead, no doubt. And when I look back on this time, I will find a record of what I was going through at this time, what my thoughts were, and how very excited and happy I am now.

2001-04-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

"Writer's . . . write." What wonderful advice. When you forget all about who you are and what you are supposed to be doing, you can always take comfort in that. Isn't it a strange thing, to live always so much in your own head, and not come out except in reading and in writing? Its like there are all these strange nooks and crannies of self hidden away in a place no one else can see. You forget to come up for air, and you start to suffocate; before you know it, you've drowned, and no one realizes it.

Sometimes, we don't even realize it ourselves.

Sometimes I feel like a technician with words. My words or the words of others hardly matters. If it is modern fiction, hot off the presses, or something I've scrounged up that was wet ink only a few hundred years ago makes no difference to me. And turning them over and over and over. I imagine a tech crew working, crawling through ducts, tool belt slung low on their hips as they work on the guts of a great, life- giving machine. Something like an A/C operator, my father's profession, with the steel-toed boots and the thermometer in the pocket, crawling through dictionaries, pour over ancient texts studying writing manuals like blueprints. The diagnostic machine is entirely within built out of intuition and trained with as many years experience as you choose to pour into it.

And I have pour all of myself into this work. I am a little afraid that I might not see any positive results out of it. Writers are not generally a very happy bunch. We tend to have a lot of problems. Not just the day to day problems of misplacing the lucky dress you need to wear on your next date, and the car breaking down on the side of the road, and the two hour argument you had last night and can't get out of your head the next morning. We have those, too; everyone has those, and unless you can work magic with them, they aren't very interesting, because everyone has them, and ours are always worse.

Have you ever met anyone who said that they're problems aren't nearly as bad as yours? Someone who really meant it? I heard someone once say to a woman dying of cancer, "You think you have problems? Look at what that crackhead beautician did to my hair!" This was in response to hearing that the woman was given six months to live. Oh, by the way, this was a daughter speaking to her mother, too. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

That's part of the problem of a writer. Our souls are a lot closer to the surface than most folks' seem to be. We see problems of others, and can feel their pain. It's too easy for us to empathize, even when we've never actually experienced that particular form of torture ourselves. It's not exaggerating; its the truth.

I once wrote a poem, and made the mistake of showing it to a particular friend, who let a number of strangers read it. One of those strangers was a teacher I was aquatinted with, but would never have trusted with such an intimate part of myself. She came up to me with tears pouring down her face.

"How did you know? That was exactly like I felt like when it happened to me. Did someone in your family go through a similar loss?"

I had to tell her no, that I had just written it. I had a hard time getting away from her, since she wanted to talk over every detail of her pain, and share it with me, and try to figure out how I could have written such a piece. See, the poem was about a mother who lost her child to an early, unexpected death, SIDS.

I was in ninth grade, had never had children, and had never known anyone who had lost a child, either to that ailment or any other. No one close to me had ever died, at that point in my life. I'd never even been to a funeral before. I just knew how it would feel, imagined a scenario, and had written about it. The fact that I had done so in such a way as to dramatically appeal to this woman's feelings was strange and alien to me, but not entirely surprising. I couldn't tell her that I just knew how those kinds of things felt, so I really didn't tell her anything at all. I tried to be more careful about who I let read my work after that.

2001-04-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today was the first really nice day that we've had around here, after many cool, rainy days. Several girls turned up for school in skirts and dresses, their hair down and blowing romantically in the wind. People were standing around talking and laughing about how so many had decided to dress feminine today, as if I conference had been held to determine today as the day to wear your spring dresses. I guess that is how they bring the romance of spring into their lives.

I sat on my front porch for about an hour today, notebook in hand and writing steadily. Sorry to say, I did not come up with very much. It would be disheartening except that everything I've ever read in all the writing books I've come across say that the act of writing itself is what is important, valuing the quantity rather than the quality.

For myself, I've decided not to worry about it. Some days are made for just sitting in the sun and thinking. Writer's write: anything beyond that is just a bonus.

2001-04-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

Who am I? I am a girl, a daughter, a seeker. I am the one who stays awake to watch the sun rise, never trusting that it will do so without guiding eyes. I lift the sun each morning before I sleep.

Who am I? I am one who seeks the answers in the wind, the one who spites the fate of what I am told is impossible. I am the one who will not listen to doubt and fear.

Who am I? I reach out with my hands, and will not pull them back until they are full, until everything I had is taken away, and I am given new treasures which I have never before seen. I am a merchant of dreams.

Who am I? I am a song in the belly of a whale, the notes of digestion and contemplation. I am the lifter of what has sunk; I spend much time in the mud, because those who are on high ground have no need of being rescued. I am in the mud so much of the time because that is the best way to look up and help others. You cannot save anyone if you are afraid to sink to their depths.

Who am I? I am the one who stands lonely upon the mountain top, screaming to God that I not be left alone forever, because I was not destined for such things. I am the one who wrestles my own soul against not only my own despair, but the despair of the world. I cling to the promises of God and refuse to let Him forget them even for a moment. I am the one who will not trust what I cannot touch, and in such folly, am always trying to touch God.

Who am I? I am a speaker of truth. I search it out of every dark place where it grows, and bring it into the light. I examine every word like a pearl, crushing impostors and crating fine jewelry out of truth. I display my wares by wearing them in necklaces, bracelets, armbands and rings. I am gaudy in sincerity.

Who am I? I am a mother of hope, because I bring forth little efforts of faith through daily labor that threatens to split apart my being. I have birthed a multitude, and many of my children have died. I keep going, because I never give up on my family.

2001-04-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

Dreams

"Now tell me your dreams,"
Said the whiskery man,
His pen poised above his clipboard
Like a viper ready to strike.

"Well," she said, taking a breath,
A gust of air like a ruptured balloon --
That was how she got her thoughts out --
"Last night I dreamed
I was in a flying machine --"

"You mean an airplane," he corrected
With a flick of his wrist.

"No, it was more like a kangaroo,"
And her hand fluttered in explaination.

"Kangaroos are not machines."
He said, wisely and dark, with a shake
Of his head, and tisked to himself.

"I know that!"
She was impatient now.
"But it was my dream;
It was a flying machine,
And also a kangaroo!"

"My dear," he said, kindly and stern,
"You may dream whatever you like,
But it has to make sense in my notes."

-------------
Who has been trying to define your dreams?
What dreams can you let out of the box?

2001-04-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Reading something written by a writer with a strong voice is a lot like drinking apple juice.

I like apple juice. Most people do. It is an innocent thing, a drink for children; it goes with fish sticks and cheese sandwiches and peanut butter crackers. But that isn't why I like it.

Apple juice reminds me of a something crisp and pure - apple orchards in the fall, the simple brilliance and beauty of changing leaves, all the wonder and satisfaction of fall, of the end of summer. When things are done growing up, the process is at its final cycle, and the harvest is brought in.

There is a simple satisfaction in apple juice. It never tries to be something it is not. You don't see it at elegant gatherings or fancy parties. When I was a girl, I drank apple juice out of plastic cups, the kind that come in a pack of a hundred for $1.50. The sides squished in when squeezed too hard. Apple juice was simple enough not to mind. Unlike many drinks, who's perceived taste changed when drank from such a humble container, apple juice was always the same. Apple juice never changes.

The making of apple juice is not a complicated process. You put apples into the press, and out comes the juice. It is refined, and you drink it. Most of the apples that go into the press are ones unfit to be carted up and sold as fruit. It may be damaged in some way. Apple juice doesn't mind. Apple juice is made of all kinds of apples.

Apple juice is sweet, but not too sweet.

Writing in a voice of your own is like this, too. It will never change, but be a source of contentment, your own true identity, over and over again. You can write about any topic, and find that there is always some signature thing that will allow anyone who reads it to know that it is your own creation. It is a style that encompasses everything you need to do, allowing you the freedom of using all kinds of apples, and still taste like your favorite juice.

2001-04-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

"Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond."
-- Natalie Goldberg

I let the lady I work for read my poetry. I left it downstairs on the kitchen table as she was sorting through the bills. I went upstairs to clean, and took my dusting seriously. When you dust with only a cloth and water, you have to squeeze it a little as you go. It must not be too damp, or it will leave streaks on the furniture. I prefer cleaning with polish, but she doesn't like the smell. The damp cloth coated with a thin layer of dust, grime and dog hair always feels like wet paper to me.

Mrs. Kay came upstairs. She never does that while I'm cleaning. I stood twisting the damp rag in my hand and watched her earrings swing. She always wears exotic, dangling earrings; I've never yet seen her without them. She has a special jewelry holder across the top of her dresser for them. I only know this because I clean her house. I know a lot of things because of this. It's frightening, almost, to have so much personal knowledge of a stranger, to be worthy of so much trust.

I could tell when she came in that she had been crying. She kept sighing as she talked, as though words were not enough to express what she was feeling. Mrs. Kay is an artist; she feels colors, deep reds and oranges, cool blues and comforting greens, and she lets them live through the edges of her
hands, the back of her knuckles, the tips of her fingers. It appears to come alive on the canvas, but really, it is only a reflection of what she keeps inside her, to move her blood.

My writing had ambushed her. She had no doubt been expecting sweet, light, pretty poems. My poetry is dark, heavy. It holds a lot and demands even more. Like me, it refuses to be taken lightly. She commented on each poem. I didn't know where to put my arms, how to hold myself, or what to say.

Mrs. Kay gave me a hug, and I went back to my dusting as she descended the steps slowly. When I went downstairs to sweep the kitchen, I found that she had taken her magnetic poetry off the fridge and put it in the trash. I dug them out and took them home with me.

2001-04-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

I've been searching everywhere for it, but I can't find it. I've dedicated the greater part of a year to looking for it, trying every method I've ever heard recommended to finding it, but I'm no better off now than when I started. What is it I'm looking for? One of the most important things a writer can have - my own voice.

Some people will tell you that everyone has a unique voice all their own. They'll tell you it is very easy to find yours. Simply read books A, B, and C, and do writing exercises 1-12, and providing you've been dedicated enough, you'll magically discover your voice.

Other people will admit that its quite a difficult thing. They will be very vague and mystical about it, and they'll tell you about the agonizing struggle they went through to find it. You get the feeling these are the sort of people who turn every close call, like traffic jams and long lines at the grocery store, into tragic, near-death experiences.

It shouldn't be too hard to find one's voice, right? After all, everyone has one. Don't we? Truth be told, I'm starting to wonder about mine. Could it be that I don't have one? Maybe its just gone away to hide because it felt that I was picking on it and nagging the poor thing to death.

I could understand it wanting to pack its bags and go on an extended vacation - without me. The writing exercises - the ones designed to make your voice stronger, taller, healthier, more fashionable and remarkably like the author's example in every way - they are all kind of like being on a diet. You can't just write whatever comes into your head. You have to be on a program, or you'll never get anywhere. Like diets, these programs aren't much fun, and the promised good seems just about a difficult to obtain.

So, what is a voiceless writer to do?

I'm very tempted to go on vacation with my voice. We can lie in the sun together on some lovely beach, and threaten to toss one another in the ocean. We'll go to nice restaurants in the evenings and eat too much, but it won't matter, because we won't be on a diet anymore. Then, my voice and I can go on long walks together, talking about whatever we want, and get to know one another.

Then maybe I can try to tempt to be my friend, and stop running off without me.

2001-04-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

There is a little garden, not far from here, that is the most perfect place to sit and read or write, as the fancy takes you. The roses, the big fat that seem to burst open and last forever, fill the air with a sweetness that cannot be compared to anything else. The light here always takes on a pearly, luminescent quality, as if it were always just a few minutes after sunrise, the sky in all its glory of blue, gold and pink to greet the new day.

This little rose garden is a wonderful place to find ideas, to discover small treasures, and dream new dreams. I always carry my notebook with me, and it runs as riotous as the roses that overflow their beds and spill their flowers along the walkways. Walk along the paths with me, and see what we can discover together.