Theresa Williams-first blog

Washington Post/AOL Ads

2005-11-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

My new house is at: http://theresawilliams-author.blogspot.com/

AOL Journals: You've Got Ads Move Draws Protest From Some Longtime Subscribers

By Yuki NoguchiWashington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page D04

As America Online Inc. turns more toward advertising dollars to offset the shrinking number of subscribers who pay a monthly fee, the company may be upsetting the longtime customers who have remained faithful over the years.

Virginia Heatwole of Rockville, for example, has been a paying customer since 1993 and turned to AOL when she decided to start her own Web log. One of things she liked about AOL Journals was the absence of advertisements on her blog page.

America Online and Time Warner

America Online Inc. is trying to find ways to keep customers coming back to its Internet community while parent company Time Warner Inc. seeks ways to expand its Internet empire.

Now, her personalized Web page that includes her thoughts about nature and spirituality has become a platform for Netflix DVD rental ads.

"They're flashing and screaming at the top of my blog," she said.

The change came last week, when Dulles-based AOL started posting ads on the pages created by AOL Journals, which had been ad-free for two years. Back in May, the company opened the free service to nonsubscribers, saying that those blogs would contain ads but that blogs by paying customers would be ad-free.

The company, which is quickly losing subscribers to broadband service providers, switched to an "audience strategy" earlier this year, offering free music, video, blogs, and other services and features with hopes of increasing the audience and grabbing more online ad dollars.

"The decision to implement banner advertising on AOL Journals is consistent with our business and advertising practices," AOL spokeswoman Kathie Brockman said in an e-mail. The company, which hosts about 600,000 blogs, received several dozen complaints about the advertisements and is taking suggestions into consideration, she said.

"We have advertising on the AOL.com portal, in email, instant messaging, and across our network," Brockman wrote. "It is also consistent with the practices of other major blog providers on the Internet."

Some users of AOL's instant-message service are also dealing with the automatic arrival of new "buddies" on their buddy lists: AOL services called Moviefone and ShoppingBuddy. The links allow users to search for movies and products by typing instant messages, which automatically generate a reply message.

Users were notified of the change through a posting on AIM.com and were given an option to remove the new listings by going to the set-up menu to delete them, the company said.

However the new ads cannot be deleted from the blogs, and that has other bloggers such as Armand Thompson, a Tacoma, Wash.-based U.S. Army sergeant, steamed. In response, he created a new blog at Google's rival blog site, Blogspot, and is trying to move his older entries to it.

His form of protest: keeping his AOL Journal open to speak out against the ads on it.

"It's using their platform against them," he said.

Hallowed Ground

2005-11-19T22:15:00.000-08:00

OPEN HOUSE

by Theodore Roethke

My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.

My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I'm naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.

The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth;
Rage warps my dearest cry
To witness agony.

My new house is at: http://theresawilliams-author.blogspot.com/

Dear Reader,

The banner ads on this journal are placed here without my consent. I do not endorse any of the products being advertised here. My journal was started more than a year before these advertisements became the headers on AOL Journals. This is an invasion, tantamount to theft.

There are many reasons why people keep journals.

I speak now on behalf of any and all who consider their journals to be hallowed ground, a place where their "secrets cry aloud."

I also speak on behalf of some who are dead and therefore cannot speak. I speak for those who have left us their words, whose journals we visit as we would graves or memorials, whose journals have been defaced with ads.

This last entry I leave, as a testament to the sanctity of art.

This journal was once my "Open House."

To AOL: We do our living, laughing, loving, and dying on these pages. They are not billboards for advertisers.

To AOL: You have defaced my house.

This entry will remain here, as testament of what you have done.

--Theresa Williams

REMOVE ADS.

2005-11-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

Remove the ad banners.

--Theresa Williams

Dear readers, please consider posting a comment of protest at: http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/

My comment to "magic smoke" is posted in the comments section of this entry.

I have moved to: http://theresawilliams-author.blogspot.com/

If you leave AOL Journals, please go here to post a link to your new home: http://journals.aol.com/pattboy92/TheGreatExodus/

Sign the petition at: http://gopetition.com/sign.php?currentregion=237&petid=7527

I will return to this AOL journal only if the ad banners are removed. --Theresa Williams

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From a reader of this journal:

re. banner ads on online journals-
Jonathan Miller, CEO of AOL. Joe Redling, Chief Marketing Officer.
Corporate Headquarters:
America Online, Inc.
22000 AOL Way
Dulles, VA 20166
(703) 265-1000
Personal calls or letters are often best.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
ggw07@aol.com

Literature of Longing

2005-11-13T20:13:00.000-08:00

Painting by Chagall

~>~>~>~>~>~>~>

From "The Song of Songs"

Like an apple tree among the

trees of the forest

is my lover among the young men.

I delight to sit in his shade,

and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

He has taken me to the banquet hall,

and his banner over me is love.

Strengthen me with raisins,

refresh me with apples,

for I am faint with love ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A fellow journaler recently expressed some sadness at not having found the perfect lover. The journaler writes of having unreturned love. I've found that the best writing comes out of such longing.

Walt Whitman once wrote of the pain of unreturned love, saying, "Now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay's certain one way or another. (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd, yet out of that I have written these songs.)"

There is nothing else to say: Channel your longing into your art.

Reality

2005-11-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

What is Reality?

What is the truth?

I'm thinking now of the writer whose self-concept depends on authencity. Does this describe you? It describes me.

Perhaps I'm more comfortable writing fiction than non-fiction because I worry that non-fiction has to be completely "true," detail by detail, and I drive myself mad trying to get all the details "right."

I'm finding more and more that I don't know how to tell "the truth." I only know how to tell "my truth." And in telling "my truth," I find myself constantly departing from facts and into the realm of mythology. I believe there is so much truth in myths.

A wonderful poem by Rabia al Basri explains the difficulties of writing from the heart, of writing, to, for, out of, or about the Divine source (by Divine source, I mean that mysterious place our creativity and imagination comes from):

REALITY

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.

Speech is born out of longing,

True description from the real taste.

The one who tastes, knows;

the one who explains, lies.

How can you describe the true form of Something

In whose presence you are blotted out?

And in whose being you still exist?

And who lives as a sign for your journey?

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

"In whose presence you are blotted out..." This is very much what Yolen means, I think, about the self falling away.

A Movement of the Natural Human Mind.

2005-11-08T23:44:00.000-08:00

At Seventy-Five: Rereading An Old Book

by Hayden Carruth

My prayers have been answered, if they were prayers. I live.
I'm alive, and even in rather good health, I believe.
If I'd quit smoking I might live to be a hundred.
Truly this is astonishing, after the poverty and pain,
The suffering. Who would have thought that petty
Endurance could achieve so much?
And prayers --
Were they prayers? Always I was adamant
In my irreligion, and had good reason to be.
Yet prayer is not, I see in old age now,
A matter of doctrine or discipline, but rather
A movement of the natural human mind
Bereft of its place among the animals, the other
Animals. I prayed. Then on paper I wrote
Some of the words I said, which are these poems.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I love Hayden Carruth's poetry. His poems are a unique combination of realism and spirituality. Whenever I start to feel a little off-balance, or lost, I read Hayden Carruth.

A book of Carruth's letters was recently published. The book is called Letters to Jane. The title refers to the poet Jane Kenyon, and the letters in the book were written in the months just prior to Kenyon's death from leukemia. The letters are a window, looking inward at the friendship of two great poets. Carruth's presence in these letters is huge.

What's wonderful about Carruth's letters to Jane is that they are so honest. One of the things Carruth is honest about is what it is like to be a writer. He's so honest in saying that sometimes writers are just wasteful of their time. For instance, in his letter of May 9, 1994, Carruth writes:

"So I frittered away the weekend: read a short manuscript, wrote a few letters, watched a hell of a lot of basketball, read what we used to call cheap-screw fiction. I haven't heard that term for a while. At first it meant under-the-counter porn, but later came to mean any escapist literature. As a consequence, on top of the desperation and depression, I feel guilt. What else is new?"

For those who picture the writer's life as one in which the author sits thoughtfully poised over a manuscript 24-hours a day, this may come as a revelation: writers waste time, they struggle to keep themselves on track, they fail, they get depressed.

I find this revelation uplifting rather than sad. Ah, so, I'm not the only one!

Carruth was also honest about many of his other human failings. For example, in another letter to Jane he tells about having to take his laptop computer to a repair shop because of "excessive cat hair." Carruth, a lover of cats, says that his repairman suggested he get rid of the cat whereupon Carruth admits:

"I said immediately, 'Oh, I can't do that,' implying that my wife wouldn't stand for it, which was a cowardly way out, and no doubt sexist too. The fact is I wouldn't stand for it either."

I really had to laugh at that. There are so many useless little lies we tell to save face.

Looking at Carruth's poem just now, I find myself believing that prayer is really an avenue to help us to tell the truth.

How different might my writing be if I thought of it as a prayer?

Write With Your Whole Life

2005-11-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

One of the ideas I've talked about in my journal before is "loving my reader." This is something I discovered as I was writing my novel, that I needed to love my reader in order to compose meaningful prose.

I've not talked about what this means, "loving my reader," partly because I wasn't sure how to explain it.

In my reading the other night, I found something that may serve as at least a partial explanation. It is from Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching.

Some of us have been asking about the difference between writing that is theraputic to the writer and writing that is theraputic to the reader. This is an issue I had to deal with my own novel because so much of the book is autobiographical. How could I write about my own pain in a way that would be meaningful for readers?

In his book, Thich Nhat Hanh discusses forms of writing. He tells us: "Of course you have suffered, but the other person has also suffered."

I think this is an important realization.

I think this realization is what transforms our own suffering into something our readers can use. We have to write with recognition that our reader has suffered, too.

Thich Nhat Hanh says that the other person's suffering is worth our compassion: "When you begin to understand the suffering of the other person, compassion will arise in you, and the language you use will have the power of healing. Compassion is the only energy that can help us connect with another person."

When we write, we are making important connections to others. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "We know that our words will affect many other people." So it helps to consider the affect our words might have.

Thich Nhat Hanh says, "Writing is a deep practice. Even before we begin writing, during whatever we are doing--gardening or sweeping the floor--our book or essay is being written deep in our consciousness. To write a book, we must write with our whole life, not just during the moments we are sitting at our desk."

I love this phrase: "WE MUST WRITE WITH OUR WHOLE LIFE."

I also like the way Thich Nhat Hanh says that writing is a "Deep practice."

I'm not saying that our writing must be light and happy all the time. A lot of good writing is dark and a lot of good writing--important writing-- expresses hopelessness. We need to know that others feel hopeless, so that we don't feel so alone.

But what I believe Thich Nhat Hanh is saying is that when we express anything in writing, we have a responsibility, not just to ourselves, not just to our own anger, our own hurt, our own need, but to our readers.

One of the things I'm learning as I read about Buddhism is that there is no concept of "self" because we are all connected.

I am not separate from my reader!

Isn't that just the most amazing thing?

Serve the Divine

2005-10-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

Times are busy for me right now at the university, but I wanted to do this entry before the thoughts slipped through my hands.

Of late, I've seen journalers questioning why they are keeping a journal. I've seen journals abandoned, journals put on hold, and journals searching for a new direction. Just a few entries ago, I was writing about how we are finding our tribe. Now people are questioning what their role is within the tribe. This is a good thing, it seems to me.

"Where are our moorings? What behooves us?" These are questions the poet Adrienne Rich once asked.

In searching for my mooring, I find myself always going back to the heart.

At the end of our time at Esalen, Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun, mentioned a book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. After I got home, I ordered the book and have just finished it. I still need to reread it and underline passages that are important to me, but I want to say something now about this book and how I think it relates to my moorings.

After the ecstasy of discovering our tribe, comes the day-to-day work of living within the tribe. Of "doing the laundry," so to speak.

In a section of the book, called "The Heart's Intention," Kornfield says that "Becoming aware of intention is a key to awakening ..." He says that it is in "small things that we fulfill the lessons of the heart. It is from our intentions that our life grows. It is in opening to one another that our path is made whole" (253).

I think that as long as we bring some kind of awareness to the table we are spreading for our Internet friends, we are fulfilling an important need. In opening up to one another, our lives are made whole.

Later in this book, Kornfield quotes E. B. White, who once said, "Every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save the world and the inclination to savor it."

I find this is exactly where my intention springs from--the tension between these two states of being. If I incline too much toward trying to save the world, my writing gets dull and preachy. If I write just to savor life, my writing loses its spiritual component, which is very important to me. I have always been drawn to authors who elevate ordinary objects to the realm of the spirit--Richard Brautigan was such a writer, so was J. D. Salinger. So, naturally, that is how I want to write, too. To do that, I have to cultivate awareness.

Richard Brautigan wrote a story called "The Kool-Aid Wino." In the story, a child found delight in making a jar of Kool-Aid. Because the child was poor, he put at least twice the amount of water into the mixture he was supposed to. But the point of the story is that when he drew the water, the spigot thrust itself out of the earth like the finger of saint. Thus, making the Kool-Aid became a ritual, a spiritual act.

That is the kind of awareness I want. That is the kind of awareness I want to bring to my writing. Even to this journal.

In my last entry, I talked about the perils of the publishing world, that uniqueness is sometimes eshewed in favor of the "tried but true."

Another idea I meant to express in that same entry was that if I begin any creative work with the goal to publish it, that piece of writing is dead from the start. That's because, for me, writing for the sake of publishing is the wrong intention.

Don't get me wrong, getting work published feels good. But I can't start there, with that intention. I have to start with the need to reveal an awareness.

All of us do writings that have clear purposes, writings that are requirements for our job, for our bread and butter. I'm not talking about that kind of writing. I'm talking about the kind of writing we do because of what's in our hearts. The kind of writing that expresses why life itself is so precious.

It is much harder to determine the purpose of heart writing. But that is indeed what we must do.

Lest you think your writing is self-absorbed or that you're being selfish by taking the time to do it, consider what Kornfield says in his book:

"Years ago Ram Dass went to his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, to ask, 'How can I best be enlightened?' His guru answered, 'Love people.' When he asked about the most direct path to awakening, his guru answered, 'Feed people. Love people and feed people. Serve the Divine in every form.'"

Remember what I told you Barry Lopez said? That sometimes a person needs a story more than food?

Kornfield then asks, "But whom are we serving?"

His answer:

"It is ourselves. When someone asked Gandhi how he could so continually sacrifice himself for India, he replied, 'I do this for myself alone.' When we serve others we serve ourselves. The Upanishads call this 'God feeding God.'"

So then, what are our moorings? What is our heart's intention? Why do we keep a journal, anyway?

For many of us it is to speak the matters of the heart.

In doing so, we feed ourselves. In feeding ourselves, we feed others. In feeding others, we get closer to the divine.

The Horror, The Horror

2005-10-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

Because I subscribe to writing magazines, I receive a lot of unsolicited mail about writing and publishing. I received some mail the other day that troubled me.

It is a pamphlet that purports to contain "Everything you need to know to get your work accepted by a commercial publisher." Inside the pamphlet is much advice but one piece of advice in particular angered and saddened me. It says that an author should never claim that "his book is unique."

First of all, how difficult would it have been to structure the sentence in such a way as to avoid the gender bias? We teach our students at the university a very easy way--use the plural form of pronouns and verbs--Authors should never claim that their ...

That nonwithstanding, I was dismayed at the suggestion that uniqueness is not prized by commercial publishers. This is what the brochure says about an author claiming that "his book is unique":

"This statement is the kiss of death because editors don't want a unique book. They want a book that fits into an existing category and meets the needs of an existing audience. At the very best, this statement implies that the author doesn't understand the market for his book. At the very worst, it indicates that the book is, indeed, unique--and therefore either has no audience, or has an audience that is difficult to reach."

I understand the very human need to categorize, I do. Having categories is useful, even necessary. But strict adherence to categories can be the "kiss of death" for art. Do we really want to live in a world in which the publishers have already pre-decided that unique books will not be of interest to readers?

Over the weekend, Allen and I went to Toledo to have a bite to eat. Afterwards, we decided to take in a movie. I'd been wanting to see Capote, so we went to the four movie houses near us, only to find that all of them offered the same movies, all of them of the mass-audience genre. Capote was not playing at any of the theaters. There were many choices at the 18-theater cineplex, yet to my mind, there were no choices. I didn't wish to see any of those movies.

There are more books being published today by the commercial presses than ever before. But if writers and publishers follow the advice in the brochure I recently received, what are the readers' choices?

The "advice" in the brochure I received in the mail dismayed me. But it won't change what I want to write. Writing in order to satisfy a pre-existing category is not something I'm interested in doing. Each poem, story, essay, or novel I write--or want to write--is a voyage of discovery. Otherwise, my thinking is, why do it?

I know there are many writers who are perfectly happy writing within a given category or genre. That is okay for them. That is great for the readers who enjoy that kind of writing.

But writing with a certain "category" in mind feels cramped and "smothery," as Huck Finn would put it. It lacks purpose for me because I'm not that kind of writer. I wonder how many writers, for the hope of getting published, will heed this "advice," which I feel is killing to the soul.

Believe this: for everything you write, there is someone in the world who needs to read it. Barry Lopez said that sometimes a person needs a story more than food.

To thine own self be true. In doing that, you contribute something of value to the world.

I Am Bitter

2005-10-22T00:50:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have submitted a piece to Judith Heartsong's Artsy Essay Contest. This is the contest for October. The subject of the contest is "The One Thing I Would Most Like You to Know About Me."

The One Thing I Would Most Like You to Know About Me

I want you to know that I am bitter.

Does this seem like a negative thing to admit?

It's an observation that's related to a painting I recently became acquainted with, "The Vinegar Tasters."

In "The Vinegar Tasters," three men stand around a vat of vinegar. Each man has just tasted the vinegar and is having a reaction to it.

Vinegar, by the way, comes from a French word, vinaigre, meaning sour wine and has been used since ancient times. The Chinese saw great medicinal qualities in vinegar and called it the essence of life.

One man in the painting looks sour. He represents Confucius, who looked to tradition for meaning and order. Another man looks bitter. He represents Buddha. He represents me: I am bitter.

To Buddha, life is bitter. Life is full of attachments and desires that lead to suffering. Life is a revolving wheel of pain, which can be escaped by achieving Nirvana.

This sounds awful, I know. We all want to be happy. But bear with me, now.

For a long time, I tried to avoid my feelings of suffering. So I buried myself in intellectual pursuits. I set a series goals for myself, most of which I achieved. These are some of the goals I set for myself: I will get this degree, I will get this award, I will get into this program, I will get this grade, I will be inducted into this society, I will be the best in the class, I will win this contest. (Not this artsy essay contest, mind you. I'm speaking of the past!)

Many of my pursuits were in the arts. I studied studio art and creative writing. But I'm pretty sure that neither my art nor my writing really spoke to people. It certainly didn't speak to me. I was a scholarship girl.

A scholarship girl is a student who works hard and does all the "right" things, but doesn't know why she is doing them. She takes good notes, writes good papers, learns techniques, and even creates mildly exceptional works of art. And her teachers love her. She loves them, too. She lives for their applause.

I use "girl" instead of woman because in so many ways I wasn't fully grown.

The whole time, I was pretending I wasn't suffering. I was suffering, but I had pushed down my hurt. The details of my hurt aren't important. The hurt and the reasons for it are common enough, universal. All of us have hurt in the ways I was hurting. In a nutshell, I hurt because I had never learned to deal with loss or longing or grief. I hurt because I didn't know who I was. Tobias Wolff described my condition in his memoir, This Boy's Life. He said, "Because I did not know who I was, any image of myself, no matter how grotesque, had power over me." Images of yourself aren't necessarily grotesque as in "ugly." A beautiful image of yourself, such as a scholarship girl, can feel grotesque if it doesn't feel true.

Inside, I was bitter, like Buddha is bitter in the picture. Outwardly, I smiled a lot.

The one thing I would most like you to know about me is that I was bitter then. And I want you to know that I'm bitter now. I'm no longer a scholarship girl (Although there are still many ways in which I'm not fully grown.)

The difference between the person I was then and the person I am now is that I'm learning to embrace my suffering, as one embraces a child. I'm not running away from my suffering by trying to find happiness in outside accomplishments or pursuits. I'm learning to cherish my suffering as one cherishes a child. Because out of my suffering comes my art.

The thing I want you to know about me is that I don't believe that this kind of bitterness is a bad thing. The Chinese character for suffering is "bitter," and Buddha said suffering is holy. It is holy because points us toward liberation. I think the Christ story teaches us the same thing. When Thomas touched Christ's wounds, Thomas looked deeply into those wounds, the wounds representing all suffering. Indeed, to look at any wound takes courage.

Now, when I write. I look deeply into my suffering, and it is sometimes a terrible place to go, but there's a liberation that happens afterwards. With that liberation comes a new energy. That energy feels a lot like joy.

I want you to know: I am bitter and that is okay.

A few years ago, I ran across a poem by Stephen Crane:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

I remember my own heart beating fast as I read this poem. The hairs went up on the back of neck and on my arms. Something about the poem felt very true. But for a long time I couldn't get past the negative connotations of "bestial" and "bitter."

Now, I see that the creature is bestial in the way we all are. We are animals, after all, beasts. We live according to the same natural laws as beasts. We have to kill to eat, and we have to eat to live. We are mad to couple, mad to survive.

The beast is bitter in the same way that I am bitter, I realize now. The beast is eating its bitter heart because that's where its suffering lives.

When I write, I'm a lot like the creature in Crane's poem, I think. When I write, I am naked and bestial. I am eating my bitter, bitter heart.

Which brings me to my final point:

Who is the third man in the painting of the "Vinegar Tasters"?

He is Lao-Tse. He is smiling. He has learned that life, even as painful as it sometimes is, is sweet.

Do I want someday to be the smiling one?

You bet.

I don't know what it will mean for my writing. But, yes, I want to be like him, like Lao-Tse.

I want you to know that I'm working on it.

For Vince!

2005-10-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

In my last couple of entries I've gotten rather high flown about writing. Time to touch the ground again.

Vince, at To Grow Is To Be Anxious, this one's for you!

Thank you, Vince, for introducing me to Becker's Denial of Death and for sharing your poetry with us. Your poetry teaches us much about what it means to be human. And Becker's is truly a life-changing book. I think Becker would agree with the following quote from Kurt Vonnegut's new book, A Man Without A Country:

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You have created something."

I also must include the following quote from Vonnegut's book:

"Here is a lesson in creative writing.

"First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

*Note: I believe I was a senior in college before I fully understood the purpose of a semi-colon. When I told our youngest son the Vonnegut quote, he laughed and then said, "But semi-colons are so cool!" (He is a newly minted senior in college). Semi-colons do abound in essay writing and academic writing. They are used much less often in poetry and fiction. I believe what Vonnegut is proposing is not a hard-and-fast rule, but a break from high fallutin' academic writing. It may be an interesting experiment to pay attention the next time you read a poem or story and see how many semi-colons are used. I think it helps writers to pay attention to things like that, and that's why I included the quote in this entry. I wanted people to think a bit about punctuation and what certain marks of punctuation represent.

(I found, as did our son, that once you figure out what semi-colons are and how to use them, they become addictive.)

I think what Vonnegut would have us ask ourselves is why we are using the semi-colon. If we're using it to show we know how (i.e. I'm a college graduate), then it serves no useful purpose.

Walt Whitman and the Civil War

2005-10-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

Photos:

#1 Mock war encampment on the Maumee River at the Applebutter festival in Grand Rapids, Ohio. October 9.

#2 Allen (my husband) with our dog, Buddha, at the festival.

#3 The Maumee.on the day of the festival. I was surprised at how low the water level was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've only lived in two states, North Carolina and Ohio. Both states (in part) define themselves by which side they were on in the Civil War.

Last Sunday, Allen, Buddha (our dog), and I went to the Applebutter Festival in Grand Rapids, Ohio. Every year, the festival draws thousands, who come for the brats, the hot Apple Cider, the Applebutter, the crafts, and the historic reenactments. Every year, people dress in Civil War clothes (Union outfits) and display themselves in encampments beside the Maumee River. It's a step back in time, sort of.

Recently, I've been taking another step back in time. I've been reading Walt Whitman's Specimen Days. It is a collection of his stray writings, including writings from his Civil War days, the days he spent comforting wounded and dying soldiers.

I've lived in the South and now I live in the North. I know the Civil War was about having to choose a side. It was about being patriotic, about loving your home, your "country."

Yet I once read somewhere that a true writer has no country. It's always a danger to take quotes out of context, but I believe what was meant by that was that a writer has to be true to a higher calling than governments or politics.

Walt Whitman was surely such a writer. Oh, he loved America and rhapsodized about America. But it was an idealized America. I believe he thought America should be true to a higher calling, too, a higher calling than power.

The following lines help to illustrate the higher calling Whitman answered:

"I staid to-night a long time by the bedside of a new patient, a young Baltimorean, aged about 19 years. ... very feeble, right leg amputated, can't sleep hardly at all--has taken a great deal of morphine, which, as usual, is costing more than it comes to. Evidently very intelligent and well bred--very affectionate--held on to my hand, lingering, soothing him in his pain, he says to me suddenly, 'I hardly think you know who I am--I don't wish to impose upon you--I am a rebel soldier.' I said I did not know that, but it made no difference. Visiting him daily for about two weeks after that, while he lived, (death had mark'd him, and he was quite alone,) I loved him much, always kiss'd him, and he did me."

Whitman's higher calling was to humanity. I hesitate to say his higher calling was to God, because I don't think Whitman defined himself that way. I think he was very spiritual, just not religious in the way we've come to think of being religious.

One day Whitman ministered to a dying soldier who asked Whitman to read to him from the New Testament. Whitman wrote in Specimen Days:

"The poor, wasted young man ask'd me to read the following chapter... how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. It pleased him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He ask'd me if I enjoy'd religion. I said, 'Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean, and yet, may-be, it is the same thing.'"

I know I would like to be the kind of person and the kind of writer that Walt Whitman was. Mostly, I'm drawn to his never-ceasing optimism. Even in the face of ugliness and brutality and death, Whitman never lost his belief in humanity. He believed all was holy. He believed we were all connected to one another and to nature and that is what divinity was to him.

In one of his nature jottings, Whitman said: "What is happiness, anyhow? Is this one of its hours, or the like of it?--so impalpable--a mere breath, an evanescent tinge? I am not sure--so let me give myself the benefit of the doubt."

How like Whitman to ask, Am I happy? And, not being sure, to give himself the benefit of the doubt.

That's the way I want to be.

As a writer, I, too, want to be moved by a high calling. I think this is where anyone who is thinking about being a writer needs to begin, by asking, "What is it to which I want to be true? What calling?"

Challenge

2005-10-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

Engraving by Albrecht Dürer

Challenge: The quality of requiring full use of one's abilities, energy, or resources.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My, but I was extremely moved by the response the last entry got: thank you, everyone, for making the effort to click on over here and leave a comment. Now that I have your attention... (smile)

I thought I would issue a challenge to you bloggers out there, a challenge to look through your archives and mark a moment of change. What I'm asking you to do is to identify an entry that illustrates a turning point for you and your journal. Identify an entry that suddenly set your journal off on a new direction, one never dreamed of before.

My own journal is just a little over a year old. If you go back to my earliest entries you'll see they are rather sparse little things. In the beginning, the journal was a way to capture fugitive thoughts, nothing more.

As I grew in confidence, my journal began to change. I think it became richer. As I look through the entries, I can see myself taking on more complex topics. I also see my attempts at humor. I have a problem, sometimes, with taking myself and my efforts "too seriously." I began to learn to relax a bit, to have fun, even as I continued my unending struggle to understand what the imagination is and where creativity comes from.

But the biggest change in my journal came about as a result of the feedback I got from readers. I look back at my earliest entries and see that most of the time I had no readers at all. Then there were one or two people who took the plunge and left comments. It was all so new to me that, in my way, I mixed up names and journals in my head. It all was so abstract for a long while.

Gradually, friendships began to form. More and more people expressed an interest in writing and creativity as a topic. In the early entries, I mainly wrote about abstract ideas and themes. Reading them, a person would have no idea who in the world I was or why I was even talking about writing in the first place! In other words, having readers and getting to know those readers made my writing more human.

Then, I began to share more of my personal struggles. Readers began to share theirs. And then--presto--my journal had transformed into an organic, living thing. I found I was spending a lot of time thinking about new directions to take my journal.

The only thing I was sure of, the thing I knew would not change, was that I wanted to continue to focus on writing, on being an author and what it means.

There are many entries that I consider pivotal ones. Sometimes the transformation came through my own struggle to understand the topic I'd chosen to write about. Other times the transformation happened because of something a reader said in his or her comment.

The entry I've chosen as the most pivotal, though, is Mutualaide's Interview Questions. As some of you recall, last Spring, we were interviewing each other, a process I truly loved because it gave us a chance to get to know one another.

Here is part of the Mutualaide entry:

Question # 3. Having the opportunity to gather with 5 of your 'regular readers' who are they, where do you meet and what do you talk about?

Okay. The five regular readers are Vicky, Cynthia, Maisie (Marigolds), Judi, and Beth. Sorry fellows, this is girls' night out. First, we loosen things up a bit by going to a Tom Jones concert. (You fellows didn't want to see Tom Jones anyway, did you? Tell the truth!)

At the concert, we laugh until we ache. We stand on our feet and clap our hands. We really can't believe Tom Jones can still move like that. He is, after all, what, in his sixties? We really do laugh uncontrollably because we feel like teenagers, only a lot smarter (we hope). We scream a few times and sing along with the music.

I can't help it, I buy myself a Tom Jones T-shirt, so everytime I wear it I can think about this energy.

And then we all go out to a nice restaurant and bar with live Blues music. I have a beer, probably a Killians. Beth has a light beer (that is what she usually orders when we go out). Vicky has a glass of good wine. I'm not sure about Judi, Maisie and Cynthia ("What's your poison?"). They might be teetotalers, but that's all right, we've all got a natural high going on.

We say things like, "Can you believe that Tom Jones?"

And "I can't believe it--we actually went to see Tom Jones."

And "You aren't going to tell anybody else we actually went to see Tom Jones, are you?"

We will all swear an oath never to tell.

I will say, "My friend Paula went to one of these concerts in Toledo. That's what gave me the idea."

Maisie will say, " _________________________." (Maisie, fill in the blank in your comments)

I will say, "Maisie, I used to fantasize about Tom Jones when I was 13 years old. Did you, Vicky?"

Vicky will say, "______________________." (Vicky, fill in the blank)

Judi will say, "________________________." (Judi, fill in the blank).

Cynthia will say, "___________________________." (Cynthia, fill in the blank.)

Beth will say, "________________________." (Beth, fill in the blank).

We will then all go for an evening walk next to a river. We will fold our arms against the cool breeze. We will sigh and ask where did all the years go. It seems like yesterday Tom Jones and all of us were just young 'uns. Then we will talk about the meaning of life and art.

This story is to be continued. But whenever I wear my Tom Jones T-shirt and somebody says, "You didn't really go to see Tom Jones, did you?" I will say, "What? Moi? Are you kidding? No, I got this at Goodwill."

My reason for saying this entry was pivotal is that it brought together everything I'd been working toward in my journal.

1. Writing that Tom Jones story was FUN. So I wasn't taking myself so seriously anymore. I hadn't had that much FUN writing since I was a little girl making newsletters for myself and my friends.

2. I wasn't only talking about creativity, I was attempting to be creative myself.

3. It was interactive: my new friends, the good sports they are, joined right in. Read the responses for yourself! They are hilarious! I was very touched by response and hadn't expected it at all.

4. The whole experience gave me an incredible sense of well-being. It lightened my heart, which allowed me to think of ways to carry my own creativity further.

So, would any of you like to take on my challenge? If so, go through your archives and choose one entry you think was pivotal. In the comment section to this entry, leave a link to that entry. In your comment, explain why the entry was pivotal.

I look forward to reading your responses!

Finding Your Tribe

2005-10-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

This painting is inspired by primative art from India. It was created by the Warli, a tribe of Maharastra

Last night, I watched the interview with Kurt Vonnegut on the PBS show, Now. One of the things that has stayed with me from that interview is his comment about how to survive in the modern world.

He said the nuclear family leaves us too vulnerable, too isolated, feeling insignificant in the culture at large. He said that in order to survive, to find purpose and meaning in our lives, we need extended connections: we need to find our own tribe.

In terms of our own evolution as artists, finding our own tribe, it seems to me, is very necessary. Our family or community of origin may not be our spiritual tribe.

We can, and should, give gratitude to our families and friends who live near and far, but they may not nourish us in that special way we need. It's okay to look elsewhere for that. It's necessary, even.

I believe the world of blogging has opened up the possibility for us to discover our tribe.

Through our writing, we have a chance to connect with people who are like us, who have the same thoughts, the same longings. We can ask questions, share insights, or simply let off steam. We can get courage to keep on. We can help each other.

This dream I could not complete

2005-10-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

This entry is for Paula.

It has been a while since I've done the good, hard work of writing. Since classes at the university have resumed, I've taken to reading more than writing. I tell myself that by reading I'm energizing myself for the work ahead, and I am. I know from experience that reading helps me to prepare the ground for my writing. But it's rather like being a butterfly, flitting from this idea to the next and never making any hard choices.

I'm not in the midst of "the struggle" like Paula is right now. "The struggle" is when you're wrestling with your ideas down in the dirt and mud. Even at this moment, Paula sits at a retreat, working at centering herself for the hard work of writing her memoir.

You can support your friends at such a time with sweet words. But in the end, it's the writer who must rise to the occasion, and the writer knows this. It's the writer who must find the way.

Sometimes it's a matter of just sitting still and waiting. Sometimes it means you must make a hard choice, a sacrifice. Sometimes you have to roar like a lion and tell the world to leave you alone--you can't attend to it now because now is the time for writing.

The truth is, sometimes you don't know what you need to do to clear the debris from your roots so you can feed again and feel the connection to your center, where your deepest ideas come from.

The answer could be right under your nose. I've found this to be the case, sometimes.

Sometimes writing is easy, and sometimes it is a struggle. We keep doing it because it brings us joy. But that joy can be elusive. In such cases, patience is the only way.

Goethe speaks to this elusiveness in a poem I found in an appendix of his early works. The poem doesn't even have a title, and isn't well-known, but it speaks volumes:

And joy like a star sound

Floats only in a dream before us.

In golden moments of the springtime sun

This vision held me

Spellbound; sweet

That darkness of the senses,

This dream I could begin

But not complete.

In another source (an unusual book by John Gardner called Lies, Lies, Lies, which is Gardner's college journal begun in September of 1952 when he was a sophomore at DePauw University) is a short discussion of big thoughts.

We all want to write about big thoughts, don't we?

In his journal, Gardner writes: "One grows tired of little thoughts, after a while, just as one grows tired of laughing." He goes on to say that:

"You can look at things and know that they have in them a big thought--only you can't quite catch it. Still, you can look at it and know that there is a big thought there. There are stories--like Grapes of Wrath, that imply big answers--but you can't quite catch 'em."

This describes the search for big thoughts in art. But it also describes that feeling you get when you try to capture a big thought in writing, when YOU try to walk in the same footsteps as, say, Steinbeck. It describes that desire to write something important, to capture the essence of life with words, to catch the "big thought." Only you don't know how.

And this is where the squeamish will quit. This is the point at which I've quit scores of times.

I don't have "the" answer. I only know the things I've talked about in this entry are the things all writers wrestle with.

In the mud and dirt.

Big Sur and Esalen

2005-10-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken on Sunday afternoon, after the Esalen experience had ended. Yes, I look tired, and I was tired. It was a very intense experience, flying for the first time, seeing California for the first time, and meeting many new people.

Big Sur, of course, is so beautiful. This photo was taken on Hwy 1, just outside of Esalen. Driving the highway is exhilarating. Often you can look out your window and see the cliffs dropping straight down to the ocean. Every new turn presents something breathtaking. I'd never seen anything like it before.

Esalen itself is a veritable utopia. The sweet aroma of flowers mixed with the clean breeze off the pacific, the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks, and the generous nature of all participants felt marvelous, albeit a bit overwhelming. Please understand, I'm one who is easily overwhelmed. My preferred existence is quiet and calm. My preferred existence is solitude. So Esalen was a bit of a sensory overload for me. It simply was almost too much for me to process, and I'm still working at taking it all in.

I will say that I don't believe I've ever met so many kind, generous, and accepting people all in one place. You felt like you could be completely yourself at Esalen.

As some of you know, I was able to meet fellow blogger Vicky (My Incentive) at Esalen. See her entry, "Too Full To Speak." How strange is life. Before The Sun invited me to Esalen to lead workshops, I would have never dreamed I would meet Vicky in person. She was an "Internet friend," precious but just a little bit abstract. Even the snail mail we exchanged didn't quite quell the sense for me that Vicky was a far-off angel, precious but forever out of range. Now we've met! It was so easy to be with her, so comforting. Vicky is so alive, and she is so easy to love.

The Sun had 80-something participants. Each participant chose four workshops to attend during the weekend. Workshops were scheduled on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning. I led three workshops--one on finding meaning in one's story, one on using the shadow in one's writing, and one on autobiographical fiction.

The participants were so open. They were so guided by a spirit of discovery. Although many came burdened by fears and doubts, most overcame them enough to create some stunning writing. Those who were unable to write "on the spot" (I certainly could identify with them; I, too, have a hard time creating spontaneously) took with them the tools they needed to write in the comfort and privacy of their own space.

On Saturday night, the group leaders all read from their work. I read from my novel, The Secret of Hurricanes. Gillian Kendall read a piece previously published in The Sun. Alison Luterman (who was my roommate) read powerhouse poems from her published collection, The Largest Possible Life. David Romtvedt read poems from various published sources. And the editor of The Sun, Sy Safransky, read his "Notebook" piece which appears in this month's (October 2005) Sun. Sy's voice brings a wonderful gravity to what he writes.

Hearing all the authors read from their work was, for me, like going to church, like experiencing an exceptional service, one you'll always remember. Listening to the readers, I said to myself, This is how our stories and poems are supposed to be shared--out loud.

How few opportunities really exist for this kind of encounter with writing, unfortunately.

I attended the AWP Writing Conference when it was in Chicago. It fed my spirit, and I'd like to attend another AWP Conference someday, perhaps even lead a session there. But Esalen was by far a better experience for me. It was less "hurried," if that makes sense. Although I was very busy working with groups and meeting people afterwards, I never felt rushed. I never felt anxious in the same way I so often do in some academic situations.

Yes, I was in my element at Esalen. Yes, indeed.

Now that I'm home, I have to try to hold onto what Esalen gave me. Not just hold onto it, but pass it on.

The Comfort of Art II

2005-09-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, I promised to share more from Conversations with John Gardner. Every once in a while my own well begins to run dry and at such times I visit Gardner for help and support. Conversations is a new book of mine, and I'm finding it very useful. I've read Gardner's works on writing for years, but the interviews in this book really help to bring out Gardner's personal side, his humanity.

The first interview in the book was done in 1973. Gardner was interviewed by Joe David Bellamy.

During the interview, Bellamy asked what Gardner meant when he claimed that fiction should perpetuate "positive" moral values. (People who know Gardner, know he wrote a book called On Moral Fiction, which caused an uproar when it came out. The book suggested that much of our modern literature had lost its way, its purpose.). Gardner was quick to point out that he wasn't advocating that writers should be judgmental or preachy. Gardner replied that by "positive" he meant that the author should believe in generosity and hope and truth.

He told Bellamy: "The ultimate moral value, the moral value I really look for beyond anything else, is to be exactly truthful--seeing things clearly, the process of art."

I like this idea that the process of art helps us to see things clearly.

He then said he believed there comes a point in a writer's life when he or she becomes able to see the world clearly enough to write about it and to express something hopeful. He said it feels to the writer as though he or she has flown above the world and is looking down on it from a high place.

I have had this feeling! But only within the last five or six years have I felt it.

Gardner said that The writer uses his or her imagination to "redeem the world."

Isn't this the most amazing statement?

In order to be thiskind of writer, Gardner said, one needs faith. This is what he said about faith:

"Faith and despair have always been the two mighty adversaries. You don't have to see it in the way of a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or any other system. A healthy life is a life of faith; an unhealthy sick, and dangerous life is a life of unfaith. ...Faith is a physical condition, a feeling of security which enables you to think about what you're doing and yet be subconsciously alert. Whereas unfaith, paranoia, is a total concentration which makes it impossible for your psyche and body to be alert."

Writing is an act of faith--this is what I think Gardner was saying. Through writing, we show our ability "to be patient, to be tolerant, to try to understand and empathize." And this, he said, is "the highest kind of imagination."

Moreover, writing displays the author's faith, his or her faith in what holds us together, in what gives life meaning.

Then he said something that just blew me away:

"The ability to make up grand images and to thrill the reader is a nice talent, but if it doesn't include love, it's nothing--mere sounding brass."

To that I say, Amen.

I probably won't post again until I return from Big Sur. The days will be very full. I'll be the leader for three workshops, one on finding significance in one's writing, one on the "shadow" in writing, and one on autobiographical fiction. I will take lots of photos and share the experience with you when I get back.

Take care of yourselves, everyone.

The Comfort of Art

2005-09-18T01:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I read in Paula's journal that she was having trouble getting the old engine going on her memoir, and I was having some trouble snapping to attention on my own writing.

So I turned again to John Gardner for inspiration. I've written about John Gardner in this journal before. He's the writer whose Art of Fiction was a mainstay in my college writing program. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1982. When you look him up on Amazon, sadly, you find that most of his fiction is out of print. (Only Grendel continues to be read widely.) But his books on writing continue to sell well and inspire new writers all the time.

Tonight, I was reading Conversations with John Gardner, an excellent book edited by Allan Chavkin and published by the University Press of Mississippi. In the introduction, I ran into a quote that reminded me of something Vicky (My Incentive) and I were discussing in an IM conversation. Vicky and I were talking about how important books are to us, and Vicky wrote that books are important companions. I know many of us feel the same way. A book isn't just a way to pass time; a book can become a vehicle that transports us into a state of holiness.

What does this mean to us who want to write, then? What is our role as artists?

In addressing the importance of writing (art), Gardner said that art was the stuff his life was made of, and that his orientation to his art was "Messianic":

"It's made my life, and it made my life when I was a kid, when I was incapable of finding any other sustenance, any other thing to lean on, any other comfort during times of great unhappiness. Art has filled my life with joy and I want everybody to know the kind of joy I know--that's what Messianic means."

I can remember when I first realized I wanted to be this kind of writer. This realization drastically changed the way I wrote. It changed what I wrote about. It changed my purpose for writing, entirely.

There are other things I read in Conversations with John Gardner that struck me hard and gave me a creative boost, but it is 4:30 a.m. and I'm sleepy. But I will share them in the next day or two.

"Lisping Egos"

2005-09-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

Cynthia recently did an excellent entry in her blog, Sorting the Pieces. She presented the Charles Bukowski poem, "Poetry Readings." Bukowski's poem elicited agreement in her readers about the prevalence of stale writing. Here is a brief sampling of the poem:

I am ashamed for them,
I am ashamed that they have to bolster each other,
I am ashamed for their lisping egos,
their lack of guts.
if these are our creators,
please, please give me something else:
a drunken plumber at a bowling alley,
a prelim boy in a four rounder,
a jock guiding his horse through along the
rail,
a bartender on last call,
a waitress pouring me a coffee,
a drunk sleeping in a deserted doorway,
a dog munching a dry bone,
an elephant's fart in a circus tent,
a 6 p.m. freeway crush,
the mailman telling a dirty joke
anything
anything
but
these.

In my response to Cynthia's entry, I pointed out that I have been as guilty as anyone of producing elaborate yet dry, stuffy writing.

One of my major bugaboos has always been the desire to be taken seriously. So when I took my first creative writing class way back in 1981, a 300-level workshop, I set out to write a masterpiece. And I was sure I'd accomplished this goal when my first story came up for workshop, for my classmates praised me up and down.

However, after class my teacher asked to speak to me. Much to my horror, he revealed to me that my classmates had been wrong about my story. He told me my writing was terrible, that the language was inflated and that the story lacked heart.

Indeed, my story would have fit Bukowski's description perfectly, for it was the product of a "lisping ego."

When I wrote my second story, I sent my family out of the house and sat looking at my Smith Carona typewriter humming on the Formica tabletop a long time before I began typing. Five hours later, I felt I'd produced the most dreadful story in the world. I'd put words on the page without giving any thought to symbolism or grand themes. My story was too simple to ever be thought of seriously, I thought.

However, on the day my story was supposed to be workshopped, the teacher, who had seriously burned his foot that very morning, told us he was in a lot of pain would have to dismiss us. But before we left, he told me he admired my story and looked forward to workshopping it. I felt my jaw drop and thought he must be mad.

As it turned out, this second story, while it had its fair share of flaws, was a very good story. I'd gotten it down in a rush, before I'd had time to think about it too much and ruin it with intellectual gobbledygook.

As the years went on, I had my ups and downs with writing, mostly downs. It took me years to crawl out of my dismal hole of self-doubt. But eventually I came to believe a few things about writing that have carried me forward.

* We should write toward simplicity.

* If you don't know what your poem, story, memoir, or novel means, you can't expect your reader to know either.

* Fearlessness is the furnace of desire, and without fearlessness, writing is cold and dead.

It would be terrible to think Charles Bukowski would rather experience anything (even an elephant's fart in a circus tent), rather than read something I had written. I love Bukowski's poems; they continue to teach me about simplicity; the power of honesty; fearlessness. This tough, gristled man eschewed sentimentality in favor of brutal honesty, and I love his work for this very reason.

Whenever I feel my work is coming from a "lisping ego," I stop what I'm doing. Writing that comes from my ego lacks guts. It may be pretty, it may be slick, it may be praised by people who read it. Indeed, it may even get published.

But it is dead in all the ways that matter to me and so it is useless to me. As useless as all the "anything[s]" in Bukowski's poem, "Poetry Readings."

Just For Fun

2005-09-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

I found this quiz on Christina's (Journey With MS) site. You can take the quiz by going here: Birth Order Predictor

The quiz was correct. It said I was likely the third child. I was the third and youngest child. The following description sounds very much like me:

***You Are Likely a Third Born***
At your darkest moments, you feel vulnerable.
At work and school, you do best when you're comparing things.
When you love someone, you tend to like to please them. In friendship, you are loyal to one person.
Your ideal careers are: sales, police officer, newspaper reporter, inventor, poet, and animal trainer.
You will leave your mark on the world with inventions, poetry, and inspiration.

Paula Lambert-Author

2005-09-12T01:09:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember me mentioning my friend Paula. She's the one who went to the Tom Jones concert, inspiring my entry which was an imagining of several of my online friends going to a Tom Jones concert with me.

Paula has started a blog called Paula Lambert-Author.

Because I know she won't brag on herself, I'll tell you that she won a $5,000 grant from the Ohio Arts Council for a memoir she is writing. I have read pieces of this memoir and the writing is incredible.

Paula is also a graduate of the same MFA program that Beth and I graduated from (Bowling Green State University, where I now teach). She's a published author and a serious author.

She and I are both big fans of Jung.

She is also one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever known, and just thinking about her makes me feel a rightness about the world.

I'm sure she is going to have many insights about the writer's life to share with us.

Welcome to the world of blogging, Paula!

I'm excited about the online writing community that is being built. May we all grow, be filled with wonder, and have publishing success.

Tag, You're It

2005-09-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

Sweet Lily of This Drama I Call Life tagged me to share my lists of "seven things."

I would like to tag Vicky of My Incentive, Steven of LA Journal, and Beth of Beth's Front Porch (I know, Beth, no promises!) Hope you will all play along--after all, if I'm willing to embarrass myself this way, why shouldn't you be?

One: Things I plan to do before I die

1. Read Moby Dick all the way through.

2. Win a major book award.

3. Pay off my house.

4. Walk the entire towpath trail from the rail bridge to the dam and back, 16 miles.

5. Make a documentary.

6. Get back to painting and drawing.

7. Eat some "real" Mexican food.

Two: Things I can't do

1. Sing.

2. Directionally challenged, I cannot read a map worth beans. Nor can I find my way from here to there to anywhere.

3. Do a push up.

4. Ride fast rides at an amusement park.

5. Lie without feeling really guilty

6. Wear high heels.

7. Go an entire day without reading anything.

Three: Things I can do

1. Pick up objects with my toes, like pencils, pens, and clothespins, and even light clothes.

2. Open those plastic bags in the produce section of grocery stores. (Just call me sticky-fingers).

3. Spell correctly most of the time.

4. Eat really, really hot, spicy food.

5. Make a "meal" out of almost anything left in the refrigerator or cupboards.

6. Whistle out of the side of my mouth.

7. Weave on a floor loom.

Four: Things that attract me to the opposite sex

I must say, chivalry is not dead; therefore I am attracted to the seven virtues of knights. I look for these traits in male and female alike:

1. Courage
Courage of the heart necessary to undertake tasks which are difficult, tedious or unglamorous, and to graciously accept the sacrifices involved.

2. Justice

3. Mercy

4. Generosity
Sharing material things and also time, attention, wisdom and energy.

5. Faith
Faithfulness to promises, no matter how big or small.

6. Nobility
Doing the right thing, even in trying circumstances.

7. Hope
A safety net in times of tragedy.

Five: Things I say most often

1. Okay

2. Really?

3. I don't know, maybe.

4. I love you.

5. Where's all my little babies? (Calling my cats)

6. Gracious sakes!

7. Keep your mind and your options open. (to my students and my children)

Six: Celebrity crushes

Oh--do I really have to tell?

1. When I was in my teens, I had a crush on Peter Duel, who starred in Alias Smith and Jones.

2. I always fall in love with Gregory Peck when I see him in To Kill a Mockingbird--there's chivalry!

3. I fell in love with Charles Kurault whenever he talked about art and nature on Sunday Morning.

4. I thought Brad Pitt was really something in Thelma and Louise.

5. I fell in love with Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

6. James Spader, who plays Alan Shore on Boston Legal has enough darkness, gentleness, and gruesome wit to keep me interested. (Well, I have to balance out the light of Atticus Finch somehow!)

7. Cat Stevens

AWARE!

2005-09-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

I've not posted for a few days because I've been trying to process what has happened in the American South as a result of Katrina. I needed to process that event through the prism of other things I've been thinking about the last few days.

I've long wanted to do an entry on the importance of being AWARE when we write. The recent hurricane has given us all a lesson in awareness. Certainly, many who were in the hurricane's path--before and after--felt America had no awareness of them. Was the president aware of the misery of the people when he gazed down at them from Air Force One? Was he aware when he hugged the two little girls who said they'd lost everything in the storm?

My friend Beth recently did a wonderful entry on awareness. In her entry Just a Vignette, she writes of stopping to help a young university student in need, a blind student whose awareness surpassed that of his sighted counterparts.

There is also a wonderful Sufi story about awareness that I'd like to share now:

Junaid had a young dervish he loved very much, and his older dervishes became jealous. They couldn't understand what Junaid saw in the young man. One day, Junaid told all his dervishes to buy a chicken in the marketplace and then kill the chicken. However, they had to kill the chicken when no one could see them. They were to return by sundown at the latest.

One by one the dervishes returned to Junaid, each with a slaughtered chicken under his arm. Finally, when the sun went down, the young dervish returned, with a live chicken still squawking and struggling. The older dervishes all laughed and whispered among themselves that the young man couldn't even carry out Junaid's orders!

Junaid asked each of the dervishes to describe how they carried out his instructions. The first man said he had gone out and purchased the chicken, then returned home, locked the door, closed the curtains over all the windows, and then killed the chicken. The second man said he returned home with his chicken, locked his door and pulled the curtains, and then he took the chicken into a dark closet and slaughtered it in there. The third man also took his chicken into the closet, but he blindfolded himself, so he himself would not see the slaughtering. Another man went into a dark, deserted area of the forest to sacrifice his chicken. Another went into a pitch black cave.

Finally, it was the young man's turn. He hung his head, embarrassed that he couldn't follow Junaid's instructions. "I brought the chicken into my house, but everywhere in the house there was a presence. I went into the most deserted parts of the forest, but the presence was still with me. Even in the darkest caves, the presence was still there.

There was no place I could go where I was not seen.

I interpret the presence in this story as awareness. It's a reciprocal act, I think: we are aware of "something" and "something" is aware of us. This reciprocity is something Beth gets across so well when she describes the young blind student putting his hand on her shoulder. It's the reciprocity of feeling and awareness that the president couldn't feel until, perhaps, he spoke with those two little girls and embraced them. It's the reciprocity only the youngest dervish felt when he couldn't kill the chicken.

I think that, for many of us, real writing can't take place until we feel this kind of presence, this kind of awareness. And it's an amazing experience. I know that without this awareness, my writing is glib, boring, and dead.

I'm not sure how much sense this entry makes. I only know I had to somehow knit all these thoughts together because they are important to me.

Give Voice to What You Want

2005-08-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

Some people in J-Land have asked about assignments I give my students. Here's one. (J-Landers, if you want to give it a try, do it in a journal entry, and please leave a link in my comments section).

This assignment works best if you don't think about it too much. Choose your issue and your voice, and then just let the writing flow.

1. Think of something you would really like to happen. It doesn't matter how "impossible" you think it might be, but it should be something you feel strongly about. (It should not, however, be a personal desire such as "I wish I was rich"; it should be connected to some current issue or controversy.) Examples:

--I wish my father would stop smoking. (issue: smoking)

--I wish my little sister would stop doing ecstasy. (issue: dangerous drug use among teens)

--I wish my friend Mike would stop drinking so much.

(issue: teen alcoholism)

--I wish there would be no more wars.

(issue: war in general or a current war in particular)

2. Choose a voice that can no longer speak but is knowledgable about the issue. Write a short poem or paragraph using this voice and addressing the issue.

Sample:

issue: war

voice: someone who has died in war

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In flanders fields.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE:

bY ggwo7@aol.com

one of the regular readers of this blog

in response to this entry:

The Mothers

What if we the mothers of the dead

called in one voice?

After roaming the desert

for centuries what would

bring them home?

No one could answer our cry

No one but our lost boys

who we can not comfort

in the cradle of civilization

nor offer the taste of

bittersweet seconds

which looking back makes-

What could we say?

Why were we silent?

Why did we let go

for a flag? For

a grain of sand?

Why did we listen to

the pronouncements of

pontificators instead of

the wisdom of

our own hearts?

What excuses remain?

Who will we accuse

in the night when

the snapshots of love

are not enough?

When the film in

the mind decays and

there is only emptiness

and the voices of

our dead sons

do not return?

Who will hear

the curse we invoke

upon ourselves?

Who will rescue us

from the abyss of

the mirror then?

Yes sir, Big Sur

2005-08-22T23:37:00.000-07:00

At Big Sur

At the end of September, I'll be flying to Big Sur, CA in order to teach three writing workshops at Esalen. I'll be meeting other Sun authors there, as well as Sun staffers. (The Sun is a magazine in which four of my short stories have recently appeared. You can get more information on The Sun by clicking on my sidebar or on the links in this paragraph).

Although I've taught writing classes for many years, this will be my fist experience teaching at Esalen. In looking over Esalen's website, I found that both Joseph Campbell and Rollo May have lectured there.

I'll be doing workshops on autobiographical fiction, personal essay, and incorporating elements of the shadow into one's writing. I'll just be gone for one weekend.

Not only is it my first experience teaching at Esalen, but also my first time flying. Am I the only person in the United States who has never flown in a plane?

Maybe Good, Maybe Bad

2005-08-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

I have some thoughts I want to get down before they escape me.

I was recently disturbed by a story I read on the Internet about the television show Extreme Home Makeover. Not long ago, an episode aired in which a family who took in several children whose parents had died. The show built for them a new, modern, roomy home. Good, right? But wait.

The Internet article said that now the orphaned children are suing the family that took them in as well as Extreme Home Makeover. It seems the children are claiming they were run out of the new house, humiliated, and now, having nothing, are looking for compensation. Bad, right? But what if this incident were able to reveal to us how foolish it is to believe everything we see, to believe in life as presented on TV? To believe in superficial answers and absolutes? Wouldn't that be good? What if the two families were to reconcile and become even stronger as a result of the crisis? What if everyone learned that material objects cannot make you happy?

This incident with the orphaned children and Extreme Home Makeover reminded me of a classic tale called "Maybe Good, Maybe Bad." This is the tale. I first ran across it in a magazine on myth:

There was once a farmer who owned a very beautiful horse. One day the horse decided to run away and his neighbour said to him 'what a terrible thing to happen to you - such a great loss'. The farmer replied dryly, 'you never know, maybe good, maybe bad.'

The next day, the horse came back with another horse by his side and the farmer's neighbour said 'what great good fortune, now you have two horses.' The farmer's reply was the same, 'You never know, maybe good, maybe bad'.

The next day the farmer's son fell off the new horse and broke his leg, to which the neighbour said, 'That's bad!' and of course the farmer gave his usual reply.

Soon after this, war broke out in the land and all the young men were conscripted into the army, except the farmer's son who couldn't go because of his leg. The neighbour said 'What a great piece of luck,' and the farmer replied, 'You never know...'

And it's so true, you never know. What might be a "good" thing, turns out to have devastating consequences. The story shows us the folly of even wanting too much control over our lives.

How this relates to writing is this: I think in order to be an author, one must make peace with the concept of paradox. Throw the dichotomy of good and bad out the window.

A wonderful poem in The Way of Chaung Tzu illustrates. This is part of the poem, "Confucius and the Madman":

Never, never

Teach virtue more.

You walk in danger.

Beware! Beware!

Even ferns can cut your feet --

When I walk crazy

I walk right:

But am I a man

To imitate?

The tree on the mountain height is its own enemy.

The grease that feeds the light devours itself.

The cinnamon tree is edible: so it is cut down!

The lacquer tree is profitable: they maim it.

Every man knows how useful it is to be useful.

No one seems to know

How useful it is to be useless.

Paradox is that place in between, that place somewhere between two opposites where life becomes "something else" all together. That is part of the mystery.

When you write, throw away the superficial answers and the absolutes. Work within the paradox.

Fire is warm, but it destroys. Water is a life-force, but in it you can drown.

Somewhere is a condition that cancels out the two extremes. That's the place where poets live.

Three Steps to Frustration and Then Acceptance

2005-08-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

Step One:

You read something that really lifts you, really raises your consciousness, say Emily Dickinson:

A word is dead

When it is said,

Some say.

I say it just

Begins to live

That day.

Step Two:

You realize what motivates you to tell stories:

At the heart of the impulse to tell stories is a mystery so profound...--Dennis Covington, Salvation On Sand Mountain.

Step Three:

You decide it's going to be pretty easy. All you have to do is put down how you feel. You are relieved and happy:

If you wish to be a writer, write. --Epictetus (110 A. D.)

Frustration:

You find out it isn't easy:

Human language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to when all the while we want to move the stars to pity. --Gustave Flaubert.

Acceptance:

You go back to where you started, making space for human failing:

At the heart of the impulse to tell stories is a mystery so profound... Dennis Covington, Salvation On Sand Mountain.

There's a time to be gentle with yourselves. As beautiful as language is, it's an imperfect vehicle of soulful expression--Theresa

Tag, You're It

2005-08-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

Cynthia, from Sorting the Pieces, tagged me to share my love of reading.

According to the rules of this game, I'm also supposed to tag others to share their love of reading. So, tag, you're it: Steven of LA Journal, Beth of Beth's Front Porch, and sweet Lily of This Drama I Call Life. Hope you three participate!

Reading is a way I achieve emptiness. We have to empty ourselves before we can fill ourselves with new insights. I have another Zen story that illustrates what I mean:

A CUP OF TEA

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

I love literature that empties my cup. When I come to a new work, I want to pour all my beliefs and assumptions out and let the capable author fill me with something different, something new.

I find I no longer read for "just entertainment" (if I ever did). The book must raise my consciousness. So here is a partial list, divided into categories.

To reread or read for the first time this year:

Don Quixote (Cervantes), Italian Folktales (Italo Calvino), Mist (Miguel de Unamuno).

A Very Partial List of Works that rocked my world:

Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck); A Death in the Family (Agee); Bastard Out of Carolina (Allison); The House on Mango Street (Cisneros); Complete Stories (Maupassant); Trout Fishing in America, The Abortion, and So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away (Brautigan); Catcher in the Rye (Salinger); Jesus' Son (Johnson); Winesburg, Ohio (Anderson); The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood); Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut); The Things They Carried (O'Brien); The White Hotel (Thomas); To the Lighthouse (Woolf); Housekeeping (Robinson); The Optimist's Daughter (Welty)

Children's books: The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery); Millions of Cats (Gag); Fox (Wild); The Velveteen Rabbit (Williams); Charlotte's Web (White)

Poetry: Above the River (James Wright); Essential Rumi (Barks); Duino Elegies (Rilke); Blessing the Boats and The Terrible Stories (Clifton); Selected Poems (Trakl); Narrow Road to the Interior (Basho); The First Four Books of Poems (Gluck); Illuminatons (Rimbaud); Collected Poems and Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Neruda); American Primitive (Oliver); Collected Poems (Millay); Complete Poems (D. H. Lawrence); Refusing Heaven (Gilbert); Collected Poems (Kunitz); The Ten Thousand Things (Charles Wright); Border of A Dream/Selected Poems (Machado); My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy (Bly); The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Khayyam); Diving into the Wreck (Rich); Leaves of Grass (Whitman); New and Selected Poems (Stephen Dunn); The Way of Chuang Tzu (Trans. by Merton); The Last Night of the Earth Poems (Bukowski)

Memoirs and Letters: The Seven-Storey Mountain (Merton); Pilgrim At Tinker Creek (Dillard); This Boy's Life (Wolf); Dwellings (Hogan); Gift from the Sea (Anne Morrow Lindburgh); Letters to Jane (Carruth); A Wild Perfection (James Wright); Letters to a Young Poet (Rilke)

Books About Writing: The Art of Fiction and Becoming a Novelist (Gardner); Writing Down the Bones (Goldberg); If You Want to Write (Ueland); Blue Pastures (Oliver); One Writer's Beginnings (Welty)

Individual Short Stories: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and "In the Region of Ice" (Oates); "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" (Flannery O'Connor); "Guests of the Nation" (Frank O'Connor); "Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr" (Unamuno); "My Sister Antonia" (Ramon del Valle-Inclan); "Paper Lantern" (Dybek); "The Annointed" (Kathleen Hill); "For Esme, With Love and Squalor" and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (Salinger); "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" (Marquez);

Drama and Screenplay: Hamlet; MacBeth; Faust; Streetcar Named Desire (Williams); Trip to Bountiful (Horton Foote); Magnolia (Anderson), The Misfits (Miller)

Psychology: Denial of Death (Becker); Women Who Run With the Wolves (Estes); Man's Search for Meaning (Frankl); Man and His Symbols and Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Jung)

Joy and Courage

2005-08-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Aren't we sweet?

I'm thinking now of both the joy of writing and the courage it takes to be a writer.

The photo booth picture was taken when I was 16 and Allen was 20. I think the joy in our faces is unmistakable. Remember what first love feels like? It's written all over our faces, isn't it?

Writing is something like that--an incredible joy. It bubbles forth sometimes, and somewhat out of control. I can't let myself forget about joy: that writing isn't JUST hard work and commitment--it has its feel good moments.

The other side of it, though, is courage. The courage to press on even when you aren't feeling this kind of joy. Like in any marriage, there are bound to be rough spots and moments when you just want to give up.

That's when you have to be willing to risk the embrace again.

One of my favorite Zen stories addresses the twin concepts of love and courage:

IF YOU LOVE, LOVE OPENLY

Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.

Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.

Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had writen her, she said: "If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This story gives me a shiver. He loved her but not completely, not enough to risk his future for her.

This story makes me ask myself: am I willing to do what it takes to love the act of writing openly? That is, will I throw obligation, propriety, comfort, my future--all of these out the window for the chance to fully embrace it?

I'm a solitary writer, just as I'm a solitary person. When I write, I'm very secretive, because I must conserve all my energy for my project. Talking too much about it (specifics) lets the air out of my enthusiasm.

But I think there has to be a part of you that's totally open to the possibility that your writing (not just writing, any art) is the most the important thing there is. It's a vow, just like a love vow.

And you have to be willing to let some aspects of yourself die for the sake of your art.

Joy and courage. They aren't necessarily opposites, but they do create a sort of tension that's hard sometimes to reconcile.

I'm working on it.

Cynthia's Bold Move

2005-08-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Photo: Roots. Griffin Island, on the Ohio River

I hate

this wretched willow soul of mine,

patiently enduring, plaited or twisted

by other hands. --Karin Boye

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cynthia, of Sorting the Pieces, recently did an excellent entry about a bold move she recently made. She bought her first spaghetti strap blouse. "So today's little purchase broke all the rules," she writes. A turtleneck lover (me too!) now in her 40's, she's finally giddily showing off a little (okay a lot) of skin.

I've had that exact experience with clothes. The feeling of liberation I get from buying--and wearing--something out of my usual habit is like riding a rocket to the stars. It's no small matter. Our bodies are our home. When we change the way we present our home, we're saying something powerful about ourselves. Something in our unconscious is trying to become conscious. Tired of "patiently enduring" in our sensible clothes. our spirit is yearning to be free.

May I suggest a correlation with writing? When you are writing in your "true" voice, it's like refusing to patiently endure by writing in the voice we think is "acceptable." In our writing, we need to be lions, as Brenda Ueland said. We need to dress our words in a spaghetti strap blouse.

Of course, the next step is let our words go naked.

It's embarrassing at first, then it's like really being home.

I had this experience just the other night with my new writing project. I had created 60 "new" pages, which were closer than the other 150 or so to being what I needed to say. Then a lightening bolt hit, and--I don't care how stupid or trite this sounds-- I saw the spaghetti strap blouse hanging in the store window of my soul. I bolted out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and started writing furiously.

As I wrote, I kept saying, "You can't write that." And "So and so won't like it." And "This isn't what you first envisioned." And "it's going to be hard to sell this in the marketplace." And "my goodness, where did that come from?" And "Theresa, you're so naughty!"

That's when I knew I was on to something.

Allen's grandmother has a name for "go-for-it" women. She says they're "Nasty-Nice."

Well, that's what I want my writing to be--Nasty-Nice.

Here's to spaghetti strap blouses, Cynthia!

Go Within

2005-08-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

What do you feel in "your quietest hour"...

For Beth, who's searching within for the truth of why she must write....

Rainer Maria Rilke

"There is only one way: Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? After all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, "I must," then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge.

Then draw near to nature. Pretend you are the very first man and then write what you see and experience, what you love and lose. ... Write about your sorrows, your wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful. Describe all that with fervent, quiet, and humble sincerity. In order to express yourself, use things in your surroundings, the scenes of your dreams, and the subjects of your memory.

...For the creative artist there is no poverty--nothing is insignificant or unimportant. Even if you were in a prison whose walls would shut out from your senses the sounds of the outer world, would you not then have your childhood, this precious wealth, this treasure house of memories? Direct your attention to that. Attempt to resurrect these sunken sensations of a distant past. You will gain assuredness. Your aloneness will expand and will become your home, greeting you like the quiet dawn. ...

Therefore, my dear friend, I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth. At its source you will find the answer to the question, whether you must write. Accept it, however it sounds to you, without analyzing. Perhaps it will become apparent to you that you are indeed called to be a writer. Then accept that fate; bear its burden, and its grandeur, without asking for the reward, which might possibly come from without. For the creative artist must be a world of his own and must find everything within himself and in nature, to which he has betrothed himself. ..."

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Letter to a Young Poet

Great Knowledge

2005-08-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

The work of Chuang Tzu is available to us as a result of the reading, reflection, and study of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk.

In justifying his interest in the Eastern Taoist philosopher, the Christian Merton wrote: "I think I may be pardoned for consorting with a Chinese recluse who shared the climate and peace of my own kind of solitude, and who is my own kind of person."

GREAT KNOWLEDGE

Chuang Tzu

Great knowledge sees all in one.

Small knowledge breaks down into the many.

When the body sleeps, the soul is enfolded in One.

When the body wakes, the openings begin to function.

They resound with every encounter

With all the varied business of life, the strivings of the heart;

Men are blocked, perplexed, lost in doubt

Little fears eat away their peace of heart.

Great fears swallow them whole.

Arrows shot at a target: hit and miss, right and wrong.

That is what men call judgment, decision.

Their pronouncements are as final

As treaties between emperors.

O, they make their point!

Yet their arguments fall faster and feebler

Than dead leaves in autumn and winter.

Their talks flows out like piss.

Never to be recovered.

They stand at last, blocked, bound, and gagged,

Choked up like old drain pipes.

The mind fails. It shall not see light again.

Pleasure and rage

Sadness and joy

Hopes and regrets

Change and stability

Weakness and decision

Impatience and sloth:

All are sounds from the same flute,

All mushrooms from the same wet mould.

Day and night follow one another and come upon us

Without our seeing how they sprout!

...

If there were no "that"

There would be no "this."

If there were no "this"

There would be nothing for all these winds to play on.

So far can we go.

But how shall we understand

What brings it about?

One may well suppose the True Governor

To be behind it all. That such a Power works

I can believe. I cannot see his form.

He acts, but has no form.

Contentment

2005-08-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Photo: Our cat Blondie in the trash.

This photo of Blondie was taken last winter. I'd been grading papers and getting students' portfolios ready for end of term assessment, and I was throwing away unnecessary paperwork as I went along. Soon, our big male Tom, Blondie crawled into this trash pile and acted very content.

It strikes me that this is an excellent example of what I need to be doing more of in my life. Finding contentment amid the chaos. Pretty soon, we all begin to think this is what we want more than anything--contentment.

However, finding contentment, as wonderful as it is, seems be be an impediment to my creating art. I'm trying to figure out why this is so.

I feel I need some kind of suffering, or at least some kind of tension, in order to be able to create. Happiness seems not to be very good for my artistic expression.

Fortunately, The Ramayana, an ancient tale from India, assures me that contentment doesn't last long before some force (from my own unconscious or the collective unconscious) comes from the depths to set my life on a new path.

I remember when I was dating my husband we were talking about what we wanted out of life. I was 16 and he was 20. We were saying this and that. He suddenly blurted out, "I just want to be happy!" And that sounded reasonable. I used to think that was what I wanted, too. Bliss. Eternal happiness.

I actually thought that was achievable.

Then as I lived more of my life, I noticed how just when I got everything the way I wanted it, something would blow up in my face. Life was a constant challenge.

Once in a while you get to crawl into your little trash can and purr, but you can't do that forever. And do you really want to?

Now I understand that happiness means nothing without its opposite, without suffering, heartbreak, and all those other "negative" forces.

Wonder what God does in heaven to sort of shake things up and keep them interesting? (smile)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My writing is going well. I now have culled out 50 decent pages so far from the 150 or more pages I produced during the journey. Decent means passable, a skeleton of sorts. I hope to get a full draft of the project finished before classes start again, and then to use the school year to deepen and polish. Sometimes when I read others' journal entries, I'm amazed at what they produce in such a short time. Cynthia's travels with her daughter. Vicky's story about Luigi. Belfastcowboy's entries about the beach and grammy. Robin's recent entry about Carol King's Tapestry and her daughter. A new journaler , Emma of Dallas, who writes about naively participating in cyber sex while wearing a leotard (one of the funniest things I have ever read). And I lose heart a little, because it takes me so long to produce anything. Days, weeks, months, years. But I don't let that feeling last. I pick myself up and go on. I keep on keeping on.

I thank everyone for their support and for their comments. They mean a lot.

This Is Your Body

2005-08-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

Photo: Down in Blue Girl's cabin. A view of my bunk. The chair was removable for sleeping. The knapsack, which I called the "bottomless bag," held books, journals, and food. The red object on the right, outside the cabin, is our generator.

I believe I've mentioned many times that I do most of my writing at night. I often pull "all-nighters," crawling into bed after the sun has come up. I've been doing this the last several days and will be doing it again tonight. My mind is the most fertile at night.

The photograph of Blue Girl's cabin is about the way I came to think of the boat, as a metaphor for my own body. Sleeping in the cabin was like going into the belly of the whale (the metaphorical unconscious).

In Coming Home to Myself, Woodman and Mellick say:

"To sit in a chair and analyze

is heady stuff,

but it does not help you

live the power of the image.

Put your image into your body.

Does it waken a response?

Of course:

your rage, your grief,

your great Buddha laugh.

Just put the image into your body

and wait.

This is your body,

your greatest gift,

pregnant with wisdom you do not hear,

grief you thought was forgotten,

and joy you have never known."

Tonight, I will try to come home to myself as I write. I'll let you know how it's going.

Divine Child

2005-08-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

The Virgin With Child

Last quarter of the 13th Century

Pyli, Orikala, Porta-Panagia Church

A wonderful book on identity is Coming Home to Myself by Marion Woodman and Jill Mellick. It's a collection of short, easy-to-read chapters for women about "loving their femininity, themselves and each other" and for men "who are coming to grips with the lost feminine in themselves."

I know that Jung's concept of men's "feminine side" has been spoofed and denigrated into the ground. However, if we can get past what popular culture has made of it, a joke, the concept of anima and animus might open to us a new awareness about the nature of creativity. Jung's idea was that we all possess elements of the opposite sex and that coming to terms with that opposite leads us to insight, even individuation.

In Woodman and Mellick's book is a chapter on creativity. This is some of what they say:

"Some people think of creativity as something that artists possess. It might be more helpful to think of it as Jung did, as an instinct. We can bring creativity to almost every life activity. Moreover, we can use certain imaginative forms of creative expression through the arts to explore personal, spiritual, and psychological development."

Jung believed in the mysterious possibilities of life, in a spiritual life, and in the importance of art in expressing not only our pain but also our joy. I find Jung's philosophy to be much to my liking.

Woodman and Mellick also write:

"Creativity is divine:

the virgin soul opens to spirit

and conceives the divine child.

We cannot live without it.

It is the meaning of life,

this creative fire."

Rationality is but one function of the human mind. Moreover, in my view, true rationality involves a great deal of creativity. Otherwise, we are talking about dogma, not logic.

Woodman and Mellick touch on something I mentioned in an earlier entry about "doing" and "being." I mentioned that my recent Ohio River Journey had given me a shortcut to "being." This is what Woodman and Mellick say:

"When doing is all we know,

being is just another word

for ceasing to exist.

When being begins to flow

through dance and paint and song,

joy is no longer luxury

but absolute need."

I think I enjoy art so much because it puts me in a state of being. Our creation is our own "Divine Child."

The Three Questions

2005-08-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

Leo Tolstoy

I'm taking a short break from writing today to go out to a late lunch with my husband.

In doing so, I want to be mindful and not let myself be distracted by the writing that waits at home.

I'm reminded then of Tolstoy's story, "Three Questions," a story that may be found in Walk In The Light and Twenty-three Tales. (Also retold in a wonderful children's book by Jon J. Muth called The Three Questions.)

In Tolstoy's version, a king wonders, "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?"

He finds the answer in an old hermit who says:

"Remember then: there is only one time that is important--Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"

Have a mindful day, everyone. --Theresa

How I felt, Writing Today

2005-08-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

Rainer Maria Rilke

The following poem by Rilke, translated by Robert Bly, describes how I felt as I was working on my river manuscript today:

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enoughto make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will,
and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

2005-08-01T02:38:00.000-07:00

Ah, It's 5:30 in the morning--I've been writing all night. Thought I'd take a break and do these--got them off Dave's (Random Thoughts) site. I'm planning on sleeping some and then writing all afternoon and night again. I'm on a roll.

(The ones in bold are true for me, and the blue one at the end is the one I added. The idea is for you to copy/paste these into your entry and bold the ones that are true for you--and you're supposed to add one of your own.)

001. I miss somebody right now.
002. I watch more tv than I used to.
003. I love olives.
004. I love sleeping.
005. I own lots of books. (You don't understand; I own LOTS of books)
006. I wear glasses.
007. I love to play video games .
008. I’ve tried marijuana (more than once).
009. I've watched porn movies.
010. I have been in a threesome.
011. I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.
012. I believe honesty is the best policy.
013. I couldn’t live without my cell phone.--I suppose I could but I wouldn't like it very much.
014. I like and respect Al Sharpton (but I don't think he'd make a good president).
015. I curse frequently.

016. I have changed a lot mentally over the last year. (I've changed a lot mentally since yesterday!)
017. I have a hobby.
018. I’m a perfectionist.
019. I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.
020. I’ve never broken anyone else’s bones. (but I've thought about it a lot)
021. I've broken bones of my own.
022. I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal. (more than one, actually)--

023. I love rain. (better than sunlight. That makes me really weird, right?)
024. I’m paranoid at times. (lots o' times)
025. I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.
026. I need money right now.
027. I love sushi.
028. I talk really, really fast sometimes.
029. I have fresh breath in the morning.
030. I have semi-long hair.
031. I have lost money in Las Vegas.
032. I have at least one brother and/or sister.
033. I was born in a country outside ofthe U.S.
034. I shave my legs. (not religiously!)
035. I have a twin.
036. I talk a lot.
037. I couldn’t survive without Caller I.D.
038. I have pictures of friends all over my room.
039. I have lied to a good friend in the past 6 months.
040. I know how to do cornrows.
041. I am usually pessimistic.

042. I have mood swings.
043. I think prostitution should be legalized.(I don't have a mechanism for understanding prostitution)
044. I think Britney Spears is pretty/hot.
045. I have cheated on a significant other.
046. I have a hidden talent. (everybody does)
047. I’m always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.
048. I think that I’m popular.
049. I am currently single.
050. I have kissed someone of the same sex.

051. I enjoy talking on the phone.
052. I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
053. I love to shop.
054. I would rather shop than eat.
055. I would classify myself as ghetto.
056. I am bourgie and have worn a sweater around my shoulders.
057. I’m obsessed with my LJ blog! --

058. I don’t hate anyone. (Ahem!)
059. I would go out of my way to cause shit with someone I hate.
060. I don’t think Mike Tyson raped Desiree Washington.
061. I’m completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
062. I have a cell phone.
063. I watch MTV on a daily basis.
064. I sleep more hours than I am awake. (if I could get away with it, I would)
065. I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.
066. I have lied to my parents in the last 2 weeks.
067. I have kissed someone and cringe every time I think about it.
068. I’ve rejected someone before.
069. I currently have a crush on someone.
070. I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. .
071. I want to have children in the future
072. I have changed a nappy before. -- Do they mean "diaper?"
073. I’ve had the cops called on me before.
074. I bite my nails. (only when I'm reaaaallllly nervous)
075. I am a member of the Tom Green fan club.
076. I’m not allergic to anything deadly.
077. I have a lot to learn.
077. I have dated someone at least ten years younger or older.
079. I have/had a best friend of the opposite sex.
080. I am very shy around the opposite sex.
081. I’m online 24/7, even as an away message.
082. I have at least 5 away messages saved.
083. I have tried alcohol before. (I think it was yesterday.)
084. I have made a move on a friend’s significant other in the past.
085. I own the "SOUTH PARK" movie.
086. I have avoided assignments to be on Xanga or my blog.
087. When I was a kid I played "the birds and the bees" with a neighbor or chum. (several times)
088. I enjoy country music.
089. I love my best friend.
090. I think thatPizza Hut has the best pizza.

091. I watch soap operas whenever I can.
092. I watch cartoons and like them.
093. I have used my sexuality to advance my career.
094. I love Michael Jackson, scandals and all.
095. I know all the words to Slick Rick’s "Children’s Story".
096. Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.
097. I watch Spongebob Squarepants and I like it.
098. I have dated a close friend’s ex.
099. I am happy as of this moment.
100. I have gone scuba diving.
101. Had a crush on somebody you have never met.
102. I’ve kissed someone I knew I shouldn’t.
103. I play a musical instrument. (does a harmonica count? That just requires breathing in and out, right?")
104. I strongly dislike math.
105. I'm procrastinating on something right now.   (I should be going to bed!)
106. I own and use a library card.
107. I fall in lust more than love.
108. Cheese enchiladas rock my socks.
109. I think The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest things ever.
110. I’m obsessed with the tv show "Lost."
111. I am resentful that I have to grow up.
112. I am an entirely different person around different people.
113. I think the world would be a better place if people just smiled more often.
114. I think ramen is the best kind of food in the whole world.
115. I am suffering from a broken heart. -- I think everyone is to some degree.
116. I am a nerd. And proud of it!! -- Yes and no.
117. No matter where I am or who I’m with, I always seem to be lonely.
118. I am left handed and proud of it.
119. I don’t change who I am for someone else.
120. My heart resides below my feet. -- What??
121. I am a Senior in High School.
122. I enjoy smoothies.
123. I have gastritis.
124. I have nothing better to do with my time.
125. I am listening to Radiohead right now.
126.Most people call me by my middle name.
127. I once stole a music stand. -- Why would anyone??
128. Pi confuses me.
129. I love NASCAR!
130. I own over 200 CDs.
131. I work 7 days a week.
132. I have mono.
132. I don’t have the ability to make decisions without changing my mind.
133. People tell me I have a horrible sense of humor.
134. I'm wearing a bonds chesty. -- I'll assume I'd know what it was if I had one.
135. I had more than one Thanksgiving dinner this year.
136. I’ve driven to a different state to see a band I like.
137. I am the most over analytical person I know.
138. I believe in wasting time.

139. I don’t listen to much music.(usually--it distracts me)
140.I have a shoe fetish.
141. My favorite holiday isn’t Christmas.
142. I prefer weeks off of school instead of days here and there.
143. I like sex.
144. I wanna go home.
145. I don’t know what I would do without my friends.
146. Christmas threw up in my dorm roomand I love it.
147. Friends is my favorite tv show.
148. I can touch my nose with my tounge.
149. On most days, I like my job.
150. I need a new piercing or tattoo.
151. Been embarrassed by the number of people you’ve slept with.
152. I still use the phrase when I grow up.
153. I have a need to use phrases and words from the 80’s to "relive my youth."
154. I've given birth without painkillers of any sort. (Twice--sons 2 and 3)
155. I would do anything for my husband/wife.
56. I go to the gun range to relieve frustration.
157. My name is Mindy, but I’ve never met Mork.
158. I want to get my drivers licence next year.
159. My passion is art.
160. 160 questions was a waste of my time.
161. I unicycle. --I have in the past at least.
162. I almost died when I was a few months old.
163. I have a social phobia. (several)

164. I don't like most contemporary fiction.

Ice Breakers, A Closer View

2005-07-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Photo: The Ice Breakers at Gallipolis, another view. ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .

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~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .

~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .

It should come as no great surprise to anyone that I'm trying to write a book about my Ohio River Journey. It's been three years since my first book came out, and I've written and published several stories since then, but it's time to dive into a big project again. A big commitment.

As soon as I got home, I started several manuscripts. Each had its merits, but I've had a hard time finding the right approach and the right voice. At one point, I abandoned the idea of writing a non-fiction book altogether (out of fear of dropping my protective "mask") and began a mythical piece much like The Old Man and the Sea. Finally I had to admit: I was stuck.

Yesterday, however, after doing the entry about Gallipolis, I had an extraordinary experience. The "ice" that had me bound artistically was broken, and I believe I have found my approach and my voice. Also, I went back through my previous writings, the ones I did on the boat, and found I was leaving out a lot of the humor. This was such a big loss, but it took me a while to realize this.

Isn't it a miracle how the unconscious works? And how a simple act, like bringing together disparate elements in a journal entry can cause your thoughts to suddenly come together. Everything makes sense now, and the ideas are flowing so fast I can hardly get them down fast enough.

I will be working all evening, into the night, and into the early morning. I'm so excited.

Wish me well! If I fall deeply into the writing mode, I may not post for a while.

Miguel de Unamuno

2005-07-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Photo: Ice Breakers just off the docks to which "Blue Girl" was tied at Gallipolis, OH. ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ .~ .~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~
~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~ .~ . ~ . ~
We stopped at Gallipolis to have Allen's boots repaired. (They were literally busting at the seams). We'd heard in the previous town, Pomeroy, of an excellent shoe repairman we'd find there. We ended up staying two days in Gallipolis. We took a long walk one day and I spied a used book store, and...

"At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right."
Unamuno in a confrontation with fascist General Milan-Astray
... now I can not resist posting this quote by Miguel de Unamuno.
I discovered Unamuno during my Ohio River Trip. I found a book called Spanish Stories and Tales for $1.00 at a little used bookstore in Gallipolis. The book was published in 1956, the same year I was born! The stories so invaded my thoughts that they completely turned around my idea of how I wanted to write about my Ohio boat journey. My favorite piece was "Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr" by Miguel de Unamuno. This story can be found in a modern collection of Unamuno's works, and anyone interested in religion, mortality, and the existential problem we all face would do well to read it.

OHIO RIVER JOURNEY III--Home At Last

2005-07-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

Photograph: Buddha and me on a very hot day in Paducah, KY

It is coincidental but somehow appropriate that my first entry upon my return from my Ohio River Journey is on the day of my journal's first anniversary.

To remind everyone: We (My husband, Allen, our Boston Terrier, Buddha, and I) started our boat journey on the Monongahela River in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, floated into the Ohio at Pittsburgh and followed its entire length to Cairo, Illinois. We then went back upstream to Lewisville, KY, where our son met us with the truck and trailer and from there we drove home to NW Ohio. We decided to take this journey back in December 2004, on the day of the Winter Solstice. We went in a 22-ft. sailboat (without the sails; the boat was powered by a 9.9 H.P. motor), we slept on the boat, we took most of our meals on the boat.

My mind is a vortex of memories and it will take me a long while to sort everything out.

What I can talk about is the gift of "being" this journey gave me. I recently read that in order to delve into our hearts, we must stop "doing" and work at "being." This is something we all already know, but what I hadn't realized until this journey was that we can't simply will ourselves to "be." The act of being comes about through discipline, and this journey gave me a sort of shortcut to "being," since I had little choice most of the time other than to "be." (Our 9.9 H.P. motor was not going to do any more than 5-7 miles per hour no matter what--so why rush?)

The journey gave me a lot of time to think, read, and write. All of my impressions were much sharper since I was out of my natural environment.

I wrote many pages: I have nearly a hundred typewritten pages and as many hand-written pages. It's all a jumble and I've yet to find the meaning in the experience; I've yet to find the story. I'll be working at doing that for many months to come.

I'm glad to be home, and I'm glad to be able to reconnect with online friends.

The New Haircut

2005-05-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken less than an hour ago. The sun was bright and Allen and I were commenting on how the predicted rain never got here. And now it's raining. Allen got a haircut today, so that was a good excuse to take pictures out in the yard. I took pictures of him, the boat, and of Buddha, our Boston Terrier.

Photo 1 is of the canopy that Allen designed and built. He bought conduit pipes and fitted them together, then measured and had the tarps made at a place not far from the house called, simply and appropriately, TARPS. (They make tarps for trucks.)

I think Allen's creation is ingenuous. It will save us from baking in the sun, that's for sure.

Photos 2, 3, and 4 are of Allen and his best bud, Buddha. Number 4, the silliest one, is Allen's favorite. I like #3.

**I will not post a new entry before I leave, but I plan to update this entry just before leaving. I have already shut off all my alerts in preparation for the journey.

UPDATE 9:38 p.m. eastern standard time. Thursday May 12.

This is the last thing I will post before leaving on my Ohio River Journey. I'll be gone at least 8 weeks, although we may be gone longer. In any case, I should be back by the very end of July (at the latest).

I thank all of you who have been coming to my journal and posting comments. I appreciate your insights. Journaling has yielded a wealth of experience for me. I had no idea when I started my journal that I would make so many intriguing connections. All of you have been very integral to my search for "why I write" and "what being a writer means."

I was mighty impressed with the questions that were posted in "Theresa's Book of Questions." I'm proud of these and will print them out and take them with me in my accordian folder that is filled with notes I've been collecting since January. You've all given me much to think about.

Please don't forget about me while I'm gone; I'll be carrying you down the river with me.

Best, Theresa

p.s. Those of you who are familiar with my Sun stories: the final story of the collection will be published in The Sun in the July issue. If you run across an issue somewhere, think about the fact that you'll be seeing it before I will! The story is called "The Falls." Check the Sun website at the beginning of July when they post the new issue--they have excerpts of stories and articles; perhaps they'll have an excerpt posted of "The Falls."

Good-bye, everyone. Have a wonderful summer.

We Must Not Know

2005-05-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

I have done a lot of reading lately about the "Dark Night of the Soul."

My latest discovery is a book by the same name by Gerald G. May, a psychiatrist who explores the connection between darkness and spiritual growth.

I believe that my writing comes out of my inner darkness. May says this darkness is a good thing. He quotes from John of the Cross, who believed this darkness of the soul is "night more kindly than dawn." According to May, we cannot fully liberate ourselves from our fears alone because "our defenses and resistances will not permit it." The "Dark Night of the Soul" guides us toward truth.

I can see how writing for me is akin to the biblical concept of salvation:

May writes:

Hebrew words connoting salvation often contain a root made of the letters y and s, yodh and shin. One example is the Hebrew name of Jesus, Yeshua, "God saves." This y-s root implies being set free from bondage or confinement, enabled to move freely, empowered to be and do according to one's true nature. In contrast to life-denying asceticism that advocates freedom from desire, Teresa [of Avila] and John see authentic transformation as leading to freedom for desire. For them, the essence of all human desire is love. (73)

I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said that as I write, I feel an intense love for my imagined reader. Unless I feel this love, this spark, my writing is dead.

May also says that: "To guide us toward the love that we most desire, we must be taken where we could not and would not go on our own. And lest we sabotage the journey, we must not know where we are going" (73).

This would explain why I have no interest in tight plots.

IT IS THE JOURNEY ITSELF THAT IS IMPORTANT.

I believe it isthe love for my imagined reader (and for my characters) that frees me, not the writing itself.

Thanks to all of you who have posted questions in the entry "Theresa's Book of Questions." There's still time to post a few more. Click HERE to post.

I will post in my journal at least one more time before we leave early Saturday.

May's book helps me to see myself more clearly as a human being and as a writer.

Blue Girl

2005-05-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

Photo of Theresa, about 4 years old.

So I have been researching the Ohio River the last couple of days. A conversation I had Wednesday with a professor planning a course on women's travel narratives got me to thinking about how a woman's travel narrative would differ from a man's. Thelma and Louise comes to mind, but let's not go there for the moment.

Allen christened our boat "Blue Girl" because, well, the boat is blue, and because he wants me to do much inner exploration aboard her.

Today, I found an article about women's narratives on the Internet. This article uses quotes from Dharma Girl: A Road Trip Across the American Generations by Chelsea Cain; I'd never heard of the book, which is now out of print. I liked the following quote from the Dharma Girl:

She doesn’t know it yet, but she is about to run into herself. She is a psychonaut—a voyager into the soul—and since she has read the Tibetan Book of the Dead she will soon realize that in order to find herself, she first has to create a self to identify. She has to tell the story. She has to find the child she was and the girl she became to get the answers she wants. She has to see if she can find what she has lost track of, before she can go on to anything else.

I know that back in December, this is how I was thinking about the Ohio River Journey, as a way of looking back. Looking back as a way to help me to look forward. Since, I've done so much research on the history and geography of the river, that I kind of lost sight of the original intent.

I'm happy today for the reminder.

Power of Story--Questions from Vince

2005-05-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

These questions are from Vince at the journal, To Grow Is To Be Anxious.
FIRST: The rules because every game has got to have them, you know. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five to leave a comment requesting to be participants will be interviewed. I will respond by asking you five questions via e-mail. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions and a link to my site. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some)

1. Jos. Campbell seems to be a guiding light in your present thinking. Do you find him reflected in your personal life?

Like so many, I discovered Joseph Campbell on PBS by watching his interviews will Bill Moyers. Campbell at that time was a retired professor from Sarah Lawrence. Listening to Campbell, I felt my thoughts about storytelling congealing into a philosophy. Why do I write? For many years, I couldn't answer that question and feel my answer was truthful. My writing life is my personal life. My writing life is my life. Moreover, Campbell helped show me how to look at the world every day, whether I'm teaching, writing, grocery shopping, taking a walk, whatever. His explanation about life, that life is a series of transformations and passing through inner thresholds of experience, made more sense to me than any I had ever heard. I now own the DVD, The Power of Myth, thanks to our youngest son, who gave it to me one year for mother's day. Many libraries have the Joseph Campbell conversations with Bill Moyers on videotape or DVD, and I highly recommend them.

2.In which environment are you most comfortable-- teaching or writing?

Writing.

3.Has the journalling experience helped to congeal your thoughts vis-a-vis writing? Does teaching continue to contribute to this?

Yes, the journaling helps a great deal. The way I piece together life is associative, rather than linear. This journal helps me to "see" what I'm thinking, what I've been studying, what I've been experiencing, and it offers me a way to piece it all together. I don't have to worry about any of the things we normally concern ourselves about in academic writing--focus, organization, development, control. I can forget all that and let the answers slowly bubble and rise to the surface. I'm in no hurry. Teaching can do the same thing, especially creative writing classes. I really feed off the energy produced by those, although classroom dynamics can also get in the way. You do have to be much more organized in your approach to the classroom--the students deserve that. And then there is always the chance of a clash of personalities. Finally, there's the problem of having to give grades at the end of the semester, a task I don't find enjoyable.

4. Who is the Author who first excited you?; who caused you to take those first steps?

As a very young adolescent, I discovered the short stories of Guy de Maupassant. They were so frightening to me, so close to the bare bone of truth, I thought at the time, that I hid his collection under my bed for fear I would be "found out" reading them. The story I remember best is "Mother of Monsters." It was about a poor woman who bound her abdomen with corsets during her pregnancies so as to create "monsters," which she then sold to side shows. It was how she made her living. As you can see, I never forgot the story--who could? The gruesome nature of the story reinforces the metaphorical implication. The story forces us to ask ourselves to what extent we endanger ourselves and our children for the sake of money. How do we "contort" our children psychologically so that they (and we) will "succeed" or "fit in," and thus become financially successful. I'm sure I didn't understand all the implications of the story when I was young; but the story has grown in my mind all these years, and it has served as a warning.

However, it was probably J. D. Salinger that made me want to write stories. I was fascinated by the precocious children in his stories.

5. When you read fiction that you`ve finished, do you smile at those parts of your experience that have been unconsciously reflected in your writing?

Definitely. I am constantly amazed at what surfaces in my writing. My stories give me so much insight into how different facets of life connect--reading, experience, hopes, education, mythology, psychology, dreams.

Thanks so much, Vince, for these wonderful questions.

P.S. Just one week left to post to Theresa's Book of Questions. Click HERE to post questions. All questions will go with me down the Ohio River!

In The Spirit of Basho

2005-04-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

Wooden Image of Basho

Tokugawa period, provenance unknown. Collection of Nakagawa Sōen Rōshi, on loan to the Maui Zendo.

The last week has been busy. It was the last week of classes, and everyone knows what that's like. Next week is finals week, and it will be a busier week than I thought because I just found out I will need to go out of town for two days on a job-related matter.

Last night, my friend from the university, Paula, threw a party for the two of us. She called it "Down the river and up a creek." I am going down the river, and she will be up a creek financially because she has decided not to return to teaching next year. Instead, she is going to work on her book, Silver Girl. I salute her in her decision to put her writing first.

Allen and I are behind on travel preparations because of weather. Snow and now rain. Rain, rain, rain. We are leaving on May 14, no matter.

The last months I have read so much about the Ohio River. I have read many travel narratives, from many places and times. It is all a vortex of information that I'm trying to sort out.

I do know my original inspiration for writing a travel journal was Basho's "Narrow Road to the Interior." (I have written of Basho before in this journal). He wrote his travel diary about a spring and summer foot journey in 1689. His diary is in the form of a haibun, a form that combines short prose passages with haiku.

Basho was greatly influenced by Tsurayuki, who wrote 700 years prior to Basho. Tsurayuki's sources of inspiration were all melancholy:

Looking at fallen blossoms on a spring morning.

Sighing over snows and waves which reflect the passing years.

Remembering a fall from fortune into loneliness.

It occurred to me that my writing is inspired by similar things. And I want my narrativeto reflect these things. Yet I also want my narrative to be informative, historical, and fun.

I am just now realizing what a daunting task it is going to be to assimilate all of the information and syles I have gathered. Exciting but a great challenge.

I am still very interested in collecting questions about my Ohio River Journey. Please post those to "Theresa's Book of Questions." Or at least stop by this entry to read others' questions.

TODAY

2005-04-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

I am still actively seeking questions to take with me on my Ohio River Boat trip. All questions posted on:

click >Theresa's Book of Questions< click

will go with me down the Ohio.

Mutualaide's Interview Questions

2005-04-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

These questions are from Mutualaide at Life On Flamingo Row. They were fun questions to answer.

FIRST: The rules because every game has got to have them, you know. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five to leave a comment requesting to be participants will be interviewed. I will respond by asking you five questions via e-mail. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions and a link to my site. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some)

Question # 1. Has the creation of your journal helped you to 'write down what moves you to create'?

It's beginning to. It's a far difference between creating and explaining the act of creating. The journal format is just right for this kind of exploration. There is no pressure to organize the entries into a cohesive document. It's okay to enter and exit topics at will. Just the way my mind works, actually! I have to say, I would not be doing this sort of writing in a paper journal. Having readers creates a place for your thoughts to go. That creates a spark that flies out from your heart to theirs. It's very exciting.

Question # 2. You are a famous lecturer. EVERYONE wants to attend your lectures. You calendar is full and you are turning down speaking engagements. What subject do you speak about?

I think the same things I usually talk about in my journal. I would talk about how important it is for people to find their center, from which their true writing emerges. I would talk to them about how scary it can be to do that, but how important it is. Mostly, I would want to continue to break down the barrier that seems to exist between writers and those-who-want-to-be-writers.

Question # 3. Having the opportunity to gather with 5 of your 'regular readers' who are they, where do you meet and what do you talk about?

I can't help it, I buy myself a Tom Jones T-shirt, so everytime I wear it I can think about this energy.

We say things like, "Can you believe that Tom Jones?"

And "I can't believe it--we actually went to see Tom Jones."

And "You aren't going to tell anybody else we actually went to see Tom Jones, are you?"

We will all swear an oath never to tell.

I will say, "My friend Paula went to one of these concerts in Toledo. That's what gave me the idea."

Maisie will say, " _________________________." (Maisie, fill in the blank in your comments)

I will say, "Maisie, I used to fantasize about Tom Jones when I was 13 years old. Did you, Vicky?"

Vicky will say, "______________________." (Vicky, fill in the blank)

Judi will say, "________________________." (Judi, fill in the blank).

Cynthia will say, "___________________________." (Cynthia, fill in the blank.)

Beth will say, "________________________." (Beth, fill in the blank).

Question # 4. The readers know of your upcoming Ohio River trip. Which Port 'O Call are you most looking forward to visiting?

I'm looking forward to Big Bone Lick State Park. Just the name itself has a certain appeal, does it not? What is fascinating to me is how it got its name--it is where giant Mammoth bones were once found. This area is a salt repository, and the animals were driven there by an aching need, only to be trapped there. The park also has a nice lake stocked with fish. Maybe we will take it easy and go fishing for a couple of days. Cook us up some nice fresh fish dinners. I wonder if Buddha likes fish?

Question # 5. You are driving home from the grocery store and up ahead you see an elderly woman carrying four bags of groceries. They appear to be heavy and she is having difficulty maneuvering. Do you stop and offer assistance? What do you offer?

This question is so open-ended, I'm having trouble with it! It makes me think a little of that scene in Thunderheart in which Val Kilmer gets out of his vehicle to help an old man carry two buckets of water, although Kilmer is supposed to be on a stake-out, incognito. I believe what the question is asking is whether or not I'd be willing to change my routine in order to help another person. My response is that I hope so. But my honest reply is that I'm not sure I would. Or maybe I would, and she would see me wearing my Tom Jones T-shirt. And she would say, "Tom Jones, eh?"

And I would say to her, "Hey, don't knock it! Did you ever see Tom Jones in concert?"

And she will say to me, "Did you?"

And I will say, "I'll never tell."

And she will say, "I'll never tell either. No way. No way in the world."

The Man Behind the Curtain

2005-04-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

Slacbacmac, who found me through Vince's Journal, e-mailed to ask me:

Meanwhile, as a filosofer, it pondres me about the OZ story just what would have happened if they all had followed the instruction to IGNORE the Man behind the Curtain!

What a fun question!

I think Dorothy would have never gotten home, the Tin Man would have never found his heart, the Scarecrow his brain, or the Lion his courage.

We can't let "the man behind the curtain" create our reality. We have to be true to ourselves, to what is real for us.

This Is Spring?

2005-04-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

This is not to be believed--I copied this off of AOL Weather. This is what our weekend is like! No working on the boat this weekend. This is going to put us behind.

We did get a chance to get up to Cabela's again on Friday night. I ended up missing my monthly writing group meeting because we were delayed from leaving (we had to pick Buddha up from the vet.) Like I told my friends in the group, Buddha lost his Mojo. Then it was slow-going finding everything we needed.

Our date of departure remains the same: Saturday May 14.

Detailed Forecast

Saturday night: Windy with snow of varying intensity. The snow is more likely to accumulate late. Cold. Low 29F. Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of snow 80%. 4 to 6 inches of snow expected.
Sunday: Periods of snow with gusty winds at times. Cold. High 39F. Winds WNW at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of snow 80%. Wet snow accumulation of 3 to 6 inches.
Sunday night: Windy with snow of varying intensity. Low 32F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of snow 80%. Wet snow accumulating up to one inch.

Theresa's Book of Questions

2005-04-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Ohio River Journey IV--The Book of Questions

In less than a month, Allen, Buddha, and I will set out on our adventure down the Ohio River. We anticipate being gone 6-8 weeks.

I would love it if anyone stopping by my journal would post questions here for me to take with me. I'd like to compile a "Book of Questions" to help shape my thoughts about the experience. Ask anything. Ask what you're naturally curious about. Anything from technical aspects to poetic musings. The more questions the better.

All questions posted here will travel with me down the Ohio River!

*Alphawoman asked where we're starting and finishing up. The plan is to start on the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania, at a town called Brownsville. And we will finish at Cairo, Illinois. Do you remember how Huck Finn kept talking about going to Cairo, so Jim would be free? That's the plan.

Okay! More questions!

Home, Heart, Head, Courage--Cynthia's Questions

2005-04-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

People who journal online have been interviewing each other. I have stepped in—below are the rules:

Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five to leave a comment requesting to be participants will be interviewed. I will respond by asking you five questions. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some) Fun and easy right?

The following interview questions are from Cynthia (Sorting the Pieces).

1) Your novel is set in North Carolina, your former home state. How strong were the cultural influences in what is a deeply personal novel? And do you see yourself as "Southern" writer?

The novel is my attempt to understand what it meant to live in the South during the Vietnam Era and beyond, to grow up in a military town, to come to sexual awareness in a completely patriarchal atmosphere and to somehow survive it. I wrote the South because that's what I knew best, but I think I've spent a lifetime trying to run from my Southern roots. While my work, the vast majority of it, is set in the South, I don't consider myself in the same league as the towering women writers such as Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Allison. I think it's because I always felt like an interloper (we were a military family) in the South, like I had landed there but didn't truly belong there. So I could never write the South like O'Connor or Allison.

2) I know that you hate confrontation. What situation can you imagine where you would enjoy confronting someone?

I think would enjoy confronting someone who has intentionally hurt other people, someone in power who used that power for ill. But, then again, even that might prove too distressing.

3) Do you have routines, rituals or strong preferences that you exercise when you write? This could be a preference for the computer or longhand, a time of day, a way of preparing yourself or getting into a good mindset for writing.

I don't have particular routines. Every writing task seems to have a different need. I write both in longhand and at the computer. Many of my ideas start out as a handwritten note to myself. But others begin in a letter to someone. Or in the margin of a book I'm reading. I have written whole stories in longhand in my bathtub. Usually when I'm working full blown on a project, I require big blocks of time. I read once that when Annie Dillard was working on Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, she worked on it for hours, days, weeks, during which time she was so focused on the writing that all her houseplants died. When I get into my intense mode, it's like that for me. I forget to eat, even. And I usually work from late afternoons and through the night. And then sleep during the day. The only thing that is consistent is that I need complete quiet. I can't be bothered by anyone or anything.

4) You've mentioned that you have several uncompleted projects, some of which deserve to be unfinished. How do you recognize that point where a project calls for you to either finish it, drop it or put it on hold?

If the writing is too much like swimming through mud, I know it's time to do something else. I have to trust that through doing something else, my unconscious will continue to work on the writing problem and provide me with the answer I need. It is rather like the characters in fairytales who go to sleep, and then the little animals come and do their work for them. The little animals are the agents of the unconscious. You can't force those ideas, these truths. You have to give them freedom. However, if that doesn't happen, if the little animals never arrive, I have to trust it [the story] just wasn't meant to be. All writers have tons of unfinished work lying about. What is most urgent will, hopefully, rise to the top of the heap. Always work on what makes your blood run hot, I say, even if it means leaving something else unfinished. That's when you do your best writing, when your blood is up for it, and hot.

5) You have an expressed interest in personality typing, especially the Briggs-Myers format. How have you used these in your writing?

I use the David Keirsey Temperament Sorter from the book Please Understand Me II. It's based on Briggs-Myers, although there are a few differences. A social scientist would understand better than I do what the differences are.

Briggs-Myers has been used for years in the work force, and not always in positive life-affirming ways, unfortunately. I believe the information from the Keirsey sorter (or Briggs-Myers) should be used as a general guide, but that people are wonderfully complex social creatures and not easily pinned down. You can't use the information in a didactic or dismissive way.

The Keirsey book was given to me by a colleague, and it has helped me in my writing in many ways. It's one of many tools I use to understand the mystery of our differences and our motivations.

One way it helped me is by showing me what my own preferences and tendencies are, showing me my inherent strengths, as well as the challenges I bring to the writing process. I am the INFP, which Keirsey calls the Healer. When I read the profile of the Healer, I felt a great sense of relief. I felt he got it right. And I suddenly understood why I have always been drawn to art and what kind of stories I should be writing. I had been denying all the time what my heart was telling me to write. I now saw that I was denying what was unique in me, and that I had been trying to be someone else. I understood that I naturally see life as a quest, as a series of transformations. I understood that I saw life as a movement through various inner thresholds of experience. In a flash I understood the true meaning of all those literary techniques I had been studying. Epiphany. Character shift. Climax. Tension. Suspense. Before, it had seemed so technical. However, when I saw myself in my true light, as a Healer, the process of writing was suddenly meaningful for me. I got it. I got what it meant for me.

The other way it has helped me is in understanding character motivation. It's easier to keep my characters consistent. I often will find myself remembering what Keirsey says about how each character in the Wizard of Oz represents one of the four temperament types: Dorothy is the Guardian, because she dreams of home. There is a special kind of intelligence that is rooted in our concept of home. The Tin Man is the Idealist because he is in search of a heart. This is the intelligence that comes from feeling, from empathy. The Scarecrow is the Rational because he is in search of a brain, the intelligence originating from the head. The Lion is the Artisan because he searches for courage. This is the intelligence of being able to protect at a moment's notice, to take care of business quickly and efficiently. Home, Heart, Head, Courage--each is a particular and necessary form of intelligence.

We have all of these traits, these forms of intelligence within us; But most of us have a distinct preference for one of them. And this is how we wish to confront in the world, though this form of intelligence.

When we can function according to our preference we can feel more comfortable and more fulfilled in the world. That was the whole idea behind Plato's Republic, each person functioning according to his or her strengths and preferences.

However, modern life keeps us from functioning according to our preferences, causing tension and conflict--and it's within this tension and conflict that good stories are made.

Cynthia, thanks so much for asking such thoughtful questions!

The Same Problems As Before

2005-04-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

I recently received an e-mail from a woman who is, like me, middle-aged. She got my e-mail address from an issue of The Sun in which my story "Blue Velvis" appeared. She's intelligent, well educated, well read. She spent a long time studying to prepare herself for a job she ultimately hated, but that paid well. She loves to write, has always wanted to be a writer.

She is in that writer's limbo--that place where she's created stories that are "almost there" but nobody seems to be able to explain to her why they aren't getting published when she sends them out.

She asked me some questions about writing, and I told her if she didn't mind, I'd answer her questions in this journal.

She didn't mind, so here we go.

One of the questions she asked was about the present rate at which writers are paid. She wondered what I thought about it. Well, I don't like it, but there isn't anything I can do about it.

The truth is, the opportunities for publication are shrinking. I just recently saw that The Atlantic, one of the last holdouts for fiction, is cutting out its monthly fiction offering. (Although, the fiction editor says, once a year a special fiction issue will probably publish as many stories as they would have throughout the year anyway; we'll see).

Not only are there fewer magazines publishing fiction, the pay is slim to nil in most cases. Most literary magazines pay writers in copies; a few do pay a small amount, almost always under $100. Commercial publications like The New Yorker pay better, but it's hard, nearly impossible, to break into The New Yorker. The Sun, a non-profit magazine with NO ADVERTISING, is actually one of the few magazines to pay its writers a decent price for their fiction and essays--$600-plus per story. (This is because the editor, Sy Safransky, moves in the world in an entirely ethical manner. Those of you who have read The Sun and know the history of the magazine understand how hard he worked to make the magazine into what it is today.)

Also, publishing houses are forming huge conglomerates. The small presses are being bought up by the large presses, who are driven by the blockbuster mentality, creating fewer and fewer opportunities for the first-time novelist.

The upshoot: Most of us who write don't make a living off our writing. Only a precious few do that--the rest of us, we write because we must. We secure our finances by other means.

Even if you publish a novel, the chances are you won't make much money off of it. This is the truth: If I added up my advance and royalty payments and then subtracted the money I spent traveling in order to promote the book (not even to mention the hours and hours I spent writing the book), I wouldn't do much more than break even at this point. Few first-time novelists sell more than 1000 books. My print run was 5000 and fewer than half of those have been sold (that is including libraries, which accounted for the majority of my sales). Then consider the used book market--the writer gets no money when her book is sold as used. Amazon is even selling review copies of my novel, which were given away to book reviewers. The review copies are missing key scenes, so those readers aren't even getting the full reading experience that I intended. The whole thing is maddening.

So you quickly see that even after your book is finished, accepted, and published, you still can't count on it as a form of financial compensation.

Now, let's talk of better things.

Let's talk about being a writer. Calling ourselves that--writers. Being able to understand why, in the face of all the defeat and lack of material compensation, we still want to write.

In her e-mail, the woman who read "Blue Velvis" and wanted to talk to me about writing told me she has read Brenda Ueland, John Gardner's books on writing, and a plethora of other "how to" books on craft. She wrote to me:

"Each time I think this one is going to do it, this one is going to remove that last barrier, and while I'm reading them, I often believe it will be the case. Then, I reach the last page, put the book down, and still face the same problems as before."

And now, here is where I have to get real. I can't pretend to have an answer for all writers. I can just tell you how things happened for me. I found that the "last barrier" was something that no book could break, only I could break it. The "last barrier" was my dragon that I had to slay. Everybody's dragon is different. Mine was my inability to write from my heart because I thought I was so insignificant or naive or clueless or fill in the blank that nobody would care what I had to say. My dragon said, "You can't write a book. You aren't smart enough. You aren't good enough. Nobody will care. It will end up in the slush pile. Think of all the people who write books that are never published. Some of those people write better than you do, and they aren't published. What makes you think anybody is going to publish you?"

And on and on.

For years I wrote what I thought others wanted to read, what I thought would impress others. My writing wasn't "true." Although the writing was proficient, even good in places, it didn't speak to readers because I didn't have the right investment in it.

I know that all writers invest a lot in terms of time, effort, sweat, and blood. But I found that I had to put everything on the line when I wrote, put my head on the chopping block with my future reader holding the axe. Nothing could come between me and the truth I needed to tell, the truth my reader needed to read. It was the idea of "truth" that helped me to slay my dragon.

I think everybody first has to find their dragon, then they have to kill it.

I hope the woman who e-mailed me will hang in there. She seems passionate about writing. Persistence is all. I know that what I've said in this entry doesn't paint authorship in a very positive light--but that's only if you're thinking about it in terms of material wealth. There are other kinds of wealth. Brenda Ueland says that even if you never publish any of your writing, it's still important that you wrote. She says:

[William] Blake used to say, when his energies were diverted from his drawing or writing, "that he was being devoured by jackals or hyenas."

Ueland also tells the story of when Van Gogh was young and in London and was writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland. Van Gogh looked out the window and saw a lampost and a star and it was so beautiful. In his letter, Van Gogh wrote, "It is so beautiful I must show you how it looks."

And, Ueland says, "on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it." The creative impulse came out of a need to share something beautiful. I believe if we follow this as a goal, we can't go wrong. I held this thought as I wrote through 6 long years I spent working on The Secret of Hurricanes. I thought of Van Gogh making that little drawing for his brother and thought of my writing as doing the same sort of thing, putting my whole heart into something because it mattered to me.

You might publish your book and make a million dollars; but the chances are better that you won't.

So you need to remind yourself of this: you write because you love to write. You need to write. Somebody else needs to read what you write. And you need to let the rest (hopes of fame, glory, or even making ends meet off your writing) go.

Questions from Dave, the Peace-Loving Buddhist

2005-04-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

My book cover photo

People who journal online have been interviewing each other. I have stepped in—below are the rules:

These questions were posed by Dave, our peace-loving Buddhist.

1. You have an obvious love for the power of myths. Do you see a negative or dark side to myths? Are there any dangers? If so, could you give us an example?

I see a couple of ways I could interpret your question. There is a dark side to myths—many myths are specifically about darkness, chaos, destruction, apocalypse. I think the myths teach us that our lives are a combination of darkness and light, creation and destruction.

But I think perhaps you are asking if there is a dark side to believing in myths, to letting them guide us in our lives. And, yes, there is, absolutely. If you give myths literal interpretations and use them as a way of saying that you are “right” and others are “wrong,” then that is very dangerous. We see the side-effects of that kind of thinking right now in many places of the world. I think all myths are fluid. They are like water and take on the shape of the vessel (person) they enter.

2. As your trip down the Ohio river approaches, what do you anticipate to be the most difficult aspect of the trip? What do you anticipate will be the most enjoyable.

Without a doubt, the most difficult aspect will be the physical ordeal of living, eating, sleeping, and traveling on a boat. Of dealing with the rain and the sun. And the heat. Mostly, I think a lot about not having access to my great big bathtub. There aren’t many things I like better than sinking into a tub of hot, steamy water and soaking for hours while reading or writing.

The most enjoyable aspect will be the feeling that I own my own time.

3. You mention in your journal that you've never written non-fiction before. And when we think about it most writers either write non-fiction or fiction but seldom both. Stephen King, for instance, has dozens and dozens of fiction works published but only one or two works of non-fiction. Why do you think there is such a divide? Why is it so difficult for authors to bounce back and forth between the two?

I’ve thought a lot about this topic. I can only answer for myself (Stephen King will have to answer on his own.). I suspect that in order to write really good non-fiction (especially travel narrative), you need to be good at observation and description. I’m not good at either. That is a fact. My writing is mainly metaphorical. I’m very “dreamy” in my orientation to the world; I live deep inside my imagination. Sensory input, sensory memory doesn’t become a strong part of my awareness unless it connects to something metaphorical. For instance, I once went on a hike with my husband, Allen and our youngest son, Brian. I became very tired and hot and sat on a large rock, concentrating on the pain I was having in my legs and in one hip. Then I noticed the rock was covered in tiny Sedum. I thought about how the Sedum was thriving on very little nourishment, and that idea filled me courage. The connection between the Sedum and courage turned on my sensory awareness, somehow: I remember precisely how the Sedum looked, felt—how soft it was, how cool. I remember little else about that day.

Also, you see in my response to Robin’s question (Midlife Matters) about my upcoming river journey that I’m more interested in what the river means than in the physical aspects of the river or the technical aspects of the journey.

I think I need to remember what my writing strengths are and to realize that my travel narrative is going to be different than most others I have read. If I have trouble describing the water or the sunset, then so be it—I will just have to compensate in other ways.

The other problem for me regarding non-fiction is that I’m not used to writing without being behind the mask. Writing without it makes me feel vulnerable. And sometimes my non-fiction writing gets stiff and mechanical because I’m afraid of revealing too much about myself.

4. Writing can be difficult because in a sense it's never finished. We can always go back and rewrite and improve upon what we've done. How do you determine when enough is enough and your baby is ready to share with the world?

You never know, you just stop and hope what you have is convincing and meaningful. You stop oftentimes because something else moves into your imagination to take its place. In order to feel a sense of completion, you send it to an editor somewhere and hope the work speaks to him or her. I believe it’s the nature of the Artist to never be satisfied with his or her work. As with life, you simply move on. I just saw in the April 15, 2005 Writer’s Almanac something about Leonardo Da Vinci:

Leonardo's notebooks are full of one sentence, repeated again and again, and scholars believe he wrote it whenever he was testing out a newly cut pen. That sentence was, "Tell me, tell me if anything got finished."

5. If you were given the chance to sit down and pick the brain of a famous writer alive or dead, who would it be? What kinds of questions would you ask?

I think I’d like to ask Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing In America, Revenge of the Lawn, The Tokyo-Montana Express and other works) some questions, particularly regarding his childhood and how it influenced his writing. A friend of mine in art school introduced me to Brautigan in the mid-eighties. His work is quirky, and the thing that has always appealed to me about it is the way he raises everyday objects to the level of the sacred. For instance,in a story called “The Kool-Aid Wino,” he describes a water spigot as thrusting out of the ground like the finger of a saint. I’ve never been able to forget that image.

Brautigan referred often to death in his writings (he committed suicide in 1984), and I would ask him why: I would ask him if he thought his unhappy childhood had caused him to think a lot about death.

Richard Brautigan

Thanks, Dave. Those were fantastic questions. They helped me to put into words a lot of what I've been thinking about lately.

Questions From Robin, Midlife Matters

2005-04-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

People who journal online have been interviewing each other. I have stepped in—below are the rules:

These questions are from Robin at Midlife Matters

Q. I loved the questions that you pose to your writing students. Try one of them on for size: What did you not see in the past week

A. I didn’t see any snail mail letters. Since I was young, I have always thrived on mail communication. When my brothers were in the military, I wrote to them several times a week, and I had several pen-pals through the years—in India, Hong Kong, France, and South Africa, and there are countless others I struck up mail friendships with. There is nothing to compare to a letter, addressed in someone else’s hand, with your name on it. I love my blog and I love e-mail. But neither is as exciting as snail mail. So, in the spirit of the assignment, I would write something simple and direct, like:

This week, I didn’t find any letters

Addressed to me in someone else’s hand

Nothing on which someone else had

Scrawled my name, thinking of me

Q. You've done it -- you've actually published a real live novel! What was the publication experience like? Rejections? Revisions? Acceptance? Working with an editor? Holding it in your hands for the first time? Did you promote it

A. I’d like to focus on Holding it in your hands for the first time. I remember the day my book arrived from the publisher. I remember thinking, “It’s so small.” It seemed too small to have been such a heavy burden for six years, the length of time it took to write it. A much better feeling was one I had in a recurring dream I used to have before the novel was finished. I used to dream I was holding the completed manuscript in my hands, and it felt heavy in my hands, as heavy as it was supposed to, given the amount of emotional turmoil I was going through in order to complete it. The emotional turmoil was mostly the result of lingering doubts that I could actually write a novel in the first place. So it makes sense that my dreams would involve the novel’s completion. I also think the dream partly came out of the experience of one of my writing teachers (William Hallberg) bringing his completed manuscript (of The Rub of the Green) into class one day with his editor’s comments on it.

As for promoting the book (see also my interview with Lisa Hannon, One Woman’s Writing Retreat) just before my book came out in 2002 I found out I would have to have surgery. That operation took about 6 months out of my life, all told—I wasn’t really fit physically or emotionally to promote a book. In January of 2003, I started writing a collection of short stories, based on the effects of that surgery, so that collection consumed me for about a year

In retrospect, I did very little promotion

Q. Many people who do other things, from plumbing to lawyering to farming to dancing, dream of writing, but you are a writer. If you could be anything else, what would you be (and why, of course

A. An artist. (Judi Heartsong--you rule!) I got an undergraduate Art degree as well as an undergraduate degree in English.

Two reasons, I think, why I failed to pursue art at the Master’s level are that my craftsmanship is poor. I am sloppy and impatient with image-making (same with other creative endeavors, such as cooking.) I remember once, how one of my art teachers reached for my paintbrush to demonstrate a technique, and the handle was covered with paint! "How in the world did you do that?" he asked, thoroughly and understandably disgusted. (In contrast, my husband, who used to work as a painter for a welding company used to sandblast and paint all day, and he never had even so much as a speck of paint on his clothes.)

And second, I was not ready for art school—I didn’t value the part of myself that needed to make visual art. I was trying too hard to make representational Art—I wanted to be a Renaissance Artist, a new Leonardo Da Vinci, denying the part of myself that is fanciful and wild. I focused too much on literal truth and technique.

Q. Anticipate a day on your boat trip this coming summer, and write an advance journal entry for it. What are you looking forward to, what are you hoping to avoid, and what really happens?

Looking forward to: Spending long, slow, quality days with my husband, away from the hubbub of life, away from the horrible malaise of our times. Having time to think more, better, and deeply.

Hoping to avoid: Being or seeming weak in the face of physical hardship

Entry:

At least twice in the last two months, I have seen the Ohio River referred to as Styx, the river separating the two worlds of the living and the dead. Styx comes from the Greek word meaning “hate.” In myth, Charon, the ferry man, takes the dead across Styx from the land of the living to the land of the dead. At the mouth of the underworld, dragon-tailed Cerberus guards, allowing all souls to enter, none to leave. The River Styx is said to be so foul that any god drinking from it would lose his voice for nine years The Ohio, like Styx, is foul—I read that the Ohio is one of the top five polluted rivers in the U.S. As I ride in our little boat, I think about that. And also of D. H. Lawrence’s poem, “The Ship of Death.” He writes, “Build then the ship of death, for you must take / the longest journey, to oblivion.” He also writes of the need to die the “long and painful death / that lies between the old self and new.” That is what I want to happen to me.

Q. What was your life like when you were nine years old?

A. I lived with five other people in a small trailer in Eastern North Carolina. It’s the trailer I wrote about in The Secret of Hurricanes, a ten wide Magnolia. That was the year my grandmother, who lived with us, died at the age of 82. I remember my elder brother, Jack, who is dead now, sitting on the wooden steps, slumped in sadness, the trailer door blowing and hitting his shoulder, over and over. I remember him turning and in his anguish pummeling the trailer door with his fists, then slumping again in the agony of his loss.

Thanks, Robin, for asking some really great questions!!!

The Big Conversation

2005-04-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

FYI--This painting reminds me of weeping. It seems a good image to illustrate Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, which is about the birth, life, and death of love. Painting by John Kimber

click.... John Kimber's Web Gallery ....click

In my Imaginative Writing classes, I often talk about what I call "The Big Conversation." The Big Conversation is what writers say to each other, through their own stories and poems. Some of my favorite poems are those written "to" or "in honor of" another writer. It is a way of acknowledging that we aren't lone wolves, laboring away in some dark place--others have come before us from whom we learn and to whom we owe a debt of thanks.

One writing exercise that I do is the group poem. I will bring envelopes into class with a phrase or prompt written on it, and each student will write something in response to the prompt, placing it in the envelope. I usually take three times more prompts than I have students. After a few weeks (after everyone has forgotten the exercise and they can come to the material fresh) I bring the envelopes back to class. Each student chooses an envelope and composes a poem in 10 minutes, a poem based on their classmates' responses. They don't have to use all the responses, and they can change words. Examples of prompts I used this semester are: "What I Must Say To My Inner Critics," "Something I Did Not See Today," "While Writing This Poem I Felt Night Descending," "Other Lies I Have Told."

This exercise never fails to yield great results. It gets students out of their rut of writing about the same things in the same ways. The poems are surprisingly good, even through the students spend very little time on them. This teaches them that you don't always have to labor for hours to write something.

Another way I do group poems is to have the students engage in a "Big Conversation" with another writer. This semester, I asked students to write a few lines from the point of view of a crazed fan of Pablo Neruda. The students had read, aloud in class, Neruda's collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. I told the students to make specific references to Neruda's poems. I gave them about five minutes to do this. I collected their lines and took them back to my office and composed a poem in about five minutes. I posted it on their message board, where they all share group poems, individual poems, stories, and where we also talk about the writing life.

This is the group poem (specific references to Neruda's work are in quotation marks). Obviously, these group poems don't pass for "great" literature--they are meant to be stepping stones to other works, but look what was accomplished in a matter of just a few minutes:

FROM A CRAZED FAN

Dear Pablo,

There is no reason

to write sad

lines, I am

here. All night

I lay awake, dreaming

of you, calling out your

name "so you will

hear me." I have so

much to say

to you. I know every

wrinkle on your face, every

move of your hand: "Sometimes

my kisses go on those heavy vessels

that cross the sea towards

no arrival".

Pablo,

Can I call you that? Take me

under you wing, show me

your ways.

Ah vastness!

Here, I love you. I slam my head

against the cold, hard wall. I

write this letter

"so you will hear me."

Pablo. I love your

name. I love you. I want

to put your soul in a jar.

What are you wearing

right now?

Your poems are about

me, my eyes, voice, grace.

I am your "Girl lithe

and Tawny," your "White Bee!"

Come find me!

I will make you happy. You must

know that your poems

are about me, meant for my ears.

Sweet Pablo. I saw you

once, picking among the

ships. I remember you

as you were, a man, musky

with quivering intent. I

have gone marking my arms

with psalms

that bleed for you, fresh

as false prophesy.

Let me write with you "so

that you will hear me."

Let me meet you again

or my life

will be "a song of despair."

If I could choose

one thing

to finish my life with, it

would be you.

Your poetry

is enough.

Willed Cheerfulness

2005-04-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Brenda Ueland again.

Over the last couple of days, Allen and I have noticed that store cashiers have been exceptionally "nice" to us--just before they ask us if we want to belong to the store's "club" or if we want to donate a dollar to this or that charity.

Those recent experiences and Ueland's book got me to thinking about a common writing problem, willed cheerfulness. It's something I sometimes have to fight when I respond to people's journals or to student work. I even have to fight the impulse toward willed cheerfulness in my own journaling and my own fiction sometimes.

To illustrate: In If You Want To Write Brenda Ueland tells of a student who created a fantastic description of an old house. When Ueland told the student how good the writing was, the student said, "But it is so gloomy!" The student said she didn't like to write depressingly.

Ueland then reveals:

"I could see then that a lifetime of a kind of willed cheerfulness ... kept her from writing from her true self."

Willed cheerfulness is a layer of our being--a kind of automatic response--that must be penetrated in order to get to what we need to say. All our lives, we're taught to be polite or (ugh) "Politically Correct." Or we're admonished: If you can't say something nice then don't say anything at all. But always looking on the sunny side of life can make for dull writing. Ueland says that if you want to write about:

"true cheerfulness,fine. But if it is willed cheerfulness, and you always describe things as you think you ought to, --well, it will not be effective, that is all. Nobody will be interested or believe you."

Then, in a passage of pure genius, Ueland writes:

"Some people write very solemnly with long words like 'co-operation and co-ordination' when their true self is a jolly, vulgar cut-up, full of antics and wise-cracks. In this case if they wrote from the cut-up it would be wonderfully good."

The point she is making is that you shouldn't try to hide yourself. I think, perhaps, this kind of hiding is a problem for women in particular, because there is still the expectation for women to be "nice."

Writing that springs from willed cheerfulness is a kind of automatic writing; and you know it when you read it--it is like being greeted at the door at Wal*Mart or some other public place. It is like receiving that smile just before you're asked to donate a dollar to a worthy cause. It is friendly on the surface, but it doesn't mean much.

If you write that way, you're only passing along a fake smile, in other words.

Do people really want to read something depressing? You bet. If it feels true, they do.

From Writer's Almanac--

Samuel Beckett wrote, "I didn't invent this buzzing confusion. It's all around us...the only chance of renewal is to open our eyes and see the mess."

The Dark Side of Creativity

2005-04-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

I've known about the dark side of creativity for a long while. But last night I ran across a chapter in a book I've been reading the last couple of days that addresses the topic in a way I hadn't thought about before. The book is Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore. I googled Mr. Moore and found his website and contact information, and I sent him a brief e-mail message of thanks for his excellent, soulful book. The author was kind enough to send a brief message in reply. (You'd be suprised how much authors enjoy hearing from readers, especially if, in a brief, cogent, and heartfelt way, you're specific about how the book influences you).

In the book, Moore points out several pitfalls about the creative life. He writes that it has been said that artists are born "under Saturn" (Saturn was the patron of melancholy and artistic inspiration), meaning that their creativity comes out of their suffering. The creative act, unlike what most people believe, is not all positive. It's frustrating and not only that, in creating one thing you are inevitably destroying another.

I have experienced this creation/destruction. For instance, I have written a story and gained new insights, which ultimately destroyed something I previously believed about the world and myself. This destruction is sometimes sad.

In other words, not only does art sometimes come from a painful place, what you discover through your art can be painful.

Moore points out that Capricorn is the image for Saturn. Moore says that the goat on the mountain peak represents both the positive and negative impact of creativity on the artist:

"The ascent and sure-footing are inspiring, but the ravine is steep, deep, and always at hand. A creative person has to be like a Capricorn goat, able to climb high and yet nimble enough to deal with a slide and a fall."

I couldn't help but smile, reading that, since my last entry was about my childhood toy, Oddie the mountain goat.

I don't know that much about Astrology. I enjoy reading about it from time to time because so many wonderful mythological stories are associated with it, and also the Constellations are based on myths. My mother was Capricorn and our youngest son is also, so I knew something about the personality traits of the Goat, but not much more than that.

So I googled "Capricorn Goat" and found the image of the Goat-Fish, which is one of the most intriguing things I've seen in a while. Before yesterday, I wasn't even aware that the sign of Capricorn was the Goat-Fish

The Greek story behind the Goat-Fish is that Pan (a horned god, hence "goat") was involved with other gods in the quest to destroy the monster Typhon. During one of the battles, Pan changed the bottom part of his body into a fish to escape Typhon.

To honor Pan, Zeus placed the Goat-Fish in the heavens.

This story makes me think of another truth about the creative life. The Goat-Fish represents two different aspects of the creative process. The goat represents the head work needed to create, your logical intelligence, your ego (you must believe in yourself to some extent), your ability to organize and promote your work. The fish represents the imagination, the descent into the abyss of the unconscious.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Ohio River Journey III

Allen and I went shopping at Cabela's yesterday. If you don't know, Cabela's is a massive outdoor outfitters store. He bought some things he needed for the boat, like two seats (for a long journey like this we decided we needed the back support). He also bought some fittings he plans to use to create some good shade for us, and an antenna for the marine radio that was purchased a couple of weeks ago. I bought some fleece socks, two tan pair of pants made of light material thatshould dry quickly. The pants convert to shorts. I also got two tops that are made a lot like swim tops. But they are made out of that material that wicks perspiration away from the body, and they dry quickly. I need clothes that dry quickly because I do sweat a lot (Remember that old commercial: "I don't perspire, I sweat! " That's me--I sweat). Also, I'll be handwashing my clothes, and since I don't plan on taking that many clothes (it's a small boat), quick-drying is really a must. (We don't belong to boating clubs and won't access expensive marinas along the way. For the most part, we plan to avoid restaurants and laundromats.)

The clothes were expensive, but then everything seems expensive to us.

In case you're wondering, we aren't people of any great means. I'm a lecturer at the local university; Allen works part-time delivering medical supplies for cancer patients. Our mortgage is more than 1/3 of what we bring home. We have a son in college, and, although he doesn't have to pay tuition (since he attends the university where I teach), we still pay his general fees, give him money for food and supplies and buy his books. It all adds up.

Our boat, Blue Girl, was bought last year for $800 with money I took out of a retirement fund. It is a 22-ft. MacGreggor sailboat, built in 1977. It was already a solid boat when Allen bought it; it just needed a good cleaning, as it had been sitting in the weather under trees for several years. We spent nothing on her last year, and took her out in Lake Erie and on the Maumee and Ottawa Rivers several times, spending the night aboard her a few times. We haven't sailed her, but putt-putt around with the 9 h.p. motor, which is very economical. It's slow-going, but that's what we like.

So we are putting at least as much as she originally cost us into making her ship-shape and into other equipment needed to chronicle the trip. In order to make this trip, we do without other things: the trip is on top of our priorities for this summer.

We've already let too many summers go by without doing something similar to this.

Where Big, Ugly, Junky Flower boxes Come From

2005-04-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

This is a picture I took in our yard on Monday. It's a picture of our Toyota truck's last journey home.

I've always developed attachments to inanimate objects, attachments that many people have called unnatural or downright silly. I don't regret this, although it's often quite painful, because I think this kind of sensitivity lends itself well to being a writer.

It started with toys, I suppose. I never liked dolls, but had a menagerie of glass and plastic animals and stuffed toys that I would have run through fires for. I slept with a favorite stuffed tiger until I was eighteen, putting him away only because I married and Allen wouldn't have him in the bed with us.

The king of my toys when I was in grade school was a little plastic mountain goat named Oddie. My older brother (he was 10 years older than me) had found Oddie on the highway, he said, and brought the toy home to me, thinking I would like it. The fact Oddie was rescued from a horrible fate--thrown away by some ungrateful, insensitive "other-child," I imagined, made him all the more precious to me.

One day I took Oddie to school and a girlfriend put him into a pocket in the front of her dress when we went to lunch. She said it was an "Oddie Dispenser." Afterwards, she couldn't find him. I asked my teacher for permission to go to the office to ask about Oddie. She was a sour old woman, I recall, but she let me go. I can still remember the secretary's face twisting in amusement (though she tried to hide it) when I asked her if anyone had found a plastic mountain goat and turned itin. She stifled a grin as she asked me what it looked like. When I saw that, her amusement, I sensed in my heart of hearts it was hopeless. She couldn't have cared less: Oddie was gone forever.

Years after our marriage, long after we had moved to Ohio so I could go to school to become a (famous) writer, I told Allen about Oddie. I told him one night as we lay in the dark, talking to each other about this and that. I don't remember how we got on the subject. But Allen asked me lots of questions about the toy for several months afterwards. Then one day he surprised me with a mountain goat he had made out of earthenware, a large goat that sat upright like a human but had hooves instead of hands and feet. He was like Super-Oddie, or he was the image of Oddie's soul. The earthenware goat was the image of my toy. I felt that Oddie had transcended his body and become reincarnated. I was overjoyed.

You begin now to understand my attachment to things. So therefore you may understand why I feel attached to our 15 year old truck. It would start in any weather, even if it had been sitting for months. It was the one vehicle we could always depend on, and it got us through many a jam, traveled many a mile. Its sides are eaten by rust, its seat ripped. Its speedometer hasn't worked in years, but no matter--you knew how fast you were going because you knew the truck intimately, every sound and every vibration told you what you needed to know. Its gaskets have been ready to blow for months and months.

When I think of the Toyota, I think not of something mechanical that can be replaced, but of an old friend that had a stroke and died. Understand, not wanting to be a bother, it started one last time and hauled itself onto the trailer, as if taking its last breath. I couldn't help but recall a heartrending story written by a freshman in one of my classes many years ago. It was his dog. The dog had been hit by a car and was in great pain, and dying. The student, a farmboy, brought his rifle out to the road to kill the dog, to take it out of its misery. Just before he shot, the dog raised its head, the boy wrote, and licked his hand. When the old Toyota started up that last time, I felt not relief, but anguish, a similar anguish that farmboy must have felt when his dog licked his hand.

You will understand, then, why, as we were dragging it home, I began to entertain ways I could keep it. I suddenly found I couldn't bear the thought of having it hauled away to the junkyard.

You will understand why I entertained the idea of filling the bed of the truck with rich soil and planting beautiful flowers in it, bright flowers twisting toward the sun, vines trailing down the sides.

I suddenly understood where some big, ugly, junky flower boxes must come from.

Ohio River Journey II

2005-04-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of entries back, I revealed that my husband Allen, our Boston Terrier Buddha, and I plan to float the entire length of the Ohio River this spring and summer. Every day the trip is much on our minds. Allen has quite a bit of preparation to do on the boat, and I'm thinking a lot about the food, clothes, and equipment I want to take. We recently bought a digital camcorder, which we plan to connect to a big battery so we can take lots of footage without worry of running out of juice (the computer, too, will be hooked up to the large battery. I don't want any worries of being low on battery power when I want to do some serious writing, and I plan to do a lot of that). We have a generator to recharge our batteries.

Today was the first nice day we've seen around here for a while, so I took advantage of it and snapped a few photos out in our yard. I didn't have to teach today, and Allen got back from work at around 11 this morning. He told me our old Toyota truck (15 years old!) had finally died, and it was parked a few miles away at the Meijer gas station. It's a gonner--we've been expecting it. I rode with him in our Dodge and we loaded the poor dead thing up on the back of our trailer and hauled it home.

I wanted pictures of Allen and Buddha in the boat, which is called Blue Girl. So they were both good sports and climbed aboard. Please don't pay any attention to the "barn" in the background.

Our Ohio River Charts arrived today from the Army Corps of Engineers. Allen and I sat out in the sun in our swing and looked them over. (Unfortunately, the charts for the Monongahela did not arrive. We plan to start at the Monongahela because we want to trace the journey of Reuben Gold Thwaites.)

While we looked at the charts, Buddha ran our cats around the yard. The Toyota's death aside, it has been a good day.

Tree of Life

2005-04-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

Cynthia's entry today about death and a December 2004 entry by Dave at "Random Thoughts" together inspired this entry on Gilgamesh and the Tree of Life.

I am a writer, so I am forever scanning stories and myths for truths about the human condition. A recurring theme in myths and tales is mortality. Dave's entry is an intriguing look at two myths concerning this theme--Jesus raising Lazarus and the Buddhist story of Kisagotami. Cynthia's entry muses upon her own eventual death.

A little background first: The Gilgamesh myth is Babylonian and 4,000 years old. It tells the exploits of Gilgamesh, whose heroic aspect mirrors that of each of us as we strive to be an individual and to define our place in the world.

Gilgamesh's discovery that we all must die is one of the great watersheds of arrival at maturity.

Gilgamesh and the Tree of Life

Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu fought many battles and were victorious. But when Enkidu died, Gilgamesh mourned deeply. Gilgamesh decided he would not accept the fate that all men must die. He set out in search of the secrets of life and death. He went through many trials, at last finding himself at the shores of the sea of the waters of death. There, a woman reminded him that life is to be enjoyed:

"Gilgamesh, where do you wander?

You shall not find what you seek.

When the gods created human beings,

Death is what they allotted to mortals,

Retaining the secret of life in their own hands.

Let your belly be full, Gilgamesh,

And make a feast of rejoicing each day.

Day and night, dance and play.

Bathe yourself, and pay heed to the child who holds your hand,

And let your wife delight in you.

For this is the task of humankind."

But Gilgamesh would not listen and continued on his quest. Gilgamesh rowed out to the middle of the sea, dived into the waters of death and found the Tree of Life, bringing a branch back to his boat.

On his way home, he stopped by a pool to bathe. But a serpent, creeping near, smelled the heavenly scent of the Tree of Immortality and carried the branch off and ate the leaves. This is why the serpent is able to renew itself by shedding its skin.

Gilgamesh the hero knelt down by the pool, put his face in his hands and wept. He understood now that what he had been told was true: even the mightiest and most courageous of heroes is human and must learn to live with joy in the moment and acceptance of the inevitable end.

The Unconscious Is Smart

2005-04-02T00:28:00.000-08:00

This is a quote from John Gardner's On Becoming A Novelist:

Artist, unknown

"Nothing is sillier than the creative writing teacher's dictum Write about what you know. But whether you're writing about people or dragons, your personal observation of how things happen in the world--how character reveals itself--can turn a dead scene into a vital one. Preliminary good advice might be: Write as if you were a movie camera. Get exactly what is there. All human beings see with astonishing accuracy, not that they can necessarily write it down. When husbands and wives have fights, they work brilliantly, without consciously thinking. They go precisely as far as it's safe to go, they find the spouse's weakness, yet they know without thinking just when to hold back. The unconscious is smart."

You would think that somebody (like me) who has had 9 years of college and who has been calling herself "a writer" for some years now would know certain things.

But I find myself continually going over things I've read before and thought I knew, and, as I'm reading, I feel as though I'm reading (and understanding) what is before me for the first time. That is the experience I had tonight when I read the passage above from John Gardner's book, On Becoming A Novelist.

I had read this passage before, many times. I thought I knew it. But I didn't know it, not in the deep sense, the intimate sense of knowing. As in the bible when it says a person knows another (intimacy). To me, something isn't real until it's known that way, with the same intimacy that lovers know each other, and with the same passion.

Sometimes it take a long time to get to know something!

What I learned: I have observed manytimes "how character reveals itself." I move shark-like through the waters, watching, sometimes striking. I can be both predator and prey. Life is that way.

I need to write that, as honestly as I can.

(No, I'm not saying that I had a fight with my husband! smile)

(Billy) Pilgrim

2005-03-31T13:33:00.000-08:00

DVD /film based on the novel. My students read the novel and viewed clips of the film.

Today in my imaginative writing class (which meets at 9:30 in the morning--much too early for a night owl like me), we discussed Slaughterhouse-Five. We've been studying myths and the students have read two works that discuss mythological heroes, works by Joseph Campbell and David Leeming. The students have a paper due on Tuesday which will focus on Vonnegut's hero, Billy Pilgrim.

I wanted the students to deal with a couple of issues: I wanted them to think about how Billy Pilgrim compares and contrasts with the mythological heroes Campbell and Lemming talk about. And I wanted them to think about the heroes they will create in order to tell their own stories. In what ways will their heroes be like or unlike mythological heroes. At the heart of the matter is change. To what extent do the old stories work and how do we need to adjust stories (and heroes) to speak to our generation.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut writes,

People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore. I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.

It begins like this:

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

It ends like this: Poo-tee weet?

The thing that impresses me the most about his passage is Vonnegut's narrator's modesty. Like Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Slaughterhouse-Five is about an author trying to make sense of the utter senselessness of war. That we cannot capture our experience in the lofty way we envision it is inevitable.

Billy Pilgrim is a modern hero in the sense that he undergoes the existential dilemma so many of us face: what is the meaning of my existence? What is the meaning of life? In the face of the world's horror, how do I find peace. Can I ever be happy?

Vonnegut writes of Pilgrim and a character named Rosewater: "They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war." Slaughterhouse-Five is a story about the fire-bombing of Dresden during WWII. Pilgrim's solution is to re-invent himself.

In class, we talked about the writer's job, which to re-invent myths and stories for readers today. Vonnegut writes that Rosewater felt that everything there was to know about life was in The Brothers Karamazov.

But Rosewater now believes "that isn't enough any more." In other words, Dostoevsky wrote for his place and time. His work contains eternal truths, yes, but can never speak to the present generation in the same way it spoke to readers in the time it was written. So the pilgrimage of the writer is this: to go out in search of the words, the thoughts, the deeds, the problems, the truth that makes sense in this time, in this place.

Poo-tee-weet?

Pilgrims

2005-03-29T22:19:00.000-08:00

Reuben Gold Thwaites

Back in December, my husband and I hatched out an improbable plan. We've slept on it, talked about it, researched what would go into it, and now it looks like we're actually going to do it.

This summer, Allen, Buddha (our new Boston Terrier), and I are going to do something many would find odd. We are going to float the entire length of the Ohio River from Pennsylvania to Illinois. We will leave a couple of weeks after I've gotten out of classes, around mid-May; Allen has already arranged leave from his part-time job.

While we're floating, I won't have access to the Internet.

I haven't mentioned this plan to anyone but Beth until now because I wasn't sure it was really going to happen. Any number of things might have turned us back from this strange quest, but so far nothing has. We've been able to work most things out. What hasn't worked out, we've let go and said we're going anyway.

Our son is going to live in our house, take care of our cats, pay our bills, and for 6-8 weeks, we are going to live aboard a small boat (small enough that most people consider it unlivable for more than a weekend jaunt) and see what it takes to live without many of the comforts we've become accustomed to.

I plan to take my laptop and several paper journals, as well as a small selection of books. I hope to write about the experience, to produce a series of essays or stories about what I learned. I've never written non-fiction before; I've never produced works without my "mask." I'm not even sure I can. If I can't, well, I'll just turn the experiences into fiction, I suppose.

For inspiration the last few months I've reread Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways, and Annie Dillard's wonderful Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. I've also read Afloat On The Ohio by Reuben Gold Thwaites, a man who floated the Ohio with his wife and two other companions at the end of the 19th Century.

I don't know what I will discover about myself during this trip, but I look forward to the voyage and whatever it may bring.

Touching the Divine

2005-03-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

Painting by Caravaggio

So there is something about touching the wounded that shows us the very face of the divine. --Rev. Dr. C. DiNovo

Once, I remember a pious woman frowning and pronouncing someone a "Doubting Thomas." I don't think she was talking about me, though I can remember how her accusation flew like a dart into my chest, and I cringed at the thought that anyone would think so terribly of me as to cast me as a "Doubting Thomas." I also remember a sermon about "Doubting Thomas" (at a fundamentalist church I once attended) and the message was the same: Thomas lacked faith; you don't want to be like him.

As with most things, as you grow, hopefully, you learn to look at life in a more complex way -- a teaching story like the one about Thomas, who wanted to touch Christ's wounds, can have more than one meaning.

At a lecture I attended last night, the speaker showed Caravaggio's painting of Thomas, and I was reminded of my own epiphany concerning Thomas, a realization I had about him when I was an art student in the 70's. I was at that time struck by Caravaggio's painting, at Thomas's willingness -- eagerness -- to touch that which most humans would find repugnant.

In some ways, I'm now reminded of loving caregivers, some people in the medical field, and of saintly human beings like Mother Teresa.

As my ideas about my writing have continued to be shaped, I have come to the realization that the stories I enjoy reading most are those of anguish and pain, of psychological wounds, which may or may not be symbolized by actual physical wounds. The stories I write are the same.

I don't have the physical or mental stamina of a medical caregiver or the moral courage of Mother Teresa . Still, I have a need to "touch" humanity's wounds -- I've discovered this is my way of touching the divine.

I am Thomas.

Keep On Keeping On

2005-03-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

I told myself when I started this blog that I wouldn't use it to talk about movies--a writer should talk about writing, I reasoned, and I still believe this; however I find I must make an exception for I Heart Huckabees. I watched it twice today, once through and then again while listening to the director's (David O. Russell's)commentary.

I was particularly struck by how the movie touches on what I've been reading and thinking about lately--the meaning of life. Even as I write this--the meaning of life--I realize how trite and self-absorbed it sounds. Because I believe as Joseph Campbell does, that there is no "meaning" to life--there's just life. As Campbell says, if you hold up a flower, you don't ask, "What's the meaning of a flower?" And in considering the flea, you don't ask, "Or of a flea?" What art gives us is not the "meaning" of life but the "experience of being alive."

What I love about Huckabees is that it deals with the "meaning of life" dilemma in a truly humorous way and at the same time touches on the hard truth about our existence. Life isn't fair; it's brutal and often nasty--and, perhaps even more to the point, temporary--and we can't change that. But in the face of that knowledge, we can be heroic by doing the best we can.

This idea of being heroic in the face of our mortality is essentially the thesis of Ernest Becker in his excellent book Denial of Death. Becker says that we must accept our "creatureliness," which is the fact that our body, just like that of all animals, will decay and die. Joseph Campbell, too, makes this assertion. He talks of how "terrible" life is, given the fact that we must live it by killing and by eating, eating, eating. Until we face up to this fact, Becker says, we aren't really living.

I was intrigued to hear Russell mention Joseph Campbell during his commentary, repeating Campbell's thoughts on life, suffering, and Christ. Christ's acceptance of his brutal fate should act as a prototype, Russell pointed out, for our own acceptance. Once we accept the world for what it is, we can learn to function within it without becoming paralyzed by our insecurities.

Russell also mentions that an early influence for him was J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey. (I did my Master's thesis on Salinger). My point is that as I was watching I Heart Huckabees, I felt a deep affinity with the writer-director. I felt we were looking at life through the same lens. Listening to the commentary just confirmed it.

The way this entry connects to our art is that the creative life requires intense concentration and a huge leap into the unknown, a leap of faith that what we are doing is somehow worthwhile. Does the world really need one more story? Does it need another novel? Or painting?

If we give in completely to the "meaningless of life" belief, we lose the impetus to create. If, on the other hand, we give ourselves completely to the "art as immortality" argument, we run the risk of giving in to our human ego, an idea illustrated so well in the movie when the "poet" plants photographs of himself inside a store and dreams of recognition and maybe a little Bob-Dylan-fame.

I love this movie because it reminds me not to take myself--or my art--too seriously. It also reinforces that there is a reason and a way to keep on keeping on.

e. e.'s spring

2005-03-20T01:10:00.000-08:00

painting by e.e. cummings

Now, this poem makes me laugh. For Some reason, it reminds me a bit of Vogon poetry from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sorry, e.e.

"Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes!"

Happy Spring.

e. e. cummings

spring omnipotent goddess Thou
dost stuff parks
with overgrown pimply
chevaliers and gumchewing giggly

damosels Thou dost
persuade to serenade
his lady the musical tom-cat
Thou dost inveigle

into crossing sidewalks the
unwary june-bug and the frivolous
angleworm
Thou dost hang canary birds in parlour windows

Spring slattern of seasons
you have soggy legs
and a muddy petticoat
drowsy

is your hair your
eyes are sticky with
dream and you have a sloppy body from

being brought to bed of crocuses
when you sing in your whisky voice
the grass rises on the head of the earth
and all the trees are put on edge

spring
of the excellent jostle of
thy hips
and the superior

Does Anybody Remember Laughter?

2005-03-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

Looking over my entries, I see there's not much in terms of humor, a shame.

And shame on me.

I love the religious stories and myths that make me laugh, stories of poor old Coyote in Native American myth, like the story in which he falls asleep and then his anus eats his dinner. "I'll show you," Coyote says, and takes a burning stick to his anus (which is why that part of the body looks like that). But the story says more, says so much about the way we "cut off our nose to spite our face." The way we hurt ourselves through our vindictiveness, through our personal (and collective) stupidity.

I like the laughing Jesus because the Christian myths are so devoid of humor, and humor is such an excellent tool for understanding.

Last night, I met with a group of writers at a local coffee shop to talk about writing. There were five of us, four women, one man. All of us teachers, except one. We delved into some pretty serious topics, such as empathy and the writer's responsibility. But we also laughed.

It was revivifying.

D. H. Lawrence wrote:

Let us talk, let us laugh, let us tell

all kinds of things to one another;

men and women, let us be

gay and amusing together, and free

from airs and from false modesty.

Afraid of the Light

2005-03-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

I fell a little behind in my Writer's Almanac readings. So today when I was going through them, I found this gem, a quote by Henrik Ibsen. His play, A Doll's House, was startling and life-transforming for me when I read it as a freshman in college in the mid-seventies.

For those of you who haven't read or seen the play, its importance is in its feminist message that a woman's role (Nora) is not confined to the moral authority of her husband (Torvald), nor is her purpose confined to being a "good" mother to her children. It was written in the 1880s. There are several versions of the play on video and DVD; I think my favorite version is the one in which Anthony Hopkins plays Torvald.

Out of respect for Ibsen's work, I named the protagonist of several interconnected short stories Nora.

Henrik Ibsen wrote, "I almost think we're all of us Ghosts... It's not only what we have invited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be Ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light."

The quote makes me painfully aware that I need to do a mental housecleaning, a cerebral ghostbusting of sorts. It makes me wonder how many memories or beliefs I am holding onto have no "vitality."

I think it's true what he says, that we are "afraid of the light."

But when we write, we can't be afraid of it. The light is the only way to drive the lifeless ghosts away.

Exile III

2005-03-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

artist, unknown

A theme I keep coming back to in this journal is exile.

Exile is a recurring theme in myth. The Garden of Eden is one such example. (At the end of this entry I include an excerpt from Father Andrew Greeley's Myths of Religion as an explanation for why I refer to Christian stories as "myths"). The Garden has been interpreted as the womb, our birth our first expulsion from paradise.

I try to impress on my students how important it is to train themselves to think in mythological terms, because, as Father Greeley says, "Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words." A myth, he says, "is a symbolic story which demonstrates...the inner meaning of the universe and of human life." As Father Greeley, in justifying his use of "myth" in reference to Christian stories, explains: "To say that Jesus is a myth is not to say that he is a legend but that his life and message are an attempt to demonstrate the inner meaning of the universe and of human life."

Our visiting writer this semester at the university where I teach, Amy Newman, wrote and published a book of poems called Fall, in which she explores the various meanings of the word, "fall." My friend Beth and I had the opportunity not long ago to hear Amy read her work. It was one of the finest readings we've been to.

In one poem, Amy Newman likens our fall from grace at the Garden of Eden to her own birth. It is a poem about exile. She begins the poem with the definition:

--fall among. To come by chance into the company of.

At my birth, I broke the surface of the water;

then I heard the end of the garden, and

felt the sadness of the exile. I pushed,or was pushed,

and found the new world's skin, the gate, her private entrance,

my new world, then I became, was introduced

to all that would delight and annoy me,

leaned into the way out, felt light-headed,

the stirring of all that wet, the blood, the shame,

her being burst open. I fell among the family.

And backward from the paradise:

the sounds of lambs, a bleating in rhythm.

Trees, marginal, and emarginate leaves,

cloudless partial sky like a tide. All lost to me,

the urge of the reckless afternoons, insistent

in their distances, that gone astray

of what I dropped, so far behind me.

This poem should run backward:

My coming into being.

the heart beating in my conception,

the absence of my possibility, and then,

that fruit and its constant scent, its holy,

impossible gesture. That flesh trouble,

made of seed, of want, and underneath,

the hidden, small, fineprinting.

*From Myths of Religion, by Father Andrew Greeley:

Many Christians have objected to my use of [myth] even when I define it specifically. They are terrified by a word which may even have a slight suggestion of fantasy. However, my usage is the one that is common among historians of religion, literary critics, and social scientists. It is a valuable and helpful usage; there is no other word thich conveys what these scholarly traditions mean when they refer to myth. The Christian would be well advised to get over his fear of the word and appreciate how important a tool it can be for understanding the content of his faith.

Ecstasy

2005-03-10T21:08:00.000-08:00

At one time, when I thought of the word "ecstasy," I pictured flailing arms, the body and the mind all out of control. I pictured people drunk on the spirit of God or on drugs.

What I did not picture was quiet exuberence. That is how I've come to think of ecstasy in my own life, as a kind of quiet quickening that happens deep within. In reading through an article on James Wright tonight, I ran across the word "ecstasy." Kevin Stein, the author of the article, points out that the origin of the word "ecstasy is from the Greek, meaning "to displace."

Thus, to experience ecstasy is to be somewhere beyond yourself, "to inhabit, if only briefly, an alternate reality." As for my own taste in reading, I cannot pronounce it "good" unless at some point in the reading, the author takes me, if only briefly, to some place beyond myself.

It is an odd feeling, a simultaneous feeling of detachment and union. Sometimes that feeling only lasts a split second--I get an electric jolt or a feeling of effervescence in my blood, And, suddenly, I have entered the author's consciousness, the author's dream.

I experienced this feeling most recently after reading a story written by a student in my fiction workshop, a story about a young girl growing into maturity, recognizing the world's corruptibility. The tension created by the imagery in the story rent my spirit from my body and suddenly, I was somewhere "out there." It was not a "perfect" story, but it woke me up. Although it took me "out there," it also brought me back to myself. (I had been feeling detached, numb, sad lately.) That is what I mean about being displaced ("out there") but at the same time connected, unified with a greater whole, thus being brought back "to myself."

This kind of tension in one's writing, to me, is worth ten thousand times more than any plot.

Wright is one of my favorite poets. I've done an entry on him before. ("The Wright Stuff" 12/13/04)

He lived on the Ohio River and knew a lot about corruptibility. The article quotes copiously from Wright; I've chosen the stanzas that speak to me in the way of tension. The kind of tension that creates ecstasy within me:

In the following lines, we see the tension between sunlight and shadow and how the speaker's shadow is unified with that of the horse:

The white house is silent.

My friends can't hear me yet.

The flicker who lives in the bare tree at the field's edge

Pecks once and is still for a long time.

I stand still in the late afternoon.

My face is turned away from the sun.

A horse grazes in my long shadow.

The author of the article says that in such mystical accounts of Wright's, "animals serve as ambasssadors of an alternate reality." The following lines are among my favorite of Wright's:

We paused among the dark cattails and prayed....

We ate the fish.

There must be something very beautiful in my body.

I am so happy.

To me, the poet is describing a feeling of quiet exhiliration, of ecstasy.

Reading the lines, I feel it, too.