GLORIOUS AUTUMN

GROWN UP

And suddenly, childhood is over. An invisible boundary, 

Clock hands. 

Irrevocable, inevitable. The way things are. 

Freedom, responsibility, ambition. 

Cliches cementing.

Air, bananas, coats, dogs. Nouns become actual.

Invisible contexts. Mapless territories. 

Here be dragons. 

Sail.

 

MEDUSA

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.


When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair, 
Held up at a window, seen through a door. 
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.


This is a dead scene forever now. 
Nothing will ever stir. 
The end will never brighten it more than this, 
Nor the rain blur.


The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground. 


And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day, 
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away. 

--Louise Bogan

A NOVEL IN NOVEMBER?

I've been thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month happens every November. The "rules" are straightforward: participants write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.

I tried it once. 

I was in grad school and had no business taking on another project. Those were years I did way too many things, none of them particularly well. 

I don't know how I thought writing a novel would benefit me. 

You see, I've never so much as written a story more than, oh, five pages long. And that story was a tremendous struggle. 

I'm not a writer interested in plot-driven narratives. I haven't read many novels lately. I don't have a character whose story I need to tell. The word "narrative" gives me the heebie-jeebies. 

Why, then, would I even consider a second NaNoWriMo attempt?

Maybe because I just want to have a 200 page manuscript in a drawer. I can refer to those pages as "my novel." 

If I could be content with a paperweight made of 200 sheets of paper, I could write a novel. However, I still write like a poet. I obsess over every syllable. Writing is a slow go for me. 

I did, however, think of some ideas last night. 

Mythology. Caravaggio paintings. Ovid. A novel in three sections. 

That's all I've got. But it's a start. 

 

INSPIRATION'S SOURCE

Plodded through a work-filled and literal morning of matter-of-factness and sensibility. Things needed to get done. Things got done.

Once the fanciful part of the day arrived, I was exhausted.

Excuses, excuses. I will use "my brain was foggy" as today's rationalization for not "getting inspired." Or the old standby "There was so much I needed to get done!" Even so, I had a few hours to get out and "do" something. I wanted to discover a new perspective, a different point of view. I only found a headache.

In other words, I gave up.

I can wish all I want, but I have to face facts: I am not a person inspired by everyday things. I can't sit on my back porch and find fanciful faces in clouds or thrill to madrigals in birdsong. I need to be in the busy world to start (and keep) my creative mind going. I need variety and change.

Reminder to self: kick door, readjust eyes.

See something new, or newly.

JUST LIKE HER

I am not sure how I will feel when I see him, but there's suddenly an electronic photo of a little boy.

People will often blah, blah, blah about how children resemble their parents; in most cases, yes, this is true. We see a nose here, an eye there. It's cute, it's fun, and it's genetics.

But this little boy is a teeny, tiny version of his mama. Running, laughing, waving arms slightly blurred, one giant smile.

Enormous brown eyes:

Something mischievous, something kind. Something curious, something wise. She's all there.

Despite the fact that she is no longer here, I can only smile when I see her boy. This overwhelming joy, surely, is a miracle. The young man is his beautiful mother.

 

SATURDAY

A busy jump-out-of-bed-get-going-right-away Saturday.

Freezing temperatures, downpours, lunch guests, dirty dishes, candy wrappers.

Air conditioning off; fireplace blazing.

Hurried grocery trip. Early crowd stocking up for indoor day.

Coffee bar: hot drinks outnumber iced lattes. Blueberry muffins trump chocolate chocolate chip.

Kitchen alchemy: eight crimson peppers transformed. Delicious orange (what cream and onions do to red) soup.

Evening: lazy dogs, lazy humans. None happy with noisy wind, noisier tv movies.

Relaxation? No problem.

This? A great Saturday.

YOUR FUTURE SELF WILL THANK YOU

All I did today was clean the house and put up Halloween decorations.

I also took a shower and ate Chinese food. 

And went to the dollar store.

That's all I did. All day long!

I hate the process of holiday decorating, but I love when everything is in its festive place.The house was ready to change her outfit, and now she's all gussied up in oranges and purples. 

I especially love the morning after a cleaning binge; if the piles and grime have built up, you're in for a real treat when your half-awake self is completely shocked by how hard your usually-lazy self worked the day before. 

I wander my clean rooms, stunned: "all this...for ME?" I'll even blush.

How could my cheeks not flush when I spoil myself so? 

Looking forward to tomorrow, when I will thank myself for all the work I did today. 

Showy-offy? Yep. But it's true. 

ELEVEN QUESTIONS ABOUT MY WRITING

1. Am I a risky writer?  
2. Do I dare myself when I write? 
3. If so, do I take the dare? 
4. Do I make imaginative leaps, fling myself into rapids of invention? 
5. Am I willing to drown?
6. Am I willing to fly?
7. Was there a time when chaos was my preference, and sentences that ended on prepositions didn't thud?
8. Have I cordoned myself off so well I can't escape? 
9. Do I miss the joy my work once brought me?
10. Was there ever joy? 
11. Was this ever fun?

STEVE JOBS (1955-2011)

Like so many around the globe, affectionately thinking of Steve Jobs on the night of his passing.

Jobs gave the world truly intimate digital products. I can carry thousands of songs, photos, and love notes everywhere I go...not just figuratively in my heart...literally, in my iPhone.

Digital intimacy is no longer an oxymoron.

I believe he made the world a better place.

It's also terrifying that someone with unlimited financial resources can't beat cancer. Cancer fucking sucks. I wish he'd had more time.

My heart is with his family, friends, and all who mourn him.

RIP, Mr. Jobs, and thank you.

WHAT DID THEY SAY?

Though a few firecracker quotes burst though the haze, most of history's voices reach us as murmuring buzz -- a low, indistinguishable din. We know some of the words of a very small number of people; however, what most did or said will forever remain a mystery.

In high school, it seemed that world-changing events were oh-so-simple:

Once upon a time, a group of fed-up people suddenly Opened Their Eyes. They realized that the System was Bad. They coordinated their responses and got rid of the Horrible Thing. Eliminating the Terrible Changed the World! 

When we don't hear individual voices, everything can be neatly and simply generalized. Reduced to a mere soundbite.

This holds true for more than historical events.

The people in our lives are driven by motivations we'll never fully understand. They will hoard unshared motivations. They will make decisions we'll never  comprehend. What they will share is but a few words. How can we hope to understand if we only listen to their words?

And how many of us spend a lot of our time only half-listening?

We must learn a deeper way of attending to the people in our lives.

I have grown weary of my incessant talking and my insatiable opining.

I'm working on opening my eyes, giving my ears a chance to actually hear.

HOW TO GET MORE DONE

Monday morning. The reset button has been pushed. My week's task list is (kind of) daunting but it's my attitude that makes it seem gloomy. As with everything, my perspective affects my productivity, and vice versa.

When I was a full-time outside-the-home-worker-with-a-long-commute, I had much more to do, yet was somehow able to get it all done. Now that I don't have as many items on my task list, each to-do looms larger. 

Productivity-enhancing books, I will not turn to you in the hope of finding relief; I have read you all, and heeded your advice. 

I know how to solve my dilemma: I have to get up off my butt, start moving, and stop when the tasks have all been completed. 

And that is my Statement on Productivity. 

Happy Monday!

MISCELLANEOUS UNITS

I have fumbling days. Days I don't know what to say or do. Days I don't know where to put my hands. Or my knees. Or my elbows. Days eye contact is too intrusive; it's better to keep sunglasses on. 


Some days every decision seems doomed. 


There are seconds, and there are even smaller units: milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, picoseconds, femtoseconds, attoseconds, aeptoseconds, and yoctoseconds. The attosecond is the shortest time now measurable. 

Larger units: minutes, hours, days and weeks. Then come fortnights and lunar months. Months and quarters. Years, common years, leap years, tropical years, Gregorian years, Olympiads. Lustrums, decades, indictions, generations, jubilees, centuries, millenniums. Exaseconds. Cosmological decades.

By no means is this list exhaustive. I'm not trying to wrap my brain around any of these measures; I don't possess the imaginative capacity to consider them in any meaningful way. 

What I love is that such systems of order exist; while I wander in circles, confused and exhausted because I forgot a grocery list, the world is chock full of gleaming, detailed classifications. The minute and vast are measurable. 


It all makes sense. To someone. 
 

FORTRESS

Trying to recall any fictional characters who physically cover themselves in some way in order to hide from emotional and/or physical intimacy.

A literal carapace designed to repel or repulse.

Surely there is someone in mythology, graphic novels or science fiction who does this in a more than metaphorical way.

I'm not referring to someone who unwillingly suffers this isolation as a side effect of a separate "condition"; I'm thinking of someone who very deliberately wants to keep people at a distance and finds a way of "cocooning" him- or herself from all the messy human stuff.

Can't help but think I'm overlooking someone obvious...any ideas, world?