So. Much. Happening in this photo. All to the good: Let it be fodder for the imagination. Story1
Absenthe, she tended to remind herself, does not make the heart grow fonder. Her thoughts slid, like the needle finding its vinyl groove, to her long-ago college adventures, already three generations too late to know about the real Absenthe. A young dreamer 80 after the green fairy flitted through fin-de-ciecle Paris. In French, la fée verte, the fairy who inspired and drove artists mad. But maybe that was just the wormwood talking. She knew the flavor –– anise, of course, always licorice –– and she knew how the emerald-green liquor clouded into the color of a mint milkshake when mixed with water. "Give a chap a drink," they used to call across open space to one another, college kids with a yearning for Hemingway's sort of possibilities. "Isn't it pretty to think so," was the correct response. A bit of self-conscious whimsy. A pose. Ersatz nostalgia with a wink. They usually ended up with beer. It was cheaper and plentiful, and it was only much later that anyone laid hands on the heavy glass bottle that held a genuine green fairy. But they were just college kids afternoon-drinking then, hoisting glass mugs of yellow beer, waxing gently ironic about their dreams. She shook her head as she trudged along, and then caught the eye of a young person –– boy? girl? not that it mattered, a slim figure dressed entirely in black who probably thought she was a crazy old bat. Far ridere il polli. She felt her shoulders rise in an exaggerated shrug and quickly added a neck roll to make herself look less ridiculous. Wormwood, she had been thinking, artemisia absenthium, a medicinal bitter herb. Stopping to catch her breath and shift the shopping bag from left to right, she considered the plant. Silvery leaves dried like sage, with the scent –– what else? –– mildly licorice-scented. If she remembered her Culpeper's Complete Herbal (circa 1653), and she did, "This herb is good for something, for God made nothing in vain." She expelled the irony in one sharp exhale: "Or anyway, Isn't it pretty to think so?"
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He probably needed to warm up before tortoising. Today's writing prompt comes all the way from the Galápagos. Pranayama
He tried to still his thoughts. Circular breathing. He counted in with the breath: one-belly, two-ribs, three-shoulders. He attempted to send his breath into the interstitial area, wherever that was––! And then out again: shoulders-one, ribs-two, three-belly. And pause. He was happy to pause. He could out-pause anyone. Not that it was a competition. The instructor went on, and he decided to keep pausing. He'd hold still, he figured, and then nip back in next time. Like Arlo Guthrie, he'd just wait for the chorus to come around again. Circular breathing was frustrating and difficult, but the practice was only forty minutes out of a day. Ah, there it was: Inhale. He did, trying to make the breath open first his belly, then ribs, and finally, shoulders. Or what would be shoulders, had he any. Ribs? His ribs were fused into carapace, and everyone knew a carapace didn't –– shouldn't!–– flex. And what chance did his belly have against the dusty plastron? He lived inside a shell corset, and he might just as soon ask his breath to give him wings. He recognized the monkey-brain resistance and focused on the air moving through his sinuses. He sipped the air in and ahhed the breath out. His eyes closed. In. Out. In. The class finished and the day turned into night before he opened his bleary eyes again. The night was absolute, fog blotting out the yellow streetlights and the stars alike. Damn, he thought. How long was I out? I wonder what year it is. My editorial life is about helping people tell their stories. Helping them say what they are trying to say. The goal is to make the projects better, more useful, and pleasant for the wider world of readers. Sometimes the job resembles therapy. One writer might need a hand to get past things that make him fearful or full of doubt. Another might require a subtle check on the runaway train that is her imagination. My work might include diagramming the odd sentence, straightening misaligned metaphors, tidying structural messes, spotting spelling errors. When I judge, I try to do it gently. It's a living. When I find something like this formal "artist's statement"? I'm torn. On the one hand, face-palm. Verbiage like this an affirmation for why there is a profession like mine.
On the other hand, gently massaging my forehead, I am just grateful that this didn't happen on my watch. Warm-up writing prompted by –– what else? A PONY! There would be no escape this day. Sqantahonoh-neehoit (a name that roughly translates to "rhomboid-shaped fruit of the false-kola cactus") resolved again to bide her time. The art of survival was patience. It was a thing she'd come to know, along with the feel of the saddle on her back and the tug of the lead-line. She'd witnessed what happened when patience ended. Her herd-mate, Gohollin-ah (meaning "Speedy wooly caterpillar" or, with a slightly different inflection "Wooly kitten"), had been lost to such an event. A day like any other until the moment of impatience. Followed by panic, a loud outcry, and a beating that ended badly. Before even the moon had a chance to rise, Gohollin-ah was taken away in a vehicle that smelled of blood and fear and death. A hard day and a sorrowful night it had been. The scent of freedom came to Squantohonoh-neehoit now –– nearly masked by the carnival odors of corndogs and fry-dough, and the tang of hot pavement –– on the dusty wings of the breeze. She did not reveal the glowing coal that was her spirit. She snuffed deeply of the freedom-wind, and reminded herself: I am patient. Patient as the log that waits for water. Patiently waiting for the flood to carry me free. She would run again, she knew it. She would run and roll in the sand. She would crop sweet green grass and drink clear water as it sparkled over rock. She did not hear her own deep sigh of sadness and longing. She did not know that her patience would save her. She did not know the shape of the freedom could shift and change like snowdrift in a blizzard. But it would. It surprises me when someone says, "Oh, I don't know the words. I just listen to the music."
PS: And on the other hand, we have songs like Louie Louie. The words are so indistinguishable that you can put whatever comes to mind into those slurred lines, and all you are left with as a listener is a passionate understanding for the need to leave. I know it's supposed to be a sea-shanty, but honestly it could just as easily be a call to take up needlepoint or remove potatoes from the stove. Wooah, baby, me gotta go.
When committing words to paper (or screen–– or signage–– ), it's useful to put yourself in the shoes of your "readers." Who will probably "wish" they could understand your message. Just "saying." Bonus points for correct use of open and closed quotation marks.
One of my favorite nephews was helping me shuffle boxes of stuff from one place to the other recently. With that mix of patience and impatience native to the under-20 crowd, he did not express the slightest flicker of curiosity. Still, his doubtful expression as he slid the carton (Marked "A-16") into the back of the Honda made me want to explain a little. "I haven't unpacked that box since before your Uncle Jeff and I got married," I ventured. Which would make it the equivalent to the Jazz Age to him. "Toss it!" he said, then, reluctantly, "Why?" "Because there was space?" I said. "Because I never got around to it?" "Huh," he said. "Welp, that's the last of the pile. Anything else?" There wasn't, except my continuing impulse to explain. And of course my own curiosity. I hadn't unpacked the box -- or possibly even peeked into it –– for a very long time. Under a layer of yellowed St. Petersburg Times packing paper, an old acquaintance gazed back at me. Wide Wide World was the first real bestseller in the U.S. Published in 1850, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. And then, for a couple of solid reasons, it disappeared from most people's memories. Why was it forgotten? Here's the short list: 1) It's a "woman's" book, which critics and scholars later tended to dismiss. What's a "woman's book"? Well, the short form is that, like Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford novels, The Wide Wide World is focused on a heroine within the limited sphere of house and hold. 2) Like Little Dorritt or The Shack, the book offers a lot of weeping. Sentimentality is all well and good, but like unhappy families, I think every generation needs its own sentimental novel. Bridges of Madison County, anyone? Jonathan Livingston Seagull? It's almost as if the reading public wrings the emotion out of a popular book, leaving a dry husk for the next wave of readers. Or not. It's just a theory.
So it's not a book that is going to have a revival, like Beryl Markham's West with the Night*. It's not a book I'm going to read again, ever. But I don't want to forget it. And so it has waited in a cardboard box lo these many years. Wide Wide World essentially fired up the country's book publishing industry. The novel was huge. It outsold David Copperfield in England. But Susan Warner did NOT make a fortune from it. She and her sister started writing after their father lost all the family money in the panic of 1837. The girls were poor and writing was their best option to keep body and soul together. They managed, but they did not enjoy the life of bestselling authors. Susan went on to publish a book a year until her death at age 66. The Warner sisters have been mostly forgotten. Mostly: they did manage to pass along their family property, Constitution Island, to the US Military Academy at West Point. The island is part of the campus, although their house (Warner House, natch) is presently in a state of disrepair. Sic transit gloria mundi. Resources:
*A quick essay about West with the Night. What Katy Read: Feminst re-readings of "classic" stories for girls, by Shirley Foster and Judy Simons, University of Iowa Press, 1995. Child brides in present-day US Goodreads page for Wide Wide World https://www.enotes.com/topics/wide-wide-world-susan-warner "Loving The Wide Wide World: a novel, its fans, and their fictions" essay by Jennifer L. Brady, Harvard. Margaret Atwood on "Women's Novels." http://www.inspirationalarchive.com/1730/the-history-of-jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-song/ Visible Women: New Essays on American Activism, edited by Nancy A. Hewitt, Susanne Lebsock. University of Illinois Press, 1993. Nineteenth-Century American Women's Novels: Interpretative Strategies by Susan K. Harris, Cambridge University Press, 1990 "Panics, Gifts, and Faith in Susan Warner's Wide Wide World" in From Gift to Commodity: Capitalism and Sacrifice in Nineteenth-century American Fiction, by Hildegard Hoeller, University of New Hampshire Press, 2012. Susan Warner and "The Wide Wide World" by Mabel F. Sltstetter, The Elementary English Review, Vol 14, No 5 (MAY 1937), pp115-167. The oddest images prompt stories. My writing friend Kate Raynes has the knack for locating just the right picture to springboard her fiction into the stratosphere. Or maybe it's the knack for writing unsettling stories related to those offbeat images. Go read some of her stories (don't overdose!) and tell me –– chicken or egg? I like a photo for warming up or for simple fun. Today the personal-care products seemed to be staging a drama just for me. Story 1 –– Charged
They were both ambushed by the amorous impulse. It hit them as if their batteries had been given a big zap of power. It was maybe too much juice. They both suspected as much, but what kind of fool turns a back on the chance at big love? When they could reach one another, they necked like kids. Their kisses were all the sweeter for the hard job they worked, because who knew when they'd be spent? All their vim washed down the drain. It would be over too soon any way they looked at it, but they would make the most of their time. Story 2 –– Like Lizards The electric toothbrushes were at it again, she thought, must be the season. Pairs of lizards would be intertwined on the back patio, and snarls of snakes could be expected under the old apple-tree. The sukebind would be blooming, and the good lord alone knew what would happen after that. Story 3 –– Evidence It wasn't healthful, but she seemed to be unable to stop herself from using the key she'd gotten from him those months ago. She turned the well-oiled bolt, opened the door, and there she would be again, walking through his apartment. It happened more often than she liked to admit to herself. It didn't make her feel good. His refrigerator always looked lonesome to her: not enough ingredients for a meal, leftover take-out cartons forming an archeological record of past dinners. The apartment seemed to lack something domestic. He wasn't a dirty housekeeper. He never left laundry piled up; he was as neat as a cat with his clothes. But still. Not as if they had lived there together, she sometimes reminded herself. She'd spent a few nights in a row from time to time, especially when they had been working on the Chapparel project, but she'd never gotten, for instance, her own drawer. The top drawer of his dresser, she noted dully, was still harboring an innocent tumble of silky underthings from his new girlfriend. Or not, she thought with a moment of clarifying spite. Maybe it was him dressing up. She used a pencil to lift a pair of lacy somethings out of the drawer. No such luck. They'd never fit him. She had to stop doing this. Imagine getting caught. Caught looking at someone else's underpants. Even knowing he was out of town for at least the week, she felt shame wash over her. She never took anything, never stole a single hair from his comb for a love-spell, or sniffed the dent in his pillow case for the hint of his unforgotten scent. Or for hers. When asked, many of the manly American men writers of their day used to claim that writing is easy. You just open a vein. (Versions of the quote come from sportswriter Red Smith, sportswriter and novelist Paul Gallico, wordy novelist Thomas Wolfe, and his High-T Manliness Himself –– Ernest Hemingway. Thanks Garson O'Toole for this blog all about it.) Um, okay, boys. Not for nothing, but bleeding is a lot easier.
Which opens the door to the real the question: why write at all. Why not just not write? Get the other things on my list done. Retire or whatnot.
I would, actually, if I could. So far I have failed to give it up. I've alluded to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner a time or two; it's that poem with the old guy pestering people at a wedding, insisting that he tell them HIS story –– that's a pretty good illustration of what goes on over here. And yet, despite characters shouting and raising their hands frantically in the back of my skull-duggery room and a good playlist cued up, I am dipping into Reynold Price's wonderful Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebooks 1955-1997. It's an annotated journal that gives me hope: in it, Price writes about his process. He dithers and wonders about his characters' motivations and choices. He revisits and re-considers his own moral position based on the things his characters do –– or what they must do, whether he wants them to do or not. Price was a young man at start of these notebooks studying and writing in Oxford and then back in North Carolina, before he wrote A Long and Happy Life, his first novel. By the end, he's had a has successful career, including Kate Vaiden, and a dozen other novels, as well as screenplays and short stories, books with a biblical bent, and volumes of memoir. Here's a sample from page 77 of Learning a Trade. 20 January 1957 LONDON But look, isn't this story in danger of ending with a kind of cheat, that is with no resolution? What is the end going to imply?: simply that she leaves home for Norfolk or wherever? Maybe Wesley had better make some kind of gesture, however small. And page 129: 27 August 1960, DURHAM Rosacoke has told Wesley her pregnancy. His only reaction has been silence –– then question: has she known anyone else? Then simply telling her to come on, they must practice. Her own feeling through the revelation is chiefly numbness, tiredness –– though Wesley notices on her face the same look that was there on the November night (which was described then as hate). I haven't read the story in question, and may never do so. Can't say I am want to know about Wesley and Rosacoke. What's interesting –– and heartening –– is that Price clearly spent a good portion of his waking life playing with his paper dolls, too, imagining an inner life for these imaginary friends, worrying about their actions and what it all means. Misery is not the only thing that loves company.
Most of us were supposed to have learned this in high-school biology, but here's a quick review:
As a big fan of metaphor, I keep wrestling with a good way to describe the complicated mixing of genetics. Half an apple (father) plus half an orange (mamma) and each child is an apple-orange? Erm –– that does not clarify anything.
Maybe a soccer playoff? Two leagues, 46 teams, they have to fall out into half-teams and play the final while paired with an unfamiliar other half-team? Hmm. But what about the goalies? NO! Just nope! Sports metaphors, ratsa fratsa.... Or wait: what if you think of the mom as a margarita –– the good kind, with the top-shelf tequila, Grand Marnier, lime zest, fresh-squeezed Key lime juice, and sea-salt over ice. Which naturally makes the daddy an Old Fashioned, all muddled bitters and sugar, dark rye, a fat twist of orange peel with a maraschino cherry on top. Unzip the spirals, mix, mingle and –– poof! One kid turns out a mix of tequila, bitters and a maraschino cherry. Another is Grand Marnier and rye with orange and lime zest. A third child is a sour mix of lime and bitters and sea-salt. Another... you get the picture. That's why you aren't exactly like your sibling (unless you're an identical twin), but instead seem like variants on a theme: Mumsie's near-sighted eyes and Daddo's thick, wavy hair paired with different jawlines and frames. Go to a family reunion and the mixology can be actively unsettling: the shared blond curls, the cousin's toddler child who is a ringer for long-dead great-Gramp Earl, and the vision of your parent's feet at the end of someone else's legs.
Or maybe it's comforting, that ongoing flow of family genes. A river, maybe, even more than a mélange of mixed drinks.
Science Links: genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask128 http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/resources/whats_a_genome/Chp1_4_2.shtml http:genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask445 https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/basics/howmanychromosomes
Naturally, there's more to say about the genetic side of genealogy, but this is enough for now, I think.
Which brings me, sideways, to the word "anon." Anon can be short for "anonymous," but it's also an archaic adverb meaning "shortly." As in, I will write more about this anon. The etymology of the word (it strikes me that genealogy is the etymology of a person. Hmm.) gives it an Old English heritage. It meant "into one," which eventually referred to time, as in "at once." I am distracted, it's inevitable, by thinking about how the Old English (700-1100 A.D.) visualized time differently that we do. Until later. Anon. |
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