Writing teacher Terra Pressler used to assign the task of finding visual miracles. The idea being that stuff is happening all around, if only we'd pay attention. This one was perched in the tree above the house the other afternoon, hoo-hoo-hooing until the sun set. Story 1: Low Owl
How? How? How had he managed to be shunned by every member of that most reclusive and singular of all the avian clans who fly by night? Oh, he'd tried to fit in, he'd tried the best he knew how, but to no avail. He shook his head in dismay and preened his feathers. How hard he had tried. And in a nutshell, there it was: the heartbreak of dyslexia. Story 2: Learning to Fly Kurt Vonnegut: "We have to be continually jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down." Humans always had to be doing that, she thought. Always laying claim to stuff they weren't able to handle. Witness land ownership. Witness the use of pesticides and artificial sweeteners which seeped into the water and flavored plants and insects. She'd taken a juicy rodent just the other evening and detected the flat metallic ping of fluoxetine even in its innocent duadenum. It was depressing, frankly. Sure, they traveled through the air, noisily as only humans could make a process. But growing their own wings? As if. Like any bird, she'd thought about what it would be to trade alulars and primaries for additional phalanges –– with one in opposition. She'd be able to thread an needle or practice calligraphy, but feathers? Feathers win hands down. Ask Icarus which he'd choose –– the paternal hands that wrought the wings or the fierce effortful moments near the Aegean sun before the pinions melted and fluttered into the sea. Story 3: Exodus 33:20 Marquis was more of a doer, really, than a thinker. Even in a family that twitched and hustled from dawn to dusk, he was the kind of youngster who tended to nap through sermons. He remembered the words from the sermon, however, even at the moment that they proved themselves. He had a moment to reflect, as he was carried unnaturally up and across the evening sky, that indeed –– no one could look upon that face and live.
4 Comments
Holding my blogging blah blah in the interest of NaNoWriMo (don't ask, my word-count is pathetic, but I am churning along...). Instead, to mark my mourning of the loss of this national treasure, a couple of the songs that might not get played from this guy.
Because I'm some thousand words deep into NaNoWriMo, and in lieu of writing practice, I give you...Russell Crowe. Gaze into his eyes and I believe a story will write itself.
The "fun size" candies start coming home as early as mid-September. I'm a sucker for a good deal, and it's appealing to load up on the cornucopian selection of kid-sized chocolate bars in the grocery store. Probably a signifier for an under-served childhood. And without fail, the supply fails to meet the trick-or-treating demand. Somehow, we find ourselves in a darkened house with only three or four dejected-looking candies lurking at the bottom of orange plastic jack-o-lantern when the sun sets.
And with this annual candy ritual complete, we mark the halfway point of the football season. Followed rapidly by the slightly panicky realization that the Earth has nearly completed its annual circuit.
A rose is not the only pretty red thing in nature, even if it's one of the first comparisons that come to mind. Blame Robby Burns and the Brothers Grimm. And, granted, "My luve is like a red red dragonfly" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. (Although I might have awarded style-points to myself had the odonate insect pictured above been a damselfly. It isn't. Here's how I know. Which leads me farther off this unbeaten track to, "My luve is like a red red odonate, which sweetly buzzed in June.") But color. "My love's eyes are nothing like the sun, coral is more red than her lip's red." (Thanks, Billy, for that sonnet, number 130). She didn't have access to a cosmetics counter, poor creature, or the fiver to spend on such cheering frippery as a fresh tube of lippy in, say, "Poppy." And cheeks as red as apples? Please. Still, it's red I'm seeing. Literal red –– scarlet and blood-red, crimson and carmine, vermillion and cardinal and ruby –– not metaphorical red, though describing it brings me full circle back to what's the reddest thing in the world. Check the color on these babies: Of course, who's going to swoon over a line like, "Shall I compare thee to a crabapple"?
I am grateful to get that letter. It's a lucky day. Even without a precedent to give my worry shape, it feels like this form-letter from my doctor's office is akin to a big red mark on my doorpost, telling the Angel of Death to pass me over once again. But another letter followed shortly afterwards. It said "Dear Amy. We have attempted to contact you on numerous occasions and have had no response from you. We are in receipt of test results that we need to discuss with you." To which the only response is, "Oh crap." There was more in the letter, but I did not read it until I was waiting on hold with the doctor's office. Side rant: I don't know why they call it "voice mail." It's more like voice-maze. As it turns out, a week later, my messages seem to have been awfully stupid mice, never earning me the reward of a call-back. In the back of my mind, the refrain: Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. I began to grow irritable (default setting, perhaps, but that's another story). I re-read the letter again: "It is important that we discuss these results and possible further follow-up and/or treatment options available to you. Since we have tried to contact you by phone and have been unsuccessful, this letter will serve as notification that you may need further evaluation and/or treatment." And "We will assume you do not wish to discuss this further and/or will seek treatment elsewhere." It closes with "It is our desire to continue to provide you with informed medical care."
And another thing –– I fill out form. after. form. Every time I go to the office, I jot down my contact number about seventy-neenty zillion times. In the ten days since I had last written those digits, there had been zero telephone calls from them, so this "numerous times" that s/he tried to contact me? Bullcrap! Eventually, after leaving half a dozen tremulous voice-mails and entertaining my insomnia with a fresh new crop of 3-a.m. anxieties, I pressed some mystical combinations of buttons to reach a live human at the doctor's office. Four transfers later, I reached my physician's assistant's assistant. Or something.
Not to be all Steven Wright about it, but it's odd to me that "piecing" is not the process of making pieces, but instead the practice of putting pieces together. Separately from sewing that is. It's about putting specific pieces together in a particular way. As in making quilts. I've been making quilts lately. Kind of a lot of quilts. Probably more of them than might be strictly called a hobby. Full disclosure. I admit it: I have been sewing with manic intensity (being "in the seam allowance" as cousin Jean Jones says of that trance-like flow-state of creation) as a way of not thinking about writing. It makes some sort of sense: like writing, where one pieces together a narrative from scraps of conversation, specific detail, and overarching themes, quilting is a way to make something new.
It's the same impulse: to create something substantial, to create something that will comfort or envelop someone, that will please someone else also. One might spend these hours with imaginary friends and their tribulations, or one might think about color, pattern, texture, and size. But when I'm done and it's bound, instead of selling it to a reading public (or editor/agent), this finished product can be used or given away on an individual basis. Or maybe –– rather like the stories I haven't sold yet –– they'll wait on a shelf until the time is right for them to move along. The impulse that sent a person up a ladder or onto her friend's shoulders to make these amendments –– it makes me smile and feel a little more hopeful about the world we share. The decision to scratch a pair of wings onto a road-sign is a small, subversive act of humor and –– I believe –– genuine love. An act with no particular spiritual agenda aside from cheering up the next person who happens to notice. It's generous, random, and clever. Thank you, artists. Alternate interpretation: these are personal messages from the universe. As some of my spiritual friends will doubtless point out that once you start noticing, you'll see angels everywhere. Spinning in infinity, in the architecture, dancing on the heads of pins. Agreed...but pariodolia. Creative writing teacher Terra Pressler used to tell us to consciously look for visual miracles. Keeping my eyes open, I have seen a nightjar sleeping on a traffic light, a skywritten smiley-face over Tampa, and pale green lichen growing in the shape of an angel.
Telling stories and then trying to sell them is a little like trying to distract a toddler. You hold up a shiny toy and shake it, hoping that this will get their attention. And sometimes it does. This one did not attract the attention of the judges, but I enjoyed writing it for a contest last spring. It's unlikely to sell elsewhere, so here you go. Free fiction.
"Malibu" Vernon and Jeannette loved their place in Malibu. You never knew who you’d see around town – Ali with the big sunglasses in the cereal aisle, Bo in riding breeches, Kurt and Goldie having lunch like anyone. Plus –– the house. When taking hayseed houseguests on the grand tour, Vern would throw his arms wide and proclaim, “The sky and the water, and our neighbors the stars.” Always followed by that staccato laugh of his “Ha! Ha! Ha!” like something hard falling down three steps. The jokes never changed. Showing off their beach access, he’d add, “Watch out for that last one…it’s a doozy! Ha! Ha! Ha!” It sometimes made Jeannette gulp her Long Island iced tea a little faster. But who could complain? Vern was steady. Not a beauty, but he made his own money and didn’t bitch about what Jeannette did with hers. No indiscretions, no cruelty. That was worth something. Seventeen years together made theirs a legacy marriage. Some friends were hammering out the details on their third and fourth divorce settlements already. Jeanette didn’t like to judge, but –– honestly. She hated thinking about the spouses who moved away. Retreating to their flyover home-states or shifting bitterly into condos on Topango. Or Sunset, heaven forbid. It gave her a bad feeling. Not that it would be her, downsizing into something bijoux and brave, with the one good Aubusson draped over the loveseat. No, she had every expectation of living out her years right here. She loved this view, loved the cool, dark cement tunnel that led to the beach-stair, loved the sound of the waves. When Vern predeceased her (what with his blood pressure and the bacon every morning, there was little doubt) she’d probably join the flock of rich old birds that strode along the sand early in the mornings, all skinny legs and good bone structure. Maybe take up an eccentric hobby. Bird-watching, perhaps, or ship-spotting, something she could do from the deck between-times. No remarriage, that went without saying. Oh, who was she kidding? The whole thing was collapsing. No amount of replenishment was going to fetch the dunes back from the surf. And she might just as easily go first. Breast cancer, probably. She wouldn’t fight it. God. She hated the quavery, courageous sound of the word “remission.” They should sell. Cash out. As soon as the market came back a little. If it did. But it always did, right? Whenever someone admired their view – nothing but ocean all the way to Hawaii –– Vern would hitch up his pants (very community theater-esque, that bit of broad stage-business) and adopt a hick accent to say, “Ain’t nobody making waterfront any more. Ha! Ha! Ha!” |
About the Blog
A lot of ground gets covered on this blog -- from sailboat racing to book suggestions to plain old piffle. FollowTrying to keep track? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or if you use an aggregator, click the RSS option below.
Old school? Sign up for the newsletter and I'll shoot you a short e-mail when there's something new.
Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|