Thursday, September 30, 2010
Writing Tip: Read
Read all the time,
even when you don't
have time.
Make time.
Read your genre.
Read outside your genre.
Do not read the news.
Read literature,
poems,
memoirs.
Keep a book in your purse, by your bed and under your arm.
Be ready for a free moment and when it arrives, read.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Book Talk: Cherish This Ecstasy by David James Duncan
This week I'm looking at a particular essay from The Best American Essays which was edited by Mary Oliver. I happened to be trying to figure out the beast "essay" as I considered this piece of work--which is truly stunning. I whole heartedly suggest you find this collection and absorb this essay. Duncan is wonderful and most of the essays in this collection are stunning as well.
On the surface, this humorous and even sexy essay is about:
1) RESCUE OF A NEAR EXTINCT SPECIES OF BIRD
'The peregrine falcon was brought back from the brink of extinction by a ban on DDT, but also by a peregrine falcon mating hat invented by an ornithologist at Cornell University.'
2) A DYING MARRIAGE
"…I was researching a novel about birds entering extinction while my first marriage was doing the same..."
3) SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION
"… I awoke…passion-shattered in blackness, sensing wings. And suddenly knew: I am never alone."
To further serve the latter theme of spiritual transcendence, Duncan sprinkles in a reference to Buddhism. More than once he refers to the technique for attracting the peregrine falcon, amidst the rescue of the species, which is that a scientist performs a bow that Duncan describes as: " …bowing like an over polite Japanese Buddhist monk trying to tell someone goodbye."
Via this reference, Duncan takes his reader, psychically, on a trip back in time-twenty five hundred years-which is when the Buddha lived and taught, and into the heart of a male dominated collective defined in part by their exclusion of passion, ie: women.
Does Duncan intend to take us—as readers—on this historical journey and more, does he intend for us to look at old ideas of male supremacy as well as male suppression of passion?
I think he does and offer up this passage (although it goes back only seven hundred some odd years but still touches the theme). Duncan writes, "I was reminded of the too-great-for-Catholics saint Meister Eckhart. The greater the nudity, the greater the union, he preached to Christ-impassioned Rhine Valley women by the thousands, scaring Rome’s crimson-beanied finest so Christ-less they waited till the meister died, then invaded the Rhine, clubbed and dissented his still-living sermons, silenced or burned Christ’s profoundly pierced lovers, and excommunicated the nudity and wings."
Duncan seems to be digging in so deep in order to reveal his own inclinations towards passion while also bringing attention to what has been historically true about passion—at least from a religious standpoint.
But what of his peregrine falcon? What does he mean in giving us this bird and the efforts made to rescue it? I might suggest that he has this particular bird in the story to also highlight a pattern of male domination through control and power. The peregrine falcon—which itself dates back to 2000 B.C.—is one of the swiftest and most deadly birds of prey. The peregrine, which can fly one hundred ninty miles per hour, was long cultivated by Egyptians and the Chinese as a weapon to destroy other animals for sport. It’s said that the mere appearance of a peregrine falcon in the sky strikes terror in the natural world—sending lesser animals to hiding places, hearts atremble. I suggest he is telling us, via the peregrine, about our historical passions and how they have been diverted into killing rather than loving.
The monk, Meister Eckhart and the peregrine are all potent symbols calling the inquiring reader to look back at how things were, ie: how humans prayed (and preyed), how humans dominated and how humans cultivated animals to kill and then to juxtapose them—by the very circumstances that are Duncan’s predicament—against how things have changed. For example, where is Duncan’s wife in this modern time but off dancing in the arms of another man (expressing her own passion).
As Duncan’s marriage crumbles, he goes on, via his actions, to accept that he cannot do anything. What can he do? In earlier times, seven hundred to two thousand years earlier, a man would know exactly what to do with such a woman and it would likely include sending a falcon out to consume her liver. He would be legal empowered to do so as well, as women were not even considered human but rather property of a man, either father or husband. But today, in our time, so many women are educated (although not enough), have access to their own resources (although not enough), are protected by the law (although not enough) and are largely free to do what they will with their time and bodies (although not enough). We might say, although not enough, many passions are free again in a way they haven't been for some time (although not nearly enough in my humble opinion).
Staying on point, what choice does a thoughtful man have in this emerging time of feminine passion and freedom but to think deeply about himself, sexuality, creativity, spirituality, God and nature all while stewing in the thick juices that can only rise during the dark night of the soul. 
Duncan writes: "…late that same night, while my wife was out dancing, two dream flickers flew into my room and fused like a feathered halo o’re my head, and though not a wind or a talon touched me, their passion poured in and in and in till it summoned, from some lost chasm of bliss miles inside me, the most ecstatic nocturnal emission of my life. I awoke…passion-shattered in blackness, sensing wings."
Duncan is a man falling into a new consciousness. He shows how this is done by the act of his personal surrender to the dark night of confusion and the way he expresses a kind of gratitude to the ornithologist who doesn’t respond to his awkward pleadings for advice and help. He writes: "The Cornell ornithologist never answered my letter. And he was wise, it turned out, not to do so: for into the vacuum created by his lack of an answer wild birds flew, and have never stopped answering."
Duncan recognizes that answers no longer come from domination or suppression of passions but rather from surrender to them. For his wife—that surrender is expressed by dancing and being with another man. For Duncan surrender comes via his fully attentive observance of the winged messenger of inspiration—the bird.
Duncan gives us the bird, again and again, (there are 43 references to birds in this 10 graph essay) as well as his observation of the bird in all of its forms, as an indicator of his personal transcendence and we as reader are wholly inspired by where he takes us—which is into the heart of being loved and love—an ecstatic state beyond boundary.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday Writing & Sunday Inspiration
No writers have submitted their work this week and so I'm putting a small conversation here about writing.
As I write, each day, I find that I move with faith. I put words on the page and cast aside all thoughts of grandure and completion and assuredness. None of these are part of the creative process. They are the result of a fearful mind that desires to control the outcome.
Creativity cannot be controlled. It can only be invited.
This is a relatively new practice for me.
In writing memoir, charting over my known experiences, I followed a different course. I knew the story. Or so I told myself.
But in the end, I didn't. Those stories revealed their own endings as well.
Now, as I attempt to write fiction, I wander in a different direction. I trust that one line will lead to another and then another. I also trust that as the days pass, new ideas will rise and invite the direction I need to take. It feels like dancing with an invisible, yet very intelligent partner. I need only be open. I need only be ready. I need only be patient.
Good writing, good luck!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Announcements
1) If you are a writer, looking for a shot of support, we have three remaining observation spots at our Thursday night Transformative Writing Table. We meet each Thurs. @ 5:30 and it's a night of fresh writing, writing prompts and teaching. Not to be missed. Please contact me for details.
2) Go to IWWG.com to learn more about the "Meet the Agent's" Event coming in Oct. This is how I secured my first agent, when I had interest in Blackbird in 1998. The International Women's Writing Guild is a great organization for new writers to create community.
3) I highly recommend all writers go to shewrites.com and join! This is also a fantastic support network for women writers which has grown from being a few members to being 11,000 members strong world wide. 
4) Finally, Hope Edelman's wonderful book, The Possibility of Everything is now out in paperback. This book contains one of the best descriptions of the Mayan Calendar and our current experience of time acceleration, I have ever read. It is worth it for the story, Hope's quest and the insight into these crazed times of transition.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Writing Tip: Put Art First
This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity.
~ Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet,
And this comes from a man, who I deeply admire, but who is-at the end of the day-a man. Rilke had the luxury of building his life around his writing, without apology, as did many men.
Still, I believe his advice is important, in fact it is essential. And it is also important to consider art from the perspective of being a woman.
For me, it often feels like I put my pre-conditioned and societally supported service aspects of womanhood before my art. I mother, organize, cook, attend to the needs of others, pay the bills, check email, answer all inquiries, write this blog post and so on, before I write.
This is not the way to get the job done. When it has come time to create one of my books, I have worked very hard to get the writing in first, when I am fresh and open and rested.
If a deadline is not looming though, I definitely struggle with the rotation of the equation because to put art first means a deluge of judgments which bypass my conscious mind, lodge into my subconscious and then impact my feelings and even my actions in the world, which is that I feel stressed and irritable. Those judgments go like this: You are selfish, you are not a good mother, good wife, prompt responder. Sound familiar?
I must remind myself that the inner critic is no friend. I must also remind myself conditioning is just conditioning. Habits can change. No matter how deeply rooted in my DNA over the generations, I can study my thoughts and then decide which ones I accept as helpful or reject as unhelpful.
It is hard to stop smoking. It's an addiction. It is hard to stop overeating, that is an addiction or habit too. It is hard to put art first when service to others has been your habit as well. Service can be an addiction. I must ask myself if my service to others is helpful when it is done out of obligation verses a true love calling? I must push myself to think more deeply about my addictions, habits and conditioning.
My writing, the creative wild process of words flowing to the page, is best when it comes first. Sometimes this means getting up at five and writing until the children need to rise. Or allowing my husband to get the kids awake and fed. Or coming to my office and writing FIRST, not last.
So, what is the tip?
Put your writing first.
Or intend to make your art your primary priority.
Or watch your own thinking about being first verses being last.
All we can do is try our best, forgive ourselves each day it doesn't work out and then--try again. 
This passage offers some comfort:
"I told you … Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh."
~ A Room of One's Own ~ Virginia Woolf
I love this line: ...great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.
Be the one who gives opportunity to the artist within. Walk in your flesh, sit down and write first!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Writing Prompt
INSTRUCTION: Answer each of these questions in about a minute or less. Be quick, do not think too much. Just sketch answers out. On a fresh sheet or on your computer, write a 2000 word piece that includes all three. Be open. Shut off your critical mind. Just see what flows.
1) What is your spiritual orientation?
2) What is your situation in your day to day life, ie: what is your job?
3) What did you notice about nature today or within the last week that really blew your mind?
EXAMPLE ANSWERS:
1) Buddhist now, Tibetan Buddhism but used to be Catholic with a brief and confusing detour into Christianity.
2) I am divorced with two kids and the divorce is hard, the guy is a jerk.
3) I have a bunch of bumblebees who have taken up residence under the play structure in my backyard. These bees are so weird and beautiful. I watch them arrive and depart and am mesmerized by them.
EXAMPLE ESSAY: Read The Go-To Girl, yesterday's weblog post, Sept. 20, 2010 to see a final version of my writing exercise.
SUBMIT: Post samples of your writing from this exercise here, on the comment page and I'll feature writing on Saturday.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Fresh Writing: The Go To Girl
A bumblebee lifts from a hole in the ground. It rises in an unsteady fashion, as if tethered by an invisible wire. The wings move so fast, the motion cannot be seen but is rather heard as a humming buzz. The creature makes an adjustment and wobble-flies past my shoulder.
I lean back as it gathers direction and speed. Four year old Josephine screams and runs to the back porch and then into the house. She slams the back door so hard the house quivers. Nine-year-old Spencer hides behind me and grips my arm with such intensity, the circulation is cut to my hand.
“Sweetie, my arm,” I say.
“Sorry, Mom,” Spencer says, easing up his grip.
Another bee lifts out of the hole, the same routine all over again and right behind is another.
We stand on wet grass that is overgrown and lush. I don’t mow. Mowing is a man’s job but Spencer is too young. Pretty soon, I tell myself, I’ll have to get a man or a mower or a gardner.
I shake my arm to get the feeling back and Spencer stands on his toes in order to peak over my shoulder.
“Will they sting us?” Spencer asks.
“Are you covered with pollen?” I ask.
“Mom!” he says.
I cup the back of his head with my palm the way I do—a habit that started when he was baby. His head fits my hand perfect and he wiggles a little as if to nestle in. It’s our mother-son habit. Our little peculiarity.
“Sweets,” I say, “bee’s are not interested in you unless you are a flower.”
“That’s not true,” Spencer counters. “Yellow jackets sting.”
“Yellow jackets eat meat. Bubble bees collect pollen. Not the same.”
Two bumblebees return to the hole—lowering their pollen loaded legs to the ground. Spencer hides his face against my arm and I decide to try humor.
“It’s like some kind of bee convention,” I say. “Grand Central Bee Terminal. A super power pollen highway.”
Spencer laughs which is nice because his father—my ex—says I don’t have a sense of humor. I wish he were here to see how it’s not true. I’m funny. I’m hilarious to a nine year old.
“I mean, they don’t even knock on the door and ask before they take up residence here. There is no lease and they don’t pay rent. What is the deal?”
Spencer laughs harder still and I roll my eyes with a great show of being outraged.
Spencer eases from around my side and goes down on one knee to get a closer look at the bee entry and departure point. The hole, if you weren’t looking for it, would be impossible to find. It is no more than the size of a dime with a small rise under the gravel.
“How many live down there?” he asks.
I lift my hands and let them drop my sides. Bee infestation is a man job—like mowing and car maintenance and taking out the trash.
“I have no idea.”
Jo sneaks up behind us and like her brother a moment ago, she hides behind me.
“Are they gone?” she asks.
“No honey,” I say, “but they aren’t going to bother you. They want flowers not little girls.”
I put my arm around Jo and she wears a silky pink dress over a yellow silk dress over a neon green silk dress. She simply cannot bear to leave one of her princess dresses on a hanger so they are all on her body in layers. Under the dresses, she wears every pair of underwear too. I am thinking she might have been a refugee in a past life.
Two more bumblebees hover around the trunk of the red oak tree—unsure about a small boy so close to their landing strip. I tap Spencer and point up towards the incoming bees.
On his knees, Spencer isn’t sure what I’m trying to say and he moves his head all around on his neck. He looks like a dog down there on all fours. When he spots the hovering bees, which are lowering themselves to their home, he makes a yelp sound. In a flash, both kids run back to the house and it’s just me, on the wet grass.
~
I’ve been on my own for nearly a year. Fall, winter, spring and now summer. It’s good, it’s right, it’s the best thing for me, for my former husband and for the kids—who didn’t deserve to grow up in a home where the big people argued all the time but it’s surprising how many things I delegated to my husband. I just didn’t have time or interest in infrastructure. If a wire shorted out or a pipe got clogged or the car needed oil—he was the Go-To guy.
If he were here now, he would, without question, have a solution. He would just kill them by dousing the nest with a hose. That’s how his own father, a Nebraska man with a cattle ranching legacy, would have managed such a pesky situation. Heck, I wouldn’t even have been consulted.
But here I am, single—a single mother—and this is what I would call an “infrastructure” issue. I am now the Go-To Girl.
~
One of my friends, married to an abusive man, suggests I put a bucket over the hole. She says the bees will likely just move on or die. When things get bad in her marriage, she takes to her bed and hides under the covers for days. She tells her kids that she is sick but she’s not. She’s just depressed.
Another one of my friends, more like an acquaintance, says I should just get some bug spray and let the bees have it. That’s what she would do. I have no idea how her marriage is going. We aren’t that close.
I have another friend, married to a cop who works the swing shift (meaning she never sees him), and she says that the best way to remove the bees is to go out—late at night—and simply ask them in a firm and yet loving voice.
“I do this all the time with sugar ants,” she says. “And you know what, they just skitter away.”
This woman has recently launched a practice as a clairvoyant. She says she can see your aura.
~
For the next few days, I make it a daily practice to study the industry of the bumblebees. After the kids are fed and taken to school, I sit on the bottom step of the back porch, just a few feet south of the nest in the earth and with my elbows on my knees, watch bees lift off, fly over to the hydrangea and beyond and then return.
Bumblebees, according to the law of aerodynamics, are not supposed to fly. The body is the issue—it’s just too big for those tiny wings. And yet, there they go—over and over again. Apparently this is about wing speed. They are the hummingbirds of the insect kingdom. A bumblebee, therefore, defies logic and science.
~
The new man in my life doesn’t mow, or fix pipes or change the oil. He is Buddha. I have become a student of Tibetan Buddhist studies and I even meditate every day. There is a hum sound to my quiet time—rocking forward and back—accumulating mantra for the benefit of all (which includes bees).
In early Christian traditions, monks lived in beehive shaped huts, which represented the aim of a harmonious community.
While my former husband mocks my interest in spirit, reminding me I have never been spiritual in all the angry years we spent together, I remain focused. Without the constraints of our marriage tethering me to tradition, I absorb all there is to know about these pre-Christ mysteries. I am specifically intrigued by entire sector devoted to the enlightened feminine. Single and artistic women, in eleventh century Buddhism, apparently carried all the mystic teachings of transformation. As patriarchy took over the texts, these women were purged from the re-write of history but I have heard—from gurus who live in Tibet—that women are very easy to enlighten. This has something to do with the cyclical nature of the feminine body. I’ve also read that it used to be believed that women—all women—were considered so sacred that they were enlightened even without being taught or practicing meditation.
Perhaps I am something like the bumblebee. Meditation, which is—in part—an effort to transcend the human condition of suffering, defies reason and aerodynamics. According to a book I read, Power verses Force by David Hawkins, less than half a percent of the human population will achieve transcendent states like pure love. Hawkins also writes that we, as a species, are stuck in the age of reason meaning that every problem can be rationalized or explained via the mind. Yet, when one transcends to higher states like love, joy and enlightenment, reason and logic no longer apply.
~
“Whatcha doing?” Spencer asks.
He stands at the threshold of the back door and holds a mug in his hand. Hot chocolate. The mug reads I Love You.
I’m on the bottom step of the back porch with my coffee. There is no message on my mug.
“Just watching the bees,” I say.
Spencer pads across the porch and down the steps. He sits on the bottom step and sips at his cocoa. His bare toes move in the overgrown grass. Over the rim of the mug, Spence eyes the hole in the ground. Several bees lift off and fly away.
“They are still here,” he says.
“Indeed,” I say.
A gray squirrel jumps from the roof of the garage and into the red oak tree—this breath holding leap. Spencer points.
“A squirrel is just a rat with a good PR campaign,” he says, a joke he’s heard from his dad and which is actually pretty funny.
“A squirrel is just a rat with a better outfit,” I counter and Spencer sputters chocolate in a dramatic spray.
“Oh that’s good,” he says using the back of his hand to wipe is mouth.
The squirrel disappears on the other side of the fence and a few bees land on the ground and drop out of sight. I have no idea how many bees live there, how deep their nest goes or what they are creating in their dark world but I like to imagine them down there—humming around—following their ancient code.
“Have you decided what to do about them?” Spencer asks. He sets the mug on the step and leans into my side. I put my arm around his lean little boy body. He smells like chocolate and shampoo.
“Obviously not,” I say. “They are still with us.”
“Well, that’s a decision,” Spencer says.
My son has a narrow face with dark eyes that are so open and trusting. His dark shining hair is thick and shaped in that popular bowl cut style.
“I guess you’re right,” I say. “It’s the decision to do nothing.”
He leans against my shoulder again.
“That’s probably fine,” he says, “they aren’t bothering us.”
I move my hand over the back of his head to find that place where my palm fits so well. He moves his head a little in my hand, as if to nestle in.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Inspiration
Perhaps everything terrible
in us
is,
in its deepest being,
something helpless
needing our help."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Fan Mail
Hi Jennifer,
This email will be short because I know you are probably inundated with emails thanking you for your wonderful books.
All I will say is, if I hadn't joined the site "She Writes" this past May, I may never have known about you ... and the reason I know about you now is because you were the first (actually the only) one to welcome me to She Writes.
I was thrilled not only that someone had noticed I'd joined, but that an accomplished best-selling author had noticed, and had taken the time to welcome me.
Because of your kindness, and because I myself am working on a memoir, I went directly to Barnes & Noble and bought "Blackbird." It was a couple of months before I had the time to actually begin reading it, since several books were in the queue ahead of it. But it was always on my table, in the stack with Sylvia Plath's "Ariel" and Mary Roach's "Stiff" and Haven Kimmel's "The Solace of Leaving Early," among others.
And then a couple of weeks ago I began reading Blackbird ... and while to say I never put it down would be inaccurate because there were times I had no choice but to put it down due to responsibilities clamoring for my attention, I will say I never wanted to put it down.
I was nearly done with Blackbird when Labor Day weekend descended upon us. Your dear dad had died and Deb had moved you and Bryan to Palo Alto ... and then I had to let Blackbird sit on the ledge beside my favorite chair and remain closed for several days.
On Tuesday, very early, everyone finally left. I had a court reporting job at 2:45 so I had several hours in which to enjoy my coffee and finish Blackbird.
I hadn't been reading for long when the phone rang and I learned that my job had been canceled (doctors ... LOL ... getting them to sit for a depo is like trying to nail jello to a wall). Silently rejoicing, I got more coffee and settled in to finish your book.
And I let myself cry for you, Jennifer ... so very hard I cried. I am not sorry. I'm just glad I didn't have to worry about swollen eyes or watching the clock, because that's the kind of open-ended emotion your book deserved.
I had to put it down and sob when the twins were born and I realized where you'd gotten the name for your book. I had been wondering. I sobbed when you woke up with your eyes glued shut and there was nobody to help you, and when you carried your stuff piece by piece from the big house to Armanita's.
And I said this was going to be a short email. Ha.
My childhood couldn't have been more different from yours -- my mother is still alive; my father abandoned us, never to be seen again, but died in a plane crash at the age of 37 -- but I had an alcoholic stepfather who was abusive emotionally, physically, and sexually. This same person insisted on perfection in my sister and me: strict discipline, flawless grades, endless character training. Oddly enough, the person who was as awful to me as anyone has ever been in my life, also taught me the very things that have helped me make something of my life.
And therein lies a tale that, with your inspiration fresh in my mind and heart, I need to devote myself to finishing.
Heretofore I haven't had the wherewithal to really, really go to those places inside my heart and mind in order to remember all I need to remember in order to tell my story with honesty and conviction, but your work has given me that courage.
Thank you, dear Jennifer, and may God bless you.
Sorry for the length of this ... I know you're busy.
Love
Friday, September 17, 2010
Announcements
The Transformation Writing Weekly Workshop has begun and we are at capacity for readers for the term--which will go to November 18th. There are three observation spots still available though. Please contact me for info.
Here are a few of the great lines from the writing of these lovely writers:
Wriggling into the slim, elegant black skirt was a bit of a struggle, but the zipper gave me a nasty surprise. There was a V-shaped gap between the two edges, the widest part where my waist was supposed to be. I sucked in my stomach as far as it would go, expelled the air from my lungs, held my breath, and yanked on the zipper pull, tugging hard as it inched its way up, forcing the fat upward. I collapsed on the bed, gasping for air, and then eased myself onto my feet. The waistband cut into my stomach and a big roll of fat ballooned out over the top. The seams were on the verge of ripping, and sitting down would be inviting disaster. This was not the psychological boost I had in mind. ~ Kate
I want a life nobody cries about anymore. ~ Kelly
The same sounds that gave me the heart-stopping kick urged me to leave Pablo, leave the miserable present, leave this home, to build a life that will make me the mother that the boys need. Oh, but the cost is so high, prohibitively high, I might die of grief before I reach the other shore. ~ Marci
Every dinner must start with an iceberg lettuce salad... ~ Jeanne
I realize that we are both holding time in our hands - with its complex circular motion – together for just a moment. ~ Christine
Mentoring of writers continues. I hold an active practice for about six students from around the world. I have spots open for this teaching, which takes place on Friday's and Sunday's via telephone, Skype and/or google.chat.
Manuscript Review: This is a new offering that takes into account the entire body of a writers work.
Contact me for details.
Finally, Adoption Mosaic, an adoption support organization In Portland, Oregon, has launched a new literary magazine under the editorial direction of Tara Kim. Look for opportunities to publish your writing about adoption in this magazine. All members of the constillation are invited and I think this is going to be a truly lovely addition to the Portland writing scene.
Gorgeous cover, Tara!
*
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Big Tip
(Writing is) a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Book Talk: Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje
Ondaatje’s memoir is about a young man who journeys to his homeland of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), which he left at the age of 11. The opening scene, describing a dream of his father, barking dogs and the lush, hot jungle, points to the inner turmoil stemming from displacement or even disconnection from his ancestry. He writes, "I wanted to touch them (his ancestors) into words."
Running in the Family is drunken and dreamlike, wild and unbound. Ondaatje uses poetry, dreams and flashbacks. There are short chapters and long chapters. We are taken into the past to hear stories about grandmothers and grandfathers, and then jostle and bump along a muddy road to visit the present and take a shower in the rain. At one point, Ondaatje is alone, meeting with relatives, as he pieces together the past and then he is traveling with his daughter. There is a constant use of “we” to group together the collective of aunties, grandmothers, cousins and friends with the writer and then there are moments when Ondaatje is central and describing his own experience. For example, he writes: "Wild black pig in a white rainstorm, concerned about this invasion, this metamorphosis of soap, this dented Volkswagen, this jeep. He can take his pick, any one of us. If I am to die soon I would choose to die now under his wet alphabet of tusk, while I am cool and clean and in good company."
The central fiber is the story of Ondaatje father and a kind of deconstruction of the complex man who drank to the point of memory loss, abuse and erratic behaviors that resulted in Ondaatje’s mother leaving the marriage and Ceylon.
Many questions come to mind as I read Running in the Family. Why does the writer use so many different methods to tell his story? Why does he move around in time with such a strange quality that makes it so hard to keep everything and everyone straight? And what is he trying to get at, as a human being, and as a storyteller? Is this work brilliant or simply avant-garde? And, do any of these questions matter when placed up against the wonder of Ondaatje word choices, metaphors and images?
IE: "The doors are twenty feet high, as if awaiting the day when a family of acrobats will walk from room to room, sideways, without dismantling themselves from each other’s shoulders."
"From ten until noon we sit talking and drinking ice-cold palmyrah toddy form a bottle we have filled in the village. This is a drink which smells of raw rubber and is the juice drained from the flower of a coconut. We sip it slowly, feeling it continue to ferment in the stomach."
His use of language is too sumptuous to ignore. Reading it is something like admiring a gorgeous man and—for a moment—setting aside that he is an entitled jerk. In reading through the first time, I was so ungrounded in time and place, I had to put the book down many times. I wasn’t bored, I was overwhelmed in the same way I am overwhelmed eating a mango (or even attempting to cut one up) or sitting at an Indian restaurant and trying to figure out what to eat—Riata? Nan? Curry? Lamb? His bombardment of the senses overwhelmed to the point that I was like so many of the jeeps and trucks in his book—stalled out and unable to function. I was tipsy, unfocused, a little blissed out and then found I needed to go to sleep (or get a drink).
Since eating, drinking and living large was so much a part of the Ondaatje way of life (as well as the way of life in the jungle), I believe Ondaatje told his story in the way he did as a mirror of what it was to be a child immersed in the strange, juicy, spicy, dense and thick air of Ceylon. As a reader, I got it and yet, like a true foreigner—raised on thinner air, less sensory overload and without alcoholics in my own family—I was also done in by my visit to his world. I longed to return home to a continuous narrative where I know who the people are and where we are all going.
After a few days, when the hangover was gone and my head was clear again, I saw that Ondaatje’s writing did allow me to give myself more permission to open to the vista of options available to a writer. I felt inspired to be less structured and freer with my own constructions.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Fresh Video
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday: Fresh Writing
Presented live at Powell's on Hawthorn in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday, 9/12/10.
Thanks to all who turned out.
The original essay is contained in the collection of essays by Hawthorne Lit. Arts, September 11: West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero.
The View of 9/11 From Holland
I walked the uneven stones of a cobbled lane back then. Underfoot the ground was high and low and I was careful in my sensible black loafers but I was also careless enough to be multitasking—that is eating fries (called frittes) from a cone of white paper rolled tight. Greasy, salty and savory soft but also crunchy—each finger sized potato was like a lover on my tongue and savored with sounds of pleasure I couldn’t contain.
It was Amsterdam, the fall of 2001 and I was five months into gestating my second child. Obscenely pregnant. It looked as if I had stuffed an August watermelon under my top.
People would stop me on the street to ask if was about to have my child, or perhaps they were twins. One man even offered directions to the nearest hospital. Just in case.
"No!" I'd say. “I have four months to go.”
I never felt offended. It wasn’t their fault. It was me. I was just happy and big and celebrating all the time—French fries, Ruben sandwiches dripping with cheese, malted milkshakes—chocolate. I was a mountain of a mother. I was as big as a continent.
To be a woman, savoring the pleasures of the body in its ultimate creative expression wasn't something I was going to deny or edit or even worry about. Why? I was alive and I was making a baby—my own baby. A daughter.
I had been a daughter myself and had been relinquished at birth. Relinquished is what they call babies like I had been—the secret babies, the ones gestated in shame, the ones who were given away in the hush of the night. My mother had been too young, they said, it was a damn shame she went bad like that, the only solution was to get rid of the baby and forget the whole thing.
But you don’t forget making a baby and nine months of secrecy and shame and you sure don’t forget the mother who gives you life—no matter what they tell you—it’s a damn lie.
So I was keeping my daughter. I was giving her a name she could count on—Josephine Catherine.
Nearly done with my cone of frittes, I found myself at the canal that cut through the city and I walked along the edge of the muddy water as I savored my treat and swam in plans for Josephine and me.
~
The bell rang as I opened the door to the small flower shop. The ding ding ding announced a customer had arrived. As the door swung closed at my back, I saw a man sitting high on his bicycle seat. He pedaled over a stone bridge where I had just been. His bike was painted black, like so many Dutch cycles I had see.
As the door closed, I wadded the empty paper cone and shoved it into the carpetbagger purse that crisscrossed my body and fell at my hip. I licked the salt from my fingers while I browsed brilliant pinks, blood reds, explosive yellows, sea shell corals, royal purples and creamy creams –roses, lilies, freesia, iris, tulips—everywhere tulips despite it being fall. The sweet smell invited me to close my eyes and just stand in the one sense—absorbing it as if there would be no other smell but that of flowers.
The sound of a television poured from the back of the shop, there was some “who-ha” of bad news gushing forth. I recognized the urgent sound of a reporter and the natural sounds that so often goes with live broadcasts. Around the world, it’s all the same, bad news translates into a choppy mess because everyone is in hurry when the shit hits the fan. Being in a hurry is the same as being scared. That’s why it scares people to watch the news. It’s all rush, rush, rush. News footage is never slick--like a commercial or a movie.
After working several years as a news reporter—I had turned my back on the investigation of all that bad news. I had left the worry and the hurry and the fear machine that sold you insurance during commercial breaks. It was another lie I didn’t believe.
The shopkeeper approached and was a small framed elderly man, thin and light on his feet, not unlike a dancer. He moved on his toes and did a two step forward followed by a one step back. He had that look on his face and I was sure his first words would be, “are you about to have that baby or it is twins?”
Instead he asked, “Are you an American?” His English was bent by his accent but not much.
“Yes,” I said but my yes came with reluctance.
Being American wasn’t who I was; it was a place where I got my mail.
Perhaps my sense of dislocation came from the circumstances of my own birth. I had been foisted into the arms of so called more worthy parents where nothing felt right and the smells, sounds, flavors and sights were unrecognizable and even frightening. Being an adopted baby was losing everything—land, home, memories. Mother. I was a refugee from the second I was born.
Or perhaps it was deeper than that. Let’s face it, being an American meant I hailed—somewhere in my line—from people who had swindled this land and committed mass genocide.
Even before I was born and swiped from my 17-year-old mother, I was a trespasser who had no right—a criminal.
The flower shop owner bounced on his toes and glanced at the back of his store. It was as if he was confirming, to someone I couldn’t see, that yes, here she was “an American.” He seemed worried and even afraid to say more and yet he also had a glint of urgency in his eyes. It was a metallic shine where the iris met the white. I could taste something important was about to come out of his mouth. The old reporter in me went on alert.
“Your country,” he said. “You have been attacked.” He said more about the Pentagon being gone and the twin towers leveled and all the airports closed around the nation.
And then we just stood there—strangers. The TV sounds kept coming from the back of the store and I shook my head like I didn’t get it. He might of said, “the ostrich will fly tonight,” or “cheese makes good furniture.”
Incomprehensible.
I wasn’t scared.
I wasn’t worried.
I didn’t even believe him.
I laughed like that was a good one—the U.S.—attacked!
He reached out as if to touch me and then he dropped his arm to his side. His feet finally hit the ground from heel to toe. Flat feet in old shoes. Brown loafers that looked well worn. The man was not laughing and he had a very gentle way. He seemed to be sorry to have to tell me the news. His eyes were watery around the edges. He knew about tragedy. That was clear.
We could have sat down, he and I, there on the canal and we could have taken a very deep breath—two people in the world—who seemed so different but weren’t different at all.
We could have shared a cone of frittes and stories of other disasters like the Nazi occupation of Holland and how the soldiers stole Dutch bikes in order to get around. That kind of thievery didn’t sit well with the Dutch, he’d tell me with a laugh. Maybe he would also share the story of how he hid Jewish children in his basement until the Nazi’s caught him and hauled him away to a camp—Dakau. He’d say it was okay to serve some time, it was worth it because the kids got away. He’d confess that he had helped more than one hundred escape before the German’s arrived.
And then I’d tell him about the 1.5 million American woman, during my time and before, who were forced to give up their babies under Nazi like conditions where they were stripped of their legal rights, lied to, shamed and shunned as if they had committed murder by having intercourse. I’d say these women, so many of them, didn’t know their own children even today. It was a big ugly secret in the land of so-called plenty.
We’d shake our heads over the state of human affairs, the way people treated each other shore to shore, no matter what language was spoken. We’d talk about courage and perseverance and how each of us had survived our tragedies to be better people—somehow—at least that is what we told ourselves to get through the darkest nights.
I’d ask him about his grandchildren and if they knew the story of his past and he’d show me photos of golden haired little ones with clean faces and bows in their hair. He’d shake his head. “No, I don’t like to burden them,” he’d say. “They are free now. It’s a better world than I knew.”
And then we’d look from each other and over to the TV and we’d wonder if it was true. Was it a better world or was it more of the same?
~
That conversation did not happen. Even though that present moment was all either of us had, I was a young woman and not yet wise to that truth. Instead I went with the flower shop owner, to the back of the store and did what I never did. I watched the news and absorbed the challenge of this generation.
I did not speak.
I didn’t know what to say.
What could be said?
Even now, nine years later, what can be said about vast tragedy that shoves us outside the day to day and presses us the edge of being?
I don’t have fancy words that make sense and if I did, I’d tell you not believe. I don’t trust confidence or bravado in the face of what cannot or should not be spoken.
I do know that everyone has something—some terrible woe that fills a backpack or a semi truck or even a aircraft carrier—and that, in the darkest hour, those woes have the power to shape the soul to be different than it was before.
Better? I don’t know.
Different is all I can say.
I also know that the rock becomes a crystal with enough heat and pressure.
I know lungs evolved from gills.
I know that feathers lifted lizards off the ground and that we call those winged creatures by the name “bird.”
I know my cells and your cells contain the dust of the universe—a million exploding stars.
I know my daughter was born two weeks past her due date, nearly ten pounds of sweet rolling flesh, who—that first night—slept all the way through and grows now to be a sweet and tender child who spins fast in her world of chocolate chip cookie sales, rainbow striped knee highs, friends named Marbella, Grace, Belle and Co Co—and me—her mother who loves her and believes that the sun sets wherever she lands.
I know I searched for and finally find that mother who gave me away and have sat down with her, along a lazy river to share a plate of something delicious to eat. We’ve talked about her tragedy and my own and dark nights and how we’ve each gotten through to the light of the next day.
I do know that I named my daughter after my mother—even though I didn’t know her name—calling her Josephine Catherine like I had planned that day in Holland eating those frittes. How did I know my mother—that stranger—was named Catherine and yet how did I ever believe I could forget?
We just don’t know—in this life. We don’t know what we know and what we don’t know. Life is a falling tower of confusion and a bundle of choppy lies raced into the airways to fill us with fear and it’s hot French fries covered with salt and served in a paper cone, it’s a riot of rainbow flowers at the corner store, it’s old men with pictures of grandchildren in their pockets. Life is a black bike stolen by a Nazi, children hurried to safety, a muddy canal and uneven stones that pave the way under our feet.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Three Ways to Connect with Jennifer
In a fusion of interpersonal healing and creative writing, I help steer you into creative inspiration and insight. With care and sensitivity, I guide writers towards their authentic voice while also helping them to set and meet writing goals, shape gorgeous scenes and create a finished manuscript.
Now there are three ways to connect with these teachings.
1) Thursday Night Transformative Writing Circle
The weekly workshop is for Portland based students and begins Sept. 16th. There is time to write, time to teach and time to workshop! We meet on Thursdays, from 5:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m., and you will see your writing take a quantum leap forward and in depth.
2) Transformative Mentoring
We have three ways to speak. !) Via video conferencing, 2) in my studio and/or 3) over the phone, I mentor a handful of writers in the fall and winter. Mentoring is a condensed intensive format where I provided focused teachings directed at your writing project. Mentored writers are directed towards goal setting, production of new work, establishment of strong voice, scene building and the creation of polished work that can be submitted for publication.
3) The Spring Memoir Intensives in March through May 2011
You will:
Develop a framework for creating a full length memoir with in 90 days.
Organize your writing life
Set goals and intentions and follow through
Build compelling and insightful scenes
Establish your authentic voice
Investigating sensory writing technique.
Eight writers will meet for two and half days in a nurturing and supportive environment. Exact dates/location to be announced. Seattle, Portland and Pittsburgh. Add'l cities to come.
Contact me for more details about space avialability, costs and schedules. I'm here to help.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
A Reading
Join me at Powell's on Hawthorne, tomorrow at 4 p.m. for a reading and a ritual of remembering. The event features area writers remembering 9/11 and sharing the growth that has taken place over the past nine years. Featured writers will be Tom Spanbauer, Tami Lynn Kent, Jessica Maxwell, Sara Guest, and me (the blatant self promoter).
See you there!
Click here for more info!