WRITING & REALITY: Encounters

Posted on August 7, 2004 by Susan

“Let’s go uptown for coffee, see Johnny.”

“Okay,” I say, although I know he thinks I just need to get out.

(Never start with dialogue, they say; the books, the manuals that teach you how to write.)

Two miles, four minutes later we walk in, I, a step behind him. We pass three bikers, one is standing, attention given to the others in the booth. A flash of almost recognition in peripheral vision, a rope with ends frayed but nearly touching in the passing.

We stand up to the counter and greet our nephew and his cheery, uniformed and helpful summer job. The leather jacket with the fringe of greying beard that has settled in my mind is speaking, though I no longer see him behind me. It is David. For six years daily I had lived with his voice and know it sooner than the man I’d seen, fooled by years gone by.

I am ordering coffee, I am living in the past; I am questioning Johnny, I am questioning David as well.

How are you?

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REALITY: Morning Traffic

Posted on August 7, 2004 by Susan

A blue heron draws a line above the treed horizon; long legs dragging through the blue. If only he would learn to lift his feet he’d fly much faster.

A sparrow perches on the ball of the umbrella pole. Chest puffed out, in his mind he is an eagle.

Bluejays streak camouflaged against the morning sky.

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REALITY: Environment

Posted on August 7, 2004 by Susan

I feel like St. Francis of Assisi. The hummingbirds hover in my face. A cardinal cheeps at me from the empty feeder; another was peeking in at me from the windowsill of my frameshop, chirping insistently.

I must be spending too much time outside.

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CURRENT AFFAIRs & WRITING: Speeches & Plans

Posted on August 6, 2004 by Susan

Regretfully, campaign speeches are narratives, stories of the future; even, I suspect, well suited to the Twilight Zone.

Idealism runs rampant in the language, and who among us would not cheer the plans and hopes spun out? Would either candidate for the top spot in the nation promise higher taxes, less employment, bigger government and fewer gains and aid given over to education and healthcare? It would seem so, however, when speaking of the other guy. It only proves to me that words have so much power. Add environment and tone of speech, an honest smile or two and every tale becomes believable because we want it just as much as those who promise to make it all come true.

I listened to John Kerry’s speech to UNITY, Journalists of Color last night. The man’s heart and mind are certainly in the right place. But words, my friend, the words must be taken out of pregnant pauses and resultant cheers. For what does this mean: “We want to bring America back together, instead of splitting it apart.” That’s good news, of course; he doesn’t want to split America apart. I strongly doubted that he did, but just as strongly doubt that President Bush does either, whether implied or not by Mr. Kerry. So that was, in my mind, a rather useless statement but nevertheless brought cheers because it sounds so damn good.

What I feel is one of the best ways to compare and judge the candidates is to read the plans they have presented on the issues, on their respective websites. Though naturally neither plan, even if opposing, would seriously be offensive, they would at least be comparable in their feasibility at least as far as we can guess, and in their relevance to us as individuals and as a nation.

And too, it’s there in semi-permanent form. Re-readable for clearer understanding, unlike words spoken in a speech to cheering crowds.

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WRITING & REALITY: Morning Numbers; Mourning Numbers

Posted on August 6, 2004 by Susan

I once believed that only words can hurt the soul and numbers were our friends that make some sense of life.

But three when spelled as three and not as 3 becomes as damaging, I think, where once I thought that it was lucky, and it’s not.

A family of five minus two is three, and that can be heartbreaking. Two couples minus one is three sad folk. Most of all I fear the old wives’ warnings on events, and wake up oft afraid to hear the ringing of the phone.

One male, one female hummingbird is proof enough of two without the seeing of their swooping side by side. But three this morning tells a different story, despite a half a century of learning, forgetting 50 years of watching, listening, knowing the contrary or exceptions to the rule.

Three or 3 or III, it doesn’t matter. Three is a quaking, shaking up of mind and soul.

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WRITING, REALITY, & BLOGGING: The usual…

Posted on August 5, 2004 by Susan

…indecision, doubt and anxiety about talent, skill, or just running off to produce useless drivel.

Need to seriously focus on if I do this or if I don’t–not just blogging, but writing at all. Too many other things left undone to pursue a winding path that leads nowhere. Time may be better spent in reading. Time is the fool. Time is the god. I’ve learned too much about time to not take it more at its real value. It has laughed at me as it flew by, whipping me down to my knees at what I’ve lost.

All I’m doing here is relieving the pressure of daily posting. Writing every silly thought that comes my way. They’re not vital pins stuck in the map to show a journey, but more annoying blips in little podunk towns that have a story, but one I seem to miss.

I’ll write. But only when I’m writing well. I just need a little time to think.

Addendum: As so often happens, I find answers and more questions in a natural setting (and this thought alone is what I mean by senses picking up, brain assembling, fingers typing without carrying the thought through to fruition). There is a grapevine growing in my walkway. It is capable within a couple years of producing fruit that can be turned to wine and jelly, leaves that wrap around a ball of beef and rice and chickpeas doused in sauce, vines that twist into a wreath. But it will not do so where it is living now; it is out of place.

Posted in BLOGGING, REALITY, WRITING | 3 Comments

WRITING: Want

Posted on August 4, 2004 by Susan

I’m so hungry I could eat a bug. Or larvae, as they make you do on the Survivor.
I’m starving for the words that lay on other tables, prepared by chefs like Faulkner, Blake and Austen.
I’m hungry still, and threaten all mankind; their minds and bodies too I need devour.
Thirsty, I shall quench it with their tears, those unsipped as yet by me; the salt to flavor, crystalizing back to shape within my veins.
I see, I smell, I taste, I hunger for it all.

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WRITING: Feeling in the Doing

Posted on August 4, 2004 by Susan

I walk into his kitchen, place the heavy pot upon the stove and turn a knob while saying hi, how are you doing? I tell him all it needs is just to bring it back to pressure, let the steam build up, for otherwise the corned beef and cabbage is already done. He points to flowers on the table, a bouquet still wrapped in cellophane that doesn’t hide a white-wrapped package underneath. For you, he says, because of all you’ve done. I see my name scrawled awkwardly on paper. No need, I think, but then I know that even in the closest there are deeds that need the recognition. My meal is mine of his. I smile and sniff the flowers, lay them down and pick at tape to open up his gift—a flashlight, batteries included.

How are YOU doing? he asks, and rises through his tears and mine to hold each other through and past the moment.

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WRITING: 1001

Posted on August 4, 2004 by Susan

Hell fires burn warm, inviting in the seeing by the seeker passing by. Glowing orange red through windows facing roads, the crystal panes are useless as a wall to sagely warn. Closer, peering in to watch the shadows dancing in the middle of the room, the human cries of sensuality so bidding welcome. Feeling heat that draws the breath from me to feed itself, I, closer still, long for the joining in the dance. But oh, a slip, an error in the footing and a hand reaching out to steady chars black at but a touch. Held in pain against the night, swaddled deep to chest within my woolen cloak, I pull myself within and trudge away.

(Writing 1001 symbolizes the number of this posting since last October. I thought it should be something deep and disturbing, just for fun.)

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LITERATURE: Unpopular Culture

Posted on August 3, 2004 by Susan

Thanks to the innovative Jane Galt of Assymetrical Information, we now have no excuse not to read the classics. In serial format, she has started Unpopular Culture and will be posting installments for regular reading. She has started with Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

This also reminds me to remind you all of two links I’ve had for quite a while on Spinning to some of literature’s greatest:

Gutenberg Project
Short Story Classics

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WRITING: morning metaphors

Posted on August 3, 2004 by Susan

Sometimes,
in the light of sun
I cannot talk
to anyone,
as if in dark
of night and sleep
I tucked myself
away.

Slipping out,
pushing back
the fringed edges,
blinking at
the blinding rays
revealing,
I retreat.

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WRITING: A Light Along The Path

Posted on August 2, 2004 by Susan

In a comment by Vikk of The Writer’s Path, an inspirational and informational site by one of our own: “BTW, can you post a link or make it possible to connect to your instructor’s blog? I really liked the quote of his.”

My instructor is Professor Steven Ersinghaus, an intellectual, open-minded, explorative, sharing, giving, regular guy–when he’s not off in the outer spaces of the mind. Even then, he manages to come back with something, usually another question. His search and explanation into “voice” alone helps anyone’s interpretation, but there are so many nuggets of enlightenment and annoyance to be found therein that I most readily point you to him at The Great Lettuce Head.

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WRITING: Natural Elements of Voice

Posted on August 2, 2004 by Susan

It was once pointed out to me, and now I see it more and more how strongly bound I am by another meaning of gravity to the earth.

Once I gave a lover a final gift on parting; a print of past hunt revealing hunter and prey. On the back I signed with this, “With love always, to a cowboy, from an Indian.”

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CURRENT AFFAIRS & REALITY: Caves

Posted on August 2, 2004 by Susan

I find it strange the changes that we undergo in growing ever older, and the speed with which necessity makes certain events and thoughts leap on ahead.

For many years I sought the well-lit cave to reach and research all that seemed so terribly important. Now it seems that venturing out is better still, for in the walking on the earth some ground instills itself within the tread and treading. Quicker then, and bifoculared to spot what is abrew or simmering gently threatening to boil. Old Faithful is but journey’s end; the babbling brooks and water spouts can lead us there.

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WRITING & REALITY: Time, Timing, Timer, Timed, Time..

Posted on August 1, 2004 by Susan

I cannot let this first of August day go by. I must mark it somehow with myself as it has somehow left a mark on me. A word or two is all I have to offer, using them to form a question that will carry it into another day.

What mattered to me in this space? What did I do today to make me matter?

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