Poetry Thursday, Synesthesia

Well, I thought I didn't have time, but since I'm writing a novel with a character who has Synesthesia, I really had no excuse not to post for Poetry Thursday. Some of you have read this before, the opening passages of the first draft (now trashed by the way):


She sensed it more than anything, the pulse, regulating existence. She couldn’t hear it at first, the regular thumping, the rhythmic beat, the pounding. It was purple, glistening violet, with a fuchsia lining. It was germinating, internalized. Liquid center, viscous, melting molten heat. Heartbeat, blood, the essence of the human form, the first recognition of awareness had a twitching effect on an infant Alina, her body and mind just recently introduced to one another. Rarely do people have more than a passing, fleeting memory of the first years of life, but Alina’s personal images of a sing-songy mobile over her head, marching band wooden bars on her crib, and a honey-flavored mother are branded deep, are fossilized into her bones, so that the taste of each memory lies thick upon her tongue.
She was sitting upon a velvety twinkling binky on the hardwood living room floor the first time she felt her heart thu-thudding, the first time she made it stop with a thought, stutter for a second, and watched the purple oval expand and contract. That’s how she saw it in her mind, a mauve shape of light and air with the movement of all life, sparkling with the energy of an electrical storm. But of course, she did not think “electrical storm”, because at one and a half she could not identify what was happening atmospherically the evening that she chose to come in to the world in the Arizona desert; she just knew the feeling of it, the dry prickly air, the sharp flashes. That’s what the heart held for her, before Alina had heard the word “heart”, long before she was taught about vessels and veins, and years prior to understanding what it means to have it broken.
While sitting upon that petunia-smelling blanket, Alina first understood that this sensation was inside her own body, not pounding out there, out beyond her skin; not over by the sink where her mother stood as tall as a giant. The water running from the tap was not beating like this interior source; it had another, string like quality, a silvery, high-pitched sound and a metallic smell. No, that water was not her heart, nor her blood, this other warmer sensation moving through her uncontrollable baby limbs. Her arms flailed and her vocal chords twittered at the discovery of definition, of boundaries.

I'm Dancing

So I’m having trouble with this story. I’ve got good scenes, I have good character development, I know how I want the main character to change, I have a theme, but there is absolutely no plot. The guy is just wandering around the city.
No big deal, I’ve been here before-
What I’m amazed at is my ability to dance around when I get in this state. I start six other stories (bound to be more brilliant than the original), I sweep the floor, I stack some wood, oh the cat needs some food—better go to the store. God, this vase is filthy. After I wash it I’ll work on the story. Yoga would be good for me right now, it will calm me down. This could be the last sunny day of the year, better go for a bike ride. I can write tonight.
Agggh.
The clock is tick, tick ticking away....

Panic!

The thought of having a job gives me an ulcer. You would think I’m lazy if you read just that line, but it’s the truth (well, almost the truth – it definitely gives me acid reflux, if not an ulcer, not yet anyway). I can’t even picture myself getting in my car and going to work every day, nine to five, coming home, going back the next day. Now, before you get to thinking, “that spoiled bitch, I have a job, I have to go every day”, let me tell you what my schedule is like. I do have weeks off at a time, but when I go to work, I don’t go for eight hours, I go for fifteen, sometimes eighteen. When I go to work, often I will work for three weeks without a single day off. What am I thinking? Do you know what working fifteen hours a day for even one week does to your body? I used to be able to bounce back in a day or two—sleep for twelve hours and Bob’s Your Uncle, good as new. Not anymore. Now I’m half awake for half a week. Now I’m brain dead and bone weary. It’s catching up with me, this life-style.
What brought this panic on was a question my husband asked me: “So what are you going to do after school is over?” I thought we had discussed that. He was surprised to hear me say I would not be commuting into the city every day to work at what he imagined to be a fabulous literary job (anyone know of any fabulous literary jobs?). I told him I would rather keep doing what I’m doing, shit, doesn’t he know about my plan to be a freelance writer, making plenty of money, selling a novel? Why is he talking about me having a job? I thought he said I wouldn’t have to work, that I could stay home and write, and now he’s talking about a JOB??
I just don’t know what is wrong with me, that I can’t be tied down to a schedule. I have to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can work for hours on end, day after day, if I know that it is a finite job. I’ve worked for thirty-two hours straight before. I’d rather do that than have a schedule?? Maybe it is the shining hope of possibility that keeps me from committing to a routine. Maybe it all boils down to my romantic spirit. That is what I'm going to tell myself, anyway.

A Good Day

I live in a place where moss grows on the pavement.
I live in a place where spiders spin their webs across the telephone wires.
Today the mountain rears up bold over miles of water
a scene from a postcard, glowing and unreal.
Morning glories tumble down the bank, still blooming in this late summer sun.
I smile from my Schwinn while a black truck spews exhaust in my face.


Just a little bit of my day...
I never found that list of things I like, so here's a new one:

riding my bike, yoga, candles, a fire at night, singing songs at the top of my lungs with no one around, dancing in the living room, thunder storms, sunshine, Dorsey, novels, friends, snorkeling, painting, Uncas the cat, feather beds, hot tubs, fluffy Adie, slate floors, frankinsence, birthdays, scarves, pajamas, people with opinions, honesty, beaches, going to foreign countries, coffee, chocolate, fresh flowers, cheese, a good cabernet, martini glasses, cherry chapstick, Salman Rushdie, opera, quiet,and my marble coffee tables that my husband hates. (not in that order)

You can see it in their eyes

Sunday Scribblings- Instructions
I’ve done well at my job not because I’m particularly brilliant, not because I’m a great technician, but because I am bossy. That’s what it boils down to. I can think five steps ahead and I like to tell people what to do. Inefficiency kills me. I’m a freelance stage manager and electrician. Every day at work I am handed eight to twelve men who look to me to give them instructions. It’s not the fantasy it sounds like, ladies. Most of these men are looking to prove something: either that they are more skilled, have done more gigs, have known more famous people, or something as simple as they are able to lift more than me. It’s not so bad now that I’m bit older and have the comfort of experience, but when I was in my twenties and I walked into an arena full of local stagehands all checking me out, thinking “this little girl is going to boss me around?”—let me tell you, there was a knot in my stomach the size of Montana. Scorn twisted their faces as they stood in groups and watched me approach.
And all I ever wanted was to get the job done, get the rig in the air, get the band on stage. “I don’t care who you’ve worked for, what tour you were on, or who you had lunch with in nineteen-seventy-six. Shut up and push the box down stage left where I told you to.” That’s what I’m thinking, but there’s years of bitterness behind those thoughts. What I actually do is smile and say, “This one here, yes, put it over there. Thank you.”
Every day at work is about being clear and precise in the instructions I give. What I’ve discovered is that I cannot say “hang the leko on the upstage side” and expect someone to do what I’ve said. I have to say “put that light in your hand right here where I am pointing. Don’t forget to plug it in.” That will usually do the job. You have to play to the weakest mind in the group and apologize to the bright ones. I’ve gotten so that I can tell by their squint if they understand me. If I have learned anything (and the jury is still out), it is that you have to be as completely clear as you can. That, and always, always double check the work.

Beautiful/Sad

I was just flipping through some old journal entries, looking to cheat really—I once made a nice little list of beautiful things in the world and I was going to copy it for today’s blog. Alas, I could not find that list, so I must make another. But I did find this:

I’ll paint this picture of loneliness, of isolation in red. I’ll send a message of pain by the stroke of my hand. Characters will come alive on this page, on this canvas. I will drink my wine and listen to Indian music—touch the past, the future, inside. When my fingers thaw the day will begin.

Now I’m steeped in melancholy from the waters of reminiscing. The list will have to wait.

Cut it Out!

There are a few things in life that just get under my skin, that get me going in a self-righteous voice about the unbelievable gall of others. I’m going to list them in the hopes that listing them will decrease the severity of my annoyance and thereby lower my blood pressure:

1. Biggest ever pet peeve: People crowding in towards the baggage carousel at the airport, cutting in front of you to wait for their bag. If everyone just took a couple of steps back and waited, you could see your bag coming and move forward to retrieve it.

2. Too much cologne. Come to think of it, any amount of cologne. It is no longer necessary to douse our bodies in scent; we don’t live in Victorian England where baths are hard to come by. Please don’t make me smell you coming from across the room, and don’t carry your wafting scent into the elevator, making the rest of us gasp for oxygen.

3. I do not need to hear what you are listening to on the car radio. I’m sure you enjoy it. I’m sure that whatever you are grooving to somehow defines who you are. Good for you. I don’t have a problem with your music if you are just passing by, maybe pausing at a stop light—I can live with that. But in a line for the ferry when we are all waiting, maybe up to an hour, your music is just plain obnoxious. Buy an ipod.

4. Stand on the right, pass on the left. They announce it over and over on those airport moving walkways. There are signs. Pay attention, people!

5. Get off your cell phone.

Next time on the Repeater:
Things I like (I’ll be home soon and out of the jostling airport and hotel crowds)

What Are You Talking About??

So hard to get going with it sometimes. Can’t think of a thing I’d want to blog about, mind so muttled, head so gaga with the floor fumes (we’ve tiled and sealed with a deadly concoction- the bottle didn’t say “don’t try to live in your house for a week because you won’t be able to breathe”. It said “dry enough to walk on in four hours”) I can’t manage a discussion about a dream or debate about a dongle. You know there’s actually a piece of equipment called a dongle? It’s a computer piece that you plug into a lighting board to make a certain program work. Who knows this kind of thing?

Apparently a lot of people- I’ve just discovered the American Heritage Dictionary defines dongle as:
A hardware device that serves as copy protection for certain software by rendering the software inoperable when the device is not plugged into a printer port.

I didn’t think it was a real word. The name makes me laugh—dongle. Sounds dirty. I am rambling today because I’m fried from working and slaving away on the house. Yesterday I bought a new pantry door on my lunch break. Some day I’m hoping we can afford to have someone else do the manual labor on our home improvements. But until then, I’m happy to come from sturdy New England Protestant stock that has afforded me a solid build and able hands.

Oh, coherency, please pay me a visit.

Swamp Thing

Just a little thought today about perspective. We all have times when we feel overwhelmed with the details of our lives, so immersed in the mire that we forget to look up. Yesterday I could barely raise my mucky chin (slime for hair, water-logged brain).
If you're feeling this way and you've got a couple of hours, check out a film called Favela Rising. Not only did the film reemphasize to me how fortunate I am, it made me realize that an individual can make a difference and that art can play a large part in change.
I've got at least one foot on solid ground today.

Sunday Scribblings....Take a Deep Breath

Okay Ladies, you've officially inspired me to write for Sunday Scribblings
I seriously never thought I'd share stories about my mother, oh, my throat is constricting...This is an excerpt from a story wherein my mother and father were fighting and my mother jumped out of the moving vehicle. My father went back to fetch her:

The fight wasn’t finished with my parents struggling on the side of the road. After what seemed like months Mom actually got back in the car with Dad. Everyone tense, adults staring straight ahead, children not daring to make a peep. We had only driven a few feet when Mom spoke up. Oh shit, hands feeling around her head, her pockets. She must have dropped her sunglasses, could Dad go get them? Dutiful husband, compliant man, he did. He stopped and walked down the road to the ditch finding the place where she rolled, scouring the grass for the missing glasses. Big brown plastic ones.
Her next actions I watched in slow motion, couldn’t believe were actually happening. Eyes wide, glancing back at my father, my sister and I stared in silence as my mother, chuckling cruelly, slid her body across the wide vinyl expanse and into the driver’s seat. No, she was not. No, she couldn’t be. But she did. She stepped on the accelerator as a whimper rose from my throat. “Please, Mom, please stop.” My sister pleaded, but she would not be stopped, would not halt in her maniacal escape. She did not even have it in her to pacify her frightened daughters, even once we got home. “Your father is fine!” is all she would say. Even when he did not show up that night Mom had no tools with which to mollify us. What justification could she give for leaving my father out in the middle of nowhere, hours from home? What excuse could she fabricate?
He did return eventually, if only to pack his bags and quietly tell his daughters that he loved them. Even a man who believes in family found it hard to take such humiliation. I found out years later that he had hitch-hiked to a friend’s house. I also learned that he only ever came back for us,my sister and I, because he knew he would never win custody, not in the nineteen seventies, no matter how good a father he was.

Bad Soldier!!

There are days like today when it catches up with me, when all my little soldiers step out of line, one by one, as if they have forgotten the rhythm. As I took them on, I whipped them into shape and each project fell into the march; I had been so confident of the one, two, one, two. We were well on our way.
But today all hell broke loose, today the projects that I had lined up: the school work, the journal, the stories, the wood chopping, the tile-laying, the emailing, the exercising, the socializing. It was too much. Something had to give. All of a sudden the beat we were marching to became sporadic, random; every soldier took off in its own direction.
I used to let it freak me out, paralyzing me, watching everything roll away. It used to send me to bed for a week. But I think I’m finally getting it—not everything can be controlled. I won’t lie, I still cry and yell and throw mini-tantrums. But it is very short-lived now, this behavior. I know all my soldiers will be back. We’ll get there; it may just take a little longer.

Inflammatory Comments

Yesterday I read an interview of Sam Harris in the Sun magazine. Sam is the author of the bestselling book, The End of Faith, who postulates that religion is at the root of many of the world’s issues, particularly war, and that we ought to have less tolerance for those who believe in what he calls ‘mythology’. I have to say I’m with him on breaking the mythology- it does seem a bit ridiculous to believe so literally in a virgin birth. But I’m not interested in fighting about that one today. I’m not even interested in discussing the idea of less tolerance, which seems like a questionable scheme. I am interested in how this mythology is related to a chain email that I received the other day entitled “Let’s Say I Break into Your House”.
I will admit that most of my friends are liberals, so I’m always shocked when people think to send me patriotic, god-fearing propaganda. I expect it from my Dad, but not my friends. This chain email compared someone breaking into your house and wanting to stay (even though they did the dishes and made your bed) to an illegal immigrant entering the country and taking a job as a maid. Granted, it was a clever analogy. They made very good points if you believe that Americans (note the capitol A for American- say it and be proud!) are the only ones entitled to a nice big house that uses way too much electricity, simply because they were born in this country. See, I’m getting all riled up here. That is not what I meant to do.
I meant to discuss our mythologies. Sam Harris says that we are more likely to fight over religion than even politics. Harris suggests we can be sensible when it comes to disagreeing about many things, but “discourse breaks down on the subject of God, because this is the nature of dogma: it’s the thing you’re certain about but refuse to talk about, because your certainty is ill-founded.” (p. 13)
It is this steadfast belief in our own mythologies that feed into our sense of entitlement. That is the biggest problem I see in America today: Entitlement. The world owes everyone in America something, and God is going to help them get it. I saw a gigantic red pickup truck yesterday with decorative running lights and scrolling letters appliquéd on the back windshield that said “Powered By God”. What does that mean? God came down and fueled your vehicle? God paid your car bill last month? There was also an American flag waving on the antenna.
What I’m wondering is, how does identification with a God make people feel that they deserve more than, say, a Mexican? Is it the old Protestant/Catholic debate rearing its ugly head? Every once in a while, just turn on TBN, the religious channel (yes, that is what we do around here for fun some nights) and listen to what they’re preaching. Listen to what they are selling to the public: the idea that God is on the side of America. God loves those that give themselves up to him- that is, the Christian God. No other God, just the Christian one.
I do understand people wanting to keep what they have worked really hard for, I do. I’ve worked hard all my life, but I think it would do us all some good to share. I try to imagine working as hard as I do and still going home with pennies at the end of the day. I don’t have the answer to immigration issues, but I do know that spreading hate emails is not going to help. I do know that holding on with all your might to the material objects that you own is not going to help anything (you know, at the end of the movie the greedy guy always buys the farm).
Here’s how the email ends:

“Why can't people see how ridiculous this is?! [allowing immigrants in]
Only in America....If you agree, pass it on (in English).
Share it if you see the value of it as a good simile.
If not blow it off along with your future Social Security funds.”

Oh, I’m beginning to think that Sam Harris is right. Maybe we shouldn’t be so tolerant.

Sing, Sing a Song

The photo isn't me, and it isn't the Northwest (A friend in Hawaii), but it is happy anyway


It's a beautiful sunny day out in the Northwest, so I'm going to start my morning with a happy song:

Oh, wait, I never wrote any happy songs, but here's one that isn't entirely gloom and doom:

AGE

The thing is, I didn’t see it coming
The truth is, it scares me to death
The thing is, I don’t think I can stop it
The truth is,
I’m intrigued by this process I can’t control
Exist in spite of it
And spit in the face of innocence

I’m not afraid of dying
I’m afraid of losing You aren’t scared
Of anything except me
I’m older than I look
Younger than I seem Hesitant
To continue in this vein
In need of nourishment or some master plan
A label to slap upon myself
Here’s to your health

Here’s to Birth
Here’s to Aging
Here’s to Wisdom
Here’s to Dying

Now I’m Breathing
Now I’m fading
Now I’m centered
Now I’m rising

....It has been a while since I've done any singing or lyric-writing (at least 3 years), but I am still fond of the rhythms you can create in songs vs. prose. It makes me think of the workshop we had at the last MFA residency- listening to tapes of famous authors reading their work. I guarantee if you heard this song it would be a completely different experience than reading it on the page. Hopefully you wouldn't fall asleep.

Hello, Darlings

So, for months I have been saying that I could not imagine why I would want to post my personal business online for just anyone to read--I have friends who show pictures of the inside of their house, for god's sake. But, with a mind to watch what I post, and a group of writerly friends that I know have my back out there, I've decided to give it a go. Here's why:

1. An artist must reflect the time she is living in
2. I need discipline
3. William Faulkner said "kill all your darlings", but I don't want to. I'm no murderer. Now I don't have to kill them, now they can have a life in posting form.

That's exciting.
Here's a little taste (you may see why it was heading for the guillotine)...Keep in mind, I am no poet, though I love the sounds. I call myself the Repeater.

We argue over furniture

when that is not what was meant

(They do not send their children out to play)

Stripes, strife

strictly stiff

it is perception that differs.

I begged for a straw broom

then bought one for myself

(Picture your perfect purring)

by the by time continues on.

Though not truly on, not straight

in a line.

You called me like my mother

and I slapped you for that

When what we meant to say

was I love you

What we meant to say

stopped short of being said.