STRANGERS & MINIMALIST PEN NAMES: Every New Year's Eve, Terry and I complete a Top 20 list about the previous year. We save the lists with categories like Favorite City, Greatest Achievement, Theme Song/Album of the Year, and Most Helpful Friend.... One of the categories is Most Memorable Stranger. Terry and I have a series of stories about these odd, quirky people who make a lasting impression on our lives. Some of them have appeared in previous blogs like Her Highness Awkwardness and the Pretty 20s.
Terry, Ondra, and I were new friends. Brittle ice shards stung our faces along the North Sea until we boarded the train. We talked almost non stop, except for licking our cigarette papers and lighting the tobacco that dangled out the end. As soon as the first exhale was half way out of our nostrils, our mouths let the rest escape around questions and laughter and the snickering silliness of long lost friends that must have been there all the way. I led the way to our favorite place for tea. Ondra had never been there. Terry has no sense of direction (not even with a map), but will ask for directions in the blink of an eye, even to a person who waves him away in another language.
Anyway, I knew the way, through crowds of people at least 6 inches taller than me most of the time, through coats and caps, over canals, quick turning the brickwork, cross alleys with the pace of Amsterdam always changing until we secure one of the four tables in a tiny, warm, wildly painted room. Ondra was pleased. He surveyed the quaint room, as if we had stepped into the home of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. Terry was standing and pointing to us for our drink orders when we noticed a tea tin on our table. We hadn't seen it there before. We looked at one another with questions, glancing at the mysterious tin that had appeared at the head of the table in fact. Terry shrugged and walked away, vowing to bring us good drinks.
Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned. A short woman with fifty-year-old gray-blonde pixie hair said between her nicotine stained teeth, "Hello friend, so glad you all could join me." She hugged me and took the seat at the head of the table. Her voice was soft and jumpy and talked in stories that rolled themselves into others, but I only remember parts of two. She said something like, "It's the place to be. You all are embracing life. My friend Grant and I were at a party, quite lavish and heaping with jewels of fruit and meat and delicacies. We were surrounded by phantoms. He and I walked into the gardens, talking about the gray feeling of the people, and he said that life was about biting into the intensity, not fearing it. Grant had found an onion in the kitchen at some point during the party. He pulled it out of the pocket of his tuxedo jacket, peeled the top layer back and bit into it. Tears streamed down his face, and he bit it again...."
Her story tapered off into another and another until she said something like, "You musn't be needy and assume that others can always relate to you. I had a friend, we'll call her crusty knickers, who had eaten those hallucinogenic mushrooms, then parked outside of my flat in the middle of the night. She rang and rang and rang, wouldn't stop in fact, until I answered. And Crusty Knickers used this exaggerated voice that seemed paranoid. After she rang a few more times and it was apparent she wouldn't leave, I let her upstairs. And then she proceeded to tell me how spiritual and spacey her evening had been and then her whole life and I said, 'Not everyone wants to hear about another person's drug-induced awakening. I'm going to sleep.'"
Around this time, I glanced around and noticed the place had become crowded. A man had taken a seat next to Terry. He had been listening to the woman that Ondra, Terry, and I later named "Faith." Ondra says that she introduced herself with the name "Faith." I wasn't sure about that.
The door was swinging open and closed. Open and closed, pushing in the chills of February. We sank deeply into our coats with hot cups in our hands. Electronica and ambient trance sounds made exclamation points and commas when we moved to the bar for more tea. The man seated next to Terry wore a dark brown professor's coat. Could've been tweed, let's make it tweed. He was about 45 with sandy brown hair and a solid smile. Our interaction went something like this: He looked across the table at me and said, "When I was your age, I thought I wanted to be Faulkner too." He stretched out his hand toward mine and said his name (I never remembered it).
"You're a writer?" I asked more bewildered that he knew I was aspiring to be one since I had never said so, because Faith was too busy being a modern scop.
He nodded that he was a writer. Duh. Awkward pause at the table. Terry and Ondra looking at me.
"What do you write?" I asked.
"Lesbian porn," he said.
I laughed a great cackling, head thrown back, loud hyena snarkle in the midst of ambient minimalism. Many eyes sworded me.
"I'm serious," he said.
"I know that," I said sinking into my chair as deeply as possible without appearing to shrink completely.
He smiled. "No, I mean that I write about serious relationships, not trash porn."
He had been published, of course! And women in real life relationships were his sources for inspiration.
His advice to me was: Keep writing, and write porn under a pen name if you need money. (No need to think up possible pen names I could have written under, I haven't submitted any porn for publication.)
We later nicknamed the serious lesbian porn writer, the Wizard. Terry and I have joked that the Wizard probably writes for that popular cable show now.
Last week, NPR re-broadcast Terry Gross' interview with publisher/writer/editor Ted Solotaroff on Fresh Air. The original interview was from 1987. Ted Solotaroff died about two weeks ago, and NPR re-broadcast the interview as a tribute. I didn't catch the entire interview then; however, I did hear his short discussion about trends in literature, specifically minimalism, and that's what I'll mention here. He said that minimalist fiction doesn't offer a reflection from the characters. It lacks the exploration of longer fiction. He went on to say that minimalist fiction by writers like Bobbie Ann Mason and Raymond Carver appeals to our consumerist culture. People can read them quickly. Terry Gross is quick to point out that Solotaroff was an editor for Bobbie Ann Mason. And he says that the masters of a particular style of literature are not an issue, it's the imitators who allow a literary fad to take root. (Adding a quick note in here for balance: I have often assigned the short stories of Raymond Carver in class. I like them. And I, more often than not, need an editor to sink a red pen into my work.) Still, the interview was full of great points and ideas about readers, writers, editors, and publishers of literature. He discussed all of the angles. Listen to the interview here: NPR Interview
I attended school in Ft. Bragg, NC, for a few months when i was 14. I lived with my aunt and uncle. One of my first English assignments was to write an obituary for myself, as if I had lived to be 90-something years old. There was no page limit. The night before the assignment was due, I had decided to write out about a page of general accomplishments. I was almost finished with the one long paragraph centered on the blue-lined paper when my uncle knocked on the door. He asked about my homework. I was already doing it. He looked at the paper and asked the specifics. I told him the assignment. He tilted his head and read the paragraph that summed up my 90 years on the planet.
"Do you know what an adjective is?" he asked.
I said some colors and a few other descriptive words.
"This is good," he said. "But it would be even better if you used some adjectives and made it more descriptive." He took the pencil out of my hand and added two or three adjectives, then insisted that I add a few more. He asked, "Can you imagine if...? Wouldn't it be fun to...?" He told me about goals that he still hadn't reached. I thought about the possibilities available. My obituary became longer when I realized that I could do so much more in 90 years. About a week later, the teacher made me read it aloud, along with three other students who had to read theirs.
Taking the time and paying attention seem too simple, but many people are challenged by distractions. And that's why minimalist fiction is still so appealing. The new trend may be extreme literary minimalism. In Japan, the fad is novels written on cell phones from a country that claims to have mothered the first novel, The Tale of Genji. People are wondering when cell phone novels will become the craze to crave here: cell phone novels
Since I am illiterate concerning texting, I don't have to worry about a minimalist pen name.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
WORD PROBLEMS
We already have to spell A LOT of words in front of Zoe. She isn't a forgetful or easily distracted child.
Zoe has learned the word "school." She looked at me this morning with a question on her face. "School?" she asked. "Zoe go" and pointed to herself. She took some steps toward her purse that was lying on the couch close by. I explained that she would go to school in a few years by using my nephew, who started kindergarten today, as an example. She seemed to understand, but frowned as if she were disappointed. As Mimi says, "She's a woman in a toddler's body." I did distract Zoe by practicing her colors and shapes and reading books.
I found my old report cards from elementary school. The hard paper had yellowed. Some of the ink was faded beside worn corners and torn bits. The teachers wrote mostly good remarks and encouraging descriptions except that I talked excessively sometimes. And, i had trouble with math from the beginning. I needed to practice counting coins in first grade. I was also instructed to practice numbers in fives and tens. By third grade, I had problems with telling the time, but the third grade teacher said I had turned in a "thoughtful" poetry assignment. I did receive one scolding remark on that assignment that was actually directed at my Dad. We had to write a number of different poems and create our own little book for the assignment. The day before the assignment was due, I asked my Dad to help me when I ran out of ideas. I was almost finished. He said, "3, 6, 9. The goose drank wine. The monkey chewed tobacco on a streetcar line. The line broke. The monkey got choked. They all went to heaven in a little rowboat."
I giggled. Wow. That sounded clever and funny to me. I wrote it down. The teacher didn't care for that one and made a note next to it. I showed it to my Dad. We shrugged it off since i made a good grade anyway. (Seems like I've told this story in a blog already? if so, sorry but I don't want to search through to find out)
Back to math so that no one calls me verbose: I counted on my fingers through junior high and into high school. I struggled with pre-algebra and the introduction of x. Even now, simple addition and subtraction takes me a while. I still count on my fingers when adding 8 and 6.
My high school math teachers were a Pond for geometry and a Bull for the rest of the classes. What prompted my determination and enthusiasm for the subject those four years was the attention two teachers paid to me. Pond and Bull wanted everyone to like math. They pushed all of their students with their sarcastic edgyness. Pond was a fast-moving, tiny woman with long, thick red hair. Bull was a big man with sandy-graying wispy hair and long eyelashes. Pond's sense of humor alerted our adolescent gutter minds to wake up and participate. Bull's sense of humor challenged our sarcastic angst. Pond and Bull used different teaching methods, but both teachers challenged their students, and no one was free to fade into the background of the classroom.
As a student, I usually preferred to sit in the middle, on a side aisle, next to the window or the door.
The missing paragraph--> About two years ago, a teacher told me that she had a body guard in her classroom during summer school. The high school students that I taught at Austin Peay during the summer were from the surrounding counties...the year after I taught them, a school bus driver was shot with a bus full of students on board. When I briefly had a high school teaching stint, we had a plan for a school shooting or terrorist attack. We followed certain codes for the drills, and I couldn't believe that we needed so many emergency plans. No longer were we practicing simple fire and tornado drills. I know that the '50s generation experienced the duck and cover drills in the event of nuclear attack. We learned new plans for students with semi-automatic weapons...and anyone who might trespass and target the school. At the beginning of a school year, you start to wonder where on the map will the school shootings begin? School shootings at universities, tech schools, elementary, junior high and high schools, on school buses, and even at an Amish school have occurred in this country. Teachers have added responsibilities and stress: Learn the codes, the drills, the students, their biases...and teach, monitor the lunchroom, direct the parking lot traffic, counseling, lesson planning, grading, in service, volunteer and committee hours... coaching, anyone? Instead of a classroom helper, meet your classroom guard. Are we going to require combat training soon?
I truly admire teachers who are candid, enthusiastic, and thoughtful about their jobs.
This will be short one, since I have no solution, only thoughts. It's now time for me to go outdoors. The weather is beautiful...
PS: The following book is great for kids of all ages. (Thanks Mitzi!)
Currently reading :
Salvador Dali and the Surrealists: Their Lives and Ideas, 21 Activities (For Kids series)
By Michael Elsohn Ross
Zoe has learned the word "school." She looked at me this morning with a question on her face. "School?" she asked. "Zoe go" and pointed to herself. She took some steps toward her purse that was lying on the couch close by. I explained that she would go to school in a few years by using my nephew, who started kindergarten today, as an example. She seemed to understand, but frowned as if she were disappointed. As Mimi says, "She's a woman in a toddler's body." I did distract Zoe by practicing her colors and shapes and reading books.
I found my old report cards from elementary school. The hard paper had yellowed. Some of the ink was faded beside worn corners and torn bits. The teachers wrote mostly good remarks and encouraging descriptions except that I talked excessively sometimes. And, i had trouble with math from the beginning. I needed to practice counting coins in first grade. I was also instructed to practice numbers in fives and tens. By third grade, I had problems with telling the time, but the third grade teacher said I had turned in a "thoughtful" poetry assignment. I did receive one scolding remark on that assignment that was actually directed at my Dad. We had to write a number of different poems and create our own little book for the assignment. The day before the assignment was due, I asked my Dad to help me when I ran out of ideas. I was almost finished. He said, "3, 6, 9. The goose drank wine. The monkey chewed tobacco on a streetcar line. The line broke. The monkey got choked. They all went to heaven in a little rowboat."
I giggled. Wow. That sounded clever and funny to me. I wrote it down. The teacher didn't care for that one and made a note next to it. I showed it to my Dad. We shrugged it off since i made a good grade anyway. (Seems like I've told this story in a blog already? if so, sorry but I don't want to search through to find out)
Back to math so that no one calls me verbose: I counted on my fingers through junior high and into high school. I struggled with pre-algebra and the introduction of x. Even now, simple addition and subtraction takes me a while. I still count on my fingers when adding 8 and 6.
My high school math teachers were a Pond for geometry and a Bull for the rest of the classes. What prompted my determination and enthusiasm for the subject those four years was the attention two teachers paid to me. Pond and Bull wanted everyone to like math. They pushed all of their students with their sarcastic edgyness. Pond was a fast-moving, tiny woman with long, thick red hair. Bull was a big man with sandy-graying wispy hair and long eyelashes. Pond's sense of humor alerted our adolescent gutter minds to wake up and participate. Bull's sense of humor challenged our sarcastic angst. Pond and Bull used different teaching methods, but both teachers challenged their students, and no one was free to fade into the background of the classroom.
As a student, I usually preferred to sit in the middle, on a side aisle, next to the window or the door.
The missing paragraph--> About two years ago, a teacher told me that she had a body guard in her classroom during summer school. The high school students that I taught at Austin Peay during the summer were from the surrounding counties...the year after I taught them, a school bus driver was shot with a bus full of students on board. When I briefly had a high school teaching stint, we had a plan for a school shooting or terrorist attack. We followed certain codes for the drills, and I couldn't believe that we needed so many emergency plans. No longer were we practicing simple fire and tornado drills. I know that the '50s generation experienced the duck and cover drills in the event of nuclear attack. We learned new plans for students with semi-automatic weapons...and anyone who might trespass and target the school. At the beginning of a school year, you start to wonder where on the map will the school shootings begin? School shootings at universities, tech schools, elementary, junior high and high schools, on school buses, and even at an Amish school have occurred in this country. Teachers have added responsibilities and stress: Learn the codes, the drills, the students, their biases...and teach, monitor the lunchroom, direct the parking lot traffic, counseling, lesson planning, grading, in service, volunteer and committee hours... coaching, anyone? Instead of a classroom helper, meet your classroom guard. Are we going to require combat training soon?
I truly admire teachers who are candid, enthusiastic, and thoughtful about their jobs.
This will be short one, since I have no solution, only thoughts. It's now time for me to go outdoors. The weather is beautiful...
PS: The following book is great for kids of all ages. (Thanks Mitzi!)
Currently reading :
Salvador Dali and the Surrealists: Their Lives and Ideas, 21 Activities (For Kids series)
By Michael Elsohn Ross
Friday, August 8, 2008
STICKY NAMES AND DUDE
The cyclical nature of life fascinates me. I like the sense of returning and the returning of the senses. During this time each year, I can smell the approaching fall in the tall ferns, powdery dust, and just past plump tomatoes. Endsummer, the cicadas rattle a din of heated woo-ing underneath the sun. Brown grass might crunch and crumble as if fire had burned it to ashes. It's the type of weather that sweats itself underneath your clothes until they might slide off your skin in a slithering puddle. And sometimes, you wish they would so that you could be outside without them. If outside and lucky, most people waddle in the water, or strap on as little as possible in order to lie as still as possible close to a cool, crisp, blue pool that reflects the blue sky and makes it seem as chilled as the melting ice cubes against your yellow straw. In those moments of exceptional heat and humidity, I'm often compelled to walk out as far into the forest as possible to a creek bed, preferably a secluded, slow-down low lying one, but any offering of slick limestone lacing the twisted toes of trees and ragged rings of fossils will entwine me. Between the banks, it's cold.
When I brought it inside, the apricot was sweating sweet sliding drops from the transition in temperature.
While staring at the apricot, I was lost in names, thinking about choosing names for characters from the first half of the last century. Eating the apricot, I wondered about the popularity of certain names over others while looking up name etymology. I stumbled onto the social security office's website that lists the annual popularity rankings of baby names for boys and girls. To have so many choices, most people stick with the same names. My keyboard was getting sticky. From 1880 (the start of their records) through 1946, Mary was the number one name for girls. That's 56 years, and probably centuries before that of the name Mary scrolled in cursive with pen nibs dipped in Winsor and Newton. Then, from 1947-1952, Linda takes the top row on notebook paper. Mary holds on to number 2. However, almost another decade of virginal reign as Mary is number 1 from 1953-1961 (it should be noted that Debra, Susan, Karen, and Linda all try for first chair but are out-shined by Mary). Seems all parents wanted a Mary. But in 1962, Lisa sails from the bottom ranks and takes number 1 and stays there in protest with flowers in her hair and enjoys a final groove in 1969. Then, Lisa says peace out to Jennifer in 1970. Mary hangs on to number 2 until 1966!! when Kimberly becomes popular. Mary drops in notoriety through the '60s when Jennifer climbs the ranks to her number 1 spot. Mary holds 13 through the mid-70s, being passed by Amy, Nicole, Amanda, Rebecca, and Elizabeth. By 1975, Mary's at 19, barely clutching to the top 20. Julie and Sarah have received nods.
By 1976, my birth year, the bicentennial, Mary is no longer in the top 20. The list has gone to the likes of feisty Jamie, head-swinging Kelly, long-legged Kimberly, the naturalist Heather, Melissa with an attitude, the bonny Shannon, and Lisa from the '60s who is still hangin' out. Laura wraps it up smartly at 20. The top spots are held by Jennifer at number 1 and Amy at 2 who hold on through 1984. Fifteen years!—you'd think people would grow tired of hearing the name Jennifer. It was my parents' choice for my name until they heard it too often while my Mom was pregnant.
From 1880 through 1980, only four names held the number 1 spot...Mary, Linda, Lisa, and Jennifer in one hundred years. By 1985, there were lots of Jessicas strutting in pampers. Jessica is 1 through 1990, beating out Amy who held number 2 for almost a decade but never quite made it. Ashley shows that there is variety when she writes her name in rainbow-colored magic markers with a number 1 from 1991-1992. Brittany, Samantha, and Megan weren't far behind. In a steal, Jessica takes back number 1 from 1993-1995, and dotted her "i" with a glitter pen. Then, climbing from the bottom swiftly, Emily is crowned number 1 in 1996, and is still wearing the crown. She has never given it over to the clever Madison, Shakespeare's Olivia, the popular Addison, Hannah who enjoyed the second seat, the ancient Sophia, the daring Alexis, or eclectic Mia—even the simplicity of Grace and the superlative cuteness of Emma (who showed up in 2003 at 2) cannot stop Emily from being the name uttered the most by new parents.
One of my best friends was supposed to be born on the 4th of July. Her parents had planned to name her Liberty Belle if she made her debut into the world that day. She's a go-getter and instead she went for the number one name of the year and was born a day earlier than expected in order to be christened Jennifer. How differently life may have been as Liberty. Can you imagine how many people would have pledged allegiance to you? It might have been empowering if you wanted to power play.
I took classes from two professors who were also mentors and always mispronounced my name. I wasn't at one of those huge universities where they might be lucky enough to forget my name and voice in the crowd of papers. I told them, "My name is Shana. It rhymes with banana, just one syllable less." My friends called me "Shana Banana" in front of the profs, and still they persisted on rhyming my un-name with "Dana" or "gonna."
Some couples argue about baby names and make fun of the unborn's name so much that the decisive parent has to abandon the name. There's been a trend to name boys the maiden name of the mother. Names can take you places...Future landmarks for the body like Phoenix, Paris, Brooklyn, Sydney, Dallas, and Georgia. Fruits and flowers and sense startling names like Cherry, Candy, Lily, Rose, and Apricot are another type of character. They're names that might seem like nicknames, but aren't. People who live out of a nickname are called Tiny, PT, Slow Lip, Harry Bees, and the like, to keep it PG...
DUDE: My friend's e-mails usually open with the salutation "Dude, Dude-ette and Little Dude-ette", but the last e-mail I received from him looked like this:
"Dudes (Dudette has been deemed sexist. 'Dude' crosses gender lines. DUDE"
Lebowski fan?--->Dudeism.com
Of course, the Dude finds himself coincidentally caught up in others' dramatizations of life. I have been along for the ride in someone else's drama or creating too much in my own life, but never caught in mistaken drama like the Dude. One of my friends in high school had me ride shotgun and scope out the parking lots of strip clubs for her boyfriend's car. I was just hoping (to-God-please) that I didn't see my boyfriend or his car or THE car (because he was probably with her boyfriend). If that had happened, my friend would have stared at me with narrowed eyes like, so what are you going to do about it. I glanced out of the windows and down the alleyways. Then, bit my fingernails. I suggested wrong turns that might lead to my own fun away from slouching low in the seat and feeling like a stalker. Circles around and through downtown like a shimmy on a pole. Shimmy. Shake rattle and roll. I knew, like other weekends when a dramatic phobia about boyfriend territory would set in, that we could probably find her man and too many others at the McDonalds, trying to speed away or smile real fast like, "How ya'll doin? I thought you was suppose to be at the—"
A small gang of cars had gathered for underage beer conspiracies.
I felt flush. I couldn't breathe, as usual. Yes, I was a high school student with wheezing short breathlessness when I was anxious or nervous. I needed an inhaler. (Remember: cheerleader with glasses<--?) I trembled and thought, someone just write Stalker in red on the damn car and let me go. I felt like hitching a ride out of there with anyone, and I was stuck in the back seat, thinking that the car my friend was trying to outrun, would ram us in the back end or we'd skid off in a ditch and a gaggle of stalker girlfriends who were screaming with hot-grease-flicking-needles-in-your-spine voices all around me would stumble out in a hysteria of laughter and whimpers.
Usually, I studied a lot. Til 3 a.m. Calculus owed to the Bull. Pencils sharpened to a fine point. I used a pencil from tip to end and then hung its left-over metal ring and scrap of remaining wood on my bulletin board. When I went to war with math, I meant to win. Once I won my battle of the Bull and received one of his awards, I didn't focus on math again in the same way. It made me weary-eyed, so I gave up after high school. Instead of tasting the powdery, sanded, pencil tip that was faintly scented with metal on the top of my pallet, I had a new mesmerizing scent to inhale that led me to preoccupations and later to occupations. Books. The strength of new paper's crisp, uncreased breath blew the finely flattened timbers of stories up from the pages. I pulled apart book after book and sank my face into their freshly opened spines. Some were pungent from glue.
Experience, that's where it was at. Flowing... on the road... with friends who wanted to go somewhere, but we just kept chasing dudes after high school. And then, I lost the drama, in a weird frenzy, until I found myself behind the wheel--driving to find a purpose, without an inhaler and without looking for someone.
Actually, like now, I found myself abandoning the car and the shallow surface of pavement for places where the land drifts into a lush, rugged comfort.
When I brought it inside, the apricot was sweating sweet sliding drops from the transition in temperature.
While staring at the apricot, I was lost in names, thinking about choosing names for characters from the first half of the last century. Eating the apricot, I wondered about the popularity of certain names over others while looking up name etymology. I stumbled onto the social security office's website that lists the annual popularity rankings of baby names for boys and girls. To have so many choices, most people stick with the same names. My keyboard was getting sticky. From 1880 (the start of their records) through 1946, Mary was the number one name for girls. That's 56 years, and probably centuries before that of the name Mary scrolled in cursive with pen nibs dipped in Winsor and Newton. Then, from 1947-1952, Linda takes the top row on notebook paper. Mary holds on to number 2. However, almost another decade of virginal reign as Mary is number 1 from 1953-1961 (it should be noted that Debra, Susan, Karen, and Linda all try for first chair but are out-shined by Mary). Seems all parents wanted a Mary. But in 1962, Lisa sails from the bottom ranks and takes number 1 and stays there in protest with flowers in her hair and enjoys a final groove in 1969. Then, Lisa says peace out to Jennifer in 1970. Mary hangs on to number 2 until 1966!! when Kimberly becomes popular. Mary drops in notoriety through the '60s when Jennifer climbs the ranks to her number 1 spot. Mary holds 13 through the mid-70s, being passed by Amy, Nicole, Amanda, Rebecca, and Elizabeth. By 1975, Mary's at 19, barely clutching to the top 20. Julie and Sarah have received nods.
By 1976, my birth year, the bicentennial, Mary is no longer in the top 20. The list has gone to the likes of feisty Jamie, head-swinging Kelly, long-legged Kimberly, the naturalist Heather, Melissa with an attitude, the bonny Shannon, and Lisa from the '60s who is still hangin' out. Laura wraps it up smartly at 20. The top spots are held by Jennifer at number 1 and Amy at 2 who hold on through 1984. Fifteen years!—you'd think people would grow tired of hearing the name Jennifer. It was my parents' choice for my name until they heard it too often while my Mom was pregnant.
From 1880 through 1980, only four names held the number 1 spot...Mary, Linda, Lisa, and Jennifer in one hundred years. By 1985, there were lots of Jessicas strutting in pampers. Jessica is 1 through 1990, beating out Amy who held number 2 for almost a decade but never quite made it. Ashley shows that there is variety when she writes her name in rainbow-colored magic markers with a number 1 from 1991-1992. Brittany, Samantha, and Megan weren't far behind. In a steal, Jessica takes back number 1 from 1993-1995, and dotted her "i" with a glitter pen. Then, climbing from the bottom swiftly, Emily is crowned number 1 in 1996, and is still wearing the crown. She has never given it over to the clever Madison, Shakespeare's Olivia, the popular Addison, Hannah who enjoyed the second seat, the ancient Sophia, the daring Alexis, or eclectic Mia—even the simplicity of Grace and the superlative cuteness of Emma (who showed up in 2003 at 2) cannot stop Emily from being the name uttered the most by new parents.
One of my best friends was supposed to be born on the 4th of July. Her parents had planned to name her Liberty Belle if she made her debut into the world that day. She's a go-getter and instead she went for the number one name of the year and was born a day earlier than expected in order to be christened Jennifer. How differently life may have been as Liberty. Can you imagine how many people would have pledged allegiance to you? It might have been empowering if you wanted to power play.
I took classes from two professors who were also mentors and always mispronounced my name. I wasn't at one of those huge universities where they might be lucky enough to forget my name and voice in the crowd of papers. I told them, "My name is Shana. It rhymes with banana, just one syllable less." My friends called me "Shana Banana" in front of the profs, and still they persisted on rhyming my un-name with "Dana" or "gonna."
Some couples argue about baby names and make fun of the unborn's name so much that the decisive parent has to abandon the name. There's been a trend to name boys the maiden name of the mother. Names can take you places...Future landmarks for the body like Phoenix, Paris, Brooklyn, Sydney, Dallas, and Georgia. Fruits and flowers and sense startling names like Cherry, Candy, Lily, Rose, and Apricot are another type of character. They're names that might seem like nicknames, but aren't. People who live out of a nickname are called Tiny, PT, Slow Lip, Harry Bees, and the like, to keep it PG...
DUDE: My friend's e-mails usually open with the salutation "Dude, Dude-ette and Little Dude-ette", but the last e-mail I received from him looked like this:
"Dudes (Dudette has been deemed sexist. 'Dude' crosses gender lines. DUDE"
Lebowski fan?--->Dudeism.com
Of course, the Dude finds himself coincidentally caught up in others' dramatizations of life. I have been along for the ride in someone else's drama or creating too much in my own life, but never caught in mistaken drama like the Dude. One of my friends in high school had me ride shotgun and scope out the parking lots of strip clubs for her boyfriend's car. I was just hoping (to-God-please) that I didn't see my boyfriend or his car or THE car (because he was probably with her boyfriend). If that had happened, my friend would have stared at me with narrowed eyes like, so what are you going to do about it. I glanced out of the windows and down the alleyways. Then, bit my fingernails. I suggested wrong turns that might lead to my own fun away from slouching low in the seat and feeling like a stalker. Circles around and through downtown like a shimmy on a pole. Shimmy. Shake rattle and roll. I knew, like other weekends when a dramatic phobia about boyfriend territory would set in, that we could probably find her man and too many others at the McDonalds, trying to speed away or smile real fast like, "How ya'll doin? I thought you was suppose to be at the—"
A small gang of cars had gathered for underage beer conspiracies.
I felt flush. I couldn't breathe, as usual. Yes, I was a high school student with wheezing short breathlessness when I was anxious or nervous. I needed an inhaler. (Remember: cheerleader with glasses<--?) I trembled and thought, someone just write Stalker in red on the damn car and let me go. I felt like hitching a ride out of there with anyone, and I was stuck in the back seat, thinking that the car my friend was trying to outrun, would ram us in the back end or we'd skid off in a ditch and a gaggle of stalker girlfriends who were screaming with hot-grease-flicking-needles-in-your-spine voices all around me would stumble out in a hysteria of laughter and whimpers.
Usually, I studied a lot. Til 3 a.m. Calculus owed to the Bull. Pencils sharpened to a fine point. I used a pencil from tip to end and then hung its left-over metal ring and scrap of remaining wood on my bulletin board. When I went to war with math, I meant to win. Once I won my battle of the Bull and received one of his awards, I didn't focus on math again in the same way. It made me weary-eyed, so I gave up after high school. Instead of tasting the powdery, sanded, pencil tip that was faintly scented with metal on the top of my pallet, I had a new mesmerizing scent to inhale that led me to preoccupations and later to occupations. Books. The strength of new paper's crisp, uncreased breath blew the finely flattened timbers of stories up from the pages. I pulled apart book after book and sank my face into their freshly opened spines. Some were pungent from glue.
Experience, that's where it was at. Flowing... on the road... with friends who wanted to go somewhere, but we just kept chasing dudes after high school. And then, I lost the drama, in a weird frenzy, until I found myself behind the wheel--driving to find a purpose, without an inhaler and without looking for someone.
Actually, like now, I found myself abandoning the car and the shallow surface of pavement for places where the land drifts into a lush, rugged comfort.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
HEAVY WITH PTSD
I'm steeped in serious research. Heavy stuff. Events that aren't nice to retrace and/or that show an unkind side to human nature. That prompt far too many questions and not enough answers. That promote a weary sigh. That fan dust from pages onto my eyelashes which need to be rubbed and then I'm tired and sad from the bits of excess information I've noted over the past few months. Little pieces that have fallen over the edge, leading me to another view, to stories about people who help others.
There's a wildness to research even though teachers present a method, even though some organizational document must be presented to the reader or the viewer, even though your work cannot stand as the measure of your depth, even though it takes on an order for display. It's the loss, the breakdown of the form, the stack of papers toppled over by coffee rings, the first beer that spills halfway through an archival file, traces of dates and designs and street names and brands and routes and ticks and habits and trends and popularity scribbled in every kind of ink through notebook coasters—that's the wildness, giving in to the story as it tells itself, as it unravels while building at the same time, whether it's a research paper or a novel or scientific experiment or a legal investigation. A representation of this idea is in the film "Everything is Illuminated" which I found heart-breaking, hilarious, and terrifying. The main character collects items and documents for research. They are the reason for his trip and the premise of the film. The stuff, his research, builds and accumulates and collects while the story unravels simultaneously.
The idea of ownership concerning wild animals vexes me, especially the presupposition that a wild animal can ever be truly tamed without breaking its spirit. (I am not talking about dogs, cats, and mostly domesticated animals.)
I cannot visit the zoo or attend a circus again. I have been to both. It doesn't matter how many statistics someone places in front of my nose, I cannot find an overall benefit for the animals from those places. The stench vents through like a big rig carrying a load of horses or pigs. Removing a wild animal or insect from its natural environment in order to place it in a container (pen, fenced in area, box, well-ventilated simulated environment, indoor aquarium, cage, stall, crate, etc) so that people can pay an admission fee in order to gawk at the animal/insect cannot be in the animal or insect's best interest. I've heard the argument, for the purpose of research, for the purpose of procreation and continuation of an endangered species, for the reason that their native environments are being destroyed.... For me, "research facilities" that charge admission are questionable places. I personally feel uncomfortable staring through a wide plate glass sheet stretched in front of a dusty bank inhabited by a mountain lion or pressing my fingertips against the polished glass toward tiny frogs from the rainforest. They should be in Brazil! not Nashville, and certainly not in a pet store so that some kid or their parent can kill them a week after purchasing them. This was all triggered by research on combat-induced Post-traumatic stress disorder that coincided serendipitously with a 20/20 special about elephants with PTSD that Mimi TiVoed. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder very brief definition:
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which severe physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or unnatural disasters, accidents, or military combat" (from Psychology Today).
Here's a link to the first part of the 20/20 special on elephants with PTSD on the web so you can watch it: Elephants Never Forget
The circus is out of the question. Period. I just can't go there, unless no animals would be performing. Kindness doesn't matter to me at all when discussing captivity. I suppose that I should think they give elephants cookies and a nice walk in the park for balancing on their hind legs while wearing elephant slut costumes in the circus. I could care less if I ever see a lion, tiger, bear, elephant, turtle, cheetah, panda, sloth, albino python, tarantula, giraffe, penguin, polar bear, or crocodile. Unless I see them in the wild, in their native environment, I don't need to see them. I have no business to conduct with them. They should be free to go about their business and me to go about mine. They should be able to hook up with a girlfriend or build a nest together or stand side by side on the banks of the watering hole and take it easy without fear of poachers waiting to wrestle them away to a circus, or zoo, or some extravagant spender's pet cage.
Some wild animals could feel as docile and comfortable as the 13 deer I crossed paths with last week during my hike at a nearby park. A fawn ran alongside me for about twenty yards and was only about six feet away from my right elbow. Later, two fawns pranced their speckled backs in my direction and I thought they would actually touch me until their mother, who was about four feet away from me, turned them in the other direction and moved another five feet or so away and began eating again.
Other animals might need another couple thousand years to undue the code of rage and pain we have placed into the memories of their DNA. The 20/20 special mentioned the Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, TN, with property of more than 2,700 acres given to former circus, performing, and zoo elephants. Many of the elephants have suffered severe trauma. (I cannot find the second half of the 20/20 episode that shows the Elephant Sanctuary) The owners of the elephant sanctuary were quick to point out that no one is allowed contact with the elephants except for the people who care for the elephants. They do not charge admission and are not open to the public. The elephant sanctuary represents the next level of kindness that we can offer to animals. Giving them space. The people who own and maintain and work at the elephant sanctuary give to the animals, instead of taking from them for their own comfort, entertainment, or survival.
In thinking about my walk with the deer and my sorrow for the elephants, I remembered this bit of information. The Interior Department may allow people to carry loaded guns in National Parks soon. ?? And kids, don't forget to load up the guns before you grab the picnic basket. Anyway, here's an article that was in the Washington Post in Feb.: Loaded Guns in Parks?
And here's a message from Tom Kiernan, the president of the National Parks Conservation Association, posted this week:
"For nearly 5 months now, NPCA and our allies have been working to keep loaded guns out of our national parks. Our campaign first began when Senator Coburn (R-OK) tried to amend a public lands bill to allow guns in parks. With the help of our allies and supporters we put a stop to it. However, despite our aggressive attempts to keep the NRA from pushing their political agenda to allow loaded guns in our national parks, we are up against one of the most powerful organizations in the nation on this issue.
We could really use your help.
The administration, caving to pressure from the NRA, has opened up the regulations to the public for comment. We have only a few weeks left to steer the process in the right direction. Will you take a minute to send your comments today?
NPCA isn't opposed to individual gun ownership. ...
Write to the Department of the Interior (DOI) today and urge them to keep the current regulations in place. The policies on the books right now are Reagan administration policies, and they are sound policies that respect both gun owners and park visitors alike. Gun owners can have their guns in parks, as long as they are unloaded and safely stored. Sound unreasonable? We didn't think so either.
...DOI has extended the comment period until August 8, 2008 to ensure that every voice has been heard. Please write to DOI today and tell them to keep the current regulations in place and protect visitors and wildlife from loaded guns in national parks. ...Please send your comments in before the August 8th deadline.
***E-mail NPCA at TakeAction@npca.org, write them at 1300 19th Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036, or call 800-NAT-PARK (800-628-7275).
If you want to leave a comment, here's the NPCA website: National Park Conservation Association
What else? I'm reading the book "Three Cups of Tea"—a magnificent book about battling for communion with a wild place that defies the taming attempts of men and fulfilling a promise. A book about a peacemaker/mountaineer in Taliban-haunted territory who befriends and works with remote-Pakistanis in order to build schools and educate children.
There's a wildness to research even though teachers present a method, even though some organizational document must be presented to the reader or the viewer, even though your work cannot stand as the measure of your depth, even though it takes on an order for display. It's the loss, the breakdown of the form, the stack of papers toppled over by coffee rings, the first beer that spills halfway through an archival file, traces of dates and designs and street names and brands and routes and ticks and habits and trends and popularity scribbled in every kind of ink through notebook coasters—that's the wildness, giving in to the story as it tells itself, as it unravels while building at the same time, whether it's a research paper or a novel or scientific experiment or a legal investigation. A representation of this idea is in the film "Everything is Illuminated" which I found heart-breaking, hilarious, and terrifying. The main character collects items and documents for research. They are the reason for his trip and the premise of the film. The stuff, his research, builds and accumulates and collects while the story unravels simultaneously.
The idea of ownership concerning wild animals vexes me, especially the presupposition that a wild animal can ever be truly tamed without breaking its spirit. (I am not talking about dogs, cats, and mostly domesticated animals.)
I cannot visit the zoo or attend a circus again. I have been to both. It doesn't matter how many statistics someone places in front of my nose, I cannot find an overall benefit for the animals from those places. The stench vents through like a big rig carrying a load of horses or pigs. Removing a wild animal or insect from its natural environment in order to place it in a container (pen, fenced in area, box, well-ventilated simulated environment, indoor aquarium, cage, stall, crate, etc) so that people can pay an admission fee in order to gawk at the animal/insect cannot be in the animal or insect's best interest. I've heard the argument, for the purpose of research, for the purpose of procreation and continuation of an endangered species, for the reason that their native environments are being destroyed.... For me, "research facilities" that charge admission are questionable places. I personally feel uncomfortable staring through a wide plate glass sheet stretched in front of a dusty bank inhabited by a mountain lion or pressing my fingertips against the polished glass toward tiny frogs from the rainforest. They should be in Brazil! not Nashville, and certainly not in a pet store so that some kid or their parent can kill them a week after purchasing them. This was all triggered by research on combat-induced Post-traumatic stress disorder that coincided serendipitously with a 20/20 special about elephants with PTSD that Mimi TiVoed. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder very brief definition:
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which severe physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or unnatural disasters, accidents, or military combat" (from Psychology Today).
Here's a link to the first part of the 20/20 special on elephants with PTSD on the web so you can watch it: Elephants Never Forget
The circus is out of the question. Period. I just can't go there, unless no animals would be performing. Kindness doesn't matter to me at all when discussing captivity. I suppose that I should think they give elephants cookies and a nice walk in the park for balancing on their hind legs while wearing elephant slut costumes in the circus. I could care less if I ever see a lion, tiger, bear, elephant, turtle, cheetah, panda, sloth, albino python, tarantula, giraffe, penguin, polar bear, or crocodile. Unless I see them in the wild, in their native environment, I don't need to see them. I have no business to conduct with them. They should be free to go about their business and me to go about mine. They should be able to hook up with a girlfriend or build a nest together or stand side by side on the banks of the watering hole and take it easy without fear of poachers waiting to wrestle them away to a circus, or zoo, or some extravagant spender's pet cage.
Some wild animals could feel as docile and comfortable as the 13 deer I crossed paths with last week during my hike at a nearby park. A fawn ran alongside me for about twenty yards and was only about six feet away from my right elbow. Later, two fawns pranced their speckled backs in my direction and I thought they would actually touch me until their mother, who was about four feet away from me, turned them in the other direction and moved another five feet or so away and began eating again.
Other animals might need another couple thousand years to undue the code of rage and pain we have placed into the memories of their DNA. The 20/20 special mentioned the Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, TN, with property of more than 2,700 acres given to former circus, performing, and zoo elephants. Many of the elephants have suffered severe trauma. (I cannot find the second half of the 20/20 episode that shows the Elephant Sanctuary) The owners of the elephant sanctuary were quick to point out that no one is allowed contact with the elephants except for the people who care for the elephants. They do not charge admission and are not open to the public. The elephant sanctuary represents the next level of kindness that we can offer to animals. Giving them space. The people who own and maintain and work at the elephant sanctuary give to the animals, instead of taking from them for their own comfort, entertainment, or survival.
In thinking about my walk with the deer and my sorrow for the elephants, I remembered this bit of information. The Interior Department may allow people to carry loaded guns in National Parks soon. ?? And kids, don't forget to load up the guns before you grab the picnic basket. Anyway, here's an article that was in the Washington Post in Feb.: Loaded Guns in Parks?
And here's a message from Tom Kiernan, the president of the National Parks Conservation Association, posted this week:
"For nearly 5 months now, NPCA and our allies have been working to keep loaded guns out of our national parks. Our campaign first began when Senator Coburn (R-OK) tried to amend a public lands bill to allow guns in parks. With the help of our allies and supporters we put a stop to it. However, despite our aggressive attempts to keep the NRA from pushing their political agenda to allow loaded guns in our national parks, we are up against one of the most powerful organizations in the nation on this issue.
We could really use your help.
The administration, caving to pressure from the NRA, has opened up the regulations to the public for comment. We have only a few weeks left to steer the process in the right direction. Will you take a minute to send your comments today?
NPCA isn't opposed to individual gun ownership. ...
Write to the Department of the Interior (DOI) today and urge them to keep the current regulations in place. The policies on the books right now are Reagan administration policies, and they are sound policies that respect both gun owners and park visitors alike. Gun owners can have their guns in parks, as long as they are unloaded and safely stored. Sound unreasonable? We didn't think so either.
...DOI has extended the comment period until August 8, 2008 to ensure that every voice has been heard. Please write to DOI today and tell them to keep the current regulations in place and protect visitors and wildlife from loaded guns in national parks. ...Please send your comments in before the August 8th deadline.
***E-mail NPCA at TakeAction@npca.org, write them at 1300 19th Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036, or call 800-NAT-PARK (800-628-7275).
If you want to leave a comment, here's the NPCA website: National Park Conservation Association
What else? I'm reading the book "Three Cups of Tea"—a magnificent book about battling for communion with a wild place that defies the taming attempts of men and fulfilling a promise. A book about a peacemaker/mountaineer in Taliban-haunted territory who befriends and works with remote-Pakistanis in order to build schools and educate children.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
TWO-SIDED LIMITATION
I told one of my friends...I think that I could be a better parent, to myself as well, if I limited Zoe's choices. We place so much emphasis on the idea of freedom as a society that we rarely value the importance of limitation and its usefulness within our lives. Usually, we think of limitation as not having enough, whether that's stuff, opportunities, or emotional support. Limitation can also mean creating a financial budget, refusing to allow a friend to take advantage of you, having the courage to say No, choosing to withdraw from a situation, overcoming a fear that holds you back, and so on. For the most part, we work with what's in our lives and set up the limitations from there. Some people believe the exterior determines their limitations, while others allow the interior to stop them.
In the I Ching, one of the hexagrams means Limitation. The I Ching is an ancient text, regarded as an oracle by many. In order to consult the oracle, the reader holds a particular idea, question, or person in their mind while tossing three coins and so on. (Here's a link to more in depth instructions and other links: I Ching) You can simply approach the text as a book about human nature as well. In Brian Browne Walker's translation, the I Ching for Limitation says, "Voluntarily chosen limits empower your growth."
Some plants need to be thinned. During some events and relationships, it's okay to walk away when the limits have been reached or breached. My aunt used to tell me, "Some people just don't know when to go to sleep." and she meant that people often need to stop, retreat, and step away from a person or situation, instead of locking the gate and collapsing into a negative situation in an effort to repair what's damaged. She also meant that a siesta can revitalize a person and frame a new perspective.
The hexagram for limitation goes on to say, "Life lived without guidelines is confusing and troubling....To yourself, the setting of limits means defining your purpose and responsibilities so that you have a clear idea of where your energies are to be aimed....With others, place limits both on your own actions and the indulgences you offer them. To encourage another's inferior qualities is to invite misfortune."
Last Thursday morning around 8 a.m., I wrote in my notebook...Going outside with Zoe. She waits at the door. I see her bowl of strawberries and one half of bread. I ask if she ate the other half of the bread. "No."
I see her barefeet, think of bumblebees and honeybees and the soccer ball and the cedar mulch that pierced through my flip flop and felt like a nail. We need her shoes. "You want to get your sandals?" (Mistake: I've given a choice when one doesn't need to be revealed.)
Go to the living room. She says, "sandals" from behind me. (Maybe my question will work out after all) I look for bread in all the obvious places—amongst blocks, tops, doll house, toy basket, book table—no bread under the side table beside the couch.
"Sandals," she says. Yes, I remember, shoes. I don't see them either. I'm at the closet and open it. Shoes! Tennis shoes, flip flops, 2 pair of sandals, denim wedges, sequined sandals, birkies... she wants all of them, but settles on a pair of sandals with a cluster of flowers and one rhinestone as well as a pair of pink and white tennis shoes. She needs socks for tennis shoes. I retrieve spare socks from a diaper bag nearby and help her with the socks. I'm still looking for bread. One tennis shoe on and she wants sandals. I distract her by mentioning the ball and pointing to it. I keep going with the other sock and tennis shoe while she considers the ball. Really emphasize the NEW ball. In a whirl, I make it outside while hiding sandals in the closet again. Zoe carries the ball in front of me. I look back inside to see bowl of strawberries and half of bread on the kitchen table. Still no sign of missing bread. "Did you eat it?"
"No." she says. "Bread. Cracker. Cookie."
So many choices...
Mazithra Cheese, her husband the wizard poet, and I were discussing college choices and careers. Mazithra Cheese and I changed our majors several times. My first major was pre-physical therapy, then health, after that communications with an emphasis in broadcast journalism, until I eventually realized the English department and stories were my niche. The codes for evolving minors can scroll GPAs down with swifter results, if you don't watch it.
The wizard poet said that when he was growing up, people pointed out his strengths and that's the direction he took. It seemed obvious to him.
Choice was emphasized during my teenage years. I could do anything I wanted. Limitations were only an illusion. I didn't have to make quick decisions, just take classes and ask questions. My initial, major course of study declarations promised dependable, future professions with comfortable incomes. While it was empowering to explore the options, I felt overwhelmed by all of the choices available, so I wasn't always on a course that matched with my personality and interests. At the same time, I only partially realized the value of placing limitations on myself. Limitations were like...completing assignments on time, stop skipping the first day of class, eat something for breakfast instead of chain smoking, don't schedule early morning classes when I can't make it to them, choose classes over work on the newspaper, and so on.
In the Netherlands, the grocery store, in the small sea town where we resided, had two choices of toilet paper. The cheap, plain Toilet Paper. And the Luxury Toilet Paper. It really said, Luxury. I read an article (and cannot find it now) in which the writer demonstrates the warped concept of choice and illusion. In the article, the writer says that while the people in Denmark do not have an abundance of choices for a particular product, like the toilet paper in the Netherlands, they have many more political choices. The same is true for the Netherlands, where members from a variety of political parties are given a representative voice for the people. Here in the US, we have consumer choice overload with twenty brands of toilet paper in thirty different mega stores; however, we've given away most of our political choices. "Free speech zones" on university campuses demonstrate how warped our illusions of freedom and limitation have become.
The I Ching, Limitation, also says, "However, limits that are overstrenuous are not helpful; having too many rules causes rebellion in the one on whom they are imposed, whether one's self or another. Therefore there must be limits even on one's limits."
The expanse of our lives can be diminished based on how we view limitation, not only regarding personal discipline, economics, and politics. Our beliefs mold our perceptions of life and death and beyond. I decided not to see death as a limitation the last time I saw my grandfather alive. I've written about him previously. He was partially paralyzed and lived at home until my grandmother could no longer manage to care for him alone. Still, she took a job as a cook at the nursing home where he lived. I had driven to the nursing home where my grandfather was refusing to eat or speak or even open his eyes. I kissed him, told him that it was okay, and left shortly after arriving. I didn't expect anything from him in that moment, and he didn't want to give anymore, not even a glance or a fragile smile. That evening, I couldn't sleep at my grandmother's house, so I drove home in the middle of the night. The moon was full and heavy over the lake and the fields that I passed in my drive across the plateau. I asked for my grandfather to have blessings, and then I begged the moon to be informed instantly when he died. Through my serious tears, I asked for a sign and named it...to never again hear a particular song until the moment that my grandfather died. I told the moon that I didn't care how the song was sang or played or by whom, but I wanted to hear it and connect with him in the moment that death began for my grandfather. A couple of weeks passed and I forgot about my request and never told anyone since it happened during an intensely spontaneous moment of mourning.
Seems like at least six weeks passed and then, it was the beginning of a spring semester in college, and Terry was moving onto campus. We unpacked his belongings in the dorm and went out for food. As I accelerated through a stop light, the song played. At the awareness, my eyes filled immediately with tears. My knees pinched themselves. I let go of the steering wheel in the middle of an intersection. Terry grabbed it and yelled at me, "Hey! What's going on. We're in an intersection."
"Shhh," I said. "My grandfather just died. Just listen to the song."
Seems corny, but we truly rocked out to "Spirit in the Sky" at the moment my grandfather died. Terry didn't really believe me.
Later, when the telephone rang and it was my Mom, I said, "I already know. Tell Nana that I'll be there tonight."
They were all shocked: How could I have known? -->I understood that we weren't limited by what they believed.
________________
Works Cited: I Ching or Book of Changes. Trans. by Brian Browne Walker. St. Martin's Griffin: New York, 1992.
In the I Ching, one of the hexagrams means Limitation. The I Ching is an ancient text, regarded as an oracle by many. In order to consult the oracle, the reader holds a particular idea, question, or person in their mind while tossing three coins and so on. (Here's a link to more in depth instructions and other links: I Ching) You can simply approach the text as a book about human nature as well. In Brian Browne Walker's translation, the I Ching for Limitation says, "Voluntarily chosen limits empower your growth."
Some plants need to be thinned. During some events and relationships, it's okay to walk away when the limits have been reached or breached. My aunt used to tell me, "Some people just don't know when to go to sleep." and she meant that people often need to stop, retreat, and step away from a person or situation, instead of locking the gate and collapsing into a negative situation in an effort to repair what's damaged. She also meant that a siesta can revitalize a person and frame a new perspective.
The hexagram for limitation goes on to say, "Life lived without guidelines is confusing and troubling....To yourself, the setting of limits means defining your purpose and responsibilities so that you have a clear idea of where your energies are to be aimed....With others, place limits both on your own actions and the indulgences you offer them. To encourage another's inferior qualities is to invite misfortune."
Last Thursday morning around 8 a.m., I wrote in my notebook...Going outside with Zoe. She waits at the door. I see her bowl of strawberries and one half of bread. I ask if she ate the other half of the bread. "No."
I see her barefeet, think of bumblebees and honeybees and the soccer ball and the cedar mulch that pierced through my flip flop and felt like a nail. We need her shoes. "You want to get your sandals?" (Mistake: I've given a choice when one doesn't need to be revealed.)
Go to the living room. She says, "sandals" from behind me. (Maybe my question will work out after all) I look for bread in all the obvious places—amongst blocks, tops, doll house, toy basket, book table—no bread under the side table beside the couch.
"Sandals," she says. Yes, I remember, shoes. I don't see them either. I'm at the closet and open it. Shoes! Tennis shoes, flip flops, 2 pair of sandals, denim wedges, sequined sandals, birkies... she wants all of them, but settles on a pair of sandals with a cluster of flowers and one rhinestone as well as a pair of pink and white tennis shoes. She needs socks for tennis shoes. I retrieve spare socks from a diaper bag nearby and help her with the socks. I'm still looking for bread. One tennis shoe on and she wants sandals. I distract her by mentioning the ball and pointing to it. I keep going with the other sock and tennis shoe while she considers the ball. Really emphasize the NEW ball. In a whirl, I make it outside while hiding sandals in the closet again. Zoe carries the ball in front of me. I look back inside to see bowl of strawberries and half of bread on the kitchen table. Still no sign of missing bread. "Did you eat it?"
"No." she says. "Bread. Cracker. Cookie."
So many choices...
Mazithra Cheese, her husband the wizard poet, and I were discussing college choices and careers. Mazithra Cheese and I changed our majors several times. My first major was pre-physical therapy, then health, after that communications with an emphasis in broadcast journalism, until I eventually realized the English department and stories were my niche. The codes for evolving minors can scroll GPAs down with swifter results, if you don't watch it.
The wizard poet said that when he was growing up, people pointed out his strengths and that's the direction he took. It seemed obvious to him.
Choice was emphasized during my teenage years. I could do anything I wanted. Limitations were only an illusion. I didn't have to make quick decisions, just take classes and ask questions. My initial, major course of study declarations promised dependable, future professions with comfortable incomes. While it was empowering to explore the options, I felt overwhelmed by all of the choices available, so I wasn't always on a course that matched with my personality and interests. At the same time, I only partially realized the value of placing limitations on myself. Limitations were like...completing assignments on time, stop skipping the first day of class, eat something for breakfast instead of chain smoking, don't schedule early morning classes when I can't make it to them, choose classes over work on the newspaper, and so on.
In the Netherlands, the grocery store, in the small sea town where we resided, had two choices of toilet paper. The cheap, plain Toilet Paper. And the Luxury Toilet Paper. It really said, Luxury. I read an article (and cannot find it now) in which the writer demonstrates the warped concept of choice and illusion. In the article, the writer says that while the people in Denmark do not have an abundance of choices for a particular product, like the toilet paper in the Netherlands, they have many more political choices. The same is true for the Netherlands, where members from a variety of political parties are given a representative voice for the people. Here in the US, we have consumer choice overload with twenty brands of toilet paper in thirty different mega stores; however, we've given away most of our political choices. "Free speech zones" on university campuses demonstrate how warped our illusions of freedom and limitation have become.
The I Ching, Limitation, also says, "However, limits that are overstrenuous are not helpful; having too many rules causes rebellion in the one on whom they are imposed, whether one's self or another. Therefore there must be limits even on one's limits."
The expanse of our lives can be diminished based on how we view limitation, not only regarding personal discipline, economics, and politics. Our beliefs mold our perceptions of life and death and beyond. I decided not to see death as a limitation the last time I saw my grandfather alive. I've written about him previously. He was partially paralyzed and lived at home until my grandmother could no longer manage to care for him alone. Still, she took a job as a cook at the nursing home where he lived. I had driven to the nursing home where my grandfather was refusing to eat or speak or even open his eyes. I kissed him, told him that it was okay, and left shortly after arriving. I didn't expect anything from him in that moment, and he didn't want to give anymore, not even a glance or a fragile smile. That evening, I couldn't sleep at my grandmother's house, so I drove home in the middle of the night. The moon was full and heavy over the lake and the fields that I passed in my drive across the plateau. I asked for my grandfather to have blessings, and then I begged the moon to be informed instantly when he died. Through my serious tears, I asked for a sign and named it...to never again hear a particular song until the moment that my grandfather died. I told the moon that I didn't care how the song was sang or played or by whom, but I wanted to hear it and connect with him in the moment that death began for my grandfather. A couple of weeks passed and I forgot about my request and never told anyone since it happened during an intensely spontaneous moment of mourning.
Seems like at least six weeks passed and then, it was the beginning of a spring semester in college, and Terry was moving onto campus. We unpacked his belongings in the dorm and went out for food. As I accelerated through a stop light, the song played. At the awareness, my eyes filled immediately with tears. My knees pinched themselves. I let go of the steering wheel in the middle of an intersection. Terry grabbed it and yelled at me, "Hey! What's going on. We're in an intersection."
"Shhh," I said. "My grandfather just died. Just listen to the song."
Seems corny, but we truly rocked out to "Spirit in the Sky" at the moment my grandfather died. Terry didn't really believe me.
Later, when the telephone rang and it was my Mom, I said, "I already know. Tell Nana that I'll be there tonight."
They were all shocked: How could I have known? -->I understood that we weren't limited by what they believed.
________________
Works Cited: I Ching or Book of Changes. Trans. by Brian Browne Walker. St. Martin's Griffin: New York, 1992.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
NOSTALGIA WITH BEES AND WHERE TEA REALLY COMES FROM
Terry and I have not seen his best friend in three years. Lately, we have missed him, his family, and Czech Republic more than usual. On Friday, I had the feeling that he would call. I sent some telepathic messages for a couple of days beforehand :) Then, I received our signal, a rabid bumblebee who tried to chase me into the car. I broke my own rule and carried the telephone upstairs during my writing time. Finally, around 2 p.m. the unknown caller rang. "Ahoj, Ondra," I said into the telephone.
"So, you are home at last," he said. We mixed up our signals two or three times before Friday.
When we lived in the Netherlands, Ondra and I found a bumblebee on the balcony of the hostel in February. We left it alone, but it never flew away. It was alive. So, we brought it inside to live among my plants when the sky spit icy snow chips down to the streets. Sometimes, it slept in a spoon under the hyacinth plants for weeks. After it died, we buried it under the spoon. Since then, we've had an affinity for bumblebees or cmelaceks (sounds like chemelachek).
Over the past few months, Zoe has been curious about the names of bugs. Since she was a baby, I have named the birds. I keep a field guide over the sink for my bird watching obsession. Now, we've moved to bugs. First, the ant chased after her crumbs. "Ant," she said and pointed. Then, a spider web swept her backwards, and she saw the living thing that the word "spider" belongs to, not just my fingers making a motion up and down while singing about an "itsy bitsy" one. This spring, a bumblebee sprang out of nowhere, hovered around her face for an instant, then kissed her directly on the mouth and flew away. She still didn't get what it was. "Bumblebee," (more like "bummubee" at first) she muttered with a shaky voice and narrowed eyes like she might be angry at whatever it was a bumblebee actually was. Then, the clover in our yard became full of them. And they were accompanied by their neighbors, the honeybees. Zoe pointed to them and grunted. I showed her bumblebee and honeybee over and over and over and over, distinguishing between the two. I threw in, "honeybees make honey in a hive. Honeybees make honey in a hive." I repeat things now automatically, even to adults sometimes. We still went over it a few more times. Why not?
Later, Zoe said, "honeybee" with a sweet slur, followed by "honey."
I clapped enthusiastically, "That's right!" I said, "Very good." I was stunned that she actually retained the information and put it together.
"Bummubee," she said and pointed to one, "Chocolate."
That made me sooooo happy. It was great. I told Ondra about it when he called. He said, "It's logic." Cmelaceks make chocolate. And later, he said something like, "When I was about four years old, I thought that since women make milk, men must make tea. Completely logical. Milk from women, tea from men."
A note for my Southern friends and readers: he means hot tea in the chests of men, not sweet tea. Men with earl grey or gingered orange blossoms, Assam black, darjeeling, hibiscus, oolong, ceylon, a little english breakfast for the baby in the morning and chamomile at night to dream well.
I've also been nostalgic about my college roomy Sara. I didn't see her during her last visit to Nashville. I've been thinking about color, messing with it in my clothing, my house paint plans, and photographs. We have a white-on-white or black-on-black assignment in the photo group for this month. (To explain: this means that we photograph a white seashell on white sand. Someone took a photo of a garlic bulb on a crumpled white cloth. Someone else brought in a pic of black marbles on a velvet cloth.) I shot some still life images last Thursday of a wiffle ball and so on. That's when I found myself remembering Sara's instructions and observations about color when she forced me to mix paint and waste perfectly good canvases just to play in colors.
She's a painter, graphic designer, illustrator, epicurean extremist, who worked in a gas station as a cashier for awhile during college. While she sold packs and packs of cigarettes, she was studying skin tones for paintings. She could tell you what brand of cigarettes someone smoked by looking at their skin. In two guesses, she could nail it.
Around the same time, she visited me and perused my wardrobe, even though we do not have the same body type and couldn't successfully switch clothes without major alterations. We had a conversation something like this: She held a shirt up to my face. "This is a great color on you. Wear it," she laughed. "Seriously, it's a good color. Wear it."
"I like this shirt," I said about the one I had on.
"That shirt's great," she said, "I agree. That color just makes you look like you have jaundice. It clashes with your skin tone." She gave me a huge cheshire cat smile. When I looked in the mirror, we agreed. I've never bought or kept another shirt that color. It was like old, creamy, faded tan porcelain.
The following year, Sara mixed tea for me when she worked at a small health food/grocery store that later sold out to a bigger organic food chain. The tea she mixed had a crazy long, magical happy name that faded from the tape still wrapped around the glass bottle that now holds a bunch of whole nutmeg and cinnamon sticks. I've never been able to duplicate the name or the mixture for the tea. It's that way with some friends, their stories and their gifts—completely unique and spontaneous.
"So, you are home at last," he said. We mixed up our signals two or three times before Friday.
When we lived in the Netherlands, Ondra and I found a bumblebee on the balcony of the hostel in February. We left it alone, but it never flew away. It was alive. So, we brought it inside to live among my plants when the sky spit icy snow chips down to the streets. Sometimes, it slept in a spoon under the hyacinth plants for weeks. After it died, we buried it under the spoon. Since then, we've had an affinity for bumblebees or cmelaceks (sounds like chemelachek).
Over the past few months, Zoe has been curious about the names of bugs. Since she was a baby, I have named the birds. I keep a field guide over the sink for my bird watching obsession. Now, we've moved to bugs. First, the ant chased after her crumbs. "Ant," she said and pointed. Then, a spider web swept her backwards, and she saw the living thing that the word "spider" belongs to, not just my fingers making a motion up and down while singing about an "itsy bitsy" one. This spring, a bumblebee sprang out of nowhere, hovered around her face for an instant, then kissed her directly on the mouth and flew away. She still didn't get what it was. "Bumblebee," (more like "bummubee" at first) she muttered with a shaky voice and narrowed eyes like she might be angry at whatever it was a bumblebee actually was. Then, the clover in our yard became full of them. And they were accompanied by their neighbors, the honeybees. Zoe pointed to them and grunted. I showed her bumblebee and honeybee over and over and over and over, distinguishing between the two. I threw in, "honeybees make honey in a hive. Honeybees make honey in a hive." I repeat things now automatically, even to adults sometimes. We still went over it a few more times. Why not?
Later, Zoe said, "honeybee" with a sweet slur, followed by "honey."
I clapped enthusiastically, "That's right!" I said, "Very good." I was stunned that she actually retained the information and put it together.
"Bummubee," she said and pointed to one, "Chocolate."
That made me sooooo happy. It was great. I told Ondra about it when he called. He said, "It's logic." Cmelaceks make chocolate. And later, he said something like, "When I was about four years old, I thought that since women make milk, men must make tea. Completely logical. Milk from women, tea from men."
A note for my Southern friends and readers: he means hot tea in the chests of men, not sweet tea. Men with earl grey or gingered orange blossoms, Assam black, darjeeling, hibiscus, oolong, ceylon, a little english breakfast for the baby in the morning and chamomile at night to dream well.
I've also been nostalgic about my college roomy Sara. I didn't see her during her last visit to Nashville. I've been thinking about color, messing with it in my clothing, my house paint plans, and photographs. We have a white-on-white or black-on-black assignment in the photo group for this month. (To explain: this means that we photograph a white seashell on white sand. Someone took a photo of a garlic bulb on a crumpled white cloth. Someone else brought in a pic of black marbles on a velvet cloth.) I shot some still life images last Thursday of a wiffle ball and so on. That's when I found myself remembering Sara's instructions and observations about color when she forced me to mix paint and waste perfectly good canvases just to play in colors.
She's a painter, graphic designer, illustrator, epicurean extremist, who worked in a gas station as a cashier for awhile during college. While she sold packs and packs of cigarettes, she was studying skin tones for paintings. She could tell you what brand of cigarettes someone smoked by looking at their skin. In two guesses, she could nail it.
Around the same time, she visited me and perused my wardrobe, even though we do not have the same body type and couldn't successfully switch clothes without major alterations. We had a conversation something like this: She held a shirt up to my face. "This is a great color on you. Wear it," she laughed. "Seriously, it's a good color. Wear it."
"I like this shirt," I said about the one I had on.
"That shirt's great," she said, "I agree. That color just makes you look like you have jaundice. It clashes with your skin tone." She gave me a huge cheshire cat smile. When I looked in the mirror, we agreed. I've never bought or kept another shirt that color. It was like old, creamy, faded tan porcelain.
The following year, Sara mixed tea for me when she worked at a small health food/grocery store that later sold out to a bigger organic food chain. The tea she mixed had a crazy long, magical happy name that faded from the tape still wrapped around the glass bottle that now holds a bunch of whole nutmeg and cinnamon sticks. I've never been able to duplicate the name or the mixture for the tea. It's that way with some friends, their stories and their gifts—completely unique and spontaneous.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
TRUTH ABOUT THE LUVINS STEAL
Terry made up elaborate stories when he was in elementary school. Once he told the class that he had witnessed an enormous house burning with fire engines and ambulances that had hoisted a web of ladders and nets into the windows and around the base of the house. People were jumping out of the windows. Firemen made daring rescues. That was the last of his big story telling adventures in school. His teacher called them lies and forever tainted his potential to become a fiction writer, playwright, or screen writer.
"You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story."--Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
A four-year-old boy I know does the same thing about his absent mother. He tells stories about her, even though she's not around very often. His daycare teacher thinks it's a problem. She wanted him to stop making up stories. The little boy's grandmother told me about the situation. She didn't know what to do. The family tells the boy where his mother lives. To adults, he says that he understands. He knows the correct responses. Around his peers, he has other stories about a Mom who takes him places and scolds him and brings him enchanting gifts. The family has told him that those stories aren't true. He knows. My response, don't break his potential to tell a good story, especially when he knows that in reality his Mom is not around. He wants to be like the other children and share similar stories.
"There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale."--Ralph Ellison
In the book, "Olivia Saves the Circus," by Ian Falconer, we can see the same desire to embellish the truth. Olivia is supposed to tell the class about her family vacation. She says that the circus performers were out sick with "ear infections," and she has to take over. Olivia performs as the tattooed lady, a trapeze artist, "Queen of the trampoline", an acrobat, a dog trainer, a lion tamer, an elephant stunt rider, etc. When Olivia is finished with her extravagant tale, the teacher looks skeptical and asks if the story is true. Olivia says that it is "pretty all true" and then heads home at the end of the day. Her mother asks about her day, and Olivia acts as if it's uneventful. When Olivia goes to bed that night, her mother tells her, "No jumping!" Later, her mother catches her jumping on the bed and says through the door, "Olivia, who do you think you are?——Queen of the Trampoline!" In a note on the final page, after the end of the book, the author Ian Falconer thanks his mother for allowing his imagination to create scenes and stories and creative landscapes.
"The story - from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace - is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories."--Ursula K. LeGuin
Questions of truth and lies, harmful or helpful, fine lines and dark borders, light and shadow...
So many layers exist when we apply language and in the end, it's all slanted and tilted and tricky like the Angle Inn from Opryland. Story-telling can end as a fun experience or a sickening one, depending on how you see the story and use it.
"And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."--Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
In nonfiction, you wonder if people really mind when you write about them. A memoirist visited Clarksville a few years back and said that a priest had asked if she considered any conversations to be sacred enough not to write about them. Did she think it was okay to write about anyone and anything? She has an essay about that topic called "Other Peoples' Secrets". And she said that some friends had asked why she hadn't written about them as if they were hurt by the omission, and she said that her failure to mention them was actually a method of protecting them.
"I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one's personal truth."--Vladimir Nabokov
As a protective measure, can you fully disguise someone's identity in order to write about them and still capture the essence of the lesson that you feel they represent in part or in whole? That's what Azar Nafisi attempts in "Reading Lolita in Tehran". In order to protect the students who read banned books with her in Iran, Nafisi says that she has completely disguised the students. She doubted that some of them would even recognize themselves as a separate entity due to the manner in which she jumbled their appearances, personalities, and experiences in life. However, the book is considered nonfiction for the events that she represents, the transformation of Iran into an Islamic regime by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the people that transformation affects, destroys, and/or exiles.
"How to achieve such anomalies, such alterations and re-fashionings of reality so what comes out of it are lies, if you like, but lies that are more than literal truth."--Vincent van Gogh, [in a letter to his brother Theo, July 1885]
I heard a memoirist tell this story at a reading. I can't remember which writer. She said that she attended a friend's reading. Her friend wrote novels. Fiction. After the reading, the memoirist told her friend that she should try to write nonfiction sometimes. And her friend the novelist laughed and said something like, "Are you kidding? I want to tell the truth. That's why I write fiction. The story I just read was completely true."
"I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me."--Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, (canto II, st. 22)
Nonfiction Advice from a visiting novelist: "Don't write nonfiction until everyone is dead."
Calling it nonfiction, truth, or the real can create problems. Just think about that writer who made up being drunk on a airplane and sat on the Oprah stage and said his book was true. Then said some parts weren't true at all. Messing up a detail and correcting it isn't such a big deal. But staging days, weeks, and events as reality can become nightly news, American history, or conspiracy theory.
"Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time."--Jeanette Winterson
On the other hand, In fiction when you stray from the truth, who cares—it's fiction. And when you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, who cares—it's fiction.
A couple of months ago, I was writing an e-mail and reading it to Terry at the same time. I signed it, Luvins.
Terry said, "Luvins doesn't belong to you. That's Christy's."
I was dumbfounded. "Is it?" I asked. Christy is my best friend. She signs every note with Luvins. I thought back. Did she invent the luvins? Yes. Had I used it without permission? Yes.
I sent her an e-mail something like this: "I stole your luvins. Terry says it belongs to you. I'm giving it back. Sorry."
She wrote me back that I can freely use the luvins since she often uses my phrases as well.
I reported the outcome to Terry.
"Yeah, well, " he said. "Lovelovelovelovelovelovelove belongs to Ondra."
I asked, "Do I have to get Ondra's permission to type lovelovelovelovelovelovelove?"
"He's European," Terry said. "I don't think he cares so much."
I have a problem, I thought. I get some phrase turning, blarney stone luck from Mazithra Cheese too. My friends and I are often saying, "Oh, that's good. Can I use that?" "Nice point, do you mind if I have that for a paper?" "Good way to put that, can I borrow it?" "May my character...?"
"It's easy to cry 'bug' when the truth is that you've got a complex system and sometimes it takes a while to get all the components to co-exist peacefully."--Doug Vargas
"The universe is made of stories, not atoms."--Muriel Rukeyser
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."--Albert Einstein
A master of the nonfiction/fiction shadow world is David Sedaris. He will be in Nashville in October. Here's the info: David Sedaris--TN Perf Arts Ctr Andrew Jackson Hall in Nashville, TN, on Fri, 10/17/08. Tickets went on sale this week: 07/01/08. BUY TICKETS TO SEDARIS HERE
(Quotes from quoteland.com)
"You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story."--Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
A four-year-old boy I know does the same thing about his absent mother. He tells stories about her, even though she's not around very often. His daycare teacher thinks it's a problem. She wanted him to stop making up stories. The little boy's grandmother told me about the situation. She didn't know what to do. The family tells the boy where his mother lives. To adults, he says that he understands. He knows the correct responses. Around his peers, he has other stories about a Mom who takes him places and scolds him and brings him enchanting gifts. The family has told him that those stories aren't true. He knows. My response, don't break his potential to tell a good story, especially when he knows that in reality his Mom is not around. He wants to be like the other children and share similar stories.
"There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale."--Ralph Ellison
In the book, "Olivia Saves the Circus," by Ian Falconer, we can see the same desire to embellish the truth. Olivia is supposed to tell the class about her family vacation. She says that the circus performers were out sick with "ear infections," and she has to take over. Olivia performs as the tattooed lady, a trapeze artist, "Queen of the trampoline", an acrobat, a dog trainer, a lion tamer, an elephant stunt rider, etc. When Olivia is finished with her extravagant tale, the teacher looks skeptical and asks if the story is true. Olivia says that it is "pretty all true" and then heads home at the end of the day. Her mother asks about her day, and Olivia acts as if it's uneventful. When Olivia goes to bed that night, her mother tells her, "No jumping!" Later, her mother catches her jumping on the bed and says through the door, "Olivia, who do you think you are?——Queen of the Trampoline!" In a note on the final page, after the end of the book, the author Ian Falconer thanks his mother for allowing his imagination to create scenes and stories and creative landscapes.
"The story - from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace - is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories."--Ursula K. LeGuin
Questions of truth and lies, harmful or helpful, fine lines and dark borders, light and shadow...
So many layers exist when we apply language and in the end, it's all slanted and tilted and tricky like the Angle Inn from Opryland. Story-telling can end as a fun experience or a sickening one, depending on how you see the story and use it.
"And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."--Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
In nonfiction, you wonder if people really mind when you write about them. A memoirist visited Clarksville a few years back and said that a priest had asked if she considered any conversations to be sacred enough not to write about them. Did she think it was okay to write about anyone and anything? She has an essay about that topic called "Other Peoples' Secrets". And she said that some friends had asked why she hadn't written about them as if they were hurt by the omission, and she said that her failure to mention them was actually a method of protecting them.
"I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one's personal truth."--Vladimir Nabokov
As a protective measure, can you fully disguise someone's identity in order to write about them and still capture the essence of the lesson that you feel they represent in part or in whole? That's what Azar Nafisi attempts in "Reading Lolita in Tehran". In order to protect the students who read banned books with her in Iran, Nafisi says that she has completely disguised the students. She doubted that some of them would even recognize themselves as a separate entity due to the manner in which she jumbled their appearances, personalities, and experiences in life. However, the book is considered nonfiction for the events that she represents, the transformation of Iran into an Islamic regime by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the people that transformation affects, destroys, and/or exiles.
"How to achieve such anomalies, such alterations and re-fashionings of reality so what comes out of it are lies, if you like, but lies that are more than literal truth."--Vincent van Gogh, [in a letter to his brother Theo, July 1885]
I heard a memoirist tell this story at a reading. I can't remember which writer. She said that she attended a friend's reading. Her friend wrote novels. Fiction. After the reading, the memoirist told her friend that she should try to write nonfiction sometimes. And her friend the novelist laughed and said something like, "Are you kidding? I want to tell the truth. That's why I write fiction. The story I just read was completely true."
"I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me."--Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, (canto II, st. 22)
Nonfiction Advice from a visiting novelist: "Don't write nonfiction until everyone is dead."
Calling it nonfiction, truth, or the real can create problems. Just think about that writer who made up being drunk on a airplane and sat on the Oprah stage and said his book was true. Then said some parts weren't true at all. Messing up a detail and correcting it isn't such a big deal. But staging days, weeks, and events as reality can become nightly news, American history, or conspiracy theory.
"Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time."--Jeanette Winterson
On the other hand, In fiction when you stray from the truth, who cares—it's fiction. And when you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, who cares—it's fiction.
A couple of months ago, I was writing an e-mail and reading it to Terry at the same time. I signed it, Luvins.
Terry said, "Luvins doesn't belong to you. That's Christy's."
I was dumbfounded. "Is it?" I asked. Christy is my best friend. She signs every note with Luvins. I thought back. Did she invent the luvins? Yes. Had I used it without permission? Yes.
I sent her an e-mail something like this: "I stole your luvins. Terry says it belongs to you. I'm giving it back. Sorry."
She wrote me back that I can freely use the luvins since she often uses my phrases as well.
I reported the outcome to Terry.
"Yeah, well, " he said. "Lovelovelovelovelovelovelove belongs to Ondra."
I asked, "Do I have to get Ondra's permission to type lovelovelovelovelovelovelove?"
"He's European," Terry said. "I don't think he cares so much."
I have a problem, I thought. I get some phrase turning, blarney stone luck from Mazithra Cheese too. My friends and I are often saying, "Oh, that's good. Can I use that?" "Nice point, do you mind if I have that for a paper?" "Good way to put that, can I borrow it?" "May my character...?"
"It's easy to cry 'bug' when the truth is that you've got a complex system and sometimes it takes a while to get all the components to co-exist peacefully."--Doug Vargas
"The universe is made of stories, not atoms."--Muriel Rukeyser
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."--Albert Einstein
A master of the nonfiction/fiction shadow world is David Sedaris. He will be in Nashville in October. Here's the info: David Sedaris--TN Perf Arts Ctr Andrew Jackson Hall in Nashville, TN, on Fri, 10/17/08. Tickets went on sale this week: 07/01/08. BUY TICKETS TO SEDARIS HERE
(Quotes from quoteland.com)
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