1.
My Florida Experiment: Write Every Day.
At the University of South Florida Writer’s Conference, February 3-5, Heather Sellers had the audacity to say this: “If you are not writing every day, you are not a writer!” And this: “You don’t need an agent or a publisher, you need a relationship to your writing life!”
No sense arguing. The point is, I have to do this. I admit, I had stopped writing in order to concentrate on getting my first book published. It turns out, that was a betrayal of myself as a writer. So, using some other gems from Sellers talk entitled “Go Home Writing,” I set to work the first day after the conference. At this writing I’ve been consistent for three days.
It’s time now to add an element of accountability. I’ve decided to post my daily writings in a log on the web, a web-log, a …BLOG! Look, Mom, I’m Blogging!
Using the suggested techniques, including, “Go to your writing place with something to do,” and “Use a list …” I started out by simply making an alphabetical list of images. From the list, I will choose a random image every day and write, just to see where it will take me. Here is my list:
Apple, Bug, Cat, Dog, Elephant, Fart,
Girraffaraffaraff, Helicopter,
Ignorant man, jar, Kite, Lamb, moon, nine, nannies, Operation, Pilot,
Quiet place, rest, Statue, Umbrella, Violet, Wax fruit, X-ray, Yoyo, Zane Gray.
One other technique you may notice me using is this: “Look Closer!” My eyes, says Sellers, will lead me where I need to go, especially when my brain wants to take over and “write big” because I have lost my focus. All you aspiring writers should give this a try
Every block of the park is centered by a statue, surrounded by a circle and benches for those who might have the luxury to stop and rest and reflect, a luxury I’ve not had many times, or more accurately, many places in my life. Each place, each city, each garden I visit, I plan for, long for the time when I can return as a resident, even temporarily, so I can have the leisure, the time to have a choice, to walk to the park from my near-by apartment, to find a bench and sit unmolested and reflect and pray and see the statue for what it is, what it represents. To transport myself to another time and be the friend or wife or lover of that man so depicted, without risk of being cast in stone as that person, trapped in that time.
Use my eyes to go in closer. See how the sculptor has captured the folds in his garment. This is no soldier, it’s a priest of some sort. Look, here it is on the bronze plate, Father bla bla, so noble, so full of himself and his god. His folds of flowing garment a testimony of his arrogance and self-importance. But how do I know that?
Look closer, see the sun glint on the copper streaks worn at the outer edges of the statue, not stone but some metal made of hands, some amalgam of metals heated and shaped into this likeness of a man, memorialized in his strength, ignoring his weakness.
His life took shape with the chisel of both inward and outward hand, but this statue captures only the outward, the face he showed the world, the strength he managed on his good days, his health, his vitality. What of the days he laid in his bed too sick or too weighted down with sorrow to stand in his wavy garment looking as if he had just conquered the world.
The place I seek, desire, must find for myself, for both my spiritual work and my artistic work. Is there a difference? I have failed too oft to see my writing as art, and let it come from a secret place in the center of my being. I only know it so because it has come to me by accident in long sessions at my journal.
Look closer. There is a quiet place inside of me, but it is easily lost by distractions from within or without. What does it look like? An indentation in the pink flesh of my heart, reached by way of a fiber optic tube, so that being a secret place doesn’t mean a dark place?
It is surrounded by light, this pink indent that cradles my deepest self and frees me from physical constraints. For I can move about here, picking fruit, not forbidden, feeding my soul with gnosis, granting me life, giving me ears to hear. Feeling sometimes lighter than air, but more often weighted down with the mystery, joy and even responsibility of the place. Though that latter I made up, added it as if to fulfill some obligation.
For it is not responsibility, I think, but the weight of decision. Shall I write from this place? Shall I try to capture its essence as if on film?
No, the place is mine. It cannot be shared, for every person must find her own such place. But can I dwell here and write from my ash heap, create gold refined by fire, and use it to feed a few hungry souls?
If you will help me, Lord.
Helicopter is the answer to the riddle that made my logical husband jealous, because I solved it oh-so-quickly. It’s also the vehicle of choice to see the beautiful and remote island of Kauai. Of all my memories of our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Hawaii, the helicopter ride owns the power to transport me back. Even my soul breaks into a grin, knowing again the exhilaration, the joy.
This too gave my husband pause. He might have steered clear of the ride, for my sake. In deference to the anxious wife, the one who blanches white on drives through the mountains; he might have feigned disinterest in a helicopter ride above them.
From the first suggestion, the first aerial photo with big yellow letters superimposed across the view, the first multiple-choice question about how to spend our day and a half on Kauai, I knew. I knew before my head even engaged in the discussion.
Who says you can’t eat of this tree? Who indeed! Don’t try to know me before I am known.
I take the front seat, with the pilot, bubble windshield offering multi-directional view, all six senses fully awake, fully alive. I know there were six, because the memory could not be contained in five. My eyes recall the greens and purples of the mountain cliffs against the white surf. My ears recall the roar of my heart beneath the insistent voices of the chopper, But it is only in that other sense, the extra one, that I could feel the wind against my wings, taste the spray of the surf as we swooped toward it, smell again the fragrance of Eden as I played in the sky above her.
While fierce angels guard her gates, I am allowed a brief entrance into paradise, and the extra sense to make it last forever.
The first nanny, on TV now, is called Super because she brings the worst of her charges under control. The Baby Whisperer also comes to mind, the wise British nanny who trains new mums to do right by their little ones. But Robin Williams played the ultimate nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire. Imagine a nanny whose sole purpose was to be near the children he/she loved. To me, he is the other seven (of my nine nannies).
Looking closer, I see a wiry man willing to contain himself in a heavy layer of artificial flesh, to dress his layer in proper flowy garb, and sensible, but still elevated, shoes. What manner of love is this, to wrap himself in flesh and appear again, transformed in order to gain entrance again into his own children’s lives?
The outrageous grandmother, deep inside, was Daddy, Abba, Father. Outrageous, but how else was he going to demonstrate his love, his competence as father, maker, friend. If not as Mrs. Doubtfire, then who? He could not turn himself into an infant child and become their brother. That had already been done. An adult male persona would never have made it past the gatekeeper, Mom. So he donned the flesh and subtle wisdom of elder woman-hood, and his entrance was secured. His children were redeemed by his love.
For a long time I’ve had Barbara Kingsolver’s book, The Poisonwood Bible, on my shelf, but couldn’t bring myself to read it. I knew it was about a missionary family to the Congo, and I feared another negative portrayal of Christianity, some clever writer making us all look bad.
Finally, when looking over the library’s collection of recorded books in preparation for our drive from Michigan to Florida, I came across Kingsolver’s book on tape. Ten cassettes, that’s a lot of listening time. I added the book to my collection, and checked out. At this writing, we’ve just finished with the fifth cassette. The book accompanies us on all our trips about town and our explorations of the Florida landscape.
I need not have feared. Not only is the prose some of the most beautiful and poetic I have ever “read,” – undoubtedly made more impressive because I’m hearing it—the story is compelling. It’s told in the voice of all four missionary daughters and their mother, in turn. Each voice is distinct and honest. It’s not so much a treatise on the value of Christian Missions, as it is the story of one Ignorant Man and the women who accompany him, however unwillingly, on his mission to save the ignorant heathen of the Congo.
Don’t get me wrong. Besides all the wise men I know and love, there are ignorant men I still adore, perhaps for their simplicity, their humble wisdom, their honesty. Papa Missionary, however, is the kind of ignorant man who sees himself as the only one who knows anything, let alone the truth.
Condemning his predecessors in the mission, despising the ignorance, filth and nakedness of his villagers, he rails against them, and manages to offend all who might otherwise assist him in his mission.
Finally, mistrusting his translators, he decides to use his limited language skill to preach in his own words. With the emphasis on the wrong syllable, he tells the natives that Jesus is like the poisonwood tree, which makes your skin itch and burn, and if you breath the fumes of its burning branches, you will die. With papa missionary as their example, why would they believe anything less?
Yet, it is not the Ignorant Man who will draw you to this story, but the voices of the women in his life who will speak truth to you, and startle you with their perspective.
I’m sitting in the elephant room, the lanai of the Florida house that my sister has decorated with an elephant theme. I count them on plaques, in framed pictures, lampshades and pedestals. I see figures of ivory, wood, stone and ceramic. Some are regal in bearing, some are playful and cute, and some bear humanesque qualities. I’m staring now at a little wooden shelf sitter with his dainty elephant legs crossed as he holds a book with his--elephant arms?
Her eclectic collection speaks not so much about the versatility of elephants as it does to the human imagination. We make this humble beast over into fanciful images, even fashioning manlike elephants in our own image. In fact, I can hardly think of any of God’s creatures I have not seen made into the image of a man or woman or child. Walt Disney mastered the art, and we all grew up with friends who were mice, ducks, dogs, and yes, even elephants. It’s the hottest craze in Hollywood now, with sharks and flounders, crabs, baboons and lions, acting out our lives on screens, wearing our image to entertain and teach us about ourselves.
God created us in his image, and now, God-like, we re-create his creatures in our own.
(Note: Entertaining guests
for the weekend kept me from writing, so I’m dropping the day # and inserting
the day of the week.)
Thank goodness H was helicopter, or I’d be writing drivel about hearts on Valentines Day. Instead, I’m going to the source, with apple. Not the forbidden fruit, but a substantial food of the fruits and vegetable group. The one I’m supposed to eat at least five servings from every day.
Look closer. An apple has become a universally recognized icon, standing in for the letter A, for temptation, for all things feminine, for keeping doctors away, for Autumn, for school and teachers, and for country style decorating. We love apples, for their colorful reds, greens and yellows, their fragrance--fresh and sweet, or warm and spiced with cinnamon. Apples make desert, scent our candles and our potpourri, and provide a healthy snack for our children. Apples have the power to bring us comfort, make us healthy, invite us to enjoy our lives.
So who was it that first assigned the apple the dubious honor of playing the forbidden fruit in the Garden-if-Eden drama? It was either someone with a wicked imagination, or someone who saw with prophetic eyes. If the former, this lovely fruit has been treated no worse than the woman who dared to taste that other fruit, the one that really was forbidden.
If the latter, however, then the God of redemption and grace has been at work again, bringing near that which was once far away. Finding that which was lost, washing her, restoring her to her original beauty, dressing her in fine colors outside, making her white as snow inside. He has taken the once rejected fruit and made her fragrant and useful to feed his people, abundant and sweet, warm and inviting, set free from the scourge of being forbidden.
I will choose the latter; for I am like her, both the apple the Eve. I too have wandered, disobeyed and disappointed my maker, but I too have been redeemed and restored by an overwhelming and surprising grace.
We sing of holding time in a bottle or hear of some oddly talented craftsman building a ship in one. We read of an alabaster jar of precious ointment broken to anoint the feet of Jesus.
But there is another story, of the woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. I read once, in a little antique book of unknown facts about the Bible, there was a jar in that story as well.
In an ancient custom of the land, girls and women saved their tears in a tiny bottle or jar. The jar of tears became a priceless memoir of a life, with all its joys and sorrows. So it was most likely with her jar of tears, her lifetime of joy and sorrow, this woman washed the feet of her savior, her friend.
As he would lay down his life for her, she would pour out her own for him. It seems an act of honor and love, a tender and intimate declaration of devotion.
Look closer. See the jar cradled in her hands. Watch as another tear slides down her cheek and hits the stopper she has not yet removed, and slides down the rounded side of the jar. Watch her hands tremble as she reaches for his bare foot and rests it on her skirt.
She pulls open the jar, and, unthinking, holds it up to her face to catch one last tear. Then, with sudden amazing clarity, she looks into his eyes, holds him there a brief moment, and empties half the contents of her jar onto the foot she holds in her hand. Gently she washes it, using her hands to spread the cleansing tears over the flesh of his foot.
She has brought no towel, but just as she had often used her hair to wipe away a secret tear, she used it now to wipe away a lifetime of them. She feels an almost imperceptible jerk of the foot at the moment her hair first touches his skin. Her heart lurches. Yet she finishes her task, gently setting one foot down and taking up the other, almost oblivious to any other person in the room.
By her own initiative, and by her sacrifice, she has experienced an intimacy with Jesus unsurpassed by any other disciple. Why do we have this story? Are we, today, invited to such a place of intimacy? Did Jesus, moved by her act of devotion, try to re-create her selfless act for his disciples when he washed their feet?
How did giraffaraffaraff make it onto my list? No, it’s not a typo. It’s just that I can’t think giraffe without the sing-song ending bursting into my consciousness.
It calls me back to childhood, not my own but my children’s, singing to pass the time on a long drive. It’s after dark, adding the extra measure of cover under which their inhibitions hide. With daughter Jenny leading the chorus, they bellow out the tale of skinny Billy with a neck like a giraffaraffaraff.
Look closer. The widely spaced streetlights create a strobe effect inside the car, punctuated by giggles and Star-Search quality performances of silly songs. Most of me sits maternally in the front seat, but a secret part is in the back with them, singing, laughing, playing.
Can I recall such times from my own childhood? Yes, I think a few. Still, I envy my own children for their carefree exuberance, for their freedom to shout, “Look at me!” and “Listen to this!”
As adults, and especially as adult housewives or moms, (or grandmas) we are pretty easy to ignore, to overlook. Just once, I’d like to shout, “Look at me!,” “Listen to this!” “Read my blogs!” or “Read my book!” But that would be so childlike, so full of self. Calling attention to my self and my work that way would feel so unnatural.
But Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Does he, then, give me permission to shout? What do I do now with my child-like desire to call attention to myself?
When we were little, we played superman. I remember standing on the arm of our gray horsehair sofa, towel tied long-ways down my back and around my neck, leaping my single bound the whole two feet to the ground. Besides being able to fly, I also had x-ray vision. I could focus and stare at an object, like my mother’s purse, and see the licorice drops inside.
So I guess playing superman was my first exercise in looking closer. X-ray vision is important for superheroes and writers, like Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and me. When we are stumped or blocked in our quest for story, we focus, look closer, trust our eyes to take us there.
To Be Continued …
I often arrange my store-bought fruit in a bowl on the counter, hoping to entice myself, and any others who walk through my kitchen, to taste its goodness. Too often, however, it might as well be wax fruit, so few the takers.
Last week we were in a Sam’s Club in Florida, hunting samples in the grocery section, when we ran smack-dab into a Vita-Mix demonstration. If you’ve never been to a home-show and caught one of these demos, just think of it as a live show about the world’s most powerful and versatile blender.
The focus of this demo was using whole foods to nourish your body. With personality and pizzazz, Demo Guy wowed us with soups, juices, smoothies and ice cream, made and served to the gathering crowd in milliseconds.
This was not our first demonstration. We were tempted a few years back at the Grand Rapids Home Show, but we choked on the price. We went home and scoured the Internet for bargains, and came up empty. We tried purchasing a high-powered blender from a local department store. Good blender, but no match for the dream machine. Later we bought a smoothie machine, O.K. if you like chunks in your smoothies.
Now here we were, face to face with our fantasy, and the price was right. It was lower than the vintage/used machines we’d seen on e-bay. One went home with us.
In a day or two every wax fruit and even vegetable in the house re-invented itself into a whole food, spun and liquefied into hearty concoctions tasted and devoured with enthusiasm.
On the third day, we energetically saddled our bikes and rode 2 miles to the produce store. We filled our backpacks with fresh Florida produce and peddled it home. I filled two sinks with water and washed our treasured horde. The piles of colorful foods on the counter looked so delightful, we took digital pictures from several angles before putting it away.
For days, every time our stomachs registered the slightest degree of hunger, we concocted a new mixture to enjoy, and mostly we did enjoy. It’s hard, at first to regulate quantity, so soon the freezer filled up with the liquefied remains of our formerly wax fruits.
Our weeklong honeymoon is over now. We are still in love with our new toy, mind you. But we no longer feel the need to liquefy morning noon and night. Sometimes you just need to snuggle.
Note to readers. Today we will begin packing up from our month in the Florida house. This weekend we will head over to Sebring to visit my Mom and Fred for a few days before our trip back to Michigan. I will try to post a writing or two from Mom’s house, and I promise to begin again as soon as we’ve slept one night in our own bed back in Michigan. Thanks for reading! And feel free to hit the Contact Me button to make this a two-way conversation!
Note to readers: Hi, I’m home. I know I said I’d try to write from my mother’s house, but trouble with Internet connections, gorgeous weather, and Mom being under the same, all conspired to make a liar out of me. Today is March 1, a good day for new beginnings. But I think I’ll add an image to my original alpha list, if you don’t mind…
We managed, by driving over 12 hours on Sunday, to avoid driving in snow on our whole way home to Michigan. We were still unloading the car and surveying the state of the house, however, when it started coming down. And it hasn’t stopped.
My eyes still squint at the brightness outside my window, but it’s glaring blue/white and cold, not dancing in warm yellow patches across the lanai. Sunny brightness, back there, beckoned me outside into its warmth. White brightness here directs me to stay inside, keep the doors and windows closed, and confine myself to the space inside these walls.
The ridge of white along the railing of my deck stands only about 4” tall. I’ve seen it more than twice that tall. Even though it is still snowing, the ridge does not grow taller. Every tiny flake, while following a general downward path, is easily distracted from its destination by swirls and gusts of mischievous wind. At least I assume it’s the wind that sends this army of kindergarten flakes scattering in every direction at once.
And that’s just what my flaky self is doing now that I am home. I drift aimlessly between finding places for the 6 weeks worth of stuff we hauled to Florida and back, sorting and cleaning those places, reading the 47 magazines and 687 pieces of junk mail piled up in my absence, phoning everyone who might need or want to know I’m home, resuming my diet and exercise program, and of course, resuming my daily log, my discipline of daily writing.
They say no two snowflakes are just alike. If I, on the other hand, am like one of those flitting flakes outside my window, I hope it’s one that plans on landing soon. This radical dance is wearing me out.
Two things stop me today from continuing my daily log. The first is a mixed sense of futility and egotism--futility because I have no idea if any of you are reading it, and egotism because I’ve been expecting you to. The second is, I’m reading Heather Seller’s book, Page after Page.
In it, she talks about the writer’s need to balance her private and public self. The public self cultivates relationships with writers, speakers, and thinkers. The private self writes. She encourages us to write as if no one will read what we write—ever.
Even as I write this, I question it. I can hear my brother-in-law railing against such crazy notions. Something inside is telling me there’s something wrong with this picture.
Look closer. A beginner talks about the idea of writing, boasts about the things he is going to write, when he does write. To him we all say, “Stop talking about it, and write!”
A timid beginner finally goes to her private place to write, where she gives birth to her first fragile piece. She proudly wraps it in swaddling clothes and begins to pass it around. Her insensitive audience points out how small it is, and calls attention to blemishes the mother never saw. They raise questions about her ability to care for this so-called gift, and make her sure she should never have brought it forth.
She should have kept quiet. She should have pondered in her heart. Writers do need a quiet place, a safe place to explore and experiment. I have been both the bragger and the timid new mother. My shame at the former has faded into the multitude of regrets no longer worthy of my attention. And all my babies have taken up legs and walked off on their own. I think the rules have changed for me.
I will write my “Daily Log” from my secret place. But posting it on the web will be like leaving my book open on the kitchen table when I’m through. If you care to drop by for a visit, I won’t stop you from reading what I wrote. I’ll let you peak into a corner of my secret place, and I will neither brag nor be ashamed.
March 4, 2005—Friday: Changing it.
I’m abandoning my original alpha list of random images to write about. I must allow my daily logs to develop, and right now I need conversation. I need to tell you about what I’m reading and thinking today.
I’ve been reading Heather Sellers for a bit, and today I have to vent. I’m a little angry at her right now.
She’s talking about time—being adult about it, and the myth of being too busy to write. Ouch and Amen. You don’t have to write on your to-do list, she says, “Spend quality time with lover today.” She means, of course, that if I am truly in love with my writing life, finding time will not be the issue.
I want to keep preaching about prioritizing my desire to write, but there is static in the line. Another caller is trying to break in. I hear the whisper, still and small, “Did you pencil me in today too?”
Don’t leap to any conclusions. I didn’t just see a good place for an object lesson here. I’m trying to write from my secret place, and that means letting you, the reader, look over my shoulder. Today when I grew near, I was surprised to find my other lover present, politely off to the side, waiting to be invited again into the center of my being.
Before I fall in love again with my writing life, I am being called to the One who will make it possible. First things first you know. If you’ll excuse me, I have someone I need to talk to.
March 17, 2005—Thursday: Happy St. Patrick’s day.
Allow me to bring you up to date. I’m diagnosing my problem as resistance to the demands of the writing life, especially to the demands of a finished book manuscript. Too many of the things on my To Do list--things related to launching The Second Eve--fill me with fear, and thus resistance. I have made progress, however slow. I have to celebrate even the baby steps.
This week I met with Sandy at Color Graphics, and have decided they will be my printer. I am planning now to print 1000 copies as a launch/test/experiment in publishing. If all goes well, printing will begin in mid to late April, and I will have books by mid to late May. If you would like to pre-order a copy, please e-mail me by using the “Contact me” link on the home page. I expect the final retail price to be $12.95, plus $3.25 for shipping and handling. If you pre-order, however, you can have one for $10.00 plus $2.00 for shipping.
For any of you who are reading this, I thank you sincerely for your attention.
I’m reading Credo by William Sloane Coffin, and I’m doing it all wrong!
I got the book from the library on Monday and I’m reading it fast because book club meets this Sunday night. If I had known, I would have bought the book a month ago, and I would have read it slowly, reflecting at my leisure, and writing my responses. I do believe some quotes from the book will grace the chapter heads of Eve, when she becomes a book.
Try this quote for size:
Love measures our stature: The more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.
O.K., it’s more of a zinger, I suppose. And just for the sake of true gender equality, I guess we’d have to do the awkward himself/herself thing and change man to person. See, even our language makes equality a bumpy proposition.
New
approach to daily log:
(also based on advice from Heather Sellers.) She says: Visual artists know
something we writers don’t. They always work in a series. They might be in
their blue period, or they might be painting fruits this year, and everyday
they paint some fruit or something blue.
So she encourages us as writers to
work in series, to take the images for our writing from our current work. So I
quickly listed a few images that emerged from the initial pages of The
Second Eve as I was working on yet another editing of the text.
Here are the words or images I wrote
and then transferred to cards to use in this exercise:
Congregation, Home, Church, Rights
Movement,
God’s Heart, Liberated Man, Rebellious Woman,
Barriers, Workplace, Scripture
The next step is to randomly pick
one card and write freely, quickly, keeping the critic quiet or shut out and
listening to the other voice, the creative child … most of you know the drill.
April
2--Day 1
Rebellious
woman
The images I see come from a TV show
I watched last night: the beautiful red haired mom, making friends with Allison
because their 9 year olds were working on a science project together. Only
Allison sees into the woman’s past—this rebellious woman, running and moving
all the time in an effort to hide her history, to escape her identity as a cop
killer.
Pulled over late at night, boyfriend
passed out on the seat beside her, the officer accusing, making threats and
sexual innuendo. When he steps away, she seizes the moment to hide a gun in the
front of her jeans.
He orders her out of the car, and
when it’s clear he’s going to rape her, she pulls the gun. Instead of backing
off, he tries to take her. In the struggle she shoots, and he dies.
For her rebellion—she did not
submit—she must run and hide, and continue her rebellion the rest of her life.
Look closer, and see her tears the moment she realizes she must run again. See
the security deposit she just paid on her furnished apartment go up in smoke,
her savings depleted, her son’s tears when she tells him they’re moving again.
Freedoms forfeited because she would not submit. Rebellious woman!
April
3--Day 2
Congregation
It was large and got along fine without
me this Easter Sunday. It made me wonder: Do I see myself as part of this congregation,
this melting pot moving as one toward a goal? Is a congregation a thing, like a
nation or a city is a thing? Perhaps it’s like a Monet, many slashes and dashes
of people, many strokes of color, apparently random, isolated to plainness but
combined to greatness.
God creates such canvases of harmony
and beauty, and yes, a congregation can be one of them. But what about the
artists bound by rules. “Sir, you must use no pinks and few yellows to capture
this landscape of light and shadow. The Blues must dominate, as must the bold,
strong, war-like strokes that slash and burn, rape and rampage across your
canvas. You cannot paint what you feel, dear sir, too feminine. But you can
paint by number if you like. You can measure and verify and count strokes with
your masculine mind.
Such rules would bind the artist’s
hands, indeed his soul, and hide him in his wine cellar, sap his Samsonite
strength, blind him to the beauty he might have made.
May 2
Congregation
Yesterday I heard myself say, to a group of fellow church folks, that our church had become so much a part of me I don’t know how I could ever separate myself from it.
Today I checked out the sad state of my “daily log” and found the last time I wrote was nearly a month ago. Isn’t it odd? On that writing I put the question out there, “Is this congregation mine? Do I see myself as part of it?” Apparently, in the weeks I have not written daily logs, the answer to my question was taking shape in many events and familiar faces. And yesterday I spoke the answer out loud, having forgotten the question entirely.
Yes, congregation, you are mine. I am one of you, part of the melting pot moving as one toward a common goal. A slash of color across your canvas in our yet unfinished work of art. A drop of water, powerless alone, but containing all the power of the ocean when I rejoin my source. God is my source, dear congregation, but we are part of the same wave, moving in unison toward the goal God has set before us.
Thursday, June 23:
Junk mail waits in piles for our return from the lake, each piece squealing for our attention, masquerading as the real thing with over-the-top claims of urgency and importance. Look closer. “Do not discard” and ‘Do not bend” command the outer envelopes. The former on credit card offers, the latter on a magazine subscription offer. A third credit card offer tells me I must respond by August 5. The vacation offer tells me my life will be defined by this steamboat cruise, a sad statement, if true. The least offensive among them offer me great books at great prices or a great entertainment season at a local theatre. Those two I keep. The others I contribute to the local landfill. That and a half hour or so of my time.
I read a chapter or two of Pen on Fire, a motivational book for writers, while on vacation. That might explain why suddenly new entries appear on the daily log. Fifteen minutes a day, she says. That’s what it takes to make the difference between a writer and a wannabe. I’ve been so focused on getting my book to press, I’ve let it press the creative writer in me to the background. Apologies around, to readers who’ve long since stopped coming to the log for lack of new stuff, and to my writing self for letting her be overshadowed by technical and practical details.
Yesterday I felt called back again to the writer – mystic – poet in me.
What will it take to bring her back?
Will it help to simplify my life? I mean by that to take on the hugely complicated task of getting rid of stuff and paring down my possessions so much that even I will be able to stay focused?
Or is it—again—just a matter of focus. First things first and all that? Will you show me, Lord?
To Simplify: To complicate my life with an almost impossible task.
To Prioritize: The simple and purposeful focus on the main things.
… To find again the first things; to know again my first love.
“Draw me after you and let us run together …”
The wasps on this deck are sluggish and confused. It’s November after all, and as I sit out here in the sunshine, it’s only the breeze that keeps me cool enough to stay—along with a certain pluck that makes me face down these geriatric wasps. The breeze, unfortunately, is also knocking the rest of the fluorescent leaves out of my beautiful tree.
During those late October days of gloom, the tree stood in for the missing sunshine for me. Today the sun is back, enjoying its Indian Summer debut, but the poor tree is giving up her coat of many colors. Soon she will be thin as a skeleton. She will cast her shadow as a lonely stick figure, not spread her shade as a cool sheet across the yard. She will still be good at contrast: Stark branches and crisp lines against blue sky, and on some future day, against her icy white coat of snow.
If my writing here made it so (the snow, I mean) I would have to hide my pen or risk being stoned for my creative work. But would such risk serve to motivate me more? If I had to hide my pen and book under my embroidery like Emily Bronte did, would I quicker take it up again? Or would I leave it hidden, and yield to those societal pressures, as I seem so inclined to yield to my own?
Late, December 24, 2005
I'm here, so how about I wish you all a Merry Christmas. I'm experiencing a temporary lull in the festivities. This year's holiday theme for me seems to be the reading -- out loud -- of Christmas stories. On Thursday our church put on a big Christmas party for a down town apartment building, a project of The Dwelling Place (in the old Herkimer Hotel in GR). I read the Christmas Story from a beautifully illustrated children's book, ostensibly to the children, but the pictures were up on the big screen, and I was wearing a mic so the whole darn place could hear. Earlier tonight, and again tomorrow morning I will read The Candymaker's Gift (about the origin of the Candy Cane) for our own Christmas services. Same M.O. The kids gather around to hear granny read a story, but the voice and the illustrations reach every ear in the hall, and we hope, of course, a few hearts as well.
We attend a young church, demographically, so I have the distinction of being one of the most grandmotherly members. Part of me would still rather sit invisible and uninvolved, but this lot has fallen to me, and it's one small way of giving back. I hope everyone who visits this site has a joy-filled Christmas and lot's of opportunities in the new year to grow and learn and give back. God bless you all.
March--Yes, I said March, 2006
And I can't believe my last entry was on Christmas Eve. I have some new ones to post, I just have to find them and get it done. I'm working to find a rhythm to my life, a balance between writing new and fresh stuff, and marketing the stuff that's molded itself into the form of a book. Since the CBA book conference in Florida, orders for the book are coming in an a fairly steady pace, many from library wholesale services. Amazon orders have been pretty strong too, even though I'm still waiting for the image of my book to show up in living color, along with their "Look inside the Book" feature. Hope to be updating soon ...