Oh yeah, I forgot

Yesterday afternoon I got my mind back. I feel so much better.

I snuggled into the corner of the couch with a strong cup of irish breakfast tea and picked up a book of short stories I was given for my birthday. I flipped randomly to a story by Rick Bass called, "The Hermit's Story." It starts out simply enough: four people are sharing Thanksgiving together. They are eating pie and drinking wine. Then one of them tells a story that gets more and more fantastic as it goes on. Birds and dogs and stars and ice, and sleeping under a the icy skin of a lake where all the water has drained away. It was beautiful. There's no time in the story. The narrator tells us it was 12 years ago and then later tells us it was 20 years ago. And it made no sense. And I loved it.

After I read it I thought, "Oh yeah. I can write stories that don't make complete sense. I can write anything I want." I can write anything I want.

I've been stuck trying to tell this stupid story about this boring woman. I was trying to write it, because the boring character made the whole thing make sense. Some sales woman who has tried her whole life to get ahead but then one day realizes her whole life is meaningless. But it was boring, and I wasn't having any fun writing it, and I would keep freezing up and then trying just to push through, but then get frustrated and bored. I would think, "No one wants to read a story about a woman like this. And I don't really want to write it either." But I had two really strong images on either side of the story, and I needed the woman to connect them--to make the story logical.

Maybe I let this happen because a few weeks back, I gave a copy of Lost to an acquaintence. I didn't expect anything except for her to read it but she gave it back to me with written comments and everything. She didn't like the part toward the end where the girl dives down under the water and sees a whole town down at the bottom of the river. She wrote, " I could belive in the bat boy, but not the town at the bottom of the river." And when I read it, I thought, "Oh well...that's just her opinion" but I think it influenced me more than I realized. Because lately I've been trying to write stuff that's more "believable."

I don't want the girl to just swim back across the river. I want it to feel like she's getting dragged down by the river, the town is like the Sirens in the Odessey, tempting and dangerous, and she has to drag herself out of it.I'm not so interested in the logic as the feeling.

I hate logic in writing. I want to write the stuff that makes my heart hurt. The stuff that makes a wolf's howl form at the base of my throat. That's delightful. That's why I write. Oh yeah, I forgot. Thanks, Rick Bass, for reminding me.

Meditiation on an old photo

She has worn this dress, especially for today. It's the most expensive dress she's ever had--white, gauzy layers with delicate edging. She moves more gracefully in this dress, it seems. It makes her want to dance, and she'll have the chance soon. She'll enter through the doors of the magnificent hall and be surrounded by the most gallant gentlemen in all the county. Oh! She is taking a moment to get her breath before she goes, here in the garden next to a sculputure of a great white bird. It is beautiful and reminds her of everything she wants to be tonight, and everything she wants to feel. Like a wild bird she wants to be free to fly. She wants to be the creature that's most admired.

...

Like a wild bird, she wants to be free to fly. It's no fun in here with these parakeets. The cramped cage, the smelly, damp newspaper. She seems to be the only bird who minds, though. All the others are happily tinkling the bell or looking in the mirror. Paco is beaking his way up and down the right corner of the cage as usual. He never does anything else. She's the only bird that wants to be free. She dreams of nestling down in a patch of grass every night instead of the newspaper shreds she's got. Then she'd wake up to the sun and catch a wind current and just soar all day, riding one gust after another.

She once asked Polly about escaping. Had she ever tried it? Ever know anybird who did? She wanted to know the details. What's the best way to get past the shopkeeper Steve and his little Vietnamese girlfriend? Once you do that, how do you get past the big door? But Polly just stared at her with her beak wide open, so she hadn't brought it up since. Every night though, she dreams of being free.

...

He really did not owe an explanation to anyone. Certainly not her. She always wanted one though and she would keep asking and asking until she got one. Well this time he was gonna fix it so she couldn't ask. So that she'd never be able to ask again, as a matter of fact.

He started making a list. Shells from a tribe of hermit crabs, the eye of a newt (standard fare), the inner frond of a sword fern. Lots of purified water and the special words. That oughtta do it.

Positive reinforcement

I realized yesterday that the blog entries lately have been a wee bit too negative. So I'm gonna counteract that with a list of things that make me happy. I'll just keep adding them as they come to me.

1. Tortoise's song, "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were women and men." Both the title and the music. I was at the gym yesterday, and it slipped into the shuffle on my iPod. The title of the song is so long the iPod had to keep scrolling it.

2. Lovely, pale pink yarn from the softest, little alpaca lamb that ever lived. Eight dainty hanks arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I just wanted to shrink myself down to mouse-size so that I could use one of them as a bed.

3. I am the same age as Dave Chappelle.

State of the union

I should be getting ready for work right now, but I just spent the last two days coddling my client, and so I'm not so eager to get back for another day of thinking about someone else's needs before mine.

My horoscope for the month says that I'm in the mood to upset the apple cart. That's for sure. As I sat in those meetings, I kept thinking, "Who am I?" I could be a kick-ass marketing guru. I'm good at it. I could funnel all my energy into my business career, make a ton of cash, and just stop struggling. Hell...gimme a BMW and a yearly vacation to Maui and a mind that does not question what it all means. A simple, quiet mind.

Or, I can be a writer.

I am not sure I can do both. So with yesterday marking the end of the thirty-first year of my life the reset button got pushed. This year, I need to spend some time building a life that supports my true self. Every night, I have to go to bed thinking about what I'm going to do the next day to be my true self. This is the end of the line for my marketing career. I'm not pushing for a job at Nike as a marketing exec. No. The world wants me to go that way, but no. I either make it as a writer or nothing.