The Fine Art of Noticing

A couple of nights ago, I saw a raccoon cross the road, hurrying to get out of the way of the approaching car. A couple of nights before that, it was an opossum that my headlights had picked out. At first, I'd thought it was a large, ugly cat – and then I noticed the pointy snout and the long pink tail.

The noteworthy (beautiful, strange, idiosyncratic, ironic, thematic, defining) details of our lives often appear suddenly and disappear just as quickly. As writers, it's our job to be open to them – and sometimes, it's our job to record them, even if we're not quite sure why.

Here are a few of the things I noticed today:

*A group of several tiny birds, greenish-yellow, with white chevrons at the tips of their wings, busily picking at rust-colored catkins in the birch tree outside my bedroom window.

*The way a downtown newspaper vendor held out both of his arms to test for rain – a gesture that reminded me of religious statuary – before pulling the hood of his parka over his head.

*Branches curving up like candelabra, strung and studded with raindrops.

*The first open daffodils.

*A menagerie of plastic dinosaurs placed among the rocks and ferns of a front yard landscape.

*The feral look in a stranger's eyes right before he passed me on the sidewalk: “Slutwhore,” he said, aiming the comment straight at my face.

*That clover honey doesn't taste like mesquite honey, even mixed into tea and milk.

*Strata of memories and associations attached to a specific song (in this case, Coldplay's “The Scientist”): within 20 seconds of hearing the opening notes, I was in tears, even though I had been feeling really happy only minutes earlier.

What are some of the things you've noticed today?

What I Read in 2011

My sister-in-law Kate recently posted a list of all the books she read in 2011 on her blog, and I was blown away: I think I counted 57. None of which I'd read, although there is a copy of Blindness on my shelf and I have been intending to read it for...oh, the last five years or so, in case that counts.

My list is much shorter. Here, in roughly chronological order, are the books I read in 2011:

Fanny Hill

Just Kids

The Glass House

Vox

The Bride Stripped Bare

Foolsgold

Jealousy: The Other Life of Catherine M.

Lit

Bliss:Writing to Find Your True Self

The Other Side of Desire

Writing From the Heart

Sex at Dawn

The War of Art

Creative Is a Verb

Ordinary Genius

The Chronology of Water

A Billion Wicked Thoughts

Bonk

High Fidelity

Nineteen books. A third of the number Kate read. Not that I'm competitive or anything.

Oh, have I mentioned that in 2011, she also found a literary agent, had a play produced, wrote the first draft of a YA novel for the NaNoWriMo competition, and made (and sold) a bunch of her new whimsical bird/people sculptures?

So I was surprised when Kate recently wrote me an email asking if I wanted to be her “writing buddy.” Her idea was that we'd send each other pages every week – not for feedback, exactly, just as a way of checking in. It seems to me that Kate is doing just fine on her own, and that I'm the one who could really benefit from some hand-holding – but hey, I'm not going to argue with her about who is likely to get more out of this deal. Sign me up, I told her.

Still Life of a Dilettante Dabbling in Self-Discipline

My writing goals for 2012 are to:

*work 6 hours/week on a larger project

*do 3 half-hour freewrites each week

*write & post 2 blog entries each week

*every week, write & send 1 letter, preferably snail-mail

It's only a couple of weeks into January, and already I'm not doing so hot. Yes, I'm a little closer to meeting my weekly writing quotas than I am to meeting my weekly exercise quotas (my goal of doing 25 sit ups and 25 push ups at least 5 days a week has prompted me to do exactly ZERO sit ups and ZERO push ups this month), but even so: I've hardly hit the ground running.

Aimlessly ambling, maybe. Plodding, pointlessly pigeon-toed.

Shuffling.

Oozing.

Ugh! Hang on just a sec, while I attend RIGHT NOW to those overdue sit ups and push ups....

OK. I'm back at the keyboard – shakier, but on firmer ground.

Now, about those writing goals. Despite my poor showing thus far, I really think I can manage the letter, the freewrites, and the blog entries every week – at least more often than not. It's really just a question of finding (pardon me: making) the time and remembering to make good use of it.

My big concern is that bit about working 6 hours a week on some unspecified larger project.

I have an idea for a book, but it scares the bejeezus out of me – which seems to suggest the requisite probability of becoming obsessed, if I can only get myself to begin.

I've had this book in mind for...oh, probably at least five years now. I've taken a few stabs at it in the past: I have an outline, a bunch of notes, and even a series of short essays in which I began exploring my topic in more detail.

An old high school friend of mine recently read some of those essays. “I hope you're going to write a book,” he told me on the phone last week.

“I know, I know,” I said, “But I just don't know, you know? I mean, who am I writing it for?”

“You're writing it for people like me,” he said. Simple as that.

One excuse down, a gazillion to go....

The (Young) Writers Group: To Join or Not to Join?

Way back when, I was in a writers group with some friends of mine. This was before two of them went on to get their MFA's and one went on to become a successful writer (= her books make enough money for her to support her family on royalties) and I went on to become...someone who has yet to become anything in particular.

Inspired by the knowledge that we were in for some serious razzing if we were to show up at a meeting with nothing to share, each of us wrote more prolifically than we otherwise would have, and – if I do say so – some of it was halfway decent. We were all English majors, well versed in textual analysis, and I think we batted around some good ideas during feedback sessions, too.

But I am pretty sure I'm speaking for all of us when I say that what we did in our group meetings did very little, if anything, to improve the quality of our writing.

Writers groups are useful if what you want is an excuse to socialize with people who are going to know what you mean when you say you're having trouble with your hook (hint: it has nothing to do with tennis elbow). Writers groups are great for providing a sense of solidarity. And they're a needed kick in the pants for those of us who tend to drift off the page & into reveries about the epic novel cycle we're going to write – just as soon as we win the lottery and buy that adorable writing retreat in the Adirondacks.

In other words, I guess writers groups aren't a complete waste of time.

Which is one reason why I recently accepted an invitation to join – or at least check out – a local writers group. The other reason is that, being new to Portland, I'm not above joining such a group just on the off chance that I might make some new friends that way.

I had no idea what to expect, since I was acquainted (barely!) with only one member of the group, and had never so much as laid eyes on anyone else in it.

On Sunday evening, I was let into a stranger's living room and introduced around. The other writers were friendly, bright, articulate, and hip. They were also...kids.

I'm 37. Not old, in other words. But I felt simply ancient in comparison to the other writers assembled in that living room. I'm guessing that only one of them had even hit 30, and as it happens, that one still lives with his mother. With my 18-year marriage and my two kids, not to mention my many years of freelance editing and teaching composition, I was automatically accorded a certain respect: hey, I might be a random from off the streets, but I obviously spoke with the Voice of Experience.

It was hard not to feel like I was back in the classroom.

Maybe that's why I felt compelled to point out the dangling modifiers in two of their manuscripts.

Oddly, despite my behaving like an insufferable know-it-all, when it came time to say our good-byes, I got several enthusiastic hugs and comments to the effect that I'd been very helpful. Apparently, I will be welcomed back if I decide I want to join their future gatherings.

Aye, there's the rub: do I really want to be Den Mother for the (Young) Writers Group on a regular basis?

What Are Real Writers Wearing This Season?

I want roses on my head: silver tissue roses, watered silk roses, roses made of pixels and memory -- and real roses, too: tea rose scented, spicy, musky, wildflowery, hint of apricot, hint of snow. 

 

I want a crown, a dragon with a ridged back made of Indian arrowheads, its claws reaching down onto my forehead, each tipped with a ruby, its dragony tail in its mouth, completing the circle.

I want a wand tipped with a star that is also a heart that is also a giant bubble perpetually on the point of bursting.

I want ruby slippers. I want striped tights. I want a sea-foam tutu that flounces and glitters, and a cape of white peacock feathers. I want a satin corset that laces up the back, black, with understated trim the color of raspberry parfait. I want a sash of jingling coins and cowrie shells, strung together with spider silk and cranberries. I want diamond chain mail, and anklets with platinum spikes, and, snaking up the backs of my calves and thighs, henna vines with blooms revealing, at their center, eyes that open and close. 

 

I want to be holding a big green bowl of bright yellow lemons. 

 

I want a barn owl on my left shoulder, and a clever blue parrot on my right, and a hawk with a raven's soul perched on my wrist. 

 

I want a rain check and a magic mop. 

 

I want the whole show, me myself and I, and everything we imply, projected onto, into, nature: a dark volcanic island close to the mainland, but separated from it by channels of sluicing water, ice slush atop every wave and rainbows in the spray, and, right in the middle of the island, a round pool fed by hot springs, and everywhere the softest moss and the sharpest evergreens and the chill clear sky of possibility.

Never mind that all of this would be too much, would look ridiculous if it were possible to achieve, which it isn't; never mind that I would collapse under all that weight. 

 

At the heart of it: exuberance and greed. Wanting it both ways, wanting it all ways. Wanting.

New Year's Statement of Purpose

I like my New Year's resolutions served with a twist. I've come up with quite a few variations over the years. Back when I was the Event Planner for my co-housing community, I dreamed up a NYE activity that involved getting everyone at the party to write a resolution on a slip of paper, after which all the slips of paper were collected and put into a hat (or maybe it was a mixing bowl?). Then everyone took turns drawing a resolution – which had, in all likelihood, been penned by someone else.

I will never forget the look on my neighbor Carl's face when he unfolded the little slip of paper he had just drawn from the hat (bowl?) and read aloud, “Have more multiple orgasms.” Know this: if you look up “curmudgeon” in the dictionary, you're gonna see a picture of Carl. He gave a little snort. Then he held up his hand as if he were being solemnly sworn in before before the Grand Erotic Court, gruffly pledging to us all, “Hey – I'll do my best!”

This year, the plan was to come up with a statement of purpose rather than a list of resolutions. I borrowed the idea from a presenter at the IEA conference I attended in 2010. Flemming Christensen was a soft-spoken Dane with bold notions, one of which was that a personal statement of purpose (as in, “What is my purpose in life?”) should be phrased in such a way that it takes into account your natural strengths, is clearly in line with your values & beliefs, and points to a few specific focus areas. Naturally, composing such a statement is no simple matter, so he developed the following brainstorming exercise:

Complete the following statements:

1. I am a _____, a _____, and a ______.
2. I am dedicated to _____________.
3. My ambitions are to ___________.
4. The work I take on myself is to ___________.

Back in 2010, I took a crack at filling in those blanks, and here's what I came up with:

1. I am a doer, a connoisseur, and a teacher.
2. I am dedicated to improving my understanding of myself and others.
3. My ambitions are to enjoy & accept myself and others.
4. The work that I take on myself is to let go without giving up.

This time around, everyone in the small group gathered around my dining room table took 10 minutes to come up with a long list for #1, and then we solicited others' opinions on which descriptors we ought to adopt. My longer list was eventually winnowed down to confidante, frog catcher, tale-teller, unfolding fern, lover, and soul gardener, all of which I stand by, but I eventually went with a slightly different list for #1.

Here's my 2012 version, in rough outline:

1. I am a lover, a catalytic confidante, and a wordwanderer.
2. I am dedicated to exploration and expansion (a.k.a. “personal growth”).
3. My ambition is to learn how to BALANCE – naturally, without effort.
4. The work I take on myself is to teach others how to free themselves into creativity (or, as my friend Dave rephrased it, to inspire others to “buy locally” – i.e., from their own brains...).

Good luck with all that, eh?

I may end up making a list of regular ol' resolutions, too – one of which probably ought to be, “Finish putting together my 2012 Statement of Purpose”!

SkyMall Poetry

At 35,000 feet, en route between Washington, D.C. and Portland, I invented a new word game: SkyMall Poetry. 

Here are the rules: you get one page of the SkyMall catalog per poem. Each poem must use at least 10 words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) from the product descriptions on that page. No poem can be longer than 30 words total. Title optional.

Here are the five poems I came up with on my flight:

When the maple finishes with falling

I give myself the slip,

the easy luxury of turning away:

those branches, bones behind me,

blue-spun sky

and autumn on my lips.

***

New Orleans

there's midnight in my pocket

paprika in my soul

disaster in my mocha

and my latte and merlot –

so just depress the plunger

let me steep in my Creole

***

Name your roots. Single them.

Gather your earth –

crest, rim, bog, swale –

Nature is watching. Choose well.

***

Impending Bloom

Put your hands on my body;

Strip my facade with your teeth.

You: Peel me open:

Bloody fruit, ruby seed, ready heat.

***

Night makes a small showing.

One star clicks down center stage

in the full-moon glare, marking time

to secret songs and pacing off

her secret needs. 

So... I hereby throw down the gauntlet: next time you're on a plane, write a SkyMall poem and send it to me (or post it as a comment to this entry)!