After throwing myself into business crusades and tumultuous romantic relationships, I consider myself a survivor.
That’s even before we get to politics.
How about you?
Tag: Passion
Not every lover finds roses comforting
In support of that statement, let me offer Long-Stem Roses in a Shattered Mirror, my collection of poems released to the public today.
Think what happens when a hot relationship goes belly up and everything you trusted turns painful.
These poems arise in a brutally honest reevaluation of those interactions, as one of the lovers insisted on at the time, as well as the larger hopes and desires.
Many of the poems appeared in small-press literary magazines around the globe, but this is their first outing complete.
I have come a long, long way since, perhaps because of lessons I learned in these earlier relationships. The poems remain intense, vivid, and powerfully moving, even at my age.
For my series of passionate roses, check out my collection in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords.com and its affiliated online retailers. Or ask your public library to obtain it.
Practicing excellence in modest work
Rather than the big splash – the masterwork, Oscar performance, Pulitzer Prize, MVP sort of thing.
Think of a pastor, crafting sermon after sermon each week.
A woman who found housing for the homeless and then patiently worked them through their finances to point them toward independence.
The big dreams of a novelist or poet page by page that never found a readership, or the correspondent for a local weekly newspaper.
A doctor or nurse. Teacher. Carpenter. Mechanic.
Keep your eye open and the list grows quickly.
It even becomes more impressive than many who have fame.
On to the Pacific Northwest via the prairie and Ozarks
My second brace of fiction, ultimately three books in all, addressed the dozen years in the aftermath of the hippie outbreak, though I’ve tried to fudge the era precisely. I do think much of it is continuing.
Naturally, for me, they were semi-autobiographical, even though the protagonist is now a woman named Jaya who winds up with a much younger lover who becomes her husband.
The pivotal piece is Yoga Bootcamp, with her now as a central character, along with the guru they sometimes called Elvis or Big Pumpkin. My residency in the ashram was a transformative period in my life, even in the face of details I’ve since learned. We were a rogue outfit in the period when yoga took root in America. This down-to-earth story will probably scandalize your local yoga studio instructor, but the experience did reshape many of our lives, hopefully for the better. I’ve certainly carried many of its lessons far through some other faith traditions.
The central piece is now compressed into Nearly Canaan, originally an ambitious triptych that comprised the hefty novels Promise, Peel: As in Apple, and With St. Helens in the Mix. At the outset, a sense of place was central as Jaya relocated from a small town on the prairie in the American Midwest to the hardscrabble Ozarks to the apple orchard country in the desert of the Pacific Northwest, but the central theme now condenses as the question of how much influence one person can extend over others, hopefully for the better. I can ask now whether it would have been more compelling if she’d been conniving and manipulative.
The third book, The Secret Side of Jaya, is a set of three novellas, each one set in the places she lived after leaving the ashram. Each one, quite different, is premised on hearing and seeing figures in a locale that others don’t. Maybe you encounter them, too, where you are.
You can find these books in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They’re also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
There’s still a feast awaiting on this plate
As the calendar year ends, it’s fair to ask What’s Left in your own life as you move on for the next round.
In my novel, the big question is stirred by a personal tragedy, leaving a bereft daughter struggling to make sense of her unconventional household and her close-knit extended Greek family.
In the wider picture, she’s faced with issues that are both universal and personal.
For me, it’s somehow fitting that my most recent work of fiction returns to Indiana, the place where my first novel originated before spinning off into big city subways. The state is also home to more Hodsons than anyplace else in the world, as far as I can see, not that I’ve been back in ages.
What’s Left is one of five novels I’m making available to you for free during Smashword’s annual end-of-the-year sale, which ends January First.
Get yours in the digital platform of your choice, and enter the New Year right.
For details, go to the book at Smashwords.com.
When passion gets terribly tangled
Have you ever been in a committed relationship, only to be struggling against what you later learn was a triangle? The third party doesn’t even have to be another person, for that matter, but secrecy does tip the balance.
The desire was still there and burning, hoping for reconciliation and renewal. Just don’t call yourself a victim, OK? Not as long as you were actively engaged in the scene.
As for the evidence? In hearing your side, who knows what was factual or imagined, other than the reality of your feelings.
Move on, then, with the memories. Don’t say it wasn’t love, especially of an adolescent sort. Or maybe even your first time.
Having originally appeared in Thistle Finch editions, this collection is now available on your choice of ebook platforms at Smashwords.com and its affiliated digital retailers. Those outlets include the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, and Sony’s Kobo. You may also request the ebook from your local public library.
The move makes the poems available to a wider range of readers worldwide.
Do take a look.
Just in time for the fireworks
The poems in this rant aren’t in my usual voice, but they do address today’s political precipice, only from a slightly earlier historical perspective. And yes, that’s scary. Kinda like the Fourth of July fireworks that way.
For this month only, I’m offering the ebook for free at Smashwords.com during its annual July sales sweep. What do you have to lose? Remember, it’s free. I promise you’ll get a bang out of this.
Check it out at my author page at Smashwords.com.
Among the many mysteries of adult life
I never understood how some people with a demanding career and a family or committed relationship found time to conduct an extramarital affair on the side.
I mean, just a primary relationship deserves more attention than it usually gets. Don’t they mix their communications? Which one said what or their preferences? As for names?
And yet some get away with it. Even habitually.
On the other hand, I doubt they would understand all the hours I’ve put into writing, either. What else am I missing? Dear?
As I’m finding
The end of the road
is not the end of the world.
~*~
This could even be a book title.
On the other hand:
~*~
If this is an escape,
it’s a place of no escaping.
The woman I married
more complex than I’d suspected / morally rigid but sensual: her garden a clue, not straight rows but clusters and clumps with small surprises inserted wherever, all kinds of colorful dimensions, some of them tasty or sweet along with some bitter /
Jnana's Red Barn 