all a matter of adaptability, persistence, and resources, of creating right-sized parts, a turn, the way stars turn into snowflakes even in the Home Depot parking lot when a gull rises with a cookie positioned first as a propeller and then as a platter to be released shattering on the pavement the same way they drop shells onto rocks for feasting or at Squirrel’s office, a colleague takes fortune cookies and adds the words, “in bed” and she claims they all come true then, still, if he had a fortune, he’d build the soil to raise his ground taller than the neighbors, yes, that, or to reshape its wetness into sunken gardens vining with secrets, yet either way, imagine the scene from his mattress as geese fly past or in the ceiling, where mice still sound like rainfall
Tag: Relationships
Turning the focus on his own mess
When I was revising two earlier novels into what became Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, I did wonder about a parallel volume from the point of view of his lovers. What a cad or sweetheart or lost soul or whatever they saw him as. Yeah, dump it all on.
You know, the self-centered hippie dude, Peace Love & all.
Well, there was a hot volume of erotica, Naked Came the Stranger, where each chapter was secretly written by a different person or party who then hid behind a character who got the author credit and posed for the interviews. The various writers didn’t even see the other material until the book came out, not that it ultimately mattered. She did have every color of eye you could imagine.
On this end, I’d welcome submissions for my own project, if only I had space to tackle it, but time is drizzling out, along with the original impulse.
I mean, the hippie chicks in his life weren’t the only ones screwed up, OK? Let’s be honest. Facing the music could be amusing and healing for all.
In the end, turtles
wash and wax the narrative, the car to turn to clearly but a break’s essential : all matters of revision, too : interplay of Caribbean poverty and Philadelphia do-gooders comes to mind now : also find reissued later in the day a heavy grocery supply-run to counter any desire to dine out (the big threat to me budget) also potted greenery to make this shell my candy camp all summer
Hey Buddy
intended a big breakfast but naw just too much on me plate already resigned to the longest grass on the block and not to shave subtract months in right blending mystery rather than clarity such essence of romance as I’m hoping get back to me when you can
Witch and all these smile from my wall
beginning sabbatical read and sun with nature study scripture prayer and meditation to catch up and travel, minister, restore ‘ships and then put off hiking, avoid making to-do lists yet indulge that minor weekend correspondence just seems too much to handle again too long under that ambitious frustration by necessity what has always remained two-thirds unfinished dancing after all the floating deliberation now hard-working on this May your clean bean, dearly
Some common fears
- Intimacy. Oh, my, this could lead to another Tendrils. You know, the ways we feel vulnerable.
- Poverty. This one even gets twisted up in white superiority and racism, if you look really closely.
- Being pulled over while driving. Though it’s unlikely to be a death sentence for me.
- Lawsuits. Which can lead to poverty, above.
- Being held up or robbed. Well, that can be like a lawsuit plus potential violence.
- Rejection. Which also leads back to intimacy, above.
- Shame. Well, usually shame is linked to something you’re born with, but it still connects with fear, along with its first-cousin, guilt – arising from something you did bad, really bad.
- Hunger. Not that most Americans actually go without food long, but just watch their reactions when they have to fast or go more than two or three hours without a nibble.
- Debilitating illness or physical handicap. Blindness, deafness, dementia, for starters. Or falling off a ladder at my age.
- Dying as a failure. You know, without achieving something big to advance mankind. Or just plain going to Hell.
Do these all involve pain?
What would you add to the list?
We truly are blessed with abundance
Here’s hoping my reflections on life here at the Barn stimulate an awareness of so many of the riches around you, too.
Dear Ab’gail
there’ll be no gardening to ground down to the end of this place bitterly eliminating so much accumulation before swimming through the cloudy first day at liberty disregarding temptation right off the bat to say nothing of ferocious loving What discipline will emerge? except in the leaves of greenhorn pages there’s work awaiting, oh boy, I bought this overnight woods heavy and wet but daily shaving’s a pain so perhaps by the time thee sees me again I’ll be scraggly not paying bills is hardly superfluous still wish you were here on the trail
Chickens and the meaning of life, chapter whatever
A couple of incidents regarding my daughter’s chickens have me thinking about human affairs.
Her hens were increasingly picking on one another and squabbling until an incident with a neighbors’ dog posed a terror. In response, they instinctively banded together, including their otherwise useless rooster. For weeks after, their antisocial behavior was transformed, focused on a common enemy.
A year later, the same thing happened when a red tail hawk picked off two of the hens in the yard.
That leads to the question:
Do we humans really need some villain, however small, to make our own lives meaningful?
We see it in politics, for sure. And in sports. As for personal development and ethical living?
I am convinced we need to keep an eye on Satan, in whatever garb, but also need to be careful we don’t start “preaching for sin,” as early Quakers cautioned. The fact is that in fiction it is much easier to create a believable bad guy than a good one.
So even secular novelists must make sure to avoid exclusivity in their vision.
We also need to keep another eye on the Light and its leadings. Otherwise, well, we’d still be chickens at the mercy of foxes and weasels.
Third Haven, New Haven, White Haven nexus
wouldja guess Maryland’s official sport is? jousting! (no, I wasn’t jesting, ’tis truly) these tabs from Fitzwilly’s and the Whitby Winery Uncle Charlie! what on earth’s on the radio? maps of New Haven and Providence sorry, such minutia, leisurely spans the Eastern Seaboard only to realize what had been removed to Tampa whoa! Prairie Home Companion it ain’t present background noise, roll the dial this rumbling would appreciate new Verdi’s Falstaff any better? reminded to pay bills, catch up hardly boring and ask how many of them practice, whatever . blessings, stick to it
