Month: November 2015

{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ carried}

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November 10, 2015

6:35 pm

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Musings on Extemporanea

Kelvingrove Museum D 579

Armored unicorn horse gives you side-eye.

I am a terrible fighter.

I have a lot of the determined rage necessary to fuel an effective debater, but I can’t channel it. When engaged and enraged, generally I sputter and flail and …weep. It’s annoying, to tell you the truth. It gets worse when it’s an intellectual dispute rather than a personal discussion. I find that my mind… just… disconnects. I KNOW things, I can see where people are wrong, their conclusions erroneous, their claims distorted; their fallacies in logic are as plain as the nose on their faces, but I … can’t…. tell them, because when things are important to me enough for me to engage, I may think furiously, but I speak… incoherently.

And I’m sarcastic! And I have comebacks! And I am GOOD at having sarcastic comebacks. Silently. Inside of the echo chamber of my own head. VEXING, I tell you. Which is why today I am grateful for the brilliant and articulate amongst my acquaintances. Like warrior steeds carrying topics into the public forum, they charge forward and take the rest of us with them into the larger realms of thought. Sometimes it’s a terrifying ride, but they keep us going forward, which, despite its risks, is the ONLY direction to go.

{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ enamored with armor}

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November 9, 2015

11:23 pm

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Literary Life Observations

Kelvingrove Museum D 578

As authors, we sometimes struggle with how much we should protect our readers. Especially authors who write historical fiction, who write works with “historical” content which is problematic by today’s higher and broader understanding – how we present this information in fiction matters. I have read a LOT of discussion on the topic, and continue to read accounts this week about how others are trying to navigate these tricky places in their lives.

Today I’m grateful for the gatekeepers who try to protect the young, and I’m grateful for those gatekeepers who understand when to open the gates.


{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ echoes}

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November 8, 2015

6:40 am

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Essay Musings

2015 Benicia 29

If it doesn’t rain, it pours, or so the saying goes.

Tech Boy made a gigantic carrot cake for his friend W’s last day at work. W. is off to have her third daughter, who appears to be coming two weeks early. W is a woman in need of cake, and so ten and a half cups of shredded carrots, three cups of pineapple… we made a great huge one for the office. Though we have massive pans, we have smaller cake carriers, so it never all fits. We have a tiny piece left for home, but we had a tiny piece we shared with the new neighbors – a multi-generational Filipino family who wave every time they see us and sometimes move our trash cans in from the curb. They happened to be having a birthday party – and were thrilled with a small cake… and a visiting aunt returned our little gift with… two plates of fried chicken, shrimp stir-fry, a massive pile of spaghetti and meatballs, two different kinds of cake and red velvet cupcakes.

Wow.

I’m grateful today that sometimes what we put out into the world comes back bigger than we sent it. Like a voice thrown out across a chasm, sometimes a good thing comes back, magnified. And when it includes cupcakes, it’s especially good.


{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ poetry goddess}

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November 6, 2015

4:51 am

7 Comments on {thanksfully 3.0 ♦ poetry goddess}

Musings on Extemporanea

I-Drivhuset

Ekphrasis is a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art. In poetry – where it is often utilized – ekphrasis is the poet waxing lyrical about a piece of art. In this, we waxed poetic about this amazing sculpture by Danish artist Susanne Ussing. Constructed of the mixed media of newspaper clippings, wood, and metal chimney vents, this large female figure looks like she’s… squashed, and covered in words and images not of her own making. Without discussion, seven female poets went basically the same direction with this… but then trimmed their sails to different winds.

unmitigated

1.1

before me
there is no I

in your glass house you
crouch alone,
casting stones
        (yet sought you to make me,
        proud, you seek to own —
        the whirlwind stirred as I sweep past,
        how dare you call me “known?”)

1.2

within me
I claim multitudes

a universe suffused with stars
sparks in all
dimensions, pulse with life
        while in your straitened house
        you stitch my shroud
        believing that where I am, there
        we both must stay

1.1

believe me
here, I am

glass rains down like hailstones
wood pops, metal shrieks and groan as
views shifts. Emerging, I force open your world
        before me, there shall be
        no others

This was a worthy challenge. Laura’s observations began literally and then exploded. Andi moved us in blank verse. Tricia started with association and headed toward organized. Sara’s growth spurt produced a mighty tongue, and a big voice. Kelly’s blew me out of the water – and through a glass ceiling. Liz had barely a moment to write this month, but arrived beautifully in her own time, just as in real life. Our lone poetry prince, J.C., will join in with his usual great imagery.

I’m grateful for today’s reminder to let everyone be the size that they are – including any goddesses you have stuffed in a box…

Artist Susanne Ussing (1940–1998) was a Danish visual artist and architect who worked in a variety of different mediums from photography and ceramics to large-scale installations and sensory exhibitions. The piece that introduced me to her is the 1980 installation titled I Drivhuset (In the Glasshouse) that was installed at the Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen. Image courtesy of Carsten Hoff.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Katya Czaja’s Write. Sketch. Repeat. blog.

{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ remember}

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November 5, 2015

2:43 pm

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Essay Musings

Dream House 1992 2

When I was a college sophomore, I began drawing pictures of my someday house.

It apparently included a dream catcher, with apologies to… well, anyone with non-appropriating taste.

It also included a lot of drapery. Everywhere. It included striped wallpaper. A differently striped wallpaper border. An amazingly Jetsons lamp. And…purple carpet? Hoo boy.

The funniest thing about all of this is that I actually almost reproduced this room — sans the purple carpet — without even having seen this piece of *cough* artwork in years. Our townhouse looked a lot like this – down to my painting of mountains and water (never watercolor unfortunately), and the striped wallpaper border, people.

The past — the things that shape us — stay with us.

For good or for ill, those things which made us the people we once were also make us the people we are. Those things have an unduly heavy influence – until we make a deliberate and concentrated effort to set them aside. Today I’m grateful when the little voice says to me, “Remember, remember,” it’s not about how much fun it is to muck about with sparklers, but it’s a reminder that whatever sparks that fueled the imagination of a young woman remain, and can still kindle a fire that transforms the world.

{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ fuyu}

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November 4, 2015

5:17 pm

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Random Notes and Errata

Persimmon and Blueberry Pies

I find it unbelievable that I have no pictures of the persimmons that Bean picked up last year – from a tree unclaimed on the side of the road. I somehow didn’t even photograph the pomegranates, which are also a November favorite, which my father hoards from his tree… and while it seems early in the month to be grateful already for *cough* food, which is what most of us do when we feel like we’re running out of things, *cough* I forget about persimmons every single year. I hated them, as a child; they were slimy. I still prefer the firm ones – but the slushy, sticky fuyu, which can be dried whole or used fresh, make THE BEST sticky fruit cookies, ever. Actually, come to think of it, the pie was pretty good, too.

I am grateful today for all the gifts of autumn, even the ones I periodically forget exist.

{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ sloppy firsts}

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November 3, 2015

3:39 pm

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Literary Life Observations

Upstairs Bathroom After 3

I don’t read reviews unless my editor gives them to me – I figure I have enough problems – so I generally only see her copy of what Kirkus has to say, and they are always decent, if not always particularly kind. (I am greatly blessed for this decency – I have seen them be outright vicious, and know my time will come.) This review was strong, but I am indicted for “clunky” dialogue, which makes me chuckle. I’m actually pretty proud of my dialogue skills – most days. But, some days they, and the rest of my narrative chops, are pretty crap. Clunky is a generous description; at times they’re outright sloppy. Trying to shrink-fit and meld pieces of a story together, some older, some brand new, is like taping up drywall, spackling holes, mudding, painting. It’s all remodeling the house.

I’m grateful today for the mercy of the first draft, for the awkwardness of the words splayed gracelessly on the screen, for the belief that I will sand and shove those unbeautiful clunkers into shape.

{thanksfully 3.0 ♦ precipitation}

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November 2, 2015

3:06 am

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Musings on Extemporanea

Lynedoch Crescent D 145

El Niño doesn’t begin until December – of course, that’s how it got its name, for being The Boychild storm system associated with December – but a good November soaking to give everyone the excuse they needed to wear wraps and boots is welcome today in poor, tinder-dry California. It’s ridiculous to be chilly when it’s actually not frosty out, but being away from Glasgow in November has made me wimpy. I shall gather my wrap around me, sip tea, and shiver with everyone else.

I’m grateful today for news of ski resorts opening before Thanksgiving for the first time in years, and for the whining and shivering we’re going to do in the next few months, as the aquifers fill and the hills re-green.

{thanksfully, year 3}

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November 1, 2015

11:44 am

2 Comments on {thanksfully, year 3}

Essay Musings

Oh, hello, November.

2015 Benicia 34

I started this month with the usual weird sleep and hunger (Daylight Savings Time, can we talk about this?) and a nice long (way too sunny) walk. And, I saw a coyote, long-legged, lean, and golden as the hill on which he stood. He was unafraid, and beautiful and I was… grateful. And realized that this year, above all other years, I need to take part in the deliberate activity of observing a month of gratitude.

Looking back over my blog posts, I realize I didn’t do it last year. Last November I was still reeling from last summer — and the highly publicized police-inflicted deaths of Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Michael Brown… and then the death of Tamir Rice. I hadn’t realized how long it took me to begin to be able to articulate the effect of the violence and, frankly, paranoid, unsafe feelings I felt, and how long it took my thoughts to become coherent. Add to that struggling to read and comprehend editorial notes – well, November 2014 was a Lost Month. But this year I joined Twitter… and for my first act of Thankfulness, I’m going to give it a rest during November. These auto-post to my feed, but I’m leaving Tech Boy to man the gates, and am going to pull a full Introvert and stop paying it any attention. October on Twitter was a hot mess.

I always learn a great deal from social media – some of it truly excellent, as I learn about new blogs and the exciting things some people’s cats can do – and some of it really disheartening – and illuminating in ways that I never wanted to understand. ☙ I’m grateful today for the chance to stop learning and to sit with and think about what I know.