Happy Fourth...uh...Fifth of July!!

It's been a busy few days.

We're on vacation in San Diego and having an amazing time. I got a whole passel of tight-deadline work assigned to me right before I left, so I've been juggling writing into my mornings and nights and feeling very smug about having a job that moves with me wherever I go.

My good friend and her family joined us here, and spending this week with her has been fabulous. Like me, she is a teacher and a busy mom, and having that second mom around as back-up made everything smooth as chocolate over the last few days.

Two of us to pack things up. Two of us to cast around for left behind shoes, hair bands, ipods, water bottles and all the other thousand things that daughters travel with.

Also two of us to sit by the pool last night, chatting and giggling. We watched the sunset and sipped our wine marveling that we could be so calm and so ready to see the fireworks. Everything and everyone was in place, hours ahead of time. It didn't have the usual frantic feel of a Fourth of July, as you jostle to get everyone into position and situated in the darkening night.

Just before dusk, while the sun was staining the clouds with gold, a summer rain fell. Completely refreshing and magical in its unexpectedness. Filled me with hope and joy that I sent radiating out to you as well.

Over the San Diego Bay, we saw at least eight simultaneous firework displays. Four of them were synchronized, separated by miles along the coast. The one closest to us had an echo of lights right behind it. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, green sparkles and golden fizz and bright, white, cold lights like diamonds in the sky hanging over the same buildings where I once worried about broken teacups.

Some teacups are never meant to break, and light might be fizzing up with the next rocket's burst.

Note to Self

Write a story with a character named Giselle.

It's pretty!

Tree Timeless

Above the house, the tree is a green testament to the nonexistence of time. Within the house, the family lives their lives as if time were real. They sleep, they wake, they eat, they age. But above the house hovers the tree. And the tree knows.

When the woman sits outside, she soaks up the sun and the small, quiet sounds of the unfolding day. Always, her eyes come back to the tree. Up and up its length her gaze travels until the tree alone takes over her entire vision, until the green of its leaves and the blue of the sky behind them are the only two colors remaining in her world. Green and blue. Up and up above. No matter what the day, no matter what the year, the tree has stood beside the house, waiting timelessly. That is when the woman understands that there is more to her life than the daily happenings that she pays so much attention to. There is more to life than the living itself.

Still... I Rise...

When I was a teacher long ago in my life before this life, we read a few Maya Angelou poems each year, scattered here and there. I've always liked the unstoppable persistence expressed in this one:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

One Morning

The lemonade is tart and cool. While the fountain splashes merrily in the sunshine, she considers the nature of life.

"I think I'm falling in love with him." Her friend's voice crackles through the phone in her hand.

She wishes she had something cheerful to say, something encouraging. She wishes that life wasn't as hard as it is.

"Well," she finally speaks. "he'll probably break your heart in the end. That's the way it usually works out. You just have to ask yourself if the enjoyment will be worth the inevitable pain."

Of course, she worries for her friend. Of course, she does not want to see her hurt and rejected. At the same time, she understands that love is an unstoppable force, and nothing that she could say would protect her friend from the wild ride which she has already begun.

Ah, and what a ride, huh?

What Next?

She sits in the hypnotist's office and watches the swing of the pendulum.

Behind her cloud of golden-white hair, the medium is intense. Light dazzles off the silver pyramid as it revolves back and forth along the line of decision.

The woman leans forward eagerly and hopes to be told what to do.

too tired to put together words - too much energy going in too many directions - layers and layers and layers -

soon more focus will come -

made choices; learned humility; kept going

Spurobox

A handy, all-purpose kit for the emotional upheavals and small psychic repairs that life requires.

New Novel: THAW - Try Out a Page and See What You Think

Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.

Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.

*

These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I’m Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I’m sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in both hands to lift. I’ve had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I’ve still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad’s snoring was.

I’ve always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I’ll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say; ‘It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for’, before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It’ll all be here. I’m using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I’m striping the paper. I’m near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I’m allowed to make my decision. That’s it for today. It’s begun.

Continue reading tomorrow here...

"Wermulff" is too great a word not to write a story about it some time!

Choosing the Way - a quote by Bradbury

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance. Ray Bradbury

Poem: Brahma by Ralph Waldo Emerson

My husband's taking a Comparative Mythology class and preparing a project on Indian Mythology. Discussion of the various gods popped this poem back into my head. I chose it to memorize and recite to my American Literature Class when I was 16. Even then, I had an interest in spiritual search.

Now it reminds me of the chants we learned in yoga teacher training, and also of walking below towering redwoods in our favorite stand of trees, where the nature center has posted an Emerson quote. (Well, actually it reminds me of everything, based on its message!)

If the red slayer think he slays,

Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near,

Shadow and sunlight are the same,

The vanished gods to me appear,

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,

And pine in vain the sacred Seven;

But thou, meek lover of the good!

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

1856 [1857]

Photo credit to blog.discovermagazine.com

Today

Today, I am as lonely as a flower made
of crystal, stem pulled thin and taut
with an aching sharp precision
like iced steel, like frozen light
one fine thin beam that
nods from my head
to the world

My heart as full of fear as a beehive
abuzz with mechanical bees
Oblivious to sun, to air, to wind
they sweep on, down and away
from the tremulous, ever-vibrating hive
where nothing ever stops, where there
is no pause, and seeking only
to feed their insatiable hungers

Come to rest on my lovely, cold, glass
budhead, tempting, glittering
useless and unyielding to their
alloyed thrusts

Impermeable

Check Out

First she notices the nice shape of his ass, clad in carefully distressed denim, and promising agility and muscle, something worth grabbing onto.

He is standing with a man of his age at the counter, paying, and she wonders as she often does when seeing two attractive men together whether they are a gay couple. Hard to tell. They are laughing with each other, casual, but they could be simply friends. In which case, they would be horrified that the cute woman walking by thought they were gay.

As she passes, a tantilizing whiff of cologne pivots her head towards him. His driver's license is tucked into his wallet upside down. Careless or deliberately private? she debates.

There's so much she'll never find out about him. She pushes through the door and out onto the street, him never the wiser, and these words the only aspect of him that she will retain.

Eeks! Can Writers Make a Living From Their Words?

"Freelance writing's unfortunate new model

With many outlets slashing pay scales, the well-written story is in danger of becoming scarce. The hustle is just beginning for new and seasoned freelancers.

The list of freelance writing gigs on Craigslist goes on and on.

Trails.com will pay $15 for articles about the outdoors. Livestrong.com wants 500-word pieces on health for $30, or less. In this mix, the 16 cents a word offered by Green Business Quarterly ends up sounding almost bounteous, amounting to more than $100 per submission.
Other publishers pitch the grand opportunities they provide to "extend your personal brand" or to "showcase your work, influence others." That means working for nothing, just like the sailing magazine that offers its next editor-writer not a single doubloon but, instead, the opportunity to "participate in regattas all over the country."

What's sailing away, a decade into the 21st century, is the common conception that writing is a profession -- or at least a skilled craft that should come not only with psychic rewards but with something resembling a living wage..."

From ON THE MEDIA -January 06, 2010 James Rainey Los Angeles Times

Read the rest here.

For One Ferocious Moment...

Klaus strides up to the door. His sharp nose, short, sandy hair and dark-gray, fine wool overcoat catch the eye of the woman seated in the cafe’s window table. He would be almost perfectly non-descript if not for the anger radiating from his tense gait. The way he opens the door suggests barely concealed rage, something about the sharp bend of his elbow and the quick yank of his shoulder. Lord, she thinks, I hope he doesn’t have a gun.

Klaus scans the room and pivots on his heel to mistreat the door again. With a deep exhale, she realizes that she had been holding her breath.

Exciting Discoveries

"And over here are the deep-earth minerals." Mick pulled her forward, as eager as a five year old entering the zoo. The look on his face was pure excitement.

Within the case, various lumps of rock were attached neatly to white cards, glimmering slightly in well-placed lights. A range of browns, greys, pinks, blues, and light violets gleamed from the split-open centers of the stones. Marcy was reminded of Easter candies- elaborate bon bons with fruit-infused centers or strange rock-candy concoctions. How much longer til we stop for lunch, she wondered.

Mark drew in his breath and squeezed her hand. "Look! Tarmasym! Oh isn't it lovely? That one is my absolute favorite because it's such an unusual shade of green."

"Mmmm, yes lovely," Marcy murmured her agreement while privately noticing that the loveliest thing of all was the way that Mark was still holding on to her hand.

Suspended

Below the green white surges of the sea, the mermaid trails her fingers through the crystal waters, giving off bubbles like sparks. The delicate silvery bubbles amuse her; they cling to her skin and shimmer against her silver tail like sequins. She finds herself spinning around and through the waters, creating ever larger streams of bubbles that she plunges through for more decoration.

Her laugh is the silver sound of bells, hung from a red ribbon in a doorway. Her movements are not swimming nor dancing, but an effortless floating ripple, motion like sunbeams pouring through the waves.

No reason exists for such happiness. It simply is. Without time, without care, the mermaid weaves her bubbled tapestry of joy.

Embrace

"Husses, Gamma, Husses!" The little girl demanded, holding up her arms. Her hair of tousled blond-white dandelion fuzz stuck straight up as if seconding her excitement, and the smile lighting her chocolate-smeared face. When her grandmother scooped her up in her arms for "husses", the girl squealed with joy and delight.

Lucky are those who have such confidence in being loved, and those who find their confidence rewarded.

Carnival

From his perch on the black trampoline, Ricky watched Eduardo walk by. As usual, he went about his business with a steadfast determination. The greying dusk signaled time to collect the table umbrellas. Eduardo plucked them like bright, overgrown flowers and slung them onto his shoulder, trucking them to the storage closet.

Ricky pushed his blond mop of hair out of his eyes. "Hey, Edweirdo, how's it going?" As usual, Eduardo passed him without any recognition. His lined face stayed impassive, his eyes fixed on the ground a few feet in front of him. The taunts bubbled up in Ricky unchecked.

"Hey, Edweirdo, I think your girlfriend stopped by earlier. She asked me if I was busy tonight."

Nothing. Not even a slowing of his pace.

Ricky had never heard Eduardo talk, never managed to catch his eye. When he wasn't bouncing kids up and down on flexible yellow cords --sticky, horrible, screaming, stinky kids who whined if the didn't scream, and giggled like hyenas if they didn't whine-- when Ricky wasn't bouncing them up and down under the beaming supervision of their misguided parents, this was his one and only goal.

No matter what it took, he would get Eduardo to acknowledge him.

"Hey, Edweirdo. Nice sunset, huh?" Eduardo trudged on, one more time.

He would. He would. He would.