Rewind + Record

Go, go, go!

2011-11-20T13:19:00.000-06:00

After months of lists, expectations and experiments with balance, I have decided that I am not as premeditated as all of that. There is no use in being upset when I can't meet my demands if they are unrealistic. The way I write and think and speak has always been propelled by emotion--perhaps too intense to reign immediately with logic (until, of course, that gentle tap on the shoulder known as hindsight). So, while I'd like to be more methodical about the way I approach finishing a story... it's just not what I am naturally inclined to do.

This weekend I am devoting myself to a no-apologies approach of kneading my story to a near-finished draft. I will focus on listening to my own voice, and take some time make lists and look at a calendar because it makes me feel more secure. Then I will return to listening to my voice, kneading, shaping, and inhaling the sweet warmth of my storybread when I pop it in the oven.

By Thanksgiving weekend, I will have completed my first MFA application, finished a grant for youth alcohol prevention, gained 5 lbs and earned myself a viewing of Being Elmo. That is who I am. A 20-something professional who would rather be telling stories, a small but powerful voice with a larger and even more powerful support system of wonderful people, a big kid that loves eating and laughing and cuddling and Sesame Street. And I am going to finish what I started. I am going to be who I came here to be.

So, as my Tiger says, I'ma put some oil in it and Jiayou!

Week One

2011-10-03T11:55:00.002-05:00

August and September have come and gone, and October is unfurling like a chilled orange peel. As the sunset grew earlier, I was wincing at my clock, desperately clinging to those warm last days of summer. I wished for every responsibility to evaporate, for everything to just be still. But this budding chill in the air--the light woody notes of drying leaves and flowers--has got me moving. This blog experiment is nearing the end of its first year and I am nearing the culmination of my promise to myself (to be a "real" writer, apply to MFA programs, finish what I've started).

And I'm scared. I know that every obstacle I've faced this year has amounted to little more than a blip in the larger picture of what my life will be. I am learning how to be myself again--growing up and towards those looming mountains I am preparing myself to climb. And, yes, it's scary. But this fear is healthy. A good dose of, get up off your ass and live your dream. First, though, I'm reminding myself to Re-envision your dream. Remember yourself and who you have always wanted to be. Enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear, because you've earned it.

I started this year depressed and in dire need of change: fresh out of a failed relationship, unfit, unhappy about my living situation and job, not having written a thing in many months. Now, I am happily settled into my very own apartment, crossing off checklists like a boss, reading and writing to my heart's content, and sharing it all with a beautiful (who is scoffing at this), loving, honest-to-goodness partner. My godmother sometimes tells me perdiendo se gana, when you lose, you win. And I finally feel like I understand. I lost everything I thought I'd ever wanted, only to realize that what I'd always wanted was actually waiting for me to see it. It was just outside my doorstep, patient for the moment when I would be scared and brave enough to open the door. I have lost my foolishness (well, most of it anyway... I'm sure there's some reserve in here somewhere) and gained a healthy fear of the world ahead of me.

So, again, I am making a list. I began these action steps yesterday, and am going strong. For the next 8 weeks, I will honor these tasks daily:

Write for at least one hour. Read for at least half an hour.
Chip away at your applications until you're done. **Deadline for final review: November 18th** **Deadline for final submission: November 25th**
Meditate, breathe, love yourself and everyone who loves you, spend time outside, get lost in a daydream, be flexible, work hard and give thanks for all of this.
Send e-mails and thank you notes and letters and postcards. Keep in touch with reality and the people who make it a good one.
Rest. Treat yourself well. Go away for a while if you have to, but come back with more speed. Listen to your body. Listen to your heart.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. Be grateful that you can. And know that you will return the favor someday, because every relationship is a balance of what we can give and what we must take.
Be proud of yourself for knowing what to do and getting it done.

Nina knows.

Learning in Circles

2011-08-15T15:04:00.003-05:00

During the spring of 2004 I listened primarily to two albums: a collection of Eydie Gorme y Trio Los Panchos followed by one of Patsy Cline's greatest hits. I would hole up with my laptop in a corner of my bedroom and write until my back was sore, cocooned by songs warm and bellowing as church bells. I gave voice to every little nagging thought, every undeveloped idea, each suggestion given to me by a professor or fellow student. I was fearless and eager. It was my first semester at Columbia, and I was serious about becoming a "good writer." Convinced that if I was impressive enough to someone influential, I could definitely publish a novel before I graduated.

Well, that is obviously not what happened. Instead, thankfully, I have a lot more life in my pockets than documented "accomplishments." But, regrettably, I feel that I write with less ease and passion. My blinders are not as big now. These days when I write I am more careful with my words, more deliberate about developing my characters' intent, less experimental, and ultimately more hesitant. I am listening to these albums again today and working on grant proposals for my job, wherein I will convince some invisible, power-wielding folks that my agency needs money to prevent the spread of HIV more than someone else's. Wanting, more than anything, to discuss real-life issues in the way I feel most adept, by stringing them together with hues and timbres that only I can sense. To return to a place where I can play with language as determinedly as I did that spring.

And I guess what I've come to is that today is a new version of some yesterday 7 or 6 or even 1 year ago, when I was less capable of meeting the grandest expectations I have for myself in this life. I was way further down my mountain. I was not as strong. Not as dexterous, happy, compassionate, in tune with momentousness. I was overly-concerned with controlling the future, rather I was obsessed with this time that I am currently living. This now that I could never have anticipated or mapped out the way I believed was possible if only I was organized and ambitious enough.

My friends are completely different people, even if they are in fact the same individuals in many cases. My relationship with my family has evolved into something I am still not quite in touch with, yet have a growing appreciation and understanding for. My home is more mine than any other home I've ever lived in. The love and compassion I am cultivating is bigger than I know how to hold. And I have never felt so freed by an inability to control what is bigger than myself (though I still struggle with it from time to time). My dreams are framed by a pulsing and brilliant hope that was always under the surface of my skin, but bogged down with my attraction to severity and worry.

Just yesterday I said that I felt as if I was watching a movie. That my eyes were simultaneously watching and creating, composing perfect frames of the moments passing in poignant succession. Sometimes I feel like I should want more and harder, but only because I have never been so at peace before. I didn't know that spring that working against complacency doesn't have to diminish the ability for contentment. That, in fact, finding joy in the present moment is the truest measure of success. That this momentousness I adore so much is exactly what will enable me to write the stories I have never read and always wanted to hear aloud.

There is nothing to run from or towards. I am only climbing, stretching my muscles, bending my joints, expanding and contracting my lungs and heart valves with the repetitive precision of a windmill or an ant.

Letting the right one in.

2011-07-27T15:55:00.003-05:00

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
-Emily Dickinson

I found this quote after perusing Luis Alberto Urrea's very busy Twitter feed and thought "Yes, that's exactly what I've been thinking!" But it's not entirely true that I have been thinking this. Moreso, I have been thinking that this is exactly what I should be thinking. If only I could train myself to believe in the ecstatic experience without the need of constant reminders. Can anyone? Are these people called monks?

The ecstatic experience is not constant. It is completely devoid of the kind of unrelenting optimism that some people surely believe is necessary for the procurement of happiness. The ecstatic experience happens when it must. So what I am really attempting to train myself to do is believe that ecstasy in all forms (pure and otherwise) happens whether or not I believe I am ready to receive it, but ultimately I am always ready to receive it because it is always ready to receive me. There are so many of these ecstatic experiences that we may be lucky enough to have and recognize in a lifetime. I think the most complicated part of my training will be to refine my ability to recognize these moments and ultimately develop a natural response of gratitude for all that they are.

Lately, I have found myself wanting to be hidden, biding my time until change (that I am currently working towards much more slowly than I think is reasonable) happens, wishing I was doing something else in a new place, complaining about (read: questioning) what I have. Lately, I have been sick of these shitty habits. I think Emily has it right. Instead of embracing fear and complacency, the true challenge is to keep my door open to welcome and embrace the tiny unknown. To ignore the warbling feeling in my gut when I attempt to swim in this pool of what I have always known to be true. To just relax in the presence of something so enveloping, something so much greater than myself.

As my first training effort, I will listing some ecstatic experiences that I have had recently (Group A) along with those I would like to have soon (Group B):

A

starting over (shamelessly, every time that I feel I have hit a rut)
dreaming things that come true
being lovestruck (again and again)
finding a new way of telling a story
discovering a new thread to weave into the narrative
hearing someone say to me what I was just thinking to myself
realizing my beauty, my strength (all of the ways)
running in the park
playing with my neighbor dog

understanding the direction of and connection between my unfinished stories
finishing my stories
writing more poetry that I love
finding peace in what is always here, what is not here yet, and what will never be here again
learning new things that will bring me joy and independence
visiting and absorbing new places
the yeses that follow the "will you please consider..." questions that I have to ask
finishing my applications
starting over again

Strike When It's Hot

2011-07-21T17:49:00.000-05:00

Lexus was my younger/older (12 human years/84 dog years) sister. She loved me best when I was sick or sad. The rest of the time, she could care less. I loved that about her most. I also loved how you'd know a storm was coming because she would get scared and want to cuddle. Mostly I loved that because she was very large and would step all over your feet to get comfortable (which was funnier to watch than to experience). She was a good friend to me. A good child-pet to my parents. A good partner to our now-passed dog Lady, whose butt slept next to hers for the last five years of Lady's life. A good soul who wanted nothing more than chin rubs and cheese in exchange for a determined loyalty that only a dog understands. When I house/dogsat for my parents last Christmas after a break-up, she was my best confidante. It was as if she was taking care of me, even though I was putting a cup of food in her bowl every morning and picking up her evening turds. She would check in on me constantly. She was always by my side, looking up at me as if to say, "Are you feeling better today?" And thanks to her, and so many other wonderful friends, I was. Every night I patted her head before sleep, and I healed a little bit more. Thank you for taking care of me, Lexus. This entry is dedicated to her memory (because if she taught me anything when she stole that raw chicken leg from the kitchen countertop when Mom wasn't looking, it was to know what you want and just go for it.) We'll miss you, old girl. Sleep well.

It has taken me nearly a month to feel inspired to write an entry that isn't a total pity party. So, here I am after the unexpected passing of my doggy sister (pictured above), an interesting (read: traumatic) bout of food poisoning, an extended deadline on 3 grants (which is fine by me even though I'd been stressing about it for weeks) and in the crest of a torrential heat wave.

A short list of facts:

The newness that awaits me is everything I have ever wanted and it will be overwhelming, but I am building up the strength to be ready for it all.
I am in love.
Life grants us challenges as if they were wishes because we did ask for them in some way or another and because we are, ultimately, the most perfect person (chosen) to embrace them.
Chicago and I must part ways soon, but I will revel in it until then.
When I write, it comes out like this: __/\__/\__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\________>>>>>>>>-------__.
I am so very grateful for the unknown that will take me to where I always knew I needed to be.

A short list of updates:

While I have completely dropped out of the Summer Novelist's Club, I have been tending to one story in particular and licking its wounds quite dexterously. It will be healed in no time.
I participated in my second reading of the year at the Beauty Bar during which I was rife with nerves and self-doubt (and technical difficulties). On looking back it all, I have decided that I did need to do it but I don't want to do it again until I am excited about doing it. Both readings were barely fun for me. I haven't felt so shaky since I was 16 and crying into a microphone through some fruit metaphor. Yeesh.
My opinions are slowly but more concretely forming in regards to where I want to be and how I'd like to live there. This translates directly to the MFA programs I am most interested in. More trips and illuminating lists to come.
I like writing poetry and want to write more of it. But I find that I am most inspired to do so when I am in a truly meditative state. For example, being outside and recognizing the natural beauty in something I'd never seen before. Or being inside and having an epiphany that strikes like a bolt of lightning. I am not meditating, but I am in a state of meditation, digesting everything around me the way my writer's (poet's) mind needs.
Some of the Taino folktale research has arrived and I am so taken by it. I am beginning to really get the whole "I'm researching" wink, wink thing. It is taking my mind off of the idiosyncrasies of (my) writing so that I can just write. It is making my writerbrain work and ask those good questions. It is allowing me to breathe story in a new way that I can reinterpret all my own.
The calendar is coming along. The lists are ebbing and flowing. The notes are changing and so is my disposition. The pile of work is not lessening, but my reaction to it is better than ever.

Consequently, I am picking up where I left off as I always do. I am returning emails and phone calls and typing up notes and jotting down notes and editing and researching and plotting at a snail's pace. But I am doing. Ready, set, go... c'mon girl...

The Mostest

2011-06-22T14:01:00.001-05:00

Since my arrival from Austin last week, I have felt abuzz with the mental frenzy of returning to reality (read: workbrain). Any tension here has been due mostly to my own unwillingness to let go of my time away. I really liked my life out there. The amazing UT campus (turtle pond!), the aimless yet consistently fruitful adventuring, the motorcycle parade (well, not so much... but it was funny at least) and the promise of an existence comprised of not much more than writing (mostly this), reading (and a lot of this too), snuggling (well, of course lots of this too), eating at Mr. Natural (ohmaga... okay just imagine a emphatic parenthetical aside after each of these items...), riding bikes, wiggling to music, being outside a lot, getting slobbered on by cute dogs and swimming with the salamanders. Dreamgasm!

Returning home is always relieving, but this time felt different. Like the concept of leaving was finally, really there. It was even in my body, that weightlessness of not knowing where I was. Or rather, of not knowing where I belong because deep down I can feel a big change coming. I'm slightly afraid that I am too liquid now to get myself to a solid place again, which is ultimately where I'd like to be (or where I think I should be). But maybe this is exactly the thing to keep me going. Maybe I was too much of a tree before and now I need to be more porous. Something that is agile and mutable.

But back to writing. Not sure how many words I squeezed in last weekend (and they were good ones!). However, I have learned a few things:

I still don't have the perfect writing soundtrack, and it is driving me crazy. Slow and sexy seems to work best, but with less commercial interjection from Pandora and only when I'm alone so as to avoid getting all riled up.
Though I usually joke about the research phase of writing as if it is an excuse, a way of avoiding the actual writing process... I need to do some research for this piece (and maybe all of them if only to feel more secure about what I'm spitting out)! And I am excited about it! First key topic: Taino folktales.
Sometimes being with people you love, experiencing the outside world like you're an alien, observing the way a voice pulses through a neck, noting the inflection of a person's speech as they light up with excitement, petting a dog into submission and eating the last pancake is just more important. And the rest of the time, it's just as important. Finding a way to make everything possible is the key. But with the support of wonderful people, it's really not that hard.

In short, life's pretty good. And now, it's time to get back to work.

Reds

2011-06-14T19:24:00.002-05:00

Twice this past week and half, in the midwestern and southern regions of the CST block, I paused on a bench to observe and absorb what was there. And twice I saw a cardinal angle into a tree. Silently, they aimed their blushing bodies in and out of their respective destinations. To investigate an interesting leaf? To acquire a particularly fragrant bug? Whatever their goal, it was clearly defined by the fluttering of those agile wings--so brief and full of purpose. And as I watched them, I thought of self-discipline, grace and stamina. I thought, I would like to be more like that.

A Path

2011-06-08T08:24:00.002-05:00

For the first time in a long while, maybe ever at this particular job, it felt really difficult and awkward to switch my workbrain off to accommodate my creativebrain at the end of the day. But it wasn't a strained feeling, like I was too stressed out to accomplish the crossover. It was as if the two brains had made a connection at some point during the day, beyond my realization or wildest expectations, and didn't want to separate.

Maybe that's because I was taking story notes throughout the day, recording dialogue between people at my lunch table and training room during break. Listening intently to their depictions of gay 70s NYC and Houston and SF and the looming AIDS epidemic, absorbing details and pauses, laughter and vocal quivers. The majority of the people at this training are here because they work solely on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. And they are some of the most passionate and dedicated people I've ever met. Finally, it seems that I'm not among a team of robots but rather a whole world of people who have dedicated their lives to something they live and know with a heartbreaking intimacy.

But once I arrived at the Rothko Chapel, I didn't think about that anymore. My mind had already returned during a conversation, almost completely in Spanish, with my cab driver who insisted I become a model when I told him my greatest ambition is to return to school. Though I did my research, the Chapel was not quite what I expected. No stained glass or ornate doorways. And finally I understood the frivolity of such gestures. While I think cathedrals are beautiful to look at, after spending time at the Chapel I was reminded that all one really needs to worship or meditate is a peaceful space to be their quietest self in. I listened to myself, looked inside and wrote what I saw and heard for a little under an hour, and found a true sense of solidity there. It was too quiet and orderly not to. As I exited the Chapel, a man asked me what I'd been writing. I told him and he said, Perfect place to do that. And I said, Yes it is, isn't it? And despite my question mark, I know it was, in fact, the perfect place (worth the most expensive cab ride ever). This moment, even, was perfect in its honest and random delivery.

Just a few days ago at a community garden festival, a man greeted me with information about the garden and how I could get involved. As we chatted, it came up that I have lived in both Logan Square and Humboldt Park, and he asked me if I ever write about it. I hadn't told him I was a writer at all. But somehow he just knew to ask that question, and I had to say, Well yes, that's mostly what I write about, to which he laughed heartily. How validating. These vessels of memory, people and their messages, stories and their persistence. Stillness, reflection and a slow turning. Being present and realizing the gifts in this space.

From the Cullen Sculpture Garden

Instead of saying, what's going on here? I am saying, here is what is going on.

Update

2011-06-07T08:30:00.001-05:00

I'm currently at a hotel computer in Houston wishing I hadn't paid $80 for a replacement charger for my laptop that I probably won't be using now. Entering a training in about ten minutes, but just had to say that I am still a terrible person in the writing department. One wonderful thing I did last weekend, though, which I will tout here was to sit under a tree for just under 2 hours and read through all of my Pilar work and thoroughly edit and make notes on how I want to see it evolve. Tonight, I vow to take some time to work through at least one piece/group of notes. Especially since my roommate wants to kill me for snoring (How can all that noise come out of someone so little?).

Also, in between deadlines I bit the bullet and submitted something (that required minimal editing) to the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation. Next I will pull some pieces together for the upcoming Acentos submission deadline while I keep striking through last entry's list and piece together a more complete one after the various bullet pointed areas in this blog. Now, it's off to a continental breakfast snoozefest.

I lied.

2011-05-31T19:30:00.008-05:00

Note: This entry was begun 4 days ago, thusly I have been "writing" it for 4 days. Sigh.

I don't even know how many thousands of words behind I am at this point. I could blame it on my unpredictable and disruptive worklife (latest grant due on Tuesday midnight, decided after weeks of deliberation from my colleagues) or my insatiable desire to dance around my apartment and pet my neighbors' dog. But really it comes down to this: I'm being a lazy sumbeetch and I need to step it up.

So, here's the plan:

(not directly writing-related) Bike the Drive~~! And indulge in~~ carb and protein rich vittles ~~with no guilt or fear.~~ (With the added surprise of "bike in the rain until you are a raisin, go home and pass out in a bath, and then again on a couch," this has been accomplished.)
(not directly writing-related) Finish this grant, which I'm pretty excited about after talking to a caseworker here about the violence among youth in her community and how she's dealing with it by talking with her kids and their friends, and documenting their personal experiences with and reactions to it. (Done and sent before I was able to spell-check because I didn't realize I'd clicked "send"--yeah!)
(not directly writing-related) F~~inish a mid-year report due Friday, which will probably require some fabrication and long hours... I wouldn't know because I haven't started it yet.~~ (Done! Ahead of schedule and with time to spare for a sammich and some dog-petting.)
(not directly writing-related) Finish a proposal (to maintain funding for the program I have to write a report for) that I've been pecking away at for the last month with the self-imposed but largely unrealistic deadline of Friday afternoon (definitely unrealistic, as I am inserting this note on Saturday afternoon with no progress... this will be finished on my downtown in Houston next week, new projected deadline: June 9th). Then talk to my teacher about it over coffee, which I will probably really need by then.
Take the rest of Friday off for creative writing-specific activities. Here are some good ones:

~~finish Oreo (Angela, if you're reading this, please shake your head at me later when I am less stressed out)~~
~~come up with questions for the UTAustin people~~
fill up your writing calendar with deadlines (applications, contests, publication opportunities, etc.)
~~print/read all of the Pilar material you have~~
~~list the most important missing links you can decipher (i.e. character development)~~
~~list the elements that you know are working well (i.e. voice)~~
write 500-word bursts in direct response to each listed item (do your best to get ahead of word count, or at least catch up)
send your more complete piece(s) to people who agreed to give you feedback
write some poems for good measure
come up with a new blog project with Lady JJ
create an essential reading list and start crossing things out

And, perhaps most importantly, develop a sense of balance: be patient with your propensity for creating itemized lists that you do not cross off and do not hesitate to kick yourself in the arse as needed.
Also, don't be mad at your job. It provides you with food, an apartment and surprise trips to Texas.
And don't be mad at yourself either. It provides you with the drive and desire to do all of these things, even if its approach is not always very sensible or consistent.

Okay, lady-self, you got this! And you have already begun using the "strikethrough" button. Cake!

Yep, talking to myself.

Day 3: 0 words

2011-05-19T19:48:00.000-05:00

I am not saddened one bit by how pathetic that looks, because what I accomplished instead has opened up my mind and got the blood pumping in my brain. Also, if I start feeling guilty now, I won't ever finish this thing. So there.

Some ground rules for myself:
1. Stop asking stupid questions. (i.e. Why did I sign up for this? What if 500 words of crap everyday amounts to nothing but a bigger pile of crap instead of a refined and presentable poop? Can't I just start over next week?)
2. Pay attention to the signs. Good and bad. Don't beat yourself up for them. Just accept, learn, let go, move on, do a dance, get it down on paper.
3. Cheer up, emo kid. Writing is fun! So is life! And kissing. Kiss your hand if you have to. It'll make you feel better.
4. Start asking awesome questions. It may finally be time to gather up your balls and start interviewing family members. They are the keepers of the stories you most want to know and tell. Find your history and remake it.

One bazillion days to go! Tonight I will up the ante to 1500 words. Cake.

Day 2: 578 Words

2011-05-18T00:14:00.000-05:00

My plan was to revisit all of the old bits of this material that I am working through, and then continue the strongest piece until my hands fell asleep. That didn't happen. But maybe tomorrow? Instead I just typed up some weird ADD kind of pukething. Lots of fragments that are probably more connected than they seem at first glance, but right now feel very far away from each other. Tomorrow will be better. And earlier in the day.

Day 1: 632 Words

2011-05-17T01:01:00.004-05:00

After 2 weeks of tree-hugging and non-blogging, Arbor Day has finally come to a close. Now I'm onto the next writerly challenge of 2011. But first, good news updates:

My poem has been selected for publication! It has been such a long time since I could say that and feel genuinely excited. So, yay!
On June 10th, I expect to be visiting with the first in a group of MFA programs that I am strongly considering. Soon after, I expect to celebrate with a margarita and a dunk in a swimming hole. Double-yay!
My horoscope told me to be ablaze with a new idea... essentially, to make love to the page. And as cheese-tastic as I know that sounds, I am gonna be "ugh"ing my way to a (minimum) 53,000 word orgasm this summer. Ow-ow!

The challenge? At the urging of my fellow tortoise, I am now a member of the Summer Novelist's Club:

Summer is a grand time for books and reading. It's also for writing!
Beginning May 16 through August 28, members of the 2011 Ric Hess Memorial Summer Novelist's Club will write 500 words a day, every day, culminating in a completed, 53,000-word first draft. Think of it this way: It's just two pages a day!
We will all convene mid-summer at Sheffield's to touch base on progress.

So with a bunch of other Columbia alums--MFAd, teaching, rusty, published, overachieving and otherwise--I have embarked on a 106-day journey that will lead to a well-developed portfolio and a big, satisfied smile of achievement. Here's an excerpt from today's work: Only then she is awakened. By some superior knowledge, an uproariously magical secret, the feeling that this is something more important than she could ever choose not to bear.

Drafting 22/22

2011-04-29T11:34:00.003-05:00

Today is Arbor Day. Yesterday was the last official day of the Drafting experiment. And I already miss it.

Even the times when I stared at the page for minutes (possibly hours) and thought about this quote "Why be preoccupied with conjuring up concepts to approximate the structure of the universe when the point is that we change everything we observe merely by looking at it?" (Rob Breszny) In those agonizing moments ripe with mostly futile, sometimes inspirational, self-questioning I was just happy to have a path to run on and a partner to help keep my eyes and mind ahead of me. I sometimes imagined the words running with us, drafting with each other, a code of mismatched letters only decipherable to our sharpened (read: strained) gaze.

Drafting has taught me things about myself that I didn't anticipate wanting to know. The past few days in particular have put me in a very introspective place. My mind is so active with possibility. It wants to think new things, and I am really excited for it to teach the rest of me a lesson or two. It has made me more brave and completely disinterested with wasting time.

Regarding words, however, I've reached just one conclusion: this can only get easier and better with dedicated practice. But I suppose I already knew that. Though having a specific time frame with a loose goal attached has been a nice warm-up that I will keep in mind for times in the future when I'm feeling rusty or burnt out on writing. And knowing that, no matter what, I am a dedicated writer in the frame of this little empty box that will wait for me to fill it everyday before midnight (give or take a next-morning post or several) has made me look at my world with new eyes and light. Even on days when I wasn't writing, I was on the hunt for new ways to fill in the blanks and accentuate the ideas, notes, characters and lines that are tucked into some Word .doc or notebook.

Lady JJ, it has been a beautiful run. All of the coincidences this experiment has shed light on--the moments of true and artful synchronicity--have been a sincere testament to the power of partnership and dedication. Our through-lines have been my favorite part of the magic that kept my mind agile and my fingers moving. Did you know that imagining your reactions to what was here made it worth every moment of fear and annoyance? And there was much of that. Fear at being too honest, too transparent. Annoyance with my insecurities and the editor inside who never wants me to let me just speak. Once someone asked me who I write for. I answered my mom, which is true but only partially. I write for every person who I have ever felt such a tenderness with--that warm sense of acceptance and unspoken understanding. Thank you for listening and trusting me to say what you needed to hear.

Drafting 21/22

2011-04-27T23:33:00.003-05:00

A letter I can't send (until it is a nicer thing to say aloud):

I am back to feeling how I did when I was a teenager and your voice made me cringe because I wanted it to stop being louder than everyone else's. Your pain presses through your mouth and slaps us through incessant, frigid waves. And eventually every ear is frozen to the sounds you make. Then it is too late. Then you finally realize you are alone and want nothing but to hear another person's voice again. When will you stop counting on the thaw to save you? When will you remember to heal before you forget your bruises?

Drafting 20/22

2011-04-27T22:26:00.000-05:00

This week has been especially challenging for me and a few of my dearest. And because I know that things like that happen for reasons we identify later over beers and late night phone calls, I am grateful. Thank you Life, for your pop quizzes and cramps. For all of the sweeties and animalhumans you've put in my path. For moments when I am holding back hot, angry tears and the subsequent release. For my mind that is sometimes frazzled, but always in motion. For "good for right now." For the pieces I began but haven't yet finished. For all that I am cultivating. For all that nurtures me. For my porch and windy evenings. For every ounce of indecision, grief and fear that has propelled me forward. For the questions I am not ready to answer. For everything I know I must do even if I am not sure how to do it yet. For the ability to sometimes articulate what my heart needs to know, especially when I am hearing myself say it to someone else and realizing its echo is just for me.

Drafting 19/22

2011-04-26T00:14:00.000-05:00

Drafting 18/22

2011-04-25T23:32:00.001-05:00

Easter blew my mind! Actually, my mind has been blown for days and I feel that I am gathering it back to me so slowly that I'm growing quite impatient. In short, the evening was spent with too many carbs, stacks of (some kind of intense) baby pictures, the drone of an apathetic television in the background, a dog overjoyed at cleanliness and a new bed, synchronicity that didn't make sense right away because of its perfection, stories that are unfolding as slowly as my mind is returning to me, genuine concern parading as detached judgment, the tense buzz of what needs to be said.

I have been thinking about the connections between my genealogy findings and my current disposition towards my family, and trying to figure out how to best serve the situation. Abuelo is asking for something. Upon telling Mami about what I'd found, she said that she had just discovered a picture of him as a very young man (among the many ridiculous baby pictures she insisted on showing my guest at Easter dinner) and had immediately put it up on her altar. Later the same day, she telephoned Mami Abuelita (her mother, his first failed marriage) who told her that she had dreamt of him the night before. Either we are a family of witches or this man is trying to tell us something... or both.

Considering my recent failed attempts to write male characters, I can't help but think that there is some code in all of this for me to crack. Maybe L was right. Maybe I need to focus on the women (with their stories and pictures and willingness to share). It may be worth enduring the criticism (Ay, Cristy, why you not marriage yet? You too old!) to find some answers.

Drafting 17/22

2011-04-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

Today I rode my bike through a mist of tiny bubbles that appeared from nowhere. There was no one else on the street or sidewalk, and I couldn't spot any wand-holding culprits from windows above me. I smiled like a slice of watermelon. The day progressed with pistachio ice cream, pizza and talks about self-induced neuroses and the differences between a human and a robot. For one, robots do not have poems at their fingertips. For two, while robots may have written CAPTCHA, they are too dumb to crack the code necessary to comment on my blog.

I had secret plans to hide in a park with a small tub of ice cream and write my fingers numb. But instead I asked my friends if they wanted to ride bikes with me and completely distracted myself from being alone in a place where I could focus on my writing. In a roundabout way, Lady JJ and I talked about this--the process of instituting daily practices. If I can update this blog everyday (if only for the next 4 days) or make myself breakfast every morning, why can't I also meditate or write a few pages? The answer is, I can.

We also talked about the little surprises life poses when we are already feeling overwhelmed, bogged down, or otherwise consumed in what is most important. These things happen, seemingly, out of nowhere and serve only to provide a shift in energy. They enable us the opportunity to be laughed at or have a good laugh. But if we approach them with positivity and humor at every step, we are rewarded with mysterious clouds of bubbles.

Moral of the story: try to be more a like a robot in order to be more like a human.

P.S. I fully expect this entry not to make any sense because I am tired and not using my brain to its full potential. Please forgive me. Good night.

Drafting 16/22

2011-04-22T21:57:00.000-05:00

Some things and somethings:

On days off I mostly do these three things: eat, sing, clean. At work I long for days off to write and meditate and read without abandon. And when I get them, I inevitably choose instead to listen to oldies and dance around my apartment with a piece of toast hanging out of my mouth and a mop in my hands.
Yesterday, my mouth was quicker than my brain on so many occasions that I wondered what I could've done with that energy had I been sitting at my desk typing before thinking.
Today at the grocery store, as David Bowie sang "Let's Dance" overhead, a face-painted couple of little people spun each other around the bouquets of Spring flowers.
Songs always happen at the right time. Sometimes I get very nervous when particular songs occur in particular moments where it seems they shouldn't be. The lyrics disturb me and pull me out of whatever moment I am in, cause me to reevaluate and analyze a situation to death. This propensity to create conflict is why I am a writer, I have decided (so as not to feel crazy). Bring it on, Pandora. I'm ready for you.

Drafting 15/22

2011-04-22T21:49:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, I had the extreme honor of seeing a spoken word, poetry, Puerto Rican community legend, David Hernandez, perform with the Afro-Latin jazz/poetry band Street Sounds (thanks to the lovely Palabra Pura familia). After my dates and I enjoyed various fried plantain dishes across the room from the local Alderman, we alighted the steps of La Bruquena restaurant to the after hours room packed to the gills with the most diverse crowd I've ever seen there. This tiny, old (self-proclaimed), balding (also self-proclaimed) Puerto Rican man had brought in a crowd of fans and strangers alike to learn about his Chicago (and shake a tiny tail feather).

He read a piece about hating the bike helmet his wife bought him because it looks like a beetle and he looks like a Puerto Rican stuck up a beetle's ass when he wears it. The music varied from old standards and improvised flute solos that induced a sense of rhythmic floating. I felt like there was a kindred spirit in this nearly 70-year-old person born in an island I know embarrassingly little about. A place I feel in my hips when certain drumbeats find them. One of the places I am from but find myself constantly struggling to identify from this comfortable urban plateau on which my family and I have settled.

If Abuelo had been around to slap me across the face when I spoke English in his house, I wonder how different I'd be. How much more kindred or monumental events like the above would feel. How much more would I know then? The letter I wrote to Abuelo ended with a question, When you died, what did you know? Seeing a legend before me in a small, familiar venue down the street from my house makes me think I should learn how to ask those questions before I no longer have the chance to.

Drafting 14/22

2011-04-20T23:44:00.001-05:00

Remix! This is version two of yesterday's piece after I decided I didn't like it and rewrote on my phone during the busride home:

there is no thrill purer than the budding
excitement of busy hands
on either side of a vast
and thin skin

combining creases to form a neat package
that smells of wet lavender and settles
between the tight V of our kneeling laps

as our faces slope
closer in celebration for the
taming of what had been unravelled

Not sure which attempt I like better right now. This could become a thing. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

Also, is it wrong that I feel most interested in getting to know new people when I am thinking of them as potential characters? Though I really enjoyed talking to my mail carrier, Raina, today--I was most certainly seeing "character" emblazoned all across her forehead. And I couldn't help but feel kind of guilty when she started opening up to me. My questions were harmless ones like, "Oh, why's that?" Questions I would love to, and sometimes do (though the results are often far less useful), ask the characters I am writing. But there isn't a potential for real human emotion when I'm writing these "people" until I inscribe it. When Raina told me that she'd have to leave her post and move to Belleville because she is pregnant, her head was down and she seemed embarrassed when I congratulated her. She hmmphed and said, yeah, well it's something new. She was an exposed nerve, and as gentle as I can be, there was nothing I could do to avoid striking her with my inept attempt at understanding. It was nice to meet you, we said. She smiled and, as she walked away, sputtered out, I just can't wait to finish this block. If you hear somebody screaming "woohoo!" down at the corner in a few minutes, you'll know it's me.

Drafting 13/22

2011-04-19T23:42:00.001-05:00

Instead of crashing like a normal person would after working for over 24 hours with minimal food breaks, a couple phone chats and an unsatisfactory nap in between, I meditated. And as I did, two wonderful things happened that caused me to pause. One, a raging storm cracked its light through the sky and entranced me with its deep and insistent roars. Two, this piece demanded to be written and called me over to my desk until it was confident that I had gotten it right:

folding a sheet with my lover

there is no thrill purer than the budding excitement of busy hands
on either side of a vast and thin skin we hold tautly between us
straightening the creases and forming smaller squares that inch
us closer while we build a neat package that smells vaguely of wet
lavender and settles between our kneeling laps combining into
a tight V as our expectant faces slope into each other in celebration
and relief at taming the limitless layer until we unravel in it again

Drafting 12/22

2011-04-19T07:55:00.002-05:00

Workworkworkworkworkblegh. Underslept. Overslept. Ball of spindly nerves rolling around my belly. Want more of Sunday, more liberties with the page, with my words. If given the chance, there are many things I would say now due to delirium and the kind of helpless honesty it induces. But for now, this:

Drafting 11/22

2011-04-18T00:22:00.004-05:00

Today, I did not write a lick.

My thoughts were restless and constantly meandered from the best way to describe this or that as I pedaled against the cerulean curve of the lakefront path; watched a storm bud then blend into the lightest blues in the sky; hung my sandy feet over a pier and imagined sliding down a boulder thick with years of mold; stared into tiny moons whose glow warmed my chilled neck; considered the skill of jokemaking and how a particular character would have said what I wanted to but didn't because it crossed my mind too late; was fed and ate and picnicked and delighted in so many different kinds of flavors and textures (I love pistachio frozen yogurt!); soaked in a hot bath that smelled like roses and grapefruit and shriveled my skin.

Days like this are a gift, a break that is demanded by something more powerful and intentional than any to-do list or misguided attempt at orchestrating perfection. They are an exercise in "not-doing."

Drafting 10/22

2011-04-16T20:03:00.001-05:00

Sometimes synchronicity is a sting between the eyes. Sometimes it is a warm belly and laughing so hard you are shaking the table. It is sitting in a church pew, passing the bottle opener and singing along. Or the phone call you almost made but didn't have to in the end. It is the moment of story that finds you without your knowing it needed to be told. It is that turn of phrase you didn't know you would need to write down until you found it in your pocket a month later. And it is the poem that was born there.

There are many obstacles I have and will continue to face in this process, but I will not focus on them. Here are some accomplishments to remind me I am doing right:

I listened to my creative instincts and researched my way into a rewrite of a piece I had forgotten about. (Thanks Abuelo) Then I began to rewrite it.
I found a hidden gem in my scorned writing files and am looking for some editors to help me make it publishable. Then I will rewrite it and send it out.
I have kept my pacts with my sweetie and my tortoise, and we are building up a good strong wind. (Did you feel it today? That was us!) No excuses.

Writing everyday is changing me, slowly but surely, into the person I most love: my happiest self.

Drafting 9/22

2011-04-15T13:08:00.004-05:00

A thought and quick Google search of an old professor, Antonia Logue, brought me (through a series of links) to a genealogy site where I found my grandfather's birth certificate and death notice. This is not something that I have ever been interested in finding before. I am definitely intrigued by family histories--those little charts that sometimes appear at the beginning of an especially complicated character-driven novel or play. And, sure, it would be cool to see one that reflected people I know, the characters who share my blood. But I have never been interested in actually doing the work of trying to figure out who every stepsister and brother-in-law was and why they moved to a neighboring town the year before the baby was born. Today, however, my fingers were guided to distract me from impending deadlines (I'm definitely on the clock right now). And now I have a .jpg of my maternal grandfather's birth certificate sitting on my desktop.

The last time I wrote about him, and possibly even really thought about him was in Antonia's class. It was my very first Fiction Writing class as an undergrad, and our assignment was to "write a letter to someone you don't know." I wrote my Abuelo Gomez a letter telling him how I wished I'd known him so I could understand why Mami always says I'm so much like him. I have always felt that he walks with me, behind me, guiding me to the places I need to be (especially the scary ones) and helping me extend a hand in generosity and greeting to people I need to be near. But how could a man who wore bowties, interviewed beauty queens, drank until he was howling at the moon and had more girlfriends than he did dollars in the bank remind a mother of her own daughter?

Something came over me when I looked at that document, which lists all of the family members in attendance. If I'd been holding it in my hand, my fingers would shake trying to keep his life steady in them, attempting sloppily to wipe away the moistness around my eyes so I wouldn't smudge the delicate ink. The nurse's penmanship is so simply ornate: soft sweeping tails at the end of every "Gomez," crowns tilted from the bow of each "R." As if this document--a quiet validation of his existence--deserved the same amount of care as he did while she bathed his still pulsing, bloody body in an aluminum tub.

He died a decade before I was even a thought bubble in my mother's uterus. He was a periodista, media man, interviewer-at-large, constantly traveling and meeting famous people and charming them to teary chuckles. Born in Mexico but in love with Puerto Rican culture... and women. He loved all women, in fact, and--despite his stocky (but always well-groomed and perfumed) build--they loved him too. He wore thick-framed glasses and houndstooth suits. He always had a notebook in his back pocket that he reached for soberly or with mischief (depending on the interviewee), but always proudly. He taught himself English by going to the library to read the dictionary everyday after 10 hours of assembling Schwinn bikes within the first few months of living in Chicago. An affectionate joker, he loved to tease and could make a friend of anyone. He drank tequila and whiskey on the roof with his Irish police officer friend, among others who could tolerate his obliterated "Ajuuuua"s. He liked to take his daughters to El Taco Parado and watch with impish delight as they attacked their arrachera slabs tucked into tortillas bigger than their faces.

All I have of him are these little clues from stories that have been pieced together by my mother over years of missing him and reconciling with his faults. I don't even know what to call him. Is he my Abuelo? I doubt he would've allowed me to call him Grandpa after the story Mami told me of how he slapped her the first and only time she used English "en mi casa" to tell her sister to stop hitting her. He has become a sort of magical ghost who I envision sometimes in the corner of a bar, leaning and having a laugh with someone beautiful. How do we miss people we don't even know? How do we become like them without ever having met them? And how do we write them back into existence?

Drafting 8/22

2011-04-15T00:26:00.002-05:00

Suddenly I have to remind myself that it's not lying when you write it down. As if I cannot stop stuffing my mouth with untruths--little fences I create to peek through from a safe distance. (Don't worry, they're only things that don't matter to anyone but me anyhow.) L reminded me what falling feels like, and this is the moment just before. My fear is that when I stop making little fences, there will be nothing between me and that vast open space. And then I will have to face what's been facing me from across the way. This is not who I've always been. And it is certainly not who I always want to be. But for now I am tiptoeing a stolen glance through blinds that shut out the fence slats, being worn down by weather and time.

Drafting 7/22

2011-04-13T23:57:00.000-05:00

This entry began with a list of things that I don't like about myself and want to change. Then I thought... what does this have to do with being a better writer? So I wrote another list that related each item to writing. Then I asked myself, Is it possible that this has even less to do with writing than the other list? And I replied, Yes.

So, instead I am going to respond to a friend's blog that referenced a quote I cited in one of my own entries. Here it is again, from Audre Lorde: When I dare to be powerful--to use my strength in the service of my vision--then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

I have to admit that when I sat down to try to work all these ideas out in the first place, I was so stumped that I called my drafting sweetie J and said, "I don't know what to write." After my utterance, I immediately cracked up because I was being so silly... but it was true. I had thought myself into a corner in an action that was very much not in service of the work I am trying to do. Like my blogging friend JY says, "You have to respect yourself enough to want to be heard." Like Audre said, you have to "dare to be powerful."

Part of writing is a service to the self. This is the part that stumps me the most because I feel drawn to and repelled by its demand for honesty and reflection. Just last night at dinner with L, after she commented on the strength of my female characters and suggested I keep focusing on them, I replied with "I deny myself the indulgence of writing them too much because I already know who they are." What the heck is that? If I know them and I feel their stories are important enough to share, then I must serve them and honor their voices. I must respect myself enough to validate the voices of these women who are resonating within me.

And just to make this entry a little more referential and drowned in links, I have to quote another blogger that my friend JY referenced in her response to Audre Lorde's quote. I am kind of mesmerized with her blog actually. She's saying so many things I need to hear and want to believe and do in my own practice (writing and spiritual). But this is the thing that really got me: Last month, while I was writing, I did something silly. I let the editor in. Instead of writing, I edited. I deleted and moved paragraphs. I nitpicked and dawdled over the placement of words. Toward the end of the month, I noticed my word count wasn’t going anywhere, despite how much time I was spending “writing”. Then it occurred to me: I wasn’t writing at all.

Well, damn. I know what that feels like! In some ways this whole blogging experiment is a big old example of prioritizing the editor. But there's more to it than that... just like there's more to the work itself than its placement on the page and the word choice we settle on just to keep moving along to the next line. JY talks about her inner-battle with figuring out the kind of writer she wants to be, and if that person should pursue grad school and teaching or just immerse herself in the writing. This is something I ask myself constantly. It's something I ask when I think of how much longer I am willing to keep my desk job. Or when I am so desirous of a learning and teaching environment that I want nothing but to return to school full-time. Then, of course, there's this constant tugging I feel from the Writer in me who just wants to eat, sleep and put these ideas and stories down on paper forever.

Who am I serving by denying myself the ability to lead with words (as a student, teacher or writer)? After reading through excerpts J sent of Dr. King's "The Drum Major Instinct" sermon, I am compelled to share this: If I can help somebody as I pass along, / If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, / If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, / Then my living will not be in vain. This idea is something any of us can commit to--being better servants to one another (ourselves), approaching life (writing) through love, and maintaining self-honesty and compassion when we are the ones who are traveling wrong.

Drafting 6/22

2011-04-12T23:30:00.000-05:00

Today I got all riled up on my social networking (I don't know why I can't just say Facebook) page about some comedian sisters who are making a living at being obnoxious in Humboldt Park. Then realized this is the perfect inspiration for a response to the prompt created by fellow tortoise, L: Jokes that were never meant to be jokes. Like, for example, excessive trilling of Rs or equating the female shape to hot sauce or ridiculously played out salsa "dancing" that ends up looking more like a cheesy Flamenco impression. It is not funny to make fun of something you don't know anything about.

I generally have a hard time laughing at things that are "different" or "weird" anyway. Really, I don't understand those terms. Everything just seems to fit (doesn't it?), even if when it causes discomfort. Everything has its place. In all honesty, I find myself to be a little bit different and weird. I have always felt like I was doing things in a way that was a bit too unexpected or divergent to be considered normal. And, in any case, who determines what is not normal? What is laughable?

Something I do not talk about very much, because I find that most people do not care to know or feel they know enough already and/or are scared, is my spiritual practice. I am a Santera, and was initiated in a traditional ceremony (yes, involving animal sacrifice) 9 years ago nearly three months after my 16th birthday. I was not really sure about what it all meant--the coconuts and protocol and chickens and traditional garb and shrines and dancing--but felt very much at ease with committing to an indigenous practice. Catholicism had never boded well with me. But combined with the Yoruba traditions of Nigeria, it seemed much more approachable.

There are so many layers to what Santeria (also termed Yoruba, Candomble, Vodun, Lucumi, etc.)--or any religion, for that matter--encompasses for any individual practitioner. Personally, it has become something that I find comfort in; a relaxing, stable and constant force that is regularly in the back of my thoughts. Keeping altars and refreshing them, sitting with them and knowing they are in my living space brings me a deep satisfaction. This accompanied with meditation (like deep breathing, or praying, or yoga, or whatever you'd like to call it), writing, eating well, exercising and thinking critically about the world are what I consider to be my complete and holistic spiritual practice.

I have to admit that I don't know how much I buy into the idea of animal sacrifice, possession or divination. Yet these are integral parts of Santeria. And continuously begging these questions of my practice is what keeps me interested and fulfilled by it. When people are freaked out by the concept of feeding something that is not "really there" (with offerings set before altars) and any of the other various "oddities" of Santeria (even the ones I am also baffled by), I can't help but laugh. What is the difference between the devotion we have for comic book characters who are not "really there" and emblems of gods and goddesses (or, as I prefer to view them, energies that we interact with--like thunder or the ocean)? What is so harmless about the dolls we keep from our childhood because of our emotional attachments to them as compared to the "frightening" and "unusual" statuettes used to represent spiritual guides in a boveda? Why are the things we don't understand so funny?

Santeria is not an outdated, savage cult that is trying to eat your babies. It is just as natural and real for many people as a long tall glass of water on a hot day. Some of them are even people you know.

(Ugh, this was not supposed to be a rant. And it was supposed to sound prettier. I wanted to defy my rantaciousness with a more creative and funny interpretation of the above thoughts. Sorry, L, I'll try again tomorrow.)

Drafting 5/22

2011-04-11T22:45:00.001-05:00

Note to myself that I am only comfortable sharing with you if you agree: Sometimes I reach a point of believing that every moment is fleeting. It's as if I am outside and in front of the moment, looking back at it instead of being there to experience what is actually occurring. These are times when I want to ask ridiculous questions that erupt from my shaky, frazzled ego. These are moments when I should be writing. (Thanks W, for helping me remember that and much more.)

On Februrary 8th, I was far more well-behaved about this whole blogging promise. My update for the submission checklist I posted there is:

1) Success! 2) Failure! 3) and 4) We'll see...

And the list of "next steps":

1) Only half of that is true. 2) Did it! 3) Oops... forgot! Tomorrow's entry it shall be. 4) Yes, until I am blue in the face.

A quote that made me stop and say "whoa" (because it applies to everything [ever] and it's Audre Lorde):

When I dare to be powerful--to use my strength in the service of my vision--then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

The use of the word "service" in this phrase really hit a chord with me. A great source of contention I feel with my job is not knowing if I am really being "of service" or not. It is easy to feel this way in the non-profit field, although you are indirectly serving a cause, if you are not working directly with the community. Likewise, the use of the word "vision" caused me to think about what it is that I see most clearly when I sit down and work (at my job, or at home when I'm writing)--if there is anything I am seriously trying to visualize at all. What vision do I project for the world I live in (read: my community at large) when I am in it (read: outside of my normal day-to-day routine) meeting people, making wishes, imagining and re-inventing?

A new to-do list to keep myself in line for at least the next few days:
1) Write with "ugh" sounds, the ones that W says you emit when are you "making love to the page."
2) Sit down in your quiet, undefined spaces and search yourself for answers.
3) If you insist on making so damn many lists, then actively work towards checking items off. Yeesh.
4) Handwrite letters to people who you know will write you back and don't stop.
5) Experience more art in all forms and allow it to inspire inquiries that you will reinterpret later.
6) Read everything anyone ever sends you (articles, messages, creative writing, etc.) and respond in some way (i.e. privately, publicly, directly, indirectly), even if it's way after they sent it.

Drafting 4/22

2011-04-11T00:07:00.001-05:00

Things I'd like to write about but am not sure how yet:

memory
misheard words
the physiology of joy
the physiology of shame

Things I always write about:

mother-daughter relationships
love
dogs
childhood

Questions I always ask myself:

Is that true?
Why is that happening?
Did I give away too much?
What's next?

Here's something that needs to be bigger but isn't yet. It's part of the same body of work I excerpted two entries ago.

Roli

He strolls along like he's fighting a current. The wind is relaxed on this sunny day, but the weight against his body is visible, deliberate. He struggles. And he'll be the first to tell you. "You know this neighborhood is kinda rough, sis," he says on moving day as he helps me drag in my mattress. "But it ain't as bad as when I was 'bangin." He sniffs, "There's white people around and shit." We heave one final time and place my yellowing mattress against the wall; a team. I say, "Your pants are falling," and he is quiet again. My brother doesn't talk much.

Drafting 3/22

2011-04-10T00:59:00.000-05:00

I mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search

I have made a habit of running into people wherever I go. It might be due to my observant nature, selectively impressive memory, having lived in Chicago my whole life, or the very small-town nature of this city. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes unnerving... tonight it was just serendipitous. Signs. To what? I don't know yet. (Those revelations usually come when I leave here.) At The City In Which, I ran into someone who engaged me in a conversation about an agency I used to belong to that is coincidentally responsible for my introduction to the poetry of Li-Young Lee. We talked about the oddness of community and how natural it is for some people to move on and others to remain. How this balance is the very thing that keeps community alive and growing, so long as people understand this and continue to reconnect--better and different everytime. Hopefully mish-moshing their knowledge to create new inquiries, new platforms for creating.

Then during an intermission, I had a conversation with someone interested in the very same organization, curious about its fame and infrastructure. Unfortunately, my praises were laden with warnings, and that was simply the best I could muster with all honesty about and loyalty to my past. Though this community has demonstrated its potential as a solid and productive support system, it is just not a nurturing place anymore. The thing about living in one place your whole life--knowing what you want to do from an early age, finding a community when you are young and at your most vulnerable and fearless--is that everything begins to have an undertone of tension. Plowing through this city can become something strained rather than emboldening--a tight rope that continues unfurling the closer you believe you are to solid ground.

And, later, at a bar that was reached after going the wrong way (which is always the right way... more on this later), I found an old friend who has lines of the aforementioned poem tattooed on the insides of each arm. I told him about the film and we exchanged a look of "of course," of jaded city slickers, of unhipstery hipsters in the small, crowded bar with a pool table and $5 drafts.

More about going the wrong way: I don't believe that is possible. The film depicted Chicago in several different ways, some literal and some less so. There were a series of shots that were foggy and repeated the image of a ring that became smaller, as if focusing on a target that never fully came into focus. This is kind of what going the wrong way feels like to me. And also what living in this city feels like at times. Finding, refinding and never finding the place you think you are headed. Focusing on the narrowing viewfinder instead of the panorama before you.

A note I wrote while riding a bus in the direction opposite of my destination:

The wrong way is never the wrong way. (Am I going the right way?) Passing Gordon Tech with the 1987 basketball champs poster above its front entrance, I realize that this was the year my brother was on the team. When, after the cheers and ritual, he walked outside with my year-old body on his shoulders like a trophy and all the kids crowded him like they did during fights. But it was just a brother and sister celebrating a victory. All in its time and place. To think about what we haven't yet. And what must be written but wasn't before.

Drafting 2/22

2011-04-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

Because I don't have a digital copy of the piece I am working on for my writing date with L, I'm just going to type it up here and share it with you. Please feel free to comment. This is the beginning (or middle... or end...) of a larger body of work that I've been trying to uncover and rediscover for the past 3 years or so:

It's time to close the book.

Pilar looked up from her bright yellow-bound serial detective novel. A low roar of mmm. Mmmami, pleeease. Mmmami, come onnn.

No, m'ija. You can read more tomorrow. Her body leaned sternly on the doorframe until Pilar did as she was told. And even went so far as to tuck herself in with a dramatic ruffling of blankets and defiant sniff.

As Mami turned out the lights, she thought, what a strange little lion, m'ijita.

And the lion thought, as she sometimes did when Mami told her to do something she didn't want to, that Mami should've been taller. The plain seriousness of her bull face, the endless girth of her wet doe eyes, her tree trunk of a trenza--thick India hair that she would recognize in herself soon--these all seemed to be more suitable for a person with longer legs and arms. Someone strong enough to carry all these imposing features. Yet still there was something undeniably grand about her. Her arm so sleek and elegant as she lifted her hand to turn off the light switch. The straight no-nonsense spine that ignored the limitations of height in expressing itself. Yes, Mami was tall, despite her height, despite herself. She was the tallest woman Pilar had ever known.

But this did not stop her from pulling the flashlight out from her kangaroo's pocket and continuing to read under the covers as soon as Mami shut the door. She didn't like sleeping with the door shut anyway. Too dark. So, as she often did after Mami told her to close the book, Pilar curled up with her back to door and placed the beaming light stick on her chest. As if it was a piece of her heart spilling light from within on to the pages she adored so much. She couldn't get enough of these books that told the story of some rich white girl who was so smart and pretty that she could solve any crime. Except for the ones where she needed help from her boyfriend. Because even though she was really very smart and super super pretty, she was still a girl and could use a strong hand every now and again. Kind of like Mami. Although, Pilar knew that Mami was much taller than this girl.

Still there is that once that she told Pilar about how right before she was born, she had wanted to leave Papi. Pilar responded by looking away from her Mami and scratching under her knee like she often did when she was nervous.

But why Mami--don't you love him? This made Mami cry.

I don't know m'ija. What didn't she know? If she loved him?

Mami, it's okay if you want to make a divorce. I don't care, Ma. What little girl said such things?

Ay, Pilar, que dices? That's enough... let's go to the panaderia and get some elephant ears, yeah? She dried her eyes with a fast food napkin from the glove compartment, daubing the corners gently then using her fingers to slide under the lower lids like a windshield wiper. All gone. Better now. Time for cookies.

But Pilar couldn't shake it, not even as she munched on the oreja. She kept looking over at Mami to check if she was crying, because in the silence she was scared that things would never again be okay. Just like when Mami expected her to fall asleep in the pitch black of her room at night. It was too quiet sometimes to think about anything good. When it gets too quiet, that is when the monsters come and try to eat your thoughts, so you have to think of nothing, but then they hear you scratching under your knee and they find you even though you didn't think not one thought. They find you and they make you think sad, scary things while they steal your happy thoughts away forever. So you have to keep a light on so they can never come in the room.

Spring Thaw

2011-04-07T23:40:00.000-05:00

The past several weeks have stirred me so much that I feel I have been an icicle all along and am finally beginning to melt. Here is a list to further explain: airplanes, sunsets, retracted statements, policies and procedures, shedding, bicycles, moons, the mistakes we learn to repeat better, ocean, fearlessness, finding synchronicity in unexpected places, settling in, bubbles, hunger, reaching out, pacts, enigmas, looking for joy and finding it.

Lately, I have felt deeply inspired by and consequently jealous of the amazing people I've met and the ones I already know (administrators, artists, writers, teachers, students) who have shared with me their wonderful stories. Jealousy is nothing to be proud of but, in the spirit of having no regrets, I know it is a necessary impetus for this path I am determined to walk. Instead of feeling inadequate in the face of the wonderfully accomplished and brilliant people I know, I am trying to learn something new about myself and grow from our collective knowledge.

One way I like to encourage myself to be better is by creating and accepting new challenges (sometimes to the point of great ridiculosity). My newest challenge is in response to a conversation I had tonight with a dear lady. Over dinner, J told me about a poet friend of hers whose writing regimine inspired her own. In his devotion and consistency (during a residency when he was doing not much but writing), she found a source of energy to mirror and apply to her own practice. This, she said, is like a running term called "drafting" in which one person runs ahead to establish a pace for the other one who is following. So now we, too, are drafting. I will post something on this blog (not making any promises on quality here) every day until April 28th. And J will post enigmatic comments that will update me on the status of her manuscript (due the very same day) as well as inspire me to write my own enigmas.

This is besides the challenge that I have developed with another dear lady who has joined me in the past on some practice runs. But now, L and I are determined to submit to 2nd Story by the June 1st deadline. And I encourage anyone who reads this to join us and learn more about this group of amazing storytellers. We are getting there gradually but with much care and focus. We are tortoises, and that is a wonderful and amusing thing.

There's so much more to say. But I am looking forward to getting it all out tomorrow and the next day and the next. Every day. Like a real writer.

Freeze

2011-03-02T22:49:00.052-06:00

So, instead of doing all of the things I said I was going to do, I decided to join my friend on a road trip to LA. Which is kind of like doing all the things I said I was going to do in that taking a long overdue break will help me regain my focus as soon as I get settled again. This weekend I will finally be moving into my own place, where the first things to be unpacked are my computer and books. And though I know I will be busy for a while, my mind feels ready for all that is coming.

One important element of the trip took place on the last day when we visited the ocean and I took some time to talk to an old friend there in the water. He helped me learn to let go of some things, and I am--as ever--grateful to have known him. Happy Birthday, dear. Another important element came through family I hadn't seen in nearly 13 years. They taught me about being brave enough to persevere with an amazing amount of diplomacy and hope.

There were many other moments, places, people... lots that has colored the past month. I have attended some truly enriching readings (Edwin Torres, Paul Martinez Pompa, Amalia Ortiz, Duriel E. Harris) that made me feel all cozy about poetry again. And I will be reading a piece later this month.

Life is good. Especially when it doesn't go as planned.

And now, some pretty pictures of places that only exist in dreams:

Broadway Bridge in Kansas City, Missouri

Resting up for the long journey.

What one does in Taos.

The Vortex

Hollywood High School (mural: Eloy Torres)

Venice Beach

Submission #1

2011-02-14T23:09:00.000-06:00

The Hypochondriac and The Swimmer

I.
A woman who keeps
pain in her body
so she can smile
as she washes his
dirty underwear

reshapes
embitterment
to fit in her
arthritic knees.

Her memory is deformed
and stubborn
as a splinter
that waits
to be freed.

She doesn't know that
the salt of words
will cure
the gashes under
her skin,

will season
and make succulent
any pain.

There is a story
she will never tell
about a handsome man
who ran away, then
returned to the woman
he'd left,

who tied her
to a wooden chair,
who shoves prickly pears
in her
mouth and
punched the fruit out
of her
cheeks, leaving
chunks
on the floor
to rot.

II.
A girl who is
a woman
pours herself down
a drain
that is stopped up
with her
immeasurable hair.

As she swims
down through clumps
of herself,
she remembers
what she poured
out before.
The voices
of the ones
she left behind
are caught here

and she is
plucking them
out like strands
of light.

She is
rewriting
a book of history

here

in this
cold throat.

A Few Things

2011-02-08T23:28:00.004-06:00

Ideas thanks to my friends:

A children's book --

J: Where do butterflies sleep?
C: In my stomach.

A short story --

N: You need a dog baby.
C: That sounds like a title for something.
N: What would "Dog Babies" be about?
C: It would be a satire about yuppies in Bucktown. Massive baby strollers would be involved.

Submissions/Contests:

The literary journal, Ariel, is accepting poetry submissions until February 15th. Please email 1-3 poems (any style) to arieljournal@yahoo.com and include a brief bio. Direct any questions to the same address.
What writer doesn't have an adversarial relationship with deadlines? At SLS, as writers ourselves, we can empathize, and so by popular request, we are extending the deadline to February 28th, 2011. Winners in fiction (judged by Jayne Anne Phillips) and poetry (judged by Matthew Zapruder) receive free tuition, accomodations, and travel to any of the 2011 SLS programs, as well as publications in Black Warrior Review and, online, in Canada's premiere literary magazine, The Walrus.
BOMB Magazine is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Our annual Fiction Contest is judged this year by novelist Rivka Galchen (author of Atmospheric Disturbances and recently named one of The New Yorker's "20 under 40" list). The contest winner will receive $500 and the story will be published in an upcoming issue of BOMB's literary supplement, First Proof. The deadline is April 16 (must be postmarked by then). All submissiosn will be read anonymously. Please let your students and colleagues know that information can be found online here: http://bombsite.com/issues/0/articles/4770
The Union League Civic & Arts Foundation will award up to $5,200 for excellence in the Creative Writing Competition. An Anthology of select winners' work will be published. For the competition guidelines and application please visit our website at http://www.civicandarts.org/. Submission Deadline: June 1, 2011

----

Next Steps: (1) Get halfway through Oreo by Fran Ross and write a reflection by Sunday. (2) Choose three poems to submit to Ariel and post one here by Monday. (3) Make a list of possible submissions for the SLS, BOMB and Union League contests and post it here. (4) Post something about the wonderful writerly conversations you have been lucky enough to share recently; remember that there is no shame in talking about writing (when you feel like you aren't writing enough).

Happy Birthday, Papi

2011-02-03T22:32:00.002-06:00

On the way home, I took notes in the backseat while my dad told his driving friend two stories about neighbors he had during the storm of '79. These are some bits:

cleaned out my spot, it was immaculate
when i came back my neighbor had parked there
knocked on his door
from the background, who is it? then he spells s-p-i-c aloud.
i said, yr daddy's a spic.
when i come back it better be... are you threatening me...
when i came back, it was empty

the kid was initimidating my son, left marks all over
whole family was bullying him
i punched him, didn't make a mark, right in the forehead
he fell back
then the father came with a rifle, grandma came with a bat
ripped my thumb when i pulled the bat away
old boy and his mama, pregnant sister and her Mexican baby daddy
no te muevas porque a ti te lo doy como un hombre
explained to cops
blood
showed him my son
my wife said, no i'm the one who called
he told me not to say anything about hitting them back
they drew a rifle, a gun? where is it?

Today is the Lunar New Year and his 60th birthday--the third without either of his parents. He is nostalgiac for a time when he was fearless. He says, turn that way, that's Oak Park, the streets are definitely plowed, it's Oak Park, heh. He's proud.

For the young who want to

2011-01-28T12:01:00.002-06:00

Talent is what they say

you have after the novel

is published and favorably

reviewed. Beforehand what

you have is a tedious

delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done

after the play is produced

and the audience claps.

Before that friends keep asking

when you are planning to go

out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you

had after the third volume

of remarkable poems. Earlier

they accuse you of withdrawing,

ask why you don’t have a baby,

call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,

take workshops with fancy names

when all you can really

learn is a few techniques,

typing instructions and some-

body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks

a license to hang on the wall

like your optician, your vet

proving you may be a clumsy sadist

whose fillings fall into the stew

but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one

who really writes. Talent

is an invention like phlogiston

after the fact of fire.

Work is its own cure. You have to

like it better than being loved.

--Marge Piercy

Cray-Cray

2011-01-26T23:12:00.001-06:00

This week has marked my regression to writing in my raggedy, almost-full journal, detailing my doubts and making lists of what I need vs. what I want. Before that, I did make some progress in rewriting a piece that I have been wanting to finish for about three years. This is the first paragraph: "Why are writers, and any other artists for taht mater, so emotional (read: crazy)? We are strange creatures from the depths of the seas--tender, crushable shells with unusual coloring and ornate spikes that are soft to the touch. We are observant, brooding creatures who grunt indecipherably to the people around us. But when we are compelled to express something and be understood, we sing with a shocking clarity." I started and then stopped because it just got too thick in there. It is not only about being a writer, but using words to mourn. Lots of weird coincidences and creepy body tingles through dreams and text messages and other peoples' stories forced me into a corner (rather, I allowed myself to crawl into one). Soon, I will pick up where I left off.

While I haven't been reading as much as I would like, I did finish the Alice Walker book and watched 2 movies about writers. The book was, as expected, comforting and full of fruit metaphors and commentary on sexuality/queerness/brownness. I don't care what folks think... I loves me some Alice Walker. (Virginia Woolf has been temporarily put on the backburner until I can find some quiet time--without the blaring of TV, snoring or any other noises that I am really looking forward to moving away from in February--to absorb and reabsorb all that she is saying, which is a lot.) The first movie I saw was a documentary called "William S. Burroughs: A Man Within" and the other was a biographical drama called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." They were both really intense and probably overwhelming since I've been a little scared of exposing my writing since watching them.

Consequently, I've also been grappling with the ways in which I am both obsessive and unrealistic (thanks Facebook!). While this might all seem unrelated, my mind is sewing it all together with one question: what now? Feeling trapped by habits, a less than ideal living situation and fear is not the way to make strides. So, my analysis of these films and my brainsewings is this: writing is not easy; it is not supposed to be easy; if it was easy I wouldn't do it. That said, I am hoping to never accidentally kill my wife, become addicted to heroin, have a debilitating and ultimately fatal stroke or lose the ability to use my right eye. But... if any of those terrible things were to happen, at least, I know that I could still be a writer--and a pretty good one at that. Because as hard as this thing gets, it is never too difficult to undertake with a bit of perseverence and passion (read: craziness).

The major upside of this journal-hiding I've been doing is finding forgotten pieces that I like. Here is a poem (?) that needs help but, I think, has potential:

Pilar has been climbing a mountain for 2 years. The same mountain. Trudging up its ridges, pulling herself over especially rough outgrowths, sweating and crying up towards the light. She has been swearing through her teeth and laughing uproariously at the incredible difficulty of climbing. Sometimes, on a ledge, there have been other climbers: lush, tiny bushes determinedly finding patches of moisture from which to blossom and small skittish lizards following the flowering plants. These reminders are like pegs, little unwrapped gift boxes, beams of light from above. When it is dark, it is easy for her to forget the light. Especially when she has not found a ledge yet to perch on and bend her neck in exhausted restfulness. She is never sure if she is almost there, and has stopped believing in such a place. All she knows is the absence of light or dark and the tight grip of climbing. Her trunk legs and arms, calloused palms and feet pads, skinned knees and the heat atop her head drawing her upwards.

Doctor, Doctor

2011-01-20T19:19:00.006-06:00

When the remedy you have offered only increases the disease, then leave him who will not be cured, and tell your story to someone who seeks the truth.

-Rumi

Today, I am in love with possibility. This is why:

Writing (or creative expression) is the best medicine, because it is the answer to every question (inquiry) in the form of an inquiry (question). Sometimes we writers hit brick walls of our own making. These walls are, in my opinion, made of questions that we are so desperate to answer we forget that the whole point of writing is simply to ask them. Lately, I have noticed some themes in my conversations with people, some of them writers. They are: taking a break is often exactly the right thing to do, everyone hits these points of fear and regeneration, coincidences exist to challenge and direct us toward something new, life is so beautiful, love starts in your very own body, openmindedness is not that difficult.

I am and have always been a writer no matter how that fits into anyone else's idea of literature, art, logic or usefulness. I am my writing style and it is me--on the border of logic and dreams, whispering to you and shouting at me. I am a fictionwriting/essayist/poet and I am doing this, my thing, in the only way I ever could. I hear things no one else can, and see them too. This is why I write, because deep down I recognize and validate the significance of my experience and ability. Deep down, I know how important this gift is. And, ultimately, I recognize that there is nowhere left to go but up--even if it is so steep sometimes that it might as well be down.

My advice to writers (read: myself) who feel stuck and simply want to know that they are headed in the right direction is to just ask. Ask your question on paper, out loud and in your head so many times that you have at least ten new questions to answer. Be curious and brave, and so will the people who are lucky enough to hear you.

Mountain Climbing

2011-01-15T18:55:00.001-06:00

(a very rough draft)

In the all-night diner, at the corner of this and that, where many drunken or lovesick (one in the same) collisions have occurred, amidst portraits of Marilyn Monroe's cleavage and The Three Stooges' cheeks we said, "I love you, but I'm not sure if I'm in love with you." This translates to, I don't want to lose you but I realize that's the very problem that got us here in the first place. So, goodbye. I am telling the story to my friend Memo over cold coffee and french fries at a table next to the both where it all went down. Admitting such things is like waking up suddenly and walking out your front door in the middle of a blizzard that is surrounding your city (or city-land area, or several nearby counties, or what have you). You are warm and cold at the same time, perhaps a little crusty at the lips and eyes, maybe a bit smelly, but comfortable in your tender, blanket-imprinted skin. You are looking out at the nothing that is covering you and feeling like you could fall back asleep right there in that fluffy just-above-freezing desert. You are at ease, but shivering. But, then your friend reaches across the table to politely suggest that you put down the coffee because you are looking puky. And you have to agree and set the mug down heavily.

Now he's telling me about his doe-eyed uncompanion, the one who can't commit, and I'm only half listening because all I can think about is mountains. I lean in, over the ceramic dish of creamers, tracing its floral print with my extended pinky, but in my mind I am climbing up all of those curves and curlicues somewhere far away. "I mean, I just don't get it... I'm being fucking amazing about this whole situation, and he just won't see it." Mmhmm. Maybe he just can't see it. He is smoothing a line of hair beside the corner of his mouth with his index finger and looking out the corner of his eye. "Yeah. Maybe." All I want to see is a big green nothing. An expanse of growing things that coexist so harmoniously that I will forget the dreams I've been having. Those blades of grass and patches of moss I see do not sleep, do not dream or daymare; they simply breathe until they die and become something new that breathes. "Why can't I have what everyone else has? Why can't I seem to find that?" Because you're looking. The minute you stop looking, it'll creep up into your lap. You might not even want it just then, but it will be ready for you.

Memo and I are full of heartsongs these days. The kind you can only tell a select few people who are masochistic enough to listen. Because, as we've discovered, these are not popular stories. The irony, of course, is that everyone understands them but acts like they don't. For example: "Why are you still thinking about him? Look, m'ija, it's time you just move on. Try to forget." Oh, okay. Thanks, Mami! The complication, of course, is that I prefer the heartsongs--sad little muffins, bleeding syrup and emanating grease fumes, mooshy old things.

We make jokes about throwing our frustrating boythings into cages that we lower into a volcano after a requisite hour of fresh air and daylight. We like the idea of caging them, dangling them, as we feel they have done with our heartthings. But we both know this is silly and that we are simply climbing the volcano alone. "I know I am so lucky to have the love of really great friends... I mean really wonderful people across the world. I have some amazing folks along the way. But it's just not the same, you know. I don't even know what those songs really mean." You know the ones. It's the holiday season, of course, and all Christmas songs are really about being without the one you love. So, in order to prevent self-mutilation or homicidal behaviors, you go deeper. This is when lyrics are made of light and those hums of understanding that people sometimes emit at poetry readings. And you are the bearer of light and hums, finally understanding what you can't have and never did. You can no longer hear spoken words at all, like some deafened old musician, you are only feeling the vibrations and absence of the things someone couldn't say and instead wrote into a song.

"I mean they talk about missing that kiss or that embrace, which I've never had. So how can I really understand?" I don't know what to say that will make this not true. But so few people ever get to have friendships like you've had. Or get to travel the world the way you have. You have so many gifts lining your pockets. And, honestly, you don't want to know what it's like to identify with these songs completely. It's boring, cheesy and never really feels better. I want to say you are lucky, but can't bring myself to admit this.

At this stable spotted with dry gravy and grains of sugar, there are chairs pulled out where I imagined there were people. As I waited for Memo to meet me, I pulled out the chairs for these people who I proceeded to have full interactions with in my mind. People who I dreamt of last night, people who dreamt of me at the same time. That's crazy, right? "Hmm... yeah, that's a little weird." He giggles into his hand that is always poised for a cigarette, and I get up to push the chairs in. "Tell me about them."

Dream One took place in Chinatown on a cold afternoon as a parade was slithering its way down Cermak Avenue and past my ruddy cheeks on the sideline. Dragons had tongued their way past children's dumpling faces, and the marching band was approaching--all tasseled and blood-colored. And there was a band leader, a looming giant with that hat--the silly British kind--and manipulative wand. And I knew him, because we used to be in love. He gave me the same fake smile, which I decided was not real because it lacked crow's feet, that he gave every other pallid, gawking face. He stepped out to the side of the procession as it passed him--tambourines then flutes then drums--to look back at me as he waved his baton at the marching musicians to convey something meaningful that I couldn't understand. He walked towards my eyeballs, all that could be seen underneath the scarves and hat fur, and gave a shy smile--a real one. My eyeballs said nothing. And so he turned, silent, looking back once with a smile much smaller and sadder, then marched on.

Dream Two happened across several stretches of land and time, somewhat indecipherably, but all quietly beautiful and vast. My dreamhead was drenched in the kind of landscapes that make a mouth and eye water simultaneously: mountainous, snow-capped, blue-green, coastal, endless. I was with someone else who, like me, was trudging through this beauty and focused on the top of the mountain. (If we reach this one, we'll just find another, and then we'll find another, and then we'll find...) The landscapes began to take on rounder shapes, more voluptuous even than my dramatic hips, suppler than the skin we hid between ourselves. The terrain and our breathing became more wet and labored. I don't recall our final destination, or if it was one that we shared. But the climb was luminous. We reached the top, over and over, only to begin the entire trip again in another unimaginably beautiful scene.

What do you think it means? "That you're searching for something. That you're finding it. And that you've got a long journey, girl." And that I'm awake now, I think. The dreams are over, and those empty seats are safely under the table again. Sometimes it is difficult to remember that no one will be showing up to meet you for dinner. That the climb to the top of our respective mountains requires us to first witness and recognize the dragons of our past as they slink away into the loud dark.

Day of Magical Thinking

2011-01-11T23:37:00.003-06:00

Books I'm reading...

A Room of One's Own (Virginia Woolf)

This is an essay about the importance of having a place, physically and psychologically, that is completely yours and devoted to the act of writing. Woolf specifically discusses the extreme significance of this "room" for women. While I love the idea of a room being devoted to me and these goals I'm beginning to establish for my writing, there is something really indulgent about the whole idea. I agree that we need to treat writing with respect and give it a structured and significant place in our lives in order to best get the job done. We are not like visual artists and musicians who have physical spaces that are understood as places strictly devoted to the act of creation. But what about people who don't have a room of their own even for sleeping in, who can't leave their lives in order to find a place just for them, who found one and don't know what to do with it, who are too afraid to realize they had one all along? And what about those people who face these same obstacles and somehow find it in themselves to do the damn thing anyway? Who are they, and where is their essay? Am I one of them?

The Way Forward Is With A Broken Heart (Alice Walker)

This is a book that I tried to describe to someone and couldn't say the title aloud because I was too embarassed. But... I love it! I am currently dealing with the emotional aftermath of a breakup with someone I was with for nearly five years. And Ms. Walker is telling me everything I need to hear in those moments when I am most confused, bitter and lonely. She talks about her love affairs with men and women over the years through fictional characters and narratives that resemble journal entries. She talks about the idyllic life she had with her husband--the father of her child--and how it has molded her as a lover and mother. She visits and revisits those scariest unanswered parts of herself, her ego, her womanness--and allows them to speak quite honestly. A comfort and inspiration. A hug, a wink and a nudge. Go on... you can do it! A reminder that when I feel stupid it is because I am, in fact, being quite stupid. And without those low moments, there is no opportunity to regain the self-confidence necessary to be a smart person again.

-----

After a bout with anxiety last night, I wrote to myself and tried to let go of what was bothering me. And as I slept, I had two dreams. In one, I was saying goodbye to the leader of the marching band in a parade that seemed more like a carnival (fantastical costumes and calliope) that was full of faces from my past. And in the other dream, I traveled the world with someone who was interested in nothing more than climbing mountains with me. And so we found every single one, tougher each time, and challenged our bodies and minds to reach the top. I can't remember if I ended up alone in the second dream, but I hope I did.

Today is the day of magical thinking. So I have made a wish and am putting some "ready for whatever" energy into these words through my wintery fingers. This cold, the lush snow blanket that coated the city today, these elevens everyone is talking about, my dreams, and all the parallels I've identified in other people's experiences: is the beginning of something great.

-----

Next Step: Write a story about magic and send it to my talented friend W. (He will understand what to do when he sees it.) Post it here when I'm done (before Sunday of next week).

No Skips in this Record

2011-01-10T16:25:00.001-06:00

I am vowing right here and now to do this the right way. Here are my rules:

1. Post weekly with an update about my goals and how I've reached them.
2. Talk about the books I'm reading and how they apply to my writing.
3. Post samples of my work, and get used to seeing it this way.
4. Post info on contests and submission deadlines in checklist form, and start crossing things out.
5. Connect to other writers and invite people to read and keep me accountable.
6. Enjoy this process. This is what I love to do, right? Right!

Ready. Set. Go!