I'm reading another novel suggested by one of my professorial coworkers, and I find myself jumping from book, to other things, back to book. It took me a few moments to figure out why, and I'm not entirely sure yet that I've figured it out, but I have a hunch.
POV shifts mid-scene make me mental.
This is a stylistic choice. I don't think it's even on the widely accepted "list of big no-nos", but it's on mine. It just messes up the flow to go from one character's head to another. Surely the bit of world-detail presented by the switch can be saved for another time. And, if not, omni-narrator it or have someone say something aloud. Of course people think things that are only somewhat related to the present task. The mind works that way--it just reminds itself of things as it goes along, but keep those little digressions in one head at a time!
I write, often from the POV of multiple characters, but I really try to be sure I keep it to one individual per chapter or scene. Narrator 1 exits stage right; narrator 2 who watches him/her go picks up the slack. Most of the books I read also seem to function like this, leading me to believe it's sort of the "currently accepted norm" for fiction (especially genre fiction).
(An aside:
Can you imagine if writers of genre fiction couldn't stay in one POV character's head per scene? Casts in fantasy novels number in the hundreds sometimes. It would be cacophonous! The reader would get lost in the text...and not in a good way.)
I may really get into this book and wind up liking it. It was, after all, billed to me as a good thinking-woman's antidote to Stephanie Meyer and Charlaine Harris. It has a good set-up in place for the World of the Supernatural that thrives beside normal people, even a couple "that's new" explanations for things like vampires (which is madly rare these days when there's a vamp behind every velvet chaise). It's very accurately Victorian. It is certainly witty and wryly written, but these POV shifts might kill it for me.
And that, my friends, is that.
ETA: The POV shifts don't really end, but Soulless (by Gail Carriger) is a romp of a book. The characters grabbed me enough that I can forgive her little slips into other people's heads. She writes a real strong heroine, not one of these women the author is always telling you is strong, but a real, take-initiative, won't take no for an answer gal. And SMART.
The other thing this book does that's kinda nifty is make a real attempt to stay in Victorian language. It was a nice change of pace to keep that sort of tone up throughout. I don't think I can do it yet, so: nice job Ms. Carriger.
My feelings about POV have not changed, but I'm pleased to say this book really cranked it out once I got into it. I look forward to the next one in the series.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Confession time: Impure Thoughts.
Long time, no bloggy. I'm actually doing a lot of fiction writing, and that doesn't necessarily lead to a whole lot to put here. I've also been reading nothing but young adult fiction and comic books. It's not been a bad January. Good brain rest.
But I do have this:
A while back, when I was doing a sort of "character inventory", a "what do I learn about myself from looking at my characters thing, I discovered something interesting about the sexuality of my female protagonists. It was...rather nonexistent. These women apparently all have bigger and better things to think about than how blazingly attractive their male lead is. Goodness, they're all crusaders and artists and gods know what else. They don't have time for such entanglements! (Maybe they secretly like girls, and I just haven't noticed yet...)
And it's not that I write pure, virtuous gals either. They're just...not interested. They don't notice men. They don't notice women. They just go about their business. UNLESS, and this is a sizable unless, I've designed them to be that sort of stock "man-eater" character who exists to be the punchline of many a discomfited man joke.
This struck me as odd when I first noticed it, and it still rings wrong, perhaps because it's not at all like me. I notice people. I have a nearly-male brain when it comes to being dropped into lust over something visual. Narrow hips on which pants fit well. That classic triangle man-shape (broad shoulders/narrow waist). Men's legs (oh days as the soccer team ball girl, how formative you were...). Hands. The right mouth on both men and women have been known to send me flailing into moments of trying to remain appropriate. Flawless skin on women's upper bodies. I could probably go on.
My leading ladies display none of this. I suppose that I could blame it on time period and what have you, but honestly, people still noticed other people, even if they thought they were being terribly unchaste for doing so.
My point here is not to figure out what this says about me. I KNOW what this says about me. As much as I enjoy physical relationships, I've always thought that living without longing for one would be really nice. Just hang out. Love your friends, have fun, no worries. Viv' la self-sufficiency.
What concerns me here is actually the believability of my ladies. I write fiction with a very present romantic element, not going to shy away from admitting it. The women I create do end up paired off (mostly), and I don't want it to seem out of character when it happens.
This may be a statement of the obviously, but:
Becoming involved with someone is not a purely cerebral thing (even if I'd like it to be). It has a (if you'll excuse the near pun) nuts and bolts biology to it as well, and that can be tremendously fun. The writing of that attraction can help draw a reader into further identification with a character.
I mean, who wants to read about two characters whose relationship build goes thusly:
Genetically, they were compatible and conversation ran smoothly. They found time in each other's company quite satisfactory. Surely this is what it was to be "in love." Perhaps it was time they took the relationship to its natural next level. They shook hands on it, business like, for soon, it would be business time.
(So I exaggerate. None of my character interactions are this bland, but it is the risk one runs, I think.)
I also wonder, if--in addition to my own little weirdity--that some of my lack comes down to a societal acceptance of men having these obvious "want to bone it now" thoughts, and women *wilt* just shouldn't. I dare say. I hate it when stuff like this creeps in unexpectedly. Just when I think I can be above what is societally ingrained, I have asexual women who will go blithely along with a man's attraction once it has been made known that he wants her as though it had not occurred to her until that point. LAME.
Then, this morning, I came back to a character I created last summer (just so a costume I threw together would have a little more meaning to me).
She is Quincy Anna-Victoria Winchester Darlington IV. (Her father didn't think he should stop the family tradition of Quincy Darlington-ing just because he had a daughter.)
She's a sky pirate in an alternate historical England (time period to be decided). She may be a bit rough around the edges, but my dear Quincy has the potential to mark a departure in my heroines. For the first, and relevant here, she arrives on scene with a lust-interest. Mr. Nathaniel Brooke (just Brooke to the endlessly informal Quincy) is a bit of air force hot stuff who is not opposed to making a little money on the side if his pirate friend needs a hand from time to time.
Part of the three pages of hers I have written include the place where the reader would meet Brooke for the first time, and I'd like to think it's one of the best pieces (if not only) of flirtation I've ever written. It's obvious they're interested in each other. Quincy may do a little "this is not ladylike" censoring, but it's more tongue-in-cheek than anything, and Brooke might be guilty of thinking Quincy is easy 'cause she's a woman in trousers, but they're still attracted to each other. It's not sweeping and epic, and it's not tragically doomed (and maybe I've just put my finger on the problem with some of my other characters). It's just interest. Plain and never simple. (Ahaha. ehem.)
********
Goes like so:
“Quincy.” He stretched out his hands like a gentleman to greet me, but we both knew I was no lady and he was no gentleman. At least, there was no way I could be a lady, thinking the things I thought about the way his belt road on his hips. The way his military issue coat fit his shoulders.
I bowed over his hands, touching my forehead to the back of them as he took mine, an Eastern habit I'd picked up in my childhood. “Brooke. I’ve got a situation.”
“You always have a situation Quincy. Is it a lucrative situation?”
“I always have a lucrative situation.”
He smiled. He was like Helen of Troy when he smiled. Thousand ships, no fooling. My knees felt dangerously watery.
“I’m listening.”
I explained things to him.
“I know those containers. I didn’t recognize the mark.”
“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
“No. I can bring them to you later.”
“Why not now?”
“I’m a little busy. Besides, I’d like you to take me to dinner for my trouble.”
It was easy to narrow my eyes at him. My insides were feeling especially traitorous at the suggestion. “I’m taking you to dinner?”
“You’re the wealthy one. I’m just a governmental employee. You know we make nothing. I could take this cargo and run with it."
I frowned. “You wouldn’t.”
“No?”
I shoved him. “No. Your happy little job means too much to you.”
He raised one coppery eyebrow. “It does at that. I’ll have the cargo to your ship by 6, then we’ll get some food. I hope you brought decent clothes.”
I looked down at my slightly out-of-date military trousers and boots, ancient shirt and somewhat begrimed gloves. “My vest is decent.” I said, grinning.
Somehow with Brooke, I always managed charming when I grinned. He shook his head at me. “You’re something else Quince. Go shopping, why don’t you. You’re about to have the money for it. The officer’s club serves up a mighty good meal.”
“The officer’s club?! Brooke, you know I hate being around so much brass.”
“I know.” He grinned. “But I like making you squirm.”
********
I really want to do more with Quincy--and not just in the interest of consciously addressing the issues stated above, though that will be part of it. This morning, when I was thinking about how long it had been since I've written anything here...and how much fiction I've been doing, I thought it might be fun to try to post a serial here. I'm hesitant, due to my complete inability to finish anything I start, and I already have too many projects.
But if I start with say...one piece a month, with the goal to get it up to every other week...that might work. 'Cause I think this gal really wants to come out and play.
But I do have this:
A while back, when I was doing a sort of "character inventory", a "what do I learn about myself from looking at my characters thing, I discovered something interesting about the sexuality of my female protagonists. It was...rather nonexistent. These women apparently all have bigger and better things to think about than how blazingly attractive their male lead is. Goodness, they're all crusaders and artists and gods know what else. They don't have time for such entanglements! (Maybe they secretly like girls, and I just haven't noticed yet...)
And it's not that I write pure, virtuous gals either. They're just...not interested. They don't notice men. They don't notice women. They just go about their business. UNLESS, and this is a sizable unless, I've designed them to be that sort of stock "man-eater" character who exists to be the punchline of many a discomfited man joke.
This struck me as odd when I first noticed it, and it still rings wrong, perhaps because it's not at all like me. I notice people. I have a nearly-male brain when it comes to being dropped into lust over something visual. Narrow hips on which pants fit well. That classic triangle man-shape (broad shoulders/narrow waist). Men's legs (oh days as the soccer team ball girl, how formative you were...). Hands. The right mouth on both men and women have been known to send me flailing into moments of trying to remain appropriate. Flawless skin on women's upper bodies. I could probably go on.
My leading ladies display none of this. I suppose that I could blame it on time period and what have you, but honestly, people still noticed other people, even if they thought they were being terribly unchaste for doing so.
My point here is not to figure out what this says about me. I KNOW what this says about me. As much as I enjoy physical relationships, I've always thought that living without longing for one would be really nice. Just hang out. Love your friends, have fun, no worries. Viv' la self-sufficiency.
What concerns me here is actually the believability of my ladies. I write fiction with a very present romantic element, not going to shy away from admitting it. The women I create do end up paired off (mostly), and I don't want it to seem out of character when it happens.
This may be a statement of the obviously, but:
Becoming involved with someone is not a purely cerebral thing (even if I'd like it to be). It has a (if you'll excuse the near pun) nuts and bolts biology to it as well, and that can be tremendously fun. The writing of that attraction can help draw a reader into further identification with a character.
I mean, who wants to read about two characters whose relationship build goes thusly:
Genetically, they were compatible and conversation ran smoothly. They found time in each other's company quite satisfactory. Surely this is what it was to be "in love." Perhaps it was time they took the relationship to its natural next level. They shook hands on it, business like, for soon, it would be business time.
(So I exaggerate. None of my character interactions are this bland, but it is the risk one runs, I think.)
I also wonder, if--in addition to my own little weirdity--that some of my lack comes down to a societal acceptance of men having these obvious "want to bone it now" thoughts, and women *wilt* just shouldn't. I dare say. I hate it when stuff like this creeps in unexpectedly. Just when I think I can be above what is societally ingrained, I have asexual women who will go blithely along with a man's attraction once it has been made known that he wants her as though it had not occurred to her until that point. LAME.
Then, this morning, I came back to a character I created last summer (just so a costume I threw together would have a little more meaning to me).
She is Quincy Anna-Victoria Winchester Darlington IV. (Her father didn't think he should stop the family tradition of Quincy Darlington-ing just because he had a daughter.)
She's a sky pirate in an alternate historical England (time period to be decided). She may be a bit rough around the edges, but my dear Quincy has the potential to mark a departure in my heroines. For the first, and relevant here, she arrives on scene with a lust-interest. Mr. Nathaniel Brooke (just Brooke to the endlessly informal Quincy) is a bit of air force hot stuff who is not opposed to making a little money on the side if his pirate friend needs a hand from time to time.
Part of the three pages of hers I have written include the place where the reader would meet Brooke for the first time, and I'd like to think it's one of the best pieces (if not only) of flirtation I've ever written. It's obvious they're interested in each other. Quincy may do a little "this is not ladylike" censoring, but it's more tongue-in-cheek than anything, and Brooke might be guilty of thinking Quincy is easy 'cause she's a woman in trousers, but they're still attracted to each other. It's not sweeping and epic, and it's not tragically doomed (and maybe I've just put my finger on the problem with some of my other characters). It's just interest. Plain and never simple. (Ahaha. ehem.)
********
Goes like so:
“Quincy.” He stretched out his hands like a gentleman to greet me, but we both knew I was no lady and he was no gentleman. At least, there was no way I could be a lady, thinking the things I thought about the way his belt road on his hips. The way his military issue coat fit his shoulders.
I bowed over his hands, touching my forehead to the back of them as he took mine, an Eastern habit I'd picked up in my childhood. “Brooke. I’ve got a situation.”
“You always have a situation Quincy. Is it a lucrative situation?”
“I always have a lucrative situation.”
He smiled. He was like Helen of Troy when he smiled. Thousand ships, no fooling. My knees felt dangerously watery.
“I’m listening.”
I explained things to him.
“I know those containers. I didn’t recognize the mark.”
“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
“No. I can bring them to you later.”
“Why not now?”
“I’m a little busy. Besides, I’d like you to take me to dinner for my trouble.”
It was easy to narrow my eyes at him. My insides were feeling especially traitorous at the suggestion. “I’m taking you to dinner?”
“You’re the wealthy one. I’m just a governmental employee. You know we make nothing. I could take this cargo and run with it."
I frowned. “You wouldn’t.”
“No?”
I shoved him. “No. Your happy little job means too much to you.”
He raised one coppery eyebrow. “It does at that. I’ll have the cargo to your ship by 6, then we’ll get some food. I hope you brought decent clothes.”
I looked down at my slightly out-of-date military trousers and boots, ancient shirt and somewhat begrimed gloves. “My vest is decent.” I said, grinning.
Somehow with Brooke, I always managed charming when I grinned. He shook his head at me. “You’re something else Quince. Go shopping, why don’t you. You’re about to have the money for it. The officer’s club serves up a mighty good meal.”
“The officer’s club?! Brooke, you know I hate being around so much brass.”
“I know.” He grinned. “But I like making you squirm.”
********
I really want to do more with Quincy--and not just in the interest of consciously addressing the issues stated above, though that will be part of it. This morning, when I was thinking about how long it had been since I've written anything here...and how much fiction I've been doing, I thought it might be fun to try to post a serial here. I'm hesitant, due to my complete inability to finish anything I start, and I already have too many projects.
But if I start with say...one piece a month, with the goal to get it up to every other week...that might work. 'Cause I think this gal really wants to come out and play.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Credo
I feel, as I move closer to making a decision about what I want to be when I grow up, that I need some sort of "mission statement". Part of me is cranky that I know I'm going to need to prepare explanations for people who "thought they knew me" if I suddenly show up with "by the way, I'm going to seminary to get my M Div." Part of me is really excited to turn expectations on their heads.
It's bizarro to be "church shopping" as part of a job search/planning. This is--perhaps--the process that every potential job should have: more research, more exploring people working in your proposed field...not just several years of school and: See what you can do with an English major that we've been telling you for four years you can do a whole lot with, good luck!
It feels both wonderful and ridiculous to be coming at something with such purpose, especially since I have not been "church-going" in nearly 15 years. I was confirmed, and I said: no more.
However, before I decide if I want to throw myself on the mercy of loans and a heavier classload, I have to see if there really are religious communities out there that I could feel at home in...and, more importantly, fall into a leadership role within.
Which brings me back to: How on earth can such an agnostic woman even begin to think of herself as someone others might look to for spiritual guidance? ...and fears of suddenly not fitting into the circles that I currently frequent. I'm going to be the same person, I just hope to have an outlet for my talents...which I think lie in writing, speaking, and textual analysis.
I recently spoke to Rev. Paula Northwood (youth education director at Plymouth Congregational), and she has a comfortingly familiar theology. She's comfortable talking to people about Christ because she knows that she means Christ on a more cosmic/universal "divine" level, and the people to whom she is speaking bring their own levels of interpretation to what she says. They don't all have to believe in the same way to make the meaning work. I like that. It's rather how I function. Though I still think I might be a bit more Unitarian than Progressive Protestant...I guess we'll see.
Regardless, Paula made me feel like there is a place for people like me in the rapidly altering spiritual world of today. I think I can believe that. I also want to believe that I could be part of a movement among leaders of my generation to take back the spiritual from the religious...to be part of the dialogue across cultures. These are things that matter to me, and whether or not we're a secular society, I think they're sort of at the heart of humanity--consciously or not. Humans make meaning--in varying degrees of complexity--from the scientific to the world unseen, however we choose to personify (or not) that piece of the puzzle.
It's bizarro to be "church shopping" as part of a job search/planning. This is--perhaps--the process that every potential job should have: more research, more exploring people working in your proposed field...not just several years of school and: See what you can do with an English major that we've been telling you for four years you can do a whole lot with, good luck!
It feels both wonderful and ridiculous to be coming at something with such purpose, especially since I have not been "church-going" in nearly 15 years. I was confirmed, and I said: no more.
However, before I decide if I want to throw myself on the mercy of loans and a heavier classload, I have to see if there really are religious communities out there that I could feel at home in...and, more importantly, fall into a leadership role within.
Which brings me back to: How on earth can such an agnostic woman even begin to think of herself as someone others might look to for spiritual guidance? ...and fears of suddenly not fitting into the circles that I currently frequent. I'm going to be the same person, I just hope to have an outlet for my talents...which I think lie in writing, speaking, and textual analysis.
I recently spoke to Rev. Paula Northwood (youth education director at Plymouth Congregational), and she has a comfortingly familiar theology. She's comfortable talking to people about Christ because she knows that she means Christ on a more cosmic/universal "divine" level, and the people to whom she is speaking bring their own levels of interpretation to what she says. They don't all have to believe in the same way to make the meaning work. I like that. It's rather how I function. Though I still think I might be a bit more Unitarian than Progressive Protestant...I guess we'll see.
Regardless, Paula made me feel like there is a place for people like me in the rapidly altering spiritual world of today. I think I can believe that. I also want to believe that I could be part of a movement among leaders of my generation to take back the spiritual from the religious...to be part of the dialogue across cultures. These are things that matter to me, and whether or not we're a secular society, I think they're sort of at the heart of humanity--consciously or not. Humans make meaning--in varying degrees of complexity--from the scientific to the world unseen, however we choose to personify (or not) that piece of the puzzle.
I can speak to these things. I can (and would love to) learn more of the histories of our world's belief systems, so I can teach others about them, allowing them to make their own decisions about the meaning they make. I think the truth of my potential vocation is inside that. At its core pastoral work should be about helping others to understand and interpret. I grew up in a much more "throw it at you and make you believe" sort of environment, and, I think, many others have too. My explanation of what I do, should I find myself in this sort of employment, will be more along the lines that I'm a teacher...and not in a high schooly names and dates sort of way. This is teaching high level college English...without the ridiculous university expectations from which I am trying to stay away.
And so, to everyone: myself, those who would be excited and those who would be turned off at the thought of Wendy the Bible-thumper--this isn't that. It's newer than that. More involved in the world than the theology I grew up around. It is questions, maybe answers--at the very least--theories. I know this is a lot of work. I know it has potential to be exhausting, and I hope I'm up to that, but it also has the potential to be uplifting, educational and non-rut-forming. And perhaps, most importantly, not a regular desk job. Some desk. Minimal desk, but not all desk all the time.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Keeping my oar in: A first stab at the black beast.
In which I try and fail to write about my "examining my girl-self" project and turn to a prompt that leads me to That Other Essay I Have Been Avoiding.
This comes out of a prompt in Elizabeth Andrew's Writing Your Sacred Journey...prompted to write about a way in which nature is not always pleasant.
When I was in eighth grade, I joined the church youth group on an end of the winter camping trip. It was a warm sort of March, made for endless afternoon broomball games in the slushy surface of the frozen river. As a group, we made good on Camp Luther's highway clean-up promises. We found the usual sorts of things you find at the side of northern Wisconsin's highways: shoes, beer bottles, soda cans...underwear. Things that make you wonder. We were given instructions that if we found roadkilled deer that we mark it and call in the truck that would take it away to a wildlife center for critters to munch on.
About midway through the day, my partner Jenn and I found such a deer. It had frozen and thawed many times over the course of the winter and had a sort of dehydrated, sunken look. It hadn't any eyes and crows had been at its insides as well. We stood and looked at it for a long time, taking in the broken legs, the way the constricting muscles had pulled the vertebrae of the neck back, bending the head over the spine. The formerly dense fur was patchy and sticking together in wet spikes.
It was, at that point, the largest dead thing I had been near.
When I was little, our neighbors' house had eves made for bird nests, and starlings and house sparrows used them every year. Each spring, some of the nestlings would overflow, long before they were supposed to be testing their wings, to meet their death on the ground below. I patrolled the back yard, looking for these unfortunates, ostensibly to keep my neighbor's indoor/outdoor cats from eating them. I still remember the sort of guilty-nervous swoop of my stomach when I found the small, featherless bodies, eyes still closed, looking more like bruises on the sides of their overlarge heads.
My summer rambles around the neighborhood were relatively unsupervised, and between bike-rides and games of empty-lot kickball, I'd often check back several times, looking in on the progress of decomposition and insect activity. If I didn't see Damon and Pythias (my neighbor's mythically named cats) in the yard, I wouldn't tell my neighbor about the dead bird. I liked to keep it to myself, a little science experiment.
Over the 16 years we lived in that house on Summer Street, we buried a lot of fish, birds, bunnies and cats under the pine tree in our backyard. By the time I was in high school, I started to think about digging them up to see if I could reconstruct the skeletons of the larger animals, even my beloved bunny Fluff. I always felt sort of ashamed about it, but I still wanted to do it. I never did.
When I began looking for colleges, I searched for a place that would let me know how to determine age, ethnicity and sex from skeletal evidence. I made my decision based on several phone conversations had with Professor O'Connell, skeletal anthropologist extraordinaire. I had a lot of great opportunities. I went to the city morgue in the company of another professor to examine the remains of a man who had been found in a field. It was possible that his fingertips had been removed to make identification difficult. We determined, based on spiral fractures in the phalanges, that it was wildlife chewing on his fingers that removed them, not the straight-across tool-marks that might indicate human action. Professor Myster pointed out to us skull features we'd only seen in the lab (mandibular tori, for example...bumps in the bone of the lower jaw. I have them too). We watched the insect life that had come to the morgue along with the man's remains thaw out and move about. I remembered eighth grade's frozen and thawed deer, for this man had also spent some time in the elements. His skin reminded me of pictures I'd seen in National Geographic of the Ice Man. (Oh, how I used to inhale anything Nat Geo had for me about human remains in archaeology!)
I remember Professor Myster's excitement in the field. It seems strange to admit to excitement around death, but it was very academic. It made me feel less weird for all those years of backyard decomp studies. It made me feel like I'd found a place, like I had chosen correctly.
The world needs these people who do not find the processes of death terrifying and stomach-turningly disgusting, and I was ready and willing to join the ranks of these men and women.
I spent the summer between my junior and senior years holed up in the osteology lab for hours with boxes of bones that had been taken from the desert 80 years before--Hamline's teaching collection. I put to use my skills in bone measurement, defining age at death, the sex of the individual, learned also to keep the skeletons I had laid out respectfully covered with red cloth and to smudge with sage before and after--and whenever something felt off in the room. (And there were times when I suddenly did not feel like I was alone.)
Even as I gloried in this work, my mind was crumbling on itself. The black sludge that traveled the genetic lines from at least as far back as my great grandfather began to bubble up in me...I always have images of that cartoon ice-age critter in a tar pit when I think of this time. The more I struggled, the more exhausted I became, and so I gave myself over to it. All my uncertainty, all my feelings of unworth. I allowed those feelings to get in the way, allowed myself to believe it was easier to just give up. Friendships dwindled; my senior project died. If DB hadn't been enrolled in school and determined to finish, he would have gone as well. I wonder, sometimes, if he had, if I would have crawled back to my parents' house. Taken a leave of absence and come back at some better time. Come back to my bones.
And I've lived with this feeling of life interrupted/gone awry for the last eight years.
Eight years of being ok with a sort of slacker underachievement that would never have appeased the gods of my younger days. ...and really, didn't appease the gods of my early twenties either, but I hadn't the will to crawl out of that damn tar pit.
Out of intense longing, I've never closed the door on this time of my life. I have to do it now. It's part of me. In some parallel universe, I have no doubt that I pour over skeletons, both modern and ancient, unwrapping their secrets. I may even be an entomologist, taking insect evidence from dump sights. I dreamed, for a time, of following in Professor Myster's footsteps and going to the U of Tennessee to study decomposition at the "Body Farm". Maybe I'm hangin' out down there, teaching and studying, the next in a line of delightfully off-kilter academics who don't mind decay.
But I don't live in that world, so I must find a way to lay it down and pick up the dream that is real in this world. I know that moving forward now requires me to face this part of my life that I have--to this point--acknowledged, but not yet embraced.
As I go through the detritus of my young creative life, and find pieces of real brilliance and pieces that make me love me all over again, I'm sure there is also wealth in the years of my life between 21 and 28. I think the first step in discovering that wealth might be accepting the mistakes and decisions I made as my own.
We all come upon the life we're supposed to live in different ways, and the way the world is opening up before and behind me right now scares the hell out of me. ...the comparison springs readily to mind, so forgive me...scares me like all the dead things in the world haven't been able to.
My friend KC told me something fantastic the other day (and she has lived through a lot of the same things that I have and has the benefit of nearly 30 years on me). KC is an avid outdoorswoman. She kayaks and white-water canoes like a pro. She said: "Do you know why most people capsize in their kayaks?" I, knowing nothing of kayaking, shook my head in the negative. "People tip because when they hit the rapids, they stop paddling. They grab the sides of the craft and try to find their balance that way, rather than paddling through it. You just have to keep your oar in."
That's the advice with which I'm moving forward. No more tar pits, just sections of river that are more rough than others. (I imagine that the sense of getting through the rapids is exhilarating.)
This comes out of a prompt in Elizabeth Andrew's Writing Your Sacred Journey...prompted to write about a way in which nature is not always pleasant.
When I was in eighth grade, I joined the church youth group on an end of the winter camping trip. It was a warm sort of March, made for endless afternoon broomball games in the slushy surface of the frozen river. As a group, we made good on Camp Luther's highway clean-up promises. We found the usual sorts of things you find at the side of northern Wisconsin's highways: shoes, beer bottles, soda cans...underwear. Things that make you wonder. We were given instructions that if we found roadkilled deer that we mark it and call in the truck that would take it away to a wildlife center for critters to munch on.
About midway through the day, my partner Jenn and I found such a deer. It had frozen and thawed many times over the course of the winter and had a sort of dehydrated, sunken look. It hadn't any eyes and crows had been at its insides as well. We stood and looked at it for a long time, taking in the broken legs, the way the constricting muscles had pulled the vertebrae of the neck back, bending the head over the spine. The formerly dense fur was patchy and sticking together in wet spikes.
It was, at that point, the largest dead thing I had been near.
When I was little, our neighbors' house had eves made for bird nests, and starlings and house sparrows used them every year. Each spring, some of the nestlings would overflow, long before they were supposed to be testing their wings, to meet their death on the ground below. I patrolled the back yard, looking for these unfortunates, ostensibly to keep my neighbor's indoor/outdoor cats from eating them. I still remember the sort of guilty-nervous swoop of my stomach when I found the small, featherless bodies, eyes still closed, looking more like bruises on the sides of their overlarge heads.
My summer rambles around the neighborhood were relatively unsupervised, and between bike-rides and games of empty-lot kickball, I'd often check back several times, looking in on the progress of decomposition and insect activity. If I didn't see Damon and Pythias (my neighbor's mythically named cats) in the yard, I wouldn't tell my neighbor about the dead bird. I liked to keep it to myself, a little science experiment.
Over the 16 years we lived in that house on Summer Street, we buried a lot of fish, birds, bunnies and cats under the pine tree in our backyard. By the time I was in high school, I started to think about digging them up to see if I could reconstruct the skeletons of the larger animals, even my beloved bunny Fluff. I always felt sort of ashamed about it, but I still wanted to do it. I never did.
When I began looking for colleges, I searched for a place that would let me know how to determine age, ethnicity and sex from skeletal evidence. I made my decision based on several phone conversations had with Professor O'Connell, skeletal anthropologist extraordinaire. I had a lot of great opportunities. I went to the city morgue in the company of another professor to examine the remains of a man who had been found in a field. It was possible that his fingertips had been removed to make identification difficult. We determined, based on spiral fractures in the phalanges, that it was wildlife chewing on his fingers that removed them, not the straight-across tool-marks that might indicate human action. Professor Myster pointed out to us skull features we'd only seen in the lab (mandibular tori, for example...bumps in the bone of the lower jaw. I have them too). We watched the insect life that had come to the morgue along with the man's remains thaw out and move about. I remembered eighth grade's frozen and thawed deer, for this man had also spent some time in the elements. His skin reminded me of pictures I'd seen in National Geographic of the Ice Man. (Oh, how I used to inhale anything Nat Geo had for me about human remains in archaeology!)
I remember Professor Myster's excitement in the field. It seems strange to admit to excitement around death, but it was very academic. It made me feel less weird for all those years of backyard decomp studies. It made me feel like I'd found a place, like I had chosen correctly.
The world needs these people who do not find the processes of death terrifying and stomach-turningly disgusting, and I was ready and willing to join the ranks of these men and women.
I spent the summer between my junior and senior years holed up in the osteology lab for hours with boxes of bones that had been taken from the desert 80 years before--Hamline's teaching collection. I put to use my skills in bone measurement, defining age at death, the sex of the individual, learned also to keep the skeletons I had laid out respectfully covered with red cloth and to smudge with sage before and after--and whenever something felt off in the room. (And there were times when I suddenly did not feel like I was alone.)
Even as I gloried in this work, my mind was crumbling on itself. The black sludge that traveled the genetic lines from at least as far back as my great grandfather began to bubble up in me...I always have images of that cartoon ice-age critter in a tar pit when I think of this time. The more I struggled, the more exhausted I became, and so I gave myself over to it. All my uncertainty, all my feelings of unworth. I allowed those feelings to get in the way, allowed myself to believe it was easier to just give up. Friendships dwindled; my senior project died. If DB hadn't been enrolled in school and determined to finish, he would have gone as well. I wonder, sometimes, if he had, if I would have crawled back to my parents' house. Taken a leave of absence and come back at some better time. Come back to my bones.
And I've lived with this feeling of life interrupted/gone awry for the last eight years.
Eight years of being ok with a sort of slacker underachievement that would never have appeased the gods of my younger days. ...and really, didn't appease the gods of my early twenties either, but I hadn't the will to crawl out of that damn tar pit.
Out of intense longing, I've never closed the door on this time of my life. I have to do it now. It's part of me. In some parallel universe, I have no doubt that I pour over skeletons, both modern and ancient, unwrapping their secrets. I may even be an entomologist, taking insect evidence from dump sights. I dreamed, for a time, of following in Professor Myster's footsteps and going to the U of Tennessee to study decomposition at the "Body Farm". Maybe I'm hangin' out down there, teaching and studying, the next in a line of delightfully off-kilter academics who don't mind decay.
But I don't live in that world, so I must find a way to lay it down and pick up the dream that is real in this world. I know that moving forward now requires me to face this part of my life that I have--to this point--acknowledged, but not yet embraced.
As I go through the detritus of my young creative life, and find pieces of real brilliance and pieces that make me love me all over again, I'm sure there is also wealth in the years of my life between 21 and 28. I think the first step in discovering that wealth might be accepting the mistakes and decisions I made as my own.
We all come upon the life we're supposed to live in different ways, and the way the world is opening up before and behind me right now scares the hell out of me. ...the comparison springs readily to mind, so forgive me...scares me like all the dead things in the world haven't been able to.
My friend KC told me something fantastic the other day (and she has lived through a lot of the same things that I have and has the benefit of nearly 30 years on me). KC is an avid outdoorswoman. She kayaks and white-water canoes like a pro. She said: "Do you know why most people capsize in their kayaks?" I, knowing nothing of kayaking, shook my head in the negative. "People tip because when they hit the rapids, they stop paddling. They grab the sides of the craft and try to find their balance that way, rather than paddling through it. You just have to keep your oar in."
That's the advice with which I'm moving forward. No more tar pits, just sections of river that are more rough than others. (I imagine that the sense of getting through the rapids is exhilarating.)
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Stories
I watched Avatar last night. It was everything I'd heard it to be: visually stunning and predictable. A friend called it what might happen if you tossed "Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Ferngully and various Miyazaki films into a blender and pulsed." That's about right. And yet, I loved it.
I have come up with the following things, and gods help me if a story has more than one of these. It could have flying pink kittens, I would probably still gush over it.
1. The noble savage (agh, kill me now...I am a product of American literature...you win Prof Olson, you win) ;
2. Good ol' Sacred Earth. This, of course, is rarely without the noble savage, but I think I can list them separately 'cause they are not necessarily dependent on one another;
I think I enjoy noble savage/sacred earth stories because it becomes easy to cast one group, or character, as the bad guy, responsible for bringing "civilization" with its accompaniment of pollution and culture-crushing values to the scene.
Cheering against this villain, allows me to feel righteous (as awful as that sounds). Not that I don't drive as much as the next 21st century American (less than some I'm sure, but still...like my car). I don't always do well with not wasting, etc. It's my favorite sort of escapism.
I can also channel my Great White Guilt in these stories. I have taken my ancestors' poor decisions up like a cross. I should really let it go, but it dogs me, and I don't know why. I just always like to see a supposedly dominant power go down in flames for their narrow-mindedness/fear and shallow goal-driven lunacy.
This also sets up a values fight. Almost always: possible financial gain v. things that matter to the soul. It's nice to imagine a world where financial gain isn't always going to come out on top as the most important thing.
3. A redemption story (especially if a character dies to redeem his or her actions, allowing the hero/ine to do what they need to do: RIP S. Snape.);
The reasons for enjoying redemption are a maybe a little more difficult. I have long been aware that few things warm the cockles of my heart more than a "me for him" sort of situation. (And not in a lover/beloved sort of way. That still leaves a wreck of a person behind, and I can't stand to think about it.) If a character who has been a consistent thorn makes a sacrifice, I go all mushy. Maybe I just want to believe in the good in people. I'm guilty of being a Luke Skywalker. "There is good in him. I feel it." It seems like there should be more, but I don't know what it is yet. I've thought about this one for years, and have yet to come to the bottom of it.
4. I also like a good pilgrimage: hero/ine goes away for one reason or another and returns changed and strong. Related to this, there is the story of finding voice and the ability to do what one did not think one was capable of doing.
I love this because I firmly believe in the changing power of an out-of-the-box experience. My enjoyment of this story is firmly rooted in art behaving as life should. (Now, if only my life could move through its current "learning" phase into the "found voice and strength" phase in a classy montage with some uplifting music. I'd like to put in a request for the lovely choral music from The Lion King when Simba is running back to Pride Rock. Thanks.)
(Included as sub-categories of the pilgrimage are the sibling story and the mentor-student story. A split in either important relationship can cause the pilgrimage, and the end point of both--after voice is found--should properly be a laying aside of pride and learning on both ends. It doesn't always happen that way, but then the reader/viewer learns something. That's worthwhile too.)
So thank you, movie with rainforest-dwelling phosphorescent humanoids for reminding me that "predictable" isn't always bad. Sometimes "predictable" just means "archetypal", and that takes a story from boring to important, whether or no the visuals are mind-blowing.
Before I get to the meat of this, I have to give the story tellers props for putting me on the most believable alternate planet I have viewed since I first saw The Dark Crystal. I also thought the Na'vi were a believable fantasy race. Sure, they were 75% American Indian with a few dashes of Arab and African thrown in for good measure (just in case we missed apologizing to anyone we've pissed off in the last 300 years), but they worked as well as many races I've read in books. And it's terribly common (guilty too) of taking what we know about this world and altering it just slightly to make it somebody new, so I give them credit for taking the time to develop and show the same sort of background I might find in a book. It made me care...and that's important in a story with which we are all very culturally familiar.
Which brings me to the meat. Avatar was predictable, and this wasn't a bad thing? No.
I'm a tree-hugging, pagan-leaning, anthropologist at heart, and thus the story of progress-against-(in this case literally) Mother Nature and ethnographer-falls for the study subject and becomes more like the subject than the establishment are always appealing.
I have come up with the following things, and gods help me if a story has more than one of these. It could have flying pink kittens, I would probably still gush over it.
1. The noble savage (agh, kill me now...I am a product of American literature...you win Prof Olson, you win) ;
2. Good ol' Sacred Earth. This, of course, is rarely without the noble savage, but I think I can list them separately 'cause they are not necessarily dependent on one another;
I think I enjoy noble savage/sacred earth stories because it becomes easy to cast one group, or character, as the bad guy, responsible for bringing "civilization" with its accompaniment of pollution and culture-crushing values to the scene.
Cheering against this villain, allows me to feel righteous (as awful as that sounds). Not that I don't drive as much as the next 21st century American (less than some I'm sure, but still...like my car). I don't always do well with not wasting, etc. It's my favorite sort of escapism.
I can also channel my Great White Guilt in these stories. I have taken my ancestors' poor decisions up like a cross. I should really let it go, but it dogs me, and I don't know why. I just always like to see a supposedly dominant power go down in flames for their narrow-mindedness/fear and shallow goal-driven lunacy.
This also sets up a values fight. Almost always: possible financial gain v. things that matter to the soul. It's nice to imagine a world where financial gain isn't always going to come out on top as the most important thing.
3. A redemption story (especially if a character dies to redeem his or her actions, allowing the hero/ine to do what they need to do: RIP S. Snape.);
The reasons for enjoying redemption are a maybe a little more difficult. I have long been aware that few things warm the cockles of my heart more than a "me for him" sort of situation. (And not in a lover/beloved sort of way. That still leaves a wreck of a person behind, and I can't stand to think about it.) If a character who has been a consistent thorn makes a sacrifice, I go all mushy. Maybe I just want to believe in the good in people. I'm guilty of being a Luke Skywalker. "There is good in him. I feel it." It seems like there should be more, but I don't know what it is yet. I've thought about this one for years, and have yet to come to the bottom of it.
4. I also like a good pilgrimage: hero/ine goes away for one reason or another and returns changed and strong. Related to this, there is the story of finding voice and the ability to do what one did not think one was capable of doing.
I love this because I firmly believe in the changing power of an out-of-the-box experience. My enjoyment of this story is firmly rooted in art behaving as life should. (Now, if only my life could move through its current "learning" phase into the "found voice and strength" phase in a classy montage with some uplifting music. I'd like to put in a request for the lovely choral music from The Lion King when Simba is running back to Pride Rock. Thanks.)
(Included as sub-categories of the pilgrimage are the sibling story and the mentor-student story. A split in either important relationship can cause the pilgrimage, and the end point of both--after voice is found--should properly be a laying aside of pride and learning on both ends. It doesn't always happen that way, but then the reader/viewer learns something. That's worthwhile too.)
So thank you, movie with rainforest-dwelling phosphorescent humanoids for reminding me that "predictable" isn't always bad. Sometimes "predictable" just means "archetypal", and that takes a story from boring to important, whether or no the visuals are mind-blowing.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Variations on a Theme in G Major: Winter Waltz
So Here I am...not actually being abducted by aliens in the middle of the Siberian wastes, but strolling through my neighborhood after a concert. I went to hear the Rose Ensemble sing carols from Elizabethan England. I made friends with the woman who sat next to me. She was somewhere between my mother and my grandmother in age, and she agreed the sound of music from the 16th century was transporting and just the right thing to do during this Solstice season.
For some reason the carols that moved me the most were those tunes that were cradle songs for the infant Christ. I think they do well to convey the hope and peace that is forgotten in the rush of Life this time of year. It's the solstice today, so I've been thinking about darkness and light. The long dark is peaceful and deep, but can also be oppressive. On the other side of the longest night, there is lengthening day, hope that everything that now sleeps will bloom again, and I feel that my mind understands that cycle well.
The church I grew up in always included a call and response portion of their Christmas Eve service; the responses were all things like "And celebrate a new birth of hope/light in our lives." There's a reason I always enjoyed going to these services, even when I didn't give a fig for Christian dogma. Christmas is one of the only times they really get it.
In one of my fictional worlds, Longest Night is the most contemplative of holy days. It is a time of fasting, meditations and visions, followed by the second biggest party of the year. I gave it that significance because that is what our solstice holidays should be. It's also very reminiscent of the Christmas Eve/Christmas structure my life had when I was little. Christmas Eve was for going to candlelight service, viewing Christmas lights in the city and opening presents as a family. Christmas Day was a day of excess...food from the moment of waking up. Cookies for breakfast if we wanted (within reason), and then Grandma and Grandpa's house...where we could bounce of the walls and eat more. (I can smell the ham and cloves now.)
Anyway...I realized that I felt absolutely nothing for the upcoming holiday week, and that needed to change. I took it upon myself to become both contemplative and festive. The music was wonderful. I met a kindred spirit from another generation (always a blessing), and the winter night was wonderful for light-gazing.
The iPhone doesn't do so well with evening pics, but here are a few...
This is the church ceiling. I kept looking at it. The upside-down boat structure is even more pronounced in this church than in most I've attended, and the whole building is really designed to draw the eye upward. I kind of like it, even if it does have that most-Catholic of icons: Christ suspended on the cross, flanked by his sainted parents. (I've never been a fan of the crucified. I like empty crosses in my churches, thank you. I am, at least, that Protestant.)
This doesn't capture the radiance of the light coming through the snow at all, but it's still cool.
These are the footprints of Duke the Newf-Bernard who lives across the street from me. He's a gentle giant, and the quiet of his snowed-over footprints struck me as significant.
Markers leading up to a jolly holiday gathering.
One of my favorite local trees. It's enormous. Someday, I'm going to catch people in the act of putting lights on one of these monsters. Do people really hire bucket trucks?
I flopped into the snow underneath the great big tree to see what multi-colored stars look like. I walked home and decorated my own little tree. I hope people driving by are cheered by it.
Monday, December 7, 2009
"Safe in my frame" or in which I provide context...
...and quote a lot of Tori in order to connect some dots.
This is related to the last post. My brain is on fire with its longing to be just what I need to be.
Here are some things.
When I started this blog, I was very angry at DB for needing someone to inspire him....and that the someone inspiring him wasn't me. I whined around in my brain about having to put myself out as a Muse for Hire. Now however, I'm beginning to think that's not the point. Why should I inspire anyone but myself?
It sound very lovely and romantic to inspire someone else, and maybe that can be part of it, but I should start at home. I must inspire me. I am my own muse. I shall reflect my quirks, my spirit, my Shakti.
The "parasol" bit in the blog URL is a reference to Tori Amos' song "Parasol", which she writes about in Piece by Piece as follows: "I saw a painting by Seurat - Seated Woman With A Parasol - in a book on Impressionism. I was drawn to it and I started to think about Victorian women and then some women today, the type of women who don't want to intimidate their partner and so allow themselves to become reduced so the other person can feel confident."
Gods. That's the more important part here. It's not the Muse for Hire bit. It's the Parasol part.
I have very nearly become that seated woman "safe in my frame/in your house/in your frame". No. This is not the girl I was. She would hate that with all the fiery passion only a 16-year-old is capable of. This is not the woman I am seeking to honor and resurrect as of late.
As a pallet cleanser after the drag that was Outlander, I read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. What? Yes. Yes and more yes. This book brought me back to a time in my life when everything was bursting with potential. I was coming into myself (more than I realized) among strong girlfriends. We didn't date. We had no time for such Tom-foolery. We didn't need it either; we had each other. And I think that's still where my strength lies--between me and the women I have known since we were girls. Sometimes, I think it's no wonder we're having a bit of man trouble. It takes a certain sort of guy to stand in the midst of Us, and not feel intimidated by the bonds that remain.
But...the Pants. This is a book about four friends (ages 15-16) who separate for a summer (camp, relative visits, etc.) and share amongst themselves a single pair of jeans (that magically fit them all beautifully). The Pants are not to be washed; they must travel, carrying the summer stories of the friends with them. What they're really doing, however, is carrying the strength and support of the far-flung friends to each other--from Greece to Baja California. I'm not so far from any of my buds, but that these girls get how important they are to each other mattered to me. It made me remember the pieces of my younger self (who I have so often written off as having nothing important to say) that may have known more than I know now. I'm still sort of parsing this, but I think this book was a very necessary piece of whatever Growing I'm doing at the moment.
So, what did my 16-year-old self know that I need now?
Back to a Tori song from that time that I loved to belt as angrily as I could: "Professional Widow"
I didn't really get it at the time, but I did understand that there was a lot of indignant girl rage in this song.
Tori on "Widow": "[Professional] Widow is my hunger for the energy I felt some of the men in my life possessed: the ability to be king. I wasn't content just being a muse. I was the creative force. I was in relationships with different men where if they could honour that, they couldn't honour the woman, and if they could honour the woman, they couldn't honor the creative force..."
My 16-year-old self was hungry, and very few people had yet to tell her no. Ok. She was never going to be a stage actress under the bright lights of New York and London theaters, winning praise worldwide. She was never going to be a concert violinist either, but her mind was strong and full of good things.
I wrote more between the ages of 15 and 18 than I think I ever had before (or perhaps since). I had confidence in that writing that allowed me to share with people to whom I had hardly said three sentences before I handed them a manuscript. Maybe it was not so much the confidence in the writing, but confidence that I was not alone in feeling hungry. The young women who read about Armina all understood "the energy...the ability to be king."
I wrote it out very literally, true. Armina of that time was a warrior for her goddess, destroying false kings and her father--very subtle that, haha. I poured myself into that other young woman...all that desire to have all the pieces of myself recognized and honored.
Reading journals from high school is a little scary, but under the bravado--the statements of myself being fit for glory--was that desire to have the creative energy and the woman honored. I just wasn't quite sure how to get there.
My younger self also knew that it was ok to be herself. Loony, off-the-wall, different. I was always a little over the top. It is important to be a simmered-down version of myself at this point, but I knew something then about self-loyalty of which I may have lost sight.
"Self-loyalty" is a phrase which I rebel against for sounding too much like selfishness, but it's different. It's a matter of giving the best of yourself--to yourself and others. The ability to check in and say: Are you just afraid of something different or does this dishonor you? ...and make a decision from that point.
I think a lot of the friends I made, back in the day, I made because I seemed a little fearless. I stood on tables and gave recitations. I wore pleather pants and fangs to a formal dance at which I was another girl's "date." Some of this, certainly, is the strength of friends. "You want to be bizarre and out there--I'll be right beside you, laughing with you about your lunacy--just lead on, Oh Crazy One."
Sure, I can throw a lot of this in the "please please please notice me" pile, but that would only be telling part of the story, the part I've been telling for a long time. It dishonors that young woman I was. I've stepped out of my frame and into another frame...that I don't think that girl would recognize. Parts of it are good, but parts of it could stand to put on a little hot pink glitter, some rainbow socks and remember how to "Psycho Laugh" at exactly the right moment.
This is related to the last post. My brain is on fire with its longing to be just what I need to be.
Here are some things.
When I started this blog, I was very angry at DB for needing someone to inspire him....and that the someone inspiring him wasn't me. I whined around in my brain about having to put myself out as a Muse for Hire. Now however, I'm beginning to think that's not the point. Why should I inspire anyone but myself?
It sound very lovely and romantic to inspire someone else, and maybe that can be part of it, but I should start at home. I must inspire me. I am my own muse. I shall reflect my quirks, my spirit, my Shakti.
The "parasol" bit in the blog URL is a reference to Tori Amos' song "Parasol", which she writes about in Piece by Piece as follows: "I saw a painting by Seurat - Seated Woman With A Parasol - in a book on Impressionism. I was drawn to it and I started to think about Victorian women and then some women today, the type of women who don't want to intimidate their partner and so allow themselves to become reduced so the other person can feel confident."
Gods. That's the more important part here. It's not the Muse for Hire bit. It's the Parasol part.
I have very nearly become that seated woman "safe in my frame/in your house/in your frame". No. This is not the girl I was. She would hate that with all the fiery passion only a 16-year-old is capable of. This is not the woman I am seeking to honor and resurrect as of late.
As a pallet cleanser after the drag that was Outlander, I read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. What? Yes. Yes and more yes. This book brought me back to a time in my life when everything was bursting with potential. I was coming into myself (more than I realized) among strong girlfriends. We didn't date. We had no time for such Tom-foolery. We didn't need it either; we had each other. And I think that's still where my strength lies--between me and the women I have known since we were girls. Sometimes, I think it's no wonder we're having a bit of man trouble. It takes a certain sort of guy to stand in the midst of Us, and not feel intimidated by the bonds that remain.
But...the Pants. This is a book about four friends (ages 15-16) who separate for a summer (camp, relative visits, etc.) and share amongst themselves a single pair of jeans (that magically fit them all beautifully). The Pants are not to be washed; they must travel, carrying the summer stories of the friends with them. What they're really doing, however, is carrying the strength and support of the far-flung friends to each other--from Greece to Baja California. I'm not so far from any of my buds, but that these girls get how important they are to each other mattered to me. It made me remember the pieces of my younger self (who I have so often written off as having nothing important to say) that may have known more than I know now. I'm still sort of parsing this, but I think this book was a very necessary piece of whatever Growing I'm doing at the moment.
So, what did my 16-year-old self know that I need now?
Back to a Tori song from that time that I loved to belt as angrily as I could: "Professional Widow"
I didn't really get it at the time, but I did understand that there was a lot of indignant girl rage in this song.
Tori on "Widow": "[Professional] Widow is my hunger for the energy I felt some of the men in my life possessed: the ability to be king. I wasn't content just being a muse. I was the creative force. I was in relationships with different men where if they could honour that, they couldn't honour the woman, and if they could honour the woman, they couldn't honor the creative force..."
My 16-year-old self was hungry, and very few people had yet to tell her no. Ok. She was never going to be a stage actress under the bright lights of New York and London theaters, winning praise worldwide. She was never going to be a concert violinist either, but her mind was strong and full of good things.
I wrote more between the ages of 15 and 18 than I think I ever had before (or perhaps since). I had confidence in that writing that allowed me to share with people to whom I had hardly said three sentences before I handed them a manuscript. Maybe it was not so much the confidence in the writing, but confidence that I was not alone in feeling hungry. The young women who read about Armina all understood "the energy...the ability to be king."
I wrote it out very literally, true. Armina of that time was a warrior for her goddess, destroying false kings and her father--very subtle that, haha. I poured myself into that other young woman...all that desire to have all the pieces of myself recognized and honored.
Reading journals from high school is a little scary, but under the bravado--the statements of myself being fit for glory--was that desire to have the creative energy and the woman honored. I just wasn't quite sure how to get there.
My younger self also knew that it was ok to be herself. Loony, off-the-wall, different. I was always a little over the top. It is important to be a simmered-down version of myself at this point, but I knew something then about self-loyalty of which I may have lost sight.
"Self-loyalty" is a phrase which I rebel against for sounding too much like selfishness, but it's different. It's a matter of giving the best of yourself--to yourself and others. The ability to check in and say: Are you just afraid of something different or does this dishonor you? ...and make a decision from that point.
I think a lot of the friends I made, back in the day, I made because I seemed a little fearless. I stood on tables and gave recitations. I wore pleather pants and fangs to a formal dance at which I was another girl's "date." Some of this, certainly, is the strength of friends. "You want to be bizarre and out there--I'll be right beside you, laughing with you about your lunacy--just lead on, Oh Crazy One."
Sure, I can throw a lot of this in the "please please please notice me" pile, but that would only be telling part of the story, the part I've been telling for a long time. It dishonors that young woman I was. I've stepped out of my frame and into another frame...that I don't think that girl would recognize. Parts of it are good, but parts of it could stand to put on a little hot pink glitter, some rainbow socks and remember how to "Psycho Laugh" at exactly the right moment.
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