AHA

Up last night until roughly 2 a.m. searching not only for reasonable airfare for my trip (yea, an oxymoron i know) but also working on my outline. Thus far I am finding that both the writing of the synopsis and the fleshing out a formal chapter for chapter outline incredibly helpful. I am fine tuning, pressing, molding and definately forming this thing into a solid shape whereas heretofore it's been nothing but a quivering mass of jelly.

One of the things I discovered today, during my time of reflection, is that what I'm trying to get at in this novel is the human ability to change, to metamorph into something better. I'm noticing that one of the recurrent themes in most of my writing is change; change of the personality, change of the core beliefs; personal paradigm reconstruction, which is something we all (hopefully) do at some point in our lives. I say hopefully because I realize that some people are too afraid, too weak, too bruised to put themselves through the painful process of paradigm reconstruction. Some people are too weak (and I say this empathetically) to even think about their beliefs and admit that what they've been taught to believe is not only wrong universally but wrong for them personally. Some people don't have the courage to change but that doesn't preclude the fact that the ability is still there.

In this novel I'm interested not only in how and why my protagonist changes but the catalyst for the change and the process itself. I want to look at all the beauty and the pain of personal change; the ability of the human spirit. I'm looking at his behavior, his personality, his frailty and trying to boldly draw an arc of change from a male perspective. I'd determined some time ago that one of the ways to bring out the essence of his charachter (weaknesses, strengths) and those things that happened to him in his childhood is not necessarily through author-driven exposition but through the use of another charachter: a therapist. (I think last year's Iowa workshop Show, Don't Tell cured me of that). So I gave my protagonist a case of nocturnal panic attacks and have him, in the very beginning, talking with his therapist. Last night I listened in on a conversation the two were having (if you're not a writer, you may want to excuse yourself here. we writers listen to our charachters) and my protagonist was talking about dreams he's been having. And the therapist was, quite successfully, analyzing the dream. Now, since I've had some very rudimentary study of human psychology in college and a natural inclination all my life toward philosophy, I decided I need to re-explore what I know to understand just what this therapist is talking about. Human behavior has always fascinated me. I'm a people watcher and a people studier and one of the things that has always given me a mental workout is studying the inner mechanics of the human mind.

Well, wouldn't you know today, in the bookstore with Kid 1 at my heels, I stumble upon Dreams and Analyses by Carl Jung.

Well. (I'm not going to even tell you how much both Freud and Jung have always fascinated me and how I nearly backflipped when I heard Alice Walker talk about her trip to Bollingen, inside the castle this man constructed.)

So I decided that rather than put forth my hard earned Benjamins on one text that may or may not be useful, I'll pop over the library and see how much my free library card can get me.

Well.

So I pick up JUNG: A Very Short Introduction by Anthony Stevens and find on page ten:

Heraclitus was to prove a lifelong favourite, as were Goethe and Meister Eckhart. One idea that Jung borrowed from Heraclitus was to be of crucial importance to him: the notion that all entities possess an inherent tendency to turn into their opposite. This tendency Heraclitus called enantiodromia (lit. 'running counter to'). Jung believed it to be charachteristic of all dynamic systems, and saw the human family as a prime example: as children grow up, they display a propensity to compensate in their own lives for the failings of their parents.

Very, very interesting.

So I left the library with about four texts on Jung, devouring the smallest of the four the minute I got into the car. Kid 1 left with about six books of her own and about four that we picked up for Kid 2 in his absence. We are pistol-packing mamas for sure.

On another note, I received a very sad email from a friend today, requesting that I no longer call her home before 9 a.m. which has long been our practice. She and her miserable husband are calling it quits after nine long years. He blew a cow out of the four corners of his ass this morning b/c I called. Excuse the fuck out of me. Isn't it called getting your sorry ass up out of the bed to get to work any damn way? It is a work day, isn't it? Or do you have some Harry Potter magic tricks up your ass that can help you sell those cars from your fucking bed? Don't get this Scorpio started. Haven't heard from my friend who married and moved to El Paso and wondering if another friend who recently married is still on the planet. Amazing and disturbing to me what power men have over women's friendships. I've been through this so many times before it's ridiculous and I'm beginning to at least want to lose my faith in women's friendships. It seems impossible to maintain a friendship with another woman during the time of courting, the early stages of marriage and the time of separation. What is it? And why do women allow men to destroy (for lack of a better word) their relationships with the very people who help shape them into a better person for HIM in the first place? I mean, let's face it, a night out with my sisterfriends for laughter, crying, sharing and griping only makes me better when I come home to you, right? I mean, it's like I told Spouse two years ago when I went away on my first personal retreat. Getting away and taking time for myself helps me refocus, fine tune, wind down .... enabling me to be a better wife to you. He understood and agreed wholeheartedly albeit after much discussion. And when I returned he noticed me less short tempered, more focused and certainly more relaxed. Anyway, I wrote a poem about it this whole girlfriend thing a few months ago which I will post on the My Work side soon. Seems my friends are getting swallowed up into the abyss of Black Manhood. Feeling very alone today and glad to have the company of Kid 1, Kid 2 and some serious reading.

Be Well. Be Love(d).
--A.