In case you didn't know, I've moved here. It's been real, Blogger.

EXCAVATION AND CREATING SPACES

Virginia Woolf says a woman needs a room of her own if she is to write. I say a woman needs money---the kind that is reliable and undeniably her own---and as little debt as she can manage without living like a pauper. I understand why J. California Cooper paid off all her bills, rented out her house and built an apartment over her own garage until her first novel was finished and sold. I also say that a woman needs to write whether there's a room to have or none at all.

I love my husband with a love I didn't think I could ever again eke out for a human being of male persuasion. Men are to me, at most times, odd creatures. Spouse is really my ACE, my number one cheerleader, bandleader and coach; the one who really goes to bat for me and keeps me writing when I honestly start considering careers in marine biology, archaeology, basket weaving -- anything besides writing. But for all of his support, the one thing he can't seem to muster is silence. That goes double for our children.

I realize they don't really understand my need for silence. And let's make a much needed distinction here: wanting silence and needing it are two different things. The former is what you just call "down time," "chill time," "time out," and "time to just veg." The latter, the "needing," is what occurs when you venture into anything remotely close to creativity. And let's take it a step further. Creativity, to my mind, means to create, to fashion "something" from "nothing." An idea weaved into a story; a fabric made into a dress; a string of beats made into a song; a mound of clay pressed into a sculpture. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and crankier or if it's because I'm a creative person or if it's because there really is too much noise these days but I find that I crave---absolutely NEED---periods of silence. I'm a junkie for silence. I'll be the first to volunteer to "run to the store," just so I can drive along in silence. It seems that everywhere you go there's either music playing (not even MUZAC but the Hot 97 kind of music) or a t.v. tuned to CNN. Do people really want this much entertainment? (Let's face it, CNN is NOT the source for true investigative journalism. If you want to see me throw up and fall into a fit of convulsions, just tell me that "It's true! I saw it on CNN the other night.") Not to mention the noise from conversations on cell phones in the middle of the grocery store or the bank about results of pregnancy tests, recent vasectomies, rent that is due or overdue, lovers that left town, booties that were groped at the club, and the real kickers, the "Oh, did I tell you what Emily did? Oh she's soooo amazing and soooo awesome and sooooo brilliant because she, like, woke up today and like, opened her eyes and said Ga-ga! Can you believe it??? I think we better sign her up for gifted and talented advanced placement preschool or like, something."


Aaargh!


But the point is....the noise. Noise in my home and noise just about everywhere which led Spouse to say to me, "Honey, why don't you go out and write today. Take your new iBook and just get a change of scenery."


Good idea.


As much as I hate to admit it, I tried the Starbucks in Barnes and Noble thing at his recommendation. Since I live in the boring 'burbs and all the trendy little cafes are downtown, half an hour away, I figured I'd give it a try. Bad idea. True to form with Starbucks and B&N, the place was filled with chattering twosomes and others hunched over laptops trying to look brilliant or busy or both. One thing I did notice was that the bulk of the hunched ones (the laptop folks) were typing from something already written--basic word processing stuff, I'm guessing--nothing that looked like down-in-the-muck-blank-stare-at-the-ceiling kind of creative work. I could be wrong. Not only was I limited in space but I found myself horribly distracted by the coming and the going of customers, the noise of the espresso/cappucino machines, the overhead music, the talking. Quickly, ever so quickly, I loaded up my stuff and hauled tail.

There are a million places a writer can go to write but only a few--a hand full at best--where one can go to listen. I headed off to my favorite listening post: the cemetary.

I know what you're thinking but there's a beautiful cemetary near my home (if cemetaries can be thought of as beautiful). The landscape is an endless green carpet, with hills and dips and at its center is a pretty sizeable lake filled with beautiful white geese that have no apprehension whatsoever toward humans. Their chattering is like music to me; it's as harmonious as windchimes and completely in sync with my creative mind. Watching them plod along the lake's edge, their low squat kind of stance, their waddle, I think of women when they are full with babies, ready to give birth. Similarly I think of myself, pregnant with this novel, so ready to give birth. It seems the sun is always glistening off that little lake; the geese always moving about in one direction or another, aware of the danger in being too sedentary (a lesson we humans could take). In spring, like now, the place is filled with flowers and hovering overhead are all the wonderful peripheral sounds of nature.

Sometimes we writers have to step out of rooms, search for new places altogether, especially when we're trying to excavate our stories. Steven King writes in his memoir, "I believe stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.... Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground as intact as possible."

We need, every now and then, to examine those tools. Whether it be a mechanical device within the craft of storytelling, such as grammar, vocabulary, dialogue, flashback, metaphor, simile, or the tools of time management, creating space ... whatever it is, we need to do what we need to do to get the job done.

I had quite a productive day today with Evelyn. Slowly but surely I'm lifting her up and out, as carefully as I can.

Write!

ANGEL

SWITCHED AND SWITCHING

....and so, that's just the way things are with me. I find out about something and I sit on it, let it brew, taste a bit, let it brew some more. Then, I make my move.

I move on a vibe, what can I tell you. I know when it's right and when it's wrong. When it's time to do, I do. When it's not, I don't. It ain't complicated.

I knew for a long time that this is what I wanted. A lot of creative people had made the switch long ago. They told me they did, but they never told me why. I guess there aren't many words for it. Since I'm a seriously creative person with one book done, two more in creation, and a documentary film that I seriously want to get started on, I figure there's no time like the present. My work is too important to me to risk losing it, drowning in that vast blue space called "Sorry, Ma'am. We couldn't retrieve it."

So I had been talking about getting it and talking about getting it, but how many of us know there's a difference between talking and doing? While you're busy talking, somebody else is doing.

So it was Mother's Day yesterday and Spouse handed me something flat and heavy and said, "Here, honey. Happy Mother's Day. You deserve it."

And I smiled, grinned from ear to ear, and said, "Thank you sweetness, you're the greatest."

A.

LATE AND NEVER

I am always late.

Always late.

Always, always, late.

But late is subjective.

Late

is

subjective.

I may be delayed

but I

am

never

N-E-V-E-R

Don't sleep on the sister.

And while I'm at it: peace to all God's righteous children committed in the struggle to commit serious, serious art: Amel and Laru Larrieux, Goapele, Maxwell, Julie Dexter, Cassendre Xavier, Me'Shell, Marie, Erykah Badu, Sade, the Fertile Ground crew, Jill, Rachelle Ferrell and any other righteous person who knows that

late

and

art

do not belong in the same sentence.

who knows

that late

is

subjective.

We will wait

and

we will rise

and

we will make

this place

holy.



PEACE!

A.

ON LOVE AND GARDENING

ON GARDENING:

The perfect day for gardening. Overhead, the sky a hopeful mix of blue with thin, wispy white clouds. The sun absolutely brilliant, brushing the earth in soft shades of gold. The elements of Earth and Air cool and moist from yesterday’s soft rain. I garden because I’m a thinker, because I find in nature so many of life’s answers because in a world where nothing seems sacred anymore, I can find the Sacred, feel the Sacred, when I lower my hands into the Earth; because I believe that touching the Earth is like touching God.

At the side of my home an area that I have studied for quite some time. A good place for showy hydrangeas, weed-killing hostas, perhaps a bed of tulips for tomorrow’s spring, certainly a good place for my clematis. But first, the hard work of turning the soil and pulling up weeds; disturbing what has been a winter home for thousands of earthworms and ants and bugs and beetles of all kinds. First, the pulling away of fall’s leaves so that what is there—two hardy azaleas—can breathe. I’m amazed at how resistant the weeds are to my pulling. Their roots tunnel so very deep that I must reach for the big guns—shovels, trowels, and hoes. But even they cannot get to the heart of some of these weeds, for their stems are further than I can even see. Careful manipulation is what it takes to remove them and keep them from coming back. But even then the work is not done—there is always the threat of weeds.

Here we are, so much like the flower bed. So able, so capable of making things grow. Here we are so fertile, so ripe, so full of possibilityand yet choked by so many weeds. The weeds of hatred, malice, racism, sexism. The weeds of doubt, self-loathing, worry, and fear. We try to plant around it, denying that the weeds are there, only to find much later that what we’ve planted is choking to death from the weeds that surround it. We get married, have children, work, and try to build lives around so much psychological baggage only to ask much later, when the marriage has ended in divorce, the children have gone astray, the job is unfulfilling---why? and what have I done wrong? We try to plant around it, try to fill in the spaces with beautiful showy plants and arrangements that, from a distance, look perfect and beautiful. But closer examination reveals aha! there they are: the weeds.
We fill our lives with material things and all the trappings of what most consider modern day success only to come home to the same emptiness that’s always been there, the same feelings of ineptitude, the same harried uneasiness that keeps us in a perpetual state of worry and doubt and comparison to where we are in relation to the Joneses, who themselves aren't even fulfilled. We pursue all outward measures without doing the necessary work within; without first preparing the interior ground. Here we are, the lot of us in America, struggling to breathe.


ON LOVE


Tufts of emerald green grass and billowy white clouds have me thinking about love. Talk of hydrangeas and cyclamen and fire orange tiger lilies have me deep in the real of love. Because for all that we want it to be, and for all that it is not, the truth remains that love just is. Sweet air so crisp, so fresh, has me bathing in the depths of loving and being loved and having been loved and having made love and having had love made to me and with me in so many different ways that are not even sexual.

Two weeks ago my son looked at me with big brown eyes that were as full and as watery as the moon, and said, in his classic four year old voice, “Mommy, you’re my woman.”

And I asked, “What did you say?” not sure I had heard right.

He smiled, held out his arms to me and repeated, “You’re my woman. You’re a good woman, Mommy.”

It felt as if the sun had tipped over and poured all of its warmth into me. I don’t recall ever feeling that way before.

Let me say from the outset that his expression was unprovoked. He was simply simply sitting at the table eating a chicken salad sandwich (not exactly his favorite) having one of what I call his “contemplative moments.” We are so much alike. He hadn’t asked for anything--no candy, no treats, no toys. We were just sitting there, having our ordinary after-nursery-school lunch time together. We were simply being—and that’s what made it so beautiful. The purest love I've ever received has been from my "love-to-cuddle-up together" children. Especially my son.

I’m amazed at how effortless it is to children to love with their whole hearts. I’m amazed at how little they question; how much they give and how little, in most cases, they really receive. I’m amazed at how pure their love really is, how simple their love really is, how uncomplicated their love really is, and how whole, how deeply whole they are before Life creeps in.

For a long time, I must admit, I have been afraid to love with my whole heart this way. I cringe at the thought of losing either of my children and I pray away the thoughts of burying my Spouse, whom I believe is my very best friend. It’s as if I’m afraid of loving too much, for fear of losing love altogether. My girlfriends are like diamonds to me. The bulk of them much older than I, have taught me courage, strenth, persistence and the real meaning of friendship. I love them so very much and yet I am afraid of loving anyone or anything as much as I do.

But what I have come to realize is that the answer doesn’t lie in learning how to protect ourselves from life and love, rather, the answer lies in learning how to become strong enough to let a little more of it in. True, we are all afraid of love and its hold on us, but I do believe that rather than seeking more love, rather than looking for more love to consume, rather than retreating from love, ours ought to be to learn how to BE love, to become love, so that it grows from us and through us in no short supply. And while we tend to think in our minimalist way that love gone is love lost, I have come to realize that love always takes the long road home.

Who of us can stand to be starved of love? Who of us can afford to entrap it, bar it within a cage like a trapped animal? I have come to understand that the very love we withhold from another is the selfsame love we take from our own mouths.

Somehow, we must work our way toward a state of Agape, that is, as novelist and essayist Charles Johnson defines: “the ability to unconditionally love something not for what it currently is, (for at a moment it might be quite unlovable) but instead for what it could become, a teleological love that recognizes everything as process, not product, and sees beneath the surface to a thing’s potential for positive change.” (The King We Need: Teachings for a Nation in Search of Itself – Shambhala Sun, Jan 2005).

When I think of the work of our greatest social reformists, those committed to working for justice and for peace (I’m thinking specifically of Mahatma Ghandi right now), I realize that those who had the most far-reaching effect were the ones who had a deeper understanding of love. This is what I believe led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to one of the greatest original thinkers of our time: Mahatma Ghandi. Ghandi’s politics were rooted in a love ethic—an agape-style love ethic that recognized the absolute tragedy of hatred. Ghandi’s politics were rooted in the absolute courage of love. King said of agape love that it is “more than romantic love, it is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill toward all [beings]. Agape is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.” (A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King).

Love just is.

Love just is.

Love is.

Love is, I believe, the one thing that could heal this world; love makes peace real.

I’m thinking right now of a quote by Leo Tolstoy from War and Peace:

“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.”

In love and in peace,


ANGEL

REALITY BITES

I suppose I should be placing this post on the "Birth of a Novel" page but because it speaks to some aspect of life, that is PERSISTENCE and moreover, FOCUS and RE-VISION, I will take the liberty of posting it here.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of taking a six point synopsis writing course with Noreen Wald. Noreen, a well-published mystery writer and current president of Mystery Writers of America, presented a radically different approach to writing the synopsis, one that I, at least, had never heard. But what was most compelling to me was how she also used it as an umbrella to discuss the deeper aspects of writing, particularly the writing of novels. I came away with much needed handouts and with a surprisingly different feeling about my own novel. Since I had neglected to bring the opening chapter (I only brought the synopsis that I'd written) I chose not to read. Others read from their openings and I was pleased to have been in the company of such really, really good writers. A few have their books with agents now and are waiting to hear, and a few have been rejected, obviously seeking that better approach to crafting the synopsis. Noreen's suggestion, her plea to any beginning writer (or rather, the person writing her first novel), is to write the synopsis first before writing the novel. If nothing else it will serve as a loose guide for the story one is trying to tell, rather than the ball of yarn that becomes completely unraveled and tangled like a son-of-a-you-know-what to the extent that the only choice one has is to throw it away.

One fellow who has written a thriller read his synopsis (and indeed, I do see this becoming a movie) has a commitment from Michael Connolly to blurb it. He's been working on his synopsis alone for two years, not to mention they many years he's been working on the novel. Talk about commitment. But after hearing it, I say it was time well spent. The interesting thing was that this particular fellow agreed with Noreen's approach and said he will never again try to write a novel in what he called, "this reverse way."

Now, there are two schools of thought on this, which I don't care to engage in debate over simply because art is subjective and what works for one artist is a strait jacket for another. Some people want to "follow where their charachters take them," and others like the feeling of "being God," setting all the stages and creating all the outcomes. I will simply say that I can see the value in doing the synopsis both first and last.

As for me though, I came away with the hard reality that I do not yet have a novel. This is by no means a comparison to the other writers because I don't live on that page. I am my own benchmark. I've got some great chapters, some terrific scenes, and some really interesting charachters. I've got some really realistic dialogue, an intriguing plot, and quite a few unexpected twists and turns. I've got the ingredients but no cake. Story, but not yet a novel. Structurally, my chapters are a bit too long. I'm inherently long winded at times (hence my love of exposition) which poses a problem when you need to cut chapters and pick up the pace. I have some dangling threads around the hem that need to be pulled back up into the main garment. I've got some round charachters that need to be rounder and some that need to be flattened, who don't need to be occupying as much space as they are. I need, in some areas, to get to the point. I need to make some motivations stronger and certainly more believable. I have a few settings that I can't see. That is, there isn't enough of a visual. Dumping charachters down at a lunch table and saying it was hot outside is not enough. And all of this, on a balmy Saturday afternoon, in Bethesda, Maryland (which happens to be one of my favorite Washington suburbs), was no easy pill to swallow. Initially I felt horribly despondent but my nature is not one of defeat or prolonged melancholy rather, that of dusting off the desk, rolling up the sleeves, pouring a cup of coffee and getting to the business at hand. No chamomile tea for this sister. At least, not right now.


One thing I realize is that I have been too kind to too many of these charachters -- I have only scratched the surface of who they really are. I have not gotten ugly with those that I sympathize with and those that I love to hate (Carter, for one) I have not loved enough. Additionally and honestly, I have been too distracted -- undertaking more than I have sufficient mindspace to handle. I've been trying to do too much. I thought of a treasured friend of mine who reminded me that in my garden (metaphor for my current life) I am going to have to get used to seeing a few weeds here and there. That is to say that while I have so many wonderful interests there may not be an ability to cultivate them all at this single moment in time. The fact that I am a mother and wife is fifty percent of that garden. Now, she added, you have to decide what that other fifty percent is going to be.

Looking at my novel, seeing how much deeper I still have to go (Judith Paterson calls it 'digging ditches' at this stage) initially made me weary. But over the past three days, spending most (if not all) of my mind time on this novel and re-visioning it, I see exactly what I have to do. I am too delighted with this story to abandon it, too delighted with these people, and with the depth that I, even at this early point, am travelling. Delving deeper leads me to what I love most: research. I have delved into the lives of women I have only known on the surface, namely Billie Holliday. (I see why Alice put Billie and Zora in the same column). Also Dorothy Dandrige (my goodness if Halle doesn't remind me so much of that woman in many ways). My research has led me back to my own home (New York) deep into Harlem circa 1919-1940. Oh, how much I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during that time. How much more I am learning by going deeper and deeper still.
Today at the library, two really good books on Harlem, one on Billie in her own words. It doesn't get better than this, folks.

And so the question arises: when will I be done? I can't answer that. And that not knowing is something I've made peace with. I do know what deadline I have given myself and I'm going to do my very best to stick with it, but hey....real life kicks in. And the bigger question, for me, is how much of the rest of that garden am I going to fill and what will it be filled with? That answer I do know: my novel. Because you see, for me, I am all with James Baldwin who said, "You have to decide if you want to be famous or if you want to write." For me, writing is it. Writing is exploration, it's getting wind of a concept and then digging deeper and deeper into that thing. Concept or charachter, it's different for everyone. For me, for sure, it's concept. With my poems, my stories, with my novel, it's all about concept. It is wanting to understand a certain thing. It is wanting to understand human nature. It is storytelling at its absolute best, its most compelling. And I for one am not content with coming away with anything less.


I think of what Judith Paterson says in the opening segment of The Writer's Tale:

Writingis a process. For me, it is as intriguing and mysterious as life itself. I don't know where I'm going until I begin. I don't know where I will end until I'm there. It is both the same and different for ever writer I know. With every word, every sentence, every paragraph we will write our own tales. The writer's tale.

And I think that that is the task at hand (among many others) that the writer has to make peace with: the not knowing and yet, the trust that one will get there with enough perseverence, enough focus, enough tenacity, and with enough re-vision.

Because it really does come down to re-vision-ing things. I suppose the creation of anything new, anything fresh, anything insightful requires re-vision.
Imagine what we could do in life, in the world, if we learned how to re-vision age old concepts and beliefs. I mean, take the Roman Catholic church for instance (yes, I am absolutely going there -- somebody needs to and it may as well be me). Just imagine if they could re-vision a church that had a woman at some part of its core and, moreover, embraced a vision of the sacred feminine. I mean, if you look at Brazil for instance -- 90 million people living in dire poverty, the bulk of them women (and children) and Brazil holding one of the highest counts of Catholics. And I am not only calling out Catholicism but Islam and Christianity as well. How many females are heading up the Baptist churches? Name for me one female Imam. I mean, just imagine a world where women's ideas, thoughts, suggestions, and strengths were valued.

Imagine what the United States would be like if we re-visioned this punitive justice system that is as far from restorative as heaven is from you-know-where. Imagine if we could re-vision a public school system that was equitable across the board, that did not draw boundary lines and "districts" such that one distict, poplulated by half million dollar homes, receives cutting edge technology and the other, populated by rowhomes and apartment complexes receives books that are ten years old. Imagine if we could re-vision a healthcare system that really worked and did not penalize your having a "pre-existing condition;" one did not lead you into bankruptcy for a busted appendix that no one could have predicted. Just imagine if people could re-vision their own personal lives and see themselves not as corporate slaves but as co-creators with the Divine One. I mean, we all know that a capitalist society requires there be a permanent underclass for its survival so I am not under the delusion that we will ever rid poverty in this country. I mean, that would require eliminating capitalism and we KNOW that won't happen. But let's just talk basic equity here.


But anyhow, all of this to say that I'm at the drawing board hard and heavy. This is not to say that I won't be promoting my book or writing new poems or submitting things. No, that would be absurd. It's just to say that I am following that inner source from which all goodness flows. I'm looking at my garden and spending time on the side that feeds me most. I am getting used to having a few weeds---unfolded laundry, dust in the corners, a few less conferences, you know. Maybe even putting off that Spanish class I really, really wanted to take and that Feminist Theory class I wanted to sign up for in the Women's Studies program in the fall. Going deeper requires getting quiet in a way that is always suspect to other people. It requires cancelling out some things, putting more tallies in the credit column and less in the debit. No, I think I'm going to stay over on this side a while. Right here, waiting to see what grows.


PEACE.

WARMING UP

There's been so much written about blogs these days. Just yesterday I stretched across the couch and read the New York Times Book Review section and instead of a tagline, one reviewer was simply identified as "Her Name" and the line, "She maintains the xxx blog." Gee, times have changed.

Lately, I've been consciously trying to reduce my time here online. I jump on to check emails and navigate only to the sites that I need to go to for information, purchases, etc. A recent discussion with a friend about how and why W.E.B. DuBois was so prolific made me realize that apart for him being male and therefore without the many constraints that are inherent in woman's life (especially woman who is also mother) he absolutely limited his distractions. I recall hearing once that he only returned telephone calls at the end of the day and did not engage in any conversations before his writing work began and ended. I think too, now, of Alice Walker who, in the documentary, I'll Make Me A World, said that she had to sell her house, get divorced, and move all the way to Mendocino in order to write The Color Purple. Her charachters just weren't going to budge in New York City. I wonder why.

All of this to say that I, too, have seen a stall recently in my creative output; a stall I believe is the direct result of too much stimulation. This once scene I've been working on has been so very difficult to get down that I've been close to tears. But I believe it is because I've needed to get quiet.

And let's face it, that is no easy task in this life -- children or no children. One cannot even turn on the television without being assaulted with advertisements, news (which is not even news), canned laughter, and sex, sex, sex. No point turning on the Smooth Jazz station, lest one wants to listen to a half hour's worth of obnoxious local car salesmen and contest announcements (contests that no-one ever wins). One cannot even turn to one's home in the evening hour for silence without the telephone ringing and some unidentified person on the other end asking for participation in a survey that will "only take five minutes." All the more reason that I have dedicated myself to meditation (shamatha meditation to be exact), to steadily increasing my sitting time, to yoga (the art of stillness), and to simple reading.

And the other thing is although I don't post often I do have intense moments of thought, thoughts that I don't think I necessarily want to offer for public consumption. Because isn't that what it is? Consumption? Do people not seek to absolutely consume you? I think of people who are much more famous than I ever care to be, whose lives are just absolutely open court for dirt-bag photographers and ditch-diggers, just looking for that one thing that someone said ten years ago to wave up in the air and use against them. This American life.

So what I have been doing is writing and thinking and preparing for the birth of a new poem, tentatively titled, A Womanifesto. It started out as a Manifesto, but of course as I think things through, as I think of what I want for all women (particularly the girl in my home who will one day be woman) I think of how important it is to convey this message with hips attached at the sides. I submitted two batches of poems today, sent them out into the world with two kisses goodbye and traveling mercies. Two weeks ago I hauled home two arm loads of books on "black life in the 1940's" to help me through this aforementioned scene (and chapter).

I have also been studying the landscape around my home. Last year I lost my neighbors, a husband and wife six months apart, and felt so un-done that I didn't plant a thing. This year I am determined to get my garden where I want it to be. To that end, I bought three absolutely gorgeous clematis' (two fuschia and one deep purple) and am going to order some hydrangeas from Spring Hill (they do very well in the sun, which I have have a whole lot of around my home). I am also going to do a long line of tiger lilies all the way across the back, which will do wonders for me I'm sure as I wash dishes and am going to give my absolute best effort toward a true herb garden.

So that's the skinny for now. I'll have something else to say in a day or so, as time permits: the joy of having a son.

Namaste,

ANGEL

"I write the way women have babies. You don't know it's going to be like that. If you did, there's no way you would go through with it."
TONI MORRISON, "Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation."