LOVE


Love
Oh, Love
I want to know you
and
Even more
I want to understand

I want to hold you
At the center of my palm
And see your eyes in the full
Light of day

Love,
Oh Love
Explain why you are so elusive
The shadow in favor of light
Why must we run in search of you
And why
Must you turn your face?

Copyright, 2003. Angel V. Shannon

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.....Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to A Young Poet

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


My poem is not yet finished. There is more I need to say. But I need to wait until the questions themselves become the locked rooms, books written in a very foreign language. Right now, I cannot love the question. I can only manage this deep state of misunderstanding.

A few days ago a friend called and said she had to get on the road. Her voice was light but troubled, the voice that people have when something terrible has happened that is far out of their control. That heaviness that says, "I don't like this, but I can't change it and so I'm doing my best to accept it." She had to travel to the funeral of a friend who had been brutally murdered. The facts are too familiar. A young woman, once in love, seperated from her husband. An accomplished couple. He: an attorney. She: a teacher and graduate from a well known, well respected historically black college. A marriage that failed. A separation that hurt. He called her out to talk. Words turned into arrows and arrows into eyes on the wrong side of a shotgun. He broke her teeth. He broke her ribs. His fist left two circles around her eyes the color of ink. He made her beg for her life. And then he simply left.

She went to the authorities to obtain the Necessary. The paperwork that is handed off to the policeman on desk duty given the charge of typing and filing. The rookie. The one who longs for the day that he will strap a weapon to his side and be a Real Policeman. The paperwork that never amounts to much and never has. The man was called up on charges and let go, of course, on his own recog. She moved in with her parents; she went home to the daddy that she knew would protect her. Intelligent parents. Well prepared for retirement. Living the way that we all should hope. A week later she went out for fresh evening air. He saw her with a man that was only a friend. A man that understood the need to talk. He became angry. He went to her father's house when he knew she'd be home. He knocked on the door. He shot her. Her father tried to jump in the way to save his only daughter. He shot him too. A father was rushed to the trauma unit. A daughter was taken to the morgue. And a man, perhaps wounded by rejection, looked in the rearview mirror and saw the authorities coming for him, then shot and killed himself.

At poetry last night, I read the beginnings of this poem and I also read another, dedicated to this couple whose names I cannot write. I want to know about this thing we call Love.

It would be easy to just call this a Domestic Violence incident. But I have grown weary of these useless titles that give us no insight and worse, no conclusions. I have grown weary of attaching simple titles that make the facts sit easier on the palate. I want an all-inclusive understanding and I want to examine this thing in the full light. I want to sit down at a table and pass this thing around. I want perspective.

On the surface it is easy: a man gone wild. But the careful eye sees the layers and sees the true prism responsible for the play of colors. There is the issue of the transitory state of life and of love; there is the issue of love itself and how, at least in this country, we are socialized into the useless and destructive notion that when two are married they become one. Useless because not only is it impossible to become one, it is also tragic. As the poet Khalil Gibran says of marriage: let there be space in your togetherness. There is the issue of assumed ownership; the notion that perhaps played out in his mind "if I can't have you, nobody will." There is the issue of men, unable and often unwilling, to face their anger that in due time only transforms into rage. There is the issue of how men are socialized in the first place, from very young ages, to deny their true feelings; to objectify the world in which they live. There is the issue of how we humans look for solutions; I, too, have been guilty of looking for permanent solutions to transitory situations. He chose a permanent solution to a transitory situation.

Is life much more than a transitory state?

In time, with the therapy he certainly could have afforded, the pain would have lessened and each would have gone on to live. Perhaps they would have fell in love again, with different people, and became grandparents or great grandparents. Perhaps one of them would have discovered the cure for AIDS. Perhaps as an attorney, he could have saved thousands of men on the line -- men like Mumia Abu Jamal -- for crimes they didn't commit. Perhaps, as a teacher, she could have knocked out illiteracy in a third world country. Perhaps, but much too late for that now. At issue too, is dominance as we see it played out as far away as Iraq and no doubt, in this man's mind, as he gained some unthinkable pleasure from having the wife he once loved, beg for her life. And certainly, at issue is the language itself and the philosophical underpinnings: Domestic Violence. Domestic? As opposed to "In the Street Violence?" The language that translates, simply, to "this is a quarrel between lovers, we shall let them work it out." Nothing more than that. Domestic?

But at the heart of it all is Love and how it changes. Where does it go? And how does it get there? Who is to say what Love is and isn't? And isn't indeed a tenuous line between Love and Hate? What happened to their Love? Where did it go? And how did it get there?

This is what is pouring forth from my heart and into my notebook. I cannot, yet, love the questions. I simply cannot.

Be Good,
ANGEL

GOOD. VERY, VERY GOOD.

...He and I had wandered conversationally into the realm of discussion which haunts the days of humankind everywhere: the destruction or survival of the human race.

"Why," he said to me, "are you so sure the human race should go on? You do not believe in a prior arrangement of life on this planet? You know perfectly well that the reason for survival does not exist in nature!"

I answered him the only way that I could: that man is unique in the universe, the only creature who has in fact the power to transform the universe. Therefore, it did not seem unthinkable to me that man might just do what the apes never will--- impose the reason for life on life. This is what I said to my friend. I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love.

...I have, like all of you, on a thousand occasions seen indescribable displays of man's very real inhumanity to man; and I have come to maturity, as we all must, knowing that greed and malice, indifference to human misery and, perhaps above all else, ignorance---abound in this world. I say all of this to say that one cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know and react to the miseries which afflict this world.

I have given you this account so that you know that what I write is not based on the assumption of idyllic possibilities or innocent assessments of the true nature of life---but, rather, my own personal view that, posing one against the other, I think that the human race does command its own destiny and that destiny cann eventually embrace the stars.... Lorraine Hansberry, speaking at a Negro Writers Conference


I had something else I wanted to post today but upon hearing the morning news I couldn't help but succumb to the overwhelming sense of warmth and hope for humanity that seemingly flooded my body.

Together, the University of Ottowa (Canada) and the University of Havana (Cuba) have successfully developed a synthetic form of the vaccine that protects against meningitis -- a brilliant discovery. As a person involved and committed to public health, I am very excited about the possibility of eliminating the traditional form of vaccination in favor of something much safer and, in the minds of many I'm sure, eliminating the fear people have of receiving an injected bacteria which still holds the possibilty of contracting that which you're trying to ward off in the first place. (The likelihood of developing the flu after flu vaccine is slim to none, but you'd be hard pressed to convince the masses of that which all by itself creates a tremendous public health problem).

But through my kaleidoscope, as I twist and turn these facts, I see two countries with significantly less financial ability than ours, one of which has been forced to the very hem of life, struggling to find its way up to the main portion of the fabric (that being Cuba) .... two countries truly, and in a very real way, committed to public health, universal healthcare and access to medicinals and, more importantly, preventative medicine.

How and why have we (America) not stumbled upon this long ago? Aha, we all know the answer to that. Greed. Corruption. Money. Have I not already called my pediatrician to set up appointments for both the children and Spouse and myself? Have I not been told that the children will both have to be immunized twice (a CDC recommendation for everyone under 9)? Have I not been told that the immunization costs $20 a pop and insurance is NOT covering it? Have I not tallied the cost and come up with $120? Aha, do we not understand the math?

I have known for a long time that I will travel to Cuba. It is not a question of "if" but a question of when. I have every reason to go and the ability to support it. The rules right now are such that you have to be either a journalist of some sort and/or involved in some kind of missionary work. A wonderful organization called madre sends delegations regularly and since I am a health care worker it would not be difficult to go. What I would love, though, is to be able to meet the great Assata Shakur while I am there and meet with some of the healthcare workers there. In time. I have also toyed with, for a long time, living in some part of Canada but Spouse says it's much too cold and favors either Mexico or some part of the Carribean. But that does not preclude me (should I be fortunate enough to ever earn enough money) from having a little casa there in Toronto or Montreal for myself. Hee, hee, hee.

And perhaps this is all, in some very real way, tied to my absolute love and passion for things both Spanish and French and my renewed commitment to fluency in both languages. Just last week I found a Spanish speaking young woman who is going to help us out with caring for the kids from time to time and I'm excited about the possibility of us all learning Spanish straight from the source.

But I digress.

The real goodness and the real joy comes from the hope for humanity. That someone, somewhere outside of these very greedy borders, is truly trying to do what is right. U.S. officials still claim that the socialist nation is running a secret germ-warfare program and are not ready to give them their props. So you know what's up with that, don't you? And just like their Weapons of Mass Destruction, their investigations and delegations sent to Cuba have turned up nothing but the lint in their pockets that they flew over there with. Maybe one day .... maybe, just maybe one day, Cuba will be recognized for its great contributions. I, at least for today, remain hopeful.

Be Good,

ANGEL

IN TIME

Pardon the absence but lately blogging has felt quite, well, unnecessary. Too much care spent finding words that will not offend, call out, identify only to arrive at the decision that the time could be better spent. Revisions, poems, daydreams and planning, learning, reading, experimenting. The personal journal, the one by the bedside, a safer home for dreams and wishes. I suppose I will, sooner or later, be un-linked if that is such a term. You know, the undoing process when people take you off their favorites list cause you just don't spill your guts enough. Oh well. I can only wonder about people who have the time and inclination to blog and link and link to blogs and link to links every...single...day.

Wonderful time spent this weekend with friends both old and new. Discovery of a sisterfriend from New York with locs long enough to sit upon (10 years! you go girl) and neat as neat can be. A writer, a thinker, a mother, a poet, a visionary. Thank God you are here. It was so nice to meet you (again?)

Wonderful poems, something new in the reflection on what is now the third "loc" trip. Two days shy of two months in this process and not one regret.

Slow but very steady progress on the revisions. Careful, careful selection of words. Rampant turning of pages in the thesaurus. Every sentence, every word must count lest it be thrown away. Slow but steady.

Decision to celebrate Kwanzaa for the first time and to create our own family traditions. Each Friday leading up to Christmas will be craft night and scattered throughout the month there will be other themes -- Song Night, Tasty Treat Night (baking goodies) -- and every night leading up to Christmas, one book simply wrapped that they must "find" sort of like a "Scavenger Book Hunt" all relating in some way to the real meaning of Christmas. This is a must if I am to save myself from the depression this season often brings (read: sickening consumerism).

Enough for now. Sleep beckons.

Be Good,
ANGEL

THOUGHTS

And then I ask myself: why do I do this? How do I arrive in this place always? Would it not be better to live as Thoreau, Sarton, perhaps even Hughes though that is quite extreme. Surely it’s better than this feeling. Warnings. Always warnings. When will I learn to listen? The heart gets tired. The ears get tired. Even the hands. Soon they are too weary to hold. Promises. Always promises. Hopes along a barren beach that maybe, just maybe this shell is different. Maybe it will find a place upon the bureau. Maybe it will last. And then the reality. The hard cold reality. Reaching. Arms and heart. Reaching to nothing but blank space.

MOTHER LODE

And so I ask you, would a man ever, ever be put in this position? Once again, Woman vs. Career vs. Motherhood.

A soldier who stayed home with her children during a custody battle instead of returning to Iraq was reassigned to Fort Carson, but also received a conflicting message - that she could face administrative punishment.

Spc. Simone Holcomb, a medic in the Colorado National Guard, was reassigned Monday to Fort Carson to give her time to find care for her children or get out of the Army, post spokesman Lt. Col. Tom Budzyna said.

"She's been reassigned to Fort Carson for compassionate reasons and she's in the process of being demobilized from active duty status to National Guard status," Budzyna said late Monday.

However, Holcomb's commander called her earlier Monday from Iraq to tell her he was pursuing an administrative punishment against her, said Holcomb's lawyer, Giorgio Ra'Shadd. It was not clear what the punishment would be.

"They didn't give a reason. A commander in the field doesn't really have to give a reason," Ra'Shadd told Fox News.

Budzyna said it will be up to the Colorado National Guard to decide how to handle the administrative punishment, which could include forfeiture of pay, time off or suspension. Before reassignment, Holcomb had been considered absent without leave, which carries a penalty ranging from discharge to imprisonment.

Holcomb, 30, and her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Vaughn Holcomb, 40, were living with their children at Fort Carson near Colorado Springs when both were sent to Iraq in February.

Family members were taking care of their seven children, but the couple returned on emergency leave in September when Vaughn Holcomb's ex-wife went to court seeking full custody of two of the children from their previous marriage.

Simone Holcomb told a judge she would stay home with the children and refused an Army order to return to Iraq.

Her reassignment to Fort Carson was backdated to Oct. 10, the day she was due back in Iraq, which means she couldn't be charged with being absent without leave, Budzyna said.

Ra'Shadd and Budzyna said they were trying to sort out the conflicting messages.

"Common sense is going to prevail in this matter. We are going to take care of the soldier," Budzyna said.

Simone Holcomb referred questions to Ra'Shadd. He did not return a call seeking comment late Monday or Tuesday.
© 2002 AT&T and The Associated Press.

RESPONSE

....and I can't help but want to reach out and hug her and hold her face in the palms of my hand for saying this to my last blog, Ebb and Flow:

as alice walker says, its the absolute trust in the goodness of the earth. that whatever is, is. god/godess/shiva/buddha/earth mother, will not let you down or leave you to fall. its about having courage and being brave to look at yourself back in the mirror with loving tenderness. its about realising that those that love you, will hurt you. and, hurt is part of every day living. that people will do what they know and how they know how to do until they know better. its about letting go. its about the walk of faith. its about crying in the night and smiling in the morning. its about loving hard and being humble. its all about love.

Thank you, girl. I feel so fortunate to "know" you. This is a cut and paste to keep in the journal for sure.

ANGEL

EBB AND FLOW

"The life of the spirit," said Saint-Exupery, "the veritable life, is intermittent and only the life of the mind is constant...The spirit...alternates between total vision and absolute blindness. Here is a man, for example, who loves his farm---but there are moments when he sees in it only a collection of unrelated objects. Here is a man who loves his wife---but there are moments when he sees in love nothing but burdens, hindrances, contraints. Here is a man who loves music---but there are moments when it cannot reach him."

The "veritable life" of our emotions and our relationships also is intermittent. When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretent to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror in its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity---in freedom.....

Intermittency---an impossible lesson for human beings to learn. How can one learn to live through the ebb-tides of one's existence? How can one learn to take the trough of the wave?..........................Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From the Sea


Last week I caught up with a friend who I'd been trying to meet up with for a while. I needed to give her some papers to review and she told me it'd be fine to leave them in her mailbox. Life and Circumstances being what they are, I got caught up and didn't get to her mailbox at the time I thought I would. When I did get there I saw her car in the driveway. I knocked on the door and we talked a while. She shared with me that she'd just come back from a meeting at her daughter's school. Frustration veiled her face as we discussed the problems her daughter is having in school. We discussed, as we see it, the problems that exist in the public schools today that directly relate to this No Child Left Behind legislation (but that's for another post). As we were talking her husband made his way up the drive. Back bent, face folded into a frown, eyebrows furrowed he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was unseasonably hot last week and when I asked him "Why you frownin' so?" his wife agreed and said, "Yea, why are you frownin' like that? Is it the heat?" Yea, he said. It's the heat. We both (she and I) knew what he meant. The heat of being a parent. The heat of balancing all this stuff in Life at one time. The heat of the very fact that just when things feel like they're going okay, some fist out of the Great Nowhere, punches you in the gut to wake you up to Reality, knocking the wind clean out of your chest, leaving you by the side of the road wondering what the heck just happened.

I felt for my friend. Then later, when I came home, I read a couple of blogs around town and realized that other people I know are "going through" too. Wrestling with odd emotions; feeling overwhelmed. And then, this past weekend, I got to feeling that hum-drum feeling. That feeling that Goapele mentions in her first track "Sometimes I feel like I'm never gonna get past here." Got to feeling like all the things I want are far out of reach. Got to feeling like it's going to be one very....long....life. Potty training. Sit still. Stand up. Come over here. Sit down. Behave. Stop talking back. Put your shoes on. Where's your coat? Didn't I tell you to sit down? Post office. Grocery store. Laundry. Vacuuming. Dusting. Folding clothes. Stop talking back, I said. Stand up. Sit down. Boil the water for oatmeal. Check homework. Sign homework. Start answering the inevitable question: whose house are we going to for Thanksgiving? And the most difficult for me: how am I going to make it through the next two months of insane consumer spending, the commercialization of what is supposed to be the holiest day of the American year. Why can I not just get on the first thing smoking out of here to St. Bart's?? Just that trapped, hum-drum, yucky-thoughts feeling.

But the thing I told my friend was this: that this, with her daughter----the frustration, confusion, the weariness of it all is the Ebb and Flow of Life. Nothing is ever the same; no moment is ever like the preceding moment. This is the nature of what we call Being Alive. Shit happens. I think the frustration comes from our own expectation that everything is supposed to be Okay all the time. Not only is that not possible but it's a horribly misguided notion that we are socialized to believe. I think the other thing is that, as the Buddhists teach, we have to learn to find comfort in the fact that our emotions and the way we process the events in our lives is constantly shifting too. We have to learn to be as comfortable in the "up" moments as we are in the "down," realizing that each emotion we have is not only valid but fleeting. The trick is in not getting stuck in whatever emotion you find yourself.

When I was younger I had a horrible way of blowing things out of proportion. A bad day could easily turn into a bad week. But one of the things I'm learning, perhaps through meditation, is to let the feelings that I have be as they are for the length of time they need to be. And when it's time to let it go, let it go. I'm learning that life is nothing if it's not change, intermittency. That what is here today, is gone tomorrow. By no means have I mastered control of my emotions -- and I'm not even sure it's something I want to do anyhow -- but I am learning that there is an Ebb and Flow to life and that to expect things to stay the same is an exercise in futility. I'm learning that all we can do is all we can do. That everything has a way of working itself out. The pain of a lover who leaves, a child who struggles, a goal unmet: somehow, Life, in her mystical way, always works things out.

I guess it boils down to Trust. Trust in Life, trust in the nature of life. Trust in ourselves that whatever we're feeling is fleeting and that no matter how painful it is, somehow we will make it through.

Be Good,
A.

PROGRESS NOTE

Day 3 of the rewrites and thus far things are moving along just wonderfully. I’ve been in touch with some folks down in DC who are really helping me figure out how to make this embezzlement scheme as authentic as possible. Rather than have my character bilk the money off the retirement accounts, I’ve moved him into OFRM – (Office of Finance and Resource Management) where he’ll come in direct contact with the accounts receivables which are much easier to manipulate. What I’m most grateful for, aside from these very generous folks who are lending me their time, is that I’m a writer during the internet age. There is nothing you can’t find out these days. The wonderful thing about my story is that it’s set in the early nineties when DC was full of scandal. Scandal galore! I’m finding so much coverage on the scandals that went down during that time, I almost don’t know what to do with it all. Last night, I was up until way too late reading and printing out over sixty pages of improprieties, auditor reports from inappropriate payments made to vendors that didn’t have contractual agreements with the city. Gheez Louise! Millions and millions of dollars spent, coded with the wrong codes – office supplies, equipment rentals. All right here on the net for public, or in my case – novelist – consumption.

So I got to thinking about this whole process of rewriting and a recent telephone conversation with a friend whose stuck in a fit of starts and stops. Over the years I’ve heard many people complain about how hard it is, how awful, that it’s taking them years and years to get the story right. Some abandon their stories altogether and some spend year after year after year rewriting. I’ve even heard people call it downright hell, which is something I can’t imagine saying. I love what I do too much to call it that and over the years I’ve learned that when it gets to feeling too hard, too uncomfortable it’s simply time to put it down and move to something else. (Kind of like when people say that a place “looks like a war zone.” It boggles my mind. Do you really know what a war zone looks like?, I often want to say).

But I do ask myself: when does it stop? When does revising become simply a “spinning of the wheels?” When is a story no longer a story but simply a learning experience? Or something else?

Toni Morrison says that if you don’t like revising then you’d better find a different vocation. Writing is 100% revision. The other thing she’s said is that she doesn’t believe in writer’s block in the conventional sense that we know it. Rather than think that the “words aren’t there” or the “story isn’t there,” she thinks it is simply a message to set the work aside, work on something else. Allow both the mind and the work to rest, which in turn gives you a freshness—a new perspective—when you come back to it. To add to that truth is the bare bone truth that sometimes we are not writing what we think we are but writing toward something else; that what we think we are writing is either a) part of something else to come or b) something that may take form later but needs time to gel, mold, take solid form. As a young writer I have become very comfortable with the fact that not everything I write is intended for publication. Some things are just a “getting ready” for something else. Case in point: three lines of a poem I wrote recently have found themselves at the end of the second scene in my short story, Butterflies in Brooklyn.

The opening line of the poem written in dedication to the Mother Poets before me reads:

You are an ancient rhythm
The drumbeat of lost tribes
A hieroglyphic tracing
Leading lost souls back to buried treasures of Gold and Silver
Frankincense and Myrrh

The path of your righteousness is paved by morning glories
Your resting place the silk bed of roses ....


and then this same line found itself in my short story:

"Beneath a crescent Brooklyn moon, Amir pulls me into the warmth of his chest. His arms are two warm blankets that wrap themselves around me and cover me with a smooth evenness. We shift and reposition and suddenly Amir becomes an ancient rhythm, the drumbeat of lost tribes. Our hushed laughter, probing hands, darting tongues and fingers are hieroglyphic tracings leading our lost souls to ancient treasures. The scent of our lovemaking is a rising wave of frankincense and myrrh. Tonigt on the rooftop I am enveloped in all that is familiar; all that has been lost and recovered. Seeds of righteousness lay at my feet waiting to be planted in fertile land. Waiting for hope. Hoping for courage."

I had been struggling for a long time with this story and after writing the poem I found the parts that were missing. They were there all the time but needed another form in which to be released.


I start stories all the time, simply because the voice (or the teller of the story) has decided to drop in on me that day. I put no pressure on the story or myself for it to "be" anything. I have no high expectations of finishing it in a week and seeing it in the New Yorker the next month. I simply allow it to come and be as it is.

Rather than ignore the voice, I simply record what I hear coming to me and I set it aside. I’ll never forget when I wrote my first short story, Men Troubles. I was smack dab in the middle of my novel, trying to forge ahead, and this woman’s voice kept coming to me. She was sitting on a porch and started telling me about a pool of blood that had soaked into the wood. She started saying how hot it was that day, “a mosquito feast,” she said and how there wasn’t “a blade of grass moving in the whole city.” Well, I told my friend, I said, “hey this sounds good but I have to get this novel done. I don’t have time for this woman.” But God knows she was always in my ear. So my friend said, “then tell her that Angel. Write down what she says and then just tell her that. She’ll understand.” My friend, an accomplished writer, really believes as does Alice Walker, that the ancestors know who to tell their stories to. So I did just that. I wrote down what she said and kept moving. Eventually the story was done and I did get very good reviews on it. But I worked on it for over a year, only coming to it when I knew I had something to offer, something to say.

I guess what I’m saying is that every writer has to know when the story is done, that is, when you have nothing more to say. Or when what you’re saying is still not heading in the direction it needs to head, taking time to consider that perhaps it’s part of something else. Writing is first about honesty: honesty about yourself, your characters and their space in time. Perhaps when revision turns to pain it is simply, as Toni Morrison says, not “right time.” Maybe she knows a thing or two since she’s only published, what seven or eight novels in all these years? And years, five or more, pass in between some of those. As Alice Walker advises, that’s when it’s time to learn how to do something else. Write a poem. Knit. Take up gardening. Learn a new language. Teach some preschoolers how to read. Paint. Jog. Set it aside. Start the next novel. This is particularly applicable to first novels. Some first novelists strike a home run on the first story. Some don’t. Some have to shelf the first project as a learning experience then come back to it after the second or third novel is done. Perhaps in doing so they’ve given it (and their minds) the time it needs to work itself out.

As for me I can honestly say that my story is indeed moving forward. I see it taking form. The time I spent doing that outline was incredibly helpful because I do have a clear picture of what I want to say and how I want to say it. The workshops out in Iowa were immensely helpful, in addition to all the self learning I’ve done and continue to do: John Gardner’s books on Fiction Writing, Janet Burroway, Natalie Goldberg and her Zen approach, Sol Stein and all the Creative Screenwriting magazines that teach good dialogue. Another thing that is incredibly beneficial to me is switching forms. I write poetry, short stories, essays and even monologues. In fact, I have a choreopoem that I started about two years ago, that I shelved for lack of knowledge about theater production. The piece needs work and occasionally I go back to it, especially during my slow moments with the novel. I love my poems, each and every one of them. They are my thoughts and as you can tell, I value my thoughts. But most of all, I think that having my children gives me the balance I need to keep my writing from becoming painful. I’m so busy with them that by the time I do get back to my desk the words just seem to come, as if they’ve been sitting there waiting patiently for me, empathetic and loving, knowing that I will do my very best as soon as I sit down.

I do pray that it all comes together but by the same token I will not spend a lifetime revising one novel. Soon enough—and I pray I have the good sense to know when—it’ll be time to move on. But for now, that time is not here.

Be good,
ANGEL

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET...

As far as the search for solitude is concerned, we live in a negative atmosphere as invisible, as all-pervasive, and as enervating as high humidity on an August afternoon. The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone.

How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it --- like a secret vice!

Actually, these are among the most important times in one's life --- when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer to work out his thoughts; the musician to compose, the saint to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves; that firm strand which will be the indispensible center of a whole web of relationships. She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as "the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still." ..... Anne Morrow Lindberg, Gift From the Sea

So, I'm 34 now and tomorrow starts Day 1 of what I hope will be the last of The Novel Rewrites. Here we are on the corner of Revision Avenue and Revision Blvd. Any which way you look at it: it's Revision. What I realize is this: the primary requirement for getting this done will not be more classes, workshops or critique groups but simple solitude. A going inside of one's Self; a quieting of the mind, the act of having a singular focus -- the steady hand of the welder gets the job done. I know I'll do it. I have no doubt whatsoever that it'll get done. The question is, how long will it take? What centrifugal forces will pull me from this labor of love? What shocks will come to the periphery that will threaten my singular focus?

So much of what happens to us is out of our control, but so much of what happens is the result of our decisions. I've taken appointments on the Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings that were supposed to be dedicated writing days. I've taken telephone calls from folks that don't give a damn about me, and used up hours on end trying to help solve problems that are not mine to solve nor worry about. I have not been a good steward over my time. I've been the one, cancelling my writing time, to meet with someone who "just isn't available on any other day." And so who is there to blame, but myself?

No worry though, because that's the good thing about birthdays. It's a starting new, a fresh beginning.
So the new rules for the road will include:

1. Dedicated time in both the morning and evening for meditation, even if it means setting the clock a little earlier. I like myself better when I'm actively practicing meditation.

2. Definately more time for yoga. Spouse and I started back at the gym on Friday and he convinced me that the best way for me to tone these thighs and abs of mine is weight training. Not to look like masculine, but to be toned. Well, I'm aching today -- that "back in the gym" ache and realize that if I'm going back in, I'm going to have to incorporate my yoga stretches to reduce the risk of strain and injury. I'm also going to try to squeeze in the Tuesday morning Pilates class that the gym offers up for free.

3. Daily journaling in my private journal. My thoughts are important to me. I like looking back on who I was and seeing my growth and lack thereof. It helps me get my path straight.

4. A schedule. I have a way of letting my days just "happen," and that ain't good. As much as possible, I need to sit down and at least create a loose plan for what I'd like to accomplish each day, each week, each month.

5. More reading. I have been reading way too much non-fiction lately. I need to get back to my novels, the imagery, the pages that feed my creativity. So in the spirit of that, I start Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende tonight. (Yes, the ever-present late comer).

6. Dedicated "Days Away." Spouse and I agreed that every other month or so we'll try to go get a room and just have time out for ourselves. It ain't about the sex, it's about having Time Out. We'll start a little kitty, not going to be anyplace expensive. We've even agreed to switch up, maybe one of those times either he or I will just go by ourself. I can go for that.

So, the actual birthday went well. Spouse and I broke bread (literally) with my brother and his wife, my sister and her man at a neat little Ethiopian spot in D.C.'s Adam's Morgan. It was a first for Spouse and I and though the set up was cool, I don't care for the idea of eating with my hands from a huge shared bowl of food. I know the cultural concept and I know the significance of eating from one bowl (in Saudi it's the same thing) but I don't care for it. Plus the fact, as I tried to explain to my brother who's lived in Saudi and Thailand and a host of other places (no, he's not military) and enjoys exotic food -- I don't like anything that sets my mouth aflame such that I have to chug damn near a gallon of water. Now, I love Mexican and I like Thai, but some Ethiopian dishes are like eating fire. Plus the fact, like my son, if food smells strange I have a hard time eating it, which is why I don't eat Indian cuisine. There's something about the smell that really makes me nauseated and suspicious. Oh well. And so after dinner, Spouse surprised me with reservations at a beautiful waterfront hotel with a harbor view and treat of all treats -- grandma kept the kids!

Damn, is this what a good nights rest feels like?

So we had a great weekend together and I'm glad to be in this space. I'm thankful for the sisters I have here online whose openmindedness pushes me forward. And I'm thankful for the few I have here in this town who do the same. A few is good enough, I realize, after my week's worth of reflection. Anything more would be too much.

9:52 and time to hit the hay. There's work to do and solitude to jump into tomorrow.

Be good,
----A.