the full significance of a character

It's the second of two acts: World War II era, South Pacific. "Peggy the pin-up" takes the USO stage in a sequined red dress. The sparkle of scarlet in contrast with her platinum wig and the soft spotlight and the quintessential period microphone set the scene. We are the "soldiers," the audience. This song is dedicated by the Marilyn Monroe look-alike to us, to them. She wraps her delicate fingers around the microphone's base and as the piano cues, her sultry lips part to shape the words that I can almost entirely sing along to.

I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places...

She slowly swings her hips into the lounge-like performance, maintaining her persona of deliberate sensuality. Peggy croons through the second verse, the third, and in the fourth she unexpectedly falls out of character. Her bright lips fight against the stage smile that she so diligently attempts to hold against the weight of reality. Stepping back from her microphone, she turns away from the audience. It takes longer than a moment for her to regain composure, long enough that the accompanist glances up from her music, concerned and confused, long enough for those of us in the audience to realize that this is not scripted. Her grief ripples through the dark theatre--contagious. I see the silhouettes of other women subtly wiping tears from their cheeks, just as I stretch the sleeve of my cardigan over the inside of my wrist. Pressing it to my face, trying to stifle my own sadness, I blot at tears more slowly than they fall dripping down the front of my dress. The actress uncoils a couple of times, fans her face in efforts to reestablish the order of necessary existence, and eventually turns again to face us smiling. She finishes the song breathy and with a wink. She finishes not as the Army wife we catch a glimpse of, but as "Peggy Jones", starlet, pin-up, community theatre actress-in-role.

darling, I've been so satisfied [since I met you]

How did I get here--sitting alone in his home? There was a tall, dark and handsome man, a bar and a band and a summer too hot. Do the stars actually ever align, and why does this Otis Redding song move me to cry? There was a line--too good and not good enough, and a life forged over coffee. A double latte, and for me, I think, I was on Americano's at the time. There's only so much magic in beans, though, so it must have been more. Maybe Kerouac? Maybe phones held up to hear ocean waves? Honest eyes and falling words [while the guard was down, of course]? Here we are, pantomiming partners--a glass of wine will do for now as I step and step together in circles around the room. I don't have the answers, only notions of gut and the pull of fate, and a man and cups of coffee that we'll drink in mornings that wait.

24 of 31: giving (a little more than usual)

Dissension

She is on the kitchen phone.
And I am perched on her slow-rocking hips,
Too old to be lulled like this

My jaws lock up with bursts of sweet and sour—

The toppled chair on our back porch,
Heaved from the living room,
Reads clearly: Opposition.

There is an undercurrent—
red wine and disdain.

Praise Jesus! High-five!

My father by the woodpile,
Tells me to pedal and pushes my small body toward Motion.

The pink training wheels he tossed
Into tall grass shrink, and I leave them

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Reciprocity

I worked out an entire beginning.  Comments/criticism is really, very badly wanted.

It was not the rotten sweetness of three-day old trash that startled her entrance nor was it the thin cloud of fruit flies having descended on the scrapings of her morning dishes. It was neither of these things that left her breathless in the doorway, paralyzed and disgusted by the static nature of tasks undone. “Take out the garbage,” was in fact scratched low on her traveling list of must-dos, and the dishes, and the laundry -- her laundry, defrosting the freezer and sweeping the floors. It was, rather, coming home to her own voiceless echoes – the cold jingle of house keys dropped on pink Formica, the snap of cabinets opened and shut, the airy and almost inaudible buzz of warming television tubes, and her erratic breathing, proof that she may never grow accustomed to this kind of loneliness.

A strict and icy breeze crept through the open doorway, wrapping around her stockinged legs. She was suddenly roused enough to set down her brown bag groceries, snatch the stinking bags of trash and step outside once more to deposit them into the dented metal garbage can, where they would later be claimed. She couldn't help being envious that even the refuse of her solitary life had an explicit belonging to some one and some place. And then she went inside where at least the warmth made it bearable to remember the expectations of making dinner for two and a nightcap before bed with the body of a husband.

Behind her the door sighed shut. She pried off her scuffed mary-janes and thought to put away the eggs and butter before they went bad. She thought also to scrub the dirty dishes in her kitchen sink before considering the bugs a presence she was not ready to part with just yet.

Fiction

I have my first fiction assignment due in a week: a 4-6 page short story, which doesn't sound hard until I started trying to pull a story line from pretty much anywhere I could reach.  "They" say write what you know, yet when what you know and what you write about is tangled up in a cultural adjustment, and when suddenly everyone else is also tangled up in it, I imagine those words and ideas become mighty cliched.  I'm trying to use true influences, since I simply cannot scrap my foundation to write something foreign on this first try.  This is my blind stab at a developing story.  Please leave feedback!  I would much rather read it here than to be bombarded with it in the classroom workshop!

           It was not the rotten sweetness of three-day old trash that startled her entrance or the thin cloud of fruit flies having descended on the scrapings of her morning dishes. It was neither of these things that left her breathless in the doorway, paralyzed and disgusted by the static nature of tasks undone. “Take out the garbage,” was in fact scratched low on her traveling list of must-dos, and the dishes, and the laundry -- her laundry, defrosting the freezer and sweeping the floors. It was, rather, coming home to her own voiceless echoes – the cold jingle of house keys on pink Formica countertops, the snap of cabinets opened and shut, the airy and almost inaudible buzz of warming television tubes, and her erratic breathing, proof that she may never grow accustomed to this kind of loneliness.

new beginning?

This is like running into an old friend on the street, after a huge [or trivial] episode has sullied a thick-as-theives connection. I'm not sure what to say. My face probably projects an awkward confusion. I'm the [mostly] nice girl, so I want to be kind. And maybe I miss her, truly, because she once held my hand through something rough. It certainly breaks my heart to remember that she was once as necessary as favorite jeans and the right color of foundation. I would keep gentle eyes and afford her a muted, though sincere warmth, and possibly ask about men and work. The performance of discomfort is inevitable and its moves are forced and foolish, yet you play the part knowing that the chance of rediscovery is worth more than feeling caught off guard.

So I'm here, unsure of what to say, how to lead myself through the rhythm of writing without deletion. My fingers ache. They twitch and jump with the desire to make words into phrases, into sentences and on into something complete [enough]. I feel awkward now because I let some things get under my skin, and I felt so bound to censorship by the boundaries of security and judging eyes. And there's also the circus tent of grad school that keeps me currently contained. This kind of school is more than I ever imagined it would be, but I love it. It is partially responsible for my leaving [the lonely sound] and partially responsible for an attempt to continue what was started. I must begin writing again to prevent rusty wheels and rusty gears and rusty eloquence. I need a place to empty after all of the ice has melted.

I'm going to try this again, but I can't help feel that something should be different. I'm contemplating a new idea altogether or actually breathing life into that wordpress address I claimed months ago for just-in-cases. Until I can get the ball rolling, know that all is well[ish] in English and Creative Writing and that the Staff Sergeant is spoiling me rotten. There's so much more to tell but Margaret Fuller is begging to be read and this stuffy head-cold needs another round of lemon tea.

Not Even Close.

Every effort feels more like painful dry-heaving than the last. There is nothing but an empty failure, a hollow intestinal wretch. Not even with paired fingers pushing, urging substance can I produce. Why, when I should be full on living, fat on experience, on love and excitement, is there nothing, not even a burning dribble of written proof? Where is my desperate syrup of ipecac? Where is the ground up, half digested evidence that once thrashed here with liveliness? I did relish this place. I would sneak away to purge my heartaches, my livid anger, my careless, blurry, sobbing pieces, and I didn't know you and I didn't care. These days it seems that I am empty before I even arrive.

new light

Driving home along the forgotten highways of small town America, I passed a lot filled by white crosses wedged temporarily into sod. Adorned with tiny flags, the flock of homemade stakes scattered the lawn with names of fallen soldiers, deflowering the innocent structures in mournful, black ink. So many names of so many lost, and so many, many also left behind. My throat swelled into a choking knot as the memorial arrived and disappeared quickly into the background of my rear view.

I know that I am no exception, that I am following legions of proud footsteps belonging to those devoted women who have loved and waited for warriors. I know that wars have and will always be waged and that some soldiers return from battle and that some do not. Each day arrives with chance, and sometimes it takes a patch of crosses, cultivated by grievous loss, to act as a reminder of how high the wager actually is.

I let my mind momentarily graze an empty image of only his name left painted on whitewashed timber. The thought alone prickled my skin and sickened my gut. I said a prayer to an unknown god for the empty beds and widowed wives, for the victims of warfare, for the entire chaos of the fight. And one of gratitude, one for hope and protection, strength and endurance.

On quiet nights awaiting his departure I've been known to pout my lips and confess to wishing he didn't have to go and for his job to be less soldier-esque. Following routine, he pulls me into him with a knowing strength. His reply is serious and sincere as he reminds me that he wouldn't be all the things I love if it weren't for these parts, too. I know its true. What I don't know is how I'd ever settle for a mere memory of them.

The beginning [of something bigger?]

I was little more than a bystander, just another leggy girl dancing drunk in the southern heat. If I recall correctly, and it's possible that I won't, my evening's accomplice and I were "bringing sexy back", playing off one another's staged advances. I think it was the beading sweat on our brows that eventually broke the rhythm, and we tore ourselves away from the nucleus of the crowd. She and I stood for a moment at the outskirts of the bar's back patio, fluttering our flashy tops to circulate air beneath them, our conversation revolving around another drink and the inconvenience of July's inferno.

I never saw them coming, the two casual fellows who lumbered up from behind. I couldn't see the one-of-them's face who asked if we were models until, stunned at the lunacy in the question, I turned to face the mad man. He was the tall, dark-haired talker who prompted my stifled guffaw. The adamant "out-of-work writer" who both enticed and repelled me. The subject who, in my inebriated state, I demanded would take my number as she peeled me away from my over zealous midnight oration. It was too hot to care that the conversation was brief, and the prognosis of unemployment was all too familiar a disappointment. As Mid-Summer closed in like a plastic bag around the head of an unknowing child, we shed what articles could be spared and then faded from the festivities earlier than usual, having found no night's relief.