The responsibility to appropriately represent (a) character(s)

What I am trying to tell you is this: in my own way, I love you. And you can trust me, mostly. I won't lead, wouldn't lead, haven't led you wrong. It would be bad form. But please know that if I do lead you wrong, I once thought it was right.

- Monson, Neck Deep, Appendix

I used to think that what I wanted was to be like you (or the many of you who are military wives). But really, I was an artist first and "they" say, "be true to yourself." I am a left-winged liberal. I don't believe in war. I would lend my crossed legs to a cause in need of silent protest. I try only to buy organic produce. There isn't much of me that fits the bill anyway. And there is the almost palpable barrier--a man in crisis. I don't think he reads this garbage anymore, so I am feeling a little less censored. That isn't even half of it. Maybe he thinks that The Lonely Sound was abandoned or he doesn't care anymore. In his own way, he loves me.

In my own way, I love you.

Lately I imagine the trajectory of a bullet. I imagine the spatter patterns it might cause on a wall or some other wayward surface. Brain matter, other parts. It doesn't matter. I play out the motions only in my head, and I'm only telling this because I'm tired of pussyfooting around the idea of self. I don't care if you like me. I should never have cared. And the truth, if there is such a thing, is that it may not be in the cards for me to "be" one of "you" army wives. Because life is a force to be reckoned with. It will happen according to or not at all resembling the outcome I reach for. We are born alone. We die alone. I write alone. I am beginning to believe that he wants to be alone, a man as Island.

(I am trying to disassociate myself.)

I am beginning to dream of the Anywhere I could move, the Anything I could do, all the dreams and ideals that dreamers and idealists conjure. I was, after all, an artist first, and then somehow his and somehow this.

I thought for the first time tonight that I could be okay married to creativity, the lonesome but not lonely eccentric. I thought that I could move in a couple of months for him, indulging the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too element of whatever the fuck is going on here, but I won't. I need more satisfaction than that. I don't think I was ever meant to be the understudy, the shadow lurker. Some hours do belong solely to me.

And maybe I am the "married" type, and he is the one who isn't. Well, there isn't anything I can do to change him.

There isn't anything I can do to change him...but I was always honest. I always aimed for the LONG TERM.

Perhaps though, it's me? I always run. I'm kind of preparing to run now, peeling back the layers of happy-family-visions and the imagined faces of our unborn children, a fusion of more than individuals.

I feel like I am losing and because I don't care about winning per se (and he does), I think I am more privy to, or likely to examine the behavior of dissolution. We are fuzzy at the edges.

I am trying to read Brenda Miller's Season of the Body but it is proving difficult. Her focus is on the end of a relationship with Keith, who also makes an appearance in Blessing of the Animals in a beautiful essay called "A Different Person." It is so painful to imagine us parting ways. So unbelievably painful. I have harnessed so much in this Man, this ourness of life, a river fed by us as tributaries. And now what?

I am my own captain. (though not quoted, per request.)

I am not challenging the "who" manning the wheel. I am sure as shit my own captain.

Hold yourself together.

(punish someone else.)

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.

it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

For unknown reasons my body awoke at 10 after 6, and I have to confess that I was really excited by the prospect of sitting on my side porch, newly cleaned and organized, while sipping my coffee in the quiet of a Sunday not yet writhing. The big, debuting sunrise had passed and given way to wild tangerine rivers of stringy clouds that burned off quickly as the sun took its position in the daytime sky, but really, I'm so estranged to such a thing that I'll take the leftovers and be happy with them.

Somewhere far enough off that I had to focus my ears and wait for a second listen, a rooster crowing set my heart to longing. My chicken dreams have been put on hold for stronger desires to travel, and waiting to see what Uncle Sam has up his sleeve for the end of the year. There are reasons aplenty to explain why now just isn't time for chickens, yet that rooster crowing from who-knows-where thumps at the bruise. Everything works out and my life right now needs to maintain freedom - to bend, to move, to be my part of the Army plan.

Traveling is currently more critical anyway. As I contemplated the ramifications of literally pulling out my hair and those of quitting grad school, I also grabbed frantically at anything that would make my academic life worth living. Last semester me and my big dreams had proposed a month long road trip paired with an independent study in travel writing, which sounded great but ran into some logistical issues that made it less appealing in the end. I had dropped the idea and had conceded to the normal class schedule and my first free summer in quite a while. That was before the academic crisis occurred, which ultimately brought me back to it for modification. Dad and I have been planning a smaller scale road trip to Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC, and so the familiar thought halted me one day like a child suddenly consoled for no reason. He and I will be back before June starts up, leaving the rest of summer wide open. I stopped by my non-fiction professor's office to get the angst off my chest and to ask her about the independent study again, under different circumstances. Talking to her was helpful and she agreed to throw together this elixir of a summer course. I'm still mostly at the drawing board weighing possibilities but a drive up coastal California, from Los Angeles to the Sonoma Valley is in the lead. And not to be outdone, Mom suggested a short cruise to Mexico just yesterday. It won't be like a summer backpacking Europe or India or Vietnam or Africa (all dreams), but it will be a wealth of opportunity and a reason to write, as well as a reason not to lose my hair at the hands of stress and frustration.

The container garden takes up the same cause as the chickens would - abandonment - although I'm pretty sure there is an easy solution, some kind of garden variety life support that I just haven't yet found. I've looked at a number of "irrigation systems" and yesterday I found some Plant Nanny's at a local shop downtown. The only problem there is the requirement of wine bottles. I have eleven large pots and each of the Nanny's terra-cotta stakes requires a wine bottle filled with water. Between now and mid-May I would be hard pressed or consistently annihilated to come up with eleven empty bottles.

Save the absence-induced possibility of sun scorch, the garden still aims for success. Now that it is written pests will probably descend upon my tender sprouts like plagues of locusts. But until then, they are growing in leaps and bounds, and while I feel like The Ignorant Gardener, last night talking to Dad about my thriving promises of fruit, he commended the knowledge I have somehow found room for and managed to cram into my already over-taxed headspace. I, however, will likely continue to describe my forays into veggie cultivation as "gardening by the seat of my pants," at least until next year when I hope to be the reigning queen of tomatoes, squash and peppers.

With that and the sun securely positioned, I need to go heat up my coffee and do something relating to school today. As much as I keep hoping it will, that final paper is not going to write itself.

what IS the what?

The rain knows to fall and the earth knows to drink, and while I watch the natural course of things course on, I can't help noting my envy of the little birds, whose genus and species I cannot cite, that scuttle along the damp grass and glossy asphalt. They have very few responsibilities and very few quests to conquer. Yet I feel oddly at peace sitting here in the back doorway watching them carry on, the just-cut grass, listening to the dribbling rain fall from disjointed gutters into puddles that slowly erode the yard and driveway, and feeling the cool, heavy air enwrap my bare toes. For this contentment there are no questions only the desire for endless amounts of it, a lifetime of uninterrupted moments of stillness, and the reminder of light traffic that I am not alone.

I stopped into the office of a professor I had last semester to grasp at a last ditch effort to prevent me from quitting. I'm not happy at all with where I feel like this masters program is going. And I wanted someone to say something that wasn't practical. I wanted someone to use words like "energy" and "spirit" and "meaning." She had been trying to plan a trip to India for the summer, had done the research and found flights, but she couldn't buy the tickets. She said that something inside of her kept her fingers from closing the deal. In the end, she decided that she hadn't really wanted to go to India and wound up booking a trip to a Caribbean Isle instead. She said that sometimes you just know, and that I needed to find what it was that I wanted to gain. "What is the what?" she gently asked. I folded in on myself and wrinkled my face in a dire effort to keep from crying. Is this English program my India?

This is where The Staff Sergeant, in his sweetest, feigned exasperation, would sigh, "so many questions..."

At twenty-five I don't expect to have the whole of my lifetime mapped out. I don't expect to know every detail, recognize every nuance eloquently relayed, have it all figured out. But it bothers me that the further I climb, with plans of enhancing my future, the more blurry my vision becomes. I want to be a writer and I don't even know what that means anymore. I feel like grabbing it by the limp ankles and wrists and heaving it into my growing pile of lifeless, romantic ideals. I feel like cursing the stars for bestowing me with a world of passions and talents that do not provide a salary.

All that I know for certain is that it needs to mean something, my purpose here on earth, something more than watching the gray-blue clouds shuffle beyond trees like foamy waves - with direction. I could sit here with the company of deep-indigo irises and my sweet pug loyally by my side. I could sip strawberry beer and be in awe of all that rises up around me, but I believe they have names for people like that, and really my need for answers would eventually move me.

31 of 31: Another night of poetry

Restless

In my kitchen window
threads of green unfurl,
pushing up from loose soil.

They will be ripe when
the fruits are red, glowing
hot from the sun, and salty-scented.

I have read, that in certain places
buoyant pearls rise in flooding rain,
teeth from the deepest fields.

Then—I don’t know what happens--
The earth must dry around them,

crack open, tell about their bodies.

Intuition must be a part of it.

When it’s time, I am assured,
my tomatoes (and the bones)
will be started and finished.

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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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This website and intellectual property therein is (c) 2009 by http://afloatinalonelysound.blogspot.com and registered and trademarked as copyright U.S. Copyright Office "copyright registration for online works" - all intellectual rights are hereby reserved - all legal rights are hereby reserved. This website and all of its original contents and intellectual property are copyright protected and archived as are its trademarks, logos, service marks, trade dress, slogans, screen shots, copyrighted designs and other brand features. Penalties, Legislation and Appeal Procedures can be found at 512takedown.com Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA). THE WORK IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY USE OF THE WORK OTHER THAN AS AUTHORISED UNDER LICENSE IS PROHIBITED.

Because I'm required to write [creatively]...edited

One down, five to go for the final portfolio.  Writing poetry feels extremely awkward.  We'll see what everyone else has to say maybe not in tonight's class but soon enough...  [Soon enough was tonight.]

On the Freezer Door

We are staring back against
A gloss-pane, beyond camera’s eye,
Wrapped in Georgia heat,
And a moment’s brief paragon.

Held up with words like together, like entwined.

A boy, olive faced, squinting eyes,
A girl, blushing-hot, striped with noon-light,
Her white, white dress against July skin,
His strange complexion of small squares,
Collecting in desert boots.

This is Certainty--

She smiles to the right and he laughs,
At something she can’t remember.

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This website and intellectual property therein is (c) 2009 by http://afloatinalonelysound.blogspot.com and registered and trademarked as copyright U.S. Copyright Office "copyright registration for online works" - all intellectual rights are hereby reserved - all legal rights are hereby reserved. This website and all of its original contents and intellectual property are copyright protected and archived as are its trademarks, logos, service marks, trade dress, slogans, screen shots, copyrighted designs and other brand features. Penalties, Legislation and Appeal Procedures can be found at 512takedown.com Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA). THE WORK IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY USE OF THE WORK OTHER THAN AS AUTHORISED UNDER LICENSE IS PROHIBITED.

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.

hump-day musings

Time has become ever illusive. I mean, it never felt like a low cloud hovering aimlessly, but now, now it's a hurried wind. I keep meaning to come here, to rekindle a dedication to writing, though it seems that I'm only tapping on my keyboard when everything else feels so dire and fragile that I have no other choice than to relieve my mind [here].

I'm making a point this morning to be different.

I'm taking a break from Tracks [which absolutely HAS to be finished today] to write something more attached to sanity than the last post. That conflict has yet to be resolved, but at least we are searching for a direction. Both of us are pulling out our compasses and watching the dials spin over personal capabilities and the ecstasies and trials of love. Beyond my ungluing over love in the time of army-ness, school pushes me onward.

I turned in my first graduate paper yesterday and as I slid it under my pedagogy prof's door I was nearly trembling. I think this must be what it feels like to be a little fish. These papers aren't about business content anymore. Not only am I submitting them to the grammar sticklers but also to the English scholars, which I might remind you, I am most certainly not. I'm in Composition Theory and Pedagogy because once upon a time I started a MySpace blog that a couple of people gave a thumbs-up. I may never feel like I truly earned my spot at the conference table where our classes are held. So frankly, I may have a stroke writing the 10-page essay due on Wednesday. I can't recall ever feeling intimidated by a professor like I do in my 20th C. American Lit. course. I am accustomed to research papers, where a number of secondary sources are required. No question. And cited throughout. This particular assignment is to be 8-12 pages made up 75% of content I pull out of a pool of three novels. Ok, it looks easy. It even looks easy to me, just now, reading over the previous sentence. I'm just not sure how to summon my own opinion on some parallel that worms through all three books and then how to support it with only fictional text.

I'm thinking that something church inspired would be interesting and relatively easy. The symbolism in Erdrich's characters strikes me, a possible other direction. There is also the socio-cultural nature of Erdrich's white characters compared with her Native American Indians. The white characters are always weak and mad and petty. Pauline and Sita and Karl all lose their minds in various ways; Lynette is pretty well straight trash, and the nuns tend to be corrupted. I suppose an answer will come to me.

Back to the books.

highways and bye-ways

On Friday I met with my non-fiction professor to discuss an idea for an independent study next summer. I'm not sure how it came to me, but on my way to class the thought congealed: travel writing; a month long road trip. She loved it!

I'm thinking, roughly, 6000 miles on $5000.

The answer to a quarter-life crisis?

A liberation from responsibility and sense?

For what and why?

To find my true self.

To stumble upon Home in pure form.

It doesn't sound crazy in my head, though the money will be a trial. They say, "if there's a will, there's a way." And there's time to consider logistics and funding. I'm not going to mask my lust for it nor will I deny how mesmerizing the day dreams have been. Thirty days to see and taste and smell half of America, or more if I wanted. Thirty days to reinvent my purpose, my place, my routine. Thirty days of distraction from all that is "fair" [in love and war]. And to write it, for credit no less? This is why I can't give up higher education. The Man would never allow such a blatant severing of strings. Ah!, freedom and The Road...

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.

detour

After talking for almost two years about graduate school, I've scrapped the lukewarm chatter. Last week I succumbed to impulse and applied for the Fall 2008 semester. Surprisingly, I got in! Mentally ready or not, I begin the newest new chapter in about two weeks and I can't wait! Soon I will be embarking upon an MA journey in English creative writing.

an honest attempt

I am determined to write something positive as my fingers hover over these familiar keys. I was recently honored by being allowed to grace the ranks of alltop.com's twenty-something genre and while I think I should feel accomplished and elated, I'm fighting the urge to crawl beneath the nearest rock. Not only have I read the latest posts, I wrote them so I know they haven't been profound or interesting. They and I haven't had much to say.

I'm trying to warm to this new life with its slower pace and limited social interaction. On top of the steep shift of transition, I am still only acquainted with Army-ness, which has currently caused the most distinct abyss of separation to date. My life seems to be carved out in such a monotonous cycle from now until it dissolves into the horizon, accompanied by the end of a lease, the want of graduate school, career-lust, where-we're-going-next, and the rest of uncertainty. I have found that these times of unanchored purgatory are my most miserable. I am the type of person who needs an artery to ground them to a blood source. It doesn't help that the nearest thing to Constant is unavailable. So I wait. I'm waiting for the end of Six Months, waiting to sink my toes into new soil and take root. I'm waiting for him to return so we can talk - what a luxury taken for granted - waiting to start the right job search in the right city in the right industry, waiting to apply to a right local university. So I wait, in this temporary, lonesome state strung between nothing and being engulfed in the thickness of Living According to Direction.

Something positive.

If nothing else, I'm reading. Just like I said I would love to, I'm reading books that have nothing to do with business or school or final exams. I read now in a carefree way that I only recall from memories of grade school or summer vacations. There is no guilt, only wispy delight in worlds cracked open like rich yellowy yolks - the smells and heat of a childhood in Rhodesia and Zambia, the damning panic that moves one to murder, escaping war-torn Sudan to the American violence of Atlanta. They inspire me to strain my reach toward the dream of one day growing into a writer. They let me step away from all the worry of Life's meaning and my role, from the weight of missing him and from counting the hours until he is home again.

While I am desperately trying to appreciate this new journey, the effects of the institution are strong and wrangling. I am a little lost without the obligation of college and afraid of the great-big-world sitting all cocked and ready to either act as my salvation or to happily crush me. This grown up chapter is frightening, especially without the support of my other half. I'll get through it just like I've powered through all the other trying times of my life, and I'll learn new things and I'll grow, just like in the other struggles to find myself. I'm sorry it often manifests from a dreary place inside, but I'll try to do you better than surpluses of desolation.

Good Morning Sun

I am fascinated by how much a good night of sleep can change you and how settling a phone call can finally be. In ritualistic nature, I'm seated here in the middle kitchen chair with my morning's hot tea and sleep in my eyes. For the first time in a week I feel rested and blessed by the company of the sun.

I needed that quality shut-eye and the late call that finally arrived. I'm fairly certain that the lack of both was beginning to turn me into a fanged beast destined to wander the night in search of random prey...or more realistically, an intolerably pissed-off individual. Just to drive the point home and to revel in my reborn self, as I write these words I am smiling.

I continue to be unsure about the magazine. Part of my heart feels traitorous, but The Staff Sergeant has thrice now given the go-ahead. Last night's was the most convincing, and even still I waver slightly. I want it and with his encouragement, I'll pursue it. He says not to worry about stepping on [his] toes, so with cautious candor, I'll see where it goes. I'll offer the pen name for everyone's sake and I'll write about me, which I mostly do anyway. Let's face it, the readers don't want his details. They've got immeasurable lots of their own they are trying to know how to process. Why add to their pile? Why add to mine?

My eyes have become alert and my tea is cool enough to imbibe. I think I'm going to email the editor and take this possibility now to the next step.

sometimes I don't mind the rain.

I'm not in a place where I can call everyone I know to unleash the tidal wave of excitement. So here I am, embracing the trusty blog delivery.

I emailed a casual note to a chief editor of a small, special interest magazine. I told her how I thought I could contribute, how my experiences set me apart. I sent her some samples not expecting anything more than a busy woman's "delete". Less than an hour later a reply sat boldly highlighted in my inbox. She liked what she read, called it interesting and well written. She wants to talk about having me write for the magazine and I can't stand the minutes until I can dial her office and direct extension.

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.

Writing like there's no tomorrow. [ex: 1]

Dearest friend,

Dreams are but sacred flames that ignite our motivation. To let one go is the saddest thought of which I can think. Do not worry that your words lack meaning or power. They are the manifestations of soul and heart. Sometimes it’s okay, necessary even to be selfish. In these moments allow yourself to live only for you, to block out every obligatory distraction in order to feed your center. The rest of the world can be momentarily paused without loss or effect. We all have a story to tell whether or not we know it, whether or not the verses are clearly laced inside our minds. Writing loosens them from the crevices that pin them deep within our dark subconscious. Never let anyone say that your voice is unworthy of speaking. It is yours and holy it that right. Though fame and fortune may not follow the words and phrases you spin together, one person at the very least will be moved having related to your message. Please never give up on dreams. If writing is the rev of energy sparking your motions, write. If writing keeps your tears from drowning your interior, write. If writing is the one thing that gnaws at the stem of every other thought, write. Allowing fear to win is giving up. Life is simply too short not to honor one’s passion, and a truly driven specimen stops at nothing when trying to reach a goal. If you do decide that writing will not sustain you, if necessity beckons over art, don’t give up writing for you. One day someone, somewhere will stumble upon the albums of your life in words and they will be a gift, a legacy. If nothing else, write for you - for sanity’s sake, because life without it would be incomplete.

Good luck in your quest. Be inspired. [Write.]

In reverence,

SP

Naked in Baghdad

::drumroll::

I finished my first book of the year! This afternoon's irresistible spring-time highs coaxed the masses from inside, even me. I milled around the apartment for most of the day, but after the third load of dirty laundry was loaded I couldn't ignore the temptation of sunny skies. I packed my current read-in-progress and some homework, and sped off to the haven of Starbucks' patio. I ordered my tall-iced-skinny-caramel-macchiato and planted myself in the iron chair with the full intent of devouring the final page.

Naked in Baghdad is the 2003 journalistic compilation of Anne Garrels. Working as an NPR foreign correspondent, she finds herself in Iraq's capital just as talks of war and WMD's are being volleyed. By the time the bombs begin raining, she remains one of only 16 American journalists surviving either deportation or personal fear. In spite of being a woman of fifty-something years with a loving hubby at home, she stations herself on the other side of the world to contribute her observations through daily audio reports.

She's basically my new hero.

I'm not sure if my somewhat compulsive interests in genocide [and now the war in Iraq] convey here. If you were to have a glimpse at my bookshelf, or possibly even a short conversation with the Princess herself, it would be clear. I always try to explain that it isn't the tactics of war that whet my mindful appetite or the politics either, rather it's the people - the sociocultural aspects of war, as I often entitle them. At the end of Garrels' book she states the same as her motivation. It's the people and how they fair conflict that drives her need to give them a voice. Her perspective was oh so intriguing, too. The entirety of her stay was made up of several trips back and forth on account of visa restrictions, and never was there left out a single complicated hoop through which she jumped to get back into Baghdad. I loved that she avoided the fantasy of battle, that she covered the monotony and fear, and mostly that she did so without apparent agenda.