the art of story

We've Moved!

2011-09-01T13:53:00.005-04:00

since 5/20/06 i have come to these pages and written about the art of story or the art of life or the art of being myself ... and many of you have been along for the ride! thank you!

although i will carry on cultivating the art of story on the "Musings" page of my new website, this very familiar setting will expire in just a few weeks...i'm not sure how long to give people time to note my new address.

well i suppose can leave this post up for awhile as an invitation to come to the Musings Page of

www.stacybarton.com where you will find my posts, both old and new.

so come on over, jump in, the water's fine!

welcome!

2011-08-30T20:46:00.002-04:00

so hello!

my brother just helped me create this new website. don't get me wrong, i loved my old site and feel forever grateful for the work allison smythe did on it, but time passes (nearly 5 years) and it is time to move on.

so here we are. my hope is that this new site will be more interactive, accessible and open to the latest flow of technology. so come. enjoy. react. post. i'm all ears and ready to be your audience.

it is only fitting, after all, you've been my audience for a good long time.

salud!

blog transforming soon

2011-08-26T20:20:00.003-04:00

okay so this blog - my baby since '06 i think - will soon be melded with my new website. it will also have my FB posts and twitter feed and videos etc... i am really trying to downsize for the benefit of my writing and make a user-friendly site for anyone who is interested.

stay tuned!

dad's deals

2011-08-26T07:41:00.003-04:00

my dad loves a bargain. when i was younger he would buy 20 pounds of butter or 2 dozen loaves of bread at a time, just because they were on sale. we had this huge chest freezer out in the storeroom and it was always filled with his "deals."

one time he bought little cheesecakes. they were small and came in a little tin with a clear plastic lid. and they were frozen. and he bought a lot. i think some of them had cherry topping.

i still think about those cheesecakes.

it doesn't seem like anything i get at a restaurant tastes quite as dense or creamy. i'm sure they were just sara lee or something awful, but in my mind nothing - no matter how gourmet or costly - is quite as good.

last night - due to the moon or the gravitational pull or the tide or female hormones or hey, maybe it was hurricane irene - i suddenly had to have cheesecake at 9:40 at night. (no i am definitely not pregnant) now i literally NEVER do this, because in general i hate to leave the house, but i hopped in my mini and ran to the store (which closed at 10). with 6 minutes to spare, i bought a little 6in round "new york style cheesecake" from the deli. i got home and todd and olivia and i all devoured a piece. i promise you it was one of the the most satisfying things ever. reminded me of my dad's little cheesecakes from the storeroom freezer.

in fact, this one was still a little frozen in the center.

Trust, Like Love

2011-08-12T22:46:00.002-04:00

Trust, like love,

comes on the clouds

in a sky rarely round and flat as a plate of Wedgewood blue.

It carries its essence in the mystery of a distant storm,

in a darkness unknown,

the ache of loss filling its skirts

with a gentle rain or

eventual flood,

promising hope.

Trust, like love,

offers its divine presence,

pouring out its mist or its torrent

in wonton ways.

The way is not mine to choose, only

whether to stand,

head tipped to sky,

and ask for more.

Outside

2011-07-31T22:31:00.002-04:00

I sit in the light of two fluorescent bulbs –

one flickering above the workbench,

the other swinging over the washer and dryer –

and wonder over my nest, soon bare.

Here in the garage,

with only the leftover laundry to stir my memory,

I find fewer cues to catapult my heart.

Inside,

boxes sit, ready for college,

with hangers perched atop taped cardboard,

bound in bakers bundles like so many necessary soldiers.

Pillows piled, alongside dish drainers,

and vacuums for second year;

each an undeveloped portrait.

Everywhere I turn, vestiges of yesterday taunt me.

Pictures uncovered in the clean out,

set beside the sofa in a reused box;

third grade recitals rescued alongside

our first television set and an old turn table.

These objects wait hopefully

eager to audition for the leading role

in this latest play.

For now they sit, still and quiet, before the hearth,

in tidy rows, named and claimed,

while temperatures outside soar to summer heights.

I leave

the comfort of what I know, move

away from the collect of this latest change

(in truth it has me swallowing stones)

and find solace on the dusty concrete of the garage.

I sit,

sweat threatening my spine,

in an old blue game chair,

rocking too and fro,

while their father collects cords

and ropes,

coiling them, hanging them,

tying us, surely, to what was and

what will be.

are you reading?

2011-05-07T18:07:00.003-04:00

have you noticed?

facebook and twitter.

they've eaten my communal word time like a swarm of grasshoppers.

i have relational word time...with family for the real work of life. working word time...with disney...to pay the bills. literary writing...with my inner self laid bare. and communal word time forged in phone calls, facebook, twitter and blog...

evidently in that order.

i am not sure i can keep up all of these platforms and hope to matter inside any. i am small. we've been through this. there is only one of me.

tell me why i should carry on with this blog. i want to, but does anyone even read it? does it matter? does any of it really matter?

letting go

2011-04-27T07:03:00.003-04:00

"letting go" is an interesting feeling.

i used to think that it required something - that you had to "do it right" or that there was some method, some set of rules or rigid restrictions involved. but - or so it would seem from this vantage point - it asks nothing of me. this sort of letting go cannot be done wrong. nor can it be compared, analyzed or judged against another. it is a vulnerable, delightfully empty, trusting, childlike state which i enjoy alone.

i remember, somewhere in my 20s, when i realized that jesus' list of the "fruit of the spirit" in the gospel was not my "to do" list to accomplish before the weekend, that these beautiful traits were gifts offered to me. i was dumfounded.

and so it is in my 40s with letting go. turns out it is not a program to be worked, but an offer of rest and peace. like those spirit fruits, it is a gift, offered to me, on my behalf. it is through no merit of my own doing, no work of my hands, just a recognition that i am small and there is a god who can take care of me. god loves me without my help.

with that in mind, i feel my scramble cease, as well as my panic to make myself presentable, valuable, lovable. this is what i let go of, not my fatal flaws...not my terrible inadequacies...not my failures...but my terror-stricken, misplaced hope that somehow i can work hard enough to be loved.

letting go. its not on my "to do" list. i simply have.

talent, beauty, love

2011-03-14T07:06:00.004-04:00

we all begin again. we stop and start. our progress gurgles. i watch my children - precious, well-loved, talented, hopeful. they too are afraid, they start and falter, birth their own creative futures with labored difficulty.

and so it seems labor over a creative life is not for a select few, not just for the broken, but for all. for to create beauty is to walk in the footsteps of god, something that demands we believe in the power of love.

i cannot make the artist's way easier for myself, or my children, or the others that i love. for the labor itself is what births the love. and, in the end, far more valuable than beauty or art or talent...is love.

my "bad novel in a drawer"

2011-03-12T11:07:00.005-05:00

so i've been wrestling with the voice of what i have been calling my new novel. voice is not usually an issue for me. plot is. length is. so i worked this time to find the bones of a story complicated enough to sustain a regular-length novel. i thought i had. but then i struggled over who was telling my story.

an old actress dies hard, i guess and as the storyteller of this tale, i wasn't sure who i was playing. not good = bad voice. i started with a "spoonriver anthology" approach where everyone tells their part. nope, not this time. next i tried an "our town" style omni narrator. huh-uh. now, i am trying it from the perspective of the main character, third person. hm. third person, not first? that voice? maybe.

yesterday i was ready to give up. i hated the story. i didn't want to "play" the part of my main character. i wanted to toss the whole thing out and start over. but then i remembered that i had felt that way with my first novel and so i wondered if there was a way to carry on. and so i did what all terrified writers do, i took a breath and wrote another chapter.

and you know what? scenes happened. my characters showed up and surprised me with what they knew about themselves, begging me to trust them with their story. where do these people come from that live inside my mind? and where do they go? and more importantly will any of us care that they have appeared for a moment in a story that i have written? there is no way of knowing until too much agony has transpired.

i've heard that every good writer has at least one bad novel hidden in a drawer somewhere. so after i wrote that new chapter, i shut my computer and made a deal with myself that i this one was mine.

and so for now i am working my own "bad novel in a drawer." it is my rite of passage after all. and, if in some wonderful turn of events, this novel should turn out to be something beautiful, well then, won't that be nice.

todd's anniversary card

2011-03-09T06:40:00.016-05:00

on march 8, 1986 one of the biggest stories in my life began...

Time Passes

The bedroom door stands open.

A mower runs nearby.

I see

sun through the trees on the fence.

The dog lies

sleeping,

no children play with him today

(our boy became a man yesterday)

and you far away in

your bookish room. I sit

alone, wrapped in

yesterday, in that other spring

before we knew. Time passes,

I feel my age, the loss of things,

the change (oh how it frightens me)

and long for your

strong hand near.

The mower quits, the quiet comes

and I allow the beauty. It falls on me, gently,

like round river rock. Time passes,

weighted and worn with what we’ve made. I cry,

struck by the whole of my life

and long for you,

for what we have. Love

tonight, supper by the lake,

and

25 years.

new hope

2011-03-02T06:40:00.002-05:00

i am not political. i am not really religious. i don't fawn over celebrities of follow their stories. but i do love books and questions and toppling false thinking.

i have struggled openly with my doubt and faith in equal measure.

there is a book coming out that i have been told is terribly controversial, but it speaks what i have spent much of the past 5 years wrestling over and its author has my heart singing with hope.

i am glad - actually - that i came to grips with my understanding of god (at least somewhat) before rob bell wrote Love Wins, because my journey was about me and god and not anyone else, but now that i feel more able to trust my own experience with god, the possibilities of his new book are thrilling to me.

how could this book be bad? see rob's video and join me in the hope of a new way of thinking

my favorite poet

2011-02-09T20:24:00.002-05:00

edna st vincent millay. the poet of my youth. the poet of my courtship. the poet of young adulthood. the poet of my mid-life today.

here is a piece that i read aloud to myself tonight, and cried, after a session of poetry reading at the supper table (how did i luck out to get a english-teacher hubby?)

this is a beauty of edna's:

Renascence

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And -- sure enough! -- I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire, --
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more, -- there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and -- crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see, --
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, --
I know not how such things can be! --
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

say again?

2011-02-04T12:16:00.003-05:00

did you ever notice that after jesus rose from the dead, he didn’t send his 12 guys out into the world to “save” people – the story is that he sent them off to “make disciples.”

now my dictionary defines a disciple as “somebody who strongly believes in the teachings of a leader, a philosophy, or a religion, and tries to act according to them.”

hmmm. perhaps jesus knew the saving was already done.

Queen of the Fabulous

2011-02-02T07:04:00.001-05:00

Captured by the weekly bridge league, Mrs. Partridge was not unaccustomed to disappointment, but this did not explain why, when she wasn’t playing bridge or forming ground chuck into a meatloaf, that she worried about rejections in the post. You see Mrs. Partridge, while being the quintessential homemaker and wife, was also a poet. Day after day she crafted brief lines of verse on whatever was handy, the power-bill envelope, a cafe napkin, the latest deposit slip for her husband’s bi-weekly check.

She sent them out, to the addresses on the wafer-thin paper at the back of the magazines, and hoped for the best. She had been told once, at a gathering at the library, that a magazine rejection accompanied with a personal note was something to save. So she did. One after another in a small manila folder in the oak cabinet beside Mr. Partridge’s roll top desk. The file perfectly bulged with slips of almost-appreciation alongside the not-quite-right-for-our-magazine poems that no one would ever read.

Years went by as Mrs. Partridge scribed poetry and sautéed chicken and met Mr. Partridge at the door, all the while knowing that her cannon of work filled a fold of their lives, filed between the bill for the furnace, the Studebaker repair and the other things that would soon be forgotten.

One day, after receiving three tidy envelopes in the very same post, all addressed in her own delicate hand, she realized with some clarity that as fabulous as the handwritten “No” might be, it was still far inferior to a “Yes.” And so right there in the entry hall, the front door not quite shut, Mrs. Partridge decided that being queen of the fabulous no was not a designation she wished to hold. So she slipped the last letters, unopened, into the waiting file and poured a glass of chardonnay.

After that she wrote less and less and played bridge more and more; at least the disappointment there came in numbers. Eventually, the words of her poetry were forgotten, finally suppressed by a recipe for lasagna written down one Thursday evening at her bridge club by one of the partners’ wives.

The following Thursday she stood in Mr. Partridge’s door and watched the drawer of the filing cabinet until a new idea came to her. It came slowly, perfectly; like a certain note in the cadence of a poem it came to her. She practically floated to the filing cabinet and removed a handful of rejections from the folder. She sauntered into the kitchen with the slips in her hand. Then she soaked them like lasagna noodles. After that she sautéed the sausage, added the tomato paste, the herbs, a bit of wine. Then in the pan she layered sauce, pasta, cheese and the fabulous no’s. Layer upon layer until the dish was like a song.

Mrs. Partridge took her lasagna to bridge that night. It was well received. In fact, upon request she took it again. Before long she became known for the particular flavor of her lasagna. Her dish was desired and discussed about town for its unique quality. Fabulous it was called. Fabulous.

new work

2011-01-21T19:37:00.003-05:00

i am always fascinated by the ways in which we creatives approach a new piece. it is a delicate process, inviting the muse...

in my recent return to a new work - began over the summer but halted for some time due to family illness and holiday visits - i simply sat down and began again. somewhat painfully. ordinarily. as though it was a meatloaf.

i just watched a video of elizabeth gilbert talking about the supernatural in the creative process. most of what she said i already knew, already believed, but it was wonderful to hear it from someone else. and it made me think. think about my new piece, my new novel. it made me want to do something ceremonial, something precious and soft, something that invited the divine into the work.

perhaps a candle when i sit down to the manuscript next. a prayer. some ritual that puts the creation of my new novel into the realm of the sacred.

not so much for the work - or for the spirit - but for me.

christmas on "main street" @ magic kingdom

2010-12-30T19:58:00.003-05:00

christmastime fun

2010-12-30T19:55:00.000-05:00

blustery day

2010-12-13T07:18:00.003-05:00

the wind is making a ruckus outside -

inside

the tree glows with white light.

not unlike how i feel this morning

tucked into a chair,

coffee mug in hand,

the scrumptious swirl of a

family

christmas

blustering all

around me.

writing progress?

2010-12-10T06:52:00.003-05:00

when i started writing it was all about the words, the sounds, the individual meanings...time passed and i paid attention, wrote more, and it became about the story, the art the words made together...time passed and pieces got published and it became about the audience, touching others with what i had made...

...fast forward to today...

and i find myself promoting my work, writing emails and letters to agents and editors, speaking at conferences, posting notices on facebook and twitter, even this blog has become a house of words. necessary perhaps for the work to be heard, but what about the work itself? the poetry? the story? the sheer thrill and terror of ex nihilo?

it is the season of advent...of coming home...and so i find myself remembering how precious words are. i find myself ready to gather my words back to my chest - give them away less freely in my daily banter on the internet. "small talk" is not bad - it has its place - but it eats my words...i had forgotten.

hmmmm

2010-11-29T06:51:00.004-05:00

i suppose i post this at the risk of seeming pleased with my own words, but i just tweeted something last night that i can't get out of my head. it keeps rolling around in there with a ring of truth. not perhaps THE truth (idk), but certainly MY truth. so for fear that it would be lost to my access, i decided to post it here. it is a little thing, just a string of words actually, but it tells me a good bit about what i think/believe. and that's nice isn't it?

"breath. beauty. hope. pain. suffering. death. redemption. rebirth. life. for/to/about these we write."

She Thrives

2010-11-19T19:43:00.007-05:00

It hadn’t been long since she had spoken. A few days…a week perhaps. But the silence that swelled her ears sent her to another place and time. She became a Pharaoh, a Greek goddess, King Arthur’s maid. Time and silence made it so. After all, time was merely a way to keep everything from happening at once…and silence was simply a way to keep track of time.

She did eventually speak, to the cashier at the corner market, but only long enough to buy the makings of a meal. She ate it later, alone, and listened to the measures in her mind as if they were a new sonata written just for her.

silence

2010-11-19T18:58:00.004-05:00

what does quiet sound like? have you ever really listened? it doesn't sound like nothing.

maybe wind.

or tiny waves

or a cylinder of air.

a rolling ring.

a heartbeat.

a pulse of matter.

what is silence really? a hush that falls? a cotton in the ears? a distance from the things that sound? for there is still sound. still wars and screams and bombs exploding. still trains and cars and busses running. still voices and music and chatter bustling. nothing has stopped, so there is no real silence.

then what is this lack of sound i hear?

it is myself removed.

removed so that the waves that reach my ears are mine and no one else's.

silence is a distant chorus left behind

if only

for

moment.

selah.

blog about yours truly

2010-11-18T08:27:00.003-05:00

i had a wonderful time at the f. scott fitzgerald conference this past october up in DC. the workshop for the conference was a blast and the reading i did the day before, a delight. here is a blog from one of the students. it warmed my heart for sure!

well then...

2010-11-18T07:16:00.002-05:00

Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself."
— Madeleine L'Engle (Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art)

a season of fall

2010-11-04T23:11:00.005-04:00

autumn. fall. it is a season of dying, of deaths. and yet i live in florida, where a sense of perpetual summer clouds the reality of the closing of seasons.

this autumn i have had many leaves fall:

one child moved out on her own, another went away to school. my father-in-law underwent harrowing heart surgery and my husband discovered a blood clot in his leg. my son applied to college, my baby started high school.

certainly there is a spring to be found in many of these, a new beginning. hope for a bountiful outcome. but while i know these things are good - or will be good - i find that my heart is shattered. crunched like so many dry leaves on the ground. i want to cry. i want to curl up in a sweater before the fire and drink brandy and listen to the blues until i feel heard.

things die. they change. and no matter how certain I am of the spring, of the beauty that is yet to come, my body, my mind and my spirit long for me to ache for what is no more.

new story out!

2010-10-28T15:22:00.003-04:00

hey! Potomac Review - usually a print journal - has a cool thing on their website called "Hot Openers." these are short short stories, sometimes flash, that they post between print issues. anyway, i've been published by potomac a couple of times (print and web) and today they posted one of my new flash pieces - potentially the opening story of my new collection. so go here to their website. the "Hot Opener" can be found down on the lefthand side...read and let me know what you think!

from my journal

2010-10-27T06:42:00.000-04:00

The smell of death begins
at birth,
in the wash of fluid that pours
out with the child,

in the loss of placenta
in the blood.

Like wet earth,
it harkens spring plantings, summer rain; like
damp leaves, it promises fall.

The sharp odor of
birth lingers with the aged. Only after,
do we find the wintry, frozen lack of smell blankets all.

in the dark

2010-10-26T07:45:00.002-04:00

awaking in the night - no it was early morning, really - my mind racing, i find so many things to worry and wonder about. thought upon thought pile up in the corner of my mind like a mound of careful laundry. i shut my eyes to the pain of not knowing and try to sleep, but the pile only rises. soon the alarm rings and i head into the kitchen in the dark to make brown-bag lunches for the family and coffee for myself.

out of control but still responsible

2010-10-13T06:49:00.003-04:00

ever feel like that? i used to feel that way pretty much always. it was so much my reality that i didn't know it was a lie i believed. it just was.

im less tangled in it than i was - sometimes now i can see it. i saw it yesterday. overwhelmed, stressed, certain i hadn't "done enough" in any area of my life i sat wound tight as a tick on the interstate for 2 hours, stuck bumper-to-bumper with the population of orlando.

and so i wrestled with the terror i felt creeping in. you see in that crazy state where i am responsible (for my daughter's tuition, my son's college entrance, my husband's entire family, my job, just to throw out a few) the stakes are high. you see for me an error, any error, any mistake, any mark shy of perfection, means i cannot be loved. or...well...it used to. the game is up.

turns out the first part of my old lie is actually true. i am absolutely out of control on most of the issues i panic over. but it is not true that i am responsible. if nothing else, it isn't logical. i actually don't run the world, or anything even close. truth is if anyone is going to have a beef with the way things turn out, they ought to take it up with god.

me? well turns out i decided somewhere between the trail and fairbanks that i was a very small, sweet girl doing the best she could. and when i got upset about those i love and care for, i decided to just ask for help. from wherever...from me (what can i actually do?) from others (do you have a minute to talk?) from god (can you handle that?).

i am pretty sure i drank far less vodka when i got home.

woven together

2010-10-07T19:43:00.005-04:00

how does one qualify the quality of the mind? at what point do we cease to think? to be ourselves? when does the mind trick us into taking over the conscious - fool us into that which is not?

my sweet father-in-law rests in the hospital, recovering from an incredible open-heart surgery where they replaced his malfunctioning aortic valve with one from a pig. amazing. but our bodies were not meant for traumas such as this and so he struggles to regain his consciousness - to return to the world of the lucid. it is not easy. he says crazy things, stops himself, tries again. wrestles to connect what he sees with what he knows, what he remembers. sometimes the result is one step shy of lunatic. other times he is one step shy of sense.

what must he be feeling in this no man's land? far away from what he has known, near enough to reclaiming his presence in the world to feel the puff of sanity's breath.

we feel it with him. we laugh at his funny phrases, nearly choke on tears at his tragic frailty, all the while waiting for him to come home to us. once for all. himself.

the body, the mind, the spirit. we may think, in an age of reason, that we can separate these three - but the divine hand over all creation knows that we are intimately tied together - woven, all three, in our mother's womb.

homecoming dress shopping

2010-10-02T09:20:00.003-04:00

so for the past few days i have been in a delightful whirlwind with my youngest daughter about her outfit for homecoming. yes homecoming! i IKNEW she was in high school now and have been growing accustomed to the fact that even my baby is growing up...but somehow i had forgotten that this included HOMECOMING!

anyway, as we were wandering about, in search of the perfect dress, giggling, trying on, imagining what we might find, the prospects grew dimmer and dimmer. we simply weren't having any luck and we had been to nearly every single store in the mall. at long last i suggested one we hadn't tried yet. sears. ugh. i have not-so-good memories of sears as a child. but we were nearby and i thought perhaps they might have gotten a bit more "with it," as we used to say. so in we went. a cursory glance around revealed what we had feared. ick. my daughter olivia then looked to the side and glimpsed another department, after which she looked straight at me and said, "you should never buy a dress in a place that sells furniture."

we howled and went to eat.

for those of you who remain curious, she chose a "little black dress" we already had at home and is going for "killer shoes." we are off today at 11!

$57 rugs and dog shit

2010-09-24T17:18:00.011-04:00

once upon a time i was certain about god. then in some subsequent chapter i had a dark night of the soul. in those years i was certain i had no faith. however, in light of the recent present it appears that i was merely going through a grand stretching of spirit. it would seem that my faith remains...in a different configuration perhaps. of course there is no ending yet.

and so here, in the middle of that novel, i have a story.

my daughter bought a rug at target for about 1/2 off - it was the kind without backing that i needed for my wood floors. i asked her to check the next time she was there to see if they had a larger one for my family room. she called from the store; it was only 150 bucks. i didn't go right away and so when i finally went i tried something i had not done in a long, long while: i prayed that if the rug was right for my room (size, color etc) that it would still be there. i arrived, only to discover that it was gone. someone else must have bought it. now i had a million things to do, but i wandered the store anyway, bummed. then suddenly there it was, stuffed behind some other things marked "clearance" on a completely different aisle. it had been marked down to 57 dollars. i was delighted. i took it home, pleased and hopeful. it matched everything in our home like we had ordered it...and it was just the right size.

that night we left for the coast for my husband's father's heart surgery but it was postponed. i returned the next morning only to find that our dog (who'd been let out by a neighbor) had left several piles of diarrhea on the new rug. there were puddles of it on the wood floor in 2 other rooms as well. i scrubbed and cleaned for over an hour, but in rather good spirits. i was amused.

its hard to explain my spirits, but i think it was because i knew the story i was in the midst of wasn't about the rug itself - the color and cloth woven into a shape. the gift of the $57 rug that perfectly suited me was the moment of the gift. to have the rug or not to have it didn't matter. if the dog shit ruined the rug - the gift remained. the gift was that tender moment of offering from the god of the universe to me.

i am bothered by the oft-used phrase "isn't god good" that people use when they get what they want (or even what they desperately need) as though if they had not received it, god would cease to be good. i know a family who just lost a child. she was 5. was god not good? i do not know why she was allowed to die, but it cannot be for lack of goodness. as i scrubbed the new rug i remembered how madeleine l'engle had once said something about how she needed a god who was also in the excrement.

he is. she is. my little 57 dollar rug covered in dog shit proclaims it. like a psalm.

thanks to my little bro

2010-09-20T20:05:00.003-04:00

so my brother gently suggested my blog might need a facelift. "what fun!" i thought. and i dove right in :o) hopefully you like the new look. and if not, perhaps you will at least get used to it!

my life seems to be all about change these days. children moving out and on. rooms being redecorated. life shifting. all the while my heart and body being rearranged. so it seemed only fitting that my four-year-old blog should undergo the same.

and so it has...cheers!

join me!

2010-09-07T15:36:00.005-04:00

ROCKVILLE, MD - Stacy Barton will be offering her workshop entitled, “From the Stage to the Page: Using Theater Techniques in Your Writing” at the 15th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference. This year’s Guest Speaker, Alice McDermott, will receive the Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. Every year the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference brings together distinguished authors, writers, teachers and literature enthusiasts for one-day event featuring workshops, salons and discussions. Join us on Saturday, October 16, 2010 from 8:30am-5:30pm on the campus of Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. To register go to: www.fscottfitzgerald.wordpress.com or call 301-309-9461.

no need to worry

2010-09-02T12:27:00.007-04:00

so much has happened since i returned home from miami - in addition to that daughter leaving, my older daughter moved out - my son started his senior year and the baby went to HS - oh, and my husband had back surgery. needless to say i have not even recovered enough to manage a new blog post! but i did have one thing of note to report. i have been able to tell myself that this is not the time to worry if i am a productive, contributing writer. i will return to writing. i always have. today it is about being IN my life.

this idea is a pendulum swing for me. i dive deeply into my fiction and leave my family and friends in the dust. but slowly i leak out all that i have experienced until there is nothing much left to say. then life grabs hold and i forget that i ever even wrote. i dive into my family, cooking robustly, going out to lunch, planning vacations, buying new clothes, getting my toes done - in short i behave as though i live in my body. i know now that the time will come again when i forget - forget that the real world is not the imagined one in my head.

but until then, you should taste my eggplant parmesan!

train from miami home, after sending my second child off

2010-08-16T18:10:00.002-04:00

(this is in relation to my children – but the same could be said for my stories, oddly enough).

And what did I think? That this would be easy? I carried them in my body – grew them cell by cell with my own flesh and blood – I birthed them from the most intimate part of me – brought them into life by my own strength and fed them from my breast! Of course the separation, slow and continual from birth, would show itself at last at the end, quite terrible. A fierce rending of flesh, of spirit. It could be little else. They could feel nothing less than the pull of a giant protective she-bear. Yes. Yes. Yes! They should fight, wrestle – o my god it is the same as their birth. Whitney was slow and emotional; Meredith was wait and see and then a sudden “tada!” If this holds true Taylor will be written like a book and Olivia will resist leaving at first.

O glory. I am right where I am to be! I am doing nothing wrong. All is well with the world and right with my home. Growing up never ends and my children teach me at least as much as I teach them.

And now the rain falls outside the train, smearing the window, blurring the future. Fitting.

altered nest

2010-08-12T14:05:00.003-04:00

my heart is absurdly full of divergent emotions today. they are climbing and clamoring around within me until i dont know exactly what to do or even how i feel. 2 of my four kids are moving out. one has moved out before, but this time into her own "real" place. the second eldest is leaving for school.

it is not the leaving the nest that i mind - i want them to go and am so excited for their adventures to come - what i seem to mind today is that the nest itself is taking on a whole new configuration. i already miss the sound of the four kids as they play, tease, talk, sing, laugh, do everyday things together. the little band that once watched Barnie and sang Hanson and danced in my living room to Billy Joel and the Indigo Girls, the band that camped together, swam together, watched Mr Bean together. my mind tells me all is not lost, that these ARE the things that remain, but for today my heart misses trips to the train park with sippy cups of juice and baggies of fishy crackers, sweaty hands in mine...all four pairs.

from may of 2006

2010-08-04T23:23:00.000-04:00

i spent 20-some-odd years as an actress and the best bit of directorial advice i ever got applies not only to performance, but any kind of art - writing and life for that matter. the advice was this: if you bring your skill to the art at hand, you are only as good as your skill, but if you lay down your skill and bring all of who you are, everything you have ever experienced will be at your disposal. this is a much greater well from which to create.

love is

2010-08-01T07:52:00.003-04:00

a friend of mine once said "you are given children to raise you - they give you so much more than you give them"

i dont know if it is a matter of more or less, but the basic idea in this statement of hers is true. the nature of parenting reveals ourselves to us - our flaws, our fears, our strengths and our beauty. we see in our kids who we've already been and we see in them that which we will never be.

it is easy for me to focus on my flaws when confronted with an accusation - and it is no different when the accuser is one of my own children - but it is also amazing just how much forgiveness and love resides in the heart of my children - even if they are grown.

my kids love me.

of course i tell them all the time that no matter what they do i will always love them - but what do i think the moment they rail against my faults? that they don't love me.

love is so much greater than lack of flaw.

perfection unattained

2010-07-30T08:43:00.004-04:00

you know one of the mysteries of writing is that you find yourself as you go along.

when i was younger i used to want to be perfect. no really. seriously. i tried really hard. i sacrificed myself. but when i started writing in earnest a dozen years ago, i discovered that the stories that spilled out of me were about pain and injury and imperfection...and sometimes redemption.

i find now that basically i am living the imperfect life i want. isnt that funny? i have grown to accept that my goal is not to be perfect. and now i am being accused (quite vehemently) of being imperfect. my heart wants to panic and deny and run away...it wants to shrink in fear and self destruct. but isn't this what i have spent the better part of three decades learning? that i am imperfect? isn't this what my stories revealed to my frightened heart?

now i am still learning how to recognize the pain my imperfections cause, and what to do with that information, but once i have said those three little words "please forgive me" perhaps i should acknowledge that "i will never be more than what i am." i am imperfect. and no amount of trying, learning, therapy, religion, self-help, meditation or prayer will ever change that. i am human.

an old poem that seemed relevant again

2010-07-29T23:59:00.001-04:00

Emptying the Nest
Shreds of motherhood
like gossamer filament of spider web
stepped through, broken, no longer usable
hang about me on this August evening
while crickets spread conversation
like a Walton goodnight

Inside children
tackle algebra
boyfriends
sing about bologna
and draw portraits of themselves
with number two pencils

Outside I
rock myself in summer stillness
aware mostly of what I cannot see
knowing mostly what I cannot know

Like manna
or love
my motherhood is meant to be spent
like this morning’s spider web in the garden
usable only one day.

novella nearing the end

2010-07-06T19:03:00.002-04:00

so i just finished a round of intense edits from my editor on my novella. i THINK that this means we are close to copyediting...which means i THINK i am nearly finished. at any rate there are no more major rewrites at the moment and so i FEEL finished.

it is a strange feeling. there have been other times in the process of writing this novella where i felt "finished" but this one seems the most real. and it is strangely quiet in my head.

the moment of quiet that comes at the end of a creation is to be cherished and protected i think.

selah.

NEW STORY OUT!

2010-07-03T09:54:00.003-04:00

hey! my story "a girl named agnes" just came out in southern women's review today! it is an online publication that comes to you as a PDF. my story is on page 64! if you have a minute - please go check this literary journal out, and tell a friend!

you can also pop back over here and tell me what you thought :o)

one more time...here's the link!

love is all

2010-07-01T19:45:00.003-04:00

it is evening and i have been thinking about two things all day - one is an edna st. vincent millay poem about love and the other is a former pastor whose granddaughter is lying in a hospital with brain cancer.

"love is not all"...the poem begins - then later, "love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath, nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone, yet many a man is making friends with death, even as i speak, for lack of love alone."

these lines may find themselves on the inside pages of my novella.

somehow joel's granddaughter is related.

is there anything but love?

amazed

2010-06-25T13:34:00.002-04:00

i am amazed at what i don't know that i know. writing shows me. story reveals. it is never more easy for me to see than when i suddenly comprehend what my inner self was trying to say when it spilled a story onto the page.

i am listening to the tracks (one a day) as they come in from the studio out in LA - the audio tracks (or stories) i recently recorded from my collection, Surviving Nashville. they surprise me. i wrote them and yet i dont remember figuring them out - planning them - deciding what they might "be about" and yet as i hear my own voice speaking i find myself surprised that small words worked together to say intricate things.

at the same time i am reworking the end of my novella per my editor's request. i was also talking to a few friends recently about the quality and nature and origin of love. somehow, as i wrote words for the ending this morning, those two conversations merged. i realized that the novella manuscript is me telling myself what i need to hear, what i hope is true, what i long to believe.

i find that amazing.

new guest blog

2010-06-04T12:26:00.003-04:00

here is a blog that will soon appear on relief journal's website to coincide with the release of their latest journal issue that includes one of my stories. stop by their site and order a copy to get my latest :o)

Birthing Stories

Every one of my stories has its own birth, its own coming of age and its own release. For me the process of a story nearly always begins with a voice in my head – the unspoken sound of someone who cannot tell his/her story without my help. “I Read Chekhov” began with particularly startling sounds and images and as I followed the journey of those sights and sounds, a story was born. This reality still surprises me. I am continually amazed by the creative process, by my own participation in it, and by how little control I have over that which wants to be born.

Once the story has been spilled onto the page, it comes of age through the wrestle of editing. But no matter how much work I do, or how many other writers or editors read it for me, a story is never finished until it is seen by readers. Writing is a solitary process but it requires an audience to be complete. This is the point at which I release the story into the hands of those who finish it. There is no story without an audience…without a reader a story is merely a shout in the dark. If you read “I Read Chekhov” in the pages of Relief Journal, you become my audience; you finish the work I began.

When a new play opens, there is often a “talk back” with the playwright. Here the audience can talk to the author of the show about how they received the words of the play. In the spirit of that, if you want to have a conversation with me about “I Read Chekhov” after it “opens” in Relief, please email me through my website at www.stacybarton.com. In the meantime, thank you for reading; you give my stories a place to go.

i did it!!!!!!!

2010-05-26T07:16:00.003-04:00

...i sent the novella and a hopeful short story collection to my editor...gulp. just now!

i had done everything in my power to accomplish his wonderful edits and it was time to let him see it (plus our agreed upon date had arrived). as for the short stories, those are almost MORE nerve wracking since he has not even SEEN all of them yet. i don't even know if we HAVE the makings of a new collection. gulp.

but oh oh oh what lovely, lovely problems to have :o)

champagne anyone?

editing

2010-05-24T21:01:00.002-04:00

so i have been working very hard on the edits and changes for my novella and it has been very rewarding. my editor had some wonderful suggestions/problems/questions with the last draft and it has been a delight to continue to craft this draft with his input.

however...

(isn't there always a "however?") there is one last scene i am working on that i can't seem to get quite right. i have worked and reworked and fiddled and fussed. i have read and reread and rewritten and reread some more. i think it is close, but i am afraid it isn't quite there yet.

the truth is that i need to leave it alone and let it sit for a couple of weeks and come back to it with a measure of objectivity. the problem is it is due to my editor this week! now that is my deadline as much (or more) than his. and he would be happy for me to delay it. but I DONT WANT TO! so i think i will send it in on friday as planned - knowing that this one scene will likely be a hiccup. shoot - maybe he will have the key for this problem spot!

did i say this hard work is also a delight? o the beauty of a wonderful author/editor relationship! its magnificent!

the stories that inspire me

2010-05-17T10:33:00.002-04:00

the stories that inspire me usually speak to deep dark places, unseen mysteries, everyday wonders, tiny miracles, hope. i don't care for fine who-done-its, or happily-ever-after romances, or even adventure thrills. i mean no judgement on these forms - i am just merely recognizing what captures me. i am inspired by stories that wade through matters of the heart (and i don't mean romance).

i find story to be divine in some strange way - or zen-like. there is a childlike honesty in fiction that delivers "what is" in a way that is hauntingly beautiful and terribly messy. i like that. i want that.

i need a new good book. any recommendations?

on writing

2010-05-15T16:49:00.003-04:00

today - as in most of the days of the past 2 weeks - i worked on my editor's suggestions for my novella. i am down to those all important (but relatively small in terms of word count) changes.

i was struck today by something surprising and beautiful. i had explored, through the unexpected magic of a single paragraph of fiction, the possibility of supernatural forgiveness. oh i most definitely did NOT set out to "speak" about anything of the sort, i was merely trying to find a meeting place between two characters - and yet there, where i least expected it, the hope of forgiveness appeared.

to me the conversation of faith is a tired, brittle one, even the conversation of forgiveness in the traditional sense, and yet, breathed through with the language of story i saw - for just an instant - what unseen truths might be. within the imaginary world of my characters, i found a reality i recognized.

and i was reminded anew, of why i call this blog "the art of story." perhaps i had forgotten.

mother's day

2010-05-10T07:06:00.004-04:00

yesterday morning was the best part of my entire day.

since i can remember my kids have brought me breakfast in bed for mother's day. when they were little todd helped with the hot stove and other various kitchen needs, but it has been quite a number of years since he has had to do that. yesterday - at 14, 17, 19 & 21 - they lined up at the foot of my bed with a special breakfast: cheese eggs, fried potatoes, blueberries and strawberries...and coffee with cream. oh the breakfast was yummy, but it was the sight of those four dear faces - nearly grown - that made me burst with gratitude and love.

they made a story, standing there all together. a story that has written itself because of - and in spite of - me.

the art of story read aloud

2010-05-06T14:18:00.003-04:00

those of you who know me - or who have heard me read in public - know that i love love love to tell stories out loud! well, here is some exciting news on that front...i am going to be recording the audio version of Surviving Nashville this june out in LA! woo-hooo!

in addition to that my publisher WordFarm is working to produce a kindle version of my collection too!

as soon as i know when and where these new versions are available i will let you know...in the meantime, i have started edits on the novella, with the new short story collection soon to follow!

as my publisher andrew craft always says..."stay tuned!"

twitter

2010-05-05T05:39:00.003-04:00

i've added a twitter widget - a spot to view my tweets - on the lefthand column...so if you are on twitter, follow me @stacybarton. if you are not on twitter - it's pretty fun! at the bottom of the twitter widget you can join...see you round!

pain

2010-04-29T09:42:00.003-04:00

pain grows or shrinks with thought. it is true. physical pain and emotional pain. its all in the perspective. is this pain moving me forward, offering growth? if so then it is productive labor.

i had four babies with a midwife - at home or in her birth center - and i can say that i experienced more pain with some than others because of my mental state. when you can focus on the fruit of your labor (in this case a baby) it makes the pain work, not injury.

what about emotional pain? well, my experience has been that my perspective is directly linked to my hysteria or my depression. if i feel safe and hopeful, the circumstance remains difficult, but without a sense of death. if i feel lost and uncertain or out of control completely, then the circumstance beats me, bleeds me, leaves me raw.

sigh. i have a fairytale heart. i keep hoping to find that happily ever after. (who fed us that crock of shit anyway? boy, i ate it hook line and sinker!) but alas, life and people don't seem to lead there. there are bumps, pains, injuries...and growth along the way. my happily-ever-after perspective forgets this is to be expected and that is what can leave me bleeding and raw, ashamed that we didn't all ride off into the sunset. but if i can expect the labor of life to be rich with joy and pain, falls and flights, then perhaps i can rest hopeful that something is being born even now.

ahhh yes

2010-04-27T13:02:00.003-04:00

had several days of intense edits on a story for relie f journal- which i finished. yay! and i just got an email from ruminate magazine planning a wonderful interview of me and my mentor for the fall. and now the sun is shining, the day's disney scripts are finished, there is a breeze on my porch and i am settling in to review my editors notes on my novella. even the dog is happily beside me.

some days are so lovely i just want to cry.

ps did i mention that my may 16th reading at lake lily is being filmed and that in early june i fly to LA to do an audio recording of Surviving Nashville? whooopeeee!

di

2010-04-21T06:57:00.003-04:00

i met with a friend yesterday...actually i met with three...in three different parts of town...and i bought high heels. it was a fun day. but my last stop is what inspires today's musing.

over a glass of white wine my friend di suggested that my struggles with sanity, my troubles with the here and now, are because i actually live in the eternity i sense. i live here too, of course, where brick and mortar rule...thus the rub.

it was comforting to consider that perhaps my wrestle with faith and life are not merely due to my "disorders," but may - in fact - be a gift. a gift for sensing what cannot be seen, an expansive view that allows room for more than what we know.

and so i will not be frightened - at least for today - that i find transparent walls and walking on water more sensible than eating a big mac.

may you be so comforted.

i know what touches my skin

2010-04-20T08:50:00.003-04:00

you know there is really very little i understand with any certainty. actually the only thing i understand is my own, very finite experience. i can know when i am happy or sad or angry or tired or excited or overwhelmed or discouraged. i can know how i feel about you or someone else. i can know how i feel about my husband, children, work. and even when i dont know how i feel about that which means most to me, i know that. but this business about knowing more than my own experience is hogwash. cant be done. not really.

i dont trust people who are certain about religion, politics, healthcare, global warming, world hunger. how can you know anything outside of yourself, really? that sounds more harsh than i intend. i am not advocating a self-centered life in which one doesnt care for others in the community at home or at large - i am just saying that there is not absolute certainty about these things. i know what touches my skin, my heart, my soul. i act on this.

i give you a loaf of bread if you need it - related to my experience. "you" might be near or far, but you come to me through the filter of my experience. it is the only way. i wonder if this is why jesus said "if you do this unto the least of these, you do it unto me" - not because he wanted his friends to be noble, but because he knew that those scruffy fisherman needed something in their own experience to inspire them to act in love. we dont love because of lofty ideals - we love out of experience. this is why jesus had skin.

tuesday's epiphany

2010-04-13T17:10:00.002-04:00

it is easier for me to believe in what i cannot see - than to not believe in what i sense is there.

good friday

2010-04-02T17:31:00.002-04:00

it struck me yesterday - while listening to my eldest daughter - that every generation intends to improve upon the last. perhaps that is a "no duh" thought for you, but it never struck me as literally true as it did today. we are - at best - adam and eve all over again - each of us weighed down by the the reality of our brokenness even as we strive to recreate the garden of eden.

it is holy week - a week i have barely observed for several years and i find myself following a quote of flannery o'conner - she once advised a friend, in a letter, to stay open to faith, to carry on wanting it, seeking it - and allow god to do the rest.

today - on good friday - wind-swept over the intracoastal waterway - i followed flannery's advice.

mornings

2010-03-17T07:18:00.003-04:00

are my favorite.

as it says in anne of green gables, "every morning is fresh, with no mistakes in it." mornings are do-overs. new starts. there seems almost always to be some measure of hope in the morning. there's something about the sun returning after a night's sleep that is encouraging. birds sing. in some seasons the trees rustle. there's the smell of coffee or frying bacon (if you're lucky enough to be camping). the feel of bare feet across cool floors. a cozy robe. the sound of sleeping children. quiet.

morning is a day just becoming itself.

what a lift

2010-03-12T07:57:00.012-05:00

so this morning - rain pounding on the windows - i buried my head under the covers (after making todd and the kids' lunches) and determined that i might be tired of writing books. that maybe i needed a new endeavor. what about archery? well, within the hour i got the most encouraging email from Beth Hoffman, author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt! she said that she was "crazy about" my collection of short stories, Surviving Nashville. and then she said "girl, your talent is remarkable!"

i grinned. i sat up. i surfed her site, fell in love with her way with words, read an excerpt of her novel and then wrote to her and thanked her and asked if she could help me with my novel...in any way.

i am truly a brazen hussy.

(p.s. she wrote me on my grandmother's birthday and the anniversary of surviving nashville's publication)

to a friend in grief

2010-03-11T20:36:00.001-05:00

i offerend this old poem of mine to my friend last week in the wake of her mother's death:

Mama Dance

I close my eyes
and I find you, Mamma,
deep in my spirit I feel us.
The little fairy-believing girl that was me,
and the little moon-dance girl that was you,
somewhere in the dark, beneath the stars,
they dance.
They dance,
bare feet across the cool earth,
braided hair flying.
Time warps, holding us both in childhood,
while heaven itself weaves our innocence together to the music that is ours.
I stand speechless
and watch us
and taste the salt of my own tears.

iggy day

2010-03-10T22:21:00.003-05:00

did you ever taste the end of a battery when you were a kid to see if it would spark you? or rub your shoes across the carpet to be zapped by the next thing you touched? there's something about the thrill of getting shocked that is appealing. the idea of a current running through you. energy.

i had a iggy day today. not bad, not good. just iggy. a little static electricity would have been nice. here's hoping tomorrow is as grateful as monday was. i love grateful days. you dont need to be shocked on grateful days.

for eternity

2010-03-04T21:31:00.002-05:00

a dear friend of mine lost her mother this week. she had been ill, so it wasnt exactly a surprise, and yet i think we are never quite ready for the reality of death. the truth is i think we were not made for it. this is why the vibrations of grief are so fierce and terrible. we - the essence of ourselves - were made for eternity.

as for the hats...

2010-02-17T06:36:00.003-05:00

...it turns out my first inclination was the closest. in other words, in the story i spoke about in my previous post, i am back to an ending very nearly like what i started with. isnt that funny?

"every writer is different" -- we've all heard that. i often repeat it to myself. but just as often i have heard about how i ought to be like so-and-so or do this-and-such to write "better." certainly there are sensible rules, wise ways, tried and true realities, common sense practices and more. and i employ many of them - consciously and unconsciously. however, aside from the polishing that comes after the story has run, headlong, into my arms and birthed itself, i really do very little. or at least i do best when i operate that organically. it suits me. my husband calls it a "shellean visitation."

percy bysse shelley was a poet in the romantic period and he believed that poems "came" to you fully formed. that the poet was simply to write them down. i feel like a cheat and a scam sometimes, but this is how my stories most often come to me. oh i have learned how to "come up with" a story. but it is a long, slow, painful process and the end result rarely has the longed for ring of truth - that intake of breath.

truth is i keep thinking i am going to "outgrow" this method. mature into what all the people who talk about writing talk about. but then i struggle with hats (another reference to my last post) and discover that the first hat out of the chute was the right one. the struggle was good - and a worthwhile one; it matters that through processes like these i have gained an understanding of what works and why so that i know what to trim and what to leave. but right at this moment i am just recognizing my own dear beauty, embracing it. the truth is, i hear voices and see pictures and i write them down. i am not a clever author - i am an imaginative child. stories come to me like gifts.

hmmm. what is the saying "dont look a gift horse in the mouth?" just a couple posts back i was whining about my stories, my gifts, worried they were unimportant in the eyes of men. but if my stories come to me as gifts, while i must craft them to make them sing their best, it is not my place to judge them. they simply are what they are. as shelley would have said, they have come to me. it is my job to write them down, let them live, make certain that in my editing i release the truth they came with.

good god it's just like parenting.

trying on hats

2010-02-13T15:07:00.003-05:00

ive been working on a story ending off and on over the past couple of days- not spending a tremendous amount of time on it - but returning to it more than a few times. it is one of those stories that came out fairly formed - meaning that, on the surface anyway, it was pretty much itself from the get go. and yet i find that i am wrestling with its ending - it has one of those endings that could go either way. things could end bad, or worse. ha.

actually sometimes it appears the story wants to end lighter, and so i bend it that way and when i stop typing, there is a dissatisfaction in it. but when i allow it to grow darker - it feels heavier than its bones can stand. the truth is i am still discovering this story's integrity...what it wants to be, what it is trying to say.

and so i listen and try on endings, like my grandmother must have tried on hats, one at a time until she found the one that fit just right.

on white paper

2010-02-12T11:43:00.005-05:00

i saw this famous literary writer last night at a wonderful event. he spoke eloquently and captured me with his philosophy of beauty, and connection to the earth. but somewhere along the line he started to sound like he thought a lot of his own ideas. now his ideas were good. they were lovely, in fact. but by the end of the night they left me trampled. i felt less than, unimportant, dull. inconsequential.

so today i fixed my resume. i touched a piece of paper that said i had done some things, remembered that there were lives i had touched, stories that had mattered to someone. the items on my list arent much - i havent been to the places last night's author has been, i havent won awards or earned degrees and i havent thought nearly so much about the earth since my "save-it" days two decades ago when the babies were small and i used phosophorus-free soap and cloth diapers. but the items on my list are mine. i see them here on the table beside me in black and white.

the truth is, i cannot prove that what i write has any depth or importance, and it is most certain that my words will not be read after i am gone, but arranging my little milestones on a piece of white paper is giving me back a modicum of dignity- a dignity i lost last night somewhere between 8 and 10pm.

my picture is on my resume - i wonder why i did that. it's unusual dont you think?

not sure if i posted this one before..

2010-02-10T06:46:00.002-05:00

Like Grass

Not long ago I
thought of you as
grass, green
and bright and Easter-like;
the tip of my tongue

whistling
up your side. You
touched my cheek,
the fresh green of you. It was

summer
and we were
not afraid.

what am i writing?

2010-02-08T07:59:00.002-05:00

when i was a kid - especially a teenager - my mother used to say i was about two years ahead of the curve. that i would start doing/wearing something and two years later it would be "in" - of course by then i was on to the the next not-yet-popular thing.

i remember when i discovered (before the form was as widely spread as it is now) that many of the pieces i wrote were considered "flash fiction" - it was fun to feel a part of something. in fact the first time i wrote a true flash fiction piece i didnt know what to do with it. it wasnt a full on story and yet it was complete. my husband (an english teacher) said "create your own damn genre" about a year later i heard about flash fiction. that piece is in my first collection.

lately i have been writing what, in the theater world, would be called monoluges - in the world of the written word i m not sure what they are. musings? they arent stories. i've heard the term "fictions" for short pieces that dont hold to the traditional story structure. perhaps we could call them that. i dont know. they have character and voice and the sense of a greater story, most of them are direct address to the audience and a few are in third person. they are not all the same and yet they share something similar.

i am curious about them, uncertain as to whether to correct them, draw them into the fold of a more traditional story, or follow them - see where they lead. my husband suggested i create a folder for them, see what happens. perhaps i shall.

sigh

2010-02-05T14:34:00.003-05:00

ever notice how some days are just exhale days. days that want to be breathed out, left alone, longing to settle low, near the earth. today is one of those days. the sun has never really shown his face and the jazz is on in the other room.

i cleaned for a birthday party today - my baby's fourteenth. eight young ladies are about to descend upon our house, so the dog hair, dishes and dirty toilets had to go. and they did.

everything is quiet now except for the standards wafting in from the front of the house. i am back in the bedroom, where i will likely hide for much of the festivities. but first the store, we must be well-stocked for the midnight antics...

reminded again...

2010-02-02T09:04:00.002-05:00

...of all the ways a story can be told. this is by no means an exhaustive list:

written

short stories
long stories
prose poems
verse

oral

storytelling
song lyrics
rap

pictures

paintings
drawings
collages
sculptures
jewelry with words (or without)

what have i forgotten? leave a comment!

more...

2010-01-31T20:18:00.002-05:00

wrote a 215 word story today. i cant post it in case i want to submit it to a flash fiction site. but lets just say that i got my mo-jo back this morning working on it!

wooo-hoooo!

this is kind of fun...

2010-01-29T13:03:00.002-05:00

for those of you who are authors like myself - struggling to be seen and heard above the din that fills the halls of barnes and noble - this is kind of fun.

i am in poets & writers.

well online anyway...in the stables of wordfarm...as one of their authors.

but the top of the page still says poets & writers. go look here. see if you can find me. its kinda fun.

community, faith, and envelope backs

2010-01-29T07:19:00.002-05:00

so i went out with a friend last night and we drank red wine, ate cheese and smoked a stogie. we talked about writing and life and navigating the rise and fall of our emotions. we talked about faith. about jesus and buddha. about redemption and hope, meditation and healing. and i read her some poetry. i never read my poetry; im a fiction writer.

this morning i looked on my facebook fan page (for my current collection) and i saw that people had responded to my question "does anyone else write on envelope backs?" to which my brother had responded, "not poetry like you probably do."

his words made me smile. the only way i used to keep track of my thoughts was by capturing them on envelope backs and napkins, scraps of coloring book pages that floated about with the four children in my minivan. much has changed over the years - last night there were no little ones waiting for me to tuck them into bed - and no envelope backs...i read off my laptop.

but the poetry of the evening - the community, the faith, the shared secrets - this, this could have been on an envelope back.

ran across this...

2010-01-28T06:45:00.005-05:00

For those of you who know my children's picture book "Babba and I Went Hunting Today," (where Honey and her Grandmother, Babba, have an adventure in the park dispite Babba's bald head from cancer treatment) you might enjoy this sequel i wrote long ago and never sold - shoot never even had it edited!

Today I am Wearing a Hat on My Hair

My friend Mary Catherine has curly red hair
She looks like a princess that floats through the air.
My friend Milan Su, she has hair black as night,
It’s straight and its long and it’s always just right.
And Destiny’s hair is in cute beaded braids
That fly when she swings like a little parade.
But my hair is brown, not exciting at all
It sticks out in cowlicks and makes me feel small.
I lost my big tooth on the left side in front
And Sam said at recess that I am a runt.
So today I am wearing a hat on my hair
And think I will visit my Babba upstairs.
She’s growing her hair, cause it fell out last May,
(When she had her cancer her hair went away).
But today she is wearing a spiky hairdo-
And leopard Capri pants with sparkly shoes.
My Babba is funny, she sings in the car
And laughs right out loud wherever we are.
I love to go see her when I’m feeling blue
Cause usually my Babba knows just what to do.
I tell her about all the girls in my class
“Can you make me pretty like they are?” I ask.
“Let’s see,” Babba answered and tilted her head
And spun me around til I sat on the bed.
She tapped her finger three times on her chin
And said, “Oh my goodness!” and started to grin.
“What is it?” I asked her a little surprised
“Well,” Babba chuckled and smiled with her eyes,
“You look just like I did when I was your size.”
I felt myself smile from my head to my toes
And said with a giggle, “Were these on your nose?”
“What, freckles?” she said, “But of course, Honey dear,
And funny brown hair that stuck out at my ears!
See God made you, Honey, a little like me,
But mostly like you and that’s how it should be!”
Then Babba laughed softly and hugged me real close,
Made hot tea with cream and warm cinnamon toast.
We sat there, us two, with our flipped up brown hair
And all of a sudden I didn’t much care.
I ‘d freckles and cowlicks and one lost front tooth
And a Babba who loved me, and that was the truth!

i must confess

2010-01-27T06:22:00.004-05:00

that i am not really thinking very much about story right now. my email has been down for more than 24 hours - its been since friday that SOME of my writing clients havent been able to reach me. ACKKKKKKK! this is not good.

i have switched to an old email as backup and thank goodness that is working (took a bit to get some dumb "away" message off of it) and so now disney can reach me and i can send scripts. phew. disaster avoided. i hope.

but what about the agents and journals that are most certainly trying to reach me.

"ha," you say.

but, you never know!

here's hoping i cope better today.

yesterday was dreadful.

a published poem

2010-01-25T06:28:00.002-05:00

so my husband was looking over one of my submission letters last night and it had a list of all my journal publications on it...when he got to the listing for "at the store" he couldnt quite recall it. he was dismayed - i was delighted of course, because i could make it mean (in my little head) that it was because there had been so many acceptances and publications that he simply couldnt keep them all straight.

and im sticking with my story :o)

so here it is...for memory's sake:

At the Store

I saw you today,
yin depleted, you

sniffed the cellophane cylinder
of a quick-store rose -
black bucket on stilts lifting its treasure
like a bulky crane to

a Rembrandt of a woman.

Your nose,
beneath a grey shock of unkempt hair,
moved quickly,
eyes too,
ashamed to be caught doing such a girlish thing
between the snickers and the tabloids.

But I saw you,

old and stooped and smiling
as the door
swung
closed.

the agent thing

2010-01-24T09:57:00.004-05:00

...cannot be helped and so since my previous agent has retired, i pursue. the nice thing is that once i got "into" it i started enjoying the crafting of my agent letters. i began to grow excited about my novella - inspired even, hopeful. what a lovely thing that trying to "sell myself" became simply selling "the work." and beautiful work it is.

contented sigh.

and it is lovely to know that there are still publishers out there who dont even use agents. so hope remains.

the truth is that as long as i have breath i will write and as long as i write i will seek an audience...and so today i do the work in front of me - writing, sending, waiting.

lovely to have my head screwed on right today. enjoy!

who do you write for?

2010-01-21T07:00:00.004-05:00

who do you write for? seriously. the agent, the editor, the publisher, the critic, the professor, the award panel, the academic board, awp, publishers weekly? your reputation? your career? yourself?

let me tell you what makes me tick. i write for an audience of real people. ive always been that way. in my theater days i did street theater - reaching the common man. we were brilliant but we never played on broadway or the tonight show - we played for thousands and thousands of audiences of delighted people. we made a difference.

dont get me wrong, i have even more passion around my writing than i had around my performing and i'd love to recognized, remembered and/or rewarded for what i do, but when push comes to shove and i am writing my stories, it's the hope of reaching another heart that spurs me on. i want my work to be excellent in that it creates, captures and t0uches the heart of people. i want it to be accessible, readable, real.

in short i write for an audience, my audience i guess. i once believed very strongly that instead of trying to please the industry, i was simply to "go out in a field and shout - and see who comes." the day i did that i met wordfarm, the publishing house that produced my short story collection surviving nashville.

perhaps this is all i need to know.

my novel is a novella - and not just by word count

2010-01-18T08:01:00.002-05:00

from wikipedia:

"the novella is generally not as formally experimental as the long story and the novel can be, and it usually lacks the subplots, the multiple points of view, and the generic adaptability that are common in the novel. It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description."

from another source...

"The essence of a novella is that it has a concentrated unity of purpose and design. That is, character, incident, theme, and language are all focussed on contributing to a single issue which will be of a serious nature and universal significance.

Many of the classic novellas are concerned with people learning important lessons or making significant journeys.

The events of the novella should turn around a single incident, problem, or issue. There will be a limited number of principal characters - and in fact the story will probably be centred on just one or two. There will be no sub-plots or parallel actions. And the events are likely to take place in one location.

A short story may deal with a trivial incident which illustrates a small aspect of human nature, or simply evokes a mood or a sense of place. A novella on the other hand deals with much 'larger' and more significant issues.

A novel can have plots and sub-plots, a teeming cast of characters, and take place in a number of locations. But a novella is more likely to be concentrated on one issue, with just one or two central characters, and located in one place.

Artistically, the novella is often unified by the use of powerful symbols which hold together the events of the story

The novella requires a very strong sense of form - that is, the shape and essence of what makes it distinct as a literary genre. It is difficult to think of a great novella which has not been written by a great novelist.

Another curious feature of the novella is that it is almost always very serious. It's equally difficult to think of a great comic novella - though Saul Bellow's excellent Seize the Day has some lighter moments."

remember this one? circa 1997

2010-01-15T06:39:00.000-05:00

More than once or twice in frustration I’ve said,
“I’ll be doing dishes and laundry even after I’m dead!”
So I’ve thought and considered what a solution might be
And I’ve finally figured it out, you see,
If I could get the kids to not eat or dress
There’d never be any more reason for mess.
It’s four naked fasters for children I need,
My housekeeping then would have a chance to succeed.
Without all the sippy-cups, spoons and pots,
The endless dress-ups, panties and socks,
My house like a magazine could finally be…
Ladies from the neighborhood could stop by for tea.
There’d be no more mess on counter or floor,
But then I must realize who’d come in through the door.
Yes, four naked fasters would inevitably run
Through the middle of my Martha Stewart-wanna be-fun.
So I suppose either way I’m really quite doomed
Hungry nudists or laundry will fill up my rooms.

they passed

2010-01-13T06:14:00.002-05:00

had a beautiful, heartfelt, encouraging email exchange with the editor-in-cheif at a promising publishing house. she loved "lily harp" (my novel) but the upshot of the conversation was that there were others on her team who were not so impressed.

they passed.

sigh. now i know enough to know that this is par for the course, that many rejections will come (some have already) but this house had begun looking so promising that i had gotten my hopes up. a friend of mine reminded me that for a first-time novelist i am getting an enormous amount of action. he is right, and for this i am grateful. but ouch.

story, story, story

2010-01-11T06:45:00.004-05:00

so what is the fuss all about? what do i love stories so much? why do we - collectively - tell them? there are many reasons of course, but the one i am struck with this morning is the desire we each have to be named.

it is why we have labels, clubs, cliques - it's why we describe ourselves by what we do - i'm a writer - i'm a doctor - i'm a dancer. but i think we longed to be named on a much deeper level. we want a deeply spiritual connection with ourselves in a way that identifies us - personally and collectively. we want to be named.

it is this secret wish of mine that propells me to write and write and write - telling stories of all the voiceless people i have ever met or heard of - and i dont suppose in the end that i do it much for them. i do it for me. to name myself by my collection to the humanity - or lack thereof - i see around myself. to make life a play, with named characters.

all the world's a stage...

author/editor conversation

2010-01-06T14:17:00.004-05:00

potomac review - a literary magazine i have been published in before - is running a conversation with me and their editor on their blog. it coincides with online access to that story we are discussing. both will run for the month of january.

go here to check it out!

one or one thousand

2010-01-06T06:51:00.004-05:00

i continue to be fascinated by the creative process - my own - others - the concept of it. and for me - perhaps because i began as a performer - the process takes on a whole new meaning with an audience. in fact the process isn't finished until there IS an audience. could be an audience of one or one thousand; it doesn't matter. but it is in sharing our expression that our spirit - and the work itself - is fulfilled.

i have been working on a story that began as something so odd i didn't show it to anyone. for 2 years. recently i pulled it out and showed it to a couple of peers to see if it might amount to something with work. i got a decent response so i plunged in. i worked hard and then got harder critique (don't you love that?) so i tackled it again.

last week i sent it to one of my readers. she is not a writer or an artist of any kind in particular, but she is a great enjoyer of such things. a real patron. anyway she liked this new story and so i asked her what it was about. she sent me a 3 or 4 paragraph analysis of my story. it was beautiful. it was everything i could have hoped for. she knew meanings i intended and ones that were merely intuitive.

and so armed with a bit of courage, i plan to read this story next wednesday at a reading (infusion tea college park 7pm) to see how it fares with a larger audience - to help it find its place in print, maybe even in my new collection - but i have to say that in this case, the audience of that one friend would have been enough.

stories are meant to be shared. share them.

growing moss

2010-01-05T20:20:00.004-05:00

the envelope
leaks words from frayed corners
stands quiet by the divan
seams worn open
revealing letters rubbed soft in reading

the girl waits
refolds the story
turquoise lines and yellow pencil
107 words

the girl and the envelope stand
until moss
grows on their south side
obscuring the stamp, growing
a mane of hair upon the girl

“what?” the mother said
when she saw
“ride your bike,” the father said
but the girl walked outside
and became a tree instead
a maple tree they say, with a mossy hat
her envelope spilling words like autumn leaves

Potomac Review!

2010-01-05T15:25:00.001-05:00

check this out! one of my stories "I Read Chekov" is on Potomac Review's website for the next month!

#209

2009-12-29T13:54:00.000-05:00

Fredrick slept heavily, unaware of the commotion upstairs. He told the officers he knew nothing of the shot, the blood, or even the ambulance that arrived and left while his ipod blared. Fredrick knew only that Martha from #209 never did laundry in the basement again and that Led Zepplin was marvelous after midnight.

a bright shadow

2009-12-23T09:08:00.002-05:00

i spoke a few days ago about coming home as a theme for advent - and this idea grows in me as i relish coming home from a difficult job. the world of theater, of entertainment so often has a huge push right before the opening of a show. and so it was with the one i just mounted. 15 hour days, living in a hotel, barely time to eat. and for some - this is what they live for i suppose.

not me.

and so i find myself ever grateful for the life i have built - todd and i have built - for ourselves. it is balance of work and play, of family, nature and art, of love and laughter above all. of time spent with. of enjoying. of breath. and again...of love. love spills forth from our home, our partnership, our children.

and where there is love, there is god. dwelling in the midst of us.

if advent is a bright shadow of a grand homecoming yet to be - so is our home.

home. home. home.

2009-12-21T17:18:00.001-05:00

christmas music. shining tree. the kids are laughing. about to make a fire. everyone is home. sigh. i am so glad to be home. home i am. i am home. for good.

home

2009-12-11T18:18:00.003-05:00

i am home for a day. respite from the circus. the boys have gone to the state semi-final high school football game. one daughter has gone to get lights for the christmas tree we just put up and the other two girls are singing and playing guitar. the dog and i are listening, bathed in the light of advent, of home.

glory, glory.

the way creative works

2009-12-06T07:18:00.003-05:00

at least for me...

so i am away with the circus living in the winter quarters as we put up the new show that i wrote. i had no idea that they would be 10 hour days, running together with nary a break and so i brought reading material for my sad evenings alone without todd and the children - i had miniature dreams of accomplishing some other writing - or of christmas shopping or even sending out christmas cards. HA!

my mind and spirit are on this creation for 10 hours every day - even tho there are 14 more before the sun goes around, there is no spirit for any other creative output, this isn't sad - just fascinating to me. i am not often confronted with the limit of my creativity - usually i can wiggle in one more thing - one more thought - one more idea - just give me a minute. but i guess it doesn't really work that way. creativity needs rest, rejuvenation, time to replenish. i know this as a concept - but it has never be so evident as in this reality.

and so i throw myself into the creative process of the circus - and wait. there must be stories lurking inside this process - i will get to them later...

isn't advent about...

2009-12-05T06:16:00.002-05:00

belonging?

coming home?

the journey to love?

it's funny, i am unable to move from the physical confines of circus rehearsals (i am their show writer for the next production) and yet i am on some sort of journey to jerusalem. i have been afraid of god for the better part of three years and yet i find myself returning, coming home. i have planted my feet outside the city of faith, and yet somehow, i am slowly belonging again inside it.

i love advent for its message of hope - for me jesus is becoming again the symbol of love - not because he died as a religious sacrament - but because he was willing to say yes to a love greater even than his own life. i wear a necklace every day - it has a quote on it from mother teresa: "love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand."

every hand. every jew, every muslim, every christian, every hindu...all. as it says in the book, "christ died for all." o that the city of faith could be free with that and not claim exclusive rights. exclusivity is the opposite of advent. if advent is about belonging and coming home and a journey of love - if it is truly for the exiles - then i, like "all" can come.

and so i do. in fact i say to all, come - o come emmanuel. god with us.

i am woman...

2009-11-30T07:23:00.002-05:00

...hear me roar!

i am in the midst of so much that it is easy to feel the crunch. but instead of crumbling i am roaring! i have stories being looked at, a novel being considered, work at disney today and a circus to go finish starting thursday!

i cannot imagine the stories that might be inspired by elephants and lions and circus performers...and my kids get to come see the show! whoopeeeeeeeee!

thankful disasters

2009-11-26T07:21:00.004-05:00

so it's thanksgiving morning and i've been up since 5am. for our family crew of over 20 i make the pies. its my job. i make an apple pie that is usually about 5 inches tall - a pumpkin pie that weighs several pounds and sometimes a pecan. i confess i cheat. i buy refrigerator crust made by pilsbury.

however, this year there was no pumpkin in the stores so i made butternut squash pie. okay. thats cool. but they were also out of crust so this year i had to make my own. now no one cares about the crust on the pumpkin pie i made last night - but a big flakey crust on my enormous apple is a must. i made that this morning.

i've made crust before - my grandmother (no kidding) taught me how, but i haven't made it since you could get it soft and rolled out in a box next to the pop 'n' fresh rolls in the fridge section. sigh. i tried butter, i tried shortening and i tried a mix of both. none of them were easy to work with so i did a lattice work top instead of my normal full crust on the apple. now i am worried about the filling. how will it do uncovered?

after i put the big apple in the oven, i stood in the kitchen making coffee and i was pleased to realize that i knew they were just pies. just pies. they mean nothing about who i am or my value as a human being. not that long ago i would have cried over the failure of my thanksgiving offer. this morning i almost did...then i laughed and gave thanks over my progress instead.

to the earth

2009-11-17T06:48:00.001-05:00

I reach into the earth and tug a weed, then wiggle, shake and move on to another. Uprooting with my left hand, containing with my right I make my way through the flowerbed. I pause a moment; a strip of sun on my hand has caught my eye. I look up to notice the sun seep through the delicate branches of the elm. Head lifted, a soft breeze crosses my face. I toss my right hand’s labor into my pile and return to work, crouched on my haunches, intent, knowing nothing but the smell and the feel of the earth.

To empty one’s mind is a feature of numerous religions, to await a change while in an act of physical obedience. Three more tugs, a tangle, and a dandelion comes up whole. With manic depression, I am often trapped inside my mind, lost in a neighborhood too dangerous to visit alone. But today I work with my hands. I sit for a moment between the portion of the walk I have cleaned and the portion yet to be cleared. It too is like my mind. Some clarity has been achieved, and yet some chaos remains. But even that thought is too heady, so I return to the task at hand, change the face of the walk, accomplish a goal, get dirt under my fingernails.

I work on, moving closer to the big camphor tree. I smell her berries, already littered and sprouting into baby trees. I pull them up without much ceremony and transfer them to the holding hand – they’ll never grow to be a tree, tall and strong. I wonder if the rate of those suffering from my own illness has risen because we have left the earth. I wipe my hands on my pants and look at my nails. I grin because they are not the neatly manicured nails of a suburban mother but the hands of a farmer. Would I suffer less if I tended the earth, suckled children and fell into bed too exhausted to think?

I gather my pile of weeds from the porch; I cannot carry them in one armload. On my second trip I inhale deeply the mingled scents of pungent weed and grass and dirt and feel a small sense of hope. Not for the rest of my life, or even tomorrow, but for this one moment now. Arm full of weeds, dirty, warm and tired, I belong. I am content.

one publisher tugging at my heart

2009-11-10T08:17:00.007-05:00

okay - so here is what one of the presses that is considering my novel has to say about what they publish.

"Truth is often found in the invented story. We publish literary novels that capture us with the gritty characters and real life circumstances they chronicle."

i think i am in love. i even like the colors on their website and how they express their perspective on a spiritual life. very inclusive. very gentle. very real.

follow the yes

2009-11-08T19:02:00.004-05:00

ok. so. i write in such a way that generally makes people on both the left and the right uncomfortable.

now people in the middle - the regular folk - the ones who loved my street theater too - they enjoy the life in my stories. but for the extremists - it comes down something like this: the academic radicals find too much faith and narrative in my stories and the faith community finds too much ugly reality.

question: so what's a storyteller to do?

answer: tell my story and follow the yesses. see who my audience is.

and so i throw out my work like seed to see where it lands, watch who nurtures it and find where it grows. i wont change - not the core of me - and so my stories will remain the color that they are...so whether i am left of right or right of left it doesnt really matter. what i do care about is writing stories to touch people's hearts - mine included.

anne lamott said that we write what we want to read - and so i suppose that i am - as one NYC rep said once years ago - too sacred for the secular and too secular for the sacred. amen. i wouldnt have it any other way!

love and story

2009-10-30T08:26:00.004-04:00

so i've been pondering the nature and quality and entity of love over the past few days and i find that it is a bit like a virus...in a good way it infiltrates, wraps its way around things, and doesnt easily let go. when i choose love, it alters things - minds, emotions, states of being. it is not an idea...but a force. a great great force.

and so in my pondering i come to the question of how does love affect story?

are all stories really about love? or the lack of love? or the pining away for love? i mean certainly there are any number of themes...but arent they all - somehow - in the service of love?

and so my pondering leads me down a troublesome path for this soul of doubt...and that is if it is true that god IS love - not that he/she is lovING - but that the entity of god and love are one and the same...then is not the phenomenon of story a wrestle with the presence or absence of love...of god?

are not all stories a conversation of faith and doubt? spoken, written, read in the service of love?