I am kind to all my illnesses. Instead of shutting them out, I tell them to come in and get warm by the fire. After all, we live in a house full of cracks and the wind is always blowing through it. We might as well sit together.
Sometimes this appalls me, and I wonder why I'm treating my weaknesses like guests. I think I should put them out like dogs and train them to be neither seen nor heard.
And sometimes this amazes me, and I think that it must be the source of everything about me that is truly beautiful.
I have decided that I would rather feel the wind on my face than be safely barricaded, and I would rather have fellowship with myself than be locked away in pieces. After all, I have been bludgeoned enough by my life; I need not add insult to injury.
And every once in a while, I get this glimpse of myself from some other, unearthly perspective. For one moment, I understand that my illnesses do not make me weak, though I am broken by them.
I see suddenly that I am a creature of dazzling light and all the light pours out of the cracks and all the life flows in and out of me freely, and I converse with God. He has made His home in my house.
And then it passes, and I am just a woman who bites her lips too much and never leaves the house and is too anxious to answer the phone when it rings, and doesn't wish to pretend otherwise.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
August 30th
Gah!
Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to decorate a Faberge egg with RustOleum. I need a better tool to use than words, with their unacceptable bluntness.
I should give up being a writer, and become a musician. They have a much more nuanced vocabulary.
That is all for today. Now I'm going to go play Guitar Hero.
Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to decorate a Faberge egg with RustOleum. I need a better tool to use than words, with their unacceptable bluntness.
I should give up being a writer, and become a musician. They have a much more nuanced vocabulary.
That is all for today. Now I'm going to go play Guitar Hero.
Monday, August 29, 2011
August 29th Excerpt
(Rather a long and light hearted one.)
It was a bright, beautiful autumn day, clear and crisp. The hillsides were gold and copper, with touches of red. The thick grass that the girls sat or sprawled on was cool and springy to the touch, carpeted with stray leaves that had escaped the sister’s raking.
There was a lot of wild cheering going on closer to the field, but Gilly and Aiko, not being avid hockey fans, had staked out a more pleasant position under two large oak trees at the top of a gentle rise. From there, they could overlook the gala and passion of the game from a safe distance.
“But it’s so romantic, Gilly,” breathed waif-like Miko, a slight girl who bested everyone at math and was the daughter of a samurai who owned a large estate somewhere south of Nishiyama. Her blouse collar always seemed a little too large for her neck, but her wrists were the last word in elegance.
“It is,” agreed Saya in her pleasingly low, husky voice. “You can’t deny it. The Daitoku saves you from certain death- with his own blood, by the way- then takes you on an epic journey through the Kagamihara- a place none of the rest of us will ever lay eyes on- and then is sealed to you by heaven itself at the legendary Sacred Gate. You can’t say that it’s not romantic.”
Gilly opened her mouth to protest, but Aiko cut her off.
“Never mind her,” drawled Aiko, who was sprawled out on the grass, one arm under her head, her dark hair loose. “She doesn’t think romance is quite proper.”
“Oh, shove off,” said Gilly, immediately. “Just because you held hands with oh captain my captain Suzuki...”
Aiko shook with laughter. “Tsk, tsk,” she said, when she could speak. “Do I sense jealousy? I’m certain that your wise, and…” here she broke off into giggles, “…quite frankly ponderous, Daitoku would inform you, very calmly, that jealousy is an unbecoming and unfit emotion for young ladies. And then he would tell you…” The giggles took over again for a moment. “He would tell you… to do… your homework,” Aiko ended on a shriek of laughter.
Gilly folded her arms and gave her best friend her most level and withering look. It took a great deal of self-discipline; Gilly had nearly burst out laughing at Aiko’s statement about homework, knowing it to be so very true.
“Jealous,” she sniffed. “As if. Do you know what you are?”
“Splendid?” gasped Aiko, still in the grip of laughter.
“A little hoyden, that’s what.”
“Stop it!” hissed Miko, excitedly. “The sisters are looking this way!”
“Look,” snapped Gilly, exasperated. “This is how it goes. I see him and smile and he smiles in return. And then he says, “How are you, Gilly?” And I say, “Fine, thank you; how are you, Master Tenshio?” And he says, “I am well, thank you for asking.” And then we go for a walk. At no point does he hold my hand, kiss me or quite frankly do anything that I wouldn’t expect from an older brother.”
“Goodness,” said Miko faintly. “I see.”
“I do feel obligated to point out that your situation does remain romantic in principle,” Saya said, “if not in practice.”
The girls let out a collective groan.
“I know who you’d be perfect for,” Gilly said suddenly.
“Who?” asked Saya, suspiciously.
“Master Osamu.” Gilly grinned at Aiko, who burst out laughing again.
“What? The O-toshokan’in? Why?” Saya asked incredulously.
“Is the Daitoku back yet?” Miko asked Gilly.
“No,” Gilly said quietly. “Not yet.”
“He always comes to see you whenever he gets back,” Saya insisted. “That’s romantic.”
“That’s polite,” Gilly said, rolling her eyes. Then she grinned. “Give it up, Saya. The O-nishikaze Daitoku does not have a romantic nature. I suspect Master Osamu to be secretly sentimental, that’s why I think the two of you would be an excellent match.”
Later that evening, the same four girls were in the village, having had a sudden craving for the little pieces of barbecued chicken that were roasted over coals on long, wooden toothpicks.
The late afternoon air was full of the delicious smell of sweet barbecue sauce. The sun fell onto the curved roofs of the village houses and shops, with their curtained doorways and barred windows. The wide, tree lined street was still busy, as people walked home for dinner after working in the fields or shops.
The girls were standing by the Yakitori stall, collaborating over which selections they should choose, when Miko jabbed Gilly in the ribs.
“It’s him,” she said in a high pitched whisper.
Gilly jumped, feeling a sudden start of terror for one, brief moment. Then she saw Tenshio standing at the gate of the Magistrate’s house, deep in conversation with him. Sheer joy expanded all through her. She put a hand over her heart, and then came to herself.
“Calm down, for goodness sake,” Gilly replied, her heart beat returning to normal.
Tenshio bowed to the Magistrate. He turned and saw Gilly at the corner and his face lit up. As he approached, all the girls bowed respectfully.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly.
“Good evening, Daitoku,” the girls murmured.
“How pleasant to see you here, Gilly,” said Tenshio. “I was just going to the school. Are you well?”
“I am, thank you,” Gilly replied, without thinking. “How are you, Master Tenshio?”
Beside her, Aiko shook slightly, and then Gilly remembered. But it was too late.
“I am well, thank you for asking,” Tenshio replied.
A wondering look crossed his face as first Aiko and then the rest of the girls starting shaking, their hands over their mouths. He blinked rapidly and gave Gilly a puzzled glance.
“Would you like to walk with me to my parent’s house?” he asked her. “I was going to visit them.”
It was the last straw; the girls’ giggles escaped. They leaned against each other like rickety shacks, incapacitated by mirth.
“Yes,” gasped Gilly.
In an unusual and forward act of desperation, she grabbed Tenshio’s arm and propelled him quickly away from the group, turning once to give them a dirty look.
“Bye bye-ee!” chirped Aiko, irrepressible.
“What on earth?” asked Tenshio, bewildered.
“Never mind those girls,” Gilly said fiercely. “They’re just like a silly pack of geese.”
“Are they?” asked Tenshio, beginning to smile.
“I’m very glad you’re back, Master Tenshio,” Gilly assured him.
When they reached the farm house, Tenshio slid the door open and stepped in.
“We’re home,” he called out, slipping out of his sandals.
There was a squeal of joy from the kitchen and in a moment Miyoko was shuffling across the front room, her arms outstretched.
“Oh, Tenshio!” she cried. “You came back so soon! And you brought Gilly! What a marvelous surprise for the middle of the week. And we don’t have any meat… If only I’d known you were coming…”
Swiftly, she kissed Tenshio and then Gilly, squeezing the girl close.
“After what I have been eating, vegetables and rice sound delicious,” said Tenshio sincerely.
“Oh, you missed the most marvelous birthday party, Tenshio,” said his mother, hurrying back to the kitchen. “Gilly, did you tell him all about it? There were so many girls here! One of them brought these little iced cakes, so delicious.”
“Perhaps it is best that I missed that event,” Tenshio remarked, his eyes dancing. “I already had a close call with a group of girls in the village. It appears there is no place left to escape them.”
He settled himself in the west room, with his back to the open window. Grinning, Gilly slipped down the stairs and into her kitchen sandals.
“Oh, you don’t mean that,” Miyoko scolded, busy turning sliced root vegetables over the fire. “If only he’d had a sister, things would be different!”
“I was sorry to miss your birthday, of course, Gilly,” he said.
“I know,” she said, looking up with surprise. She smiled. “You could have kept poor Mr. Hironori company.”
“Who could have kept me company?” asked Hironori in his slow, pleasant voice. He stepped into the kitchen, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the unexpected visitors. “Well, how nice! The children are home.” He drew himself up and clasped his hands behind his back. “Is it Friday already? Perhaps I should go into the village for a nice piece of fish…”
“No, no, dear, it’s too late,” said Miyoko, affectionately. “Never mind that. Go sit down. I’ll warm up the sake.”
It was a bright, beautiful autumn day, clear and crisp. The hillsides were gold and copper, with touches of red. The thick grass that the girls sat or sprawled on was cool and springy to the touch, carpeted with stray leaves that had escaped the sister’s raking.
There was a lot of wild cheering going on closer to the field, but Gilly and Aiko, not being avid hockey fans, had staked out a more pleasant position under two large oak trees at the top of a gentle rise. From there, they could overlook the gala and passion of the game from a safe distance.
“But it’s so romantic, Gilly,” breathed waif-like Miko, a slight girl who bested everyone at math and was the daughter of a samurai who owned a large estate somewhere south of Nishiyama. Her blouse collar always seemed a little too large for her neck, but her wrists were the last word in elegance.
“It is,” agreed Saya in her pleasingly low, husky voice. “You can’t deny it. The Daitoku saves you from certain death- with his own blood, by the way- then takes you on an epic journey through the Kagamihara- a place none of the rest of us will ever lay eyes on- and then is sealed to you by heaven itself at the legendary Sacred Gate. You can’t say that it’s not romantic.”
Gilly opened her mouth to protest, but Aiko cut her off.
“Never mind her,” drawled Aiko, who was sprawled out on the grass, one arm under her head, her dark hair loose. “She doesn’t think romance is quite proper.”
“Oh, shove off,” said Gilly, immediately. “Just because you held hands with oh captain my captain Suzuki...”
Aiko shook with laughter. “Tsk, tsk,” she said, when she could speak. “Do I sense jealousy? I’m certain that your wise, and…” here she broke off into giggles, “…quite frankly ponderous, Daitoku would inform you, very calmly, that jealousy is an unbecoming and unfit emotion for young ladies. And then he would tell you…” The giggles took over again for a moment. “He would tell you… to do… your homework,” Aiko ended on a shriek of laughter.
Gilly folded her arms and gave her best friend her most level and withering look. It took a great deal of self-discipline; Gilly had nearly burst out laughing at Aiko’s statement about homework, knowing it to be so very true.
“Jealous,” she sniffed. “As if. Do you know what you are?”
“Splendid?” gasped Aiko, still in the grip of laughter.
“A little hoyden, that’s what.”
“Stop it!” hissed Miko, excitedly. “The sisters are looking this way!”
“Look,” snapped Gilly, exasperated. “This is how it goes. I see him and smile and he smiles in return. And then he says, “How are you, Gilly?” And I say, “Fine, thank you; how are you, Master Tenshio?” And he says, “I am well, thank you for asking.” And then we go for a walk. At no point does he hold my hand, kiss me or quite frankly do anything that I wouldn’t expect from an older brother.”
“Goodness,” said Miko faintly. “I see.”
“I do feel obligated to point out that your situation does remain romantic in principle,” Saya said, “if not in practice.”
The girls let out a collective groan.
“I know who you’d be perfect for,” Gilly said suddenly.
“Who?” asked Saya, suspiciously.
“Master Osamu.” Gilly grinned at Aiko, who burst out laughing again.
“What? The O-toshokan’in? Why?” Saya asked incredulously.
“Is the Daitoku back yet?” Miko asked Gilly.
“No,” Gilly said quietly. “Not yet.”
“He always comes to see you whenever he gets back,” Saya insisted. “That’s romantic.”
“That’s polite,” Gilly said, rolling her eyes. Then she grinned. “Give it up, Saya. The O-nishikaze Daitoku does not have a romantic nature. I suspect Master Osamu to be secretly sentimental, that’s why I think the two of you would be an excellent match.”
Later that evening, the same four girls were in the village, having had a sudden craving for the little pieces of barbecued chicken that were roasted over coals on long, wooden toothpicks.
The late afternoon air was full of the delicious smell of sweet barbecue sauce. The sun fell onto the curved roofs of the village houses and shops, with their curtained doorways and barred windows. The wide, tree lined street was still busy, as people walked home for dinner after working in the fields or shops.
The girls were standing by the Yakitori stall, collaborating over which selections they should choose, when Miko jabbed Gilly in the ribs.
“It’s him,” she said in a high pitched whisper.
Gilly jumped, feeling a sudden start of terror for one, brief moment. Then she saw Tenshio standing at the gate of the Magistrate’s house, deep in conversation with him. Sheer joy expanded all through her. She put a hand over her heart, and then came to herself.
“Calm down, for goodness sake,” Gilly replied, her heart beat returning to normal.
Tenshio bowed to the Magistrate. He turned and saw Gilly at the corner and his face lit up. As he approached, all the girls bowed respectfully.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly.
“Good evening, Daitoku,” the girls murmured.
“How pleasant to see you here, Gilly,” said Tenshio. “I was just going to the school. Are you well?”
“I am, thank you,” Gilly replied, without thinking. “How are you, Master Tenshio?”
Beside her, Aiko shook slightly, and then Gilly remembered. But it was too late.
“I am well, thank you for asking,” Tenshio replied.
A wondering look crossed his face as first Aiko and then the rest of the girls starting shaking, their hands over their mouths. He blinked rapidly and gave Gilly a puzzled glance.
“Would you like to walk with me to my parent’s house?” he asked her. “I was going to visit them.”
It was the last straw; the girls’ giggles escaped. They leaned against each other like rickety shacks, incapacitated by mirth.
“Yes,” gasped Gilly.
In an unusual and forward act of desperation, she grabbed Tenshio’s arm and propelled him quickly away from the group, turning once to give them a dirty look.
“Bye bye-ee!” chirped Aiko, irrepressible.
“What on earth?” asked Tenshio, bewildered.
“Never mind those girls,” Gilly said fiercely. “They’re just like a silly pack of geese.”
“Are they?” asked Tenshio, beginning to smile.
“I’m very glad you’re back, Master Tenshio,” Gilly assured him.
When they reached the farm house, Tenshio slid the door open and stepped in.
“We’re home,” he called out, slipping out of his sandals.
There was a squeal of joy from the kitchen and in a moment Miyoko was shuffling across the front room, her arms outstretched.
“Oh, Tenshio!” she cried. “You came back so soon! And you brought Gilly! What a marvelous surprise for the middle of the week. And we don’t have any meat… If only I’d known you were coming…”
Swiftly, she kissed Tenshio and then Gilly, squeezing the girl close.
“After what I have been eating, vegetables and rice sound delicious,” said Tenshio sincerely.
“Oh, you missed the most marvelous birthday party, Tenshio,” said his mother, hurrying back to the kitchen. “Gilly, did you tell him all about it? There were so many girls here! One of them brought these little iced cakes, so delicious.”
“Perhaps it is best that I missed that event,” Tenshio remarked, his eyes dancing. “I already had a close call with a group of girls in the village. It appears there is no place left to escape them.”
He settled himself in the west room, with his back to the open window. Grinning, Gilly slipped down the stairs and into her kitchen sandals.
“Oh, you don’t mean that,” Miyoko scolded, busy turning sliced root vegetables over the fire. “If only he’d had a sister, things would be different!”
“I was sorry to miss your birthday, of course, Gilly,” he said.
“I know,” she said, looking up with surprise. She smiled. “You could have kept poor Mr. Hironori company.”
“Who could have kept me company?” asked Hironori in his slow, pleasant voice. He stepped into the kitchen, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the unexpected visitors. “Well, how nice! The children are home.” He drew himself up and clasped his hands behind his back. “Is it Friday already? Perhaps I should go into the village for a nice piece of fish…”
“No, no, dear, it’s too late,” said Miyoko, affectionately. “Never mind that. Go sit down. I’ll warm up the sake.”
August 29th
(Warning: spell check was not working. I tried to correct as many as I could see, but lord knows how remain.)
The mornings have been so nice that I've been keeping the doors wide open, letting the cool fresh air pour into the rooms.
I forced myself to sit down and make out a timeline for the third section of Torii. Now at least I know what scenes go where and when.
I think it's funny that when I was writing Ceallach and the story grew into hundreds of pages, I worried that I'd lose control of the characters and be unable to manage all that amount of story. But it is scary, the first time, to try and do that.
I never worry about that anymore; I'm too busy actually managing it. And Ceallach was so easy, its time span was just over a year and only two characters were truly dynamic. I had only two cultures to manage and only one plot line.
Torii spans twelve years and almost all the characters are dynamic. I have four worlds, each impacting the other. The Spirit Realm alone has two distinct geographical regions, each with their own native populations, cities, weather systems, habits and widely varying cultures.
I have a main plot line, I have a secondary plot line and I have a shadow third plot line, and each of them winds in and out of the different worlds, touching on each of the characters in different ways at different times.
Sometimes I think I'm trying to force two or even three stories into one. But I need all three plot lines for the story to work. I need Gilly's plot as the story's main emotional engine, I need Tenshio's story as the framework that holds the engine in place, and I need Gilly's parent's story to provide contrast and counterpoint to all the fantasy.
I think. I have to finish the damn thing before I know for sure.
I don't even know how long Torii is, because I keep it in four different documents, for ease of editing. Actually, now I'm curious; I think it's around a hundred thousand. Yeah, it's one hundred eleven thousand words, and I have pages and pages yet to write. The last few scenes will be extensive.
I think I'm going to keep my next story very simple.
I was rereading some of Ceallach this morning, and my characters were so limber, so expressive. It was like looking into a fish bowl and instead of seeing a goldfish, I saw little, fully formed people busily going about their interesting lives, oblivious to me. It was just so interesting.
Anyway, enough of this. I have to try and get back into the scene where Gilly gets her period. Ugh.
The mornings have been so nice that I've been keeping the doors wide open, letting the cool fresh air pour into the rooms.
I forced myself to sit down and make out a timeline for the third section of Torii. Now at least I know what scenes go where and when.
I think it's funny that when I was writing Ceallach and the story grew into hundreds of pages, I worried that I'd lose control of the characters and be unable to manage all that amount of story. But it is scary, the first time, to try and do that.
I never worry about that anymore; I'm too busy actually managing it. And Ceallach was so easy, its time span was just over a year and only two characters were truly dynamic. I had only two cultures to manage and only one plot line.
Torii spans twelve years and almost all the characters are dynamic. I have four worlds, each impacting the other. The Spirit Realm alone has two distinct geographical regions, each with their own native populations, cities, weather systems, habits and widely varying cultures.
I have a main plot line, I have a secondary plot line and I have a shadow third plot line, and each of them winds in and out of the different worlds, touching on each of the characters in different ways at different times.
Sometimes I think I'm trying to force two or even three stories into one. But I need all three plot lines for the story to work. I need Gilly's plot as the story's main emotional engine, I need Tenshio's story as the framework that holds the engine in place, and I need Gilly's parent's story to provide contrast and counterpoint to all the fantasy.
I think. I have to finish the damn thing before I know for sure.
I don't even know how long Torii is, because I keep it in four different documents, for ease of editing. Actually, now I'm curious; I think it's around a hundred thousand. Yeah, it's one hundred eleven thousand words, and I have pages and pages yet to write. The last few scenes will be extensive.
I think I'm going to keep my next story very simple.
I was rereading some of Ceallach this morning, and my characters were so limber, so expressive. It was like looking into a fish bowl and instead of seeing a goldfish, I saw little, fully formed people busily going about their interesting lives, oblivious to me. It was just so interesting.
Anyway, enough of this. I have to try and get back into the scene where Gilly gets her period. Ugh.
Friday, August 26, 2011
August 26th
I know what it is.
I have stepped back into an old identity, one I wrote about in Torii. The ragged girl, the girl who must deal with the leavings of her parent's love and affection.
I don't have to do that now, of course, but when I was a child, that is how I learned to view myself. When I started to demand more, in my late teen years, I created this chasm between what I wanted from my parents, and what they were able to give me.
I felt guilty, like a bad, bad girl, for demanding something from my parents. The sense of worthlessness was almost crushing. I felt as though my needs were invalid and gross; I felt as if they revealed something wrong about me.
It was as though I was the cuckoo in the nest, knocking the other sweet little chicks out, endlessly squawking, ugly and misplaced. Only the cuckoo gets fed, in nature, so that's a bad metaphor.
Now, my parents are able to pour out love and validation at the drop of a hat. They have heard all my anger without reflecting it away and grieved with me over my pain. This is an incredible gift. I realize how rare it is to have parents that strong and that healthy.
They aren't the same people. I'm not the same person. But sometimes I step back into the old identity, like when a sibling receives a beautiful baby girl, and I continue infertile. Then, along with my grief, I feel like an ugly, bitter person for feeling my own sorrow at the same time that I feel joy and excitement for them.
This doesn't make me an ugly, bitter person; this makes me a human person. I seem to have labeled my humanity as evil, bad, unnecessary, and unsightly. I can write beautiful letters to a friend, telling her to love herself and nurture herself, but I can't seem so easily to tell my own self this.
Maybe I should try doing that deliberately- I should stand in front of the mirror and say that flacky phrase "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." Only that's all wrong. Because the trick is not to teach yourself to value self improvement, but to teach yourself to value who you are right now.
You know why else this is coming up for me right now? It's because I'm writing Gilly up through adolescence, so I've already unlocked the door on that little shop of horrors. Mmmm.... unwanted renaissance. Such are the dangers of writing.
Yesterday, not surprisingly, I was able to go back and rewrite a key scene. The first time I wrote it, Gilly reflected a surface part of my personality and didn't act like herself. Then I fiddled with it almost endlessly, but all I was doing was rearranging the wrong dialogue.
Then yesterday, I pretty much destroyed the entire scene and wrote it from a much deeper part of myself, and Gilly was herself. But after three hours of this, I was emotionally exhausted and watched anime on Netflix instead.
I'm going to have to do this the entire way through everything that I've already written.
What an exhausting prospect.
I think I'll go grocery shopping instead.
I have stepped back into an old identity, one I wrote about in Torii. The ragged girl, the girl who must deal with the leavings of her parent's love and affection.
I don't have to do that now, of course, but when I was a child, that is how I learned to view myself. When I started to demand more, in my late teen years, I created this chasm between what I wanted from my parents, and what they were able to give me.
I felt guilty, like a bad, bad girl, for demanding something from my parents. The sense of worthlessness was almost crushing. I felt as though my needs were invalid and gross; I felt as if they revealed something wrong about me.
It was as though I was the cuckoo in the nest, knocking the other sweet little chicks out, endlessly squawking, ugly and misplaced. Only the cuckoo gets fed, in nature, so that's a bad metaphor.
Now, my parents are able to pour out love and validation at the drop of a hat. They have heard all my anger without reflecting it away and grieved with me over my pain. This is an incredible gift. I realize how rare it is to have parents that strong and that healthy.
They aren't the same people. I'm not the same person. But sometimes I step back into the old identity, like when a sibling receives a beautiful baby girl, and I continue infertile. Then, along with my grief, I feel like an ugly, bitter person for feeling my own sorrow at the same time that I feel joy and excitement for them.
This doesn't make me an ugly, bitter person; this makes me a human person. I seem to have labeled my humanity as evil, bad, unnecessary, and unsightly. I can write beautiful letters to a friend, telling her to love herself and nurture herself, but I can't seem so easily to tell my own self this.
Maybe I should try doing that deliberately- I should stand in front of the mirror and say that flacky phrase "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." Only that's all wrong. Because the trick is not to teach yourself to value self improvement, but to teach yourself to value who you are right now.
You know why else this is coming up for me right now? It's because I'm writing Gilly up through adolescence, so I've already unlocked the door on that little shop of horrors. Mmmm.... unwanted renaissance. Such are the dangers of writing.
Yesterday, not surprisingly, I was able to go back and rewrite a key scene. The first time I wrote it, Gilly reflected a surface part of my personality and didn't act like herself. Then I fiddled with it almost endlessly, but all I was doing was rearranging the wrong dialogue.
Then yesterday, I pretty much destroyed the entire scene and wrote it from a much deeper part of myself, and Gilly was herself. But after three hours of this, I was emotionally exhausted and watched anime on Netflix instead.
I'm going to have to do this the entire way through everything that I've already written.
What an exhausting prospect.
I think I'll go grocery shopping instead.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
August 25th
I chew my lips so badly that I must put chap stick on at least four or five times a day to prevent the skin from chapping and breaking. When I go to bed at night, my jaws ache.
I never leave the house unless it's to go grocery shopping or with Keith. I don't even know where the local library is.
I wear the same two linen shirts and two cotton skirts all week long.
I tell myself this is fine, so long as I keep writing, jogging and the house clean. Which I do.
Most of the time, I think I'm happy. It's hard to tell sometimes.
My days are defined by these obscure internal crises that no one else ever knows about, unless I happen to blog about them. Things having to do with self perception: my perception of everything from my general way of living to a specific comment I left on facebook.
It doesn't matter what I say or do, at some point, it will feel like a terrible mistake and will follow me around, my constant companion for the rest of the day. I've almost stopped commenting at all, because of this, to try and avoid it.
Most of the time I'm happy to see Keith pull up in the driveway and go striding down to the mailbox. Sometimes he's arrived in the midst of an intense internal weather system that doesn't want to give way for him; I want to continue absorbed and wrestling.
I am like the crazy, eccentric and creative writer person that scare other, more normal people. I wonder if I could have turned out differently if I had tried. Would I trully want to be different? Different in what way?
I wonder if this version of me is truly the result of my choosing, over and over again, personal authenticity over society's expectations. Or is this just the result of my anxiety wearing away at me, like wind scouring the rocks?
I wonder what kind of story I would write, if I wrote about this me- the thirty three year old, infertile, anxious shut in who is also the warm and passionate wife who is also the woman with the spectacular, adversarial and fertile internal life.
Yesterday I wept. My brother and his wife were given a little girl. Their life was added to, was enlarged in every way.
In the light of this, my own life seemed so futile, like a grown up playing in the sandbox. Who cares if I can write? What does it matter? It won't change the world. I'm not a genius; I just have a natural ability.
My body seemed so broken, so worthless. Already having been the sexual plaything of pedophile, already spent, spoiled, plundered. And now broken, yielding me nothing. Just an empty vessel.
I just let myself grieve. Then I wrote. I forced myself to continue writing. After all, what am I going to do? I have this life. I have this day stretching out in front of me, full of emptiness. I might as well write.
I never leave the house unless it's to go grocery shopping or with Keith. I don't even know where the local library is.
I wear the same two linen shirts and two cotton skirts all week long.
I tell myself this is fine, so long as I keep writing, jogging and the house clean. Which I do.
Most of the time, I think I'm happy. It's hard to tell sometimes.
My days are defined by these obscure internal crises that no one else ever knows about, unless I happen to blog about them. Things having to do with self perception: my perception of everything from my general way of living to a specific comment I left on facebook.
It doesn't matter what I say or do, at some point, it will feel like a terrible mistake and will follow me around, my constant companion for the rest of the day. I've almost stopped commenting at all, because of this, to try and avoid it.
Most of the time I'm happy to see Keith pull up in the driveway and go striding down to the mailbox. Sometimes he's arrived in the midst of an intense internal weather system that doesn't want to give way for him; I want to continue absorbed and wrestling.
I am like the crazy, eccentric and creative writer person that scare other, more normal people. I wonder if I could have turned out differently if I had tried. Would I trully want to be different? Different in what way?
I wonder if this version of me is truly the result of my choosing, over and over again, personal authenticity over society's expectations. Or is this just the result of my anxiety wearing away at me, like wind scouring the rocks?
I wonder what kind of story I would write, if I wrote about this me- the thirty three year old, infertile, anxious shut in who is also the warm and passionate wife who is also the woman with the spectacular, adversarial and fertile internal life.
Yesterday I wept. My brother and his wife were given a little girl. Their life was added to, was enlarged in every way.
In the light of this, my own life seemed so futile, like a grown up playing in the sandbox. Who cares if I can write? What does it matter? It won't change the world. I'm not a genius; I just have a natural ability.
My body seemed so broken, so worthless. Already having been the sexual plaything of pedophile, already spent, spoiled, plundered. And now broken, yielding me nothing. Just an empty vessel.
I just let myself grieve. Then I wrote. I forced myself to continue writing. After all, what am I going to do? I have this life. I have this day stretching out in front of me, full of emptiness. I might as well write.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
August 23rd
So.
Dad's friend, who will be referred to as Professional Writer, actually called me yesterday. He was articulate and calm and very, very nice. He's a ghost writer. I had to look up what that was- it's the person people pay to write their stories for them, because he can write it so much better than they can.
I? I was a nervous wreck. I'm horrible over the phone anyway, so you can just imagine. Or maybe not- my awkwardness may be just unimaginable.
He was undeterred, thank goodness. He said that it became clear to him as he was reading my stuff that I was not a writer who wrote for fun or for their career, but that I wrote because I must, because I had to write.
He also said that I was a born writer. He said some writers spend years learning the craft of writing, but I did not need to do that; I knew instinctively how to do it. He said that I would spend years figuring out what it was that I most wanted to say, and the best way to say it.
He compared me to Hemmingway (!!!!) and the lady that wrote The Yearling (!!!!!), both authors who knew how to write, but had to write for years before they learned their own style and made the contacts that would make them professionally successful.
This man does not know me. He doesn't read my blog. He learned that after reading just ten pages of Ceallach.
So, then we moved on to areas needing improvement. I asked him about lack of flow, and he happily and very gently explained.
(The fellow treated me with kid gloves; he told me later that he was always scared talking to creative people like myself, for fear of interrupting their creative flow. Which made me laugh out loud; it just seemed to ironic, as I was utterly terrified of him, and his professional competence, contacts, poise and career.)
Anyway, he said that my thoughts and images were arranged almost as though in bunches. He said it was almost like looking through a photograph album; looking from picture to picture.
The e-mail had separated into these large gaps between each line, so he did say that it might have just been him reacting to the physical space between the physical lines of the story.
However, it really rang a bell with me- I think I do tend to bunch my ideas and thoughts, and move from one bunch to the other. It's the product of my writing something straight out of my private vision; that's the way I see the thing in my own head.
Anotherwards, what he is seeing is the thought patterns of my own imagination. Which is fascinating to me. I must more fully translate my thoughts from the visual language of my own imagination into the more cohesive flow of language.
Which I think means, I'm going to have really think about why it is that I need that image or thought pattern in the story, or what it is doing for the story, why it is there, and then tailor it for that purpose, or discard it.
His next piece of constructive criticism was harder to hear; he said that he was unable to relate to my characters. That's a doozy, right there. That's a major failure. He quickly went onto suggest that it wasn't so much my characterization as it was my genre.
He talked a great deal about Rowlings, the author of The Yearling, who wrote gothic novels for years and submitted them to her good friend, and editor, and he kept rejecting them. He told her to write about what she knew, and so she began writing about the Florida backwoods, and was very successful.
He said as I wrote, I would learn to be more brave and put more of myself into my characters. Which is ironic, because Phillipa is so much myself that my editor friend kept slipping up and writing "you" instead of Phillipa when she talked about the story.
However, Phillipa doesn't carry any of my weaknesses, other than a slight shyness. She has none of my anxieties, neurosis or scars. I must not have been ready to process those things in that story; I was too busy learning about plot construction and novel length.
But I am doing that in Torii. He has yet to read Torii, but he has some sections and will be reading it in the next few days and will call me back. I am very curious to know what he thinks. I have a feeling that he will again talk about genre, as the fantasy setting for Torii is so fantastical.
I'm not quite ready to switch genres, though. I don't want to be that grown up. Maybe one day.
Anyway, he said that one of his best friends is a publisher and she is always looking for new material, a fresh new voice and if he brought something to her, it'd pretty much get published. Or something. He said people come out of nowhere all the time, and become successful.
My mind was blanking out from sheer astonishment at this; I kept saying, "Oh my gosh," like an idiot. He cautioned me that it would have to be some of my best work, which I don't think I've written yet. But it was just something to consider, something to keep in the back of my mind.
Oh my gosh.
Dad's friend, who will be referred to as Professional Writer, actually called me yesterday. He was articulate and calm and very, very nice. He's a ghost writer. I had to look up what that was- it's the person people pay to write their stories for them, because he can write it so much better than they can.
I? I was a nervous wreck. I'm horrible over the phone anyway, so you can just imagine. Or maybe not- my awkwardness may be just unimaginable.
He was undeterred, thank goodness. He said that it became clear to him as he was reading my stuff that I was not a writer who wrote for fun or for their career, but that I wrote because I must, because I had to write.
He also said that I was a born writer. He said some writers spend years learning the craft of writing, but I did not need to do that; I knew instinctively how to do it. He said that I would spend years figuring out what it was that I most wanted to say, and the best way to say it.
He compared me to Hemmingway (!!!!) and the lady that wrote The Yearling (!!!!!), both authors who knew how to write, but had to write for years before they learned their own style and made the contacts that would make them professionally successful.
This man does not know me. He doesn't read my blog. He learned that after reading just ten pages of Ceallach.
So, then we moved on to areas needing improvement. I asked him about lack of flow, and he happily and very gently explained.
(The fellow treated me with kid gloves; he told me later that he was always scared talking to creative people like myself, for fear of interrupting their creative flow. Which made me laugh out loud; it just seemed to ironic, as I was utterly terrified of him, and his professional competence, contacts, poise and career.)
Anyway, he said that my thoughts and images were arranged almost as though in bunches. He said it was almost like looking through a photograph album; looking from picture to picture.
The e-mail had separated into these large gaps between each line, so he did say that it might have just been him reacting to the physical space between the physical lines of the story.
However, it really rang a bell with me- I think I do tend to bunch my ideas and thoughts, and move from one bunch to the other. It's the product of my writing something straight out of my private vision; that's the way I see the thing in my own head.
Anotherwards, what he is seeing is the thought patterns of my own imagination. Which is fascinating to me. I must more fully translate my thoughts from the visual language of my own imagination into the more cohesive flow of language.
Which I think means, I'm going to have really think about why it is that I need that image or thought pattern in the story, or what it is doing for the story, why it is there, and then tailor it for that purpose, or discard it.
His next piece of constructive criticism was harder to hear; he said that he was unable to relate to my characters. That's a doozy, right there. That's a major failure. He quickly went onto suggest that it wasn't so much my characterization as it was my genre.
He talked a great deal about Rowlings, the author of The Yearling, who wrote gothic novels for years and submitted them to her good friend, and editor, and he kept rejecting them. He told her to write about what she knew, and so she began writing about the Florida backwoods, and was very successful.
He said as I wrote, I would learn to be more brave and put more of myself into my characters. Which is ironic, because Phillipa is so much myself that my editor friend kept slipping up and writing "you" instead of Phillipa when she talked about the story.
However, Phillipa doesn't carry any of my weaknesses, other than a slight shyness. She has none of my anxieties, neurosis or scars. I must not have been ready to process those things in that story; I was too busy learning about plot construction and novel length.
But I am doing that in Torii. He has yet to read Torii, but he has some sections and will be reading it in the next few days and will call me back. I am very curious to know what he thinks. I have a feeling that he will again talk about genre, as the fantasy setting for Torii is so fantastical.
I'm not quite ready to switch genres, though. I don't want to be that grown up. Maybe one day.
Anyway, he said that one of his best friends is a publisher and she is always looking for new material, a fresh new voice and if he brought something to her, it'd pretty much get published. Or something. He said people come out of nowhere all the time, and become successful.
My mind was blanking out from sheer astonishment at this; I kept saying, "Oh my gosh," like an idiot. He cautioned me that it would have to be some of my best work, which I don't think I've written yet. But it was just something to consider, something to keep in the back of my mind.
Oh my gosh.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
August 21
I watched an anime that I should not have. I should have known better- it was called "Death Frenzy."
So, you can't say I wasn't forewarned, or anything.
However, it was set in feudal Japan, so I thought I'd just try a piece of it. A lot of anime I start and then discard, sometimes after just a minute of two of viewing.
Not this one. I watched the whole damned thing. And damned it is. It was the most gruesome, violent, disturbing and graphic anime I have ever seen.
And here's the catch- also, one of the most beautiful, compelling and well put together anime ever. I mean, it rivals even Ghost in the Shell for beauty and the sheer impact of its storytelling. And the sound track- so powerful. It was pretty much nothing but Japanese drums, the sound of cicadas, etc. It was mesmerizing.
I couldn't stop watching the episodes, even though frequently I actually wasn't watching it; I was blocking the screen with my hand and watching the upside down reflection on the glass topped coffee table instead, to try and take the edge off (haha) some of the violence.
It follows the destiny of two mutilated samurai who must fight to the death at the order of the daimyo. One has lost his arm, the other is blind and limps. The story opens with a samurai who has committed seppuku and reveals the ghastly and mortal wound to the lord, in order to protest the fight.
He dies in vain, of course, by taking a face plant in his own blood. This sets the stage nicely for the rest of the anime.
Then the anime shows the back story and then the anime never shows the ending. According to wikipedia (yes, I looked it up), it is famous for this. Or infamous, I should say.
Hateful, hateful anime. And yet, beautiful, haunting anime. At certain key moments, the lines mimic traditional Japanese art, in a subtle and stylized way that is just breathtaking.
There was this one scene when the former master, a truly despicable character, comes walking off the veranda to kill the blind samurai, his former student. The blind samurai strains hideously to open his scarred eyes; they roll up from under his eye sockets. He sees flickering images and then, sees a vision of the master as a tiger, and holy crap, what a tiger. It was one of the most terrifying and beautiful scenes of animation I've ever watched.
And the way they built up the understanding of the martial arts was so satisfying. By the end of the amine, I knew just how much blood, sweat and life went into the samurai's use of that sword play. I knew what he could do with just wooden sword. When the samurai fought, I could feel the agony, the exhaustion, the precision and the sheer force of both physical power and strength of will that went into each sword stroke.
So, I watched it for like, four hours straight, start to finish and then I went to bed.
So of course I had nightmares. Unfortunately, they weren't about samurai, because, frankly, that would have been awesome.
I wish some talented person out there would envision and draw an equally compelling, hauntingly beautiful amime set in feudal Japan, minus the graphic sexuality and serious carnage, and not forgetting to sketch out some kind of ending.
Seriously, is that too much to ask?
So, you can't say I wasn't forewarned, or anything.
However, it was set in feudal Japan, so I thought I'd just try a piece of it. A lot of anime I start and then discard, sometimes after just a minute of two of viewing.
Not this one. I watched the whole damned thing. And damned it is. It was the most gruesome, violent, disturbing and graphic anime I have ever seen.
And here's the catch- also, one of the most beautiful, compelling and well put together anime ever. I mean, it rivals even Ghost in the Shell for beauty and the sheer impact of its storytelling. And the sound track- so powerful. It was pretty much nothing but Japanese drums, the sound of cicadas, etc. It was mesmerizing.
I couldn't stop watching the episodes, even though frequently I actually wasn't watching it; I was blocking the screen with my hand and watching the upside down reflection on the glass topped coffee table instead, to try and take the edge off (haha) some of the violence.
It follows the destiny of two mutilated samurai who must fight to the death at the order of the daimyo. One has lost his arm, the other is blind and limps. The story opens with a samurai who has committed seppuku and reveals the ghastly and mortal wound to the lord, in order to protest the fight.
He dies in vain, of course, by taking a face plant in his own blood. This sets the stage nicely for the rest of the anime.
Then the anime shows the back story and then the anime never shows the ending. According to wikipedia (yes, I looked it up), it is famous for this. Or infamous, I should say.
Hateful, hateful anime. And yet, beautiful, haunting anime. At certain key moments, the lines mimic traditional Japanese art, in a subtle and stylized way that is just breathtaking.
There was this one scene when the former master, a truly despicable character, comes walking off the veranda to kill the blind samurai, his former student. The blind samurai strains hideously to open his scarred eyes; they roll up from under his eye sockets. He sees flickering images and then, sees a vision of the master as a tiger, and holy crap, what a tiger. It was one of the most terrifying and beautiful scenes of animation I've ever watched.
And the way they built up the understanding of the martial arts was so satisfying. By the end of the amine, I knew just how much blood, sweat and life went into the samurai's use of that sword play. I knew what he could do with just wooden sword. When the samurai fought, I could feel the agony, the exhaustion, the precision and the sheer force of both physical power and strength of will that went into each sword stroke.
So, I watched it for like, four hours straight, start to finish and then I went to bed.
So of course I had nightmares. Unfortunately, they weren't about samurai, because, frankly, that would have been awesome.
I wish some talented person out there would envision and draw an equally compelling, hauntingly beautiful amime set in feudal Japan, minus the graphic sexuality and serious carnage, and not forgetting to sketch out some kind of ending.
Seriously, is that too much to ask?
Saturday, August 20, 2011
August 20th
The house is oddly quiet; the rattle of the keyboard is loud and clear in the stillness. Beer cans litter various surfaces; I can hear the dogs figiting on the couch behind me.
Keith and friend headed out this morning, with fourwheelers, cases of beer and a tent, to go off and do their thing all weekend long somewhere in the Georgia wilds. I cheerfully waved them off, knowing that later I would get to watch English period piece dramas on Netflix to my heart's content, and eat Fruit Loops for dinner.
These mornings always dawn cloudy for some reason. The sky clears up by ten am, and then by two pm, thunderstorms have blanketed one horizon or another with a flat, gray smear and the smear grows and the light dims and suddenly I realize I"m sitting in the dark and go to turn on a lamp. And as I do, I look out the window and are amazed to see that the trees are whipping back and forth violently.
Only, it's perfectly silent. There's all the visual chaos outside; leaves ripped away, thin debri in the air, roiling clouds above, and yet, in the house, hardly a sound can be heard. Until it starts to rain. That I can hear.
Here are some random pictures I have finally bothered to upload to my blog. This are not taken in anyway creatively.
Keith and friend headed out this morning, with fourwheelers, cases of beer and a tent, to go off and do their thing all weekend long somewhere in the Georgia wilds. I cheerfully waved them off, knowing that later I would get to watch English period piece dramas on Netflix to my heart's content, and eat Fruit Loops for dinner.
These mornings always dawn cloudy for some reason. The sky clears up by ten am, and then by two pm, thunderstorms have blanketed one horizon or another with a flat, gray smear and the smear grows and the light dims and suddenly I realize I"m sitting in the dark and go to turn on a lamp. And as I do, I look out the window and are amazed to see that the trees are whipping back and forth violently.
Only, it's perfectly silent. There's all the visual chaos outside; leaves ripped away, thin debri in the air, roiling clouds above, and yet, in the house, hardly a sound can be heard. Until it starts to rain. That I can hear.
Here are some random pictures I have finally bothered to upload to my blog. This are not taken in anyway creatively.
Voila, my desk. Though now it has a lot of pictures and stuff around it.
What you see when you first walk in the door.
Looking from the dining room into "the study" or, the place which should have been the formal dining room and instead, holds my desk and a random couch.
The kitchen, obviously.
The messy bedroom.
Kitchen, looking toward dining room.
This is my "I am a scary redneck woman" look.
Lovely water.
He looks friendly...
...but wait!
Run! Run away!
Friday, August 19, 2011
August 19th
Today is the first morning in three days that I woke up and did not feel like a hag. I'm pretty sure I still look like one, though.
Keith, on the other hand, is looking mouth wateringly attractive to me lately. It's a good thing he doesn't mind kissing me even when I'm all sniffly. After all, he's the one that gave me the cold in the first place. I surely can't give it back to him... can I?
I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed I was in charge of a whole group of children on a trip, with one or two other adults to help out.
It was difficult at first, because the children were argumentative and insecure; they kept picking on one another. But I kept spending time with them and talking with them, and their insecurities started to fall away. I started to really like who they were as people; I enjoyed their personalities. I thought of them as mine.
Then we were at this truck stop. As I was watching, I saw a sixteen wheeler lose control on the highway and jack knife into the parking lot, right where the children were. For a moment, the cab of the truck was hung on a electric pole, preventing the children from being crushed.
I went racing into the tangled mess, screaming, "Get the children, get the children," but as soon as I did, the cab slid loose of the pole and the entire truck swung down on me. I tried to scramble out of the way, but I was being crushed to death.
What was worse was my knowledge of the fact that all the children were being crushed to death as well, right below me; I couldn't see them, they were inside the truck that was being compressed by the other one. It was so indescribably awful to know that they were all dying, so close to me and yet I couldn't do a thing about it, or speak to them, or reach them.
I wonder if this dream is about my fears that I will never have biological children, or if the children are just symbolic, and the dream is about my fears that my hopes for my writing will all be crushed.
But that wasn't the end of the dream. The dream went on, almost as though the crash had never happened.
I was in the building of the truck stop, looking for a bathroom. In the main room with the snacks and the benches for eating the greasy food was a stall, but it was for showering, not for a toilet.
It was right out in the open and I thought, wow, who would use that? I felt curious, so I went in and I found that there were panels that slid closed, making it a very modest, but very tight little space. I thought, this is cool. I would love a shower after these days of being on the road.
Then I realized I still had on all my clothes, and then I realized I didn't know how to get out, so I rapped on the wall and the attendant opened the door. She said I could put my clothes in the dryer so they could be freshened up while I showered.
I thought that was a great idea, so I took of my jeans and sweater right out in the open, intending to shower in my underwear. I felt no shame or embarrassment about doing this. In fact, the whole tenor of this part of the dream was of cheerful practicality and curiosity.
What could that mean? It's so interesting that instead of a toilet, which in my dreams are usual filthy, out in the open and symbolic of sexual abuse, I found a shower, which is where a person gets cleaned and refreshed, and that the shower was a safe and interesting place to be, and that I felt no shame in taking off my outer clothing.
I felt powerful and in control, and capable of making decisions. Also, the children were still alive, and in the parking lot, being looked after by another adult that I trusted and was fond of while I was inside the building.
I wonder why I had these two dreams back to back like that?
I looked up motorway, it says it can symbolize a major direction and quick route to where you want to go in life. A child in a dream can stand for feelings of growth or vulnerability. Washing can indicate getting rid of unwanted feelings such as self doubt or despair.
Sooo... I guess that's pretty obvious then. I guess my hopes and fears for my writing are affecting me at a far deeper level than even I would have guessed, and yet, they were expressed and resolved within the same dream sequence.
I am writing more slowly lately. It's because I'm near the end of this story. There are only a few more scenes to write out, including the linchpin scene. And, more than with any other story I've yet written, I don't want this one to end. I don't want to leave this world. So I'm extending it out deliberately by pacing myself.
Also, it's proving difficult trying to move Gilly through adolescence. Not surprising, considering that she reflects my own journey, which was torturous. Writing it is like one step forward, two steps back.
I did hear back from Dad's friend; he said my use of language was enviable, particulary my descriptive gift. He's going to read through my stuff again and then give me more detailed feeback. Which is very kind of him; I gather from Dad that he is a busy guy.
Keith, on the other hand, is looking mouth wateringly attractive to me lately. It's a good thing he doesn't mind kissing me even when I'm all sniffly. After all, he's the one that gave me the cold in the first place. I surely can't give it back to him... can I?
I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed I was in charge of a whole group of children on a trip, with one or two other adults to help out.
It was difficult at first, because the children were argumentative and insecure; they kept picking on one another. But I kept spending time with them and talking with them, and their insecurities started to fall away. I started to really like who they were as people; I enjoyed their personalities. I thought of them as mine.
Then we were at this truck stop. As I was watching, I saw a sixteen wheeler lose control on the highway and jack knife into the parking lot, right where the children were. For a moment, the cab of the truck was hung on a electric pole, preventing the children from being crushed.
I went racing into the tangled mess, screaming, "Get the children, get the children," but as soon as I did, the cab slid loose of the pole and the entire truck swung down on me. I tried to scramble out of the way, but I was being crushed to death.
What was worse was my knowledge of the fact that all the children were being crushed to death as well, right below me; I couldn't see them, they were inside the truck that was being compressed by the other one. It was so indescribably awful to know that they were all dying, so close to me and yet I couldn't do a thing about it, or speak to them, or reach them.
I wonder if this dream is about my fears that I will never have biological children, or if the children are just symbolic, and the dream is about my fears that my hopes for my writing will all be crushed.
But that wasn't the end of the dream. The dream went on, almost as though the crash had never happened.
I was in the building of the truck stop, looking for a bathroom. In the main room with the snacks and the benches for eating the greasy food was a stall, but it was for showering, not for a toilet.
It was right out in the open and I thought, wow, who would use that? I felt curious, so I went in and I found that there were panels that slid closed, making it a very modest, but very tight little space. I thought, this is cool. I would love a shower after these days of being on the road.
Then I realized I still had on all my clothes, and then I realized I didn't know how to get out, so I rapped on the wall and the attendant opened the door. She said I could put my clothes in the dryer so they could be freshened up while I showered.
I thought that was a great idea, so I took of my jeans and sweater right out in the open, intending to shower in my underwear. I felt no shame or embarrassment about doing this. In fact, the whole tenor of this part of the dream was of cheerful practicality and curiosity.
What could that mean? It's so interesting that instead of a toilet, which in my dreams are usual filthy, out in the open and symbolic of sexual abuse, I found a shower, which is where a person gets cleaned and refreshed, and that the shower was a safe and interesting place to be, and that I felt no shame in taking off my outer clothing.
I felt powerful and in control, and capable of making decisions. Also, the children were still alive, and in the parking lot, being looked after by another adult that I trusted and was fond of while I was inside the building.
I wonder why I had these two dreams back to back like that?
I looked up motorway, it says it can symbolize a major direction and quick route to where you want to go in life. A child in a dream can stand for feelings of growth or vulnerability. Washing can indicate getting rid of unwanted feelings such as self doubt or despair.
Sooo... I guess that's pretty obvious then. I guess my hopes and fears for my writing are affecting me at a far deeper level than even I would have guessed, and yet, they were expressed and resolved within the same dream sequence.
I am writing more slowly lately. It's because I'm near the end of this story. There are only a few more scenes to write out, including the linchpin scene. And, more than with any other story I've yet written, I don't want this one to end. I don't want to leave this world. So I'm extending it out deliberately by pacing myself.
Also, it's proving difficult trying to move Gilly through adolescence. Not surprising, considering that she reflects my own journey, which was torturous. Writing it is like one step forward, two steps back.
I did hear back from Dad's friend; he said my use of language was enviable, particulary my descriptive gift. He's going to read through my stuff again and then give me more detailed feeback. Which is very kind of him; I gather from Dad that he is a busy guy.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
August 18th Excerpt
(I'm starting to go back and rearrange all the stuff I wrote through so quickly last weekend.)
Gilly stood in the midst of excited and nervous girls in the grassy quad at the Nishiyama Shuuduoin, wearing her new and slightly itchy uniform. The buildings of the convent rose up around the crowd she stood in, with its Gothic windows paned in dark glass and stern architecture. The morning was a little cool, and she wore a cardigan over her white blouse with the narrow banded collar.
Though she stood near Tenshio, she did not hold his hand. At nearly twelve years old, she had begun to feel self-conscious about such displays of affection.
Her face had lengthened and her cheekbones had become more prominent. Above her large dark eyes were strongly marked, level eyebrows and a high, curving forehead.
Her silken shining hair was drawn neatly back from her face with two simple barrettes. The rest of her straight hair fell to her shoulders, where the ends persisted in curling up every which way.
She did not smile often and in repose her face held a quiet, almost studious reserve; an expression that mimicked the one she had seen most often on Tenshio’s face throughout the years.
Though she was not a particularly tall child, she had grown in height and her arms and legs were a bit on the gangly side. Tenshio no longer had to crouch down in order to see her eyes when he was speaking to her, though he still did so from time to time, out of both habit and affection.
Tenshio himself had not changed at all. For the slightly formal occasion of the first day of school, he wore a dark grey silk coat over his indigo hakama and layered kimono. His face was pale, calm and remote. He stood patiently, watching the crowd of other parents.
Every once in a while, Gilly would recognize one of her classmates and her somber face would light up. Inevitably, the parents and child would make their way over, to offer their respect to the Daitoku in pleasant and courteous phrases. It was almost as though Gilly and Tenshio stood at the center of a slow moving current in a pond.
Over the years, various history and geometry classes, as well as the attitudes of the villagers, had taught Gilly just how important the Daitoku was. He was important not just to the Nishiyama region, but to the entire daemon community and everyone knew him, if not by face, than by name.
Sometimes it surprised her, to come from a class where she had seen fuzzy black and white pictures of former Daitoku mina in her history book, their expressions stern, to find Tenshio waiting by the gate, in color and smiling.
The same authority figure that had charge over one of the most sacred places in the spirit realm was also the one that held fallen leaves, acorns and river rocks in his hands for her when they went for a walk up the stream, and bought her birthday presents, and tutored her in math.
“There is Aiko,” Tenshio said to Gilly quietly, bending toward her.
“Where?” whispered Gilly, her eyes searching out the crowd.
All the girls wore the same uniform and so were difficult to recognize them at first. Then Gilly heard the deep and carrying tones of Master Yuudai’s voice over the general murmur of the crowd. Standing on tiptoe, she caught sight of a dark curly head, and then Aiko was running up to her, her eyes bright; Gilly braced herself.
“Oh, Gilly, isn’t it exciting?” Aiko cried, squeezing the girl.
Aiko was still slightly taller than Gilly. Her loose hair tumbled around her shoulders. Her face had matured into the same classic beauty as her mother’s, though where her hair had come from, no one could tell. It wasn’t so noticeable when it was done up in the more formal styles that were typically worn outside of the school.
“We’re going to see each other all the time now!” Aiko exclaimed. “Master Tenshio,” she added, bowing belatedly.
“Miss Aiko,” replied Tenshio.
“Do we have a good room?” Aiko asked excitedly. Her things had been sent ahead, and Gilly and Miyoko had spent the last few days setting up the room the two girls would be sharing for the next year.
“I think so,” Gilly replied, cautiously, not entirely sure what constituted a good room.
Master Yuudai’s large frame had appeared out of the crowd, Lady Atsuka following in his wake. The two parties greeted each other warmly.
“Best of luck, Miss Gilly, on your first day of school,” Yuudai said to her.
“We’re so glad to have you in the same class,” Lady Atsuka added. “Little Aiko will be less homesick.”
“She can come over to Mrs. Miyoko’s house with me anytime I visit there, Lady Atsuka,” Gilly said earnestly.
The heavy bells hung in the chapel tower began to ring out, startling the birds that had been roosting there. They rose up with a confusion of black flapping wings against the morning sky.
Gilly watched a tearful Lady Atsuka hug Aiko close.
"Do you very best this year, Gillian," Tenshio said to her.
"Yes, sir," Gilly said, turning her attention to him. "I will."
“I know you will be kind to Aiko. It will be hard for her at first, a situation you can most certainly relate to.”
“Yes,” agreed Gilly, soberly.
“This is for luck," he said, smiling. He reached inside the folds of his kimono and brought out a small, silk wrapped package. Gilly took it respectfully in both hands, her face shining.
"Thank you very much, Master Tenshio," she whispered.
He patted her head fondly. "I will see you at the end of the week."
“Yes, sir."
Gilly stood in the midst of excited and nervous girls in the grassy quad at the Nishiyama Shuuduoin, wearing her new and slightly itchy uniform. The buildings of the convent rose up around the crowd she stood in, with its Gothic windows paned in dark glass and stern architecture. The morning was a little cool, and she wore a cardigan over her white blouse with the narrow banded collar.
Though she stood near Tenshio, she did not hold his hand. At nearly twelve years old, she had begun to feel self-conscious about such displays of affection.
Her face had lengthened and her cheekbones had become more prominent. Above her large dark eyes were strongly marked, level eyebrows and a high, curving forehead.
Her silken shining hair was drawn neatly back from her face with two simple barrettes. The rest of her straight hair fell to her shoulders, where the ends persisted in curling up every which way.
She did not smile often and in repose her face held a quiet, almost studious reserve; an expression that mimicked the one she had seen most often on Tenshio’s face throughout the years.
Though she was not a particularly tall child, she had grown in height and her arms and legs were a bit on the gangly side. Tenshio no longer had to crouch down in order to see her eyes when he was speaking to her, though he still did so from time to time, out of both habit and affection.
Tenshio himself had not changed at all. For the slightly formal occasion of the first day of school, he wore a dark grey silk coat over his indigo hakama and layered kimono. His face was pale, calm and remote. He stood patiently, watching the crowd of other parents.
Every once in a while, Gilly would recognize one of her classmates and her somber face would light up. Inevitably, the parents and child would make their way over, to offer their respect to the Daitoku in pleasant and courteous phrases. It was almost as though Gilly and Tenshio stood at the center of a slow moving current in a pond.
Over the years, various history and geometry classes, as well as the attitudes of the villagers, had taught Gilly just how important the Daitoku was. He was important not just to the Nishiyama region, but to the entire daemon community and everyone knew him, if not by face, than by name.
Sometimes it surprised her, to come from a class where she had seen fuzzy black and white pictures of former Daitoku mina in her history book, their expressions stern, to find Tenshio waiting by the gate, in color and smiling.
The same authority figure that had charge over one of the most sacred places in the spirit realm was also the one that held fallen leaves, acorns and river rocks in his hands for her when they went for a walk up the stream, and bought her birthday presents, and tutored her in math.
“There is Aiko,” Tenshio said to Gilly quietly, bending toward her.
“Where?” whispered Gilly, her eyes searching out the crowd.
All the girls wore the same uniform and so were difficult to recognize them at first. Then Gilly heard the deep and carrying tones of Master Yuudai’s voice over the general murmur of the crowd. Standing on tiptoe, she caught sight of a dark curly head, and then Aiko was running up to her, her eyes bright; Gilly braced herself.
“Oh, Gilly, isn’t it exciting?” Aiko cried, squeezing the girl.
Aiko was still slightly taller than Gilly. Her loose hair tumbled around her shoulders. Her face had matured into the same classic beauty as her mother’s, though where her hair had come from, no one could tell. It wasn’t so noticeable when it was done up in the more formal styles that were typically worn outside of the school.
“We’re going to see each other all the time now!” Aiko exclaimed. “Master Tenshio,” she added, bowing belatedly.
“Miss Aiko,” replied Tenshio.
“Do we have a good room?” Aiko asked excitedly. Her things had been sent ahead, and Gilly and Miyoko had spent the last few days setting up the room the two girls would be sharing for the next year.
“I think so,” Gilly replied, cautiously, not entirely sure what constituted a good room.
Master Yuudai’s large frame had appeared out of the crowd, Lady Atsuka following in his wake. The two parties greeted each other warmly.
“Best of luck, Miss Gilly, on your first day of school,” Yuudai said to her.
“We’re so glad to have you in the same class,” Lady Atsuka added. “Little Aiko will be less homesick.”
“She can come over to Mrs. Miyoko’s house with me anytime I visit there, Lady Atsuka,” Gilly said earnestly.
The heavy bells hung in the chapel tower began to ring out, startling the birds that had been roosting there. They rose up with a confusion of black flapping wings against the morning sky.
Gilly watched a tearful Lady Atsuka hug Aiko close.
"Do you very best this year, Gillian," Tenshio said to her.
"Yes, sir," Gilly said, turning her attention to him. "I will."
“I know you will be kind to Aiko. It will be hard for her at first, a situation you can most certainly relate to.”
“Yes,” agreed Gilly, soberly.
“This is for luck," he said, smiling. He reached inside the folds of his kimono and brought out a small, silk wrapped package. Gilly took it respectfully in both hands, her face shining.
"Thank you very much, Master Tenshio," she whispered.
He patted her head fondly. "I will see you at the end of the week."
“Yes, sir."
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
August 17th
I have come down with a cold. I am stuffy and sweaty and generally miserable.
I myself have not heard back from my dad's friend, but my dad has. My dad reports that his friend pronounced me a good writer, very descriptive, and he wants to read more of my stuff. However, he did mention to my dad that my writing didn't flow as well as it could.
I wanted to know if it was my sentence/paragraph structure that's blocky or if it's the progression of ideas/events that isn't flowing, but Dad wasn't sure. So I keep waiting to hear back from the guy himself.
It makes me wonder if I should entirely scrap that whole beginning. The first two chapters are what remains of the original, unfinished short story that I wrote about ten years ago.
They are by far the most rewritten section of the entire story, but I do see what he means; it remains somewhat choppy.
Normally, I believe I do write smoothly, or at least, I've gotten that feedback from my editor friend. So I know that I can do it.
Maybe I should set those two chapters aside and completely rethink the entire beginning. It would then require me to go back through the entire story and change a great deal of dialogue, but that prospect isn't as frightening as it used to be.
Writing is such deceptively hard work. It looks easy, because all one is doing is sitting. For hours. However, you have to have so many things functioning.
A person must have a basic understanding of grammar and sentence structure, in order to articulate their ideas. They must have the vocabulary to illustrate them. They must have the ability to analyze how effectively they are accomplishing this. This is all the left brain function.
In addition, a writer must also have ideas, interesting, original ideas, and they must have the creative ability to bring those ideas to life within the words. They must, at some point, be able to see the story as a whole, to grasp the theme or vision of the entire story. That is the right brain function.
Oh, but how rewarding it is! How delightful. Sometimes the sheer joy of what I am doing causes me to shiver.
I just don't want to work this hard on something and have it go nowhere. How bitter it would be if, after everything is said and done, I am just not good enough?
Oh well. I'll just carry on, keeping in mind that the worst case scenario is me in my little room at the nursing home, having nothing but rejection slips, but also, a lovely character to show for it.
Anyway, surely by the time I'm sixty, I'll be able to write something wonderful.
I myself have not heard back from my dad's friend, but my dad has. My dad reports that his friend pronounced me a good writer, very descriptive, and he wants to read more of my stuff. However, he did mention to my dad that my writing didn't flow as well as it could.
I wanted to know if it was my sentence/paragraph structure that's blocky or if it's the progression of ideas/events that isn't flowing, but Dad wasn't sure. So I keep waiting to hear back from the guy himself.
It makes me wonder if I should entirely scrap that whole beginning. The first two chapters are what remains of the original, unfinished short story that I wrote about ten years ago.
They are by far the most rewritten section of the entire story, but I do see what he means; it remains somewhat choppy.
Normally, I believe I do write smoothly, or at least, I've gotten that feedback from my editor friend. So I know that I can do it.
Maybe I should set those two chapters aside and completely rethink the entire beginning. It would then require me to go back through the entire story and change a great deal of dialogue, but that prospect isn't as frightening as it used to be.
Writing is such deceptively hard work. It looks easy, because all one is doing is sitting. For hours. However, you have to have so many things functioning.
A person must have a basic understanding of grammar and sentence structure, in order to articulate their ideas. They must have the vocabulary to illustrate them. They must have the ability to analyze how effectively they are accomplishing this. This is all the left brain function.
In addition, a writer must also have ideas, interesting, original ideas, and they must have the creative ability to bring those ideas to life within the words. They must, at some point, be able to see the story as a whole, to grasp the theme or vision of the entire story. That is the right brain function.
Oh, but how rewarding it is! How delightful. Sometimes the sheer joy of what I am doing causes me to shiver.
I just don't want to work this hard on something and have it go nowhere. How bitter it would be if, after everything is said and done, I am just not good enough?
Oh well. I'll just carry on, keeping in mind that the worst case scenario is me in my little room at the nursing home, having nothing but rejection slips, but also, a lovely character to show for it.
Anyway, surely by the time I'm sixty, I'll be able to write something wonderful.
Monday, August 15, 2011
August 15th
Last night I used the word repertoire in conversation, and was blithely continuing on when Keith waved a hand in the air.
"Hold up, hold up," he said. "Back it up. Rep-e-twar? Seriously? Now, let me tell you about Rep-e-twar. It's a word of English and Spanish origin, from back in the late fourteen hundreds.
"The first part of the word, Rep is derived from the word represent and means that I (here he gestured graciously toward himself) will represent you. And," he concluded with authority, "twar means, 'F- you,' making it an insult, as in, 'I will rep-e-twar that guy.'"
He's like a walking dictionary, that man.
I stayed up til 10:30 on Friday night, writing Torii. I was just intoxicated, and I wrote it until I was just one scene before the end. Then I didn't work on it for the rest of the weekend, because I had to give it a chance to settle.
It's bewildering, trying to decide what scene to present and in what order. By now, the entire third part of the story is peppered with little notes in parenthesis, telling me where I need to move it or change it or what I need to add there.
I haven't heard back from the second agent I sent a query letter to, and it's been two weeks, so I think I can safely take that as a rejection. Tomorrow, I must devote some time to tweaking my letter and hunting down a new agent to send it to.
Although, my father recently became friends with someone on facebook who is an editor, as well as a writer and musician, and he graciously agreed to read a few chapters of my work. I just sent that off, so we'll see.
On a completely different topic, I was reading some threads on facebook and just amazed at my father's articulate courage and compassion. He just seems so fearless, and yet so welcoming.
Then I felt bad that I wasn't the same way. I thought about adding a comment to some of the threads, but I just couldn't.
"I'm sorry," I said to Christ, "I can't participate. I'm cowardly."
"I delight in your father, but I only made one of him; I didn't intend anyone else to be a carbon copy. I love you the way I created you to be," He replied, right off the bat.
Sometimes I think I am imagining this voice that I don't audibly hear, but it's become so familiar to me. He speaks to me in a still, small voice, a voice I know because He's the good shepherd, and He calls me by name.
It's as though I'm sitting, staring at a blank wall of my fear or misunderstanding, or condemnation, and suddenly, the wall slips down and I'm given a glimpse of something a great deal larger and more expansive than I could have understood on my own.
It's funny, because He was teaching me that same lesson at church on Sunday. I keep getting sucked into the idea that I must be everything to everybody, and instead, I need only be myself to the people around me.
They handed out communion at church, and I had a panic attack. I had a hard time keeping myself in hand; I wanted to escape. I had to tell myself over and over again that there was nothing to be frightened of, that I wasn't going to be struck dead by the Wrath of God.
Still, even though I had already prayed for forgiveness, I had to say another quick one just before I ate the tiny square of bread, just in case I had sinned in the two minute time span.
Church can sometimes be just like a minefield.
"Hold up, hold up," he said. "Back it up. Rep-e-twar? Seriously? Now, let me tell you about Rep-e-twar. It's a word of English and Spanish origin, from back in the late fourteen hundreds.
"The first part of the word, Rep is derived from the word represent and means that I (here he gestured graciously toward himself) will represent you. And," he concluded with authority, "twar means, 'F- you,' making it an insult, as in, 'I will rep-e-twar that guy.'"
He's like a walking dictionary, that man.
I stayed up til 10:30 on Friday night, writing Torii. I was just intoxicated, and I wrote it until I was just one scene before the end. Then I didn't work on it for the rest of the weekend, because I had to give it a chance to settle.
It's bewildering, trying to decide what scene to present and in what order. By now, the entire third part of the story is peppered with little notes in parenthesis, telling me where I need to move it or change it or what I need to add there.
I haven't heard back from the second agent I sent a query letter to, and it's been two weeks, so I think I can safely take that as a rejection. Tomorrow, I must devote some time to tweaking my letter and hunting down a new agent to send it to.
Although, my father recently became friends with someone on facebook who is an editor, as well as a writer and musician, and he graciously agreed to read a few chapters of my work. I just sent that off, so we'll see.
On a completely different topic, I was reading some threads on facebook and just amazed at my father's articulate courage and compassion. He just seems so fearless, and yet so welcoming.
Then I felt bad that I wasn't the same way. I thought about adding a comment to some of the threads, but I just couldn't.
"I'm sorry," I said to Christ, "I can't participate. I'm cowardly."
"I delight in your father, but I only made one of him; I didn't intend anyone else to be a carbon copy. I love you the way I created you to be," He replied, right off the bat.
Sometimes I think I am imagining this voice that I don't audibly hear, but it's become so familiar to me. He speaks to me in a still, small voice, a voice I know because He's the good shepherd, and He calls me by name.
It's as though I'm sitting, staring at a blank wall of my fear or misunderstanding, or condemnation, and suddenly, the wall slips down and I'm given a glimpse of something a great deal larger and more expansive than I could have understood on my own.
It's funny, because He was teaching me that same lesson at church on Sunday. I keep getting sucked into the idea that I must be everything to everybody, and instead, I need only be myself to the people around me.
They handed out communion at church, and I had a panic attack. I had a hard time keeping myself in hand; I wanted to escape. I had to tell myself over and over again that there was nothing to be frightened of, that I wasn't going to be struck dead by the Wrath of God.
Still, even though I had already prayed for forgiveness, I had to say another quick one just before I ate the tiny square of bread, just in case I had sinned in the two minute time span.
Church can sometimes be just like a minefield.
Friday, August 12, 2011
August 12th
Keith and I have been having a lot of "Remember when...?" conversations.
Maybe it's the slow approach of fall, heralded by the gold and yellow leaves I have to fish out of the pool in increasing numbers and the darker mornings that require me to turn on a light.
At one point, we sat and reminisced about all three years of marriage- which is, admittedly, a small amount of time, but they still held so many events and experiences.
We remembered the long drive to Minnesota to see my brother get married, and the snow, and the tiny town just outside of Denver where we ate a late dinner, and returning home just in time to get ready to move.
And we remembered about our house searching in Kentucky, and how confusing and stressful that was, and how grateful we were that we didn't end up buying a house.
We agreed we were incredibly lucky to find the house that we did, even if it was covered with leaves and overhung by the forest.
We remembered how depressed we'd been in that house, with the tiny garage and the hot, humid summers. That first winter I started therapy was pretty rough.
But still, we had good memories too, like having large, messy family gatherings, and the chaos of renting the pontoon boat, and playing nocturnal games of corn hole in the front yard by the light of the street lamp.
And then just as things were getting better, we moved here, where things have been awesome.
By the time we'd finished charting out our life together, we were both a little bit in awe at how much stuff changes. I had forgotten all of those twists and turns.
A couple nights ago, when we were all curled up in bed, I called him "Keith" by accident, which made him laugh.
"You never call me Keith," he reminded me. "Jenny," he added, with emphasis.
And it was strange; I got a little thrill, hearing him call my name. I hadn't realized it, but we never do use each other's names; there are so many other tempting, tender and amusing names to use. So then we had to go back and forth, using our names and just cracking each other up.
I am in the process of growing Gilly up. This is a very confusing task. Which episodes in her childhood do I draw out in detail, which do I gloss over at high speeds? There is just no right or wrong answer; everything works, but not to the same degree.
At this moment, I have decided to stop the speeding at age ten. I think ten is significant. I think it's the beginning of the end of childhood; at eleven, puberty begins. In fact, from everything I've read, eleven is one of the most miserable years ever.
Which is funny, because I do remember that year being just all kinds of aweful. And I don't want the story to speed through the easier phases of childhood and then crash right into the aweful. If the reader is drawn along in such a way that they live through the transition, the reader gets more satisfaction from the story.
So I figured, starting at ten is like standing at the shore. You can look behind you at the landscape, and even go back into it. But also, you are looking out at the vast and choatic ocean and knowing that you are going to have to cross it. Somewhere on the far side of the ocean, so far awayyou can't even see it, is adulthood.
Speaking of crashing the reader right into things, holy crap. I was reading a story that has been compressed into a Reader's Digest Selections (poor author). I don't know if it's a result of the editing, or of the story in the first place, but my lord. I can't finish it.
Prime example: "Tom rarely left her side, doting on her in the nicest, most subtle of ways."
If the author used that to begin with, and then went on to illustrate what the heck that looks like, all fine and good.
But that's not what the author did. She just wrote that sentence and carried on to the next thing. And the next thing. And the next thing. Almost the entire book is nothing but summation.
It's so frustrating because, somehow or other, she'd gotten me to like her characters. I would really enjoy spending some quality time with them, you know?
I would really like to know in what ways Tom doted on her. What does subtle and nice doting look like? The author piques my curiosity and then never satisfies it.
What else can I expect from a condensed story, right?
I could write a sentence like this: "Tenshio and Gilly's relationship grew day by day, as he walked her home from school, listening to her childish chatter."
Voila. I save like, two entire pages of dialogue.
In fact, if I wanted this to span several years, I could just tack on, "....and he continued to do this as the years went by." Or something similar.
Anyway, enough theory. Yesterday I spent all day helping Keith by arranging the lump of raw material he had accumulated into a logical and illustrated slide show on Turkey. I now know more than I ever needed to know about the country of Turkey.
I thrilled him to no end, when he came home to see the finished product. But I got no creative writing done until after dinner.
Maybe it's the slow approach of fall, heralded by the gold and yellow leaves I have to fish out of the pool in increasing numbers and the darker mornings that require me to turn on a light.
At one point, we sat and reminisced about all three years of marriage- which is, admittedly, a small amount of time, but they still held so many events and experiences.
We remembered the long drive to Minnesota to see my brother get married, and the snow, and the tiny town just outside of Denver where we ate a late dinner, and returning home just in time to get ready to move.
And we remembered about our house searching in Kentucky, and how confusing and stressful that was, and how grateful we were that we didn't end up buying a house.
We agreed we were incredibly lucky to find the house that we did, even if it was covered with leaves and overhung by the forest.
We remembered how depressed we'd been in that house, with the tiny garage and the hot, humid summers. That first winter I started therapy was pretty rough.
But still, we had good memories too, like having large, messy family gatherings, and the chaos of renting the pontoon boat, and playing nocturnal games of corn hole in the front yard by the light of the street lamp.
And then just as things were getting better, we moved here, where things have been awesome.
By the time we'd finished charting out our life together, we were both a little bit in awe at how much stuff changes. I had forgotten all of those twists and turns.
A couple nights ago, when we were all curled up in bed, I called him "Keith" by accident, which made him laugh.
"You never call me Keith," he reminded me. "Jenny," he added, with emphasis.
And it was strange; I got a little thrill, hearing him call my name. I hadn't realized it, but we never do use each other's names; there are so many other tempting, tender and amusing names to use. So then we had to go back and forth, using our names and just cracking each other up.
I am in the process of growing Gilly up. This is a very confusing task. Which episodes in her childhood do I draw out in detail, which do I gloss over at high speeds? There is just no right or wrong answer; everything works, but not to the same degree.
At this moment, I have decided to stop the speeding at age ten. I think ten is significant. I think it's the beginning of the end of childhood; at eleven, puberty begins. In fact, from everything I've read, eleven is one of the most miserable years ever.
Which is funny, because I do remember that year being just all kinds of aweful. And I don't want the story to speed through the easier phases of childhood and then crash right into the aweful. If the reader is drawn along in such a way that they live through the transition, the reader gets more satisfaction from the story.
So I figured, starting at ten is like standing at the shore. You can look behind you at the landscape, and even go back into it. But also, you are looking out at the vast and choatic ocean and knowing that you are going to have to cross it. Somewhere on the far side of the ocean, so far awayyou can't even see it, is adulthood.
Speaking of crashing the reader right into things, holy crap. I was reading a story that has been compressed into a Reader's Digest Selections (poor author). I don't know if it's a result of the editing, or of the story in the first place, but my lord. I can't finish it.
Prime example: "Tom rarely left her side, doting on her in the nicest, most subtle of ways."
If the author used that to begin with, and then went on to illustrate what the heck that looks like, all fine and good.
But that's not what the author did. She just wrote that sentence and carried on to the next thing. And the next thing. And the next thing. Almost the entire book is nothing but summation.
It's so frustrating because, somehow or other, she'd gotten me to like her characters. I would really enjoy spending some quality time with them, you know?
I would really like to know in what ways Tom doted on her. What does subtle and nice doting look like? The author piques my curiosity and then never satisfies it.
What else can I expect from a condensed story, right?
I could write a sentence like this: "Tenshio and Gilly's relationship grew day by day, as he walked her home from school, listening to her childish chatter."
Voila. I save like, two entire pages of dialogue.
In fact, if I wanted this to span several years, I could just tack on, "....and he continued to do this as the years went by." Or something similar.
Anyway, enough theory. Yesterday I spent all day helping Keith by arranging the lump of raw material he had accumulated into a logical and illustrated slide show on Turkey. I now know more than I ever needed to know about the country of Turkey.
I thrilled him to no end, when he came home to see the finished product. But I got no creative writing done until after dinner.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
August 10th Excerpt
Excerpt:
Tenshio was standing inside the classroom doorway, conversing with a parent from the village, when Gilly returned with the children. Though they had been instructed to go to the sink and wash their hands, Gilly forgot all about this. She stopped in her tracks.
The daitoku was wearing dark blue hakama over a grey kimono. This change of outfit threw Gilly off, though it was more than the clothing that made him appear different to her. After only a few days, he had become a distant figure.
It seemed to her that while in her world he had been reduced to a distorted picture in colored pencils, in reality, he had returned to the world of adults. He had become a distant authority figure, dressed in somber colors and speaking calmly with another adult.
Furthermore, Gilly was struck all over again by the clearly visible fact that he was not human. His curved and sharpened claws, his fierce eyes with their slit pupils and even the jade that encased the rims of his ears marked him as something strange and apart from her.
When he saw her, his eyes lit up and he smiled. Gilly took in a little breath of relief and waved shyly at him from across the room.
Remembering the instructions, Gilly hurried after the little group of children and took her turn washing her hands and face, vibrating with excited energy. Gilly hung her towel back upon its hook and then turned and went skimming on tiptoes to the daemon. Tenshio bent and swung her up into his arms.
“Hello, Gilly,” he said, in his quiet voice. “You see that I have come, as I said I would.”
“I love you,” Gilly confessed, throwing her arms around his neck.
“I love you, Gillian,” he said, in wonder. He patted her back gently. “Is there something you should take with you? Your lunch box? Your shoes?”
“She worked on these today,” said Umeko, handing him the papers with names on them. He took them with one hand and looked closely at the artwork.
“It’s not so good,” Gilly said, embarrassed to have her artwork put on the spot just then.
“I like them,” Tenshio said simply.
“What have you been doing?” Gilly asked, as they made their way along the path back to the house.
“Keeping watch. What have you been doing?”
Gilly spread her arms wide. “Oh, just... everything,” she declared.
“These are very nice,” Tenshio said, looking through the papers. “I see that you have assigned an appropriate theme to each person’s name.”
“Well…” said Gilly, inordinately pleased by his comment but too shy to acknowledge it. “I tried the painting, but it didn’t work.”
“What about it didn’t work?”
“It was messy.”
“Yes, I see that you like to be neat about things. It’s much harder to be careful with paint, I would imagine.”
“It got everywhere. Did you like art, when you were little?”
Tenshio cast his mind back, trying to remember. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I don’t think I paid it much attention.”
“Because you were studying martial arts,” Gilly said, pleased to have remembered.
“Yes. That did take up most of my time and attention. Did you have any nightmares while I was away?”
“No, but I dreamed. I dreamed my parents were stuck in the house; it was too small for them. They couldn’t get out.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know. They wanted me to help them?”
“Could you?”
“I woke up.” Gilly paused and looked up at the bright blue sky above her. “Maybe I couldn’t help them.”
“Maybe not in the way you wanted to.”
“Mm.”
“Gillian, very shortly you will be turning six.”
“Yes,” said Gilly, with private delight.
“At six, you may start in the regular class. That class has desks and uniforms. Would you prefer to stay in your current class, or be moved to the next class up?”
“I like Sister Umeko.”
“She does have a pleasant personality.”
“Who’s the teacher in the other class?”
“I do not know. But if you wish, when I bring you to the school tomorrow, we can make inquiries. You and the school year have both just started, so I believe it would be a simple thing to move you.”
“I should be moved?”
“Not necessarily,” said Tenshio slowly. “I believe you could easily handle the work load in the first grade, but you could also learn a great deal in your current classroom. The choice is yours."
“First grade!” Gilly exclaimed, eyes wide. The vaunted first grade! She hadn’t realized that’s what they had been discussing. “I like first grade.”
“Do you?” asked Tenshio, smiling.
“First grade is real school,” she informed him. “Are you going to come every two days?”
“I don’t know. It depends on you.”
“If it depended on me,” she retorted crisply, “you would be living here.”
Tenshio laughed. “You are full of opinions lately, Gilly.”
“What are those?” she asked suspiciously.
Tenshio was standing inside the classroom doorway, conversing with a parent from the village, when Gilly returned with the children. Though they had been instructed to go to the sink and wash their hands, Gilly forgot all about this. She stopped in her tracks.
The daitoku was wearing dark blue hakama over a grey kimono. This change of outfit threw Gilly off, though it was more than the clothing that made him appear different to her. After only a few days, he had become a distant figure.
It seemed to her that while in her world he had been reduced to a distorted picture in colored pencils, in reality, he had returned to the world of adults. He had become a distant authority figure, dressed in somber colors and speaking calmly with another adult.
Furthermore, Gilly was struck all over again by the clearly visible fact that he was not human. His curved and sharpened claws, his fierce eyes with their slit pupils and even the jade that encased the rims of his ears marked him as something strange and apart from her.
When he saw her, his eyes lit up and he smiled. Gilly took in a little breath of relief and waved shyly at him from across the room.
Remembering the instructions, Gilly hurried after the little group of children and took her turn washing her hands and face, vibrating with excited energy. Gilly hung her towel back upon its hook and then turned and went skimming on tiptoes to the daemon. Tenshio bent and swung her up into his arms.
“Hello, Gilly,” he said, in his quiet voice. “You see that I have come, as I said I would.”
“I love you,” Gilly confessed, throwing her arms around his neck.
“I love you, Gillian,” he said, in wonder. He patted her back gently. “Is there something you should take with you? Your lunch box? Your shoes?”
“She worked on these today,” said Umeko, handing him the papers with names on them. He took them with one hand and looked closely at the artwork.
“It’s not so good,” Gilly said, embarrassed to have her artwork put on the spot just then.
“I like them,” Tenshio said simply.
“What have you been doing?” Gilly asked, as they made their way along the path back to the house.
“Keeping watch. What have you been doing?”
Gilly spread her arms wide. “Oh, just... everything,” she declared.
“These are very nice,” Tenshio said, looking through the papers. “I see that you have assigned an appropriate theme to each person’s name.”
“Well…” said Gilly, inordinately pleased by his comment but too shy to acknowledge it. “I tried the painting, but it didn’t work.”
“What about it didn’t work?”
“It was messy.”
“Yes, I see that you like to be neat about things. It’s much harder to be careful with paint, I would imagine.”
“It got everywhere. Did you like art, when you were little?”
Tenshio cast his mind back, trying to remember. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I don’t think I paid it much attention.”
“Because you were studying martial arts,” Gilly said, pleased to have remembered.
“Yes. That did take up most of my time and attention. Did you have any nightmares while I was away?”
“No, but I dreamed. I dreamed my parents were stuck in the house; it was too small for them. They couldn’t get out.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know. They wanted me to help them?”
“Could you?”
“I woke up.” Gilly paused and looked up at the bright blue sky above her. “Maybe I couldn’t help them.”
“Maybe not in the way you wanted to.”
“Mm.”
“Gillian, very shortly you will be turning six.”
“Yes,” said Gilly, with private delight.
“At six, you may start in the regular class. That class has desks and uniforms. Would you prefer to stay in your current class, or be moved to the next class up?”
“I like Sister Umeko.”
“She does have a pleasant personality.”
“Who’s the teacher in the other class?”
“I do not know. But if you wish, when I bring you to the school tomorrow, we can make inquiries. You and the school year have both just started, so I believe it would be a simple thing to move you.”
“I should be moved?”
“Not necessarily,” said Tenshio slowly. “I believe you could easily handle the work load in the first grade, but you could also learn a great deal in your current classroom. The choice is yours."
“First grade!” Gilly exclaimed, eyes wide. The vaunted first grade! She hadn’t realized that’s what they had been discussing. “I like first grade.”
“Do you?” asked Tenshio, smiling.
“First grade is real school,” she informed him. “Are you going to come every two days?”
“I don’t know. It depends on you.”
“If it depended on me,” she retorted crisply, “you would be living here.”
Tenshio laughed. “You are full of opinions lately, Gilly.”
“What are those?” she asked suspiciously.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
August 9th
Ok, time for various updates.
So the visit went well, even though it rained almost the entire afternoon, leaving us with all five children in the house. This is a large house for two people. It's a very small house for nine people, even if some of them were very small people.
The littlest girl spent some time in the kitchen with me, running her truck over the floor and pouring the baked beans into the pot. She sat smack dab on the floor, plump little legs out stretched, and husked corn with great satisfaction, careful to put all the green corn husks in the plastic trash back.
After a while, the rain let up and every one got in the pool. It was like a typhoon in there.
It went well, and I didn't need to make too much conversation. Oh, and here's how far off track I am when it comes to that. The two adults were on their way down to get married. Did I ask her about her dress, hair, make up, ceremony, anything?
No. No, I didn't. And not because I didn't care, but because it didn't occur to me.
Oh, yes. That is how weird a woman I am.
Keith passed pretty much his last test in his class and the rest of the time will be spent on simulators. Over half the class didn't make it through.
There are a lot of drill sergeant and recruiters in that class, and Keith is now thinking about putting in a packet to become a recruiter.
Who knows. When we first heard we were moving down here, we thought Keith would be a drill sergeant, but that changed. Stuff changes a lot.
But I like the idea, for several reasons. One is that the school is only six weeks long. Another is that we would be able to choose where we would be stationed. It could be anywhere; we are thinking Montana. Another is that, theoretically, we would be able to count on staying there for three years. Another is that it comes with a pay increase.
You know what all that adds up to? Adoption, that's what.
Moreover, Keith has softened up considerably on international adoption. Right from the beginning, Keith said no international adoption; he was worried about travel in foreign countries.
So I started focusing on domestic adoption- foster, fost adopt, and infant adoption. Maybe we still will pursue this path. Who knows? We keep going back and forth.
However, from time to time, my heartstrings would get pulled by pictures of little dark haired girls with honey skin, from South or Central America. I was watching Anthony Bourdain in, I think, Nicaragua, and he visited the capital city dump. Small children were raking through the trash with hooks, searching for food or recycleables that they could turn in for pennies.
Oh my goodness. I was just undone. So I talked to Keith about it and learned that he was open to the idea of international adoption. Oh my goodness.
So, who knows. But I have adoption on the brain right now.
Torii is just racing right along. Pieces keep falling into place. Though Gilly continues to occasionally crash the story with her unrelenting reality. That is, she isn't a character I can force to my own time line. She folds her arms and declares, "I won't."
And that's that.
For example, I keep wanting her to process her anger and disappointment at her parents. It's bottled up inside of her and it causes occasional and intense emotional imbalances in her. Tenshio coaxes and encourages her, but to no avail. She won't process the anger.
So I have given up. Maybe she won't do that until she's an older child.
So the visit went well, even though it rained almost the entire afternoon, leaving us with all five children in the house. This is a large house for two people. It's a very small house for nine people, even if some of them were very small people.
The littlest girl spent some time in the kitchen with me, running her truck over the floor and pouring the baked beans into the pot. She sat smack dab on the floor, plump little legs out stretched, and husked corn with great satisfaction, careful to put all the green corn husks in the plastic trash back.
After a while, the rain let up and every one got in the pool. It was like a typhoon in there.
It went well, and I didn't need to make too much conversation. Oh, and here's how far off track I am when it comes to that. The two adults were on their way down to get married. Did I ask her about her dress, hair, make up, ceremony, anything?
No. No, I didn't. And not because I didn't care, but because it didn't occur to me.
Oh, yes. That is how weird a woman I am.
Keith passed pretty much his last test in his class and the rest of the time will be spent on simulators. Over half the class didn't make it through.
There are a lot of drill sergeant and recruiters in that class, and Keith is now thinking about putting in a packet to become a recruiter.
Who knows. When we first heard we were moving down here, we thought Keith would be a drill sergeant, but that changed. Stuff changes a lot.
But I like the idea, for several reasons. One is that the school is only six weeks long. Another is that we would be able to choose where we would be stationed. It could be anywhere; we are thinking Montana. Another is that, theoretically, we would be able to count on staying there for three years. Another is that it comes with a pay increase.
You know what all that adds up to? Adoption, that's what.
Moreover, Keith has softened up considerably on international adoption. Right from the beginning, Keith said no international adoption; he was worried about travel in foreign countries.
So I started focusing on domestic adoption- foster, fost adopt, and infant adoption. Maybe we still will pursue this path. Who knows? We keep going back and forth.
However, from time to time, my heartstrings would get pulled by pictures of little dark haired girls with honey skin, from South or Central America. I was watching Anthony Bourdain in, I think, Nicaragua, and he visited the capital city dump. Small children were raking through the trash with hooks, searching for food or recycleables that they could turn in for pennies.
Oh my goodness. I was just undone. So I talked to Keith about it and learned that he was open to the idea of international adoption. Oh my goodness.
So, who knows. But I have adoption on the brain right now.
Torii is just racing right along. Pieces keep falling into place. Though Gilly continues to occasionally crash the story with her unrelenting reality. That is, she isn't a character I can force to my own time line. She folds her arms and declares, "I won't."
And that's that.
For example, I keep wanting her to process her anger and disappointment at her parents. It's bottled up inside of her and it causes occasional and intense emotional imbalances in her. Tenshio coaxes and encourages her, but to no avail. She won't process the anger.
So I have given up. Maybe she won't do that until she's an older child.
Monday, August 8, 2011
August 8th
So yesterday we went to the new church for the second Sunday.
The worship service is visually stunning. There are colored lights and tall, glinting metal poles and these triangular sail things stretched between them, and the colored lights spin across them.
There's two massive TVs that show scenes of space and stars flying pass, with a black cross in the foreground. The lyrics roll by on these screens.
They have a full band, with a drum set and a bass guitar and five or so people up on stage who know how to harmonize.
It's impressive, but I find myself steeling my backbone against the deluge. I can't yield to it; it's too obviously seductive. It gives me the same feeling that commercials so often do and I end up resenting the manipulation of my emotions.
So I just stood there quietly and tried to let my thoughts flow without self judgement- I keep thinking that I'm a terrible Christian for not closing my eyes and lifting my hands and swaying in the semi dark with the rest. I felt Christ put His hands on my shoulders, as though to steady me amid the bewildering whir of sensations within and without.
Then a song came on with the lyrics, "consume me with with Your fire," or something along those lines and I felt this rush of tender affection for Christ. It was as though we were an old married couple.
"Aw!" I said to Him. "Do you remember when? How cute was I, back then? What a lot we've been through."
Those words brought back the Christianity of my early adulthood- desperate, given over, passionate, full of self abasement and expectations of suffering. I was terrified of the Will of God, expecting it to be contrary to my nature in every way.
It was very interesting to realize that Christ did not lead me into suffering, as I had expected He would, all those times when I gave myself over to Him. He was infinitely more tender, understanding, adept and creative than I had ever guessed.
At that time in my life, I could hardly grasp even the first part of His redemption. I thought I was giving myself over to the fiery furnace, but I was instead falling into the arms of the Good Shepherd, who calls His sheep by name and searches out the lost, no matter how long it takes.
Realizing that, I felt some very old fears fall away. What a marvelous thing it is to look back and see that I had found redeeming grace where I had expected judgement, and purpose where before I had seen only fear and confusion.
The worship service is visually stunning. There are colored lights and tall, glinting metal poles and these triangular sail things stretched between them, and the colored lights spin across them.
There's two massive TVs that show scenes of space and stars flying pass, with a black cross in the foreground. The lyrics roll by on these screens.
They have a full band, with a drum set and a bass guitar and five or so people up on stage who know how to harmonize.
It's impressive, but I find myself steeling my backbone against the deluge. I can't yield to it; it's too obviously seductive. It gives me the same feeling that commercials so often do and I end up resenting the manipulation of my emotions.
So I just stood there quietly and tried to let my thoughts flow without self judgement- I keep thinking that I'm a terrible Christian for not closing my eyes and lifting my hands and swaying in the semi dark with the rest. I felt Christ put His hands on my shoulders, as though to steady me amid the bewildering whir of sensations within and without.
Then a song came on with the lyrics, "consume me with with Your fire," or something along those lines and I felt this rush of tender affection for Christ. It was as though we were an old married couple.
"Aw!" I said to Him. "Do you remember when? How cute was I, back then? What a lot we've been through."
Those words brought back the Christianity of my early adulthood- desperate, given over, passionate, full of self abasement and expectations of suffering. I was terrified of the Will of God, expecting it to be contrary to my nature in every way.
It was very interesting to realize that Christ did not lead me into suffering, as I had expected He would, all those times when I gave myself over to Him. He was infinitely more tender, understanding, adept and creative than I had ever guessed.
At that time in my life, I could hardly grasp even the first part of His redemption. I thought I was giving myself over to the fiery furnace, but I was instead falling into the arms of the Good Shepherd, who calls His sheep by name and searches out the lost, no matter how long it takes.
Realizing that, I felt some very old fears fall away. What a marvelous thing it is to look back and see that I had found redeeming grace where I had expected judgement, and purpose where before I had seen only fear and confusion.
Friday, August 5, 2011
August 5th
Keith just called. His best friend from childhood will be driving down here tomorrow, along with wife to be and their five children. They will spend the night and then drive down to Panama City, where they will be getting married.
My head is spinning. I've got a lot of cleaning to do. Actually, I'd probably better start the laundry right now.
The spare room used to be clean. Then, Keith needed some long lost and generally unnecessary item of equipment, stored somewhere in one of his eight bags of non identified stuff.
So he did what he always does. He ripped through the bags, disemboweling them and strewing their contents over the entire space. The amount of stuff that eight bags can hold is mind blowing. It's like watching a clown car unload.
So now we have what looks like an Army Surplus store's entire inventory blanketing the bed and carpeting the spare room. And the other spare room was never actually converted from a storage area. All it is is a bare room full of boxes and one really old desk in the corner.
This must all be converted into something resembling two bedrooms.
Oh goodness.
Sayonara, story. No more pleasant meanderings along your wooded paths, your quiet houses. Not for me the work of drawing out the moss grown, ancient convent, with its orchards and tolling bells, with paths of grass and dormitory rooms with steeply slanting ceilings.
The sweet scent of boiling rice, the scarlet maple leaves slipping through the air, the shuffling sound of socks upon the tatami mat and the cool autumn evening; I must put it all away, for the next few days. It all must wait, and simmer away without me.
My head is spinning. I've got a lot of cleaning to do. Actually, I'd probably better start the laundry right now.
The spare room used to be clean. Then, Keith needed some long lost and generally unnecessary item of equipment, stored somewhere in one of his eight bags of non identified stuff.
So he did what he always does. He ripped through the bags, disemboweling them and strewing their contents over the entire space. The amount of stuff that eight bags can hold is mind blowing. It's like watching a clown car unload.
So now we have what looks like an Army Surplus store's entire inventory blanketing the bed and carpeting the spare room. And the other spare room was never actually converted from a storage area. All it is is a bare room full of boxes and one really old desk in the corner.
This must all be converted into something resembling two bedrooms.
Oh goodness.
Sayonara, story. No more pleasant meanderings along your wooded paths, your quiet houses. Not for me the work of drawing out the moss grown, ancient convent, with its orchards and tolling bells, with paths of grass and dormitory rooms with steeply slanting ceilings.
The sweet scent of boiling rice, the scarlet maple leaves slipping through the air, the shuffling sound of socks upon the tatami mat and the cool autumn evening; I must put it all away, for the next few days. It all must wait, and simmer away without me.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Excerpt...
... from much further back in the story. I was deleting some old posts, and came across it.
For the next few days, they had beautiful weather and a following sea. A strong south wind, sent by Yuudai from the top of the Minami Mountain, blew them further and further from the cold and ice of the southern wastes.
Sometimes they sailed past icebergs, their smoothly chiseled sides a pure white above the slate blue waters, smaller chunks of white ice drifting around them. The sight of these icebergs never failed to fascinate Gilly; she would stay by the railing until they had passed out of sight.
One night, Pidguyok told Gilly about the colossal squid that roamed the very deepest layers of the ocean, their pale pink flesh and trailing arms far longer than the length of the Unabara Maru itself. On each tentacle were hundreds of sharply barbed, rotating hooks that dug into the flesh of their prey. If their prey struggled, they were only embedded more deeply and no matter what, they were drawn closer and closer to the curved black beak of the squid, to be slowly chewed alive, piece by jagged piece.
Tenshio had been absorbed in reading at the time, the lamp above his head gently swaying back and forth; Kaito kept a very well stocked library in his office in the smaller salon. The two daemon tended to stay back there, enjoying each other’s company in a mostly unspoken sympathy of character. Though their experiences in life were considerably different, they were close in age, shared a deep appreciation of solitude, and a similar philosophy of life, in which endurance, loyalty and stoicism were largely featured.
This left the main salon to the child and the Krigmerk and, from time to time, a passing crew member.
The daitoku walked down the short hall just in time to hear Pidguyok explaining how those long-tentacled creatures swam in the dark waters just under the ship itself, and how they could come rolling up to the surface, revealing their flat, black eyes, eyes the size of a pot lid.
“Pidguyok!” cried Tenshio, in his low, resonant voice. “What exactly do you think you are doing?”
“Telling a story,” explained Pidguyok, in surprise.
Gilly’s face had gone white under her sunburned cheeks and nose. Her head swiveled toward Tenshio, her eyes large and liquid in the lamp light. She was sitting cross legged on the salon floor, before the potbellied stove that was casting a glow of warmth over the girl and the husky that lay beside her. In her arms was clutched Plum Blossom, only slightly damp and smelling of salt water.
“About the squid,” she whispered.
“So I see. That was, perhaps, not the best use of your judgement,” Tenshio said to Pidguyok, his voice dry. He looked down at Gilly. “It is time for you to prepare for bed."
Gilly glanced over her shoulder, at the dark interior of the galley, where the door to the head was located.
“By myself?” she asked, uncertainly. She thought of the hole that led down, straight into the depths of the ocean, and shivered.
Tenshio glared at Pidguyok.
“I will accompany the small one,” said the husky, getting heavily to his feet. “I will stand guard outside the door.”
“I don’t want to use the toilet,” Gilly said, not budging from her spot. “What if something comes up from the ocean?” She saw a tentacle, pale and pink, writhing up from the inside of the toilet bowl, reaching around blindly, the hooks gleaming in the dim light. The imagined sight inspired a rare obstinacy.
“I won’t!” she declared with fervor.
Tenshio crossed his arms and bore down upon the husky with great focus in his golden eyes.
“I…” stuttered the husky. “I… will go and look!” he finished, regaining his usual confidence. “I will send forth the all clear! ….before His Holiness burns me up from the inside with the fire of his righteous wrath,” he finished, half under his breath, as he paced into the galley, his tail swinging half-heartedly. “No one ever appreciates the artistry of my stories.”
“But what if it comes after he leaves?” Gilly asked Tenshio in a worried voice. “Anyway, I don’t need to go. I’m fine.”
“You must clean your teeth, wash your face and brush your hair,” said Tenshio, unyielding.
“I’ll do that in the galley,” cried Gilly, leaping up and running after the husky. “Is anything in there?” she asked Pidguyok.
“Nothing at all. And anyway, the smell from the head drives all squid far, far away. They can’t stand the smell,” Pidguyok explained, earnestly. “I just didn’t tell you that before, because it’s just such a boring detail. But, I thought it might come in useful now.” He lifted his pale blue eyes to the tall form of the daitoku that still waited, immovable, in the salon.
“Are you sure?” Gilly asked, doubtfully.
"What? You doubt me? I, who have lived all my life on or near the sea? Raised by whales, practically? Taught the language of the waves through the mouths of shells? I tell you what, I’m sure.”
For the next few days, they had beautiful weather and a following sea. A strong south wind, sent by Yuudai from the top of the Minami Mountain, blew them further and further from the cold and ice of the southern wastes.
Sometimes they sailed past icebergs, their smoothly chiseled sides a pure white above the slate blue waters, smaller chunks of white ice drifting around them. The sight of these icebergs never failed to fascinate Gilly; she would stay by the railing until they had passed out of sight.
One night, Pidguyok told Gilly about the colossal squid that roamed the very deepest layers of the ocean, their pale pink flesh and trailing arms far longer than the length of the Unabara Maru itself. On each tentacle were hundreds of sharply barbed, rotating hooks that dug into the flesh of their prey. If their prey struggled, they were only embedded more deeply and no matter what, they were drawn closer and closer to the curved black beak of the squid, to be slowly chewed alive, piece by jagged piece.
Tenshio had been absorbed in reading at the time, the lamp above his head gently swaying back and forth; Kaito kept a very well stocked library in his office in the smaller salon. The two daemon tended to stay back there, enjoying each other’s company in a mostly unspoken sympathy of character. Though their experiences in life were considerably different, they were close in age, shared a deep appreciation of solitude, and a similar philosophy of life, in which endurance, loyalty and stoicism were largely featured.
This left the main salon to the child and the Krigmerk and, from time to time, a passing crew member.
The daitoku walked down the short hall just in time to hear Pidguyok explaining how those long-tentacled creatures swam in the dark waters just under the ship itself, and how they could come rolling up to the surface, revealing their flat, black eyes, eyes the size of a pot lid.
“Pidguyok!” cried Tenshio, in his low, resonant voice. “What exactly do you think you are doing?”
“Telling a story,” explained Pidguyok, in surprise.
Gilly’s face had gone white under her sunburned cheeks and nose. Her head swiveled toward Tenshio, her eyes large and liquid in the lamp light. She was sitting cross legged on the salon floor, before the potbellied stove that was casting a glow of warmth over the girl and the husky that lay beside her. In her arms was clutched Plum Blossom, only slightly damp and smelling of salt water.
“About the squid,” she whispered.
“So I see. That was, perhaps, not the best use of your judgement,” Tenshio said to Pidguyok, his voice dry. He looked down at Gilly. “It is time for you to prepare for bed."
Gilly glanced over her shoulder, at the dark interior of the galley, where the door to the head was located.
“By myself?” she asked, uncertainly. She thought of the hole that led down, straight into the depths of the ocean, and shivered.
Tenshio glared at Pidguyok.
“I will accompany the small one,” said the husky, getting heavily to his feet. “I will stand guard outside the door.”
“I don’t want to use the toilet,” Gilly said, not budging from her spot. “What if something comes up from the ocean?” She saw a tentacle, pale and pink, writhing up from the inside of the toilet bowl, reaching around blindly, the hooks gleaming in the dim light. The imagined sight inspired a rare obstinacy.
“I won’t!” she declared with fervor.
Tenshio crossed his arms and bore down upon the husky with great focus in his golden eyes.
“I…” stuttered the husky. “I… will go and look!” he finished, regaining his usual confidence. “I will send forth the all clear! ….before His Holiness burns me up from the inside with the fire of his righteous wrath,” he finished, half under his breath, as he paced into the galley, his tail swinging half-heartedly. “No one ever appreciates the artistry of my stories.”
“But what if it comes after he leaves?” Gilly asked Tenshio in a worried voice. “Anyway, I don’t need to go. I’m fine.”
“You must clean your teeth, wash your face and brush your hair,” said Tenshio, unyielding.
“I’ll do that in the galley,” cried Gilly, leaping up and running after the husky. “Is anything in there?” she asked Pidguyok.
“Nothing at all. And anyway, the smell from the head drives all squid far, far away. They can’t stand the smell,” Pidguyok explained, earnestly. “I just didn’t tell you that before, because it’s just such a boring detail. But, I thought it might come in useful now.” He lifted his pale blue eyes to the tall form of the daitoku that still waited, immovable, in the salon.
“Are you sure?” Gilly asked, doubtfully.
"What? You doubt me? I, who have lived all my life on or near the sea? Raised by whales, practically? Taught the language of the waves through the mouths of shells? I tell you what, I’m sure.”
August 4th
I have the summer time blues. I'm caught up in one of my temporary longings to be someone else.
This time, I want to be someone in a housing development from the nineties, with seasonal decorations. Those knickknacks, you know, from gift shops that spring up and wither away like grass, with bobbles hanging in the windows and with Christmas ornaments for sale all year long.
I would have heavy, matched furniture sets in all the rooms and things like runners in the hallway, and plaques on the wall and I'd have friends that would come over for coffee, and I'd have matching mugs.
That's no fun.
I'd have mismatching mugs with slogans like "Whatever day it is, I hate it," and "Charlie's Print Shop." Or they'll have screen printings of Victorian teddy bears. My galley kitchen would be messy, with white Formica counter tops and a light above that was too bright and an older model oven, and one burner doesn't work.
I'll ride the bus to the office, where I work as a receptionist and at the end of the day, I'll forget that I have a pen stuck behind my ear. I'll make myself a breakfast for dinner- scrambled eggs and bacon and toast, and I'll watch cable, sitting on my second hand couch, with my tabby cat. I'll sleep in my futon bed with the lights from the passing cars sliding across the ceiling, listening to the roar of the traffic on the thruway outside my thin apartment walls.
That's depressing.
I know. I'll be English. I'll have a wild, over grown garden that smells like thyme. I'm an old lady, and I potter around my little, two room cottage with a shawl over my hunched back, delighting in the herbs, washing my bits of china, watching the sunlight filter through the flowering vines that hang over my kitchen window.
My hands will be wrinkled and covered with age spots and my sight will be dim. I'll see fairies in the evening light, in the back of the garden, and I'll believe in them, because I have passed through the sensible years and returned to the freedom of childhood. I'll be standing on the edge of a second childhood, a vaster, wilder childhood.
Gosh.
I did say that I was having the summer blues.
I guess I'll be me.
This time, I want to be someone in a housing development from the nineties, with seasonal decorations. Those knickknacks, you know, from gift shops that spring up and wither away like grass, with bobbles hanging in the windows and with Christmas ornaments for sale all year long.
I would have heavy, matched furniture sets in all the rooms and things like runners in the hallway, and plaques on the wall and I'd have friends that would come over for coffee, and I'd have matching mugs.
That's no fun.
I'd have mismatching mugs with slogans like "Whatever day it is, I hate it," and "Charlie's Print Shop." Or they'll have screen printings of Victorian teddy bears. My galley kitchen would be messy, with white Formica counter tops and a light above that was too bright and an older model oven, and one burner doesn't work.
I'll ride the bus to the office, where I work as a receptionist and at the end of the day, I'll forget that I have a pen stuck behind my ear. I'll make myself a breakfast for dinner- scrambled eggs and bacon and toast, and I'll watch cable, sitting on my second hand couch, with my tabby cat. I'll sleep in my futon bed with the lights from the passing cars sliding across the ceiling, listening to the roar of the traffic on the thruway outside my thin apartment walls.
That's depressing.
I know. I'll be English. I'll have a wild, over grown garden that smells like thyme. I'm an old lady, and I potter around my little, two room cottage with a shawl over my hunched back, delighting in the herbs, washing my bits of china, watching the sunlight filter through the flowering vines that hang over my kitchen window.
My hands will be wrinkled and covered with age spots and my sight will be dim. I'll see fairies in the evening light, in the back of the garden, and I'll believe in them, because I have passed through the sensible years and returned to the freedom of childhood. I'll be standing on the edge of a second childhood, a vaster, wilder childhood.
Gosh.
I did say that I was having the summer blues.
I guess I'll be me.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
August 3rd
My right wrist and lower arm hurts after typing for even an hour or so. This has been going on for some time- the past month, I think. I keep not wanting to think about it; it annoys me.
I'm afraid I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome. Figures. If I put cushions on the chair, so that I'm not reaching up for the keyboard, and lower the keyboard until it's flat on the desk, and not do any other activity with my hand, (such as Guitar Hero-oh the sadness!) then the pain is slower to appear.
Eventually, I guess I'll have to get an ergonomically designed keyboard and a wrist brace, or something.
Despite the fact that on Monday Keith had three tests to take and another one to study for that morning, he found the time to surprise me with a card. The first line reads: "I love all the different sides of you."
Mmmm.... He loves me because I am complicated. Now, that's love, right there.
He said he read through a crap ton, and he hates doing that. I like imagining what he looked like, still in uniform, worn out, standing beside the pink, blue and red ebullience that is the card isle, scowling as he reads yet another wrong anniversary card. No doubt he stuffed it back in the wrong slot, his eyes already scanning for the next likely target.
I wrote all day yesterday. I was all, "The hell with this. I'm getting the damn thing over with." And that's exactly what I did. I wrote Torii all the way to the Gate, and past it. I wrote until six thirty in the evening, when Keith came home.
My brain was fried. Not to mention my wrist.
I have to go back, of course, and do major rewriting and add ins. But that's easy. The hard part is the first writing. It's like throwing a rope across what you feel certain must be an unbridgeable chasm. Once you've got that first rope fastened, then you can start building up and building better.
And oh my lord. I love writing this part of the story.
I'm afraid I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome. Figures. If I put cushions on the chair, so that I'm not reaching up for the keyboard, and lower the keyboard until it's flat on the desk, and not do any other activity with my hand, (such as Guitar Hero-oh the sadness!) then the pain is slower to appear.
Eventually, I guess I'll have to get an ergonomically designed keyboard and a wrist brace, or something.
Despite the fact that on Monday Keith had three tests to take and another one to study for that morning, he found the time to surprise me with a card. The first line reads: "I love all the different sides of you."
Mmmm.... He loves me because I am complicated. Now, that's love, right there.
He said he read through a crap ton, and he hates doing that. I like imagining what he looked like, still in uniform, worn out, standing beside the pink, blue and red ebullience that is the card isle, scowling as he reads yet another wrong anniversary card. No doubt he stuffed it back in the wrong slot, his eyes already scanning for the next likely target.
I wrote all day yesterday. I was all, "The hell with this. I'm getting the damn thing over with." And that's exactly what I did. I wrote Torii all the way to the Gate, and past it. I wrote until six thirty in the evening, when Keith came home.
My brain was fried. Not to mention my wrist.
I have to go back, of course, and do major rewriting and add ins. But that's easy. The hard part is the first writing. It's like throwing a rope across what you feel certain must be an unbridgeable chasm. Once you've got that first rope fastened, then you can start building up and building better.
And oh my lord. I love writing this part of the story.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Written August 1st...
...but then I got caught up in writing for the rest of the day, and never went back to edit this, until this morning.
Rabbit.
August: the month when school supplies begin to edge out the pool floaties. School supplies appear in July, I noticed, but they don't begin to really take over until August. I remember first noticing this as a child and simply being horrified.
We tried out a new church yesterday and as we sat in the truck, waiting out the last few minutes, Keith noticed my extreme levels of anxiety.
"The first day of school must've been rough for you," he said, sympathetically.
Today we've been married three years, though we've been calling it "anniversary weekend" since Friday.
Last night I had an especially vivid dream. I was living in a Japanese style house house that was just completely overflowing with guests and stuff. There were shelves all along the high walls, and they were piled high with boxes and containers.
I felt comfortable in the house and was used to living that way, but I didn't like it. I'd given up asking Takahisa to take the stuff down, because I realized that it was just a part of who he was; in my dream, it was a part of being Japanese. We were happy despite the way we lived.
Then, at one point, I looked up and saw him at one end of the house, sorting through the things on the shelves. In fact, as I looked around, I saw that the shelves were almost bare. I felt this rush of joy.
I wanted to hurry over and tell him just how beautiful the house looked and to thank him for finally taking down some of the stuff he'd held on to for so long.
But as I made my way over, he left. He went out the back door with some boxes. I decided I would go visit our puppy in the front yard; I knew I could always tell him later.
Then I woke up.
Dreams are so fascinating. I must be reaching a new point of closure on that part of my life. I look back at myself and I think, my god, I was so young. So adorably, so terrifyingly, young. I loved like a child, in my early twenties. Now I can love like a woman.
I see Keith's grass stained sneakers beside the door, and the lawn mower parked against the side of the house, evidence of just one small way in which he keeps the entire household upheld and in tiptop shape. Just the sight of those things fills me with love.
We decided we would get new dishes for an anniversary present to ourselves. So, we spent a lot of time researching dinnerware sets and patterns and cost.
We went to the mall on Saturday and looked at the dishes at Macy's and Dillard's. We saw one we really liked, and I was all set to order it on line, when we got back home.
Then I wandered into the kitchen and looked at our mismatching dish sets. Some of them were the dishes Keith's first wife picked out; thick, cream colored dishes. Some of them were cheaper, Corelle sets Keith had used from his days of singlehood. One or two were my own stuff; one shallow cobalt blue bowl in particular that now is always used for taco salads.
But their places of origin no longer defined them. They were our dishes now. They were the dishes we'd used in Colorado and in Kentucky. They were the dishes we'd slapped sauce happy, barbecued steaks on, they were the plates I'd set around the table when Keith's family came down for their chaotic, impromptu visits.
I didn't want to give them up. I didn't want to get new dishes and replace all our history, even if we'll make new memories with the dishes we'd picked out together.
Sooner or later, we'll get new dishes. Maybe I'll end up ordering those dishes we both liked. Maybe, eventually, I'll throw away the old dishes.
Maybe.
Rabbit.
August: the month when school supplies begin to edge out the pool floaties. School supplies appear in July, I noticed, but they don't begin to really take over until August. I remember first noticing this as a child and simply being horrified.
We tried out a new church yesterday and as we sat in the truck, waiting out the last few minutes, Keith noticed my extreme levels of anxiety.
"The first day of school must've been rough for you," he said, sympathetically.
Today we've been married three years, though we've been calling it "anniversary weekend" since Friday.
Last night I had an especially vivid dream. I was living in a Japanese style house house that was just completely overflowing with guests and stuff. There were shelves all along the high walls, and they were piled high with boxes and containers.
I felt comfortable in the house and was used to living that way, but I didn't like it. I'd given up asking Takahisa to take the stuff down, because I realized that it was just a part of who he was; in my dream, it was a part of being Japanese. We were happy despite the way we lived.
Then, at one point, I looked up and saw him at one end of the house, sorting through the things on the shelves. In fact, as I looked around, I saw that the shelves were almost bare. I felt this rush of joy.
I wanted to hurry over and tell him just how beautiful the house looked and to thank him for finally taking down some of the stuff he'd held on to for so long.
But as I made my way over, he left. He went out the back door with some boxes. I decided I would go visit our puppy in the front yard; I knew I could always tell him later.
Then I woke up.
Dreams are so fascinating. I must be reaching a new point of closure on that part of my life. I look back at myself and I think, my god, I was so young. So adorably, so terrifyingly, young. I loved like a child, in my early twenties. Now I can love like a woman.
I see Keith's grass stained sneakers beside the door, and the lawn mower parked against the side of the house, evidence of just one small way in which he keeps the entire household upheld and in tiptop shape. Just the sight of those things fills me with love.
We decided we would get new dishes for an anniversary present to ourselves. So, we spent a lot of time researching dinnerware sets and patterns and cost.
We went to the mall on Saturday and looked at the dishes at Macy's and Dillard's. We saw one we really liked, and I was all set to order it on line, when we got back home.
Then I wandered into the kitchen and looked at our mismatching dish sets. Some of them were the dishes Keith's first wife picked out; thick, cream colored dishes. Some of them were cheaper, Corelle sets Keith had used from his days of singlehood. One or two were my own stuff; one shallow cobalt blue bowl in particular that now is always used for taco salads.
But their places of origin no longer defined them. They were our dishes now. They were the dishes we'd used in Colorado and in Kentucky. They were the dishes we'd slapped sauce happy, barbecued steaks on, they were the plates I'd set around the table when Keith's family came down for their chaotic, impromptu visits.
I didn't want to give them up. I didn't want to get new dishes and replace all our history, even if we'll make new memories with the dishes we'd picked out together.
Sooner or later, we'll get new dishes. Maybe I'll end up ordering those dishes we both liked. Maybe, eventually, I'll throw away the old dishes.
Maybe.
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