Storyboard Says ...

There Is No Rescue

'J' [a friend] is right -- he's a facilitator.

No one except me can be the practitioner.

I wrote it a minute ago:

THERE IS NO RESCUE.

I don't want to want rescue, either.

But there is help.

Guidance, suggestion,

advice,

opportunity by association.

It's incumbent on me to make use of all that.

Flight or grounding, coccoon or wings -

that choice will always and only be my own. 

If I crave autonomy in the most authentic way,

then I have to do the work myself. 

Then and only then do I own the lessons,

 and the resultant life,

firsthand.

Saying "yes" is part of that.

Saying "no" is, also.

Oddly, neither is easy or certain. 

Some choices are wholly instinct-driven.

This (above) is not the fantasy I want anymore.

Rescue.

Choice based on safety

or habit

or externally defined

mindsets

and

traditions.

The cost of rescue is

servitude of some sort

to the rescuer.

Safety is a cage.

Norms don't allow

individuation or growth

for any of those involved.

All of it is like

voluntarily

lacing up concrete shoes

&

kissing flight goodbye.

No!

No!

No!

It's not my ambition to be a 'lady.'

I strive to be

A Woman,

of the singular sort:

Me!  Self!

Love me or not,

but retaining my wholeness regardless.

I'm earning that right,

bit by bit,

tiny baby step by tiny baby step,

choice by conscious choice,

walking ahead even with fear in tow.

Fear,

as it turns out,

can be an awesome catalyst,

if allowed.

Yes.

Or no.

MY voice.

It is past the time

to question

everything,

and

to watch

the

real

responses

rise.

A Creativity Consumer

Today, I told someone I consider myself a 'user' -- that I take everything in, then distill it to aid my writing.  Period.  Bottom line.  Other forms of expression come and go -- when they cease to feed my pen, they're ejected.  But the next thing I 'need' always presents itself.

Mainstays:  music and photography.  But I'm forever searching out the 'new' in those genres:  new-to-me, that is.  Brain food -- and not, necessarily, 'intellectual' -- but certainly stimulating on some level, preferably multiple levels.  I'm a hussy for literal and figurative forks-in-the-road, spontaneous pull-overs, tangents and detours -- no itinerary.  I love surprises:  my own, and others'.  I can keep a secret.  I enforce change even in the routine -- rearrange my drive to work, rearrange my furniture, change my hair color, my linens, my inspiration board or items.  When I've outgrown an attachment to something, when it no longer pulls growth from me, the sentiment and my attachment to it die.  I give it away - no looking back.  I purge every 3 months - clothes, books, art supplies, dishes, DVDs.  CDs are the hardest to part with, but that's because I've learned that in a month, a year, two years, they become new to me again, because I'm different, my listening and responses are different.

I used to watch the same movies over and again, re-read the same books.  But no longer -- I want the novelty of fresh stories, characters, ideas.  My journal?  Every time I begin a new book, the book itself is different, and my approach has mutated.  I write with an altered focus.  I do or don't add visuals, less or more, often none.  I incorporate lyrics or quotes in this book, then abstain completely in the next.  I listen to music as I write in one book, crave silence during the next.  The only consistency is the words -- my need for them, the page and the pen.  Lately, I'm entirely suspicious of the familiar, when for years I was afraid of down time, when I didn't write -- no, when I didn't want to write, as if I'd lost it forever.

Now, I accept.  That's really been a refrain for me the last six months:  accept.  Accept.  Accept.  Change or stasis, energy or exhaustion, serenity or frustration.  Everything, every bit of it, leads to discovery.  An ongoing issue in my life has been trust -- my exceeding caution there, my withdrawing even from people or situations that deserved it.  Acceptance is the inroad to trust, and I'm gaining on it.  I've written a journal for 34 and a half years, and what I've seen is that only the habit of writing is fixed -- my perspective, always shifting, expanding, keeps me fascinated.  If that's not trust, what is?

Narcissism?  That's "me me me" without growth or introspection.  My journal has always been the place where I expect the most from myself, hardcore truth-telling, the ugly alongside the progress, the beautiful accompanying the setbacks.  Spelled out, and then some!  Reviewed.  Considered.  Patterns of behaviors?  Oh yea!  Obstinacy, denial, justification?  Uh huh, in abundance.  But soon followed by admittance, confession, and the outline of lessons learned, absorbed.  Lessons absorbed then slowly -- s l  o  w  l   y --  effected.

My journal has an insatiable appetite, so I feed and feed and feed it, with blogs, interviews, documentaries, articles, interactions, biographies, magazines, events, contacts, exchanges.  It's not that I'm fearless.  Not at all.  It's that I'm usually scared to the near-core, but the core core says, "Go!  Go -- anyway!  Go -- in spite of!  Go!  Because there's something there."  Something not just for me, but for others -- eventually, somehow, some way.  Husband, sons, family, friends, associates, acquaintances, strangers -- all!  Because if I make my self, my mind, my world larger, I may effect enlargement elsewhere.  I believe I'm needed, that way.  I believe we're all needed, that way.

So I'm a creativity consumer -- but I recycle.  Unusual concept of a food chain, maybe.  But you know, it's like this:  a chance meeting at a writing workshop and my world has since opened exponentially.  That meeting has facilitated an artist interview, a perfectly timed meditation CD, a book that has validated events in my life back to the age of 6, and a steadily growing friendship.  How can I ever know the tides I'll turn by chance [by chance? or by need, by placement?] in someone else's life?

I want to be sure I always show up, and my journal is my impetus to that.  Take this post, for instance -- a thought-flow lifted straight from its pages, no editing, no cleaning up or coordinating, so you can see how it happens -- at least for me.

* * * * * * * * * *

Photos mine, from the car show and an airport where My Lovely Mother, my bros, and My Love, Ciera, watched gliders take off and land, February 13, 2010

Somebody Stole My Idea!

Oh really?

Well now ... .

I just dug out my kitchen timer.

You will have

5 ENTIRE MINUTES

from the moment I say GO!
to

rant

sulk

pout

cry

gnash your teeth

snarl

drop "F-bombs"

beat pillows

curse the winds
blame everyone else

give up

& otherwise

have yourself

A Bonafide Hissy Fit.

Five Minutes -- that's it --
make them count.

Ready?

GO!

Ok, time's up.

Excuse me,

I said,

"TIME IS UP!"

The buzzer buzzed,

the bell rang --

Snap out of it!

And now hear this:

ideas have no owners
[not yours, not mine, not his, not her's]

because

ideas are limitless;

ideas take dimension, expand,
according to the individual expressing them;

ideas are energy forms drawing to them

every person perfect to articulate 

one of their nuances. 

Ideas need each of us,

want each of us,

await each of us,

and

expect each of us 

to bring

our unique angle,

our particular experience,

our specific imagination,

our hope,

our hesitancy,

our intellect,

our bravery,

our fear,

OUR EFFORT

to continue

the full song
of
each & every idea.

What seems like 'your' idea

is really someone else's voice

participating in that idea's

potential harmony;
you recognize the song
because
you are meant to be part of it.

What is missing is

your voice amid

that Idea's Chorus.

NOW

Wipe your eyes.

Blow your nose.

Pick your lip up.

Wash your mouth out if

you think it'll help,

and
get
busy

sounding your voice.

Competition or Collaboration: The Saga Continues

collaborate:  to work jointly with others 
competition:  1)  rivalry; 2) a contest between rivals


Last week, I wrote about a desire to see perspective return to the OVERALL practice of journaling, be it art/visual or written in form.  In closing that post, I espoused my personal belief that 'fundamentally, ideally, there is no place for competition between art genres.'  That remains my story, and I stick to it; however, I received several juicy comments in response, and they've inspired me to quantify, flesh out, my statement.

But first, Sam asked, 'I'm just wondering what happened to inspire this [last week's] piece.'    One year of increasingly backlogged frustration with the growing cult-esque fascination with art journaling, and in particular, art journaling to the exclusion of THE WORDS!  THE WRITTEN JOURNALING!  That, and a hideous, green-monster-driven rant upon seeing an artist published, an artist who 'began' at the same time I did, an artist who is perpetuating all the art journal trends by which I'm saturated and with which I'm beyond impatient.  I had a bonafide conniption fit.  I still haven't worked my way through it all, though I've calmed enough to feel a large degree of shame at my arrogance, my wholesale condemnation & my major trench-mouthed tirade sprayed not only in this artist's direction but also at the publishers for being (in my esteemed opinion) so damned predictable, so commercial, and so safe.

ACK!  BEYOTCH WARNING!  ART JOURNAL SNOB ALERT!! -- GET THE HOOK!

Let's move right along, please, to Beth's comments, like a balm, ' ... and competition ... blech ... I hated high school because of competition and wish that word would just explode and go away.'  Yes, and yes, and it may be this was also the birthplace of my repugnance for the word.  I associate "competition" with locker room posturing, jock itch, toe jam, an entire MINE IS BIGGER THAN YOURS mentality.  Whatever our gifts or ability levels, isn't it possible to invoke the best -- in ourselves?  in others? -- minus snide asides, bully tactics and that chorus of 'Neener!  Neener!'?  Another's piece, poem, or presence can be full-throttle instruction on its own, without any smearing of it in my face, without any elevating of it over my own efforts.  When it comes to 'better', all artists have An Eye that assesses, distinguishes, and absorbs in growing awareness as applicable to their own endeavors.   Creatively speaking, I personally have no 'rivals', or at least I fervently aspire to none.  I'm proud of that even though I enact it so imperfectly. 

Marilyn, strong and confident as she is, writes:  'Each to their own.  I couldn't exist without competition and I'm happy to be my own if need be!'  I imagine Marilyn has connotations very different from my own relative to the word 'competition'.  Groovy!  I can learn from that, too.  It seems to me, still, that she and I are on the same page.  The objective, ultimately, is SELF-improvement, right?  Through exposure to other work, ideas, techniques, experience, we individually can draw incrementally closer to effecting our personal vision.  I do, most definitely, "compete" with myself, but it's more honest to name it collaboration -- unless I'm dueling with my own critic, pushy beastie that it is.  Call it competition or call it collaboration, but the compelling difference between 'you suck' and 'hey, you really caught that aspect well' is night and day.  One diminishes, one nourishes -- be it from within or without.  Constructive criticism, suggestion, enlightenment?  Bring it.  But condescend to me and I'll deliver a resounding, "Bite me!"  Fangs and pirate vocabulary free of charge, true story.

Astute & fearless Vivian queries:  ' I don't  know what is meant by "no place for competition among art genres.''  There is certainly room for discussion, criticism, evaluation:  is that competition?'  That's what I'm talking about!  (Semantics -- bother!)  Competition?  OK - in that form.  Collaboration?  Sure.  I want it, like that.  But I think motive as a variable isn't an unreasonable measuring quantifier here.  WHY am I discussing?  Criticizing?  Evaluating?  To help someone improve?  Or to flex what I may see as my own superiority?  I mean, eesh, blimey, and unlimited shite:  do I want to embody someone's (or my own) inner critic?  NOT!   Some degree of introspection, a search for possible ulterior motive, is a necessary act before I open my yap.  As I earlier described, I'm not so evolved or peaced-out that I'm incapable of the dark side -- I give GOOD hissy fits!  Point is:  they go undelivered!  In truth, I've generally found a more mindful, productive practice in waiting to be asked my opinion.  Eliminates the potential for any toxins to slip by me; propagates equilibrium and creative generosity all around.

Calm and contemplative Janet offers:  'I have a quote (I forgot to write down the author): "In a world of individuals, comparison makes no sense at all."'  For me, comparison is the most insidious negative connotation I have to competition.  Here I am, dammit:  not you, not her, not that bloke over yonder.  Took me decades to learn the truth of my individuality, the truth of me, and to accept/embrace that, whether I make crap art or not.  The unique qualities of you, or her, or that bloke over yonder colorize me like a fresh rain or a pure wash of gleaming light.  My "self" absorbs what is presently needed, like vitamins, an injection of creative smack, an answered prayer perfectly timed and delivered.  No matter what, though, the influence of others flows through my filters, utilized by me to express ME.  That eventuality is a given -- I can't sustain the "wearing" of any other, the costume of comparison and trying to measure up.  That price is just way too high - I'm not willing to fork it over anymore.

The tides and currents to be found intermingling with other artists and artistic genres are my inspiration forward (as Marilyn suggests), my momentum for improvement, my fuel for the journey toward perfection.  But doing my best as I take each step, alone and alongside others, is how I experience perfection in the now.  So you say competition (to-MAY-toe) and I say collaboration (to-mah-toe) ... so long as we're still talking and not calling the whole thing off!

Art/Visual and Written Journals: Competitors? Or Collaborators?

What a renaissance the Art Journal has seen in the recent few years!  No longer only the private (& possibly bored) sketches of suppressed Victorian women, or the deliberate majestical sketchbooks of Leonardo da Vinci genius types -- we now have blog, website, on-line class and workshop access to such as Danny Gregory, Julie Prichard, Kelly Kilmer and Juliana Coles.  These artists teach everything from sketching as daily practice to background preparation via paint or collage techniques to deep self-exploration through the combination of words, visual imagery and specific ephemera.

Four years ago, after thirty years of diligent and mostly happy written journaling, I reached a point of stagnation, a sense of severe statis, in my writing.  A work associate and friend suggested rubber stamps as a first step to incorporating the visual aspect I sought in my journals.  From there, I launched -- to paint, collaging, mixed media canvases, a delightful first attempt at sewing (a Picasso-esque cat for my brother), assemblage, and a comically entertaining (but definitely failed) foray into soldering.  I participated in swaps, round robins, challenges.  I crafted ATC's, altered books and swimming pool filters, created pieces or canvases prompted by an inspiration photo or object, and I began to visually embellish all my written journal pages.  Backgrounds abounded, complete with tags, pockets, photos, ephemera, brads, ribbons, rub-ons and security envelope parts.  I also began a visual journal during this time. 

I continued, though, to maintain my written journal, and discovered myself feeling EXASPERATED by the intrusion of the visual elements.  My journaling took on all the fluidity of a football game -- start, stop, whistle, huddle, FLAG! punt, tackle, stop, time out!  My years'-long favorite cheezo Bic pen didn't take to gesso or acrylic paint.  My thoughtflow retreated, frustrated and interrupted by the cramped spaces of tags and inserts, or small clear areas available for writing.  Actual writing.  Because for me, it was and remains ALL ABOUT THE WORDS.  The message, feeling or theme of my visual backgrounds rarely connected in any way to the current thoughts in my mind, and that jarred me.  The space taken up by stuff left my pen hand reluctant and jittery.  So -- I studied the many articles and blog posts relevant to art journaling, and shook my head over and again.  A single word?  Uh -- not.  A phrase or quote?  Shucks, those are merely my jump-off points, never summarizing my thoughts compactly, succinctly.  Both my written and visual journaling tapered off, stuttering, spluttering, then screeched (literally) to a standstill. 

Checkmate. 

What was I feeling?  From experience over the last four years, I understood profoundly the value of the visual journal in unearthing the moist, the blunt, the raw, the hesitant, the very ENTRAILS my pen tended to gloss over or downright avoid.  I still wanted to get beyond my 'habits' of writing, out of my own almost 'automatic' Pen Head.  And the overlap (written, visual) happens subconsciously, organically, anyway -- there is no stopping the influence of one on the other.  It really is true that sometimes a color, an image, can immediately, perfectly express what no amount of writing has yet been able to grasp.  And then, and always, after working or playing in my visual art journal, when I returned to the writing, my pen moved without gravity, with an altered, informed, freed continuity and awareness, full of (YES!) surprises and revelations. 

I remembered distinctly that neither would I be anywhere without the uncountable books I've ingested, the reams of found correspondence, travel journals, the diaries and personal writings of the past that made their way to me.  Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Teresa of Avila, Benjamin Franklin, May Sarton, the pioneer women who recorded their lives in small bound books and neat, alert penmanship, to name a few.  And then there are my two abiding favorites, more influential than any others:  The Diary of Frida Kahlo, and The Diaries of Anais Nin.  WRITING IS AN ART FORM!   How deeply within you did that statement resound?  Art journals are, for the "now", glorified, extolled, held aloft to the near exclusion of any other art form.  I feel, in turns, angered by and resistant to that, despite my intellectual ability to recognize a trend as a trend when I see one.  It can feel like a devaluing of written journaling, all this art journal trumpeting.  For those of us who are mainly, deliberately (and also helplessly) written journalers, writers, it also delivers a thrust into further isolation -- because writing simply does not allow the immediate, almost instant gratification effected by the visual arts.  There is no publication anywhere devoted to written journaling that I've been able to unearth.  I see the impact of art journaling (visual! visual! visual!) even on my blog, where I receive heightened response to "technique" posts, and writing prompts are met with silence.  Even a strictly written post, such as this, absent of visual accompaniment (filler?) tends to be scanned then passed over.  We have slowly been conditioned to seek the RIGHT NOW, the LESS WORK, of visual art, over the effort required to allow writing to paint, sculpt, weave, and sing to and for us.

For me, a visual journal is just one among the many tools I utilize to impact, break open, expose and hone my written voice.  The visual journal isn't something to suppress, supplant, or compete with my written expression.  It hasn't lesser or greater value.  My fervent wish is that we soon regain our perspective, a retreat from the art journal genuflecting currently en vogue.  My fervent wish is also for writers to hold steadfast, and minus doubt.  A Bic pen on a sheet of unembellished paper is every ounce as potent, as magical, as paint, ephemera, and photographs.  If you are, as I am, A WRITER, it's critical to remember we  stand aside visual artists as PEERS, rather than subordinates.  Many who are visual artists are so because they can't write (or anyway believe that to be true).  If we writers feel bouts of visual-art-envy, we can remind ourselves that perhaps visual artists experience envy over our ease with a pen, words, creativity and expression on a page.

And, if you've noticed, most art/visual journalers ultimately incorporate some form of the written word. Fundamentally, and ideally, there is no place for competition among art genres.  It's counterproductive and, I'm certain, not at all what any of us intend.  We all need each other and mainly seem to realize this.  We all benefit from our diversity, from the stimulation one medium provides another.  Let's shake hands, call it an equal exchange, then return each to our studios, inspired by and INDIVIDUAL in our talents.

Wednesday Write-Off: No Anger, But A Dance

Write-Off Prompt for Wednesday, February 3, 2010:

There have been

whisperings in my ear,

so far unintelligible except

[except]

Wednesday Write-Off

wants to morph, transform.

While I await further direction,

I leave you no writing prompt

beyond this:

WRITE ANYWAY

* * * * * * * * * * *

Last Week's Prompt:

Write a [minimum] 10-line poem

about the last time

somebody

or

something

made you angry.

Rhyming not required.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The thing of it is,

I haven't been ANGRY

in a very long time.

Annoyed, yes.

Irritated, irked,

often frustrated.

But "angry" - not.

& I decided anger

was not a place I wanted

to revisit

during a really good week.

I have no anger poem.

Instead,

I offer a collage entitled

A Visual Prayer

&

the poem it

prompted

last night.

I have been wanting

you and me

dancing "us" again,

braving the storm-strewn path

we so recently cut

down our center.

I have been wanting

you and me

twirling around the

rubble of distance,

turning atop the

compost of raw reveal,

two-stepping amid

the craters & thrown limbs of

calling this done.

I have been wanting

you and me

to feel our feet --

agile,

able --

tangoing among the debris

of our division,

discovering in the process

the steps to a new dance,

more fluid with

the pulse of difficulty - faced,

more fluent accompanied by

lessons taken & learned,

a free solo of change,

unencumbered,

as we wind our way

forward,

to "us",

anew,

still dancing.

1/26/10

l. antonia brown

isle of sky words

[for Double BB]

Wednesday Write-Off: What's on YOUR Plate?

Write-Off Prompt for Wednesday, January 27, 2010:

Write a [minimum] 10-line poem

about the last time

somebody

or

something

made you angry.

Rhyming not required.

* * * * *

Last Week's Prompt:

Find something weird, cool, comical and/or inspiring

on a license plate or bumper sticker,

and write about it.

Take it any direction you'd like,

in any format you choose,

and write at least 20 minutes, altogether

(you can break it up if you want to).

I stuck with the original personalized plate I saw,

the one that prompted the prompt (grin):

GONINJA

Squashed-fig purple, almost brown but sparkling, spinning rims, suspension with the hiccups.  GONINJA plate.  A woman's car.  She opens that glitter-painted driver's side door, sets her left foot squarely on the pavement.  Pauses, then glides out of her seat in one power move.  Baseball cap with ponytail tugged through the slot in the back, tank top, blue jeans, shit-kickers with a Frye Boots heel but a pointed toe (not for embellishment, but for use when emphasis is required upside somebody's behind).  Gold stud earrings, a gold cross tucked under her tank.  She glances around, once, and moves out just enough to close the car door, swinging her keys on one no-nonsense, no fake-nailed finger.  This is not a bikini-&-pumps-on-the-beach super hero woman.  She's never even seen Charlie's Angels (the original TV series or the film remakes), just heard about them and languidly picked her teeth with the rough edge of her thumb.  She's a woman of few words but those can sometimes out-colorize the rainbow, bi-lingual expletives and minus hesitancy.  Hers is an animal stride, like a large calm cat, checking its territory - aware, awake in every muscle & tendon.  So beautiful, raw & lithe like she is.  She's a woman who startles by saying a plain, "No, "  neither preceded nor followed by an apology or explanation, the way men say it.  She walks by two women with full grocery carts, one juggling several Payless shoe bags, a group of four giggling girls cloistered outside the entrance to La Salsita -- and they all feel a flicker of their own interior false notes as she passes.  This woman, she's a wave of confident personal reality, personality realized, as low maintenance as she can conceive for her own comfort.  The hideous car, recently purchased, takes her from point A to point Z, reliably, gets good gas mileage, and on Saturday she and her brothers will tackle that soft suspension.  She passes and the other women watch, quietly at first, then commencing the insult-chitter - have to put down she who challenges their posturing, their compromises.  Later, though, one who has observed will chisel something of those out of her own way, and privately practice her personal panther stride.

* * * * *

S'a'right.

18 minutes of just-keep-writing.

I recognize myself as the watcher who returns to my home,

chisels off a piece of b.s., and practices my stride.

That's okay, too,

because I'm learning.

Sightings of a woman like that are

still quite rare, don't you think?

I feel it whenever I watch the DVD

Veronica Guerin

Hey, didya write something? 

Leave me a

comment and a link!

I'm still working on a Mister Linky

gizmo and hope to

have it ready for next week!

Wednesday Write-off: Early Bird Special

Write-Off Prompt for Wednesday, January 20, 2010:

Find something weird, cool, comical and/or inspiring
on a license plate or bumper sticker,

and write about it.
Take it any direction you'd like,
in any format you choose,
and write at least 20 minutes, altogether
(you can break it up if you want to).

Coming home from work today, I saw

GONINJA

on a personalized plate,

and that's where I got the idea.

All righty then --

I'm still plowed under on the professional front,

so am putting this post/prompt up early.

[I am determined NOT to break my commitment to this,

or my flow in response to it!]

Last week's prompt:
Create a character sketch.
Dash off some descriptive words,
phrases, bits of dialogue, anything at all
to bring someone you know to life.
Use that person's name if you want, or a code name, or a nickname.

Here's mine:

Once Upon a Landlady

Probably slender all her life, now age-thinned, hesitant in her posture like she checks, & often, if she's standing all the way straight up.  Wrings her hands a lot.  "No pets, and I don't like a lot of holes in the walls, and please rinse out your food containers before you put them in either of the cans, regular or recycle."

Excuse me?  "I want to keep the cans clean.  You know they charge you if they have to replace them, and I can't afford it."

When I parked a rental car in my space, lining it up over the also-mandatory-oil-drip-spillage-catching piece of carpet (provided by me), the police woke me from my nap, pounding on the door.  "I just knew someone had broken in!  You didn't tell me you'd be driving a different vebicle!  You know you have to register your visitor vehicles and permanent vehicles with me."

She spent four hours outdoors in 110 degree weather hovering over a sweat-sick plumber fighting with decades' old bathtub parts.  "I can't afford you milking your time and overcharging me.  How much did that part cost?  Did it really NEED a new one?"

Widowed 30 years, she only emerges from her separate unit in the back of the duplex that houses one other single woman and myself to attend church.  All day Sundays.  She rides a bike, her wide-brimmed hat jammed low on her forehead, basket on the back fender, conjuring (I swear) visions of Miss Gulch on a terrorize-the-tenant mission.  Comes to my door with my mail in hand, trying to lean her way in while she asks personal questions about every single one of my postal items.  The only hope of ending a conversation is downright rudeness, "Have a nice day!" followed by a firm closing of the door, regardless where her shoulder or foot might be positioned.  Otherwise, she takes no breaks, even if the phone rings, a guest arrives, the UPS man wants my signature.  "Oh!  What did you order?  Do you [**gasp**] give your credit card information over the phone!"

She watches out her window, catches me as I get into my car to go to work.  "I'm sure you realize the light bulb over your carport space is burned out."  Whenever possible, I wait until Sunday to write my rent check, then slip it through the slot in her door, so I won't get trapped in an endless, rambling conversation wherein my part consists wholly and only of, "Uh huh, uh huh."

But certain moments, I just want to hug her, close her fidgety hands in both of mine, and whisper in her ear, "Sometimes, I'm lonely, too." 

[A big thank you to someone I know who actually co-exists with this individual; I've personally interacted with the landlady, and collected several of my own impressions; others were lifted directly from dialogue with my friend.  And yes, she does speak in Italics like that!]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Did anyone else find this prompt daunting?
In the ultimate turn of tail, I
(who have regularly and unselfconsciously written
countless 'people imprints' in my journal)
found myself gulping, then frozen.
Suddenly, this process had
An Official Name:
'Character Sketch' --
and my brain decided whatever I wrote
Had To Be Important.
You know, capitalized just like that.
Maybe even in quotes.  Or quotable.
Goodness, what mental tomfoolery!

Consequently, I didn't take pen to paper
until I got home from work today,
and only then (I'm certain)
because I knew I wanted to put up this post tonight.

Silly woman.

Also, I skittered away from writing about anyone
I know who reads this blog,
which (rats!) subtracted major fodder for
character sketching.
True story.
But I also thought, naw,
that would be TOO easy,
since I write about some of these folks
rather too frequently as it is.
I'm all about challenging myself, too,
not just you.

NEXT WEEK, THEN:
 LICENSE PLATE/BUMPER STICKER BRILLIANCE!

See you here!

Wednesday Write-Off: The 'Bad' Births the 'Good'

Remember the prompt?  
The murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez // coffee grounds // 15 minutes' worth writing?

Here is Part 1 (first 10 minutes) of my own thoughtflow:
i have no claim on the murders of young women in ciudad juarez -- not by personal connection, language, culture.  i didn't even hear about them until 2 years after they began -- as i wrote to an acquaintance:  what can i say?  insulated, middle-class, suburban-raised white bread woman that i am! 

last night i dreamed about them again, though, those young women.  and coffee grounds. 

the guys i work with make the first pot of coffee before i arrive in the morning.

every morning for five years, i've come in to a mess of coffee grounds spilled all over the counter and just left there.  and every morning for five years, i've cleaned them up, those spilled coffee grounds, muttering in evil undertones about the deliberate indifference of these guys, their walk-away-shrug.  they just know, in some molecular part of themselves, that someone else, someone with a vagina no doubt, is going to clean up after them.

not that cleaning up coffee grounds is remotely close to losing my life, but isn't there a link here?  in the casual attitude of some men toward the place of women?  to possess a vagina is to be automatically indebted to an ongoing masculine indifference.  those with vaginas SERVE -- they clean up after the walk-away-shrugs.  a dead body spilled on a sandy desert floor; coffee grounds dribbled on the daily counter; same thing, right?  by way of attitude?  it's a dismissal, high & low voltage/effect, of the viability of women. use women, take them for granted, diminish & disrespect & just generally don't see them except as a utilitarian function -- a piece of ass (willing or not), a maid (willing or not).  it's a power-over syndrome; they're bigger, better, are some men.  their time is worth more than a maid's; their cocks are worth more than any vagina, or even a life.  it's all spilled coffee grounds, these young women's bodies -- those lost lives, pride, dreams, individuality.  it's a filtering of women from recognition to generic grounds -- boil down the name, the face, the personal interactions, the individual, and all accountability disappears with it.  no bitter flavor then. 

literal dead women and women deadened by the male attitude of entitlement.  every day for five years i've gathered up those coffee grounds like the remains of my own dignity, somehow, but then merely direct them into the trash.  who gathers up the remains of those dead women?  who honors their vaginas, their womanly individuality?  who restores their names, faces, hopes, dreams, the personal?  who restores mine? 

i have no claim to the murders of young women in ciudad juarez, EXCEPT AS A WOMAN.  a woman experiencing small but cumulative murders of my identity, every day.  every day i'm reminded, again and again, of the inequity in the status quo, how some have the choice to use and shrug and walk away, how some come behind and clean up if they want to keep their jobs, their partners, their kids, or harbor any illusion of perhaps keeping their lives.  dead young women & coffee grounds & daily death.  who knew?
=============================
Now hear this:
I do NOT consider that good writing in the least way.  Subjective, whiny, angry, unclear, occasionally lazy, mainly just a journal-entry style rant, even though I didn't expect that when I began.  I just let the pen move, then keep moving, even when (about 4 sentences in) I knew I didn't like what was happening.  wah wah wah ... whatever!   [also note:  when I write, I write fast, no worries about capitalization, punctuation -- what comes out is what comes out, so I don't block its arrival in any way]

BUT THERE ARE SOME NUGGETS IN THERE, SOME IDEAS WORTH DEVELOPING!!

Ideas I would NOT have had if I'd stopped writing, if I'd let my own judgement of the writing halt me as soon as I felt that critic's voice:  "This sucks.  You're whining.   Are you really this pissed* about coffee grounds, for crying out loud?!"  [*Answer:  yes]

Writing is process. 
Writing is trusting the process. 
Bad writing is the only way to ideas, to more writing, improved writing, more ideas, more writing, ever improving, refining.

Here is Part 2 (last 5 minutes) of my own thoughtflow:
women
brown or pale, and strong
young and strong
walking strong
brown or pale, and young, and walking
flavored with life,
with aromatic breath of
innocence, dreams,
responsibility,
family,
working working long long long
tired - still strong
poor - still strong
breathing aromatic pulse

taken!
brown or pale, young and walking,

taken!
strong! strong! strong!

taken!
 -- innocence
 -- dreams
 -- responsibility
 -- family
 -- breath
 -- pulse
taken!
working tired & poor

scalded
boiled
brewed
ground
to brown or pale, &
young & tired &
poor flavored aromatic
breath of death.

taken to the ground, forever.
==========================
huh?  HUH?  EH?  yea ... much much better.  See?  All that whiny blithering I did at first cleared my head, got ME out of my own way, opened the currents, distilled my personal bullshite into a much cleaner idea in response to the prompt.  Lovely, that process, so lovely. 

And hey, when you see your own progress, PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK!!!  Eesh and blimey, no I don't think that poem is perfection, but I DO think it's damn good.  On its own, and not just considering what I started with. 

And double hey, save the 'bad' shite, too!!  Put it in a binder, refer back to it, cull the nuggets of good ideas, or let it stimulate your brain toward a new one.  NO WRITING IS WASTED.  NONE.   All writing is process. 
============================
WRITE-OFF PROMPT FOR NEXT WEDNESDAY:
Create a character sketch.  Dash off some descriptive words, phrases, bits of dialogue, anything at all that bring someone you know to life.   Use that person's name if you want, or a code name, or a nickname.   I've been doing this for years in my journal, just trying to quickly capture the essence of someone I meet or observe -- it wasn't until I recently took a creative writing workshop from the Phoenix-born author Stella Pope Duarte that I realized I was doing something rather official:  a 'character sketch'.  I had been calling them 'People Imprints' -- just because I found someone memorable in some way!  We'll be playing more with character sketches, because Ms. Duarte had MUCH to say about that and Ms. Brown [that would be me] ate it up!   We had a 15 minute time limit on this exercise at the workshop, so that's what I'll use for this write-off, too.    HAVE FUN!!!  I can't wait to 'meet' your characters!