Everyone Has a Perfectly Carved Ass

I am blessed.

Perhaps not with a perfectly carved ass, depending on your definition of 'perfectly.' And 'carved.'

But I am blessed.

With a wonderful Writer's Group. We formed perhaps nine years ago. It was one of those wonderful happenstance kind of creations that later you look back upon and say, "How did I get so lucky?" All women and all wonderful.

I love you all: Darcy, Joan, Marcella, Katherine, Kristina, Karla and Laura. The last two of which have gone another direction for a while but whom I still hold in my Writer's Group Heart.

At one of our magic meetings in Joan's Mother of all Sanctuary Garden Gatherings, quite a few years ago, the subject of what we don't write came up. Subjects or genres with which we are uncomfortable or in which we suck. We all have our areas of comfort and expertise.

But yet, less spoken of, we all have our areas of avoidance and perhaps fear.
I won't launder everyone else's confessions here. Just my own. We spoke that night about challenging ourselves. Perhaps a homework assignment that required us to come to the next meeting with a piece of work that was beyond our precious perimeters of preference. There was a lot of 'Well. now, I don't knows' muttered and a few toes stubbed into the dirt. So it was never agreed upon and therefore never happened.

Except that I went home wondering about the two things I mentioned. My preference is definitely fiction. But within that predilection, there were two things I had never written. Never been brave enough to try.
Sex and violence.

"Elle, do you think I've never been published because I don't write about sex or violence?"
"Spencer, have you ever submitted any of your writing for publication?"
"No, I haven't."
"That's why you've never been published."

Excuse me.

I looked back on my fiction up to that point and found no sign of sex or violence. In fact, even in my reading choices, I'd skim over the violence. (I never skimmed over the sex scenes however, I totally dog-eared those pages.) Even in a book I was otherwise enjoying thoroughly, the violence made me uncomfortable.

With this new realization in my system, I decided to push the Barbie Envelope. I sat down specifically to write a sex scene. I'm trying now to remember what that first story was but am not sure. Doesn't matter.

I loved it. It was the most playful, lively, energized writing I'd done in ages. I loved it. My mind started having little plot planning parties in my head as I drove to the store. As I balanced my check book. As I did all kinds of 'other' things, my mind was starting little wild fires. It was great. Still is. I love writing erotica. The imagination center of my brain goes a little crazy sometimes.

This being true, it is also a fact that I can be quite chicken at the same time. I might be a little bit afraid to write what really comes to mind. I have that chronic and contagious writer's curse: What will people THINK?? I picture the reaction of my co-workers, my extended family, MY CHILDREN!

As brave as I like to think I am, I might also be a big baby. (Oh wait, I just remembered that first erotic story: guy and a girl alone on the second floor of an antique store. Title: "How Brave Are You?" Then when they go down stairs to leave they see the bank of TVs recording all corners of the store. Makes me blush thinking about it even now. And it was a very mild, tame start.)

As erotica goes, my stuff could be quite soft. Or so Midge said. She said maybe I should not be allowed to call it Erotica, that I could surely do better. (Can't you just hear her saying this. Loud and in front of the entire IT department?)

Feeling like I'd come up against the wall of fear, that I'd written as brazenly as I could, I decided to read some of the library's erotic material and challenge myself again. Boy, that stuff is the shit! Vocabulary up your every orifice. Orifices that are named and nicknamed and renamed. Words I had to go look up on Urbandictionary.com

Excuse me, I'm easily distracted.

So I was reading up on my craft, right? A bit of research. And expanding what comes natural to me, I was reading lesbian erotica, gay erotica, group stuff, extremely extreme stuff. Okay, not extremely extreme, just moderately extreme but still. It tested my sensibilities. And my other things. I wanted to learn what I didn't know of first hand.

I confess I liked it. I looked forward to it. I had to ILL some of it because many of 'our' copies were missing and non-existent but I gathered, none the less.

I transferred some to a Nook. Not the coziest reading experience but even so.

Like any genre, there's good stuff and wretched stuff. What I didn't find a slew of was GREAT stuff.

I found it was just over the top too often. Writers trying to see how far they could go. Edgy for the sake of edgy. They lost me with this style.

Then it was sometimes just TOO MUCH. Not believable. I need to be able to buy into it. To relate. To potentially insert myself into the story if I feel so inclined. I swear the ass in every story was perfectly carved. Every cock HUGE! Every boob was full and perky and...and...and other things that 'perfect' boobs are. (In my experience, it's unusual to have REAL tits that are full AND perky. Either they are full and weighty in your hand OR they are light-hearted and perky. Ergo, if they are both full and perky they are probably Man-Made breasts, and I cannot emphasize the word MAN here strongly enough.)

This is not real, people. Bodies are imperfect. That is what we love about them, isn't it? We fall for the details, the imperfections. The mole on Marilyn Monroe's cheek was an 'imperfection' that made her face perfect!

I need erotic story lines that breathe truth. How erotic is a scenario that you KNOW can never happen. For me, as it turns out, not erotic at all. I'll see what I can do about this.

No Place Like Home

Is it just me or does it feel like so much more than ten years? Can you remember a time before?

Of the countless things that changed because of September 11, 2001, I had hoped to be one. My desire was palpable. In the days immediately following 9/11, my thoughts were continually arrested by my desire that the horrifying attacks would have a life changing effect on me. Some kind of change for the better. Not a change toward fear and paranoia. Paralysis.

But such that I would see the value of life more clearly, that the desires of my heart would rise to the top of my consciousness and overrule the ordinary, daily behaviour trenches I'd dug over time. That my actions would, from then on, be a true reflection of my core values and of the notes of my soul.

It was so important to me that I be profoundly changed. It was an ache. That I be able to take this incomprehensible series of catastrophic events and make something positive on a personal level. That my life never be the same. I journalled and I prayed. I wished and I wrote. I cried and I prayed some more.

Tears for the pain of the images on the news. The fliers and posters with faces of the 'missing.' The oppressive national grief. The destruction and rubble. The tireless energy of the digging and excavating. I cried and I watched for the moment.


The coverage. The news, the commentary, Oprah. People on the screen of my TV telling me they would never be the same. I believed them and wanted that too. I watched the celebrity fund raising specials. I wrote. I waited. But I felt only sadness. No awakening. No new found determination. Just overwhelming and deadening sadness.


At the same time, flags were suddenly everywhere. American flags painted and draped on anything. Americans openly proclaiming love of their homeland. Unabashed displays of emotion. In all my years, I had never seen my country so unified. It was stunning. Startling even. But served as a balm to my heart. It helped me breathe.

I was not raised in a particularly patriotic environment. My childhood, my family, the political air of that time leaned away from patriotism. Vietnam, Richard Nixon, the activism of the late Sixties, early Seventies. 'Love' and appreciation for country was not of high importance. Culturally, when 'cool' was paramount, it was seen as uncool to show blatant and open patriotism.

We were not a family of a strong military focus. My grandfather served in the Navy during World War II but never spoke of it.

In the weeks following that Tuesday in 2001, anything remotely patriotic made me weep. Do you remember how it was? Movies, songs, books. Everything became red, white and blue. Mostly genuine but also plenty of opportunistic marketing. I wept regardless. Uncontrollably. I felt utterly helpless. Not a comfortable emotion for a control freak like myself.

But I decided I loved my spanking new patriotism. I embraced it. I had never become emotional during the playing of the National anthem before 9/11. I never noticed where flags were flown, displayed, worn. Holidays like Memorial Day, Veteran's Day had always been lost on me. I was a child, a young girl, a woman who had taken her country, her citizenship for granted. But I'd suddenly become a puddle of grief and love and gratitude for my home.

In the months, even years since 2001, as the depth of my gratitude for country increased, I kept waiting, watching for my big change. That personal epiphany that would alter the course of my life. (I smile back at my belief.) And all along my patriotism grew and solidified. I watched for opportunities to thank the military patrons who came into my branch around Veteran's Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day. The anniversaries of September 11th. Teary and grateful, shaking their hands. I wrote a public piece on Veteran's Day for a blog at work a few years ago. It felt so good to nurture this side of myself.

Yet over time I began to criticize myself for the personal transformation that never happened. What kind of shallow, un-evolved soul must I be that 9/11 had not changed me at all?

My grandfather died on February 4th. This year. He was 94 years old. There is a great deal of harsh truth to say about this man that will go unsaid here. For now and for the most part.
He was buried with honors. I had never been to a military funeral.

I was undone.

My grandfather, with whom I had an intense and difficult relationship, was laid to rest in such a way as to bring about a life awareness I had failed to see before.

I would love nothing more than to fully and accurately articulate to you what the service was like but I can not. I probably was not meant to wrap it up in any kind of bow.

You cannot imagine, however, how startled I am to say that it was the most profound and moving moment of my life.

This statement includes:

• the birth of my children,




• watching my infant son being wheeled into open heart surgery,
  



• then with great relief watching him wheeled back out six hours later.

This includes the night I sat next to someone as they drew their very last breath.

I stood in that cemetery with my family and the honor guard and have never been so moved. So deeply affected by one moment. Military personnel who volunteer for these services dressed in full dress uniform. Mostly sailors. Standing at strict attention to honor this veteran they never knew. When the gun salute went off, a cry came from deep within me that I was helpless to contain.

You know that scene near the end of The Wizard of Oz where Glinda explains that Dorothy doesn't need her help? That Dorothy had what she was longing for right there with her all along. I had my change immediately following 9/11. The moments the flags first appeared that day. Something I had all along but never stopped to appreciate before. My country. My citizenship. My home, given me at birth.

With her sometimes crazy, insane administrators. With some unthinkable political directions and decision: past, present and future. With all of her glory and flaws, arrogance, in her successes and broken parts, with her often bewildering and misplaced priorities, I love my country. I never knew this before September 11, 2001.

POST SCRIPT:

In an attempt to continue my healing, every year for the past ten years I've found different ways to stop.

I've stopped to write:

• Among other things, in 2007 - http://myscarletletters.blogspot.com/2007/09/september-11.html

I've stopped to read:

• Joe McNally's Faces Of Ground Zero
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Watching the World Change by David Friend.

I've stopped to watch documentaries:

• PBS Frontline's - Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero




• The Man Who Predicted 9/11 which includes compelling interviews with Rick Rescorla. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla
  

I've stopped by way of fiction:

• The movie Reign Over Me with Adam Sandler
  



• The novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
  

During my Tillicum Library years, I spent days gathering and arranging September 11th library material in our display window. It was a helpful, healing display, more so for me than for anyone who happened by.

Most years I stop at nearby fire stations to leave flowers. I hope that it was appreciated by the fire fighters at the stations but it was I who most needed the act. The search for healing.

This year was a little different for me this way, but that is another post for another day.

I hope you remembered to stop.

July 24th 2011

Willy Wonka:
But Charlie, don't forgot what happened to the man who suddenly got every thing he always wanted.

Charlie:
What happened?

Willy Wonka:
He lived happily ever after.

Things We Didn't Say

I lean toward logic which means that math stuff comes easy enough to me. However, that does not make me a fan. I rarely do math just for fun.

I began this blog in April 2007. Today, April 07, 2011, I take a quick tally and I've posted here 101 times in the last four years. An average of two posts a month.

But there are also 95 wanna-be posts behind the scenes that only got as far as draft status. So I've written here 196 times. This makes my rate of publication about 50% and puts me up against the glass is half full or the glass is half empty debate.

I feel bad when a long time passes between my posts. I love this blog. I'm so grateful. Yet my posting frequency might indicate otherwise. I feel like defending myself here. But the dates speak for themselves.

I look back at some of the titles and topics of the unpublished 'posts' and feel some grief and wonder:

Breaking the Spell

Missing the Point

Is it 'A Wonderful Life?'

Do yourself a favor

Blog-reader Worthiness Test

Outercourse

Don't do me any favors

Barbie-colored Glasses

Some drafts in my blog are early versions of pieces that did eventually get posted. But there are many that stand alone and I can't figure out why they remain incomplete and unseen. Failed attempts. Maybe I'm too hard on myself.

I wonder if I were a sculptor or potter, would my unfinished pieces feel like failures in the same way that my unfinished writings feel? I imagine myself walking into my brightly lit pottery studio filled with the tools of my trade, the raw material, many pieces of my work in varying states of evolution and feeling good. Surrounded by living examples of my creative energy, complete or not. Celebrating each stage of development.

Why does writing feel different? I'm not sure. I'm not sure my writing has ever felt like art, exactly. I can make a successful argument for it but my heart would not be in it. My writing has had it's moments of creative energy but I rarely think of it as an artist expression.

Wonder swirls.

I do know that when I look upon a painting or carving or sculpture, I'm probably not likely to dismiss it by thinking, "Oh, he's just venting there. Off on a rant." Placing judgement on it with, "What an angry bitch."

I am able to feel whether I'm drawn to someones painting, drawing, clay piece, whether the energy pulls me in. Or not. But I likely will not be able to proclaim whether said artistic expression is just the artist whining about this or that.

Writing, in whatever form, poetry, song lyrics, journal entries or murder mysteries, speaks. Not always directly, but literally. It talks to you in a more specific fashion than some other art forms. You may be able to feel the emotion or energy behind a drawing or photograph but it usually will not say directly something like "My heart dances in the rain."

Now if you look upon a beautiful watercolor painting of a small girl splashing in a puddle wearing her muddy yellow Wellingtons, arms stretched wide in her shiny, wet red slicker, face turned up to receive the rain, you might fairly infer that the painter's heart indeed dances in the rain. But you might also fairly infer that the painter celebrates the spirit of childhood. Or that she has a daughter who jumps in puddles. Or that he thinks hotels in the Puget Sound area might be most likely to buy paintings that portray rain in a positive light. But you probably can't say for sure one way or another.

Taking in someones writing can also be guess work, I suppose. Trying to read into what you're reading. But somehow writing feels more vulnerable than other creative endeavors. When I look back at some of those drafts waiting to grow up, I cringe. Afraid to show them the light of day. Too honest. Too wide open. Too scary. Too angry and too sad.

Too much.

Let Your Heart Be Light

For some reason, I feel defensive of the Spirit of Christmas this year. Maybe also disillusioned and disappointed. Before I wrote this post, I wondered why.

There was a blog post at work recently referring to Santa, who visited some of our branches. The photo with the post was tagged with the identity of the individual who dressed up as Santa. A Christmas Spirit-minded staff member suggested in comment that there must be some mistake about someone having dressed up as the jolly elf and that surely this was the real Santa.

My mind began to meander along a Santa path.
I thought of adding a comment, some quick clever quip.
I was leaning toward some cutesy take-off on "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

I had a vague familiarity with the Yes, Virginia story: a young girl sends a letter to a newspaper asking if Santa Claus is real. But that was really all I knew about it.

I wasn't even sure if it was an actual event or if it was some old Christmas After-School special that missed the Yakima television stations when I was growing up.

I typed 'Yes Virginia' into Google and clicked the fourth link down.

Even with just a quick scan, my eyes began to water.

According to newseum.com, in 1897 an eight year old girl, named Virginia, wrote a letter to the New York Sun:

Dear Editor: I am 8 years old.

Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun it's so.'

Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon

Newsman Francis Pharcellus Church's response begins:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.

This was in 1897, mind you. Not 1987, 1997 or 2007. I'm amazed at the December 2010 applicability this holds. If 1897 was a skeptical age, what are we now?

I had not read this newspaper editorial before. What a shame. I immediately printed up a few copies. I taped one to the door of my 'office.' I placed one on the counter with the half dozen Christmas cards sent to my department from other departments. I sat wishing I had more time before Christmas so I could print up many copies and send them out as my Christmas 'letter.'

I won't include the complete text here, although it is not long. I trust you to click there now and read it in its entirety. http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/ (Then, of course, you know... come right back and finish reading here when you're done.)

The parts that resonated most within me:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

Where did we lose our way, People? Humanity?

Certainly we were not created for our current, and apparently long held adoration and celebration of all things edgy, negative, fast-paced, confrontational, adversarial, skeptical, cut throat, violent, 'get them before they get me,' empty, distrustful existence that we live and breathe and market and support and encourage and exalt and aspire to and revere and buy into with our last copper cent.

We bow to The God of Cruelty, Cunning and Cleverness.

(The poet Rumi said; Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.)

We would never dare admit that we do not, in fact, know it all. That our strong and long held opinions and life philosophy, might be useless and arrogant and utter nonsense.

We are addicted to news. Bad news.

We live in a culture that thrives and celebrates the downfall of others.

We scour the celebrity rags in hopes that the 'stars' of our small minded culture have stumbled and crumbled socially, emotionally, physically.

We relish and willingly wallow in the energy of ego and avarice.

We strive to out-do the neighbors over the fence in what ever area we feel most materially insecure.

We seek to beat the car next to us off the line when the light turns green.

We grumble and grouse when those around us shine and succeed.

We resent and we covet and we begrudge.

And we stoop to our lowest self, as opposed to soaring to our highest truth.

We fear vulnerability, that we'll be revealed as frauds. And rightly so, as we cannot muster the courage to be authentic and true and wide open. Even within, or perhaps especially within our most intimate of relationships.

How moronic is it that over one hundred years after these apt observations were pointed out to Virginia, we are even more guilty in our small mindedness, in our refusal to see, to scoop up, to celebrate, to shout the truth?

I don't know about you, but to quote Ben Stone from Family Stone: "I'm ashamed of all of you. Even you." We are all complicit. We all participate and support, if in no other way, than in our refusal to refuse. When will we learn? When will we stop? When will we finally see that our constrictive and controlling cultural status quo no longer serves our collective spirit? It does not serve you. It does not serve me. When do we say 'enough?'

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Let your heart be light. Be light! Be Santa! Be Belief. Be an example. Be filled with Faith and Poetry and Romance. Be Magic this Christmas. This next year, Be Santa, Santa, Santa! Every single day.

Grow and Expand in your humility. Your bewilderment. Your willingness and honesty.

Forsake edgy and dark and hate-based adversarial minded energy, from within and from with out. It comes only from a place of fear!

Instead Rejoice!.

Repeat the sounding JOY!

Do the best thing for our weary spirit: Let your heart be light!

THINK SNOW...Movies

I love movies. I love snow.


Snow movies might not be a universally recognized movie genre but universal recognition is over-rated.

The movie genres used at the library system where I work are:
For the Youngest (Sesame Street)
Family (Toy Story, Big)
Comedy (That Thing You Do, Splash, Turner & Hooch, Money Pit)
Drama (Forrest Gump, Cast Away)
Action (Apollo 13, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan)
Suspense (Angels & Demons, Da Vinci Code)
Sci-fi (The Green Mile, City of Ember)
Horror (The 'burbs, Ladykillers, okay maybe not 'HORROR' but horrible for sure!)
Anime (Your guess is at least as good as mine, here....)
Special Interest (Concert for George, seriously go look it up. He plays one of the Mounties!)

I recently participated in an Intervention which took the form of a Tom Hanks marathon. A bit of deprogramming for the sake of the greater good, and in retrospect I have this to say:
Fuckin' Hanks, Baby!

Okay, way off track there.

Back to Snow Movies. Movies we seem drawn to around the holidays and through the winter months primarily because of serious snow seduction. (Not including out-right Christmas flicks.)


Here's my list:

• Family Stone
• Snowball Express
• Grumpy Old Men

Barbie's Honorable Mentions:

• New in Town
• Mystery, Alaska
• Day After Tomorrow
• Dr. Zhivago
• Bridget Jones
• Cold Mountain

Also Groundhog Day and Snow Dogs (Yes, yes, I know. Shut up.)

I also love the snow scenes in the Harry Potter movies. I wish there were more.

And even though I don't want to hear about your edgy, horror snow favorites, I'll say it:
The Shining. I have erased all the dark disturbing stuff from my mental data banks but I do recall loving the snow.

Now, tell me your favorite SNOW Movies! This is important stuff, who knows what I might be missing?

Here's the deal, if I had a magic wand...

...I'd wave it over those people who do not put up Christmas lights at Christmas time.

Not that I'd smite them or anything. I have no hard feelings or any ill-will. Live and let live is my motto, (or at least it was once a long time ago for about five minutes).

If you do not put Christmas lights up, that's fine. Suit yourself. But if I had a magic wand, I'd wave it over your Grinchy green head and make it so that you could not see the Christmas lights of others. None!

You would drive, as usual, along your regularly beaten path: To work, to the grocery store, to Walmart, to the strip club off you go, but each house you pass would be the same dark, unfriendly houses they are the other eleven months of the year. You would not get to leech Christmas Spirit from others.

If on the other mittened hand, you are not too cool to show some sweet, shiny, twinkly holiday cheer to anyone who happens down your Santa Claus lane then (and only then) you would get to fully soak up and enjoy all the Christmas lights of those generous souls around you.

This 'too cool' thing is driving me crazy and you'll be hearing from me on this again soon.