Thursday, October 27, 2016

Writing Retreat

Revised 11/4/2016

     Last weekend I attended a writing workshop that, in some ways, I found transformative. A diverse group in age, geographic origin, style, and more, it was incredibly informative to be immersed in my craft and to be exposed to such variety of voice, tone, and style. Hosted by the talented and inspiring Ariel Gore from the Literary Kitchen, it helped me explore topics that I usually avoid. One of the writing prompts inspired the following which I plan to use as I work on my novel during NaNoWriMo 2016.

On the Altar of Writing

  • The perfect journal
  • My music playlist/mix tape – music that features in the book
  • Museums everywhere – Vermeer, Van Gogh, Velasquez, Khalo, Gentileschi, Cassatt, Matisse, Mondrian,
  • The family picture in which I wear a yellow sweater and all of us wear frightened looks
  • My passports – past and present
  • Rocks from the beach where three oceans meet
  • The sound of my mother’s voice reading aloud
  • The warmth of my father’s gaze when he was happy
  • The loss and gain of moving and moving and moving…
  • My mother chewing her lower lip
  • My Granny, hand on her cheek, little finger on her lip, and all her memories in one dented cookie tin
  • My grandfather’s round belly which is now always with me
  • My grandmother’s tight-lipped mouth and saved ration cards. You can’t use the cards if you have no money.
  • Uncle Larry’s glass eye
  • Long dead aunts and uncles I never met
  • Colored pens and pencils
  • The grocery money that sent me to junior college dressed as a candy striper
  • A long history of women making bad decisions over men and making bad decisions in general
  • The memory of dead babies – hers and mine
  • Every word I ever read
  • Australia, Africa, Antarctica, China, and all the other places I have been
  • The sound of my father, my father, my father
  • Every word, every word, every word…


I seek the perfect journal; the one which will reveal all the stories I have to tell. Hand-tooled leather. Silk wrapped. Hand-made paper. I have shelves of failed attempts at perfection, some still wrapped in plastic. All beautiful but sterile. They offer no respite from this longing to deliver what waits inside me.

I know only parts of my mother’s story, the parts that intersect with mine. She is puzzle forever missing pieces. I see her as if from the corner of my eye, fleetingly in and out of focus. Gone before I can turn and catch her.

Someday, somewhere in a nursing home, I will show my passports to anyone who stops to pass the time with me. “See,” I will tell them, “I went to China to teach English. To Antarctica to see the penguins. To South Africa the year that Nelson Mandela went prison for life.” I was not always this remnant, this cast off. Men and women came when I crooked my finger or smiled a certain way. 

Not one of them knew I cared.
tbc


Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Time Flies

Especially when writing has been such a struggle. I haven't produced anything usable all summer and it's been so frustrating. So to help inspire some creativity or resurrect some memories, I've started working on a playlist of the music that provided a soundtrack to my childhood.

When I was very young, my father had eclectic taste in music with a strong leaning toward rockabilly and country. My mother favored the melodramatic and anything that told a complete story. One grandmother enjoyed gospel music and the other the parlor music of her youth.

So here are some of the songs I hear in my head when I'm writing. With a little luck, I'll soon have links to all of these.


  • Dead in the Coach Ahead
  • The Little Old Ford
  • One Saturday Night in a Barroom
  • Nadine
  • Honky Tonk Angel
  • Moon Light Bay
  • Detour
  • Mairie’s Wedding
  • Rising of the Moon
  • Wild Side of Life
  • Only  A Bird in a Gilded Cage
  • Lydia, The Tatooed Lady
  • Teen Angel
  • Whispering Hope
  • The Band Played On
  • The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze 


Thanks for reading.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Gone - Part 2

      Gramma’s looking right at me now and I start worrying that there’s something else, something new I need to have a good excuse about in case she asks.  Finally she says, “Your father will be home for dinner. He hasn’t gone anywhere,” Well that’s good ‘cause I’m all out of excuses for stuff I’ve done but now my mind is racing around for the right question, the one she’ll answer.
      Everybody always says I just blurt out whatever I’m thinking but that’s not true. I think lots of stuff nobody knows about like how come I don’t stutter in my head and how will we know if Henry David stutters too if he doesn’t ever talk and why the boys all have two names and I don’t even have one. I’m real careful about what I say on account of sometimes it makes my Mama cry and where is my Mama? She never goes anywhere alone. I don’t even think I’ve ever seen my Mama alone, and if I ask that, will Gramma answer?
      But she’s already moving down the hall saying, “Let’s look at pictures,” which is just about my favorite thing to do in the whole world so I don’t ask. Later Gramma plays the piano and we sing “Dead in the Coach Ahead” and “I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.” Grampa, who doesn’t sing, recites “Little Willie” and Gramma says “Oh, Laurie” in her aggravated voice which is practically her only voice. We have weenies and macaroni and cheese for dinner ‘cause that’s Henry David’s favorite but my Daddy still doesn’t come home and then it’s time for bed.
      They put us down in the back bedroom, the one that’s really mine since I stay there when I come on vacation which is different from just coming over to spend the night. Henry David is nearest the wall, Samuel Taylor in the middle so he won’t roll off and break like our cousin Amy did, and me on the outside ‘cause sometimes I have to get up in the middle of the night to make sure everything’s all right. The boys go to sleep right away but I stay awake listening for my Daddy’s car and hearing crickets and neighbors laughing and music far away…
      …And loud voices in the front room. I must have fallen asleep and it’s probably real late. I can’t tell who Gramma’s yelling at, so after I check to make sure the boys are still breathing, I crawl out of bed and tiptoe down the long hall towards the front room. I wonder if the places where the floor boards meet are like cracks in the sidewalk ‘cause I sure don’t want to break anybody’s back, especially not my Mama’s.
       My Daddy leans up against the wall and Gramma’s got her back up like a cat and she’s hissing “…your fault…” at my Daddy. I can tell she’s winding up to give him a piece of her mind so I better save him. I take a running jump at my Daddy and he catches me like always and swings me up high. I hug his neck and whisper “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” right in his ear. He hugs me back right back real tight and I know everything is all right.
      My Daddy slides me around to his back and hooks his arms under my knees and I rest my chin on his shoulder so I can see what’s going on.
      Gramma stands across the room and I can tell she’s real mad. Her mouth is a thin line, her eyes are hard and mean, she vibrates like a guitar string, and it looks like her pin curls might just pop their metal clips at us. “She should be in bed,” she spits out.
     “You sleepy?” I shake my head “no” into my Daddy’s neck, and hang on tight.
      “Let’s go.”
     Gramma sputters now ‘cause she’s not through with us but my Daddy ignores her and grabs an afghan off the sofa on his way out the door. Gramma slams it hard behind us as we cross the yard.
In front of the house, my Daddy tips me through the car window into the front seat, tossing the afghan over my head. Its dark and quiet out here. Me and my daddy are the only people awake in the whole world.
     “Up or down?” he asks and I say “down.”
      “You driving?” and I shake my head, “Not tonight.” He pushes a button and the soft top of car slides away while we glide away from the curb into the night.
     I sit for a while with the afghan covering my feet ‘cause they’re always cold but as we leave town and head toward the highway, I stretch out across the front seat and lay my head in my Daddy’s lap. There’s no crackle from the two-way radio like in the daytime and the regular radio’s playing real soft, rock ‘n roll on WLS out of Chicago, ‘cause all the radio stations around here go off the air at dark.  My Daddy has one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the top of my head. The end of his cigarette glows red in the dark.
      “I can hear you thinking,” he says. “You’ll never fall asleep if you don’t stop. Just watch the stars and go to sleep.” And I try, but it’s real hard and my head is so full of stuff tonight, I probably got a question for every star I see flashing by.
      “What'd you do to make Gramma so mad?”
     “Your grandmother’s always a little bit aggravated at me.” And, boy, is that true! I don’t think Gramma can stand my Daddy. She’s just about the only person who can’t, ‘cause everybody else just loves my Daddy. ‘Course, I’m not sure Gramma can really stand anybody. But that’s not what’s bothering me tonight.
       I’m quiet for a while, listening to the sound of the car on the road and the music on the radio until, finally, I just blurt out “Where’s my Mama? If we’re not getting another baby, where’d she go?”
      My Daddy’s hand reaches across me to turn off the radio. He flicks his cigarette out of the car and, after a while, says, “Your mama’s real tired.” Well, of course she’s tired, it’s the middle of the night. Only me and my Daddy are ever up this time of night.
     “Is she at the house, our house?”
     “No, your mama, she’s gone away to rest – somewhere quiet.” I think about all the noise me and the boys make and I feel real bad. Except Henry David never makes any noise, and Samuel Taylor’s just a baby so the noise he makes doesn’t count, and it’s my fault, my fault, my fault.
     “When’s she coming back? She has to take me school shopping and bake cookies Friday for the end of Vacation Bible School.” There’s lots of stuff only my Mama does and who’s gonna take care of all that stuff if she’s not here?
     “Soon,” he says, “She’ll be back soon. Don’t worry. We’ll get your cookies. Go to sleep now. Go to sleep.”
     We drive on into the night, trees and stars and telephone wires flashing above us. My Mama doesn’t come home for a long time.

Jump Starting Myself

I've found it nearly impossible to write while ill. I've managed to squeak out five hundred or so rather shabby words in the last month. Very depressing. Here is the piece I read at Spike Gillespie's  writers' group back in March. It takes place several years after the first post and is called Which One of My Children Are You?

    She was just back one day when I got home from school. Banging in the front door, I drop my books and head toward the kitchen. It smells like somebody’s been baking and since there isn’t a fire truck out front, I guess it isn’t Granny.
     I’ve got something to brag about for a change because I got a Holy Card for knowing something that Mary Catherine Moynaghan didn’t. I slam around the corner fast as I dare because its burning a hole in my pocket and I don’t want to take the chance of losing it before anybody gets to see it and everybody starts thinking I’m telling whoppers again.
     At the kitchen sink, my mama stands with her back to me. Her hair’s a dark cloud against the white lace of the kitchen curtains. My mama’s home.
     I skid to a stop, then hurl myself at her crying, “Mama!” She sways forward, leans into the counter, and makes a little “oomph” sound like I’ve knocked all the air out of her. I’m holding on real tight around her waist and I can’t hardly breathe for crying’.
     She stiffens just for a second and it feels like she might run away so I hold on tighter and for the first time since she went away I’m crying, really crying, afraid I might make her go away again. I’m hiccupping and I need to blow my nose awful and if I keep this up, I’m going to need that inhaler I traded to Danny Boyle for a banana that wasn’t brown and mushy.
      Mama’s hands move to press my arms away and I’m so afraid I’ll lose her. She loosens my grip a little, turns in the circle of my arms, puts her hands on my head like a blessing and just lets me be.
When she finally speaks, she sounds far away. “I’d forgotten how bright your hair is.” Her voice is very low and scratchier than I remember.
      She lets me cry and hold her, swaying just a little while I sob. She feels so warm and smells just like her closet. After a while, she slips to her knees, presses her forehead against mine and wipes gently at the tears and snot that cover my face.
      This close I can see everything – her skin softer and paler than any doll’s, her big eyes with impossibly long lashes and thumbprint dark shadows and little lines in the corners, and on her right temple, there’s a red mark, like a burn, the size of a quarter that fades into her hair.
      She pulls back a bit, stares at me real hard trying to tame my wild hair a little with her soft hand. Her other hand slips under my chin, tilts my face up a little, and then, her voice still far away, asks me, “Which one? Which one of my children are you?”
      Granny who’s been real still and quiet all this time explodes across the kitchen like a chicken out of a hen house. “Now Margaret, you know this girl. You’ve only got the one. Easy to tell her from the boys. This is DG.”
      Mama’s standing now, swaying a little, but me, I’m still as a statue and hoping I don’t throw up on Granny’s clean kitchen floor. It feels like somebody’s kicked me in the stomach. I can’t breathe. My mama doesn’t know me. My world turns upside down while Granny scoots me to the table, hands me milk and cookies that aren’t store bought or burnt, and flutters around the kitchen muttering.
My mama, wearing a lavender sweater that matches the shadows under her eyes, stands swaying the in the middle of the kitchen.
     Grampa's there too, must have been there the whole time, and I realize that I must have sailed right by him in my excitement to share my good news. He walks toward my mama with his hand out while she says, “Papa,” in a sort of half question.
      “Pegeen,” he says, “Come with me. We’ll sit out on the gallery and I’ll tell you all about this girl. I know all her best secrets.” He winks at me and his voice wraps around her like a blanket. That’s his best voice, the one with music in it, the one he uses for stories, the one he usually saves for me. She takes his hand and they walk out of the kitchen toward the front of the house.
      My cookies are cold and my milk is warm but it doesn’t much matter because I couldn’t swallow them around this lump in my throat anyway.
     “Come dry dishes, you’ll feel better.” Granny commands and climbs up on the milk crate my daddy brought in so she can reach the sink. I don’t understand how drying dishes is going to help me feel better but I hope this is one of the times my grownups are right about something.
     “Got any questions you want to ask, girl?” as she hands me down a dish and a cloth to dry it with.
I am the girl whose mother doesn’t know her name. I have no questions.
      Granny’s still looking at me, waiting for an answer.
      “No, ma’m.”
      Then she’s off her crate and bustling out of the kitchen. “Your mama, she’s just tired. She’ll be herself in a little while. She just needs to rest up, eat some good food, get back to her life. She’ll be fine. You’ll see, she’ll be just fine.”
      I sit down on the milk crate and tell the empty kitchen, “I got a Holy Card today. For being smart and for being quiet about it. You want to see?”

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Here's the first excerpt. Please bear in mind that this is a first draft and still needs a lot of work. I'll post the second half of this piece soon.

Gone

I was five the first time my Mama went away.

Gramma stands in my Mama's place outside St. Cecelia's, squinting in the summer sunlight. She's got the baby, Samuel Taylor, on one hip and my other brother, Henry David, hangs off her other arm. 
"Where's my Mama?" I ask her. "Are we getting another baby? We really need a girl this time."
Gramma doesn't answer, just gets that look all my grown ups get sometimes, then turns and nods toward the black Desoto with the spaceship fins parked part way up on the curb. My Daddy says Grampa doesn't know how to stop unless he runs into something. You can hardly see Grampa's head over the steering wheel.
I love Grampa's car. He calls it Liz or sometimes titsloren which makes my Mama punch him on the arm and say "not in front of her" which means me. It gleams because he washes it everyday and shoe polishes the white walls and inside it's red - my favorite color, even if it clashes with my hair. I need to ask Grampa what "horeouse" means because that what my Daddy says whenever he sees that car. I think maybe he'll let me drive so I run around to his window and lean in. He's already scooting back the seat just enough to squeeze me in.
Gramma puts the baby in the port-a-crib in the backseat. Henry David crawls up in the back window to stretch out. I can't believe he ride like that even when it's this hot but you can't tell him anything. Gramma gets in and slams the door a little harder than you really have to to get it close. Grampa looks at her over the rims of his little round sunglasses but just says "Edith" in his don't voice. I push the D button and off we go.
Grampa gives directions and works the pedals since I can't reach but I do all the really hard work like steering and staying inside the lines and ducking when the deputy rolls by in his patrol car. I tell Grampa when to slow down or go fast which I don't hardly ever and when he needs to start braking. He says, "Good girl!" when I get it right and "Are you sure?" when I don't and never, ever yells at me. Sweat rolls down the back of my legs from the bend in my knees but there's a breeze through the open windows so it's not really like an oven like Gramma says.
We turn right at the last corner which means we're going to the Tastee-Freeze instead of straight home. Now I'm sure its a new baby and I can't wait to tell my Daddy when he gets home. We get out of the DeSoto to eat our ice cream because nobody ever eats anything in Grampa's car and he asks me about Vacation Bible School. Me and Grampa wonder if the Sisters don't get real hot in their get ups. I think they should at least have short sleeved ones for summer or maybe some other color instead of black and Grampa says I ought to tell Mother Superior that. Gramma spills her ice cream on the baby which makes him cry. She says, "Good heavens, Laurence!" and then it's time to go. I let Grampa drive by himself this time so I can sit in the back and hang my head out the window and catch the breeze.
At Gramma's house, Grampa's already set up the wading pool and, after he scoops out the drowned ants, me and Henry David strip down to our underpants and splash all the water out quick as we can. Grampa chases us around the yard with the hose threatening all kinds of stuff we know he'll never do. After he refills the pools, Grampa pulls up his lawn chair, puts his feet in the pool, and they baby between his feet and we all mostly just loll around. We have to be careful not to get Samuel Taylor's face wet or he'll cry and that'll just bring Gramma down on us and then we'll all have to take a nap.
Mostly, I'm hoping that Gramma brought my new dress to wear to the hospital and all the petticoats that go with it and that she remembered to bring ties for the boys even if she things it's silly to put ties on little boys. My Daddy's real particular about how we look when we go out with him and don't ever want to disappoint my Daddy.
When I'm all pruned up, I ask Grampa, "When are we going?"
"Going where?" he replies in his not really paying attention voice, twisting Samuel Taylor's wet hair into curls.
"To the hospital, Grampa!" Sometimes you have to remind him about stuff because his mind just wanders off. Grampa scoops up the baby and scoots real fast across the yard, hollering "Edith" in his come here right now voice. Gramma opens the screen door, wipes her hands on her apron, and says it's time for a nap and that she can't believe he let us run around out there half naked for the whole world to see.
Gramma drags me inside and stands me up on the toilet seat lid to  brush and rebraid my hair while Grampa puts the boys down. She not real careful about the tangles like my Mama is. But Gramma's much better at keeping up with things than Grampa so I ask her, "When are we going to the hospital?"
Gramma stops braiding for just a minute and it gets real quiet. "We're not going to any hospital."
"But who's going to pick out the new baby? If we let my Daddy do it, he'll just get us another boy."
"Good heavens! The things you say! The last thing we need is another baby! That's not where your father is." She's braiding my hair real tight now and jerking my head back a little while she does but she doesn't mean to. Gramma's just excitable.
"Well where are they? We didn't get the maps out. We always get the maps out." They go away a lot, my Mamma and Daddy. We always get the map out so I know where they'll be and can worry about the right stuff like alligators if it's Florida and blizzards if it's Minnesota or earthquakes if it's California or seat cushions that float if it's Havana. And I still worry about that one all the time because not one of the chair cushions I put in the wading pool ever floated, not even for a minute.
Gramma turns me around to face her and tucks some short stray hairs behind my ears where I cut bangs when I shouldn't have. I cut Henry David's hair too and nobody seems to care that somebody's hair has to get cut when you're playing Beauty Parlor and hair just grows right back anyway. Now even the fingernail scissors have to stay in the drawer unless I have a really good reason like paper dolls and a grownup who's looking right at me when they say it is okay.

Welcome to my blog. Here is where I'll be trying out my writing on a new audience - you. I hope you enjoy what I've written and that you'll let me know if you do. I am always interested in hearing from your constructive criticism. I look forward to growing the list of people who read this blog, so, please, invite anyone you think might be interested.