Observation Time

Yesterday.
I sat in a pile of crunchy leaves,
if only for 10 minutes,
to relieve some stress and
sketch a bit.

Today.
I sat in the cafe' with pen in hand
to record that which occurs
whilst we are busy with our own
entrees.

I'd almost forgotten how
sometimes,
 poetry throws a rope around my neck,
relentless,
and won't allow me to do
live
act
breathe
until I encounter it.

Life in language,
life in my breath,
life in poetry.

So,
let it be.

authors and their personal lives.

Something that David and another memoirist named Augusten Borroughs both provoke in my mind is the idea of how writing memoirs affects the author's family. David wrote about this, describing how his family sort of walks on eggshells around him, avoiding any negative experiences that may be hyperbolized and later recorded in a memoir. Augusten has written many memoirs about particular family members and his childhood and the negative influences of both in his life.

I can only shiver to think of how my mom would react if I ever dared to publish some of the things she's said or done to me.

These men must be very brave; to blatantly write about such personal matters as their comings-of-age, their identity issues concerning their sexualities, and the people who rotate in their lives like the planets around the sun.

Maybe I'll be that brave one day.

Sorry, but that is all for today.

Much love to you all, dear, courageous ones.

favourite things...

A list.

writing like the British.

proper grammar.

laughing so hard i cry.

'hot' dates.

finding peace & contentment in what i read.

feeling infinite.

coffee & reading on a rainy day.

folding clothes.

pumpkin spice anything.

sweaters & skirts.

puffy dresses.

making people smile.

all food, but not mushrooms.

finding goodies in unexpected places.

small, extremely puffy animals.

& being reminded of the good in life when it gets you down.

make a list of your own; you'll be glad you did. :)

Honestly, after reading many of the stories we've read for class, I just feel so... down. I can appreciate them, but sometimes I need to be uplifted! Last week, I simply felt too weighed down by things in life to read about anyone else's problems and traumas, as terrible as that sounds, and this week, I felt glimpses of the same thing. 

Question: Does anyone who publishes creative non-fiction have any good life experiences?

I've never seen myself as a person who needs literature to be uplifting or have strong, positive moral content, but I suppose that this week, I've just needed to be reminded that life isn't completely meaningless (especially since I've started an Ecclesiastes Bible study with my boyfriend last week!). 

Maybe some of this stems from the fact that I used to be an existentialist, and I need some reminders that there is some good in life. Mayhap some of you could post a couple of your favorite things in the comment box? That would be lovely.

On another note, The Coffee House in Lincoln is a wonderful place to do some thought provoking. Especially with a latte' in hand. :)

Much love to you all.

mr. bun bun, chocolate chip cookie dough, and cinderella.

My thoughts have been occupied as of late by an idea that has formed after observing young men and women's coping maneuvers with grief:

do we cope in certain ways because that is how we coped as a young child?

For example: a lovely friend of mine watches Disney movies whenever grief or stress arises.

Note: this friend is a young man.

Another: a friend of mine spent the entire weekend holding her teddy bear close to her bosom, even when going out for a nightly meal of a Dairy Queen Blizzard in her pajamas and slippers.

And yet another: a young lady cries as much as she needs to, coddling herself with chocolates and nap time, never ceasing to curl up in a blanket and watch Cinderella rather than doing homework.

Note: the lattest is yours truly.

Still, writing is my primary coping mechanism, but only after much training to force myself to choose this method rather than something more scarring.

No pun intended.

I don't believe there's anything wrong with running to Target to buy a familiar ice cream flavor or curling up with a tearjerker that you already know all the sappiest lines to. Coping is necessary, more necessary than many would like to believe. 

As is rest. Some, including myself, may see rest as a weakness or a waste of time. But really, it's a necessity that later allows for the week to be conquered with more vigor, and, once in a while, more calories. :)

“Dottie, you need to learn to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else.”—ex-boyfriend number four

If I have learned anything this week, it's that we all need to rest, no matter what form that takes. However, I encourage the "Midnight Truffle" Blizzard and Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which comes out of the Disney vault tomorrow anyway.

And while you're at it, take a nap, goshdarnit. 

On Creative NonFiction...

As of lately, I have developed a writing habit. I have never been a committed journaler, as I lack commitment to doing things daily: I suck at reading my Bible each day (though I most definitely should), taking vitamins, and calling or contacting my parents somehow.

Still, I have had the greatest pleasure in writing as of late. My large project has required me to lock myself in my room, sit at my desk with a pot of coffee, put my iPod on repeat of the same song, and write for two hours straight. My process has required me to immerse myself in a memory, plunging me into some of my darkest moments headfirst and reliving them all over again. Still, I never would have guessed how much I would heal in this process.

For some reason, I, as I'm sure many people do, cling to the worst mistakes I make, never quite allowing myself the sufficient grace to forgive myself. Punish, punish, punish. However, I have also seen that I could make a habit out of doing this to others, not allowing me to love and forgive them for mistakes they have made in the past.

(I learned this after writing about my mom.)

It's time to let it go, I've decided.

So when I finish this piece of (sometimes very) creative nonfiction, I will have unclenched my fist and let all of it leave me, ahold of grudges and regret no more.

If you haven't pursued writing about your hardest times, I would encourage you to do it. It's amazing what a little hindsight and a lot of coffee and Gospel can do.

Not to mention music.

I can't wait to hear all of your pieces, dear ones.

Small memoir on a memoir about memoirs.

Today, I read our readings for class. I had a very rough night last night, so when I awoke today, I desired nothing more than to do some mindless reading to fill up my afternoon.

Note to self; don't pick up creative nonfiction homework when you have days like these.

What we have this week, folks, is a vignette about writing memoir and a vignette about a poor young woman learning the truth about her parents. Both are painful to read in their own ways. I hate to say that I enjoyed Kelly Grey's essay more than the other, but it is safe to say that I did.

Maybe this is why: for me, when I am reading about a particular genre of writing that I don't know how to write very well (or when learning to do just about anything) I find it easier to understand when the explanation that is given is not bogged down with metaphor and so much reasoning. This is the biggest problem I had when reading "The Nonfictionist's Guide." For as much as I love metaphor and using metaphor to express feelings and concepts that ordinary explanations cannot achieve, I don't appreciate it being used in situations when I am attempting to learn something concrete.

(Unless perhaps you're Jesus, telling parables about salvation to those in the dark. But that is DEFINITELY different.) :)

I had another run-in with this situation in my Education 424 class, in which I was instructed to read passages in my textbook about particular metaphors describing what teaching is like and then forming my own teaching metaphor. As fun and warm-fuzzylike as this exercise may be, I do not see anything concrete in describing your classroom as a kitchen in which you know each of your spices well enough to know which works well together with which.

I did enjoy the pieces in the end, and I always enjoy finding ways that the pieces we read tie together. For example: last week's readings were about pain in very different places. This week, I see how the past can effect us.

[I must admit: I liked the author's metaphor for how our past effects us as a lighthouse, with us walking up the staircase and seeing it from a different vantage point constantly.]

Maybe one day, I will write a memoir. I'd be kind of nervous that my mom would have a similar reaction as the author's father did to his-- like I was raging some personal vendetta against her (assuming I would write about the pain I felt growing up a la Augusten Burroughs' "A Wolf at the Table"). She's just like that sometimes. I feel like I still have a lot of condensing and decompressing to do before I can write said memoir, also known as "getting my shit together."

Until then, I'll keep blogging. Maybe you'll keep reading.

Ms. Bliss.

Dear Eula,

I understand.

Sincerely yours,
Dottie.

Except not really;

"But I am comforted, oddly, by the possibility that you cannot compare my pain to yours. And, for that reason, cannot prove it insignificant."-- p. 39.

Eula, can I at least say that "I feel you?"

Whilst reading this passage, I possibly annotated its fourteen pages more than I have entire books: underlining, starring, bracketing, little quips and sighs. I was swept into this passage as if taken in by a tornado. I could feel myself swirling around in the author's world, pain and purpose being the eye of its storm.

And so there I sat in the library, pouring over this creative nonfiction Gospel lesson. And then, who should walk in but my past, clothed in the same pain and hurt that Eula had just spoken about, mostly in this passage:

"Imagination is treacherous. It erases distant continents, it builds a Hell so real that the ceiling is vulnerable to collapse."-- p. 37.

I was frozen solid. I opened my mouth to speak and felt my words had shrunk in size and in meaning. I laid them on the table in front of me as if in an attempt to sort them out before my past.

My past does nothing but smile at me. Though it is often painful and more often forgotten, it has its days where it sits in my line of vision, allowing nothing to pass but my grievous thoughts.

"I cannot ask [my body] to remember not feeling pain it foes feel. I have found that I can ask my body to imagine the pain it feels as something else. For example, with some effort I can imagine the sensation of pain as heat." -- p. 37.

Or in my case, imagining my past as something I cannot be made accountable for.

So I sat at that library table with my past so effervescently leaning against a nearby bookshelf. He smiled. Then laughed. Then whispered. Then left.

And I, with this book in my hands, sobbed into it with my own suffering.

"I would happily cut off a finger at this point if I could trade the pain of that cut for the endless pain I have now." --p. 37. (by now a good page.)

I feel the same way as Eula when she states, "I struggle to consider my pain in proportion to the pain of a napalmed Vietnamese girl whose skin is slowly melting off as she walks naked in the sun. The exercise is painful." --p. 33. I hate that my day can be ruled by what I'm sure seems trivial on the outside to an innocent bystander.

"Who is she? Why is she just sitting in the library window, sobbing over her book, at 10 a.m.?"

But it's like I said; though we as human beings are all connected by having the feelings of pain at one time or another, we cannot possibly begin to compare our pains to others'. It can only cause more pain in many situations.

We must at simply try to build an understanding through patience, trust, and love. And for the hurting: several boxes of tissues, a pen, and paper.

Dear Eula,

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,
Dottie

Baggage.

Everyone has baggage, right? That's an old cliche' that's supposed to be true for every person on the planet, especially for writers. More especially, for female writers. Especially, especially, and more especially, for college-age, female writers.

(I could go on to describe how listening to music such as The Cure and having a history of dating nothing but jackasses causes me to become an even more true case of having baggage, but I won't.)

So, yeah; I have baggage. I don't deal with it as well as some people do. I can't just have a good cry and be done with it. Ice Cream Therapy isn't a lasting cure for me.

Personally, I have to write to git 'r done.

Condense everything that seems too big to deal with; restrain it, wrestle with it, forcing it to be restricted to a few, simple words. Once it's tied down to a few words on a page, then it is controlled, and then I can breathe.

As you can tell from both of my posts, I take writing as a serious process. Seldom can I write heartlessly, for I see it as a much bigger ordeal. For me, writing can express more than a greeting to a friend. Think of how you feel when you receive a hand-written letter in the mail. Was your day just made? Thought so. Maybe your favorite professor scribbled a little note at the end of your 15-page paper saying nothing but the two little words, 'great job.' Those two little words just reinstated you as a decent human being, right? I know. Believe me, I know.

Write with purpose, dear friends. You never know whose day you'll make. Or whose baggage you'll dilute.

When I least expect it...

Sometimes, writing can do nothing but choke someone. It's as if your whole body cannot, will not breathe unless some words are put on the page. At least that's how I feel. Because when inspiration strikes, whether it's a word, a phrase, a character, it has to escape.

Your fingers sort of tremble a little as your pencil is weighed down with so much to say. Your jaw clenches as every fiber of your mind restrains in attempt to focus everything through that small pencil lead.

I wonder if this is normal. Maybe I just have seizures from time to time.