Photo by Zippy 10.12.16
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
~ T. S. Eliot
.
So the darkness shall be the light
quotations
What it means to be an artist
To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.
~ Akira Kurosawa
Yes, I absolutely agree with Mr. Kurosawa. Art calls for the unflinching truth. However, sometime’s I’m with Zoey and just want to avert my gaze. Sometimes it’s just too damned much to process.
.
Friends in the dark
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
~ Helen Keller
Note: There’s no penalty for holding hands in this darkness.
.
MLK: The original “Bernie Bro”
Update 1.17.17: Silly me, I thought my intent was clear yesterday, but neither Zippy nor Zebu understood that I meant this post in a positive way (both for MLK and Bernie Sanders), as in “Look! It’s a man of color speaking about economic inequality, despite the prevailing ‘liberal’ wisdom that only ‘one-note Bernie’ and his young white male supporters believe this issue is of utmost importance.”
Going off road
Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.
~ Janis Ian
.
About everything
Fiction is too beautiful to be about just one thing. It should be about everything.
~ Arundhati Roy
I absolutely agree with Ms. Roy. Fiction should include the smooth, the rough, the soft, the sharp, the bright, the dull, the everything. Right now, however, I’m struggling with a bit of overwhelm in regards to the EVERYTHING I’m contemplating for this current project.
The good news is that I’ve (temporarily, at least) eluded my panic, and am whittling away at one piece of EVERYTHING that I hope belongs in the story. If it turns out this piece doesn’t belong, I will still have learned something.
Disclosure: That mature sentiment will fade if this project turns into one long-ass process of elimination.
.
Best tool in the box
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
~ Mark Twain
.
Gump philosophy
Life may, indeed, be like a box of chocolates. The chocolates in this Belgian sampler were certainly full of surprises.
All that remains from Zebu’s gift to us from his travels in Belgium.
Yum, chocolate curry.
.
Carrie Fisher: A mother of nature
I’ve been offline most of the day and checked in to discover Carrie Fisher has died. It’s hard to comprehend. She seemed indestructible. Tiny and fierce. A forever force of nature.
I remember reading POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE the first time. I remember thinking that Carrie Fisher was hilarious, yes, but also incredibly insightful about what it means to be human. She was so damned smart and brave. And generous. She went to her dark places and brought that scariness out into the light as a gift to us. Her writing, tweets, and interviews were a constant reminder that none of us is alone on this spinning ball, and that since we’re in this thing together, we might as well share laughter along the way.
This is the copy Zippy bought for me to replace the one he accidentally dropped in a lake while on vacation.
There’s lots of gold in the book’s “postcards” written by character Suzanne Vale, but this portion from the Epilogue speaks to me now:
[…I still don’t think I feel the way I perceive other people to feel. I don’t know if the problem lies in my perception or my comfort. Either way I come out fighting, wrestling with my nature, as it were. And golly, what a mother of nature it is. Sometimes, though, I’ll be driving, listening to loud music with the day spreading out all over, and I’ll feel something so big and great—a feeling as loud as the music. It’s as though my skin is the only thing that keeps me from going everywhere all at once. …]
Happy New Year,
Suzanne
Carrie Fisher lived a life big and bold, and I’m glad her skin kept her here with us as long as it did. Wherever you are now, Carrie, I hope there’s nonstop loud music and feelings so big and great. You were one helluva writer and human being. Rest in peace.
.
Ting-a-ling!
A bum on a cot next to Trout’s at the shelter wished him a Merry Christmas.
Trout replied, “Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!”
~ From TIMEQUAKE by Kurt Vonnegut.
Kurt Vonnegut gets my vote for all-time best humanist, and Ting-a-ling! gets my vote for best response to these frightening and infuriating times.
Ting-a-ling!, everyone.
.
No blue without yellow
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.
~ Vincent Van Gogh
Injecting a splash of color and Goldfinch-y goodness into this late-December morning. We’ve got sunshine today, but are sadly lacking in vibrant color.
And oddly enough, Mr. Van Gogh, the yellow’s making me feel less blue.
.
Thankful Thursday: The Encouragement Edition
Al Jolson once said, “A responsive audience is the best encouragement an actor can have.” Well, the same goes for writers. This morning I received an email from a writing friend that was not only incredibly generous, but also kind and encouraging. Her words have buoyed me all day, and I believe they’ll keep me afloat for quite some time.
I’m hoping I get the chance to do the same for someone else very soon.
.
Gimme more daylight
Got a text from Zebu this morning (my time). It was already long-dark where he is in Sweden. He wrote: “Happy Solstice, Mom. This year I definitely understand your appreciation for today. We’ve bottomed out!”
Zebu has finally seen the light (sorrynotsorry!). He now fully accepts what I’ve been yammering about forever: the Winter Solstice is the best thing happening this time of year!
.
Maybe I wanna do both
Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
~ Terry Pratchett
I realize that tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, but today also feels pretty damned short.
.
One hawk, two thoughts
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
~ Salvador Dali
Cooper’s Hawk. Photo by Zippy.
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent.
What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice,
necessity and importance of political and social rights.
~ B. R. Ambedkar
.
This is a first
We have about nine inches of snow on the deck railing which, in the past, would have resulted in a nine-inch muffin top on the patio table. Not this time (as Lucille Bluth might say). For whatever reason, the wrought iron surface acted as a sifter; snow fell through the holes and only piled up along the seams.
The snow looks a bit like fancy icing on a big round sheet cake. However, it’s much too cold to go outside for a taste. It’s currently 7 degrees.
.
Kidder and Fitzgerald for the assist
I just read GOOD PROSE: THE ART OF NONFICTION by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd. As the cover says, it is “Stories and advice from a lifetime of writing and editing.” I highly recommend this wise and funny book.
There are many gems scattered throughout (and not just for nonfiction writers, but anyone who loves playing with words), and one has been in the front of my brain since reading it:
I remember in college reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel The Last Tycoon and studying a note that he left in the manuscript: “Rewrite from mood. Has become stilted with rewriting. Don’t look — rewrite from mood.” I reread those lines so often, trying to understand them, that they stuck in my memory. Fitzgerald knew that there are at least two kinds of rewriting. The first is trying to fix what you’ve already written, but doing this can keep you from facing up to the second kind, from figuring out the essential thing you’re trying to do and looking for better ways to tell your story. If Fitzgerald had been advising a young writer and not himself, he might have said, “Rewrite from principle,” or “Don’t just push the same old stuff around. Throw it away and start over.”
I’m getting close to The End (of this draft) of my YA project, and very much appreciate Mr. Kidder sharing Mr. Fitzgerald’s wisdom with me. Maybe it will reach someone else who needs it now.
.
Saved by the birds
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
~ Albert Einstein
Great Egret at Kapok Park, October 2016
.
Truth
You can’t try to be authentic. You either are or you aren’t.
~ Oscar Isaac
#subpost #wordpresscommunity
I’ll leave it at that.
.
The best and most beautiful things
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
~ Helen Keller
As per my last late-night post, yesterday we were evacuated due to a fire in the open space near our home. We hadn’t experienced that before. The only other time there was a big fire, we were out of town. (Our former neighbors took it upon themselves to come in the house to collect a crate full of framed wedding and family photos. They also put a sprinkler on top of our shake-shingle roof. Good neighbors.)
So last night as we watched the fire out our windows, we had to start thinking about what we should take in case of evacuation. Zippy and I believed it would be easy to grab the basics (the animals and the same framed photos plus passports, social security cards, etc and a few clothes) and get out. But by the time we received the automated call telling us to get out, we’d amassed more than that.
I gained some insights into my personal world view.
- Jog bras (Bra shopping is a horrible experience, and I’d be damned if I have to go through that again)
- An entire box of project notebooks and journals, including those containing quotes from young Wildebeest and Zebu plus one from my three weeks spent with Marilynne Robinson at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
- Every single photo album
- Binder filled with negatives
- Gratitude journal (that I’ve been actively resenting and willfully neglecting for the past couple months)
- New container of raw cashews
- New bottles of nutritional supplements
- New bottle of tequila
- Huge suitcase of family-of-origin photos recently brought back from Mom in Florida
- Laptop, current fiction project notebook, current nonfiction project notebook
- Camera and lenses
- Binoculars, bird books, birding notebook woefully out of date re sightings
- Medical records for Zippy, Wildebeest, Zebu, and myself
That list makes it seem as if I brought every single thing I owned. Not true. All sorts of stuff was left behind. Objects that caught my eye as I passed through rooms, shuttling stuff to the cars.
- My brother’s gorgeous painting of a Jesus lizard walking on water.
- The denim jacket that first belonged to Zippy’s sheep rancher grandfather and was passed down to Zippy’s father (Stu) and now Zippy.
- Stu’s hat that became mine after he died last February because I’m the only one in the family with a head small enough to fit.
- The metal rooster that sits on top of our piano in honor of friend Michelle Begley who died in January 2015, and which also serves as mascot for the monthly Writing Roosters critique group gatherings.
- Books, many of them signed by the authors.
- The ceramic penguin doing a power salute (and showing off underarm hair) made for me by Wildebeest in high school.
- Zebu’s sticker-bedecked water bottle that’s been at his place at the dining room table since he left for Sweden in August.
- The poseable Batman featured in many blog posts over the years.
- An enormous plastic bin filled with photos that have been put in chronological order, but have not yet made it into albums.
But my decisions are a moot point. The fire was extinguished and we’re back in our house with all our stuff. Or, as George Carlin would say, all our shit.
.
Wearing the shriveled skin of the ordinary
When the shriveled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning,
it satisfies the senses amazingly.
~ Virginia Woolf
My senses are doing all right today, I guess.
Not what I’d call amazingly satisfied, but well enough.
I’ll gaze on those old rose hips a little longer.
Happy Thanksgiving to friends in the U.S.!
.
I want to be alone
Just got home from spending the afternoon with my in-laws.
I love them very much.
And I’m exhausted.
Time to refill this introvert’s well.
.
Co-sign
What a waste it is to lose one’s mind.
Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful.
How true that is.
~ Dan Quayle
.
Don’t fear resistance
I received texts from family and friends after the election, asking how I was coping with the world’s new Agent Orange reality. I replied, in part, that there was still hope for the future if, out of this debacle, the Democratic party reassessed and became a true party of resistance.
And while the establishment Dems who pushed so hard for a Clinton candidacy are still deeply in denial regarding last week’s beat-down, there are glimmers of hope. People on my Twitter feed who have never, to my knowledge, tweeted anything remotely political or activist, are now engaged in the democratic process. They’re calling their representatives. They’re adding those representatives’ phone numbers to their contact lists. They’re writing letters, signing petitions, and asking others to do the same.
They’re taking to the streets and pushing back.
We have Donald Trump’s ugly authoritarian character to thank for that, and while that might not feel like much right now, it’s a legitimate silver lining.
Image found on Morguefile.com without any identifying info, so if you’re fortunate enough to happen upon this sculpture, please let me know where it is.
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance. ~ Thomas Paine
.
Wings of a dove
Imprint after Mourning Dove hit the window (click to enlarge). Never saw the bird after that, so I believe it recovered and flew away. We have since applied window alert stickers to prevent further collisions.
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
~ Leonardo da Vinci
.
Tracy Abell 