Category Archives: shapes

reasons to live

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15 stories in this slim volume from Amy Hempel published in 1985. Only 3 of the 15 written in third; the rest, in first.

My clear favorite is the first-person story “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried.” It’s nicely developed and goes deeper than a lot of the others in this collection. [spoiler alert]

One of the interesting things about this story, which is divided into 20 short sections, is the way Hempel uses white space–as in, not the same way throughout the story.

The first 16 sections of “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” are basically one visit of the Narrator to her friend in the hospital. As the story progresses, the visit progresses as well. It all moves forward except section 2, when time seems to stand still as the Narrator steps back from the scene to describe it, and sections 8-10, when the Narrator reminisces at the beach. In sections 1-16, Hempel uses white space stylistically–to highlight moments.

Between sections 16 and 17, the white space denotes a space and time jump. Section 17 begins:

“On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried…”

Then in sections 17-20, Hempel is again using white space stylistically but this time to highlight thoughts. These sections exist in the place and time after the friend dies.

Using white space inconsistently adds to the random, floaty feel of this story that is actually organized in a linear sequence (granted sections 17-20 could be in random order rather than moving forward chronologically, but that seems unlikely given the rest of the story).

Another interesting thing–in the first scene, the Narrator has 2 lines; in the second scene (section 3) the Narrator has 1 line; in the third, 0 lines. The fact that the Narrator does not say much, despite the abundance of scenes, contributes to a feeling that the Narrator is not fully present in the hospital room.

Finally, Hempel uses 4 tenses in this 12-page story. Perhaps to show our split consciousness, where we are when we’re not fully present–thinking about the past, imagining the future, the conditional what-ifs.

All this, and we haven’t even begun to talk about what the story is about…

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writing retreat

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My writing group is meeting in the Napa Valley this weekend to write.

Usually we meet to read and critique each other’s work.

On our breaks we take the waters or a mud bath or a culinary excursion to Mustard’s, Greystone, or Ad Hoc.

I am encouraged by the little frog outside who stops croaking if I open my door and from the shapes and colors inside and out.

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waiting for me

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DSC00191This leaf, propped up like it is here on its stem and all by itself, was waiting for me when I opened the front door yesterday morning. Do you think it thought I wasn’t noticing?

I moved it for a moment over by the pumpkinDSC00189…

Then I brought it inside where I showed it to everyone.

“The Lesson of the Falling Leaves” by Lucille Clifton

I give

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I wanted to do a post today. Usually I post much earlier. This is my fourth try.

 

 

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Each time--writing about a book, about my writing process (ok, obsessed), and even about a single picture I had taken on Tuesday--I was not happy with what I was doing.

 

 

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I kept wanting to include not one but three pictures. Just a minute ago, I interrupted my last attempt to post so I could accompany my 16-year-old to the door. He was leaving for a late basketball practice.

 

 

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As I shut the door, I saw the last light of day caught in this dogwood tree. And I thought, I give, as I went in search of my camera.

 

a practice

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IMG_2557 I was planning on doing a post on that need to write but then had the opportunity to write a Guest Writer article on the subject for The View From Here Magazine. It is online today with the print issue coming out November 6th, I believe. Here’s the first paragraph:

For six years, I was a lawyer. I went to law school; I passed the bar exam; I was sworn in, and I paid my licensing dues. Et voila. It fits, doesn’t it?
Far more difficult to know if you’re a writer.
There’s the obvious, “You’re a writer if you write.” But that’s like saying you’re a cook if you cook. When I was in law school, I heard over and over again, “You have to learn to think like a lawyer.” But that doesn’t work here either. What defines a writer is not “thinking.”

read more…

making order

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IMG_1962In Mary Gaitskill‘s story collection, Don’t Cry, is a story entitled, “Mirror Ball.” It’s one of my four favorites in the collection and is described on the book jacket as an “urban fairy tale” in which “a young man steals a girl’s soul during a one-night stand.”

I don’t generally like stories that involve the surreal, but from the first page,  the language of this story is so alluring that I was able to keep an open mind.

“…the anonymous little haunts where songs were still alive and moving in the murky darkness,…”

The words just kept twirling me on down the river of the story…

“It was a cold fall night with a feeling of secret pockets and moving shadows.”

…until I was caught in the current.

“Music temporarily filled the empty space, soothing her and giving shape to the feelings she could not understand.”

My favorite passage of all is so full of concrete images that it almost seems to move this way and then that:

IMG_1964“In daily life, his emotions were chaos. He let himself become a vessel for them, letting feeling roar through him, pulling him around like a kite, boiling him like water in a kettle, dissolving him in a whirl of elements. Except that normally he could go into his studio and make order. He could make songs that were satisfying containers, for the kite, for the kettle, the whirl of elements–he could put each in its place. The things he was feeling now did not fit into the songs he was used to making.”

What a fantastic paragraph. It contains so many images and ideas. Every time I read it, I want to read it over again. Except that for all the rich images, the idea I keep coming bacIMG_2488k to is using containers to make order.

Growing up, when I would approach the front door with my arms full of eleven different things, my mother would always be right there with a tote bag. “Here,” she would say. “Put everything in here.”

Containers keep us from spilling out all over the place. They make order out of disorder. Here, the character poured his emotions into songs. Matisse used paintings. I empty myself into words on a page. I’m also reminded of this passage from Toni Morrison’s Beloved:

“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”

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a kind of fugue

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Polly Thayer's portrait of May Sarton owned by the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University

“There is nothing to be done but go ahead with life moment by moment and hour by hour–put out birdseed, tidy the rooms, try to create order and peace around me even if I cannot achieve it inside me.” May Sarton.

As the last days of summer float by, I’m thinking about reclaiming control of my days. I want to read more and write more, lose fewer hours to Twitter and Facebook, the internet in general.

Social networking does have a place. It helps me stay current with the latest articles on writing and books. It helps me feel connected to the writing community. And it’s a way to let others know what I’m doing. As Lori A. May pointed out in a recent post I discovered on Twitter, “For a writer, it’s not only about writing.”

“I am in a limbo that needs to be patterned from within….this problem of ordering a day that has no pattern imposed on it from without.” Again May Sarton.

Last week a friend and I were brainstorming about how to order our days. First we made a list of deadlines and everything we wanted and needed to do. Then we made daily, less-than-daily-and-more-than-weekly, and weekly lists. Finally we talked about what shape we wanted the mornings, afternoons, and evenings to take.

“That was what I was after–a daily rhythm, a kind of fugue of poetry, gardening, sleeping and waking in the house.” Yes, May Sarton.

Lori May eschews the word schedule as antithetical to writing. She refers, instead, to a plan of attack. I like that. I also like fugue for its sense of interweaving of parts, for its writerly rhythm. So yes, I am working on a plan of attack, in order to create my daily rhythm–a kind of fugue of reading, writing, blogging, connecting, and living.

Eleanor Marie Sarton was born in Belgium in 1912. All of her quotes in this post can be found in  Journal of a Solitude, published in 1973.

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how we got here from there

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IMG_2110I don’t write memoir. But I like the way Abigail Thomas writes, the way she tells the truth. “My truth doesn’t travel in a straight line, it zigzags, detours, doubles back. Most truths I have to learn over and over again.”

I got hooked on the truth in her fiction first, Getting Over Tom, An Actual Life, and Herb’s Pajamas–the last two are little hardback squares. I loved Safekeeping, her first memoir. Its short sections are a concrete example of her life zigzagging and doubling back, the many truths of herself.

Thinking About Memoir is another little book. A rectangle instead of a square. Thomas writes, IMG_2175“Memories survive on a wisp of a fragrance, or a particular shade of blue…” Then a phrase you’re probably sick of me using, but oh, then I really knew I was in: “This is… about letting one thing lead to another. Follow the details.” She concludes the two-page preface with this,”Memoir is the story of how we got here from there.”  And this story is fascinating whether you write fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or memoir.IMG_2172

She writes, “Be sure to include what you can’t make fit neatly into your idea of yourself, or whatever it is that ruffles the smooth surface of your life story.” This may be the most important thing I’m taking from this book at this moment. Nothing is supposed to be perfect. Let the messy real show through.

The only book of hers I have not read is Three Dog Life, a memoir of her husband’s brain injury. In an article published on June 20, 2009, Marion Winik recounts a moment in that book where  Thomas writes about being accused of “stealing a memory.” “Is memory property?” Abigail Thomas asks. “If two people remember something differently, is one of them wrong?”

IMG_2174And here in this book she adds, “Memory seems to be an independent creature inspired by event, not faithful to it…” I can just imagine this little creature up in my brain somewhere, in a little cave with a kodak instamatic and a pen and a pencil, maybe some file cabinets, doing the best he can to keep track of everything, and interrupted yet again as I get a whiff of  something sweet. His long, floppy ears perk up, and off he goes, scurrying around, eventually delivering summer camp in Vermont, walking to the stables.

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are we losing our senses

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In January, I went to lunch with a friend. She asked what my “coolest” Christmas gift was.

“My son gave me two Wilco CDs,” I said.

“Which ones?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just put them on my ipod.”

Are we losing our senses? Is the feel of life slipping away? Maybe even the sight and smell. Although taste and hearing appear to be safe for the moment.

Do you remember the cover of “Tapestry”? Carol King in jeans one knee up as she sat on the window seat with her cat.  The brick wall behind Neil Young on “After the Gold Rush”? The orange unicorn on the cover of The Catcher in the Rye?

Don’t get me wrong. The electronic revolution is doing a lot of good. My entire music collection is safe on my ipod—shelves and shelves boiled down tIMG_2140o a rectangle two inches by four. With my Kindle, I can be reading a book in seconds and take a gazillion books with me in my purse. These are good things.

“Well, what did the CDs look like?” my friend asked.

“I don’t know,” I said again. “One was white, I think.”

If we don’t need books anymore, we won’t need bookmarks. Will book stores go the way of record stores? No more cover art?

But there’s cover flow, you say. True enough.

IMG_2132No more breaking in a spine. No more face-down. No more cutting the corner off the book jacket to hide the price. “Thumbing through a book” will take its place alongside “rolling up your car window.”

I’m not saying we’re not living in a world of progress. We’ll be saving trees and creating less waste.

When I got home from lunch that day, I dug through my drawers of CDs until I found the two new ones. The one I remembered as white was actually grey with a broken egg shell on it. “A Ghost is Born.” The other one had a single bird, an eagle maybe, flying on a white sky—“Sky Blue Sky.”

My favorite alIMG_2144bum covers hang in frames on my wall. Do you think…? Surely not. But just in case, we should try to remember the details. So we can tell our great-grandchildren. A book was heavy in our hands, we’ll say. The paper and ink together smelled like a new book. No, that won’t work anymore.

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