Friday, June 22, 2012

Writing and Not Writing


Lately I have been living through an experience that many have lived through before me; the decline of a beloved parent. I’ve been so occupied with this and with proving to an array of institutions that I can handle his finances in a faithful and trustworthy way, that I haven’t had much time to really think beyond my tears and my nerves much less write. Dad had a really good day yesterday. First one in ten days. This morning I woke up after a thankfully, and desperately needed, good night’s sleep to my mind having a moment of relative peace. I picked up my toothbrush to brush my teeth and found somehow that I looked into an inner mirror at myself and all these wonderful published writers that I admire and envy; their thoughts on writing and what made it work for them, and there I was. All that I am and am not. I am not famous. I do not live to write. I write to live. But I am not a work-a-holic. I am not really above average in any stretch of an imagination. I just love to write.
Between the marketing, the worrying, the not being perfect, the social networking, the trying to write in an “interesting” way, I got lost. Not lost out in the world. Lost in myself and my worries. I lost the love of the story. I lost the joy of finding a new piece to the puzzle of my story. I lost the love of putting words on paper and not worrying how good or bad or boring they are to anyone but me. I lost writing for myself and my peace of mind.
I love puzzles of many different kinds, mysteries, Sudoku, word searches, crossword; the human psyche. Part of what I love about writing is the puzzle of it, just like life, really. How do I get from point A to point B and then C? How do I complete the puzzle that is me? The fear of the unknown, of what comes after life is present right now when I look in my father’s eyes and see his need to be reassured and loved. What a massive puzzle that one is, the great unsolvable one, death and what comes next, if anything.
My dad asked me if I believed in God. I told him yes, I believe in Spirit. I don’t know if I believe in a man-like figure sitting up on a great throne somewhere in the sky, but I believe in Spirit and our connection to it and our world/universe. I don’t know if I helped him with my answer in any way, but he seemed satisfied for the moment.
Life is what I have now. Writing is what helps keep me “me.” I am blessed I can write. I am blessed to be here with my father in this time of his life and mine. I am blessed by the many challenges and joys life is offering to me right now. I will do my best to live up to all of these blessings. I am tired of my fear of failure. No one said this path of words would be smooth and straight with no uphill grades. After all, I am alive; I have written five novels so far.  I guess it’s time to forget what I might or not leave behind me when my turn comes to go. I guess all I need to do is live, and write. What comes next, well, that’s the next piece of the puzzle to find, isn’t it?

Image from:
lovelywhatevers.blogspot.com

Sunday, June 17, 2012

On Fathers Day: Of Holding On and Letting Go



My father has taken a downward turn in his long and diligent fight against the Parkinson’s Disease that is destroying his body and mind. I had planned on coming up to NC next week to visit him, but when my sister called and explained to me what had happened with him, my husband and I decided it was better to come right away, just in case.
At the same time, my daughter is also battling maladies that are crimping her life and giving her a debt problem in spite of our insurance. I am stretched between these two people that I love. They both seem to have a great need of me right now.
But do they? Does my daughter really need “saving”? Is she in a life threatening situation? Yes, my father is, but it is one that is more or less known and there is a sense of inevitability about his predicament. His is one we will all face sooner or later. My daughter, on the other hand, in my opinion has subconsciously created her situation out of her inability to realize the reasons for her stress levels much less how to fix them. I feel she is using the only means she knows at the moment to try and exert some control over her life, of which, it seems, she feels she has none. I think she can fix her situation fairly easily if she will sit down with her beau and talk it over. I mean really talk and explore those sometimes sticky emotional places in a relationship that need attention, in spite of what one wants to think about one’s own capabilities.
And then there is my father. I look at him, at his blue, blue eyes looking back at me with love and need. With desire to connect. He is still here and I hate thinking about how frail he is, and how aware of that frailty he has now become. I see him accepting his fate. Realizing his body is failing him and there is nothing he can do about it. What good is it to look back on a life and say it was a good one when you aren’t ready to give it up? When something outside your mind is saying you have no choice in the matter? He said yesterday, "I just want one more plug and I don't think I'm going to get it." One more cast, one more fish. That's all he wants. My tears are ready, lurking in the back of my eyes waiting for release and I don’t want to allow them that right. I want to continue as I have in the past, knowing the end is coming but not yet, so I don’t have to think about it. I am comfortable with the numbness in which I can function, until I hold his taut, frail thin frame in my arms. I see his melancholy smile, I see the lack of fight in his eyes and part of me wants to anger him, bring back his fighting spirit while at the same time I want to cradle him in my arms and make everything all right for him again.

I need to let my daughter go. I need to watch her fly on her own wings and see her launch into her life and love and lessons. This is easy to do and yet so very hard as well. I love her so much it hurts sometimes. The loving her and the letting go of her both feel right and uplifting. She is beautiful and strong and yet has so much to learn about that strength and beauty and how to use and grow it in her future. How to learn to appreciate what she has and who she is: how to nurture others, to be a good person, to thrive and live her dreams.
I need to hang on to my father. I need it for myself and he needs it because he doesn’t want to be alone. He needs me and my sister and Clarence and my mother and all those who love him so he can walk this new road with the knowledge of, and trust in, our love for him.
I have been where my daughter is. I am going where my father has been. All I can do now is to try and let one go while hanging on to the other. I realize the question is not whether or not they need me. I think it is more a statement that I need them. I need them both and that I will eventually, when the time comes, let go of my numbness and honor my joy and my grief with those lurking tears.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Ray Bradbury


 How can he be gone? Yes, I do understand that he was as human as the rest of us, supposedly, but as another writer I know said, I never imagined my living without him in the world. He was my first true love when it comes to reading. He gave my imagination permission to stretch out beyond the boundaries I lived in. He scared me. He made me think. He painted pictures with his words and ideas. I could always visualize what I was reading about and that sometimes made it more than scary, more than real; more than wonderful. He inspired me.
It’s hard to think that perhaps a world might exist like the one he painted in Fahrenheit 451, but in truth, we’ve already seen this and worse. I think the melancholy thread that ran through so much of his work brought those works home to my heart. I could sympathize, I could relate, I could live and breathe in the stories he told. I sit here now crying as if I’d actually known Ray Bradbury as a friend. I can imagine that, to an extent, because that is the kind of writer he was. He brought you into his world (s).This is the legacy he left to me and to everyone else. 

I’ve always wanted to be a writer because I so loved stories. My dad wrote. And I read Ray Bradbury and others in my forming years to distraction. I don’t know how old I was when I read my first Ray Bradbury, but I stood beside that little boy at the fence watching rocket ships take off, dreaming of reaching into the stars and finding adventure and wonder there.
So, I will stop writing this now or I’ll go on all day. I am grieving that I never met him in person, that I didn’t take the time to write to him and tell him how he touched me, but that is my own grief. He had no need of knowing that from me. I will treasure him, and the gifts he left for us, forever in my heart. And later, when my grief is muted to sadness, the true test I face will be to once again tap on these keys and try to do justice to the wonder he gave my soul permission to feel.

Good bye Ray Bradbury. I hope you are on Mars looking back at us and laughing.


Images from:
hereandnow.wbur.org
imgace.com
fishink.us


Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Jump Down Turn Around

 
Lead belly wrote and sang a song called Pick a Bale of Cotton in the 40’s. You can see a film of him singing it on Youtube:  Leadbelly Pick a Bale of Cotton

Whenever I hear the words hay and bale in the same sentence I always think of this song. And guess what. After all these years I have just learned that what he says is not pick a bale of Hay at the end of the phrase, it’s pick a bale a DAY! I know I must have known this at one time in my life, but I forgot it!
When I was a little ‘un, my mother used to play this song, and others, for my sister and I and we loved to dance to it, sing to it, play with it till we couldn’t breathe from laughing and dancing. I know it’s a working song but for my sister and me it was a fun one. We did the motions of jumping down, turning round and mimicked picking cotton as best we knew how. Giggles always ensued, just as they did when we sang along to “Chawing Chewing Gum.” I found a version of it by the Carter Family on Youtube! Oh memories. The Carter Family Chawin' Chewin' Gum

Now that I’m older and thinking about the origins of these songs I know they came from a time less kind for Lead belly and his forefathers/mothers. I never had to pick cotton. I never had to bale hay. But his words and his music touched me all the same and the memories have stayed with me through the years. I hope it would please Lead Belly to know he brought that joy, laughter and dance into my life. That he gave me memories I don’t ever want to lose: that a little girl and the woman she grew into, though outside of his world, gained more meaning and joy in her own thanks to his music.

Photos from:
en.wikipedia.org
carterfamilyfold.org


Hope you enjoy the music!

Lisa