Occupy Your Heart – Reverie 2011 – Day 7

December 7th.  Pearl Harbor.  War.  Afghanistan, Iraq.  World Peace.  Whirled pieces of what?  Getting along? Getting by?  Certainly not getting, getting, getting?  To not have so much, but to have the heart NOT to have so much.  To consider who loses by having and getting.  Getting by without causing someone else in the world disruption, even violence.  Getting along by understanding who exactly is wearing the triple high heels or the head-to-toe burkha.  Sinking into someone else’s shoes.  Wouldn’t that be something?

Consider Burkha Barbie, designed in 2009 for the iconic doll's 50th anniversary, leagues away from the original 1959 model, first clad in zebra-striped swimsuit.  Burkha Barbie, beautiful, like the girls she represents, and auctioned at Sotheby’s for Save the Children.  Getting and having in this case are halfway to recognizing, understanding, and giving, for who can really understand Barbie and who can validate the cultural cause that brought about the burkha.  They are both complicated, thrown here into the mix for a reason.  Sexism in opposite extremes.  Fascination still stands, by little girls and grown women, though the creations seem by origin patriarchal.  The doll and wardrobe designers might be women, but these girls are working within a man’s world.  Which brings us back by way of a weird spiral to war, which girls really are not interested in. Peace is more our thing.

I’m aiming for just that this holiday season—that is, what is left of 2011.  These three weeks of December, when Christmas lights, tinsel, and silver-and-gold wrapping paper persuade us to gift like mad, I’m trying instead to think of others.  Of mosquito netting for malaria-plagued villages, flocks of chickens and brown-eyed heifers for hungry families, books for schoolgirls in head-to-toe blue-and-black fabric.  Of world peace.  Of whirls of color and credit and consideration for others.  Of thinking outside the display box that we sometimes seem to inhabit.

Meaningful Mentors - Reverie 2011 - Day 6

Writing mentors in 2011—enough to fill an entire house!  Lee K. Abbott, Laurie Foos, Tom Jenks, Connie May Fowler, Lee Martin, and Nancy Zafris.  And I must include my fellow writers—Seth Borgen, Mark Fabiano, and Lauren Inness Norton—for their words and wisdom, their thoughtful remarks, and generosity of time and space.  Whether in workshop or in casual conversation, in person or over email, all of these souls have been honest and well-intentioned, sometimes hard-edged or even-keeled, humorous and teasing, munificent above all, for the sake of the written word. 

The bricks and mortar, the balustrades and spandrels of writing, collected from these teachers and peers into notebooks, scrawled onto manuscript pages, are equal to those of brownstones.  They include dramatic action, coincidence, the art of true suspense, the “two boom” effect, character arcs, compassion, circular narrative structures, inspiration, pushing characters into uncomfortable places, presence, cause and effect, and earned endings.  Memory, patterns, perspective, doubt, progression, found words, top and bottom stories, prompts, donnée, and the spiraling downfall of Billy Joe McAllister.

That I don’t easily sit down to watch television sports, that I sometimes ask the impossible, that I don’t expect an easy way out (especially in revision), that tenacity is one of my worst traits, and that, most days, I care about literature more than anything else—for these things, I hope my mentors forgive me.  For their love of all things literary, I clap my hands like a kid on Christmas morning.  For the way they’ve passed along that fierce love through honest edits and reference letters and exuberant recommendations of reading in terms of writing—from Dorothy Parker’s The Big Blond to Richard Yates Eleven Kinds of Loneliness—I thank them all from the basements, balconies, and the uneven corridors of my mind and heart.

Most Thankful, Most Loved – Reverie 11 – Days 4 & 5

This is going to sound incredibly clichéd, trite, and to some, unbelievable, but everyday of every year I feel most loved and thankful, all because of my family.  Like every family we have our highs, lows, piss-ass moods, riotous moments, and swells and roars of hilarity in between, especially when least expected.  We are all supportive of each other, but also private, and for that reason this little piece will remain brief.  We cling together like little barnacles and only feel like drowning when the waves get rough.  But we manage.  Despite hurricanes and oil spills, final exams and writing deadlines, we manage pretty well.  That said, every day of the year is pretty damned incredible, filled with gratitude and flipping cheer.  

Shout from the Levees! -Reverie 2011 -Day 3

What am I passionate about, what would I shout about from the rooftops, or in this case, the levees?

The Gulf Coast – its landscape, people, music, its abundance of blue sky and oysters and soul – always, always, always influences me.

Always makes me want to sing and shout and carry on!

When I know it’s time for the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival or the Cochon du Lait Festival in Mansura or the Andouille Festival in St. John Parish, for Mardi Gras or St. Joseph’s Day or Jazz Fest, for wandering through the Washington Avenue graveyard on our way to brunch, or down Frenchman to Three Muses for feta fries and lamb sliders and the rompin’ tunes of Washboard Chaz and The Palmetto Bug Stompers, then I wish my pockets were deep and I wasn’t so far from home.

But when I do get back to New Orleans, I let the world there seep in, so that once I leave, the spirit of the place will last awhile inside my bones.

And this Christmas I’ll imagine the Festival of the Bonfires along the Mississippi River, looking to the northern constellations as if they were the communal Cajun pyres of Lutcher, Gramercy, and Paulina, their levees aflame with lantern light.

An Observed Moment - Out There in the World - Reverie 2011 - Day 2

An observed moment in 2011 that we were all witness to, one that affected so many of us: the earthquake in Sendai, Japan.

Here are my thoughts from an earlier post on this moment.