WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #5
WHEN THE SKY IS WHITE, you can only see snowflakes falling in front of tree trunks, speeding cars, or streetlights. What is tangible is sometimes hidden against a matching background until you blink your eyes and refocus, making a snow flurry suddenly visible.
It actually snowed this week, for a brief moment. Do you remember Wednesday afternoon filled with white? Looking back it feels like a dream. My youngest called me on my cell phone from home to report the news: wind blowing horizontal out of the east, a whiteout. I called him back twenty minutes later to report the blizzard was now in town, coming from the west. The announcer on the local radio station spent a minute describing what none of us had seen in months.
That night I woke up in the dark to scratching on my bedroom windows: snow crystals hitting the glass. When I went for a walk the next morning, gathered in discreet pockets around clumps of grass, were tiny piles of white dots. The air was wet and fragrant. There were “cloud snakes” winding through the hills. But by afternoon, the sun was as warm as a summer ball of fire. It was a quick drink, our glasses back on the table, empty and requesting more.
Last year, I applied to the MacDowell Colony, a famous artists’ community in the snowdrifts of New Hampshire. They offer individual cabins and solitude to write, compose, paint—totally paid for with weeks or months on end to create. Lunch is served in a basket at your front door. No telephones, no internet, distinguished company, hours and hours alone at a desk, sidewalks covered with snow, banks of snow burying your windows—all that soft white solitude.
When the letter came, my daughter was at home and called me at work. I asked her to open it and she read me the news that I was not accepted. Those words in her voice cushioned my disappointment.
That night I walked the four blocks from my office to a bookstore that was holding readings from local writers with works in progress. After the reading I talked with the coordinator and we made a time to meet. Last May I read parts of DIZZY SUSHI with another writer, Trent Zelazny. We did radio interviews together and enjoyed our disparate styles of writing. The coordinator, Jennifer Owings Dewey was kind enough to suggest the name of an agent. I emailed; he emailed back. I sent two pdfs of DIZZY to him and I marvel at how things happen.
I was so seduced by the prestige of MacDowell, by all that cocooning white snow, that I hadn’t looked close to home for writing support. I’ve had assistance and encouragement from so many people so near and dear to me that I couldn’t even see it until I stepped aside and refocused. What I really wanted from MacDowell—besides the snow—was the time to write and a listening community. And I’ve found that. Now, if only a picnic basket would arrive at my front door at lunchtime . . .
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
snow drought
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #4
I miss the snow. I grew up outside of Chicago and snow created the person I am today. I need intense experiences that beautify and shock me at the same time, things I have no control over. As soon as it snows, I run out and scoop glove-fulls into my mouth, crunching white icy steaks, tasting the iron in the air, the blue color of the cloud.
We are in a drought of snow. It is cold, but nothing falls from the sky: blue and unassuming. On Wednesday, the grey clouds moved in, low and threatening. Shaman and old women felt the snow in their bones, birds were noisy then suddenly still at mid-day. All Wednesday I asked family and strangers, Did you see any? Snow? We all mentioned a few glistening flakes around noon, refracting light in the sun, but nothing sticking.
Same with my book DIZZY SUSHI I have sent out now to one agent and one publisher. Perhaps not a drought, exactly, but a period of waiting while I collect more information on the next agent, perfect my pitch, try not to freak out, try not to dream. Just wait patiently. Like waiting for snow.
I found myself in Tesuque last Saturday and decided to walk along the creek, the one you catch from County Road 72A. There are a limited number of parking spaces—all full—and I almost gave up, parking far down the road. As I hiked to the trailhead, a whole group of kids and adults with more kids in backpacks started up behind me. I walked quickly, avoiding the throng, only to run into ten more people with their dogs. I should have known on a Saturday it would be crazy. One dog came up to me on the trail and shook itself, spraying mud and water from the icy stream. I was less thrilled when he grabbed my hand in his teeth. “No,” I reprimanded while its owner gleefully admonished, “He won’t hurt you.”
Out of site of other humans, I started running. I ran past the private property that enclosed the creek behind tall coyote fences. I could hear the water bubbling under the ice but I couldn’t see it. I kept running, feeling like I was the main character in “Light in the Forest,” and I was running away from the white household who said they were my family and back to the Indians who had kidnapped me, who were my true family.
I didn’t stop running until I was past the wildlife sanctuary—also behind fencing—and into tall stands of ponderosa pine. Then I walked and walked and saw no one. I climbed up a long hill into the sun and down the other side in the shade.
There was a monstrous pine with a perfect bell-shaped top. I sidestepped down the steep side of the hill until I stood underneath it, the needles creating a bed for the cones to drop into. Next to it, the Tesuque creek cut through the canyon under the ice sounding hollow. But where the ice was thin or melted, the creek bubbled over rocks with a high ringing sound.
I sat on the edge of the creek, resting on a rock covered in green and gold lichen, and noticed a thin layer of snow on the ice. I ran my fingers across it and sucked the crystals from them, numbing my lips and chin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to remind me what a whole bowl full of snow ice cream tasted like.
I miss the snow. I grew up outside of Chicago and snow created the person I am today. I need intense experiences that beautify and shock me at the same time, things I have no control over. As soon as it snows, I run out and scoop glove-fulls into my mouth, crunching white icy steaks, tasting the iron in the air, the blue color of the cloud.
We are in a drought of snow. It is cold, but nothing falls from the sky: blue and unassuming. On Wednesday, the grey clouds moved in, low and threatening. Shaman and old women felt the snow in their bones, birds were noisy then suddenly still at mid-day. All Wednesday I asked family and strangers, Did you see any? Snow? We all mentioned a few glistening flakes around noon, refracting light in the sun, but nothing sticking.
Same with my book DIZZY SUSHI I have sent out now to one agent and one publisher. Perhaps not a drought, exactly, but a period of waiting while I collect more information on the next agent, perfect my pitch, try not to freak out, try not to dream. Just wait patiently. Like waiting for snow.
I found myself in Tesuque last Saturday and decided to walk along the creek, the one you catch from County Road 72A. There are a limited number of parking spaces—all full—and I almost gave up, parking far down the road. As I hiked to the trailhead, a whole group of kids and adults with more kids in backpacks started up behind me. I walked quickly, avoiding the throng, only to run into ten more people with their dogs. I should have known on a Saturday it would be crazy. One dog came up to me on the trail and shook itself, spraying mud and water from the icy stream. I was less thrilled when he grabbed my hand in his teeth. “No,” I reprimanded while its owner gleefully admonished, “He won’t hurt you.”
Out of site of other humans, I started running. I ran past the private property that enclosed the creek behind tall coyote fences. I could hear the water bubbling under the ice but I couldn’t see it. I kept running, feeling like I was the main character in “Light in the Forest,” and I was running away from the white household who said they were my family and back to the Indians who had kidnapped me, who were my true family.
I didn’t stop running until I was past the wildlife sanctuary—also behind fencing—and into tall stands of ponderosa pine. Then I walked and walked and saw no one. I climbed up a long hill into the sun and down the other side in the shade.
There was a monstrous pine with a perfect bell-shaped top. I sidestepped down the steep side of the hill until I stood underneath it, the needles creating a bed for the cones to drop into. Next to it, the Tesuque creek cut through the canyon under the ice sounding hollow. But where the ice was thin or melted, the creek bubbled over rocks with a high ringing sound.
I sat on the edge of the creek, resting on a rock covered in green and gold lichen, and noticed a thin layer of snow on the ice. I ran my fingers across it and sucked the crystals from them, numbing my lips and chin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to remind me what a whole bowl full of snow ice cream tasted like.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
the sound of walking
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #3
WEST
I hike up the gravel driveway, cross the street to the asphalt sidewalk and head west. The sun has been up for half an hour; the air is dry and cold. The distant hills look crumbly. When will it snow?
A record clicks into place in my head as I walk, needle touching vinyl. Scratchy waves of sound preface a fantasized dialogue between my as-yet-unknown literary agent and me; her encouragement, my demure replies. I sent off my manuscript of DIZZY SUSHI this week to a recommended agent in New York, and the fantasy wants to flower. I am tired of listening to this record, but habit is strong. It isn’t until I turn north that the needle bumps clear off the grooves.
NORTH
Now I am walking on sandy dirt and gravel with broken bits of red scoria pumice. The sound under my white gym shoes floods my ears and brain: scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. It overpowers the running soundtrack of my own voice and cleanses me of words. The sound of walking and the feel of the earth underfoot bounce me back into my body. A cold wind touches my cheek and I know it could turn nasty by noon. Tiny grey birds flit from rooftop to fence edge to juniper branch. A woman walks out of her back door and pours steaming water over a frozen birdbath.
EAST
Turning east, the near hills are silhouetted by the morning sun—arranged like chocolate drops spread over a kitchen table.
Every time I take this loop around my neighborhood, I make the analogy between zazen and writing. To me, they are exactly opposite practices that accomplish the same goal. One is sitting, meditating, watching thoughts race across the mind and letting them go until the mind is empty. The other is sitting, meditating, watching thoughts race across the mind and writing them down until the mind is empty. Today, I add walking as another practice that is somewhere in between sitting and writing.
SOUTH
Scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. I angle my steps to the edge of the washboard where the gravel is more plentiful, the sound enhanced. I am approaching the asphalt again, but before I make the turn, my mind breaks into a tease. Turn around, it says.
It is so amazing to me that for fifteen years I couldn’t listen to this voice inside my head. I couldn’t turn around; I couldn’t take fifteen more minutes before I raced down the asphalt street to work. But today I can. For today, sitting, writing and walking are my activities. I feel almost sinful, and this is such a welcome feeling—daring, bad, intoxicating—just to turn around and walk for another fifteen minutes.
And as the sound of scrunching fills my ears again, I pass my own footprints in the dust, the wind picking up the edges of them and polishing them down into nothing.
WEST
I hike up the gravel driveway, cross the street to the asphalt sidewalk and head west. The sun has been up for half an hour; the air is dry and cold. The distant hills look crumbly. When will it snow?
A record clicks into place in my head as I walk, needle touching vinyl. Scratchy waves of sound preface a fantasized dialogue between my as-yet-unknown literary agent and me; her encouragement, my demure replies. I sent off my manuscript of DIZZY SUSHI this week to a recommended agent in New York, and the fantasy wants to flower. I am tired of listening to this record, but habit is strong. It isn’t until I turn north that the needle bumps clear off the grooves.
NORTH
Now I am walking on sandy dirt and gravel with broken bits of red scoria pumice. The sound under my white gym shoes floods my ears and brain: scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. It overpowers the running soundtrack of my own voice and cleanses me of words. The sound of walking and the feel of the earth underfoot bounce me back into my body. A cold wind touches my cheek and I know it could turn nasty by noon. Tiny grey birds flit from rooftop to fence edge to juniper branch. A woman walks out of her back door and pours steaming water over a frozen birdbath.
EAST
Turning east, the near hills are silhouetted by the morning sun—arranged like chocolate drops spread over a kitchen table.
Every time I take this loop around my neighborhood, I make the analogy between zazen and writing. To me, they are exactly opposite practices that accomplish the same goal. One is sitting, meditating, watching thoughts race across the mind and letting them go until the mind is empty. The other is sitting, meditating, watching thoughts race across the mind and writing them down until the mind is empty. Today, I add walking as another practice that is somewhere in between sitting and writing.
SOUTH
Scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. I angle my steps to the edge of the washboard where the gravel is more plentiful, the sound enhanced. I am approaching the asphalt again, but before I make the turn, my mind breaks into a tease. Turn around, it says.
It is so amazing to me that for fifteen years I couldn’t listen to this voice inside my head. I couldn’t turn around; I couldn’t take fifteen more minutes before I raced down the asphalt street to work. But today I can. For today, sitting, writing and walking are my activities. I feel almost sinful, and this is such a welcome feeling—daring, bad, intoxicating—just to turn around and walk for another fifteen minutes.
And as the sound of scrunching fills my ears again, I pass my own footprints in the dust, the wind picking up the edges of them and polishing them down into nothing.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
beautiful ice
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #2
There is a hiking trail I take out of town that always brings me peace: the Atalaya Trail on the east side of Santa Fe. You drive to St. John’s College and park in “France”, (the parking lot furthest from the campus) and follow the signs. I like to stop about fifteen minutes into the walk at a grassy turn in the path under a giant ponderosa pine. You may know the spot I’m thinking of: there’s a large silver culvert back in the rocks and a trickle or gush—depending on the season—of water flowing through the verge. Today the water was a thick, frosted ice sheet in the bent yellow grass.
I have never felt the heavy writing impasse people call a block. On the contrary, a clean white page excites me. New pens with their sharp tips that scratch across my journal’s pages encourage me to keep my hand moving even when I have nothing to say. It is not beginnings that are hard for me; it is endings.
I spent all day Monday reformatting and printing my 104k-word ms. I ran out of toner, I ran out of paper. I started at 9am and worked until 5pm with only minor interruptions for cats-in-the-sun enjoyment and tea breaks. I loved Monday. I remembered why I decided to try to get DIZZY SUSHI published. It was because I enjoyed reading it again and again. It had my favorite people in it, snatches of my favorite poetry, and it was all mine. No one was telling me (yet, anyway) what to say or how to say it. I tweaked and fine-tuned. I read out loud and marveled at the turn of scenes. I relived the year I was in Japan, both heartaches and happiness.
And then I realized I didn’t want to let go. I was totally in love with the process. And even in this important dance of personal accomplishment for work well done in my own eyes, I was as stagnant as the ice in the hills. Beautiful ice. Layers frosted slowly into crystalline perfection. Going nowhere.
My friend and writing coach, Sarah Lovett reminds me that when DIZZY (www.whitespacecreative.com) is out the door, I will have a fresh rush of energy. I can’t imagine what that will be like. I have worked on this one manuscript for—I’m embarrassed to say it, but you probably already know—fifteen years. Of course there are other projects in the wings, waiting, looking patiently at the hours fanning by, hoping to hear their cue. But when you’ve only had a couple hours a week, in between having babies and developing a career, well, let’s add that up: 52 weeks/year x 15 years is 780 weeks. 2 hours per week is 1560 hours. And really, for many years I did not have 2 hours per week, but for the sake of argument, let’s say I did. Now this is cute. 1560 hours divided by say, 30 hours/week is exactly 52 weeks. One year. I have had this love affair with my first book for—minute added on top of minute—one year. Heck, that’s still in the honeymoon stage.
So I leave all my guilt behind and revel in the tall bent desert grass beside the icy culvert gazing at the blue shadows turning in the refracted light. I am going to enjoy every second of my nitpicking perfection because I know it will all melt soon.
There is a hiking trail I take out of town that always brings me peace: the Atalaya Trail on the east side of Santa Fe. You drive to St. John’s College and park in “France”, (the parking lot furthest from the campus) and follow the signs. I like to stop about fifteen minutes into the walk at a grassy turn in the path under a giant ponderosa pine. You may know the spot I’m thinking of: there’s a large silver culvert back in the rocks and a trickle or gush—depending on the season—of water flowing through the verge. Today the water was a thick, frosted ice sheet in the bent yellow grass.
I have never felt the heavy writing impasse people call a block. On the contrary, a clean white page excites me. New pens with their sharp tips that scratch across my journal’s pages encourage me to keep my hand moving even when I have nothing to say. It is not beginnings that are hard for me; it is endings.
I spent all day Monday reformatting and printing my 104k-word ms. I ran out of toner, I ran out of paper. I started at 9am and worked until 5pm with only minor interruptions for cats-in-the-sun enjoyment and tea breaks. I loved Monday. I remembered why I decided to try to get DIZZY SUSHI published. It was because I enjoyed reading it again and again. It had my favorite people in it, snatches of my favorite poetry, and it was all mine. No one was telling me (yet, anyway) what to say or how to say it. I tweaked and fine-tuned. I read out loud and marveled at the turn of scenes. I relived the year I was in Japan, both heartaches and happiness.
And then I realized I didn’t want to let go. I was totally in love with the process. And even in this important dance of personal accomplishment for work well done in my own eyes, I was as stagnant as the ice in the hills. Beautiful ice. Layers frosted slowly into crystalline perfection. Going nowhere.
My friend and writing coach, Sarah Lovett reminds me that when DIZZY (www.whitespacecreative.com) is out the door, I will have a fresh rush of energy. I can’t imagine what that will be like. I have worked on this one manuscript for—I’m embarrassed to say it, but you probably already know—fifteen years. Of course there are other projects in the wings, waiting, looking patiently at the hours fanning by, hoping to hear their cue. But when you’ve only had a couple hours a week, in between having babies and developing a career, well, let’s add that up: 52 weeks/year x 15 years is 780 weeks. 2 hours per week is 1560 hours. And really, for many years I did not have 2 hours per week, but for the sake of argument, let’s say I did. Now this is cute. 1560 hours divided by say, 30 hours/week is exactly 52 weeks. One year. I have had this love affair with my first book for—minute added on top of minute—one year. Heck, that’s still in the honeymoon stage.
So I leave all my guilt behind and revel in the tall bent desert grass beside the icy culvert gazing at the blue shadows turning in the refracted light. I am going to enjoy every second of my nitpicking perfection because I know it will all melt soon.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
wild gardener
WEEKLY WRITER’S PATH #1
There is only a soft blue line on the northwest horizon outside my window this morning on the eve of the New Year. The rest of the sky is opaque white, not the usual glass-blue Santa Fe sky. The wind blows the tall brown stalks of Maximillion daisies, teetering them back and forth. I have decided to be a wild gardener in the New Year and not cut back the daises; they make the wind visible in an otherwise still morning.
I am not the type of person who waits for the New Year to come around to make promises to myself; I do it all year long. But the winter solstice is now past and as January 1 approaches from down a long hall, I can hear the very beginning of footfalls that indicate a time to move. I am embarking on a journey many friends have been on. This year I am taking my Buddhist travel memoir/love story, DIZZY SUSHI out the door with me and down a winding, dirt path. I don’t know what lies ahead. My very own New York Literary agent and a three-book contract is the novice dream I have, but likely I will encounter great trolls and miss some elevensies in the process.
But if you are willing to come with me, I will make one promise to you: Here on this page, I will weekly give you the summary of my journey, for good or ill. Together we will face successes (hopefully), rejection letters (undoubtedly), and an awareness of one person’s process to be published.
Will you join me? Will you be a wild gardener, come to look at my wintry garden patch with its dry soil and burrs that catch in your sock cuffs? Pack a loaf of bread and a couple crisp apples, chose your sturdiest walking stick. Glad to have you along. Let’s go.
There is only a soft blue line on the northwest horizon outside my window this morning on the eve of the New Year. The rest of the sky is opaque white, not the usual glass-blue Santa Fe sky. The wind blows the tall brown stalks of Maximillion daisies, teetering them back and forth. I have decided to be a wild gardener in the New Year and not cut back the daises; they make the wind visible in an otherwise still morning.
I am not the type of person who waits for the New Year to come around to make promises to myself; I do it all year long. But the winter solstice is now past and as January 1 approaches from down a long hall, I can hear the very beginning of footfalls that indicate a time to move. I am embarking on a journey many friends have been on. This year I am taking my Buddhist travel memoir/love story, DIZZY SUSHI out the door with me and down a winding, dirt path. I don’t know what lies ahead. My very own New York Literary agent and a three-book contract is the novice dream I have, but likely I will encounter great trolls and miss some elevensies in the process.
But if you are willing to come with me, I will make one promise to you: Here on this page, I will weekly give you the summary of my journey, for good or ill. Together we will face successes (hopefully), rejection letters (undoubtedly), and an awareness of one person’s process to be published.
Will you join me? Will you be a wild gardener, come to look at my wintry garden patch with its dry soil and burrs that catch in your sock cuffs? Pack a loaf of bread and a couple crisp apples, chose your sturdiest walking stick. Glad to have you along. Let’s go.
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