A Novel Experience

Unbelievably, I delivered the goods, rising to the NaNoWriMo challenge of committing 50,000 words to paper in thirty days. How? If you’d told me on Halloween that I’d write a novel’s worth of prose before December, I’d have laughed in your face. But there’s something about specific goals and deadlines that brings out the scrapper in me. It was infuriating to struggle against the clock, short of inspiration, bereft of ideas, with no time to research. But it worked.

Now I’ll let you in on a little secret: It’s awful, most of it, so much so that I’m afraid to look. This exercise has made me question whether I could ever actually write a book. I had to beg, borrow, cheat and steal. I bumped off a few good characters. I pitted siblings against each other. I cried. I cursed. The horse disappeared and never came back. The rest of the people who invaded my brain for the last month, well, I could care less if I ever see them again. The weren’t cooperating, anyway. I hate them, every one.

There’s a reason I went into advertising — pithy headlines, I can churn those out all day. But a novel? Maybe there are some seeds of a story in the pile of pages I produced. I honestly don’t know. I ploughed through it, though, so I’ll allow myself the luxury of following Audrey Niffenegger’s advice: “Now that it is December, I hope you will kick back, have a cup of coffee, reread your 50,000 words, ponder a bit, and then… go for a walk.” That… that, I can do.

The Emptiness of Days

emp·ty 

1. a. Holding or containing nothing.

    b. Mathematics: Having no elements or members; null: an empty set.

2. Having no occupants or inhabitants; vacant: an empty chair; empty desert.

3. Lacking force or power: an empty threat.

4. Lacking purpose or substance; meaningless: an empty life.

5. Not put to use; idle: empty hours.

6. Needing nourishment; hungry: "More fierce and more inexorable far/Than empty tigers or the roaring sea" (Shakespeare).

7. Devoid; destitute: empty of pity.

How do you depict nothing? The last couple of months have felt irremediably hollow to me, the usual platitudes offered as camouflage for grief doing nothing to assuage the emptiness of my days. The invisible losses are the hardest to overcome: the losses that hide, cavernous, behind the chaos of the quotidian. The losses that can't be described or dispelled. I've ploughed through my allotment of sympathy, I know; I'm not looking for a handout, but I have to do something.

Empty places have borders, as far as I can tell, so perhaps it's safe to assume that if you linger long enough around the edges, tossing things in, the space will eventually fill up. Nothing else seems to be working, so I'll give words a go. It's  National Novel Writing Month, with a goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. That's certainly a challenge for me. Can I do it? I don't know yet; I've never tried. But at the very least, even if they aren't brimming with meaning, my days will be full.

Grandfather's Gift

Morris Pettit, my Grandfather, would have turned 94 today. I always tried to ensure delivery of his birthday gifts on the actual date because, in spite of his unfailing patience in every other aspect of his life, when it came to opening presents, he just couldn't wait. His own timing for deliveries, however, has always seemed perfect.

At the end of his memorial service last month, a member of his church came up to me as I was packing up items from a table of memorabilia and said, "I always admired your grandparents so much. I remember telling your grandmother what a marvelous example their marriage was to all of us. She told me, 'Well, it's easy if you're married to an angel!'..." I smiled, and thanked her, and she walked away.

As I returned to my task at hand, a tiny box fell out of the wad of tissue paper I was holding. I had been through all the items on the table many times in the weeks before the service, and had never seen this box. I opened it... and inside was a tiny cherub. Surely, it was a gift he had purchased for my grandmother and stowed away for safe keeping. But it landed in my lap instead, just when I most needed an angel.

To me, it's proof that the gifts will always keep coming, if you are open to receiving them...

Pilgrimage

"The mountains are calling and I must go." — John Muir

Visualization can be a powerful tool for coping with grief, stress, anxiety, or pain. One commonly prescribed technique, if you are dealing with heavy emotions, is to visualize yourself in a place you have been: a locale where you've felt optimistic and at peace with the world. Tahoe is my happy place, it is sacred to me, and I often visit this particular vista with my mind's eyes. Imagination isn't always enough, though; sometimes a pilgrimage is in order.

Pilgrims make their journeys for any number of reasons: as a way to seek out moral or spiritual higher ground, as penance for sins (imagined or real), as a sign of devotion, or in the hopes of some relief, some cure, miraculous or otherwise. Or maybe (if you're really whacked) all of the above, all at once. Which explains my presence in this spot, at this moment.

Lake Tahoe embodies a mythically majestic landscape, borne out of the earth by tectonic plate shifts, long-extinct volcanoes, and snow; it's a place where matter and magic mix. I've felt the alchemy here: the somber weight of losing a loved one and standing on the dock, pushing off that barque towards its long journey elsewhere, the star-encrusted bliss of a love-laden kiss, the precious gold of memories. Injuries survived. Milestones. Rites of Passage. Treasure found. Joy.

Dear Universe, I no doubt have plenty of karmic comeuppances headed my way, but please, here in this moment, grant me solace and serenity. Mom would have turned 69 today; she loved this mystical mountainscape and always insisted that "believing is seeing." And though I am but a humble pilgrim, I still believe in miracles...

Implosion

In June, when I wrote about folding in, I imagined a calm, controlled, and dignified process of shutting out the world's chaos. But the world, apparently, doesn't work that way. What happened instead was more of an implosion, as though someone lifted the lid of my vacuum sealed jar-of-a-life and the walls suddenly shattered into a million splintered shards. A pile of fractured hearts. A cosmic collapse.

Time to pick up the pieces, right? Or, as certain of my by-the-bootstraps friends would say, "Snap out of it." Sure, I can paste on the courageous smile and nod my head "yes" — while my heels are teetering off the edge of the big black hole behind me. I reach out into that void... and there's no one there. Sometimes, you just have to drag your own sorry self out of some of those big bad places. I know a clean sweep is in order, but I'm still fumbling in the dark for a broom.

Red Letter Day

The kids missed school to witness 

the farewell flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour. 

I think they'll remember this day...

Glimpses

I lingered for what felt like eons along the banks of the Tennessee River, knowing it would be the last time for a long time. I'd gone down there with clear intent, to cast some rose petals into the slow-moving green waters as a tangible means of "letting go"... Each fistful was a different goodbye brimming with its own emotions: relief, anger, longing. We all have our own private rituals, and for me, it felt good to see those petals disperse and drift downstream. I like to know where things are going.

But then a funny thing happened. I decided to race ahead, cutting corners, to catch a glimpse of those petals floating around the bend, to reassure myself that I can see what's coming. I waited. And waited. And waited. And they never came. Finally, I had to let go of that, too.

Ever since, I've just felt brokenhearted. Looking downstream is easy; all the memories are there, the stories we share, the history we've created and can hold up for inspection. Upstream is upheaval: the unknown, the uncertain. I'd like to feel there's hope, and resolution. Instead, I'm adrift without my lifesaver, my anchor, my compass, my captain. This is loss, this is grief, and I'm sinking in it. Somebody, please, throw me a line.

Gone from My Sight...

Morris Winham Pettit

October 23, 1918 – August 16, 2012

Gone from My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of

living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

Henry Van Dyke

Folding In

There are chapters in life when it feels right to indulge, to fling yourself wide open to the bright universe, allowing that awesome light to touch every inner surface. Passion and reckless abandon have their place: without those qualities, it seems unlikely that the world would ever advance.

Certain moments, however, require us to invoke some emotional origami, a folding in on oneself — a matter of preserving the soul at the risk of alienating what lies outside. "To thine own self be true..."

The lovely night-blooming moonflower knows how to avoid getting burned, unfurling her glory only after dark: secretive and luminescent, exotic and vulnerable. At the coming of dawn she closes in, hiding, like a demure geisha concealed in the folds of her kimono.

Lately, I've been folding, folding, folding, but I have a long way to go before I complete a thousand cranes...

The True Gentleman

My Grandfather, 93, had a stroke last week which landed him in the hospital and then at the skilled nursing facility in his retirement community. He didn't allow anything of this unfortunate circumstance to deprive him of his gracious spirit, his hopeful outlook, or the twinkle in his eye. Obviously, you can't keep a good man down.

He is adored by everyone who knows him, and described as "sweet," "charming," "devoted," "faithful," and "love in action." But what people say to me most often is, "Your grandfather is a true gentleman." It reminds me of a verse I first heard a few years back, a description which suits him to a tee:

The True Gentleman

The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.

John Walter Wayland

Practice Makes Perplexed

It's obvious, looking at the generous coating of dust on the keys, that I haven't practiced the piano in awhile. But hey, it's supposed to be like a bicycle, right? Jump right back in there and do your thing? Nyet. Nein. Non. Nahin. Playing the piano with any finesse at all requires regular periods of uninterrupted attention, something that's entirely impossible in my current daily repertoire of events.

Still, I thought I could fiddle around a bit, just for fun. My plan was reasonable enough: the day's dealings had already fried my brain by two in the afternoon, so half an hour at the piano seemed like a good way to reset the system. The piece is interesting, but simple: the Barcarolle from Louis Vierne's Sihoutettes d'Enfants (you can hear a tiny snippet here). Normally, I'd read the music, play the left-hand notes, play the right-hand notes, and then put them together in some reasonable semblance of the piece.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the formula: my glasses literally got in the way. With progressive lenses, I have to tilt my head back to read the music, then forward to see the keys. The bottom of the frames cut my plane of vision in half. I lost my place every time. I couldn't put left and right together. I tried not looking down, which made it worse. The whole thing was a disaster. I guess this is an old lady's problem. I guess I'm back to square one. I guess it's time I learn to play by ear...

Bucket List: Walking the Right Path

El Camino de Santiago de Compostela is the most recent addition to my bucket list. The cathedral of Santiago, considered the burial place of Saint James, was one of the great pilgrimage goals of the Middle Ages, with some pilgrims traveling on foot from as far away as Paris. Those who completed the arduous journey where granted full remission of their sins. My goals aren't quite so lofty, and anyway, I'd probably have to circumambulate the entire globe before I'd have a shot at forgiveness (but that's another story all together).

It's not the getting there that's my objective; the journey is its own reward. I'm most interested in what happens along the way: the setbacks, the surprise encounters, the self awareness, the serendipity. But first, since it's 750km from St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago, I'd better get a new pair of walking shoes Or two.

photo, Maren Misner

Bucket List: Sky High

For those of you who think I'm just some mild-mannered home-economist-foodie-artsy-scrapbooking sort, I've got news for you: there's a latent Evel Knievel-ish daredevil lurking in the shadows. So there are a few thrill-seeking items on my bucket list, and skydiving is one of them, although it's moved farther down the list now that there are small children in my care.

The Matterhorn is not a prerequisite to my intended leap of faith, although it does make for a magnificent photo. I've seen this giant hunk of rock before, from a few different angles, and I don't think I want to be anywhere in its vicinity when I drift back down to earth. Wide open plains of wheat fields, maybe.

Any ideas for the ultimate skydiving spot? Want to come along? I figured you would jump at the chance...

photo, Office du Tourisme du Valais

Bucket List: Carved in Stone

Petra

It seems no work of Man's creative hand,

by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;

But from the rock as if by magic grown,

eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!

Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,

where erst Athena held her rites divine;

Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,

that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;

But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,

that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;

The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,

which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,

match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,

a rose-red city half as old as time.

John William Burgon

photo, Bernard Gagnon

Bucket List: Painting with Light

Last week's solar flares caused dramatic variations in the Northern Lights and left me longing to check off the number one item on my bucket list: a chance to see the Lights with my own two eyes. It's been an obsession of mine for most of my life, which is probably more than half over at this point...

When I was a little girl, my great-grandmother gave me a tiny tear-shaped stone that seemed to contain every color of the rainbow. It hung around my neck on delicate silver chain and I never wanted to take it off, especially after she told me what it was called: an Aurora Borealis crystal. Even the name sounded magic, and I listened with rapt attention as she told of the mysterious lights which appear in the northern sky. That crystal may have been nothing more than an irradiated bit of rock, but for me, it was the seed of a dream.

Certain dreams and mysteries shouldn't be explained away. For once, I really don't care about the scientific explanation of the phenomenon, that this display of lights is caused by charged particles colliding in the thermosphere. Let me have my childish belief in astronomical alchemy, of spirits dancing in the sky. And please, please let me witness them before I, in turn, become a spirit of the void.

photo, Daily Mail

Puzzlement

There's a fountain downtown (and by downtown, I mean the corner where our two village blocks converge) which was installed a few years back, to the delight of some and the consternation of others. I have nothing against the aesthetics of the thing, but the engineering bothers me. The water is supposed to fall in a continuous glassy sheet from the upper basin to the lower, but often it breaks into splattering waves that make an annoying cacophonous flutter.

Mostly, I'm irritated by the fact that Ive taken probably hundreds of photos of this fountain, and I can never get the shot quite right. There's distraction in the background, or it's overexposed, or the dramatic moving parts of the thing won't cooperate with the angle I'm trying to achieve. Or someone throws a penny into a perfect reflection, or someone bumps my arm. Or the wind blows. Hmph.

Art and life are both like that. I can have all the required elements. I can set up the shot just so. I can do everything right, and still, the end result comes out completely off kilter. There's just something missing. The pieces won't cooperate. Or maybe I'm actually looking at it all wrong. It's a puzzle, one that won't ever be solved unless I keep on trying. Once more, with feeling...

The Empire of Light

Aeons ago, I went with a friend to see a Magritte exhibit at the SFMOMA. I love Magritte's whole body of work, the trompe l'oeil, the sense of humor. This particular image, one I hadn't seen before, struck me at the time and has stayed with me ever since. I was lucky enough to see it again a few years ago, hanging in its rightful place in the intimate setting of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

It's a painting I long to enter. I want to go around the corner, throw open the door, and skip steps as I run upstairs to the second floor. The light is warm and enticing, beckoning; there's something commonplace and comfortable about the scene, but it's magical too. Light is so hard to capture. I'm in awe of artists who truly get right, who can beautifully illuminate a scene from within. Magritte was one of them.

Please, leave the light on for me...

Un Peu de Mystère

Hundreds of times I have gone full circle 'round the roundabout at the end of our town, near the end of our peninsula, and I never ceased to be amazed at the sights I see at any given moment of the day. Mornings hold a particular glory, with the sun in its many costumes. San Francisco is just there, behind a dense wall of fog, as the Angel Island ranger's boat putters over on its morning run.

The nice folks who run the corner café must think I'm nuts, the way I jump out of my car and go running for the water's edge each time I drive by; there's always something new to capture: a leopard shark, a seal, a manta ray, a schooner, a skiff, a cloud front. The city skyline, dazzling in sunlight or shrouded in mystery. A scooter with a broken headlight, a penny on the pavement, an egret in flight.

Here's the secret: I refuse to see anything less than the spectacular in the everyday. It's my contest with myself. Just one amazing thing; it's not that big of a challenge, but it does mean you have to be waiting for something, expecting something. If you're looking for it, you're bound to find it. Believing is seeing.

Flecks

"The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky."

Carl Sagan, COSMOS

photo, NASA archives

Pearish the Thought

We received these gorgeous pears as a gift over holiday season, individually wrapped in gold-gilt circles of pale green tissue paper, each piece of fruit tinged with the loveliest blush. They were delicious and everyone was delighted to indulge in a luscious, special treat. It's the best kind of present; one that's beautiful and useful and enjoyable, and in this case, nourishing. One that can be shared and doesn't go to waste. We couldn't ask for anything better. Except maybe another case, since we're all out now, perish the thought...