Jennifer Lauck's Blog, page 33

I have a tattered copy of this book at my side, where it has been for the last twenty years. Letters to a Young Poet has served as inspiration, again and again, as I asked myself, "why am I writing again?"

As one pounds free the meaning of her of life via the tiny, but oh so effective anvils of the fingertips, doubt has a way of settling in like a heavy winter fog. I never worried much about the quality of my writing—I have always believed I was a dreadful writer with moments of shimmering promise—rather I wondered why I was writing and towards what purpose.

This quote answered my question and comes from a passage on page 19 of this small but powerful book. Rilke is responding to the poet who asks if his writing is any good: You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you. There is no single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night; must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple "I must," then build your life according to this necessity.

Rilke was born in December and also died in that month. He was actually born 12/4 and died on 12/29. As is written in the Wikipedia definition, Rikke was an Bohemian-Austrian poet and one of the most noteworthy of the German poets. "His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude and profound anxiety."

I relate to his condition, that is, seeking meaning from that which cannot be made meaningful through language, study, thought or even idea at a time heavily laden with cynicism, materialism and technology. In this time, we are totally dominated by thought and enslaved to teeny tiny machines that are supposed to make our lives easier (but don't).

Rilke was born, René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke and his childhood was not happy. His father, Josef was a railway official after an unsuccessful military career and his mother, Sophie ("Phia") came from a well-to-do Prague family.

Phia was apparently mourning, deeply, for a daughter who had died after only a week of life. During Rilke's childhood Phia acted as if she sought to recover the lost girl through Rlke by dressing him in girl's clothing. This is a very similar story to JM Barrie, who's mother had lost a son and had Barrie act, in some ways, as a stand in for the lost boy she was mourning—that boy who would never grow up—which gave inspiration for Peter Pan.

I have to wonder if Rilke sought solitude due to this early sadness and loss. How can a child not absorb the sorrow and yearning of the mother and in a way, be defined by it? Of course, I know a bit about this condition as well having lost my own mother at birth and then my adoptive mother when I was seven years old. But of course, that is another story.

And yet, the result is a deep contemplative nature that creates this kind of insight. Rilke writes: We must assume our existence as broadly as we in any way can; everything, even the unheard up, must be possible in it. That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us; to have courage for the most strange.

This is a beautiful and perfect book.

Every year, I purchase (for a buck) the countdown to Christmas calendar for the kids. A tiny piece of waxy chocolate is the reward for wading a day closer to the BIG day.

How I wish I had a count down to publication calendar for my own nail biting clock watching. But I don't so this will have to do. I am now writing a weekly post that speaks to the process of bringing a book from my life, heart and hands and into the world.

First, it's important to say that the entire creation to publication process is surreal. There is so much to do that I don't often slow down to examine what is happening. When I do, I have to admit that it's weird. Really, really weird. It's just as weird as watching a baby emerge from an impossible place or even grow in the belly.

Think about it. There was nothing--just a blank page--and then I began to write, and write and write a little more. Thousands of hours, millions of words, gazillions of edits and several manuscripts tossed into the garbage. Yes. Manuscripts gone. It happened (and should have happened).

And then there were the hours I spent on the phone with my agent (who turned out to be my friend and my editor)as she told me, "well, you have a good start here but..." and off we'd go to yet another revision. Three hundred hours? Five? This is why, of course, my first bit of gratitude went to my agent.

And now a book is type-set and can be pre-ordered via Amazon. Go see! I'm in shock.

As I near the official publication date, March 2011, this is what is happening: My agent works to sell foreign rights. Thanks to the heavenly team at Seal Press, Found has been beautifully laid out, made into galleys and has gone out to major American media publications for review. On Friday, I will meet my publicist (as she is flying into Portland) and a whole host of speaking/teaching events have been set up in Florida (for the American Adoption Congress), at Sitka Center on the Oregon Coast and in Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Palm Beach, L.A. and Georgia. Finally, I am writing and submitting for publication around the country.

Did I mention I have two children, am finishing an MFA degree at Pacific Lutheran University, am teaching two classes for Literary Arts and teach my own weekly writing circle? And mentor students, one on one?

Whew, take a deep inhale and exhale on that schedule.

Over the last few weeks, we have gathered a solid collection of blurbs from Hope Edelman, Cheryl Strayed, BJ Lifton, Nancy Verrier, Adam Pertman and (soon) Karen Karbo.

It must be noted that the Lifton quote came just two weeks before this remarkable woman passed away. I feel both blessed and baffled. How lucky could I be, to have a quote from one of the pioneers in the area of increasing awareness around issues of adoption, and more so now that she is no longer with us.

A moment of silence.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the cover for Found which was built over a painting created by my dear friend Blair Peters who lives in West Marin.

By way of background, Blair and I met at Spirit Rock years ago. We were attending a ten day silent retreat on the Heart Sutra and Blair was just so regal and beautiful. Over the days we were together, I kept moving my meditation cushion closer to her until finally, when we could talk, I introduced myself.

Blair was this Renaissance woman raising four young children while exploring a creative life, which literally exploded out of her—from the way she mothered, cooked, decorated her home, dressed and of course, painted. I have been a long time fan of Blair, as a woman and an artist. She is my "perfect woman" role model so to have her work adorn my cover is terrific. It is also the kind of magic that might never happen with a larger press.

While I appreciated all that was done for me with Simon & Schuster, I was not consulted on the cover (much). And in looking back at the first three covers, they are quite tame and contained. Whereas this cover is bold, beautiful, haunting and emotional. It catches the eye. Wonderful.



NEXT WEEK: ...what do you do when someone, in your book, wants to re-write your book?

There is Hope.

We are supposed to be writing, my friend and me. That's what this is—a writing weekend with two friends at work on their books.

She writes a memoir. I compose a novel, although I am not a novelist.

Memoir is my preferred approach to the word but it seems I've written myself out of such tales. My life makes compete sense to me now or at least this is what I tell myself.

Is it true?

After the dog on the beach and my fixation over the teacher who doesn't understand my son, I am restless and cannot sit still to write.

"Let's go look at the statues."

This comes from my friend Anne. Dark hair, tiny form, a lovely woman, two grown kids. A fine writer. A precious gem of a friend. Reliable and steady. Good listener. Anne has heard all my bitching and moaning and complaining. She is my go-to friend. I take all my trouble to Anne.

"I have to write," I say.

"I know, me too, just a quick look and we'll come back, we'll write."

I roll my eyes. I know this isn't true. We will not write. We will fuck off and talk and find ways to spend money and then drink wine and watch the sunset. The day is nearly gone and I haven't written a word. Not one.

We look at each other and then I look at the blank page of my computer.

"Fine, let's go look at art."

Out the door, across the street, salty wind at our backs and the sun falling fast, we enter a gallery that is no bigger than a good sized bedroom. The woman who greets us isn't the owner but a lawyer who uses the space as an office. She is welcoming and kind. She tells us to look around, enjoy, relax.

What I notice first is how the walls hold paintings, modern Monet's that interpret the beach in golds and silver and red and blue. Beautiful.

[image error] I go right for the art on the wall because I like to paint too. I have huge canvases at my house, my own work. I dabble in this kind of thing but am not a professional. My children command most of my attention. I tell myself I'll paint when I am older—when the kids are gone—it's the song of the mother titled: "When the children grow up."

"Look!" Anne says.

She touches a marble statue with her open curious hands. The form is wide hipped and small breasted. Anne touches another one with narrow hips and larger breasts. She is fearless.

The marble forms are all the same, these neck down, thigh up mid-sections of women's forms in gray, alabaster, pink and black stone. Each shape has been rubbed smooth and shaped feminine. Anne now holds her hands on the waist of a gray stone form. She owns one of these busts already. It's at home, on her writing table.

I keep my hands to myself though. Don't touch. Won't touch. If I touch I might want.

The one that draws my attention is across the room. It is gray and white with slim hips and compact boobs.

Me!

With my arms tighter over myself, I cross the room and examine the price tag.

Three thousand dollars!

Are you kidding me?

No.

Won't touch.

Will not touch.

"Don't they feel amazing?" Anne asks. She moves to an amber form with a tummy and wide hips and is so happy to be touching this lovely shapes that she doesn't realize I'm holding back.

"Do you want some wine?" the gallery owner asks. She is small woman in black, black, black. Shoe, pants, top, coat. Even her earmuffs are black. Her eyes are bright. Wealth is her scent.

I shake my head, no thanks.

"I'm making mulled wine," she says, as if to tempt.

"No, I have to write," I say and glance over at Anne for support. "We have to get back to our room and write."

Anne nods like this is true and takes her hands from the amber form.

I am sure, if I wasn't here, Anne would have a glass of wine. Anne is better that way, with moments and with relaxing and with being in the flow of life.

I am all work. No play.

Anne is fun.

"Latte?" the woman tries again. "Tea? Water?"

No, no, no thank you, I shake my head even as I know I would do well to just have some wine and relax already.

And yet another part of me holds tight to the plan, the habit, the condition of writing that I must get back to because it is safe and cheap and makes sense.

The woman finally goes off to make herself some mulled wine.

Anne touches another statue, this one is dark and curvy and lovely, like she is. She has given herself over, fully, to the sensual experience of art appreciation.

Finally I reach out, touch the cool marble of the form that costs three thousand dollars!

The marble is cool against my hands, surprisingly cold and yet it warms as I move my palms at the hips and then up the back. The stone is alive. And so smooth.

Anne smiles over at me. Her dark eyes are so bright, as if the light of the stone has filled her up.

"This one is really beautiful," I say.

Anne comes over and looks at the statue with me. She doesn't touch this one. This one is mine.

"I like it," she says. "It reminds me of you."

"I know," I say.

I am working on my critical thesis paper for my MFA at Pacific Lutheran University. That might seem like a big old, "WOW" but it's more like a big old "AHHHHHHHHH." I just don't do this kind of writing, I mean I can, but I don't and frankly, I am not being honest. I really can't do this kind of writing. Still, I am trying.

The lovely part of having to do this writing is re-familiarizing myself with a book I loved--long ago. The Liars Club had a tremendous impact on me, as I was conceiving Blackbird. Karr used humor and of course stunning craft to tell the story of her mother, father and sister. She examined the sheer terror of her childhood with such an unflinching perspective, I felt emboldened to do the same. In her work, Mary Karr is simply irreverent and slightly bonkers. In a great bohemian arty way. She is someone you would see at the Algonquin, smoking a Galoise in the corner and muttering to herself about the ghastly state of affairs in publishing. I adore her HUGE personality. And she is a damn fine teacher.

While researching Karr for my paper, I came across an interview given in The Paris Review and I highly recommend you go read it, in its entirety. She holds nothing back. Nothing. I have included a few bits here, for their honesty and power.

NTERVIEWER

Why did you feel a need to document your life? Did you write The Liars' Club in order to get the story off your chest?

MARY KARR

By the time I wrote The Liars' Club, it was off my fucking chest. I'd slogged through therapy, and my family was fairly healed, in no small part due to my mother's own hard-won sobriety. I was divorced and sober and, remarkably enough, employed as a college professor teaching poetry. My sister's family was the picture of prosperity. My dad had died after being paralyzed for five years. My son was thriving. But our story was nonetheless standing in line to be written.

Plus I needed the cake. Like Samuel Johnson said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." I was newly divorced, a single mom feeling around for change in pocket lint. I didn't have a car, which meant taking my kid to the grocery store in his red wagon, and two hours of bus time to pick him up after school on days I taught. In some ways I was resourceful. My students would move out of town and I'd scavenge their old furniture to sell at a garage sale. My son, Dev, and I used to sneak into the pool at the Sheraton. We'd park illegally in the snowy lot with our bathing suits on under our winter clothes. We'd call it "going to the Bahamas." That was our vacation. I was thinking about moving Dev's bed into my room so we could rent out the other bedroom—grasping at straws, really.

Hoping to get a book advance was like saying, Maybe I'll be an Olympic gymnast. I envisioned some small press might cough up a few thousand bucks after the book was finished. I'd been publishing poetry with small presses and when James Laughlin at New Directions paid seven hundred and fifty bucks for The Devil's Tour, I was tickled. That exceeded my lifetime poetry income.

I'd watched some very fine fiction writers do well: Tobias Wolff and Geoffrey Wolff, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver. But till Ray got the MacArthur, he would still crash in a sleeping bag in my spare room in Somerville when he came to town to read. Being a famous writer was a little like being a famous cocktail waitress—nobody dressed in diamonds. And what did I know about writing a book of prose?

INTERVIEWER

In the first section of The Liars' Club, you inhabit the mind of a seven-year-old to an uncanny degree. How were you able to capture what it was like to be a child?

KARR

IChildhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You're three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down. One of my favorite poems, by Nicanor Parra, is called "Memories of Youth": "All I'm sure of is that I kept going back and forth. / Sometimes I bumped into trees, / bumped into beggars. / I forced my way through a thicket of chairs and tables."

Our little cracker box of a house could give you the adrenaline rush of fear, which means more frames of memory per second. Emotional memories are stored deep in the snake brain, which is probably why aphasics in nursing homes often cuss so much—that language doesn't erode in a stroke.

INTERVIEWER

How important is the content of the memoir to its success?

KARR

People mistakenly believe the best memoir is the one in which the grossest stuff happens. If that were true then everybody who was at Auschwitz would have written a best seller. People had way worse childhoods than I did and they didn't sell as many books. How it's written counts for something.

INTERVIEWER

What do you think are the biggest problems with memoirs today?

KARR

They're not reflective enough. They lack self-awareness. I always tell my students that if the reader knows something about your psychology that you do not admit, you're in trouble. The reader will notice that you're an asshole because instead of going to your mother's deathbed you're out buying really nice designer boots. If you don't acknowledge the assholery of that choice, then there's a rift, a disjunction between narrator and reader. And in autobiography, that intimacy is part of what readers want. They have to trust your judgment.

The memoir's antagonist has to be some part of the self, and the self has to be different at the end of the book than it was at the beginning. Otherwise you have what I call the sound-bite memoir or the ass-whipping memoir. Year one: ass-whipping. Year two: ass-whipping. Then they slap "Mommy Dearest" on it and shove it into the bookstores. Those memoirs cover a single aspect: so-and-so's a drunk, or a sex slave, or has been hit on the head with a brick by her mother every day of her life—and that's it. The character of the writer is a dull steady state till he gets old enough to get car keys and leave. That's not a literary memoir any more than a Harlequin romance is a great novel.

Each of us has something, deep in ourselves, that stirs us up to the depths. We are outraged about politics, Sarah Palin, oil spills or closer to home, about our spouse, the high cost of our power bill or what's going on with our kids. Our mental obsessions are great places to explore questions about ourselves and what is really going on at a deeper level.

Today the prompt builds from that point of view. The example, on Monday, titled The Little Black Dog is about my own obsession. This is not from a book but is fresh and first draft. Almost all the things I post on this blog are first or second draft and are being honed into articles that I later submit. That is the great gift of this blog, I write and get ideas and you give feedback and boom...something is born.

I was obsessed a couple weeks ago with a dreadful conference my son had, OBSESSED. And once at the beach, in the impossible sun at the beach, I became MORE OBSESSED. The great teacher Jim Haynen (who I posted about a couple weeks ago) said, "follow your obsessions." I agree. Follow them into the black hole of thinking and ask them questions. What is really going on here? What is really, really going on here? And then write it. You will learn that the war isn't outside of you but inside. Deep inside your own thoughts and conditioned ways of seeing the world.

I am obsessed with guilt over the birth of my son and the fall out that impacts his education. So, here it is. An obsession. How utterly perfect that as I am obsessing, this little dog appears and barks up a storm at me. I wrote it and it just worked to hold the obsession. Crazy on the inside, crazy on the outside, while all the while being held by the steadiness of the rolling waves and blowing wind.

INSTRUCTIONS: Free write for ten minutes on something that is totally occupying your thoughts. Go big with it, really rant on the page without editing or judging yourself. Just shred the page with all that you feel.

Once done, set it aside and now take another ten minutes to answer these questions: Where are you, (up, down, right, left, front and back), what's the weather doing, what season is it, time of day, what do you have to be doing that you are not doing, what are you craving to eat? Answer all of these question and this is the "scene." Now fit the two together.

EXAMPLE: See Monday's Fresh Writing

WRITE & SUBMIT: 500-700 words. Good luck! Share your writing by emailing me via this site.

The sun in a Siren. Seduction. Late November promises snow not sun. I bundle cushions, blankets and towels under my arm and become like a coastal mutation of a Sherpa. I haul my home away from the inn and to the sea.

Off the main road, I plod into wet sand, past drifted tree trunks, past mounds of salted seaweed and up a dune. I'm fifteen feet up on a small mountain of wind blow wild grass where I pile each layer on top of next, towel first, then a pad, then a round sitting cushion and then a wool blanket. I drop myself down on this nest. Meditation posture.

The sea rolls and recedes, white foam spray rises and falls, a symphony of action with no end. Wind blows, clouds smear the horizon in long gauzy sheets and the sun lifts over my right shoulder.

The center of perfection.

For a moment, just one and then thoughts rise to cover the view.

Yesterday I attended a conference at my son's school. He has special needs. He has a condition that makes him an audio learner, verses one who learns from reading and writing. He asks questions. He needs to talk. He needs the teacher to repeat, again and again, what is expected and still he might not remember, especially if the teacher is impatient. He is very sensitive that way. His heart is ten times bigger than other people. He wears that heart around his neck for all to see.

It's not his fault.

It will take years, if ever, to bring him into line with the rest of the world that sits still at their desks and prints perfectly and nods yes when the teacher says yes and no when the teacher says no and colors between the lines.

He's a wonderful kid.

Mr. Charm.

Four of his teachers love him and understand. But one. One teacher, she doesn't get it. She needs him to be the kind of learner she needs him to be. She counts the number of questions he asks, rather than listening to the questions. In conference, she made a point to say this. "I count the number of questions you ask and you are doing much better. In three hours, you ask just five rather than twenty six."

He sinks low in his chair. Humiliated.

This woman doesn't get my child despite the fact that I have explained to her, again and again. No child left behind. My son is smart. He is doing his best. Love him.

But she doesn't.

She has a tight jaw and sharp eyes. She is a busy woman with no time for my busy inquisitive son. He's annoying. He's outside her lines.

Sea and sand and sun and sky. I see none of what is before me now. My view has gone dim from what I saw yesterday.

I pull out my iphone and tap my way to a program for email. I am going to write this teacher a letter. I am going to let her know how I feel. I am going to get him moved to a different class, I am going to organize my thoughts.

A two inch by two inch screen rises and below is a two by two keyboard. And electronic piece of paper is before me and my fingertips fly as I try to fit a lesson of what is true and right into letters and sentences and paragraphs. Teachers are here to teach, not harm. Compassion is requisite. Who does she think she is to humiliate my child?

A knot forms under my ribs, in the general region of my liver. The center of the will, I have been told. The knot, like a fist, rock hard and still I type. The woman's humanity is nowhere near a place I can truly touch. Her insecurity, her sorrows, her limited understanding of the world. I don't finger my way closer to her but travel further away.

The yap of a small black dog snaps in my direction. Yap yap yap.

The dog is at the base of the dune, far away and annoying.

The dog advances up the incline, yap, yap, yap and I drop the iphone drop to my knee.

The dog plants twig thin legs wide in the sand and quivers as it barks. It is one of those cross between dogs. Pomeranian with Boarder Terrier? Miniature Pinscher mixed with Japanese Chin? Toy Fox Terrier mixed with Eskimo?

Yap, yap, yap.

I search the beach past this annoying little beast, where the hell is the owner and here she comes with a leash dangling from her hand.

She calls out Sparky? Sparkles? Sparticus?

The little dog advances half way up the dune and is going nuts now. A full rant of yaps and the woman does nothing. She has white hair under a cream-colored stocking cap, pink earmuffs that cover her ears and white mittens over her hands. She is zipped and tugged into a turquoise velour-jogging suit, flesh in rolls as it presses against the fabric. The mild expression on her face is like someone compacted into box of cotton.

"You need to stop your dog," I say.

Yap, yap, yap.

"If I come closer, he'll just run away," the woman explains from where she stands.

Yap, yap, yap.

The dog is now fewer than six feet from me. A leap away.

"Lady, you need to stop your dog," I say again.

She stumbles up the incline but her balance is dreadful and with each step in the soft sand, she must stop to right herself. Her arms wave at her sides as if she navigates the high beam.

And the dog continues to bark and move towards me.

Finally, I push off the cushions and stand against the stupid little dog. I become a bear. My iphone flips off my lap and into the sand.

"Get that damn dog away from me," I yell.

The woman leaps for the animal but it makes a little yelp, turns and runs down the dune and away. The woman toddles after it and then they are both gone.

My heart is fast and tingles of adrenaline rush to pin points on my skin.

I sit down again, try to go back to where I was before.

iphone!

I dig for the phone, dust it off and poke around at the now blank screen.

My letter is lost. Gone. All those collected thoughts and my great big plan to defend my son, gone and that's when I start to cry.

I'm mad at the teacher, yes but what is going on here anyway? What's the bottom line and now I'm really crying, because I can, because I am alone on the beach and no one is here to make me stop—not the dog, not the muffled lady, not even my iphone.

My son suffers today and every day because he came six weeks early and moments after he was born I let the doctors take him away to the Intensive Care Unit when he didn't need to go and now it's proven that a baby separated from the mother suffers trauma in the brain. That is what happened to my son. I've read the studies, over and over again and even though the doctors call it "empirical" meaning it hasn't been proven scientifically—I know the truth in my heart. My son, my son, I failed my son. I was trying to be good, I was trying to follow the rules, I was trying to believe the doctors knew better than a mother but I was wrong, the doctors were wrong and now my son...my son pays the price.

A terrible weight is on my back and won't go away like that damn yappy dog—all day long and into the night. When will I ever forgive myself for what I have done?

Silence is all around, a whipping wind blown off the sea and nothing changes here—nothing. The waves still rise and then slip away, the endless dance of motion in response to the position of the moon and the sun moves in the sky, above my head now—twelve o'clock in the sign of Scorpio—the great stinging creature that likes to stay hidden and when it comes out it stings. Under the Scorpio sun, alone on the beach I am just a small woman, as tiny as a grain of sand and so is my sorrow. It's not unique. All around this world, women tear out their hair for the suffering of their children. That is the plight of a mother. That is my fate and when its all done, it will be my son's wife who will do the same for her own.

It's life. I know it and in that knowing I wipe my face with the back my hands and just sit there in the wind for the longest time.

While there are many good conversations about essay, among them the introduction in The American Essay 2009, edited by Mary Oliver as well as the good writing of Philip Lopate, I find myself turn, again and again to this book of essays by Emerson (1803-1882) for a definition that rings true and that I often pass over to students.

The passage is by Irwin Edman, who was known for the "charm and clarity" of his writing, and for being an open-minded critic. He was also a popular professor and served as a mentor to undergraduate students, notably Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk (Columbia class of 1934), who dedicated his first novel to Edman.

On essay, Edman writes: The essay is an adventure in ideas, an exploration of a theme, a sortie of reflection. It is not an article; it is not an explication. The essay is an idea reflected through a personal medium. It is the form of literature in which the part counts, perhaps, more than the whole and which the part that counts most is the sentence. It is the mode of writing in which, when the whole does count, it counts most as a tone, an atmosphere; mood and attitude are more important than explicit structure, than pedestrian reasons argument. The essayist himself is remembered no less than his subject, even when he is not talking about himself.


I simply love this definition of the essay, which since the advent of journalism and memoir, seems to be a misunderstood form largely confined to academic works. Full length collections of essays are a bit confusing. Just what are they any way?

The actual book of essays by Emerson is a glimpse into another time and place. Emerson, an American lecturer, essayist, and poet, was best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century and for his championship of individualism. He was also a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society.

To read his writing, ingest and even understand requires a kind of meditative silence and focus that this time often doesn't allow (and which he so aptly predicted). We are so accelerated in these days and Emerson enviously exists in a timeless space. He is a gentleman of contemplation, allowed hours, days, weeks and months to ponder and formulate ideas on the page.

Heaven.

I recommend this book for the shelf and bedside. Pick it up when you find the time. There are gems to be gathered.

I cannot be still, each year, with our collective celebration of slaughter. If we were German's, we would not condone a celebration of the Holocaust. Such a suggestion would be an outrage of heartlessness and yet, each year American's celebrate the coming together with native people and sharing in their generous harvest--that saved the settlers lives--and then resulted in the mass loss of nearly all the native people on this continent.

America was not waiting for us, it was occupied by others. We stole it. Concentration camps were not our method but we were just as thorough.

We have much, as a people, to be accountable for and yet we consume turkey and talk of shopping in the morning.

It is hard to live on this land, the so called land of the free, but I do it and with a heavy heart this time of year.

I remember the native people of this land, I read Cheif Seattle's words and I look in at my own choices.

How am I, as a white woman, hungry in a way that cannot be sated? What is my wound and how can I heal that pain?

That is a thanksgiving of the heart.

May I be at peace. May my hunger come to rest.

AUTHENTIC TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE'S TREATY ORATION 1854

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good,
White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians -- will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

So you've had a dream and it's had an impact on you. How do you include this disembodied world in your writing? You just do it. Weave it in as part of your story and what makes it work best is to ground yourself in the real world first. Location, weather, time of day and description of where you are, who you are and so on.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) What is the most vivid dream you've had? Write down the details of that dream.

2) Now write a time in your life, where something in the real world is going on--perhaps you are having a disagreement with a partner or are just at the grocery store. What matters is that you are in a place, during a specific time with a mission at hand. You are going from point A to point B. Describe this situation in real time.

3) Insert the memory of the dream or do as the example shows and wake up.

EXAMPLE: See Monday's Fresh Writing

WRITE & SUBMIT: 500-700 words. Good luck! Share your writing by emailing me via this site.