A Little Thoreau and a Few Resolutions

...in his August 19, 1851 journal, H. D. Thoreau wrote, "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!"

...i've been meditating on these words for quite a while...i'd first heard them roughly translated by my writing instructors as "write what you know" and "you can't write if you haven't lived"...i used to wonder about what sort of "living" my mentors had in mind, exactly...did they expect all young writers to join the circus, drive ambulances in wars, ride with mexican renegades and send covert reports from the front...i wasn't sure...but by the time i was twenty, i'd felt as if i'd lived a few different lives and i could try to write about at least one of them...

...fifteen years later, i think i can finally do justice to my first life...

...still, i think about those fifteen years: have i "stood up"?

...Thoreau's journal entry continues, "The writing which consists with habitual sitting is mechanical wooden dull to read" and he insists writers need movement of the limbs to get the blood flowing, emphasizing the necessity for a walk to trigger the mind...

...for quite some time, i've been habitually sitting, putting words on paper again and again, and seemingly watching the world move on...i worry i've become pretty sedentary, that i won't be able to write about the years i've lived while trying to write about my first life...and while i'd like to take his words literally--and easily let myself off the hook by getting up from my desk and making a loop around the block--i have to look at them metaphorically too...a writer cannot sit in one place, in one time, continually occupying one identity, without running the risk of flat, boring work...we cannot allow ourselves to perpetually live with the mind of the person we used to be...hell, we can't even be the person we were last year (sorry, Gatsby)...we have to live, to grow, to see the world...if not by actually being there, then by at least allowing our actions to be shaped by what is going on around us...in short, Thoreau's reminding us that before we're writers, we're human beings...

...we're sentient..and without empathy we're working in vain...

...in an attempt to keep my writing relevant, my prose organic, and my thoughts new, i've composed the following resolutions...

2013 Resolutions
1. Give thanks for each sunrise, each sunset
2. Continue to feel empathy for those whose lives I've never known
3. Write a sentence everyday, no matter how small the thought
4. Never sit down in vain

In Case the Mayans Weren't Kidding

...this morning i thanked the universe for my family's fear of guns and sharp objects...seriously...if we'd been fearless we would've killed each other every time we had an argument...we're quick to anger, mistrust, and we give in to the overwhelming feeling that the world is waiting for us to fail...

...so i thought, in the spirit of perpetual hope, thankfulness, and the general feeling of guilt i have because of falling down on the blogging job--damned you, memoir manuscript--i'd write up a small list of things i'm thankful for in an effort to thwart my homicidal thoughts...

...and if george lucas is right we won't be here after next week and i figured i should get one more post under the wire since my mom hated the last one...she didn't even like my richie rich reference, which i'm very proud of, by the way...

things i'm thankful for as the year nears an end:
1. my grandfather is dead...if he could see how fat i am, it would kill him
2. my two sisters who i slap around for each other...thus vicariously living a passive aggressive life but still getting the pleasure of hurting someone head-on
3. my daughter, who can finally snap her fingers...now she can call the waiter to our table
4. my writer pals who continue to support my work
5. my grandmother, who taught me the values of hard-earned money and family--that you're not entitled to either, and both require plenty of work
6. my husband's virility and potency...and amazing patience and love
7. my friends, both new and tried and true...for a kid who grew up with no close friends, i sure am lucky to have so many of them now
7. also for toilet paper, my cats, Vans shoes, memory foam, and homemade laundry detergent

...in february, i preempted the crappy year that would be 2012 by posting an early year-in-review...though most of the year continued to head down crap highway, things have started to look up for 2013...i feel the need to share a few more moments here...

additional 2012 year-in-review moments:
1. finishing the the draft of Blood and Circumstance...not only did i meet some supportive and encouraging writers at SWWC, i left it knowing i was doing the right thing with my book, my writing, my life...so i was able to finish the book, then spend six weeks editing it...

2. quitting my job...this is a double-edged sword...on the one hand i was iced out by a sad woman so jealous of me she fed me lies to make me look bad, then denied them when the shit hit the fan (essay forthcoming)...on the other hand, not working full time allowed me to finally finish my memoir...

3. spending the mornings with my daughter...these moments are our quiet time together, our mommy-daughter talk sessions in her bed as she wipes the sleep from her eyes and smiles and tells me what she dreamed, what she hopes for the day...and every morning when i drop her off at school, she kisses me and gives me a "heart to heart" where she presses her little hand to my chest and i do the same to her...

4. young baby #2, due out in june...we were gun-shy after the miscarriage, but when those little pink lines showed up a few months ago, i was so excited i nearly fainted...and then, a few weeks later, i did faint...in class...while i was teaching...i was sure i'd lost the second one, the pain was so bad...but nope, it's holding on and we'll find out soon the exact due date...and whether or not i'm growing a penis inside or a second vagina...

5. (this is the one that had me dwelling on my hereditary homicidal thoughts) my little sister's impending divorce...it's hard to watch two people i love very much tear each other down...i go to bed thinking of them and wake with the same anxiety, and it seems that nothing i do or say helps either of them find a way to deal with their shitty situation peacefully...i find myself wishing often that i had a magic wand that could solve their problems--the problems of everyone i love, for that matter--so the anger and heartache will end...

6. my acceptance to, and winning a scholarship for, the Writers in Paradise Conference in January 2013...i won the Standiford Non-Fiction award and was selected to participate in Les Standiford's week-long workshop...this is a heavy-hitter and i can't wait to participate, hear some great writers (and Ole Miss pals), and spend a week in florida...

...happy holidays everyone...if you're not afraid to own a firearm or a large sharp implement, i hope you get through the remaining weeks of 2012 without killing anyone...

Strange Girls

...okay, i'm sure i'm late to this moral crisis, but i've spent the last few days on the couch watching TLC  shows on netflix and i think it's made me dumber than when i started...apparently, the learning channel has become the opposite of actual learning...instead, it's the modern-day equivilant of the turn-of-the-century freak show...it's a televised stroll down the midway of the travelling circus...bearded fat ladies, conjoined twins, elephant men, tattooed women...all those taboos the farmhands came out of the woodwork to observe, we can watch from the safety of our own homes...no one there to see us go in and out of the seedy tents...

...anyone who knows me is aware of my obsession with little people...i'm not sure when it started, but each time a see a vertically challenged individual i want to pick him/her up and put them in my purse...i've never been one to play with dolls, but the allure of small people for me is like that of catnip to cats...not that i would ever rub myself against one, or lick one, or roll around on one...okay, that catnip metaphor was bad...

...i'm not willing to spend my time in hell in the hottest corner by remaining neutral on this topic...i'd rather party with the rest of the interesting sinners...so today i admit to watching children parade on stage in full glitz...my obsession with "strange girls" who sleep around, weigh 750 pounds, or love other girls...to thinking, when i see a man born with no legs but full genitalia, not "how can he live like that, pushing himself around on a skateboard?" but "how does he have sex?"

***

...adam read this post a few hours after it went live and his response was, "that's it?"

"of course," i said "were you expecting some great moral debate simply because i quoted dante?"

he shrugged and went back to his playstation

***

...so here's the great moral debate...dante and i have been friends for nearly a quarter of a century and while i understand that his words, specifically those in the inferno, were used as an attempt to call attention to the hypocrisy and closeted hedonism of the catholic church authority, i see many people in 21st century america using them to justify their own bigotry, ignorance, and hatred (see above paragraphs)...but it especially burns me when i learn of scholars doing this...or, at least people who've used daddy's dime to buy that english minor or phd in literature...they think because they've taken a dante class they're equipped to "teach" dante to their students by pulling out quotes like those above and attempting to apply them to the religion du juor...they define morality by the vague views thrust upon them in sunday school and perpetuated by a close-knit group of friends who've never challenged them to see otherwise...dante was many things, but a soothsayer time-traveler he was not...i'm sure he didn't mean to have his words support southern baptist evangelicals, some of whom spew hatred toward gays, condemn planned parenthood, and actually think jesus wants their daughters to win high-glitz beauty pageant titles...

...and here's another great moral debate...i'm finally, truly, fed up with living in a plutonomy...screw religion being the opiate of the masses...today every item made in china creates a richie rich high for the middle-class...if we can walk into a store and think to ourselves, "i can buy nearly everything in here and still afford dinner," of course we'll let the rich brainwash us into believing what matters and what doesn't...we'll continue to let them wield the power we give them, never thinking for a second that if we'd actually use the power a democracy assures us we have, we might actually begin to live in a society that values people rather than money, hard work over lineage, and--most importantly to me--truth, no matter how hard it is for us to take...

...and of course i think of this now, at the holidays, when so many people around me would have me simply answer the question, "what do you want for christmas?" rather than, "what does this holiday really mean to you?"...no discussion of perpetual hope, the realities of the pagan rituals, who saint nicholas might have been...no parsing of carols or answers to why we put up a tree and continue to wear tacky footwear...just: "tell me what you want so i don't have to think about you again until next year"

really? even turn-of-the-century carnies
didn't know how to use punctuation correctly?

...and along those lines, i get to what's really bothering me: i'm tired of being labelled a "strange girl"...of being placated with junk just to maintain neutrality...if i don't keep my mouth shut about the injustices around me--those going on within my own family, at my husband's work--i won't get that digital meat thermometer...

...so perhaps this post is a call to myself, a challenge to shrug off the niceties and come out swinging...why?...because i was born...