Overflow

Spring always makes me a little nervous.  In the slow beating heart of winter, spring seems like an impossibility. “Things growing out of the ground? Daft!” Yet it comes every year, and every time, it is a surprise. But it’s almost too much: the sky is too blue, the air too crisp, the buds too delicate. It’s too much life. “My cup overflows.”

The world is born again each spring, relentlessly returns. Rebirth. I wonder if our own rebirth will be as ecstatic. And if it is too much, what then? Can there be too much happiness?

Suzanna in the Bible

Today’s first reading at Mass was from the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Daniel. I was surprised to hear the name “Suzanna”; I didn’t know there was a Suzanna in the Bible! In the story she refuses to let two old guys bully her into sleeping with them; she stands up for the truth and refuses to be threatened, even if it means her death. Her name means “Lily”.

First off, it felt like this was a bit of God reminding me to get back to my own Suzanna and her story. It also made me wonder if my Suzanna is at all religious. I think we’re all religious, whether we subscribe to a particular faith or not. Each one of us has our own God or gods to whom we are devoted. Many times we think we are worshiping God when really we’re devoting ourselves to our own preferences. We just dress it up with clouds and a long gray beard and baby heads with wings scattered here and there and call it God in heaven.

Who is Suzanna’s god? In the reading today He was the Hebrew God, the one to whom she called out, the one who rescued her from treachery and death. Would my Suzanna know there was such a one to call out to? And if so, would she believe He would respond?

Handiwork

My Nana taught me needlepoint. Because I understood the time and patience it took to finish these stitched projects, she bequeathed to me all the pillows and samplers she had created.

Now, when I run my hand over the stitches she made, it is like I am reaching back in time to the moment she made them. It’s like I’m touching her hand on the other side of the canvas, on the other side of space. In creating something beautiful, she reflected the actions of her Creator. And now, one hopes, she sees Him face to face. And so it seems to me that her small work of art is a bridge between then and now, between here and there, between that which is, and that which is to be.

Pruning. I.

A curtain of brambles hangs alongside the walkway.

I cannot tell if they began in the ground

and wound

their snaky way up the fence and trees toward the sky

or if

they grew, inevitably, from the tree and

by inches and in weeks

plunged towards the black pavement.

I have never understood how things grow –

houseplants or hydrangeas or horses or humans.

But the fact of their changing,

their roots clutching earth, their stretching towards the blue abyss of sky,

fills me with awe and dread.

These thorny vines should have been cleared away

a long time ago.

They are a hazard to the children, who play near here.

They often scratch at me as I brush past.

Someone was supposed to do something about it,

some time ago.

Life, and Adventure.

Aragorn to be ruled by

Legolas to swoon over

Gimli to drink with

Gandalf to die with

But Samwise Gamgee to make a life with.

Reassessing

So, I’ve run into a problem (besides falling asleep when I put the kids to bed, and not coming back down to write).

I blogged about it the other day: I don’t have a timeline or structure for my Suzanna story. There needs to be an overarching plot or at least a defined cast of characters. It’s just too confusing to do it in little snatches. So I am going to work on that story on actual paper (archaic, I know), and then give you little bits here and there.  In the meantime, I think I should keep practicing just sitting down and writing.

Tonight I’ll tell you about My Secret Love.

I first met Mrs. K on a sweltering afternoon in August. Her crisp white linen dress and perfectly coiffed golden hair exuded the aura of “Southern Lady”. She was new to town, but if she was nervous, it didn’t show. I, on the other hand, was feeling a little short of breath. But the moment she called me “Darlin’” in her smooth as honey voice, I knew everything would be beautiful.

“Darlin’, you’re a first time kindergarten mama, aren’t you?”

How could she tell? What kind of strange second sight did this woman possess? Was it the look of terror on my face? The tears welling up in my eyes? The “Baby’s Milestones” photo album I clutched to my bosom?

“Y-y-y-yes, I – I – I mmmm not sure …”

“Oh, Darlin’, she’s gonna be just fine. Look, she’s already makin’ new friends!”

And there was my daughter, introducing herself to some sullen looking pigtailed girl who could not possibly be worthy of her friendship. But I was there, and would protect her from disappointment. Mrs. K put a warm but light hand on my shoulder.

“Okay Mama, she’ll learn. Know what you need to do? You need to go home tonight and have your husband take the kids, and you get yerself into a nice bath and have a glass a wine.” She peered at me. “A couple a glasses a wine.”

Now, when my daughter misbehaves, I threaten to tattle on her to Mrs. K. The child cries on the weekends because she misses school. I cry because every day that starts with “S” is a day I will not see Mrs. K’s shining smile. The days in her presence have flown by, and soon, very soon, the day will come when Little Miss will graduate from Kindergarten. The thought sends me into a panic.

It is my heart’s deepest desire to be Mrs. K’s bff. The pretense of my daughter being her pupil will soon disappear, and I will be left, alone and Mrs. K-less. Gifts I have brought her, mostly of the home-baked variety; my reward was a thank you note, scrawled with a black sharpie on a piece of turquoise scratch paper. I keep it posted on my bulletin board, a reminder that there is a good woman out there who appreciates my efforts.

Tonight I’m working with string — a friendship bracelet, in black and turquoise, with a capital K.

Timeline

I haven’t posted since last Wednesday; we’ve been sick here, and then it was the weekend.

That doesn’t mean I have anything decent to write tonight.

I have told you as much as I know about Suzanna. Actually, she’s developed more since I started the blog. I know the exact next step I want to take, but beyond that, I don’t know what will happen. I think it may be a result of poor planning. I never was very good at time lines or plotting (subliminal pun intended) things out. It’s always been a “maybe this would happen” or “maybe that”. Ideas swarm around in my mind, but I never marshal  them into a particular order. That’s part of the difficulty of writing here on the blog: what if I leave out something crucial in Suzanna’s past that makes the current story incomprehensible?  And once something is written, is that it? That is: of course one edits, but once something is published, once it is sent out into the world, is it a finished thing, with its own integrity? What I do here is not real publishing, but it is being read (by both of you), and that, I think, gives it a certain…finality?

I think the most I can do is to keep coming here, and to keep trying, and hopefully, the structure of the story will reveal itself. It’s not easy to come back to this space when I have shied away from it for 4 days. I’m disappointed in myself, frankly. In the past I have allowed that disappointment to swallow up whole projects, fleeting ideas, cunning plans. But I’m here today.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Suzanna’s next step.

It’s Time to Get Things Started

Continued from “Ready to Run” on Feb. 25, (which was edited today, March 3, to reflect the ‘technological issue’ I discovered and wrote about yesterday, March 2).

Suzanna slipped the “T.V.’s Great Music” cd into the top of the stereo and carefully turned the fuzzy faces of the speakers to the floor. If she was going to antagonize Barbara, she wasn’t going to do it half-assed.

“OK, now to loop,” she mumbled. Not normally liking to hear a song more than once,  it took Suzanna a few minutes to discover exactly how to make one track play repeatedly: repeatedly until she got back from her run. Which could take hours, if she stopped at Caribou Coffee on the way home for a blueberry muffin and satisfaction from a distance. The song was a little more than one minute long, with about ten seconds of lead time before its fanfare began in earnest. That would give her just enough time to lock the door and dash past Barbara’s lair. Barbara could beat with her cane all afternoon; it would be good exercise. Maybe it would even force the oldish lady to get out of her own house.

“It’s almost charity,” Suzanna smirked. She knew this would only escalate the tension between herself and her neighbor, but Suzanna did not want to care today. Her desperate attempts to be silent for Ms. Radcliffe had never won over the old bitch.

Today Suzanna was going to make some noise.

Snugging her navy blue cap into place and grasping her house keys in her right hand, Suzanna got into a runner’s stance. Her left index finger depressed the pause button. As she bounded out the building’s main door, she thought she could hear the trumpets.

And now let’s get things started

Why don’t you get things started

It’s time to get things started

On the most sensational inspirational celebrational…

Damn You, Time!

Ok, I sat down to write tonight about Suzanna after “Ready to Run” (Thursday, Feb. 22), when I realized something.

I need the story to take place before 9/11, maybe even before Y2K. So waayyyy back at the turn of the century (‘the back times’, as my daughter likes to call the distant past), people didn’t have ipods or mp3 players. It looks like they came out in October of 2001. So I have to go back and change that post or part of the story. No ipod, no docking station, no freaky looking Nikes. Does that leave the poor girl with a walkman? Or does she go for a jog with a boombox on her shoulder? And how is she affording all these high-tech gizmos anyway? And what in the hell am I doing having her go for a run? I don’t know anything about running! You could put a gun to my head right now and command me to run, and I probably would only be able to get out some panting and stumbling.

When I was in lower school I took piano lessons from white haired old Mrs. Estmann. She was about five feet tall and had an iron-grey bun that was attached to the top of her head with rusted hairpins. She was convinced that Ragtime music was still just getting off the ground and was determined I should have “The Entertainer” ready for Mr. Joplin when he stopped by. I loved playing the piano, but absolutely hated practicing: if I could fake my way through something easily, I much preferred it to having a piece memorized and accurately played. (We’ll call it “improvisational” instead of “lazy”). Also: it didn’t help that when I did play a jazzy piece for her, she’d belt out the lyrics or shake her index finger to the tune like a drunken flapper at a speakeasy.

So, when I hadn’t practiced, I’d keep her chatting about Rhythm and Form and Major and Minor keys, shifting my glance down to her delicate gold plated wristwatch every few minutes. When the big hand got down to the 5, I’d interrupt her gently and say that I really thought it was time I played my piece for her! And so I’d stumble through, and she wouldn’t have much time to do anything except put a slightly lopsided smiley face on the page and let me go until the next week.

Well! That’s all the time we’ve got for today. See you tomorrow!

A Difference of Sex?

We’ve been pretty sick here in the house, so I’m afraid there hasn’t been much writing, or even mulling about writing, going on here.

One thing occurred to me though. Most of you know I have a girl child and a man cub, ages 6 and 3, respectively. It’s really interesting to me (when it’s not infuriating) how differently they react to things. This family Black Lung Death bug we have here brings this out. The female just wants to swoon and, well, bitch (myself included on that score) about not feeling well. It’s a very emotional thing. The mancub, however, seems to think he can outrun it. Maybe he’s just distracting himself, I don’t know. But she lies abed, and he bodyslams her like one of those WWF ‘wrestlers’. “Justkeepmoving, justkeepmoving” seems to be his motto, while hers is “How Long, O Lord, Wilt Thou Chastise My Sickened Frame?”.

Now, is this a difference of sex, or just of personality? Since I only have one of each gender, it’s hard to know. I find it much easier to think about writing a female character than a male character. I think many women write men as if they thought and felt as women, but just happened to have different genitalia. Of course, there’s the opposite approach as well. Remember Jack Nicholson in “As Good as it Gets”? When asked how he “writes women so well,” his reply is:

“I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.”

The truth is, the male of the species has always been a kind of mystery to me. Maybe that’s because men are not particularly mysterious, but I expect them to be? I have spent many an hour with girlfriends trying to interpret Guy X’s deepest thoughts and feelings, only to be left completely stumped. Eight years of marriage has taught me…..well, it’s taught me a lot (Sweetie!). But in terms of the mystery of maleness, all I’ve figured out is that if they have love, food, and rest, they’ll tell you if anything else is on their minds.

That statement may seem as pat and ‘disrespekful’ as Jack Nicholson’s. But at least it’s funny. And waiting until I’ve discovered the root of the difference between the sexes would be just another excuse to not write at all.

Tomorrow I’ll give you the next Suzanna installment. There. It is written. So to speak. Now I have to do it. And that’s what this blog is here for, anyway. Damnit.