On the Mend

I am on the mend. This means I am better. This means I am halfway back in the world. This means some days are better than others. This does not mean that I have energy or that there isn't pain. I took an eighteen minute walk last Saturday and vertigo plagued me for two days. I exercised yesterday because my addicted to the gym brother told me to "keep pushing it." It felt good until my life force drained, my insides shook, and I could see the world is really spinning with me on it.  This also means that I still think too much about me. I am so sick of me and this body. I am angry at my body. Angry at my mind and the words that come out of my mouth when I complain, or even when I merely speak up for my needs. People don't like sick people unless we're dying. Even then, some stay distant. I have always stayed distant from the sick which may be why I am not handling this summer of my sickness well. I don't know how to detach from my body. I am stuck in it. This summer has showed me the importance of compassion. Without it, I would be much worse and still in the dark place I fell into weeks ago (me in the bathtub, praying for Armageddon).  Those people know who they are...thank you.

I haven't been able to focus to read fiction. The other day, I told my friend that this suffering, this trapped inside a body swollen with pain and a maddening mind, has reconnected me to the suffering of others, and this broken body is this fallen world. She sent me a link of Eve Ensler's  Ted Talk.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler.html

I am now almost done with her latest memoir, In the Body of the World. It makes me think of the sharp humor and listening skills of my Aunt Sue, of the good woman of Ashley (even if she never knew it), of Laura (who impacted my life more than she knew or will know unless we meet again in the next dimension), the activism of my sister and her fearlessness to love her friends, and the activism and art of Chere and the warm energy she generates, of Missy who lived in crack houses and sold herself but protected me from that man, of my mother and her desire to dance, of my father and brother who have passed but told Heather "We don't worry about that one. She is strong."  Of my Mimi and her lost mind and my other Aunt who takes care of her day in and out, and of how there is a world full of people that I have never met. I want to live. I want to be in this fallen world. I try to will my body to heal and it mocks me. I am convinced that I need the ocean. The salt, the cold, and the pull of God in the water is all my legs need to be strong again. And lastly, I am obsessed with memoirs now, with real people, with intimacy, with confession and suffering, with healing, with questioning, with human rights...Next I am reading Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen, and then Ghostbread by Sonja Livingston (both professors at the University of Memphis).  I even dropped one of my fall semester fiction classes and replaced it with a Creative Non Fiction Workshop. It's a whim. I like whims. Whims belong to the living.

What Good is Suffering if I Can't Write About It?

I have been sick lately and I don't do sick well. Actually ill, not just a cold or sinus infection. I have been undergoing medical treatment for a condition I have. The treatment was said to have "mild side effects." Nights of insomnia, days of vertigo, sometimes I see dark critters move out of the corner of my eye, and then the pain. Legs broke out in nodules and bruises, and my ankles and knees swell up with bright red bruises and the arthritic pain in the hips, knees, and ankles. In the mornings, it's worse. I crawled along grabbing walls trying to get my broken body to the bathroom. I no longer enjoyed waking up. I cried every night, unsure how I would make it through another day. This is still happening. I finally decided to take time off work after my primary care doctor found nodules in my lungs. Another side effect? Probably. Probably an autoimmune disorder brought on by the medical treatment. I should know tomorrow. Or maybe it's from smoking. I quit May 5th of this year. A friend of mine commented that I am like a House episode. Except my doctor picked up on autoimmune by the second visit and I'd bet money he is right and didn't need Vicodin, a cute assistant with an Australian accent, or Neil from The Dead's Poet Society to help him with the diagnosis.

My mind is toxic. Self pity? You betcha. I am now realizing how miserable I have been for over a month. I can't believe I worked as long as I did. I hobbled in and felt like I would collapse at any moment. I'd whine about the pain or stay busy and mentally scream and wonder how I was going to take one more step let alone make it through the rest of my shift. I had a coworker say horrible things about me being sick. Some people don't do well with sick people. I don't. I'd probably be all freaked out by it, too. I wouldn't talk bad about the person but I would definitely wonder why they weren't staying in bed.  I have cried and cried to my boyfriend, mom, and best friend. I cried and felt crazy when the treatment doctors dismissed my side effects and said it wasn't side effects. I am very happy my primary care doctor listened. My body freaked out and I am sure it occurring during the medical treatment isn't just a coincidence.  My mind is spinning. I worry about the nodules on my lungs. I worry about my job and coworkers. I worry I have driven everyone mad with my pain and my inability to see beyond it most of the time.

So what's the solution? Persevere. I am not stoic. I see that. Anyone in close proximity to me sees it. I may scream, cry, and limp my way through this. The room may spin out on me and my breath may be shallow and leave me for a moment. I may send my best friend 100 plus text messages a day all about me and have moments of guilt for not being there for her right now. Every night at 9:30 I may be convinced that I am dying and cry hysterically. But I will persevere with hope and faith that all this is temporary and I will recover and be better than ever. And not just my body but my mind, too. I will no longer be freaked out by sick people. I will let them cry to me. I will listen to their concerns. I will run my fingers through their hair and give them the best seat in the house. When 9:30 hits, I will hold their hands and tell them that they absolutely are not dying. I will tell them how I got through it and that it wasn't pretty. When someone gossips about them at work, I will stand up for them. At their doctor's appointments, I will be their advocate. Their bodies will rest while they receive the reiki I scheduled for them (Thanks, Sis).  I will do for them what all my dear dear friends and loved ones are doing for me. 

Finally, I have been keeping a journal and it is full of daily lists of side effects, spiritual reflections--on one page I praise Jesus and touch the hem of His garment, on the next I rip out my hair and ask God why He is punishing me (that's the scary God of my Southern Baptist childhood), I dig up stories from my past, and mostly my words rattle down the page in pure lunacy. Once this is all over and I am completely healed (I am owning it--I will be healed), I want to do a CNF piece about this whole ordeal. I mean seriously, what good is suffering if I can't write about it?

This Wednesday is my birthday. I haven't been excited. In fact, I have been dreading it. My thoughts have been dark and hopeless. I didn't want to celebrate my 36th birthday in arthritic pain and swollen limbs. I am too young to feel this way...weeks ago I was running miles everyday! There it is--a few weeks ago I dreaded my birthday because I was getting old. Hell, I will be the age of Charlotte on her Luck be an Old Lady birthday at Atlantic City! Yet, wait, I am too young to be this ill. I realize I am young. Maybe not 23 young but sheesh, I don't want to be me at 23. I don't think my maturity level is anywhere near 36 anyways. So that's the bright side, I suddenly feel young. I suddenly want to live life and spend time with friends and family and go on big adventures. And write. I am ready to resume my life.

Looking for Structure but No, Not Really

     I have been journaling in the mornings to get all the craziness out of my head. I do feel better afterwards but the thoughts return like pinballs bouncing off knobs with lights flashing and bells dinging. That's my mind--colorful and busy.  My friend who lives in Oxford asked me if I wanted us to be accountable to one another for our writing habits and of course I said yes. For a few days, we both journaled in the mornings and I wrote a page at night and she wrote a poem. Then it sort of just, well, we stopped. It isn't very productive to have two mentally hyper women trying to hold each other accountable. We did text each other long messages that were probably more than a page. She obsessed over saints with visions and a nun's finger worn as a necklace, and the finger bled for a long time and didn't decompose. I rambled about the "unclean" woman with the blood disorder who reached out and touched the hem of Jesus' garment and I whined about the medicine I am having to take and how I can't sleep and all the other side effects. She sent me picture texts of poetry book covers and I sent her updates about my grandmother who has dementia and sometimes thinks my aunt (and everyone else) is out to kill her. But we failed. We didn't increase our productivity of writing.
   
     I work in a bookstore. I keep eyeing The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. A man I was deeply obsessed with,  I mean to a sickening degree--I was only 26 years old and way crazier than I am now--gave me that book. I think I followed the rules or suggestions or whatever for a week, or maybe I just told him I did. Anyways, at work, I flip through the pages of that book and I see a lot of beneficial tasks but then I see it's for twelve weeks and I know me and I won't do the whole thing because life will get in the way. But then I think that even if I only do some of it, maybe I will become more disciplined.  Then I realize that I hate discipline. I like to be sort of out there and half cocked with visions of bleeding fingers and a matriarch gone mad, as well as the late night typing not sure what is going to fall on the page but typing anyways--even if it is just once a week.  And I love the textathons with my best friend and how through it we solve each others problems even if we get distracted by Camus' Sisyphus or Catherine Millet's gang bangs. Others may disagree. These others may even be more successful and highly productive, but I like to do everything backwards and wrong and watch how it all still falls into place.

     Here is snippet of a piece that I started a week ago. It's still in the rough rough phase.

     Carla took photos of herself and pinned them up on the wall behind her bed’s headboard.  Polaroids bent at the edges and curled yellow from nicotine and dust hovered above her as she slept. She screamed in some, mouth open, teeth showing, eyes wide like she was startled. Her breasts peered out between undone buttons in others and in some she was fully clothed and dreadfully boring. She worked at a gas station two blocks away from her apartment and walked there to work the overnight shift. The hours of drunks and druggies and all around losers and this included the drunk frat boys who staggered in all through the night to pee while they waited for their coke dealer in the parking lot. She sat behind the counter and read magazines about celebrities and pregnancies. This night would be no different but she didn’t want to leave her apartment or the comfort of her hundred eyes watching over her in the bedroom.

Oh My Broken City--Memphis, TN

     Last summer, I was in Alicante, Spain for the Fiesta Sant Joan.  The city thundered with fireworks and the sky lit up electric and divine. The tops of buildings exploded in light across the night sky as I ran through narrow streets curving upward toward the Mercado. I'd pause and look up as fire fell from above. Hyperbolic? Yes. But the emotions inside me brought on by this brilliant display were intense and nothing short of true euphoria. I have been chasing this feeling like a junky. This year I went to two separate fourth of July festivities in hopes of bomb like detonations and streaks of reds, green, blue, purple, pink, and white across the Memphis night.  The Bartlett fireworks on July 3rd were delayed due to technical difficulties and I finally gave up and left only for them to start as I drove away. This made me determined to brave the sweltering crowds of downtown Memphis on the fourth.

      All seemed well as I sat on top of the South Bluffs watching the sun set over the river.  In my early twenties, I wrote crazy tragic tales of a young woman overdosing in her front seat on the banks of the Mississippi, Hank Williams (Senior, of course) cooing his soul sick ditties through the car's speakers, and she would think of her dad as she drifted off never to return and the last thing she heard while leaving this earth was the sizzle of the sun setting in the river. Man, I am over dramatic! I say all this to show I have an obsession with the river at dusk. This night felt special to me. Rain began to fall and we all held the blankets we had been sitting on over our heads until it past. As the sun faded, more and more bodies gathered on the South Bluff.  The Beale Street Landing was closed down by the police after a kid shot off fireworks inside causing a stampede out of the building and into the streets. I watched all this safely from the bluffs. Then another stampede from down below came swarming up to the Bluffs and cries of "Someone's been shot" and "He's got a gun." A group of young men, maybe twenty of them, chased one young man. I'm sorry, I mean boys. Thirteen to fifteen year olds. I saw the butt of guns sticking from waistlines of children. I cried. I hid behind my boyfriend and three big men.  The police came and chased them away, down alleys and around corners. A thirteen year old had been shot at the bottom of the bluffs at Riverside and Beale. He survived and was last listed in non critical condition. My friend, her husband, and her son were there. They saw the shooter. They watched him and his companions jog away with calm expressions on their faces. An eighteen year old's picture was released by the media, he had been arrested in conjunction with the shooting. Juveniles were arrested, too, but the media cannot legally release their photos.

     The show went on. Policemen mounted on horses stood off to my right, policemen on bicycles rode through the crowd, and policemen on foot shined flashlights and asked people to clear the walkway. Then the sky exploded with lights. We all cooed and were in awe. My friend's one year old saw his first fireworks. Afterwards, we made our way back to our cars in groups for safety. In Alicante, I walked home at three in the morning by myself, completely safe. The children didn't have guns. The pops echoing through the alleys were firecrackers not gunshots.

     So what does this have to do with writing? I have been trying to get involved with various organizations around town to no avail. I emailed my sister about all the violence at the fireworks and how heavy my heart was, especially by the hateful comments of bourgeoisie white people in this city all worried about property taxes instead of these young ones' futures--and yes, the eighteen year old is still a young one. She mentioned the arts saving lives and how impoverished neighborhoods do not have access to the arts. She knows this from experience. She helped found a prison playwright program called Voices Inside/Out. Here is a link to the program which includes details of the program, projects by the program, and letters from the inmates and how it saved their lives inside prison as well as when they got out-- http://northpointplays.com/.  I pondered what can I do to help my city. I am a writer. Literacy Mid South has a program called Write Memphis. This programs helps children from all over the city, including those rough areas, by helping them write creatively. I sent an email asking to volunteer. I hope to hear back soon. If not, I will contact them again. I must do something to help the children of this city. I hope all of you will do something, too.

Links to writing programs for children or the homeless
http://doorofhopememphis.org/

http://www.writememphis.org/WriteMemphis/Home.html

My Summer of Books and Writing

It has been a while since I have blogged. I constantly update Facebook with vague snippets or annoying declarations of my latest whim but I do not feel like I have what it takes to be a blogger. Maybe eventually but not now.

Instead, here is a list of my summer reading--

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. "We believed we would die with handcuffs on."

I had a lot of contempt for this writer even though "Emergency" was quite beautiful with angels cracking through drive-ins and Georgie saving lives. Too many male hipsters valorized his works and made me extremely uncomfortable. Suburban boys who were relocated in cities and now donned handlebar moustaches touted Johnson as a genius and began writing their own dirty stories of drugs and filth, which unlike Johnson, they had only read about but never lived.  I finally broke down and read it in spite of the ironic scenesters chanting his name. And now, Denis Johnson is my literary lover.  http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/features/6127/  Follow that link to see why. Pay close attention to where he discusses heroin and alcoholism and then again when he gets religious. Only difference in the former is that I was prepared.... I knew all this about him before I read the article. It was transmitted to me while I read his book. My favorite stories from it are "Out on Bail" and "Beverly Homes."

Angels by Denis Johnson. This is his first novel. This is brutal. Jamie wants to murder them and I don't blame her. Bill Houston explains why that won't help. Years of therapy and the fictional Bill Houston makes it all clear for me and helps me to understand. Vague? Yes. Read the book. It's dark and dirty and centers around Bill Houston, a criminal, a drifter, and an alcoholic, and his brothers, a thief with big plans and a heroin addict--respectively. It isn't about lowlifes. It's about reconciling living in a fallen world which Johnson said in the link above. He understands that there is something beautiful in the sinner, a bit of God in them that makes the world so much harder to bear and they succumb to the dark and leave those who sleep to the sunny side of the street.

Up next...

The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates. I have only read two short stories by her. I love her story "Where are You Going, Where have You Been?" I work at a bookstore and picked up The Falls. Oates' wiry frame and pale skin radiated beneath black hair on the back cover. She looked crazy in an absolutely mystical way, in a way I could only ever dream to be. This is why this book is next.

Cities of Refuge by Michael Helms.  http://www.tinhouse.com/cities-of-refuge.html  I want to read something epic and well written. I like the biblical implications of the title. I also have a fetish for Canadians.  Stay posted for a review.

The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson. Dipsomania....

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I read the opening paragraph and was hooked. Stark yet drips with rhythm and cuts away the flesh...I may read it next. I will keep you all posted.

I am writing. I don't have much to say about it. I am taking a cure for medical problems and am a bit out of sorts from the meds. Here's a very small snip of one of the things I am working on--

He opened his eyes and his pretty blues, God those pretty blues, the pupil only a tiny speck in a sea of blue, and my body floated in it, between the waves without ever touching water or falling into the black pinhole.  Then I remembered but didn’t know what I remembered but I knew to stay away from the black, not to fall in. “What will we do then?”  His body scooted closer to me and his hands swept over the linen.  I reached out to touch the blue. Stay in the blue and it won’t hurt.

Frustration

I have seriously been writing my little heart out.  No, not really. My heart hasn't been in it.  I have seriously been writing cramps into my fingers.  Good characters, good plot lines but no voice.  The voice that I was told was my best trait has suddenly left me.  I try to will it back with all my being and it just stays gone.  These characters are not in my heart.  They are in my mind buzzing around, whispering bits of pieces of their stories...their stories, not themselves.  I could tell my story to people but it still wouldn't be me. I could write out an action outline to my life but it still wouldn't show who I am.  So how do I get this back?  Can I open my mouth towards Heaven and hope that God just pours it back into me?  My heart needs to know my characters and it doesn't.  My heart needs to write my narrative but my mind gets in the way.  And what do I mean by heart?  The hallmark card heart? No. The organ that pumps blood through my body?  Yes...I need to be their heart and pump blood through their bodies instead of my brain giving them commands to do this, say this...My characters are strangers to me.  I watch their movements and have short glimpses inside them.  I need to crawl inside, get beneath the skin and pump life into their veins. 
It has been suggested to write in first person, to become them, then note the differences.  It was said that my poetry had the voice and structure that my fiction needs.  I hate my poetry.  I want to set it on fire and burn it into my fiction.  I think I should write a poem for each character, let each character be the speaker of the poem....confessional poetry for Carlos, Arlene, Mark, Amanda and Sara.  I am going to try that and see if I can become the organ that feeds their thoughts, motions, desires, history and actions. They are all a little broken and need to confess. So that is my exercise. Make them confess in a poem.
We will see how this goes.

Carlos

The salt made me sick,
burned my nostrils,
and stole the peaches.
The collapse of a city
wrecked my face
into nothingness.
I sat on a bench,
dutiful,
waiting for my wife to return,
the banished wife,
forced to work with her hands
and carry others' desires on a tray.
The train spilt emptiness
onto the green floor
scuffed with treads of trash.
I wandered through the streets,
looking for my home churned butter,
with legs aching for a sacrifice,
for a return to wealth,
to manhood.
The door creaked and I entered the dark
of my lonely apartment,
her odor gone,
no whiskey left to drink,
only the fragrant sangria.

The Memory of Fruit

I am 35 today.  This terrifies me.  Saying "I'm 35," sounds so foreign.  J'ai trente cinq ans. But then again, I don't feel older or maybe I do.  The oddity of being a 35 year old undergrad studying for the GRE, stressing about grad school....I am living now like I should have in my twenties.  I am dedicated to grabbing the life I always wanted, the life that always slipped through my shaky fingers and haze of my twenties.  I am 35.  I have been to Spain and Amsterdam.  France is next, I will get there. 
While in Spain, I had a novel idea...literally, an idea for a novel.  I asked my teacher if my final assignment (a 12 page short story) could be the first 12 pages of my novel.  He agreed.  I was so excited.  Zany characters and existential plot lines dominated my thoughts while journeying through the Mediterranean coastline. I returned home, and couldn't write it.  The fire was gone.  It felt painful, typing empty words about flat characters. I regretted ever telling my teacher my plan.  I wanted to email him and tell him I would be turning in a regular short story and this novel thing was too much for me.  I composed the email twice, then hit cancel.  Yesterday afternoon, I opened my laptop.  Carlos started talking to me in his low voice full of poetry and history...his loss he couldn't accept.  Amanda annoyed me with her self involvement but bled my skin with her need to find something more than her southern life.  Resentment boiled for Maria and her cop.  A new character began to dance with bulls and red wine, glowing gold. I wrote.  I felt it.  This world became real.  Last night at around 2 am, I emailed my professor the first chapter of my novel.  I am wondering if this chapter could be self contained as a short story.  I could send it out to journals. I am in love with my novel again.
I suspect, as I continue to write, that I will encounter discontent and a willful urge to give up. Hopefully, I will be patient and wait for Carlos, Amanda, Vincente, and Maria to sing to me again.  It is their story.
A short snippet:

After a few slugs, Vincente ran around imitating the dance of a bull fighter.  He held his tan coat out teasing an invisible bull.  The sky glowed soft, sending flakes of gold into his eye. The town below was dark, with only a streetlamp here or there shining.   “I don’t need school like you.  I am going to be a matador.”  They were fifteen.  By sixteen, Vincente had left Orihuela.  He became famous.