on movement

I moved in yoga class tonight. Stretched, held, breathed, grunted, made faces, and, here and there, felt flow. Movement, breath, thought, non-thought, and simply being in that space, now, are what yoga is all about.

After class, the teacher told me I had a good practice. She said it was good to watch me.

I have new movement now: that of confidence, recognition, gratitude. My goal of one day doing yoga teacher training in India, of being a yoga instructor myself, seems to have that extra iota of validation that of late it (and I) was lacking.

Tomorrow, I am moving in another way. I am returning to the landscape I love so deeply, the red rocks and brilliant sky and wind-tousled pines of southern Utah.

In addition to excitement and curiosity, I feel trepidation, dread, and sadness at this movement. I see my pattern. Escape. Movement. Reaching toward something, and perhaps running from something else (what, I have yet to decipher).

Fear grips me and sends forth a volume of tears, some of which I attempted to stifle during practice tonight. During the movement of yoga tonight, I cried. The tears were for me, for this place, for confusion, for lack, for love, for loss. This place has been good to me, it has been challenging, it has been hard, it has been unexpected. It has grown on me. Am I giving up on it too soon, yet again? Or am I simply returning to what my heart knows is my deepest truth?

During the movement of yoga tonight, I also had an epiphany. I can always come back. I can dance with movement this summer, with abandon, and enjoy every second of every day (or least make my best effort). I can walk in the land I love, and marvel at its unending beauty, its ruggedness, its deep simplicity. I can be in the moment, and I can stick to it and realize it.

There is a freedom in movement, after all. As there also is in staying still. The latter of which may still be the lesson I most need to learn.

on movement

sand canyon journey

I went with a friend to Sand Canyon a few weeks back. What a beautiful, remote, quiet, immense place! Lots of history there, most of it now blown away into sand and dust.

We saw relatively few other people there, and there was thankfully NO SNOW! (After a winter like this last one, you must forgive me if I rejoice particularly so at the coming of the spring. Of course, just as I write this, the clouds are dropping a slushy rain/snow.)

We explored, challenged ourselves on slight grades of slickrock to navigate, and imagined what it was like to live here, centuries ago.

Take a look and see what you think yourself.

What do your sacred, loved, or even merely once visited but never forgotten places look like?

sand canyon journey

Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) budget cuts

Just found out about this proposed cut (thanks, Bush admin.):

President Bush Eliminates Funding for Reading Is Fundamental’s Historic Book Distribution Program Serving 4.6 Million Children
Statement from Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO, of Reading Is Fundamental

"President Bush’s proposed budget calling for the elimination of Reading Is Fundamental’s (RIF) Inexpensive Book Distribution program would be devastating to the 4.6 million children and their families who receive free books and reading encouragement from RIF programs at nearly 20,000 locations throughout the U.S.

“Unless Congress reinstates $26 million in funding for this program, RIF will not be able to distribute 16 million books annually to the nation’s youngest and most at-risk children. RIF programs in schools, childcare centers, migrant programs, military bases, and other locations serve children from low-income families, children with disabilities, foster and homeless children, and children without access to libraries. The Inexpensive Book Distribution program is authorized under the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (SEC.5451 Inexpensive Book Distribution Program for Reading Motivation) and is not funded through earmarks. It has been funded by Congress and six Administrations without interruption since 1975.

“Since its founding in 1966, RIF’s programs have played an important role in improving literacy in this country. The U.S. Department of Education has shown that the number of books in a child’s home is a significant predictor of academic achievement. In addition, RIF programs also support academic achievement by involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and other caring adults in encouraging children to read for fun. We urge all Americans to contact their Congressional representatives and ask them to reinstate funding for this important program.”

Go to their website to read more and take action.

Obviously, as a writer and reader, I think this is tremendously important! I hope you do too.

Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) budget cuts

writing at home vs. writing in public

Okay, I've mentioned this before, but it bears noting again, probably because I'm currently at a coffeehouse and am SO distracted by the music, the people, and the generally fascinating things about the world that I am not writing. I am , however, cruising my favorite sites on the Internet, naturellement.

Writing in the privacy of one's home can be terribly distracting as well, of course. The books...the TV...the radio...the neighbors...the family...the roommates...the pets...the backyard...the underwear drawer that just must be cleaned out. Immediately. And everything else that we love about our homes! I distract myself quite well at home, I freely admit. But I am having the hardest time right now, out here at a Durango Joe's, waiting for my truck to finish up her appointment at the car doctor. I had high hopes for myself today. Copy due tomorrow, which I had only barely begun and planned on doing a brainstorming session on here, which usually works for me very well, being one of those brilliant-but-stresses-under-deadline people. However, my very sweet "handler" (as I call her, lol--she manages the freelancers) emailed me earlier to tell me their office is closed tomorrow for Good Friday and my copy is not due till Monday. So now I don't even have that pressure available for me to write right now! I also have self-imposed deadlines/reminders, as well as a network of family and friends reminding me, on my personal writing.

What is it about deadlines, self-imposed and otherwise? How does the human brain work that way? Why can't I hold myself to my own deadlines and my own plans sometimes (um, most of the time)?

Grr.

What about you? Writing at home: bane or blessing? Writing elsewhere: perfection or horror? And how do you deal with deadlines? (Or how do they deal with you, heh heh heh.)

Inquiring and mildly despairing writers want to know! Okay, back I go to...well, to be honest, surfing the web. Help me.....

writing at home vs. writing in public

land rape updates

I know that's an eye-grabbing and potentially shocking post title. But it's true. There are many, many people out there who rape the land we live on. Dictionary.com lists one meaning of the word as "4. an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside." That about sums it up. Thankfully, there are also many, many people out there who are working to save the land we call home (i.e., our entire planet, folks).

My beloved red rock country has been undergoing violations for years. I've witnessed much of it over the time I've called it home. Two recent developments (not so recent, actually) are, firstly, the Utah resource management plans (RMPs) being sussed out by the BLM. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) has great articles and actions you can take to get informed and help. They've also teamed up with one of my favorite artists, Greg Brown, to provide a limited edition CD you can get for a $50 donation to SUWA. Pretty cool.

At any rate, seems our current D.C. administration is rushing to get certain things thrown back to earlier, less-informed eras--such as overturning Clinton's 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. See this link for a cool timeline chart too, in pdf. The BLM (Bureau of Livestock & Mining, as it's very sarcastically yet quite accurately been called) likes to muck things up, as any good government agency does, to confuse us all on the matters at hand. Here's a not-so-funny quote that just sums everything up:

What Is a BLM Roadless Area in Utah?
Let’s start with this: The term “BLM roadless area” is a SUWA creation. The agency, opting for confusion over clarity, uses its own unwieldy construction:“non-Wilderness Study Area lands with wilderness character.”

Eh???

Horrifying, no?

The second piece of news of note: Another coal-fired power plant, proposed in Sigurd, Utah, which is near Wayne County, home of the gorgeous photo on this site. There are hearings on it happening this coming week, and concerned citizens will be commenting. You can see more about this here, and here (this one has the original documents about it from 2004, in pdf format), and here.

Sometimes it's just depressing. But that's part of why I write about this land, and will be writing more and more over the years. It takes writers/agitators like Ed Abbey, and individual citizens who care, and public awareness, and a feeling of community and connection with everything and everyone in order to create positive change and to truly recognize what we all are doing. I mean, if we don't give a damn, who will? Our mutant little descendants, crawling around in the rubble we've left of this planet, cursing us with their every gasping breath in the foul air?

Let's not let it get to that, eh? I know there are doubters and naysayers (the eyes-shut-tight crew, as I think of them) who complacently believe everything will go on as it always has. I disagree. Love this place? Then do something about it, even if it's a little tiny thing like writing a blog that not many people read! What do you think?

land rape updates

the endless fount of ideas

Interesting little tidbit I noticed on mediabistro.com this morning about a writer who parlayed an article in a NY Times column into a book deal, which also became a movie deal and just a big deal overall. She wrote about how animal training can help with love training, or finding, or something like that. (The article is from 2006.)

The most interesting part of this story to me (well, the literary fame and fortune are pretty cool too) is how she positively plumbed the depths of the Modern Love column in the Times, to the point of manually counting the words in several of the articles. She did her research. And it paid off. In spades. And her idea came from a previous book she'd written called Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, about people at an exotic animal training school. Bit of a leap, no? But a fascinating example of how to find and breathe life into ideas. It certainly made my head start to whirl with all the possibilities that I can wrestle out of the primordial stew of ideas and plunk onto paper (screen).

Where do your ideas come from? How do you string them together, make connections? Most importantly, I suppose, what do you do when the ideas seem to dry up?

Okay, enough expounding. Time for me to go find my ideas and drag them into the light...

the endless fount of ideas

writing must-haves

A list of the things I must have in order to write:

1) My laptop (oh precious, oh wonderful, oh holy, I bow down to thee and promise to never again let unsaved work and pictures be on you if you crash...I have learned the wonders of the flash drive.)

2) Glasses. Yes, I wear them. To read. And write. I get headaches otherwise. Started wearing reading glasses when I started a job as a lowly editorial assistant in 1995. My love of reading led to the degeneration of my ocular senses. Ironic, no?

3) Dark chocolate. Need I say more?

4) Coffee. In the mornings. Only the good stuff, preferably organic, shade grown, fair trade, and dark. Lightened with rice milk, although I just yesterday discovered lactose-free organic milk, yes, cow milk, which has not been my drink of choice for years. So far, so good....

5) An Internet connection. The better to procrastinate, of course. I mean, research. No, seriously, I love both thesaurus.com and dictionary.com, among others.

6) Music, a background movie (at the moment, LOTR, which I have seen so many times it does not distract, except during the coolest scenes, like when Arwen is carrying the injured Frodo to safety and the horrible ring wraiths are closing in on them, and then my heart just pumps and I have to watch), or the chatter of people around me. My head doesn't like the quiet otherwise--that's only welcome during sleep or meditation.

7) A working, sleep-fulfilled, focused, and purposeful mind. If I'm stressing, forget it. No writing!

8) A view. Either through a window or in pictures and posters in my room. Yes, posters, even though that makes me sound like I'm in junior high worshiping some boy band pop star. My favorite, which I have noted before, is the one of Capitol Reef National Park, situated just so the afternoon light hits it....

9) A clean house, if I'm home! Yes, I'm one of those people who cannot work if I am surrounded by disorder. That could also be another procrastination technique. But it does make for a delightfully clean abode.

There might be other must-haves, but those are the ones that are with me at this very moment. What do you need in order to write? Pen & paper? Dictaphone? A sparse office with nothing but a table, chair, and four depressingly (charmingly?) white walls?

Post your thoughts, I want to know....

writing must-haves

freelance writing & other disguises

Having a multitude of thoughts today, as usual. It's warm out, and sunny (ah, the glories of daylight savings time for our non-agrarian country--it's silly, but I do love all the "extra" light), and life is just so full! Hmm, I think I've been bitten by springtime follies and excitement, and it's not even officially springtime yet. I am, of course, supposed to be working on deadlines, but here it is after 5 p.m. and I haven't even cracked open the files yet. Ahem. But it's a beautiful spring day, she whines! Note that I am at my laptop, inside, and actually writing at the moment. But I'm writing in my nonpaying (although much-loved), deadline-free blog as well as (gasp) web surfing, as a friend who just walked by and came in to say howdy pointed out. (I'm also listening to the quiet background hum of Lakshmi Singh's voice on NPR--can I count that as time well spent?) Anyway....

So I was just checking out some other people's thoughts on freelance writing and blogging (see here, and here, and here, for a brief example of some of my procrastinatory habits) and triggered my own juices as well.

I am a freelance writer. Does that mean I make my entire living from it? No. Does that mean that I spend all my time writing, looking for writing jobs, or setting up my freelancing website? No. But I am still a freelance writer, and I have the invoices and lovely checks to prove it, baby. I also have the background (insatiable reader, long-time writer, worked in the industry for years, etc.) and the definite desire to make my own way in the world, unencumbered by the tyrannical purview of dictatorial bosses. Hee hee.

However. I freely admit that the solitary life of the writer isn't necessarily all that. Have I ever longed for the camaraderie of some of my day jobs? The silly office gossip that spiced up the required hours of attendance? The steady gratification of paycheck, perks, and paid time off? Yes, yes, and yes. Sometimes I still do, especially in my down moments (They happen. Just ask my friend David and he'll tell you all about my moods, to which he is subjected on the phone from 2,000 miles away.) Give me the title! The salary! The peace of a daily purpose! My mother encourages all this too, with typical motherly love and concern. (Thanks, Mom. It's really very sweet!) And I do, in fact, have a "day job" at the moment, which fulfills many of my needs (especially the money part, of course.)

Writing as solitary profession is hard for most people. Even right now, I am in a coffeehouse, surrounded by others and their energy, and I find it buoys me. But still. I long to be a professional writer, which means to me that my entire income is derived from my writing, preferably both freelance and fiction. (See earlier posts about my fictional aspirations.) And that, my dears, demands time alone, writing. Even if I am in a public place, surrounded by others. (Who, oddly enough, are all also on laptops, lost in their own worlds of whatever they are doing, fingers tapping away on their keyboards, occasionally chuckling out loud at some hidden wonder on their screens. It's amusing.)

All right. I have expounded with brilliance on the state of being a freelance writer. Now I do need to get back to the nuts & bolts of said endeavor, and actually write something that will pay me, all the while apparently disguised as a student or other coffeehouse lurker, as I have decided most of my fellow chair-sitters in here are. Although I may do just a little more surfing first... It's research. Really.

Oh, and by the way, check out my friend Rachel's new blog, Be Whole Now. Cool stuff. She's also a writer, and woman who wears many hats.

freelance writing & other disguises

on plagiarism & other fun things

First let me note that I've been terribly ill with some flu-y thing for the past week. I have so much empathy for people who live with illness all the time. It makes it so hard to do anything, such as, oh, have the will or interest to live. But score another win for health, which has emerged victorious again. Although only after a grim battle.

Anyway. I read with interest and not some small amount of disgust about yet another writer who decided to fabricate her life and call it a memoir. (Also recently in the news was even another writer who fabricated a Holocaust memoir.) But the disgust was only partially aimed at the writer.

I mean, come on. If you can get away with it...if you are desperate enough...and if you live in our culture at this time, when it's so hard to recognize anything as the truth at all (um, hello, Mr. President), no wonder she was a little confused on the process. You can't even tell if a picture is real or not anymore, what with technological amazements that anyone can manipulate from their own computers. Reality TV? Snort. Not quite. And as for writing--well, it's virtually impossible to be able to say that anything is absolute truth, no? Who can get into the head of a writer? Or of anyone? Ask any police officer and she'll tell you that five different witnesses have five different memories of an event. Which of them is lying? One? Or all? Or, perhaps, no one was lying? Human memory is notorious for its infallibility (thank god, eh?). Perhaps that's a large part of what makes us so creative. We can fabricate stories at any time, slap them on paper (or on our blog), and call it literature.

Heck, what I write in my blog could be complete and utter fiction. I'm sure lots are. We are so good at not being what we really are, for so many different reasons. Is Margaret B. Jones really to blame for wanting to be someone else? (Even if, oddly enough, that someone was a gang member wannabe in South Central L.A.) We all want that at some point in our lives, even if very briefly and only as a moment of wild fantasy. (Come on, admit it. You wanted to be Wonder Woman and have her golden bracelets that could deflect nasty things.)

On a strictly literary level, I certainly do not approve of the actions of writers who pass off someone else's life experiences as their own. If it's a blurry memoir, where the lines of truth, reality, fantasy, and wishful thinking all cross, well then by all means call it such. The reading public can handle it. We are not stupid, and we are capable of bending our minds around the usual suspects to create new categories, new genres.

We are, however, liable to get pissed off if we feel deceived. There's not much we homo sapiens enjoy less (aside from waterboarding, philandering spouses, and unethical lawyers, that is) than having the wool pulled over our eyes, which we like to think of as being very sharp and in charge. Fool me, shame on you--and I'm also going to get even and show you who's the smart one, you smarmy little bastard. (Hey, I just call it as I see it. We do not like being duped.)

Ah, who knows what went through the heads of people like Margaret Seltzer (dba Margaret B. Jones, lol and hardy har har), JT Leroy, James Frey, Misha Defonseca , Kaavya Viswanathan, and others as they penned their fake masterpieces? They probably didn't really plan it. It wasn't really murder, officer, it was more a literary bookslaughter. Things just sort of--got out of control. All of a sudden, I had a big book contract, a book tour, people asking me to sign copies, saying in awed voices, "All that really happened to you? And you had the guts to relive it and write it down? Cool." Yeah, what was I supposed to do then? Admit it was all a fake before it went any farther?

Um, in a word: Yes.

Well, yeah. I know, I know. Easier said than done. But still. As a writer, who is very clear when I write either fiction, or a literary essay (which should be pretty clear by its label that it's not cut and dried nonfiction, dredged up via hypnosis from the still whimpering depths of my traumatized soul), etc., I am offended. I have not written anything that should have been fiction (or blurry nonfiction), had it published as something else, and whirled off on a tour. And I'm not going to.

But again, I am offended at both the individuals as well as our own culture, which fosters such behavior through means both obvious and less so.

Elders, wake up. Young people, wake up. Everyone, wake up. What are we doing, when we allow such untruths to be circulated and homaged as gritty (or pretty, depending on the case) reality? Where does it end? How close are we to slipping our hold on the true reality of our lives and letting just anything go? Boundaries are there for a reason, believe it or not. And I think we should abide by them, because otherwise it is a strong and clear nod to anarchy.

I know, I know--you'll accuse me of the slippery slope argument. But take a closer look. Really look. Really use your own, uncluttered judgment on this one. And decide for yourself.

on plagiarism & other fun things

ideas run amuck (in the desert)

Okay, the churning brew of eternal ideas and spinning streams of possibility is at work again:

So...I've been reading paranormal romances, urban fantasies, and the like. This is an enormously popular genre that has been around for ages. I read these books when I was a dreamy teenager, wishing for a more interesting world than the one I lived in! Recently, I decided to rediscover it, much to my delight. The urban fantasy world is extremely accessible to all, and actually more commonly read about and dreamed of than most of us would perhaps realize. (Think of a world in which our government was kind, compassionate, honest, open, and had never heard of W. You've just imagined an urban fantasy!) Neil Gaiman is an urban fantasy author whose name is quite familiar to many. Laurell K. Hamilton is another. You get my point.

Anyway. So thoughts of shapeshifters, ancient legends from the high desert country, and boundaries between our world and others have been taking shape in my head, and I'm loving every second of it. Last night, a friend and I got together for a reading and book-signing by Bill Plotkin, founder of Animas Valley Institute, author, and landlord of the friend I was with. During his talk, my friend turned to me and said, "You need to incorporate that idea into your books--the connection between people and the earth."

Of course, she's right. (Thanks, Michelle!) That's one of my driving passions--to explore, offer up, and revel in that connection. It's something we have lost sight of in this modern, nerve-jangling world of ours; our connection to place, to earth, to soul, to self, to source, to center. If I can bring that message across in a fun (and profitable, natch!) way such as through a series of urban fantasy (well, mine of course will be more of a "wildland fantasy") books, sign me up!

Actually, I've already signed myself up. The characters and the ideas are flooding my head and exciting my writing muscles. Let the good writing times roll.

And if anyone out there has any ideas of funky characters or plots revolving around a quasi-real world set in the high red rock country, let me know....

ideas run amuck (in the desert)

elegy for a wanderer

I discovered yesterday that someone I would call friend died several weeks ago. He was a writer, and a talented, fearless one. He was a wandering philosopher, willing to instantly pull up stakes and leave if the whim so took him--even if it was perhaps not the best time, nor in his best interest, to do so. His personality was unique, quirky, fun, and curious. He could be passionate in argument and sublime in mulling over new concepts. He had a pair of the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen. I met him when he was 19 or 20, and I still recall my introduction to this scruffy young man as he kicked a hackey-sack by himself in my backyard for what seemed like hours, content and meditative in his solitude, yet so bright and engaging when finally drawn into conversation.

Talking with another friend earlier today, we considered the challenges of being different, sensitive, and perhaps more deeply in tune with what is actually necessary and right in this world in order for it to continue into any semblance of balance and light. Such perspectives have many differing labels, correct or not. Unique. Bipolar. Creative. Genius. Insane. Writer. Philosopher. Free spirit. Bum. Drifter. Genuine soul. I am reminded, in a way, of Chris McCandless of Into the Wild fame--the young man who could not stand what he saw in the world he inhabited, and who left it in search of something more. Marching--or, more accurately, dancing and singing and laughing--to the beat of a defiantly and solidly singular beat, people who may carry those labels, and more, might be our ultimate salvation, no? Meeting those of cookie cutter ilk is not exciting. It is not new. It does not make us question our lives, our views, our beliefs. No, it is those who look askance at this world, and then do whatever they can to rock it, who help nudge more consciousness into our minds and hearts.

Dusty's ashes are scattered, I am told, in the red rock land very near where the photo on this blog was taken. It makes me smile to think that I can say hello to him that way, the next time I am there. I imagine him knocking around a hackey sack, writing with intense concentration, and smiling with earnest gravity at the kids he tried to help in the field.

This is for you, Dusty Quinn. I hope you're still writing, wherever you may be now.

elegy for a wanderer

a room with a view

I just attended yoga class (hot vinyasa, baby--who's your momma now?) at the new building where my yoga studio is, and must say I was quite impressed. The old place was tiny, stuffy, and windowless. Certainly made for a lot of sweating during class, which was good to a degree, but I feared hitting my fellow yogis in the face with an ill-flung foot or arm during some poses.

The new place is fabulous. Large...airy...and views to die for. Huge windows line two walls, affording body-centering and mind-calming vistas of the local mountains, bathed in sunset light if you take the evening classes as I do. Meditation altars are set up around the room...candles flicker on the windowsills...incense tickles the nostrils...music plays, a little too loudly in my ears since I placed my mat right by the speakers, but I managed. I recalled how inspiring and necessary a view is to life. I surround myself with gorgeous natural vistas where I live, and have done so for many years now. I find them balm for my soul, and I imagine most others must as well.

And yet there are millions who choose to live in windowless boxes, enveloped by views of cinderblock and exhaust fumes. (And when I say choose, I use the term loosely, in the greatest stretching of the word's meaning possible. There is always a choice--it just sometimes seems like an untenable one, a fact with which I am quite familiar!) I wonder how truly happy those people are? I'm sure many of them are happy--I'm just wondering how many.

I have to quote Everett Ruess here again:

"I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities." --from his last-known letter, sent to his brother Waldo in 1934.

And that's 'bout all I have to say on the matter. Hoorary for views.

a room with a view

the price of a soul

I watched a movie last night called Side Effects. It's about the pharmaceutical rep industry, and all the inherent villains, misinformation, deceptions, callous disregard for quality of all human life, etc. While unfortunately a choppy movie rife with problems, its message is simple and clear: When faced with a choice between one's morals and the "golden handcuffs" (that is, moola and its attached demands), many of us might reveal ourselves as being merely human. Ultimately, which path might we follow, and to what eventual end? There is no question that money does indeed make life easier, no matter what the feel-good gurus of our era would have us believe. It's extremely difficult to savor the weighty matters of the soul if one's belly is empty or one's roof is tenuous.

The movie made me think about those choices in my own life. Lately I've been feeling tremendous existential angst, and much of it revolves around my lifestyle and my life choices--and those all revolve around money in one way or another. If presented with those golden handcuffs at this very moment, what might I do or say? Would I accept their tempting embrace, if a little pain and bending of morality for a little while led to financial abundance and stability for a long, long while?

Not sure. I faced that opportunity last year, when presented with a job opportunity of ample proportions in all areas--paycheck, benefits, perks. I initially accepted the position, even though my stomach and heart both protested, violently. Ultimately, my choice was to walk away, morals intact, as I questioned (rightly so, as it turned out) the integrity of the company. I was left, however, with a gaping money hole, and that definitely was, and still is, one of the most challenging aspects of living one's life with the kind of morals and integrity that can make one walk with head held high.

All my life I've been taught that I can have, do, be, get anything I want. I'm an American, after all! My family came to this country because it offered more choices than their own. (It also offered less war, at the time, although given our current horrific circumstances, that is a rather bleakly laughable prospect.) I saw clearly, however, the high price for such luxuries as money can buy, and I mostly shied away from the prison of the cubicle, the 9-5 not-so-merry-go-round that deadens the soul and extinguishes the light as we struggle to just keep up with the mouth-watering offerings of commercials (HDTV! Golf vacations! Shiny new cars! Gadgets! Toys!), let alone with basic necessities such as rent or mortgage or food or utilities.

In retrospect, I wonder who was the more foolish? Those who submitted themselves to that essentially meaningless round of duties (really, will it matter 100 years from now?)? Or me? I may have my morals and my integrity and my "freedom," but I also have flat bank accounts, a truck that needs work, and a studio apartment that is beautifully lit but small. And that's about it.

Just food for thought. I really have no answers. Just questions, and observations, and feelings, and bewilderment at this thing called life.

Maybe I'm having a midlife crisis? Hmmm...I'll cogitate on that one and get back to you!

the price of a soul

on labels and enduring adoration of place

Of late, I've been worrying at one of those intriguing little mind conundrums that sometimes latch on to the monkey side of our thoughts (monkey-mind). My question: Am I really the "red rock writer" I claim to be if I am not currently living among the red rocks? Am I a poseur, a trickster taking on a role I can no longer rightfully claim as my own? What sort of writer am I, if I currently live among the hugely snowy, avalanche-prone peaks of southwestern Colorado instead? Am I a "snowy peaks writer" in actuality?

Who and what the hell am I, anyway?

(Yes, this is the monkey-mind at work. So much fun, it has! [I was channeling Yoda just now, in that phrasing.])

I've been missing my red rock land in recent days and weeks. When I glance at my as-yet-unframed poster of Capitol Reef National Park, cliffs glowing russet and amber and cream and rich burgundy, sharp cerise and softer chestnut and a ruddy terra cotta as well as a seemingly endless host of other color gradations and hints, I do sometimes receive the prick of tears as I gaze at that much-beloved view, as I touch upon the memory-scent of sage and dry sand and fresh clean air that is only barely, one hopes, being fogged over by the pollutants we simply must release into our own beautiful air. I feel stirred by that damned landscape, that windy and remote lover of mine, the place that teases and torments and cradles and laughs with my exuberance. And I sigh, and I try to remember to live where I am now, to embrace this moment of my being.

Anyway. An oddly nostalgic morning for me; unexpected. Perhaps triggered in part by a conversation last night with an acquaintance who also hailed from that area, who also now lives among the snowy peaks here, far removed from that desert land we claimed as our own, perhaps only rarely realizing that it held us much more than we contained it.

It is indeed so possible to fall in love with place. Another acquaintance once asked me, years back, if I thought that was possible to stay in a place for the place itself, to love it so much that it became the major reason for calling one's home, home. She sounded hesitant, as if worried that such an admission was weak or nonsensical or foolish. (She is in the science field, so such questioning is to be expected from those trained to believe whole-heartedly in the mind and the physical senses!) I did not hesitate at all in the my answer that, YES, of course it is possible to exist in a place for that place.

Maybe the question is, why would we live where we do not desire to be? Sure, there are many practical reasons to do so--I'm doing that myself right now, in a sense, much as Durango has grown on me and I love it for what it is, what it offers, what it can help me create. I enjoy it here tremendously, it provides me much that I could not get back in the red rock country. Yet overwhelming love of place? Sheer desire to stay here for the land itself? That has not gripped me yet, and I somewhat doubt there is room in my already full heart to love another place so deeply as I love southern Utah.

So to answer my own question--am I a poseur of sorts--I'd like to think not. I'd like to think that the label of red rock writer is the one closest to my heart and soul. Maybe we carry the land within us, no matter where we are?

Enough philosophizing. My Saturday lies before me, rich with potential for new discoveries and moments of being in this present, right now, and existing with simplicity and groundedness. As long as I am aware of my monkey-mind, that is!

on labels and enduring adoration of place

snowy morn

Big storm here. Lots of snow. Snowed for over 24 hours straight. These photos are from outside my front door this morning, before my landlord shoveled & cleared my walkway. (Thanks!) The poor tree has broken branches. Chinese Elms do not do well in Durango. Good thing I have a 4WD truck so I could get out of my parking spot this morning--the snowplows had tossed deep chunks of snow on my side of the street, of course! Tonight I parked across the street, facing downhill--just in case. (Just watch the snowplows bury me in again tomorrow morning. That would be a laugh!)

At any rate. Good writing day. I tried very hard not to think about skiing...which was challenging when a friend & I met in town to do laundry and then walked around to look at all the tele gear on sale in the stores. Mm....! But I did manage to crank out a piece due on Friday--well, 3/4s of it anyway--which felt quite satisfying.

The writing comes slowly at times. But it does eventually come. Insistent. Steady. Dependable, even if I am not. Is it a curse or a blessing? I think of it as a wild journey from one flying soul to another. The words link us together, even the prosaic ones, such as installation instructions or the ingredient lists on our food.

Words. I know I'd pretty much die without them! I am one of many in a long chain of preservers, protectors, even defenders of the word. Today almost anyone can make themselves heard (even if it's only to one other person) because of that perplexing, wonderful technology known as the Internet. But what if it all goes kaflooey tomorrow? So much will be lost. Which is why I say we can NEVER do away with good old paper & ink. Amazon's Kindle (yes, Amazon, that deep-pocketed bastion of literature on the cheap, where I do admit with a clear conscience to shopping sometimes) seems like a pretty cool invention. But it will not, cannot, ever completely replace the heft and intoxicating smell of a new (or old) book in a human hand.

Enough philosophizing. Time to finish reading Outfoxed by Rita Mae Brown--then to the dreamland again, cradled by that immense, beckoning winterfall just outside my doorstep....

snowy morn

snow, snow everywhere

The snow is falling straight down in big, fast flakes. Barren trees outside my window stand tall, naked, and seemingly not cold at all, while I shiver just looking at the view. My shiver, however, is one part chill, one part delighted memory, and one part thrilled anticipation. Snow is my friend, especially after I finally learned how to ski last winter. When I consider my current goal of learning to tele this winter, the shiver becomes a downright orgasmic zip of mini-shivers all over my body—dozens of little geese walking over my grave, that wash of physical feeling over the body, reminding me of my human skin and limited time to play as much as I can, while I still can. I have no desire to cheat death by being a reckless fool on the slopes—just enough of one to send a tightening around my chest and a clarity into my vision. Ah, thank god for mountains in the West! And for delicious snow.

The backyard of my back apartment is a little winter sanctuary. If I angle my head just right and don't cast my eyes upward to see the suburban street I call home, it's almost as if I'm in the wilderness, watching this winterfall all around me. The flakes are becoming even bigger, they fall even faster, more determined to dump its gorgeous contents all over us, to show us how it is sweeping the land, dominating in its time to be king.

This particular snowfall is wet, heavy, and very steady. It is piling up outside my door, knocking out the power now and again, and, most vexingly, interrupting my satellite service (oh, the indignity. I would like to have watched the presidential debates.). This storm will go on for a while, encouraged as it is from lands even farther to the west, where a “monster storm” (MSN's words) is wreaking havoc all over the place, which basically boils down to one thing: it will snow a lot more out my way. A lot more. And being a wet, heavy snow, that also means more avalanche danger, which is pretty freaky as far as I'm concerned. Not interested in ever meeting one of those. No thanks.

However, from a strictly environmental viewpoint, this weather is also a good thing. Weathercasters were predicting La Nina, a dry spell. Snort. Not hardly! This sort of weather is good, good, good in the long run. Curse it now, but we will be loving it in the truly dry heights of summer.

As someone who wants to learn to tele-ski (oh yes yes yes!), this weather is exciting and urges me out the door. However. As a writer with very specific goals, this weather also urges me to sit my rear down and WRITE. I have been allowing myself to be distracted, of late, by Facebook. Good grief, is that thing addictive. Check it out yourself if you don't believe me!

Sigh. So, dear reader (yes, singular; I think I'm down to one), that is exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow, instead of exploring the continuing delights of skiing. As I also hold a day job, skiing during the week is not an option at the moment. Which is why I am moving toward supporting myself completely from my freelancing! So I can make my own schedule. Luckily, I have the know-how behind me to make this happen. When we are pushed into situations that are truly uncomfortable, we will finally really embrace change...

Back to winterfall. It will cradle my dreams tonight, listen to them with a soft and deep silence, punctuated only by the gentle whush of new snowflakes adding onto the deep piles everywhere, coating everything, the tree branches, rooftops, my truck. (Hmm. I need to make sure I'm not parked under a tree!)

snow, snow everywhere

Greetings, 2008

Mm, 2008. I sense excellent opportunities and adventures and happenings for everyone this year! Goals, anyone? (Not necessarily "resolutions," which is a such a scary, committed, and nearly impossible concept for so many...me included!)

Some of my 2008 goals:

1) Finish the screenplay with Dan!
2) Write and sell my tell-all catharsis novel (heh heh)
3) Support myself entirely by my writing
4) Learn how to tele-ski! Whee!
5) Buy my own place...even if it's tiny...
6) Deepen my yoga practice
7) Enrich my spiritual practice
8) Make at least twice as much money as I did last year (can't be too hard, considering last year's income....)
9) Be more healthy overall, especially with diet, self-care, and exercise
10) Continue to remain open to all the lessons...even the ones I don't think I want

Happy New Year, everyone. May you be blessed, invigorated, soothed, and enjoy your life.

Greetings, 2008

desert dreaming & Ellen Meloy

Can I first say that a Luka Bloom song just came on to the music channel entertaining me at the moment...I've adored Luka Bloom's music since grad school. Probably because he's a darned romantic, like me. Well, and it's good music, too!

Anyway. So I was cruising around on my hotmail last night, looking askance at the 30 or so emails sitting in my in-box still awaiting some response or other (sigh...), and saw the Ellen Meloy Fund attachment, and thought, Oh yeah! You meant to apply to that. It's due...oh. Oh, dear. It's due December 31. As in, Monday! Hmm. And, because of my tendency toward slackerness in saving files prior to the original laptop crash, I have to rewrite part of a piece I've been slowly, sporadically working on for two years, almost. I plan on using that piece, along with another (recently rejected by terrain.org, nothing personal, natch, although the rejection letter said I had "nothing new" to offer in the way of desert lit--excuse me, but I doubt skin walkers are all that common in desert lit), and I need to work on it, oh, today and tomorrow. I was planning on skiing tomorrow, but considering that I'm still in pain from my day of skiing on Thursday with friend Robin (well, she went and hit all the powder stashes in her super-cool teles on her own, while I suffered an impatient and rude instructor in a ski "improvement" class along with other hapless students), and I have another deadline on Wednesday, and I also return to the temporary day job on Wednesday, I'm thinking perhaps skiing tomorrow is out. Until New Year's Day, when I definitely plan on ringing in the new year on the snow!

Anyhoo. So. Have I mentioned Ellen Meloy in here before? Maybe, can't keep track. She was an amazingly good writer, based in Bluff, Utah, close to my dear "homeland" of Wayne County. Her books included Raven's Exile, Last Cheater's Waltz, The Anthropology of Turquoise, and Eating Stone, which was published posthumously after she died of a terribly sudden heart attack at her home three years ago. She was a guest teacher at a writing workshop at Robber's Roost Bookstore back in 2002, when I was managing it, and I'd planned on attending. However, after working about every frigging day for a month, when I had the weekend to myself, I decided to bag the workshop, which of course took place mainly at the bookstore, and I wanted as far away as possible from my workplace at the moment. Meloy had just published Turquoise, and I'd bought a copy, but of course didn't get it signed since I didn't attend the workshop. And I never got it signed. Or got to hear her read.

Lesson? Carpe diem, of course.

At any rate, when I discovered the competition, back in September or so, I thought, Excellent! Sounds perfect for me! Love the desert, want to write about it, and I do have some unique ideas about it. I think. And I have ages before I have to apply.

Typical words for me.

I am, however, dreaming about the desert a bit of late. Finally had time to breathe, after all the madness of the past few months, and can settle down a bit. It's been close to two months, and I am in withdrawals from my fabulous redrock country. I have a poster of Capitol Reef National Park on the wall above my closet, and the glorious deep russety red colors draw my eye every morning, and every afternoon when the light almost hits it through my west window. And it is wonderful and unique and special and remarkable and a whole host of other adjectives. The whole of the desert, I mean. Especially the magic that happens in it.

Ahh. Okay. I need to get writing! At least I have a hard copy of that piece I didn't have saved anywhere else... The old-fashioned back-up system: paper & ink! ;)

desert dreaming & Ellen Meloy

does the setting count?

Back on the fast-paced sex-and-money bestseller concept. How much does setting matter, I find myself wondering? Silly question, in a way, because as the wildly addicted reader I am (don't even ask how many books I've read in the last several weeks--completely read, mind you, not just skimmed), I know that good writing can be set anywhere. Bad writing can be set anywhere. And sexy, fast-faced books (romances, thrillers, mysteries, what-have-you) can be set darn near anywhere, and it doesn't really matter as long as the writing, concept/plot, and characters are compelling, have essential conflicts, and make you want to keep reading!

Sigh. I have so many freaking ideas rattling around in my head, it's no wonder other things get lost in there at times. Anyone else have that issue? Ever? No? Of course you do! It's the chattering monkey-mind, as Buddhists would call it. It afflicts all of us. I think we writers get especially afflicted, however. Drat it all. I do meditate, not as often as I perhaps would like, but I do on occasion. And it helps. On occasion.

Anyway. Back on my tell-all bestseller. I finished reading one of those this morning, a bestselling novel from several years ago, from across the pond, as they say. God, so many of those "women's fiction," "chick lit," whatever you want to title them, bestsellers seem to be from the little isles in the north sea! What does that mean about folks from the UK? Are they more bored, is that why they write (and read) those kinds of books so much? Or did they just jump on the bandwagon first? Anyway, I can't say for sure this particular novel was a tell-all--but parts of it definitely sounded like some of the characters and stories were ripped from the life of the author, or her friends, perhaps. I should look it up online and see what the real back story is.

Anyway. So, if my story has sex, betrayal, lies upon lies, smooth-talking back-stabbing corporate baddies, psychotic bipolar-esque women and soul-less freak show men, a 33-year-old male virgin who obviously had high heels near-fatally stab his heart when he was young and foolishly impressionable, corporate thievery, sexy babes on skis, hottie guys in hot tubs, lawsuits, and a host of other similar themes/events/characters, and it's set against a sexy metropolitan background, that should mean instant success (depending on the actual quality of the writing and storytelling, of course), right? But what if it was set in small-ish town Durango, Colorado? What if instead of being set in a hip New York publishing house with Jimmy Choo-wearing Carrie Bradshaw-esque agents and writers, it was set partially in an up-and-coming wilderness therapy program that featured characters more like hippie Carhartt-wearing Chris from Northern Exposure? (Loved him.) What does that sort of setting do for a book? Does it label it too soon, does it make readers immediately pigeon-hole it before they open the cover?

Hmm...I wonder.

Or perhaps some of the details ought to be changed more. To protect the guilty, natch.

It's all fiction, anyway. ;)

But curious for comments from the peanut gallery. What makes you pick up a book? I don't mean the type of book, the genre or subgenre. I mean, what about the cover, story, characters, etc., makes you want to read something? What helps you make that decision in your 3.5 seconds of examining a book in the bookstore or library? (And yes, I do believe it is indeed something like 3.5 seconds. Probably less, in our ADHD, glut-of-choices, information-overload world.)

Why do you read what you read? And, more importantly, why do you not read certain things?

does the setting count?

the day after...

..and all seems returned to normal. Although it's still a bit quiet in town. Shoppers are shopping, I suppose, and families are still reveling together in some places. I am sitting in one of my favorite coffeehouses, writing (okay, distracting myself with the endlessly fascinating Internet), people-watching, dreaming, and considering different things. Like, doing other blogs. Making this one much more specific to the Southwest, red rock country, etc.

I'm also looking at the laptop the woman sitting across the way is using--it's tiny! Like, really tiny. Well, I love my BRAND-NEW, sparkling shiny silver-&-black laptop, even though it seems monstrously big compared to that woman's little itty bitty machine. Hers is literally half the size of mine. What a wired, technological, wild world we live in.

Okay, just wanted to say ola to the world (the non-listening world--sigh). Hmm. I need to write more interesting posts, no? Maybe I should start gossiping on here...sharing all the wicked little tidbits that are going to make it into my novel. Have I not mentioned this sooner? I finally decided on a direction to take at the moment, a writing direction. A romance, maybe "chick lit," novel, one that is cathartic for me in many ways. Perhaps I'll start to share the details on here as I write it...

Off to conspire with myself on the writing of my tell-all! Heh heh heh.... As I have noted many times before in my life, never piss off a writer. We have long memories. Long, detailed memories. And we keep journals. And save emails. And are great at making up all the rest to fill in the blanks where they crop up...

the day after...