Still here and still waiting

I had a dream last night that my agent told me that I need to be at my new job on March 9th and that it was on a Saturday. I changed the calendar and saw that March 9th was a Tuesday. I talked to him last night and he had been to the consulate and it is very likely that I will be leaving soon. I am running out of food soon, but I don't want to buy any food as it would be a waste, and I still have some in the house.

My projects have been lying idle because there is no way I can finish them and send them out before I leave. I have been writing, however, every day in my journal and in this newspaper forum that is very instructive in the editing process and in dealing with skills that needed to be sharpened. For instance, I tended to believe people when they gave me "facts" that sounded logical and true. I have since learned not to do that and to take apart whatever is written on the page. Also, I get easily distracted when someone wants to wiggle out of being caught in a falsehood by changing the subject. I should have learned this a long time ago, but I didn't. When writing in a journal, I also don't allow myself to do the same.

I have said many times in my journal and elsewhere that reading and writing feels the same at times. I also read with a pencil and now with a open laptop so that I can look things up. I don't let things slide such as not knowing for sure what a word means or who someone is. I just look it up immediately. I learn a new respect for some writers whose references are right on track and others who did not do their homework which is often rare but it happens. It creates avenues of reading that I did not have before.

I have also slowed down in reading and look more carefully at writers' skills. One writer that I really admire is D.H. Lawrence. I love reading his work. I am hoping to read more of his work. I am reading "Rainbow" now. After "Rainbow", I am planning to read "Women in Love". He could really make the English language do what he wanted it to do. He would describe the landscape and I would see it in my mind's eye.

I go out to Whiskeytown Lake and I know I could not describe what I see out there. A few weeks ago, I saw odd and wonderful colors swirling in the water of the lake, and I thought I was imagining it. I have looked for it and not seen it since. I have the added problem of not believing myself or other people. This is not good for being a writer. Lawrence did not have this problem. He was very sure of himself as a writer and believed in his vision of what he saw and what his message was. This lack of confidence is one of my problems that I am trying to solve right now and has been for as long as I have been walking on this earth in this life.

While I was out at the lake today, I was able to go anywhere I wanted as it was very overcast without rain. I could park anywhere without worrying about the sun baking me in the car. There are several places with wonderful views and few people to create lack of privacy today. I was reading about Ram Dass and how he considers himself to be a lucky man because he dies in his life and starts a new life. To him, that is the middle path not thinking about the past and nor formulating what will be the future. I realized that I never understood what the middle path and mindfulness was until that moment and how they blend into each other. Dass who is now living the life of a man trying to get over a massive stroke doesn't think about not being able to play the cello or not driving his mg or that he has to have people to help him get out of bed and wipe his bottom. He is in a new life and doesn't consider his past life's events nor thinks of future events.

In my life, I have had to get over many traumatizing events and most of the time I have carried them around in my back pack, remembering them, getting mad at the same people who were unkind to me and often those same people are not alive anymore. That is a lot to carry in a back pack and it has been very heavy to cart around everywhere I go. Now, as I look at a tree and can see only the bark, the knots and the branches further up I can see that is really all that is there. I can put down my pack and follow the middle path too. Yesterday really isn't there anymore and it doesn't matter at all. I have died and it is in the past. It is like remembering past lives. I remember some of them, just bits and pieces, but it really does not matter because the people I knew then are spread out in the universe doing their own new lives now.

It is so interesting to just stay here and remember and to wait and not know which road I will be taking and which road will be the one not taken. In this case, the decision will be made by others. I have a feeling whatever the decision it will be another "small death" and another adventure is on the horizon.

Inbetween Times

I find myself in between not knowing whether I am going to stay where I am now and whether or not I will start a new job teaching at an university. I was flattered that they contacted me in the first place, but they are in another country and so much had to be done before I can be cleared to go. I did everything, but I am still waiting for the final say so and then I have to get my VISA.

I am continuing to write in my journal regularly but stopped writing my book since I cannot finish it in time before I leave and sending it off from another country does not seem possible. I really don't know what I can do there and want I can't. So, I am just playing a wait and see game. The stories continue to crowd in my head and no place to go.

The Identity of the writer

I am reading Richard Rodriguez right now. I have just finished "Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriquez" (Dial: 1982) which I have finished and currently reading "Brown: The Last Discovery of America" (Viking:2002). Rodriquez writes extensively about his identity and his world in "Hunger of Memory" and this theme continues to some extent in "Brown". Because the discussion of it was so pervasive and haunting in his first book, it made me think how identity affects my own writing and how it plays a part in my own reading and life.

Rodriguez admits that his editor recommended that he write more about his family life and less about his racial identity because as the editor put it in 20 years the differences in race will no longer be part of the American landscape. The author rejects this advice and writes about where he is in his life now. As a reader, I am glad he has chose to do so. I have been a fan of this author for some time and want to know what he is thinking and feeling when he is writing his books. He feels strongly that he is Brown but rejects the label minority and disadvantaged. I don't agree with this author on many issues including affirmative action, but I can appreciate his talent and enjoy his writings.

Years earlier, I used to limit my reading to authors that I agreed with. I have found I missed many authors whose books were superior and well worth investigating. I remember looking for some titles by Knut Pedersen Hamsun who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. A friend of mine said I should not read him because he was a Nazi sympathizer. Or another person said that I should stop reading John Maxwell Coetzee because he was a traitor to his country, Union of South Africa because he relocated to Australia. That all seemed so silly to me. I will continue to read Coetzee and Hamsun's books are being re-issued. Some people want to know the color of an author's skin before they read him or her or if the author is a man or a woman.

In Rodriguez's "Hunger", the author states that when he was in school, he just gave back to his teachers what he was taught and read. It was later he became a thinker. I find that is true about myself as well. What about the parts that we as writers have that are our identity? Rodriguez objects to be classified as an Hispanic Gay Writer. I don't think him as such myself. Whenever I hear him or read him, he makes me think in a humane way about myself and about my neighbors. I think about injustices and I think about inner anger.

There are times when I write that I am not a woman, not a Californian, not an American, not someone born in the middle of the 20th century but can those facts be separated from me as I write? Probably not. Can I forget where I grew up, the family I was born in and was raised in. I often wished I could. Can I forget the friends I knew and have since died? If I removed all those memories from my life, I would be like an empty room, a nothing and not a very interesting writer.

I remember as a kid that I wanted to be someone else. It was only one time. I wanted to give up all that I was and become this bright, well-loved little blond girl who lived in the White House named Caroline Kennedy. I thought she must be the luckiest girl in all of the world. Her supposedly lucky life stopped looking so lucky soon after I wished her life to be mine. We all have sorrow in our life, rich or poor, loved or unloved, married or unmarried, healthy or ill: it makes no little difference. I am who I am.

One of the things that drew me to Richard Rodriquez was his sadness. I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice; but I never felt he felt sorry for himself. He took all that life has offered to him and made it work and I love reading how it works in his life.

For some reason, I thought I needed to hide, to suffocate who I was in my writing, in my life to be fair and unbiased. I have no idea where I got that from. When I read a novel, I don't want to hear the author's voice, only the characters'. It is different when reading non-fiction. Then I want to hear the author's voice as he looks at the world and tells me, the reader, what he or she is experiencing and feeling. If not, I might as well wait for robots to write books.

I know this college professor who is male who says all of the time that women don't think they feel. If he wasn't a relative, I would turn him off. He is wrong. Human beings feel and think. It is part of being balanced and writers are part of that equation. That is also one of the things I enjoy most about such writers as Rodriquez. He feels and thinks and is not ashamed to admit it. The prism that we use is our identity.

A wise man said that everything changes. Writers change and readers don't like that. Identity change and what one author may say or write in one book may change in the next. I like to think as a reader I can give that kind of leeway to the authors that I read. I would want that kind of freedom. As a writer, we must be willing to change our identity too. We can't lock ourselves into a stereotype for when it is fixed it is just that, a stereotype. Change is part of the identity of the writer and of the reader. Readers change too.

I feel a shift in my identity as I write now. I am changing as I write, read, think, experience, relate to others. I seem to be going in another direction and it is good that I am not pigeon-holed into something as a writer. I know one writer who is known as a gay mystery writer and is frustrated she cannot find another genre. Rita Mae Brown switched and it can be done, but it is hard. I always thought that J.K. Rowling would have to change her pen name to write a different series of books other than young adult fantasy. Other authors have done just that.

The problem is when the individual writer stops himself or herself from changing because one formula worked and something new might not. I don't think Rodriguez is stopping himself from changing because he has done so much that others have told him not to do. There is a sense of honesty in his work that shows. What I have learned from reading Rodriguez is that it is alright to be oneself in spite of opposition of others, to take an opposing point of view is alright as long as it is yours. To be honest with oneself is what really counts when living with oneself. There is also a fear of change that can be in ourselves too. That is another reason I love reading Rodriguez because he is not afraid to stand alone.

I started with this subject thinking that I needed to shy away from over identifying from certain things about myself. I brought in Richard Rodriguez because I liked the way he did not refrain from being who he wanted to be even if people called him names and sometimes those people were from his own community. He seems to realize that he is in a tough place and instead of hiding from it, meets it head on and meets it unflinchingly.

I used to have this dream over and over again as a small child. I dreamed that I had a monster under my bed and I would get so mad that this monster would lurk there without my permission that I would reach underneath it to hit at it. Each time, it would grab me and drag me under the bed and I would wake up sweating and afraid; but I would still try and hit it or grab it each single time. I may not like where I am at or who I am at times, but it is still who I am. I like that even if that monster still grabs me and drags me under the bed.

Traveling

I have been traveling and having fun. I am back home and will resume blogging.

Journal Writing

As I wrote earlier, I have not been feeling well; but I did not stop writing in my journal. I also kept up my reading and then writing about what I have been reading. Now, I have to get back to the projects that I have been working on. This has proved to be difficult.

I write in my head, and those stories have continued unabated. As stated before, the reading continued too. Thank goodness my house is full of books so I had plenty to read. The death knell of being ill was to turn on the television and watch some of the programs that were on. I could feel by brain curling up inside.

Over the holidays, I had guests who watched a great deal of television and that was a problem to. Thank goodness for music and my books. I am finally beginning to feel recovered. I have a good friend who calls me a Volkswagen because when something goes wrong everything goes wrong. I just close down. I am not sure I understand that, but I did spend too much time in bed. I am finally getting up in the morning and getting dressed, sitting in the living room and getting some housework done. It feels good to do that. I also feel good to be able to drink coffee and enjoy watching the cats play and go for rides in the car.

Not Well

I have not been well and have not been posting, however I am back and will be posting soon.

Writing Inside the Head

I have heard and read writers who say they hate to write and will do anything to avoid it. I think if anyone saw my blog here on writing they would say avoiding writing was a problem. It is. Yet, I love to write. I love to sit here and just write as I am doing now.

I am past the self-criticism that what I am putting here is immortal and needs to be put on the Internet for other writers to read. Presently, no one is reading my stuff on this blog. I love to write so much that it doesn't bother me all that much although it does just a little. I do write several other places and get published ever so often. I even have some fans which always seems to surprise me. But on this blog, I have no readers. That is OK. I do know some people read me unofficially.

I have a friend who writes and is published often. She even goes on book tours. She is braver than I am for I hate book tours and will even take less money for a book if I don't have to do it. There is always the same question: "Where do you get your ideas?" The answer for me is inside my head. Unfortunately, they often stay in my head. That's the rub, so to speak. I read an author who wrote that he had this problem. I thought I was the only one.

People often say to authors on book tours: "I could write a book. I have a great story." Then they get mad when the author does not want to hear it. Most authors have a head full of stories. The author says: "Well, you need to write it." The answer back is invariably: "I don't have the time." This answer irks me all of the time. It seems to me that their lives are more important. I told one writer wannabee that I could not "not write". I have to write even if it is only in my head. I keep a journal all of the time. I would die if I could not write.

It's like reading. I could not stop reading. I read all of the time or as much as I can. I read now more than I did years ago. The only time I stopped reading novels was when I was in college and graduate school because I was reading required books. When I was in labor having my children I read books that I needed to read for classes. The nurses made fun of me because they thought it was leisure reading.

When I was married, I read when my housework was done after I came home from work. That was a real problem with the man I married. He hated my books. I read the books when he was at work and during my lunch and breaks. I wrote during those same breaks as well. I hated television because it wasted time. We lived in the Midwest where they had tornadoes. I had a dream once that I really remembered. It was when the siren sounded and we were all together on the top floors. Everyone is supposed to go into the basement. My husband like to watch the sky and to see if a tornado was near. In the dream, I was worried about my books because they were in the window wells and the windows were opened. The rain was beginning to fall and they would get wet. I ran down into the basement to get the books and it made him very angry that I would do that. When I woke up I knew from that dream that my marriage was doomed. I knew that from that dream I would use books to save my life and to view the world from those safe windows (I never put books in window wells) through books and that it would make my husband very angry. One book that I remember going down to get was "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm".

"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" is a classic American 1903 children's novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Rebecca Rowena Randall goes to live with her two stern aunts in the village of Riverboro in Maine. Her joy for life ends up inspiring them. She faces many trials in her young life, but comes through them with more wisdom and understanding. Despite her impoverished background, Rebecca is an imaginative and charming child, often composing little poems and songs to express her feelings or to amuse her younger brothers and sisters. It is she who names their farm 'Sunnybrook' after the little brook that runs by their house.

The two aunts want the elder sister to come because she is the one that always does the housework and obeys. That is how it was in my life. My older sister was the one that obeyed my mother and did all of the housework that my mother told her to do. Because the mother needed her too much, she sent Rebecca because it would have helped having one less mouth to feed. Rebecca with her bright disposition brighten the two aunts' lives and everyone in the village. In the end, Rebecca ends up being an independent woman and inherits enough money to support her brothers and sisters.

I understood why it was that book, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm", that popped into my dream. The protagonist was someone who was positive in outlook and that was a real problem between my husband and myself. I wrote poems and stories and loved to make up stories about the people around me and where I was. I was curious about everything and wanted to explore the world around me. He hated that part of me. He was very pessimistic and hated his life and the way I saw the bright side of things. In the end, Rebecca ends up being independent of everyone and was able to support her family.

Years ago, the stories that I had in my head were not the stories that I was reading. I was afraid to put them down. Sometimes, we would read fiction in class that I liked and the professor would make fun of it. I thought that maybe I did not know what good fiction was. Yet, I read some of the older fiction and loved it. I loved "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville. I read all of Ernest Hemingway and even though he was a chauvinist I loved his books and the professors liked him too. I liked the shorter Charles Dickens but hated the longer novels. I loved the Russian writers although I did not understand them at times. I loved Kafka and did not know why. I love Somerset Maugham but the professors did not like him at all. They did not like the women writers and I did. My stories were not like the stories that I read, but I liked them.

The newer fiction by such writers as John Cheever, Saul Bellow and others were not enjoyable to me. I read Bernard Malamud and I liked "The Assistent" but much of what I read just did not relate to me. The professors liked William Faulkner and I could never get through his books. I think the only thing I ever liked of Faulkner was "A Rose for Emily" and there was something about that story that bothered me.

Finally, I began to write. I was so disappointed in the ones I did write. I began to not care whether or not they were published. I like stories of people who succeed, who fight back and who win. That does not mean my stories are Pollyanna stories or plots. I wrote a story of a ghost who could not stop haunting and why. I really liked that story. I like to find out the why of people's actions. I am not a Deist. I think our Spiritual Guardians do interfere in our lives. I like to show how they do. I am a strong believer in karma.

I always have a story going in my head as I have one going now. I learn a lot about people from the fictional ones. I never know what is going to happen in my stories. I have learned a long time ago never to try and box any character into a particular course of action. I just sit there and watch things happen. Often I think things are going to happen in one particular way and presto they happen in a totally different way.


I pay attention to dreams or at least some dreams. I knew this one was important. I knew that my husband and I were a mismatch and that I would be able to make a living to support the children that I would have. I did. He ended up having a good relationship with his children and sitll does to this day although not with his grandchildren which is too bad.

Part of who I am is writing. I love to write but feel guilty when I do it. It seems as if I am doing something very selfish. It is hard enough to do it and I just make it harder. Yet, when the words flow as they are now it makes me feel so good about myself and life in general.

This is a never-ending story. I have been dreaming about writing of late. They have been positive dreams about sitting here and putting down words and describing the stories still in my head. My head is full of stories too. I just need to put down more of them on paper and on this computer.