A Courier Kind of Mood

photo by brettanicus.

I am in a Courier kind of mood today. A no nonsense look and feel. But how long can I walk along the straight and narrow; I mean, really? In the end my feet always wander from the path to those glens set off to the side. Someplace secluded, where twisted trees can shield us from the blinding stare of the sun and the too-pure blue of a cloudless sky. Here there be shadows cast, where us lesser beasts seek shelter; bloodied rabbit, severed snake. This is merely shade, though; to seek a deeper kind of dark we must crack the crust, breed new beasts in the belly of the quarry.

Believe in the fickle fiend. I’ve seen him. He breathes deep draughts of air in the pit of my chest. Shuttling from corner to corner, feeling with fingertips the grooves on the wall, looking for a loose nail or cracked board that can be pried loose for escape for use as a weapon, whatever the situation requires.

Come back. Try to find my way back to the fold. Today I was going to pick up the thread of old stories I had begun but allowed to trail off. One is a completely unplanned story where the only structure in place is the geography of the town, Suttersville, and the characters that live there. Each morning when I sit down to write, I walk into town and see what’s up. Throw in an argument here, an affair there, introduce a body washed ashore or the reading of a will that leaves half the town aghast, the other wondering what was really going on between the deceased and the benefactor. Each morning, I settle into a familiar place with familiar faces but something not quite right, and I need to figure out what’s going on.

In my writing, I’m torn between the equal desires of both beauty and brutality. The ugly and angelic. In all of this — what should I call this energy, inspiration? — I seek an untapped oil reserve. I’m drilling through shale and granite. I’m finally feeling something from inside flowing out, natural and untainted. Would my writing teachers advise against this unchanneled method? After all, an untended garden is no longer a garden, but a jungle.

Don’t blame me, where else could I go? Even a simple, straight-lined font like Courier cannot reel me in.

I Am Not Me

photo by Fran Carneros.

How is it that my greatest clarity comes when I wake up in the middle of the night and know with a certainty that I am wasting my life? All of those fire drills at the office, demand management and value proposition; work for work’s sake with outcomes that will be forgotten in a year’s time.

I should be writing, and writing seriously; not these rambling and self indulgent journal entires. Something of substance. Something of the lives of others, with very little having to do with me.

Even my dreams last night played out more like a screenplay. I was not me: I was a South American boy running from a dictator, el Nino. I spoke Spanish. I don’t know Spanish; I was a D+ French student. This led to other, more involved dreams themed after a Game of Thrones. I was the overthrown king being bandied about by Jaimie Lannister, though he was also half faerie king. Translucent wings protruding from his back, his good looks sinister and taunting, constantly surrounded by a gaggle of beautiful..what’s the word? Those women of the court?

Wow, my brain is nearly dead. I struggle to find even the simplest words. I depend on Google to find the words that, in the past, my mind could serve up after a little effort. Courtesans. But back to the dream: I was injured, so I could not fight Lannister. Not yet, and while my strength grew I had to feign helplessness, but his insults angered me. I could wait no longer to rise against him, so I dug deep within my psyche to tap reserves of power deep within, the true source of life’s power! And then I was in a shopping mall, trying to find the right department store. Such is dreams.

So what if I can’t find the words like I once did? So what if I can’t escape myself anymore? None of that matters; you can write no matter what state of mind you are in. It doesn’t have to be good; it just needs to be true.

I’m reading John Irving again. I loved Widow for One Year, and now I am trying The Hotel New Hampshire. What a great storyteller. He calls up details so distinct and concrete that you swear he must be dictating from real-life. Nobody could make this stuff up.

I read a short story in the New Yorker, a contest winner, and saw how they rewarded the story that did not try to sound literary. The story was told plainly and with the true first person narrative of somebody who is not admirable. Quite the opposite; the character was deeply flawed but finds his way in the end. It felt good to see recognition given to a work humble on the surface but complex at its core. It’s not about the veneer.

It’s not my preference though, really. I have to admit, I prefer beautiful prose that transforms the reality around me, and if I have to look at the common, I need to see it through a distorted lens. I like to break reality, be honest; “break on through to the other side.” Dear god, I am merely a minion of the dead Morrison, a copycat of his influences; Artaud and Rimbaud. Does that make me a grainy copy of a copy of a copy? I like to plumb the depths of the psyche and find a common subterranean river that feeds us all. Leap alongside Jung into the deep pool below. And then I find myself in the shopping mall, trying to find Macy’s to buy a new pair of flat front chinos for work.

So what would I write about, when I wake in the middle of the night and realize in a panic that it is time to get going? Two stories come to mind: “The Tea House” and “Stuttersville.” Do I have the guts to dive into the stories I have held on reserve for when I have honed my skills?

Sullen’s Fish House. It is a phrase stuck in my head this morning, a story title. What is it to me? A menacing, unknown place on a frozen lake, lit up with a tangle of christmas lights. Sounds from within of drunks cheering and music and drunks. At times quite, too quiet. No windows. It’s less about the fish house and more about the bright, warm point out on the expanse of ice, drawing in these two boys, brothers I think. Two brothers being drawn in by drink, drugs, and something more sinister in Sullen. Who is Sullen, and why in the end do I sense that the real threat is not this bad apple of the town, but his mother?

I can’t think about this now, I have to figure out why I was double charged on my last cable bill, email our insurance agent to consolidate home, auto, and life. I’m distracted by sounds of my mother-in-law in the kitchen, making breakfast with the help of my wife. Who’s kidding who; she’s hovering to sample the bacon.

Wind rattling the trees on shores of the frozen lake. Swirls of snow coming alive like dust devils on thin ice.

My brain is tired. I wonder if that bacon is done yet.

Beneath the Stairs

photo by Tsabo Tsaboc.

With these words I clear out a little space for myself, like clearing out a cubby hole in the pile of empty suitcases under the stairs. In this little space, I play make believe. I prop up the suitcases by the entrance to form a wall, a flashlight, my pillow and blanket and books. The girl from across the street comes over to play, white sandals on her feet. We sit on our knees and quietly watch each other, sniffle, rub our eyes, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before laying back on a balled up blanket that I had dragged into my cubby hole earlier. She pretends to sleep while I stare at her. In the furthest reaches behind the stars, in the dark lower steps, lights sparkle from a string of Christmas lights I’d found. Their warm glow illuminates something that I hadn’t noticed before the little girl had showed up. There’s a door. I can just barely squeeze through the opening and crawl along and up a tunnel, until I surface from underground to a morning meadow. Nestled in an island of trees stands a farmhouse and a slowly turning windmill. In the farm yard, white bedsheets are hung out to dry in the sun and breeze, only they undulate too slowly, as though I am watching a film where the frame speed isn’t quite right. That’s it exactly, things aren’t quite right, but who’s to say that it is not perfectly normal on this side of the stairs?

I explore this place for a while, and when I crawl back through the stairs the girl is gone, and my father is yanking suitcases out from beneath the stairs, dragging me out by my collar and scolding me to get out of there, and where is my head. Where is my head, in that place beneath the stairs.