Full Moon Dream Board: Peace

So ends my four-day writing marathon. (It was more like four and half really).  I have a word count, but I feel like it is really no way to measure what happened inside me this weekend.

I lived. 

I’ve started my first real piece of fiction (I say “real” because I’ve written fiction before I’m sure, but never seriously.)  Currently my characters are still only giving me the beginning of their stories—their tragic stories.  I am begging them to give me a glimpse of their futures so that I can trust that their story redeems. 

Being the narrator has always frightened me because for so long I was convinced that God had an “ultimate will” for me.  I have come to believe, to much relief, that in fact, the joy of writing my own story is before me.  As the author, I have created these characters with names and faces and fathers and fears.  I’m hovering above somewhere, hiding behind a tree maybe, and I can see the torment they feel.  But I don’t know yet what they will choose tomorrow.  I want to interfere, to control the story.  But I will not.  It is their story, not mine to tell.  I can only plea with them…

                                             Thoughts on Fiction

                                             29 Mar 10

I want to write a redemptive ending,

But I don’t know if my characters will let me.

They’re stuck

Somewhere between the ninth hole, the Baring Sea and delivery day.

And they are running from,

If not paralyzed by,

The fear

Of an ever growing roundness protruding from her belly.

My dear characters, may your joy grow with each day.  We are hoping for you. 

And while I am hoping for my characters, I can only pray that someone is hoping for me.  I was amazed, ashamed and confused by some of the things that crept out of me over the last few days.  Solitude and expression can do that.  Anxiety has been overwhelming me. I’ve spent moments sitting silently; asking the screaming little girl inside what she needs to say. 

She wants to be accepted.  I guess that means           

I want to be accepted. 

Yael Naim - Far, Far

As these and other beautiful and hideous thoughts rage through my being (I swear I can feel them in every joint), I know that there must be somewhere they can be placed where some other power can quiet them and I continue on in peace. 

Because peace is beautiful. 

How convenient that the moon is full and birthing creativity and excitement.  I shall use her offering of energy and offer her back my creativity.  I made a box.  Not just any box—a beautiful box.  The tag on the front reads “everything will be okay in the end…it’s not the end.”  Inside this box I will place my fears, crazies and gremlins.  (I suggest taking a listen to this and embracing the restful breaths it offers to the creative soul.)  I’m sure it will fill fast but that guarantees that I can fill with peace and light. 

And so I end my evening with a cupa, a warm meal and The Science of Sleep.  The rain will sing me to sleep tonight, like she has the past few nights and tomorrow I will wake and write again. 

Live at peace,

Jenn

If you wrote your life story, what would the first line be?

Insomnia has struck again.  The reasons are obvious.  I have been obsessed with writing and have spent most of my time the last few days sitting at my desk moving nothing but my fingers.  I tried to go the gym, but apparently they are open twenty-four hours a day every day but Saturday.  So I did yoga in my room and then wrote some more.  It’s four AM.  I think the neighbors (the ones who live in a van on my street) are having a rock concert. I am wide awake and suddenly obsessed with the first lines of stories.  So, like any sane person I went through every one of my books and recorded the first line of the ones that struck me. 

Please enjoy

“EVERYTHING WITHIN TAKES PLACE AFTER JACK DIED AND BEFORE MY MOM AND I DROWNED IN A BURNING FERRY IN THE COOL TANNIN-TINTED GUAVIARE RIVER IN EAST-CENTRAL COLOMBIA, WITH FORTY-TWO LOCALS WE HADN’T YET MET. “ –Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity

Sometimes, I sleep with Dave’s books.  Now that I saw that out loud, it sounds creepy. This, on the other hand is incredibly intriguing.  

“By the time you finish reading this book, ten thousand children will starve, four thousand will be brutally beaten by their parents, and one thousand will be raped.” – Peter Kreft, Making Sense Out of Suffering

I almost didn’t add this one because well, it’s traumatizing.  But then, maybe that’s why it should be included

“Then there was bad weather.” –Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

            I will read this book once a year until I die.  One day I will read it in Paris. 

“I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods.” –C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

            This is possibly the first book I ever read that truly left me speechless.

“No one ever told me that grief feels so much like fear.” –C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

This book has always come to me at the most needy times. Last year I read it after reading The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the same day a good friend died. It was a pretty hard week. 

“Sometimes I feel as though I were born in a circus, come of my mother’s womb like a man from a cannon, pitched toward the ceiling of the tent, all the doctors and nurses clapping in delight from the grandstands, the band going great guns in trombones and drums.” –Donald Miller, Searching For God Knows What

            Dear Don, write me letters will you?

“It was one of those nights, one of those lovely nights, dear reader, which can only happen when you are young.” –Frodor Dostoevsky, “White Nights: A Sentimental Love Story”

            Yay for the Russians! Yay for short stories! Yay for Sentimental love stories!

“When Mr. Bilbo Bagins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his elventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobiton.” –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Whenever I read these books I usually spend the first hour on the first line.  It’s magical.  And then I spend the next hour wondering how the hell he got from there to Mount Doom and why he never thought of this…

 
“As a child, I had a number of strong religious beliefs but little faith in God.” –Karen Armstrong, A History of God.

Perhaps the one woman who has helped make more sense out of God than I have been able to find anywhere else, except, of course, for Anne Lamott...

“On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all of life was hopeless, and I would eat myself to death.” –Anne Lamott, Plan B

My dear Anne Lamott, in the words of Kelly Clarkson, “My life would suck without you.”  Thank you, Anne, most sincerely, for allowing me to be myself and think all my crazy thoughts and still be sane (mostly).  And mostly, thank you for believing enough in the human race to write about them with truthful aggravation and expansive compassion. 

           

A Giant Step (Forward or Back? I'm Not Sure.)

It turns out pen and paper are not tools enough

To suppress, regress, extract and contrast

The fear my heart is anchored in. 

*8 Things I Need to Remind Myself That I Love and Too Often Make Myself Ignore

1.  Recycling & composting.  I really hate not doing these two simple things.  I’ve gotten way too lazy lately and I won’t settle for it anymore.  Either I care or I don’t, and I’d rather care.  It’s amazing and simple and it goes far beyond food and plastic.  I’d rather buy recycled products like clothes and trade things with friends.  I want to reduce the amount of waste I produce and the amount of plastic I use.  I would love to commit to not using plastic at all. It’s a big commitment, but I have good inspiration. 

2. Writing/Reading/Blogging/Words in general.  I don’t have words to describe this.  I’ve been avoiding writing because every time I write a little bit my head starts swirling and then I want to write everything. I literally feel my soul die a little bit every time I ignore the words that live inside me. The same happens when I start to read—I want to read everything.  Oh books!  They are my very best friends. When I moved back from New Zealand I got rid of clothes so my books would fit in my suitcase.  To this day I will skimp on other things so I can browse used book stores.   When my house burned down I had 297 books.  I said goodbye to each one of them by name.  I am often still devastated by the great loss of words in that fire, my own and those of others.  

3.  Drinks with friends.  I never have been a “going to the bar” kind of person.  I know little about alcoholic beverages.  But lately I’ve been out a few times for drinks and these times have been intimate and encouraging.  They have replaced communion in a way and I long for that relationship with quality people. 

4.  Cooking and, most importantly, watching my friends enjoy the food. I love to cook, obviously.  I’ve been cooking for myself a long time and I’m kind of getting sick of it.  Meals, like drinks, are meant to be shared.  There is no reason to be lonely.  That was my valentines days lesson.  To be lonely when there is food around is to be deprived the great richness of life. 

5.  Silence/Aloneness/Poetry.  I love to turn to the music off.  I love to turn all the lights but my little lantern off.  I love to read the words of Rumi and Rilke and Mary Oliver and be lost in the wonder they impose on me.  These things breathe a kind of life into my soul that I can only attribute to something eternal. 

6. Creating things with my hands/designing furniture/helping build furniture/Painting furniture.  I bet you didn’t know this about me.  When I was 17 I really wanted bookshelves.  I had a very specific vision so I drew them out.   They were measured to my favorite books, my favorite lamp, the stereo and logical storage in my tiny little room.  I gave them to my grandpa and he built them.  They were with me until my apartment building burned down.  I miss them.  Since then I’ve helped build other things, like houses and coffee shops.  I’ve also painted stuff I’ve found for cheap that needed a new life.  I’ve created paintings and quilts and poetry with my hands and that kind of satisfaction is maybe my favorite.

7.  Organic things.  For about six years now I have been devoted to Organics.  It started with shampoo, and then food because I wanted to start taking care of myself.  Then I started to see the quality difference.  Now I’m very aware of agriculture, pollution, waste and the corruption of the food industry, specifically meat.  I can taste high fructose corn syrup in things.  I can’t take hydrogenated oils.  They taste gross.  We vote with our money.  Sometimes it costs me more (though, you’d be surprised how much I save by staying out of the center aisles of the grocery store).  Sometimes it takes more time.  But I’m confident that by choosing to not be part of the demand, I will make a difference. 

8.  Rock Climbing.  Another little known fact about me.  I love rock climbing.  Sometimes I dream about it.  I started climbing in New Zealand and I was getting pretty good and had nice muscles happening and then I moved back to the states and don’t have gear or a climbing partner or the knowledge.  Last year I thought I would start, but I didn’t.  It’s still on the list for this year.  Hopefully, but publicly admitting that deep inside I love hugging big rocks, I will be more active in making it happen.

Be inspired by Magpie Girl and join *8 Things yourself!

"I have worked as a doctor in many places and I have seen where to be poor is to be bereft of rights."

I Always Meet These Women on The Colbert Report.

I find Lara Logan to be incredibly clear and strong.  She left Stephen Colbert snarky-less.  For that, she gets my respect. 

 I will be the first to admit that I don't understand war.  I don't like it.  Recent decisions made by our President both confuse and sadden me.  However, I don't know enough about Afghanistan to explain why.   This woman makes the subject approachable. Her interview helped me realize that A) I need to be learning more about the situation and B) No matter how much I know, there will always be elements to wars like these that I will not and cannot understand.  

Some are starting to think that Obama is a false prophet.  I don't.  I think that he is a leader that has and will continue to inspire people to drive this country in a new direction.  He is one person just as you and I are individuals.  Not one of us can change the country by ourselves.  We need to band together with each other, with him, with our enemies and we need change the way we spend, the way eat, the way we fight, the way we give.  Until WE make that change not one stimulus package or troop withdrawal will matter. 

The burden to end the war is in the hands of our nations leaders and those on the ground in Afghanistan.  The burden to cause change, the burden to undo terror and bring hope—that is ours.