pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BEHIND A SCREEN, DIMLY Came home from work last night and discovered that one of the screens on an upstairs window had fallen and speared my shrubbery. Well damn I thought, I don't have a ladder that tall. Then I realized that I could just dangle a rope from the window, tie one end to the screen, and pull the thing back into place from inside. So that's what I did first thing this morning. Also put a new leather tie on the slate Welcome sign that my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas and hung it back up by the front door. And I replaced the front-porch light with a yellow bug light so I don't have to fight the moths every dang night when I walk in the door. Now I need to figure out how to fix my storm door (which blew open too hard in a wind storm and now won't close all the way). I think I may have to replace the hydraulic thingamajiggy that attaches it to the door frame because the rods got bent. Guess I'll go to Home Despot and ask for advice if I can't find a solution in my How to Fix Just About Anything book. Noticed this morning that it's time to strip and repaint the back deck too ... but not this morning ... and not before I seal and paint the church pew. Right now, however, my only task is to finish up this cup of decaf (sigh) coffee and jump in the shower, singing ... Lawd only knows. It's drizzling out, foggy. A pretty morning. Wish I could go for a long walk. Joy Harjo said, in Reconciliation, that we are "naked but for the stories we have of each other" and Muriel Rukeyser noted wisely that "the universe is made of stories, not of atoms." I have toyed with the idea of returning to school for either a law degree or a Ph.D. for some time now and have narrowed my areas of expertise down to two main themes, both of which involve stories in one way or another—either "trauma writing/writing of witness" (possibly focused strictly on twentiethi and twenty-first century lesbian writers) or a comparative look at the rise of the Religious New Right movement and second-wave of feminism from 1963 to present. Library school intrigues me too. If I opt for the second theme, then I want to find a way to tie this into literature because I just don't want to do all the statistical analysis a sociological study would entail. I have always been interested in writing of witness because I believe that artists, for a variety of reasons, have a insatiable need to parse, compare, analyze, study, ponder, probe, recreate, and share their experiences creatively by putting them in a larger context, a different box. Could be a metaphor or a narrative or a painting or a song ... or a blog—depends on the artist. But this larger framework is where the artist transforms isolated experiences, observations, insights, symbols into a larger creation, extrapolates a bigger world, a broader context, a canvas, a song, a poem. And, in our world, violence, random horror, pain play a primary role in many of these creations. As Adrienne Rich says, "A thinking woman sleeps with monsters." After reading my short story "The Color of Bruises" at a bookstore a few years ago, a woman told me that I should preface it with a warning that it contains emotionally disturbing words. I thought about that. Isn't that what I want my stories to contain? Disturbing, as in breaking the surface, as in tapping against our quiet, numb lives and complacency, get beyond the surface to real people who long and fuck and feel, the ones who are more than their mortgage payments and commitments and work lives? I want to touch something true enough to provoke a reaction. Thought the other day that maybe couples can only stay together until they run out of stories to share. Of course, maybe that's why my dearest friends and lovers are creative types who always have new stories to share, who see the world as one big fascinating place to be explored and pondered. (Otherwise, I'd get bored, ADD/distraction girl that I am.) I have a set of stories that, if you know me long enough, you'll probably hear—and Tree will probably read this list and recognize at least 80 percent of them. My friend Kayden got me thinking about this list when she said "tell me your water moccasin story again," to which I had to ask "Which one?," since I spent a summer working for an ecology lab and have spent a good bit of time on the water.) So, off the top of my head, here are the stories I seem to repeat, the ones that, at some level, make up who I am. (Have already written about some of them in this blog):
(1) Jackie and the baby squirrelSELECTED SPAM: The longest most intense orgasms of your life (O please yes !!!) 9:50 a.m. - 2005-06-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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