That thing you use to drown your food? That condiment that grace notes the glory of fried food? My BIL's favorite restaurant condiment?
Nope, just a new blog post that trims the strands remaining in the end of January and neatly blanket stitches the edge. I am in a crafting frame of mind but don't have an immediate project to hand, so I am YouTube daydreaming through art journals and handmade beads and funny felt creatures and breaking out the sewing metaphors. Also, plotting a drive to Half Price because January's TBR? Yeah. Too chewy.
To all my former writer's group friends who suffered through my allusive and weird drafts? Your revenge is at hand. Repeat after me in your best Inigo Montoya voice: You killed my patience, prepare to read Moonwise.
Moonwise is the epitome of my January TBR. I'd picked it up once upon a time after encountering mention of it that promised a love-it-or-loathe-it but rewarding read for those who could make it through. It sounded exactly like something I would love and the first few pages intrigued me. Who is this woman who has shown up at a friend's house? Why is she desperate? What is she hoping this visit will accomplish? Also, what a lovely, atmospheric beginning.
Then...well...things happen. Maybe. Or...other things happen. I'm not British, so those things are seriously opaque to me. Are these women who have just graduated from university? Are they middle-aged? What, exactly, is a "hallows?"
I find myself reading a page, skimming back over it and just trudging forward through another sentence, numb. It's winter in the story and there are witches. Maybe. There's definitely snow. The reading experience seems to chime with the experience of one of the characters, a variety of confusion in which you become sincerely grateful for an interlude regarding the local goats because you know what a goat is and THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT.
Despite the slow going, I find myself wondering if I would have enjoyed this closer to the time I found it. Before I'd read Harry Potter, before I'd tried to write a half-dozen abandoned novels, before I'd moved so thoroughly into the Fezzbook and YouTube weeds that my reading habits atrophied. Before my TBR exploded with tons of used book stress-buys. This is to say that I think this is a book that rewards being treated like a lake to be explored rather a backyard lap pool. When you set yourself up to read it as part of a large pile of other books by the end of a given month, I guess you deserve to find that it slaps you in the face and sucks you down into a slough of text from which your preserved body will emerge in the data stream years hence with no indication of what happened except that you fell in a book and drowned, trying to treat a lake like a lap pool.
Soon...not today, perhaps tomorrow...I'm going to go questing for a copy of The Alienist or Poor Things or The Left Hand of Darkness or...manga? Maybe that would be a good shift for February's TBR stack. There will be stacks of not-new novels and a sunny afternoon to explore the shelves and, lurking in the background, a dark lake of a novel waiting for my attention.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Sam
The following was inspired by a recent WordCrafters prompt (Carrie always picks the best prompts).
When the ship landed (without conception,
without birth), my sole touched dirt.
When the cloth became sea and blood and star and peace,
I, too, was clothed.
When the dozen became a hundred became a thousand,
I became fierce.
I became prayer.
I became war.
I became.
I am not jailed by any orator.
Interrogate me.
When you see your face, you see a star
In my constellation.
I am nothing but paint and myth.
I am nothing but a flag falling and rising.
I am nothing but a mask.
Wear me, when you claim me,
To see the shining of every face around you.
Wear me, when you claim me,
Until the torch flames in the lady's fist.
When the ship landed (without conception,
without birth), my sole touched dirt.
When the cloth became sea and blood and star and peace,
I, too, was clothed.
When the dozen became a hundred became a thousand,
I became fierce.
I became prayer.
I became war.
I became.
I am not jailed by any orator.
Interrogate me.
When you see your face, you see a star
In my constellation.
I am nothing but paint and myth.
I am nothing but a flag falling and rising.
I am nothing but a mask.
Wear me, when you claim me,
To see the shining of every face around you.
Wear me, when you claim me,
Until the torch flames in the lady's fist.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Once Upon a Storm
Once Upon a Storm
Dollar weed lagoon, my pond of the golden fish--a windblown wrapper carp--
rises between the hoofbeats of a rainstorm, dust and water crushed to dusky sky
just beneath where the fence--in drier days--has been shorn into a ragged opening
for the exhausted grass.
Now diamonds grow from this dark water, from puddle beds of clay and green.
Wishes granted by fish mouth, close to the ground, gleam on the skin of the sky as it dries.
All the streets are cleaner now; the greens are thicker, the chill is sunnier now
the wishes have soaked into the ground.
Dollar weed lagoon, my pond of the golden fish--a windblown wrapper carp--
rises between the hoofbeats of a rainstorm, dust and water crushed to dusky sky
just beneath where the fence--in drier days--has been shorn into a ragged opening
for the exhausted grass.
Now diamonds grow from this dark water, from puddle beds of clay and green.
Wishes granted by fish mouth, close to the ground, gleam on the skin of the sky as it dries.
All the streets are cleaner now; the greens are thicker, the chill is sunnier now
the wishes have soaked into the ground.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Wonder Stories
Today, I am thinking about things that do damage and things that do not. About stories that are more like mycelium roots, about what kinds of relationships we have, and about the window that is still open in this room, while others throughout the house have been shut.
I was reading Jen Campbell's "The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night" when I put the book down for a moment and noticed that it's published by Two Roads press and then, whether they intended this or not, I was thinking about the Frost poem and about my own walk in the arboretum this afternoon, in the only section of the woods that are open after the hurricane. I started thinking about my spouse's comment that I needed to be mindful of little six- and seven-year-olds as I enumerated the flaws I'd found with the latest Star Wars movie and how I should be aware that this was their first experience of the movie on the big screen. That I shouldn't take a chance on ruining their childhood experience of a movie that both of us had loved as children. Even if it isn't the same movie. Even if we don't know any six- or seven-year-olds.
Am I still that kid in the theater? The one who dreamed about Luke Skywalker showing up and walking in person at the very front of the movie theater, directly in front of the screen, just as stunned by his movie as we were? Is that person the one who was disappointed by the latest movie? The one who is enchanted by "The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night"? Is that person still kept tenuously inside me, like an astronaut in space, tangled up in the roots of all the wonder stories that I've read or seen?
It feels as if more than the breeze is seeping through the window, as if evening itself wanted to pour into the room and even out the light and dark, bleed the screen a little dimmer, so that I can pay attention to a distant neighbor's hammering, the beat of my own heart as I sit cross-legged in this chair, the burble of barks that trace arrivals and awarenesses among the houses and yards. That breeze promises a little extra buoyancy to the person tangled in those roots, hints at stories that are just about to bud open in the night.
I certainly don't want to damage the growth of any stray senses of wonder around me. As much I resent his words--sometimes bad stories have to be untangled verbally--, I'll have to hang them in the same place as those other writer 'rules' of surreal applicability, in the oil and water mixtures of 'should' and 'art' that become stories.
I was reading Jen Campbell's "The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night" when I put the book down for a moment and noticed that it's published by Two Roads press and then, whether they intended this or not, I was thinking about the Frost poem and about my own walk in the arboretum this afternoon, in the only section of the woods that are open after the hurricane. I started thinking about my spouse's comment that I needed to be mindful of little six- and seven-year-olds as I enumerated the flaws I'd found with the latest Star Wars movie and how I should be aware that this was their first experience of the movie on the big screen. That I shouldn't take a chance on ruining their childhood experience of a movie that both of us had loved as children. Even if it isn't the same movie. Even if we don't know any six- or seven-year-olds.
Am I still that kid in the theater? The one who dreamed about Luke Skywalker showing up and walking in person at the very front of the movie theater, directly in front of the screen, just as stunned by his movie as we were? Is that person the one who was disappointed by the latest movie? The one who is enchanted by "The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night"? Is that person still kept tenuously inside me, like an astronaut in space, tangled up in the roots of all the wonder stories that I've read or seen?
It feels as if more than the breeze is seeping through the window, as if evening itself wanted to pour into the room and even out the light and dark, bleed the screen a little dimmer, so that I can pay attention to a distant neighbor's hammering, the beat of my own heart as I sit cross-legged in this chair, the burble of barks that trace arrivals and awarenesses among the houses and yards. That breeze promises a little extra buoyancy to the person tangled in those roots, hints at stories that are just about to bud open in the night.
I certainly don't want to damage the growth of any stray senses of wonder around me. As much I resent his words--sometimes bad stories have to be untangled verbally--, I'll have to hang them in the same place as those other writer 'rules' of surreal applicability, in the oil and water mixtures of 'should' and 'art' that become stories.
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Buried Under a Bookslide
We don't usually get much seriously cold weather here. In keeping with conventions of the age, however, the upcoming cold snap is being covered as if we were about to suffer a blizzard. As I'm familiar with during hurricane season, weather prep coverage tends to send me into an organizational frenzy.
Today, it was documenting a TBR pile that might actually, if left to itself, collapse into the core of a library. Because linguistic physics.
I'm actually horrified by the books I've been squirreling away--I've been reading plenty, but I've been dealing with...stress?...by making an enormous pile of books bought at library sales and discount stores and Just Not Reading Them. Not to mention the occasional Christmas book request that returns a text that seemed like a good idea but just didn't cut through the static in my head.
2018 is going to be the year of the Everest of TBRs. I'm probably going to conk out in base camp, but I'm going to commit to actually reading and officially DNF'ing books that aren't for me rather than shuffling them further back on the shelf. Also, no more impulse buys at Half Price.
Part of the shock of the TBR is the realization that I really don't want to read most of these books. That I managed to acquire them without any real interest in them. That's fine--there are great discoveries to be made in the random intersection of reader and book. However, I don't think there was any hope of discovery behind them, just a kind of "yeah, I'm a reader, right? and this is a book." Generic, joyless consumption.
Despite that, January's reading list should be interesting. Here is the list and some of the background about why I want to read each book:
Today, it was documenting a TBR pile that might actually, if left to itself, collapse into the core of a library. Because linguistic physics.
I'm actually horrified by the books I've been squirreling away--I've been reading plenty, but I've been dealing with...stress?...by making an enormous pile of books bought at library sales and discount stores and Just Not Reading Them. Not to mention the occasional Christmas book request that returns a text that seemed like a good idea but just didn't cut through the static in my head.
2018 is going to be the year of the Everest of TBRs. I'm probably going to conk out in base camp, but I'm going to commit to actually reading and officially DNF'ing books that aren't for me rather than shuffling them further back on the shelf. Also, no more impulse buys at Half Price.
Part of the shock of the TBR is the realization that I really don't want to read most of these books. That I managed to acquire them without any real interest in them. That's fine--there are great discoveries to be made in the random intersection of reader and book. However, I don't think there was any hope of discovery behind them, just a kind of "yeah, I'm a reader, right? and this is a book." Generic, joyless consumption.
Despite that, January's reading list should be interesting. Here is the list and some of the background about why I want to read each book:
- The January Dancer -- Whenever I dip into this, the writing intrigues me and the story promises a good mystery but I haven't slowed down to follow it, yet.
- The Time of the Transference -- This was a gift from my dad and is the kind of adventure story that first appealed to me in fantasy. Interesting magic system.
- Jhereg -- I saw the author at a convention years ago and realized that the covers that had been putting me off shouldn't have. This has been in the stack ever since (guilt, guilt, guilt).
- The Lesser Kindred -- The blurb sounded interesting.
- Make Way for Dragons -- Um...yeah. Cover nostalgia buy.
- Rosalind Franklin - This was a gift (guilt, guilt, guilt) and I wanted to read about Rosalind Franklin.
- Moonwise -- I LOVE the writing in this book. So I keep swooning and shoving it back on the shelf because I'll only get the one time to discover the story.
- Parzival -- Isn't January the perfect time for a cozy read about the search for the Holy Grail? Yes, yes it is.
- The Rediscovery of Meaning -- January is also the perfect time for contemplation.
- Transformations -- Because why have I never read Anne Sexton?
- The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night -- Because it's beautiful and it's on my desk for continuous inspiration.
- The Little Book of Hidden People -- This was a gift from my brother and, again, it was put on the stack for a time when it could be savored. Freeze-mergency, anyone? (it is not an emergency because it might be below freezing for a few days, except, well, coastal Texas)
- The Silver Bough -- Cover buy. Will the story live up to the lovely cover? We'll see.
- Little, Big -- I should love this. I don't. But I will finish it. Perhaps a transformation along the way?
- The Practice of Writing -- This is the shortest writing book in the stack but, again, it seemed like it might be a good January companion.
Friday, December 29, 2017
Janus and the Coming Freeze
It is that middle stretch, the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, the lame duck period of 2017, last-minute week of goal setting or goal rushing-to-completion, week of laundry and cleaning preparatory to the new year (if you're into that), week of staring at the sky and glancing backwards and forwards.
For me, it began with a scramble and then an obsession with mini Christmas scrapbooks, as I realized that I'd begun several and just not finished them. These aren't massive projects, just 4x6 brag books stuffed with pictures and a minimum of text, but it takes time to arrange and print and cut the pages to size and explain why all of a sudden our ink surplus has turned into a severe shortage. Also, memory albums are sticky--you look at one picture, then you've looked at eighty, then you're sinking into those snows of yesteryear, the ones that are supposedly vanished but are piling up over you nonetheless. It takes time to dig out of the past.
That project was kicked off in anticipation of a visit by our in-laws that, thanks to a random hard freeze over the New Year's holiday, won't be happening right now. So I've had the chance to dive into the other memory books that I've started and not completed, all the birthday albums, Diva Night reminiscences, The Year The Yard Was All Morning Glories, 4th of July celebrations followed by bubbles and fireworks...wherever the images happen to accumulate. A project that was a single book catching up with photos that I didn't want to lose has become a potential year-long nostalgia fest. If I actually finish these, there will be pics of The Year That Was All Memory Books.
Perhaps you have projects that get out of hand, too.
Which brings me to the other projects. The writing ones that also found themselves well begun but abandoned. Here is the backward glance: the 2016 election was a sharp shock to me. But it wasn't the first. There have been the difficulty of finding a job and assorted concerns that finally coalesced into a single decision: I'm not writing for anyone else. I've been a member of writing groups for years and I used to be better about submissions. Now, though, I realize that I want to make art that speaks to the people closest to me--to my family, to a few friends--and the memory books speak to that, as does the few writing projects that I'm keeping for this year. Here is the glance forward: 2018 is the year that I want to be able to return gifts I received with interest, novellas for reaching out, flash collections for the peace that I received from the parks before Harvey washed them away.
This year, I want to work through from the beginning to the end and I want to be able to reach this in-between, lame duck week of 2018 with memories of connection rather than endless, mouse-wheel project anxiety. I am thankful, grateful, every day for the people who gave my writing their time and attention and it may be that this is a slow turn back toward a more familiar track. For now, I am thinking about blankets and hot cocoa and a hard freeze that breaks one year from another. About looking forward and glancing back. And about whether or not any of this can be captured in a photo, embellished with stickers, and placed in a memory book for 2018.
Good wishes and tamable projects,
Chrissa
For me, it began with a scramble and then an obsession with mini Christmas scrapbooks, as I realized that I'd begun several and just not finished them. These aren't massive projects, just 4x6 brag books stuffed with pictures and a minimum of text, but it takes time to arrange and print and cut the pages to size and explain why all of a sudden our ink surplus has turned into a severe shortage. Also, memory albums are sticky--you look at one picture, then you've looked at eighty, then you're sinking into those snows of yesteryear, the ones that are supposedly vanished but are piling up over you nonetheless. It takes time to dig out of the past.
That project was kicked off in anticipation of a visit by our in-laws that, thanks to a random hard freeze over the New Year's holiday, won't be happening right now. So I've had the chance to dive into the other memory books that I've started and not completed, all the birthday albums, Diva Night reminiscences, The Year The Yard Was All Morning Glories, 4th of July celebrations followed by bubbles and fireworks...wherever the images happen to accumulate. A project that was a single book catching up with photos that I didn't want to lose has become a potential year-long nostalgia fest. If I actually finish these, there will be pics of The Year That Was All Memory Books.
Perhaps you have projects that get out of hand, too.
Which brings me to the other projects. The writing ones that also found themselves well begun but abandoned. Here is the backward glance: the 2016 election was a sharp shock to me. But it wasn't the first. There have been the difficulty of finding a job and assorted concerns that finally coalesced into a single decision: I'm not writing for anyone else. I've been a member of writing groups for years and I used to be better about submissions. Now, though, I realize that I want to make art that speaks to the people closest to me--to my family, to a few friends--and the memory books speak to that, as does the few writing projects that I'm keeping for this year. Here is the glance forward: 2018 is the year that I want to be able to return gifts I received with interest, novellas for reaching out, flash collections for the peace that I received from the parks before Harvey washed them away.
This year, I want to work through from the beginning to the end and I want to be able to reach this in-between, lame duck week of 2018 with memories of connection rather than endless, mouse-wheel project anxiety. I am thankful, grateful, every day for the people who gave my writing their time and attention and it may be that this is a slow turn back toward a more familiar track. For now, I am thinking about blankets and hot cocoa and a hard freeze that breaks one year from another. About looking forward and glancing back. And about whether or not any of this can be captured in a photo, embellished with stickers, and placed in a memory book for 2018.
Good wishes and tamable projects,
Chrissa
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Auto-Changeling
(The following is a poem inspired by the picture that follows, which was provided as part of our weekly WordCrafters meeting and may inspire a further development of what happens. Next. Maybe. Perhaps. *sneaks off to make notes for a new draft*)
Me—half of me, or a twin, or
that last shocked reflection—
I’m still in the bedroom,
still tugging the chenille with my toes
Or…the changeling? The one
who hit the glass with her fist.
I pull my punches, I know what
mirrors cost.
She hit with all our strength
but what she broke was us.
We shattered apart like glass
paper dolls.
Who really cares for more
than one of a set?
Thorns scratch, grass itches,
legs brush my forearms.
At least I’m dressed, not
naked—pillow sham shirt,
Billowed curtain skirt—she ripped
and wove, sheared and stitched
Whatever I left or was part
of my room.
My room!
My house!
My parents!
Who don’t dance, don’t fly,
don’t sting—don’t bite.
Whose poison my body
tolerates.
Whose dead grass scores my
brand-new skin.
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