Life, Death, And Everything In Between

“Living is abnormal.” – Eugene Ionesco

I came across Ionesco’s quote right around the first of the year and I thought about sharing it then as my own personal inspiration for how to approach the new year, but in the end I just couldn’t get myself to delve too deeply (and I admit, I was afraid of exploring the idea too much). 

After all, I spent most of my childhood terrified (not hyperbole) of death. 

I spent much of my young life (up until the age of six) in oxygen tents in hospitals with all those beeps and blips and machines gasping and wheezing so that I didn’t have to . . . and over the years since I have jokingly (sort of) referred to myself as a bubble boy, an allusion to the rather cheesy Travolta movie that came out during my adolescence. 

I Was a Bills and Dolphins Fan Back Then

I was somewhat sickly as a boy, and when I was thirteen I became so ill (with such an abnormal illness it’s very name began with the word “Atypical”) that one of my doctors told my family, “It’s just a matter of time.”

Yep! He said it while standing next to my ice bed. 

Those words, that doctor’s face, are still etched into my memory. Lucky for me another of my doctors sought outside help, found someone who figured out what was wrong.

And you know what that someone (an intern at another hospital, a student no less) told me to do? Fight! In essence, he told me to keep on living. I heeded his advice with every fiber of my being. 
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Love Is

Love Is

Love Is

Tina Turner famously sang the question, “What’s love got to do with it?”

She even called love a “second-hand emotion,” based on the rather cynical principle that “a heart can be broken.”

I enjoyed the song when it came out over three decades ago and I will admit there have been a few moments in my life where I may have pondered the jaded sentiments of those lyrics. But that’s just not how I’m wired. Never have been. Which is why my inherent response to that question has always been a simple one:

What’s love got to do with it? Why, everything, of course!

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Seeking Home: One Writer’s Journey

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” – C. S. Lewis

Jessica Evans Writing

Jessica Evans Writing

Cincinnati native, Jessica Evans and I share a few things in common that stretch beyond a love of words. Yes, we both have MFAs in writing from Spalding University, and we both write poetry, as well as fiction. Yet early on, it seems, Jessica began to examine the ways in which “life is impacted by socioeconomic status.” She was standing at a particular place of experience, and she chose to look, to notice, to see things others may have overlooked . . . to consider and try to perceive life for those standing in a different place of experience.

This aspect of her character, this reflection of the sort of person she is, and as a result the sort of writer she is, resonated with me as I am compelled to explore other views, to write about those who are different, misfits, those who live on the periphery, those who have lived lives I can only try to imagine, yet with whom I have much in common. I love exploring what life might be like for these people. Another deep connection I have with Jessica.

That is why I asked her to be a guest blogger on Write Side Up. The post, which is in interview form, appears below. I hope you’ll spend a little time with Jessica here and then explore her website and her work. Her latest book, the novel Hippie Mafia, is set in her hometown of Cincinnati and “examines humanity through an unconventional lens.”

In my humble opinion, those lenses often offer the clearest vision.
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What’s In a Name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" - Shakespeare

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” – Shakespeare

It’s true, I suppose. We could call a rose by another name, Armadillo for example, and it would smell as sweet, would look as beautiful.

We would, on certain occasions, be tempted to procure a dozen armadillos for that special someone. Tenderness and love would be implied by that single armadillo on your pillow. Those armadillo petals strewn throughout the house—a romantic path one would surely want to follow.

I get it. And yet, we do call a rose a rose, which is why armadillo feels so wrong in the same context. In part, of course, because it already has its own meaning, its own connotations, its own identity.
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Give Yourself Permission

DSC_0710dddblogPermission. To take time. To dedicate that time to oneself, to one’s dream(s). To do.

This seems like such a simple thing. Yet it is quite profound. Giving ourselves permission.

I give myself permission to play, to experiment, to listen . . . to my characters, to myself. I give myself permission to see what happens next.

Some days I just give myself permission to do nothing at all, at least nothing that seems or feels productive in the sense of creating new poems or chapters, or work for my day job. Ironically, however, those are some of the most productive days as they give us back essential parts of ourselves–energy, equanimity, strength, hope.

My good friend Terry and I experienced a week full of bliss recently during West of the Moon from the beautiful birth of his grandson to heartfelt moments of joy shared with our retreaters to a number of moments when those retreaters gave themselves permission . . . to play . . . to just be who they are . . . to create without preconceptions . . . without judgment . . . but mostly to listen (to their souls, their hearts, the deep down parts of themselves).
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Making Time for Our Passion

Flower in Sunlight on Island

Flower in Sunlight on Island

“Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones,
as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.” – Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

I think this is one of the reasons so many people get to the middle of life and feel unsatisfied, disillusioned, restless . . . as if something is missing. Because something is missing.

We tend to learn to put our passions aside. We learn to quiet them, to ignore them.

And for those “mediocre” interests, the ones that may have caught our interest, but haven’t come from the soul, this absence does seem to diminish them.

Fence Textures

Fence Textures

For those passions that are part of who we are, however, the going without, the denial, actually fans the fire consuming us sometimes from within.
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I Love to Write

"Modern Blindness" by Kevin Sloan

“Modern Blindness” by Kevin Sloan

I love to write. To be at the page.

That moment when the conscious self gives way to the subconscious and you are transported to another dimension, one where time seems suspended, where time seems to pass as if you’re in some sci-fi flick where years go by for people on the outside but for those in the wormhole it seems like seconds.

And when you emerge from that, you sometimes see that everyone you know has just kept going, aging the way we do minute-by-minute with our eyes on the future or the past.

Yet somehow in that suspended state you have held on a bit longer to that deep down part of who you are, that essence of your true self . . . which is the real fountain of youth.

Yeah, I love that.
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Live With Intention

Lafayette Wattles Writing

Lafayette Wattles At The Page

“Lean forward into your life. Begin each day
as if it were on purpose.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

I am starting a new trend for myself this very moment. From now on, I intend to begin each day as if it were on purpose. With INTENTION!

And that intention is to write . . .

I’m sitting in a hotel room in West Virginia waiting for my dinner to arrive via room service and I’ve been driving most of the day so I’m too tired to work on poetry right now, but I thought it might be time to return to Write Side Up.

When I got home from WOTM 2014 last June, I immediately started work for a new job and, as a result, I have only written 2-3 blogs posts in the past year. But the past four weeks in particular have been rather illuminating for me in a variety of ways, all of which keep echoing the same thing – I NEED TO BE AT THE PAGE!

Here’s why:

  1. When I spend even a brief amount of time at the page, I write – write – write!
  2. When I’m writing, I’m breathing. It’s that simple. Words are a different sort of air and I feel healthier and more energized and more alive when I’m writing.
  3. Look, I smile . . . all the time. Not for effect, but because that is what comes out of me. But there’s something different about a smile that comes from the heart and one that comes from the depths of your soul. I’m a genuinely happy guy. And I have been told my joy is contagious. In part, I believe, because it is genuine. But the way I feel inside when I’m honoring my soul and writing, that takes my typical happiness to a whole other level. Right now, as I sit here typing, I feel so incredible thanks to the past 10 days in New Harmony.
New Harmony

Roofless Church in New Harmony

Let me explain.
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It’s About Time

new clock resized

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon.
December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time
has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss

It’s no coincidence that I started my new job on August 4th and I’ve only written one blog post since August 31st.

“Time has flewn!”

I knew my precious writing time would be quite elusive for a few months. But I have managed to find smatterings here and there. I have also been reminded of a few things about TIME, itself, over the past few weeks. A few things we all probably know intuitively, but often lose sight of.

It takes time to find time. to make time.

But it IS usually there to be found . . . and made . . . and shaped as we’d like.

We sometimes become overwhelmed by the fragments we devote to so many other things, to “multi-tasking” in our every-more-busy lives, that we tend to accept that there’s just no time left, that it’s just not there, and as a result we often give up on trying to find it, make it, shape it.

And make no mistake, it takes energy to find and to shape time, but much less energy than what we spend by feeling guilty or by filling with resentment over not having time to do the thing we are called to do.

If you already spend enough time doing the thing you love, then you should stop reading this and get back to it. If, however, you struggle occasionally or frequently to find time for yourself, to dedicate time to yourself, then maybe it will be worth a little of that precious time to read on.
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Bedtime Stories and Snatched Books

"Bedtime Story" by Chris Nitz Photography

“Bedtime Story” by Chris Nitz Photography

When I was a boy, you would have needed one of those super-powered commercial staple guns to keep me in place for longer than a few moments.

And those rare times when I did pause (like in the photo below of my sister on the stairs) you’d probably think I was up to something. That I was mischievous. I wasn’t (glowing halo appears over head). I prefer the terms curious (you know, about what might happen if say my sister sledded down those bumpy steps) and persuasive (an occasional ability to talk that same sister into trying crazy ideas that popped into my head).

I prefer the term imaginative. Yeah, imaginative!

And I blame it all on my super-hyper-can’t-sit-stillness.

Crazy thing is, I would spend hours every day in my room, alone, playing with some toys, sure, but mostly playing with my hands and imagining that they were monsters and heroes and all sorts of things. I remember my parents whispering about my habit of playing without toys more than a few times.

But, see, my hands could become anything. My “action figures” were much more specific – G.I. Joe, and Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, and so on. I spent those hours making sound effects for the adventures and the battles.

I spent hours creating my own stories.

That may seem odd since I didn’t read books. And since I don’t ever remember having bedtime stories read to me (not by my parents or by any of my grandparents). It took me at least two more decades before I could slow down long enough to read stories on my own and I know how much they have impacted my life since then.

I can picture myself as a six-year-old who couldn’t wait each night to climb into bed and to have stories read to me. I have a feeling that would have been very important to me: the special time shared with mom or with dad or with one of my grandmothers, and also the stories themselves, the characters and the absolute wonder of being transported to other worlds.

I imagine if someone snuck into our house and the only thing they snatched was my favorite bedtime story, it would have been worse than if they had stolen my bed or my food.

Lafayette Slows Down Only Long Enough To Think Of New Ways To Terrorize His Little Sister

Lafayette Slows Down Only Long Enough To Think Of New Ways To Terrorize His Little Sister

The idea of such an undertaking doesn’t stir up a sense of danger, really, nor feelings of lost safety that come from someone sneaking into your home and taking things. The idea of story books being stolen, of someone only targeting those secret passageways to other worlds and other lives seems so much more intimate. So much more personal.

But the reason behind the act is even more powerful. Why would anyone do such a thing?

Helen and Thomas Docherty explore that question in their wonderful picture book The Snatchabook which I’ll get to shortly.

I mostly write poetry, as well as middle grade and young adult fiction, but over the summer I started envisioning story concepts for a dozen different picture books (characters, obstacles, etc).

Some people might think, well then you’ve got your book, only writing a picture book isn’t as easy as that. As a matter of fact, I recall the time in grad school when everyone in the program was given the assignment of writing a picture book, and the novelists and poets and playwrights, most people I encountered during residency, found it to be the most difficult task. Much more so than they had ever imagined.

So, this summer, I spent some time reading as many picture books as possible. Actually, I have three out from the library right now.

I’ve looked at a few classic stories, but mostly contemporary books, popular books, award-winning books. Books with a fair amount of prose (since I tend to be long-winded) and wonderful wordless books like Journey and Flora and the Flamingo (which I wrote about here). I highly recommend those, by the way.

I haven’t found too many rhyming picture books. In part because publishers have been shying away from them the last several years, or so I’ve been told, since getting the right rhyme and rhythm is quite challenging. Then I came across a book that had an endearing protagonist and, I suppose you’d call the little book thief an antagonist of sorts, but a sweet antagonist. The book – The Snatchabook – had wonderful illustrations and a beautiful story

The Snatchabook by Helen and Thomas Docherty

The Snatchabook by Helen and Thomas Docherty

The story takes place in the woodland world of Burrow Down where all the forest creatures and families enjoy their bedtime stories.

But one by one, the books start disappearing.

Turns out there’s one creature in the forest who has no family. No one to read to it. At least not at first.

Since the story is, in some ways, about fitting in and about being part of something (whether it’s a family or a community), I was immediately drawn to the characters. The Snatchabook is not only an adorable little creature that is, it would seem, alone, but it’s also a misfit. It’s unlike every other character in the book, except for one thing at least. It loves stories.

If you have kids or grandchildren or you just love picture books, I’d recommend checking out The Stachabook. I found the concept behind the story very clever and the verse and pictures a lot of fun. For a little information on the team from the UK who created the book, writer Helen Docherty and artist Thomas Docherty, check out some of the interviews I did with them below.
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