what is love

I believe love is patient, kind etc all the stuff out of the Bible that gets quoted at weddings, but we have forgotten what selfless love is, as you practise it Lynn Ruth and if we do love like Lynn Ruth, people are immediately suspicious. We love for selfish reasons and that is not loving but taking. Loving is only about giving, never about receiving. Love is also the real thing a mother feels for her child. I read a story in the NYTMagazine today about mothers with kids in Iraq. It caught me off guard and it made me cry. If only we could mobilize the troops on the emotions of these mothers...

Lynn Ruth, there are few Mother Theresas left and even though I have children and feel a love for them, would die for them if it would save their lives, I am not even sure whether I am loving in the way I am supposed to. I am not saying this to be flippant but love in the Mother Theresa/Christlike sense is almost impossible to emulate. We're far removed from a loving world and that is sad because I do also believe that love would solve everything if we all adhered to it. Nothing simpler and harder to accomplish!And yet we're still not getting it. We need a Western Gandhi, or something, to get that across...

LOVE

What is love? I have often asked myself this question and wondered if this is an emotion denied to me because I have no single longstanding relationship. I have come to the conclusion that there are many kinds of love and that the act of loving is not a single feeling directed to only one person. It is a pathway, that is, a way of living, acting and reacting. I also believe that a truly loving person suffers because people think he is stupid and easily duped. They mistake kindness for thick-headedness. I have had many of my efforts to reach out and give boomerang because of this and I feel sure others have had acts of kindness come back to haunt them.
I think when one has a family it becomes easy to say I love my partner, my children, my family. I as a single woman know how much I cherish my three puppies, but I also cherish people in general and my friends specifically. It is this nameless good feeling about the human condition and its participants that I have come to think is the real kind of love we all seek. That feeling encompasses life and all its players even though the people sometimes change or fade away.

Live a little, live a lot

The more we try to enjoy life, and try things in life, the more we expose ourselves to the forces that be. While I am risk-adverse financially, emotionally I go all out: this means I expose myself more to other people's judgements and actions and while they may hurt, it is the only way to live. I live by e.e.cummings's lines:

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
because life's no paragraph
and death no parenthesis

Candor, showing people who you are --and going out there like Lynn Ruth is doing-- is refreshing in a world that continually tries to cover up the truth or penalize people for speaking up and out. Fear should never motivate anything or anybody because if we give into fear, we give up on life.

LIVING

I often think about living vs. existing and the style I want to use to create my life. I think most people are on the offensive and spend much of their time defending themselves from enemies, hidden or overt. They take out insurance against catastrophe, lock their homes, guard their persons and back up every agreement or transaction with little papers and signatures with dates and cabon copies. I think this is wonderful but I think it is a trade-off for the other kind of life style that for me is more interesting, more rewarding and in my case at least, often dangerous. I spend as little time as possible protecting myself from others not because I am unafraid, but because I have no time to be afraid. Does that make sense? I am creating my books, painting my pictures, organizing entertainment shows, entertaing myself with theater, music and movies and filling my mind with what I hope is not clutter. Add this to physical upkeep that I must do so I live to be a functioning 120 and there is no time to fret over getting a paper to substantiate a deal, to distrusting another person, to guarding myself against unexpected attacks.
And so of course, terrible catastrophes happen. They have increased lately and not because my mind has turned to applesauce as Inez's William puts it, but because I am out there more exposed to more and living more.
I saw a marvelous play called CHARLIE COX RUNS WITH SCISSORS and that really says it all. If you are afraid to run with scissors lest you stab yourself you may never dare to run anywhere at all. And that would be a terrible waste.

evil

Lynn Ruth, I see your point and the question is whether we can battle evil and eradicate it. We can't-- it's like the weeds in a garden: they will always pop up again and it makes one feel rather hopeless and powerless...so should one waste valuable energy to fight it anyway? I think yes where we can with the hope that the system (whether it is the law, morality or miracles) will protect us. But I have given up on the idea that bad eggs can rehabilitate themselves. We live in a flawed world. However, I am trying hard to raise two children and inspire my students to do the right thing in life-- if only I can influence a few, I will have done a lot...or so I hope...

EGG PSYCHOLOGY

If an egg never gets out of its shell, it knows nothing about anything but the stuff of its own being unrelated and unconnected to the world. Once that shell is cracked it is exposed to a whole world and it no longer is the center of it. Indeed, it has become part of the universe exposed to great risks (being scrambled, eaten, digested and disintegrated into fertilizer, or becoming a chicken only to be slaughtered) and also to great adventure (living the life that rural chickens can live laying eggs, mating, doing the chicken dance and gazing at an unobstructed moon.)
When I feel I am wronged, I try very hard to remember that the "wronger" is a person too and in that person's psyche he/she is justified for his action.
When I was 52, a man broke into my home, beat me until my flesh popped, my eyes blackened and my spine cracked. Before he could drag me to the bedroom, bleeding and speechless, he saw my dogs, dropped me and walked out through my unchained door.
No one found him. I do not believe he suffered so much as a backache because he was four times my size.
He walks through his life with my mutilation barely a memory of a fun time he had late one night.
My point in all this is to explain that often what we feel is our rightful pursuit of justice expends immense energy we can send out to the world in constructive lovely ways and the end result of trying to punish an evil act is too often a sense of defeat because retaliation never takes away the pain, never repairs the injury.
I so agree, Inez, that one must stand up for his rights and indeed, I am taking this woman to small claims court for making a written and verbal bargain and reneging, but I know as I write that this victory will be hollow. She is a thief and a liar and will continue to be a thief and liar. My own job as I try my best to live my own life is to avoid her ilk as much as I can, not to hit against her. My gift is my unique take on life. Fighting her, fighting that man, fighting unfair horrible things that happen to me, only stops me in my own pursuit.

whatever

We were discussing palm reading/life lines over dinner, so Caroline looked into the palm of her hand and said: "I think I have a small life." Then the topic turned to Alzheimer's (yes, we are a cultured family, ha, ha)and I asked William if he knew what that meant. He said: "Oh, Old Timer's...yes I think that's when the memory parts of your brain turn into apple sauce." Now! I could not have invented that.

Earlier I was at William's baseball game-- he's a dreamer who'd rather read books than hit a home run but he tries to so hard to be like one of the boys. He was about to bat, all bases covered with points to be collected and William misses-- three out, the teams change fields and the sinking feeling I shared with my son. I know it so well. Like the ball you were supposed to catch in outer field but because the whole field was watching, expecting you to catch that friggin' ball, you missed it anyway. Argh! The humiliation. Maybe it is a bit like writing-- all that work and anticipation and then missing perfection at the crucial point. Or as Ham Basso said, writing can be like walking across a tightrope over Niagara Falls. You have perfection in your mind but what falls down on the paper is nothing what you had in mind. Back to you Lynn Ruth,

pick your battles

Having children means picking your battles carefully. Since a lot of adults lack the maturity one expects of adults, I think the same rule applies to adults. That does not mean people can violate your rights because if we stop fighting for those we're on the slippery slope of a totalitarian state-- we may in fact already be there, for who is protesting the violations of the US Army? Molly Ivins wrote a column the other day about the White House blaming Newsweek for publishing the story about the Koran being flushed down the toilet as a torture technique. The White House was vilifying the press and this was like turning the world upside down because we should be vilifying the White House for violating the rights of Iraqi and Al Quaida prisoners. Once a society refuses to stand up for the rights of one group, the next group will be violated until one day, they knock on our door. And who knows, there may be no one left to stand up for us. We can't be wimps and we don't have to be heroes either, but we should always try to remember that our rights as members of a civilized society are worth the fight. So stand firm Lynn Ruth and take that woman to small claims court. She's a liar and a thief for not paying for the car she took from you and if you don't do it, I will.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

I have been thinking about conflicts lately because I have had so many of them catapulting at me. I think one must make a choice whenever he finds himslef confronted. "Is this worth a battle?"
The answer always for me is no. What will I win? All I will do is expend energy defending myself to deaf ears.
I often find people who have been selfish, cruel and self serving are the ones whose indignation is so immense that I am silenced. They walk off with whatever prize they think they have won and I feel violated because the result seems so unfair.
I have given this a lot of thought becauseI know that my reaction is what counts as far as the quality of my own life is concerned.
I know this will qualify me as a prime wimp but I have decided that if I can keep to my own path of self realization, my own integrity in the connections I make with others and my own moral code of right, wrong and the best course for me, I am ahead even when I lose money, lose face and am reviled.
Sounds Pollyanna but still I feel the less energy spent fighting losing causes even when they are just, the more energy will remain to move forward in life.

publishing

Yes, my new book did hit a snag at a point where the publisher was ready to talk about the contract with my agent. Then he got overruled by his boss and down went the manuscript. The publisher believed in the book and has now handed it to another publisher and the waiting game is back on.
I am not against self-publishing but I do believe that with the power agents and editors have these days, the authors have lost power. What's worse however is that the literary marketplace is not about producing literature anymore but about making money. Books have become another commodity and if a first-time author does not sell straightaway there will be no follow-up contract with the publisher. William Faulkner who never sold really great during his lifetime, except for that potboiler he penned, would have never gotten a second contract anywhere if he had lived in our day. And that's where the challenge has come in: how can we guarantee quality when the market is only interested in quantity and $$$?!
At the same time I do not want to go the self-publishing route because I have seen what a publisher can do in terms of pr. When my last book came out in Holland, I was booked for radio and television the moment I stepped off the plane. That in itself produced more sales than I could ever have promoted myself and it's the reason I think why I still receive fanmails today. But picture this, even though my memoir sold very well for a debut, the publisher did not want to touch my new book because it was too serious, too literary...and thus not commercial enough. So they did not offer me a contract and that's where publishing has become so much harder. As soon as a book is a risk commercially, they walk away from it. And this is how the market gets inundated with hyped-up trash, while the really interesting books come out with university presses. And who buys from university presses/catalogues besides librarians and academics? This does explain the growing industry of self-publishing and e-books, but call me crazy, call me stupid-- it's still not my thing. Maybe it is because I hope the publishing world will turn around some day or maybe it is because I know that there are still so many decent editors out there with whom I would love to work...or maybe it is because of vanity?! One thing is positive: it's not for the money, Lynn Ruth. Most authors cannot live off their writing and I have never written for money (or fame). I wrote because I had a story that needed to be told. In fact , the book that I hope to sell now in Holland-- I won't take any of its proceeds because there is so much suffering of other (real) people in that book that I will give all of the book's earnings to Amnesty International. So no, the money is the last thing, please!!!!!!!!!!!!

OPINIONS

Inez has had a terrible week because her new book has met with some resistance in the publication field. I well know that desolate feeling of being rejected for what I feel are small pieces of my soul: my words, my thoughts, my ideas. It has been very hard for me to accept that for me writing has two parts. The first is the doing and I write because it defines me to me. The second is getting the message out there connecting to another mind. This is harder and more difficult and is the challenge we all face when we write. However, publishers look for such different things than the very readers they try to reach. We as writers want to connect with readers and when this very different animal who only cares how much money he can make refuses one of our offerings we cannot see that his reasons have absolutely nothing to do with our reason for writing or the quality and depth of what we want to say. I am self published for just this reason I want to reach people. I do not write to make money. I think this is where we part ways Inez. I think making money is one of your motivators and that is what makes it so rocky for you when an unlike mind cannot appreciate the beauty of your work. I hope this helps. I hope too that next week is sunnier.

WHO IS THE VICTIM

Sometimes, life appears to deal so many blows to one's ego that we feel overwhelmed and defeated with no hope of pulling out of the morass we seem to dig into each day. I have been in one of these sinking phases and as each disaster piles upon the next, it occurred to me that all these things could be learning experiences or just normal abrasions that I must learn to deal with if I am to keep to my course in life. For me at least, writing, painting and communicating on a deeper level is whatI am about and where I am trying to go. If I meet with a solid wall such as I have in particular with a woman who bought my car and now refuses to pay for it, I must realize where the problem lies and deal with it in a way that costs me the least amount of wasted energy. I could ignore it and let her have the car but somehow that seems immoral not just to myself but to my sense of fair play.
This isn't easy to do because I must also deal with my own anger and hurt pride.
I am trying.
I am not sure I am succeeding.

WHAT IS TEACHING

My dear Inez I so agree!Let us open up a dialogue to do REAL teaching. Let me define it for you. It is giving people courage to be themselves, so reach for their own star and the hell with anyone else's It is knowing where to look for what they want to find and knowing what they want to find. The two of us have grown immeasurably since we found each other because we hear each other and maybe that's it. Maybe we can help the world open its ears and really hear what others are about. That is learning, that is growth , that is true education. It isnt the money you get, the specifics you teach or the health insurance; it is the connections you form that aretransferred to still others and in essence like a rolling stone, manages to make the world a better place. Good teaching MUST change lives or it isn't teaching is it?

ANGER

I have long thought anger is a waste of time and energy but I have been exposed to raw, uncontrolled tirades of temper lately and I am wondering what satisfactions all the shouting, fury and raised blood pressure offers the performer. I know as the receiver, I feel as if I am being showered with acid. There is no response to insult and name-calling is there? The attacker would not hear your defense because that would stop the pleasure he receives from spouting filth and sending it to his victim. I wish I could say that the degree people lose control of their emotions is directly proportional to their intelligence but that isn't so. Perhaps Inez because you have a family and have seen children explode in angers that answer other needs than the issue at hand, perhaps you have better insight than I. I wish you would share it. Anger. It confuses me so much. Why on earth would such a counterproductive, useless emotion flourish?

teaching, speaking, connecting

Hoping you're feeling better Lynn Ruth. You do have to listen to your body, if only to give it the rest and care it deserves.

At UC Berkeley we have reached the end of the semester. In a sense this is a sad time because I have been with some of my students for what seems like a whole year (especially if they took two of my classes) and a lot was said in between grammar exercises and pronunciation drills. The college experience is not only about conveying knowledge, it is also about teaching life. At a factory like Berkeley, the latter often gets lost in classes that can exceed 100s of students. My classes are small on the other hand and that gives me the opportunity to really connect with my students and they're hungry for those connections. One of my students who had missed the evaluation forms for my class because she had been absent that day, called the departmental secretary and told her that I had "changed her life". I don't know what I have said or done exactly to trigger that comment but it makes teaching such a rewarding experience. I have had similar feedback before and I think it has to do with my willingness to inspire people to try and do big things. Lynn Ruth, I have always taught in places that don't pay, because even now as a lecturer, I get squat, and I think that if I get sick of Berkeley or if it gets sick of me, I want to hook up with you and maybe develop a forum for the two of us in which we address some of the issues we have addressed here and present those to an audience in some sort of motivational speaker format. This country has always embraced the evangelical (that's why Clinton and Bush were two-term presidents) and I believe there is a hardening and frenzy of our fast-paced lives going on that makes people crave something REAL, which they now fill with unsatisfactory and unreal placebos like church, shopping, the internet, the psychiatrist's couch. In fact, I have often thought that Americans pay big bucks for therapy because they're too frazzled to take the time, connect with friends and have the same conversations with their friends that they now pay a shrink $120/hr for. Lynn Ruth, you tell me, in your flu-induced hallucinogenic state, is there something here or is this just wind?!

Rejections, disappointments, failures

I dont believe in the validity of any of these, Inez. They are other people's OPINIONS colored by their own ego issues. Life is not a competition, unless it is a contest with oneself. The fact that you are out there doing things, living and being; THAT is winning I think. I too still cry when I am refused a plum I think I want so very much but thought and time give me perspective and I know that all I must be concerned with is my own path. I am getting there slowly and surely and all those rejections, disappointments, failures only get in the way of my progress and tamper with the belief I have that all of this is so worthwhile. When I look at the positive side of your ledger, I am amazed that you can juggle being a wife, a mother, a professor a writing coach, an author of great merit and a loving friend and still have anything left for yourself. This is a beautiful path. It has no room for negativity. None at all.

BODY TALK

I have had the flu all week and my fever refused to recede. In the few times I felt lucid, I wondered if my body wasn't tellling me it had not recieved the comfort and respect it deserved. We often schedule our lives with our minds without taking into consideration that it is our bodies that make all these marvelous adventures possible. I think the pace of modern life has blocked our communication not just with our physical selves but with our emotions as well. How many times do we have the sense that we are doing something uncomfortable but because we cannot find a logical reason to stop, we continue on what proves to be a collision course? How many times have we tied ourselves to someone else's star thinking we were going in the same direction only to know all too soon that we need to be on divergent roads?
It is so difficult to bypass reason and listen to our guts, isn't it? As I get older I am beginning to believe that our instincts are our only true guides to homeostatsis and that after all is what this glorious thing called living is all about isn't it?

Letting Go

It is not about winning in life but about letting go. I used to think I could will my way to success as long as I was backed up by talent and passion. At 39 I know it is all about the above, plus dumb luck, timing and perseverance. Willpower and talent only get you so far, and it is letting go of some of that will and fire to find out that there are powers that be, which, in hindsight, most often work in one's favor. If a door closes on you, open a window, sit back for a bit, reflect and try again-- sometimes it is trying the same thing, at other times it is turning a page or turning into a new direction. Rejections, disappointments, failures-- they used to drive me to tears. Now, however, I know that they are more worthwhile than winning. No one has ever learned anything from winning except for becoming more arrogant and smug. It's good to be humbled in life because it adds perspective to who we are as people and where we want to go next. And that is saying a lot, coming, as this is, from a cynic and a pessimist. I have lived in America for more than ten years now. The one great virtue of this country and its people is its willingness to dream and go for the gold, no matter what. Plus, the belief that there are second acts in life if only one is willing to get up out of bed and try again.

WINNING

I have been experiencing many failures in the last several months. I entered a comedy competition and did not win even though the odds were very much in my favor. I tried out for a part in a play I wanted very badly because the character was a beautiful woman that I admired. I applied for a writing job last January that I knew I could do well and did not get it only to find that the person chosen evidently was a disappointment and the Weekly is advertising once more for a columnist.
You would think that with all these failures, I would have ignored this second chance from an editor who rejected me but that is not what I did. I sent in my samples, my resume and my cover letter once more because I am so sure I will be a brilliant columnist if he would only give me a chance, just as I was certain I could play that role and win that comedy contest.
I think that that says something about who wins and who loses. I am beginning to understand that while I do not believe that " it isn't whether you win or lose but how you play the game", it still matters that you go out there and reach for your shining star no matter how many times it eludes you.
When I go after a plum, be it a publication or artistic confirmation or a performance, I want to win it. That is why I make the effort. But in losing, I also gain.
I just participated in the Stanford Art Faire and I intended to earn back my investment. I did not. Instead I made many new friends, got several leads for my storytelling, comedy and writing and new ideas for showing my art. What did I lose?
I lost money. I lost a job for an editor who would have never been pleased with my work. I lost a contest because I didn't make a judge laugh. But through it all, I never lost me.
I think in spite of the tears, this is what matters. And I think the tears are important, too, because they give me a perspective on how others perceive what I value in myself.
If I hang on to my respect for my ability, as I did by re-applying for a job I didn't get, then I have something solid to hold on to no matter what happens to shake my self image. I have an unshakable foundation and that is all I really need to finally get to that star.

The holocaust continues

When I was 14 years old, I worked at a day care center for the children of holocaust survivors. I will never forget the intensity of those parents' love for their children. It was as if the youngsters were their only reason to continue their struggle to learn a new language, adapt to a new culture and continue the terrible battle they had been forced to fight for survival. Later, I interviewed two survivors of Bergen-Belson and they told me that when they returned to Prague they dicovered that the Comminists were the Facists in different clothing. They lived in fear of every knock on the door, every racial slur or news item that was calloused to human suffering.
Prejudice against any minority lurks just below the surface, ready to flare up as soon as ignorant, discontent human beings need to blame someone else for their unhappiness. I wish it were otherwise, Inez. I am an optomist always in every endeavor, but when it comes to the ever-present struggle for power There is a disgusting lust to target a scape goat in the weak, the different, the unusual. Sadly enough, it is those very people who can contribute something new and exciting to civilization, but politicians, and their ilk are too afraid to allow them to give us their gifts.

something completely different: Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today I had to attend Holocaust Remembrance Day in Berkeley for my work. There were many eloquent speakers but the star was Dora Sorell, 79 years old, Holocaust survivor. After a stifling trip of four days in the cattle cars she, her parents and two brothers arrived in Auschwitz. I quote: "We were pushed out of the cars. It was pitch dark. Blows were falling on us, dogs were barking, shots were heard. The chimneys were spewing flames and soot and smoke, and the air was filled with a strange smell of burned flesh. Then the loudspeakers said the men should leave the families and form another column on the left. When Mother heard this, she fainted in my arms. Father and my two brothers disappeared in the crowd, and I never saw them again. Mother [came to but] was crying. I tried comforting her, telling her we would continue to be together and help each other. We followed the crowd of women and children all being pushed ahead. As we got closer I saw an SS officer facing the crowd, pointing with his fingers who to go right and who to the left. I cried out: 'Mother, they are separating us!' Mother started crying, 'Don't leave me!' I promised her, but as I got closer I realized that only young girls were sent to the right-- mothers, children, elderly-- were sent to the left. Mother was pushed to the left, and I was dragged to the right. She was screaming, and as I looked back, I saw an image that will haunt me forever: a desperate mother crying and extending her hands toward her daughter, a marble statue of pain and suffering. This was on May 17th, 1944, the saddest day of my life, when all my family and thousands others were sent to the left-- were taken to the gas chamber." END QUOTE.
People were crying in the audience, as was I. Growing up in Holland I know the stories second-hand but hearing them from actual survivors brought home the terror so much more. Afterward I heard one woman talk to a local reporter, catching but a mere fragment of the conversation: "And then I was smuggled into Holland and people hid me." These stories I know, too, growing up in the country of Anne Frank but hearing them out of the mouths of actual survivors made the urge to remember and never forget all the greater.

There's a genocide going on in Sudan. After the event, people lined up to sign the Sudan petition and write checks. The US President is in Europe the coming few days. His army, that liberated Europe, is now in Iraq-- his army should be in the Sudan. Apparently we cannot remember enough because some people, including our President, have forgotten already...

why I write

I breathe. I think. I eat. I sleep. All these things become real to me when I write about them. Some people define reality by what they see. I do not. My life becomes a thing I understand only if I write about it. My feelings are tangible to me because I describethem My friends are only as real as they inspire me to write to them, about them and for them.
my essays, my stories even my novels have absolutely nothing to do with making money. Absolutely nothing to do with being read.
My reader is the second half of the process. The first will happen without him because it is my way of life. This second half makes it all seem special.
It is said that every creative person needs his ooh oohs.
The first ooh is when a creative project is finished . The crator says, "OOH, I did that and it is wonderful."
The second ooh is when someone else reads it or sees it or becomes aware of it and says, "Ooh that is GREAT."
My writing is more than a craft to me. It is a voyage into my imagination The craft happens when I look at the trip I have just devised and make someone else thrill to it as I do.
I can live without those perks. I cannot live without writing it all down.

Depression

I sometimes wonder what causes depression. I question it's being the result of a chemical imbalance. I think if the world would elasticize its judgements and accept that differences are what make people people, we would not create anguished souls so bereft of self respect that they ache to remove themselves from a life so painful they cannot endure continuing it.
Again, I often think if we could erase the words failure, mistake, stupid and useless from our vocabulary we would have a population of individuals operating on a variety of levels, none of them labeled normal or abnormal. Everyone could travel toward their own homeostasis without being torn apart by artificial standards that have nothing to do with their personal growth.
Perhaps that is a definition of utopia , but I don't think so. I think it can become our now.
I believe each of us can make that goal our individual reality.
I did the day I walked out of the hospital with a death sentence almost forty years ago. I changed my definition of what life could become and refused to use standards of monetary profit or sexual success as my only reason for being. It worked. I am here. Smiling.

writer, reader

It never hurts to start early but sometimes I also wonder why we bother to write at all. Writing only comes full circle when the reader picks up your book and reads what you have written. It is when you can engage in a dance of the imagination with your reader that writing starts to matter. Does this mean that all writers have readers in mind? How vain are we to presume that we will have readers? Most of us don't in fact and the publishing industry which seems more obsessed with $$$ does not necessarily guarantee that the most interesting books get to the hands of the readers.
Getting published and reaching readers is very hard. I cringe at the people who say they want to take "a summer off, to write a book" when I know that they are not compulsive writers, may not even keep up a diary and are poor readers. Writing is not seen as a skill that you need to work at. This is also why writing does not get paid and why most can't make a living out of it. And yet, there are some of us who still write against all odds before the kids wake up or late at night when the day is done and our day jobs are behind us...we write/paint because we must even if we, like Emily Dickinson and Vincent van Gogh, never reach our audience in our own lifetime. I hate to sound this glum on the Monday morning but I need perspective and when I write I still want to have the feeling that what I do is not frivolous, vain or in vain.

Defining our life

It is never too early to begin defining what matters in our lives, Caroline. This is the raw material that your mother and I use to fuel our own writings and we are indeed the creators of books. Your mother has written about your losing your tooth and that is a momentous thing for you. I too have written about losing MY tooth way back when I was seven years old. I told about the Good Fairy and how I discovered that real people make the miracles of this world. Perhaps as you continue along your own literary path you will not only discover your own miracle-makers but how to spell what they do for you.

contribution from Caroline

All art is autobiographical -- when we learn to write, we start by writing about ourselves. Caroline wrote this a month ago. I found it in my desk as I was cleaning up:
"Altoids are graet [sic-- I won't put in any more sics as more spelling irregularities will follow] Graeter then soup. Me and William do not like soup. I feel graet today and I allso feel happy today. And I am allso feeling good today really really good."
This went on and on with lots of graets and little hearts. Until she ran out of paper. "This is the longist story I ever did." The best part really were her opening lines: altoids are great, greater than soup. Just so you know...

writing as a way of life

My writing IS what I am. I met a man once who saw my picture on the cover of one of my books. He said, "You're not bad lookiing!" thinking he was giving me a lovely chauvanistic compliment.
I said,"Bob, you have no idea what I look like. You don't read my books, you don't appreciate my art, you have never seen me at all."

I think, Inez ,this answers your thoughts on how writers feel about their writing, My novels are me and I am inside them as I write them and as I live my day. When I finish each project, I adore rewriting each one. It is as if I were re-visiting a precious friend and I can't wait to let my eyes caress my words, remodel them and make them more accurate so I can tell my stories to the world and spread the love I have for them and for what they have to say into the very cosmos.

Texturing our lives

Focus. Everyone thinks this is the way to arrive at a gaol and indeed it is. Yet I have found that when I allow each project to lead me down an adjacent road, my life becomes richer. For example, I am first and foremost a writer. For me, writing is like breathing and I canot live without expressing my thoughts with verbal images. And so I write.
Writing taught me to create verbal pictures so people could SEE what I meant and that ultimately led me to painting. Painting put me in touch with the visual world and forced me to explain the pictorial images I create both to myself and to others. This led to essays and stories, based in fact and colored by my imagination. From there I created eleven novels and endless short stories half fact half fiction (the THOUGHTS WHILE WALKING THE DOG SERIES & STARVING HEARTS). When I started doing readings from these books, I realized I could hold an audience and that led to stand up comedy, story telling and acting. Will it ever end? Not as long as I am alive. Focus? Maybe not. Wonderful, exhilarating, ever stimulating? Yes.

writing is dreaming

Yesterday I was sitting on BART and while some mad woman was raving in the background about Satan and premarital sex (oh, the joys of public transport), I tried to read more from the TLS and hit upon Michael Greenberg's piece who was writing about the American novelist Thomas Berger. While reading Berger's letters he comments that Berger's urge to write came out of some biological need: "If he had enough money, he would happily concoct stories without bothering to publish them. His central aim is always to be immersed in 'a new episode in the life of the imagination,' to 'vanish from actuality.'" Green berg then goes on to say that he can't relate: "I find the effort of writing to be unappealing, for the most part, and feel rewarded only when I have put my work behind me."

I am in Berger's camp, however, and it reminded me of Hamilton Basso-- whose biography I wrote (Louisiana State University Press, 1999). Basso became most depressed when a novel was done and seemed most unhappy, to the point of being physically sick, when he found himself in limbo, between novels. I think it is because writing, or any art expression for that matter, takes us to another and higher plane where life has become the dream.