Prayer for Goodwill
It’s truly scary when my friend’s Obama sign is ripped from her yard night after night. Why? It’s just a sign speaking one household’s opinion. Isn’t that what the US and freedom of speech allows and respects?
This morning so many of the blogs I read are discussing fear mongering and viciousness with regard to the election. One blog writer told about her friend who is volunteering in the Obama campaign in Littleton, Colorado. Here is part of a letter this volunteer Laurie Adams wrote to friends:
I am writing this to you now because, in the midst of one of the most vicious political weeks I’ve experienced, I hope everyone can still feel a little of what this election should be about, and is about, among the people who are working for and voting for an Obama/Biden ticket. Out here in highly Republican Jefferson County, it is easy for me to feel overwhelmed at this point by the cynicism and negativity, the racism, and lies that are informing a lot of people’s decisions.
People’s yard signs get stolen each night, a woman told me to “go away . . . he is an evil, evil man.” College educated people admit, “but what if he really does have ties to Al Qaida?” I don’t know what it feels like other places, but I’m afraid that things are getting overwhelmingly bitter and mean (and potentially dangerous). And so I am also asking you to take some time each day for the next 6 days to offer a prayer or some silent intention, a chant, a song, or whatever you have, for this country, for this world, and for everyone to stay SANE, to stay calm, to have open hearts and courage. I want to feel the power of caring love is stronger out there than the power of fear and self-interest. Please.
Won’t you please join me in a prayer of goodwill for our country and for the supreme good intentions of both candidates?
I recently completed Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin. The book describes Mortensen’s gifts of time, energy, and devotion when building schools in the remote regions of Northern Pakistan. Interestingly, Mortensen did not start out with the intention to promote peace, but the notion evolved as he came to know and understand the people of Pakistan and witness his own country’s overt errors resulting from a lack of understanding.
What really intrigued me, however, is the co-author David Oliver Relin. Relin’s picture appears in the book and one assumes he is the narrator of the story since Mortensen is spoken of in third person. I think it is interesting that no mention is made of when Relin enters the scene and actually begins to witness the things that are written. Certainly much of the early story is written as it was told to him. Then at some point he met Mortensen and was invited to collaborate on the book or maybe he offered to collaborate. I wonder about the decision to make him the narrator of the story rather than write the narrative in first person since both men’s names are listed as author. It’s a journalistic approach for sure and perhaps a good one, but I kept waiting for Relin to arrive in the story so apparent were his sensibilities in the tale.
As I prepare to write a non-fiction book, one in which I will relate the stories of 10 women inventors, I’m very conscious of point of view. I generally find first person point of view more compelling, but that wasn’t so with Three Cups of Tea.
So the question is: How did Relin accomplish a profound level of intimacy and a compelling degree of potency when employing a third person perspective? Was it the story itself? Or was it protagonist Mortensen’s strength of character? I’m sure it was both of these. But I also think it was more . . . something in the way Relin manages the material. A closer look is in order.
What does it take to make compelling storytelling from third person point of view?
Who is this man with such a gorgeous family? Could he be my son?
Raleigh, who is 31 today, and his beautiful wife Jenny!
HOORAY! HOORAY! TODAY’S YOUR BIRTHDAY!
Life got over full last week, so none of the blog posts that I wrote in my head ever got posted. Fortunately my granddaugthers were busy blogging and chronicled reports about some of my activities.
Anna Mae wrote about homeschool for the pre-schoolers at her house on her blog Sunrise. We were working on the letter “C” as in “cupcakes for cousins.”
Taylor wrote about the American history project we’ve been working on at her house. You can see her creativity in the sample she posted on her blog, June Special.
Also, Anna Mae discovered gmail chat last week, and so she and I did a lot of instant messaging in the evening. We are planning our trip to Arizona next week to see my Aunt Jean, and we were discussing our route which she was checking out on Google Earth and our hotels which I was reserving on Expedia.
My work at the college has gotten easier but also more intense. I have 25 students in various stages of learning disabilities assessment, and so I work solid from the minute I get to the college until I leave each Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday. I have a goal to complete all of these assessments before my contract ends in December. It’s ambitious but possible, and it sure would help DSPS get back on their feet if I could accomplish this.
Cindy is equally busy, and I tried to help her a little last week. She is doing a huge job at a bunch of pharmacies, setting up gift card displays, so on Wednesday after work at the college, I went to Angels Camp to help with one of those. I had helped the week before, so she didn’t have to train me, making the work pretty efficient. I also helped her work on a gift for her nephew’s 18th birthday. She puts together photo albums for her nieces and nephews for this landmark birthday. It’s a big project but well worth it watching the kids get their albums and enjoy looking at their life thus far in pictures. We celebrated nephew Rex this weekend with a trip to the casino Saturday night followed by a birthday gathering with cake on Sunday. (Cindy was a winner at the Casino which made us both happy.)
Wednesday was also my writing group day. We had a great meeting as always. Some of us are preparing to do NaNoWriMo in November. This will be my second year, and I’m still not sure which of two “books” I want to work on. Guess I’ll just see what comes out of my fingers on Saturday at our kick-off Write In.
Thursdays I leave the college early to go get Huck and Nell at Waldorf. I got there a half hour early last week, so I could visit with my friend Trish who has 8th grade twins at the school. We rarely get to visit but realized this was one way to fit in a quick chat. We sat under a tree and talked as fast as we could.
I managed to fit in one yoga class on Friday which was without a doubt a highlight in my week. The Yoga Loft is my stress saver and I adore my teacher, Cherie. My body is so grateful for her guidance.
Friday was also “Meet the Author” at the College. I got all worried that no one would show up but the turn-out was wonderful–about 33 people. I was nervous at the start and did a lot of stuttering, but it smoothed out as I got warmed up and the crowd asked great questions following the reading. The Democrat had a nice article in the Weekender, and low and behold my picture was in Monday’s paper too as Teresa Chebuhar, the editor, came to the event and took photographs for the section called Weekend in Pictures. Nice publicity all around.
And I feel full of hope that Barak Obama will be our next President. I am not watching the news as I dislike all the negative stuff, but I’ve discovered some heartwarming and encouraging pieces in my blog reading. Two of them gave me a rush of satisfaction along with the desire to jump and dance! YES! Here they are if you want to feel good:
First, Donna Brazile is simply inspiring in I’m not going to the back of the bus!
Second, watch this lovely video answering the question Who is Barak Obama? I watched it 3 times, grinning, grinning, grinning. I see this man as MY President!
This week is as full as last, but I’m going to try to post small bits more frequently. Stay tuned!
I’m getting tired of receiving political email, usually messages that have been forwarded hundreds of times. I’m sick of reading blog posts that slander or at least underline the foibles of McCain and Palin. But yesterday I got an email message–it was another forward– that brought me up short and made me think about perspective and point of view.
Early on as writers, we learn to consider the importance and relevance of point of view in writing. Here are segments of the email message that made me shiver, that frightened me and forced me to recognize how deeply entrenched our country is in a racist point of view.
What if things were switched around? Consider the following:
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if McCain had only married once and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Cindy McCain had graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
Why aren’t people talking about John Sydney McCain if they are saying Barack Hussein Obama?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing three planes?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes, and minimizes the positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.
Education isn’t everything, but I think it should be a part of one’s perspective when evaluating candidates for the most important position in the country. Consider the disparate educational backgrounds of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates:
Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism
There is no minimizing the power of point of view when one considers how much harder a bi-racial man has to work to reach the same heights as a white man or a white woman.
Author Kate Evans writes in not one but several genres: fiction, poetry (Like All We Love), non-fiction (Negotiating the Self), and blogging. In each case, she demonstrates clear competence managing the distinctive features particular to the genre. Kate is one smart lady.
In the following interview, she responds to questions I asked about her process when writing her newly published novel For the May Queen. I was interested in how Kate’s “editeyes” worked as she approached the task of writing fiction.
ME: The setting of For the May Queen is dorm-life culture in the early 1980s, focusing on drinking, drugs, and sex prevalent in such a context. As a 60-year-old woman who came of age in the late 1960s, I admit to feeling a sense of disturbing recognition as well as powerless disappointment as I read, particularly during the first 2/3rds of the story. You manage to present this as a valid context for a rite of passage without minimizing it as a societal problem. Can you speak to how you arrived at telling a story that takes place in this particular context?
KATE: I lived in the dorms in the early 1980s. I was always interested in writing about that experience. I even tried to write about it as memoir, but that didn’t work for me. I worked on a lot of other things for years–poems, stories–when one day Norma’s voice came to me. Then the dorms emerged as the setting. It wasn’t really a conscious choice, but clearly that setting had been brewing in my mind for quite some time.
The dorms are a good setting, I think, because there are many juicy built-in conflicts. I chose the early 1980s because I didn’t want to deal with the internet and cell phones! Well, that’s part of it. The other part is, retro and nostalgia are fun.
ME: It is often said that a fiction writer’s first novel is to a great extent autobiographical. I’m interested in how this was so for you, particularly in terms of the characters in the story. Assuming there were prototypes in your experience for these characters, how and when did they become their own entities, more fictional and less the individuals from whom they originated?
KATE: I like that the semi-autobiographical novel is and is not the writer. I think this genre or sub-genre allows us to play around with the slipperiness of the self. I’m both Norma and not-Norma. Norma’s both Kate and not-Kate. It’s fun to play around like that. As Jeanette Winterson says, reading yourself as fiction is liberating.
Of course memoirists do this too, to an extent–it’s just that the readers are more likely to see memoir as you, whereas readers have to grapple with fiction as being both you and not you. I think it’s fun and exciting because I like identity to be in motion.
The characters became more fictional and then paradoxically more real–more truly themselves–the more I wrote them. They became three-dimensional as they grappled with all the roadblocks I placed in their way, as they made choices and interacted and, ideally, grew.
ME: I particularly enjoyed the symbolism in the character’s names and how their names fleshed out the central theme about identity. For instance, Norma sits at the center of the story, thereby establishing the “norm” which is not exactly normal, and who is also called Norma Jean by Chuck thereby alluding to the subtext of the Marilyn Monroe persona. Chuck, who is really Paul, is renamed by Norma, consistent with his dual identity and her failure to see the real him. Can you talk about the naming of characters and the degree to which your choices were consciously symbolic?
This is cool! Thanks for the great insights. I didn’t make conscious choices about the names, but clearly my unconcious was busy at work. It takes a reader like you to enter the story and help me see the method to the madness of my unconcious.
When Norma walked into Paul’s dorm room, I didn’t know they were going to play around with each other’s names. Paul’s calling Norma “Norma Jean” is led to his becoming a film buff–which evolved into being an essential aspect of his character. Norma’s renaming Paul is certainly a way for her to claim him and to not-see him, but I didn’t have this in mind as I wrote it. The playful banter was just part of their rapport.
ME: There are other symbols in the story: bridges, mirrors, and games, along with cultural icons like James Bond and Marilyn Monroe. The story explores themes like nonconformity, altered states, friendship, marriage, and even education and the relative value of an instructor’s choices for her students. How much of this arose organically in the story? Did you ever discover something inherent in the tale that you developed in the revision process?
KATE: All of it arose organically. When a friend of mine read the manuscript, she noticed a bunch of references to fairy tales, like “Billy Goats Gruff ” and “Goldilocks.” I didn’t know that was all in there. That’s what’s so wonderful about writing. It takes the readers to enrich, to complete, the experience.
I do think I amped up some of these patterns and recurrences in my revision, but not with an eye to theme. It was more with an eye to repetition as a satisfying way to weave patterns into, or out of, chaos.
ME: Finally, you’ve mentioned that your editor sent you back to the drawing board to write a denouement—the second to the last chapter. Would you talk about your process in writing this chapter?
This was actually my agent who did this. At any rate, he said he wanted to know the fall-out of Norma’s discoveries that are essentially the novel’s climax. I realized he was right, that we never know what Norma does to grapple with what she suddenly sees. Sorry for being so vague, but I don’t want to give away what Norma discovers for those who haven’t read the novel.
At any rate, Norma discovers something big. But my agent was right, the book couldn’t just end there. We had to know how she grappled with what she discovered. After I resisted for a while, it turned out to be really fun to watch her deal with this alone. She turns to a book, in fact, for advice. It’s the longest section in the novel that she’s alone, reading and thinking. She gets more quiet and still than at any other part of the novel. I saw her growing up just a little bit, right there. It was very cool, and it provided a bridge to the last chapter.
Thanks Kate. I wonder if my readers have questions for you.
On my last day in Ashland, I walked with two other women, Kim and Haley, to buy squash soup at Pangea restaurant. All along the way, we read freestyle chalked graffiti on the sidewalks–the late night mischief of our fellow travelers to theater-land. We laughed at the imagination apropos in each line we encountered.
As we waited for our soup, we each spoke about one thing we would take with us from the trip. Haley described being particularly moved by a line from “Our Town” about the swiftness of 1000 days passing. The gist of the quote was about “realizing life while you live it.” She was going to write in her journal every day for a 1000 days, beginning right then. Kim and I decided to join her in this plan, and we made a pact that we would each write daily.
I’ve written in my journal for 7 days straight. Right from the start, I struggled with whether to write about daily happenings or “practice” creative writing. I’ve written in a journal intermittently for years. For instance, I generally write when I’m on a trip like the one to Ashland, noting emotions, sights, impulses, and plans that arise from being in a new and different place. Whenever I teach writing classes, I write with my students to the prompts I give them. Sometimes, I get on a roll at home and write for several days or weeks using pictures or poems or nature as prompts, but then for reasons unknown I stop this daily journaling. So the commitment to write for 1000 days is challenging, particularly in terms of what to write.
This morning, I wrote several pages about what I should be writing and why I was writing, and then I decided to get one of my favorite books off the shelf– Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones— to point me in a more fruitful direction. I opened the book and read several pages, and when I came to a segment called “Nervously Sipping Wine” on page 66, I knew I’d found the guidance I was looking for.
Here’s the suggestion that did it for me. Goldberg recommended for a starting line to “take the first half of your sentence from a newspaper article and finish the sentence with an ingredient listed in a cookbook.” I modified these instructions because I didn’t feel like getting up to retrieve her ingredients. Instead, I copied a line from the AARP Bulletin that was sitting on the end table by my chair and finished it with a phrase from the Columbia Nursery Newsletter also sitting nearby.
Woah!!! From that first line emerged two pages of the best stuff I’ve written in a LONG time.
Try it! It’s a powerful journal exercise not unlike mischievously composing sidewalk graffiti in chalk. And while you’re at it, join my friends and me in writing in your journal for 1000 days. Maybe we can all do a better job of realizing life while we live it.
If you do decided to commit, how about making the commitment public by dropping a statement to that effect in the comment section here.
ph
I have never been politically active. My mom and dad always kept their voting decisions confidential and I generally follow that practice too. I don’t display bumper stickers or wear political pins. However, I always vote, having NEVER missed an election since I turned 21(even the tiny ones with only one local issue on the ballot).
When my candidate or issue loses, my practice is to find small ways to work at a grassroots level to facilitate change or support conscientious and ethical behavior. For instance, I recycle as best I can; I try to choose “green” action whenever I can. I never let the water run while I’m doing dishes or brushing my teeth. With regard to controversial issues like abortion, I look for ways to facilitate wise decision making, and I donate to my daughter-in-law’s annual walk for local pregnancy agency. Economically, I’ve turned a big corner and work consistently to live within my means and eliminate previous credit debt. I know I could be doing much more in many ways, but I try to not beat myself up for only making small steps in the direction of living and acting responsibly.
And sometimes I accidentally do something that feels very good. Last week, I got an email message from Code Pink about a single mom, Jocelyn Voltaire, in New York state who lost her eldest son in Iraq and who was also unable to keep up with skyrocketing mortgage payments so she about to lose her home.
This amazing video clip by American News Project describes Jocelyn’s plight.
Her story was so compelling that the chance to help seemed like a no brainer. Plus I was inspired by my daughter-in-law Jenny’s blog post Coats, Coats, and more Coats.
I donated $25 immediately to help Jocelyn Voltaire.
Apparently, in less than 2 hours with the assistance of the Internet, Code Pink raised enough money to save Jocelyn’s home. It felt so exciting to be a tiny piece of a bold statement. While our government has taken billions of our tax dollars to bail out the wealthy, a bunch of Americans came together to bail out a desperate mother.
Now, I’m looking for other small ways to help. And so, of course, I was immediately offered a suggestion in the form of Blog Action day which was a day dedicated to talking about poverty on blogs across the world. I actually missed the day, for it happened on Oct 15, but I know it’s not too late to address the topic. In fact with the economy flopping all around me, any day is a good day to consider ways to do something.
Check out this list of 88 Ways to Do Something About Poverty Right Now. I’m going to choose a few to do right away! Won’t you join me?
Die hard theater-goers at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival must be willing to deal with weather if they are to watch productions in the outdoor Elizabethan theater. In the summer that might mean baking heat, but in October it is sure to mean cold and possibly wind, rain, or sleet. Rain and cold were the offerings on the night we saw “Comedy of Errors.” In this picture, I am sitting bundled next to an unknown fellow who had fortified himself against the elements. The actors on the stage never missed a beat in the rain, which at one point was torrential, and the audience clapped and hollered in deep appreciation of their commitment to the “show must go on!!” The next two nights there was no rain though it was bitterly cold for “Othello” and “Our Town” (I know that’s not Shakespeare, but OSF produces plays other than Shakespeare).
Did I mention that I traveled with a group of students who were for the most part in their early 20s? Well they have terrific stamina and stay up very late. On the last night, we came home and deconstructed the production of “Our Town” while eating homemade ginger caked slathered with chocolate pudding, compliments of Brandon, who is a chef at the City Hotel. Sometime during the course of the evening I had a mentioned a game we played when I was kid: SARDINES.
It’s the reverse of hide-and-go-seek and it’s played in the dark. One person hides and all the rest of the players hunt for this person. When they find him/her, they quietly snuggle up against the person until everyone has located the hider and all are smashed together in whatever space the person has hidden. At 1am when six of us headed for bed, the others started a game of SARDINES. Needless to say there was little sleep for us amidst the hilarity the engulfed our cottage as folks fell down the spiral staircase, tripped over ottomons, and knocked pictures off the wall. Nothing got broken and by 3am there were, mercifully, sleeping bodies every where.
But wait! We had to be out of the cottage by 9:30, packed to go home, and ready for a two-hour backstage tour. After that we had to drive 8 hours to get back to the college. Everyone was giddy with fatigue. On the drive home, we played “I spy” and told jokes on the walkie-talkies that connected our two vans as we sailed down Highway 5. I was so proud to be the one who solved a walkie-talkie mystery story from clues bandied back and forth between the vans!
Fatigue, however, was overwhelming. At one rest stop, Kevin, the driver of one of the vans, stumbled from the driver’s seat onto a divider and promptly fell asleep in the middle of the day lilies while the rest of us used the restrooms and bought sustenance from various nearby food places.
Did I have fun. In a word: YES!! (And I’ve been sleeping for 2 days)
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