pauseRReport: June 2015

Tags

blogging, Blogs I like, writing, Writing Process, writing skills

Summer Talk: A Sneak Peek

I didn’t think I’d be able to write this week, but the coastal sun has driven us indoors for a few hours and I find myself with an opportunity to write. Yay!

June has been a great month here on thepauser. Again, the site has seen slow, steady growth, and I’ve noticed that posts are getting more comments, especially on this month’s most popular posts, The Red Bowl, and Larger than Myself?: A Riff on Inspiration. Overall, I feel much more comfortable in the blogesphere than I did when I started ten months ago.

Reflections:

• My writing feels like it’s undergoing a sea change. For the first few months, it was a struggle to meet my internal deadlines, and there wasn’t much revision in the mix. I wrote, edited (checked everything for spelling and grammar mistakes) and posted. I’m not sure why, but now I feel comfortable holding off on a post for a couple of days after writing.  Sometimes I go all James Joyce on my first draft, knowing that I’m coming back to it. I’ve been able to pluck some gems out of that loose way of drafting.  It feels like I’m maturing as a writer.
• Ten months ago, I thought this blog would be focused on my exploration of social media, but that really hasn’t been the case. Since I promised myself this blog would be a place to explore discomfort, I haven’t been pushing the boundaries enough. I need to return to some of the topics I’ve let drop. I fully intended to learn some html, and what pingback and trackback mean.
• I’d also like to explore how social media has changed the way we respond to and think about important world events. I know that others have used their blogs as vehicles for voicing their opinions on society’s concerns, but I don’t know how I feel about using this blog as a platform. I need to reflect on it.
• I’ve started to think about SEO this month.  Here’s why. I wrote a post months ago called Getting a Pedicure.  I don’t think it’s particularly good or even characteristic of the writing I’ve done, but every single week somebody reads this post.  The only thing I can think of is that the word pedicure is in the title and people see it in the search engine when they look for a place to get a pedicure.

Blogs I’ve enjoyed in the month of June:

Aunt Beulah: Parading Season

Bones Don’t Lie: Let’s Talk About Death (This chart is something a teacher could use to discuss the interrelationships between science and popular culture)

The Carter Library: Trying On Swimsuits with Miss Kentucky

In Other’s Words: Tiny Little Girl

The World Is A Book: 5 Photos, 5 Stories, Bill the Photographer (Amy is an amazing photographer, and this story is not to be missed)

Next Month:

In July, look for Summer Talk, a series of posts dedicated to the days of laze.  I’ll write about that metallic cup you used to drink iced tea and cherry kool-aid out of.  And the taxi ride you took with that interesting driver when you were on vacation, and the conversation you overheard while watching the boys of summer chase fly balls all over the outfield.  And the cool sensation of sticking your hot feet into water.

It’s Vacation Time

Tags

Excuse for why I'm not blogging, Margaritas on the beach, Vacation

Last week I went to a conference for work and convinced myself that I’d be able to keep up with my posting schedule. Nope.  I didn’t even have internet in that archaic place. Now, I’m on vacation, pecking away at my computer to tell you I’ll be away for the rest of the week.  When you’re on vacation, other people are always involved, so I’m forced to relax on the beach and sip cool drinks instead of wax prose- etic here on the pauser.  I’ll be back to my regular schedule in a few days.  Hope you guys are having a great summer.

Larger than Myself? : A Riff on Inspiration

Tags

D-Day, Inspiration, Normandy, World War II, writing

This month, I’m writing posts that are inspired by other blog posts that got me thinking.  In My Dirty Little Secret about Inspiration, Robert Bruce over at 101 Books asked,“How do you guys find inspiration to write or to do something that’s an integral part of your life?”  So here is my response to the post that inspired me to write about inspiration.

From Photo Morgue, the Beach at Normandy

I’ve lost the book.  I scrabbled around on my hands and knees, shuffling back and forth between all four of my bookshelves, and it’s not there.  I searched on Amazon to recover the exact name and author, but the book, like parts of my life, is mist.

The book was about the Allied landing on Normandy Beach at D-Day.  I bought it at the half-price book store because I noticed that my sixth grade readers enjoyed non-fiction.  Sitting in my reading chair, I scanned to make sure the content was appropriate for my eleven and twelve year old students.   Drawn in, I stood on the beach, watching the action roll out in front of me. The author of this little non-fiction book for children did something for me that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks couldn’t.  He made this day come alive.

He spoke about how ill-prepared the troops were for the landing at Normandy.  The men who survived the initial bombardment had scattered to the winds. Young men, separated from their units, pinned down by enemy fire, left with no ranking officer to lead them. In language a five year old could understand, the author conveyed what it is to feel desperate. Then, the author lit a match in me.

He told about one young soldier in such a situation, who decided to do something. In my mind’s eye, as I read about the cliff he climbed with a small squadron of men at his back, I could picture men all over the beach, just allowing themselves to do.   In a hundred keystrokes, a stranger handed me a paradigm for the word inspiration that I can understand.

Ask me about what something means, and I will circle back to the written word.  In preparation for this post, I read Anne Lamott’s Shitty First Drafts from Bird By Bird, Natalie Goldberg’s first thoughts from Writing Down the Bones, and Peter Elbow’s thoughts on the freewrite from Writing without Teachers.  The experts will all tell you to just sit down and write, that inspiration comes from denuding your soul, stripping back to the primal and letting your darkest bits hang out on the paper.  Elbow says this is the way to find your voice, that voice is “the force that will make a reader listen to you.” Goldberg likens the timed freewrite to the feel of meditating through all of our worst emotions.  She says if you sit through it, “You learn not to be tossed away no matter how great the thought or emotion.”  In this state, “You actually become larger than yourself.”

So, I’m at the computer almost every day, doing.  I’m writing a novel.  I don’t talk about it much here on thepauser because it’s a fingernail across a chalkboard.  The process is so raw and disquieting that I leave the keyboard full of nervous energy, wanting to go back, not wanting to, because these words, the feeling of placing them on the paper, is so acute.  The entire time I’m writing, thoughts detonate.  One says, “Didn’t you see Super Soul Sunday last week?  The one where they interviewed Sue Monk Kidd?  She started writing a novel at thirty, and that was old.  You are fifty-five.  Want me to count that out for you?  One, Two, Three….” Another: “You are aware, are you not, that the kitchen floor needs to be mopped?”  And Mike Myers somewhere in the background, dressed like the Scottish character from the Austin Powers movie, declares my words are, all of them, crap.

Sitting, not erasing, taking the seed of an idea and blowing on it to tease out more flame, does not feel like being larger than myself.  It feels like being as small as myself, as petty, as guilty, as lazy, as conflicted, and as selfish.  It feels, all the time, like a slog. But it’s a slog to which I’m committed.  I hear the artillery and keep walking past the war-wounded, limbless ideas that have sputtered through my brain with a firefly’s swiftness, dying without my breath to fuel them.  In every thousand words I see a few worth keeping.  Those few words are the ones that feed me.

I still don’t call myself a writer.  I just tell people that I’m writing…a blog, a book.  The writing, which starts with a spark (some would call this inspiration, but I think they are just ideas), uses the fingers, the left to right, left to right, motion of the words flowing across the page.  Writing, like every worthy pursuit, is work.

I’ve told the story of the book, the young men on that beach acting, many times.  If I ever saw the beginning of a spark in the eye of my listener, I went to the shelf and pulled the book off, pressing it to the listener’s hand, telling them to read for themselves. I guess someone finally accepted those hundred keystrokes as their own.

This is where inspiration comes from, not just for writers, for humans.  It’s the hard work we press into one another’s hands.  It’s the enthusiasm we share, and the actions that follow as we do.

Weekend Walk: The Merritts of the Stark

Tags

California, Lake Merritt, Oakland, photo essay, photography, travel essay

Cedar?

Lake Merritt is close to the Bonsai Garden I almost visited in last week’s Weekend Walk post.  The area around the lake teems with life, both wild and domesticated, both human and animal.  In the picture above, I was trying to capture the twist and movement of this tree.

A new landscape- natural and urban

The light on this day gave all of my photos a stark quality.  Maybe the fog off the East Bay diffused the light just enough for the camera to pick up what the naked eye could not sense.

View of the northern end of Lake Merritt

I am still trying to suss out how to depict depth when taking a photo.  It will take many years to perfect this, I’m sure.  I’m still learning not to accidentally take a picture or turn the camera off/on.

The roost

No examination of the Lake would be complete without mentioning the birds.  Lake Merritt is home to a bird sanctuary.  Although the sanctuary itself looks in need of an infusion of funds, the birds don’t mind a bit of benign neglect if they have places to roost and search for food.

Cedar tree with spider webs

The cedar bushes are covered in spider webs at this time of year.  I like the contrast between the white web and the deep green of the bush.

Bougainvillea and Building

Here, I was playing with depth again.  This photo is a bit like the place itself.  The mist that can sometimes make the San Francisco/Oakland area seem gloomy is the same mist from which these colorful flowers draw sustenance.  And the colors are unlike those in any other place I’ve ever seen.

Here’s hoping you all have a great burst of color in your lives this week to even out the gloomy bits.

j

The Red Bowl

Tags

family, grandparents, pyrex bowls, writing

In her beautiful post, Mom’s Purse, Musing off the Mat’s Joyce Poggi Hager writes about a beloved object her mother gave her.  Her post inspired me to write about a beloved object in my own life, my grandmother’s red pyrex bowl.

Timeworn, but beloved.

“Grandmother, when you die, can I have your house?”  I said.  Sprawling on the floor of the kitchen alongside the chair she sat in, I looked up in anticipation of her answer.

My aunt’s face pinched.  “That is not polite, child,” she chided.  But my grandmother laughed the way she did everything, all out, cackling like the black birds that nested in the chinaberry tree outside.

She put her hand on my head and said, “I’ll think about it, but I don’t plan to die for a long time.”  As a twelve year old, she felt old, her death imminent.  I was just putting in my bid for the record.  She understood the short connection between my mouth and brain.  Though the brain to mouth pipeline would need to be lengthened and curved through the years, she appreciated my guileless manner, loving me exactly the way I was in that moment.

It was one of those days in which the heat of summer licked our young bodies. The smell of decay and ripe sweat socks lingered in the summer air around all five grandchildren.  We’d play all morning, hurling chinaberries at one another or pretending to be the Beatles, if the Beatles lived in the country and rode a Shetland pony named Candy back and forth to the Seven-Eleven.  At lunch time we would burst into my grandmother’s kitchen, content to share her company for the remainder of the afternoon, lazing like overgrown hound puppies in her tiny kitchen.

She never, ever turned us away, and always, always made lunch for whoever showed up. Her simple meal preparation started in the same way every time.  Out would come the red Pyrex bowl, a paring knife, a red apple, and a jar of Miracle Whip.  The other ingredients varied, but whatever salad she made always featured that red apple and a blop of Miracle Whip.

I stood by her many days just to witness the miracle of her hands over that red bowl.  She would hold the apple in her left hand and take the paring knife in her right.  Her long, pointy fingers curled as she began to peel the apple in one long strip.  In my adult life, I’ve been to those restaurants that serve little food, the kind that’s supposed to pack such a punch of flavor that the feel of it on your taste buds is a culinary orgasm.  But I’ve never had a delicacy that compares to the taste of that red peel, shaved by the hand of my grandmother.

In the early summer of 1966, my mother came into the bedroom in the dark, pulled me out of the top bunk where I was sleeping, and deposited me into the family station wagon.  I remember her face as it neared mine, lined with anxiety, and the light behind her head.  After she moved my brother into the car, she made good our escape, driving six hours, from Fort Worth to Austin.  The next morning, I woke in my grandmother’s spare bed next to my brother.  Even at the age of six, our getaway filled me with a sense of great relief.

Maybe the opening credits of my life made my grandmother’s stability and unconditional love seem more gigantic than it really was, but somehow I don’t think so.  She was just good, and she was just there, always there.  My mother had to make a living.  She had her own healing to do.  My grandmother felt like a mother.   I could squeeze her and she would not break.

My mom eventually re-married, we all healed from the ordeal known as The First Marriage, and moved away.  My grandmother, who had played such a pivotal role in my life, transitioned into her proper place. She was the secondary source of comfort, the b-team for financial or emotional support in the event that my parents were unable to help.

Grandmother died after I already had children of my own. She died after I had raised six year olds, and knew how needy six year-olds can be.  She had a brain tumor that affected her speech, so our last conversation was simple.  She said, “I…”

I only replied, “Yes.”  We looked at one another and said goodbye, basking in that deep well of silence.

A couple of weeks later, I was helping my aunt and mom clear Grandmother’s kitchen.  Sitting in the floor where I’d played a hundred games of jacks, and watched my grandmother make a hundred salads with that red bowl, iceberg lettuce, an apple, and the ubiquitous Miracle Whip, my aunt asked, “Do you want anything out of this kitchen?”

When I voiced my bid for Grandmother’s house at the age of twelve, I associated it with all the safety and security that I felt in her presence.  The house, an architectural wonder of gentrified decay, held a magic sway over me as a child.  As an adult, I understood that the house wasn’t what made the magic, but the people that filled it.  Since my grandmother was gone, a symbol would have to stand in her stead.  Something I could use to source the maternal taproot that flows back into the love all mothers feel for their wandering children.

I smiled and said, “Just the red bowl.”

Weekend Walk: Bonsai! (Almost)

Tags

Bonsai, California, Community Garden, Oakland, photo essay, travel, travel essay

Never saw a purple rose before…

On our recent visit to California, I spent a couple of hours at the Oakland Bonsai Garden taking pictures.  Since photography is a new pursuit, I find it easier to take pictures of objects because they stay put.  The enclosed Bonsai Garden closed minutes before I arrived, but there were some lovely flowers in the adjacent community garden facility. I used the photo editing program that came on my computer to create the blurred background in the photo below.  My semantics are probably all wrong, but I don’t know photospeak.

I’d never seen one of these before, either…

I have been playing with foreground and background focus.  I took a bunch of photos with different aperture settings, and I couldn’t tell any difference between them, but I had luck just taking the camera and putting it very close to the foreground objects to create some parts that were out of focus, some that were in.

Yellow flowers, white bucket.

I wandered across some ducks in a pond, so I played with shutter speed to capture motion.  These ducks were fun to shoot, although I didn’t capture motion the way I envisioned.  Gotta start somewhere.

This shy fellow swam away from me, fast.

His gregarious older siblings.

Taking photos has made me notice much more than I have in the past.  I might need to learn to balance viewing life through the lens with actually being in the scene. I say this because I took approximately five million pictures on the California trip. That’s a topic for another blog.  For now, I hope you are having a happy Saturday.

Something else I’d never seen.

pauseRReport, May 2015: One Hundred and Six

Tags

bloggers, blogging, pauserreport, writing

Great news!  I now have 106 followers.  In last month’s pauseRReport, I said I’d be happy if I had 100 by the end of August.  I’m so grateful for your support and encouragement.  I said in one of my posts this month that the time and space to write has been the greatest gift I’ve ever been given, and you all have really made that possible.  Every time I think about giving up, one of you “likes” a post, or comments on it in such a way that makes me keep trying.

My reflections for the month of May:

• I’ve been working on my photography, because I know my posts need to have visual interest. I had a lot of fun playing with the aperture and shutter speeds on my Samsung when we visited Oakland for my son-in-law’s graduation.  I’ll be sharing more of those pictures with you soon.  A photography class is probably also in my near future.
• As much as I want to be a better planner, to find focus in my work (as all the blogging experts advise), it feels better to relax and let it happen. Here’s a picture of my editorial calendar.  It’s simple, but adequate for now.

My favorite blog posts in May:

• 2 Helpful Guys: 4 Productivity Principles Everyone Should Know
• Charlotte Hoather: Sir John in Love – In Pictures
• In Other’s Words: Songs from the Valley
• Life Lessons, a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown: Clouded
• Windmills of the Mind: On Public Shaming, call-out culture, and Humiliation as a sport

Coming In June

In June, I’ll write about inspiration, continuing the series I started last week based on other blogs that have inspired me.

I also have a goal to revamp my “About,” page.  Thepauser is not really about what I thought it was about when I wrote my about page the first time.

I hope all of you are in a safe, dry spot with people who treat you right.

j