Gaia: DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7 - Part 2

http://sandrajensen.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:18:32 GMT

I hear her talking to herself behind me - grunting, squealing, screaming, great gasping baby giggles...

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As per the suggestion to continue. Note commenting guidelines as above.

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I hear her talking to herself behind me - grunting, squealing, screaming, great gasping baby giggles. If anyone were here to see, they could easily think she was the happiest, most loved baby in the world. I stand up from my chair, stepping over her to get the jasmine tea off the stove. For the briefest of moments my eyes accidentally meet hers. In that instant, her blue eyes become a bit bluer and she grins a toothless grin as though she had been specifically waiting for this moment all morning. I take a deep breath and continue walking.

The kid's smart. She listens to me. I sign to her all day, and I know she understands me. She stares at me when I throw things around and swear up a storm because I want me-time but she's calling out to play, or because I can't find the remote. I'll get what's coming to me someday, when I'm walking through the grocery store with her and she drops her sippy cup and yells shit goddamn sonufabitch and all the other mothers pause in their mothering to give me disapproving glares. Yet somehow in these moments I am dumb enough to forget that she is not just a fly on the wall.

I shook her last night. Yes, I said shook her. I didn't do it hard enough to hurt her. I might be rough with her when I am exhausted and frustrated and falling apart, but I would never hurt her, I don't think. But then, I didn't think I would ever shake a baby and drop her in her crib to scream just for being a helpless little baby. What the hell's the matter with me? How can I be endlessly compassionate and caring one moment but the next I'm descending into the darkest depths of rage? What if I end up like that mother on House who was mentally ill and strangled her baby right in the hospital and then sobbed over it the next morning? What if everyone was like me and just turned off the good mommy switch at 10:00 PM and every baby that was a nuisance after that got shaken or strangled? I wonder if we'd have a race of happier, more self-sufficient babies. I wouldn't have made it out of infancy.

How can I be such a hypocrite? Some mothers would sell their souls for one more chance to be awoken at 3 in the morning by their son's or daughter's cries. For these women, the silence is haunting. Should God ever see fit to offer a mother such a miracle, I suppose she wouldn't spare a single sleepy-eyed moment bolting to scoop her sweet little one in arms. I imagine she would take the purest joy in wrapping him in the softest blanket she could find and walking out to show him the moon - rocking, dancing, singing in the sweet frigid pre-dawn air, holding heart against heart, clutching the little body until her wrists feel arthritic and frozen and praying that the sun will never come up.

I forget that I am one of these women. I'm such an ungrateful prick. At least this one didn't change her mind and turn back after she got a glimpse of me. I look at my daughter and imagine she is my son. It nearly pitches me to my knees in a great deep moment of gratitude. But I turn quickly and am able to dodge the moment, and it doesn't try to follow.

Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 11

http://sandrajensen.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:14:32 GMT

“Shut up!” he says and smashes his fist into the side of my face. The calmness of his words belie his actions...

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This post is anonymously posted in response to this assignment. For more details on how this works, also see this anonymous topic assignment.

COMMENTING:
with this assignment (as with all work posted on Diving Deeper ) it is important that all comments be about the piece, - the writing - how it affects you, what it is about the writing that works for you etc; not to whoever you think or imagine is the 'author' of the piece.

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“Shut up!” he says and smashes his fist into the side of my face. The calmness of his words belie his actions.

I make a sour face at him. It really didn't hurt as much as he intended it to. i had been talking about politics. I don't like the republican party and I don't like the way the country seems to be taking a turn for teh worse. Censorship of children's books has become quite the hobby of the people in Washington DC. I had said something insulting about one of his favorite political figures.

I've never been the type who crumples and bursts into tears when he decides to use his fists on me. Somehow, I think it would only encourage him.

Besides, he is preferrable to the cops. At least he doesn't stick me in handcuffs and lock me away…..

I used to go to peace rallies and protests. It seems like women's rights are being abolished in this country. The country keeps going into wars. I've been at a few peace rallies where they've thrown tear gas into the crowd and arrested the speaker. I've seen them (the cops) beat older men and women senseless. Several of my pals from the rallies and peace movement have had their children taken away.

My friends are tired of hearing me talk about his controlling behavior and violence. They want me to leave him and stop talking about it. I've reported him to the cops, but the cops always ask for a report in front of him, and he glares daggers at me.

People have asked me, “Why don't you leave him?!” and some have even gone so far as to say, “If you're not going to do anything about the problem, I don't want to hear about it!”

My reasons for staying are rather complex – but at the same time they're not. He'll kill me if I leave him. He is very book smart and knows how to track people down. He's very computer literate. And then there's the fact that my family disowned me for trying to turn in an uncle for sexual abuse.

But, I don't talk about THAT much anymore, either! People keep telling me to shut up. Either that or they walk away. They yell at me. Some of them even blameme for the abuse. Most people don't even want to speak to me again.

They never did anything about the uncle, the cops and social workers that is. That uncle has two young children now. I wonder about his children and even his wife. I wonder if she has to put up with the same kind of crap I do? But, I don't talk to him.

My husband does drugs too. He deals cocaine and marijuana and who knows what else. I think he probably has killed narcs before. He has made it clear the I should not even THINK about betraying him. So I let him cheat on me. I let him do what he wants. I am not a happy person, really, but I am surviving. I think it will be okay as long as I don't have to do the drugs too. He has a lot of lackeys and I'm not sure I'd get far if I tried to escape, especially since it seems I have no friends.

I do keep a diary. I tell everything to my diary. It's my best friend. I don't think he knows about it. In the beginning I talked about how kind and generous he seemed. I was impressed with the fact he liked to go to peace rallyies and stuff, too. (Although we have not been to one in quite some time now.) Now it is just a log of my wounds…..

Someday, it will be published or used to find justice – I just know it! But, even if it isn't, it is still there for me.

Hanuman Is

http://dukka.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:06:04 GMT

The sun stood behind a soft gray door. I crouched in the dusty rocker, squinting. The leaves around me reminded me of the sunset. The brown ones had gone down. It was like night had come. Others had fallen, showing me such beauty, their light changing. I listened intently to them falling. Sighs and murmurs. Once in another time I commanded them to stop. "Please don't lose what you have shown me," I pleaded. I did not want the brittle brown stillness. But now the sky was coming once again. And the wind reminded me as it tugged at the colors. I held a piece of the tree in my hand, a tiny palette.I touched my finger to the leaf and streaked my face with the colors: orange, yellow, a burning red, some blue down my nose, some purple across my brow. "I will let this color remind me," I thought. Then I remembered Rama's hand on my shoulder. And his voice telling me that how you see is like a squirrel curled sleeping in a tree, waiting for you to look, to awaken it. "The world starts that way," he said. "What is this power that I have?" I remembered thinking. He smiled. "It is not yours. It is not something you can ever know." In Rama's face I saw the same colors I had on my face now. It was the same. This then was my lineage. Through this leaf into Rama's face and back into mine. Who was looking at this leaf? Maybe it was Rama in the temple. Maybe it is the wind now moving in me here in the rocking chair. Maybe it is the falling sense of the colors that are filling me. Maybe it is the rattling sound of the leaves above. I lean forward. I cannot find that sound. Through the trees the mountain is growing in me. It pops out through the top of my head, perched there like a cap. It too carries all the colors. And it warms me in the cool air...

Re: Starlets

http://Ramsses.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:52:49 GMT

One must be wary of friends and foes alike,
But You are of a different order, Mother,
Like the myna that is not like other birds,
Whose love flings open doors you never knew.

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 10

http://gospelwriter.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:52:20 GMT

This feels deep to me, perhaps a zen sort of parable: Where did the bucket come from? Where is it going? What purpose is there to any of it? And, Does it matter?

When I first read the piece I was puzzled. I wanted to know: What (exactly) is the message? Whose is the message? At first I thought the bucket must be the messenger, but no, the bucket is only (?) the theme, as the ocean is the medium.

But there's something beyond, invisible, an observer who sees the bucket sinking and the ocean shrugging. There is a questioner. And the observer/questioner seems to be saying: We (bucket, ocean, whatever) are one; it's all one. We see what we see and it passes out of sight (bucket) or remains the same (ocean). On the surface anyway.

In a way everything changes and everything stays the same: what we are today, we may be its opposite tomorrow, like the bucket (What holds is now held.) The never ending wheel.

I like that the bucket and ocean (wave) are personified; e.g.:

With a careless shrug, a wave pitches it over... A slow relentless swallowing later, it sinks from sight.

The endless possible outcomes:

Will it be born again on some distant shore at the whimsy of time and tide? Is it nowpart of the endless crawling, a legless inching through millenia? Perhaps the bucket will journey to the center of the earth, or vacation in Atlantis. What if it settles over the window of an interstellarcraft blinding the pilot who crashes into the side of the Marianis Trench?

And the conclusion:

Whatever.

I like that in spite of my attempts at understanding, the sense of mystery remains.

Nice work.

Ruth

Re: not enough room

http://gospelwriter.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:46:42 GMT

Peter, there's just something I find so engaging about writing of this nature---a point-and-shoot moment, a brief glimpse into the world of some I-character.

So much is shown about this I-character by the detail provided about books everywhere---not detail about what the character reads, but that he reads, and voraciously---and the extreme care he takes to make sure a smoked cigarette is well and truly out. A book lover, maybe even, worshipper. And I love that we are shown this in so many ways, yet never actually told it, especially here:

Could you imagine how quickly my life could go up in smoke from just a little spark.

I can picture this character running through the thickest smoke and flame to save as many books as possible.

I like how the thought of the character's life going up in smoke leads quite naturally into a discussion of barbecues, and how a microwave oven, though a poor substitute, still renders a burger that is "tasty enough to make me happy." The segue itself is one of my favourite parts:

I live in a very dry climate, which makes anything made from wood into juicy tinder for a hungry little flame. Don't get me wrong, I love bonefires and candles, they create such wonderful atmosphere, especially of the spiritual kind.

Food for the mind, food for the body. In spite of the "not enough room," I sense that this character is well content, or at least, far from discontent.

Ruth

Re: Rock Stars

http://sandrajensen.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:52:33 GMT

;-)

Re: Rock Stars

http://Ramsses.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:30:54 GMT

How did I know you would like that?

Re: Rock Stars

http://sandrajensen.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:34:42 GMT

Only You, whom I love with all my heart,
Know the wobbles of the silent planets

exquisite, truly.

Re: JULY

http://pz.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:02:08 GMT

Hi everyone!

Sandra, your Shamanic Forecast is totally nailing it, for me. Holy creep!
We have hot weather as well, on top of everything, and my body doesn't like hot weather, it gets overheated. Part of being a Pitta person with hot blood... this weather makes me boil and it's really uncomfy.

Well, I was not about to tell you all about the weather, ghees. For my part my relationship with my daughter has been boiling up preassure for a looong loong time. In my astro yesterday they said that I will be harvesting some of the things that started 14-15 years ago. That was when I devorced...

Well, I have been in Japan for 3 weeks and out there it became painfully evident that me and my daughter are on a collision course. She was acting really bad. When we came home I had to 'punish' her, therefore I did send her to her daddys. She don't want to be there for longer periods.

So she has been there for a week when she calls me and ask's if she can come home for a weekend. Me, my soft potato, had been missing her with my empty nest syndrome and all said okay.

Nope, we are not balanced yet, not by a longer shot. So she will return to her daddy's. She needs to learn how to adress me whith an adault manner and not with a whinny and extreme teenagely way. I have had enough of it now and do not accept it anymore. I feel like I was just a wallet to her. Buy me this and buy me that mom - and if I do it (me idiot) I am treated like a piece of shit afterwards. "What are you stirring at? Shut the door and go away. Now! ...duh"

I need to learn a lot as well. A lot. But one thing is for sure, she is getting it as well, if she treats me like that there will be penalty.

At her dad's she acts like an angel I've heard. She makes food and washes the dishes and stuff. It's hard to digest. Makes me sad.

Oh my, I'm just vomiting it all up here. Sorry.

When it comes to writing there is nothing going on over here. Too tired at the moment. Just read the June thread and it is fantastic how you guys manage to walk the path. Gabriele, it is amazing that you have it as a routine now, writing every day.

I have not done anything with my NaNo novel, with Lizzy. She is resting in piece for the moment. And the draft needs to practically be re-written completely. Don't have the energy partly because of the hot weather and partly because of the other struggle. But I'm not worried, it will return again, although, I will be alone soon again. Dispite my daughters manners at the moment I see a lot of progress there, longer glimpses every now and then (it's not all black). She is 17 and in couple of years she will be on her own, as will I. I need to start to pull my own life as a single person together.

Actually, I am pretty strong personanily so her freeing process needs perhaps to be fierce. This is normal.

So the cunning empty nest thing is good for my writing, right? I will be needing it.

Gosh it helped to "chat" with you guys. Feel much better again.

xo

Starlets

http://Ramsses.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:42:49 GMT

How could I, all evil personified,
Have been drawn finally to Your darshan,
Unless I did some sorcery on You
To make You madly fall in love with me?

not enough room

http://cleaningdishes.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:00:20 GMT

I had to get out, my place is just to small. It's nice in the winter, all warm and cozy. My books are everwhere, there's just not enough room for it all. That's another way to describe my small apt "not enough room". Maybe it feels that way because of all the books. Their in my bed, my floor, the top of the chest of draws, the top shelf of the closet. I smoke, and I'm so careful making sure my cigarette is out when finished, that I put it under running water to leave no doubt in my mind that the little red burning tip is out completely. Could you imagine how quickly my life could go up in smoke from just a little spark. I live in a very dry climate, which makes anything made from wood into juicy tinder for a hungry little flame. Don't get me wrong, I love bonefires and candles, they create such wonderful atmosphere, especially of the spiritual kind. I also love a good barbecue, there's nothing like the taste of a succulent veggie burger right off the barbecue. If I had a barbcue at my place , I'd die from asphyxiation before I'd ever get that first bite. So I have to go to someone elses place for that, but that someone else moved out of town, eh we weren't great friends anyway. So, I nuke my food, all the little rooms where I live come with little microwave ovens. Only problem with the microwave is that my veggie burgers don't taste as good as they would be from a barbacue. and anyone familiar with a microwave knows that my veggie burger won't be succulent when it's finished cooking, but it's still tasty enough to make me happy. I've been living like this for so long maybe I don't remember what real tasty means anymore. O well, off to bed .

JULY

http://sandrajensen.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:33:17 GMT

as per usual I'm late.
I just read the Shamanic Forecast for July...
Hah hah.
I've been telling people how much pressure I've been feeling, sometimes almost unbearably so.

Seems I'm right on target for What's Going On..

"The theme for July is HEAT. This is not so much about weather and climatic heat but rather an energetic heat that pressurizes and accelerates everything from destruction, conflict, explosion, dissolving and decomposing; to creation, healing, balance, growth and expansion. This acceleration produces change. The pressure has been building for some time, both from within and from without. Now the results will begin to surface with the additional heat."

Results? I hope so. Otherwise this cake's gonna self-destruct in all that heat! Last night I thought I had a breakthrough with the story I'm editing. An unwell day today leaves me still struggling with it, but, I do feel some movement.

I'm not sure I'm feeling the expansion / balance part of this forecast yet. I live in hope...

xo

Re: The Loneliness of the Car is On-going

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:19:16 GMT

Hi Deleen. Thanks for your wonderful response. First I have to agree with the caps thing. I see how these short lines had the caps at the beginning of each line poking at you. I changed it in my blog post and it does read much easier, better flow. And the significance of the Car is enhanced. Thanks for that. As I indicated to valli, as I wrote this, I began to see how relationship of any kind spills over into the deeper nature of all things. Can't be helped. Noticing or not it is there. Thanks for your thoughtful comments and interpretation Deleen. Ron

Re: The Loneliness of the Car is On-going

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:02:05 GMT

Hey valli. hi. I like what you said about all this heartache being too peopled. As I write about relationship to the world I always seem to default to nature. But then I wonder about perception and I realize it is all relationship. Cars, books, fruit, flies, shoes, toothpaste, clothes and people. So my atttempt was bending toward that light. Put some syrup on that waffle for me valli. Ron

Re: The Loneliness of the Car is On-going

http://irishrose.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:07:56 GMT

This piece gives me a sense of something transcendent, much deeper than what the words appear to describe. I feel a parallel between the Car and some sort of god or higher power - the vehicle, if you will, by which everything moves, yet the one with the intention to move is fully unaware of the Car or the One enabling this movement:

The Car is obligated to let
Me have these thoughts:
That I am driving,
that I am going somewhere,
And there is no car.

This epitomizes the classic dichotomy between ego and the divine. The I-character is stuck in ego unaware: I absent Myself from its heart. In contrast, the Car waits with the limitless patience of a saint:

It sits
In the rain, the snow, the
Hot sun, and waits for me.
It is not going anywhere
Until I engage it.

I love the simplicity of the language, yet there is so much here I could dive into. The universal quality of this piece is delightful - the specific relationship between a person and a car becomes a metaphor through which a reader's own relationships can be revealed much more clearly.

The one thing that tripped me up was the capitalization at the beginning of nearly every line - I didn't understand or feel much the first time I read this because I was so distracted by all the mid-sentence capitals. Without them, I feel that the flow of the sentences and the contemplative imagery could bring me much deeper into the piece - it might also make the purposeful importance of the Car much more noticeable. This is the kind of poem that I love to be drawn into, really feel the energy behind it.

myth

http://yesvalli.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:01:09 GMT

a sound hides some rhythm
it sucked the edge in the wind
and closed .it maybe a window
the wall though, is naked
and cold from a hundred miles

just the wall
never a room
when god is dead you could go
as far as a blueprint . drew ,
already way over viable limits

Re: The Loneliness of the Car is On-going

http://yesvalli.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:54:23 GMT

hey ron. i get a resolution . in the rain in the sun in the snow it waits. and then some - it craves . the loneliness is transferred to it. like all this heart ache is too peopled, a lot of it really belongs in the car .coz it adds to the car .theres this yinny yang synergy . maybe its the peace thing that waffled into me :)

Re: Rock Stars

http://Ramsses.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:47:19 GMT

Enough impersonation for the world,
I am not at all how others see me,
Only You, whom I love with all my heart,
Know the wobbles of the silent planets.

Re: Music Muse: Oboe & the Trympod

http://sandrajensen.gaia.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:16:54 GMT

I loved how this unfolded...and I liked hearing a bit more about the process that led to the story. It's not long at all (not compared to some of my pieces....). I'm glad you posted it, so much I like!

I very very much like the play on instrument names, the description of the sexophone.. I think the whole orchestra could be included in this way. very funny.

Interestingly, as I read on, I thought about how it would be if the instruments were edited into 'people' - hardly changing a thing other than the reference to humans etc. I wasn't sure if the very 'human' actions described translated into instrument-life. I did feel that the characters of the Trympod(player) and Oboe(player) became more clear and developed for me by the end, and I could 'see' his little tubby stomach, (I'm sure he has a balding spot he covers with a few long hairs)..her sweet but prissy mouth etc. ? Just an idea. As it is, for me it is almost a children's story ( have to edit out the wham bam bit I suppose!), I 'see' pictures of instruments with legs etc. Hmm, now my thoughts are running away with me and I'm seeing a funny animation that this could be the story behind..Perhaps it's time I went to sleep!!

Great read, thanks Ruth.

Love,
Sandra