pilgrim soul

there

2011-12-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, just a reminder that I am spending most of my time back at Knitting the Wind these days. Moving across here turned out to be a bad idea; however, I'll keep this page for dreams, maybe some poetry.

Blessings to you all.

when

2011-12-10T20:30:00.001-08:00

It's all dreaming. Sometimes I look up and its dirty windows and no letters, and that's when I get sad. I feel lonely, and trapped in bones and slowly deteriorating skin.

But if I remember, I'll go to music, or story, and that helps me be free. Back into understanding that it's a dream. The real windows are inside. The only letters I need are from him, synchronicities, hearts at my feet.

scrounged

2011-12-01T10:52:00.001-08:00

Recently someone asked me where I find my inspiration. Everywhere, was pretty much my reply. But I have to tell you, nothing sparks my writer imagination like lovely, alluring phrases discovered just lying about amongst common sentences. I would go down weeping for good words.

Each of these this morning made me catch my breath and think of stories. And together, maybe, they would be the small, as yet unsorted, bones of a poem.

Nearly-forgotten nineteenth century poetry
This month, this magical month
Who sees the small, sacred ways of the infinite God?

Every Thursday, we dressed her in layers & warm boots, and sent her off with hot soup, bread, and treats.

They are looking for rainbows
I can not look away from light
I fell into tears and they fed me and I grew
You are home, you are safe
I have gleaned

I am grateful I have few riches. If I did, would I be aware of the riches in half a sentence, or the bend of the wind?

{all the phrases are linked to their sources}

problems ... and a book post ...

2011-11-29T21:23:00.001-08:00

I can not get into my Knitting The Wind dashboard to publish the post I wrote this afternoon, nor leave comments on the site. I have been trying for a couple of hours now with no luck. Finally, I attempted this post here ... we'll see whether it publishes ...

It did.

So I am going to publish my KTW post here, at least for now, and see if I can fix the problem over there.

What is it about stories that they can move us so strongly, passionately ... so longingly that, upon the final chapter, we feel ourselves straining against skin and sound, as if we would go free into the story if we could?

Today I sat on a plastic chair in a damp basement, my feet up on a canoe rack, as I finished Matched by Ally Condie ... beautiful, beautiful ... Then I had to pace, back and forth amongst the boats, trying to keep myself in. I cried a little, behind my sunglasses. I paced some more. I was moved.

Yes, Matched is a girl version of The Giver. (I handed it to Rose and said, "it's like that book, you know the one ... um ... and she said, The Giver? And I wondered again about the existence of telepathy.)

And yes, it was slow-going at the start. Perhaps it also could do with more backstory. I tripped over some holes.

But I could not quite breathe when I finished it, and I paced, suspended in Cassia's heart, never mind the cold concrete shadows and the sandy wind and a long, frustrating wait to read the sequel. What had seemed at first like a fairly Young Adult fantasy contained sudden, secret wings; bursts of beautiful wild poetry; and such a yearning for the lover's touch I found myself leaning towards the page, yearning also ...

And I thought, this thing people say about stories - "we need them because they reflect our own experiences" - have you heard that? It's the wisdom. But its not always true.

I believe the reason we need stories is because they give us what we want to experience.

A purposeful life.
To ride a dragon.
Adventure.
The true potency of poetry, long diminished in this lectured world of ours.
Justice. Confirmation of what we've always secretly believed. Hope. Understanding. Comfort.
Soulful, undeniable love.

I've discovered lately that teenagers are lucky these days. If they can get past all the vampires, ghosts, and black-eyed angels, there are so many amazing stories published for them. {And perhaps this is where the paperback book market will settle finally - in the YA section, as well as the Romance section, and everyone else will read on their Kindles like the sensible, serious-minded adults they are.} Someone loaned my twelve year old a series of cat adventurer books, and I won't let her read them, not when she only reads for a little time each day, not when there are books like Matched and The Hunger Games she could be reading instead. Stories that will feed her mind and leave an aftertaste forever on her soul.

elsewhere

2011-11-28T12:19:00.001-08:00

One of my favourite webloggers, Kamana at Journalling Through Photographs, has kindly published an interview she recently did with me. This is only the second time I have been interviewed for another website, and I am tickled pink. (Which is the phrase my very conservative and quiet grandad said immediately upon hearing that I was pregnant, despite me not being married. I'll love him forever for that, God rest his soul.)

Kamana was nice enough to call my photographs "dreamy", which made me go all weak at the knees, because dreamy is exactly the word I would love to have sum up my pictures ... and I think finally perhaps I have an anchor for "branding" or coalescing my photographic and writing vision.

I have written more about this over at Knitting The Wind. Many blessings for your day.

over there

2011-11-27T19:34:00.001-08:00

Knitting the Wind has had a makeover, and I'm actually liking it. As Christmas draws nearer, and my foolish heart softens and blushes, I'll probably spend more time over there, indulging in nostalgic ramblings about motherhood. I'm also contemplating how our homeschool should develop next year, after the summer hols ... so I might write about that too.

Back and forth, back and forth, like a ... well, like a pilgrim soul, a restless wind child, a very annoying and unstable blogger.

This morning I compiled a list of all the handmade gifts I've given over past Christmases. I surprised myself by how often I have given handmade. I hope you will forgive me for my obnoxious spreading of self over two weblogs.

By the way, I am considering republishing Otherwise and The Wind Children as e-books (pdf format) illustrated with a series of new photographs, and also publishing a short story collection, also with photographs and also in e-book format. I wonder if anyone would be interested?

advent

2011-11-26T12:03:00.001-08:00

Last night we had a dinner of sourdough bread, pizza, strawberry tomatoes, while watching some silly old movie. Although it's also true Rose was chatting with a friend online, and I was outlining my book, and every now and then we switched over to see how the election was going ... layers on our lives, bringing the world (and other worlds) in.

Then we wandered a while through evening darkness and the diminishing wind. We talked about north, the road to the north, and dreams I will try to make true although there will probably be disappointment now and then - what with this being life and all. When we got home, a letter was waiting from that same north. For the first time in a long time, I glimpsed hope.

We stayed up very late, her reading Mockingjay (with certain pages folded over by her protective mama), me making my annual "Christmas Letter" video.

Recently I read Lesley Austin's intention to make her beautiful weblog, The Bower, an Advent calendar. I was inspired (as is always the case when I visit The Bower) and thought I would like to offer more beauty here for the season. It is smy favourite season, bringing with it an inherent happiness: how can I not celebrate?

Of course, my beauty will be most likely a rather melancholy kind, nocturnal and echoing old wishes, faraway dreams. Beauty seen in exile. But that's okay.

It's all good.

Always.

the art of expression

2011-11-25T12:50:00.001-08:00

I paint my soul with the colours of my everyday choices. What do I want my palette to be?

All the possibilities are given to me. In each moment, I am blessed with a whole rainbow. I make my choices, create the canvas of my existence. I paint me.

It's true, china plates and fresh white roses are expensive. I can't always have the things that show who I want to be. But I can always have the words, and the walk. Not many people will see the lace trim of my bedsheets. But everyone witnesses my facial expressions and what I say to the shopkeeper.

I am an artist in action. And the colours I choose for me are the colours I will splash inadvertently, or sometimes purposefully, onto other people.

So what colours do I want the world to be?

image credits here

I have a post about positive parenting over on Knitting The Wind.

the writing life

2011-11-24T10:41:00.001-08:00

I believe in stories.

I was going to say more ... the healing power of stories, the truth-telling power ... but just as soon as I had typed that sentence I became utterly stunned by its depth, and knew that to talk about healing and truth-telling would not be more, it would be less, a diminishment of what I actually feel. Because everything I believe is in that sentence.

We are the story of ourselves. This week I read a quote which I loved from Bill Hicks (although he may not really mean it.) "All matter is merely energycondensed to a slow vibration -- we are all one consciousness experiencingitself subjectively. There is no such thing as death. Life is only a dream, andwe are the imagination of ourselves." (I would add that the energy has a cause, a source. Someone who opened the storybook.)

We are the story of ourselves. Yes, again, but more specifically this time - I am telling myself, telling my life. (Unfortunately, I am an unreliable narrator.)

And now I want a nice summation, but have run out of time - I need to wake my daughter, prepare for my morning class. But in a way that is the best summation of all. I am writing a true story, and it is so much more important than words.

To you, today, this special day for so many, I wish you everything you need to make your story exactly as you want it to be ... and I wish that you want happiness and beauty for yourself.

anne mccaffrey

2011-11-22T14:42:00.001-08:00

There are some moments in your life which are so pivotal, they are never forgotten. One for me occured in the brown afternoon shadows of my local library when I was about thirteen years old. I was sad, and looking around for a little bit of happiness, and I picked up a random paperback from one of those rotating shelves.

Dragonsinger of Pern.

Dragons. A singing heroine. I figured I might as well get it. The cover was pretty.

Thank god I did.

I'd been back from the island a few months. I'd left behind peace, and dreams, and a blond-haired boy who liked the same things as me. Back in town, it was back to bullying, and loneliness, and not sleeping because of the night terrors which were probably nocturnal asthma, now that I think about it.

Then I found Pern. And it was more than a little bit of happiness.

I was not a writer before then. I was a dreamer who loved to read, and play with words, and think of stories. But Pern inspired me to write down my dreams. A silly fan letter sent to Anne McCaffrey received a warm, kind, handwritten reply - I still remember sitting in the blue-curtained sunroom that was my bedroom, reading that letter, trying to see my future in its encouraging and honest words. I would put on my U2 records, or something by Fleetwood Mac, and type away on my heavy old typewriter as the sunroom blossomed with redgold light and then diminished into night. The character I developed then, Taryn, stayed with me for years, and still requests her story be completed. If she was a blonde Lessa, well ... a foolish little girl can perhaps be forgiven.

To be honest, most of what I wrote in those early years was an echo of Pern. Pegasus instead of dragons. Elves thrown in to the mix. The blond-haired boy with a sword instead of a canoe paddle but the same shy smile. Listen, this silliness did not matter. I was doing it. I was writing. I had purpose, and hope, and something which threaded me into contentment while almost every other hour was miserable. I learned enough to get myself 99% on my final English exam despite writing an off-the-cuff story in green pen. More importantly, I learned who I was - and how to be that person safely, not in real life, but in the pages of a world where monsters and evil kings chased me but still that was preferable to high school. If there's any strength in me now, it's because I was able to protect and nurture it in my typewritten worlds. And Anne McCaffrey taught me how.

I worked various jobs after school from about the age of thirteen. I made myself money. And then I would ride my old brown bike down to the local stationer's stop, back when they still sold books amongst the magazines and cigarettes, and I'd buy whatever Anne McCaffrey book they had in stock. It didn't matter which one - I bought them all. Only years later did I find her writing deteriorated, or perhaps I just outgrew it. But that didn't matter. I had her when I needed her.

Seems I am not the only one who she held up through adolescence. Twitter today has been flooded with people crying along with me. I can't understand my sorrow, but I think its not real sorrow, its just the depths of a very old and precious gratitude.

on the bad days

2011-11-22T12:23:00.001-08:00

You know the bad days? The ones which slide into a restless night and leave you still cringing, drinking tea like a drug, wishing for peace, the next morning? I get those days sometimes. I am almost all heart, and the little bit of common sense I have is like a splinter in that heart, so I have joy, a great deal of joy ... and I have bad days.

When they come, and they linger, there is only one thing to do.

image credits found here

Chocolate strawberry muffins in a tin in my pantry.
No wind when we said there would be no wind.
The little birds who live in the hedge.
Being able to say yes.
Enough money for Christmas.

This advertisement, bringing tears to my eyes.

Remembering that there is beauty anywhere we go.

That unexpected feeling of longing when I think I might have to join the Catholic Church so Rose can attend a Catholic high school.

A well-walked dog.
A daughter.
Time to write.

Thank you to whatever stood in the silent unknown before all the light exploded, making stars and rivers and unexpected hugs and poems and rain and everything. Thank you to what stands in my heart even now, filling it with light against all the small, writhing shadows.

eta ... And the tears are just pouring down. They say Anne McCaffrey has died. I am sitting here watching Twitter flood with messages, although no one yet has confirmed it. I feel unexpectedly, completely heartbroken. She was truly my saving grace through teenagehood. She is the reason I am halfway sane. The reason I am a writer.

May there be a God, and may he have her warm in his embrace now.

the great story

2011-11-21T11:48:00.001-08:00

I have been teaching about creating internal conflict in a fictional character. This is where the story lies - in her struggling to decide which essential thing she actually can exist without after all. And its the story in our real lives too, of course.

I wonder what it is that makes some of us live like we are in a novel, while others can find peace in certainty and quiet purpose. Maybe the universe needs its balance of action and calm ... maybe it is pacing itself as if it too is a vast story being played out with darkness and stars. Some of us get to be the exciting chapters. And some of us get to be the pause to catch a breath.

Which one are you, and do you like it?

I guess the bigger question is ... can we rewrite our chapter in the universe story? Or is it deep in the embroidered fibres of our spirit? I have had the sun-soaked peace, with tea set out on a lace-clothed table, and the floorboards all golden. But even then I was tossed between this thought, that thought, and all the conflicting desires of the ordinary day.

I am written for drama. I dream of peace.

ps, I have written today about peace and the Christmas spirit over at Knitting The Wind.

the worst thing about homeschooling

2011-11-19T19:39:00.001-08:00

I have been trying to think of gentle, lovely things to write here. But I write them and I delete them, and squirm and grumble, and I drag more dubious beauty from my memories, only to erase it again and wonder, maybe my blogging days are finally over after all.

The truth is, though, I'm just trying to avoid what's in my heart.

That thing they ask when they hear you're homeschooling, "what about socialisation?" It's a real concern.

I guess it's harder when you have only one child. With two or three, I would not give it another thought. But watching my little girl play on her own was always heartbreaking for me. I myself was a child who preferred solitary play (due to bullying) but I wanted something more joyous for my sparkle girl. All along, I kept saying, it will get better when you are older. It will.

It hasn't.

Rose does have one dear and wonderful friend at the moment whom she sees a couple of times a week. And when I look back, I can create impressive lists - she's had birthday parties, sleepovers, excursions, group events, playdates with friends at their house and ours, picnics, sports team participation, drama & art & ballet classes ...

But none of it has been consistent. And the inconsistency keeps me on edge. So when an opportunity arises for her to go on camp, I say yes! yes! -

And when I have to take it back, and watch the happiness dim from her eyes, and know she'll remember this moment forever, but I just don't trust the camp organisers with her physical and emotional safety - I cry into the night, and take pills for the long hard headache, and contemplate public schooling.

You know, we have a little dog, and I'm ashamed to say we don't take her out often enough. Hopefully this will change soon, but as things stand it's impossible for her to accompany us on our days. Oh, how this little dog loves to run and to smell the world.! I tell myself she gets alot of joy from the small walks I can take her on. But I see other dogs out and about, and I wish for her what they have. A real, exciting life. A few short walks when I can manage it, despite the joy they bring her, is not enough.

That's how I feel too about homeschooling. Classes and co-ops don't adequately replace having a chum you can just muck around with on a lazy summer afternoon.

(I know I've written on this subject before. Sometimes it flares up, you know? Other times, we are amazingly busy with friends and events. But in general, I was wrong - it doesn't get better as she gets older. I'd now say the opposite. Gone are the days she could walk up to some random child and smile, and they'd run off together as happy playmates in the park. Also, the social issues surrounding her sport are extremely complicated and involve huge amounts of money and unpleasant politics - which is annoying, since her sport is all she wants to do all the time.)

I thought when Rose was five, and then eight, that I would be bowed by the stress of wondering, "am I wrong in homeschooling?" But it was nothing like the stress now. I've never once doubted the academic superiority of the choice I made. But the isolation is a real concern for any mother, no matter how contentedly introverted the child.

what this post wanted said

2011-11-18T11:08:00.001-08:00

I am a better mother in the quiet. I am a better writer, picture taker. I like myself best in the quiet.

Last night, I decided I would write a post about how I am a better mother when I have plenty of time. But as I sat down this morning, after toast and tea, to Blogger's hushed page, the words shifted themselves in my mind. Yes, I need time to do better. But that's only because time allows quiet.

I don't enjoy parties. I prefer not to have visitors. While I love being in interesting places full of people having fun, it's only enjoyable to me if I'm able to stand a little back, encircled by quiet. I understand why. I am a natural extrovert, but was badly bullied from my early years of school all the way through. Quiet did not protect me then, and I do not use it as protection from others now. I use it to hold myself together in the world when all my instincts tell me to run and hide.

Okay. This post is not at all how I planned it to be! I was going to write about bedtimes and long slow afternoons in the sun. But since I ended up somehow at bullying, let me tell you something I don't usually have the courage to say in public.

Bullying is the inisidous war of children. And it is a real war. It breaks people forever, kills people. Bullying proves to me without a doubt that children should not socialise together for long, unsupervised periods of time. And I admit, most of my arguments against public school involve the danger of bullying, the truth of the war. Bullying is in my opinion one of our society's biggest problems. Perhaps men would not poison our earth with toxic oil, or pour perfume into the eyes of trapped rabbits, or let other people starve, if they had not grown up with shame, fear, bewilderment, dehumanisation, pain.

Imagine a five year old boy, such a little thing, your treasure - you cried when you sent him off to school, simply because it hurts to have a piece of your heart go so far from you. Imagine other children mocking him because he has blond hair. Wears glasses. Writes with his left hand. Can't climb fast. Imagine them shaming him with laughter, let alone awful names. Tripping him. Shunning him (and then letting him be their friend ... and then shunning him again.)

And that is nothing. That is normal childhood behaviour. Most people wouldn't even call it bullying if they saw children laugh at a little boy who was struggling to climb a jungle gym. But imagine being that little boy. And in imagining how frightened and small he feels, imagine too what he might do in response. Go quiet. Get stomach aches. Or laugh at the next child coming along.

All those children muck in together with no wise and loving adult to guide them. They don't instinctively understand how to care for each other's emotional needs. They're just little kids - frightened little kids with no one to help them. But hey, what great factory workers they'll make one day! The ones with broken spirits can pack food on the assembly lines. The ones who toughened up, who became the bullies, will make perfect managers.

This is how we see the apprenticeship to adulthood. We throw our children into battle and when they get hurt we tell them its normal. Not necessarily okay, but normal. It will make them stronger people.

But bullying is abuse, violence, horror. I don't like admitting this, will probably take the post down, want to hide my face in silence, but the truth is, I was psychologically and physically abused all through school. Infact, I would say that in some years I was tortured. And what I experienced was a piece of cake compared with what I see happening in schools these days.

I can't help but think of Katniss going home to gentleness, Frodo going home to silence (then over the seas when even that wasn't enough), Morgon retreating into the wild - all the broken people limping out of war into peace and quiet. Some readers want these heroes to be more lively, maybe made king or president. But I understand about the need for quiet. My war was twelve years long. I still carry the scars.

ps, the first photograph was taken by Rose.

how to read a book

2011-11-17T10:17:00.001-08:00

Can you stand another Hunger Games post? Because I want to talk about love, romance, and reading. I've done this before, but I was really interested in how people interpret the romance in The Hunger Games. I hear all over the place about the love triangle, but I just don't think the cues are there to validate that premise. And what I am left wondering is, am I reading this book properly, or is Suzanne Collins writing it badly?

This post contains spoilers. I have tried to be careful, but it's almost impossible.

I don't believe one of the heroes is ever intended to be a serious contender for Katniss' heart. I don't see a real love triangle at all, only that one character is used as an excuse by Katniss for not surrendering to her love for the other. My reasons for this include the fact she and this boy are not together often enough in the story, he does not sacrifice anything for her, she does not feel a desperate yearning hunger when she kisses him, he has been with other girls, and she knows at the end that he'll recover perfectly well from her not being in his life.

If Collins really did intend for a love triangle, she has done very badly indeed to not give one boy a fighting chance.

A hero doesn't have to be virginal, but it ought to be clear that, from the moment he first met the heroine, she possessed his very soul, and he remained true to her even if they weren't in a relationship. He might go off and have a fling or two, but its not love ... infact it only makes him miserable. She is irreplacable.

In The Hunger Games, you have one character who describes his first encounters with Katniss as being with a skinny, annoying twelve year old. And then you have another who has appreciated her from the moment he saw her. Things might go differently in real life, but when you're reading a romance, which one is going to ring bells for you?

A hero also has to be willing to sacrifice everything for the girl. This is irresistable. It's also why Twilight is so hugely popular. Edward would die for Bella. Sacrifice is a big theme in The Hunger Games. When someone doesn't sacrifice for their supposed loved ones, we know their love is not good enough.

Again, it's probably biological and entirely practical. Nothing could be more sexy to a cavewoman than a man who's willing to risk his life in order to procure her a sabertooth steak dinner.

As for the girl, she should be beyond any rational control of her romantic predicament - swept off her feet. If love results from a considered choice, it's not really love, is it? Every time I saw Katniss' reaction to the presence of one hero, or to his image on the screen, or even to the promise of him, I knew perfectly well where this story was heading. She simply could not feel peace in her heart without him. Whereas she did perfectly well without the other one and seldom gave him much thought.

But plenty of people thought the loser boy was a better love match for Katniss, and that Collins chose wrong. So I have to consider that maybe Suzanne Collins failed in writing a love triangle well enough. I'd like to think this isn't true, because I'm so fond of the books. But she fails in other ways, so maybe it is after all.

However, what I'm really talking about here is how people read. I hope I've shown that The Hunger Games books were packed with obvious pointers to the boy Katniss would eventually choose. I initially assumed everyone who read them would pick up on those pointers. But many people seem to put so much of their own thoughts and wishes onto the story, they ignore the cues and end up disappointed. I've said it before several times - I can't understand why people don't pay attention to what the writer obviously wants them to know. It seems to me that, if anyone can emerge from The Hunger Games thinking Katniss should have chosen the other boy, Suzanne Collins failed to write well enough ... or the reader failed to read well enough.

It's rare a writer will put obvious pointers in a book and then turn the tables on her readers. Only the very best can get away with that. I personally believe, as I said, that this book does not contain a love triangle (whether due to being badly written or not). It's the story of how a girl fell in love with a boy, but that love was dangerous to her psyche, so she denied it, and she denied it, and she used various excuses to hide from it, including the other boy ... until in the end she surrendered when it was finally safe to do so. That's a very powerful story, much more powerful and interesting than some love triangle.

I hope she wrote it that way intentionally. And I wish people would respect an author's intentions, because they're applying those intentions for a reason. They probably worked hard to make it all fit together. They believe that's where the best story lies. If you ignore what they are trying to do, because you think your way is better, or you don't know how to read cues, or you just reckon the other guy is hotter, you risk missing out on what the expert in the story - the writer - says is its most powerful element.

But that's just my opinion. I don't mind if you disagree! I could very well be wrong.

ps, I just finished teaching my writing class about using an unreliable narrator (like Katniss), and about how important cues are in that instance to help the reader understand what is really going on. I might do a post on this at some stage, if anyone is interested. The question remains, did I read Collins' cues wrong? But I do stand by the idea that, if you have a narrator who doesn't know her own heart, you need to know the sort of pointers readers understand so they can be properly informed.

the food of love

2011-11-16T12:21:00.001-08:00

In The Hunger Games (yes, again) love initially comes from the supply of needful things. Katniss thinks she loves Gale because he can supply information on how to feed her family, and because he can feed them when she is gone. She loves Peeta (and perhaps she does so unconsciously from early on) because he gave her food. She deeply cherishes the memory of her father because of how he provided for his family. And she is hurt and shaken in her love for her mother when her mother withdraws from the world and does not meet her children's basic needs.

But by the end of the story, love has become something more profound. Katniss loves for the sake of promise and beautiful hope. Both heroes can feed her body - but only one can feed her soul truly nourishing things.

When I think of this, I contemplate the mothering journey I have taken these last dozen years. My love has never changed, nor my wish to guide my daughter towards a beautiful and hopeful future. But what she has needed from me and my love has changed a great deal.

At first, it was all about the basic things. Food, warmth, the calming down so she could sleep. Over time, we layered in things like beauty, imagination, understanding. But these days, my love must nourish her more deeply. These days, she needs promise and beautiful hope.

Our particular situation is complicated by the fact that Rose is so very good at what she does, some people feel entitled to tell her what her hope must be. Although their motives are kind-hearted, they have done a great deal of damage to my daughter and my family. I have always said I want to stand as her dream-keeper. The things I know she truly loves, these I will advocate, even when the whole world tells her opposite. But I fear that I don't have the strength to stand forever. Already, I have crumbled more than once and had to reinforce myself.

I think about one of the major weaknesses in The Hunger Games - how Katniss did not stand true for Peeta in book three, not until Haymitch reminded her (and even then not very effectively. She ran hurt and scared. That did prove her love, but the scenario could have been written much better. It was the moment at which Katniss should have begun realising some things about her heart.) Suzanne Collins missed a powerful story there. But perhaps a too-hard story for her. Perhaps a too-hard story for me, also, here in the real world.

Because the thing is, if you stand, and you hold on to dreams for someone, you give them something to fight against. You risk them renaming their dreams as something they hate. You risk losing them. They think its safe to fight you, knowing your love will always be there, whereas the world is a scary enemy. But actually, they are fighting themselves.

Peeta is fighting himself. The fear and darkness of himself. Katniss is fighting herself. We all are, aren't we? The war between fear and love is our universal story. And isn't what we wish most from our parents just to hold the lovely truth of who we really are, and to give it back to us always?

To nourish us with love.

To be our home.

privacy and the personal connection

2011-11-15T09:28:00.001-08:00

I signed up for Klout. Then I read several complaints by intelligent people about how it tracked your preferences in order to send data to marketing agencies, and I thought maybe I should sign out. But I haven't yet. I don't know why. I feel pretty ho-hum about my Klout score. Really, its just another tool in managing my very slow-building career. I feel I can make it work for me.

I did leave Facebook. I don't really care if advertisers see what I do, but I don't want friends and acquaintances knowing every time I pin something at pinterest or read a newspaper article or like a song. Or, rather, I didn't like having adequate control over that process.

The internet is a public place. I feel that everything I say here is like me talking in a public meeting. If I don't want my words to be heard or remembered, or used as data in one way or another by some unknown person, I don't say it. (I wasn't always like this. I am becoming more cynical as I understand the scenario better.)

Mel tells me the Disqus comment system is Orwellian. I wondered. Since I installed it, I have noticed that, though I have even more readers than I did before, my comments have gone down to the degree where I don't really see the point in blogging any more, as for me its all about the conversation. Ironically, I installed Disqus to facilitate that conversation. I don't really want to remove it, because it works for me. And I know comments are stored, but they are anyway. Where ever you go, your information is stored. I believe now (or soon?) comments will be able to be Googled. The world is changing fast, and privacy is eventually going to become either something extremely precious or quaint. I can not control that. I can only learn ... slowly, painfully sometimes ... to control myself in that environment.

I will ultimately remove Disqus if it is the cause of the problem. But I'd rather not if it's simply because I have nothing to say of value enough to people that they want to respond to it! I'd rather just learn to write better, and not throw away a tool I've wanted for ages.

What are your thoughts on the internet and privacy?

war and cupcakes

2011-11-14T16:05:00.001-08:00

So yes, I am going to drive you all crazy for a while with my ongoing thoughts about The Hunger Games. Because I might be giving Suzanne Collins too much credit, but it seems to me there was alot in the books to inspire further contemplation.

One thing that really bugged me at first about the stories was how I liked the prep team, especially Cinna, despite their preoccupation with looks over reality. They were repulsive creatures - and yet they were presented in such a way that they captured my heart. This seemed so crazy, that I should like these people, I became annoyed with myself.

I also squirmed at the thought of Peeta decorating cakes - hardly a manly occupation, and I like my paperback heroes to be manly (although my real life heroes to be kind, thoughtful, and willing to cook the dinner.) But then again, I disliked Gale, the macho guy of the series. (I never once believed there was any real love triangle - to me, Gale more represented the simplicity Katniss wished she could have from her old life.)

Reading the books a second time, I finally realised the point Collins seemed to be making. Art (creativity, culture) wins over physical power. Cinna's creations changed everything for Katniss. Peter's willingness to sit quietly drawing in a book of memories was more needful and fulfilling to her than Gale's raging around. The treatment received by the prep team in Mockingjay really proved that ... um, trying to write this without spoilers ... proved that there was no black and white, good and evil; everyone was pretty damned horrid. The lack of art, culture, beauty, soul, in Katniss' refuge (you know the place I mean?) immediately rang warning bells.

And Peeta iced the wedding cake, even from the darkness of his suffering, and it didn't seem silly or girly at all. I thought how he brought hope, joy, and kindness by doing that. Whereas Gale created bombs and war schemes which brought nothing but sorrow and fire.

Last year, I taught The Importance of Being Earnest. I love the play, and teaching it awakened me even further to its wonderful richness and amazing, indescribable cleverness. The whole play is about nothing. My poor students could not get their head around this, no matter how slowly I spoke, and one ultimately crashed and burned in her exams because she couldn't comprehend the notion of "art for art's sake." I admit I rather disagreed at the time with Oscar Wilde. I felt art should have some deeper meaning for it to be truly valuable. And yet, Earnest is in my top ten list of favourite books, which certainly tells me that I find value in its "nothingness".

The Hunger Games shows how people can empower you, console you, and inspire you, with art. Oh, and destroy you, too. But that's the point. Art used for evil can be a terribly powerful and ruinous thing. On the other hand, so can a purified, highly structured, art-free world. In The Hunger Games, art arose from passion, from truth and goodness and higher principles, from memory and love. It also arose from hatred, contempt, and the desire for power. Sometimes it was used as a political statement. Sometimes it was just about prettiness or the outward expression of memories and emotions. In all cases, art transformed.

Which leaves me with a question - will the books themselves transform their readers, or just leave them thinking it was all about a love triangle?

suffocation

2011-11-13T12:18:00.001-08:00

Some days I find it hard to breathe. It could be the bad dreams of the night before, or of the years before. It could be that my family's happiness has been pinned by people I consider horrible. I look outside at my beautiful lemonwood hedge with its bulbs of morning sunlight and I know it could be my allergy to that.

Or maybe just anemia.

Sitting on the couch, I haul air into my lungs, listening to them shudder. I think I might cry, for no other reason than wanting something as simple as breathing.

She comes over without a word. She hugs me.

I still can't breathe, and I want even worse to cry. But she has just made it all worthwhile.

hot guys and analytic essays

2011-11-12T12:59:00.001-08:00

I was browsing sites about The Hunger Games ... these books fascinate me with their consideration of deeper issues beneath the teenaged adventure, such as the importance of art ... and their realistic treatment of psychological trauma ... and I came across a forum about the books. The participants were teenagers, of course, and what I saw in their responses to the books really interested me.

They were intelligent kids. They could provide an analysis of the voting scene which I myself had not grasped (thus remedying one of my worst problems with the book.) But their comprehension of the emotional aspects ... their feelings about the "love triangle" ... were what I would call "typically teenaged". In other words, immature. They just didn't get the dramatic irony, the unspoken depths, or the reasons why Collins ended the series as she did. Because of this, they missed the fundamental message about hope, faith in human goodness, and love. Most of them seemed concerned only about which guy was the hottest.

It got me to thinking about how we educate our teens. Generally speaking, we try to give them a thorough intellectual training for adulthood. We teach them to read analytically, write precisely, and calculate themselves out of a box. And yet, despite living in a society where divorce is common and so many people suffer from depression, loneliness, and spiritual malaise, we teach them nothing about understanding each other. Our idea of preparing them for the minefield of adult intimacy is to get them to pull condoms onto bananas.

(Don't tell me it's not the schools' job to teach about intimacy and human relations. If it's not, then why is it their job to teach about condoms?)

I've always said that teenagers should learn parenting techniques in high school. I can't think of a more important job than parenting. Now I have to add that teenagers should learn about relationships, self-exploration, what motivates people, body language ... about how to relate to people in healthy ways. At the moment, we just leave it up to them to figure it out alone (or hope their parents have enough idea of what their kids are doing to advise them on it) or trust them to read it in books.

But if teenagers can read a series like The Hunger Games and then make comments like, "Katniss fell apart too much in the end" and "She should have chosen him, he was so much hotter" ... if they can see Twilight as a primer for good romantic relationships .... then frankly it's no wonder our world is such a messed up place. I think we'd solve many of our problems, from war to environmental damage to child abuse, if we just taught the kids about love.

It's not just me saying it.

seven

2011-11-11T11:00:00.001-08:00

One: I have been rereading The Hunger Games series, and I would like to revise my earlier opinion. Apart from an ongoing wish that Collins' had spent more time on the final scenes, and apart from the increasing violence which means Rose can't read Mockingjay (she's just finished the first book of the series and desperately wants to go on to the rest) I love these books. Infact, they're now in my top three all time favourites. I read an article the other day which said the dramatic irony was that Katniss loves Gale but doesn't realise it. It was in disagreeing with this, in contending that she loves Peeta (almost from the start - perhaps even before the start, with the bread episode) but doesn't realise it although everyone else does, that I found the heart and depth of the story. And it made me appreciate Katniss so much more.

Two: I could say more, about how President Snow's refusal to believe Katniss loves Peeta maybe reflects her own psychological process and infact maybe .... No, I shall stop, before you think I am weird. They're just Young Adult books. But I've come to understand finally that some of the best, most important books we have are Young Adult books. I have always secretly loved them.

Three: Which is perhaps why I am writing one and feeling finally that I've found my groove. Or perhaps it's because the writer part of me is the teenaged part of me. You know I don't believe we grow up - we grow out, layering experiences upon ourselves. In writing, I utilise my calm adult mind ... but I draw on my adolescent heart.

Four: I've actually been writing a lot lately. Almost obsessively. My draft has gone from twelve pages to seventy-five in the space of a week. However, that's only 15,000 words in total, because of the way I've spaced it, so I still have vast amounts of work to do. But I've reached the point at which I am hopelessly in love with my characters, so I hope I will keep writing, keep writing. (No, my hero is not like Peeta, but the next story is starting to grow at the back of my mind, young adult again, a ghost/adventure story, and I'm sure Mockingjay will echo all through it.)

Five: One thing I have noticed in writing this particular story of mine is that it really does make a difference when you write what you know. I don't think it's actually necessary ... I hope Discalced worked despite me not being a Catholic nun ... but it does add a lovely gold thread of authenticity. (I must confess however, that I only partly know what I'm writing about. Most of the time I have to consult my daughter! Which will tip off some of you as to the story's setting.)

Six: Oh my goodness I am so sorry for such a long post.

Seven: The other thing I have been working on ... or avoiding working on, more honestly ... is a letter to my daughter. At twelve, she looks about fourteen, fifteen, and while she is the product of a sheltered childhood, most young chaps out there are not. I want to prepare her for the possible perils ahead. But having an actual conversation on the subject seems beyond me. So I'm trying to write a letter. Yeah. It's hard.

Thank you to Conversion Diary for hosting Seven Quick Takes.

love makes love

2011-11-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

Today someone gave my daughter a very generous gift. He's the latest in a line of people who have done so, and offered her support, and encouraged her. They say they do it simply because she loves what she does, and they can't help but respond to that.

When other people hear of this, they seem to want to add their own kindness to the equation. Love is catching.

I've also noticed lately that my love for certain books (or more precisely certain characters in books) inspires me in my writing. At the moment, I don't necessarily love the characters in my w.i.p. Which is a good thing, because I'm still building them up so I can break them down. I need to hurt them a bit more before I really develop sympathy for them. But I keep seeking in them what I love about other characters, and so my writing grows.

I don't believe in Rose just having fun with her sport training. People don't tell school children, "Just have fun with your studies." They don't tell adults, "Never mind about making a profit for the company, fun is the most important thing," or "It doesn't matter if you don't develop a cure for bird flu, so long as you're having fun trying." But I do believe in Rose loving what she does. And you know, love isn't always fun.

But it makes everything worthwhile.

~ I'm concerned that I may be having a problem with the Disqus comments system. I just tried it and found it difficult to load. If you also are having a problem, would you be so kind as to email me ... knittingthewind-at-yahoo-dot-com and let me know? Thank you so much.

mockingjay

2011-11-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

I read them both between 2.30pm and 1.30am - Catching Fire, Mockingjay. And then I dreamed them, which is something I never do with books, and yet I did with Hunger Games too. That's how deep they got in to me.

This morning, I have cooled and calmed.

I have to tell you, I was disappointed by these books. But as I sit here composing this review, I can feel them shifting gently within me, bright new ghosts which will eventually fade into the background haunting of certain-things-read which shades my writing and thinking every day. And I know disappointed is not the same as a bad experience.

At first, I was horrified by how they disintegrated into a Terry Brooks kind of extreme and gratuitous violence. (No way can I let my twelve year old read them yet.) I did understand Suzanne Collins was trying to convey the horror of war. But it was in considering this in relation to the series' ending that I saw the difference between a Young Adult novel and an Adult novel. I skimmed through most of the battle stuff, but I read the ending about three times.

As an adult, that was the story I wanted most told. I wanted to know the war and peace which it took to allow the two characters to grow back together again. I felt the whole battle business could have been told in a third of the book space, and the rest focused on that psychological recovery. I suppose Collins thought teenagers (especially those who had read Hunger Games) wouldn't be interested in such a story, and I'm sure she's right. Focussing more on the recovery part would have been a brave and probably foolish choice. But I thought, I want to write that story.

I was annoyed by how Mockingjay spoiled Peeta and never really reclaimed him strongly enough. I think it would have been a better story to not have him deluded by scientific means, but genuinely confused and agonised by PTSD. Again, this may be the difference between YA and Adult. However, it is something I want to remember with my own stories. Real is always more interesting. Psychology is always scarier than mutts and bombs.

So, disappointed.

But I loved them too. I loved them for the moments between Peeta and Katniss. I love how she voted near the end, because I will be turning that over and over in my mind for days, wondering how she could do it, how Peeta could accept her doing it, whether it completely ruined the whole story, whether she ever changed her mind. I didn't love about Prim, because that was always a given, and I despise givens, but I did love about Cinna and how much it affected me.

I loved that I will be talking with my daughter today about all the levels of war and peace, from the Mongols and the Nazis to the way we speak with shop assistants on Monday morning. I loved that these books have flavoured my mind forever. I love that I will be a better writer because of them. I love that they showed me the book I need to write next. I love that they tried genuinely to be smart, and on some level succeeded.

I will always love Peeta. Katniss was just a pain, until the end when she became luminous, wonderful, everything I wanted her to be. But Peeta always had the potential to be a complex and beautiful character - and he is now, in my own imagination. I wish I could have read the books from his perspective.

Yesterday I wrote about fear and kindness. The true cause of all the small and big wars. The universal story. And it is why I most loved these books. Because the war between fear and kindness in Katniss' heart illuminates that in my own, and may just make me a better person.

Update: I have since reread the books and revised my opinion.

at the shelter

2011-11-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

The little old lady moved slowly past us at the bus shelter, leaning on her walker. She tried to see the electronic sign which tells when the buses are due, but sighed. "I can never see them, I'll have to get closer," she said, smiling with a weary sort of wryness at me.

I had a moment of pain and panic, and then I said, "Can we help you?" She told me her bus number, I told her its arrival time, she gratefully moved on. And I breathed again

I had been frightened, wanting to advance her my assistance. I'm not as shy as I sometimes think - only half an hour before, I'd called unexpectedly on an acquaintance and we'd enjoyed a lovely conversation. But when it comes to offering people my help, I hesitate. Will they laugh at me? Sneer at me? Will they see anything worthwhile in me and what I have to give?

As the old woman shuffled away to find herself a seat, I felt a deep, satisfying happiness. I had done the right thing, despite my anxiety. I felt like a real grown up. Not a shabby, self-aware kid pretending at this adult business.

Perhaps it's because I'm short. Because I'm not wealthy enough to wear stylish clothes. Because I'm neither pretty nor elegant. Because my daughter is taller and has a stronger personality than me. Or just because I have my head so often in the sort of daydreams only children are supposed to indulge - I sometimes feel like an imposter when it comes to adulthood. Like I have no real authority. But its amazing what kindness can do for you. It doesn't just connect you with other people, it connects you too with yourself.

I've been thinking alot lately about the Dalai Lama's religion of simple kindness. And about how much I want to be a kind person, always kind, the sort of woman who is remembered, when she is gone, for her gentle smile and good heart.

As usual, though, for kindness to be exposed one must first get past all one's fears. It takes courage, or calmness, or self-confidence, or Christ ... and I have run out of meaningful alliteratives, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

old dreaming, midnight hunger, and poetry

2011-11-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last night, I stayed awake until 3am reading The Hunger Games, and then another hour thinking about how ideas in The Hunger Games could improve my own book, and then I slept and dreamed about The Hunger Games. Is that enough of a book review for you?

I liked it so much I realised, upon seeing I was 286th on the list to borrow Catching Fire from the library, I would simply have to buy the books. Just before Christmas. With two sails still being paid off. And summer clothes to buy. And a vacation looming. So is that enough of a book review?

The Hunger Games is nothing particularly innovative; you can go right back to ancient times to find the tale. But I don't mind. There are only seven stories in the world anyway. Hunger Games does this one very well indeed, mainly due to its characters. For me, Peeta is the best story within the story, but I ended up enjoying even Cato.

My favourite part of the book: beneath the words "End of Book One" someone had written a despairing No!!

ps, the above photo is for the latest installment of three.

pps, has disqus protected me from the ongoing blogger commenting woes? I guess if it hasn't, you can't leave a comment telling me so.

the story of happiness

2011-11-04T13:38:00.000-07:00

So we did a test to see if we were happy, because it sounded like fun. And we laughed when we were proven unhappy, so very unhappy - storm clouds and the lowest score possible. You see, half the test was about yesterday, and a whole lot more about money, and we are not-rich folk who had a somewhat bad day.

We agreed we'd do the test again tomorrow, see what it said then. Not to prove ourselves actually happy, but to have a little joke on the test.

A bit later, I showed her a picture of children in a slum shack at the edge of some city. Oh no, she said - but I halted her sympathy. Look, I said. They are dancing.

Life is not yesterday. It is not money or mansions. It is not really even about how happy you can be. This life on this planet, for which we can test ourselves, and measure with dollars, this life is just one layer of skin on forever. A few weeks ago I watched an interview with the mother of a star rugby player. He was a hard kid to raise, she said, and laughed, and the talk went on. I thought though of all the years, tears, behind that sentence. How much it must have meant when she was living right in it. How little it meant now. Happiness is so difficult to find when you're rummaging amongst the phone bill and the pinched nerve and the stroppy teenaged boy and what on earth can you make for dinner. But when you stand back and look out towards forever, what becomes very clear is joy.

Yesterday was a somewhat bad day. I was not happy. But I was absolutely radiant with eternal joy.

falling in love

2011-11-03T02:22:00.000-07:00

I love the moment when the two of them are standing awkward in a small room, not sure what to say or where to look. I love the curve of his hand as it lies disempowered on his lap. Those small and broken moments, I love them.

The wince of the eye, barely noticed, in a comic character. The hero's hesitation. Almost every Robert Frost poem.

It's the way I was made. I fall into other people's cracks. I only care about a story and its occupants if they have a half-hidden vulnerability - because a character must in some way, even the smallest way, even unbeknownst to himself, be defenceless against life. Or else he is just a collection of words pasted together with traits, untouched by life.

This is why I can admire Julia Quinn's quirky romance books and not really like Pride and Prejudice. (Tell me Mr Collin's story instead. What pressed that man into grovellment and grotesquerie? Of course, Jane learned, as she went along : Persuasion is a masterpiece of characterisation.)

Most of all, I appreciate the strong, powerful character who holds a shield, a smile or wit or temper, over a sharp-edged, secret crack in their heart. That's when I fall in love, falling into them. Ged. John Thornton. Jesus of Nazareth. Mrs March. Marilla Cuthbert. Robert Frost.

There are one or two online writers whose cracks have tripped up my own heart. (I won't mention names, and I'm sure you'll never guess them. You'll think of people who write honestly about sorrow and the soul, and you'll be wrong.) One of them has promised a book, the other sworn not to. I myself will read any, every, word they write. Because they do not share themselves. Rather, it's that they have such an instinct for telling, a mastery with language, that each word seems like a piece of their cracked and beautiful souls.

the setting and shifting

2011-10-31T23:43:00.000-07:00

I drew a line on the sea for her today and said, this and no further. But she had to go further to find a safe point of return, and I understood. When she tried to turn at the line I set her, she met trouble, and it was clear she knew better than I in this instance where her own boundary should lie.

Such is the work of motherhood, the setting and shifting, and to do it takes a calm perspective I can not always manage. What helps is time ... but when there is no time, what helps is drawing on the great calm at the heart of the universe. I breathe, and I can speak with a wisdom I do not necessarily myself possess.

There is no fear at the heart of things. There is only truth, and we can know it any moment we turn to it and listen.

And that's the nice stuff for today. The real stuff is here.

the gift

2011-10-31T00:30:00.000-07:00

She was occupied when the letter came in, and I had a lovely ten minutes of knowing how happy she was going to be when I told her what it said.

And she was happy indeed - but not as much, nowhere near as much, as I felt at being able to bring her that joy. The anticipation of it ... the getting to see her face as I told her ... She will only experience such happiness herself when she is a mother with good news for her own child.

opening

2011-10-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

There is a moment of the evening when things change. If you go walking at dusk you may feel it - a silent turning as people relinquish the world to mystery. Behind what we see, something wakens, and the horizon opens in ways we can't perceive.

It's almost like, when people retire come the evening, everything else can finally stretch and breathe.

I think maybe there is a moment in us too when the same thing happens. Perhaps when we get home from work, or we go to bed, or we watch our children laughing. A moment when the rest of the world relinquishes us, and all the things we truly are under what everyone else sees, the mystery and deepest reality of us, can finally breathe.

The spirit in me greets the spirit in you.

pilgrim soul

2011-10-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

So it occurred to me, why does a woman have to be one thing? Can not the soft and warm mother also be a dreamer drenched in old oceanic hauntings? Why should all her moods settle back into one certainty?

My favourite poem, not written by my favourite poet but these things happen, says ... one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face. I will never be a Maude, hopelessly loved, with poems composed for me. But I remember that when I first heard those words, it was like finally hearing myself spoken.

Often I am surprised by people ... the man whose sharply ironic humour dissipates in the beautiful, aching luminescence of his stories ... the gentle woman who writes hauntingly ... the straight-talking mama who reads my ramblings don't ask me why. I am surprised because generally they show such a calmness, a consistency, that other facets of themselves are utterly unexpected (although wonderful.)

I think, what is really true about them? Until I remember, the truth is in the surprise. The man, woman, straight-talking mama, they are not brands, nor story characters. They are waves of light, they are songs, and any certainty we see in them at any given moment is only our clinging to earth and bone for reassurance.

I love them so much more than the people with glad grace who meet expectations every time. And this is what I want courage for. To surprise people, even if they don't like it because they just want the peaceful homeschooling mother I am, or whatever else they prefer of me. To be variable, which is always what unhinges my own bones and leaves me transcending. To write small things, different every time, unexpected - so each small thing gets to live itself, not just reflect me.

But it does take courage. And it is not sensible. Not when you are small yourself, and trying to engage a market.

I think in the end I will have to give up and just give. But, it's not really as random as it seems. It's simply everything.

also submitted for seedlings in stone