Who's scared of failure? EVERYONE!

This weekend I finally gathered the courage to share my book outline (over three months since beginning to scribble it out) with my closest friends and the boyfriend.  This was a big hurdle.

I could only wish to look this suave with writer's block...

Writers are a lot of things...we're neurotic, we're typically just slightly crazy, and we both detest sharing unfinished work and crave feedback on finished works.  So we want no eyes on it before it's done and once it's done, we demand the whole world look at it right then and give us feedback, preferably 99% positive with super cheerful, barely-there constructive criticism (or, God forbid, a harsh critic and spend the next three hours in the bathroom crying and fixing makeup....for real).

Yet I'm aware that harsh critics are what I need before even beginning to release any major piece of writing, especially criticism from my closest friends who will be more gentle than strangers.  So just the step of sharing my outline was scary...I was convinced that (a) the plot was too complex and they would say, "Whoa, whoa, this is insane..too much going on. No one will read this." and (b) that the story itself isn't compelling or interesting enough (which simply isn't true...I find myself fascinated to see how these characters' lives will play out).

Considering all of that, it was a pleasant surprise that all of them found the story very interesting, compelling enough that each time I discussed (three separate times), an intense discussion began on potential conclusions, inquiries on details of the characters, and a general sense of 'Wow, go write this now...I want to read this book.' They said that.  Two separate friends at two separate times.  How cool is that?!

Right now, I'm finishing up the outline and the conclusion of the conflict and plan on starting to pound this book out towards the end of May and then dig in over the summer and get as much done as possible before the kids all return from their respective family vacations. This is, of course, a first draft and will need much sculpting, but the plan is to get most of this out of my head and onto paper.

So, dear friends, I have a favor to ask of you. If you see me wandering around some coffeehouses this summer, dirty, with tangled hair and a vacant stare, please order me a shot of espresso (or a PBR, if after 5 pm) and direct me back to my computer.  I may take up smoking again...I may move a hammock out onto my balcony with a desk for my laptop so I can write and sleep and live outdoors. I may not smell great. You guys push me through it, and for God's sake be nice to me....you can bring out the blades when I ask you to 'read and edit'. Please and thank you.

Namaste,
~m

Must Love NPR.

It's days like this
gray, foggy, misty,
when I love to sink into myself.

I hug the warmth
of a mug of soy chai,
some good music
in a coffeehouse
watching humanity roll by.

These are introspective days,
examining, questioning,
more for reflection than new beginnings.

Today changes all of that....
I'll be on a stone bridge,
waiting on forever.

See you there.

For Lee

My days now are filled with remembering
and frantically trying to forget
of reminding myself of things I didn't get.
I tear my mind away, time and time again,
I force myself to look, to remember brutal truths,
of hopes and dreams dissolved,
of oceans between, and months and months of pain.

All to avoid the foggy remembering,
of smoky bars and drunken grins,
and snowflakes stuck to dirty boots.
Electric blue lights to indie rok
under icy-laden drooping trees.
The parking lot, cliched kiss in the rain,
"It's not goodbye, it's see ya soon."
Dreamy haze of the wedding day
under a sweltering Southern sun.
Laughter and pranks in that tiny apartment
and the smear of egg yolks
from the carton you dropped when I told you.
Driving around town all night to find
the "fat gas station pickle" that I craved.
Lying on the beach with my two piece on,
and that band drawing pictures on my growing belly
during our last Warped Tour.

The perfect nursery, the perfect house
the perfect foundation crumbling beneath us.
The spinning pain as the world tore at its seams,
and now its doing it again.
The future I have of swallowing my pain
and living your memory again and again,
to tell our son of the big rock star,
the fisherman, the family and friend...
The confusion in his eyes
and the future of pain for him.

One day, years ago, you said you wanted better,
you wanted more, for your boy.
I will give him that, I swear:
at any cost, I will.
And let that be a final promise,
my final farewell to you.
I will mend burned bridges
and reconnect his whole world,
forgive past transgressions for his sake,
all the things that you wanted will be.

I may not yet forgive, and I certainly can't forget.
But I promise to move on and raise him well,
rest easy, rude boy, our son is OK.
You've lived your life hard, fast, and fun,
and your memory, I promise, will live on.
Your rocked and I loved you and it's my honest prayer,
that you rest in peace
and know that our child is well.



~In memory of Lee, we might have had hard times but in my mind you will always be the guy in the band, sweet, fun, and my first love. Here's to PBR, Bouncing Souls, fishing at the beach, Jimmy Eat World, New Brooklyn Tavern, shows, dancin, drinkin, and living life to the fullest, the way you knew how.

P. Lee Player. March 6, 1983- March 16, 2009.~

Nights.

Grief is always worse at night.  I wrote this a couple of years ago.

Tiny night

When does it come, when does it end

Darkness is only a symptom

Little nights, little nights I fail, I try

I surprise and surmise, I feel the

Night, the little nights, the knights,

Your face makes me cry, makes me feel at night,

Your eyes burn like hell, my fire is in the night, at night, the little night of inside

Lights, firing lights, strobing lights, pierce, tear the nights, big nights, little nights,

The boom boom nights and the firefly nights

Flicker, flicker, faint

Flicker, flicker, ain’t.

Big, no little nights. Little lights in little night

I try.

short story writing assignment- take one

Assignment: Alarm Clock Dream- Write a short story in which an alarm clock going off in the middle of the story plays some kind of crucial role. Half the story will be dream and half reality.

Here goes:

'Always my favorite part,' she thought, gently spreading her arms at her sides in savasana, feeling the firm pliancy of her mat yield slightly beneath her hips and her breaths slow to a deep, tidal regularity. She closed her eyes as she envisioned her breaths as strapped-bamboo rafts, riding the tidal flow, and felt the firmness of the floor slip away from her back as she lifted in the depths of solid meditation, her core resonating outwards. She hadn't experienced such pleasant savasana in months, and she allowed herself to enjoy the weightless sensation. After a few moments, she began to ponder when the gentle chime was going to signal the end of this session. Surely Amy wouldn't allow her students to slip into sleep on the floor of the studio.

She felt her body weight settle back to the floor and her thoughts began to wander as she waited for the smooth, silvery sound. She was keenly aware of a cool breeze across her ankles...curious in a warm yoga studio. Perhaps a student had left early and the door caused a breeze. She stretched her fingers wide and then clenched them tightly as her reverie was disrupted by a harsh buzzing. She rolled to her right, blinking open her eyes when her cheek scraped against gritty concrete.

The worn sleeping bag had slipped away from her feet. The earliest light of dawn was breaking over the railing of the overpass, and she struggled to prop herself on an elbow and grab the cell phone to silence the blaring alarm. Fuzzy thoughts tripped through her mind...foreclosure...car stolen...the kids' guidance counselor calling concerned...foster homes. Freeing her legs from their shabby covers, she shook herself against the morning chill and struggled to stand on her stiff and aching legs.

This was visitation day, so she had but a few hours to get to the shelter, shower, and make her way the dozen or so blocks to the foster home. Shaking in her hurry, she clumsily rolled her makeshift bed and stuffed it in her backpack, steadying it on her back before gathering her phone and small bag of gas-station junk food and setting off for the shelter and shower facilities.

It only took a couple of blocks for her stiffness to wear off and her jerky gait become a smooth, determined pace. Adjusting the pack and pulling up her long auburn hair, she decided to cut across an alley behind some shops to save a block or two. Simultaneously pulling her phone out to check the time and stepping off the curb underneath an overhanging oak tree, her vision suddenly went black and she felt her body being viciously thrown through the air and landing with a crisp crunch. A warmth spread underneath her back as she tried to catch her breath. She vaguely registered sounds, shouting, screams, as she screwed her eyes shut and focused on steadying her breathing. Arms limp and outstretched, she felt herself rising from the asphalt, her body weightless, just like a good savasana. A good one....breathing deep and regular, consciousness slipping away as she focused on her chakra, now a smoldering deep crimson.

ding.......ding.....ding.....
The delicate silver chimes slid through the silent air of the wooden room, and women began to stir, rolling to stand and silently stretching, rolling mats, slipping out the back door with quiet murmurs and nods to one another. She sat up, shaking her head and rubbing an eye before following suit and making her way to the parking garage. Sliding into the driver's seat, she pushes over a pile of mail, selecting a large white envelope from Countrywide marked URGENT. Sliding a finger under the flap and pulling out the first page, a single sheet of crisp letterhead, she leaned her forehead on her hand as she read....and sighed, leaning her head to rest on the worn steering wheel.

Yum.

Why is food

So goddamn good?

I may as well take this butter and jam

And slather it on my soft, rumbly tummy.

I nibble chocolate candies…

as I flip pages in the skinny-girl mags, fingertracing waspy waists

with my nubby, stubby, work-worn finger…

Air-brushed luxury, plastic, artificial sex

sells.

Makes moms and nuns uncomfortable and stare in their mirrors late at night,

in cotton panties and stringy hair

…maybe strike a sexy pose for funs and laughs

that are so fun, right? Right…..right.

My shell is silky smooth and soft,

no concrete in sight,

succumbing, receiving, pliant

and curvaceous…full swoops,

thick.

Maybe I like food being so goddamn good and me being so goddamn bad and

Maybe I like soft roundness and being such for such

a good time.

the briefest of words....

Mother

A finger stern and soft,
A wilted cotton smock.

Love

A ratty blanket square, darned crookedly,
smells of Dove.

the value of a warm body

It was
absolutely
the value of a warm body.
The equalizing weight
on the other side of the sheets.
The body heat,
the presence.
Nothing left
of any semblance of anything;
always simmering rage,
just under the crust,
waiting to ignite
and spew searing agony at my face.
But he was there
always.

Now they fade and reappear like holograms
now you see 'em....
now you don't.
Heat, flash of passion,
smoldering kisses, warm butterfly words,
filling me for a moment before flitting away
to another willing ear.

The value of a warm body...
the value of my pride, my loneliness,
staring down the face of a tundra of forever.

In a jar I kept it,
safe from his wrath,
and I fear it's nearing expiration.
So fragile, my heart,
so frail,
and the pieces are beginning to chip away,
every time one of them
touches my face while carefully avoiding my eyes.
Doors shutting inside,
shutting down,
losing hope, losing faith,
calculating the value of a warm body.

what then?

My friends

who used to be little boys,

racing their cars and drinking cheap beers,

are now

decorated veterans,

war heroes,

with stories no momma wants to hear.

Gazes that go vacant

and questions left unanswered

or mumbled generalities,

the scuffing of a toe on the sidewalk,

hands shoved in jean pockets.

Where did we go wrong

that we kill the innocence as we send them

to kill the innocents?
Over oil,

over gas,

over ownership of a thing none of us ever really owned

in the first place.
We rape the earth,
rape our soldiers,

pulling the souls of both through the tanks of our cars

and blowing their dead fumes out into our filthy air.
Dirty, stinking, ridiculous war

lost our children,

my generation,

your sons and daughters,

while oil pumped by the gallon into our oceans

and we scrambled to save everything it touched.

We acknowledge its inherent deadliness

but loathe to admit

the vast scope of its poison.

Yet now,

like the first glow of amber before sunrise,

we see people rising up,

hairy faces and sandaled feet,

throwing down the gauntlet on corporate bullshit.

Banging away on drums,

growing gardens,

writing, letting words flow as if their very lives depend on it
(and let me tell you...they do, man, they do),

reaching out,

helping, lifting, sharing,

reteaching one another that this life is about love,

not stuff, shit to fill your houses and your time,

but people...and plants...and earth, and chalk sketches on a brick wall,

skinny words put to a fat beat,

just to make you smile
or open your mind to modern-day enlightenment.

Those of us,

we reject this world that has been fed to us by cable television and bought-out media.

We turn off our televisions, turn off our lights,

and head outside to meet our fates,

our dooms,

our destinies,

on the worn paths of mountains,

on dirty city sidewalks where we

spit rhymes,

sit on stoops and porches and

talk with friends until the words cease and then we listen,

just listen,

to the heartbeat of the globe,

pulsing beneath our skin, beneath our toes.

Don't disturb us, man,

cause you won't like what you hear.

When you open your standard-issue ears

and they are torn like paper

with the realities

of what is.

You think you're slick in your Dolce & Gabbana,

nice threads,

spun by child's hands

and sold to you in the vomit of fashion's bulimia.

Where is your heart?
Your soul?
To whom do you turn when the seal is broken

and you start to see the world for

what

it

is?

One day you'll turn to us,

the freaks, the geeks, the outsiders,

saying, “Wise ones, teach us, for our

oil is gone,

supermarkets are empty,

wallets are empty,

friends are gone...

oh what shall we do?”

And we'll give you a packet of seeds, an empty notebook, a trail map to the nearest mountain,

and a hug,

and bid you

Namaste.

-on activism

Success or failure
tied to our core,
wrestling against the downward pull,
the anchor weight.
Dragging optimism,
promise,
vision,
down, down, down.

Empty bank accounts,
empty gas tanks,
empty stomachs....
full hearts,
full vision,
full spirit.

Fevered flesh toiling,
fueled by the promise
of life continuing to unfurl
with the same torrid lust
and fervor
as it always has.

Paid in laughter, friendship, dance,
cold beers on warm nights,
and rewarded with the glacial budge
of social justice
and one tiny wrong righted.

So we toast the win,
drunk on life
until we pick up our pens,
our signs, masks, and flags
for the next fight
in the never-ending
press
on the darkest sides of humanity.