RETRO BLOG: When Trucks Fly (Human Souls Encased in Metal Obstacles)

Last night when I was driving my daughter home from her dance class, she made a comment about drivers who honk their horns at other cars when they're impatient.  She said that she didn't think people would act that way if they weren't protected by the metal shell of the car.  People feel free to behave rudely, she said, because they don't think about the people in the cars, but rather they just think about the cars as objects.  

My soon-to-be-driving daughter's insight reminded me of a blog from a few years ago (my pre-"Rebekah's Core" days.)  In the interest of gathering more of my ramblings under one cyber "roof," I thought I'd re-print a copy of that vintage blog here...

October 26, 2007 (from MySpace, oh my!)

When Trucks Fly

On my way to the Screenwriting Expo, I saw a truck fall from the sky. 

 

Traffic was moving along at a moderate pace, too congested for anyone to speed. All of a sudden, I saw a truck flying across two or three lanes just about two car lengths ahead of me. Last thing I heard, flying trucks haven't been widely produced. I was reminded of that tornado movie, Twister, and the scene in which cows fly. To me that looked so hokey. If the wind was powerful enough to rip a heifer off the ground, wouldn't it also dislodge enough dirt and other small debris in order to make such a dark cloud that the cow wouldn't even be visible? And where were the pigs? Why weren't any sow soaring through the sky with their barnyard friends? Surely a tornado capable of launching cattle could manage to detour a few little piggies on their way to market. But I digress. 

 

The flying truck has lingered in my mind, weighing heavy on my heart. It was a landscaper's truck, nothing fancy, the kind with wooden sides. I had passed this truck and it had passed me. Traffic was moving slowly enough that I had even noticed the driver. He was a middle-aged Hispanic man, perhaps a poor immigrant who had struggled as a day-laborer to save enough cash to purchase this humble vehicle and start his own business. I don't know why I noticed him in the mass of encased humanity weaving along this vein of Los Angeles infrastructure. Perhaps it was to prepare me for a life lesson.  

 

How many times have I been running late for a meeting and the only obstacles between me and my goal are all these annoying cars? It's a car vs. car battle on the freeways of Los Angeles. Sometimes we forget there are people, human souls, encased in these metal obstacles.  

 

When I saw the flying truck, I slowed down lest it clip the top of my car. It tumbled slow-motion through the sky, shedding parts which I maneuvered around like in one of those driving video games at Chuck E. Cheese. As it rolled and slid to the right side of the freeway, I cautiously split focus between the safety (?) of the road ahead and the surreal tragedy in my rear-view mirror. 

 

Gagging, I fought the impulse to vomit. The truck was motionless. It was a shell, but I had no way of knowing if it contained life any more. One minute I was glancing at a stranger passing me by; the next he may have breathed his last breath. I don't know. 

 

Was he wearing his seat belt? I don't know. If he survived, will he be able to afford the necessary medical bills? He was most likely an independent contractor. Did he carry any kind of disability insurance? How will he be able to feed his children if he's unable to work? If he's not harmed too badly, will he be able to work without his truck? Questions pounded my head and I flipped the radio on to see if there was any news. 

 

The traffic report rattled off slow-downs and inconveniences due to generic collisions. Then they got to the wreck I had just witnessed: "Traffic is slowed due to a roll-over on the right shoulder" was all they said before moving casually on to a tacky mattress ad. That's all? I imagined how serious this event would be to the family of the driver, this trivial inconvenience to commuters.  

 

On the way home, still thinking of the driver of the truck and his family, I yielded the right of way to another car as our two lanes merged into one. Then I realized that there was a man in sport car riding my tail. As soon as he got a break in traffic, he wizzed past me impatiently, laying on his horn as he passed. I had inconvenienced the poor fellow by delaying him a fraction of a second, and he made certain all would know about his anger issues. I pitied him. He didn't know. He'd been lulled into the sad belief that the world revolved around him and all of these moving shells of metal were only meaningless obstacles. I've acted like that too. I've been there, but I don't want to go back. 

 

 

A Picture's Worth 50,000 Words...

I did it.

You are my Context

A Note to my Dear Friends:

I found myself sobbing as I wrote a scene in my novel today.  Literally.  Tears were not just welling up in my eyes -- they were running down my cheeks (stage 2 crying).  Then came the knotting up in my chest and the heaving as I was unable to control, to hold back, the emotion (stage 3).  It was a total body reaction to the emotion of the scene.

When I finished the final word, I had to take a breather.  I knew that if the content is truly compelling and if the emotion ends up translating to my potential future readers, they will need a breather after that, too.  The next scene will be brighter.  So I stepped away from the keyboard to put myself in a different place.

I took time to "visit" some friends.

Some have said that the social media is the enemy of the writer -- that the best way to get your novel or screenplay done is to leave the phone off the hook, disconnect the internet, and cancel cable.  I took more of that approach for last year's NaNoWriMo, and I reached my goal -- the completed first draft of my first novel.  It seems to me that I poured more time into writing that than I have with this one; yet, even though I haven't been shunning social media this time around, I've been making my daily word count goals, and I may actually be benefiting from the time I've taken reading friends' blogs, and even checking out a few movie recommendations. 

Today's scene is a case in point.

I knew from my outline that I needed to write about the mysterious flowers my protagonist received on a dreary, rainy Spring day, and how not knowing who had sent them would affect her.  What I didn't know was that a second scene -- at a flower-filled funeral parlor visitation -- would expound on the need for flowers to be rooted to a significant life source if they are to carry any meaning.  I didn't know my protagonist would meet a freshly widowed woman who would dig deep into her soul with a simple musing about her deceased husband's aversion to store-bought flowers.

I didn't know any of that until after I read a friend's blog in which he shared about how he had tried to use flowers to woo his estranged wife back.  As he grappled with how the flowers he sent failed to melt the hardness of her heart, my characters began to speak to me.  They spoke to me throughout the night, and I woke up with this new scene -- a framework in which two hurting women grapple with the meaning of the flowers that surround them.  I'm not sure that I would have ever gone there if I hadn't taken the time to read my friend's blog.

Likewise, conversations on facebook have inspired me as well.  It's all a matter of keeping balance in life.  I think this year's novel just might end up being richer because I'm allowing myself a little more social interaction.  Last year's story was about a very isolated woman, so writing from a place of isolation may have worked for it, but this year I'm thankful for a broader, richer context to foster my creativity.

Even if our conversations don't touch on the subject of my story or the content of any specific scene I write, we are connected.  I don't live or breathe or create in a vacuum.  The quality of my story reflects the quality and texture of the context from which I write...  and since you, my friends, are my context, the story can't help but reflect beauty.

Permission to Write Badly

I know I said I wasn't going to blog during NaNoWriMo, but I feel invigorated. 

Yesterday, I was nowhere near my target word count for the day as of 10:30 pm.  Everything started out so good, and I was running ahead, and then I hit the end of the well-outlined portion and started delving in to parts of the story that were still extremely sketchy in my mind (the second act doldrums, perhaps?) 

So, along with working on several other writing projects simultaneously -- a short film script that is in the early stages of development, one feature film script that's still in the outlining stages, another that I'm typing and doing some minor revisions as I type (my digital copy was destroyed when the hard drive it was on crashed... literally, it crashed to the ground) -- I'm also trying to build a stronger outline before I do too much rambling on this novel.

I panicked, and I must admit I almost gave up and quit.  "This is ridiculous to attempt with so little preparation," I told myself.

Emboldened by wonderful mentor friends, like Rochelle Melander (who I introduced in my last blog), I was equipped to face off against myself in rebuttal.  "This is an exercise," I reminded myself.  "Press on.  It will be worth it."

Part of my approach to NaNoWriMo is to get the words out no matter what.

My friend Rochelle wrote a blog a few days ago called "Busy is No Excuse: Stop Whining and Write" in which she listed four excellent strategies to help busy people push through the excuses and WRITE!  The third strategy she listed has become a biggie for me over the years:

"Lower your standards." Rochelle wrote. "Many writers quit because the words on paper don’t sound as good as they did in their vision."

Rochelle's words joined in perfect harmony with the words of another writing teacher from years ago who often reminded her students that we had "permission to write badly" -- that if we didn't save our perfectionism for the rewrite, we would likely never get to the rewrite.

Putting it yet another way (while basically saying the same thing)...

When I teach creative writing classes for young students, I often compare the process to sculpting. Sometimes I even bringing clay into the classroom for the kids to play with.  A lot can be learned from looking at writing as a form of sculpture.  Here are a few of the points I make:

• If you edit yourself as you go along, you will end up with a lot of pretty little pieces which you can then try to stick together.  Maybe it will work, but the likelihood of pieces "falling off" is high.  
• You may also find yourself grasping for filler to hold it together, and that filler may not match because it comes from a different batch of verbal clay, developed under different conditions. 
• If, however, you allow yourself to write with abandon (giving yourself permission to write badly), the result will be a solid mass of clay (or stone, or whatever you want to think of that rough draft material as).  
• Sure, there will be a lot of superfluous material.  Some of it might be quite embarrassing -- one might even say "bad."  But that stuff can be cut and chiseled away.
• and the shape of the mass can be bent and molded... 
• and the best part of all is the integrity that the whole of the story will have.  It won't be as piecemeal -- and I believe the likelihood of it holding together will be greatly increased. 

Best of all, if you take this "permission to write badly" and "let's spit out a clump of material that can be edited LATER" approach, you are more likely to achieve your vision.  Rochelle said, "Many writers quit because the words on paper don’t sound as good as they did in their vision."

I've often looked to Michelangelo, who is said to have believed that the images he needed to create resided in the stone -- All he needed to do was chip away that which was not the image and the masterpiece would then be revealed.  If you plan the basic structure of your story -- using outlines, index cards, clusters, storyboards, or whatever works best for you -- then you plunge into writing that rough draft roughly, quickly, and without the editor in you scolding you and trying to be super-precise about what will work and what won't, then I believe that your vision will reside in the material of your rough draft in such a way that only waits for you to step back and take your chisel to release it, to free it.

How can you release that which is not yet been put into words, rough as they might be? that which is still trapped within your mind?  Maybe that's why you sometimes see writers banging their heads against the wall???

The most delightful thing about the artwork of children is the unedited energy behind it.  If we want to retain the ability to infuse our work with energetic vision, we need to develop methods and habits that don't restrict the flow of that energy.  I believe the only way to allow that energy to flow freely is to allow at least a little bit of debris to accompany it.  The debris can be cleared later, but energy forced into the story later is not likely to ring true. That's my theory, anyway.

Back to writing now.  Badly.

Reappearing to inform you of my plan to disappear...

The countdown to NaNoWriMo is almost over. Even though I'm still trying to decide what my story will be, I have committed to write a 50,000 word draft of a new novel during the month of November.

Since writing can be such a solitary endeavor, there is something beautiful about the camaraderie of knowing that there are people all over the world "running" this writing marathon along with me.  If you want to track the progress of my emerging novel, NaNoWriMo has created an handy-dandy chart for that purpose.  (Click on the word "chart")

Maybe you're thinking about joining in the marathon.  If you do, please add me as a "Writing Buddy," so I can track you, too.


Since I'm not likely to be back on here much until the month of November is over, I thought I'd post a few resources that should be helpful in answering any questions you may have about NaNoWriMo specifically or marathon writing in general:

NaNoWriMo website: www.nanowrimo.org/





Also, check out my friend Rochelle's brand new book on the subject: Write-A-Thon

Rochelle is an amazing writer and coach.  She promises to continue blogging at her website during the month of November.









Even though I may not be adding on to this blog much during the month of November, I'd love to come back in December and discover that some of the old entries have been read in my absence.  If you do dig back in the archives and find anything your like, be sure to leave a comment. 


Have a blessed November!

The Road Not Traveled (by the Google Cam vehicle, that is)

When I can't afford the trip to do research, I like "driving around" the neighborhoods I'm writing about on google maps.  However, I don't like it if the road ends just when it's getting interesting... it's like those driving video games that don't let you go off-road, into the field, through caves and caverns, and crash through the walls into an occasional kitchen, funeral parlor, or wedding venue...  



When I came to this roadblock, I couldn't help but wish the google maps driver had defiantly barreled through it, snagging a part of the barricade that would continue to drag and flap in front of the camera for the next 2.5 miles, scooping up the occasional road kill specimen and sending it airborne into the picture, causing viewers to cry out: "UFO's in Cleveland!?! Flying Chupacabra???"

[Virtual] Life (and research) would be so much more interesting if google cam drivers weren't intimidated by warning signs and roadblocks.  I mean, if Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves can do this in a clunky old bus...

...can't a google cam driver in a car that maneuvers more easily at least try???  Don't they realize that they are the modern pioneers,  blazing the only trails our cellular devices will allow us to explore?   

Don't tell me none of you ever think the same thing.  Please, don't tell me.

My Lost Birthday Buddy (with A Dramatic Monologue)

Back when we lived in Wyndmere, North Dakota

I know it's not the same as having a twin, but somehow it adds extra cement to the bond when siblings have birthdays in close proximity to each other.  My boys' birthdays are only 11 days apart--that makes the month of May a special time that they share. Amber & I had birthdays just 12 days apart in July. As a kid, I remember her birthday was always the sign that mine was coming soon (and for kids, that is a pretty big deal.) 

Those who have suffered the loss of a loved one know that there are specific times when the ache is intensified, even after years have passed. Amber's birthday is a tough day for me now, but mine isn't the same without her to celebrate it with, either. It helps to pull out the old pictures and remember the good times together.

I've declared the month of July sister appreciation month (at least for myself). Those of you who still have a sister with you in this world, enjoy her! 

We didn't take as many pictures back when I was growing up as my kids do now, but the pictures in my head are still vivid and plentiful.  I thought I'd jot a few random memories down in memory of Amber and in celebration of sisters:

ON SHARING A ROOM:

Even though sharing a room with a sister was a royal pain at times, I am so thankful that we didn't have a big enough house to have our own rooms.  When we lived in Schuler--before Amber came into the family--our three bedrooms were distributed like so: (1) parents' room, (2) kids' room (shared by myself and two brothers), and (3) my dad's office.  Then, there came a day when my brothers (or at least my older brother) decided that I no longer belonged in their room.  They wanted a Boys' Room, so I had to go.  

My dad graciously moved his office to the basement, and I suddenly found myself with a room of my own.  I wasn't used to sleeping alone in a dark room all by myself, and I think it was around that time that my sleep-walking got kind of out of control.  I remember waking up in my parents' bed many a morning and not remembering how I got there.  I guess I just didn't like being alone.  

It was around that time that I decided I needed a sister.  I vaguely remember my mom trying to explain that it wasn't as easy as just wanting a baby.  I may have been too young to understand the concept of fertility, but I was old enough to understand the Public Service Announcements that Canadian television ran at that time promoting adoption.  The ads made it sound pretty easy, and before long there was a crib set up in my bedroom, awaiting my sister.

The day we went to pick up Amber, I remember taking one of my favorite baby dolls--a homemade "sock" doll--and placing it in Amber's crib. This was finally going to be The Girls' Room--PLURAL--just like The Boys' Room that I had been kicked out of was plural, and The Parents' Room that I would sleep-walk to was plural.  I wasn't going to be alone anymore.  It was so exciting!  I wanted to share my room, and I wanted to share my dolls.

There was a waiting room at the adoption agency.  It was nice that they had some toys in that room because we had to wait a LONG time.  I guess my parents had paperwork to finalize, and social workers to talk to.  At first it was just my brothers and me playing with the toys in the waiting room, but eventually, a little girl with dark curly hair and a kind of funny way of walking came in.  I guess she had just recently had braces removed from her legs, and hadn't yet learned that her knees were capable of bending.  She saw the toy that I was playing with and without hesitation, she hobbled over and took it from me.  That's not fair!  Everyone knows the rules--I had it first and I wasn't going to let this rule-breaker get away with it.  I grabbed the toy back, and the little girl started to cry.  My mom intervened, not defending the fact that I had the toy first, but rather by taking the toy from me and just giving it to the little girl.  She then whispered to me something about letting Amber play with the toy because we needed to play nicely so the people could see that we could get along.  This was important, she said.  That is how I met my sister, and that is when I first had second thoughts about whether I wanted a sister.  As soon as we got home, I rushed to my bedroom and took back the rag doll I had put in Amber's crib.  I had changed my mind.

As the years sped by, sharing a room meant that Amber and I were together a lot.  Sure, we fought, just like all siblings do, but I remember a whole lot more playing together.  Amber was funny.  Since she wasn't used to being able to bend her knees, she had developed and interesting way of sitting down on the floor when she wanted to play:  She would run, do a little jump, spin around in a half-circle, flinging her legs straight out in front of her and landing on her seat with a thump.  We had hard wood floors, not carpeting, so the thud would echo every time.  Once she was out of her diapers and without as much padding, we thought she would get hurt doing this, but she was a tough kid.  She had discovered that people found her antics amusing, and she would laugh as she landed.

We moved to the States not too long after adopting Amber.  That was the third move in my life, and yet another followed just a few years later.  Having a sister provided continuity, when I was constantly being uprooted from my friends (or living in fear of the next move.)  It was nice that Amber was younger than me, too, because that gave me an excuse to play dolls even after most of my peers had decided they were too old for such things--I was just doing it for her (wink, wink).  And because Amber was younger, I had a roommate right up until I left for college (where I also had a roommate)--you could say that she prepared me for the fact that I would have to share for most of the rest of my life.

A rare photo-shoot inspired by the movie, Desperately Seeking Susan

ON LIVING APART:

Since we had summer birthdays, even after I left for college, we were able to spend most of our birthdays together.  The first four summers after my early high school graduation, I had summer jobs in North Dakota, close to where the family was living at the time.  Amber was so excited the first time she got to come and spend her birthday with me at my first apartment in Park River, ND.  I don't think she knew how equally excited I was.  It was such a joy to be able to bake a cake for her in my very own kitchen and decorate it with childlike fancy (and animal crackers and candy.)  It was just the two of us that birthday--it was an exercise in pretending to be grown-up.  We decided we wanted to go out for dinner a little late in the day, and we ended up driving from small town to small town in the forsaken middle-of-nowhere looking for a restaurant that was open.  I don't think we ever found one, but we did have cake, so that part was a success.

By the time Amber was expecting her first child, I was living miles away in California.  I was so thrilled about having a niece that I went to an expensive toy store and picked out the best teddy bear they had.  I think it was wearing yellow corduroy overalls.  I couldn't afford it, but then I couldn't afford not to get it--I'd just have to cut back on other things that month.  I'd find a way.  

And Amber loved flowers.  I remember the first time she sent me flowers for my birthday.  The flowers arrived without a card and I thought they were from my husband, but he didn't take credit--in fact, it seemed he might even have been a bit jealous over these flowers from a mystery admirer.  When I figured out they were from Amber, I was so touched.  That's when I realized she had really grown up.  It may seem like a little thing--ordering flowers--but the fact that she had remembered my birthday and taken the initiative to make the day special for me caused me to see her in a new light.  She was doing what I had done with the animal cracker cake in my little apartment in Park River.  She was asserting her own independent creativity to celebrate this bond we had--without a mommy there to remind her or help her.  She wasn't just another signature on the family card.  And after that first time, came many more bouquets in recognition of birthdays and babies and even an occasional "just because."

ON SAYING "GOOD BYE"

We had a preview of things to come when Amber was eight years old.  She got sick, and the doctors who examined her suspected leukemia.  She would have to come back for more tests.  My parents  immediately put her on our church's prayer chain and a lot of people were praying for her.  When she went back to the doctor, we were told that there must have been some mistake with the earlier tests.  There was no sign of leukemia.  Amber was fine.  She had a ninth birthday, and a tenth--a couple more decades of birthdays.

This painting was made from a school picture of Amber at the age when she exhibited blood platelet symptoms that made the doctors suspect leukemia in Viroqua, WI

After the birth of her first child, there were more blood platelet issues.  Amber was not fine.  She was eventually diagnosed with Fanconi Anemia, a genetic disease that typically leads to bone marrow failure, leukemia, and cancer.  It is tragically common for Fanconi Anemia patients to get leukemia and die of bone marrow failure by the age of eight--the age when the doctors had first suspected leukemia.  Amber lived another 20 years.  I do count those years a miracle, but even with such a blessing, it was almost unbearably hard to say goodbye.  (I've touched on that in a previous blog.) 

I no longer have my birthday buddy.  That's a change that is hard to get used to.  After the passing of Amber's first birthday "away from us," I wrote a monologue that was inspired by this struggle of getting through significant days without the people who made the days significant in the first place.  I'm going to share that monologue for the very first time online here.  I'm probably too close to this to know if it's of any dramatic value, and not just self-indulgent therapy.  Maybe I'll do something more with it one of these days, but for now, it is what it is...

 

“AUGUST 15”

A monologue by Rebekah Score

SARAH

I appreciate you wanting to help, but there’s really nothing you can do, nothing to say. 

Could you, could you just sit there?

And don’t say anything.  Don’t look at me, either. 

      (beat)

It’s August 15. 

Her birthday.  August 15, and I can’t even remember her face.

I called in sick today.  Sick.  No one else knows... why I...

You know what I want? 

I want to rip open my chest and lay on the earth.  I’m so numb there’d be no pain, just my blood pouring into the ground.  I’d stretch and grasp till the dirt and plants became part of me. 

Still I’d be empty. 

I just want to hold her.  I know she’s not in the ground, not in that cold, cold casket. 

Your churchy explanations don’t help.  You don’t know where she is anymore than I do. 

I’ve heard people say... that when some one they loved – passes – after such a long battle with sickness, they look into the face and see peace and they feel relieved.

Relieved. 

I looked.  I looked and you know what I saw?

Nothing.  Nothing at all.  It was like I was standing in that room with a total stranger.  The nurses couldn’t see it.  Maybe that’s why they hadn’t warned me.  She really was... gone. 

Oh, sure, they said, “She’s gone;” but that’s just what they’re supposed to say.  It’s just a line.  When I walked in that room, I still expected to see my little sister.  I said, “This is all a joke, right?  Come on, Heather, sit up!  Open your eyes.  I know you hear me—you have to hear me!  Can’t you give me some sign?”

I didn’t say that to— to her. 

Instead, I focused on the little molecules of dust dancing in the air. 

I hated her—that corpse—nothing but a vicious actress standing in for my sister—

I hurried out into the hall.  Had to find her. 

I had felt a strange sensation when I passed by the children’s ward on the way to her room.  Maybe she had been there, but she wasn’t anymore.

August 15 is the loneliest day – We don’t call each other – the family.  It’s, it’s like no one knows what to say.  I want to say... 

-to say, “It’s August 15, Mom? Dad?  Heather would have been 25 today.”  I want to say that, and have them remind me of all the good times.  Then maybe I’d see her face.

Maybe they don’t remember either.  Maybe that’s why they’d rather just act like it was another day.

August 15^th. 

I feel like I’m standing on the outside of everything that’s real.

BLACKOUT

 

It will take the generous support of many to find a cure for Fanconi Anemia.

FA research will also benefit understanding and treatment of other cancer-related disease, especially those affecting children. 
Please consider donating to the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (which means your donations are tax exempt)
www.fanconi.org
or mail in a donation to
Fanconi Anemia Research Fund
1801 Willamette Street, Suite 200
Eugene, OR 97401

Carmageddon, Water Falling from the Sky, and the Shopping Habits of Stars

For a place with such a laid-back reputation, there sure are a lot of big deals made over small stuff in L.A.  Shouldn’t that be expected, though?  When you concentrate so many drama-majors in such a small area, is it any surprise that drama rules? 

Almost every newbie to L.A. stands frozen, jaw dropped at least momentarily the first time they see the news coverage about a little water falling from the sky and wetting the concrete of the L.A. River -- “STORM WATCH 2011!!!  Quick!  Find!!  Your!!!  Umbrella!!!!  Before it’s TOO LATE!!!!!  You might want to rethink your weekend plans because the roads will be... [duh, duh, duh...] damp.” 

Now we have CARMAGEDDON!!!!!  It’s the end of life as we know it in the Southland, and because WE are the center of everything, the devastation could be far-reaching.  I’ve heard reports on how the economies of the entire world will be upset by this temporary glitch in the traffic grid so close to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport).

Some have compared the hoopla over this weekend’s closure of a small segment of the 405 Freeway to the Y2K scare.  I think it’s even bigger than Y2K--because Y2K belonged to the entire world, but this--this is our own personal disaster--and if it’s all about us, it’s gotta be BIG!!! 

Friends from the Midwest often ask me, “How can you stand it?”  Well, you know what?  I actually find it charming.  It’s like that silly friend in junior high who never quite got the jokes, but was a hoot to have around just for the entertainment value of her clueless gaze and delayed reactions.  (Yep, that was me, and I even fell for that line about how “they’re really not laughing at you, they’re laughing with you.”)  So, LA-LA Land is home, and I finally fit in.  My dramatic exaggerations don’t seem so out of place.  And even if it looks like we’re all taking ourselves way too seriously here, we do get the irony of it all... eventually.


P.S.  Don't tell any of the locals that the traffic isn't really that bad out there... until Sunday night....  The media scare tactics worked, the gullible are boarded up in their apartments, and the streets are wide open for the daring, the brave, the heroic, the [duh, duh, duh...] the unemployed actor who just realized he's out of Pop Tarts and decided to brave the scary streets of L.A. to restock before tonight's Carmageddon Staycation Marathon.  

 

Time Travel & Linear Intent

 

Sometimes the best way to learn something new about yourself is by traveling backward in time to face a truth you refused to face at the time it was current.

My work is all about digging in the past now, as I’ve been hired to write the script for a biographical feature film.  Structure and meaning rise out of the research, out of the excavation--pieces of this amazing man’s past connect to his present and the path he is on makes more sense when it is unified in “the big picture.”   

People understand such indulgence in the past for a project such as this--a grand life is different from an ordinary life--the origins matter.  In my own life, however, I’m met with resistance when I dig.  People want everything to be in a neat, tidy line.  The past is a distant echo, not worth listening to. 

Last year I wrote a blog entitled “Being Lovely” in which I noted the importance of living in the present as opposed to being consumed by yearning for something in the future--something we have yet to become.  That wasn’t such a novel idea--living in the present is a pretty popular notion... presently.  Like so many sound bytes, however, “Living in the present” is not as simple as it may sound. 

“I need to remember that it's not about becoming, but rather about being. It is through being that we become...” I wrote...

but that wasn’t the whole story.  I went on to consider that

“...being comes from clearly seeing ‘whatever is true.’” 

Seeing.  That is important.  Just like listening.  Sometimes that distant echo alerts us to something we need to take a closer look at.

While it is true that “living in the past” can rob us of fullness in the present, ignoring that distant echo can also rob us of fullness when it comes to the big picture--it can rob us of integrity, which I believe is essential to authentic living. 

When most people think of integrity, the primary definition that comes to mind is the idea of high moral standards or professional ethics.  That is only the outer exhibition of the heart of integrity.  Moral and ethical behaviors are meaningless, and likely to falter, if they don’t spring from within.  In my opinion, definition two and definition three of the word integrity are the things we need to strive for:

2. the state of being complete or undivided

3. the state of being sound or undamaged
      (Encarta World English Dictionary)

Our world is so full of fragmentation.  We have our professional lives and our personal lives, our public persona and our private persona, and then we also have the linear segments that we sort into tidy little containers.  My old photos are in albums or boxes according to their place in time.  Digital photos are time-stamped so as to be filed away where they belong.  When this system gets mixed up, it’s a problem to be fixed.  In this mad-dash forward--always forward--we are prone to forget where we come from, but that’s okay, we tell one another.  The past is gone.  Let it be.

Does anyone else ever stop to think that we might have it all wrong?  I posed this question on my facebook a while back:

“Do you think life is intended to be linear?” 

Only four people replied.  I loved my brother’s reply: [which somehow disappeared before I had a chance to answer--he may have decided to delete it, but fortunately, I had multiple tabs open, and was able to find one that still had his reply intact]

“I.e., linear intent + gravity -> parabolic course.  Replace gravity with drama, or confuse the two, as often happens, for hyperbolic results.” 

I won’t even pretend to understand the science behind his obvious humor, but I will say that this comment may have come closer than some of the others to the heart of what I was grappling with when I posted the question.  I’m not nearly as smart as my brother, but I am a dictionary geek.  I love to look up words, even when I think I know what they mean, because I always seem to discover nuances and connections that I might not have otherwise recognized.  (And with the advance of technology, looking up things online presents incredibly enticing bunny-trails much to the satisfaction of the A.D.D. in me.)

Parabolic course.  Parabolic.  Google is like Calgon... Google, take me away....  I meet an educator named “Mr. Ree” and delight in his lesson plan on Parabolic Curves.  I stumble upon an article written by a physicist that references the movie, Source Code.  Oops.  Spoiler alert.  I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t read on until I do so.  It’s not on Netflix Instant View yet, but it is still showing on the big screen at the cheap theatre down the road (and probably not for much longer because it’s down to one 9:25pm showing a day).  I manage to make it to the movie just a couple days before it closes, then head home and read the article. 

It’s all connected.  One of my favorite concepts in science fiction has always been time-travel or time-manipulation.  This journey through research for my work, self-analysis for my psychological well-being, picking friends’ brains with seemingly random questions, searching words that jump out at me.... it’s all connected in a beautiful web that strengthens me and makes me feel more sound, more complete... it may sound like a very strange process, but I find it very healing.

When I think of the third definition of integrity, “being... undamaged,” I am reminded that I have been damaged.  I think we all have at one point or another--life does that.  More word study, more word twisting...  Damaged.  Undamaged.  Are they opposites?  Or are they more like different states of the same thing?  “Un” can mean an opposite state of being--the negative of the root word, but it can also refer to a process--a reversal of an action or a state of being.  One could look at the word “undamaged” and say that you either are or you’re not--undamaged, that is.  But what if we took the word “damage” as a verb instead of a static state of being and applied that prefix in its active capacity... could not “undamaging” be looked at as a process--a reversal (a redemptive act) rather than the state prior to damage? 

So, I saw the movie, Source Code.  I won’t get into the details of the plot, but basically it is about going back (after some damage has already been done), not to undo that damage, but to get information that will help prevent future damage from being done.  The question of whether something can be “undamaged” or whether preventing future damage is the best we can do, is central to the story.  Either way, one must go back to the source--the root of the state of being, the impetus of the current course.  This message resonates with me.  When you’re on a track, speeding along, and braking is not an option, ignoring the past can be deadly.

Long story short, THAT is why I am drawn to examine my past--not so that I can dwell in it, but rather out of concern about averting accidents on the track ahead, and so that I can learn the true meaning of integrity--by being an integrated person.  It seems to me that a complete life encompasses all at once--it's not cut up into autonomous segments, but rather the past is infinitely connected to the present and the future and not just in a brick-upon-brick manner, but more like a web in which you must go back and forth and compare and contrast and connect in order to make sense of it all.  And if one does believe in a God who is outside of time and space, in whose image we are created, that makes the interconnectedness of the entirety of our lives even more necessary to learning to see things more like God does.  

Why is it so much easier to identify patterns in the lives of others than in our own lives?  Could it be because we naturally stand back and look at the big picture when it comes to the life of an other?  Getting such perspective on self requires a level of intent that may feel awkward at first--even self-indulgent, but ultimately, it frees a person to be more truthful, more generous, and to exude integrity.  That's what I want.

Imagination Check

It's been a while.  I started out the year with good intentions of keeping up this blog, but alas, reality got a strangle-hold on me, and my writing became blocked.  Anyone who has known me very long, knows that I don't believe in writer's block, per se.  "Writer's Block," in my opinion, is not at condition in and of itself, but rather a symptom of other problems.

Writer's Block comes when a person is hiding something.  He could be hiding something from others or from himself.  The only way to alleviate the symptom is to deal with the root cause--to figure out what it is the writer is having difficulty being honest about.  You see, no matter what the subject, there is always an autobiographical element.  Be it ever-so-small, it is there nonetheless, revealing something about the writer himself.  It may just be the slightest dash of attitude, mood, or a prevailing world view, but the only way a writer can avoid revealing something of himself in his writing is by being utterly mechanical and dull.

Since my last blog entry in February, I've not been shrinking back from writing entirely.  I've written (and seen produced) a couple of short films, done a little revision on my novel, and started building the groundwork for another feature-length screenplay (a true story about someone else--not me).  It's been the blogging that has been difficult, because that's where I am most blatantly me.  As a professional, I cannot allow myself the luxury of wallowing in blockage, so, as with so many other maladies, I must exercise to break through.

Where do you exercise?  For physical exercise, some people have no problem going to a public gym or health club, but for a woman who is flabby and self-conscious, that is a difficult step to take.  She may not want to be seen in such a condition.  There's a time and a place for everything.  Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name . . .



. . . but other times--especially when breakthrough has been eluding you--quite the opposite is true.  You want to go where nobody knows your name . . . where you can disappear in anonymity.  My hiding place for such exercise, which I would recommend highly to struggling writers (as well as those wanting to practice self-therapy), is a private blog.  And that is where I have been prolific lately.  Has it worked as far as ushering in breakthrough?  I'd say that today is a success in that when I was inspired to write this message, the initial impulse was to stash it away in that place where nobody knows my name.  But then I realized there is no need to do so.  It may be a small, trivial message, but it is my babystep in working my way back to trusting.

Why have I been having trouble with trust?  Like so many other things in life, it may be one of the very traits that drives me to create in the first place that also causes me to shy back.  One of those mixed bags, blessings bound to a curse, ying and yang, Cheech and Chong, Donny and Marie . . .



Okay, bad example, but I think you know what I mean.  (And yes, that was probably an avoidance technique to stall for time . . .  and since Donny and Marie numbers never end, what a  l o n g  stall indeed!)

Imagination.  Imagination is of utmost importance to the writer, true, but it must be kept in check.  The very creative imagination that provides a wealth of material for us to work with can also work against us on a personal level.  My imagination can run so wild that it practically destroys me--especially since it has a tendency to run to the dark side.  Creative types have to be careful to sort out the fiction from the reality in their own lives.  That's largely what I've been doing lately, sorting through the memoir material to figure out where I have been lying to myself about myself.  My theory being that the less I lie to myself, the more my creativity will flow freely without blockage.

You've heard people speak of needing a "reality check," well I would propose that we also need an occasional "imagination check."  I think I had one today.  I try to walk two miles a day (although I've been falling short on that quite a bit lately).  Sometimes I do it on the track at the park, sometimes on the treadmill, and lately I've been trying to do it in my neighborhood more often than not.

On my route through the neighborhood, right around the 1.5 mile point, I pass a huge grassy yard that backs up to the sidewalk along a busy street, separated only by a chain-link fence.  This is a rarity in southern California where most people like their privacy and six-foot high wood or block fences encase most back yards.  I always look forward to passing this yard, not because I get to peek in and be a snoop, but because of the way it triggers my imagination.

Before I even reach the place on the sidewalk where I can peer into this private world, my senses are filled with the wondrous scent of gardenias and lavender, and glorious music, pouring out across the grass on loud speakers.  It's not the typical rock or rap music that people are most likely to see fit to inflict on helpless audiences, but rather a mixture of grand classical, swing, and big band type fare.  Coupled with the white linens often fluttering on the clothes lines, I'm always taken to places like the grand lawns F. Scott Fitzgerald peopled with handsome men and beautiful women in flamboyant garb.  I almost expect vintage cars to pull up, tooting their horns, and gloved hands to wave gracefully--one might even say "gaily."

The thing that makes it even stranger is the fact that I've never seen anyone in that yard, ever . . . until today.  I have imagined who might live there.  I've even thought of going around the block to the front of the house and knocking on the door so I can meet this specter of my imagination.  Often I've said it was populated by the ghosts of The Great Gatsby. And when I wasn't letting my literary imagination run to the supernatural and fictitious realm . . . I'd tell myself an elderly actress--retired and now wheel-chair bound--was gazing out a window, tracing with her fading eyes every contour of her lawn, recollecting the parties she threw back in the day when she was a star and the belle of every ball.  I imagined that the only gentlemen who ever set foot in that yard were the suitors in white tuxedos who only existed in her memory now.

All that was until today. 

Today the same floral scents captivated me, the same music made me want to dance and twirl and then collapse onto a settee, chilled cocktail in hand, fringe on my flapper gown swaying like the linens flapping in the breeze.  My imagination soared . . . until . . . I saw . . .

Him.

There in the yard, in the middle of the yard, a man was lounging belly down on a lounge chair flattened out like a stretcher.  He was not wearing a white tuxedo, nor gloves, nor smart hat . . . It didn't look like he had cut, or even combed, his hair in the past few months.  His clothes were dingy.  His head planted so concretely face-down on the chair that it was likely a pool of drool might be irrigating it.  This was about as far from the image I had dreamed of as you could possibly get.  What?  Was the plumber taking a break in the midst of unclogging the kitchen sink?  No, his limbs draped so comfortably, albeit not gracefully, toward the ground that he exuded a sense of belonging.  This was his home.

Ruined!  I thought.  My image was totally ruined!  But the music played on, washing over this motionless body that I wouldn't have thought out of place by a freeway off-ramp, holding out a tin can to passers-by.  As the notes swelled and waned and circled every inch of the luscious lawn and beyond, it dawned on me that the image was not ruined, but rather it had been expanded.  Had the occupant of this property been more elegant, there would have been no story worth repeating, but the very contrast of the expected and the revealed was beautiful: a reminder to look for the extraordinary in ordinary places, to look for the magnificent in the apparently mundane, and to believe--always believe--that the world is worth exploring because it is full of surprise, full of things we can't figure out with feeble logic and sluggish imagination.

Finesse or Façade?

When a friend told me that he thought my blog had "much more finesse" than his, I could have just taken it as a compliment.  His statement was, however, a much richer gift than a mere compliment.  That simple phrase, especially in the context of such a comparison of our blogs, could also serve as a challenge, or even an admonition. 

I hadn't read my friend's latest blog entries, and when I did, I was oh so thankful that his words had not been sanded down and white-washed with a mask of finesse.  He poured out his heart with deep, profound, raw honesty--with a bravery I only wish I had.  The fluctuations from sections of polished rhyme and meter to lines that read more impulsively--like the not yet edited results of brainstorming--became it's own form that illustrated uncensored feeling.

doubt, hurt, pain, regret, suffering...

were the tags to describe what he shared with anyone who would read his blog.  His words welcomed me into his pain and caused me to feel. 

Some people flee such emotion, but I've learned to treasure it.  It is connection.  It is what I believe being human is all about.  If we learn to disconnect with others over the hard things in life, then the connection will not be strong enough to deliver the full impact of joy or love.  We are a society so well-practiced at deadening our connections, at making them superficial, at managing them with finesse. 

Mirriam-Webster defines finesse as:

1. refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure, or texture
2. skillful handling of a situation: adroit maneuvering
3. the withholding of one's highest card or trump in the hope that a lower card will take the trick because the only opposing higher card is in the hand of an opponent who has already played

Desiring to be an artist, definition #1 is definitely a compliment.  Compliments are nice and all, but they often sit at the superficial level of communication.  Even delicacy and refinement speak to me of restraint, withholding (which, of course, there is a place for, but all in balance. All in balance.)

Definition #2 compliments the business sensibilities of the artist, "Look at how clever you are!  You just might be able to pull this thing off."  It makes me think of a race car driver, maneuvering the road, yet not really touching it, locked in a shell of protective metal.

Definition #3, however, can definitely be taken more than one way.  In the game of life, we are told we must be smart, we must be clever, we should always be looking for the best deals, the greatest bargains.  Applied to business, and applied to games, definition #3 is a good thing.  It's the kind of behavior that gets us ahead, brings success.  In relationships, however--in connections with our fellow human beings, definition #3 smacks of deception and usury.  Definition #3 makes sense in the world's economy, but in God's economy where it is better to give than to receive, and the last shall be first, and we are blessed through the conduit of blessing others, finesse can be nothing but an excuse for being selfish.

It was in definition #3 that I met my challenge, my admonition. 

Having two blogs, one public and another private, is a good way to manage one's image.  Pour those things that are unsightly and humiliating into the private blog, and carefully edit what you publish on the public blog--it's as simple as that.  Finesse, baby.  Finesse.

And yet, for all the hiding we do, I believe there is a desire deep inside every person to be known and to be accepted.  Finesse has us often so focused on the "accepted" part that we may overlook the "known" component.  Our hearts know the difference, though, and finessing my way into being accepted for something that isn't truly me will never be fulfilling.

So, why do we hide, why do we shrink back from connections?  I think it's largely due to a fear of pain.  Not only do we avoid the "Debbie Downer", not wanting the bad mood of someone else to spoil our day, we also don't want to be that fount of negativity.  We live in a world where everyone knows The Secret is positive thinking.  We hear it referred to as law: 

• "The Law of Attraction"  
• "Name it and Claim It" 
• "Blab it and Grab It"

We're so afraid of a little pain that we build whole philosophies and religions around this gospel of prosperity and positive thinking, positive energies, and often ignore the richness of what is true and what is real.  I'm not saying that we should entertain negativity, but I am saying that I think it is actually a negative thing (can we even go so far as to say it carries "negative energy"?) to deny what is real and what is true in the moment that we live it.  It is negative because it doesn't foster connection.  If my reality is merely a construct of what I think, and yours of what you think, then where is the bridge between the two?


Maybe that negative impact of (false) positive thinking is why so many disciples of The Secret and other such philosophies still have to keep their weekly appointments with their psychiatrist and still feel so unfulfilled even when the Law of Attraction is blanketing them with shiny, pretty shrapnel. 

So, what does all of this have to do with the alleged finesse of my blog?

Even before my friend issued that compliment/accusation, I had already been thinking about how, in sorting out which things I blog about publicly and which I retain as private, I have been withholding some of my greatest life lessons--those grown in the soil of my deepest pain.  If keeping our pain to ourselves is a generous thing to do, why is there such relief in learning that we're not alone--that someone else understands our struggles?  Maybe it's because we were never intended to carry the pain alone.

"Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 

Galatians 6:2

How can sharing pain be a beautiful thing?  I think back to loosing my sister.  There was a lady in my church who lost her brother very close to the same time.  All she had to do was come up to me and squeeze my hand and say, "I know," and a bridge was built.  Once that bridge was built, a simple meeting of the eyes would reinforce the bitter-sweet connection.  We weren't alone.  Life was real.  It wasn't simply some bundle of energies that I made up within my mind.  She gave me the grounding I needed, and I'd like to think it was reciprocal.  Even now as I think of this, my eyes well up with tears and a knot in my throat nearly chokes me.  I'm not going to run from it, though.  I'll embrace it.  I'd sooner feel the deepest pain than not feel at all.  Numbness is like being alive but not really alive.

I thank my friend for, perhaps unwittingly, opening my eyes to the façade of my finesse.  I'm going to try to incorporate more of my "private blog" material here.  No promises other than that.  I'll try.  I'll try because I do long to be known for who I really am, but I'll also try because that is the generous thing to do.  There may be those who will never know that they are not alone if I don't find the courage to accept what is true and what is real, whether it's pretty or not.

Playing Doctor

 
I don't go to the doctor.  

It's not that I'm in some weird religious cult with "science" in it's name.  I just haven't had much experience with doctors' advise turning out to be of any value to me.  I read occasional health-related articles and consult the pages of "Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing," and do okay.  Every time I've thought that maybe a visit to the doctor might be called for, I've ended up regretting it.  

When I accidentally sliced my thumb open and rushed to the ER, I waited and waited--along with all the other stupid dinner-time kitchen utensil accident victims--missing my blood-tinged meal, and finally getting a few stitches, only to have the stitches ultimately fall out before the wound was completely healed.  Now when I feel the scar on the tip of my thumb, I can't help but think that I could have saved a pretty penny by using a roll of duct tape to do it myself with better results.  And with the money saved, I could have bought a better can opener.

Looking back, I'd have to say that the best medical advice I have ever received has come from non-doctors (friends, family members, and complete strangers).  Because of this, when a medical question popped into my head today, my first thought was not to call the doctor, or even to consult a medical website... 

My first thought was to post my medical inquiry on facebook.  

What better use of a status update than to elicit medical diagnosis from 349 of my "closest friends"?  And since a lot of my friends are actors, I'm sure there would be plenty who would relish the opportunity to play the part of the doctor with great authority.

That led to another idea.  I thought it would be fun to ask my friends to participate in a social networking experiment.  If everyone who was willing to post a medical question as their status line would also take a screen-shot of the crazy replies they received and send the screen-shots to me, I could compile them in an album--a virtual coffee table book entitled "Playing Doctor: diagnoses in the age of facebook".

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

Nope.  Serious is my middle name.  If you're in, send me your screen-shots (preferably zoomed in so we can read the comments).