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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| Oh bother. My grandmother, and my mother, could always put just the perfect amount of bear-as-human inflection into the voice of Winnie the Pooh. Maybe moreso than the voice actor that Disney used. I have noticed that the blog has been abandoned for three months. A whole quarter of the year. It was a busy period at my day job, and complicated by the death of my home computer, this I know. Yet now that I am finding a few minutes to pause here, I face the strong avoidance to write even when I think of something and tell myself that it is important to note down. For some reason, on Sunday, I was thinking about what a dedication in my memoir might allude to. Who would be the honored there? I think that I must have been reading the front pages of some book for the thought of who should be included in a dedication. The people I thought of were not family, instead good friends -- people who were in the right place at the right time. (In truth I am sure I can think of my parents as also fitting that criteria, not that anyone tends to think of the Universe working that way.) So, I thought of my seventh-grade Geography teacher, Larry Moore, not because he taught me exceptional details about the world, but because he was a delightful man that drew me into the scope of when and where the history of mankind took place. As a fourth or fifth grader, I was taken on the requisite field trip to view the treasures of King Tut, and that was wonderful. Yet it wasn't until I was in Mr. Moore's classroom at the beginning of Junior High. He pronounced the glory of the treasures of King Tut as if he were present with Dr. Carter in the 1920's and distinctly bellowed out "Tu-tonk-a-moon!" He also held a space open in my heart for a father figure, as my parents were separated for about a year. Mr. Moore was like a reflection of past male gallantry, the code of the round table, and yet even in representing the past, one who naturally advocated for a girl to both be a girl, and yet join the boys officail if the occasion called for it. I had a co-worker and we worked in adjoining departments at the Los Angeles Times. I'd already been with the company a decade, and his role only stayed funded for about two. The first year I knew him was only by phone, and usually at the bare bones end of my day as my work passed into his hands in Production. The problem with this, was the distance the phone created and the grouchiness I let myself slip into as I often took his calls as a derailment of the perfect escape at the end of the work day. Usually his call brought my work into question; in some way I was breaking the rules of how the material should be submitted or I neglected to explain clearly. Things changed in the next year, my department and his department were moved onto the same floor, and as it happened, our cubicles were adjacent. I was worried we wouldn't get along. Alfredo Bustamante was first off a talented photographer, at least a generation younger than me and perhaps should not have subjected himself to the Los Angeles Times at this point in history. But to me he was a solid representation of the present. Young, ambitious, but not connected or concerned about trappings like Social Media. Only an Instagram account really helped to identify his place in my understanding of things. There was a sad slow death of innocence when his department told all the artists how their work was going to be sent overseas, and it was a matter of months before one or more were asked to leave the company for further cost-saving. He first endeared himself to me by presenting a highlighted graphic that showed a wide spread of movie genres -- he had highlighted any he had watched and wanted to know what I had. (the least developed friendship, and yet I feel I could write the most about it. It is similar to how I think we cherish movies much more when we see them the one time rather than revisiting as reruns and rentals, etc. The last I pull into this triumvirate is Robert McDowell. He had my attention at poetry and voice. A skill I only dabbled in, and preferred to listen to or deconstruct, rather than add to myself. His older professorial experience of the wider world, and his love of Emily Dickinson connected us. The sharing of him with other strong women in my life -- that I do not know how to explain. I came to know of him through this amazing chain. And he made himself the most interesting by revering the Feminine. Not in college, work, or most of my interactions in the world had I met a man that so supports and admires the accomplishments of all Feminine energy. He does not lessen himself in this devotion. Only my own spouse is as well-rounded and careful to honor, as a matter of Truth, does not wish to pigeonhole souls into genders. |
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