Remembering

It would be wrong, I think, to let this day go by without stopping for a moment to remember and reflect on what happened in New York six years ago. A nation, a people should never forget, should never try to gloss over or let slide, as tempting as it may be, the memories of events pepetrated on other human beings that are just seemingly too outrageous and horrific for any but the most evil imagination to conjure. And while what happened that day was certainly not about me, or my family, in some ways it was about me and my family, because it forced me to think differently about the life and the world that I had taken for granted since birth. I was on an airplane that morning - of course, not one of the airplanes, another airplane, going to Florida, a trip I've taken countless times before (and since). We were in the air somewhere over Pennsylvania I think, when we got the news that the plane would be making "an unexpected landing for a matter of national security." People immediately started powering up cell phones, and snippets of news reports came flying throughout the plane. "Someone's bombed the Pentagon!" we heard. "A plane has crashed into the Capitol!" came another voice. "No, it's the World Trade Center! It's collapsed." I noticed the woman across the aisle from me, a woman about my age, whom I had noticed earlier in the flight because she was reading the same paperback book I was (Follow the Stars Home, by Luanne Rice) and because her sandals were really cute. But when she heard these scattered remarks, she turned whiter than any cloud flying by outside the window.

"My sons," she whispered, when I reached across to touch her hand. "One works at the Pentagon, and one works in New York." I gripped her hand across the aisleway between us, and held onto it as tightly as I could. Within about 45 minutes we landed in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jim and I had made our plans - we would rent a car, and drive the rest of the way. Ha! The airport terminal was like a madhouse, and there were certainly no rental cars to be had anywhere in the state of North Carolina. Like sheep, we followed the other passengers to a hotel in town, where the lot of us stayed for the next three days, sitting cross legged on the floor in the lobby, on our beds, flipping channels on the television sets we were glued to, watching as what seemed to be the end of the world unfold before our eyes. (By the way, I stuck closely to my seatmate from across the aisle, who eventually heard from both of her sons that they were fine.) Trapped 1000 miles in either direction from my son and the rest of my family, I was forced to confront my own complacency. "Bin Laden" and "Al Quaeda" were words I'd barely heard before, and now it appeared these people had the audacity, and yes, the power, to attack this country of mine. What struck me about that time was the way we were united in our grief, our horror, our disbelief, how our differences were forgotten and everyone wanted to help someone, anyone, somehow, because in doing something-anything-for someone else, we were in some small way a little less powerless. And what has struck me in the intervening years - just six short years, an eyeblink in historical terms - is the manner in which we have so quickly reverted to our self centeredness, our negativism, our crabbing and carping about the petty realities of daily life in these United States. Can we regain that sense of unity, that feeling of determination to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and take back our lives, that willingness to unselfishly give whatever measure of devotion might be required to make the world (and our loved ones) safe from that kind of horror? Politically, I have no idea. I'm not politically savvy, I never have been. I can't help but think, though, that individually, if we can try to remember those feelings from that day and use them in a positive way, each in our own small corners of the world, that life could be better and stronger for us in these United States. It is a day worth remembering, in many, many ways.

Writer's Island - My Imaginary Life

The older I get, the less I imagine what life could be like. Writing those words, I feel a little uneasy. Because although my real life is just fine, perhaps I shouldn't be content to settle for "fine" ~perhaps I should be reaching toward some far more fulfilling and creative life, setting my sights on the stars, like I did when I was a teenager. Just recently, events have occurred that should have drawn me up short, should have sent warning bells resounding in my ears about the finite nature of my time on this world. Events that, by rights, should spur me into a frenzy of action to accomplish all the things I want/need/hope to do. You know all the sayings - life is short, here today, gone tomorrow, make hay while the sun shines. I should be busy pulling out all the stops to make my imaginary life a reality, now, while I still have the time.

Then again, why should I be presumptuous enough to even imagine a better life than the one I have? After all, I have a loving and healthy family, a safe home, plenty of food and water, cars and clothes, and luxuries far beyond what most of the worlds population could ever imagine. What right have I to yearn for more than this?

Ahh, but its human nature to want more than we have, isn't it? Human of us to expect the world, to see the ever greener grass, to dream ever more fabulous dreams.

So, enough prevaricating. Here goes:

In my imaginary life, I always see myself living in an old, historic home out in the country, a home near enough to water that I can walk my dogs through the woods each day and listen to the sound of a babbling brook talking in my ear. I'm surrounded by books and music in this house, and I have plenty of time to indulge my love of words and notes each day. I will write - novels perhaps, or memoirs, even biographies. I will play - a chamber group, of friends and musicians, well known and very popular in the community and surrounding towns. In this imaginary life, my family is all nearby, so I can see them whenever I want - in fact, they come in and out of the house at will, my grandchildren bringing me handfuls of flowers plucked right from my own garden. I see myself wandering the woods in well worn jeans and soft sweaters, coming in from walks to hot coffee in the winter and mint-sprigged iced tea in the summer. I picture Jim and I sitting on our porch at night, watching the fireflies twinkle over the meadow, sipping wine as the sun goes down.

It's not a fancy imaginary life, is it? And, in fact, after all these rambling thoughts, I have come round to describing a life that's not really all that diverse from the life I have right now. Does this signify a lack of imagination on my part? Does this mean I don't dare to dream?

Probably not. It may be that I've simply already forged a good life into existence. Rather than spending time imagining something different, I would do well to enjoy and enhance all the good things about the life I already have.

~to read about others imaginary lives, visit Writer's Island

Encyclopedia of Me Monday: E is for Energy

I have been sick this past week, really down and dirty sick, and while I'm beginning to recover some of my equilibrium, I have not yet begun to rebound from a very profound loss of EneRgY. The thought of getting out of my chair takes a supreme amount of effort~really, you would think I was being asked to run a marathon just to get from here to the kitchen to pour a glass of water. I have never considered myself a highly energetic person, for I would choose lying on the sofa with books and bon bons over planting a garden or going dancing. But the past week has brought me to the realization that I had a good bit more energy than I gave myself credit for.

After all, most days I'm up at 6:30 to get in my morning pages and some yoga before work. After working all day, I often go to an evening rehearsal. Or I walk the dogs, do some shopping or cleaning, then finish out the day by writing and blog reading. This week, I was lucky to crawl out of bed by 8, after which I would perform my necessary morning ablutions and then crawl right back in.

No energy.

How I've take my energy for granted! just like most other aspects of my good health. I've expected it to carry me through work, concerts, chores, social events, all without even a tiny acknowledgement of gratitude.

That ends now. As soon as energy returns to me (and I'm surely hoping it will!) I promise to be a better, kinder steward. I'll take note when it flags, and give it some rest before it collapses in defeat. I'll nurture it with plenty of fruits and vegetables, my daily vitamin, and of course, lots and lots of water.

No more thumbing past the entry for the letter E in the encyclopedia of me.

Madeleine L'Engle-1918-2007

To say that Madeleine L'Engle was my favorite author as a child (and young woman) is probably putting it mildly. My name is scrawled on the library card of all her books countless times...I would renew them several times in a row, and perhaps, the next year, you would find my name there again. The Wrinkle in Time trilogy was a great favorite of course, and Meet the Austins. But my favorite of her books for young adults was, oddly enough, Camilla, the story of a teenager whose life is changed when her father has an affair with another woman, an oddly prescient choice for me, as this would happen in my own life some 15 years after I first read the novel. Ms. L'Engle died last Thursday, at the age of 88. I've been skimming through her Crosswicks Journal, a trilogy of memoirs written in the early 1970's (which is when I purchased and read them). It's been interesting to note what I underlined in these books~this passage stood out tonight: "I am, for better or worse, writer, wife, mother, and all these bits of me are inseparably blended to make up the human being who is-or who is not-responsible. The story comes, and it is pure story. That's all I set out to write. But I don't believe that we can write any kind of story without including, whether we intend to or not, our response to the world around us." "The writing of a book may be a solitary business; it is done alone. The writer sits down with paper and pen, or typewriter, and, withdrawn from the world, tries to set down the story that is crying to be written. We write alone, but we do not write in isolation. No matter how fantastic a story line may be, it still comes out of our response to what is happening to us and to the world in which we live." I thank her for sharing her stories with me.

Sunday Scribblings-Writing

"Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first, - at least for some part of every day of your life. It is a wonderful blessing if you will use it. You will become happier, more enlightened, alive, impassioned, light-hearted, and generous to everybody else. Even your health will improve. Colds will disappear and all the other ailments of discouragement and boredom." Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write At last, a cure for the common cold, and all other pesky ailments of modern life. Pick up a pen and some paper, park yourself in front of computer screen or even dust the cobwebs off the old Olivetti (that's a typewriter, for those of you too young to remember). Write every day, and, like eating an apple, you'll be warding the doctor from your door. Sounds ridiculous, but perhaps there really is something to Ms. Ueland's thesis. Writing may not literally protect you from germs or disease, but I believe writing does strengthen the spirit as well as the mind. Since I've taken up the habit of writing in earnest, pledging myself to putting words on the page every day, I realize my mind works differently, exercising muscles in my brain that had lain fallow for years. My vision of the world around me is more intense, my eyes and ears more observant to the details of appearance and conversation, my heart more open and empathetic to others. I have become a keen observer of life in general and my own in particular, more aware of the things that spark anger or move me to tears. I am more alive when I write. I cherish life more when I write about it. When I was very young, I harbored dreams about becoming a "real writer." What was that? Someone whose name was on the cover of books, or underneath the headline in the New York Times. Someone whose words were read and acclaimed by "the world." When that dream failed to materialize, I let writing disappear from my life, sure that if I couldn't be one of those "real writers," there was no value in pursuing it at all. But I have come to believe as Brenda Ueland (and many other writers) believe - that "no writing is a waste of time, no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding." So I continue to put words on paper - in the dozens of notebooks I have scattered around my house, and on the computer screen in front of me now, sometimes on the backs of grocery receipts or paper napkins at the coffee shop. I allow words to unravel from my brain like thread from a dropped spool - quickly, sometimes crazily - onto the page, holding the essence of some thought, some image, some impression, some snippet of conversation that seems to carry meaning for a moment. I look at the world like a poem, and try to capture my seconds on earth in each stanza. I write.

to read more about writing, go here