Merry Month of May, Short Story Celebration

I'm not sure who proclaimed May as short story month (I'll find out and report back, see footnote**), but I am delighted that the literary world has adopted this celebration of a great, enduring form.  I grew up on fairy tales. Now I see how those intense, searing potions of fiction--stories burgeoning with strange beasts and humans bravely crossing into netherworlds and facing forces beyond our understanding--introduced me to a lifetime of love for short stories. Within these capsules of perception are universes, like looking into a microscope and discovering that there are essences and organisms swimming about. Harder to define is the short story's ability to expand and transform the reader in such thin slices of time and space. As a writer whose natural inclination is to compress, I take immense pleasure in this kind of reading experience.

Spring has a similar effect on me. It's short and intense here in New England. Colors bloom and fall in a matter of days.  I feel an urgency of growth, a voracious demand to pay attention to n-o-w. The present feels both eternal and gone simultaneously. Don't ask me how that can be, but it is.

Here are some flowers and garden scenes that startled me with their beauty and evocative magic.

Magnolia

The tiny blooms got this season moving. First the crocuses and then the ground covers added their notes to the Magnolia trees, apple and cherry blossoms, lilacs, and now the luscious peonies. It's been an extraordinary spring.

Rhododendron

Lilac tree

Someone's flower bed

Peony Supreme

Azalea bush

Birch with azaleas

**Dan Wickett of Dzanc is the genius behind this idea.  Here's a link to his essay that explains how short story month got started. http://fictionwritersreview.com/blog/the-origins-of-short-story-month-a-guest-post-by-dan-wickett

Marathon Bombing in Boston: My Home

T.S. Eliot's words come back again 

from...

The Wasteland

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Three miles from my house--it happened. All of it. Two bombs in Copley Square. The Marathon Finish line. I walk there once a week, easy.  The carjacking in Allston? A couple of blocks from the pet store and Staples where I get my supplies. The shootout in Watertown? I've walked there too--a mere 3 miles on a summer day.  Even the street where the two bombers' lived and spent their teenage years--I can stroll across the bridge and enjoy views of the Charles River on my way to their residence, no sweat, if I choose. All of it is skin-tingling close; all of it is impossible to touch--in my understanding of it. 

Why? 

The big question we all want answered.

The big answer we want is: simple. Evil.

But it's not simple. And everyone has a different idea of evil.

The post-midnight shootout, at 1:30 a.m? I heard police cars racing west from our neighborhood to join forces already there.Twitter, live streaming police scanners. Lights on at 3, 4, 5 a.m. until daylight took over. It was a crazy, anxious feeling breaking up any possibility for sleep. We had three computers going. We watched. We listened--hypervigilant--in real time--running between the bedroom and living room. What'd they say? Whaaat? Are you kidding me? For real? 

Real, but I didn't feel scared. I felt unified. I felt our collective spirits, our bodies and minds--millions of us--knitting together in the highest regions of hope and faith--together in the middle of the night and all the next day until the moment of the covered, stranded boat. I felt and prayed for a quiet resolution to this madness.

From my Facebook post, April 19: Visualizing: a cup of white light for this evening and a quiet ending. Rain is in the air. 

Psychosis. I can't find any other way to see it.  These brothers lost their connection to goodness, to their ability to work things out. They went somewhere murderous and tragic and criminal. 

From my FB post: One week ago...is this possible: Feels like a year. Saw this bed of flowers near the hospital yesterday. The vibrancy of color, the stalks stretching their necks upward--I'm trying to follow their lead. This mix of beauty and tragedy so close to home is hard to comprehend. I can't yet grasp it in a satisfactory way. Maybe I never will? Then, the word "compassion" keeps coming up.

Psychotic. Insane. 
And then, compassion and sanity. 

From my Facebook post, April 21: This Sunday morning I attended Boston's Trinity Church service at Temple Israel. As a Jew who married an Episcopalian, I was moved to tears by this partnership between faiths. The service took place 2 blocks from the hospital where the bombing victims are receiving treatment and care.  I love this poster on one of the hospital buildings.

Seeking the root of it. Why it started. How it grew. How it took root. How it...bloomed.

Power is a strange word, isn't it? 

From my April 18, Facebook post: Power. It's right here in these petals. No bomb carrying creep can touch the beauty and life energy manifesting in these flowers. The city is bursting with heavenly blooms right now. Everywhere.

The younger brother has since been moved from the hospital (1.5 miles from my house) to a prison 40 miles west of here. He's in a small cell with a steel door. No longer walking distance from where I live, he's going to fade into time's tunnel. Whatever darkness he lives inside, I simply can't grasp it. I hope he follows his uncle's pleas to tell the truth, tell us the whole truth, get down on your knees and ask forgiveness to the families you killed and maimed. 

From my Facebook post, April 18:  Boston, Texas. What kind of week is this? For centuries and beyond we have endured our mistakes, our egregious actions and still we move forward. A few of us learn something and remember and certain things get worked out. World news is overwhelming, so begin with your immediate circle: home, family, yourself.  I believe small, daily actions of kindness, honesty, negotiation, ability to take responsibility, wash dishes, make your bed, plant trees lead to bigger, collective improvements. 

Forgiveness. It can't return blown-off limbs. It can't return lost lives. It can't return an 8-year-old from Dorchester; a 23-year-old student from China; a 29-year-old young woman from Boston;  a 26-year-old police officer protecting students at MIT. 

Still. I will be watching and waiting and hoping this younger brother asks for forgiveness. Why does this matter to me?  I don't know. I don't know. 

Or maybe I do know.

Forgiveness, I believe, is linked to insight. Asking forgiveness is an act of understanding, an admission of wrongdoing, and for this surviving brother, a willingness to take responsibility for the death and pain of innocent people.

Awareness of that magnitude? I like to imagine that I'm not asking or hoping for too much.

Tucson, Arizona - old souls, ancient landscapes

Winter weary, I left Boston after waiting out a ragged snowstorm at the airport, then 23 hours later finally landed in Tucson. I quickly shed thermal underwear and raised my arms to the sun--somewhat in the manner of these old souls opening up to their ancient landscape.  Seems these cacti have been watching over rocks and sky since prehistoric times. I felt their sacred energy: quiet and subtle.

The locals tell me that spring is here. From browns and grays, come these striking colors--golds, yellows, oranges, pinks--blooming overnight.

Then there are shapes--elongated, wispy.

What force, what universal decision turned one plant into something round and squat, another brush-like and feathery? Darwin offered some good answers.

I have yet to learn the names of these particular trees. Nor have I figured out how to give language to these mountains that move in contours and shadows.

I like to think back to when a person or group decided upon a name --the Tucson mountains, for instance. Tucson (according to what I found on the internet) comes from the Puma Indians. The word "schookson" means:  spring at the foot of a black mountain. I'm guessing someone casually referred to it in this way, then another and another picked up on the tagline, until this nickname stuck. The word made sense, capturing an agreement of perception and community experience.

(My Arizona explorations continue. More pictures forthcoming.)

Bruegel in the 21st Century?

Passed this gentleman on the street and immediately saw Bruegel's paintings. Have we really changed that much? Probably not. What do you think? Take a look at this modern-day construction worker with Bruegel's gentle fellow heading down a path in the woods.

Maybe it's the hood?

And in a larger context, the colors?

February Recap:Re-cycled flowers, Escher, birds, sky, clouds, Grub St.

RE-cycling flowers. Do you do this? Cut stems, put in new vases, refresh them to make them last as long as possible? Here's a bouquet that's almost 2 weeks old, now on our kitchen windowsill. This is a good time for all words beginning with RE: revise, revisit, return, remember, retreat. (For astrology fans, mercury is in re-trograde until mid-March.)

Purim and bluish snow. When now looks blue or when things take on different appearances. Purim, for instance, is when Jews don silly costumes and masks, make noise and celebrate with bountiful abandonment. Queen Esther outwits even Haman, who tried to annihilate the Jews. Here's a link that explains a bit. 

Passed this striking, Escher-like view near the old Christian Science Center in Boston and thought it expressed one of many sensations I feel when revising a  novel.

Afternoon light, Thursday, with birds.

A view from Grub Street offices, across from Boston Commons.  Grub Street is the second largest independent center for creative writing in the U.S.  Stellar place. Here's a link to learn more about its many services: http://www.grubstreet.org

Wonder sky with cars at dusk. Everything and everyone going somewhere.

 One more sky (because its possibilities are endless).

Tuscon Festival of Books! March 9-10

Love, any day

As much as I appreciate the intent behind Valentine's Day, I can't stop thinking about those who are unattached or maybe going through a hard time in a close relationship. For those people, I want to send out a wish and gentle reminder that V-day is 24 hours. Give yourself a gift of love (a walk, coffee with a friend, a good book). Don't let the Hallmark machine get to you.