Call for Artists

Guys, this is for serious. Everyone in my office is on their staff retreat right now, so i'm basically writing nonstop at my desk. This is great, because i don't have a desk at home, so it's very hard for me to write when i'm there. I've been very productive yesterday and today, and the book is really coming into focus.

And it has to be comics.

Until i started reading comics, it would never in a trillion years have occurred to me to write one. I don't write superhero stories, i can't draw, and i'm not interested in attending conventions with people dressed as Spock or Batman. I didn't know that it was possible to write comics outside of those parameters. I thought that comics necessarily equaled superheroes and loner nerds.

Sandman has proved me wrong. V for Vendetta has proved me wrong. Hell, even Batman and X-Men have proved me wrong. Suddenly, i get why people like these things, why comics have endured for generations, why kids can grow up reading comics and be no less in love with them as they approach (or even pass) middle age.

And now, the book i've been struggling to write for over seven years makes sense. It needs to be a comic.

But i still can't draw. I still need an artist.

So if anyone reading this is a comics artist, or knows someone who is a comics artist, or has a cousin whose ex-husband works with a guy whose daughter's college roommate is a comics artist, send them my way. It's going to take a while for this whole thing to be ready to roll, but with everything suddenly making so much sense in my head and on paper, i don't want to delay any more than i have to.

So, seriously. If you know anyone who might want to collaborate with a stranger on the internet who claims to have a great story for a comic book and has never been published before, send them my way. But do it discreetly, because anyone who reads that last sentence and thinks, "This sounds like a wonderful and totally legitimate business opportunity!" may not be someone i want to work with.

Irene

Irene is a Greek name that means peace.

This weekend, the eastern coast of the United States was hit by a hurricane named Irene.

As hurricanes go, Irene was not terrible. Thirty-two deaths have been reported so far, and while more may be discovered as we clean up, the worst that most people are facing seems to be power outages and damage to basement storage.

One of the reported deaths was in the county where i grew up.

This is the first major disaster i have faced since moving away from my family. Despite my generalized anxiety disorder (which is triggered more by social situations or getting lost than physical danger), i was not afraid. I did experience a healthy amount of rational concern, however. I stocked up on candles, got some cash, charged my Kindle and my phone, and settled in for a long weekend of Buffy and Angel marathons. (The Kindle was for in case the power went out.)

However, i was profoundly uncomfortable being away from my loved ones during a time of emergency. My mother and sisters went to a shelter that had been set up in their church. Power was out at their house and the church, but the church had an emergency backup generator. My dad was alone in his apartment, and also experienced some power outages. My boyfriend was at home with his parents, and their power also went out. In my apartment, the lights flickered a little, but other than that we were totally fine.

We all tried to use our phones as little as possible, knowing that we'd have to save the batteries for an emergency and that we didn't want to tie up the lines for people who already had emergencies.

I don't have a smart phone, which means that my battery can pretty much last all day with normal use. Almost everyone else i know has a smart phone, which means that their batteries only last a few hours. So my boyfriend and family were far away and incommunicado.

Although the experience was, for me, anticlimactic (and i am in no way trying to diminish or mock the experiences of those who died or were injured or lost loved ones or suffered some other kind of serious consequence because of Irene), it still hit me hard in a lot of ways.

I'm sort of the dad of my house. I am the one who most often remembers to take out the trash. I am the one who most often remembers to lock the door at night and turn out the lights. I am the one who knows things about fiberglass mesh tape and different kinds of pliers. And when we were preparing for the storm, i was the one who told my roommates that, when Massachusetts is officially in a "state of emergency" and has shut down all public transportation and asked people to stay off of the highways, it's probably not the best time to go to Applebees to watch a UFC match. I was the one who filled up the bathtub so that, if the power went out, we could still flush the toilet. And when the drain on the bathtub wasn't working, i was the one who went to the attic, found an empty plastic storage bin, and filled it with water. When the storm was over i was the one who emptied the bin. Had we experienced any serious storm-related emergencies, i am certain that i would have been the one directing recovery efforts in my apartment.

It's weird to be the adult. It's especially weird to be the adult when you are the youngest person in the house. And it is exceptionally weird to be the adult when there are no other adults you can lean on, or even consult with. I couldn't ask my parents about how to light our gas stove with a lighter if the power went out. I couldn't double-team with my boyfriend to storm-proof the house and make sure that my roommates were safe. I was all on my own.

This post is pretty fragmentary and pointless; i'm mostly just reflecting on my experiences and emotions. So i'll conclude with some fragments of a poem i'm working on, based on a text my boyfriend sent me about a month and a half ago.

if the world is coming to an end
i want to go down in your arms
let the water swirl around us
i'd trade the sunrise for your eyes

I guess my point, which is parenthetical at best, is that even a potential emergency has a way of putting our hearts on our sleeves. We dig down deep to the cores of ourselves and find what matters, find what we're really made of and what we really want. And if we're smart, then when the crisis has passed we hold on to what we've found.

In Defense of Facebook Status Updates

I wrote a post a while back about considering shorter forms of literature, such as numbered fiction and even text messages (people publish collections of letters as biographical material; why not collections of text messages?) In it, i briefly mentioned six-word memoirs, a form of literary expression that is catching on more and more all the time. I'd like now to talk a little bit more about memoirs and how we all write them every day.

Here is the difference between a biography and a collection of memoirs: They are both like a river, but they are traveled differently. When you are writing (or reading) a biography, you start at the source of the river and travel along it to the end. You move at the same pace as the water, and look at everything that presents itself to your notice. If a stone juts out of the water, you look at it. If an historical event such as a war intrudes itself upon your life, you make mention of it. You look at the banks of the river as you pass them, much as you orient the biography in a particular time and place. Context is vital. You don't often bother with going very deep into the water, because you are more interested in charting the flow from beginning to end and making sure that everything stays in order.

A collection of memoirs is like the river teeth, the hard, twisted knots of trees that lodge themselves in the river and collect things. When writing (or reading) a memoir, you don't travel the whole length of the river from beginning to end. You find one river tooth, one significant moment or memory, and delve into the deepest depths of it. You consider each droplet of water in that one space. You look at the fish, the algae, the pebbles, the mud. You look at the tiny bubbles in the water. You look at outside things that have collected within that moment, whether or not they are strictly related to what is happening (raindrops against the window, the scent of fresh-ground coffee being brewed, the scratchy feel of the cushion at your back, etc). You're not as concerned with orienting that moment within a particular time or place as you are with orienting it within a particular set of sensations and impressions. Context is important, but not necessary. Each moment, each memoir, each river tooth, is complete unto itself. You collect these moments into whatever order feels most meaningful to you, and you don't worry about connecting them. They're all in the same river.

With all this in mind, therefore, i would like to introduce my favorite form of memoir: the Facebook status update. While it is true that the FB status is often used for things like song lyrics, more often than not it is actually a tiny memoir. Here is a sampling of statuses on my newsfeed at this moment:

*Nicole: I wish I could get rich by smashing pots and cutting grass clumps.

*Emma: misses friends near and abroad.

*Kelly: Seriously wishing I could find my wallet ugh

*Kim: Another wicked scorcha here today!

*Ben: is bowing at the alter of e. e. cummings right now.

*Steve: Got to help an Australian guy understand his first ever baseball game, and talked about the benefits of a salary cap with someone from Denver. Season tickets are great.

Sure, not all of these plumb the depths of human experience and emotion. But they are baby memoirs, existing only within a single moment. They do not bother to consider a larger context. They make no attempt to tell a longer story. They are an expression of a moment, a recognition that something has touched them. Some are more than six words, some are less.

Like the FB status, six-word memoirs are prone to cheesiness, as well as emo-ness. Sometimes it's just a generic statement about "my pain" or "no one gets me" or "life is lame". They are not all gold. But just because it is possible for someone to use an art form badly does not mean that the art form in and of itself is bad or unworthy of consideration. Lots of high school students write bad poems, but poetry itself is not bad. Lots of people are bad dancers, but dancing itself is still an art form. Just because some Facebook statuses are stupid, or some six-word memoirs lame, does not mean that beauty and art cannot be expressed in a condensed form on the internet.

*names changed

Where the Heart Is

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. 

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

The air wraps around my skin in a heavy, smothering embrace. I feel myself dissolving into the atmosphere – the sluggish humidity absorbing my flesh effortlessly. I float free and slow through the streets of this little town, invisible.

All that tethers me to reality is you.

Even from a distance, you have a hold on me. A tiny beep from my phone, and all of my disparate parts are re-collected in you. Everything that i am is held within everything that you are – from your virtual words on my screen to the realness of you, many miles away.

If not for you, i would become lost in the world, swirling into an oblivion of color and sound, melting into nature. But you are my rock. However far my imagination may take me, you always call me home again.

They say that home is where the heart is. I find my home within every word you speak, every glance that comes my way, every touch. I am at home in the curve of your arm, in the curve of your mouth, in your curving laughter. I am at home in your thoughts, in your quirks, in the miles between us. I am at home in your heart.

You say that your heart is mine. This, then, is love: i have learned to be at home in you, and in so doing, i have found myself at home in me.