Provenance

My Muse is abundant. She has an orchard full of crisp apples, plump blackberries, and chestnut trees laden with dreams of braziers on damp Parisian streets. At the very edge of the grounds, beyond the field of lavender and the beds of profligate zinnias, there is a bee hive. Five-pound glass jars full of golden honey slumber in the root cellar, summer’s sweetness saved. These are the elements of inspiration, the ingredients of artistic creation.

I have written before about wondering where stories come from, and have told you that when I write, it feels like a conduit opens up and the story is transmitted to me. It is a little like waking up each morning and finding a basket of fresh produce and a bouquet of wildflowers tied with twine on my doorstep. It is beautiful and humbling. Who am I to receive this largess?

More importantly, is any of it mine? Yes, I spend the time stringing words together. I give them expression, but the underlying form of the story is something that I believe – and quite literally feel – is beyond me. The story is independent of me. It exists whether I write it or not. It is a Platonic idea that my words only aspire to approach. In that sense, I am a conveyance, not a creator.

This leads to all sorts of awkward questions clustered around the concept of ownership. Can a story belong to any one person, even the author? What is the provenance of a story? Do I own the fruits of my Muse’s inspiration?

Maybe the most I can claim is that I own the final product because I harvested it, cleaned it up, and shipped it to market. I try to tell myself I am charging for the convenience of the packaging; i.e., you could have extracted this Platonic form from the ether yourself, but I have extracted it, translated it to English, and made it readable on a Kindle. I tell myself that because otherwise, I can’t justify what right I have to charge for something that belongs to the universe. I could solve the problem by not charging, but it costs me money to transfer the story from ether to Kindle, and I’m an obligate financial being like any other working Joette. I could solve the problem by not sharing the stories, but that seems even more of a blatant travesty. How selfish would that be, to take the bushels of apples, the jars of honey, the fresh roasted and still fingertip- scalding chestnuts and then keep them all to myself? If I did that, the apples would grow mealy, the honey would crystallize, and the chestnuts would grow cold and then molder. It would be wasteful and wrong to withhold the bounty. My Muse deserves better than that, and the stories she gives me deserve the highest-quality production I can afford. The question of ownership aside, it is my duty and my honor to share what I have gathered in the orchard of my inspiration.

 

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Doggerel

I find I have nothing to say. No, that’s not right. I have too much to say. There are too many different thoughts for me to hand you any one thought-gem, golden as honey and as satisfying as sex. Snippets I can manage, but not coherence.

Example:

Last night, I took the scenic route home. The road wends through blasted-out limestone cliffs capped with stunted cedars. The horizon is Hill Country. As I drove through the valley of beauty and wealth, the windows of distant houses reflected the blood-orange sunset. It looked like they were on fire.

Another Example:

The topic this week at Urban Zen was teachers and teaching. Consensus was that some of our most memorable teachings are gained by being around someone being herself. To which someone responded,

It’s awesomely terrifying to know that as long as I’m alive, someone might accidentally learn something from me.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and wondering what I am teaching the people who know me. I hope it is worthy of you.

And Again:

There is an old woman who walks her dog every morning. She wears color coordinating outfits (peach, blue, light green), and her dog has a thin whip of a tail that curls over his back. I hope that when I am that old, I will still be walking my dog and writing. I hope Mr. Aniko is with me. I hope that with another sixty years of practice, I’ll get really good at writing and better at being myself.

Finally:

My mind has these thoughts, and then there is the constant drizzle of partial thoughts: arugula and truffle-infused pizza, sadness at lost friends, excitement about going to Kauai, plots for novels years away from birth.

Coda:

Remember: I never promised coherence. This post is a Rorschach Test. Tell me what you see, and we’ll both know who we are.

 

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In the Midst of Life

My days are a whirling blur coalescing into weeks, months, seasons. Summer drags Orion across the sky, and I am wearing my favorite sundresses one last time before it is too cold. The nights are coming earlier, clouds are scudding in on winds that bring cooler air, and I am the sum total of everything happening at once.

I am still crafting “Fluffy,” the first book in my series. There is a coherence to the draft that was not there before, and that feels good. I believe that I am getting close to the true shape of the story, and I am trying not to fret over timelines, deadlines, or that fact that I don’t have a working title. Hopefully, when I come up with a title, it won’t sound like the name of a torrid romance novel like Stolen Climates does!

In addition to the novel, I am also working on a short story to be included in a speculative fiction anthology. I haven’t written a short in years, and those were all “literary.” My plan is to take an older story, amp up the spec and tone down the lit. Ironically, the story does have a working title, and it contains the word “goat.” Hence my inclusion of what would be an otherwise random photo of a goat:

I’m reading Fate’s Mirror by M.H. Meade, and loving it. This is the best piece of sci-fi I have read in a very long time, and I encourage any of you who enjoy the genre or are interested in what the world might look like when network-born sentience arises to get this book! The philosophical issues raised by Fate’s Mirror turn out to be a fitting companion read for my efforts in writing “Fluffy,” which has also features a non-traditional consciousness.

The next book on my To Read List is an ARC of Hunter Shea’s upcoming novella, Swamp Monster Massacre. I’ve been a fan of Hunter’s writing since I read Forest of Shadows, and I am thrilled to announce he has invited me to participate in his blog tour to launch Swamp Monster Massacre. Look for my review in the first week of October… which also happens to be the first week of my favorite month of the year!

When I’m not reading or writing, I’m giving zazen a try. I have a longstanding moral affinity to Buddhism, and a lapsed meditation practice I am attempting to revive. I joined the Urban Zen meetup for my first time last Monday, and I cannot tell you how alert, connected, and peaceful I felt after the session. I have a long way to go in terms of posture and mental control during meditation, but it feels great to be finally (finally!) making an effort to discover more about meditation. With only a week of practice, I already feel more centered within the maelstrom of fast-moving daily life – a Very Good Thing!

And, when I’m not writing, reading, or meditating, I am trying to learn the stars. Mr. Aniko and I walk the dogs before the sun comes up – a necessity for most of the long, hot Texas days. I have developed a habit of noticing what I see, and then, if I can’t identify it and I notice it multiple days in a row, to look it up in Stellarium. The night sky, which I always treated as a static entity, is remarkably dynamic. It changes with adroit stealth, bringing me a new stars almost daily. Sirius was a pleasant surprise, winking blue and red with such intensity Mr. Aniko and I were fooled into thinking it must be man-made. Ah, the hubris!

Finally, I’d like to thank a few of the people who made this week special for me:

• Edward Lorn: Surprised and honored me by writing a post explaining how I inspire him.
• Lindsey Beth Goddard: Hosts the Author Interview Corner, which has amazing interviews and which also scored me a signed copy of her new book, Quick Fix: A Taste of Terror!!
• Mr. Aniko: Insulated the roof of my Mazda3, giving me a quieter ride and better protection against the hot, hot sun. He also cooked dinner and breakfast every day to help me find time to fit in everything else I’m trying to do. Mr. Aniko, I love you!
• Mo & Poppy: Who sent me postcards from their vacation, which was both thoughtful and made checking my mail fun!
• Eric and Ivey (Urban Zen organizers): Welcomed me to their sangha with kindness and openness.
• Greg and Rickey: Who encouraged me to have confidence in myself.
• Brad: For being the person at work who makes me smile.

Xoxo,

-aniko

Don’t Feed the Sharks

It is both rush hour and the unofficial start of the weekend. Sluggish traffic moves in dribs and drabs of chrome and tinted window. I am in my car, and this is my third time to circle my destination.

I am bad with directions. I can’t parallel park. And I can’t find the entrance to the parking garage.

When I finally make it into the garage, there is a white car ahead of me at the kiosk to get a ticket. Two garage attendants are working on the kiosk; they have it open and are trying to load in more paper. When they take out the entire printing mechanism, the younger worker smiles at me apologetically. I pass that apologetic smile along to the man in the white car, because he wants to back out of the parking garage. As bad as I am with directions, I’m worse with driving in reverse. My spatial reasoning skills are non-existent, and the entrance to the parking garage is a corkscrew of concrete and orange-plastic barriers. If I back down, I’d either hit the wall or destroy my rims on the curb. I’ve destroyed rims before; it is an expensive habit. So here we are, stuck in a situation we never would have chosen.

I experience the events in my external world as being indicative of my psyche and, from that perspective, there was nothing accidental about my parking garage misadventure. This past week, my mind has snagged in a whirlpool of counterproductive thought. The same angry reasoning keeps circling around itself, swimming just beneath the surface like a shark in shallows. Impatient and nipping, it goads me into wasting time considering things I cannot change. It is not meditation. It is aggravation. I go round and round, just like I did in the parking garage.

The circling thoughts generate two contradictory urges. The first is to lash out, to inflict my anger and indignation on someone; it is the equivalent of smashing right through the lowered parking garage arm. The second is to try and suppress my anger, which would be the same as getting out of my car, walking out of the garage, and pretending not to notice that anything is wrong. Neither is a graceful solution. Is there a third way, one that is not driven by the heckling, sharp-toothed thoughts fraying my calm?

I think there is. I can accept my feelings because they are legitimate denizens of my psyche. They are me, I can’t hide from them and remain at all self-aware. Acceptance doesn’t mean pretending not to feel something. It simply means welcoming the sensation, and taking it as a reminder to be mindful and practice compassion towards myself as I deal with the emotional storm. Mindfulness prevents me from lashing out in damaging ways that would only serve to increase misery by spreading it to others. This doesn’t mean I will avoid the situation or not address the problems. I will, but out of a place of co-operation rather than anger. It won’t be an attack or a recrimination, but an opportunity to make things better than they are.

Each interaction is a chance to become, and every challenge is an opportunity to decide how to live in the moment. It’s easy to be nice and practice loving-kindness when things are going well. It’s reality to need to learn to practice when the thought-sharks are nipping.

The other night, in the parking garage, I drove up to the roof. I stood at the side and looked out on the city that has become my home. I looked up, and saw the stars I have grown to love and welcome in their yearly transit. I couldn’t have reached that point without a lot of circling – both within the garage and on the street before I found the entrance. What seemed like a setback led me to a beautiful moment, and I believe that if I stop feeding my sharks a diet of anger, I will end up exactly where – and who – I need to be.

Update:

The situation that was making me angry has been resolved. By tending my anger and not allowing it to cause me to lash out at someone else, I was able to focus on doing what I could to help the other person (who never intended to anger me). The act of co-operation ended with feelings of gratitude on both sides, and is proof that well-tended anger can produce good outcomes.

 

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Lollypop Tongues

This has been a year of reeling.  I’ve learned that it isn’t only the bad times that knock me down and shake me up, but the good ones, too. No sooner do I get my feet under me, take a few carefree steps when BOOM! – something else comes out of nowhere. The year is dense with overload, bristling with good and bad things like lurid lollypop tongues. It isn’t a bad year or a failed year or even a grieving year. In many respects, 2012 may be one of my most accomplished years, one full of opportunities, revelations, and surprising detours. It is a year of change.

And that’s not any kind of year for a stability junkie.

Or is it?

The shifting landscape of my life has forced me to find a calm center that isn’t based on any illusion of control. In the past, my days were ruled by an unwavering agenda. I ran my life like a tight ship, never straying from my course or getting stuck in the doldrums. Small upsets to my schedule made me anxious and fearful. I was inflexible in the weirdest of ways, and continually insisted on doing things that didn’t need to be done simply because I had them scheduled. It took decades for me to learn that life isn’t a boat, and I’m not a captain.

Life is an ocean. Beautiful-terrible, mercurial life! It is the last thing you were ever expecting it to be.

My prissily planned days were an artificial representation of the ocean of life. Sure, you can eliminate unnecessary complexity in calculating forces by assuming all horses are shaped like spheres. The rude fact is that horses are not spherical, and that forces aren’t always easily calculable. Years like this one make me aware that no matter how tightly I pin down one dimension of the equation, there are more variables I hadn’t accounted for popping up elsewhere. I’m finding this in my WIP. It started as a book, expanded to a triology, and is now projected to be a five book series. A series! I am in the second revision of the first book and the draft is … tumescing. I’ve added an additional twelve-thousand words, shutting down any hopes of writing a slim novella. And I’m not finished with the edit, which means that this book, like life itself, is going to keep me reeling.

I mentioned a calm center, but I don’t find them in these frenetic, strange words sparking in their own tinder-boxes of potential. The calm is here, though. All the time, right here.

To reach it, I had to abandon myself to the incalculable tides of fate. The waves stole my flip-flops, the undertow dragged me down. Down, down into my core. At first, it was incredibly hard to sit still quietly with myself. Panic was a threat, an intense urge to make lists was a threat, loud music and cold beer were welcome threats to the simple act of surrender. Yet in the quiet of my core, away from the spinning wheel of the daily, that is where I find true, unchanging peace. Moment to moment, I can go there and be free of what plagues me. There are such bad things, and some such good things, that shift my entire sense of self into a new spectrum of understanding, loathing, or loving. Those are the times the center is needed. Of course, those are also the times when I box in the asshole in the Beemer or snap at the nice guy from IT (and one should never, ever under any circumstances snap at the nice guy in IT!). The discovery of calm hasn’t made me perfect, but it has made me more aware of when I have spun out into the tempest. To go to my center focuses me. The stillness of calm gave me the strength to get out of my Ambition Room, the empowerment to define my own ‘All,’ and access to the conduit that sends me the stories I write.

The calm isn’t contingent on the world or reality. It is untouched by the whirlwinds of tragedy and triumph. It is within me, and it is my grace.

 

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