Writing a breakup

I did a mad amount of writing yesterday.

It felt good. I have been struggling with this book for so long that it’s refreshing to have a streak where writing is effortless. I had a day of flow.

Here is an excerpt of my story:

Josh and Penny sat down with their beverages. “I hear you play violin,” Josh said, falling into the typical conversation gambit.

“Yes, I do. At the conservatory. In the Baroque Symphony and a string quartet. I’m second chair.”

“I like baroque,” Josh said awkwardly. “It helps me relax.”

“Your mother says you’re an instructor at a college. Tell me about it,” she countered, sounding equally awkward.

“Yes, I am. I teach English composition. I also write — mostly poetry.” I won’t show you what I write, Josh thought, because it’s all about Jeanne. He had written some of his best poetry about Jeanne.

“Have you been published?” Penny asked as she dug her phone out of her purse.

“Yes, a few places. It’s part of what you have to do as a faculty member — at least once you’re a professor.”

Penny pulled up a picture on her phone of a tall woman with a spare body and sharp cheekbones, wearing black and white concert dress. “This is my girlfriend, Natalie.” Natalie’s hair was short and spiked, and she held a clarinet.

Josh looked again — the woman was compelling — until the words registered to him: “Girlfriend?” He felt an unholy glee that his mother’s plans were foiled.

“I hope that doesn’t bother you. I tried to tell your mother, but — “

“Nobody tells my mother anything she doesn’t want to hear,” Josh sympathized. “Besides,” he pulled his own phone out, “I just broke up with the love of my life.” He pulled up a picture of Jeanne sitting in the cafe in a purple sweater that brought out all her color.

“She’s beautiful,” Penny said. “Why did you break up?”

“Because she thinks I’m too young. She says I have my whole life ahead of me.” Josh closed his eyes because he didn’t trust them not to leak tears.

“How much older is she?” Penny picked up the phone and studied it more carefully.

“She’s twenty years older. But that didn’t matter to me. I never felt like I was that much younger, because — I don’t know. I feel like I went from too young for my contemporaries to too old for them overnight. And he knew which night — the night he saw a tree struck by lightning as he stood out in a park after midnight. And Jeanne understood — or tried to, anyway; Josh wasn’t sure anyone could truly understand his visions without experiencing them.

“Natalie is seventeen years older than me. Look,” and Penny showed him another picture of Natalie, a close-up picture of a woman who certainly looked about forty. “I’m not sure it’s as big a thing for lesbians.”

“So tell me about her,” Penny coaxed.

“We’re broken up,” Josh said miserably. “But she’s a professor of plant biology, and she designs gardens for people with trees and berry bushes and all sorts of edible things, nestled in their backyards. She has a voice that carries effortlessly. She’s got a dry sense of humor, and she’s passionate about things, and she — I’m not used to being at a loss for words,” Josh finished. He looked at his hands.

“It’s a bummer when you break up with someone, isn’t it?” Penny said, and got him another cup of tea.

Interpreting dreams

Do you analyze your dreams?

I analyze my dreams to see what my mind is working on while I’m asleep. I don’t adhere to Freudian dream analysis (everything relates to sex — I’m kidding, but barely) because it doesn’t speak to me. I tend to use Gestalt dream analysis, as it relates to storytelling and yields a satisfying result.

Like so many things regarding dreams, we don’t know if Gestalt dream analysis “works”. But it has given me insight into the meaning of my dreams.

How to do Gestalt dream analysis: First, you have to remember your dreams. Chances are, like most dreamers, you forget your dreams when you wake up. The good news is that the ones you remember are the most vivid. One source I’ve consulted says that you’re more likely to remember your dreams if you wake up with an alarm clock a few minutes before your natural wakeup time. (This works for me because my demon kitten bites my toes to wake me up.) You should also have a notepad and paper next to the bed to write it down.

Once you’ve recorded or remembered that dream (and here is the fun part), tell the story of the dream from the viewpoint of every significant person and thing featured in the dream. It’s great to write this down, for reasons I’ll explain later.

Last night I had a dream where I almost fed the cats a slice of Boston brown bread, which is a whole-grain and molasses quick bread with raisins. (The important part of this is that the raisins are toxic to cats.) I almost feed the cats the quick bread, but I remember that raisins are toxic to cats. A bit later, my husband comes in and tells me the cats are dying. I run in and the cats (which are now kittens) are dead and nothing we can do will revive them.

I went to some gathering which looked like a bunch of women painting backdrops and posters for a charity event and I tried to talk to one of them about my cats dying, but nobody was willing to talk.I can’t remember which cat is still alive so I call my husband and ask. I tried to find a place to sit down and nobody would let me sit. I went home and tried to accuse my husband of feeding the cats raisins.

So, Gestalt:

I am the quick bread. I am sweet but deadly to cats.
We are the cats. We are dying. There is nothing you can do about it.
I am your husband. I feel helpless about the cats dying. I don’t know what to do. I swear I didn’t feed them the raisins.
We are your peers. We can’t be bothered hearing about your cats.
We are the posters for your charity event. We’re the important thing, not your cats.
The one remaining cat: I don’t know who I am.

From this, I compare the dream to my life to find interpretation.

The cats represent life and all the things I can’t control
I tend to blame my husband for things that go wrong, even though he can’t control the outside either.
I have had a history of my peers not caring when I’m going through something bad — No, really, I haven’t. It’s only happened once in my adult life. This might represent a fear I have.
The posters are representative of the fact that I think my issues aren’t important.
That last cat? That’s me again — I don’t always know who I am.

A lot to unpack, but it’s unpacked. One of the reasons I write these down is that occasionally, a dream is so outstanding that I use it for a book. I want to know the symbolism as well as the visuals and the plot. I have two novels based on dreams, and I’d like to write more.

So I highly suggest you interpret your dreams and see where they take you.

Post-Trump Stress Disorder

Some writers (see here) express the notion that there is a post-traumatic stress disorder prevalent in the US which has comes from living in the country under Trump. I can believe it, given the daily spew of vitriol and lies, the call to violence and bullying, and the inability to escape.

Certainly, our citizens are facing the PTSD symptom of arousal — a constant vigilance against future harm. This seems appropriate as a response to the grinding down of our psyches. This will not go away immediately as Biden takes office, because PTSD takes months, if not years, to go away. Biden is taking over a shell-shocked country.

I anticipate a year where Americans are wary of what the government will do, a pessimism about government, a feeling of a heavy weight on our hunched shoulders.

Doubled by the burden of COVID, we in the US are grouchy and protective of ourselves. We need to find a way to take care of ourselves, by taking time to ourselves, finding an absorbing activity, spending time with our roommates and pets, and thinking outside ourselves.

We need to be good and merciful to ourselves, and to others. The long nightmare will fade away.

Another broken promise of snowstorms

Once again, the major snowstorm misses us.

We were expecting 8-12 inches here in the far northwest corner of Missouri, but now we’ve been downgraded to 6-10 inches, and I personally doubt we’ll even get 6. My bet is on 5 inches, not more than a normal storm would drop.

I love snowstorms, much as I like thunderstorms. This might be privilege on my part, because I can stay at home and teach if the weather gets bad out. As a child, I had privilege. I remember my dad driving 30 miles home in the snow and my mother starting to worry half an hour before he was supposed to get home. He had little choice, unless the snow was so bad in the morning that the roads were closed.

When the snow gets bad enough on the interstate in Wyoming, the Department of Transportation literally closes the interstate with gates and locks at the ramps. I remember driving on a ramp to I-80 just as they were unlocking the gate, car stopped behind several 18-wheelers, waiting to get through. I drove slowly on that road and arrived home 10 hours later.

So I love snowstorms even though I don’t think I should. I like buying supplies as if we’re going to spend a week marooned in the house (and with COVID, I don’t even know why isolation is something I relish). I enjoy looking out the window and seeing only white, and hearing the muffled sounds of a snow plow. I hope we get a snowstorm like that today.

Sunday morning with coffee, cats, and blogging

I write this blog every day with coffee. I sit on the loveseat in my living room, surrounded by cats, sipping on my coffee (cream, no sugar) and typing.

Today, on a Sunday, I move more leisurely because I don’t have to go to work. I get started writing a bit later, and I have more time to enjoy my coffee. The coffee, homeroasted, is a Costa Rica Helsar Macho Arce with orange and walnut notes.

This is the coffee we’re drinking.

Right now, Girlie-Girl (a grumpy calico aged 15) sits to my right, next to the trackball. Chloe (the fiesty little tortoiseshell, plays at my feet. Me-Me (the needy dilute grey and white), jumps on and off the back of the couch. She’ll be back soon.) Chucky (the huge orange cat) minds his own business.

I don’t plan what I write; rather I search my mind and my soul on what I want to say. If I had to plan every day, I would not be writing every day. It would cease to be fun and relaxing. I have enough things in my life that aren’t fun and relaxing.

My husband updates me on the upcoming weather; it looks like we’re getting 8-12 inches of snow Monday and Tuesday. I work from home Monday; the storm may mean I work at home on Tuesday as well. Regardless, I will have my morning ritual of coffee and cats.

And here’s a picture of Girlie helping me write the blog.

I found my muse!

I’m looking for a muse.

I’m thinking of “muse” in the more abstract sense, because real-life muses seem to take too much energy.

I need to feel inspired, which is something that’s hard to find when more or less filling in the areas between plot, which is what I’m doing with Gaia’s Hands. I don’t feel the sense of flow that I do when writing a novel. I’m not getting the sense of delight over my characters or scenes.

I’m frustrated. I may actually go through an old manuscript I haven’t developed much and edit the holy hell out of it, except it needs to be turned into a romance itself. (It’s actually well on its way.) The name of it is Reclaiming the Balance, and the male protagonist is non-binary in the most literal way. I haven’t touched that again because it makes me uneasy, and I have to search my soul and question myself.

Ahh… I’ve had half a cup of coffee and I’m suddenly feeling inspired to write. For the moment. Maybe breakfast coffee is my muse!

Refining writing

I can’t motivate to write today. Maybe it’s because I had a long (compressed) work week with my first full days of class and I’m bushed. Maybe it’s because I got up later and am just drinking my coffee. Maybe it’s because there are no cookies in the house. At any rate I’m going to motivate myself to write starting with this blog.

Part of my struggle is wondering whether I’ll ever get published. Self-publishing has taken the edge off my desire to get traditionally published. At the same time, I do want to accomplish getting traditionally published. I just need the drive.

I have writing to do. I need to rewrite/write Gaia’s Hands (the book I most complain about) and edit another older book, Reclaiming the Balance. I would like to write a new one from scratch but I just wrote Kringle in the Night so it’s not time for a new book. It’s time to move out writing, complete writing, refine writing.

Oh, and just for you, I’m posting Bernie Sanders’ visit to my university:

Breathing Easier (Inaugural Edition)

As dramatic and cliche as it sounds, I feel like I’ve awakened from a nightmare.

My vision seems clearer. My shoulders seem straighter and all I can do is marvel in the sense of relief I feel. I no longer feel like I’ve been marinated in hatred. I feel safe to cry.

And I’m white. I’m educated. I personally didn’t have as much to risk under Trump. I can try to imagine how black, Latino, LGBTQ people felt under Trump, but I suspect my imagination is rather inadequate. I suspect they don’t feel as sanguine as I do over this new president, because they’ve suffered from too many broken promises in this country. A cautious “wait and see”, perhaps.

Time will tell whether Biden is merely “Better than Trump” (a low bar to surpass) or a truly good president. But for now, I’ll breathe easier.

A Return to Hope (Inaugural edition)

So today’s the inauguration of President-elect Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris. It has been a harrowing four years under the Trump administration, filled as it was with right-wing jingoism, bows to white supremacism, and actions which targeted vulnerable populations, delicate natural landscapes, and at times, the very soul of a democratic nation.

I had thought Trump’s reign would be over sooner. Each new outburst made by Trump on Twitter made me wonder if the vice president would invoke the 25th. Each allegation — collusion with the Russians in the 2016 election (disproven), quid-pro-quo maneuvering with Ukraine (probable) petered out in the legislature. Shaming us on the world stage — there is no mechanism to get rid on him in that case, but I at least expected that people would turn away from him.

They didn’t, and I feel this is an indictment of the American people.

I don’t know if they were attracted to Trump’s lies or his xenophobic cruelty; I don’t know if they identified with his wrapping himself in the American flag or they felt his bumbling, ranting speeches were “like them”. But they didn’t shrink away from his threats, his tacit acceptance of white supremacists or his bullying. In the recent election, almost half the US supported him. This lingers as a source of fear and dismay.

But now Biden will be installed as 46th President of the United States. There is hope, although Biden has a lot to undo and a somewhat limited time to do it in. Some things, like the rise of white supremacy in the US, may take years to undo. Other things, like battling COVID, may be difficult. I pray that we can heal from the Trump agenda and all its hatred.

The Frustration of Teaching under COVID.

Here’s a typical class session under COVID:

I get to the class a few minutes early to set up for class. This requires a computer, a USB camera and area microphone that I’ve brought to class. Add in an HDMI cable to the projection unit, and I’m hooked up. My computer screen is now projected onto the screen up front.

I open up Zoom and see my face projected upon the big screen. Urgk. I don’t like looking at myself larger than life. I twiddle with the camera so it’s at the right angle — it’s never at the right angle; due to the camera’s height limitations it will always be looking up my neck.

The whiteboard behind me is useless, because it projects backward to the Zoom students. Moving around while teaching (my favored style) is useless because then I will disappear from sight. Every visual must be from the computer because it must be visible both for the in-class students and the online students. Luckily, Zoom allows for screen-share, although that can get awkward at times with clicking it on and off and on again to see new documents and windows.

I pull up a few windows — the first with the seating chart, which will be visible when students come in. Only half the class meets at a time due to COVID distancing, and we need a static seating chart for COVID contact tracking at the University. Our class still is not distanced enough, so we wear masks at all times.

Students start trickling in through the door, so I point out the seating chart so they find their right chairs. Some students sit down without consulting the seating chart, so I need to explain to those students we have a seating chart. On the computer, my Zoom students start to fill up in the waiting room. I message them, letting them know that they need to keep their video on during class. If last week’s introductory session is any indication, at least one will not. Then I let them in.

Teaching is a challenge, because two-thirds of my class sit in desks in front of me watching the screen, which is the Zoom display with a shared document as the current focus — a PowerPoint screen, a document, etc. One-third of my class views remotely using Zoom. It’s hard teaching to both these classes, and I spend too much of my time yelling “Can you hear me?” to the Zoom people, who are silent and not sharing in class work. It’s insanely hard for me to pay attention to two different classrooms at the same time.

After an unsatisfying class period where I feel I have done twice the work with half the results, I wipe down all the seats and tables with disinfectant, and I wait till the next class shows up and do it all over again.