Tag: voice

The Lost is Not So Lost


I have never learned to speak
the language of these slate-edged hills; 
silence speaking eloquently
things I almost understand

I think I have heard you walking
softly, barefoot and daydreaming;
wonder if you've heard me calling
out my name, an owl's whisper.
In the Catskills,
do the sleepy towns tell tales?
In the Catskills,
do the sleepy towns tell tales?

**********
Photo by Creative Vix on Pexels.com

This is all I remember of the song. I wrote it 30 years or so ago, and I really haven’t visited it since I wrote it. I couldn’t even remember this much earlier this morning. I wrote the words down somewhere, but I don’t remember where I put them.

I looked on my computer and I found it! I found it!

I have never learned to speak
The language of these slate-edged hills –
Silence speaking eloquently
Things I almost understand

CHORUS:
I think I have seen you walking
Softly, barefoot and daydreaming
Wonder if you hear me calling
Out your name, an owl’s whisper
In the Catskills,
Do the sleepy towns tell tales?
In the Catskills,
Do the sleepy towns tell tales?

Looking in the deep blue patience
Of your eyes, I falter, losing
All my words of consequence
Everything I meant to say

CHORUS

In the wind that blows around
The hills, I thought I felt your smile
Gather up my words again
And try to ask what you were thinking

CHORUS

I used to be a singer-songwriter until I divorced my guitarist. I had an okay voice; my guitarist played a semi-finger-picking style and wasn’t very disciplined. We were never going to be anything but those folksingers who attended open mic occasionally. But I loved the words.

Most of what I wrote was about crushes I got while spending my daily life in a small town in the foothills of the Catskills. I had lots of crushes; I have lots of songs to reclaim.

I can’t sing now; I’ve lost my voice in all but my talking range. I suppose I could get it back with practice, but it’s hard having the heart to practice when reminded of how much I’ve lost.

I started to sing this, and I could sing without obstruction to my voice, although it was not as strong as before. The lost is not so lost anymore.

Dissecting Gaia’s Hands and Learning Nothing Yet.

Maybe Gaia’s Hands wasn’t the best book to enter to Kindle Scout.

I’ve proofread it, demolished it, paired it with another book, trimmed that back so that I have two instead of four main characters, re- and re-proofed it, and still when I look at it I wonder if it’s a solid novel.

I’ve never known what to do with it. I love its plot lines — discovering one’s mystical abilities, a convincingly menacing pattern of harassment to one of the main characters, a taboo May-December romance (taboo because the woman is older than the man). I adore its characters — a talented botany professor, a precocious young poet, his best friend the surly engineer, the refined yet hangdog lab assistant Ernie, enigmatic waitress Annie, and even the smooth dean and hostile department chair Jeanne has to face.

But I’ve never known what to do with the book. The scenes almost come off as vignettes, with the connections between strands unapparent at first. The plot is subtle, not as action-packed. The characters carry it, but I always wonder if the book starts too slowly. I edit it again and feel something’s not quite there, I don’t know what the “something” is. With all the improvement I’ve done in writing for the past six years, there’s something in Gaia’s Hands too quirky for prime time.

Gaia’s Hands strikes me as a YA, except the male protagonist is too old at 20, the female protagonist is way too old at 50, and there’s not enough angst. (For all the harm Twilight did to women’s expectations of men — it’s okay to be a stalker? Really? — it did angst exceedingly well. And it sold.)

I look at Gaia’s Hands and feel like it’s missing something. Despite my greater level of experience, my writing skills, better knowledge of writing dynamics — my writing is missing something, and I can’t tell what. Maybe my style, my “voice” isn’t acceptable. I don’t know, but I wish I could figure it out.