Truth

Meeting my nephew, Jonas Elliot Landa

Joining the virtual blog tour

I've always loved to travel. Even if I'm not boarding a plane at the moment, I'm thankful to Emily Breunig for tagging me in a virtual blog tour in progress. Emily, who was a fiction colleague of mine at St. Mary's College of California, is a writer, teacher, editor and self-proclaimed cat wrangler who now can count an adorable puppy amongst her companions. She's had stints in China and Sweden and currently lives with her husband and menagerie in the South Bay. I'm happy to count her among my writing community.

A snippet from her novel "A Ghost at the Edge of the Sea":

The plane over the Pacific shuddered and dipped. Its wings flexed, and the metal groaned as the passengers groaned. From his position in seat 46B, Will couldn't tell which sound was which. He clutched at his armrests, his seatbelt cutting into his stomach with every jolt. The flight attendants had been strapped into their seats or at least ten minutes now, or twenty; he couldn't move to check the time, and outside, it was still dark. The woman next to him gasped and grabbed his hand as the screens showing the film flickered, then went dark, and Will held his breath, waiting for the oxygen masks to tumble into his lap.

"At least," the woman said softly, without letting go of Will's hand, "at least I know where I'm going."

Will raised his eyebrows at this, and then turned to her and gave her the best smile he could manage. "Shanghai still, I hope. Unless they've changed it to some small Pacific island."

The woman giggled and shook her head. Her blond bangs brushed at her eyes with the movement. "No, that's not what I meant," she said, pressing down with her hand and driving his own into the cracking gray plastic. "I mean after that, if this plane gives up. What's your name?"

"Will," he replied, cautiously, unable to come up with another to give her.

"Pray with me, Will," she said. "Pray that we reach whatever destination God has set out for us, whether it's of this earth or not."

As defined by another St. Mary's fiction colleague, Rashaan Alexis Meneses, who tagged Emily, the definition of a blog tour is as follows:

The “virtual blog tour” is an excellent, friendly way for writers, artists, and other creative folks to bring attention to their own work as well as that of others. It begins with an invitation from another artist or writer. Then in your blog you acknowledge the person who invited you, answer four given questions about your work and your process, and then invite three other people to participate. These people then do the same thing, referring their blog readers to the blogs of three more people, and so on. It’s a wonderful sort of “pyramid scheme” that’s beneficial for everyone: the artists and writers as well as the readers of their blogs. We can follow links from blog to blog and then we can all learn about different kinds of creative process and also find new writers and artists we may not have known about before.

So without further ado, let's launch into the questions:

1) What are you currently working on?

I've just sent my novel, THREESOME, to my agent. THREESOME is an account of a couple whose daughter was killed six months prior and who, in order to try to cope with the aftermath, travel from Columbia, Missouri to Gualala, California. Having done that, I've been writing and submitting a ton of personal essays. Once I've gotten that out of my system, I'm going to start on PIRATE BOB, a first-person narrative from the perspective of a shelter dog.

2) How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I push the envelope until it tears. Once you get inside, you won't believe what you'll find.

3) Why do you write/create what you do?

I can't not do it. Some things need to be said, and they're usually the things no one talks about. I've always wanted to walk that edge, because while you risk falling and breaking your ass, you get a hell of a good view in the bargain.

4) How does your writing/creative process work?

Eight and a half weeks ago, it changed radically. I had weight-loss surgery and am down 35 pounds. Along with this came a rush of energy that has enabled me to write as much as 2000 or more words a day, which is awesome given that I was barely managing 500 words daily (if that) before. I write in cafes in the morning and at home in the afternoon, usually with music playing and with copious Facebook breaks. I type like a demon. If I'm not breaking my keyboard, I'm not doing it right.

And now to tag four others! Here we go:

Lita Kurth (MFA Rainier Writers Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University) has had work accepted or published in FjordsReview, Redux, Raven Chronicles, Main Street Rag, Tikkun, NewVerseNews, Blast Furnace, eliipsis…literature and art, Compose, Tattoo Highway, Composite Arts, Verbatim Poetry, the Santa Clara Review, Vermont Literary Review, and others. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her CNF “This is the Way We Wash the Clothes,” presented at the Working Class Studies conference, 2012, won the 2014 Diana Woods Memorial Award (summer-fall 2014) and appeared in Lunchticket 2014. She contributes to Tikkun.org/tikkundaily, TheReviewReview.net, and classism.org. In 2013, she co-founded the Flash Fiction Forum, a reading series in San Jose.

William Yelles started Daily Possible to help you silence the world’s alarm with the wake up call to infuse your life and the lives of others with meaning and magic. New content each day provides solutions spiritual and practical. As a coach and consultant, William provides the right amount of inspiration, encouragement and passion to drive successful results. Learn more at dailypossible.com. 

Tracie Handley is a Southern girl who, after years as a trial consultant, decided to chase her dream of being a writer -- a paid writer, that is. Working as a freelancer, she's written articles for AOL Travel, HuffingtonPost, Gadling Travel, Paw Nation, and numerous other outlets. She has one book in print, Divine Inner Vision: Living Life in Focus, which she co-created with lifelong friend, and extraordinary photographer, Sherri Rudder-Smith. Currently,she is collaborating with Sherri on a book which focuses on autism from the perspective of families who live with it every day, and, as always, she's chasing freelance opportunities.

Northern California Family Dog Cancerversary event

I volunteer at Family Dog, and founder Angela Lucia Padilla was celebrating twelve cancer-free years. (Go Angela!) This picture was taken with me and Xena, one of Angela's amazing dogs. I love it and made it my Facebook profile pic.

More on the second step

From the OA book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions:

Compulsive overeaters are often people of extremes. We overreacted to slight provocations while ignoring the real issues in our lives. We were obsessively busy, then we were 'wiped out' and unable to act. We were wildly excited then deeply depressed. We saw the whole world in black and white. If we couldn't have it all, we didn't want any; if we couldn't be the best, we didn't want to play the game.

So, then, overeating is a symptom? That seems so much like a duh, ten-four good buddy!, but I don't think I realized it until right now. In going to these meetings, we're not necessarily tackling just the symptom. We're looking at the cause.

I'm not saying I'm an OA cultist. My father-in-law went through that for a period and I know it was destructive not only to him but to his family. I go to one meeting a week, not six. That said, I know I can be an obsessive and compulsive person. I can also be bipolar -- either really up or really, really not. This has been the most heavy-duty period of working on myself that I can remember. Let's see where it gets me.

And more Awakening Joy

"When you slow down and pay careful attention to what is happening inside you and around you, a new world opens up. Everything comes alive. In fact, you may notice that surges of joy arise in you spontaneously, even when nothing special is happening, and even in the midst of difficult times. ... With mindfulness we can appreciate that every moment of life, whatever our experience, is precious. When we live in this way, a certain kind of vitality comes into our lives."

So if I pay attention to what's going on right now, what do I find?

I'm at Cafe Trieste at Dwight and San Pablo. There's a decent-sized crowd here, mostly either people alone or in pairs. I just switched away from this blog to check my email. I'm so used to doing that, but doesn't it take me out of the moment? See, there, I did it again. I've conditioned myself to jump into the future -- what messages have I gotten -- instead of just experiencing the present. Why is that so damn hard? I'm listening to Jim Croce's "Photographs and Memories: His Greatest Hits." The song that's playing now is "Rapid Roy" (that stock-car boy; he the best driver in the land) and I just stopped to put that on Facebook. I'm always switching back and forth. I'm not sure if that makes me happy or not. Sometimes it does. There is a guy in a blue shirt ordering his drink right now. He just took the honey and asked that it be added. Or maybe he added it himself, I couldn't see. For some reason I just thought about that old saw that always goes around Facebook (see, Facebook again): Be kind to those who you meet, for everyone is fighting a battle you may know nothing about. That can be easier some times than others.

Outside it is gray and cloudy as it has been all day. People are coming in and out of this cafe the way thoughts do in and out of your head all the time. What draws people here? I know for me I get lonely, even with the dogs, and need to get out in the world. I've always worked in cafes. I just took a picture to add to this post so that I can visually remember, even though I always know what Trieste looks like. I've been here millions of times. Okay, maybe just thousands. Hundreds, definitely.

Thinking about the second step

The OA second step is: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. First off, I don't see myself as insane, but okay, I understand what that means. As I wrote yesterday, I've really been hedging on this whole Higher Power thing, but then I went to the East Bay Meditation Center half-day workshop, where they talked about Nirvana. In part, Nirvana is defined as release, a liberation. Mushim brought up the idea of a clenched fist holding a desired object. In Nirvana, the fist naturally opens and its contents fall out with no rancor.

Could that be the meaning of recovery?

Nirvana is also, according to Thich Nhat Hanh, the release of notions, of the ideas of the way things should be. In accordance with this definition, does that mean that my Higher Power is the absence of these notions? Is my Higher Power within me?

Wild wacky stuff.