Tip

If you can, watch people enjoy eating something you cooked. It's the best.

Why I write; also, Why I don't

Do you know, I have so much terrible poetry stored up in me from my childhood; and, do you know, it still affects me, sometimes, more than some of the excellent poetry I have loved and learned since then?

I have High Ideas about art--I would rather not write at all than not write as well as I want to (I am understanding how stupid that is)-- but they are not right ideas. Is it better to produce something that meets my own personal standards of brilliance or to produce something that affects people, that stays with them, however lowbrow it may be? I can't decide.

On the one hand, I feel personally compelled not to contribute to the mass of terrible writing that is already available for consumption. A recent trip to B&N resulted in an hour of bemused disgust in viewing sequel after sequel of Pride and Prejudice, including but not limited to Mr. Darcy's Sister; Mr. Darcy's Daughters; Mr. Darcy and Me; Elizabeth's Betrothal; The Shades of Pemberley; Mr. Darcy, Vampyre; The Wooing of Elizabeth, equivalent in my mind to a sort of literary prostitution. Poor Jane. Of course you can imagine something that's already been imagined. Of course you can warp what's already been created. If you can't write or imagine or "make up" yourself, that is. I don't think loathing is too strong a word for what I feel for this sort of "literature". I hate it. I think it could all be destroyed and the world would be a better place.

The same is true, to an even greater extent, with fiction marketed as "Christian." I pick on the Jane Austen fanfics because those are currently saturating the market. But as a Christian, and as one who, if not a writer herself, at least appreciates writing, that stuff makes me alternately writhe with rage and howl with laughter. It also makes me squirm with discomfort. My great fear is that if I were to begin writing, really do it, actually attempt the presumptuous act of fictive creation--that it would end up like that writing I judge and mock and scorn.

So I don't write. I know something of my capabilities: I've finished a few short stories and memoir pieces. It is rarely a satisfactory experience. I want to write better than I do, and of course, the way to improve is through writing more. Practice. But some people practice--and practice--and practice--and never achieve anything better than Mr. Darcy's Harem.

On the other hand, however I may rail against them, those books have found an audience. People who read them are entertained. I don't just want to entertain people. Would I be false to my ideals to produce and share writing that I am not proud of? That is not up to my standard of what is Good Writing?

Or, worse--could I stand to produce anything and have it ignored? Could I stand to fail? As it stands, no. I can't. I have, apparently, an imaginary reputation to protect.

It remains to be seen how I will handle this. I have a convenient collection of empty notebooks. Maybe it's time I began to fill them, to see what I'd have at the end of it.

Brittle

O hollow hallowed bones,

So light, and lightly flung

Away, nested in flesh

And feather, fear and fight:

O breathless air,

In calcified traps concealed,

Never to nourish

The red blood, starved--

Where do you live

When flight stops

And the broken laws ascend?

You wait in caverns,

Through echoes of living drums,

For the ringing stillness.

Only rest within these walls.

No explosive without

Is known in sealed serenity.

Unless--fractured--

Exposed, unlocked, maimed--

Done to decay, gentle

After violent life. One fall

For many flights,

O hollowed holy heart-in-hand

You were never known

To live, til life were not.

Credible

Tonight a doctor told me I was one of the most responsible people he's ever met. I'm going to use this to batter the voice in my head that says "you're slacking" for the rest of my life. A real live doctor!

Unrelated Items of the Day

I'm happiest when I'm singing. (not performing.)

In candid, honest self-evaluation, I see that I'm not fiery or passionate. I'm obsequious and careful, looking out to make sure I squeeze through life with as little of the following as possible: 1. effort 2. discomfort 3. mayonnaise (I don't like it).

Started my final semester of school (as far, at least, as I know) today. Taught two classes. Not wide-eyed freshmen this time: cynical juniors and seniors, in varying business majors, who will learn (I will make them) how to write appropriate, clear, coherent emails, memos, and cover letters. Boring? Yes. BUT I made a few of them laugh today (I was younger than they thought I would be) and also I am pretty sure I'm the Hot Teacher. I definitely got checked out. Foolish boys. I will wield my beauty to make you use correct APA formatting. (Ugh, APA formatting.)

Got home tonight and took out the trash and was accosted by my neighbor. Understand this about my neighbors: they are a family of five-- mom, dad, daughters-- who moved here from New York so the parents could attend Bible school. The oldest daughter, 15, is out of control, and the middle one is right there with her. The mom has begun clinging to me and my roommates with a sort of determined desperation, since we are, from her perspective, what she wants her daughters to be.

Lex, Vic and I have all tried to spend time with them. We've prayed with them and for them, hosted movie nights and baking parties. Sometimes more enthusiastically than other times. We're all busy. We all have full-time lives and these girls have problems that go beyond an after-school special sort of fix.

Today the two oldest girls ran away after fighting with their mother. Not the sort of running away that entails planning and packing--they ran out in a snowstorm without coats or shoes. I prayed with Cathy (mom) and washed the dishes and cleaned the bathroom while she waited for the cops and cried. I imagined giving the girls a piece of my mind when they came back home, teaching them to respect their mother, inspiring them to change like in all movies about rebellious or under-privileged high-schoolers ever. Instead I had to leave to pick Vic up from work. As I write this I don't know whether or not they're home yet. I scrubbed the bathtub because I didn't know what else to do, except keep praying.

I can't do anything for this family, even though I can identify several problem spots. The husband doesn't back up his wife on discipline, and her discipline, such as it is, is erratic and tends to be little more than shouting and complaining. Over the past few months she's come over a few times, looking to us for guidance. No parents are perfect, and those girls are theirs. I can't step in and try to fix it. I know some of what needs to change, but I can't dispense child-rearing advice to a woman twice my age. All I can do is pray that those girls come home. That they know the Lord. That they allow Him to change their hearts. And that I allow Him to use me to minister to them in any way I can. To be candid, I would rather not. These sorts of situations make me intensely uncomfortable. But their well-being, and their need, trumps my comfort. Time to get out of the bubble.

I don't know how to get through to them. But I have to trust that the conclusion of my relationship with this family depends on Christ.

Bring them home safely, Father.

Postscript

I say the same kinds of things on here, over and over again. Be original, Colleen.

That can be my final resolution.

2011

Something I thought of tonight:

I'm in my 20s. I will be in my 30s. (God willing.)

And then my 40s.

50s.

60s.

70s.

80s? (If I avoid the hereditary pitfalls of heart disease and cancer.)

23 years of it are gone, and they aren't coming back. I find myself thinking and planning and dreaming of "what I'm going to do when I grow up" as if I'm not here, living it, day by day, minute by minute. That's it. No do-overs.

Sometimes I have thought of this and been uncomfortable, and afraid, but now I am excited. Curious. Piqued. Oddly enough, secure. Not secure in definitions, or plans, but only in the fact that Life is here, and I am in it, and I'm not in control.

This Christmas has been wonderful, if not strictly Christmasy. I'm going back to school tomorrow, to teach classes I'm unprepared for and to pick up my freshly fixed car and to hug my roommates. I'll be finishing my Masters degree and missing out on my nephew's first steps and first words. I'll be helping plan a bunch of weddings and researching Life After School.

I'm not ready for it, but somewhere along the line that just stopped mattering to me quite so much. All I can do is what I know to do; the Lord will work out the rest.

So resolutions?

Discipline (Weddings! also, avoiding heart disease?)

Follow-through (no more using realized hangups as excuses to continue in them)

Prudence (financially. Hello, Sallie Mae, we are going to be friends.)

Welcome, welcome, Newest Year.

(oh and PS. 61 posts for 2010! somewhere around thanksgiving I stopped writing on here, and in my journal, and pretty much everywhere, but I don't even care. final resolution: to write because I wish to write, and when I wish to write, and to neither force nor deny the impulse. huzzah!)