Lewis Carroll's took lots of beautiful photographs.

 

Alexandra ‘Xie’ Kitchin, photographed by Lewis Carroll

I am still thinking on the past.

 Today I realized that I only live 140 miles from where I was born.  I am still thinking on the past, though not too much, and not with nostalgia or dreariness. I just wanted to find a map to see how far it was since I might drive that way. It's exactly 140 miles from my front door. But the roads are horrific and it's over a two hour drive. I could take Old Number 1 and drive through the boonies aka the Scenic Route. Laughing. I do want to go at least a few more times. But I would like to go to my grandmother's little town first. Take photos. For research. It's a 121 mile trip one way. And the roads are not crowded. But still over two hours to drive. Right through the heart of the Delta. I need to make that trip.

I made a strange observation about myself this week.

This week, of all weeks (!), I have taken notice of my memories on FB and I started looking back, etc. and I was thinking, seriously thinking, that I have made an arc like a character in a book, a wide but serious arc since 2013. I no longer read the same kind of books, I no longer watch the same kind of TV, I no longer paint the same way or even write the same way or think the same way about some issues. I no longer value the same things. I have probably changed more as a person in the last eight years, than I did the twenty-five years previously. And I can't account for it. How it happened. It's not age. I wish it were age. And it was steadying happening to me and I was totally unaware. Oh, well... I am not sure it means anything. Just an observation.

Shakespeare is still one of the most important writers of all time.

In honor of Shakespeare. I write in books all the time, but not in this collection of his plays. All of these were textbooks for a class. Shakespeare was a master of rhetoric devices. Syntax lovers admire this and often read him for this alone. Harold Bloom believed he invented the modern human mind. I agree. He is still one of the most important writers we know and an author everyone should experience. Happy Birthday.

Johnny was a good friend and the very best of husbands.

 Johnny.

The neurotic is always demanding to be heard.

“The extinction

or crushing of demand

through satisfaction

cannot happen

without killing desire.”

— Lacan

(But desire is the opposite of death.) mjh

There is a cost to living and I've paid over and over.

 

“The best thing I ever did was not swim back to the boat. But where was I to go?” — Deborah Levy

Imagine your "defined and comfortable life" as the boat and suddenly, for whatever reason, you are out of the boat and in deep water swimming and you realize that not swimming back to the boat is the right thing to do. But where do you go? How will you define yourself? What or who or where will comfort you? Will you drown? These are the things some people CHOOSE to face. They usually do it after a crisis aka chaos. Most people will swim for the boat. But not Deborah Levy and not me. We float, I think.

In a garden, one learns a lot about life outside one.

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is a moment when you notice that light in your mind has changed.

“She lived her art. She looked like her art. She had the vocabulary of art." —George Lange on Francesca Woodman

So, I am moving my writing stuff to a working studio. I have ordered a desk for the computer. It's an art studio, too. It's at the other end of the house. I bought a bookcase for the books I will need while writing, and can rotate them accordingly. I had two working studios when Johnny died and then I moved into my bedroom after that. It's never really felt right. But I think I was comforted by it, because Johnny was gone and the house was empty and I was so damn alone. (And very sick. Emotionally and physically ill for nearly a year and a half after Johnny died.) Johnny died. I keep repeating that. And I came unmoored. The house was uncanny. Only one room felt safe at the time. I had to slowly reclaim myself and my house. I had to look to the future, too. I could not look back. It made no sense to look back.

I already knew by the end of 2018, that I was never going to remarry, that I was fixed in my desire and need to create things and spend the rest of my years working on my art and writing. One of the things about grieving is how we build solace and attempt to comfort ourselves. We will go the path of least resistance. That's okay, but at some time, we have to face what is really going on with us. I might have made this step earlier if Covid-19 had not struck. Or not. I will never know. But I have made it now. Being alone is not going to destroy me. I have my muses and inspirations. I have my work.

Other things I ponder, that I am no longer depressed. I am no longer a victim of any trauma, and I have known many traumas. Of course, depression will return at some point and I will be disappointed but I will deal.

Today I thought of Francesca Woodman as I made the decisions and set in motion these plans. I have been studying her work. I have been thinking of art and how best to do it. Yes, plans, plans, plans. They had been rumbling through my mind since the end of January. I became fascinated with Woodman a few years ago, her art, her use of low light and the few resources she used to do her art. That she started so young. I was once very young and an artist. I had a scholarship to college for art and instead studied Anthropology and Art History, later Biology and Psychology. I read myself through the entire 19th Century at the same time. My mother was always slightly disappointed that I did not go to Art School but she never made a plan for that. But that's another story. My sister did go to Art School and is a beautiful artist, but she also read herself through the 19th Century, too. How we both love 19th Century Literature. For much of our lives, that was our art.

Woodman's art is still very relevant. This is what I have discovered. Her low light, her delayed or long exposures are still curiously current. She captured time in a way that bothers people I think. I want to replicate her desire for the image of time. But I also want to do some photography work related to my themes. But I want to know things, new things and the things she knew.

Woodman was not a writer or storyteller in the traditional sense of being a storyteller. Her art was her "talk" and in that art, one sees trauma, too, but one does not know exactly what it is. She was vague on purpose. But I am interested in her trauma. It eventually killed her. A suicide at 22 years old is not normal. She suffered from depression. She suffered from rejection and strangely the idea that she would not succeed, all at 20 years of age. There is something odd in that predicament. She had experienced a failed love affair. But looking at her in this photo makes one wonder how such a beautiful creature could throw herself off a building.

I often look to Francesca Woodman. Because I remember being 20 years of age. In some ways, I have had to embrace my 17 year old self in order to reinvent my life and move into the future that I have left. I call it the "Wildflower" role. It's worked very well, and was born out of my CBT sessions. Before Francesca Woodman died, she experienced many good years of creating good art. My sister and I have been exchanging long discussions on art, writing, social media, politics, history, the past, and even regret. We made a list of words that we hardly ever use in our work, our diaries, and even our letters. Shame was one. Boredom another. Regret, too. I've always found regret to be a waste. Even failure is not a word I use a lot.

Art is about choosing. I've had some bad habits on choosing. It always led to delays and procrastinations. And anxiety. But it never led to self-loathing. I suppose this is why I write about Brian Molko and am interested in Francesca Woodman, why I study them outside their gorgeous creative work. Depression runs in my family. But I need to understand their self-loathing, their pain.

I am moving out of this bedroom and corner this month. By May I will be in the new rooms.

There was a moment when I noticed that the light in my mind had changed. The thing is I noticed.

When the Old Blush blooms I know Spring is truly here and Winter is behind me.

 

This is part of Eurydice by Hilda Doolittle.

Against the black

I have more fervour

than you in all the splendour of that place,

against the blackness

and the stark grey

I have more light;

and the flowers,

if I should tell you,

you would turn from your own fit paths

toward hell,

turn again and glance back

and I would sink into a place

even more terrible than this.

 At least I have the flowers of myself,

and my thoughts, no god

can take that;

I have the fervour of myself for a presence

and my own spirit for light;

and my spirit with its loss

knows this;

though small against the black,

small against the formless rocks,

hell must break before I am lost;

before I am lost,

hell must open like a red rose

for the dead to pass.

It's easy to be in the crowd, it's much harder to choose when you know the crowd is not comfortable.

“In Dante’s Limbo, the Ignavi are always waiting. Their crime in life was that they preferred to wait until everything was decided rather than commit themselves to a cause when its prospects were uncertain, and now they are condemned to wait forever in the vestibule of hell. Anyone can jump on a bandwagon. The heroes are those who got involved long before the bandwagon arrived. You have to find a cause and commit yourself fully. That’s the first step in giving meaning to your life.”

                                                             ― Michael Faust

I got the first Moderna Covid-19 vaccine yesterday.

 In what my children call a major triumph, I got my first Moderna Covid-19 vaccination yesterday at the major Walmart, a suggestion by my primary doctor since it's 1 mile from a major trauma unit. Laughing.  I have major allergy issues and have experienced two anaphylaxis events, one at nineteen years of age and one at twenty-three, both concerning shell fish. The second one only happened because my fish was contaminated by shellfish contact. Both were extremely uncomfortable and frightening experiences that I never want to repeat, even with great medical care. I also have allergies to three distinct antibiotics, so my doctor never gives me injections unless they are steroids or iron or vitamin. I don't think they give iron shots anymore in USA. They give iron infusions, but iron shots are very difficult and leave major bruises and soreness. Moderna Covid-19 leaves a very sore muscle in the upper arm, even if one has the foresight to do muscle massage. I had a small reaction to the vaccine in the first four hours, but it was only a light burning in the eyes, no swelling or puffiness or discharge, not enough to concern me, an allergy fanatic. I had a low-grade fever hours later,  but I took some Tylenol and that helped both the sore muscle and the fever. This morning I feel much better. I imagine this soreness in the arm will take some time. As someone who has had lots of needles stuck (allergy immunology) into her over the years, I am not concerned. And I am eagerly awaiting getting my second vaccination out of the way, even though I intend to stay a full half hour afterwards just out of caution. And there's that. My children are all fully vaccinated and we are all going to be happy this summer at our pool parties and trips to New Orleans.

There are some truths we do not want to know and may never admit.

The artist fixes his/her gaze on what is still hidden.

I am such a hippie.

 The other day someone was having a conversation about how different one is from high school. Of course we grow as people. We have many experiences over the years. Life shapes us. Our experiences are what we learn from. But I am still that same girl in so many ways, even as an old woman. I told my sons if I had one wish, it would be that they could know the girl I was before I was a mother. I wore Converse tennis shoes in high school, long before they were cool or even semi-cool. I wore blue jeans and tees. And yes, I wore lots of other stuff, too. Halter tops and bellbottoms. But I was always a blue jean and Converse girl. I liked sandals in the summer. These are my new green Converse, my Easter shoes. Laughing. I am wearing ankle socks because the shoes are new and I don't want blisters. I am wearing boy jeans and a Joy Division tee. I guess I will wear this "uniform" till I die. I want some dark red ones. Shades of greens and reds are my favorite colors. I had called these my "lucky shoes," but today I somehow blew a breaker in my house, killed the stove and microwave and the electrical sockets that run behind the stove. Not so lucky. I am not really superstitious but it did give me pause. I had gone out to see about my personal "will" and signing and notarizing it before coming back to the house to make my own lunch. It did not go well. Extremely unlucky, been this way since before Christmas. I hope my Covid vaccination goes well Sunday and I can come back here and say everything is all right. Oh, well...

Today, I need beautiful but simple things around me so I can endure, so here are some flowers by Dali.

 

Salvador Dalí, Fleurs, 1948

I am committed to practice.

When I first started writing professionally, I was thrown into the lion’s den, so to speak. I knew absolutely nothing about anything. I honestly don’t think I even knew how to write well. And there I was with contracts. Looking back, I realize now what a teachable moment it was, and that I was able to face challenges because I was, indeed, teachable by a very good teacher, my first agent. Over the years, I have realized that writers who are teachable are the ones who continue, not only to write, but to grow as writers. Sometimes teachable means being both self-reflexive and adaptable. BUT, rereading and making notes on Louise DeSalvo’s collection of essays this past week has given new meaning to the word, teachable. Because I think we are now talking about being creative and making choices and just practice. I don’t think there is enough emphasize on how we practice our work, how we really get from Point A to Point Z in our process. What works and what doesn’t work for us as creatives, and why something doesn’t work is really a key to our success in finishing a solid, satisfying project. DeSalvo’s book is being used along with other books on developing habits. I have very bad habits and over the years I’ve changed how I practice work, which I realize has been negative. Did you know it takes at least two and half months to develop a new habit or break an old one? And it’s hard to work on more than 3 habits at a time! Things I have learned. Keep notebooks on what I am writing and why, and the choices I make and why. Keep writing journals on content. Read my work from the beginning out loud a lot. Establish a good working process and keep to it. Divide the process into doable tasks. Develop habits to promote finishing those tasks. Take joy in process. No one really wants to hear about unknown writers’ processes. Smiling. But DeSalvo’s book is full of known and successful writers’ processes, presented in essays that show why practice is everything.

This is a truth.

“The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.”

― Ben Lerner

I am digging out.

 

Note:  I had to replace the main water pipe from house to street the week before Christmas and they dug a huge trench for the new pipe, erasing and burying rocked paths, flowerbeds, flowers, shrubs, and so forth. Today I took this Japanese Weeding Sickle with very sharp edges and began digging out the border of the original west side of my middle flowerbed. Some places were over 4 inches deep buried in heavy red clay as one can see. Then I dug out about two feet from the border, leveling off the lawn. I did this for several feet around. I call this Stage 1 of my Gardening 2021 plan. Cleaning up the mess left by the plumbing company.  I am just getting everything back in order before I start digging up plants and replanting them. I also bagged two large bags of leaves. Good exercise. I don't  live in my head when I am gardening. It is when I garden that I relax and feel a sort of freedom I don't even experience when creating. There is much to do this year. Most of my summer is already planned with gardening work and painting the house outside, a project I started last fall. I realized today that the leaves are awful. I did not pick them up in the fall as usual. Just partly and I might need help to eradicate them now. Oh, well...

I've robbed all the graves.

“The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.”

                               — William Faulkner

Summer in Greenville was hot, and this is how authors steal from their lives.

 

Most of the characters in my current project are based on real people. Even secondary characters. I took a page out of Faulkner's book and when I developed the characters, I began stealing right out of my life. And I am starting right now, rewriting my notes from the beginning of the story to clarify things and also posting this photo, which shows three characters from my story. Oh, yes, they are fictionalized, one is a composite even, but I couldn't have chosen a better photo to explain two complex relationships and one that haunts much of the story.

The center child is me. And that boy is a child I grew up with. It was a long relationship of mutual love and hate. We sort of tormented each other. He also taught me how to kiss when I was a teenager. The other little girl is my sister. We look very happy here and we were. But somehow as the years went by, we lost each other. It's easy to do. But here we are, the three of us, not yet tangled, on a hot summer day in the Mississippi Delta, playing, our lives full of sweet nothings and pets.

I am thinking of my mother and bees.

So I took some of my tax return money and bought books on The Merovingians. Although I've read about them enough to know the basics, I really needed to own the books since The Merovingian mindset is included in my current WIP. When I chose this period, I did not realize it was the least researched period in France, but then that might be why my mother suggested it. Laughing. It's difficult to believe that Mother was alive when I came up with this thorny project and that it would be years and years before I actually began the work. Another decade. Mother was an amateur Medievalist, the kind who could recite lists of Kings and Queens, their notable bio without so much as lifting a book. This is what she read all her life, it was her first love. If she had been online and computer savvy, her passwords would have been either a long list of initials for obscure medieval Popes or maybe some event in the life of the Black Prince. Today I thought of my mother and bees, and I cried. There is no mother to talk about these things. No mother to offer sage advice. No mother who had a better memory at 80 than I do now. This project is reckless I know. I may never finish it. I may finish it and know that it is a disaster. It is the most "alone" work I have ever done.

Reading Shelley makes me feel like this.

To thirst and find no fill, -- to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps, -- to pause and ponder, --
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle, --
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick . . .

                — Percy Bysshe Shelley