on coming home

view of the Akershus Fortress and the Oslo fjord

I've been home for five days now, after a three-week journey through northern Europe. I wrote a brief reflection on the trip as I sat in JFK before the final leg of the trip home, before the vacation had worn off and the jet lag had set in. I'd like to share it, and some more pictures, here.

where does your inspiration come from?

As a writer, I'm always looking for inspiration for my next story: news stories, friends' stories, overheard conversations, dreams, family stories, "what if" questions. I get a lot of ideas, and a lot of ideas get shelved. But I've never been inspired the same way twice - I can't look for inspiration to come the way it came before. Each story I've written began from a unique, unexpected seed.

One story stands out in particular, a story inspired from my incurable people-watching. I can clearly trace it to the moment in time when I thought, "I want to write a story about that." Now, probably five years later, it is "The Yellow Pantsuit," the title story of my thesis:

About five years ago, around this time of year, I sat in a sandwich cafe with my husband for lunch one Saturday - the kind of upscale fast-food cafe that's intentionally plopped in the middle of a busy shopping district. Lots of wealthier people shop there. We were just there for the food.

Anyway, I watched an older couple enter the store and order their lunch. Their demeanor toward each other and everybody else struck me as telling. They were aloof, entitled - yet domestically aloof with each other, by which I assumed they'd been together a long time.

The husband - a tall, thin, elegant man - sat down at a table as far away from other patrons as possible, while the wife - short, round, and ostentatious - ordered at the counter. She brought their food to the table and did all the talking, serious and curt, while he did a lot of staring out the window. All of a sudden, she began to choke on her sandwich, and he seemed unfazed. Not a hint of surprise, or concern - he didn't move fast to do anything for her. He eventually held her hand and continued eating and looking out the window while she sputtered and coughed and turned shades of red. After a few minutes, she recovered on her own and continued her monologue, both of them acting like nothing at all had happened.

Their behavior was so surprising to me, so fascinating, that I couldn't forget it. I began writing by imagining myself in the husband's place. What was going through his mind while he stared out the window and pretty much ignored his wife and everyone else? What does he think of his wife? What did he think of her when they met, and why has that changed? The story has gone through several revisions, but it began and remains as his inner monologue while he watches his wife order and eat and talk and choke and talk again. It's my advisor's favorite story, and it was a lot of fun to imagine and write and revise, which is a rare gift in my experience.

I'm always curious about the genesis of other people's creative ideas - whether it's writing, web design, photography, sewing, music, etc. In what ways do creative ideas occur to you? What do you do to foster and watch and listen for inspiration?

Google Tunes

I get pleasure out of little things.

Like being able to play and record music on today's Google Doodle in honor of what would be Les Paul's 96th birthday.

Did you know you can play the strings using your keyboard? I realize this isn't EARTH-SHATTERINGLY creative, but this is what the Google Doodle guitar sounds like when you type the alphabet: http://goo.gl/doodle/cFfV

Go record your own and share the link in the comments. Have fun!

running with blinders

After a spotty winter's season, I just started joining my husband about every other day for a short 2.5 to 4 mile run. He's run all winter because he has a gym available at work, and on top of that, he's just faster than I am. But bless his heart, he's run at my pace with me.

So on one of our runs this week, I felt my legs start to drag early on. I saw myself slow down, as measured by the passing mailboxes. I looked ahead at the long climb coming up, and I wanted to quit. My breaths became sharp and wheezy. Andrew put his hand between my shoulder blades and gave me a little turbo boost up half of the hill. Coming down the other side, partly out of exhaustion, I closed my eyes. I asked Andrew to warn me of any low-hanging branches or mailboxes, or, say, cars I should look out for. I was just going to coast down and return some oxygen to my rubbery legs.

It felt good, so I kept running with my eyes closed, or otherwise open so the only slit of pavement I could see was what was right in front of my feet.

I was surprised to find that a little bit later, I hardly noticed I'd been climbing another hill (granted, they're not that steep around here, but long). With my eyes closed, I'd maintained a faster pace, my breathing was much easier, and my legs didn't feel as weak. By tuning out all the discouraging cues around me--the hill coming up, the passing mailboxes--I felt much more zen and I finished better off than I started.

The only way I could describe it to Andrew is that by closing my eyes, my world is forced to shrink into the only things that matter--the mechanics of my legs and upper body and my breathing (in-two-steps-out-two-steps), and my mind hones in on the musicality of running.

I'm going to make running shades that block everything out except for the two feet of road right in front of you and market them as "Zen Running Glasses," or "Running Blinders," (like for horses?). How do you think they will sell?

Justice Like Jewelweed

Impatiens capensis, in North America, grows in roadside ditches, or near stream beds, and the internet claims you can use Orange Jewelweed as a remedy for poison ivy. Why this plant is really cool: the seed pods burst when you touch them--this is known as "explosive dehiscence," or in common vernacular "spreading its wild oats."

I know just enough plant biology to be dangerous. Andrew knows I often stop along our walks to examine an unusual plant up close. One early fall day in college, we walked along a quiet Indiana road nearby. I had just learned about jewelweed in class, and I stopped to show him the delicate orange flowers. He leaned in close to look, just as I lightly squeezed one of the seed pods. The plant jettisoned its seeds several feet at the slightest touch. 

The Germans call the plant Springkraut. We also call it "touch-me-not," although, I don't know why you wouldn't want to.

It's nature's bubble wrap!

This plant's existence refreshes my soul. I wouldn't want to tame it or bring it inside or plant it in a garden. Impatiens capensis belongs where hikers can come along and find themselves lost for a little while enjoying the tiny flowers' orchid-like beauty, and in helping the next generation of Orange Jewelweed get its start.

What I learned about "evangelism" when I stopped eating animals

Last July, I stopped eating animal meat. About a month and a half ago, I started to phase out of my diet anything that comes from an animal. I don't advertise. I try not to label myself or accept labels. At the office when someone raves about the brownies someone brought in, I don't say, "Well, I can't eat them. I'm vegan." At church potlucks, when someone says, "Mmmm, these mini-wieners are delicious!" I don't reply with, "Gross, do you realize what you're eating?" I usually smile and say something like, "They look really good!" Because, in reality, the brownies and the wieners probably are very tasty.

Unless someone passes me a plate and I have to say "no thank you," and then again, more emphatically, "No, really. Thank you, but I'll pass," and then they ask "Why?", I don't bring it up. Why? Because going around telling Southerners I don't eat animals usually makes them feel uncomfortable. To be fair, not everybody feels uncomfortable, just more people than would if I were in Massachusetts or Oregon, say. It's just not as receptive an audience here.

From The Vegan Traveler

But if they ask, I tell them. I start with my own journey. "I want to live consistently with my conscience, to be as compassionate to all creation as I can be. I felt like in our culture we arbitrarily chose some animals like cats and dogs to make parts of our families and some animals like chickens and pigs to treat as a product." If they ask about milk and eggs, I share some of what I know about how they treat the cows and chickens and how they end up when they stop producing their cash crop. 

I tell them my reasons are not only for animal welfare, but also for our health. I don't feel confident in the health value of eggs from unhealthy chickens that don't get any exercise and get pooped on from the hens in cages above them. It's also not good for the environment to have heaps of methane-producing manure from the dairy farms. I know people need to make a living, and I know there are farmers who are just doing the best they can to feed their families. But in my opinion, industrialized animal farming seems overwhelmingly unhealthy--in other words, any good that an individual farmer tries to do is offset by the farmers who go with the status quo. And as a consumer, I can never tell who's being honest, healthy, humane, and who's posing, or who's doing it the way they've just always done it. So it's easier not to buy into the industry at all.

Even if I know the animal was raised in a healthy way, I've decided "If I wouldn't kill this animal for food unless (maybe) I was absolutely starving and needed it to survive, I won't make someone else do the dirty deed for me." The only thing I would consent to eat is my parents' chickens' eggs. They live out their full days, they are not starved and forced into molting to produce more eggs, they are not kept awake with artificial lighting to produce more eggs, they are not killed when they stop laying as many eggs. They wander through the yard, scratching in the dirt, dust-bathing, eating insects, playing (yes, chickens play!), and looking forward to when my dad comes out with the scrap pail from the kitchen. But alas, my parents live states away from me.

From Unity College Maine

So back to my point: When people ask, I tell them my story. I have realized that it doesn't matter how much a person knows or doesn't know about the process, or how compassionate they are at heart; each person must come to a realization for themselves. Obviously, I wish everybody would choose not to eat animal products. But that's not anything I can convince anyone to do. 

From Animal Blawg

I knew "the facts" for years and I have always been a tender-hearted animal lover (who even at a not-so-young age cried when one of my parents accidentally ran over a squirrel). Yet I didn't change until some invisible spark ignited the passion in me to go all the way in following my conscience, to stop "not thinking about" the whole journey an animal with intelligence and personality was forced to take to end up on my plate. I had to come to that on my own. I'm sure if someone had tried to argue me into it, I would have resisted and it might have taken me longer to get here, if at all.

Usually, when they ask and I share my story in this way, people are gracious about my choice not to eat meat. This will not always be the case.

Take a recent Facebook "conversation." A sweet friend of mine, who doesn't know (I don't think) that I'm vegan, joked, "If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?" I laughed. I commented. "I'm made out of meat, too, and yet you wouldn't eat me... Or would you?" I may have even thrown in one of those sideways-wink emoticons. She responded, "not unless I was starving to death... then I might consider it. lol!!" I was enjoying our half-serious but respectful light-hearted banter.

But a mutual acquaintance took the whole meat-eating agenda and ran with it. He practically had a cow (pun intended) that I said what I said. "Oh Sarah, PLEASE! Really?" He posted other jokes about eating animals. "There is a place for all of God's animals. On my plate right next to the potatoes." "I'm a member of PETA--people for the eating of tasty animals." A few more people chimed in with lols and other meat-jokes.

I can take a joke, like my friend's about animals being made out of meat. I know her, and she knows me, and we respect each other. But that someone else would respond with mockery at the mere hint that I may choose not to eat meat--I felt like I was doing someone grievous wrong by not taking advantage of all the tasty critters out there. 

I chose not to respond to the guy at all. I could have gone all pedantic, or worse, polemical, and tried to use Facebook as a platform to "educate" (or "witness to") people on why eating meat is not necessarily a given in our diets and to consider the harm it does. That was certainly my temptation (and maybe I'm using this blog as the outlet). I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to raise awareness of the benefits of going meat-free. The good news of vegetarianism! But it wouldn't have been received. Not by someone who has clear and strong opinions on the matter, from an acquaintance with whom he has little background on which to base any respect. 

What it comes down to--in any kind of "evangelism" whether it's about religion, politics, sports, or TV shows--is not to respond with incredulity at someone else's opinions: "Really? I can't believe you think that!" Or, "If people only knew..." (implying people are dumb). Don't flaunt your convictions in other people's faces like a martyr, "I can't eat that cake. I'm vegan." 

But rather lay low, go with the flow, act (gasp!) normal, and if people ask, tell your own story in ways that won't make your listeners feel like you think you're better than them or know more. Frame things positively, in terms of your lightbulb moments, your revelations, your hope that through these you are becoming a better you.

Playing Literary Catch-Up: Or, Year 2011 Reading Resolution

Most of my life feels like "catching up." I don't know that I'm trying to catch up to anybody else. The feeling I have is of trying to catch up to where I should be had I known what I know now. Ie., had I had siblings my age, had I gone to a public school, had I started college as an English major, had I not been afraid to talk to boys in high school, had I been comfortable in my own skin at an earlier age.

I wouldn't wish away the path my life has taken, the particular timing of everything. But when I do discover something about myself or about the world, or about the fiction we make of the world, I feel this urgency to make up for lost time.

In regards to books, I feel I am racing to make up for approximately 16 years of ignorance. I feel like one of the least well-read students in my creative writing program. Not that I hadn't read a lot of books since the age of four, when I purportedly taught myself to read. But I grew up amidst a culture of poor taste in books, music, and movies. To be fair, I'm sure I was free to read wider, read better, but I just didn't know. I didn't have anybody around me to show me the way, to say "You should read Alice Munro" or J.D. Salinger, or Raymond Carver, or Sylvia Plath, or Grace Paley. Additionally, if they had, I probably would have discounted half of the suggestions after running them through my particularly Puritanical filter. Swearing? Any suggestion of sex? Dark and unwholesome themes? Forget it. Again, I don't remember anybody telling me these were the standards I should have, I just conglomerated these ideas through bits and pieces of overheard conversations and articles in Focus on the Family magazines.

Disclaimer and apology if I offend some of my friends here, but I'm gonna be honest. My idea of great fiction used to come from authors like Janette Oak, Francine Rivers, Lori Wick, Robin Jones Gunn, Lauraine Snelling. Feel-good Christian romances. Frank Peretti for the occasional suspense/thriller. Thank God I never could get into the Left Behind series. One author I don't regret spending time reading is C.S. Lewis: Till We Have Faces, Out of the Silent Planet, and a nostalgic favorite series of mine, The Chronicles of Narnia. He's kind of in a category with T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, etc.

Halfway through college, I realized that I was reading fluff for the most part. I started reading more world literature, more classic fiction. When I switched majors from biology to English, I dove headfirst into a world of great, mysteriously rich, heretofore unknown modern fiction. Raymond Carver, Sylvia Plath, Andrea Barrett, Louise Erdrich, Lorrie Moore. After college, I kept trying to play catch-up. But my pace slowed considerably. Till I started grad school--then the fun really began!

I read at least 29 books in 2010. Probably more. This list also includes poetry, non-fiction, and books on writing, but still, I don't think I've read as much since high school. Here's the list. Not all of these were required for school, either. I put an asterisk by the books that met me at a time when I particularly needed to read them. For whatever reason, they changed the way I thought about fiction and writing, about personal history, about the world.

*Adrienne Kennedy The People Who Led to My Plays
Norma Jean and Carole Darden Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine
Grace Paley The Collected Stories
William Zinsser On Writing Well
Mary Oliver Poetry Handbook
A.J. Verdelle The Good Negress
Laura Esquivel Like Water for Chocolate
Bonni Goldberg Room to Write
Dorothea Brande Becoming a Writer
*Lydia Davis The Collected Stories
*Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible
Amy Hepel The Collected Stories
Brenda Ueland If You Want to Write
Joyce Carol Oates Black Water
*Alice Munro Open Secrets
*Lorrie Moore Birds of America
J.D. Salinger Nine Stories
*Andrea Barrett Servants of the Map
Charles Baxter A Relative Stranger
Mary Gaitskill Don't Cry
Lorraine Lopez Homicide Survivor's Picnic
*Ernest Hemingway The Nick Adams Stories
*Willa Cather My Antonia
Eugene O'Neill The Iceman Cometh and *Long Day's Journey Into Night
Sam Shepard *Buried Child, True West, and Curse of the Starving Class
Natasha Trethewey Native Guard...

...Not to mention other books and stories I've read that I don't have a record of...

I plan to read even more in 2011. I've already started through the Collected Stories of Carson McCullers, which so far deserves an asterisk as well!

Now if I could just catch up on all the music I missed out on through the 90s and early 2000s when I was busy listening to oldies and christian rock. Any suggestions?