changing what I see

A couple nights ago on Facebook, I lamented how mushrooms seem to diminish after cooking them.  A few days before that, I posted a picture of zucchini shredded into spaghetti strands.  In between, I made some snarky remark about the Ben Affleck as Batman brou ha ha.  Those were my most popular posts in the last couple weeks.  Not that you need a play by play, but merely some context.  Because pretty much every other thing I’ve posted has been about race or civil rights.  Sometimes these things get a like… sometimes I think it is just lost in the vacuum of Facebook hullabaloo.  And maybe my opinions are hullabaloo to some people.

But that won’t stop me from speaking them.

I guess I am subject to the winds of pop culture right now.  Today we celebrate a 50 year anniversary of a speech.  An uplifting speech – one worth remembering.  One that some have declared a pinnacle of a great movement.  It’s also the easy thing to remember.  The easy thing to quote.  To like and share on Facebook.  Because it makes us feel good and hopeful.  Not sick.

Maybe that’s why less than a handful of people like these posts… because they don’t want to think about things that make them feel icky.  Like politics.  It’s just easier to not talk about it, avoid conflict, and pretend there isn’t a problem.  Or better yet, that the problem is solved because hurray!   we now live in a world where a child is not judged by the color of her skin but the content of her character.

Seriously, you think that?

Are you still with me?  Or have you turned away because this post isn’t about food or pretty landscapes or a scene from my latest novel… but okay, let’s go there.  Because I have reflected on why I feel the need to stand on a soapbox about this issue.  Not that I’m shy about soapboxes (especially in a blog or on Facebook).  But why this issue?  I’m not black or brown or anything that isn’t so pasty you can see my blue veins.  It isn’t my problem.  Am I justified to shout about it?  Because I wrote a book?  And… not even a book, really.  It’s a rough, rough, rough first draft.

That’s the thing about writing.   Especially this novel.  I have two characters who are women of color.  I was scared to write them.  Scared to do them justice, I told myself.  Scared I would use the cliché of white savior with my other narrator.  Scared I would buy into stereotypes and lack honesty.  But really… when I think about it, I think I was scared to see the world through their eyes.

These women are phantoms of my imagination… so really, how is seeing their world different from how I experience reality?  I can’t unsee my white, Catholic, small town upbringing.  But I have used that small town as a setting and put these characters there.  I imagine Bekah going into a coffee shop and getting an unsettled look of not belonging.  I imagine Agnes going to school and getting a dishonest grade on her test.  Would these things really happen?  Maybe not.  But looking at history of decades and days ago, I wouldn’t doubt the probability.  And imagining it, both the blow to one’s spirit and the necessary resilience to not react changed the way I see things now.

Does that mean I see things that aren’t there?  I think my friends might be annoyed with me sometimes.  Invoking the word racist about things that weren’t intended to be so.  Does that mean I am judging them?  But how different is that from judging someone who walks into a coffee shop and just doesn’t look like everyone else in town?  Is judging anyone the right thing to do?  No.  So, let’s talk about it.  Please.  

I speak through my writing.  And, I have no doubt this writing causes me to pay attention to things I normally wouldn’t before.   A year ago, I would probably link to the video of MLK Jr.’s famous speech and proclaim it the philosophy to which we must all strive today.  Instead I posted Langston Hughes’ words urging the reader to hold fast to dreams.

Because as much as it is a nice thought to think we can live in a colorblind society… I have to say I rather prefer that I see the color now.  In all its messy, sickening, hopeful, infuriating, surprising, promising, thought-provoking history and present day struggle.  It helps me to write better characters, to see them better, to feel for them.  Which I like to think, in turn, makes me a better, more empathetic human being.

procrastination and real life inspirations

I have a story.  Tonight I will flesh out a few more scenes after the which I can consider the first draft complete.  Of course, that’s when the work really begins.  But… I’ve realized that when writing a book, having a complete story – no matter how much is deleted or bulked up in later versions – is an important peak on which to declare victory.

Especially since it took me fifteen years to climb this mountain.

There were a few points over the last year when I wondered if it was worth writing something I started so long ago.  In a lot of ways, I have a different view of the world than I did at age 23.  I shook off a lot of naiveté, changed priorities, and… I’d like to think gained some humility even as I accomplished more.  

I mean… at age 23 I was obsessed with war movies.  I spent my days talking about weaponry to the public and bitching about museum drama in all the other hours.  I still wanted to be the star of every show.  I had dreams of fame and wealth.  I still believed success was going to be the number of zeroes in my pay stub or an engagement ring.  I was in love with Kenneth Branagh… okay, maybe not everything has changed.

But a lot has.

Except my love for this story. Some of it has changed with me.  The root of it stays the same… which is funny because I consider myself more jaded about love these days.  And yet, it really is kind of a sappy love story.  Plus.

I realize, of course, as I weave together the different chunks of manuscript from the years that I had to live to this point to make it a better story.  I better understand … and grieve… the degeneration that comes with old age.  I feel the sorrow of a major grief.  I also understand curiosity a lot more.

Even just a year ago, I questioned the cliché of my frame story.  A young-ish woman taking care of her dying grandmother.  How overtold is the story that in seeing one life take a curtain call one discovers the value of her own life?  And maybe because a year ago I hadn’t reflected much in that way, it did seem contrived… because that’s how I wrote it.

But then I started sifting through old pictures.  Some I was lucky enough to ask my grandmother about firsthand.  And then I found many more that ignited a mystery of the story behind them.

A dashing silhouette of a WWI soldier that had the message “Thinking of you,” scribbled on the back.

Two best friends caught in a spontaneous moment of joy.

A husband and wife igniting the life of a party.

 

I found myself writing these stories in my own mind.  For some I had details to come up with an idea.  And then… questions… like who was that best friend?  How long did they know one another?  Who lived longer?  Did they stay friends even after marriage?  

Or… who is the dog in so many of these pictures?

None of these questions informed my oldest narrator’s history.  Her story has remained essentially unchanged throughout the fifteen years of my writing… just some tweaking to the level of her romantic world view.  But it did make me realize that these questions are ones that may go through a woman’s mind as she looks death in the eye and contemplates the meaning, the heartache, the reward, the love of a life.  And so my present day character, Bekah, ended up getting a lot more muscle… and was much less a servant to the story of the past.

There are other serendipities that have fueled me this summer and last.  The fact I spend many nights in the house where I first conjured the idea.  Especially after summer evening walks with my dog around the neighbor’s lake.  The character in all three storylines of this book is a great old house – whose aesthetic has changed as my walks around Boston and Central Mass lead me to discover different architectures I like. But the grounds are entirely based on my neighbors’ properties, which include a lake, a once abandoned (although somewhere in the last decade it has been restored) tennis court, and two overgrown foundations in the middle of the woods.  

And lastly… maybe most importantly… or maybe incidentally… current events.  Race.  Gay marriage.  The redeeming quality of our society is that there have been baby steps and giant leaps of progress made… all while there have been retreats into a past during which the more historic scenes of this book take place.  The racial conflicts of this country have always fascinated me… at least since I was twelve and able to comprehend discrimination.  I think my father has something to do with that, as does my mother… as do the paths down which I have chosen to lead my life.  I’m less scared of the subject now.  Less intimidated to insert my imagination into a character who is a different skin color.  More willing to write the villainy that makes it real.

I don’t have a title for this book yet.  The one I had fifteen years ago is somewhat irrelevant now.  But I do have a skeleton.  And a love story. 

There's something happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear... or unclear

So if you follow any of my Facebook posts, you may have noticed I got my writing mojo back this summer.  Some of that is just sheer force of will to get a completed, readable draft by the time I turn 38 in August.  And then… some of it comes from the collision of real life events fueling my inspiration.  

It is part of that age old question, where does the writer end and the fiction begin?  Certainly, I find myself writing better scenes now that I’ve known what it is to lose my grandmother.  And while there are things these characters go through that I haven’t experienced personally (thank God), I think things I have felt and grieved and survived make it possible to write this story.

On the flip side, I find this story adds to how I feel and grieve current events.

I have a character who goes to Mississippi in 1964.  So when the Supreme Court decided a couple weeks ago that the voting rights act wasn’t necessary to enforce any longer, I thought of her.  I thought of the real life heroes who inspired me to take her on that journey… and I felt so frustrated and defeated and… sad.  

But that is, truthfully, a periphery to the main narrative(s) of my novel.  I found myself focusing more on the romance of my two parallel love stories.  That led me to one of those silly consequences of writing, developing a crush on these fictitious personalities.

One of them is a young black man.

There is a bit of a mystery -  a lot of a mystery – so I don’t want to say too much.  But I will say the news this weekend made me think of him.  Maybe because there is something about the injustice of Trayvon’s murder.    The double standard for a black man standing his ground versus a man of paler complexion.  Or maybe there is something in the photos of that young, still almost boy.  Something I’ve thought about as I write Tom.  A bit of a cavalier foolishness, the stupidity of hubris… but someone who just ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Someone’s son.  Grandson.  Brother.  Beloved.  Full of hope.  Not entirely aware of the danger it is just to be.

I suspect it is a piece of my white privilege that I can say I imagine these emotions surrounding a fictitious person.  But I think of my friends.  I think of co-workers.  I think of the students I see sing every fall and winter.  I think of the friendly faces I see while getting my iced coffee in the morning.  I think of their beloveds.  Their sons.

I think of the trigger happy white men I know and live amongst.  And… sometimes… love, too.  I created one of those in this novel, too.  Someone who makes my skin crawl.  Someone who, when I describe this book, I say is more monstrous than any vampire I conjured from imagination in my last novel.  Because, this type of monster is real.  Because we let these monsters walk amongst us.  And get away with murder.

I also think of my own fear.  My prejudices.  My conclusions to which I jump with my fictitious scheming.  What I think is justice.  The ideals that in the present day are an impossible fantasy.  I like that I can create a balance to the ecosystem of my pretend universe by the end of my story… but even that comes with a price and echoes through the hearts and minds of generations.

I do think writing has helped to clarify focus in real life for me.  Sometimes it just helps me heal a broken heart.  Sometimes it makes sense of a world that infuriates me.  And sometimes… sometimes, it lets me see what’s happening and really feel it.

But you know, this time around, I wish it was just something I made up.

Meet Helen, Bekah, and Agnes

So... here it is.  Summer.  Maybe the solstice hasn't set it in stone, but the temperatures today pretty much confirmed the identity of the season for me.  It is a time when - in theory - life frees up a bit.  I suppose the bit is relative... but I've determined to use the free to finally complete a readable draft of this novel I've been writing on and off for, um, years.

I'm actually working on it now.  But I thought I would share this rough cut of the intro.  Some of my readers may have heard an enigmatic description of the fact I have three heroines, of different class, race, and decade.  Not to mention voice.  How they connect is the story... sort of.  Anyway, here is the start, with that most human of connections... not wanting to wake up.

I don’t want to open my eyes. 

I am warm here.

I don’t want to open my eyes.

Safe in my liquid cocoon of reality. 

I don’t want to open my eyes.

I like this sleep. 

I don’t want to open my eyes.

I know it is morning.  The sun is bright.  I know I could be awake. 

I don’t want to open my eyes.

I feel myself falling and then it is as if I am standing, leaving the thin coverlet in a disheveled pile.  I go to pull the curtain closed to block out the sun, block out the day.  I go back to bed, back to sleep and then somehow I realize I never left the cocoon.  The sun is blocked because I’ve turned on my side. 

It is warm.  It is comfortable here.  Safe.

This is where I want to stay. 

For a few more moments.

 An hour. 

The whole day. 

Forever that blends into time I forget.

œœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœ

I felt the cold on the edge of my nose.  I knew if I opened my eyes and pulled back the covers, that cold would alarm the rest of my body.   It would wake me.  I needed to wake up.  I did not want to wake up.  I wanted to stay in the warm milky gray softness of sleep, hiding from the cold that rimmed my nose.

For a minute I forgot the bed, the pillow, the cold room.  It was barely light enough to recognize the walls of where I was sleeping.  In that in between, that tempting moment to go back into the gray, I almost thought I was back in the apartment, our little attic room… and I would roll away from the cold into Dawn’s arms.

I pulled the covers over my head to hide from the cold pillow beside me.  I wanted that warmth of the in between to shield me from remembering my present.  Remembering the days of that empty pillow.  Of the room downstairs next to the kitchen.  Of all the empty unplanned days before me.

The phone rang just as my eyes were about to succumb to the tease of that gray.  I swung my feet around and startled the bottom of my heels as they hit the groaning wooden floor.  I found my phone vibrating on the desk next to my laptop, managing a groggy hello.

“Bekah, I can’t come on Saturday,” my mother’s voice woke me as harshly as the cold that nipped my nose.

“I need to go grocery shopping.”

“I thought Malcolm was coming up for the evening.”

“That’s why I need to go grocery shopping.  So I can make dinner.”

“I have to do a re-shoot,” Carolina was articulate in her unrelenting reply.  “Go when the nurse comes.”

“I…” I swallowed the words my not nearly awake mind wanted to snark.

“Or ask Sarah Lawson.  She has offered to help.  I don’t know why you don’t take up her offer.”

“She’s too cheerful for me.”

“Well, the cheerful wouldn’t be for you.  It would be for your grandmother.  The time to get away would be for you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m sorry, Bekah.  I’m committed to this.”

“I know.”

“No changes I should know about?”

“No changes,” I saw my tired reflection in the mirror over the dresser.  

“Well, if anything does come up, call.  Love you.”

“Love you,” I agreed to end the short wake up call.  I don’t know how my mother always manages to be so alert and abrupt at the crack of dawn.  It must annoy her students endlessly.

I went into the bathroom, resigning myself to the fact that warm, seductive gray would not be an option if I went back under the covers.  It was the responsible thing to do, even if my sense of responsibility that morning was more to avoid the inevitable staring at the ceiling that would come after letting myself think about the arms in which I wanted to hide from the cold.

Even if that room was cold, I did like having my own adjoining bathroom.  Not that I had to share a bathroom with anyone… but I liked the fact it was mine and didn’t force me to let in the cooler air of the second floor hallway first thing in the morning.  

One thing you could say for Helen is that she had nice bathrooms in her house.  Even if mine hadn’t been updated since the 90’s, the room was still bright and well coordinated.  In the mental list of renovations I dreamed about the house, the bathrooms were surprisingly low on my priority list.  The tiling, the mirrors, even the towel holders were all just right.

It was much easier to contemplate interior design than the fact my plans for the weekend just went awry.  How this was going to affect my cooking schedule… and thus how unimpressive a meal I could prepare for my brother and his partner.

I could call Sarah Lawson.  I did not want to do that.  I did not want… to do that.

I saw my reflection in the mirror again as I washed my hands.  I looked old.  Much older I imagined I should for just passing my 35^th birthday.  I didn’t remember having circles like that under my eyes.  So many parts of me had gone soft in the last six months.  None of the right curves had filled out.  Just the ones that reminded me how long it had been since I went for a bike ride.

No wonder Dawn lost interest… that stupid nagging morning voice echoed in my head.   I wasn’t going to think about that.  It was easier to fume about my mother messing up my Saturday cooking plans… forcing me to have to call that vapid, too perky for a person to be naturally, Sarah Lawson.

I went back into the room and made my bed.  I never used to care about doing that.  But now, even before I got dressed, I made sure all the sheets and blankets were pulled tight with the pillows arranged neatly at the head of the bed.  I think I started because I was in Helen’s house… and once long ago I was instructed by Helen to do that.  She told me if you make your bed first thing, you put everything right in your day.  I don’t know if I believed that… but at that point I was willing to try anything to get somewhat right.

œœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœ

Her eyelids fell.  She tried to fight them, heavily pulling her towards sleep.  She fluttered them open again, but found the struggle too overwhelming as the anticipation faded into the cloud of an obscured dream.  Then somewhere in the grayness a light flashed.  Aggie opened her eyes suddenly and saw the reflection of the panes move across the wall.  She watched to see if they moved again.  The distorted squares of light remained on the wall over her head.

She leapt out of bed towards the window.  She barely noticed the cold on her bare feet.  The light – two lights – glowed in the driveway below.  She rubbed her eyes, still seeing spots.  Then she looked beneath her as the shape of a long black car came into focus. The engine stopped.  A man in a dark coat stepped out of the front and opened the door behind him.  A woman in a fur coat stumbled out of the back seat and laughed as she fell against him.  She looked up at the man in the coat, allowing Aggie to catch a glimpse of the bobbed brown hair and dark eyes full of mischief.  

Another young woman with red hair stepped from the car and took hold of the laughing woman’s arm.  The dark eyes looked up at the wintry moon that made her skin glow with an eerie paleness. Her laughter quieted to a smile as her glance fell over the house.

Shadows appeared on the snowy lawn as the lights went on downstairs.  Aggie saw Mavis, fully dressed as though it were day, walk over to the car.  She spoke briefly to the man and another man who held several bags.  The laughing woman moved between them and took Mavis’ hand.  She lifted her dark eyes again, the laughter frozen as she took in the house in the moonlight.  

Aggie hid back behind her curtain so she wouldn’t be seen.  When she looked back, Mavis was following the woman and her red haired companion into the house. Aggie tiptoed across the room and opened her door.  She went to the top of the stairs and strained to hear any noises that might make their way across the house and through the kitchen.  There was an eternal silence when the cold started to numb her bare toes and weigh down her eyelids.  She contemplated going back under her blankets when she heard footsteps and two men talking on the second floor.  Then she heard the laugh.  It was a carefree, low giggle.  Aggie’s lips curled mindlessly at the infectious sound.  She heard Mavis direct them to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Then she gave directions to the third floor.  Aggie rushed back to her room, closing her door quickly.  She went back to the warmth of her bed, giggiling into her pillow as she let the heavy eyelids pull her into the grayness of sleep.