Do-land

I tapped a note on my phone and sent it to myself.

"feb21"

My next writing group meeting.

I don't know if I can write anymore or even what I could write about.

I stopped writing a year ago.

Writing in the sense of writing essays, narratives, stories....things that might be submitted for publication.

I put my children's book manuscript, the one I wrote about Africa, in a plastic bag and hid it under a skirted table in my bedroom.

I deleted a file of erotic fiction.

I went back to the safety of not creating.

I do now.

I do the bills. I do my work. I do my job. I do the house. I do what I'm supposed to do.

Writing and art never come from "do."

They come from a different place.... a place that needs passion and light.

To write well you have to turn on a spotlight and shine it in your head and heart and guts.

You have to shine it in dark places and hope exposing something...a feeling ....an event...an idea ...creates something new.

It's a strange land..... because you're constantly absorbing....a piece of dialogue in a restaurant, the way something looks in the sunlight, the way you feel when you hear certain words or see the ordinary acts of life play in front of you.

It's a land that's also not totally in this dimension. If you're writing well....you flow out of yourself and flow in something else....something universal....which rises above the normal barriers of culture and language.

For reasons too personal to explain here, I woke up one morning, shut off the light.....and walked into "do" land.

The only times I leave do-land is during religious services....when I watch a man sway and sing and close his eyes in prayer at the podium. I sense he's in that universal and I try, briefly, to hitch a ride.

I can't decide if I want to leave do-land or even if I can.

I don't have any stories.....I don't have perceptions begging to be released.... I don't have anything to say.

I'm a mute in do-land and now I have a date to speak.

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Rediscovering Africa.......

All day long I fretted. I knew I needed to start writing again. I knew I had to finish my book..6 pages to go. The community project I worked on for the last 3 months took away my concentration and my time. I was scared I couldn't go back ....that I had lost my passion.

And then I found him. A simple picture among my pictures of the sub sahel. I cropped him out of a much bigger photo. I stared at him in awe...how beautiful and powerful he was. I cropped other faces...pulled them out of backgrounds....stared at them...felt them....until I couldn't wait to write.

I tossed away the outline I made earlier in the day. The pictures that spoke to me where the pictures I would use to tell the story about this part of Africa. That's how I wrote this book....I found what stirred my passion and my curiosity and I cropped it out of the much bigger story of my travels....keeping my fingers crossed....that what excited me might excite children or their parents or their teachers.

Now it's late.....and I have to work tomorrow morning....but I'm happy. I rediscovered where I was.....I'm in the same state of trying to find the most important part of the story instead of the just merely the story.

I'm going to finish the book...just look at him.....I could you betray such beauty and not?
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When an Editor tells you..."It's lovely."

I haven't been able to stop smiling. I checked my email over an hour ago ...and there it was.....the response from the NPR editor looking over my revisions. "It's lovely....when came you come up and record?" I haven't written back to her yet because I'm cherishing the good news and responding back to her will put the news in the past.

It's a typical small public radio essay....no more than 750 words and in NPR style...it's cut to the bone....there's not an extra word or syllable in it.


I recorded an essay for NPR last year.....it was a fun but frightening experience.... it's exactly like something out of a movie....you stand there with your headphones on....hunched over your paper.....your mouth close to the microphone.

Unlike some movie versions where you are in the recording room alone, here the producer is standing right in front of you...which made it harder for me to loosen up since I watched him watching me.

I have a bit of language tattoo too that I bring to the studio.....my south side upbringing in Chicago leaves pronouncing the "S" at the end of a word an option.......along with the occasional "th" at the beginning of a word.

Last year I highlighted every "S" and every "Th"....so I would remember to....PRONOUNCE them. The producer picked up my omissions in a few sentences and stopped the recording. "Don't worry about it.......it adds color."

A few times he told me to slow down .... I'm a fast talker especially when nervous....but I guess he gave up on me. With digital equipment, however, technicians can actually slow you down or speed you up....which is why everyone on NPR sounds similar....it's not that they choose a particular type of reader......it's because they choose a particular speed. When I listened to myself on the radio last year....I chuckled.....I sounded very very NPR calm....even though I knew my actually recording didn't sound that way.

I'm actually eager to record this piece. The essay is about my grandmother and her good friend at Easter time. I so loved this the tradition I will talk about....and I so love bringing these ladies back to life. Although the editor usually discourages dialogue....she's going to let me mimic the bellow of my grandmother's friend as she greeted us. I promised her I could do it and do it well.

And I will....because it's not only a lovely piece.....it's a piece of my life that I get to share....and that is what is really lovely.
~~~~~

Sending the Manuscript off---

Tough evening. I had to get the manuscript up and out to the publisher. Lots of details...lots of proofing....and lots of angst. My stomach was in a knot..... I realized at the last minute....the pages just didn't look right. So at midnight (how cliche) ....I ran out to Kinkos to have them re-xeroxed and bound. When he handed it to me....I just said wow....because it looked good, really good....there was a medical student getting some binders together and she looked over my shoulder at the some of the pictures and said ...how cool.......which made me laugh..... cause I was thinking of putting on the last page of the proposal....100% of strangers who looked at this book proposal thought it was great! ....you know....like those ultra positive reviews they put on the back of every book you read.

In the morning....I checked everything again and headed off to the post-office.....swiped the credit card and waved good-bye. I was totally expecting to feel nervous....weird....anxious...but instead I felt peaceful....which is odd.....but....I've done the best I could.....and no matter what happens I know I'm resilient enough to not only handle it....but make something out of it. I'm real confident of that......that's the one positive thing about getting knocked around a bit in life....it teaches you....you can survive.....if you don't take risks...and fail.....you'll never know you can tough hard times out. Trust me....I can handle hard times...lol...

Maybe too...that's another gift Africa gave me.........if you saw what a grimy, sweaty, whacked-out person I was at times.....and I still made it...onto to that big ol' jumbo Air France jet in Lome back home....lol......well why wouldn't I survive this?

Maybe they'll accept it...may it's not right for them....or maybe I need to revise and improve it before I send it somewhere else......but that just may be the process....amen. Of course, it's only 3/4 completed...so now I have to buckle down and finish the rest....no matter if this house yeah or nays....I want a completed project....because.....not to complete it....well that would be the real tragedy.



(if you click on the picture...it enlarges and you can read gina's little remark....i just discovered this fact o'blog life........lol...wow...now i can leave secret messages to you all.....lol....)

Manuscript Pages

**

So this is what Africa translates into....pages.....pages of what I hope will be a children's book. In the next week, I have to spiff up my proposal and send it out. I've already drafted my proposal and sales pitch....and now I'm working on these pages...translating them from drawings to something someone else could read....in some ways it reminds me of drafting a screen play complete with stage directions because I'm telling the reader what type of pictures and illustrations go here and there and in what format. I'm not exactly sure this is the way most houses (publishers) like the information but this book is not only about information but about format, pictures and illustrations. Sometimes info that is started in one spot may be concluded somewhere else. For example, I talk about eating camel for dinner on one page....and answer how it tastes on another. (If you haven't dined on camel lately let me say that it doesn't taste like chicken...lol....it actually taste like beef but chewy and a bit sweet.).....

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My stomach is in knots every time I work....I feel like Cinderella ....oh please.....although I am sitting here with my hair in a scraggly ponytail, in mismatched sweats, and a pair of my son's socks....really truly..... just put that glass slipper on me....(tell me to ...send you more PAGES ) and I will truly turn into a princess.....really.....I promise......

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It's funny though.....I don't think the universe would have put me through the toughness of Africa and that whole travel experience not to have something in mind......there are somethings I've learned already...personal things...that I think Africa opened my eyes to.....but it seems there's a plan somewhere.....I just can't keep all this cool information to myself......so that might be the next challenge to find what the plan is.....I'm kinda hoping the children's book is the plan......but if not there will be something else.

Spooky Serendipity on Long Island

Well I'm putting in my last few days researching and working on the Island. I'm sure if I don't get out of libraries soon I'm going to get moldy....but I'm in this classic struggle.......I want to jump in the rental car and drive out to the tip of the Island....and see Montauk beach (the site for one of my favorite favorite movies....Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) but I also realize more and more each day I'm here what fantastic resources there are here and I should work not play.......what a dilemna!

I've had some more spooky serendipity which also makes me think I should keep my nose to the grind......in the mountains of Benin we went on a guided tour by a naturalist type guy who hunts butterflies and also showed us marvelous paints that are obtained from plants...vivid oranges and reds that were just stunning and used in decorative painting around the villages and probably as face paint too.......one of the librarians here hooked me up with a reference librarian at the New York Botanical Gardens....a place gardening folks might call Mecca......and she was so intrigued by my descriptions and questions she's asked me to send her all my pictures and info and she's going to try and help me.....find out what the names for some of these plants and dyes. That's amazing.....

My other stroke of luck came yesterday. The Serious boy story I wrote....took place among the Taneka villages.....there are apparently several tribes that belong to this grouping......even using the big gun libraries here in New York....I have stunned librarians who can't find much written about the trip....oh there are all kinds of anectodal notes from travel companies on google....but you know someone can create myths and legends and they can just get perpetuated on and on ...on the internet.....so I was trying to find some real data.....the thesis I was hunting for might not be available....so I tried to hunt down the author....thanks be to Google.....I found he's a professor right here in New Jersey....and so far about the only guy I can find that's written things (in English) about the Taneka....so today I'm going to email him with fingers crossed that he will share a little info on the tribe.

The one startling thing I keep finding in trying to get background about the places I visited in Africa is......there doesn't seem to be much info on them......I can't tell you how many librarians I have stumped....it seems so unreal to visit tribes like the Taneka....or beautiful geographical areas like the Djado plateau....but when you want to know more details about them.....pow...you hit this wall of nothingness....perhaps there's more available in French which hasn't been translated.....but in the modern world it seems so odd to hit an info vacuum.....one of the librarians joked with me and said.....well why don't you go back and research the area and the people........and write about it......man....I'm hoping that's a seed that won't sprout.......LOL>>>>>>

Honey You Ain't From Long Island.....

On the road again….this time to Long Island. I needed to do some research for my children’s book and the universities around here don’t have many African databases so the choices were to travel to Chicago or somewhere on the East Coast. Buddy, a member of our tour group, invited Diana and I to visit him on Cape Cod any time. So it seemed a rather perfect set-up...work hard for a few days in New York...meet up with Diana in Boston to visit Cape Cod and then go back to Long Island to do a little more work.

Long Island even in the short time I 've been here has been a hoot......starving....I found a diner....just a few blocks from my hotel.....the Plainview Diner (and it was a diner and it did have a plain view)…. My first reaction when I saw the place was….Am I in a time warp? My waitress was like a character out of a sitcom……late 50's.... layers of dark foundation make-up …..support hose with white scrunch stockings …. brilliant white tennis shoes....short short skirt....and an open blouse showing a wrinkly cleavage. And talk about hair extensions!.......As if several ferrets had nested in her hair! ..plus gummy black false eyelashes ...massive eyeliner....and the best part....a huge rhinestone necklace on her neck. She called me....what else?..."Honey"

Perhaps on Long Island....people are all a bit deaf....or the volume you talk at is naturally set high because I could follow one of several stories..There were the Hispanic women who complained about not having their Xmas decorations up....the two Jewish guys who discussed how much salt was in each of the specialties ...but the best story was coming from behind me from people short enough not to be seen over the booth but certainly long on volume....Claire who had been married forever to a good for nothing drunk....finally was getting a divorce.....he was not only a good for nothing drunk....but a mean one..and now he started gambling and Claire had it....just had it ...because the bills were piling up and he didn't care...and so after 28 years of marriage she was telling him to hit the road....and she was starting over......Thank god she still had a good job with some retirement benefits.cause you know some women aren't that lucky. By the time my coffee arrived, I was ready to cheer for Claire and hoped she got a damn good divorce lawyer.
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I also managed to hit a grocery store.....the Fairway.....an old store in an old shopping center a 5 minutes drive from my hotel..I walked in and was stunned....... even for a person who doesn't cook I realized I had hit the promised land....everything you can imagine was there and piled high on extra tall shopping shelves.so everything could be squeezed in.....Himalayan cherries? No problem..Cheese Blintzs?....No problem.....stacks of cheese from around the world?....how high do you want them stacked?.....and not bowls or trays but buckets of olives.....I mean like 20 gallon buckets…..they should have security cameras there…because it took real will power not to snatch one….Italian food….Jewish food….healthy food….very unhealthy food….and mounds of produce….Pineapples stacked a couple feet high…..

They had a café and good thing it wasn't busy because it took me a long time to decipher the menu….there were so many additions and substitutions…cole slaw ..potato salad green been salad…green salad…..poppy seed buns…soft buns….Kaiser rolls…rolls with rosemary….rolls with kosher salt…..I was getting woozy…and hadn't even decided on the filling…….the lady next to me ordered a scrumptious looking roast beef sandwich….I pointed at it and asked her what it was…..

"A sandwich," she said seriously….and didn't say another word….

I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't laugh…..

I guess I don't look like I'm from Long Island…..