The Furious Spinner

Awaken ill, longing for moonlight. I look outside. The moon is there, between patches of black clouds. I put on slacks and a shirt, go downstairs, and walk outside into the moon lit night. Kuan Yin stands in the Peace Garden, a stone-faced ghost. I walk up the short path to her and touch the top of her head. Cool. Behind her, red blossoms from a tree whose name I don't know have turned black. They move slightly in a breeze I barely feel. I listen for Coyote. Silence.

I look straight above my head. A satellite lurches overhead. Yes, lurches. Doesn't seem as smooth and steady as I would think it needs to be. I remember nights when I was a girl searching the skies for signs of the space ship that would take me away from it all. I was ready to go.

Back inside again, I want to sleep. I long for a good night's sleep the way lonely hearts long for their one true love.

Mario and I have been listening to Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Makes me think of my own process. Why I write. I write because I always have. I write because I define the world in stories. I write because there is so much I do not understand. I write because I have this intense insatiable need to communicate.

The nearly full moon has slid through the open space in my blinds. As I gaze at it, I feel as though I am missing something about this night. What is it? The moon is gone. Eaten by the clouds. Covered by the clouds. Disappeared by the clouds.

I often write about things which make others uncomfortable. I don't do it on purpose. I just don't believe in shame. I'm not saying I don't have shame, don't feel shame. I'm saying I don't believe in shame as a working principle in our lives. Why be ashamed of the way I feel? Why be ashamed of my failings? Why should we pretend we are anything but human? It doesn't mean I expose every part of myself in my writing. I don't. What is most intimate to me is kept intimate: even my husband does not know what I think about on these nights I cannot sleep or in those moments when fear takes over. Even my closest friends have sometimes commented that they know little about my deepest darkest feelings. That's personal, I say. You can't really know me by only reading what I write, but you can't really know me without reading what I write.

I was talking to a former editor today, and we were trying to figure out a plan for my writing career. I said, I write to figure out why we do the things we do. She had started to read my uncompleted novel Forks in the Road. I couldn't connect with it, she said; it's too in your face. Exactly, I said. That's who I am. That's what I want to write.

The book is about a woman returning home when her father is ill. On the trip across country, she remembers her childhood and her college years. Once home, she feels the distance and disdain of her family and can barely stand it, so she does what most Americans do well: avoidance. She begins thinking about past boyfriends instead of trying to deal with her family. She picks through her former lovers like a child digging through a box trying to find just the right doll to dress up and fling around the room. Through her trip down memory lane, she exposes the sexual eccentricities of her former loves. She does so gleefully, while understanding this information also reveals a great deal about herself.

Go figure.

Sex. That's another thing we're not supposed to talk about. Don't worry. I'm not going to talk about sex here. I only do that in fiction.

Illness. You're not supposed to talk about illness either. Grin and bear it. Screw that. I do not suffer in silence. The other day someone wrote to me and said, "Life is a chronic illness." I wanted to shake him. Life is glorious, filled with suffering and almost unbearable beauty. Sickness and hummingbirds. War and orchids. Suffering and song.

Now I long for song instead of sleep. I step outside again and listen for the song of Coyote. They are silent tonight. But I hear the west wind, feel it on my face, hear it rattling the now-dry flowers I never deadheaded from last year. The wind is softer sounding coming through the evergreens across the street. My song for the night. A lullaby.

I don't want to talk any longer. I want to dream. In my dreams, I am well. In my dreams, war does not exist.

That's not true. In my dreams, I am usually ill. In my dreams, war most definitely exists.

Nevertheless, I am tired. Perhaps I can try and coax the Sandman to my bed again. Bring sweet dreams.

May you sleep in Beauty. Shhhhh. 0 comments

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