The Furious Spinner

It is pissing down pouring down rain here. And it's cold. Yeah! Finally. It's not that I like the cold rain, but I can look out my window and up over the blooming bushes and trees and see snow on the Gorge cliffs. I just hope it's snowing in the mountains. Perhaps it's not too late to stop the drought.

Forgive me if I repeat myself. I don't remember what I've been writing about and what I've just been thinking about writing about. (Did you get that?) Mario had a cold, so I spent several days cooking him miso and making him drink glass after glass after glass of water. The best miso is just miso and mushrooms, I think; maybe some green onions if you have them. The recipes always call for too much miso, I think, so I scale it back by about half. It's got a lot of sodium. Miso is one of those mythical mystical healing foods—supposedly. It often gives me a headache. Chamomile and ginger are supposed to sooth stomach aches. They both give me stomach aches. I often have the opposite reactions to foods or herbs which are supposed to help me. Perhaps I should eat radioactive waste. Oh wait. I live so close to the Columbia River I probably have eaten radioactive waste.

Anyway, Happy Equinox. Time of balance. I've been trying to balance work, community, and family, just like everyone else on the planet. I have moments when I don't feel so sick and I feel halfway competent and things just floooooowwwww.

Know the feeling?

Yesterday I started my new novel Camel Jockey. I love the girl, the main character already. (She's 18 years old so I guess she's technically a woman.) She's a Pakistani woman. I swear the next novel I write is not going to need a bit of research. Not one whiff. My last two novels have needed so much research, and now this one does, too. It's interesting, what I learn, but it can halt the process in a way I don't like. For instance, Nadira (my hera) and her mother had to go to a police station. But first I had to find out if there were police and police stations in Karachi, Pakistan, and learn what they were called. Or even if a woman would ever go to a police station unaccompanied by a man. The internet makes that kind of research so much easier. Before it would have taken me days, maybe even weeks, to find out that kind of information. Now I just google it (as a start) and then dig around until I find what I need. I love it. I've done about 7,000 words in the last two days (25 pages). I feel as though I've spent the last two days in the shoes of Nadira. Her world is terrifying and strangely beautiful.

Strange things have already happened in the story, although I suppose it's not strange since it happens so often. I thought the story would begin in the country and that her father would be something of a villain. The story begins in Karachi, one of the largest cities in Pakistan. Her father is not a villain. (He is dead, actually.) I never do pure villains. I always think I will, but I don't because in "real" life things are rarely that simple. People are complicated and seldom fall easily into categories like good and evil, villainous and heroic. Also, Nadira is telling the story to her youngest brother, Umar, who lives with their widowed mother in the slums of the city while Nadira works for (and lives with) a rich family.

I was asked what I thought about the Schiavo case. I said that I was disgusted by the political grandstanding. I think these conservatives who claim they want the government out of our lives should get their noses and laws out of our personal lives. This is all conservative horseshit to distract the country from what's really going on: gas prices have spiked, the war in Iraq is out of control, Bush is trying to destroy Social Security. Need I say more? What is happening to Terry Schiavo is none of my business. It is also none of DeLies' (a.k.a DeLay) business.

I had more to say, but I am suddenly very tired. Being a Pakistani woman ain't easy. In a recent case, a woman was gang-raped after her brother was accused of having an affair with another woman. The village elders ordered the gang-rape, apparently. This woman was very brave. She got the police to take these men to court, and they were sentenced to death. Other horrible things happen to women in Pakistan. Men accuse their wives of affairs and threw acid on them, or if a woman refuses a divorce the husband throws acid on her, or if parents refuse to arrange a marriage, the scorned man comes back and throws acid on the family. It's just disgusting. An honor crime. Beware if you read this this story; it is nauseating.

Mario and I were talking about this thing about honor, or disrespect. In many of these countries, people kill each other because one of them has felt disrespected by the other. We don't understand this. Our culture ain't the greatest thing since French toast or anything, but being "dissed" ain't a reason to kill someone here. (Except in some inner city neighborhoods.) I mean if someone is disrespectful to me I might get my feelings hurt, but geez louise, I'm not going to go out and kill them. It's just beyond me. Why is disrespect a reason to kill?

OK. I can no longer be coherent. I'm going to bed.

May You Sleep in Beauty! 0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.