Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I'm Good

http://www.christaforster.com/2007/08/torch-song.html

Thanks for asking, AnaVerse.

I started working with a novel writing group again, and I have been thinking all day about the three disasters. What are they? I ask myself while I drive cross town to the mechanic's to pick up the Malibu. I ask myself while I sweep the food Diego has thrown all over the floor, and I ask myself as I pass the behavioral chart we've once again created for my daughter -- a reward system that merits her privilege, access to things she wants: cookies, to play, to sit next to us. It's horrible, the chart, but it's what helps us all get along. Imagine if I didn't reward her for the way I want her to be: then she would be left to her own divisives while being forced -- by one's job, say, or one's "community" -- to make decisions about how best not to harm one another. We call this enforcement of behavior Morality.

"You're such a good mommy," she says everday, stroking my face, looking me straight in the eyes. Is it real? I ask myself. Is this dream I'm living Reality. Then I remember that I don't have to ask that anymore. I know that it is -- this life -- my reality, real. And my life matters. To me, at least.

In the novel writing group, we're a small cadre of local writers, veterans of the Creative Writing Program, for one reason or another. Not heroes, no. The heroes are being vetted by the powers that be. I will not mention them here because they do not so much interest me. In short, they never have interested me enough.

My comrades in writing now met last night for the first time. We related our histories, blurbed them really, some of us more, some of us less. We gave each other our time to listen to the idea of the story each one of us desires to tell. Steve talked about Macbeth. I lit up. "A tragedy can be hopeful," he said.

"Macbeth saved my life! I love Macbeth." I didn't go into my rhapsody just then, but later we got to go to the bar and talk about it some more. Gemini had to go home because her five year old was waiting for her. But she was a light for sure, a beacon out over the dark waves: of sorrow, of new beginnings, of existential confusion, or even dismay. Though never really dismay. Let nothing you dismay.

Miah typed up the notes: five paragraph structure. "How many of us teach or taught writing?" We all had.

What are the three disasters?

Tonight I begin to think of the book as seasons, and as such I begin to imagine the sections of the book divided into four colors: red (the passion), orange (the past, the memory), blue. Green. The three disasters correspond to a color. They are tonal, as in colors in music. They are specific, adroit and horrible. They are monstrous. But what are they? What are these crimes of passion? What are ...

I'd rather talk about plot points, for that is what they're called in industry-speak. But disasters are so much more interesting.

1 comment:

Soporifix said...

I feel like we didn't get to talk about Macbeth much afterwards. I was kind of out of it in some existential way. But I hope we'll get to talk more about it again.

In any case it was inspiring. I have a lot to live up to hanging out with you three.