“The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.”

It happens and in every case, we are all shocked. No matter the situation, no matter if we are prepared for the inevitable, no matter if we knew it was coming, death always shocks us. It is always sudden, always enduring, but in both instances, there is the shock.



We lost my grandfather four years ago. 80 years old, a smoker all his life, and he died suffering, drowning in disease and infection. At the end, he didn't know us. At the end, after weeks of suffering, a blink, it seemed, from the initial diagnosis, weeks of my mother's frustration, sadness, and utter grief, he closed his eyes and then...just wasn't. There would be no more tall tales, no more laughter, no more of the same stories being told over and over. It divided our family. It overwhelmed my mother and left her the responsibility of being care giver and designated mother to her own. Life had begun 80 years before in a bright roaring thunder and ended in a an exhale and whimper. Death came to my grandfather but left its mark on all of us.



What did it teach us? Many things, it turned out. It taught us that he was the anchor steadying our very turbulent family. He was the core of the family unit. He was the most beloved of us all and with his death, that was torn a part, the anchor unequivocally dismantled. It taught me that smoking, obviously, is a very stupid thing to do. It's a time bomb ticking through your body, exploding with absolute precision.



But death, it should be understood, is always inevitable and should be anticipated.



We mourn for our loss. We feel the shock, the shattering well of sorrow not for the loss of a loved one,but for the absence constructed in our own lives. We are all selfish creatures, all focused on what a death will mean for us, whether it is intentional or not, it is our own self awareness that affects us. We cry, we moan, we shake our hand at God because this 'lost someone' will be missing from OUR lives...from OUR realities.



Rather than understanding, accepting that the loss is certain, that it is the departed that has been most affected, we reel against what death will mean for US and in the process, we ignore the lesson that we should learn: That tomorrow is as uncertain as the true agenda of a politician and that not one of us can predict when our turn will come.



So, what should we learn? What should be the final lesson? Today we are here and tomorrow is not meant to be a moment of reflection. Life happens quickly and death is a selfish creature, it wants us all, it wants us when we are unprepared and unwilling to bend to its will.



Live today. LIVE. It's all any of us can do. Do not mourn for the passing of a loved one, of a stranger, of an enemy. Do not reflect on their failings, their misgivings, their sins because, eventually, we all take the same path, we all end our journey at the same destination and the road we walked to get there was our own making, our own choices. Live while you can, while you are able. Tomorrow only exists on the "calendar of fools."




“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

Why writers are cooler than rock stars

Who takes you 'there?' Who delivers you from the mundane, from the ordinary and frees you from your abrasive reality? Is it an actor? Is it a poem? Is it a musician? None of us can define definitively what makes us tick, the incessant part of ourselves that we pretend isn't there, doesn't encompass every molecule, every cell that makes us run, jump, scream or cry. But sometimes, we have a clue who we are, what makes us, if not tick, then function. For me, it isn't a song or a poem or watching some pretty someone meander around dialogue and project who they think a character ought to be, that delivers me.



I can be moved by music. I have cried at films. Truth is, I've tolerated Byron to a level of finding him, 'pretty damn good.' But none of these things take me there. You know the 'there' I'm talking about. You've visited, I'm sure, in those predictable constants: prepubescent dreams, thoughts and ideas and imaginary ponderings that are born from long, wondering, looking-at-nothing stares. You've drifted there on occasion, your eyes have become unfocused and blank, you've skipped across the universe, through the cloudy void when reality, that dull certain, has become too much to bear. It's the 'there' that is created when you want to escape, when too much responsibility, too many plans, too-consuming life lumbering has forced you away, has made you drift.



Where 'there' is, of course, differs from individual to individual. My personal favor is a large castle. No. A small cabin. Well, no, not really. Let's see, a lonely cottage on the tip of some nondescript, unassuming village in Scotland. See, mine changes so often that I can't keep track. the point is, the 'there' for me isn't always the same. The method of getting 'there,' however, is. I don't listen to music when I write. I don't need the inspiration of a chick flick, period drama or a 'let's remake, for the fiftieth time, a story that should never be touched' film. I don't need them, they aren't required. All I need is a good book. No, not just a good book, but a damn good book. the kind of book that leaves you gobsmacked. (I make no apologies for using that word...I love it and think it is used far too infrequently).



So, the book. It can't be just any book. I won't get to my little village reading about idealist lawyers, determined accountants, faultless doctors or some one's recount of tragedies and horrors visited upon the underdog, the young, the frail or depraved because, really, aren't all our lives depressing enough? Don't we all suffer through enough tremendous struggles, endless monotony already? Getting to my 'there' won't be accomplished by reading about suffering when my reality is, sometimes, punishment enough.



Give me the unbelievable. Give me magic. Give me surrealism. Give me vampires and wizards and gypsies and Gods, both with the little and big 'g's. Give me a monster, a zombie, oh please give me a zombie, and a good guy discovering his hidden, mysterious, magical parentage. Give me every Campbell cliche. Give me a town invested by psychotic, hungry vampires, give me a rabid dog trapping a woman and her child in a car. Give me a boy with a scar and his impossible responsibility. Give me a man searching for a fallen star.



Give. Me. Shadow Bloody Moon.



Give them all to me and I will jettison to my 'there.' I will be among the wizards, flying on broomsticks, akin to a dead woman, watching un-seeable Gods and Goddess fighting in the last good fight. I sing with drunken Highlanders concealing the whereabouts of an English Outlander. I dance at a wizard's ball and fly next to a not so innocuous bat.



You see, it isn't the fantasy that takes me to my 'there.' It isn't event eh descriptive setting planted next to all those beloved characters.



It is, simply put, the words. They are magic itself. And who can we thank for such intoxicating descriptors, such bespelling prose? I can give you a list. Trust me, I could utterly exhaust you with it. We must honor the sires of the surreal, the makers of illusion. We must thank the writer. They are carvers of the most precious sculptures. They are God Creators of universes we could not possibly fathom without their They are magic itself. And who can we thank for such intoxicating descriptors, such bespellinginstruction. They are professors of wit and wisdom and all things incredulous. What actor can transform you, deposit you in that way? What song has ever been sung that could twist your mind so that you find yourself in the Middle of the Earth, in the Neverwhere of impossibility? Cobain was a genius, but he was still, at his core, only a musician.



So to my list I say, 'Cheers. Thank you and please don't ever stop.'



Thank you Jo for making the impossible brilliant and real and beautiful and scary. Thank you, Uncle Stephen, for all the 'well damn' moments and every single instance I had to sit on my feet to stop the monsters beneath my bed from attacking. Thank you Neil for spinning my mind so that I could barely remember my name, for teaching me without speaking a syllable, for weaving a tapestry that I could feel through every page. Thank you Kim and Diana and Charlaine and Poppy for proving that, yep, chicks can do it, and most times, better than any man could ever imagine. Thank you to the countless infinite other, to every Pratchett, Baum, Adams, Lovecraft, Koontz, Hill, Barker, Poe and Matheson.



Thank you all for bringing me, without fail, to my 'there' and never, ever apologizing for the abduction.

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.

We can't stop the clocks from clicking or grab hold of the sun and push it back so that yesterday, and yesterday's mistakes, can be relived. It is not possible. But what I've learned over the years is that we needn't relive yesterday, we simply need to chalk up old mistakes as part of the greater scheme of living. Lessons learned and all.

Life is lived in moments and every one of those moments matter. No matter how they are carried out, they matter. Mistakes made, opportunities not taken, roads not traveled, all come together, join the positive and proud moments in our lives to formulate and coalesce into a life lived. The tragedy occurs when our individual lives lay stagnate and pointless, when, after years of ignoring our fate, bypassing the opportunities that come our way, we still do not learn to take a chance, to make an attempt.

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." Mr. Lincoln was right and the point he was trying to make is that living is our responsibility. Its what we owe ourselves because the life we've been given is too fleeting, far too short to live in regret. Never regret. Learn from the sins of the past and anticipate the hope of the future. That is only in your hands. God gives us roads to travel, but doesn't push us forward. We have to do that.

All this came to me when I saw Susan Boyle take what could be one of her last chances. She isn't young, not particularly beautiful and the only shape she has is round, but you know what? She's done something not many would dare try. She stepped forward, she seized her moment and came out smiling. God bless her for it.

Check her out:




To try and fail is one thing, to not try at all, is simply pathetic.





From "Mr. Button"

For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit... start whenever you want... you can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

The conspiracy of affection

A co-worker said to me today that she didn't understand why other nations were excited about Obama's election. She didn't understand, either, why Oprah was 'hanging' on some random stranger during Obama's acceptance speech. She just didn't get it, didn't trust it. From my personal experience with her, I knew not to be surprised by her reaction. There was and is a significant absence of affection in her childhood and her present relationship. Now, I adore this woman. I think she is incredibly well spoken, articulate and criminally intelligent. However, this distrustful attitude is something I can't understand, not wholly.

You see, I come from a typical Southern family, which entails the stereotypes I'm sure some of you are thinking on, the good and the bad. My mother kissed me every night and told me she loved me every day. So did my father. So did my siblings. We do that still. There was never an absence of comfort in our home, well, for the children anyway. We went to church every Sunday and I still see my mother and sister every week and talk to them several times a week.

We're Southern. We hug strangers, we kiss our friends when we see them or when we leave them. We hug and cuddle and laugh too loud. It’s what we do. Generally, we don't meet a stranger.

I understand that this is not the way of things for everyone. I understand that some weren't fortunate enough to be raised in an affectionate home, that some still find, as adults, it difficult to receive or return affection. I'm not one of those people, so for me, I never found other nation's reactions to the election or Oprah's affectionate nature suspect. (She is, after all, Southern raised. ;P)



I took it for what it was: an excitement bubbling across the globe. It was the air of hope funneling over oceans and dipping into the collective consciousness of people in other nations. People who speak with different languages, whose faces reflect their national ethnicity and whose Gods may not be mine, were infected by the wind of change; the possibility of a positive, hopeful future.

Oprah leaned on her fellow man, because she was affected by this same wind; because she was overcome by the emotion of the night, by the victory of hope. I've experienced that. I've been at church or at a game and my team has won, my spirit has been elevated by happiness and as a result, I embraced strangers, laughed with others whose names I did not know, whose faces are blurred in my memory.

There is no conspiracy to it. Other nations are happy because, I believe, they are rooting for us. They want to see America thrive. They want to see us grow and evolve. I don't think, as my co-worker suggested, that it is a conspiracy; that for some nations, the election of a new president means a lapse in security, means that we will walk over our own citizens in need to help those in other countries. I don't believe this conspiracy exists. I think it is all simply a result of the potential we all hope will come.





Just to think on:



“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”





“If we treated everyone we meet with the same affection we bestow upon our favorite cat, they, too, would purr.”

Ye Ole political rant

Via Mrs. Gloria:


Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that

even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the

Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a

first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many

men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted

violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm,

who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny

to win 18 million votes.


But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a

boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him

and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has

never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life

more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing

pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.


Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no

way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin

shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive

and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention

that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a

presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a

platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood

for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for

McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll

amputate my legs."


This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on

issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the

job because she has children in need of care, especially if they

wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining

her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which

she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen.

Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.


Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month

about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question

until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every

day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on

the war in Iraq."


She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular,and

she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to

give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by

McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no

state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action

for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet

standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush

administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job

candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The

difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat

away from the presidency.


So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin

out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference

between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing

ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a

supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain

could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who

has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away

from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to

opposing the Violence Against Women Act.


Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every

issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that

creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global

warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of

women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves

"abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually

transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions

for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough

money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school

graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the

Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas

pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National

Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of

offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.


I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle

Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she

does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of

fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town.

She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by

overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were

impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only

opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it

dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to

have a child.


So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James

Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely

waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting

for Palin's husband.


Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains

from this contest.


Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and

most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist

majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to

support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to

invite government into the wombs of women.


And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs

than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national

stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the

home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are

campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at

home for their children.


This could be huge.


Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the

Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now

supporting Barack Obama.

Milestone

On October 12, 2008 at 10:30 p.m. I finished the first draft of my novel.

Now, of course, begins the rewrites. Oy vey.

Five months?

I am inherently lazy about updating this. Life gets in the way, such as it is.

So, big news: Bev, the writing mentor, has asked me to sit on a panel with her in October at the Louisiana Book Festival. Of course she was aware of my brilliance (read: she asked randomly) and wants me to discuss my vast writing experience (um: really, we're going to discuss writer's groups). I know something about that since Camp and I started ours about three years ago. I should say, Camp asked me once after writing class one day "don't you think we should keep the critiques going after the semester ends?" to which I agreed. End of the next class and he announces: "Tee and I are starting a writer's group" Yep, that's him.

Despite being bullied into it, I have immensely enjoyed the experience. We found ourselves, during that writing class, in a unique situation; we actually gave and received honest, helpful critiques. We wanted to continue that communication and three years later, here we are. The first half hour consists of us ribbing one another (I generally take the brunt of this little insults) and then we get down to business. I have heard many writers complain about the 'dangers' of writer's groups, because there are many bad opinions and suggestions eager to make their way out of ignorant mouths, but that has not been my personal experience. Maybe I'm just damn lucky. Maybe my evil glares threaten my fellow members and that particular look demands honesty. Who knows? We are fortunate to have each other and I don't even mind the ribbing. Much.

As to the panel, I am incredibly excited and alternatively sick to my stomach when I think about standing in front of total strangers and speaking, all eyes on me. I'm blushing just thinking of it. Ah well, my life motto is "this too shall pass," and that minute mantra has gotten me through some uncomfortable, awkward and stroke-inducing moments. I'm certain, this will pass. I don't think, however, that my projected fifty pound weight loss will be accomplished before October. Damn that genie and his 'your wish is my command' lies!

I should mention that since my last post, I have achieved the unforeseeable and, what I thought would never happen: I finished graduate school. I am officially a Master of Arts.

Still can't believe they bought my BS.

Wonders never cease.

Be well and never give up.

T e e