in a world uncertain say you'll be my stone

I love finding pop-singers whose lyrics actually give you food for thought. Too often I can either not understand what they're saying or don't agree with what they're saying. So when I find a singer whose lyrics are not only catchy but also thoughtful, I like to keep them close. Lately for me, the singer who holds the top spot is Alessia Cara. Favorite among her songs are "My Song" or "Stone" or "River of Tears." The following lyrics are from "Stone."

So much on my mind, I think I think too much
Read between these lines, unspoken weight of words
But time comes to rest when you are by my side, it blurs

And I will follow where this takes me
And my tomorrows long to be unknown
When all is shaken, be my safety
In a world uncertain, say you'll be my stone

Change in every wind
The sands of time don't know our name
Oh nothing's sure, but surely as we stand
I promise I will stay the same
And I've never seen forever
But I know we'll remain

And I will follow where this takes me
And my tomorrows long to be unknown
When all is shaken, be my safety
In a world uncertain, say you'll be my stone
(Oooooooh oooh oooh)
Be my stone
In a world uncertain, say you'll be my stone

Oh steady me, be my source of gravity
While my world's unraveling
Say you'll never change, ooooohhhh!!! Oh!

And I will follow where this takes me
And my tomorrows long to be unknown
When all is shaken, be my safety
In a world uncertain, say you'll be my stone
(Oooooooh oooh oooh)
Be my stone
In a world uncertain, say you'll be my stone

Who are your favorite lyricists currently?

Positive Jealousy: When Comparison Helps

You've heard it said that comparison is the thief of joy. In many ways, I feel that I could look in the corners of the Antipodes and not find a truer saying. When I give in to comparing my life to other peoples' lives, my body type to that of other women, my income to others' income, my relationship status to someone else's, my indie-publishing to that blogging-friend's big-publisher book contract, the joy ebbs like a low-tide. But there is one way in which comparison has served as a catalyst for inspiration. See, the amusing burden of being a reader and a writer is this: one spends half one's time thinking:

"Golly, what a phrase. Wish I'd thought of it first."

My most common thought while reading is not, "Oh, what a lovely book! I'd like to read more like it." Rather, it's much more of a, "What a killing plot. I'd like to write something like this in my genre before anyone else does." I am only halfway in jest. My best ideas are always already in the works. Isn't that terrible? Two days before hearing about Liam Nisson's film, Non-Stop, I said to a friend while crossing a downtown city street:

"You know what'd make a great mystery? A murderer committing his crimes on a plane."

Well thank you, Hollywood, for stealing my thunder. So although I still appreciate a good book for a good book's sake, I try to harness that honest enjoyment and make it work for me. Wild horses may not be able to drag secrets, but they can certainly drag me a few miles before giving it up as a bad job. I have learned to use this "positive jealousy" to understand more about a given genre. I keep a list when reading mystery novels to note what tactics this author seems to be using to reveal clues, corral suspects, and work out the denouement. By this, I hope to learn how to write a better mystery novel.
Obviously I don't intend to copy any author wholesale but I see nothing wrong in learning where their road went right and benefitting from the general trailblazing spirit. What a stupid lot the pioneers would have been if they insisted on cutting their own Oregon Trail. Rather, the whole group worked off of their own and others' prior experiences, wisdom, and knowledge of the way. The ruts of their wagon-wheels can still be seen in some parts of the prairies today. That's called teamwork. Avail yourself of it.

Perhaps the best moments of this useful jealousy come to me when I am standing in the children's section of Barnes & Noble or other bookstores like it. Try as I might to be a grown-up, there is something about children's books that I find utterly irresistible. I never walk down the contemporary fiction aisle. I skip science fiction entirely. Romance? I wouldn't know where to begin with all the covers that look identical and promise hunky heroes and willowy heroines who, no matter the direness of their circumstances, always inherit a dukedom and the arrogant duke to go along with it. Of course the heiress ditches the duke in favor of a humble peasant who, after the suitably humble wedding, realizes he is a marquis in real life. Bad luck, Duke-y darling. Anyway. Groping my way to the children's section via P.G. Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer, and the mysteries, I stand strangely dry-mouthed in the presence of my childhood incarnate. The feeling that my creative and artistic breakthrough which, like the Fountain of Youth or Eldorado, must be just around the next cape or continent or end-cap, is nearly palpable. Have you never felt it? It thrums around me...
The sense that I could write The Book With No Pictures if BJ Novak hadn't done it first.
That Harv Tullet simply beat me to the fingerpaints with his Press Here.
That Lemony Snicket's wit is only my own, rather scalded by life and choosing to laugh through the pain.
That A.A. Milne is my kinsman.
That Newberry Honor Medals are handed out like gold stars for participation.
Of course I soon realize that success is not quite as even-handed as indie publishing would have me believe. The Book With No Pictures is brilliant because BJ Novak did the nearly-impossible and made accessible to millions something so obvious none of us could see it. A way to teach children to adore the written word for mental pictures it can conjure: show them a good time with not a single picture by putting the adult on display and pointing out the fact for the kid's edification: "You just had a blast without asking once to see the pictures. Get it now?"
Making an obvious abstract tangible for the laymen and children among us is a terrific and talented effort. I applaud Novak and Tullet and Mo Willems and so many other authors of the children's books coming out today for their creativity in story-telling, art, and an understanding of children. Their work reminds me that there are authors as talented and inspiring as Margaret Wise Brown, or Margaret and H.A. Rey, or Ludwig Bemelmens, or Kay Thompson in the present day. And more to come. We are still going strong, we race of authors. Not all of us will gain a place in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of children...not all of us will so impact someone's childhood that they stand in that section Barnes & Noble reliving their childhood through the dear book-faces on the shelf. But some of us will. Some of us will....and I could be one of those.
That is why I say comparison is not always the thief of joy. I am given a gift when jealous inspiration thinks, "You know, if I just keep working, I can do that too." Harness it. Follow it. Let it drag you across genres and art mediums and indie publishing and query letters and rejections and contract offers. Let it have you. Experiment. Enter contests you'll never win. Write in a tone that is unlike anything you've used before. Choose a chancey subject and write it well. Or try. Fail and try again. And again. You never know when you'll find that Eldorado. The brain has so many, many trails to blaze.

So here's to standing gape-mouthed in book stores. Here's to relentlessly pursuing creativity. Here's to blazing the trails together. And here's to applauding those who have written the literature that has affected our lives from the moment we realized what stories were. May we all try our hardest to be like them and add to the beauty of literature.

Steal Like an Artist

I don't often make a sweeping blanket statement (or did I just make one?) but today I will. Every creative person, be they author, singer, songwriter, artist, performer, or simply a stay-at-home mother with a handful of fresh veggies in a kitchen and a wish for an exotic meal should read this book:

I had never heard of it until two days ago. I had never known about it till 12:30 or 1:00 this morning when I was hanging with my older brother in the kitchen and reading the introduction. Daniel had been listening to a podcast by one of his favorite bands and the lead singer raised this book to the camera and said, "Read it."

Daniel, standing in our kitchen in the dead of night while I scavenged around the leftover yellow cake with chocolate icing, said something similar. "You should read it. I'm here till tomorrow afternoon." And you know what? There's something imminent and approachable about a book like this that makes you want to obey that ubiquitous command. Daniel didn't buy Steal Like an Artist because Mike Donahey said to, but because he knew he needed it. In the same way, I didn't go to bed at 1 a.m. and wake up at 7:30 when I could have slept in because Daniel told me to, but because I knew I wanted and needed to read this book.

I finished it in an hour.

It became a favorite in ten minutes.

And so I'm telling you, you need to read it. The thing that impressed me most about Austin Kleon's book was not the fact that it is for creative people or even the fact that it is full of cool little diagrams and witty humor. What endeared this book to me from the first chapter is the way he takes the small things in life seriously. Decisions are important. Little things upon little things do make up the big things.

"Just as your familial genealogy, you have a genealogy of ideas. You don't get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and the you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life."
-Austin Kleon Steal Like an Artist

This book is like common sense bottled into a volume the size of a c.d. Time and time again I'd read a phrase and smile. It's not that Kleon has come up with anything out of the ordinary. But he has created one of those books that takes the grand realm of my vague thoughts and impressions and gives form to it. That's what we creatives are here for, you know: to gather the floaty bits and give 'em shape. Everyone has floaty bits. It's only the real artists who can collect and tame them for presentation to another person.

Kleon busts myths like "Write what you know", corrects wrong opinions like "imitation is flattery", and leaves you at the last page feeling like a combination of superhuman, Kinfolk magazine, and fair-trade coffee. And then, with a smirk you can hear across the miles and through the pages, he recommends not paying four bucks for a latte when you could be saving money. Like, "Oh, not only have I written a manifesto of creativity, but your coffee houses where you feel so validated as an artist are totally stealing your pocket money. Starving artist--ever heard of it? Yeah. Starbucks started the trend."

Okay, so maybe he wasn't that blunt, but I loved it. In this little powerhouse of paper, Austin Kleon addresses the need for a day job, the value of living a really, well, boring life so you can actually get work done, and the necessity of stepping away from the computer and working analog:

"Just watch someone at their computer. They're so still, so immobile. You don't need a scientific study (of which there are a few) to tell you that sitting in front of a computer all day is killing you, killing your work ...You need to find a way to bring your body into your work. Our nerves aren't a one-way street--our bodies can tell our brains as much as our bodies. You know that phrase, 'going through the motions;? That's what's so great about creative works: If we just start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar, or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table, or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brains into thinking."
-Austin Kleon Steal Like an Artist

I'm going to say it once more: "Read it." Let's see how long you can resist.

New Stories: Take your pick

I'm in one of those in-between stages of novels where I dabble with a lot of ridiculous, tiny plots and see what fits best as the next Official Work in Progress. It's always a total toss-up as to which triumphs over the others. As I you all know, I am hoping to publish Anon, Sir, Anon in November of this year. As it is the first Vivi & Farnham mystery, I hope to add more to the pile eventually. I am not, however, certain that I'll start right in on the second novel. While I sit in this stage, I thought I'd give you the first chunk of each current option. These are all random story starts I have collected in my files. Not that I'll use you as the definitive measure, but which sounds like something you'd like to read? For easy classification, I've also denoted in which genre each belongs. :)

It didn’t pay to be a writer; either he failed (and owed money) or got famous (and owed more money). Never a nice, easy “why dontcha take a thousand extra for good luck”, never a day the bank didn’t eye him out of the corner of their specs as if he was the heart and soul behind the crash of the stock market. Didn’t seem to matter to the banks that he’d never had money enough in one place to buy stocks. Even if he’d wanted them, he always added in a fierce tone, as if that made it better.

There were other problems, too, besides finances: dames didn’t like writers past a first date; no chance of finding a nice little wife with whom to build a nice little home and have a nice little family and receive the filial kiss from each child in the evening.

“You’ll write us into your nasty pulp novels!” the girls shrilled, and stroked his hand as if there was any danger in that.

He hated to tell them straight to their perky little faces, but those girls must have had a high opinion of their own value--or a low opinion of his ambition--to think he’d waste his talent on writing them into anything from soap-flake ad to prize-winning novel. Nothing doing. He didn’t take on every paper-doll that marched his way. He was after real characters. People with depth. Hemingway didn’t fuss around with chorus girls. Or, if he did, they were bound to have some deep psychological case.

Yes, a writer’s life was an empty bed and an emptier wallet. Not that Fitzwilliam Sheridan didn’t find it an education. He tried to take it philosophically. For instance: he’d never before experienced how many dozen ways you could cook dried beans till the royalties from his first novel had dried up. The latest recipe involved coffee and mustard-seeds; it hadn’t inspired a glamorous night. Nevertheless, the Merits of Dried Beans had gone into the Ladies’ Home Journal via “Mrs. Sheran Fitzwilliam” and--because all of America seemed wild about living off of no food and less money--it had been accepted and circulated among the upper circle of weary-eyed housewives.

“Manna from heaven!” one critic called the article.

Another tried: “And the gods ate black beans.”

But tonight, his stomach begged a more hospitable repast.

“Just one piece of bread!” He pressed two inky fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Is that too much to ask?”

Marvin, his resident annoyance, watched him pace the room. “Shut up, Fizzy.”

“I certainly can’t shut up if my stomach won’t! Beans might be all right for Mrs. Sheran Fitzwilliam, but old Fizzy Sheridan isn’t feeling quite so chipper!” He eyed the sheet of paper in his typewriter cannibal-wise. “Do you think paper is so terribly awful?”

“Taste, or the effect if has on the old dietary system?” Marvin’s nose was broken right across the middle, and he nursed this hurt with a chunk of raw, red meat.

“Marv, please,” Fizzy begged.

He saw Marvin’s eyes travel from his face to the steak he held in his fist. “Uh, no.” He screwed his eyes shut and applied the meat again.

“Marvin!”

Marvin opened one eye. “This is medical material, kid. It’s practically a bandage or--or iodine or something.”

“It’s meat. It’s life.”

“It’s expensive.” That was all Marvin would say on the matter.

He sponged at his nose with the beef while Fizzy felt himself being torn apart from the inside outward. In a matter of moments, Marvin would probably be able to see straight through his vest to the rusty heater on the other side of the room.

Musicians had a much better life than writers. Fizzy deliriously wondered if it was too late in life to take up jazz piano.

-Mob Ink by Rachel Heffington (comic novel)

****

The blue of heaven upended seemed to spill into the river till Mary Ridd was unsure where the sky stopped and the river-water began. How strange it was that the water looked like laughter now, where it had been filled with blood and bodies in her dreams the night before. At the thought, she pulled her feet from the lapping of the waves, and onto the gravel-strewn beach where it was warmer, and the water could not touch her like a dead thing.

    There had been a young militiaman floating here--drowned--in the dream. She'd seen his hair rising and falling with the breath of the river, tangling in the water-weeds, and she'd felt suffocated with the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop this war. There was nothing she would do, even if faced with an opportunity. Fear. The shame had not left with awakening.

    “Mary. Mary, chit, where are you?” It was Nathaniel’s voice coming bold onto the beach through the pass cut into the red clay bluffs.

    Mary scrambled to her feet and pulled her stays into their proper position. “Here, Nat.”

    “Ah. Mary.” Nathaniel scuffed his bare foot in the sand--he seldom wore a shoe on his good leg--and grinned at her in the way that always made her think of a seagull--a one-legged seagull at that. “Mary, mother and father have been waiting for you. What have you been at all this time?”

    “Thinking.” Mary slipped her feet into her black leather clogs and grimaced at the feel of sand gritty beneath her heel.

    “What need have women to think?”

    Mary knew he said it to vex her, but she eyed him sternly. “I have need.”

    “Have you?” Nat’s sea-gull’s smile flashed again, and he tossed back his head with a short, confident laugh as like a gull’s as anything Mary had heard. She shoved past Nat and dug her heels into the beach, struggling to walk gracefully in the dragging sand. At the pass in the cliff, Mary turned about and took a last view of the blue-on-blue river and sky. Nat ambled over, and the wind teased a few strands of blond hair out of  his pigtail.

    “The James is beautiful, isn’t she?”

    “She is,” Mary murmured in agreement.

    “But?”

    Mary felt herself blush under Nat’s keen  question. How did he always know when she thought more than she spoke? “But it is a passing beauty, is it not?”

    A shadow like the beauty Mary spoke of crossed Nat’s face. He frowned, and his eyebrows were so light they looked like cloud-play on his forehead. “You’re thinking of the war again, aren’t you?”

    “Aye.”

    “Aye. And yet Father told you to stop troubling yourself with matters you can’t do anything about.”

    Mary undid the ribbons of her straw hat and swung it by it’s strings and she and Nathaniel continued on the hard-packed red trail winding up the bluff. “It is the waiting and doing nothing that frightens me.”

    “And the same that vexes me, Mary. But because I’m an Oak-Johnny the militia didn’t want me.”

He thumped his wooden peg and Mary glanced down at the oaken leg with the breeches buckled neatly around the stump. She seldom thought about Nathaniel’s leg since he’d lost it the year the War began. It had been four years since, and their beautiful corner of Virginia--the Isle of Wight--had changed little. The young men had disappeared by twos and threes, but then, Mary had never been bold enough to take much notice of gentlemen. Perhaps that was the reason she was nineteen and still unwed. So many girls fretted night and day that all the lads were gone to war and would likely be killed, and then there should be no men to marry. Sometimes Mary found it easy to forget there was such a thing as a War of Independence.

Easy, at least, in the daytime. It was the nightmare that plagued her and made her shun the River.

The same dream.

The same face floating  in the weeds.

The same sense of shame when she admitted the war inspired her with nothing but a wish to flee the county and fly somewhere far away where the only neighbors were red-winged blackbirds, and she was alone with none but Nathaniel for company.

-The Green Branding by Rachel Heffington (historical fiction)

****

Her family loved Jesus but that didn’t mean they weren’t flat-out crazy sometimes--heck, most times.

Lindy might’ve only been twelve, but she knew lots of things most kids didn’t know--kids as old as Ben Fayette, their neighbor, who attended Duke Meadows High and thought hisself all that and more. And one of the things Lindy knew sure and certain was that her family was a little bit crazy.

Sometimes this bothered her, and other times it was fun.

Today was fun.

Lindy and her older brother, Dagger, had gone out to get them last few berries from the path behind Marvin’s Hardware and now they were runnin’ all over that part of the woods callin’ and mocking the walker-hounds let loose to chase the deer toward hunters in the nearby fields. Lindy could hear the baying in every direction.

“Aooow!” Lindy’s ponytail bounced against her back as she sprang onto and over a mushy log and the hot crush of a July in Duke County made the sweat pour down her neck. Somewheres to her right the hounds were yelling.

“Aoowoowoo!” That was Dagger. Sounded to Lindy like he’d reached the thin part of the woods to her right, near the post office and neighborhood streets.

“Wowowooaw,” Lindy bawled and ripped undergrowth out of her way with both hands. Right now she didn’t care about anything--didn’t care about the milk-carton of berries they’d left behind, didn’t care ‘bout ripping her jeans shorts or gettin’ ticks or anything. It was all gobbled up in the pure joy of runnin’ runnin’ runnin’ after the hounds.

The woods sorta cleared right in front of her and in the middle, next to a scrubby holly-bush, sat a pretty little she-pup. She blinked at Lindy and her ears worked back and forth.

“Ain’t you a purdy little...gal...” Lindy knew the real name for she-pups but she’d said it once at Sunday-school and been told that Jesus wouldn’t like her usin’ such words. Lindy didn’t guess Jesus would care that much--’specially since her Daddy taught her that word right along with “mare” and “ewe” and “cow” and “queen”--but all the same she’d quit talking about hunting dogs at church.

The little hound came over, pressed its warm, whiskery muzzle against Lindy’s bare leg and licked at her sweat. The dog’s tail-end trembled like she thought Lindy might kick her, but she kept licking and Lindy reached a hand down and scratched the pup in the spot at the base of its tail where Dagger’s dog, Blimp, liked it best.

“Bet you ain’t used to being chased by howlin’ kids,” she said. The hound licked Lindy’s hand experimentally. “Bet you ain’t had a good meal in a while.” Hunters kept their dogs just a little hungry all the time so they’d want to come back to the kennels at night and there’d be less dogs to track down by radio-collar.

Lindy took half a roll of Life Savers from her pocket and sorted out the green ones, tossing them into the dog’s mouth one by one.

“Don’t choke on ‘em, now,” she said.

“‘Course she ain’t gonna choke on ‘em, Lindy. They’ve got holes in ‘em.”

“So’s your head.” Lindy turned around with a grin as Dagger crashed into the clearing and leaned against a persimmon tree, breathin’ hard.

“‘Bout ready to go home? he asked.

“Yeah.” Lindy let the dog lick the stickiness from her fingers, then wiped her palms on the seat of her shorts. “Ready.”

Lindy led the way back to the blackberry thicket and Dag fell in step behind her. The late sun made long sticks on the ground out of their arms and legs and Lindy tried walking like a preying mantis.

“Look at me, Dag. I’m a preacher-bug.”

He yanked her ponytail and their shadows jumbled together like a stand of bean-poles.

“Dagger, why’s our family gotta be crazy?”

“What d’you mean, ‘crazy’?”

That’s what Lindy liked about her brother--he listened to her, most times.”What I mean is, Miss Mavis and Uncle Biggs live with us, and we don’t have a car and we don’t go to normal school and Momma can’t cook and Daddy grows weeds for a livin’.”

“You gotta stop sayin’ that, Lindy!”

“What for?”

“Cuz’ Daddy grows clover. For the bees.”

“Yeah, but clover’s weeds. It grows in the mobile-home park.”

“But you can’t keep callin’ it weeds.”

“Why not?”

Dagger shrugged and moved in front of Lindy to beat a path into the brambles. “It sounds bad, Lindy. Just don’t say it.”

Lindy let out a huge raggedy sigh and slapped a mosquito on her wrist, leaving a bloody smudge. “People are just plain annoyin’. I can’t say ‘weeds’, I can’t say ‘bitch’--”

“Lindy!”

“There you go too! Wish somebody’d tell me why instead a’getting mad at me all the time.”

Dagger turned around and placed his big hands on either side of her shoulder. Great, now she was in for a lecture. He looked just like Daddy, only without the black hair. Dagger’s was blond and short and grew into a widdow’s peak on his forehead. “There’s some things that mean two things at once. It’s called a...double entendre.” He frowned while saying the fancy word and Lindy stored it away at the back of her brain as one more thing Ben Fayette probably wouldn’t know.

“It means that you might say ‘weed’ but people might take it as something else--something bad. Like drugs.”

“Oh,” Lindy said. “I get it.” But she didn’t, really.

“Yeah.” Dagger left his right hand on Lindy’s left shoulder and steered her back to the little wedge they’d trampled into the berry patch. He handed her the battered, purple-stained milk carton full of blackberries and smiled. “Don’t you worry your head, Lindy-girl. It ain’t your fault people ruin perfectly good words by givin’ ‘em trashy meanings.”

They crawled out of the berry patch on the hardware side of things and Lindy could feel the heat from the grey, crackled asphalt creeping up through the rubber soles of her sneakers. It felt good, like propping your feet up against the wood-stove door or dipping ‘em in a warm bathtub. Mr. Marvin, the hardware store owner waved at them from the front of the store where he slouched against the door, talking to an old man in a blue pickup.

-Honeybee Miles by Rachel Heffington (southern fiction)

****

Kat Durrant hitched the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and stooped so the air-vent would quit drilling into her scalp. The ceiling of the puddle-jumper plane pushed against her like a hand trying its best to shove her onto the tarmac. Thanks a million but she was just as eager as anyone to leave the confines of the bottle-rocket that had been her home for the last eight hours. Paris was great and everything but the RER was a picnic compared to the elegance of a Boeing 757 for a transatlantic escapade.

“Can you move?” She tapped her seat-mate’s arm.

He looked up, confused. “Oh...sorry.” With painstaking slowness the guy eased out of his chair and into the aisle where he bumped into a black woman and an Arabian man. “Sorry,” he said again.

Kat nipped back a sigh. What was he, the king of klutz? His brow pinched as he fumbled in the overhead bin and Kat smelled a faint aroma of men’s deodorant and cherry coke on him. Not like he wasn’t cute or anything, but Kat could never sleep on flights and eight hours staring at his face--yeah, a pretty nice one--only to find out he was Clumsymodo himself didn’t put her in a good mood. She’d made big plans those eight hours. Plans about how nice he’d be if he’d wake up...what great conversation they’d have...how he’d ask for her number as they slid onto an American runway.

Tough luck, Katherine. She shoved past the man, stopping only to drag her beaten purple carry-on out of the bin while Dodo there was still fishing around for his. What the heck did the dude think he was doing, blocking half the plane from escaping the sardine tin just because he hadn’t been sensible enough to group his junk beforehand, disregarding rules about keeping your seatbelt fastened?

Kat waddled down the aisle, straddling her carry-on and trying to make herself as small as possible. She gave a glazed half-smile to the skinny stewardess whose hose puddled around her ankles. A frightened blink went to the steward who’d just about made her wet her pants by jogging her elbow out of the anonymous darkness and asking if she wanted anything to drink. Come to think of it, her neighbor had been awake then and grinned at her fright like it was a joke or something. Kat threw a short glance backward but couldn’t see him. So long, dude.

She saw him once more on the moving sidewalk and again at baggage claim. So he must be a New Yorker. Funny, she’d assumed he’d be taking a connecting flight like most other people. Though he looked not quite so clumsy by the time she saw him at baggage claim, he still didn’t acknowledge the fact that they’d been neighbors for what felt to Katherine like the better part of a month. Not a wave, not a smile. Certainly not a “where do you live?”

Kat checked her watch: twelve-thirty-three a.m. Great. Not like she wasn’t used to NYC at night, but coming from a little town in Virginia, it still creeped her out sometimes. Especially compared to Paris. What was it about Paris that made this city seem dark and homeless and scarred with graffiti? Maybe the fact that it was. Kat pushed through the doors into the cold embrace of the city’s night and stopped with her toes hanging off the curb, hoping one of the taxis would ignore everyone else who looked like they knew what they were doing and pick her up. She prayed it’d be someone who knew English.

“Hola senora!” The man leaning into the passenger seat of the cab reeked of cigarettes and fried twinkies.

Kat bit her lip, summoned a smile, and nodded. “Bed-Stuy.”

He stared at her for a second. What? Did he think everyone in the neighborhood was black? So what if young, unmarried white women weren’t exactly the norm in Bedford-Stuyvesant? She’d been lucky to find a nice apartment for cheap in the neighborhood: quiet neighbors, small backyard, shopping within reach--all for a comparatively piddling $1000 a month which was pretty much unheard of given the recent mania for brownstone flats.

She climbed into the cab and pretended to fall asleep so she wouldn’t have to try to make conversation this late at night with a guy who didn’t appear to know English. They pulled away from the curb and into the clump of taxis draining from the airport in a slow spiral.

-Brownstone by Rachel Heffington (contemporary fiction)

Lessons from Cell 92

I am sitting tonight with a heart full of poetry and no words. Not terribly productive, perhaps, but beautiful. Deep thoughts have been stirred within me by reading Bonhoeffer's biography; I dread the approaching final chapters, for I know he is executed and it aches me. I dread it, and yet he was so brave a man, so noble a man, you can't help but feel it was a fitting end. I know that sounds horrible, but it's not, when you realize a martyr's death--a crucifixion--is the sort of death Jesus died. And the lives of those who share in that manner of death seem to echo in deep, holy tolls throughout the rest of history. Would the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer rattle us so poignantly if he had lived to be an old man and died of congestive heart failure? I think not. No, people like Bonhoeffer, Sophie Scholl, Peter and Paul and so many others are the people who have left beautiful legacies. It is still sad, though, this approach to re-living a great man's death. Reality and history have been meshed inextricably in my mind, what with the Ukraine Crisis and reading about World War II in Bonhoeffer, and generally being in a thoughtful mood. So I read slowly, savouring the lessons in peace and patience given to me across the years by this kind, extraordinary man, and approach the end of the book a different girl than I began. It is times like these I know I've read a book worth reading.

The day has been beautiful and mild, feathered with sunlight and warmth and the peaceable kiss of Winter's surrender. I would fair say with Browning's Pippa: "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world"; and so it is, in these moments. To live by moments rather than years is such a richer existence. You might say, "That was a bad year", but you could never say, "Those were a million terrible moments." Perhaps that is the key to living under the Mercy: taking life as it is given us, which is breath by breath. More beauty is captured and held and inspected, living this way. There will be room for three hundred and sixty-five sunsets in the twelve-month. I'm nearing my twenty-second birthday; I'll have seen eight thousand and thirty sunsets by the time I've had my birthday, but is that any reason I ought to miss a single one more? I think not. I have kissed the baby's dimple a thousand times if I have once, but is there a reason I oughtn't to kiss it again today and yet another time tomorrow? Someday he'll grow too old for such nonsense, but not for a while yet. I've seen the sun shine through my window every morning (more or less) since I was born, but is that a reason the fire-dart of sun flared through a falling dew-drop shouldn't astonish me as much as it did when first I saw it?

We take too broad a view of things. We've forgotten how to appreciate minutiae. While imprisoned, Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents of a thrush that sang in the prison courtyard every morning, and again in the evenings. He wrote of the gift of solitude and how he was happier he'd been imprisoned, being accustomed to and liking solitude, than another of his friends. This wasn't a Pollyanna triviality: this was a man in tune with God's ways, pressed into the heart of God, living with borrowed and sustained courage and joy in knowing his life was not his own. To be given examples like him and gifts like these, I feel keenly the call to a higher existence and a nobler life. How can anyone not realize we were destined for eternity when they feel these things? I should make a terribly morose Atheist, for I think I would always wish there was an existence beyond this life and always trying to look for it, hoping against hope. Thank God I have access to the same peace and courage as Bonhoeffer. I can live under the Mercy; I can listen for thrushes. Life, lived in step with God's heart, is never truly complicated on His eternal level. Hands fixed on earth, heart fixed on heaven; that's the way to live this noble life.

The Sum of Me is You

It has always been a bit of a thistle-point with me that I do not play an instrument. Everyone else in my family does. Even Grace, at seven years old, can manage more one-finger tunes on the piano than I. But, like Elizabeth Bennet, I have always considered that my fault because "I would not take the trouble to practice." I sing, yes, but that is hardly the same as being able to sit down to an instrument and bring forth emotion from the keys or strings or mouth-piece. Sometimes, when I've run out of words and my heart is fair to bursting with some sorrow or concern or longing, I will run my fingers over the keys of our piano like a lisping scholar trying to fathom a Latin text, and feel hopelessly illiterate. I know a good bit of music theory from early lessons and my father has started again a music theory class for my sisters and I. I balked when the proposal came up and laughingly told Mama I have no time. When pressed as to why I was so against the idea of an hour's class a few evenings a week I told her:

"I have no room in my life for being bad at things!"

As soon as I said it, I had one of those odd, blue-moon sensations of having unintentionally said something profound. I laughed it off as a joke, but when I reviewed this comment (after the first session of theory-class) I had to acknowledge that I partly meant what I said. See, I don't like being bad at things. I am accustomed to being good at what I'm good at, trying new things, and abandoning them if I don't show prompt aptitude; this variety of pride is my downfall. A person can't live a full life if they must be good at everything. To have no room for being bad at something...is that not the same as refusing adventure? I think of the example of those people one comes across at dinner-parties now and then. At the first few moments of conversation, one thinks one has finally discovered a new and interesting acquaintance: the person is well-informed and passionate about the subject on which you are conversing and all seems bright and beautiful. Then one begins to realize that the subject is the only subject on which the other person seems capable of speaking and the slow, entrapping sensation of having met a bore creeps down one's spine. When I realized this tendency of mine to not do a thing because I wasn't immediately good at it, I knew I needed to break this habit and quickly. If the world ran by the standards to which I was holding myself, think how dull it would be:

People without fine voices would never sing.

Children would never draw pictures because they weren't real artists.

Learning an instrument would be illegal unless you were a protege and knew instinctively.

You could only ever learn the one language to which you were raised.

Poor gardeners would not be permitted to try growing seeds.

Only the true athletes would be allowed to jog or play sports.

Dancing could be done only by professionals.

And on and on the dull, drab world would go. What a place! What a hell. In fact, if you made room in your life only for the things at which you were perfect, you would be left shriveled and dead. We are imperfect in our very natures, which is why we need Christ's perfection to redeem us. If the sum of me is my talents, my achievements, my merits, I am nothing. What I need to focus on instead is who I am in God's eyes. I want to be able to say with a joyful, buoyant spirit: "The sum of me is You." This it the only identity that will last, and with this identity comes freedom. Freedom to struggle, to be broken, to fail because we have accepted at last that we are strugglers, broken, and failing mortals. Freedom to create imperfect offerings with right hearts. Christ has seen all our mess and He still chooses us, loving us in our imperfections because "in our weakness He is made strong."  I'm called to rejoice in my weaknesses, knowing they glorify my King.

Creativity is a gift of worship. Creating anything is an act of praise. God knows I can't make a single thing perfect by His standard of perfection. All that is required of me is to do my best. If my best attempt at drawing is a clumsily-sketched hand, so be it. If my best attempt at music is a fumbled rendition of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," so be it. I'll never be perfect and to deceive myself by thinking I will is madness. No one is perfect. No book I will ever write, no song I will ever sing, no landscape I will ever paint will be perfect...but if I try and dare and do, they can't help but be beautiful.

"To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality."

-John Ruskin

"You and rabbits--extraordinary!"

I was watching Miss Potter again last night. We've spoken of it before: of the fact that every time I watch this film, I come away inspired, invigorated, and ever so slightly depressed that I don't own an estate in the Lake District. I don't exactly know why I love the movie so much unless it is just the fact that it is...me. This is probably the reason; every friend that has watched it has asked/messaged/texted me and said, "Hey, Rachel, have you seen Miss Potter? It reminds me so much of you."

I grew up on Beatrix Potter's little books and now that I'm quite grown, I have purchased a huge, beautiful hard-bound copy of the complete set. My sister owns a book full of the letters Beatrix sent to children all around the world which inspired me to start drawing picture-letters for the little folk in my own life. I intend to name one of my daughters Beatrix, if my husband is amicable to the idea.... (Ha. ha. ha. ha.) All told, the stories, film, and letters of and about Beatrix Potter fill me with a nostalgic, lovely contentment that makes me want to take out my watercolors and start again with the lovely old rhythm of art, words, and story.

I was talking once with one of my friends, Wyatt Fairlead, about the film. (He was one who told me I must see this film if I hadn't already)

"It always makes me want to paint amazing pictures and publish a book," I said.
"It always makes me want to own land in the Lake District," he followed.

That was a jolly plan and it has grown since to a plot that he will somehow fall into an inheritance (or win a lottery) and buy at least one farm up there. Matthew (my cousin) and Amy (Wyatt's sister and Matthew's girl) and I will then come visit and I will have all the joy of a Lake District farm without any of the expense.

It is a very good plan.

Among many of the other joys of the film, (LIKE THE SCENERY? OH LOR') the soundtrack is paramount. It is the essential "writing music" for me....just turn that soundtrack up on Spotify and dig my mental claws into my story and there we go. I need to employ the music in the background while writing Anon, Sir, Anon -- just the right feel for the story. When watching the movie last night, I was excited (and a bit astonished) to realize that my Lair is quite a lot like Beatrix's room...and I have always envied/loved/adored/wanted her painting room. That was quite a lovely lovely realization and now I love my messy wall more than ever.

There is one scene toward the start of Beatrix's career when she has just published The Tale of Peter Rabbit and is sitting with Norman Warne (her publisher) over tea. She is saddened that their relationship must needs come to an end because the business of publication is through and they have succeeded...then Norman leans across the table saying:

"Your book has made my life so full...I was hoping there would be more stories...?"
Beatrix looks a bit taken aback. "Y..yes."
Norman: "Then I look forward to doing it again and again..."
Beatrix: "And again!"

And that is exactly how this whole publication of Fly Away Home feels. I just want to keep writing, keep making stories, keep dreaming about that farm in the Lake District I will never ever might someday own...and keep chasing after dreams like Beatrix Potter. I never hope to be able to walk into my bank and ask them if I could perhaps afford a small country house of my own and be told I'm quite a wealthy woman and have enough for several estates, but it is a pleasant thought all the same.

Oh dear. I independently published. No charming, humorous, lovable publishing men for me....

Guess I'll settle for a thick, roguish Willie Heelis when I go off to visit Wyatt Fairlead's farm. :)

Adventus Poetry

And sometimes you sit down to write a blog post and end up with a shard of real-homesickness that takes the form of this:

"Adventus"

Pregnant, weighted.
Breath is baited
Hope has faded
With the night
Silent, holy,
Wanting solely
To be healed from
stabbing fright.
What if all this--
love and peace-kiss--
falls in dust
of crumbled prayers;
Nothing left but
hearts that slam shut,
hands that claw
and empty stares?
Lord, deliver!
Rend the shiver
As our swollen
bodies lie
In the dark net
of the "not yet"
where we, wandering,
fear to die.
Filling tombs
And swelling wombs
And still we wait
and watch in vain;
Has Heaven, blank night,
Turned from the sight
Of our wounds
And formless pain?
Silence deepens,
Hillside steepens,
Voices roughen
Like a blow
Question pours out
stubborn, draws doubt:
Poisoned arrow
On a bow.
Waiting, clinging,
Sighing, singing
In our half-lit
chamber-tombs,
Lord, deliver!
Rend the shiver
Bring forth joy
From barren wombs.

Breakfast at Whistlecreig

I haven't really given you a broad piece of Vivi & Farnham to digest since first announcing Anon, Sir, Anon. I suppose you will be wanting chunks now and then like I've done with all the rest of my stories. Here's the thing: I'm not certain how much I'll be able to share (as far as large pieces) once the mystery gets rolling. You can never be over-careful with those things. This bit, however, is the perfect way to introduce you to two of my principle characters and their personalities, ways they interact with other people, etc. Also, it gives you to the tone of my novel which is decidedly cozy-Wodehousian-with-a-bit-of-dry-Christie-for-good-measure. It is going to be serious in parts, but the overall tone is what you see below. Enjoy this bit...it relaxed me to write it. Oh. And to reward you for your patience in reading all the way through (and for any comments/critiques you might want to provide afterward) I present you with two sketches of Vivi & Farnham. They are probably not good likenesses of my people, and they're not very good sketches at any rate, but they are inspirational to me and that's why I made them.

Farnham watched his niece at the stove, fascinated at the way she appeared to have taken up residence in the kitchen. He’d always heard that women transform a home but he’d never liked the idea. Now, however, it appeared that “transformation” meant much in the way of well-cooked food, dustless furniture and someone to talk to, not--as his fellow bachelors were fond of saying--dumping a chap on his head, tossing his cigar boxes, and snipping his curtains to fashionable shreds.

Genevieve wasn’t a pretty girl--her mouth was too small and her nose too snub. Farnham knew that but somehow as he watched his niece moving through the motions of making breakfast without a hint of the sense of imminent crisis with which he cooked, he thought he’d at last found a woman who didn’t set him on edge.

But, “See that you don’t burn the rashers,” was the only compliment he dished out.

Genevieve took up a fork and turned the bacon in the pan till it gave a maddened sizzle. “There’s no worry it’ll burn--it is all fat and no meat. Where do you buy your bacon?”

“Garridy’s.”

“I shall buy it at Hilton’s from now on.”

“Why?”

“Their pigs look happier.”

Farnham didn’t have an argument for this - he’d wouldn’t know what a happy pig looked like. “Are you my housekeeper now?”

“Someone has to do it, dear.”

He resented this Mab for calling him “dear” in that motherly tone. “I have Allen for that.”

“Allen is a butler.” She smiled that curious smile of hers where the left side of her mouth quirked upward and removed a tray of puddings from the oven. “And butlers resent housework.”

“He’s never complained.”

“They never do, but they retaliate in a million different ways. I know, dear, I took over household decisions for Mama on my twenty-third birthday. Ours invariably rubbed Father’s black shoes with brown polish until we discovered that he’d been made to cook muffins for breakfast every Thursday. Put him right off his tea and the inner peace of the household was intricately bungled till I figured out where things had gone awry..”

The smell of the frying bacon and hot puddings knotted Farnham’s stomach, but from hunger or those bang ulcers he couldn’t tell; the thought of eating meat turned his stomach to a hotbed of pain. “I don’t think I can manage bacon this morning.”

“Heavens no. This is for me.” Genevieve forked the crispy rashers onto her plate and lifted a pudding from its tin bed, settling it beside two fried eggs.

Farnham resented girls with healthy appetites. “Where’s mine?”

She nodded at the stove. “Just there. I’ll fix it for you in a tick.”

“Can’t I have a pudding?”

“Not with your ‘bang ulcers’. Yes, you’ve been speaking aloud. I’m putting you on a strict diet of porridge and camomile tea with perhaps a bit of scone if you’re quite an angel.”

He drew himself up. “Farnham of Whistlecreig is never an angel.”

“Then you’ll have to do without scones.”

“Bang it.”

“Now about this murder.”

“Yes, I was wondering when we’d get to speak about that.” He rubbed his palms together and felt the pain in his stomach fading as anticipation of exploring the thing rose. “We’ll pop round to have a look at the body after breakfast, shan’t we?”

“Your call. I’m not experienced in these matters. What is the proper ettiquette? Wait until noon and stay no longer than ten minutes, or don’t wear white after Michaelmas?”

“Do you know you’re a menace? ‘Better three hours too soon than a minute too late’.”

“You know best, dear.”

“Don’t call me that.” His fist clenched almost against his will and shook out his fingers with a shaky laugh. “Sorry.”

She made a face. “No, I’m sorry - I had almost settled in my role of maiden aunt before I was uprooted and sent here and I’m used to sweetening my conversation to suit fretful children. Well, if you are to tell me what to call you, I’m afraid I must have my preferences too.”

“You don’t want to be called Genevieve?”

“Do you like it?”

He was shocked to see a shy, girlish look flit over her face as if she wanted to hear what he thought--really wanted to hear. “Oh...umm...it’s a fine name. Fine. If you like it, that is. If you don’t like it then...we’ll call you something else.”

“Vivi.”

“Sorry?”

“Call me Vivi, please. No one does. It’s always ‘My eldest, Genevieve’ or worse yet, ‘Genevieve - the capable one.’ I’m tired of being capable - it means they’ve given up on me. Call me Vivi.”

He saw the set of her jaw and the weariness behind her eyes and since he was not entirely heartless, he guessed the story of the battles she’d fought over the labels. “Vivi then.”

They had a hum of silence then--an absence of conversation, rather--filled with the homely, comfortable sounds of bacon fat hissing in the cooling skillet and silverware against china as Vivi set out a few dishes on the table.

“I didn’t know what dishes you usually used but I like the china.”

“As do I. Family heirloom.”

“Really?” She smiled and set his silverware beside his bowl of porridge.

The steam curled upward and filled Farnham’s nose with the wholesome scent of oats and milk. This, he thought, his stomach could handle, and it was nothing like the clods of rocky oatmeal Allen made sometimes. “Shall we pray?”

“Mmm.”

Vivi folded her hands and bowed her head. Sunlight from the window behind her made an aura over her head till she looked like the paintings of angelic children saying prayers before bed that he’d seen sometimes in the cheaper stores. All this Farnham took in at a glance, for he was accustomed to seeing and digesting a thing in as long as it took most men to straighten their ties.

He closed his eyes and let the rare peace fall over his shoulders. “Dear Lord, for our food we thank Thee. For our comfort, our home, our lives. May we never forget to serve Thee with our hearts and souls, and may you guide our footsteps this day. Amen.”

As Farnham dolloped honey on his porridge, he reflected on the beauty of rote prayers. Certainly he made up his own prayers--constantly--but there was a steadiness in the repetition of the same words he’d prayed every meal for the last forty years that the made-up ones lacked. It was the difference between stepping into a church under construction and a cathedral that had stood six hundred years, steeped in worship.

“The murder victim--who was she?” Vivi asked, bringing Farnham’s mind back round to the day’s business.

He grunted and flicked his napkin. “Most bodies don’t come with calling cards. How should I know?”

“Doesn’t anyone carry identification? I’d hate to be murdered and no one know it was me.”

“Remind me to get Allen to sew a label on your coat-sleeve.”

Vivi forked into her pudding and ate it while Farnham watched, idly swirling his porridge. He was thinking about what the Police Inspector had told him. “Vivi...it’s...not going to be pretty.”

“I should think not; it’s a murder.”

Farnham slapped the surface of his porridge with the back of the spoon. “Her face is...well...it’s quite...”

“Quite what?”

“Bashed in.”

Vivi chewed and swallowed then wiped her lips with her napkin. “Poor darling.”

“Wouldn’t you rather stay here?--As your uncle I want to protect you, you’ll understand, but I’m not demanding you stay.”

She smiled at him sweetly. “You’re a chivalrous old goose, but I want to come. Maybe I can be of some use.”

He wouldn’t go that far, but there might be something after all in what she said about butlers feeling resentment when forced to do work out of their proper line--Allen might not take kindly to toadying for a lady. “All right,” he said, and took a spoonful of porridge with the same dutifulness with which he took castor oil. “You can come along.”

“Eat it all. I’m going upstairs to primp and when I come back I expect the bowl to be empty.”

Farnham sighed. “Are you my nursemaid now?”

“Aren’t I? I think it was in the job description.”

Bang it. The girl was right.

And that, dear people, is your first goodly chunk of Anon, Sir, Anon. Now, I give you the sketches I promised in wretched photo-quality because I was too lazy to scan them:

 

This is obviously Vivi. She's labeled. She's not terribly attractive but there's something approachable about her, wouldn't you say? She's short as well--a fact mentioned elsewhere but that you might want to know.

 

And obviously this is Vivi & Farnham upon Vivi's arrival and subsequent appearance in the Tribunal at Whistlecreig.

 Pardon the absolutely wretched quality of these images. I just thought you might like to see what they were like. And I do hope you enjoyed the bit I call "Breakfast at Whistlecreig". Toodle-loo!