A New Year

It's a New Year  (capitalization intentional), a good excuse for a blog entry.  A New Year is typically supposed to be a time for profundities.  Unfortunately, or probably fortunately, I have nothing profound to say.  I don't even have a New Year's resolution to share.  I don't make New Year's resolutions.  I have nothing against resolutions; I make them whenever they are called for, just not necessarily at the new year.   

So why am I writing this?  I'm writing it because of wishes.  New Year's wishes.  I wish a lot of things for us.  I wish us all the traditional health and happiness but I wish for more than that.  I wish us connection, with one another and the planet.   Just imagine what such a connection would bring!  And I wish us all joy. I believe wishes can come true, usually when backed up by, well, resolution.  Happy New Year to us all!

Forgetting to Breathe

I knew this would happen.  It's been over a month since I wrote anything for this blog.  When I started it, I had no idea how I could keep it up.  People told me it would be no problem and it wasn't, particularly.  

Then I got really busy.  In my day job I teach at a university and the end of a semester is always rough.  It's especially hard when there are also holiday cards that need to be written and mailed and all that sort of thing.  You know the drill.  So I didn't get the blog done.  So what, right?

Well, not really.  Not writing the blog paralleled another problem.  I have been going around feeling as if I couldn't breathe.  Stress, I told myself.  Then I realized that not only had I not been writing the blog, I hadn't been writing anything else.  I was reading an email from my agent when it struck me: she was looking forward to reading something I hadn't written.  Nothing unusual there.  But this was not just something I hadn't written but something I wasn't actively writing. Writing is is like breathing for me in a way.  I need to do it to live.

So here's a blog entry and a reminder, to myself and to anyone like me: if you are a writer, don't forget to write. 

Veterans' Day and Armistice and Peace

This morning, at 11 AM on 11/11/11, I did something I have done at that time on 11/11 since I was six years old. I took two minutes to meditate on those who fought in war and on the lives lost in war. I thought especially of the veterans of the World Wars and more recent wars but I could not keep my thoughts from all of the conflicts throughout time.  These include nameless conflicts going well back into prehistory, the evidence of which exists only in the archeological record. Our kind has long had a capacity for violence.  I would like to hope that we have, not an equal capacity for peace, but a greater one. I would like to hope that we could develop this capacity.  Perhaps someday the Armistice will be permanent and we, humanity, will have peace.

"Tiger Lily" and the e-book

I finally have another novel published,  "Tiger Lily".  It was a long process.  It's out in e-book only right now, available for both Kindle and Nook from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, respectively.  

Having my own books published in e-format  seems ironic.  I always swore I wasn't going to be one of those "electronic people" walking around glued to a device. This is peculiar because I didn't hesitate when it came to writing books on a computer instead of a typewriter (or longhand!).   But reading, well that was different.

 I was someone who loved the feel of a "real" book, the sound of a page turning, the amount of space it takes up - wait.  Not that last part.  I do still love print books and I will never stop reading them.  And buying them.  But that thing about the space, well, that's important.  My house, which is small to begin with, is crammed with books.  (I rarely get rid of them.)  E-books don't take up physical space.  Point to the e-book.

There is also the instant gratification feature.  Want to read that?  Download it! Blam!  There it is, calling you away from whatever you are supposed to be doing.  Books have always been able to take precedence over work in my life but the instant gratification thing, that's new.  So I joined the ranks of the e-reader people.  And I now write books that have been published only in e-format.  I have been dragged into the twenty-first century.

Oh, and "Tiger Lily".  There's a woman who can shape-shift into a tiger.  That's just the beginning of the weirdness.  Go check it out.  It's an e-book.  (Eventually I'll get over it.)

Talking With Crows

I became interested in crows many years ago.  At that time there were a number of crows living in the woods on my property.  I have no idea what began our relationship but I began to notice that there was one crow who took to following me outside.  At least I assume it was the same one.  I began to talk politely to her.  (I have no idea why I thought this bird was a female but that was my definite impression.) And the crow began to talk back.

This crow began to come to a tree outside my back door, checking in there several times a day.  When I would go out, the crow would caw at me.  Well, caw doesn't cover it.  This crow made a number of different calls.  It sounded like conversation. Then other crows started appearing.  I talked to them all.  They talked back to me.  I would wait until the crows had said their piece and then I would say mine.  They would wait for me to finish and then answer me.

When I would go outside there was often one crow waiting.  This crow would then call others.  There is no way to prove it but I am convinced the local crows had a name for me.  Yes, a name: a call either specific to me or modified to indicate me, such as "the human who talks to us".  The crow near my back door would tell the others, "She's here again, the one who talks to us!"  And other crows would come.

Back then I would take very long walks in the woods.  The crows would accompany me.  To be more specific, they would accompany part of the way, all of us blathering on, happy to be talking with one another even if we had no idea what we were blathering about.  At a certain spot approaching one of the local ponds, "my" crows would bank and turn and peel off and head for home.   On a number of occasions I saw other crows in the woods just ahead but these other crows never followed or talked to me.  I guess I didn't belong to their flock.

I have since learned that crows are extremely intelligent birds.  It is possible they have the rudiments of actual language and not "just" a sophisticated call system.  It is possible they have a culture as anthropologists define it, in terms of learned and shared behaviors.

Then I stopped taking long walks in the woods.  I have a spinal condition which worsened dramatically.  I spent far too much time with doctors and far too little in the woods.   I was no longer able to take long walks.  Recently, as part of my self-prescribed therapy, I have begun taking shorter walks in my own wood patch.  No crows follow me or talk to me.  I did hail one passing crow, who circled around to come back for a look at me but that was all.  No conversation.

I suspect my old friends are gone, which makes me sad.  But I also wonder.  Do crows pass on stories to their young?  Is it possible some local crow has heard of the human who talks to crows?  Perhaps that crow will find me.  I miss my corvid conversations.

books!

My book of poetry, "February's Country", is now out in epub format, available from Barnes and Noble.  Even though I remember writing these poems, my big kitty Cal Meepers says they are actually all his.  I hope to have some of my novels published in epub as well as kindle format, including a brand new one (yes!)  before *too* long.  Stay tuned.

A Visit to Ground Zero Ten Years Ago

Two months after the attack on the Trade Towers, I was in Manhattan.  My mother was still alive back then, living in her beloved city but considering moving to assisted living.  Some of the family gathered to see her.  

Of course there was much discussion of the attack.  My mother said, "They tried to kill us all but look, we're still here."  Some of us thought the attack would draw the country together.  Others thought it was divisive, that we would all be suspicious of those who didn't look like us, dress like us. A few were insistent that the country would divide over race and religion and fall apart.   Eventually, most of us grabbed cabs and went down to Ground Zero.

Ground Zero.  It was still burning.  The smell was incredible; my eyes burned for hours afterwards.  Much of it was fenced off but you could still climb some of the rubble for an overview of ruins and smoke.   I walked away from my family and began to climb.

There was an African-American woman already up there. She leaned over and extended a hand.  I grasped her hand and she pulled me up.  We looked at each other.  We said nothing, just nodded.  A few minutes later, an Asian-looking man started to climb up.  The other woman and I grabbed his hands, hers dark, mine pale, his golden, and pulled him up.  Again, there were no words.  We all looked at one another and then looked out over the pile.  The man wiped away a tear.  Then we heard something behind us.  A brown-skinned man was trying to climb.  The other two helped him up and we all stood there, shoulder to shoulder.

I said there were no words but that isn't really true.  No words were spoken but there were words.  After helping up the last man, the woman's jacket fell open, revealing her sweatshirt.  There were words on her sweatshirt.  The words were: "United We Stand".

In the gathering November dusk four Americans stood on a mound of rubble, looking across smoke and fire toward the unseeable future.