Feeding the Muse

A quote from form Lily Tomlin 

We have a staff library at work. People bring in books from home and leave them for others to borrow—that’s how I was able to nab a copy of Andy Weir’s “The Martian” after Ter and I saw the movie. I mentioned to Treena that I was looking for the book and she said, “There’s one in the break room.” Serendipity strikes! The film stayed pretty well true to the novel; anything that wasn’t used wasn’t missed as far as I could tell.

My next pick was … disappointing. A textbook murder mystery where the law falls for the prime suspect, who is innocent but confesses to protect a loved one. I had the loved one pegged from the third chapter, which hardly made for enthusiastic reading—it took me weeks to skim four hundred pages because I wasn’t hungry to see what happened next when I already knew what happened next. Except I didn’t. A weird twist in the final chapter deflected the spotlight from the loved one to a secondary character whose motivation didn’t, in my opinion, warrant the grisly murder suffered by the sleazeball victim. I wasn’t disappointed as much as bewildered. The twist felt like a deliberate attempt to derail the reader where it would have been, again in my opinion, more honest to let the story end as predicted. I whined to my boy sister, “This was written by a New York Times best selling author!” to which he replied, “Was this the book that made the list?”

Good point, BS. Whether or not the author could do or had done better, this book was mediocre at best.

A mediocre book does two things: it threatens to lower my standards for my own writing and, in direct opposition, urges me to revisit a known gem. Next up: a second run at Station Eleven, a story so gloriously enchanting that I’m delaying the moment simply to relish the anticipation of a truly nourishing read.

A fabulous book will encourage me to stretch my own muscle, and I would rather overextend my reach than settle for “good enough”.

Two Prodigies

I wrote a story about a concert pianist named Julian, whose best friend was a concert violinist named David. They met when Julian, who was touring the Continent in the late 1880s, stopped in London to perform with the Symphony, where David was carving out a career as a virtuoso soloist. They met, they hit it off, and they became the darlings of drawing rooms throughout Victorian society.

The story was written in 1998.

Imagine the hilarity on discovering, in 2009, a violin virtuoso also named David (Garrett, to be precise) who had become a rock star in the music world, blending classical pieces with rock/pop tunes to create, as I once remarked to Ter, a modern day style that Julian’s David would have embraced wholeheartedly.

Funnier still, David Garrett has a pianist buddy with whom he performs those lovely classical works composed for piano and violin—and his name is Julien (Quentin)! But for a single vowel, my David/Julian were a prequel to the “real” David/Julien!

An irony? A coincidence? An annoyance? (After all, mine came first.) Or was I subconsciously tapped into the auras of two prodigies destined to become the Dynamic Duo of chamber music?

Whatever it is, it never fails to amuse when Ter announces that David and Julien are on tour in Europe because, goshdarnit, that’s exactly what my David and Julian were doing long before these two got started.

*sigh*

Garrett and Quentin:
the "other" David-and-Julian

Recognizing Divinity

One morning, I took shelter beneath an overhang while waiting for the traffic lights to change. A tall twenty-something kid with green hair and his whole life strapped to his back joined me to get out of the rain. Our eyes met.

“Hey,” he said, “how’s it going?”

“Fine,” I replied. “You?”

He made a face. “Not so good.” He began setting up shop, arranging his pack into a comfy lounge chair and pulling out a cardboard sign asking for change. “I just came from a job interview,” he went on, “but when I got there, she told me it was cancelled. Nice, eh?”

“Cancelled?” I echoed. “Not rescheduled?”

“Nope.” He sat down, clearly disgruntled, and sighed. “I got there early and she said it was cancelled. So much for that.”

I have little experience actually conversing with the sidewalk’s self-employed. This kid was clearly among them, and though I doubted he’d applied for a gig at City Hall, I was fairly sure he would have fit at the 7-Eleven, and whomever had set the interview should have honoured the appointment, especially if he indeed arrived ahead of time.

“That sucks,” I agreed. “What are you going to do now?”

He settled more comfortably into his makeshift La-Z-Boy. “I guess I’ll hang here for a while and listen to people telling me to get a job. I came out here to be with a friend, but maybe I’ll go back to Vancouver and try again there.”

“You might have better luck in a bigger city,” I said. “Victoria isn’t really a happening town.”

He gloomily concurred.

I asked if he wanted a coffee or something to ward against the chill weather. He politely refused, having had enough coffee to get a buzz going for the non-interview. “You’d think fifty people wishing you luck would have had some pull,” he said.

“I wish I’d known,” I told him. “Maybe the fifty-first would have been the difference.”

He looked briefly nonplussed, then laughed. “Yeah. Maybe.”

The light had changed more than once by now, and my own job awaited. “I can’t do anything more for you,” I said, “but at least I can give you this.” I proffered a fiver. “It might help.”

He didn’t take it, and for a second I worried that I’d offended him. Instead, he looked up at me and asked the most astonishing question.

“Are you sure?”

He had nothing. I was on my way to the bank before returning to the office, and he asks if I’m sure about giving him a paltry five dollars? I was amazed, humbled, and a little embarrassed. But I persevered.

“Of course I’m sure. At the very least, it’ll get you to the ferry, if that’s what you want to do.”

He slowly took the bill from my hand and thanked me.

I tried to shrug it off. My heart would rob me blind if I allowed it. This was a genuinely good kid and they all deserve a break. Unable to give him one, I aimed for encouragement. “That interview didn’t work out but the next one probably will. Good luck, okay?”

He smiled. I bolted for the crosswalk before I burst into tears.

I haven’t seen him since then, but I remember him whenever I’m at that corner. I wonder where he is and if his fortunes have changed. I wonder what his name is. I regret that I didn’t think to ask.

I don’t, as a rule, donate to individuals. I once joked that if I dropped a coin into every hat on a downtown block, I’d be broke by the next intersection. I have no idea why this kid touched me, except that I actually took the time to talk to him.

Dr. Wayne Dyer said in a  lecture once that you don’t have to give money to someone on the street. You can always offer a silent blessing as you pass. So nowadays, if I can, if I’m feeling brave, I will meet someone’s eyes and offer a smile in lieu of coin.

Most of the time, I get a smile back. Maybe it’s not about the money after all. Maybe it’s about one human noticing another, and recognizing the divinity in each other.

We are all connected.

With love,

Mr. Wrong

Sometimes, he’s blond. Most often, he’s dark-haired and his eyes are predominantly green. Occasionally, they’re some shade of blue, icy and intense, though they have also been a warm, honeyed brown.

He is beautiful, of course. Silken and selfish, he plays to win and believes he can’t lose. He’s the hero in his own story, avenging imagined slights and charming his way into bedrooms and boardrooms alike. He relishes his power over people. He loves not at all, though his victims will argue vehemently to the contrary (and feel the fool in retrospect).

He has expensive taste. He travels by limousine rather than driving himself. He lives the high life as his due, whether or not he comes from a moneyed clan.

He is arrogant, not confident.

He makes his own rules.

He is temperamental and prone to violence.

He is clever and cunning, street smart rather than book smart, and is most dangerous when threatened.

He usually meets a bad end, though he has prevailed in a world where his manipulative skills are considered strengths.

I have no illusions. I love him for all the wrong reasons. I try to stay detached because I know he’s doomed … and yet I miss him when he’s gone.

Mr. Right

Why wait when I can make my own?

Sometimes, he’s blond. Most often, he’s dark-haired and his eyes are predominantly green. Occasionally, they’re some shade of blue, deep and intense, and when I was younger, they were almost always brown; a rich, pure chocolate brown that weakened my knees and my resolve in equal measure.

He is as comfortable in denim as he is in Armani silk, and when he does wear jeans, they-fit-well.

He’s wealthy, of course. Mysteriously so. He drives no less than eight cylinders except when he’s on horseback, and then his steed is as sleek and powerful as his Jaguar/Lamborghini/classic Camaro.

He is confident, not arrogant.

He is compassionate, not gullible.

He is fierce, not violent. His anger is justified and he does not love easily. When he does offer his heart, he does it thoughtfully, with some conditions (he is human, after all), but nothing I can neither handle nor expect, myself.

We understand each other. We come together with affection and passion; we argue, inevitably, but agree to disagree by way of mutual respect. He’s a learned man, not an intellectual, being street-smart rather than book-smart.

He is a king. A warrior. A rock star. A secret agent. A bartender. A drifter. A vampire. He is not always as I imagine him to be at the beginning, but he is always my hero.

Sinatra Style

Ter and I once lived above a guy who loved Frank. On Sunday afternoons, he would crank up the stereo and we would hear Ol’ Blue Eyes crooning “Strangers in the Night” beneath our feet:

“Do bee do bee do, de doobee da da …”

Drove us crazy at the time. Now it’s hilarious.

At work, I often stream the “Sinatra Style” channel at jazzradio.com. Aside from lovin’ the groove, these classic tunes provide fodder for my imagination and thus for Diva excerpts while I’m coding invoices or cleaning up my files. Frank isn’t the only vocalist on this channel, but he pops up quite frequently. Who knew that his catalogue was so extensive? I rarely hear the same track twice!

Last week, for the first time in my reckoning, “Strangers in the Night” was played. Uh oh, I thought, get out of the office before he forgets the lyrics. I speedily hit “print” on a dozen documents and made my escape while the words still made sense.

Victory!

Except that some fluky recall function had me spending the rest of the day looping “do bee do bee do, de doobee da da” until I thought I would lose my mind. Drove me crazy.

Someday, it’ll be hilarious.

Magic and Wonder

I spent some time at the beach this morning. My plan was to try my usual post-yoga meditation in the wild rather than in my living room, but it didn’t go as expected.

The surf was rougher and much too loud to enable a truly quiet contemplation. It did, however, drown out the traffic and jogger noise at my back; all I could hear was the wind and the water, and the ocean itself demanded all my attention. I took a bunch of pictures before I made myself set technology aside in favour of breathing.

Alas, mindful breathing did not happen. Trying the match the ocean’s rhythm was impossible. The waves were too inconsistent, playful with an untamed edge. Failing to connect with nature because I was distracted by nature proved ironic and a tad annoying—but here’s the weird thing: when I finally admitted defeat, the magic happened.

I noticed that the rising waves became translucent just before they struck the shore. The sun got caught in the curl and completely changed the water’s colour from steel blue to absinthe-green. One in particular stood out. It seemed to pause at its peak, meeting and holding my gaze for a heartbeat, then it moved on … but not before a curious thought came to mind:

We are one, you and I, born of the same source. We are energy in different forms, yet we are connected to each other.

This is true. Everything in our world is energy made matter at differing vibrational levels. Don’t ask me how the Universe does it. It just does. Rare moments occur when the obscure notion of connection between us and everything else is suddenly less obscure, which brings us to the Philosophy Question o’ the Day:

Whose thought was it on the beach this morning? Mine, or the ocean’s?

“Diva VI”

Once, just once, she would have liked to be seduced; to melt like ice cream under warm butterscotch into a silky, sensuous puddle.

“That’s nice,” Vera observed, “but ice cream is always shocked when the butterscotch first hits.”

Ellie sucked thoughtfully on her spoon, thinking that her friend was absolutely right but missing the point nonetheless.

“He’s butterscotch, huh?”

A slow smile formed around the spoon in Ellie’s mouth. She sucked a little more, then let it slide free. “I should not be talking to you about this. You write a gossip column, for God’s sake.”

“Yes, but I’ve read enough ‘Dear Abby’ to qualify as advisor to the lovelorn. You don’t quite fit ‘lovelorn’, though. Don’t tell me you regret sleeping with Dane Seward.”

“Of course I don’t,” Ellie scolded. She drew the tip of her spoon through the dregs of her sundae, threading caramel through vanilla swirls. “I just wish … Vera, do you think I’m too easy?”

“Compared to whom?”

“I don’t know.” She hedged, making it seem like a struggle to answer the question. After a minute of faking it, she took the plunge. “Julia Miles.”

Vera’s pencilled eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “The ice princess?”

“Dane’s last girlfriend,” Ellie amended.

“Hell, El, the Pope’s mother was easy compared to her. Why do you think Dane—I mean, I doubt that romance got much hotter than your butterscotch leftovers, there. Oh, I know what you’re doing, Eleanor Bond. You want to know what I know.”

“What do you know?” Ellie asked.

“About Dane and the ice princess? Not much,” Vera admitted. “She’s obsessive about her privacy. She was dating him for weeks before any of us got wind of it.”

“How long do I have with him before it becomes public knowledge?”

“Too late,” Vee replied. “I knew about it before you told me. Don’t look so betrayed, kiddo. That kiss on the set got more tongue than you did. I had three phone calls before happy hour. You’re lucky I like you, else I’d have gone to print the same day.”

“You’re a good friend, Vera.”

“Only because I know you’ll give me the real scoop.”

Eleanor smiled as her unlikely confidante brandished a last spoonful of ice cream for emphasis. Her agent had advised early on that she establish a good relationship with Hollywood’s premier gossip reporter. He had arranged their first meeting, never imagining that the two would hit it off like gangbusters from their introduction. Vera had taken immediate liking to the fledgling actress, recognizing in her the same promise of stardom that Bernie had sensed, and Ellie was nothing if not loyal. At the start of Ellie’s career, Vera had often thwarted the competition when rumours began to stir and now, with Eleanor’s orbit firmly established, she enjoyed the right of first refusal. She had a good reputation with the studio, as well, though Ellie was the only actress on contract who was considered a friend.

The End

Between “Diva” excerpts, I finally finished a story. The draft of a story, actually, and not my first crack at the concept. The little piece born of Midnight Waltz a few years back and rekindled last year by Dark Waltz found life in a third version, this one taken from the waiter’s point of view. It’s the longest of the three, being more detailed in structure and character development (strangely—for me—the second version is the shortest; only a single page long), and is likely my favourite for those reasons. I like detail and I like to develop characters. Both take time and, without whining, time has lately been in short supply.

The big deal here is that I finished something! Hats and horns! Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! A little polish, the addition of one tiny “scene between”, and I’ll type THE END for the first time since completing “The Devil She Knows” in November 2014.

This is also the first time I’ve taken the same story from different points of view. It started with the heroine—or female protagonist, because I’m unsure that anything about my absinthe-soaked siren is truly heroic—and her perception of the boy who rescues her. Eventually, it came clear that he wanted his say. Two and a bit years later, he has it. I’ll post it when it’s buffed, so please stay tuned.

Time for a hockey joke:

A Scandinavian player gets a breakaway. Clearing the defence, he prepares to shoot and loses the puck. Over on the bench, one player says to another, “All Swedish and no Finnish.”

Okay, so it’s funnier when it’s said aloud. It’s still relevant because, yup, that’s me. I’m great at starting stories, not so hot at finishing them. This isn’t a big deal, not being life or death, but it is frustrating. So finishing my little story about François and Odette feels like a huge obstacle has been cleared and I am free to tackle another stalled story until, one by one, every half-finished file in my “in progress” folder is transferred to “completed”.

Making Perfect

Practice, practice, practice. Keep at it. Work that muscle. Hone that talent. Make that time for (insert self care activity here). Be more (insert virtue here) today than you were yesterday. Practice is the journey. Practice is what it’s all about, Charlie Brown.

Only sometimes, I don’t want to practice. Sometimes, I let myself coast on surplus effort and trust that all will stay well. And it does … for a while. Then life starts to slide a bit. Things get confusing. I lose my edge. Humdrum replaces extraordinary. I fall into a routine that leaves me tired, frustrated, and creatively unfulfilled. It’s happened, I think. The Universe has stepped back and left me in my own incapable hands.

Uh oh.

There was a time when I would have berated myself for losing favour with the Almighty. These days, I recognize that all I’ve done is get lazy. A dedicated shift in attitude gets me back on track, and in keeping with that shift, I resume my practice of living consciously. Progress resumes.

Ter recently lamented a pause in her practice that she felt had gone too long. She’s a lot harder on herself than I am on me; where I believe I pick up where I left off, she fears she’s lost ground and must make it up before she sees further progress. It doesn’t deter her from trying; she just thinks it should take longer to see a difference—and here’s the cool thing: it doesn’t take nearly as long as she expects. In fact, it’s almost instantaneous.

So, how is it that relaxing your practice enables a short cruise on auto-pilot before you start descending, but an abrupt resumption of a delayed practice gleans an immediate result? Could it be that we lose no ground at all? Better still, is it possible that a brief pause in practice is actually good for us? How else do we assimilate what we’ve learned or experienced as a result of that practice? You rest your body for a day between workouts. You stop reading that textbook to let your mind mull over the last chapter. You take a vacation to de-stress from the office. Why shouldn’t we occasionally let our spirits take a break from working with the Universe? After all, we’re also here to be human. Rising above ourselves is a noble pursuit, but in reality, I think it defeats the purpose.

My point? It’s okay to skip a workout once in a while. It’s okay to take a mental health day, and it’s okay to step back from the Universe now and again. We need those blank spaces to hear the music in the notes. Rest assured, your muscle memory will kick in at the gym. The papers left on your desk will still be there when you come back, and so will the Universe. In fact, the Universe is more grateful than the gym or the office for your return—and don’t we all feel better after a little break?

With love,

“Diva V”

Exterior shot: a brownstone near Central Park. A taxi is parked by the curb. The trunk is open and the driver is loading expensive luggage into it. An unmarked police car pulls up behind it. SULLIVAN gets out, apprises the scene and starts up the brownstone stairs. Halfway up, he stops. DARLENE, in hat and coat, has appeared in the open doorway. Seeing him, she freezes.

SULLIVAN:    Going somewhere?

DARLENE:     To the market.

SULLIVAN:    With suitcases?

DARLENE:     That’s not my cab.

SULLIVAN bounds up the stairs and grabs DARLENE’s arm. He hustles her into the house.

Interior shot: the shadowy foyer of DARLENE’s house. SULLIVAN drags her through the open doorway and backs her into the wall.

DARLENE (protesting): What are you doing here? What do you want?

SULLIVAN:    The DA has a case. I’ve come to arrest you for the murder of your husband.

DARLENE:     Arrest me? Are you sure you didn’t come to warn me?

SULLIVAN (angrily): You lied to me. You lied to the District Attorney, to the papers — maybe even to yourself.

DARLENE:     Is that why you’re here, Sully? To save me from myself? I don’t need you to save me. I don’t need your help.

SULLIVAN:    Without it, you’ll need a good lawyer.

DARLENE:     What are you going to do, Detective? You want to help me? Let me go. Help me by letting me go!

SULLIVAN (shaking her): I can’t let you go, Darlene, do you hear? I can’t let you go; I can’t—

(He suddenly kisses her. She resists briefly, then gives into the kiss.)

* * *

“Cut!” Hamilton yelled.

The cameras stopped rolling. The lights came up. The set technicians shuffled uncertain feet and murmured between themselves. The film crew stayed still, their attention glued to the star couple kissing in the spotlight. Her eyes were closed. His were not.

“We can’t use this,” the producer complained.

The director tried again. “I said, ‘Cut’!”

Dane didn’t heed him and Ellie didn’t care.

The kiss continued.