Shattered Prose

The Wrecking Ball

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 04:40:00 +0000

“The only wishes that will ever change you are the kind that may, at any moment, eat you whole.”

- Janette Rallison, My Fair Godmother

Time weaves her web and ensnares us in impossibilities and what ifs, while all the while she chats with destiny and has already foreseen our fate. I’ve always thought that I alone held the stern which propelled my existence through the vast ocean of life. Alas, fate handed me a card and the hand didn’t play out the way I envisioned. I raged like a storm at sea, until the ship lost its mooring. Adrift, I learned to adapt, and finally found a safe port to lower my anchor.

That is until fate dealt another card.

For the longest time I was led to believe the damage to my ears would never allow me to be a candidate for the Cochlear Implant. Ten years later, I find there is hope. And I did dare to hope, to wonder, to speculate and grasp at possibilities I’d never before entertained. I remembered sounds - music, laughter, voices, the wind through the trees, and the rain, all of the things I couldn’t wait to hear again. All the while aware there were no guarantees.

Then comes along karma, karma bitch slaps fate every single freaking time. Karma used my web as her personal trampoline. My ship didn't sink obviously; I’m stuck in a molten cesspool of seaweed, kelp, and scrum – a veritable net of algae. There are way too many analogies for life, we humans are often left adrift to brave our own storms or caught between a rock and a hard place.

The short end of the stick is, I dared to hope. I found a video online which allows hearing people to hear how speech and music sound to a deaf person with cochlear implants and had someone listen to the video for me. I pretty much figured out how bad it must have sounded when I saw tears run down his face. He knows me all too well…I’ll leave the link at the end of this post and you can decide for yourself.

In the end I am the master of my fate. I couldn’t control the circumstances which robbed me of my hearing, but I can choose how I live with the silence. I still remember sounds; some things are starting to fade like all memories do, but what remains soars within me. I can almost tell you what someone sounds like simply by watching how they talk. I heard so much music in the years I did hear, a simple description of the beat, rhythm, along with lyrics, can bring me back in time and I know what you’re listening to. There are too many surface memories still locked within my sub consciousness, such beautiful renderings, why would I want to relearn to hear in a robotic sonance?

Maybe in five or ten years when the memories are more distant, who knows? *shrugs* Someday the technology may find a way to include tonal sound in cochlear implants. Perhaps then, I’ll jump ship and wade through to the shore. In the meantime, I’ve already survived quite a few years weathering these silent storms in uncharted territory.

Bernard Beckett once said, “Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear and superstition.”

Yes, we’re (I’m) fragile, and sometimes hope floats. Me? *Thumbs up*. A few days of raw nerves and a small bit of anguish…I still believe my world is hauntingly beautiful the way it is. I communicate just fine with not hearing and if you give me a chance you might discover, I’m worth the extra energy. The world is only as complicated as we make it.

The link is included below. In the end, the choice still remains mine.

*I do realize for someone who has never heard before, the cochlear implant would be a blessing. I consider myself fortunate for the the time I did hear. - Indigo

The 4am Writing Argument

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 16:27:00 +0000

This is what becomes of sleepless doubt about the direction ones writing should take.

Is there an explanation for everything, even the illogical? Our lives are a series of decisions harboring consequences like a loaded gun in a game of Russian roulette. No matter, in the end someone else will make a decision which will in turn become a tsunami of choices which affect you. You can’t excuse whatever decision you’re left with, because…wait for it…you still have a choice to make either way. The argument comes undone. In the end the only thing anyone can honestly depict, is how they react to the consequences.

“You should write.”

I can’t help but glare at the owner of those last words. Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something I haven’t told myself at least a half dozen times on any given day. The words reverberate along my ribcage like a zydeco washboard; Write the violence, the deafness, take your readers on a journey through a world of silence. Do you know how much money people make on feel good books? And why would I even want to write one. I scoff, because…

I never wanted to write, I didn’t choose this. My world is a tidal wave of illogical sequences. Life is easy to write into a sonnet. Fiction? Fiction is the bellows to the flame beneath an unreality which carries more truth than not. Fiction is the expose.

“This”, my hand waves in a wide arch to encompass everything, “is the sum of consequences.” A vessel in which I poured everything out chapter by chapter, one word after another, for no other reason but to hear myself. Somehow in the idyllic fuckery that became of wrong choices and consequences (my life), I learned to write my readers into the story, one synapse after another. No it wasn’t enough to merely evict my demons, I went ahead and unwittingly discovered a whole new world beneath the surface of my silence, and decided to take you along. Yes, you, the modest reader who found me wanting and said I wrote in such a way, you felt my misery, my pain, my sense of wonder, and every epitaph. Love was also sewn within the tapestry like a silver lining for life and second chances and all the emotional dogma that exist.

You’re the consequence. That’s the epiphany. Every decision you’ve ever made in your life led to one arbitrary consequence after another. You’re the sum of your choices.

“So if you don’t want to write about those things, what then?” What other choice is there, it’s not a matter of wanting, but everything to do with need. The need exist to write. Remember my analogy about the loaded gun in a game of Russian roulette? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…

Ah, I’m so fucking loud in between these words. The untethered scream is my filet skin pulled back to exposed nerves revelation. The ambience is in the typing, the letting go. You can’t dictate what gets written, that choice remains mine. I’m unwieldy with the terms, those consequences will arrive in due time. Instead, let me take you into the bowels of visceral horror; I’m comfortable among the dreaded and fearful words. Who can't help but recognize the monsters in human guise. Familiarity creates a wide berth for exploration.

Two sides of a coin, heads poetic hope or tails the shades of darkness, whereas you may need to hold my hand or lose your way. We all have choices and must pay the tithe.

I never chose to write, but I do. The question remains…can I?

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."- Franz Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)

Where The Words Went

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Thu, 21 May 2015 05:25:00 +0000

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~ Anaïs Nin

It’s been a while since you’ve been gone. The ache remains, a festering raw wound that I imagine will never fully heal. I can’t help but rake nails across my heart, ripping scabs and bleeding all over everything. Some days it’s the only way I know I’m still alive, the wound weeps. I feel so damn guilty sometimes because I’m still here and you… were far more worthy of this life than I.

You taught me better than that.

Dejan Stojanovic wrote, “There are no clear borders, only merging invisible to the sight.” Life and death overlap and in-between are those who love. I’m stronger now. Do you know the words went away with you? Guilt may be to blame in part. Why breathe life into words, bereft of you? Hell, I made my therapist cry. I had sufficient words for sorrow, absence, loss, and so much raw sewage of hatred, but I felt with such an intensity, he couldn’t escape the emotional seepage.

You know all this, how could you not. I buried it so deep inside that cartilage I called a heart; forgetting for a time I was drowning you. Time is an awkward teacher beating around the bush, until an opening presents room for a lesson. Time…three years later and I get it. The words will keep you and I alive. Even when the silence is so freaking loud without you here.

I owe you my life, a life I was willing to forfeit in lieu of this mute stillness. Because of you I learned calm existed in the gathering quiet of my deaf psyche. I miss you, there are no words for that kind of absence. You were spiritual, beyond understanding, a being of grace wrapped in the fur of a dog. I saw a picture of a man holding his beloved pup today, wailing, so much anguish on his face. His friend died in his arms. I recognized myself and bled a thousand more tears.

Alive is a state of self, soul, a spiral in continuous movement. During the winter snow piled on the head of your statue and I smiled for in some form you were there, along with a barking Bjarki and Yazhi. They both share parts of you. Bjarki is the protector, the one who feels everything with his whole being, the klutz, and the giant lap sitter. Yazhi has your gentle disposition, the feral cat whisperer, the hand (paw) holder, and long ear indignity. Life gives me small windows of you in the most unlikely places.

I’m okay. I’ve learned to stand up for myself against indifference toward my deafness. In those moments, I feel you beside me leaning in close as if my four legged side-kick were still there lending encouragement. I learned strength and perseverance from you and I couldn’t care less if anyone knows what that construes, outside you and I.

The words keep you alive, as long as I write there you are.

*For those who may not know, Pickles was my working dog for the deaf. She was also a Katrina survivor. The only reason I survived those first few years of my deafness was because of her unfailing guidance and love. She did more for me than any human being possibly could have. Pickles passed away without warning from Acute Leukemia three years ago. My words went with her…

“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

This I Know...

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Sun, 10 May 2015 23:30:00 +0000

My first thought this morning was, “Today will be what the day brings.”

Mother’s Day - awkward, loathing, disdain, and a bunch of other nonsensical narrative comes to mind whenever the day arrives. As far as mothers go, I haven’t seen mine since I walked out the door at sixteen and never looked back. Oh, there were the occasional calls on my birthday to check and see if this was the year I would be saved, but even those petered off as the years went by. No regrets though, I was very much in the act of saving myself all these long years, not exactly what she had in mind; still there is a kind of theatrical karma to that statement isn’t there? I wish the deterrent to a mother/daughter relationship stemmed from nothing more than religious prevarication. Alas, no, safe to say everyone else’s normal will never be my normal; a comfortable acceptable reality, to be honest.

“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one, who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” | Hermann Hesse, Demian

Not surprisingly the day found me in the car alternating between Johnny Cash and Jaco Pastorius turned up way high (got to have that bass thrum for my deaf ears to hear), back country mountain roads and dandelion field euphoria. I found myself standing in front of a grave with Rock Rose (Red Dragon) flowers for the only mother I had ever known, brushing lichen off her gravestone. Grace, respect, compassion… all the things my natural mother lacked; this woman bestowed on me for three years. I miss her. She embodied motherhood. This day belongs to women like her.

“Today will be what the day brings.”

Only I hold the key to the gateway to my heart. There are those kindred souls who deserve entrance, to be remembered for the lessons they bestow, the love, and empathy they held in high regard. We each of us choose who is deserving of our heart. There is a woman with a Rock Rose in front of her grave, I call her mother. ~ Sage

*This is dedicated to the three natural children Mom had. I will forever be fortunate she considered me one of her own.

In the Dusty Corners

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Sun, 30 Mar 2014 21:39:00 +0000

“Pulvis et umbra sumus. (We are but dust and shadow.)” ~ Horace, The Odes of Horace

Slim bare feet walk silently into the room, tickled by the powdered dust winding between toes with each delicate footfall. She knows this place, every crevice, and nook in this abandoned chamber. Her shadow dances with the dust motes of long forgotten words, as she makes her way to the windowsill and gently parts the inter weavings of a spider’s repast. Gossamer strands wind about her fingers and wrist as if to hold her prisoner until she finds what she’s searching for. She lets out a guilt ridden sigh and places a five fingered pale handprint into the grime of a windowpane. This is her doing, these corridors of desolate bleak forgetfulness.

I close my eyes and concentrate on the sunlight slanted through a dusty handprint, watching the air dance with movement. Triturated webbing and motes coat every pore of my exposed skin like a fine mist of nourishment. Kansas Dust In the Wind serenades the lost memory of hearing, stretching the silence into refrain.

I close my eyes

Only for a moment and the moment's gone

All my dreams

Pass before my eyes with curiosity

Dust in the wind

All we are is dust in the wind

I am the woman lost in the dusty corners of her mind. Pulsing veins rising like tattoos through the epidermis, cutaneous markings with a message for me and me alone. I breathe deep, choking on particles of paragraphicnuances I’d long packed into hidden trunks of my subconscious.

The woman I parted words with a while ago awakens within me and words condense into the meaty bone she wears beneath her (my) skin. I clasp her hands in mine and we dance like mad women, dust motes rising and drifting in a hurricane of remains. I am her, she is me, we are the book of my life. Words are sketched skin deep into the recesses of who we were, who we are, and in the shadows of who we are yet to become. The sunlight glints through a handprint, in the attic of a dusty mind and I smile. I’m home. I’mforever home among these writings. ~ Indigo

Picture From Here

These Quiet Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 21:20:00 +0000

Picture from Here

“I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.” ~ Chaim Potok, The Chosen

Smoke twists and churns from a fluted chimney across the wooden fence like hand shadows entertaining a child. I’m mesmerized watching this dance of shadow play as my mind escapes into innocence, away from reminders, dates, and traumatic anniversaries… I’m well aware, some days carry a heavier weight than others. Chasms which at any given moment open up one self to heartbreak and gnat infested nitpicking introverted despondency. Not today. Ambience distorts the smoke shadow silence into a dance for an audience of one and I’m easily entertained.

Nine years doesn’t seem like much time, yet exactly three thousand, two hundred, and eighty five days have come and gone in an incandescent time suck. Days passed in idyllic disorientation without the calls of wildlife, birds, laughter, music, and so on into the depths of what passes for mute in a world devoid of sound. And on one singular day of each of those forlorn years I misplace my belief and dare to ponder a miracle. January 8^th - a day in which I crave a wild debauched desire for nothing more than to wish away a nightmare; a nightmarish realism I can’t escape, as if the fates would bestow a magical cure proclaiming, “Enough sweet child, for you have paid your dues in full.”

Smile.

To quote an Eurhythmics’ song,

Sweet dreams are made of this

Who am I to disagree

I travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody's looking for something.

Oh, I disagreed for years. I guess, some part of me still does, but time distorts things, giving my victim terminology a strange perception. Could be human nature for all I know, pushing the whole, ‘I can overcome any obstacle’ to survive mentality. Some days that thinking is a joke and others awe inspiring, carrying a rootless spirituality that leaves you the sole worshiper. Three thousand, two hundred, and eighty five days later I’m not the same person shouting from the rooftops about how unfair my life is. My views have canted toward a very different outlook.

So what does nine years get me? Serenity. There is no right or wrong way of thinking in my situation, it’s not even about acceptance, but choices. I could let the world dictate my value or I could name my own price. My deafness is a priceless experience. True, I spend more time in my own head than most people do in a lifetime. These days, I can’t think of a better place to be. I’m comfortable in my own skin and forever inspired by the journey I’ve undertaken. The silence is so loud…you should listen in some time.
~ Indigo

Silence Turned Up High

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 21:52:00 +0000

Smile. Words – the visual elixir to my silence. Today's reading brought about an emotional entourage, with a touch of too much reality thrown in like a pinball machine in an arcade TILT. In a good way, in a bad way, in a this-is-your-life way…gentle memory shakers. Silence, my two-foldblessing curse, even after all these years I still haven’t figured out which. The dichotomy? Curses can bless us in the strangest ways.

I see depths.

(picture from here)

The branch sways in tender protest, as leaves tug autonomously, waving in the winds breakers. On a tree's topmost limb, deeper still, a tawny squirrel flag tics, tiny wind surfer with a branch for a board. With eachbreeze the twig vaults higher, small claws grasp for the elusive last pear of the season. A diminutive damp nose twitches with success. Below my feet squish in the sweet rot aroma of fallen discards.

3-D perception is a dance of silence in visual cadence. Would I choose this, to hear with words, to visualize the unspoken eloquence of movement against a soundless tapestry of thought…perhaps? There are days I want to hear a mischievous squirrel’s bellyaching chitter as they rappel from one branch to another. I want to hear the sound crabapples or pears make with a suicide pact as they pinball against branches, to bounce against a wood fence and hard earth. More than anything, I would give it all up to hear the rain fall. Small visual etiquettes with a soundboard…

I see depths, beyond sound in the deeper silence of the heart. My eyes turn up the volume. Everyone has at least one ‘what-if’. Would this word espouser, see so clearly if I heard? Blessing or curse, does it matter in the long run. To quote Anne Lamont, “The most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my own life and not be ashamed.” To show up and own who I am, as a person, as a writer, and let others hear the essence of my worded silence. Subversive, revolutionary.

No matter how many times, I question my deafness or find fault with the silence, my words smooth the jagged edges of a soundless life. No curse finds beauty strewn among the broken places. I hear one word at a time in each indelicate perception within echoes of movement. So yes, I do show up for my life, in so many words. And I would be remiss if I didn’t share the brain fodder which espoused this bit of introverted prose:

EXPOSURE

Rain, you said, was silence turned up high.

It has been raining now for days.

Even when it stops

there is still the sound,

of rainwater labouring

to find some way into the ground.

We lie in grim embrace: these

two halves trying to be whole, straining

for this break in the static,

in the white noise

that was rain falling

all day and all through the sheeted night.

Silence is rain with the sound turned down,

And I stare out on a clear view

of something left out on the line:

a life, snagged there_

drenched, shrunken,

unrecognisably mine.

~Robin Robertson

Thanks to a dear friend Diana Matisz for introducing me to his work. ~ Indigo

Words Inside Us All

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:21:00 +0000

"I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe." Franz Kafka - Diaries (1914)

"Nothing Changed" Picture found here.

Words from the poem Cut While Shaving, by Charles Bukowski

They whisper and taunt non-stop, these words buried deep. I should share them, dig those buried treasures up and smear them haphazard across a page and call it writing or prose or art. After all, isn’t that what a writer of any caliber does? We bludgeon ourselves on the sharp edges of knowledge, word playing our way into a facsimile of pretending to know what we meant to say. We tend to be either goal oriented or self-saboteurs, one dominating the other word for word.

Take heart, it’s not only writers who tend to be so effusive. Life itself constitutes a palindrome of excuses for living the way we do, backhanded by time constraints and overwhelming expectations.

I’m greedy with my words of late with too much emotionalexpense hidden in each paraphrase, in the art of silence, and living. Oh, Ihave words a plenty. The latent ability of deciphering those cruel paradoxes is the silencer. I smirk at the thief of lost hours and word verbiage, howling with the pups in their own language, watching summer collapse into fall, greedy unto myself.

And yet, I feel the tendrils holding back the bank of what needs to be said, breaking, one strand at a time. Old haunts, health, and the pain of simply being can overwhelm a chaotic psyche. Words tormented Charles Bukowski to no end, the genius is, he loved every single second of his torture. Even so, he shared those inside words with the world. I can’t help thinking that it’s possible to have too much living between the words. Too much life, too much of everything, tothe point we don’t starve enough to explore deeper than where we are.

When those predilection words finally escape, the direction we were headed changes, the well becomes empty and we thirst for more. Words are meant to be shared. They don’t abandon us; these elusive words sustain us until we are ripe for living. I am the epitome of every single word I’ve ever written. So in the end, maybe it’s not the words I’m unwilling to share, but me. Yet, I’m the whole of every single utterance, occurrence, and emotion bestowed on me in a single day; all of which are alive with the voices of nature, urban decay, and personalities not my own. Words belong to no-one, to everyone. We only own the format in which we understand and share those vocal letters. ~ Indigo

Lifedance

The area dividing the brain and the soul

is affected in many ways by

experience -

Some lose all mind and become soul:

insane.

Some lose all soul and become mind:

intellectual.

Some lose both and become:

accepted.

Charles Bukowski

Ghost of Me

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:21:00 +0000

Painting: Rebekah Nichols Forsaken

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The words alight on my brow and cascade down fingertips to a cold ascetic keyboard into poetic…nonsense? Words are components of descriptive nuances, each part of a whole, something or other with essence or not. And sometimes the emotional equivalent of those words is entirely lacking despite having the entire English language to back it up. My brain is having a gag reflex damning up the thought process.

Words are not necessarily missing, trivialized, or running amok causing chaos across the written platform. I’m the one in chaotic disorder. Given the choice to dive deep or tread the shallow depths, I will always dive in head first. Never one to want to explore my chances, always in a hurry to feel, to experience things fully in the moment – I’m suddenly afloat in a quagmire of epiphany. This brings me to the conclusion there will never be enough pages or blank space in my lifetime for all the experience accrued until now.

Quite daunting for someone who has harped from day one embarking on this journey, claiming one must live effusively in order to write. Every turn of a phrase is tinged with this woman’s experience which removes the innocence of her childlike wonder with life. I’m neither poet nor martyr, I’m a human being folded into the creases of moments. Haunted by shadows written and unwritten which flow and ebb in a day and a year; those memory rakers, those heart rendering seconds of a life.

Everything comes back to the one question no matter, “I am?”

I am unfinished, incomplete, lost and found; I’m a shell of my former self now filled with the exquisite mutterings of what comes from listening to a heart, the result of want and curiosity. I am everything and nothing but a cataloger of who I’m yet to be; with a penchant for words and the mystery of what came before. I’m you and I’m not.

The brain gags in reflux, chokes, and gags again, and the words vomit forth.

There is only this one life and I have enough living left for several. There isn’t a reason or rhythm sometimes for whatever we write or the decisions we make. I’m okay with that. Whatever I do will always be left unfinished, waiting for another lifetime to fill the obligation. And sometimes we find the answer in the question. Who am I but the mystery of who I am? ~ Indigo

Assimilation

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 22:33:00 +0000

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov

My heartbeat kept pace with each decibel from Jaco Pastorius’ Kuru/Speak Like a Child; music set so loud bass notes ricochet off the car’s interior. The electrified audio wavelengths raised invisible hairs along my arms. Around each bend and dip of the mountain pass I could feel the strains of Jaco flowing out of the cd player as if he played for an audience of one. Around the next bend, I glance over my shoulder to the empty back seat, haunted by the shadows of memory.

Anyone reading the above passage would instantly know this emotional entourage belonged to me. In this instance I’m showing how the music translated to one individual on a lone mountain drive. Aspects of who I am are entwined into the narrative. I’m a Jaco fan who likes my music ear piercing loud. I’m the road warrior who feels each twist of the backwoods road and I’m haunted by a missing presence in the back seat of the car. In this way I gave a character in a narrative life.

So it goes for every character a writer brings to life. We don’t need to convince you to like the characters music or even agree with their beliefs. You don’t even have to like the character much at all for that matter, but you will get to know the personality traits of the character before the story ends. If you don’t, the writer hasn’t provided their character with any believable traits the reader can relate to. The next argument would be that of course the first paragraph is believable; the above outline of my day was based on reality.

Stephen King said fiction is the truth inside the lie. Every piece of fiction in print has a measure of truth and reality strewn among the storyline. The trick is to remove the reader from their way of seeing life and placing them inside the storyline with an in-depth look into the life of a character. Of course we each have our own personality traits and beliefs that limit our understanding of other human beings. This simple truth applies to how the reader views characters in a book as well.

I had a conversation with another writer about voice and personality in our writing. My opinion follows our writing is an extension of our personality, which is in itself a writer’s voice beneath the storyline. In this instance the friend in question wasn’t sure if his beliefs should be that of a character. In whatever we write, we’re there and we’re not. We are the narrators of a character’s life, we don’t necessarily always agree with the attributes we give a character, nor are we the character. The challenge is for the reader to see and believe in the character without knowing the hidden narrator’s personality is still present. Complicated? Not really, considering how many people we befriend in real life who won’t always agree with everything we do or say.

In the long run you don’t have to believe a single thing you read, you just need to believe the character in the story believes what they do, and this in turn dictates their actions (Kind of reminds you oflife in general doesn’t it?). It’s called extending believability, brought about by a writer’s gift of words. An apt description of writing would be living life in all aspects of reality – the insanity of the sane. For us (me) it’s kind of like having the life you never had or taking chances you never did through the life of a character. ~ Indigo

For your pleasure, Jaco Pastorius' Kuru/Speak Like a Child:

At All Cost

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 01:56:00 +0000

“I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Picture Can Be Found Here

The above quote has graced my blog since the early days of Shattered Prose. Those words alone adequately sum up my experience with writing. I believed in order to be a writer, to be true to the craft, you had to live in the moment and experience life first hand. Anyone can imagine the details; living the details is what provides you with an inner library containing filecabinets of emotional index cards to draw from.

So naturally when I took a year off from writing, one would miscue my absence to mean either I wasn’t living fully or I’d given up. Neither would be the case. Writing isn’t always an endless stream of words. For me writing is exploring emotional crevices, watching an endless parade of humanity, and the discovery of new words tattooed beneath the skin of memory like a hidden map. When I write about grief, I want the visceral details of the pain to be visible. I want my readers to experience the raw ache of love lost forthose few words, to find themselves slipping beneath my skin and becoming grief embodied.

I use grief as a touchstone here because I’m familiar with that emotional entourage in every which way possible. Every single emotion in existence can be given life. Take pain for example, even there you will find beauty in the details – excavated memories tinged with an unbearable emotional tax, the survival instinct to move beyond, and the hurt which reminds us we still live. I want my readers to not only read my words but to feel as if they were fed a live wire of emotion, a conduit that feeds into their very essence.

Have I stopped writing? No. For a writer not to write, they would have to be emotionally detached from who they are as a person. Ourminds are forever calculating, scheming, and creating separate realities, whether it be typed, written, or spoken we can’t remove the storyteller in us. Some writers take years to write a single story, others write like madmen plagued with words. I’ve been on both sides of the fence.

So in this way unexpectedly, I found the emotional baggage needed for a character in my WIP (Work in progress, for those among my readers unfamiliar with the phrase). The answers can always be found in the details if you are willing to carve through flesh beneath skin and bones for the words; if you are willing to scrape open the scabs of memory. For every life, there is a book waiting to be written.

This post is dedicated to Pickles my muse, who died May31^st, 2012 - from an aggressive form of Leukemia. The writer came into existence with her arrival, but it won’t end with her. Her legacy lives on in my words.

I miss you sweet friend. Underneath the tapestry of my words your spirit still sings.

You Begin

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:10:00 +0000

“Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.” ~ Lauren DeStefano, Sever

I was reading something this morning about a father and his two sons helping rescue 17 people in Oklahoma (wish I had their names). When they remarked this wasn't their first rodeo, they were asked if they had any advice. One of the men said, "You begin where you are." I can't say why that one line struck a chord. Maybe because no matter what we deal with in our lives or how many questions we have, the one question is always how or where do I begin? "You begin where you are."

Make no mistake; tragedy will always visit us at some time in our lives, as will an abundance of other life measures. Our better emotional factions seldom leave marks like those of pain, grief, or sorrow. Yet at some point we find ourselves needing, wanting to start over – to begin anew. It is at this place we often stand lost and confused forever looking back to see if perhaps we somehow missed the shortcut. Why do these placeholders imprison us so? Is fear the culprit?

Which leaves me to wonder how many starts and stops do we accrue in a lifetime? Is there some kind of mystical mathematician that allots who needs more chances or hasn’t gotten enough? I’m sorry to say, this is one equation where numbers don’t apply. Life simply happens. We can question the why until we’re blue in the face and still be no wiser when death knocks on our doors. I truly believe the answer to where do we go from here exist within us all; despite mistakes or wrong choices, we can still find it within ourselves tobegin again, try again, until the pieces of the puzzle - our lives fit.

Life beats us up enough, without us providing the tools to finish the job. There will always be days of heavy overwhelming apathy, stunted hope, and moments of why bother. Welcome to your humanity.

I’m well versed in how to be a prisoner of my psyche unable to move forward from a place. All of us are. When I took a much needed break to grieve, to compose myself, each day brought the question of where do I go from here and each day left me lacking. As is the nature of the beast life goes on with or without you. Until one day you find yourself asking, what lies beyond today? After so many starts and stops, I found myself hesitating – unsure where to begin.

A quote Amy Reed wrote in Beautiful summed up what I did know about those who read me, “There is a picture of me in their heads, a picture of someone I don't know yet.” How do I get to know her, this woman who is about to begin again? The answer startled me in its simplicity, “You begin where you are, one word at a time.” ~ Indigo

Picture From Here

Moments in Retrospect

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:43:00 +0000

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~ Anaïs Nin

Twilight is a carefree affair playing with the pups in bottom soaked jeans after it rains, with the fragrance of lilac and crabapple blossoms wafting heavy in the air. A patchwork of sprinkles begin to dot the dust covered stones in the driveway. I raise my face to a spatter of wetdrops flowing down my neck in gentle rivulets beneath damp clothes. Simple pleasures. Pleasures, which unbidden are catalogued and filed away as I unconsciously map out current writing projects in progress or search future ideas where I can apply this tidbit of euphoria.

All these experiences and emotions accrue into a veritable tableau of memories. How many books are derived from this storehouse? How many stories do we reap in a lifetime unsolicited? Not enough. Too many things rob us of inhibited outtakes in our short human lifespan – Age, time, stress, even our human culpability of making things far more complicated than need be is guilty of this thief. The list goes on. Photographs are taken, occasions are videotaped; censure be damned, we hoard whatever we can of time in little discretionary pockets of remembered moments. Is it enough? What was going through our minds, how did we react, did we even care…do we even know? All veritable questions left unanswered in small visual glimpses left in mementos.

Words somehow escape the pariah of time. They don’t fade or aggrandize, they echo truths even we don’t account for in the telling. Each word is woven together into a tapestry blending all five senses into one garment. With words, a smile isn’t the only hint of happiness in a photo, it’s the blush of a kiss, the warm summer sun on skin or the smell of a cook-out brought to life. Grief is poured solid like concrete shoes that won’t allow us to escape emotional overtures sealed with droplets of tears. Each catalogued moment is etched across a page and stained with our humanity. And still I can’tfile away enough or live enough for all the books my life encompasses. In the words of Brandon Sanderson, “Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp.” This, this is why I write, to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. ~ Indigo

Picture From Here

Invisible Barriers

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:53:00 +0000

“There are no clear borders,

Only merging invisible to the sight.”

― Dejan Stojanovic, Circling: 1978-1987

I watched apathetic as the guy from the fencing company traveled the distance of my yard, measuring wheel rotating, imagining the click – clack of the numbers adding up the invisible barrier to my soul. A multitude of emotions warred with one another, relief, and confusion as to why I needed this fence so strongly. When did my barriers find a need to become visible for all to see?

It wasn’t always like this. Life has a way of changing direction and running gamut with reality. My invisible barriers built themselves into existence the day I went deaf. I’m sure it’s different for everyone who loses one of their senses, but for me it screamed a need to be “safe”. A safe distance between me and something I couldn’t hear, a safe place to docket away from people trying to pry their way into my silence. Safe was an excursion into remaining isolated…

No, I didn’t realize that at the time. Fear makes a damn good barrier and feeds all kinds of isolation, abandonment, and introvert tendencies. Fear was the most useful tool I knew how to use to excuse myself from society. Life however, is never wrapped up in such neat little packages of explanations. What does this have to do with writing? Can’t say I blame you for wanting to by-pass the mental unwind, but it is a good question. I’ll answer in good time.

Human beings are resilient creatures, we improvise and change our needs on command; we’re driven by desperation, hope, longing, even co-dependency for companionship. Either way, something thrives within us forcing us to take stock of what we assume is the bottom of the end. I saw myself becoming the embodiment of silence. A hallow echo with no return, suffocating.

Writing was the only tool by which I could travel beyond my self-imposed prison; words had a resounding echo with every click of the keys on my laptop. I had a voice and a multitude of wondrous characters who in turn had their own voices. As a writer I felt free like none other and experienced life in ways that tested the very foundation of reality on a daily basis. Some days I wondered if the writer’s existence solely depended on my deafness. Perhaps, but I honestly think she’s stronger for the silence.

The click – clack of the keys spew forth words which hold the secret to my freedom. The fence isn’t for me. There are two mischievous muses who needed a place to romp in between cajoling out inspiration. Although, I am constantly aware of how fine the line I travel is between the writer and her deafness. These days they’re one and the same. We all have barriers in front of us in one form or another, how we choose to move beyond those barriers is a choice we must each make for ourselves. Fear is the biggest barrier of all. - Indigo

Picture From Here

The Other Side of Vulnerable

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:00:00 +0000

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” – Criss Jami

I’ve never truly been at a loss for words - those denizens clawing and scrambling for every feasible space available in my thinktank. I’m used to never having a quiet moment where some character isn’t babbling like mad, desperate to be heard. What it comes down to is the will of the writer (me) and my willingness to allow someone else to read about them, toknow they exist with a story of their own…Words tend to be consistent, unlike life.

Sometimes the writer simply needs to hang onto her characters for a bit, needs the madness to consume her every thought and action, to distract from the hard moments real life is so poignant to throw her way.

I’m ready after all this time to let the madness go, tofill a multitude of pages with the blathering, choric, character speak which is mine and mine alone to decipher. To sift through all the storylines and overlapping scenes reminiscent of an overfed blender turned on without a lid. I find myself shuffling through notes, yanking a sentence here and there off the corkboard of my mind searching for the rest of the missing pieces.

Pieces of type obliterated before I was ready; ready to apply a salve of words to my wounds, my experiences or whatever I was writing. Those things needed to stay close to my bosom, to be felt – not heard or seen by anyone but me. This part of life wasn't meant to be shared. Not unlike the hawk I spotted with a rabbit clutched in its talons; talons which secretly ripped into my own heart as I watched the death throes of innocence. I swore I would never allow myself to be that vulnerable or allow my words to make me so. After all, the world eats everyone.

As I continued watching the majestic bird’s strength and breadth not 10ft from me, an insight into the other side of vulnerable began to reveal itself. The hawk arched its neck and looked over its shoulder and our eyes held. This...this was a gift. Sometimes in our vulnerability we make sacrifices of ourselves for the greater beauty encompassing what lies within and without us. I no longer pitied the rabbit; understanding its life presented a lesson, a testament of nourishment and courage. As the hawk spread his wings and took flight, I breathed easy.

I sacrificed words and time to deal with a very raw pain. Now, it’s time to see the majesty my words can make of that pain. The dignity I can bestow on hurt and memories. A writer never truly stops writing, smiles their characters would never allow that. Thank you dear readers for giving me time to grieve, to heal. I need to remember my muse is still with me, she’s never far from heart.

*If your new to my blog or haven't been by in some time, reading the post before this might answer some questions.

Missing Chunks of my Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 21:42:00 +0000

"It’s a fearful thing to love what death can touch." ~ Anonymous

I found myself stuck on a single word today, how – how do I write this letter, how can I possibly say goodbye, or find the strength to tender words which encompass all I’m feeling right now. Empty out my soul? Cut out my heart and present it with all the bloody good it does without you? You never taught me ‘how’ to do this part sweet friend. I’m on my own here.

The fact is; my therapist Charlie (remember meeting him – he loved you) asked me to write this letter six months ago, a month after I lost you. I couldn’t then, maybe not even now. In one week, you would have been eight years old. I still curse the fact you were so freaking young whenyou left me. Did you have any idea; you were the one who saved me? Not the otherway around. This bottomless silence scared the hell out of me. I didn’t have the courage or will to live with the quiet dark of my deafness. Life had nothing worthy to bear that yoke; my shoulders weren’t strong enough to carry the weight the stillness held.

I’m almost ashamed to say, you were the last straw I grasped at attempting to hold on to something. Why? Oh dear sweet merciful friend, you were so much more than a grasped straw. You were the winged raven who flew to my side and wouldn’t let me give up. Do you remember the woodpecker? That was the first time you taught me to hear with my eyes as I watched you sit so still and tranquil, you stared unmoving up toward that magnificent red headed woodpecker' waiting, for me to see what I had been missing. There would be so many more examples over the next few years, so many…

No sweet friend, I’m still not writing. Losing you stole the very heart out of any words and life I had left. Time hasn’t made this any easier my muse. The pain’s so raw and I’m staring up into a listless gray sky missing you, remembering this was and will always be your month; the month you first came to my door, the month of your birthday, and of course Christmas. I still remember watching you lie beneath a sea of bright lights staring up through the branches of the tree. December will never be the same sweet sorrow of mine.

Bjarki, your lovable pup is still a bull in a China shop. He’s gotten so huge. He has another companion now, Yazhi. You would love Yazhi, she reminds me so much of you, mischievous as all get out. They’re doing theirbest to help me heal and I sometimes feel your gentle presence in the background watching over us all. I’m okay Pickles. You taught me how to do the hard stuff. Wait for me, I will find you again someday – I promise. Happy Birthday Pickles! I love you sweetheart…

"Brighter Side"

By OPM

Sometimes

I forget that you're not here

Can't believe it's been a year

Since you flew away

And I never got to say goodbye

Good times

Hangin' out tilthe break of dawn

Listening to Bob

And singin along

Every little thing it's gonna be

It's gonna be all right...

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side

And one day I'm gonna be there too

Where the sun is shining and the water's blue

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side

I know you're somewhere where you're finally free

You'll always be a part of me

Like the moon is to the sea

They say you don't know

A good thing till it's gone

But I got to say they're wrong

I knew you were a good friend

A good friend allalong

I wish the world wouldn't be so cold

As to take such a beautiful soul

But despite it all I know we gotta carry on

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side

And one day I'm gonna be there too

Where the sun is shinin and the water's blue

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side

I know you're somewhere where you're finally free

And you'll always be a part of me

Like the moon is to the sea

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side..

Always be a part of me...

If I could rewind time

Then I'd like to let you know

Just one thing before your time go

That every moment you were living was a blessing to me

And I saw inside of you things that others couldn't see

Now people put you down for the way that you lived

But those people never knew you the way that I did

Don't be ashamed of who you were of how you died

I know you just wanted to find the brighter side...

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side

And one day I'm gonna be there too

Where the sun is shining and the water's blue

I know that you're gonna fly

Somewhere brighter on the other side

I know you're somewhere where you're finally free

And you'll always be a part of me...

I know that you're gonna fly

Some Things

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:11:00 +0000

Some things are hard to write about. After something

happens to you, you go to write it down, and either

you over dramatize it or underplay it, exaggerate the

wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate

you never quite write it the way you want to.

~ Sylvia Plath

Come sit beside me and luxuriate in the silence and somber peace of the day, with a renewed appreciation for the overcast Golem sky brewing outside my window. The day suits my melancholy soul. It must seem strange, this need for the absence of sound. To my deaf ears busy movement, is like loud torrential waves crashing against me in vibrato burst. Silence is the calm in the storm from bounding four legged pups and an endless list of things unaccomplished. Moments like these erase the overwhelming sense of lost days and unfinished words.

Unfinished words? Words, which lose strength and substance in any attempt to pen a single legible thought. They don’t even need to pertain to writing; the descriptive nuances of a day’s bygones seem to disappear like a spirit’s whispered warning in the wind. I wonder sometimes, if my muse abandoned me, fleeing behind this heavy-laden emotionalyear. Don’t worry your little head, that thought only lasted for a fleeting moment before Ibanished it to absurdity. Life is the teacher which tempers my days with lessons and experience. This year weighed me down with lessons I can’t even begin to comprehend or know what exactly I’m supposed to take away in experience. Death is a strange elixir that way…

Would you believe it’s possible to be given a gift in death? Neither would I until this year. The death of my muse is teaching me how to be deaf, seven long years after I first lost my hearing. I couldn’t face my predicament in the beginning without *Pickles guidance (my working dog for the deaf). My reliance on her never fully taught me to be alone, truly alone in the silence. Yet, six months later, she’s still teaching me, her presence close to myheart conquers the fear and tempers the anger. The anger which I hid so indelicately, the anger simmering always below the surface, demanding - why me.

Why not me? Who else could learn to hear with their eyes and see beauty and truth where so many can't? I still refuse to believe everything happens for a reason. Human beings have always been resilient; we learn to live with whatever hand life dealt us. Some of us, like me, may take a few years to figure out how to play the game, but eventually we learn. We don’t have any other choice. So bravery, strength, and fear doesn't define us, only our humanity does. I’m still learning. I may lose myself in brooding defiance on occasion, but even then I'm still learning from my stubborn abstinence. And sometimes you have to take a break from life tofinish your homework.

*You can find a picture of Pickles on my sidebar.

Indigo

Mish Mash with a Touch of Mischief

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:50:00 +0000

"I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it." ~ Rosalia de Castro

Sometime last year I decided I was done with Facebook, com-put, infinito...
Kinda felt like this logo would have been justified. Time marches on and as is my right, I changed my mind and decided to give Facebook another chance, reluctantly may I add. Probably why the logo on my sidebar looks like it was peeled off and put back haphazardly.

I know, I know another social media time suck added to my otherwise already full days. The thing is 140 words (Twitter) or a small update on Facebook, are still words. Words in any form will always be an outlet. Hence my Twitter and Facebook presence, words no matter how few are still words to fill my writers thirst. I'd love to catch up with you in one of those formats.

In other news -the pups are growing all too quickly. This past Tuesday they both went in to get fixed. The idea being, they would both go through the week separation from one another at the same time, while they healed. Plans have a way of backfiring on me (as in things never, ever go the way they're supposed to). Yazhi and Bjarki are tied at the hips, almost inseparable. You would think I'm worse torture to them right now than the surgery they just went through. So yeah, my plate these days is definitely overflowing.

To make up for my missing presence here, I've put together a little Bjarki satire. Enjoy!

Yazhi - I love you so much Bjarki!
Bjarki - I guess so, you're kind'a holding me hostage. Oh shucks,
I love you too!

Sigh...I hate this thing. So BORED...

No pictures Mooommmm...this is embarrasing, I look like a freaking Martian.

Fine! I'm not going to open my eyes, nope, I'm not.

Okkkayyy....How's this? Close enough.
Me- You look like you're trying to inhale the camera you nut.

How about this, all eyes, no nose, BIG eyes, we good yet?
Me - (Laughing) I kind of need a shot of your whole head big guy,
then I promise we're done.

This is it, last picture, then I'm going to go hide until this stupid thing comes off!
Me - Perfect! Could of used a slightly bigger smile, but ya know, Martians are
awfully cranky creatures. ; )

These Hollow Words

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:30:00 +0000

“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.” – Buddha quote

(Picture From Here)

Sensing the pups were a little ‘too’ quiet, I rounded the bottom of the stairs just in time to catch Yazhi with a pair of underpants on her head, turning the cats water dish into an instant waterfall down the stairs. She tosses the bowl, sending it splashing into a puddle at my feet. Not to be outdone – Bjarki races from the bedroom after her with a pillow from my bed trying to wallop Yazhi and ends up doing a half-ass pillow surf through the water, slipping, and sliding down the stairs plowing into me. Unfazed he continues to drag the now soaked pillow through the house after Yazhi, who can barely see through a leg of the underwear on her head – ricocheting off furniture and walls. I shake my head starring after them in stunned silence.

Crazy chaotic is the name of the game with two pups in residence, frantic, boundless energy that multiplies in on itself from early morning, into frenzy hyperactivity by evening. I ride the momentum through the day with enthusiasm. For today at least, the pendulum swings in my favor toward a liberated reprieve from my anarchic summer disdain. The kid in me gives chase after two unruly pups. Robust laughter amid puppy yips of excitement reverberates through the house.

In these moments, the guilt trip takes a back seat and I don’t think about moving forward too fast, getting over my loss at break neck speed. Maybe because on some level I realize my pain is always with me, not on the surface but ground into bone - hijacking my words. This is an uneasy truce to breathe life into each day, giving me a depth of balance.

*****

I found a burnished brown butterfly with white markings, half hidden in fallen leaves. The pups would have munched down on the colorful wings in a heartbeat. A gentle flutter let me know it was still alive and I gently sat the butterfly down on a low tree branch, not sure, how badly damaged the delicate insect had been or if it could fly. I can’t say why the fate of the butterfly tormented me so much – but it did.

A few days later, a butterfly with the same coloring floated around me, wing dancing on the air. Yazhi pranced and twisted in circles, trying to catch our new friend. I can’t say whether it was the same butterfly – my heart says yes. Little things, small degrees of life making the bigger things…bearable.

*****

Pickles was my muse (her picture is in the sidebar) and honestly, my words have felt hollow since she died. She’s still there between pulsing blood vessels, enmeshed in my chest, keeping my heart pumping. So are the words.

There is a misconception that writers are a lodestone of words. What people don't comprehend is the words are nothing without life. There isn’t a single day I’m not reminded of that lesson.

Our Immortal Touchstones

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:35:00 +0000

“We’re all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It’s a kind of immortality.” Charles de Lint

Bjarki hesitates seeing one of the cats in the yard and slides quietly down on his belly in the grass. A gentle tug on his leash earns me a ‘what for’ arch of his brow. I plop down beside him, turning my face up toward the sun already baking the top of my head. Bjarki leans into me, pushing a tendril of a blue cornflower weed against my arm. I’m momentarily assaulted by the memory of blood flecked arms and clothes behind closed eyes, casting an abstract testament of pain in blood on the wall behind me.

“Why did it have to be Leukemia?”

A wet muzzle draws me back to the present, gold-specked hazel eyes gaze up at me. With a smile, my pain melts into a pool of serenity and quiet reverence. This bull-in-a-china-shop pup beside me is the best example of Pickles lessons in play. She imparted the patience and tenacity which I needed to guide Bjarki in her absence, she taught me how to experience his wonderment, and to appreciate the calm between those moments of curious abandonment.

The neighbor’s dog makes a noisy entrance, racing the length of fence between our yards. Bjarki watches silently, cocking his head back and forth. I feel the sigh ripple through his chest and down the length of his back, before he turns to glance at me questioning. The yearning to run and play with another dog rolls off him as he stares after the yellow lab in the next yard. He misses her too.

“I’m not quite ready to cross that bridge yet, little buddy.” I whisper, kissing the top of his head.

Pickles had that same look for years. You had to wait until she retired before getting Bjarki. He’s not a working dog, what’s stopping you now? I’m not/won’t, I can’t replace her…(Later on I’ll credit Pickles for winning that argument playing out in my head. Her want and love, were the deciding factor for me.)

These days there is a rightness, a balance in the house, marked by the resounding stampede of paws running up and down the stairs. Bjarki has a new playmate – Yazhi, a Doberman/Coon

Mix rescue from South Carolina. She’s only a month younger than Bjarki, but it’s already obvious who’s going to be the giant of the two. I couldn’t have picked a more appropriate name for her; Yazhi means ‘little one’ in Navajo. She’s the calm to Bjarki’s storm.

Without further ado, meet the pups who will carry Pickles legacy forward:

Bjarki is 5 1/2 months. He's part Doberman, Shepard, and Labrador. He's already tilting toward 50lbs on the scale. He's my gentle giant.

Yazhi is 4 1/2 months. She's a Doberman Pinscher and Coon Mix and far more mellower than Bjarki.

Hopefully after the summer, sometime in Sept., I'll be able to get back to some kind of schedule here. The pups are only young once and I aim to enjoy every single moment. Thank you, for all the well wishes and support in the last 2 months. Pickles touched so many hearts and left this one missing her dearly.

“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.” ~ Emily Dickinson

Pickles, 2004 - May 30th, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:10:00 +0000

“There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.” – Don Juan de Marco

A better title for this post might be – “Man Plans, God Laughs”. I’m a little bitter right now.

A deep chasm inside of me aches like nothing I ever felt before. Pickles taught me so much about life. I have no idea how to live inside my deafness without her.

The lines from Roberta Flack’s song “Killing Me Softly With His Words” - Strumming my pain with his fingers, Singing my life with his words, Killing me softly with his song, Killing me softly with his song, Telling my whole life with his words; keep reverberating down to skin and bones. We had our own language, words that only we shared between animal and human, an understanding no-one else could ever apprehend; words that are killing me softly as I sit here mourning for my sweet friend.

Pickles died from an extremely aggressive form of Leukemia yesterday. There wasn’t a single clue to indicate she had cancer, until it was too late. Everything was fine at her last vet visit, then last Wednesday she had a seizure. By Memorial day she was at the Emergency Vets getting X-rays and Lab work done – sneezing blood all over. I was afraid of an upper respiratory infection, or even some form of dog Epilepsy. I would give anything…if only that had been true.

That night the vet thought she might have a week or two left – by morning it was downgraded to mere days, hours…Without any warning, I was losing my precious girl, my ears, my heart. I would never have imagined this ending for her in a million years. She had to be in such extreme pain and never once did she whimper or bark. Even up till the end she tried to protect me.

Then there’s Pickles puppy – Bjarki. Two months ago I picked out a puppy for Pickles. I wanted a puppy to grow up around her and form a bond with her before she went fully blind. The month before his arrival, I kept telling Pickles he was her puppy to help her accept him into the house. They adored each other. She became so protective of him. In turn, he taught her how to play like a normal dog. I remember laughing when he would pick up her leash and try to lead her, like a match made in heaven.

Bjarki stands for little bear in Icelandic - protector. He was supposed to be her protector, her helpmate, her friend…her puppy. I can’t describe how much it hurt to separate them when she became so sick. They would stare at each other across the gate yearning. At night she would sneak downstairs and sleep under the computer desk beside his crate. How am I supposed to raise this little guy without her? He was never supposed to be mine…oh, this hurts so deep.

She’s buried in the myrtle where she loved to wander. Bjarki is making a habit of going directly to her grave whenever we go outside, then he trails along the yard to her favorite places. As hard as it is, I can’t refuse. He’s trying desperately to hang onto her scent. Today he picked up a stuffed lamb that belonged to her and tried to carry it out the door with him, without a doubt to her gravesite.

Pickles taught me to be a writer; she showed me how to be still within the silence in order to really see the world more clearly. I can’t find my stillness amid this pain that shatters me to the core. She was my everything, I’m empty without her, the world is in sharp contrast made of sterile rationalizations that cut deep into a soul.

“I wish the world wouldn't be so cold, as to take such a beautiful soul.” OPM- Brighter Side

I'm lost without you sweet friend...

The Soft Hue of Words

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:48:00 +0000

picture from here

I milk the warm day for all its worth, entranced by the room backlit in soft hues of sunlight. The gentle breeze breaks against the screen into tendrils of whispers against my skin. This baby blue sky is better suited for a newborn nursery than a New York March day. Nature’s kiss of spring? What of winter I wonder, he never had a chance to unfurl and stretch his muscles. His blanket covering of white was nothing but shredded effusions, thin transparent foam tapped off a brew that disappeared as quickly as it formed.

I’m not the only one confused…trees stand naked of foliage, withstanding the prodding strokes of airstream exuberance, refusing to bud in light of the impassioned warmth of the day. Mother Nature could use a few lessons in foreplay. Then again, she might have overplayed her hand wrestling with old man winter all last season.

My mind contains seasons of fodder; enough to tire of winter’s spent sorrow. He lost days, more like months to his adversary, while hard ground gave way to loam earth.

I wonder how many rows you can plow through a fertile mind, before enough wordage is planted and sown early by a torrent of doubt. Will we drown in word vomit - the overgrown algae choking off ponds of thought, reflections strangled by vines’ before they know the sun’s delirious rays? Spring may be clawing at the door, but there is still a winter storm brewing inside locked doors.

In this farmstead reality, words are hard jagged edges tearing skin, down to bone. I don’t have enough language, enough vocabulary to swab up the liquid life that drains from every pore. How is it something so painful and elusive can leave me breathless and wanting. Why not find an easier path to tread, one that soothes my empty psyche and wraps the soles of my feet with eloquence – gentle grass stained moccasins of verbiage. Some days I don’t think I have the tools to work the plantation of my mind or to climb these mountains of sentence structure, paragraphs and pages.

Boulders of doubt push me over the edge, but I can’t let go of the ledge, the valley doesn’t hold enough words to break my fall. I’m digging furrowed welts deep in the mountains face down to split nails and bloody fingers searching for gems of sanity to hang onto. I lose my grip (on sanity) and tumble head over heels down to a pussy willow tundra of open books.

My eyes flutter against the brilliant light as sunlight dances over nap swollen eyelids. The wind blows against the screen and chill air pinpricks my skin. I smile. Nothing but a dream about the soft hues of words floating around a writer’s mind on a faux spring day.

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” ~ Vita Sackville-West

Obsession: The Dream Killer

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:32:00 +0000

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” Edgar Allan Poe

(picture from here)

I lost track of how long the stare contest had been going on. Liquid charcoal eyes stared unblinking into mine. Occasionally her eyebrow would arch knowingly. In jest, I threw up my hands. No hair off her brow, of course the blind dog won the stare contest, which started with me asking her what I should write. Shrugs; She’s my muse and no she doesn't play fair, but I get lost in those eyes where a world of wonder takes place – enough to clear my mind and shift gears.

Pickles cocks her head slightly still with that sarcastic eyebrow arch and grins like a lunatic.

“Knock it off you maniac, you still haven’t answered the question.” I scold playfully, while thumbing through a notebook of miscellaneous thought vomit I had written.

Words are like this secret elixir only I can partake of – my personal stash.

When was the last time writing felt like that? I wondered. Pickles continues to stare at me, waiting like a hungry vulture for me to answer my own dilemma. “Want to hear a story on how I lost my words? I ask. Those long toes of hers resemble monkey paws as they curl around my knee in answer. I pat the couch beside me and wait for her to get comfortable.

“Once upon a time (because all our earlier stories start that way), a woman had piles of words emulating every emotion she had ever experienced in handwritten journals, typed pages, and scraps of whatever was handy when the words overtook her. Words bandaged pain, soothed sorrow, and built bridges to hope and dreams. Then one day a horrible man shredded all her words and left her with a sea of mulched batting in its place.”

Pickles buries her nose beneath my elbow as I continue, “The woman swore off words and buried their likeness so deep within she forgot where she hid them. Years and years would go by while the words pushed and shoved against her breastbone, vying to escape. They wrapped around her heart becoming a fist full of memories squeezed dry. Until her psyche began to rot intellect like a rusted hinge exposed too long to the elements.” At this point in my storytelling, I glance at Pickles with her nose tucked between her paws as if to hide from a scary scene in a movie.

“The pile of words inside the woman grew and grew, threatening to engorge her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. Still she strangled the words and swallowed them deep to rot in her gut, until she became a numb caricature of a human being. Then one day, along came a pup, a pushy creature with a pickled attitude who demanded to be heard, just like the words she once knew.”

A wet nose nudges my elbow, encouraging me to go on. “Slowly but surely, the woman learned to purge the words which had been buried for so very long in the depths of her psyche and heart. For the first time in a long time, she could breathe. The woman realized she had never truly lost the words; they had been the driving force within her all along. Not unlike her dog, she wanted to be heard.”

I wink at Pickles and whisper, “The End.”

I remember fanatical sessions of writing for hours on end, to the point of a losing a year and a half in the creation of my books. Lately I’ve been wondering where that obsessive writer disappeared to. With no doubt, words still flow in their own stream of consciousness from my fingertips; although, nothing like those first few years of discovering my lost cache inside. Are my goals as a writer still something I am capable of accomplishing? More than ever…

I’ve learned something along the way though, obsession kills dreams. If you become so obsessed you forget to live or to enjoy the small moments in life, you’re strangling any hope of fulfilling those dreams. Everything in life needs time to develop to its full potential. In my case, my writing needed days to breathe, time to marinate into something credible. Besides, I still need those stare sessions with my perquisite pup (even though she cheats).

I’m not saying give up by any means, what I am saying (more so for me) is enjoy the journey. Don’t overwhelm yourself and lose touch with the enchanting beauty of why or when your dreams first began to hold sway over you.

“All we see or seem is, but a dream within a dream.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe

The Writer's Liar

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 05:15:00 +0000

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” ~ Oscar Wilde

“When I write, I’m not deaf.”

Was I lying or is it my belief, my fiction, my little white lie, which makes this true in a sense? For odd reasons this presented a conundrum for me recently; on some level I felt like the liar (the writer) hiding behind her words. Writing doesn’t remove my disability; to a few readers, my words might be more descriptive in place of hearing. Others believe it’s not an absolute priority or needed to write. Both hold an element of truth. Each person has their own truth they take away from a single blanket statement, in this case my bold altruism of believing I’m not deaf (at least when I write).

Truth is such a relative controversy when it comes to writers; we ply our trade by being imaginative, conniving liars. You shouldn’t trust us writers, we can spin a tale like no other and not only will you believe us, you’ll be asking for more.

Am I deaf?

Proficient liars one and all, even the non-fiction sort. Confused? Whenever someone tells a story or recalls events no matter how true or fact based, they may be - they’re still telling ‘their’ version of the truth. So are we all liars – manipulative culprits you really shouldn’t trust or believe a single word uttered out of our mouths? What if I told you, underneath every lie, a thread of truth can be found. Aha, let’s close that vault full of philosophical arguments before we get off track.

Oscar Wilde wrote, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

I’m not deaf when I write…change the order of words and the truth outs itself. Every single writer I know writes truth into their fiction; we create the characters and give them personalities based on our own observations, beliefs, and imaginations. We thread the story with emotional density and experiences from our lives. Life lessons are the creation behind the storyteller’s voice. Readers and listeners take those stories and interpret them into something they recognize, until they are no longer the writer’s truths, but their own.

For example, take the woman running the cash register, who yanked her hand away from mine instead of giving me my change, simply because I said I was deaf. In her reality, deafness is contagious. You can bet at some point she’s going to show up in a book somewhere. Better yet the neighbors who become watchdogs duplicating my actions, hairstyle, and clothing like automatons with no personality of their own (aliens maybe) – once again my truth, which becomes your fiction.

Each of us, caught in our worst lie will give away the truth in some form. Writers do it better, we’re sales clerks selling the biggest lie of all and asking you to extend believability to what you’re reading. Who knows…you might find me hidden somewhere in the story. I hope not, if I’m any good at all, you bought the lie hook, line, and sinker.

In the end…I’ll always be deaf. Writing gave me the tools to hear through noise, sound, and music descriptions. A match made in heaven wouldn’t you agree? On this playing field, I hear just fine. Sometimes our biggest lie, is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Picture from here.

About a Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:51:00 +0000

“I am chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of my eyes. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943

I found Pickles curled up in the empty alcove pouting, where the Christmas tree used to be. She wouldn’t even look at me, turning away shifting her head from one paw to the other. With my heart in my throat, I slid down the wall beside her and pulled her chin up on my outstretched legs. She muzzled my hand in apology, confused by her own behavior.

For Pickles, the Christmas tree’s beacon of bright colorful lights has disappeared, gone were those days of curling beneath branches mesmerized by the dazzling luminosity. Charcoal black eyes full of questions search my face for answers. She senses love, momentarily forgetting tree lights and the luxury they afforded her darkening world as I hug her close.

“We make a pair – a deaf woman and her blind dog. You’re so much more than a working dog, always have been.” I whisper reassuring. “We’ll get through this, together.” She perks up at the mention of work. She lives to work and it serves twofold as the reason for her distress lately. Little does she comprehend I could never repay all she’s done already. Gentle sweet Pickles hid the signs well. Yet, the signs were there weren’t they sweet friend - the slow darkening of your eyes with a hazy sheen dimming their brown luminosity, along with the deteriorating night vision.

Pickles told me without words she needed help the day she stood at the top of the stairs with her front paws on the top stair and her hind legs perched on the floor above waiting. Her confusion gave it away, as she cocked her head to listen, waiting for me to go first – to lead, instead of bounding down the stairs ahead of me like the puppy she was at heart. I knew something had changed as I swiped at tears. I knew things would never be the same again when I tapped the step I stood on, and watched her listen, tuning into each footfall to locate a stair, teaching herself how to handle stairs once again. I learned a heartrending beautiful lesson in humility that day from her.

As I sit beside her, I’m reminded of the first time she taught me to hear without my ears. The Spring day she pointed out a woodpecker in a tree, her eyes guiding mine to where the bird tapped away in a staccato like a pile driver and the utter delight she had shown - chest puffed up, prancing on her front paws when I smiled in wonder and hugged her close. In the following years, I would continue to hear through her, seeing life not as a deaf woman but whole, unhindered through her eyes - eyes, which slowly darken and blur with each passing day. We two complete each other. This animal taught me more thoroughly about life and resilience than any human being could ever have.

Time is a thief, stealing irreplaceable things from our lives. Yet, Pickles remains a testament to the things time can’t touch: hope, courage, love, and perseverance. Despite loss and occasionally wanting to give up, we still go on, we still learn from one another, and hold each other up in an indelicate balance of emotional turbulence to the light of day.

Drawing a deep breath, I gently push Pickles off my lap and go get her leash. I’ll let her nose sniff out where we go from here. This survivor of Katrina, heartworms, and me, has more courage than anyone I know - she’ll be fine, we both will, and someday our story might even make a remarkable book. After all, life is filled with colorful characters and plots overflowing to the brim with life experiences and endurance. This writer lives her story word for word each day with an amazing sidekick…