Still Sundays

October 7, 2012

Yesterday I wrote fourteen pages of handwritten notes. I didn’t stop once the entire time I was writing. I was writing outside underneath the guardianship of almond trees and dusk. I stopped when my hand was completely cramped and it simply couldn’t move on. I haven’t written like that since Prague last summer.

It was getting dark too. Chacha Mia, a family member (of sorts), yelled for me to come inside. He said it looked like I was plugged into a tree when I was writing. This image delighted me. Storyidea: a tree-socket. Chacha Mia lives in the farmhouse area too. He has been part of our family ever since I can recall. He also says when I eat na’aan [a type of bread; thicker than roti] and a curry made out of nothing else but stir-fried tomatoes and onions I am like a mountain-lion-girl in Afghanistan. “That’s what village people eat. Eating things that are simple for the body to break down into energy gives one power,” he often says.

Writing by hand as compared to typing is akin to placing one’s hand in the dragon’s mouth. Words come from the coal of the Universe and your ego is meaningless dust. Truth hangs your truth like a clothespin on the wire of consciousness.  There is much more than blood in your veins.

Sharing what I wrote with any recipient has lost its urgency. When you really understand, you don’t care to convince anymore.  The music of some understandings calls for a solo dance.

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This Sunday afternoon (afternoon in central/southern California) I am writing from a Barnes and Noble in the biggest city available near my parents’ farmhouse, approximately 45 minutes away (depending upon where in the city, it can take an hour or more to get to places).

I don’t like writing in public. I look like a circus. No, it is not because I feel self-conscious given when the actual act of writing is taking place I can’t even tell where I am. It is only when I come out of this space that I notice others staring sometimes.

I don’t know who comes to Barnes & Noble to ‘observe’ people. Most behaviors in such settings are quite predictable therefore provide me no distractions as far as people are concerned.  However, I am hyper-sensitive to noise (and smell) so where I sit and write is important. I also like sunlight on my feet if I can have access to that luxury. Often headphones and music helps to fade out white noise. But music is a double-edged sword: although music takes me away from here and connects me to some there, the dancer in my bones can’t resist moving in air when I hear music that others can’t hear, so I sure look like a funny person who doesn’t find being observed humorous. Moreover, I also like to give a standing ovation to my laptop and fingers when I am able to find the right words for a thought.

But this was the closest I was going to get to writing on this busy Sunday as I have some dinner party to attend later this evening.

My mother says I look like I am in a trance when I write—she says this as if it is normal—“so just ignore all those who can’t understand.” I don’t care if they understand or not, I have to do what I have to do, but I would rather not do it in public or have to respond to statements such as, “I have never seen anyone consume so much water in one sitting!”

I have to have liters of water when I write. Water is my oxygen when underwords.

Or the worst: “Are you a writer?” To which I always answer no.

When it comes to writing fiction, I don’t need much stillness. Stories are like listening to music, they are already downloaded, I just have to hit ‘play’.  However, if I don’t create the time to write in stillness then I can’t hit ‘play’. In order to write these non-fiction essays I need to plug into stillness. This is where I knead out themes, sort emotional kinks, take a personal stand so the narrative voice is not asserting an opinion but…well, narrating, for a reader who must bring his or her critical thinking skills and knead out themes, his or her own emotional kinks based on the characters’ lives, and take a personal stand as a human being. Most importantly, writing on a Sunday gives me control in fiction although it feels like a mere downloading when I write fiction. This is my sketchbook that I choose to share.

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The aforementioned being said, no one believes me when I tell them that Stillness is something beyond the quietude that earth provides, although that is truly divine. There is hardly any stillness on a farm, especially in the morning hours. There is Mr. Rooster (not my parents’—thank goodness—but belonging to another farm miles away) who must welcome the King of all kings, Mr. Sun. Unless Mr. Sun has a meeting in which case all the heavy clouds guard the sky. If it is cloudy the Windy family gets irritated and starts spinning stories in the air at a frequency no one can decipher. Then there is the hustle and bustle of every tiny leaf, home to all sorts of tiny insects and big creepy crawlers. Also, there is Mr. Manoon, the farm cat. We never know the adventures it has been on the night before so mornings are always interesting. Mr. Manoon was first known as Mr. Mano Bills and before that as Tiger. He/She has definitely had more than nine lives. Long live cats. Then there are the dogs, two black labs, quite spoiled because of “who can resist”, who bark at ants and inanimate objects. Sometimes they bark at coyotes at night who are drunk on darkness. Not to mention errands. There is always something that needs to be done.

And there is my grandfather, the only living grandparent, my mother’s father, nana g. He is almost 93 years old and he is obsessed with consuming sugar-free candies. Sugar-free because he is diabetic. He doesn’t remember having consumed them or sometimes hides them so he can get more. Yesterday, he told me together we could become a team against my parents’ conspiracy to hide candies from him! It really is a big game to him as if he was a three year old! The neighborhood Rite Aid store in the nearby town knows us by now: we are about to get special discounts given the amount of sugar-free candies we need to buy. It wouldn’t be an issue but this maddening obsession to consume which makes him feel in control increases the trips to the bathroom. And given he has to use a walker on top of getting quite disoriented in the night the trips are quite a trip!

Nonetheless he is a joy, no different than having a kid around. But both are a tremendous responsibility.

I see my parents take on the parenting role for their own parent (my father has always treated nana g as his own father). I continue to learn from my parents. They are very devoted and remain very enthusiastic about new life experiences despite their responsibilities. They have endured tremendous challenges in life so as to make sure their children could serve others with more ease.

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This morning when I went on a bike ride with my mother our conversation gave me precisely what I needed to begin work on a new story. Mama said she never feels like an alien on earth. She feels she is supposed to be here. I asked her if she had a choice would she rather be on earth or some other planet. (I don’t think I have to share my answer given I call people earthlings!). And she said, “Mmmmm. Here.” And I nearly fell off my bike. “What?! Why?!” And mama replied, “Because at least here I know I have a choice how to be and over my actions. I can choose to do good.  I like the freedom to choose being happy and doing those things that make me happy and letting go of those things that I have no control over.”

And it was then, under the spell of her glowing love, I was able to hop on the saddle of Stillness running amongst the wild mustangs of stillness and arrive to this place and therefore write.

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Stay tuned for…

…an essay about Santa Fe, New Mexico, with photos of course! My Wizard and I were there and the city is not what you think. More fartists than artists!

…some photos of very quaint, old houses in a very small town near my parents’ farmhouse

and

…a new fiction series given the stories on here will be taken down since they are going hard copy and in bookstores. : )

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