so, sitting in the Morning Chair and it's still dark, as in STILL dark, it's not letting go, but sitting there because somewhere in the night i'd made the decision to make the MOST of this one day that i possibly could..... ...... ..... my mind is wandering back to Big Magic....about creative living....not necessarily "art" but creative Living.... and my mind goes to the part where she tells about coming to write The Signature of All Things. It's in the part of Big Magic called Scavenger Hunt. I won't write what she wrote here, but it was a really great example of just letting inspiration IN.
Letting it In, without knowing a single thing about Why. Just letting it IN. Well, maybe i'll write some of what she wrote tomorrow, but not now.
What happened this morning, for me, was a totally NEW and really exciting thought. The thought was that i could write a work of FICTION. It never occured to me to write FICTION. I don't necessarily love FICTION except for Louise Erdrich's or maybe Housekeeping and i can't remember who wrote it...should have checked before starting this post, or maybe the God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy, and too Barbara Kinsolver's the Poisonwood Bible....so maybe i DO like fiction, not not all enough to go to the library to get it and then not so much because of how reading it eats my life up. But it was never a question, when i thought of wanting to become a writer way back, it was never fiction. Fiction would be so beyond me.
But somehow, that use of the expression "out of character" yesterday set something loose. Out of character would imply there being a character. What if i am just a character?
Sometimes when faced with some dilemma, i use the tool of becoming the observer of my Self...looking at my self as if i were just someone i know, faced with a dilemma. What would i make of them?, their dilemma? What would i say if asked?
So this is kind of like that, but really way more fun. What if i make the 70 Person into a character in a NOVEL, the novel being really my life, but not so much really because tho it would be maybe structured around true events and feelings, it could also include......
Fiction stuff made up.
So i got all buzzed with this thought this morning and these are some of the things i wrote down really fast:
How there is true fiction everywhere....my neighbors with the couch stuffing ALL OVER their yard and how they will most likely NEVER clean it up, and still have one more lazy boy chair and one more couch still out there with the same bored pit bull, how even though there are quite a number of ify homesites around here, theirs is the WORSt...? Why? who ARE they and don't they NOTICE the total MESS their place is? and if they do, what keeps them so reluctant to do something about it or are they reluctant??????
Robin, who came from somewhere, i think Texas, to work on the Mustang Ranch Project last year, who i talked to this morning about coming to help me do stuff here and thinking of her i thought about how there are many Stray Women in my world...Stray Women, like Jude's stray Cats, Women who have strayed ......so Robin
And then the Two Moms and their daughter Talula, and really Talula and her two friends, Jora is one and i can't remember the name of the third, but they are like joined at the hip, the three of them, have been since very young maybe 5 or 6 yrs and they are Eleven now, i listened to them in the background last night at Jamie's, often they talk at the same time, totally in unison, long things, i don't know what they were, memorized and spoken completly in unison, Sydney said something from a TV program when i asked, but WHAT IF they became the Three Mothers?...what if THEY went on to have children together????? as Three Mothers....like Talula was conceived?
So...characters and Sydney and Shela....both strays again, Shela from Canada...She is an Arborista. Teaching Sydney. How they are lovers in such an interesting way to me. While Jamie is the Other Mother, she is no longer the lover but how they all hold so tight and well to the Family that they are.
and how it's all such a Grand Story. I don't intend to become a Writer, but i might want to Think like a writer, See it like a writer might....with Intense Interest...
Write about the Goats, about TenZen's vocalizations...not just one sentence, but really try to convey the thing it is, the guteral to the shrill falsetta, their sticky faces Which would be part of it...What DOES she DO, the 70 Person, having inherited 17 Goats. How does that happen in the story? What do they do with ThemSelves? How? Fiction. You can make part of it up. Having to do things to create the story lines might make the reality of the doings really interesting, Try it, E. Gilbert says.
Try it E Gilbert says. What if it goes on getting written until the last line when the 70 person dies?
But then, of course there would be a sequel. Who would write that? Talula?
And i forgot the woman who is making a Shrimp Farm in Lemitar down the road. I read about it in the crummy little local newspaper....someone has a Shrimp Farm in Lemitar. You can call and order your shrimp and she will have them ready for you. OK. Yes. The woman who is a Shrimp Farmer in the desert needs to be included.
and back to it going on till the 70 Person's Death. And how death comes with the last INHALE, not exhale....as i'd believed before, But the INHALE. You breath IN then there is just the slightest pause, the moment of saying OK, and the in that pause, you lift up into the Inhale and continue on. Lifting Out of the body, loosening at first, lifting then, until you are Free. There IS the exhale, but that belongs to the physical body, because you have lifted OUT, and the shell exhales, or, that last breath simply escapes naturally, slowly and at ease.
So...all the above this morning and then a truly excellent day when i worked some on the Net of Mother Night
adding the second round of split back stitch....Jude Hill.... and how incredibly GOOD it was after a few days away
Then OutSide to prepare for the days of cold that are coming. 5 of them. Making things Good for the Goats, as Good as i can.
Bring in 5 days of wood. Turn the wheelbarrows down so the snow does not settle. Tarp the feed. Tarp some firewood in case. Move the truck. Change all Goat Water tubs. We are Ready.
ADDENDUM:
Tay is sleeping in her crate but hears the laughter of drunk people in the distance. Comes out to stand, listening. Growls, which is rare and goes through the dog door to stand OutSide at the gate. It's Christmas Eve here in the barrio.
