Toddlerhood

Deanna

@ectiwshop

Motherhood is fast, volatile, complacent. Foot in mouth, covered with kisses, love. Emotions multiplied by infinite hugs, feedings, sleepless nights. Foggy mindedness and giggles, a little one's voice in your ear calling, "Mama, mama." Fast, so fast, that baby smell now gone.

 (From when I was inspired and a little less sleep-deprived.)

Same Website, New Look

Oh hello, blog.  It's been several months since I've last updated here.  And I actually do have an update today: a new, simplified look for my main site is now up and running.  I'm still working on the content portion of the site, specifically updating and clarifying information, so bear with me as the layout may change slightly in the upcoming weeks.  To clarify, I am still offering writing services, and hope the site is easier to navigate now.

Check out my revamped site here: www.theintrovertedwriter.com  

Hello, August

A few days late, but hello.  I love the end of seasons, which can conversely be seen as almost the start of a new one.  The air changes, turns electric--almost imperceptible unless you stand outside and close your eyes and take in a deep breath.  This shift in the air tells you that there will soon be a change in weather.  And soon too the leaves will fall, a crispness will be felt in the air, and the days will shorten to a golden-orange glow.  But first there's August, and its last magical days of summer.
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Behind the Scenes of an Old Book

This is a photo I took a few years ago, but it's still one of my favorites.  The book is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and is a 19th-century marvel of utterly romantic (and disturbing...) proportions.  My edition was printed in the 1990s.  

From the pages of this book, I create the majority of my stamped book page items for sale in shop.  There's just something gorgeous and tactile about these particular pages: the outside edges are a soft golden hue that mellow inward into unobtrusive font on a pale cream-colored background.  It leaves me to wonder if the book was, in a previous life, placed on a bookshelf near a sunny window where sunlight left its heated imprint on the exterior of the text.  Or maybe the book was read once for a college English literature class and then discarded among other literary treasures of its kind in an indistinguishable book stack.  Who knows?  It's mine now.  The book's story is now this: a good number of its pages have been distributed throughout the US as stamped book page goods from my shop--I think this is a pretty unique outcome for a once-inconsequential used book.  Also, the cover is moody and ambient in varying shades of blue, which I find awe-inspiring to stare at. 

In other words, this particular book is a keeper.

Last Night's Sunset

via Instagram

Last night's sunset had re-awoken something in me that was once fleeting, elusive even.  The sky was drenched in golden partial light and pulsed with fluffy rainclouds, a precursor of the day to come.  An expansive view it was as far as I could see.  To the right, the clouds drew out in wispy textures; to the left and above, they were thick and ominous; but right in the middle, where the setting sun found its immediate backdrop, was where the true delight lay as the last glimpses of sunlight diffused brightly into a cool, calm sky as ominous thunderhead-like tufts threatened directly above.  As long as I stared at the sky, not a cloud moved; only the setting sun guided the slow passage of time.  A minute became two became ten or even fifteen.  I do not remember.  But what I do remember is this: the sun set, the clouds eventually dispersed, and the mood lifted--surged and shook until it became whole again.

Layers

In another life
I ran my fingers down
Your spine
As the cobwebs in my mind
Were careful
Not to tread
Too hard
On paper-thin veil.

Sparseness of Space

via Pinterest

This may seem a little austere, but I'd love to partake in some serious writing and thinking in this workspace of writer E.B. White.  Some may see an empty space, sparse and rudimentary, but in it I see a readymade canvas ripe with possibilities--a space for thought and imagination, for developing and molding ideas to fulfill a creative, spirited slant.  A site for daydreaming plots and character flaws, a room where one can pace back and forth in, amble around while lost in thought: hearing the floorboards creak underfoot, seeing the cobwebs dangle and the spiders weave, and feeling a bold thrill when the wind breezes through the wide-open window--the smell of outside air a welcome revival for the weary senses.  Ambient light mirroring the body's circadian rhythms, as if whispering the time constraints (dawn and dusk, only); a rigid wooden bench urging movement of body and mind.  Solace and continuity.

But most of all, this desolate-seeming workspace is a fitting reprieve from everyday distractions: the cellphone and the Internet; and on occasion, people.  Writing is hard work--it's a temperamental business, especially with distractions everywhere that masquerade as modern daily conveniences.  Sometimes another's voice can be the breaking point between concentration and the loss of thought; a text message can be an aberration; the Internet so loud that the mind clogs with an endless barrage of others' wordiness, in particular, rampant self-promotion over quality and content.  It's an overstimulating technicolor gleam.  Not all the time, but sometimes.  I myself feel the pull, down the dark rabbit hole of it all.  Not every day, but on some days.  Distracted, the writer sighs; she grumbles and drags herself, heavy-footed, back to the drawing board...

Perhaps writing is one task where I'd love to be completely alone: solitary and lost in thought, a laptop sans Internet, my imagination flitting through cracks in the floor, encompassing the sparse accommodations, the senses alight.

The Literary Class

Came across this thoughtful article, by Lorraine Berry, about the economics behind writing-class privilege.  Thought I'd share an except here (emphases are my own):

If literature is to mean something in the lives of those who read it, it has to do more than open up a new world of possibilities. Many of us have been the child (and adult) who was mesmerized by dreaming about doing the things that a book’s characters are doing. But, as I teach my students, reading is also about resonance, that moment of connection when what the writer is feeling in the words is being felt by the reader, that strum in the chest that signals that someone “gets” it. And while I might feel emotional resonance, I find myself longing to know that someone else understands what it feels like to know that the plain breakfast cereal in the cupboard is all there is until a parent gets paid. Literature should not function as a dividing line between the haves and the have-nots, just as the expansion of the literary world to more fairly represent a world in which people are more than white or male or straight has added untold riches to the canon, so too would the stories of working-class folk go a long way toward improving our representation of and understanding of the greater world. Most important, at least for me, knowing that it’s not class or money that determines whose writing is worth publishing would make me feel less like a fraud when I encourage my students to pursue a career in a publishing field where they’re already steps behind those whose economic privilege has already opened doors.

I have been hesitant to write this essay, lest it come across as mere personal complaint—if there’s one thing most working-class folks have little tolerance for, it’s complaining when there’s nothing that’s really wrong. At the same time, the creation of literature demands a certain honesty about one’s experiences, that we might narrow the gaps between our fellow human beings. In making art, writing about my experiences gives me a space in which to create resonance, and be truthful. There have been times in my life I’ve wished I had the money or the connections that would allow me to travel around the world for a year, to write a book about everything I’d seen and felt. And then I remind myself that I come from a long line of men and women who have survived being poor peasants, and then survived working down in the mines, and on the floors of the factories of Manchester. My father was a little boy when his family moved out of the Manchester slums and into a semi-detached house away from the urban-industrial grime. That’s a legacy to be proud of. And so, as I go forward, I choose to keep writing about that kind of working-class experience, to continue carving out a place for that kind of story in what we think of as literature.

Read the entire article here.

Getting the Hang of It

How are you all doing?  I feel like it's been awhile (again...) since I've touched bases with you beyond the holiday hubbub and the showcasing of new shop items.  So here I am, shifting the subject to more humanlike thoughts--because humanity is what really matters when it comes down to it.  On the EC | TIW front, I actively started utilizing my Twitter account, while also writing here and posting on Instagram (see this blog entry for my dilemma about this).  First, I was confused about what to post on each site: the same information, but condensed?  Different information?  Have each social media account reflect different aspects of my shop?  Unnervingly, a cacophony of thoughts stormed my mind; I felt like I was in over my head.  Overstimulated to the max.  Finally, I decided to post what I wanted to, which has become fun for the following reasons:

1. Twitter's word-count limit lets me play around with words: those with varying weight, illustrative potential, and wit--to include as I see fit.  

2.  Instagram has been helpful to pull together photography and writing into shortened posts, with an emphasis on photos.

3. My blog, which remains my favorite mode of communication, allows me the space to write freely, and creatively, without word-count limits and ergonomic annoyances (i.e.:smartphone keyboard).  Although my mind goes a-mile-a-minute, I type very slowly; I think too fast and my hands can't keep up unless I use a regular keyboard.

Content varies per site depending on what works better for me: quick, pulsing writing for Twitter; evocative photos and their accompanying words for IG; chronicling the thought process via in-depth writing for this blog.  Together, it's a fun, exhilarating challenge that forces me to learn and use new words in the process.  (And you know how I love a good word...)

Bottom line:
What at first felt overwhelming and scary--the balancing of, and posting on, three social media accounts--is now something I look forward to on a weekly basis.  (Pinterest doesn't count because pinning visual inspiration is easy.)  I love playing around with words and ideas to fit these very different social-media platforms because it keeps my writer's brain happy.  It's only then that I can concentrate fully, without interruption from my ever-roving mind, on making jewelry and book page goods, plus crafting quality writing services, during this busy holiday season.  With practice, things have become more manageable.

Textures

Textures intrigue me, particularly those found in nature.  They enthrall me with their mysterious crevices, their clever nooks and crannies, their minute hiding places for all things unabashedly alive--hidden yet at just the right angle, wide open and visible.  

We took a short trip a few weeks back.  It was on this trip that the textured bark (documented in the image below) caught my eye, beckoned my camera towards it to capture its depth.  It's difficult to tell in this photo, but my camera focused on the framed opening of its rather large crevice: a vast arboreal gateway.

Not quite a squirrel's nest, and not exactly an inconspicuous hiding place, this particular tree's crevice was large enough to stick my arm into.  It is a safe haven, but only for those playing an easy game of hide-and-seek.  By those, I mean squirrels and chipmunks and insects, alike.  Humans are excluded, for the tree's framed opening is delicate, seemingly ready to fall at any inopportune moment.  Excitement plays no part in the maintenance of this textured hideaway.  Instead, this spot is an arm's length of tranquility, as it is a few dozen footsteps away from a lake's edge at the base of a dark, jagged peak whose views from above inspire an electrified air of fear and awe.

Yet this arboreal gateway, this microcosm of tree life, was what captured my attention in the moment.  Neither the bone-chilling wind nor the moody rippling water that skimmed the lake's otherwise taut surface could break my trance-like attention span.  I imagined a microscopic town beyond that entryway of brittle tree bark: a hospitable land chock full of life-giving organisms making their way, around nooks and crannies, through life.

The Nest

There was a house finch nest nearby, on the way around the bend.  The nest was high up, balanced precariously between the two-sided corner of a house and the crook in a drainage pipe right under the roof (which formed the third makeshift "wall").  The location was not quite ideal, as the fourth side of the nest was left entirely exposed, but the ingenuity of such a high-up hideaway was commendable.

Occasionally two house finches would make their way to our yard, sit atop the fence and then quickly make their way back to their woven-grass home.  One week though, it was unusually windy.  The next morning, I walked around the way to check on the nest: it was still there.  With a sigh of relief, I calmed my mind; told myself that the nesting pair and their brood would be fine.

A few days later, I saw an adult house finch sitting on the telephone wire across the way feeding what I would later deduce to be its baby.  The smaller finch was speckled brown, could even be described as borderline gray in color, but was almost the size of the parent.  Its reliance on the adult bird for food was obvious, instinctual even. Soon, the duo flew out of view.

I was left wondering why the chick was not in its nest, given its age and size.  At that point, I decided to check on the nest--it was, as you've likely guessed, no longer in its location: it was on the cement floor below, split into two, likely upon sudden impact with the ground.

Terrified, I was afraid to shift the remainder of the nest on the ground.  I was frozen, afraid to touch the two nest pieces for fear that another baby lay underneath, cold and dead--or half dead.  My mind raced as I imagined that there could be more than one chick.  Where would I put them?  Would the parents know to come back?

All the possible outcomes of the situation swam rampantly in my mind, chaos unchecked.

I shifted my foot forward and softly touched the fallen nest with the heavy toe box.  Still, I could not tell if anything was underneath.  If there was a bird there, I would need a backup plan to save it.  Or them.  Taking a deep breath, I attempted to muster up some courage to turn the two portions of the nest over.

What would I use as a tool to turn over the nest pieces, since my foot was too heavy?

A small stick would suffice, I thought.

Once a stick that suited my vision was found, I carefully lifted the larger part of the nest in a slow, steady motion.  The nest was heavier than I thought.  Densely packed and the grass fully dried, it gave the appearance of thickly woven sturdiness despite the two-story fall.

I held my breath--

And there was nothing underneath the nest.  Not even a feather.  I breathed a sign of relief.  Then I turned over the smaller fallen nest portion, which also held nothing underneath.  Elated, I smiled.  The best possible outcome came true.

Thinking back, the baby I saw with the parent on the telephone wire must have been nearly full grown--and the only surviving one from before the nest's fall.  The chick's weight and restlessness must have caused the nest to teeter back and forth, consequently making it fall at the exposed area where a fourth wall or protrusion would have held the home securely in place.  Then it hit me: any younger, the chick would not have been able to physically fly to safety.  Lucky baby bird.

Tentative Steps

Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. 
- Gandhi

* * * * * * *

I've been working on a short story for the past five months or longer; the exact span of time has since been forgotten, tucked away somewhere between the anonymity of fall and the chaotic frenzy of winter.  It was my goal to be brave and post snippets of this story in this here humble blog.  But then I decided, last minute, to shutter this idea away into the back of my mind after my writing was plagiarized for profit by someone else.  (If you don't know this story and wish to find out more, read my January 2015 blog entries.)  The Internet is truly a complex space, mixed with those who want to make a quick buck and those who want to earn an honest dollar.

I fall into the latter category, if you had any question about it.

Interestingly enough, the holding off on publishing my story here allowed for me to revisit and further develop this writing, delve into specific areas that left gaps in the narrative, and fiercely work on a consistent tone and voice that was inconsistent in the previous draft.  I deleted entire paragraphs, even the ones I loved writing and did not want to part with; danced around vulnerability and depth of emotion before realizing that those very elements were integral parts that were missing in the story; added vulnerability and emotional depth to the tune of heartbreaking melancholy meets hopeful reality.  A difficult task, indeed, when all around you buds are blossoming and the sun is shining.

I've always been a consistent editor; I edit until I am out of breath.  Writing comes intuitively to me.  Occasionally, imperfections and fleeting moments of critical self-assessment surface, for I am only human, but I continue onward.  I edit until my eyes cross; work and work until the words break my heart in the most poetic way possible.  A literary turn of phrase; a burning image that stays in one's mind for days on end; a single word in a sentence that holds such a powerful meaning that it is merely reflex to pause for a moment on its significance.  Of course I am talking here about the literary greats, but I am still learning, working my way through it all.

My yet-to-be-posted story is a shining example of this full-fledged determination to fight for not only my words, but also for my strength of character, and it feels right.  I will post the story in snippets here--but only when it feels right to do so.

Poem

A True Story: The Mole

The other day, as I was sitting on the back steps, lost deeply in thought with the errant sound of wind in my ear and warm springtime sun on my face, I heard two funny plop sounds nearby in succession: one decidedly within a handful of seconds after the other.  By funny, I mean that the sound was much like what I envisioned to be flesh plopping down on hard cement, if you can image that--like a fat fish out of water, thrashing with intent on the hard, solid ground trying to find its way back to well, water.

However, I couldn't, even in my wildest imagination, imagine this.

So what could I do but look around for the culprit of this strange sound.  At eye level sitting down, nothing was out of the ordinary.  Our family dog had long left to sit in the back doorway with the door left ajar, halfway between indoors and out, to keep a safe eye on me.  The plants were in their usual places; not a creature was in sight.  Just as I thought this, I peered downward towards the lower steps in front of me, and lo and behold! (what I had initially thought to be) a gopher lay there, still as an inanimate object; the unflappable "gopher" fit neatly on the step without any overhanging limbs or nose.  I jerked with a start at the sight of this solid, live creature, flat on its belly, a mere footstep away from me.  Then curiosity overtook me, and I bent over slightly (since I was already sitting, I was low to the ground) to get a closer look.  It didn't twitch; didn't even bat an eye, or wriggle an appendage, or shift its rotund body out of fright.  I don't even think it saw me.  But I saw it.  The plump, thick body, smooth with a thin layer of fur. Fleshy paws and feet with eyes less apparent--and its rounded stub of a tail.

Gopher! I said.

Up I went to find my husband.

By the time I got back, which had to be a short minute or two after my exuberant outburst, it was gone.  Had flung itself down another step, and yet one more, and likely bounded into the overgrown hedge, the one with a pretty abundance of tiny white flowers.  That would make a great hiding place.

I waited a little longer with the spring sun shining on my face and the whirling of wind around me--but it didn't come out again.  The smart creature, it turned out, was not a gopher, but a mole.

A True Story: The Tale of the Blue Jay

We've got a bullying Blue Jay in our yard who thinks she runs the place.  She is a bully in every sense of the word.  With her magnificent, broad chest puffed out and a careless air of bravado, she plummets downward from the electrical wire above in one fatal swoop while letting out a brash call of ownership of the seed dish below, indifferent to the flock of speckled sparrows and red-chested finches already eating there--even landing on these far smaller birds and voraciously pecking them away.  All in one fantastic blur of electric-blue feathers.  This daredevil Blue Jay is even negligent towards the large coo-coo doves who fly off in a wild panic with a swift-yet-clumsy whistle of wings in the air upon her rough landing.  The seed dish, although rather large and the grain exceedingly plentiful, is in the Blue Jay's distorted eye, all hers.

A few short days ago while eating our nightly meal, we heard an unearthly, repetitive bird sound; a faltering-yet-consistent vocalization of despair--it was an eery sound that I, with my background of owning pet birds as a child, had ingrained in my mind and associated with the dreaded nail cutting time.  If you have never heard it before, this vocalized desperation sounds much like an animal losing a fight; an animal pinned down and bloodied in a brute manner--it is a last-ditch effort, this sound, at garnering sympathy from a much-larger foe, a fearful sound much like the innocent cry of a child when caught in a bind.  But unlike the simple, innocent cry of a child, this bird vocalization has a primordial undertone to it that I can only describe as the experience of being wild: of surviving in the elements and narrowly escaping predators, of being outwitted by a larger species and readily knowing it, but not ready to succumb to fate.

As we dashed to the northwest window overlooking the yard, my heightened sense of concern was validated: pinned to the floor by one foot, and on its back, helpless, was a speckled brown sparrow--and the aggressor was none other than our resident dictator, the Blue Jay.  What frightened me the most was that the Blue Jay had the sparrow in a tight full-body hold, with one gargantuan foot pinning the sparrow's delicate left foot onto the ground, while the other was pressed down firmly on the sparrow's feathery, tiny expanse of chest.  The worst part was the Blue Jay's thick elongated beak, which was pecking voraciously with intent at the little threatening foe's chest, like a Woodpecker pecking away at the bark of a tree; except that in this case, there was neither Woodpecker nor tree.  Witnessing this horrific potential end of life, I broke up the severely mismatched fight by strongly rapping at the window.

Off went the Blue Jay's legs, and off flew the sparrow.  Landing on the back of a plastic lawn chair, the sparrow stood still for a few minutes, likely gathering his bearings and calming his frayed nerves, and then fluffed out a bit as if shaking off the entire incident.  It was only then, after watching the sparrow fly off to join its flock, that I let out a flooding sigh of relief.  It flooded the room, seeped into the floorboards, exited the room and flooded the hallway.

Freewriting

This is just an exercise, a wild, frenzied foray into the art of storytelling--a truth-spinning act that I am both rusty and extremely nervous about carrying out.  Writing, contrary to my opening sentence, has tended to always be my fallback action, something that I fell back into doing when I wanted to escape the then-present time.  If it wasn't writing, it was reading, for which my vision did not thank me for as I got older, for I am as blind as a bat and as frustrated as one in daytime when in a throng of people.  As a child, books were my constant companions with whom I could converse and relate to through reading, which, when faced with people who were less than kind, was a welcome sign of relief.  Lost in thought--this phrase chiefly characterized my awkward formative years.

The phrase "lost in thought" has also been used to describe some of the most enigmatic (or conversely, truly underrated) literary characters in the history of literature to date, who were of course thought up by some seriously talented, humble writers--many of whom were, themselves, awkward and perpetually "lost in thought."

Give me a book, and I will be happy.

Give me some scratch paper, and I will write you a story...

Storytelling is a scary act because it reveals the very marrow of the soul.  Imprinted in the words on the page are various subtexts that, when read carefully, divulge our very fears and desires, our hopes and dreams (lived through the characters, of course).  Storytelling metaphorically strips you of your clothing, leaving you bare with only your emotionally-driven mind to see you though.  This nerve-inducing act of telling stories leaves one painfully bare-boned, yet somehow something deeper arises in the thickness of this anxiety and fear--wafts through the air like thick tendrils of fog along the Golden Gate.