Death to the Black Box.

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My husband and I moved into our new apartment in July and since then we haven’t had TV. We own two TVs, but we don’t have cable. Not even basic channels. Not even NBC or ABC or the local channel that’s usually a super old power-point slideshow with odd instrumental music on loop.
I know, I know. How have we survived?! It’s downright unamerican.
We’re not hippies. We’re not ultra-conservative fundamentalists who have denounced pop culture.
We’re just poor. Every paycheck gets dolled out to rent, utilities, car insurance and school loans and with whatever is left, we think to ourselves : we could get a digital converter box this month…. but we’d rather buy a few extra groceries or go on a date. At first I felt like our apartment was much too quiet. I watched a lot of Gilmore Girls on DVD.
And then I started reading books I haven’t read in awhile. And then I started writing in my journal. And sketching and making decorations for our apartment. And painting. And organizing all my shoes and art supplies.
My husband and I still rent movies at least once a week and watch them together.
But when I’m home alone now, I don’t get the feeling anymore that the big black box is going to swallow me unless I turn it on. My brain isn’t rotting away in front of the propaganda machine anymore. I don’t come to consciousness several hours later, sprawled on the couch, asking myself, Wait – What did I do today? Oh yeah … nothing. … except eat 3 bowls of cereal and day old pizza.
I’ve tested this theory, and I’m pretty sure I’m right. If there is a TV in the room with a cable connection, it is inevitably on. Having the TV off in my living room growing up was pure torture. I would try to concentrate on my book or drawing, but I was distracted by the almost audible voice telling me,

“Look at me. I’m empty and sad. You’re empty and sad, too. Turn me on. Let’s be friends.”

On goes the TV, and my productivity – no, my brain activity – plummets.

Without cable to tempt me, the TV isn’t this ominous black void to fill. Yes, it’s quiet. I turn on music sometimes or NPR. Yes, sometimes I give in and watch a movie. But a movie is an investment. I have to be willing to sit and watch the movie for at least an hour and a half, and if I’m not, then what should I be doing? It’s a good test: Watch a movie I’ve seen before OR make myself useful.

We trick ourselves into believing that TV is just a filler, just something to bide our time until we have an appointment or plans to hang out with a friend. False. It’s a productivity killer. Imagine what we could do with all the time we’ve spent watching prime time TV. I could learn a new recipe, write more than one blog post, read that novel I bought but doubt I’ll finish, or organize something. That’s not busy work. That’s actively participating in my life.

The only time I’ll ever miss TV is probably on Christmas day when TNT does the 24 hours of A Christmas Story. Yes, I love it that much. But! It’s a movie so maybe it’s time to actually purchase it? That way, we’ll only watch it once and spend more time talking with the family we traveled 250 miles to see on the best day of the year.

Bottom line is: I’ve found other things to do with my time. So is it okay that I don’t ever want to get cable?

What about you? Could you survive without TV or are you afraid you’ll be bored out of your mind?

Poem: Oranges Aren’t Just for Eating

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I peeled back its thick skin to feel the sticky, sweet juice and dusty white pith glaze my fingers. 

Its sweet and tangy scent filled the room as I bit into its smooth flesh. 
Oranges aren’t just for eating. 

They nourish and sustain us. 

They delight us with a delicious scent and taste and color.

We are meant to enjoy life in every sense.

That’s why we can taste, touch, smell, see and hear.

We are meant to serve more than one purpose and more than just ourselves.

That’s why we can taste, touch, smell, see and hear each other.

If we just open up.

Stranger Than Fiction.

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I’ve decided to stop fighting it.
What exactly? I was driving home yesterday contemplating, once again, my writing woes. My ever-encouraging twitter friend, Friederike, tweeted a word to me the other day:
“Very often, our characters tell us what they are up to. We must take our time and wait a little to find out what they want.”
And then, in response to my whiny, “But what to do while I wait for them to speak to me?” Friederike said, “Have a coffee and watch your soul while you are waiting for your characters to do the work.”
Again, an all too wise response to my needlessly worrisome writing self. At that point, I was asking myself what characters are speaking to me. Do I even have any? I was never planning on being a fiction writer. But is that what she meant, and does fiction versus nonfiction make any difference here?
In the midst of my brain working through this idea, my ears were half-listening to my car radio, which was faithfully playing NPR’s All Things Considered. The host was interviewing a writer that just published a new novel. What was his inspiration and theme behind the book, she asked? I was suddenly all ears.
The writer explained that his work centered around the belief that home is not always where we are most welcome or a place that we can take refuge from a misunderstanding world. What happens to people who live with that discord?
For reasons I cannot explain, his description of pulling together his ideas into a novel pulled together my own disjointed ideas about what it means to write.
I’ve been fighting for a long time the idea that I should write fiction. It seems to me that any attempt I’ve made is not literary, but a deep-seeded and irresistible need to reconcile misunderstandings in my life – people, experiences, memories, social, political and religious issues. Every version of my fiction has been some attempt to tie those things together so that I can make sense of them, or remove them from myself. Like Dumbledore’s Penseive, my writing extracts those things that will not rest within myself until they’ve poured out of me onto the page in black and white, where I can examine every detail. (Kudos to J.K. Rowling for that concept. I wonder if she ever thought about that in terms of her own writing experience?)
This isn’t right, I tell myself. Great writers don’t turn their lives into fiction for a good story. There’s always that speculation that something within their works – a character or a scene or a setting is a fictionalized, dramatized version of something real to the author. But many authors would, and have, denied those theories outright. And then the critics and readers idolize them: “He’s just that genius that the work is entirely fictional!”
Underneath the guise of literary genius, every good piece of writing has soul, and what is soul but personality, your collection of beliefs, experiences, passions, and talents that are not quite like anyone else’s?
This is what I’m not going to fight anymore: you, dear readers, friends, loves of my life (and people I might not necessarily get along with) are the interesting characters that fill my thoughts and speak to me. Experiences and memories, you are a part of who I am. I am passionate about you. I am inspired by you. I know you and you know me. You drive me to words. Black, white, gray, and every color and shade in between. You speak to my soul, and I’m listening, truly listening now.
After all, life is stranger than fiction, right? So don’t be surprised if some version of you lies within my words. I won’t be surprised, anymore. I may not pen the great American novel any time soon, or ever, but this is what I know.
I won’t go against the grain anymore, for you are ingrained in me.

Top 10: Books that Changed (or Made) My Life

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When did I first decide that I wanted to write? It’s funny… I don’t remember. I wouldn’t say that I have always wanted to write, but I can say that I’ve always loved to read.
This week, one of the assignments that my writing partner and I gave each other was to choose a book that made us want to write… and of course, I could not think of just one. Which led me to wonder, is it fair to try and only choose one, or would it be more honest to say that it was all books, or maybe the act of reading itself that gave me the urge to write? For reasons I don’t entirely understand, I’m hesitant to try and answer that question. At times, a single phrase in a book overwhelms me with inspiration. Other times, I find a deep sense of gratification in the story as a whole. And then there are the moments when the sheer act of turning a page, of smelling an old book, of holding it with both hands, is a deeply spiritual, emotional experience.
As we discussed our picks, I was struck anew with the realization of how deeply influential good writing is and how transformative it is when people learn to read. As a young girl, my days were filled with great stories, pages, and words. When my frizzy-haired, stick-figured self had no one to relate to, I always found deep comfort in the weight of a book in my hands, and a deeply awkward main character, not unlike myself, that could be found within it’s pages.
And at every stage of my life, it seems, I’ve found book after book that meets me where I am emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and it takes me somewhere new. Even better, I love to find out that the people who wrote them were also once awkward, inquisitive, imaginative young people that found books and authors that inspired them, too.
The Official List:
1. I Think that It is Wonderful - I read this over and over when I was little! The start of my love for poetry.
2. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, Judy Blume – between the ages of 8 and 13, I read this about 400 times! It was the first book that I remember mentioning World War II, Hitler, and anything about being a Jew. Note to teachers and parents: I recall this book much easier than any elementary school history lesson…
3. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster – the first book where my teacher told us to think about writing themes and messages, rather than merely text.
4. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle – between the ages of 10 and 14, I read this about 800 times! The characters were so unique, but utterly relatable.
5. Harry Potter (1-7), J.K. Rowling – controversial those these books were in my household, they had a huge impact on my life and my desire to write. My own peers, kids who at one point felt indifferent to reading where consuming these books like after-school snacks – all 700+ pages of each one! And suddenly, the underdogs, the awkward, geeky kids had a hero who fit their mold. And suddenly, it was cool for teenagers to talk about the things that are important in life, like love, friendship, good versus evil, and ask ourselves, could we be as brave as Harry, Ron, or Hermione?
6. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray – initially, it was the sheer gorgeousness of the cover that made me pick this one up. But the style of writing, the character of Gemma Doyle, and the recurring theme of coming of age as a young woman had me hooked from the first page. (Sadly, the sequels don’t quite live up.)
7. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley – by the time I finished college, I had read this book for a class no less than 5 times. A little daunting after the third time, but I still love it. The first time I was assigned to read it was in my high school British Literature class, and after reading it we had to write a 10-12 page research paper. To this day, that paper is one of my proudest accomplishments [135 points out of a possible 135 points from one of the most demanding teachers at our school!) and I am still utterly fascinated by the layers and layers of meaning to be found between it’s pages, not to mention the inspiring author herself who dominated her own husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron – at the age of 18, no less!
8. The Reader, Bernard Schlink – It’s simple: this book changed my life. I was working at my hometown library as a page, and one day I came across this book. The cover looked interesting, but I was drawn to the simple, mysterious title more than anything. It was the Oprah’s Book Club seal on the cover that kept me from actually checking out for 6 months… When I finally did pick it up, I found a story so rich with compassion and raw, utterly human history that I could not believe that I had not even heard of it before. It’s been made into a great film, but I highly suggest you read the book first. If I had to choose, this would be the book that made me want to be a writer.
9. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger – If I were stranded on an island and could only bring with me one book, this would be it. The characters, the plot, the writing – all work together to create this magnificent and completely original love story. It’s like listening to your favorite album on repeat – it just never gets old, and you feel like the characters are real, like they live in your head, and that each word was written for you. DO NOT under any circumstances see the film before you read the book, or I swear you may never pick it up. Even if you read it first, I’d say the movie is a rental at best. Some may disagree, but in my opinion, that cinematic “interpretation” is like getting McDonald’s when you ordered filet mignon.
10. Atonement, Ian McEwan – Of all the books I could have chosen to take with me when I traveled in Europe, I impulse-purchased this one in the airport just before we left American soil. Talk about context. Once again, the writing itself is reason enough to love it, but the characters and the story are so vivid and heartbreaking that it was glued to my hands for the first two weeks, save for that whole seeing the world part of my trip… Again, this book has a film adaptation, and I am happy to say that it is every bit as good as the book itself, although I always recommend reading it first.
Tell me, what are your favorite books?

[ _ ]

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Why does this post not have a title? Because I’ve chosen the anti-theme.The theme is : there is no theme.The theme is : there is no synopsized, clever label for what my life is about right now.
Writers get very fussy when there seems to be no linguistic solution for whatever it is they feel. At least this writer does. Articulation is my life. I’m not the try-this-on-for-size writer that says the same thing fifty different ways of average. No. A clear, concise, carefully-crafted thesis is my policy. On the one hand, I’m proud of it; words are a finicky medium.
The best writing is like oil-painting. I’ve always found both to be difficult, because at some point you just have to leave the piece alone. An extra stroke or word or phrase will only make it muddy. The image will lose it’s vibrancy and it’s clarity, it’s meaning.
Sometimes writers don’t know when they’ve written something that it makes readers feel like they’re running a marathon on a path made of… pudding. Thick, messy, icky-sweet, utterly debilitating. They’ll never make it to the finish-line.
On the other hand, the times – like now – when I feel like I can’t articulate myself, I become too restless to let the writing process flow easily. I write, erase, rewrite, and slaughter.
Clear and concise thesis? Abandoned.
I’m left with scraps and ramblings. I’m left with a muddy, indistinguishable image of my life, where my thoughts and feelings run together like all the wrong colors from a dirty brush.
And I also find reading others’ writing tough to swallow. I’m often envious of the phrase or analogy that they were smart enough to articulate before I could reach it myself.
Yes! That’s exactly what I mean/think/feel! Damn. They said it first…
So I am both frustrated with myself and starving for inspiration, for something that doesn’t make me feel like this whole writing business is a spectacular myth. My solution-oriented self isn’t handling this well, clearly.
Before I get too whiny and cynical about “how hard writing is,” let me just say that I haven’t given up. I know this is only a funk, a season, a ‘tude, a phase. I will exhibit confidence in my writing through action, if not in thought.I need to put myself out there more. I need to write, write, write, even when other things may feel wrong.So I will.