Sweet and Sour

Nature is ambivalent.

            Shining sun beats down on my head, heating up the shampoo I’d used two days ago.  Two days since I last showered.  The scent is still pleasant in spite of the sweating, the crying and screaming, the snot and humidity—pleasant like lilacs.

            The ducks swim up and down the narrow, muddy water of the canal, placid, diving every now and then for a choice insect.  Strings of fuzzy yellow ducklings toggle along after the grown ducks.  The male’s shiny emerald green head is glossy from the water, shiny in the bright afternoon.

            All up and down the river walk, flowers burst forth in a riot of meticulously arranged wildness, their colors almost lurid against the backdrop of green trees and shrubs.  Magenta.  Violet.  Yellow so bright it’s hard to imagine a color like that in nature.  Deep scarlets and delicate, white-edged pinks,.  Are these posies?  Pansies?  I never can remember.

            She could.

            As I move west down the walk, smells waft from the decades-old manmade canal:  mud.  Rotting leaves.  The cloying, mingled smell of all those pansy-posies.  The wafting of someone’s fabric softener on their clothes as they walk by, a little too close for my comfort.  I lick my lips and taste my lip gloss—fabricated cherries, a hint of chemical under the just-on-this-side of too much sweetness.

            The sudden urge to pass out overcomes me.  Wouldn’t it be nice, to just drop down here on the stone walkway and lie for awhile?  The sun beating down on my limbs, too pale for this late in the season.  I remember a time when I tanned easily, a wild little cavechild with arms and legs reddish-brown, hair a tangled, dark mess down my back.  A gap between my teeth, a bruise on my cheek that still bloomed in my September school picture, one that displeased my mother greatly.

            I don’t give in to the temptation of passing out.  Instead I walk on, my sandals slapping the stones with a thwack thwack.  A group of teens plows past me, jostling, joking, the girls wearing shorts that are way too short—for both decorum and the cellulite already ringing the tops of their young thighs.  There’s no escaping genetics, but if you have the confidence, why not go for it.

            Instead, I stop on a wooden bridge and collapse more than lean against its edge.  The ducks seem to have followed me, the babies fanning out a little more bravely now behind their mama.  The water glistens green-brown, and I wonder how much filth, how many microbes of disease linger unseen beneath the surface.  There is the slight tang of manure in the air.  Perhaps a sewage plant feeds into the canal at some point.  Wouldn’t that be the joke on all of us—look at this pretty walkway we’ve made for you in this extremely overpriced town that takes itself way too seriously!  Little do you know the foundation is merely a pile of shit.

            Shit.  I lean far over the edge, wondering if I should let go.  The drop is about five feet, the depth maybe four.  How deep was the water when Virginia Woolf walked into it, her pockets stuffed with rocks?  Did she willingly have to kneel there till the water squeezed out all the air in her nose and her throat and her chest?  Did she forcibly have to stay till the lulling unconsciousness settled over her?

            I’m not brave enough for that.  For now, it’s enough to let the sun burn down on the back of my unprotected, pale neck.  

Ego

Today I met a man who was raised in a  refugee camp in Kuwait.  He now lives in America, with his wife and four kids.  For some reason he engaged me in conversation, began telling me about his experiences as his young son played with the Library's legos.


"It's hard to be simple in life," he said, hunched over the puzzle table.  "It's hard to not have an ego.  You know what I mean about ego?"


I said, I thought so, the ego was about wanting more, being more.


"No," he said, "let me clarify.  I can handle extremes.  I drive a truck, no air conditioning, you know how this weather has been 100 degrees?"  He slices his hand sideways through the air.  "No problem.  30, 40 degrees below?  I can sleep on the ground, no problem."


He lifts his baseball cap, runs a hand through his thick, dark hair.


"By ego I mean, you don't think of yourself.  You can stand there, let someone yell at you, insult you, spit in your face.  You want to react.  You want to have pride, but you don't.  You can't.  It's for your survival."


He pauses as he looks over at his boy.  Then he looks back at me.


"You, I can tell, you get it," he says.  "You know what I'm saying.  Other people in this country, I start talking about ego and they look at me like I'm crazy, say, 'Ego? What do you mean, ego?  Let's go to McDonald's."


Another pause.  Sadness comes over him, and suddenly, I feel sad myself.


When he takes his son home, I look up Ego and find this definition:  "Ego: (spirituality):  the self; self-concept; conceptual identity; or identification with individual existence."


Imagine living in a place or in a situation where all traces of your personality, your identity, your soul, are compartmentalized, shut up and put away out of necessity.  It's either have a soul or die.  Imagine having to make that choice.


Living simply and humbly shouldn't be hard.  It should be the number one thing.  It should be all that matters.  My own ego feels bruised tonight, and very, very grateful. 

Spring

I am never more aware of my mortality than on a hot day with the sun blazing overhead.  I am a Sagittarius and a fire sign, and say what you will about astrology, but both of these things completely embody who I am.  When the sun is out, I need to be in it.  When I'm stuck indoors on a glorious day, my blood gets sluggish, my skin tightens, my pores cry out. 

I don't know what it is, this need to feel my physicality on a beautiful day.  Long bike rides seem to quench the fire inside me—something about the movement and the rhythm and the sort of sensation of flying.  We are fortunate enough to live by the Prairie Path, an old railroad track long torn up for recreational traveling.  This is where I appreciate the Midwest most of all.    

We always move west when riding the trail.  First we pass our little downtown area, full of families with strollers and dogs and joggers and power walkers. As we pass the preserved field of wild flowers, I know we are seconds from crossing the threshold into adventure.

As buildings and people thin out, as the inclines grow steeper, I push harder on the pedals and inhale the scent of clover, the smell that makes me think of bees and prairies.   I feel the sun burning down on my unprotected head.  I know dermatologists would scream about SPF and melanoma, but my head needs to be free.  I smell the heat on my skin, the fabric softener from my T-shirt.

As we near the bridge over Salt Creek I pump harder to get up the hill. I lead with my heart as I push into the ascent. My blood is singing, my breath is rhythmic, and I am alive, alive, alive.  Many times I have wished for not-alive, so to be in this moment, this blood-pumping, heart-thrumming, glorious messy human moment, is nothing short of a miracle.

I’m alive.

Shades of Truth

Soul is pleased to interview Naomi Kinsman, author of the series From Sadie's Sketchbook, about the writing process, bears, and thoughts on spirituality.  Take a read, and be sure to pick up these books!

Where did you get the idea for Sadie Douglas and the first book in your series, Shades of Truth? What were you most interested in portraying?

The first time I saw Sadie Douglas in my mind, she was standing in a bathroom between two mirrors holding a candle, watching the flame repeat over and over again to infinity. I remember thinking about how Sadie would feel: full of wonder, but a little sad, too. I saw two sides to her-a joyful, exuberant spunky personality with an artist’s ability to feel deeply and see with intuition.

I wanted to explore how this strong character would react when she started encountering questions to which she had no answer. I wanted to play with how learning to see like an artist changed the way Sadie saw the world around her. 

I've heard writers say they put a little of themselves into each of their characters.  How are you and Sadie alike?  How are you different?

Sadie thinks in a very similar way to the way I think. She asks lots of questions, and she can empathize with people who have different opinions than she does. She also has my temper. But Sadie is much more extraverted than I am. Where I might have held back and been slow to make friends in a new school, Sadie jumps in with both feet.

What do the bears represent in Shades of Truth?  Or are they just bears?

What an interesting question. I never thought of the bears as anything more than bears. However, there is something about the delicate balance of respect and care that the people in Owl Creek must strike with the bears that echoes the way we treat our “wild creative” inner selves. One doesn’t want to go so far as to tame this creative force, hand feeding it from the porch. Neither do we want to fear this part of ourselves.

Can you describe your writing process for the Sadie books?  Where do you get your ideas?

I write in layers. I start with an idea, usually a mental image, such as the candle in the mirror, or a girl, hands outstretched on a beach cliff. Then, I create a scene to go with that moment. I will usually also have a weak idea of what my story is about. For a while, I write with just those two things, stringing a story along. Once I have a few chapters, I stop and read what I have, paying attention to what I feel is missing. Perhaps Sadie needs a friend, or she needs a creative outlet. So I add a character like Ruth, or an art teacher. From there, I start to plot, creating a loose outline of where I think the story will go. Around this point in the process, I solidify what the main story conflict will be, too.

From there, I keep layering and shaping and asking friends to read and tell me what they see in the text, what they wonder, where their attention is drawn. Sometimes I end up needing to do an intensive rewrite. Other times the story comes out simply and smoothly. I was intrigued by the fact that book four, Brilliant Hues, (to come out in August) was the hardest of the series to write.

In Shades of Truth, Sadie struggles with questions of faith and in what she believes.  How do you think this applies to your young readers?

I grew up as the daughter of two pastors, so obviously faith was a huge component of my life. My faith journey has been a story of deepening, learning how to let go of the “because my parents told me so,” to the deeper answers beneath. Why do I believe this? What do I believe? How do I live my life, now that I have these beliefs?

Sadie has an opposite journey. She doesn’t grow up learning about faith, and so when as a tween she starts wondering about what’s right and wrong, about who she wants to be in the world, she also starts to think about God. She wants to know whether God is real, and how she would relate to God.

Even though much literature for young people skirts this touchy issue, I think it’s one that most young people deal with at one point or another. We need to recognize that the question is essential: Is there a God and does that make a difference in my life? Creating characters who authentically deal with this question is important, because young readers can slip inside another person’s skin and see where they eventually land on the issue. Even if a young reader doesn’t come to the same conclusion as any given character, their heart is more open to other ways of seeing the world.

What do you think of when you hear the word "soul"?

I think of the Emily Dickinson quote: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” I believe hope and soul are intricately tied together. Hope is delicate and yet strong, like a bird; hope is the way our souls show up in our lives. I’ve built my writing life on hope. I can’t end a book without finding a shimmer of hope, some moment that causes me to believe that whatever challenge my character has faced, whatever outcome has come to pass, my character will be stronger, more understanding, and more capable, than when her story began. 

I refuse to settle for empty hope though, because fake hope is less hopeful than no hope at all. False hope means the writer has given up on the possibility of its real counterpart. Maybe this is why writing a book is such a spiritual process for me. I start with a question to which I don’t know the answer, and I write searching for hope. Through the middle, the journey becomes darker as the conflicts become more and more tangled. In the end, though, light starts appearing in my mind, like a lantern at the end of a midnight forest path. I stumble toward that light, and when I finally arrive, I know I’ve found the book’s end. I’ve found my way back to hope, and I’m stronger, more understanding, and more capable than I was before I started the journey.

What are some fun things readers need to know?

I’m out on blog tour right now, and at each stop, I’m giving away one signed set of the first three Sadie books: Shades of Truth,Flickering Hope, and Waves of Light. To enter the drawing, send an email to Naomi@naomikinsman.com. A winner will be drawn on June 15, 2012.

Also, if you have any young writers (ages 9-12) in your life, please pass along this information about the writing contest my publisher is running in connection with the books. http://naomikinsman.com/win-a-kindle-fire-a-writing-contest-for-young-writers/ The deadline for entry is June 1, and the grand prize is a Kindle Fire.

Core Strength

We get all sorts of advice when it comes to strengthening our core--our physical core, that is.  Crunches, power yoga, pilates.  There's diets to follow, DVDs to watch, stretches to consider. 

I was told yesterday that I needed to strengthen my spiritual core.  I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what that is, but I can see why it's the foundation to a person's entire belief system. 

I have several tarot decks.  I claim no otherwordly power or sixth sense, I just have always used the cards as another perspective on the larger questions looming in my life.  The cards often offer suggestions I wouldn't normally have thought of on a straightforward conscious level.  I have a  beautiful deck of what I call my "angel" cards that I've used for quite some time now.  They're technically called "Grace Cards," designed by Cheryl Richardson.

Anyway, for a few weeks now I've been noticeably unhappy and frustrated with my life.  The things that normally bring me comfort and pleasure, such as reading, listening to music, or watching NCIS marathons on USA, just aren't doing it.  I'm even making headway with my novel--I can actually see an end in sight where for years I never believed it was possible.  Yet I'm feeling an emptiness within.  Might it be hormones, those damn chemicals we women are so often slaves to?  Might it be medication for said hormones?  Might it be the dreary Chicago springtime, which tends to be humid and wet wet wet?  Likely it's more my current job, where I feel more like a secretary than a person who is working down and dirty with children and not really making a difference in the world.

Who knows.  So yesterday I rubbed some citrus essential oil into my palms and spread my angel cards out in an arc on the floor.  "Why am I feeling so empty?"  I asked into the ether, and waited, letting my hands move over the cards, waiting for a hot spot to call to me.

I pulled "Connect," which features a half-blurred woman wrapped in purple gauze, floating over a deep blue sea.  A strange sort of cross-hatched cliff hangs in the air, and wrapped within is an amber crystal.  On the back of the card are these instructions:

Find your center:
When we stay connected to our spiritual core,
the best and most advantageous path
unfolds before us.

I contemplate this card and this advice today, a Sunday afternoon, while rain falls in sheets outside my office window.  I thought I knew my deep-down beliefs, my core, but I guess I need reminding.  It's comforting to remember that life is always moving forward, just as our blood is always circulating in our bodies, and nothing remains stagnant.  This is just a strange time in a strange place on my path.  I can look at this emptiness within as a chance to fill up with a cornucopia of good things, with things that matter. 

With things that connect.

Daydream Believer

I've always been a dreamer: sleeping dreams, waking dreams,  in the middle of sitting in math class dreams.  Dreams are a sign of health, I think.  They fuel the imagination.  They provide hope.  They show us an end goal.  Lots of times they are just a pleasant escape.  Other times, I think they might be signs on the roadmap of life.  Perhaps a dream is the answer to a puzzling question that the subconscious has provided.  Perhaps you've just been handed a prophecy to be fulfilled.

I think we should always pay attention to our dreams.

I have two recent daydreams.  One is to visit the wild, green coast of Oregon.  I've been listening to a lot of Kristin Hannah audiobooks--this is probably why.  For some reason I crave disappearing beneath the canopy of a tall, silent rainforest, to slip into green darkness.  Maybe meet a wolf face to face.

My other daydream is to own a little cottage on a lake somewhere, a place with  floor to ceiling windows that face the water.  We could escape for a few weeks to this cottage in the summer, where we'd swim (this part really is a daydream, since my husband hates water), barbecue, and lie around reading in the sun on the long wrap-around porch.  In the winter, we'd come up for Christmas and partake in the little town's tree lighting ceremony (because wherever this cottage is, it's in a small homey town where everybody knows each other, and traditions like lighting a giant Christmas tree in the main square is just part and parcel).  At night we'd slip beneath piles of worn patchwork quilts, snug in the knowledge of hearth and home and health as drifts of snow fell outside.

I had a sleeping dream this week that left its ghostly fringes lingering in my mind. In it, my husband and I rise while it's still dark.  We drive to an airport, take a plane, walk through a forest preserve--all while in the dark--and climb aboard a canoe.  Since we are so exhausted from our travels, we promptly fall asleep.  I awake just as dawn is breaking. The first thing I see is a magnificent, rushing waterfall.  As my gaze rises, I take in the enormous blue and white capped mountains all around us.  Our little canoe floats carelessly in the bowl of the valley, mist encircling it. The surroundings are absolutely foreign, breathtakingly beautiful, savagely wild.  I gasp, and my husband snaps awake.

"Oh my God," he says.  "Are we out here alone?"

"I can't look," I answer, and squeeze my eyes shut.

I woke up in my bed after that, my heart racing, the blue and white mountains still imprinted on my eyelids.  I couldn't shake the feeling that life was giving me a challenge, showing me something dangerous and new and potentially fatal, but also something stunning in its rawness.

What if I'd kept my eyes open?  What if my husband and I had faced our fear, held tight to the other's hand, and sailed unquestioningly through that valley?

The thing about dreams is, they're not real.  Not yet, anyway.

Something's Gotta Give

So here's a brief rundown of the past week:

1)  I was turned down by a job I really really wanted.
2)  I was hauled into the director's office at my present job and called on the carpet for being sick so much.  I was also asked to guarantee that I wouldn't be sick for the next few months.  I said, no.  Not sure what the underlying message was, but I think it might be a five-letter word that starts with F and ends with D.
3)  I visited my parents over the weekend, where my mother cried pretty much the entire time.  While she is now cancer-free, she is still recovering from two brutal surgeries and her emotions and hormones are out of whack.  Feeling inadequate and unable to do more, I cooked.  Lots and lots of food.  Hey, you can never have too much chili in hard times.
4)  My husband and I filed our taxes.  We owe the government around $7000.  Long story.
5)  We are suddenly in a lot of debt.  Case in point--after running a bunch of errands this morning, I arrived back home, sweaty and gross and needing to get ready for work (which, if you were paying attention to #2, you'll know I'm on the verge of getting F***D), only to find a pink slip shoved in the door.  Pink slips of any kind are never good, so a shiver of dread ran down my spine as I picked it up and read that the village had shut off our water for not paying the bill.
6)  I took a very freezing cold sink bath with a couple gallons of bottled water.  Did you know how much water we use just to wash our hands and to brush our teeth???  No wonder people in the 19th century never bathed--it wasn't because they feared catching cold, it's because it was a pain in the ass.
7)  As  I was getting dressed, my 12 year old cat who probably has some kind of kidney issue (but we can't take her to the vet because of #5) peed on the bed in front of me.
8)  There was a ton of construction on the beginning of my drive to work (see #2) and more construction at the end of my drive to work.  I could just see those guys standing there with their SLOW signs and their orange vests, mocking me as I banged my palms against the steering wheel.

Something funny happened in the midst of all this.  As I was applying makeup to my freshly-scrubbed-in-freezing-bottled-water face, I started laughing.  Like a lunatic.  This is my life, but if it were a novel, some editor would tell me that I had too many bad things happening in the first chapter and I'd need to lighten up if I didn't want to lose readers with my portrayal of human misery.

Can things get any worse than this?  Probably.  But here's the thing:  I know it will get better.  Not because of some law of physics, what goes up must come down, blah blah blah.  But because I just know.  I have faith that things are going to turn around.

I could very well be insane, as my maniacal laughter might suggest this morning, while I tried to apply a straight line of eyeliner.  A friend of mine recently asked how I can emotionally cope with all this, and in part it's because I have that faith, the sense that I'm not alone.  It's not necessarily faith in a higher being who's looking out for me.  Maybe there is one of those; admittedly I sometimes feel it.  On a more karmic level, however, I know I'm working hard to put good into the world, and it will eventually come back to me, right? Yes, at times I feel like I must have been a murderer or a kitten torturer in a past life to account for all this bad karma right now.  But generally? I know I'll be okay.

Faith or fancy?  You decide.  Just be kind if you find me in a corner eating my hair.

By the way, my husband paid the water bill.  I can't wait for a hot shower tonight.