The Real Thing

We may be looking for our deliverance, but it is already been sent...
-- Emily Saliers

Yesterday I finished a load of assingments, AND the rough draft of this newest novel.
There is still so much left to be done, but... one day, one hour, one week at a time.

I saw an atrocious French film yesterday. The best part was the incest scene between the
brother and sister. No, I’m not joking. Anyway, it’s about this young, rich, jaded author
who writes a book that is an instant success and... in short, an author who is not me, but
who I thought I wished I was. So I don’t want instant success? What exactly is it that I
want? Often we forfeit our power by turning away from this question, but it’s a good one.
This morning, on the full moon, I lay in bed meditating and said what I had not said in a
few weeks, “What do you want?” I have not asked myself this. Maybe because I’m afraid
that the universe will tell me I’m too ambitious. But there is a pwoer in our desire, and
jsut to open your mouth and form the phrase of your desire is to conceive.
As a writer I would prefer to last a long time than to be famous today. This first
book has taken forever just to get an e-version of it. I shake my head over what it will be
like putting it into paper. Bree, if you are reading, I need to drop you an e-mail to say do
not proof chapter four. Helen, you have been a faithful, faithful editor. Photographers for
the cover shot....? Not so faithful. I’ve had two, we’ll be making due without the
photograph. And author wants to have the perfect book, but the truth is that between the
perfect book in your mind, and the real thing you can put out, the real things is almost
always better.

Psalm

let me be your shepherd
and you’ll never want
if you follow my rod
and take my staff in hand you’ll never want
all the night I will plough with you
through the dark valley
and at the end
in the house of glory
our cups,
our love
our wine
will overflow
i can love you like that
all the days of your life

Days of Awe i i

I board the bus yesterday and say to the driver, "Happy New Year." She says, "It's early for that." I say it is Rosh Hoshanah, that is, the Jewish New Year. She looks as if this smells bad to her, and says, "I don't know nothin' about that," which can be translated, "Nothing about that funny business." It is a funny business, a new fangled holiday by a funny people out of the mainstream. Is this a little how a Jew might feel in a place like this?

The bus driver is telling me about the pool house she wants to put up around her pool, and the money she wants to spend to do this and do that, and the lottery she would like to win, and this and that and the other. She is Christian. Like me. Like everyone else. Christianity is in the water here, the hard an ancient teaching diluted into superstitions, church on Sunday, and the phrase "Jesus saves," even though nobody knows anything about Jesus, or what he's supposed to be saving them from.

Days of Awe

Yesterday I went to the river to perform tashlich. Going along the main street, past the museum you take a dip beneath the bridges like descending into the Great Mother and come out onto a park hidden from the city. The water below smells musty. I have used a ground pretzel for tashlich and the sky is bright blue ,full of sun, the bits of bread, like bits of gold scatter into the river and flow away. It is the second day of Rosh Hoshanah. I was supposed to do this on the first. Tashlich, the casting away of sin and bad fortune. But more, the casting away of the old self, the old year. And the giving of yourself to the river, to the earth, to the Mother, to God.

To begin the New Year, you must put away the old. To walk into joy and meet the beloved, you must atone, you must mend. From now until Yom Kippur are the Days of Awe, the new beginning.

Thursday I spent eight till one in the afternoon in the synagogue. Ancient words, sung from black pictures, yods and tittles traced on parchment, the letters of power given by God on Sinai. The cantor, wrapped in her tallis, chanting in my hears, the whole congregations swaying, a sea of yarmulkes, prayer shawls wrapped about shoulders. Now and again things go into English, but not often. The Ark opened, the Torahs, taken out, processed through shul to songs and shouts of joy.

Blessed art thou, Eternal our God, Sovereign of the Universe.

The shofar, blasted one hundred times, calling the soul to awake.

Maundy

what i remember
is all the old stories
from all the dark gospels
found out in the deserts
and whispered from mouth to ear
gnostic to gnostic
when I eat this bread
and drink this cup
on sunday morning
none of these distinctions-- we have been taught distinctions--
mean anything to me
there i no creed
there is no need for anything
but knowledge
and the scent of flowers on her scarf
and the memory of those who love you
and do you remember that night
when the air was balmy
jesus dancing in the garden
in a ring
and they sing and hold the torches
and the light shines on him
he is beautiful like Tiferet
like the bridegroom
in a column of smoke
and i can see him dancing
tears of joy
outweigh the fear
and a voice that whispers
sweetly
as the nails fix him
to that tree
six gold fruits dripping blood:
--He who drinks from my mouth
will be me--

Bliss

No,
hush love,
don’t listen to what they tell you
follow me
my name is bliss
hush darling,
don’t be afraid
you have always known my name
you have always known my taste
like sharp honey on the tongue,
the sight of the summer
day
i am the skill in your hands
the passion in your thighs
the dance in your legs
i make the blood wheel in your veins
you always know me
take up the sword now
do not put up with demons
now is the end of excuses
now awake from dreams of fear
under the red moon
take my hand
can’t you see i love you?
can’t you see i’m love?

The class on Tuesday night is composed half of graduate students while the other half is
undergraduates. Oh, and English majors are insufferable, especially the the young ones,
especially the impassioned ones. Those undergraduates think they know everything. We
sit around one large conference table, to horsehoes, the first made of graduates, the other
od undergrads looking right back at us. (WITH NO RESPECT!) The class wrangles over
the story,as if we were fighting for a kingdom, or religious doctrine. We fall to disruption
and shouting. Things are almost coming to blows, the blood is running high.

But, because we are English majors, a half step off of drama majors, none of this leads to
any lasting harm. Having worked ourselves into a near ire, by break time we are
laughing, ready to start thte fight again. But more than ready to fight, ready to hear, ready
to listen.

I do not know what other field is like this, probably relgion or philosophy. It must be a
humanities thing. Even if we do not all agree on a story, on storytelling, on the various
uses and intentions of the written word, we all know that the field of liertature is
important enough to bother with, exciting enough to shout about.

This makes us a strange, secret society.

Little Sister

why have they told you to stop being that way?
little sister they said your teeth were too sharp
and took them out
they called you a bitch
and made a wolf a hound
and the fullness of your belly like the fullness of the moon
is too much
they want to drain your womb
and suck away your full and beautiful breasts
next they want to tell you how to dress
and how to sit
cross your legs
and cross your heart
hope to die
hope to die
we’ll stick the needles in your eyes
and, sister,
i know how gently they lie
pretend they only do it cause they care
when they say soothing things and put a gentle
hand to your hair
and tell you to be a lady

A Writer's Work

This work is not drudgery
it is not killing me
i do not die a little each day and
hope for something better
this work
will not put food on anybody’s table
but it keeps me stable
this work is not saving anyone’s soul
but is keeping me whole

Who Am I Talking To?

On the second day of driver's ed, Zachary began telling a long animated story, and halfway through it realized that everyone else was talking, and no one was listening to him. Everyone was saying something, and none of it was being said to him. Zachary was talking, but no one seemed to be listening. But me. As the oldest I felt I had a responsibility to try to give everyone attention. It was a little like listening to all the radios playing on all the front porches of the neighborhood.

At last, Zachary said, "Who am I talking to?"

I think this is the feeling of every writer. And not all bloggers are writers. Some people journal or complain or-- yes-- even post their dull term paper on the net. Writers have journals, they have complaints. I know I have more term papers than I want to think of. But a writer does not put these up for public view. We are writing for something else. Or someone else. Or both. When a week passes with no comments, or the comments seem to make no sense, or even when feedback is great I have to ask the question: who am I talking to? And why?