Doom, Decency, Sex, and Bears

So many thoughts, so many feelings

Before we begin…

How do you counter a sense of doom when it descends upon you? What’s the weirdest place you’ve had sex and lived to tell about it? Why is it harder to read entire books sometimes than others? Or just share something that happened this week. This one’s is wide open for anything you want to talk about.

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Lots of thoughts. Lots of feelings.

I’m a little all over the map this week: contemplating the mashup of doom and decency around me, preparing for a live reading I’m a little nervous about, and realizing that my writing may be getting in the way of my reading. Lots of thoughts. Lots of feelings. Then it occurred to me that I can just tell you guys all about it and maybe, by the end, some of those thoughts and feelings will have settled. 

So, here goes. 

Doom and Decency

It started a couple of weeks ago with one barista story and picked up again this week with another, this one by Michael Estrin of Situation Normal. Baristas are suffering, folks. Think about this the next time you order a triple-shot of espresso, venti mocha with oat milk, or whatever you need to get through the rest of the day. 

In Michael’s story, the barista was full of doom. As I read Michael’s beautiful, sometimes funny recounting of their conversation, I found myself saying “yes” every time the barista explained why it was just so hard to shake the darkness that had descended on their soul. I’d just finished telling my sister right that I was filled with dread about everything. Then, as I reached the last line of the essay, I broke into a huge smile because that is where the barista, despite their pessimism and dread, helped a guy who’d forgotten his wallet and still needed his coffee and cookie. It was a decent thing to do. 

We're doomed, says the barista

For the past week, I’ve grabbed my iPad and climbed aboard the recumbent bike in our bedroom to binge on the most recent season of All Creatures Great and Small. The world of James Herriott, Yorkshire country vet, is not exciting. There are few unknowns especially if you have, as I have, read all the books. But it is so reassuring to see all these characters treat each other and their animals with care and decency even though the second world war is bearing down on them, even though the lives of Yorkshire farmers are anything but easy. I feel cleansed after watching it. I know that it is only a dramatization. In the books themselves, Herriott softens the edges of the lives he describes. Yet the decency feels real, and possible, the one thing, perhaps, that remains possible when surrounded by feelings of doom. 

Pre-show jitters

On Thursday, February 22, while those of you on the East Coast are climbing into bed and those on the West Coast are doing whatever you do between the hours of 8 and 10 PM, I’ll be at the Whistlestop Bar getting ready to read a story about when, at twenty-three, I got naked with a Catholic man and ended up being chased by a bear. Or, at least I think it was a bear. I’ll never know now. All I know is that this man and I ended up inside my mother’s house, in the middle of the night, without a stitch on. 

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash...

All kinds of embarrassing/humorous stuff ensues. It’s a fun story. It’s the kind of story that James Herriott could tell and everyone would feel just fine about it. I had submitted to So Say We All’s VAMP series last November when “Visitors” was the theme. The theme for this month is “Dirty Talk: Tops and Bottoms” – it is the annual show featuring stories about sex. I’ve heard all the other stories that will be read that night and they are brilliant, moving, funny, vibrant, sexy, explicit. They have actual sex in them. I can offer only a near-sex experience that, at the time, took on shadings of a near-death experience. 

I feel a little out of place, to be honest. On top of that, working on the story during the critique sessions called up a lot of old memories and feelings I had back when I was twenty-three and could be persuaded to have sex under the stars in a mountain meadow by a guy whose mother had rejected me thoroughly, unkindly, and without any resistance from her son. 

When I read the story in the group, my heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear myself. The other writers, all really good at their craft and in their hearts, urged me to dig deeper, for the feelings that lay just beneath the “crust” as one of my fellow readers put it. 

If any of you have been in writers’ workshops or critique groups, you know how it feels when the input you receive is right. It’s not always comfortable but you can’t ignore it. So, I did what they recommended, or tried to. I thought, all these decades later, that certain things could no longer make me feel small, but it turns out that the young woman still lives inside the older one and both of them are going to be a little nervous on Thursday night when they tell their story. 

If you are in San Diego and want to catch the show, the stories start at 8 PM at the Whistlestop Bar at the corner of 30th Street and Juniper. Admission: $10. Follow So Say We All on Facebook and Instagram for more details.

Reading While Writing

I am nearly two months into the new year and I have not finished a single book which is really unusual for me. I am reading three (Ruth Ozeki’s Book of Form and Emptiness, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories, Stephen Pinker’s Enlightenment Now) in bits and pieces. New books have arrived in boxes from a friend – all ones I am itching to pick up. I have two whoppers by Robert M. Sapolsky that I wanted to read in this first quarter. 

There are two ways that writing a book affects what I read and when. In the beginning, I want books that either feed my brain or the book or let me have a small, low-involvement break from the novel. Eventually, I hit a point when the only book I have the time and energy for is my own. That’s not literally true but the conflict is greater. I write for three or four hours during the day, do other activities of daily living and that leaves the evenings, before falling asleep to read. My progress is slow. I find myself spending more time with short reads over breakfast or here and there. I’ve been watching a lot of television and was feeling guilty about it until I read this in Jane Ratcliffe ‘s interview with Austin Kleon

“I think it's Donald Hall, a poet, who spoke beautifully about watching television. A lot of poets watch TV, actually. That's how they turn their brains off at the end of the day because it's such intense verbal work and TV is so visual and just lets your brain relax. So, I watch a lot of TV, way too much TV.” Austin Kleon in his interview with Jane Ratcliffe .

Meanwhile my TBR list grows.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just is. And I know it may soon change. I was just wondering how those of you who write balance the words you produce with the ones you read. And I’m wondering if all readers out there find themselves going through ups and downs in their reading cycles. Are there periods when you simply don’t read anything? How do these periods feel to you or how do they serve you?

News from a Spark Author

Lisa Stice

Spark author and poet Lisa Stice has a new collection of poetry coming on March 12 from Middle West Press. The collection, Letters from Conflict, offers poems that take the form of correspondence with an international community of artists and poets and explore “intimate insights and observations on creating history, family, community, and art.” The Kindle edition can be pre-ordered here. See this link for more information about the book and check out Lisa’s profile here on the Spark author page. 

If you are a published author and would like to be included in our list, click here to learn more and share your work. 

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Gratefully yours,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…there be dragons

Cloud formations or a dragon about to take flight? (Photo by Betsy Marro)

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”: 

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!

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