Rug a Dub Dub

I saw the Rug this morning! Out on an early walk, as were I and my companion, he plodded up the sidewalk alongside his companion, with a loyal, though weary, doggy step. When we first spotted him last summer--a white, medium-sized pooch--the word that immediately came to mind was RUG. White fur, but not the shiny, fluffy kind shown off by young, well-groomed pups. His fur kind of slumps over, as if slightly dejected, and appears to be in need of a little shampoo and conditioner--sort of like a shag rug (a once-popular rug with long pile) that's been well-used, worn down and flattened, becoming, in the end, simply another ordinary piece of dirty carpeting.

We always loved passing the Rug, not that we've ever said a word to either him or his person, the early hours being something of an agreed-upon quiet-time. Winter stopped our early walks (too dark!) but now we are back with the summer. We have passed a number of white dogs, but until this morning none of them turned out to be the Rug. So we had a moment of excitement.

I think I enjoy him so much because he seems to say, "I know I'm a dog. I know I'm old. I know I look like a rug. But who cares?"

This is an attitude I wonder if I am approaching myself. I do hope I don't yet look like a rug, but I feel a kind of turning in myself. An acceptance, I suppose, of who I am, and also of who I am not. I know I am a writer of young adult novels. But I also know I have limitations in that endeavor. I also know I am not young and cool, as so many popular ya authors seem to be. But who cares?"

Well, I still do, a little. But with the Rug as my mentor, one day I just might not.

Up We Go

I'm wobbling on the brink of self-pity and despair today, so I will try to climb out of the pit I have created for myself (but I like it! It's so comfy!) one clawed toe at a time. Sunlight is always useful in the treatment of darkness, right?

I confess my Fusty Blob does indeed feel fusty of late. Not many posts. No pictures. No neat graphics or fun music. No anything that the "cool" people would want to read. Wah!!!!!!! (That's the wail of the perpetual outsider . . . )

I am, however--oof!--almost entirely above ground now. Let me just scrape away some of this mud from between my toes and give my claws a quick polish with this nice, green leaf--and voila! Here I am, squinting and ready to blob, fusty or not.

I've been thinking lately about the difference between a good book and a really good book. I have fairly recently read two new young adult novels. I am not naming them because I don't want to cause any kind of disappointment or disgruntlement for the authors, should they read this post (doubtful, but still . . .) I am an author myself and know how painful negative words can be.

Both books were well-written. One of them I liked well enough, but the other one I loved. What's the difference?

My own likes and dislikes, of course, and maybe that is all there is to it. It is always a shock to see a book praised that simply doesn't speak to you at all. And the opposite, of course, is true as well--a book disparaged or dismissed that you thought was a great, delicious piece of frosted cake.

I like, for instance, beauty of language. Many books are well written but leave me flat, because for me the rhythm and intensity of language just isn't there.

I also like to be transported somewhere by a book--flung into a life and a story that isn't my own, falling madly in love with the characters.

I suppose the book I liked but did not love just did not get me there. Or rather, it started that way--I was excited!--but it seemed to stumble slightly in the middle, as if both the rhythm of its language and the completeness of its transformation were off. I got distracted, you see, losing interest, and I think that is why.

It will, however, undoubtedly serve others well. In the end an opinion is just an opinion belonging to the person who gave it. My words won't make any book sink or swim, though of course there are others whose words will.

The book I loved? Dark and gritty in many ways, it was nonetheless a delicious, heady brew I quaffed as fast as I could. Beautifully written, with a story that yanked me right out of my life and into another, keeping me there to the end. Were there weaknesses? Probably--most books have some. But I never noticed and didn't care.

All this is obvious, though, isn't it? Likes and dislikes, as individual as each individual reader. So I offer no new or especially interesting thoughts about good vs. really good, but I am happy to have a reason to be out of the pit, blinking at the sun.

'Til Death Do Us Part

My sister and I very recently made a first stab at clearing out the storage unit that has held our mother's paintings for the last five years--ever since she went into assisted living and was divested of her home. I think I have said previously that my mother was a gifted amateur painter, working with oils and water colors. I have always believed she could have painted professionally, if she had elected to apply herself hard and go that way without regret, without looking back, but she didn't. Too much tradition in the way, too much doubt, too many children, too much homemaking, too many problems. And so little belief in herself that she let her paintings mould away in the basement, piled next to the washing machine.

In truth, she had many stinkers. My sister and I threw a lot out, a painful but necessary step to gain control over what was worth keeping. I should say that most of her very best stuff, the pictures I am proud to show anyone, had already been weeded out long ago, and hang today in her children's homes. Still, though, my sister and I came across ones that tugged us back to our childhood, paintings that hung on her walls for years, that are as much a part of our collective memory as she is.

We still have a lot of work to do, but the experience was a shock to me. It is painful to see what happens to an artist's work when she dies, when there is no longer a place for it in the world. When someone else says, "This one is a failure." Or worse, the person saying it has no deep and personal love for the artist. That, thankfully, was not our plight, but it makes me wonder about my own work--the novels and poems that, in all honesty, no one will care about when I die. I see you have to care about it ferociously yourself, while you are still alive, and not wait for death in the hope that someone will be kind afterward.

I am not sure I can do that. I, too, struggle endlessly with belief in myself as an artist, with belief in my own work. I am not sure I can be that ferocious.

ROAR!!!!!! There. A fragile but first step.

Run For Your Life!

I love cheesy grade-B disaster movies. The kind with improbable disasters (a volcano erupting in downtown Los Angeles! An instant ice age in New York City!) where you know in the first five minutes who will survive and who won't. The handsome hero will make it, of course, along with his girlfriend/wife, estranged girlfriend/wife, ex-girlfriend/wife. Though usually not the girlfriend and wife together, just the Princess one who can feel the pea. Sometimes the temporary girlfriend-who-won't-make-it courageously sends the hero back to his true love. In more recent movies, the hero's kid might play the part of the girlfriend/wife, in the sense of being the one the hero rescues. And African-Americans in featured roles now stand a better chance of not being the first ones to get squished, burned, drowned, or vaporized. So, things are looking up for several new groups of people in the disaster field, which has to be encouraging.

I think I like disaster movies because life itself--or rather, being alive--is often just such a disaster, as we leap across suddenly widened cracks in the earth or navigate a tidal wave six stories high or divert magma away from the orphanage. Excuse me, I mean as we wreck the car or get a really bad hair cut or just try to not be so damned depressed all the time. But the real reason life is a disaster is not because of the things that happen, but because no one survives. Ever. It's just so much more pleasant to watch cheesy falsehoods with handsome heroes and happy endings.

In the same way, being a writer provides me with my own private disaster-insurance plan. It's my story, people--I'm writing it and nobody dies, okay?

So pop me some popcorn and turn on the flick!

Bun-Bun Under the Pines

The townhouse community where I live has a good crop of wild rabbits. Every spring they dot the landscape, especially at dawn. Dogs are not allowed to roam unleashed and I only rarely see an outdoor cat, so the rabbits not only flourish but pull cute-pet-on-the-lawn duty. They aren't pets, of course, but they are much more desirable to have around than, say, rattlesnakes curled up in sweet bundles. My vote goes to Bun-Bun every time.

The babies, of course, are adorable, but the big ones (let's call them "mature") are dramatically beautiful, too. Different shades of brown ranging from light tan to a dark richness perfectly arranged in symetrical patterns--all on the same rabbit!

I suppose many people think them a nuisance, ruining potted flowers and prized swathes of grass, but I don't.

I hear again and again that too many ya books have been and are being published, and that a mighty collapse is coming. Could be true. But getting a book published is like having a wild rabbit sitting outside your window under the pine trees, munching breakfast, nose twitching. In other words, it's a delight.

So if the Big Ax of Publishing comes down hard, it will cause enormous sadness for many people, including myself. While I wait, I think I will concentrate on rabbits.

Plop Plop

I saw two turtles sitting on a log poking out of the shallows of Ragtag Lake, sunbathing. "Don't get too close," I admonished myself. Water turtles (snappers, I presume) are wily and dive in as soon as they see you or sense movement, or, for all I know, smell you. "I am not too close," I asserted, to myself. "I am a good fifty feet away." Maybe forty. Or thirty. I am not good at judging distances. "Okay, but be careful," I cautioned back, moving just a tiny bit closer. Sure enough, eagle-eyed little beasts that they are, they both immediately took a dive--plop, plop--and disappeared.

Loneliness settled over my shoulders like a curse. Fortunately, though, I then saw, further out, two more turtles parked on a thick branch sticking up out of the water. No way to creep close. No dives. Communion restored.

Today, feeling some haircut regret after a visit to the local budget hair salon, I thought that one of the great things about being a turtle is never having to worry about your hair. Even my cat, eighteen and a half years old and shedding heavily as spring advances, has bits and bunches of hair that stick out at odd angles in her ruff. Just a couple of small chunks that will eventually fall out, like last year. I believe this is a consequence of old age, for it never happened when she was younger. Frankly, it makes her look quite silly. Today, back from the salon, I felt much the same, though at this point I am somewhat reconciled.

I realize, that like the turtle without hair, I am a writer without buzz or vibe or coolness of any kind, with a very small audience. I am invisible, really, but feeling more comfortable with it than I used to. If you have no hair, you have no hair, so why worry? I envy those with a head full, it is true--especially if it's smartly styled (and it always is.) But a turtle climbing onto a log with a head of wet hair would look woefully ridiculous once it had dried, with weird little whirls and dips and sticky-out parts all over the place. So, you see, there are blessings to be had everywhere.

Blue Lagoon

I have twice seen a blue heron in Ragtag Lake--the bit of wildness I visit on my lunchtime walks. Parts of the lake at that end are very shallow, allowing Mr. Heron to walk about in the water looking for lunch. I feel rather sorry for him, thinking he should be in a more lush environment, like the Eastern Shore of Maryland or Virginia, areas which have lots of tourists but also enormous beauty. I do not know, though, if he is as concerned with the gorgeousness of his setting as is the human who watches him.

I think a fear for any writer is the loss of lushness--that spring and muscle and beauty of language that comes when one is writing at full power and strength. Energy, after all, ebbs and flows. Life-events happen, as does aging, which is ongoing even when you are young. So when the right words are right there, leaping onto the page or screen, the thrill has no comparison. But when the words are nothing but dry sticks you can't even rub together--that is excruciatingly painful.

Maybe the thing is to always be, like Mr. Heron, on the lookout for for a fresh pond or lake or river or ocean or bay or creek in which to stick your feet. A dip in the water--daring to dip--is exciting and dangerous. Afterall, who knows what you will step on? But it is so very necessary for survival.