The Summer Solstice Post That Wasn't

Summer Solstice came and went

like June bugs and fireflies

and the candle that was lit

and left on the porch.
Like the string of ash from an incense stick
that dangles in the morning light,
spent. 

In the still of the shade

a hummingbird flits

in search of the feeder that isn’t there.

The fuchsia is hung amongst long-throated flowers
but it searches for sugar water
with red number nine.
The longest-day sun slipped out of sight
like a moth in the wind and the days we were young.

Today we transplant strawberries and watch for rain. The skies are overcast and the temperatures cool. Weed the beets. Weed, weed, weed. The weeds don’t need rain and they are not bothered by pests. They’re like unnecessary adverbs and overused adjectives, like the scene that should be deleted; the finished product cleaner for the whack. Then there’s the quack grass. It’s like a run-on sentence. It runs on and on, from one end of the garden to the other, like a person with words  but no deeds.

In a weird way, I admire my weeds. I’ve learned to accept that there will always be weeds in a huge organic garden, unlike the small weed-free garden I had when I was young. I see that garden in my mind’s eye, the path to the perfect, slender cucumber warmed by the sun. I peeled it over the sink with firm long strokes. I enjoyed the day.

So You Say You're A Writer?

I don’t like these monotonous gray skies, these decrepit clouds that can’t even deliver a good snowfall, these bleak windswept nights that encircle the crumbling brick of an unfinished house, cold as bare shoulders in an unheated room. Monotony, how wicked is your winter. I don’t like it when someone asks, “What did you do all day?” Knowing full well that I whittled the hours away putting thoughts into words and writing them down.

If I were braver, I would say, “I wrote. That’s all I did."

Writing warms this winter floor and turns monotonous gray skies blue. So, no, I didn’t bake anything or clean anything or visit the sick or feed the poor. Why should any of those things be more admirable than writing? More acceptable? Or is this just a misconception that rests in me? I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to pat myself on the back for any of those things. So why do I cower behind my written words like a plagiarist? There isn’t anything more painstaking than writing, nothing that takes more time, perseverance, memory, and intellect.

Our society measures success by money. Simple truth. So as a writer, most of us live outside the circle of society. If we are to live off our writing, we live outside the needs of society. We work at odd jobs that take as little of our time as possible yet keep us off the dole. We read meters and deliver newspapers and survive dog bites. We wait tables and stock shelves and work for temp agencies. We turn down full time jobs and full time money so we have time to write. We turn down the heat and buy second hand. We live on the fringe and that takes courage. Courage to stand up and say "I'm a writer." It's more than just putting writer as your occupation on your income tax return (though that is very gratifying). It’s putting yourself out there, facing rejection and the inevitable questions, because let’s face it, most people don't know the six questions not to ask a writer.

So they ask.

I have questions of my own. The Protestor was named Time's Person Of The Year, and the Occupy Wall Street movement is on my mind. As I browsed my local bookstore, I kept seeing dumpsters full of books. Would we throw away our books if ordered to do so? Stand idly by and let someone else do it? Would we raise a hand to the oncoming tank? Would we object to police drones flying overhead? If it all comes down around us tomorrow, would we still have the courage to write?

The Little Man In My Phone Line

My blog has been as dormant as the shrub roses, hunkered down like an asparagus bed. I shall blame this first and foremost on my dialup connection which took a nosedive a couple of weeks ago, going from bearable to exasperating. I must be the last person in the county holding out for affordable high speed internet but if my server kicks me off like a shoddy trespasser one more time I will be at the mercy of whatever wireless is offered here in no man's land.

I have, however, been writing a lot, loving it, getting up in the middle of the night to do it, and my blog has also taken a back seat to that. Yet I worry about bloggyville and think about it more than one would think normal. What's normal? Who was it I recently heard say, "I would not wish the life of a novelist on anyone." ?? Help me. Why would anyone aspire to such angst and self deprecation? Why indeed. But I love to write, even when it exasperates me. It's a lonely endeavor, so talk to me.

Now I better try to post this before the little man boots me off.

Meeting Mojo

Lightning flashed on the horizon but stars blinked overhead the night I met Mojo. He came in the middle of the night. He woke me up. He knocked on the door and I unlocked it.

He stood in shadow but I knew who he was. I invited him in.

“No,” he said. “You must come out.”

So out I went. We sat on the porch and lightning bugs landed in his hair and formed a constellation called Perseverance. Night birds chirped from the half-dead ash trees along the road and Mojo tapped his elongated fingers on the arm of the metal chair. He said no two sound alike if I would but pay attention, and I listened to the sing-song from across the yard, much like the murmuring amongst a flock of hens, low and throaty and full of mystery, as they run here and there with their full-hipped waddle.

I asked him why he came and went like a flimsy idea and he said it was I who could call him up at will if I but put aside that which wasn’t necessary to the writing life. He rose to his feet, and the lightning bugs flew out of his hair and flickered away into the hayfield.

“I have something for you,” he said. “We can go inside now.”

We sat at the kitchen table and he lit up a cigarette, holding it like a joint between his thumb and forefinger.

“What is it you have,” I said, impatient with his silence.

He stubbed it out. It didn't smell like a cigarette. It smelled like clover. “Show me your room,” he said.

I took him into my room, and he drew artwork from inside his shirt like a sorcerer and displayed it on my bed, and I waited for him to explain himself. Then he handed me a letter from an agent.

“Take it,” he said, forcing it upon me. “It’s a good letter and nothing to be sad about.”

I looked at the envelope. The return address was New York and my pulse skipped. A letter from New York, but one to be sad about.

“You should display it like a painting,” he motioned to the one on the bed. “And learn from it. You will not have success until you have had rejection you don’t turn your back on and refuse to learn from.”

And he was gone like the constellation of fireflies, leaving only the memory of his presence, but his words are etched along the knobs of my backbone.

All this in a dream.