Nan at 70

If time doesn.t exist,

how does evolution work?

Where did mathematics
come from?

Does any life have meaning?

Does all life have meaning?

Where do you draw the line?

What does meaning mean?
Nan  7-1-09

Can I post?

A bird called me forth from my slumbers today,

ushering me from one world to the other

and catching me vulnerable, roiled me up from

the deep into this place where my lungs rejoice

in the air and my blood syncopates.

The salt of the earth seasons me once more,

and I hold hands with the Emperor of China

while the tips of breaking waves wash the sleepers

from my eyes and I can see and I can feel and my

finger is no longer in the dike.

Nan June 10, 2009

This should go into the Journal category but I’ve been remiss in keeping it updated.  I’m still alive, tho I guess it’s been a year since I last touched base.  I’ve been visiting Mandy every Sunday at GDC and my son and his family once a month in Columbus.  Someone was able to connect with me by writing to my son’s blog, sonicist.com.  I would welcome comments but almost all of them (okay, all) are spam.  If anyone wants to communicate anything that’s not spam, I’m at nmykel@columbus.rr.com.  You may accurately guess that I’m no longer 70 — 73 right now, but 70 sounds better (and IS better, I think).  Right now I’m trying to figure out how to post photos.  My son did the 2 or 3 now on the site, of his family when they visited Croatia.  I think I’ll stop now and experiment with uploading photos.

I’m so rusty I don’t know if I’m going to post this silly poem twice or not.  Here goes:

David

We always thought her meek and mild

until the day that she went wild

and fell in love with an antique Greek,

or should I say a Greek antique?

She gave a moan and then a shriek

that echoed through the whole boutique

and without a pause

with hands like claws

she clasped him to her ample bust,

moved not by piety I think but lust.

As a matter of fact he was scantily clad

and to tell the truth I think she was glad.

Picture.

Here is my grand daughter and my daughter-in-law in Venice 2008.

Test. Here is my grandson in the Hilton Venice Hotel Bathroom making the most of what is available.

Well, this includes some of April, too. I won’t go into the details but on April 15 I underwent unanticipated open heart surgery at Riverside Hospital in Columbus. The problem was discovered without either a heart attack or stroke, or even pain. My luck was with me in more ways than one — I had an appointment for help with my tax filing for 9 a.m. that day. Turns out, seniors had been given an extension until October…

I’m going to begin a cardiopulmonary program that meets three times a week for twelve weeks, beginning Friday, June 30….The aftermath finds me lazy, still.

Looks like I lost two whole months. As perhaps mentioned earlier, I finished my fantasy novel and began again on the third or fourth draft of “Why Did I Do It? What incest offenders learn in treatment,” based on my 12 years doing therapy with sex offenders in the prison system. Non-fiction may be easier to find an agent for than fiction — I hope so, because I’m not getting any younger (and other cliches.)

As luck would have it, John Kachuba gave me the book “Writing Fiction; A Guide to Narrative Craft” by Janet Burroway last Sunday night. It was his and Mary’s last night attending the Spiritual Growth Group since they have bought a HUD fixer upper in Cincinnatti, and they have given most of their books to the Athens Friends of the Library Book Sale. He has taught creative writing at OU and this is the text he and others use.

The two sample stories-for-criticism early in the book are “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams and “How Far She Went,” by Mary Hood. Reading them as a potential writer I was impressed beyond words, I guess, since I can’t seem to be able to put my experience into words. Very subtly done.

In the third, “Showing and Telling” chapter Hood explicates the importance of significant details, filtering, use of the active voice, prose rhythm and mechanics.

Significant detail: specific, definite, concrete particular details are the life of fiction. A detail is concrete if it appeals to one of the five senses

Filtering: Vividness urges that almost every occurrence of such phrases as “she noticed” and “she saw” be suppressed in favor of direct presentation of the thing seen.

Active Voice: Always use the active voice except when the actor is unknown or insignificant, or for stylistic effect. Watch out for “linking verbs” which are passive, as “She was beautiful.” Instead, let the reader experience.

Prose Rhythm: The rhythm of an action and emotion can be imitated by the rhythm of a sentence in a rich variety of ways. (”The stops and starts of prose flow.”)

Mechanics: You can depart from standardized mechanics whenever you produce an effect that adequately compensates for it. Usually, stick to the grammatical magic whose purpose is to be invisible.

I’ve just been using this space to help me focus on some good writing tips. I’m signing off now to read “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates “for Bob Dylan,” next in the book.

It is a chill autumn day on Earth, but in Heaven it is same-o, same-o. Three of the God brothers are sitting around a table playing stud poker. They realized aeons ago that if they freed up a little complexity, chaos and emergence onto the table, it made for a rousing game of chance.

Yaweh has his elbows on the table, studying his hand. Poseidon stretches out in his chair contentedly. Zeus, on the other hand, holds his cards close to his chest and eyes Yaweh anxiously.

Their game is interrupted by young Jesus, who enters apologetically. “Forgive me, but Earth’s people are in need of a few miracles. They are casting doubt on the existence of the God family.”

Yaweh looks sternly over his glasses and glares. “What do they consider a miracle?”

Jesus and his father have had this conversation before. “They want something that they can’t explain, that flies in the face of everything they know.”

Yaweh speaks to his brothers. “Who would have suspected that something appearing from nothing, that slime molds bonding together to find food, the mysterious unfolding of the mathematical road map, the teeniest particles glopping together to make a body with an immune system, toddlers recalling past lives, the magic of reproduction and even the tunnel experience of the clinically dead would not suffice? Is it not self-evident? Pray tell, where do they think it all came from? What kind of piddling thing do they desire?”

Jesus replies, “something puzzling, like milk turning into orange juice.”

Zeus makes a rude sound.

Jesus continues, “I fear emergence has gotten away from us. Consciousness emerged with the more complex brain, and reasoning became something that humans could pool together. They believe themselves to be on the way to comquering the unknown, and have an answer for most mysteries.”

Poseidon is curious now. “What kind of answers do they give?”

Jesus glances at the cards and says, “That it’s the luck of the draw. That it’s an accident. Some say it’s impossible, so there’s no such thing as reality, it’s only a dream.,”

Zeus bellows and throws a bolt of lightning earthward. “Fools!”

Jesus protests, “Foolish, yes. But how can they be fools if you have made them in your image?”

Yaweh grumbles and raises the ante. “No more miracles for them. They’ll have to make do with what they have, and what unfolds from what they have. Milk into orange juice indeed!”