Tag: essay

Something To Celebrate

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It’s Celebrate The Small Things Day. Something I’ve achieved each week, no matter how small. If you’re interested in doing the same thing sign up here at Vicki’s blog.

So I finally sent that essay to L.A. Times Affairs, a first-person column in the Los Angeles Times chronicling romance and relationships. They want stories grounded in the present with a strong sense of place, rooted in Southern California.

I crafted the essay from my memoir, Loveyoubye. It’s a big scene, one I’ve been working on for awhile. The only thing is, it’s kind of a mixed bag sending it now instead of after Loveyoubye is published, which would allow me to give interested readers a link to buy the book. But according to my editor it’s a good idea to build interest before the book comes out as well. So I’m going with that and holding my thumbs that my piece gets published. My American friends, if you would cross your fingers for me, I would truly appreciate it.

Anniversary

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Today is the first anniversary of my blog! Ta da! From my first posting, The Beach, on January 26, 2011, when I chronicled three-month-old Fergie’s first visit to the—

Wait a minute, that was TWO years ago! I missed my first anniversary!! Actually, now that I think about it, I must’ve I ignored my first anniversary because I was embarrassed by my puny output.  I didn’t exactly take to blogging. In fact I found it daunting. I had just completed a memoir about the breakup of my marriage, which of course is all about what makes me tick. But it hasn’t been published. Yet. And when it is, well, that will be another thing. A whole other thing for which I brace myself. But here I was faced with writing about myself again, this time writing on the fly, on a daily or at least a monthly basis.  What to write about? What more did I have to say? Who would care?

Gritting my teeth, I launched forth. It wasn’t too much fun. I persisted. It took over a year to realize that I was learning new writing skills, that I was becoming more facile with this shorter form, which were essentially essays, what Phillip Lopate calls “a movement toward honesty.” And isn’t that what it’s all about on every level in one’s life, aren’t we all trying to move toward honesty? It never stops. In the process, I realized I did have something to say, hopefully something that is universally appealing.

And then there were all the new friends I made and the old ones with whom I reconnected for which I am eternally grateful.

Old Post Resurrection Hop . . . Crackling Grass

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I’m re-posting this blog I wrote in November of last year as part of  Old-Post Resurrection Hop:

If you’ll remember I attended an essay workshop up at Lake Tahoe.  Turns out it was actually at a house in Squaw Valley, site of the 1960s Olympics, the entrance complete with Olympic rings and flame:  six women, a massive stone fireplace, hammered iron balconies, and a dining room table that belonged in King Arthur’s court.  This was where we dined, but mostly where we wrote.  I’m not going to tell you about how I stalled time and again on the page in response to the writing prompts. And how panicky I felt.

Instead, I’ll tell you about the desperation run I took in 25-degree weather that second day to clear my head.  Dressed in my winter clothes—Laguna Beach style—blue jeans, a sweatshirt and gloves, I tried to ignore the cold as I charged down the road and into the meadow that is Squaw Valley proper, evergreen trees not yet dressed in their winter white.  It was only at a point where the trees converged into a dark narrow path, lowering the temperature by a couple more degrees that I finally turned around.  By now, my nose was dripping, my toes about to snap off and I was shivering so hard I veered drunkenly off the path.

There’s a soft crackle and I stop.  Around my feet, a carpet of tiny frozen spears of grass pokes up this way and that.  I drop to my haunches and press down on an untouched area with my gloved hand, feeling the resistance there.  Another satisfying crunch.  Feeling a sense of wonder, I shift around and press down on another spot, then another and another.  I finally have to stop; the cold has become unbearable.

I run back to the house, feeling some kind of reintegration beginning to take place inside of me, something I vaguely recognize.  I’ve undergone this experience before when beguiled by nature, whether it’s here in my adopted country or in my native Africa.  I’m reminded that as in nature everything in its own time and that I have to trust myself.  The words will come.

I wish I could tell you I aced the rest of the writing prompts.  I didn’t.  But I did come up with a killer ending to an essay I’d been working on.

Ah, the writing life.

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