No matter what we know, where we come from, the background we are blessed or damned with, we need to believe, to find a greater truth. 
We know that what we have is precious; it is what sustains our hope. 
No matter how we may hide and pretend, that sense of awareness hovers inside, the moment upon waking, lying still, unsure of where we are, that moment in the music, hands suddenly in the air, released. 
And sadly, that same thing that is bastardized, used against itself, and drives us relentlessly, blindly on.
Tag Archives: writing process
The Thing is The Moment
The thing is the moment, delighted in light and motion like something I would invent, my finger touching my lip, certain of something unsaid.
Miles above, tucked in this empty moving space, the stewardess, wild blown-back hair, chewing gum for cover, more than half in the bag. “There you go, honey.” 
There is a note and it is long, clear and not, the blackness, and I don’t know what that is or could be. The thing is the moment, this moment, wide, where we might be. And then it is gone.
Passion Through The Window
“What system?” He was small and intense, his square jaw set.
“Apple.” The other guy was bigger and shaggier with glasses and an absent-minded smile.
“Platform?” He drank his Hefeweizen in gulps.
“Apps mostly.” He sipped, shrugging slightly, almost like a Teddy Bear.
I didn’t know them – they were friends of an acquaintance I had recently made – and while waiting for the conversation to make a better turn, looked between them, out the tavern window, at a couple who had suddenly engaged in a kiss. There were no tongues, no sloppy drunkenness, but a constant embrace of their lips.He had his hands on her face, bringing her closer in. And she acquiesced.
“Broadband,” the intense one asserted.
“Protocol?” The Teddy Bear inquired.
The couple was apart, as suddenly as they had started, looking into each other’s eyes, he a little more desperately, beseeching for her to understand, and she acquiescing to that.
“The job isn’t on the clock.”
“When it’s done, it’s done.”
They stood on the sidewalk, talking casually, laughing, and held their cigarillos like lovers do.
That’s when I noticed that my new acquaintances had gone quiet, both of them looking at me and waiting for me to say something too.
Do Not Delete; Recycle Instead
I don’t mind editing. Once I get into it, I can even like it. It’s a sorting that helps words make sense, a cleaning with clarity.
That said, I don’t like to get rid of words, even the individual letters, and just dump them in the garbage.
Rather than delete, I prefer to keep the word, the letter, the little virtual mark, where it is, alive, doing its job. I mean, why kill the ‘s’ in rest when it can used in past? 
Why annihilate a ‘b’ if it’s only to be created again, a stroke later?
The conservation of these virtual marks is easier, as it honors their existence, instead of just discarding for a newer version. Even if the work, in the end, is left unread.
Stylish and Angry On the Subway
“What you lookin’ at? Who said you could look at me like that, sir?” He was young, maybe 25, with a stylish felt hat and two bright gold studs. “Who do you think you are? You know what would happen if you did that in the hood? I’ll tell you what would happen. First I’d get up in your face…”
Like everyone on the subway, Micaela and I hoped the stylish young man would stop yelling at the 60-year-old on the bench opposite.
“And then I’d fuck your daughter, man–”
That was too much. “Okay, that’s enough.”
He flashed his eyes at me, trying to mock. “Let me make my point, man! I’m making my point!”
“You’re yelling profanities on the subway.”
He smirked, pulling one of his earplugs half out. “If we was in the hood, me and my goons would fuck you up.”
“Just listen to your music and leave everyone alone.”
“In the fuckin’ hood–”
“Enough of that.” Another man stepped in, and the stylish young man quieted down, only chuckling to himself.
An uneasy silence fell over the car. I told Micaela about being spied on at the conference and tried to make it funny.
“I’m trying to make a point, man!” The stylish young man suddenly stood and glared at me with crazy eyes. “Let me tell you about the fucking hood, man.”
“People just want to go home after working.” It seemed I was stuck with him now. “They don’t want to be yelled at.”
“I don’t want to be paid by you, man! I don’t want your money.”
“You’re yelling profanities on the subway.”
“You don’t pay me, man! I don’t want your money!”
First one voice and then another spoke out. “Stop it! Nobody wants to hear you!”
“In the hood, I’d get my goons–”
“Nobody cares!” A distant voice snapped.
“I’m trying to make a point. I don’t need you people ganging up on me. I don’t need that. In the hood–”
The subway doors open behind me, and the stylish young man came past. He didn’t even look at me, at anybody, and instead to yelling on the platform. “I’m trying to make a point, man. You can’t fuckin’ look at me like that, man!”
Excellent Orwellian Advice
George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language concludes with advice* for the writer:
1. Never use a scientific word or jargon where an everyday equivalent will do.
2. Never use a metaphor or simile you have heard or seen many times before.
3. Never use a long word where a short one will do
4. If it is possible to cut a word out, do it.
*I have taken the liberty of restructuring and editing Orwell’s list
That Pain in the Ass Kid
DAVIS, a 16-year-old, delivers the newspaper to a grey stone house and then crosses a low slope onto the driveway of the next house. 
A young boy, JESSE, is at the far end of the driveway near the back of the house. DAVIS glances at him, delivers the paper to the front door and continues to the next house.
JESSE (Coming around from the house): Hey!
DAVIS (Only half stopping): Hi.
JESSE: Since when have you been delivering our paper?
DAVIS (Still walking away): Since today.
JESSE: What’s your name?
DAVIS doesn’t answer him, delivering the paper to the next house. JESSE rides up on his bike beside DAVIS on the street. JESSE is 10 years old, thick dark hair, with chubby arms and a dirty striped shirt; he has a dog, a standard poodle, tied to his bike.
JESSE: What’s your name?
DAVIS (Frowning at the poodle tied to JESSE’s bike): Davis.
JESSE: My name’s Jesse.(Gesturing to the poodle) This is Silver.
DAVIS goes to the next house.
JESSE: Where do you live?
DAVIS: I don’t know. Up the street.
JESSE: You just move in?
DAVIS: I can’t talk, all right? I got to work.
JESSE: I’ve lived here my whole life.
DAVIS walks up the walkway to the next house and delivers the paper. When he looks back, he sees JESSE riding away fast, the dog desperately trying to keep up.
DISSOLVE TO: EXT. DAY. DAVIS delivers newspapers to the same houses on another bright sunny morning. 
JESSE appears again, the dog still tied to his bike, from the same driveway.
JESSE: Hey.
DAVIS ignores him.
JESSE: I can deliver some, if you want.
DAVIS: No, thanks.
JESSE: I can do it.
DAVIS: I’m sure you can.
JESSE (Reaching for a paper from under DAVIS’ arm): I mean it.
DAVIS (Pulling away): It’s my job.
JESSE: I want to help.
DAVIS (Seeing a basketball net in JESSE’s backyard): Tell you what. I’ll play you 21.
JESSE: Okay!
DAVIS: You win, you can deliver papers with me. 
JESSE:All right.
DAVIS (After a pause): I win, and you leave me alone
JESSE (Frowning): Okay.
They play. DAVIS wins and walks away. JESSE rides past him, over the front lawn, the poodle still desperately trying to keep up.
Miss Stollery
I made Miss Stollery a present for Christmas. I glued a rock onto a piece of wood and hammered in a nail. I was eight years old. It wasn’t art but it was from the heart. I put it into a purple box. I looked at that box, thinking it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I wanted. I got out a big marker and wrote her name on it. And that wasn’t enough. So I wrote “I love you” on the box. I wrote it big. I LOVE YOU. But it was in red and the box was purple. I couldn’t see it. And so I wrote it again. And again. And again. Until I’d written “I love you” all over it. I looked at it again and freaked out because I didn’t want anyone else to know about how I felt. I crossed one of them out. And that looked stupid. I looked at it again and didn’t think anyone could see the words.That’s really what I thought. And so I took the box to school and placed it under our Grade Two Christmas tree. I looked at it and knew that everyone could see the “I love you’s”. And she saw them too and looked at me like I was a lost kid. I hated that. She was supposed to kiss me. And then she opened it. The rock had fallen off the piece of wood.
John Williams’ “Butcher’s Crossing”
It is hard to overstate the writing craft of John Williams; his narrative is clear and precise and his characters compelling while his ruminations on our place in this world are profoundly vertiginous. 
Butcher’s Crossing is the story of a group of men engaged in the slaughter of buffalo:
It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood and stench and spilling gut; it came to him that he had sickened and turned away because of his shock at seeing the buffalo, a few moments before proud and noble and full of the dignity of life, now stark and helpless, a length of inert meat, divested of itself, or his notion of itself, swinging grotesquely, mockingly before him. (151) 
Sometimes at night, crowded with the others in the close warm shelter of buffalo hide, he heard the wind, that often suddenly sprang up, whistle and moan around the corners of the shelter…at such times he felt a part of himself go outward into the dark, among the wind and snow and the featureless sky where he was whirled blindly through the world. (200)
Driving an Old Chevy Sportsman
It was a long hill, the town another hundred miles, when the shot rang out, pulling the van sideways like we’d been hit by a low bull. 
I swung the wheel against it, thinking there was some kind of battle ahead, a force to contend, something big and threatening, and pulled over. 
‘What the fuck was that?’ Mike’s eyes were wide.
‘I think the tire blew.’
The rear tire was in shreds; the spare was threadbare.
‘You need new tires, man.’
‘I know.’
The jack was broken and the bolts fused.
We sat and drank and finally got the tire, off bolt by bolt, and I thought about how much I loved my van.