The fog in my head is lifting as my mind sifts through past experiences, pondering the new book I am writing, the book I will call Epiphany. Ah yes, it is becoming clear that I believed in a certain kind of romantic love —the fairy tale of “happily ever after” where there can be only “that one true love” for one to find. Here is a ditty I just wrote that expressed “Love Like This.”
Tis Prince Charming I’m pining for
I’ve read and heard and I believe
In love that lasts forever more
Will never quarrel and never leave.
He rides his white horse passing by
But he has Cinderella’s shoe.
My foot is bare , I hold it high
And wait to love and say “I do.”
“Lonely,” cries my deepest heart
Two hearts in love will beat as one
Entangled love wont pull apart
Passion fresh as when begun
He comes at last to end the wait
Our love inscribed across the stars
I run to greet my sweet soul-mate
But I’m from Venice, he’s from Mars
Perhaps the mistake of “soulmate love” is when a person, feeling like he/she is missing a piece, looks for another to feel complete. In this fantasy love, the weaker sex falls into strong arms, is protected and lives happily ever after. Right? Together they almost make one person!
Did you believe in “love like this”? So what happens when the believer risks everything to follow that dream? Please comment!
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Order the Historical Novel by S.K. Carnes, The Way Back,
recently released in all e-book stores.
New novel: The Way Back. To find it on Amazon, go to http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney
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It came to me in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep, stumbling over virtual roadblocks in my mind as I pondered what my next blog might be, alert for the “just right name” for my next book about Oregon’s children, should such a name (all lit up in neon, shining out of the murk) miraculously appear. I had just blogged about being lost. I had quoted the poet Yusef Komunyakaa writing about this miracle—when all seemed lost:
“I knew life Began where I stood in the dark, Looking out into the light.”
I remembered another time when I went seeking an answer. It was twilight in Oregon’s back-country where I had almost lost myself, when up ahead, standing in a shaft of last light, stood a magnificent elk, and his name was —Epiphany!
What a pretty name for my new novel; the very idea of such a portal, such a magic door thrills me! This flash of insight, manifests the theme upon which I will hang my story!
I invite you to join me on this journey, join me as, chapter by chapter, I follow my fairy tale to a dead end; agonize and laugh through my emancipation from a dream turned nightmare. Such is the way of an epiphany—like stages of a rocket, what is useless falls away, and we blast forward into the light…but there is that “in between time” when we all must endure being lost in the darkness of night.
So, let’s begin. I’ll start with a poem I dreamed up just now. Please make up your own verse!
Like a glim in foggy-bottom bogs
Like a light thru crystalline
Like fire sparked by ember logs
Like a vine sprung from a bean
Like poppies cover’n killing fields
Ah sweet epiphany
That darkness, lies, wrong-doing yields
When spirit shines through me
Come spirit shine through me.
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Order the Historical Novel by S.K. Carnes, The Way Back,
recently released in all e-book stores.
New novel: The Way Back. To find it on Amazon, go to http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney
When I think of a portal, I imagine a magic door to pass through leading to new life beginning for a changed person. My example is the recent movie,”The Dallas Buyers Club,” the grimy gutsy tale of a Lone Star, bull riding, hard-living tough who emerges a super hero when faced with a death sentence. He never gave up hope and seized life for himself and others.
The poet Yusef Komunyakaa wrote about this miracle—when all seemed lost:
“I knew life
Began where I stood in the dark,
Looking out into the light.”
As we bungle our way through life, showing-up, perhaps making sense of our journey by looking back at what worked in the past, old tactics can become useless with changing circumstance, and inevitably, trying to do something, we fail or fall, and there seems no way to follow our dreams. The ancients say that should you fall down seven times, you must rise up again 8 times. Edison tried repeatedly to create a light bulb, finding 10,000 ways that didn’t work—until one did. Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never, never give up.” Hope.
Philosophers, poets, and common folks recognize this “tune without words” that sings the way in our darkest hour, this eternal flame, this Fiddler on the Roof as hope. And holding tight to our dreams, we are builders of eternity.
Light sparkles from a charismatic mind! Have you seen hope shining in the eyes of a wounded warrior determined to walk again; Have you laughed with the delight bubbling up in the giggles of a tickled child; do you cheer spirit when the winning horse, ablaze with desire, opens up in the stretch. Do you dance-on to the tune of life played by the “fiddler on the roof.” Can you hear that music? Shell Silverstein says this about hope:
“Listen to the mustn’ts, child.
Listen to the don’ts.
Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me…
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.”
Look to the animals to image hope. The sniffer dog, hoping to please, uses his sense of smell 100,000 times more keen then the human nose, to sniff out weapons, drugs, even early stage cancer, his body quivering with the excitement that comes with partnering with his human god. The dog may sense danger, his job being to communicate that, even though he is himself in harms way. Some say it is because he does not understand, but I think it is because the dog is selfless in love, and filled with hope.
If we shed what weighs us down—regret, grief, fear, despair, or nostalgia, we make room for the angel of hope, as Emily Dickinson describes her:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all —”
The Olympic torch is carried aflame before the games begin, and this fire of hope burns brightest within the heart of each athlete. Some will not win medals, but entering the arena is already a win, for it is in this space that hope lives.
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Order the Historical Novel by S.K. Carnes, The Way Back,
recently released in all e-book stores. New novel: The Way Back. To find it on Amazon, go to http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney
TIME OUT! Time to look at how we write, what we write and WHY WE WRITE! PJ Reece, author, speaker, writer of the Meaning of Life Blog, and inspiration to all of us in the Mazatlan Writer’s Group, writes about his process at http://www.pjreece.ca/blog/wordpress/category/blog/ PJ, author and adventurer, uses his Blog to invite us on a journey led by desire to the heart of the story. Like Garth Brooks who claims that
“Life is not tried, it is merely survived, If you’re standing outside the fire,” PJ’s protagonists are those “who have to dance within the flame, who chance the sorrow and the shame, that always comes with getting burned.”
But wait. How connected is a writer to his protagonist? Is PJ proposing that author and protagonist enter the dark heart of the story together? And what about the reader? Just as my mind opened to the dimension of that idea, PJ tagged me to be next to answer the 4 questions posed on a Blog Tour—to have the next dance within the flame.
I worked at accumulating and keeping things most of my life—not at writing. But looking back, I realize there have been moments of transcendence that couldn’t be earned, made to happen, scheduled, or be deserved. Like Magic Doors, they are passed through, perhaps without being noticed. Called “insightful, spiritual, meaningful, transformative, or “peak” experiences, I decided to write about these “watershed moments”-yours, mine and ours, since they cross over the ordinary into another realm. How exciting is that!! Magic! This Blog called “Portals to the Unforgettable” is at www.susancarnes.worpress.com .You are reading it now. My other blog is about the healing power of creative expression. Go to http://www.skcarnes.com to find my paintings, books, and some poetry. If creativity has brought you healing, solace or joy, consider signing up and sharing. What am I working on? Leaving my Midwestern farm life behind, I crossed the Continental Divide westward, even as I crossed the boundaries of guilt, shame and fear into a new life of risk. Discovering the pot at the end of the rainbow makes a great story and I am presently writing it. Yes, another novel! Although it is essentially my story and true from my point of view, I do digress, so a memoir it isn’t! But this new historical novel, nameless at present, is aiming at being a love story, a mystery, full of action, danger, regret, joy, you know, all the spices of life presented in my voice which I am presently honing on my blog. Do you like poetry that doesn’t make you feel ignorant, but wiggles in sideways, and calls out your understanding almost by accident? I hope so. I seem to use the Taro archetypes everyone relates to. Also, I am aware of being carried along. Sometimes, I just sit down and the words come. Then I get to rewrite and that is so much fun. It is like painting a picture, choosing the colors by what feels right.
How does my work differ from others of its genre? I think I have spent so much of my life alone or in the company of animals that I cook up punch that is flavored by the wilderness, impassioned by stallions, mournful as the cry of a sheep stuck in the briars, has a touch of awesome like the Northern Lights, is barren and windswept and sometimes lush as a pool in the rainforest. Of course it is different, for it filters through me, and I am practiced at not fitting in, having long kept my own company. But to my astonishment, when I read my work to my Writers Group, they nod in understanding. Could it be my punch is made from waters we all tap into, like a deep-down brook that runs through us? Listen to John McCutcheon’s “Water From Another Time”, and you will discover this wellspring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeEvMSlpFI
Why do I write what I do? I have this idea/dream that we are all on this ship together and looking at the passing scenery, but only from our own porthole. Now, when we share what we see, the view gets bigger. Maybe the word I should use is “compelled.” I am compelled to write it down, to share my view just as Garth Brooks has in this centermost stanza of his hit song, also quoted above.http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/garthbrooks/standingoutsidethefire.html
There’s this love that is burning
Deep in my soul
Constantly yearning to get out of control
Wanting to fly higher and higher
I can’t abide
Standing outside the fire
How does my writing process work? I wake up in the night-sometimes at 2:00 sometimes at 5, and instead of going back to sleep, I get up and write. Then with daylight comes chores and obligations, but during the day things come to me and I jot down ideas to chew on. Sometimes, when I am out walking, I get a notion and it sort of marinates, but if it doesn’t go away, I have to write on it. Getting it out in words satisfies the muse, but so far, I hear her calling me onward over a new Continental Divide to the unknown. I have always loved exploring.
NEXT ON OUR BLOG TOUR: An introduction to C.Michaelswho joined our Mazatlan Writer’s Group, and soon began sharing her knowledge of self publishing and networking, all the while finishing her three suspense novels. She now writes a column for the Pacific Pearlalong with her blog. Keeping the reader guessing, Michaels is currently writing a smart thought provoking novel, the first of a series, called Casual Women, in which Maddy encounters some merciless characters in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. How will C.Michaels answer the 4 questions of the Blog Tour? Ahh-tune in for a revealing session with the empress of intrigue in one of Mexico’s most fascinating cities. New novel: The Way Back
Order the Historical Novel by S.K. Carnes, The Way Back, recently released in all e-book stores. To find it on Amazon, go to http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney
Fear. A warning of danger, sometimes disguised as anger, hatred or rage, fear can portend evil as in the“dark side of the Force.”Fearing fear, I tried to stay out of its clutches. To me fear was like the dark side of the moon, shadowed in mystery and overpowering, and I focused on the sunny side, the known —where I had some control—except for sometimes. Sometimes, like ink spreading across parchment, fear stained my life. It fascinated even as it paralyzed me, and I determined that I would overcome it. But to do so, I would have to call it out, and in battle, it took away my ability to function, and left me white, shaken, and weak. It was a quest-my own Great Crusade. I learned that I did best when in the company of animals. http://www.petfinder.com
They bolstered my spirit. Indeed, when I was astride one of the big draft horses used on our farm, I felt invincible as a knight from King Authors table, drawing upon the animal courage I commanded.
Aware of my fear of heights, I aggressively attacked this weakness. I decided that I would make myself cross the railroad trestle that towered above the Middle River. I would ride my bike several miles, then, listen for the train, and hearing none, would start across the trestle. My heart beat increased in velocity and sound, until I could not walk but would have to crawl, going forward, clinging to the rails while my will dissolved in the echoes of the sound, and I could not proceed. I would carefully execute a turnaround retreat hand over hand until I could manage to rise and run back, sobbing at my failure and vowing to try again later with some new way of thinking.
Hoping to cross
I dared begin
But Fear was boss
And Fear would win.
Every year in the summer, there were picnics at the waterfall park, and everyone jumped off the top into the deep chasm at the base of the cataract. Everyone but me. When it was time for the picnic, I still had not jumped and so I stayed, and stayed and stayed, missing lunch out of determination. I stood quaking at the top until finally, when I gave up on myself and life itself, I jumped out of łack of caring. Then, sheepish and late, I got left overs or nothing-maybe a scornful look. Only when I gave over my life as in a sort of suicide could I do what I feared. As a college student, I would stay week-ends in Duluth to climb the condemned ski jumps. Sometimes an afternoon passed and I still could not manage to reach the top of the jump. Discouraged, my fingers freezing stiff with the cold, l would climb down, fear having won again.
There were other times when I should have been able to run away from danger but when fear set in, my legs went to mutiny mode. Then, I could only advance crawling or creeping on my stomach. I read articles and books, vowing to learn to beat this curse. I could take deep breaths while saying positive things, build on small victories, graduate toward the more difficult challenges as I explored my dark side. I noticed that on a downhill ski run, I fell when I “lost heart.”This defect was a mind thing to be studied, and the learning gave my life direction. Years passed, and by now I had a library of books about fear. With “ways around” strategies in my arsenal, I could cope as long as the situation was not too dire. I took up white water rafting, finally even daring to tackle the Grand Canyon of the Colorado —with mixed results. For there, lurking in the darkness was my old enemy waiting-waiting for the time to be right. Then one day, the worst thing happened; Fear and I came face to face… and there was no way back.
In the region of my heart where blizzards swirl and snow drifts—blinding and pristine— there is this core of paralyzing cold. So blue is this center, beautiful to behold, that should you fall under its bitter spell, you would lie frozen ‘neath a thousand years of ice—so blue it is. And for that reason, I worship at the altar of the stove.
I think it all started ’round my mother’s cook-stove, its green enameled face polished almost through in places, its cast iron burning plate searing hot above riotous flames. The smell of baking bread, wood smoke and vanilla, still lingers like lowland mist in my mind. Ahh—heaven. And in those days, the brown oil heater reigned over the living room. I ran down from my freezing upper room to get dressed alongside her, wanting to hug her enameled belly, almost daring to be burned. Still, I never could get warm enough. Never warm enough to banish “the Blue.”
So when I moved to Oregon, in order to shield shadowy fear (circling all around me) and the cold wisped in fog (to disguise her icy fingers), I bought my first parlor stove. Made in 1896, refurbished, and lettered “Empire State,” it had a bright silver top and brass finial, like a light-house for a drowning soul. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t get warm enough, so I bought another. It happened with a move to Washington State to live on an island as far west and north as I could go. It had to be a special stove for such a move, so I went to Buck’s Stove Palace in Portland, and Buck-who maybe loved me a little, said he would find “just the one.” He looked “hi and low” and finally in an attic in Illinois, he found my Florence. Now here was an altar worthy of adoration. She stood taller then me on nickeled feet, and her face shone silver around isinglass licked by flames. I bought a house with a living room wall set in stone— just for her—and she sat like a queen on her throne of polished flagstone.
But my fires were poorly built; I wielded the froe to split the wood, with a limp wrist, afraid of the breaking. It was only when I found Bill—the Keeper of the Hearth—that Florence lit up and the dismals were beaten back. And now, on any evening on our island, we sit like in an opera house waiting for the show. We open all the stove ports and the fire roars on center stage flanked by rocks fascinating in shadow-play and light. Look! There is the glint of fools-gold and mica, see the onyx dark against the white quartz while the life and death drama plays out. It is awful to watch hungry tongues devour the wood, the pitch pockets whistle and pop sending up little explosions, smelling of pine forests. At last the split fir is a black skeleton and Bill will feed the beast from his huge stash piled on racks, the kindling stacked precisely, the tools of the master hung at the ready. My living room is a primitive cave of wood and glass, stone and iron, with the hearth at its center, and the Keeper by my side; let the storm crash against my house of cedar, as long as there is fire in my stove.
For me, it would be wrong to have no need of the fire, or of the stove where it’s caged, for the hearth was my first love. There is something about a fire. Watch the spark blaze forth life in all colors of hot while death waits in the wings-to claim even the embers in Irish darkness. I hear the groans of solid form releasing energy, smell the essence free at last, speak with the old ones, feel the power of the creator, sense the mystery that teases at me, flickering truth that eludes me, leaving me always searching… for that warmth that is enough.
New novel: The Way Back
Please click on the link below to read about The Way Back , by S.K.Carnes. Three Reviews and a description are posted. http://readersfavorite.com/book-review/28930
Order The Way Back in all e-book stores. Amazon: http://bit.ly/SoldiersJourney
Another season in paradise-how many more will there be? I am packing up my suitcase to go back—Home? I’m not sure any more. ‘Cus there are these small things –things I can’t capture to pack them up! Like what happens along the way on our morning walk—Kathi, the dog, and me walking both hills and those merciless stairs. The small things—you know—like the cat that waits to take a swipe at our dog each morning, safe behind his fence, his face filled with concentrated hate, growling, hissing, spitting while the dog darts between us yipping, “don’t look at that cat—only me—only me”. And then the broad smile of excitement on the dog’s face, looking back fiercely proud, as she heads for another adventure. “Stick with me girls-I’ll get you thru.”
And then there is the little rat—very fat—that runs between garbage cans and hides in the green hedge along the Malecon. Dog perks up, stops stalking birds, and is about to give chase, but our friend notices and says, “oh-don’t let her get it!” Now how do you pack that up in a suitcase?
Meanwhile, Lucky the little grey dog watches his mistress swim. Oh yes-see her head just beyond where you catch a wave. See you soon Glina-when you come ashore.
Some things travel well, like the crescent moon last night, looking like a sterling spoon over the surging sea. I will miss The Mazatlan Writers Group, where we read our hearts out to each other and spew forth suggestions to improve. Well, I don’t need to pack them up, for I hear them whispering over my shoulder whenever I sit at the computer to write. “Take a class in punctuation”, they say. They keep coaching the commas out, they keep calling for the gold.
But the music along the walkway at night—the two men who sing –sing with feeling most every night to passers bys and no one special. And the vendor with his arm straight out, dripping with silver chains—forever hopeful. Has he sold even one? These things are of this place alone.
“Todo bien” calls the shoeshine guy, grinning ear to ear as he peddles his bike equipped with his home-made workbench and box, looking at all our sandals for a real shoe to shine. “It’s all good,” he says and pretends he shines toenails too. And this night the musician returns who played and sang at Canucks where we danced years ago. He remembers and smiles. Oh, we had some moments when we all rode along on the music, let it take us. Yes, I should leave some room in my suitcase for memories. Like the way we come out of the world class Recreo movies, teary eyed from laughing or crying past the line of our friends-“Did you like it? Was it good?”
It is the time for the Canadians to say goodbye with parties, already complaining about the minus degree temps greeting them when they get off the plane on the other side. Snowbirds are vowing to stay longer next year, even as we pack to go home—really—to go home? Where is home now that we have lingered too long in Mazatlan to really ever go back, now that we know we cant pack the small things up? Seasons spin around again, the year goes rolling by, and soon we will pack up to return, looking forward to parties of “Welcome Home.” The small things are waiting.
