Figures. . .

Just when I'm all excited about NaNoWriMo, I get told that my gallbladder MUST come out. Surgery takes place on Tuesday. BUT! That gives me 10 days off from work to write! Now what I write may be pure shite, since I may be on painkillers. But I will write, dang it!

Autumn

We had a gorgeous autumn day on Sunday, so I took a couple pictures out front. I figure that I likely won't be paying much attention to the out-of-doors next month once I get started writing for NaNoWriMo, so it was wonderful to have such an outstanding day.

I love autumn. It is my favorite season for the fact of the remarkable beauty it shares with us.

Planning. . . .

A week to go before NaNo begins.

I'm not generally a "planner" per se. I'm more a chunk writer who lets things come as they will. However, with NaNo looming I'm finding the need to know the "whos" and "wheres" of this fantasy world I'm creating. So, I've been googling for images of some of my characters. And found out that Rupert Grint looks very much like my MC - the current Rupert (scroll to near the bottom of the link), not the younger Rupert. Who knew?

Today I am going to attempt map drawing. I've got to get my locations straight in this world I've created. I've got to know where folks are going, where they've come from and some of this world's history. A map should help. I think. Maybe.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
Published by Europa Editions
Translated from the French by Allison Anderson

For some time now I've had an itching to take French lessons. I have no idea why. Long ago, in my ancient past, I took a semester of university French with Madame Maas and did not like the language. I think I felt it too simplistic and effete after the rigors of wrestling with German syntax and Russian verb aspects.

Perhaps, these 40 years later, I am more inclined to a search for elegance.

Muriel Barbery brings us two seemingly disparate characters - a fifty-something concierge for an elite apartment complex and a twelve-year-old daughter of one of the complex families. Both, however, are bitter, super-intelligent misfits who have built themselves into their own individual worlds of misery. They are both philosophical snobs, decrying the fallacies and foibles of those on the other sides of the invisible walls they've built around themselves.

I didn't like either of them much for the first 150 pages or so of their individual journals. I wanted to give them each a swift kick in the keister and wondered why I was even bothering to continue reading. But this is a book not just about redemption, but transformation. Barbery manages to weave a thin thread of hope of that transformation through her characters' misery. Just hints, but they held me through to the sad, but satisfying, ending.

I particularly enjoyed this passage on the joy of writing by Madame Michel, the concierge:
This is eminently true of many happy moments in life. Freed from the demands of decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence. What other reason might I have for writing this - ridiculous journal of an aging concierge - if the writing did not have something of the art of scything about it? The lines gradually become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know. This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me.

Yup. I get that. Been there. Frequently.

And shortly after this passage twelve-year-old Paloma brings us this after a visit to her grandmother:
So, we mustn't forget any of this, absolutely not. We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something, now, at any price, using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity.

That's what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.

So, basically what Barbery tells us through Madame Michel and Paloma is get out of your heads, break down your invisible walls, find your passion, and live life like it will end tomorrow, because it might. Not an original premise certainly - we hear it from motivational speakers ad infinitum - but Barbery presents it in such a very elegant way.

NaNoWriMo

I'm stunned.

Okay.

It's official.

I have clearly lost my mind.

I've committed myself. . . .

to writing a 50,000 word novel in one month.

I've joined the thousands of other loonies who do this every November.

What have I done?

How can I possibly?

What will I write?

I'm stunned.

Tyranny of the Tiny

Here's another from my archives that hit me today as very appropriate for some reason.

We had a cat as a family many moons ago named Isaiah. I've spoken about him someplace, I think - Isaiah the Grumpy Prophet. He could drop you in your tracks, pull you up short with one of his dirty looks from across the room. Just walk in, he'd look at you and you felt that all the secrets you hold from other people and yourself were being laid bare in front of you and you better straighten up and fly right, sister!

He wasn't a big cat, rather small and not very muscular, and rather non-descript mottled gray tabby. We called him Tiny as a kitten. I'm not sure who came up with it, but when this would happen - the moments we suffered this look of accountability - we had a brief "prayer" we'd vocalize.

"Lord, save us from the Tyranny of the Tiny."

Perhaps we're suffering a time of walking through the little stuff - the Tyranny of the Tiny. The everyday crappiness that gets in our way. The debris of past little bits that show up like spinach stuck in your teeth.

You know, we both...and some others...have gone through a year of "big stuff." We've landed in places both physical and spiritual which we could not have imagined.... But life isn't all about the big stuff. Mostly it's about the Tyranny of the Tiny. So, I think we're in kind of a limbo energy-wise (though the RC church now says there is no limbo! Who'd a thunk?!), coming down from the mountain and assimilating the little stuff that bugs the crap out of us.

So,
*pat-pat*
*goofy sentimental, knowing smile*
You're okay.
I'm okay.
Lord, save us from the Tyranny of the Tiny.
Amen.

Money and Charity

I was scrolling through old documents looking for something else (which I have yet to find...grrr) when I ran across something I'd written for a forum post three years ago. The discussion was about money and charity and the question was put out if anyone really thought there was a case where throwing money at a situation actually helped? Specifically, a global situation.

The following is what I wrote. I'm not sure I actually posted it or not. I often write things and then don't post them. But since I've heard so much discussion about "lack" these days, I thought I might put this here.

It's got me thinking.

I suppose it depends on what the expectations are. If $ are thrown at a situation with the expectations of creating something to agree with a specific set of expectations...then, I'd so no, it never works. But if $ are given with the intent and expectation that they will flow where they are needed, then, yes, it does work.

What outcome is expected? That every dollar will be spent in a specific manner? Wisely and creatively in the manner the giver expects?

Money is funny stuff. It circulates, you see. It doesn't just buy something and then, that's it. It moves on. Sometimes it is spent foolishly or dangerously. Sometimes gambled away. Sometimes it sits in an account (or behind a radiator wrapped in plastic bags and a shoebox in my mother-in-law's case) for a long period of time and seemingly produces nothing. Most often it is wielded as power for control of others.

Now think of love. You could apply all the above also to love, couldn't you? Does love ever end? Do we ever see the final outcome of love?

The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so. And even if it is hindered what happens? Nothing? Poof! – energy gone? Nope, it changes to something else and moves on.

Okay, Betty…get real here, we’re talking about money. Money! You see that’s the thing….our perception of what money is and how that results in those expectations. I’ve had to look loooooong and hard at this. Money…both having and not having it…has been one of my greatest fears. Thing is…one never HAS it. You can’t. It comes and goes. It circulates. It flows. It disperses, gets hindered, and goes off in another direction. So, actually, we’re wrangling energy and trying to direct it in the directions we perceive as having the best outcome. We can do our best to direct it wisely and creatively with the understanding that it is temporary and must flow on.

It’s akin to herding cats. You do your best, but you can count on a mighty small percentage making it where you want em to go. Some folks will be better at it than others, but since one knows the nature of cats, I wouldn’t give up my day job to become a cat herder. They are independent little cusses and you’re likely to come away covered in scratches and the ones you have penned are often creative enough to find another way out anyway.

And one also knows the nature of humans and their current perceptions of money (money=power?) and charity. Charity once upon a time meant “love of humankind.” Hmmmm. What does that tell you about that perception? Somewhere along the line it changed, didn’t it? Maybe it got hindered by the money=power perception?

So, should we just give up giving to charities? Walk past the guy with his hand out because he looks disreputable and will likely spend it on booze or drugs or cigarettes, or maybe he’s really got an old beater around the corner or a watch on his wrist that he could sell and why should you give him anything if he has that? That cat obviously isn’t going to go where you want it to.

Or is this charity going to spend their money in a proper manner? One can do their research, but there is always doubt about exactly where that hard-earned money is going to go. Another cat going astray.

What’s the perception? What’s the intent?

Now if one’s perception of charity truly is a love of mankind, then intent will be followed by action. And most often that particular perception is not followed by the intent of “throwing money” at a situation. It will be followed by involvement in some manner. Volunteerism, advocacy, service, etc.

However! Money finds its way. Perhaps a percentage of that money makes its way to someone who truly needs it at the moment and then it moves on…someplace else. Or, even if that money sits in an account in the Cayman Islands for awhile or buys someone a new Mercedes and a palatial estate, it still will go someplace else later. And we have no idea where it will go or how it is spent. Who will benefit? Will they be worthy of our donation? Worth? By whose perception?

It’s the perception that determines the intent and the action. How do we change a global perception? We change our own first, then the Second Law of Thermodynamics takes over one cat at a time and disperses on its way. We have no control over the outcome.