"The Yellow Flower Blues" by Robert Julius

Here is another excerpt from another story I'm working on. I think I may workshop this one for Thursday, April 28.

The Yellow Flower Blues

“Have you ever really noticed—I mean really noticed—how yellow these flowers are?” Elisha asked his friend, Douglas, as they passed the small community garden.

Douglas shrugged. “What? They’re just flowers.”

“Sorry. I guess I’m being weird.”

Elisha and Douglas walked past the same garden every day after school. On this particular spring day, the small yellow flowers really stood out to Elisha as being unusually yellow. In fact, they were so yellow, that it seemed as if the color yellow was based off of these flowers, that every other yellow thing was an imitation of this original. Elisha didn’t know how to communicate this strange feeling to Douglas. As they walked away, past the garden, Elisha stared at the yellow flowers in the garden one last time, but it was gone. The feeling had passed.

The flowers looked as they always had.

The two boys parted ways: Douglas to his home and Elisha to his own. When Elisha walked through the front door, his mom was waiting there to greet him. “Honey, how was school?” Elisha groaned an unintelligible response. He climbed the stairs and secluded himself in his bedroom. He tossed his backpack on the empty desk chair and climbed into his bed. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t figure out what had been different today about those flowers.

Was it the sunshine? It was true that he didn’t live in a particularly sunny town. More than half of the year, the sky was covered in gray clouds. Perhaps they had looked different today because of the sun. Well, yes, they did look different because of the sun, but that wasn’t why Elisha had noticed them. The moment with the flowers wasn’t something that Elisha had seen, it was something that he had felt. Something about the flowers triggered something deep within himself, deeper than he knew was possible.

Elisha walked over to his bedroom window and drew the blinds. He looked outside at the blue, cloudless sky. A gathering of birds formed the letter “V” as they flew past the window. Below, Elisha could see the houses next door. They all looked identical. Each had a flat rooftop, a driveway, a fence, and a small garden. A tree grew in each backyard to provide shade during the summer. Elisha frequently read beneath the tree in his own backyard. Elisha had never really noticed how each house was a replica of the other. He imagined all of the bedrooms in the neighborhood, each with their own Elisha staring out of the window, staring out at the sameness in everything and seeing the same boy looking out with the same eyes.

Then, it happened again.

A bright red cardinal had landed among the many branches of the tree in his backyard. Elisha saw the bird: really saw it, and for a moment, he noticed the qualities of the cardinal and how they were so very… cardinal. There was no other way to explain it. Elisha’s brain could not find a proper word to describe the experience. In fact, Elisha thought to himself that he had experienced a lapse in mind, a break in his thinking, and for a moment, just before he recognized the feeling, he had lost the sense of who he was. In that fleeting moment, Elisha had not existed. He had become the red cardinal, had become the tiny bird feet gripping the oak bark, had become the veins of the tree leaves and the trunk of the tree, had become the very soil which nourished it.

But once Elisha had isolated the experience — once he had named it — everything drifted away, like a dreamer roused from sleep and into consciousness.

The boy didn’t understand the experience. As much as he could remember, he never learned about it in school or church. His parents never taught him about it. So Elisha sat down at his desk, frustrated, and started to work on his mathematics homework. In those numbers, he found only clarity, nothing like the sensation he had felt with the yellow flowers and red cardinal. Elisha completed his algebraic equations, found both “x” and “y,” and once he was done, he had felt smarter for it.

Elisha’s mother called his name from downstairs. Dinner was ready.

#

Elisha and his parents were seated at the dining room table. His mother had prepared her famous roast beef with mashed potatoes and glazed carrots on the side. Everyone ate. The silverware clacking and clinking against the ceramic plates was the only conversation to be heard. Elisha’s father finished first. He always wolfed down his food. He then took out his good tobacco pipe. Elisha’s mother shot him a disappointed stare.

It was Elisha who broke the silence.

“Mom, Dad? I have a question.”

“Yes, Elisha?” his mother responded.

“I’ve been having these weird feelings lately—”

“I think this one is for your father, dear.”

“No, listen,” Elisha said, his cheeks flushing red. He had already had that talk with Douglas and his friends. “Today I was walking past some flowers and then all of a sudden, I really noticed how yellow they were. How perfect they were, just blooming there and being so yellow. Does that make sense?”

“Flowers are quite beautiful, dear,” his mother said.

“Don’t be a pansy,” his father said.

“Harold!”

“I’m sorry,” his father said, blowing smoke. “A young man’s got to be interested in better things than some goddamn flowers, for chrissake.”

Elisha stood up. “But it wasn’t just the flowers. There was also the bird. A red cardinal. It was so red. It was a real, live bird, a bird in the flesh. And it was so… bird-like.”

“Jesus H. Christ, Elisha, please sit down,” his father insisted. “A damned bird? This is what you have to say to us? What’s so special about a goddamn cardigan?”

“Cardinal, Harold,” his mother corrected.

“Cardi-I-don’t-give-a-shit!”

“Look, right there!” Elisha yelled, pointing at the thin smoke hanging in the air from his father’s pipe. “Do you see it? Do you feel it?”

Just then, Elisha had felt it again.

That feeling that the smoke just… was, that it was inherently smoke, that nothing could change the way smoke was because it just was. It was so beautiful, so simple, and there was nothing else that needed to be said about it. All the answers to all the questions in the world could be found within that smoke, Elisha thought. If it would only stay around for a little while longer, if only it didn’t dissolve.

But no — even the dissolving of the smoke was essential to its strange nature. You couldn’t separate smoke from its physics. Smoke was supposed to thin out. That was just part of smoke, that was part of the grandness of it all. Elisha stared at the smoke, lost in a trance, until he started laughing about it all. Some bizarre joy had arisen from deep within him and he couldn’t help but laugh.

His mother looked blankly at the smoke idling near the chandelier crystals. She wondered what had been so funny about the smoke that had caused Elisha to burst out in laughter. She concentrated. Elisha had stopped laughing. He looked at his mother. For a moment, Elisha was sure that she had seen it. That she had felt it, that magical lapse. Then, his father blew another puff of smoke from his belly, and it pushed out into the air, shifting the old smoke into new patterns. His mother shook her head.

“Elisha, it’s just smoke,” she said. “Speaking of which, your father was supposed to quit weeks ago. It’s bad for his heart.”

Elisha noticed the way his mother spoke to his father without addressing him.

“Marianne, don’t worry about me,” his father said with another puff of smoke. “It’s old Eli you’ve got to worry about. You’d better take him to your shrink. Something ain’t right.”

“He’s just imaginative, dear,” his mother said.

“Just put on the damned television already,” his father said. And he left the kitchen table and plopped down onto the sofa. He had the remote in his hand and he stared at the large flat screen, which reflected the 7 o’clock news in his eyes.

“Honey, aren’t you going to finish eating?” his mother asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Elisha answered. His mother took his plate and ran off into the kitchen. Elisha went upstairs to his bedroom, worried that he might have to see a psychologist. Was there something wrong with him? Douglas hadn’t seen it. His mother hadn’t seen it. His father hadn’t seen it. It was just him. They were only a few moments. Maybe it was all just a mistake.

I’m not going to notice these things anymore, Elisha thought to himself. I’m not going to be the weird one anymore.

"Chicken Skin, Bad Karma, and the Thread" by Robert Julius

Some of what I've been working on. I'm not sure if I will pursue this story for sure. It's a very rough draft:

Chicken Skin, Bad Karma, and the Thread

Bad things happen to me. They just do. I wish I could be one of those people who say they have no luck, but luck can’t be blamed for my misfortune. I suffer from not a lack, but a surplus—a surplus of bad karma.

Karma’s a bitch, so the Western adage goes. I think karma works a bit differently than that. Karma consumes. She devours. She’s made a feast of my life, a full-on, five-course meal. But I can’t play the victim, at least not this time, because I am the one who invited her. In the sixth grade, I killed a girl—accidentally—no, incidentally. Without full knowledge of what I was doing. My bad karma began in a public library.

It all started with a girl called Chicken Skin.

#

In elementary school, she was drawn towards the strangest things: insects, lizards, small creatures that crawled, animals who lived in grottos. She loved fantasy stories and fairytales, anything by which she could be permitted to escape the world and retreat into her unreasonable imagination. She admired what her peers deemed “nerdy,” and for the most part, she didn’t care that she didn’t have too many friends. What really hurt her the most was that in the sixth grade, when she had developed a particularly bad case of eczema, Caroline Adams, the most popular girl in the entire school, got everyone to call her Chicken Skin.

From that day forward, she was known as Chicken Skin.

Chicken Skin, Chicken Skin, Chicken Skin.

#

The mentioning of death mortifies me. When I hear death, see it, smell it from the road kill on the side of the street, I freeze. Stop. I can’t help but think of Caroline Adams and what I did to her. My best friend, Addie, has told me hundreds of times, “Maggie, you didn’t kill Caroline Adams. She was struck by a drunk driver. You didn’t kill Caroline Adams.” But Chicken Skin couldn’t believe that, and she wouldn’t let herself believe that. She didn’t believe in believing in a lie.

#

When she was in the sixth grade, Chicken Skin was deeply fascinated by the fringe. She was an odd girl, often aloof and alone. She used to wander aimlessly throughout the Pennsylvania wilderness that pressed up against her backyard. She followed a small footpath that meandered in between blackberry brambles and pokeweed. She walked until she reached a creek, where she would lift the rocks and look for salamanders beneath them.

#

She passed up a book in the public library one day: Black Magic, The Occult, and The All-Seeing Eye by R.J. Merriwether. As she felt the spine of the book, a shiver ran down her own. The book was old, bound in worn, brown leather. She picked it up and flipped through its yellowed pages. She started reading from one:

Black magic. Black magic has the power to harm your enemies. But spell casters beware: what you send out inevitably comes back to you. It is my advice to caution you against black magic or the use of these spells. Spell casters: use these at your own risk.

 When Chicken Skin read this, she immediately thought of Caroline Adams. Caroline was the snotty little girl who made up the name “chicken skin” in the first place. After that, the entire school started to call her Chicken Skin. Maggie hated Caroline Adams. So she decided to check the book out.

The librarian looked at her curiously through her glasses. “I’m sorry, young lady, but you have to be 16 or older to check out this book. It’s restricted,” she said, pointing at the restricted sticker on the side of the binding. Chicken Skin frowned and walked out of the library. She would have to come back tomorrow and steal the book from the library.

#

Chicken Skin narrowly escaped the library with the book in her large overcoat pocket that she had taken from her mother. The library, who had been shelving books, did not see her leave the scene of the crime. Chicken Skin walked back home and went downstairs into her observatory.

The basement was cluttered with tanks and critter carriers, tons of books about Pennsylvania plants and insects. When she grew up, Chicken Skin wanted to be an entomologist, or a biologist, or a gardener. She hadn’t decided which one, but all of these interests were deep at heart.

When she got to her reading chair, she removed the book from her jacket and sat down. She opened the book to the section about black magic. Again, she read the warning. Bad karma. This didn’t matter to her. She thought only of her anger for Caroline Adams, how even her best friend wouldn’t come over to her house anymore because Caroline Adams had told everyone that her mom is a nurse, and that her mom says that chicken skin spreads.

“It’s chicken pox, not chicken skin,” she said to herself. “Eczema isn’t contagious.”

Chicken Skin knew this, but there was no way of convincing her friends. She read through the black magic spells in the book. Most of them involved materials she didn’t have: plant oils, candles, a full moon, blood sacrifice. But then, she stumbled upon one spell that was perfect for her situation. It was a spell that required only a single thread.

Three knots, and with each knot, Chicken Skin had to think of the anger and hatred inside her for Caroline Adams. When she tied the first knot, she thought of how Caroline Adams first looked at her eczema and called her “chicken skin.” The kids around her started imitating chickens, bawking around her and flapping their arms folded into wings. With the second knot, she thought of how her best friend, Manny Moore, called her one day after school and said they couldn’t be friends anymore. She tied the second knot with the worst feeling of betrayal. Finally, she tied the third knot, and with this knot, she thought of Caroline Adams’s smug face, her blonde hair, and smooth skin. She wanted so desperately for something terrible to happen to Caroline Adams. Chicken Skin wanted her to pay. 

She wanted Caroline Adams to feel what it was like to be ostracized by everyone in the school.

Tomorrow, she would follow the spell book’s instructions and place the string among Caroline Adams’s belongings. Then, she would get what she had coming.

LitPubCrawl 2016

On Tuesday, April 12, I had the pleasure to attend the Literary Publishing Crawl organized by the English Department, Wilkinson College, and Leatherby Libraries. The event took place on the fourth floor of Beckman Hall and featured writers Gordon McAlpine, Ryan Gattis, Janna Levin, and Pico Iyer. The discussions were moderated by Professor Jim Blaylock.

As a creative writing student and emerging writer, I am constantly on the prowl for opportunities where I can listen to other writers. I love to learn how they found success in their writing and ask questions. I took home a little something from each of the four writers that presented at LitPubCrawl.

Gordon McAlpine was the first writer to present. He talked a lot about the publishing industry and the importance of finding an agent. He gave some good advice about writing query letters, too. He talked about writing what you know vs. writing to discover what you know, which was interesting because it had been a topic we discussed in Short Stories in class that day. Ultimately, McAlpine seemed to enjoy the idea of writing to discover: "When you find out that you are the creature of the book, it can be bizarre."

The second writer was Chapman alumnus Ryan Gattis. Ryan's most recent book involved a lot of research in Los Angeles, meeting with former gang members and getting a sense of the streets in LA. He talked a lot about the importance of research, and how that in publishing, there has been a lot of success in niche markets with smaller, independent presses. Ryan's story about meeting with former gang members was very interesting.

Janna Levin was the third writer to present, and I think she really captivated all of us when she started to talk about black holes and the mysteries of the universe. An astrophysicist, Levin's take on writing was very interesting because she mixes these elements of big science into her writing, sometimes nonfiction, sometimes fiction. Levin talked to us a lot about what happens when two black holes collide, and how the sound of this event occurring was recently recorded in February. Her passion was so inspiring, and what I took away from her speech was that a writer really needs to focus on a project at hand -- that project needs to be all that you are thinking about so you can marinate in it.

Finally, Pico Iyer spoke last, and judging by my page and a half of notes, I think he made the biggest impression on me. The way he spoke was captivating, and everything that came out of his mouth sounded seemingly profound. Iyer reminded me a lot like myself; he stated that for him, the greatest adventure comes at the desk, in the task of writing, and that everything else after (including publication) is a tax and a disappointment. How curious! Iyer spoke about the benefits of being an English major, and how this taught him to read the world through literary eyes. He, too, spoke about writing as an act of discovery, and advised all the young writers to write, write, write!

This event was super awesome, and I love that Chapman holds things like this for their English & Creative Writing students. Small things like this really go a long way to support students in their endeavors and dreams. Sometimes, when I think about my student loan debt, I wonder if I made the right choice to come to a private school all the way across the country to study something like writing. But then, events like this take place, and I'm reminded of all the places I've went and the things I've done since being at Chapman, and I am never disappointed in my choice.

After all, like Pico Iyer said in his talk, most of his banker and lawyer friends tell him they secretly wanted to be writers. We're onto the right thing. We're the ones who are brave enough to do it, giving into the unreasonable imagination within ourselves.

Join Calliope!

Calliope Art & Literary Magazine, Chapman University's undergraduate/graduate journal, is now accepting applications to be a part of the editorial board. If you are interested in a career in the publishing industry or you would like to spend late nights hanging out with people who are crazy about literature, Calliope is for you. The deadline to submit your application is April 22.

For more information, visit Calliope's blog!

Reading at The Ugly Mug

Last Wednesday, I had the wonderful opportunity to be a featured reader at The Ugly Mug in Orange. Two other Chapman poets and I read some of our own work and work from Calliope Art & Literary Magazine.

This experience was a lot of fun for me. I really enjoy sharing poetry, and it's especially fun when you get the opportunity to share your own work, as well as some of the great work that has been published in Calliope over the years.

I read the first poem that I ever had published -- a short poem called "Of Monsters and Men." It was published in the Fall 2013 edition of Calliope, which was released my first semester at Chapman as a freshman. I joked with the crowd: "This is the first poem I've published. I'll read some newer ones later tonight, so we can see how I've grown -- or degenerated -- as a poet." That, and the actual content out of the poem got everyone laughing and in good spirits.

Of Monsters and Men by Robert Julius 

Spider, spider on the wall,
it is vile to watch you crawl!
You're an eight-legged, web-weaving creep
trying to kill me while I sleep!
Too many eyes for such a small face,
we should exterminate your entire race!
I fear to touch you, so I'll take my shoe
and to your death I shall smother you! 

Human, human in the room
if only like the microscope, could you zoom.
But you see only with narrow-lens eyes,
fashioned in clothes which act as disguise.
You have forgotten that you, too, are a creature.
So lean in closer, and let me play teacher:
You tell me, "You are of monsters, and I am of men,"
but you are more monster than you are man, friend.

After this, I read a few poems by some other Chapman poets, and of course, a few poems that reflect my recent work. The night was a lot of fun! I've gone to the readings at The Ugly Mug a few times before, but it was a lot more fun when I was able to go on stage and read for over ten minutes. For those who are interested, poetry readings at The Ugly Mug happen each Wednesday at 8 PM. There is a $3 cover charge to get in.

Reading as a Writer: "Surrounded by Sleep" by Akhil Sharma

I've been stuck at the bottom of a swimming pool for months. Trying to swim. Trying not to drown. Trying to empty the water from my lungs. Trying to vomit it out from my stomach. But nothing works. And the top of the pool is like glass, is like ice, and I can hear the voices of Mother, of Ajay, of Father and uncles and aunts, but there's nothing I can do to break the surface.

Ajay comes often. When he does, he brings comic books, and he reads to me. Sometimes his feet penetrate the surface of the water, and like a catfish, I am able to swim among his toes. I am able to sense the way his feet smell with my whiskers. If I listen closely, I can hear the voices of Clark Kent and God and Ajay, and there is Mother in the back snoring, and they all want me to come out of the water so badly, but I've grown fins. I can't leave.

Then there are the aquarium technicians who make sure the pool has the right pH. They make sure that the water is rich in nutrients and they feed me. I am always the same.

Sometimes, I spot Father lurking at the edges of the pool. He looks blue from down here. He looks like a blur, like trying to find the right station on the radio. Static. Even from down here, I can smell how he has changed: the cigarettes, the beer, the heavy breathing from gaining extra weight. I know he keeps Ajay company. Someone has to. Ajay does not do well alone.

Mother is always at the edge of the pool, but she never comes in. She doesn't even stick her feet in. Sometimes, her tears fall like the Ganges, like the hair of Shivaji, and they pool into the basin where I swim. Mother's tears are full of grief, full of anger and regret for having let me go swimming that day. If I could, I would tell her that there was nothing she could have done to change what happened.

If I could, I would break the surface. But I am stuck, swimming in the blue, going from edge to edge, top to bottom, always a world away. 

What a line!

"And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection." - "The Lady with the Dog" by Anton Chekhov

How's that for poetics? 

Visions of Her

As I mentioned in class earlier today, I had the wonderful opportunity to present a short collection of poetry titled Visions of Her, which sheds some light on my own personal journey regarding grief and loss. In October 2015, my mother passed away unexpectedly, so I did a lot of writing. The poems that were the strongest were put together to make the collection which I presented at the Sigma Tau Delta 2016 Int'l Convention in Minneapolis, MN.

The poems presented at the conference can also be found in FIVE Poetry, an online journal published by FictionMagazines.com.

Here is one of the poems I presented:

My Mother’s Secrets

I.

My mother lived in the shadow of her death,

always forecasting black storm clouds over her head,

denouncing any chance for sunny skies.

She told me a secret before she died:
“The peculiar thing about a secret is that once you tell it,
it ceases to be itself anymore.”

She told me all her secrets—

in life and at the edge of her deathbed.

II.
Three weeks before you died, you told me
you were ready.

At 46, you were ready. Sure,

your life had been rough,
but I tried tirelessly to prevent you
from pricking yourself with thorns.

They were all stuck

growing inward like

an inverse rose.

III.
I remember your secret
about the gypsy-fortune-teller-girl.
How she threw down some dried-up old chicken bones
on a dusty pentagram-inscribed table
and told you she could read your future.
There was laughter

when she told you that in a past life

you had been a Chinese peasant worker,
but when she predicted you would die young,

you laughed harder,
even though she saw the fear in your eyes.

IV.

Some of your secrets belong
to a boy who cried every night,
a child who desperately tried to prevent
everything from falling apart.

His hands could never hold water.

You drowned him in a sea of suffering.
Your secrets are buried with him

in an unmarked grave.

V.

I had to let go of so much. You made me so

heavy and I wanted to be light.
You were supposed to be my anchor,
but instead you were the ball and chain
around my ankles,
drowning me once more again.

VI.

You were a woman who gave, gave, gave and gave.
Despite how much any of us sacrificed for you,

you gave back everything you stole.

Your most precious secrets were those that
only the backyard birds knew,
those who ate dried fruit and millet through winter,
and sugary-sweet-syrup in the summer.
Your secrets were carried away in the beaks

of ruby-throated hummingbirds.
Whenever I see them fluttering about,
it’s always you whom I think of first.

VII.

You were a woman with too many secrets.
I wonder how many of those
you guarded until death.
How many of your secrets were burned,
taken by the wind?
Now only the trees hear your whisper.
How many of your secrets are buried
under ashes in a silver urn?
I’ve opened it up,
but I’ve never found you—only dust.

VIII.

Your biggest secret was that you kept Death close,
like a dear friend to you.
He dug at your chest like a dog.
He haunted you at every doctor’s appointment,
hid beneath every scab.
He shared every cigarette with you,
every drink, every pill, every breath.
You got the best of him most nights,
but Death eclipses us all in the end.

IX.

I try to make sense of my feelings
in poetic rambling
because somehow admitting that your death freed me
makes me feel less guilty
if it’s done in the disguise of pretty words.
It’s not that I’ve been dishonest;
It’s not that I’m happy you are gone.
Yet when you died, your demons died with you.
And maybe by telling my secrets,
by writing myself,

like secrets,
these thoughts, these feelings,

all of it,
you, me, I, us:
we will cease to be anymore.

Reading as a Writer: "We Didn't" by Stuart Dybek

After reading "We Didn't" by Stuart Dybek, there is a lot to be discussed as far as the story goes. A drowned pregnant woman, a passionate couple on the beach, a relationship gone sour, the "Blue Ball Express." It's clear that Dybek's story is full of lots of great imagery, tense and emotional moments, and the haunting presence of the blue drowned woman who seems to be lurking just behind every word.

Reading this story as a writer, I must say that one of the things that most struck me was how intentional each sentence appeared to be. Nothing seems out of place in this story; every word and comma all contribute to where Dybek wants the story to go. The command of language, plot, and character in this story is real.

It's in the details

One of the things that makes this story so fabulous is the attention to detail. Throughout the story, small things really make this piece memorable. From a lost pair of shorts to the description of the drowned woman, all of these details contribute considerable weight to the story. We really get a sense of these characters, and especially their troubled relationship - from what they are passionate about to what they argue about, and how often, those two things overlap.

"It means the baby who drowned inside her that night was a love child - a boy - and his soul was released there to wander through the water."

Whether this line is just a strange fantasized version of what happened to the narrator's lover or something else entirely, I am not sure, but it is a detail like this which stuck out to me. This one, in particular, kept me wondering just what was going through this person's head. What is the meaning of the love child? Does it have any relationship to the moment the two lovers shared on the beach? Was the drowned pregnant woman some type of symbol? What did I miss here ... ?

Reflections on Meditation

I am a strong supporter of meditation in the classroom. Personally, I think that every class should start with a brief session of mindfulness, to get us out of our heads and in the present moment.

I believe that there is no activity more important in our society today than meditative practice.

Meditation has shown itself to be more and more important in my life. I strive to start everyday with 30 minutes of yoga and 30 minutes of meditative practice. This starts my day and allows me to be more mindful, which helps in my writing process because I notice more, remember more, and feel more in touch with my thoughts.

What I learned when I went on a Tibetan Buddhist retreat was that even the most Zen masters are bombarded by a cannonade of thoughts every day. That is just a fact. It is what the mind does: think. However, if we fail to be mindful, we will find ourselves caught up in this relentless torrent of thoughts, and we will come to identify ourselves with these thoughts. Meditation actively disengages us from this type of identification; it allows a space to open up where we can distance ourselves from our monkey minds and observe.

It's been my experience that once we begin to observe, we can learn to let go of those commonplace, repetitive thoughts that keep us stuck in our minds. By learning to let go of these, we open up a space inside of us where we can allow truly creative and genuine thought to emerge. These thoughts are where genius happens, and that for me is extremely important as a writer.

Can we learn to notice our genius among the mundane?

If you're interested in learning more about why meditation is great for college students, check out this article I wrote for The Odyssey: 5 Reasons to Start Meditation in College

Reading as a Writer: "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

"The Things He Carried"

Weston walked through the garden he and his mom planted a couple years ago. The weeds had taken over a long time ago, and he couldn't be bothered to keep up with the work anymore. He came across a few bushes of Rose of Sharon that desperately needed pruning. Below them, dandelions sprung up like gray hairs on a youthful head.

He didn't have any shears with him. There were things he didn't carry anymore.

The things he carried changed after she died. Now, in the lining of his leather wallet he got when he joined the boy scouts, was a photo of her at her wedding. In the photo, she is smiling. She was blissfully ignorant of the cancerous marble inside her left breast.

He sat down in the garden and dumped out the rest of his possessions: a moleskin journal, a change of clothes, a Swiss army knife, a few energy bars, an eighth of marijuana, rolling papers, and a lighter.

The journal was for jotting down short poems or ideas, quotes he overheard while eavesdropping, or just little doodles. He hadn't written in his journal since she passed away, but he always kept it with him, just in case.

The change of clothes was in case his father broke out in another alcoholic rage and kicked him out of the house again. He was so unstable after his wife passed away.

The Swiss army knife was something he never left home without. He had been given that knife as a gift on his tenth birthday by his grandfather.

The energy bars were peanut butter and chocolate chip, his favorite. They were just for emergencies, especially if he was to be thrown out of his house.

The rest was for the sole purpose of forgetting it all.

Notes from Observation - 2/25

Selections from the "I Am A Camera" exercise:

A little girl in a bright pink shirt runs around the fountain. Tiny hands, tiny explorer. Students writing.  Students in groups writing. Students pretending to write. Students alone writing. Tangerines writing.

"Nikki, close your legs!" a sorority girl shouts to her sister as she is photographed.

A pregnant woman and her young boy at the fountain. She stares at her smart phone, unaware of his wonderful discovery of this fountain and the way the light of the sun plays with the water. Is she prepared to pop out another one?

"What kind of computer sings?" one girls asks another. "A Dell!"

The pregnant woman and her son sit in the grass near me. He falls after losing his balance. He stares at me, probably wondering what I am dong as his mom plucks blades of grass from the earth, unsure of what to do with her hands in the absence of her phone. She takes it out from her pocket. Makes a phone call. Her son tries to get her attention.

Finally, mother and son share a real, present moment. She holds his hands and spins him around in a circle. His feet leave the ground. The sensation of flying. "Are you dizzy?" "Yes, I am SO dizzy!" He laughs. The mom says she is dizzy, too. "Grab your hat, mister!" A woman in blue named Aunt Jojo arrives. They leave.

A beautiful tree bursting with bright oranges. I wonder how they taste.

Reading as a Writer: "Roy Spivey" by Miranda July

"Roy Spivey" by Miranda July is a clever story about a woman who meets a famous movie star on an airplane, and the two hit it off rather quickly. The star, who July dubs "Roy Spivey" as to preserve his anonymity, gives the narrator his phone number and asks her to remember the last digit: 4. As the story progresses, the reader learns that the narrator has used this magic number as a way to get through some of the most difficult parts of her life.



But what, you may ask, makes this story good writing?

First and foremost, I think the popularity surrounding this story is due to July's unique writing style, blending witty and clever humor with events in her story that are almost too bizarre to be real, yet there they are, grounded in reality.

Take, for example, this bit of the text:

He stared at my arm in front of his chest for a moment, then he growled and bit it. Then he laughed. I laughed, too, but I did not know what this was, this biting of my arm.

“What was that?”

“That means I like you!”

It seemed unlikely that someone who had just bitten and been bitten by a celebrity would have this kind of problem.

This sort of encounter seems rather unbelievable. First, we must accept that this narrator actually met a celebrity on a plane. I think this is believable enough. I've seen a celebrity boarding a plane before. But then, the reader is expected to believe that this famous celebrity actually bit our narrator. Incredulous!

Yet, July's genius is that she grounds these seemingly unbelievable situations in the very believable, the mundane. She writes, "We adjusted our seat backs and tray tables" when referring to the landing. Everything about the plane ride is very mundane, very real. This setting keeps us grounded, even when the ride gets a little strange.

July's quirky humor pops up throughout the piece ("'It's Febreze.'" "'Oh, I've heard about that.'"), but ultimately, what sells this piece is the sense of loss at the end. There is a deep sense of regret after the narrator tries to call the phone number and it is disconnected. At the same time, there is an acceptance of where the narrator is in life. She's certainly not the same woman she used to be when she met Roy Spivey. And he is not the same, either.

Finally, I think what makes this story so popular is that July blurs the line between non-fiction and fiction. The story, with an unnamed narrator and a first-person perspective, comes across as rather true. Thus, the reader spends their time thinking about who this mysterious celebrity could be, and if something as ludicrous as this situation could happen to them.

Shout-outs to favorite lines:

"I shut mine again and right away opened them, slowly, and he opened his, slowly, and our eyes met, and it seemed as if we had woken from a single sleep, from the dream of our entire lives." Simply beautiful, even if it's a con.

"We walked down the tunnel between the plane and real life." Wow, this line was so cool! I've always felt that being on a plane feels like something different than real life, suspended far above the trifles of the busy world. What a way to name this feeling.

Rough Draft - "Bob the Clown"

Here's the beginnings of a weird story. This evolved from my previous post titled "The Time Traveler."

"Bob the Clown"

“We’re going to have to ask you to leave our campus, sir,” a strange woman in neon pink and a pixie cut said to an even stranger man, dressed as a clown. Sort of.

“WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE,” the clown said, picking up his cherry plum nose off the ground and adhering it to his sweaty face. His make-up was smeared from the August heat and his wig was falling off. What a mess.

“I’m going to have to call campus security,” the woman said, and I caught a flash of her name tag. She was the dean of students at this university.

“Look, man, I’m here because clowns are not respected in our society,” the clown said. “This is a protest.”

“I hate clowns,” I finally said. I noticed that no one had noticed me up until now. I suddenly felt more naked than I was, and, well, I was pretty naked, sporting only a backpack, tight shorts, and some running shoes. The university had the best gym that I could get in for free, and the girls were pretty hot, too. #gymrat

“Don’t clowns eat children?”

This visibly upset the frustrated clown. “Who said that? That’s just in the movies, man. That is why we’re here. To change the way our society perceives clowns, once and for all.”

“Does he know he is by himself?” I whispered to the dean of students.

“I’m calling campus security.”

“Okay.”

“CLOWN LIVES MATTER.”

“Aw, dude, that’s totally appropriating an entirely valid movement,” I told him.

“I MATTER.”

“That’s better,” I said. “I think.”

“Alright, fella,” a man from campus police said. “You gotta get lost. You’re disrupting the peace.”

Then the clown did the funniest thing I’ve ever seen a clown do. He pulled out that flower thing that all clowns have, and he used it to squirt water right in the face of the campus security officer. This surprised the officer, who started chasing after the clown, but man, was that clown fast. I knew I had to chase after him so I could ask him a few questions. He made me laugh. The first clown to ever make me laugh.

***

I found Bob the Clown on the corner of two busy streets, a couple hundred yards away from main campus. He was smoking a cigarette and crying. The rest of his makeup had all washed away. His wig was hanging at the back of his head.

“Dude, what you did back there,” I said, taking a deep breath after just having chased down this clown. “That shit was hilarious.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, fighting through teary eyes.

“What’s your name, dude?” I asked him.

“Bob,” he said. “Bob the Clown.”

“Alright, Bob the Clown. I wouldn’t usually ask this, but like, would you want to come to my party on Friday?”

The clown’s frown turned upside down. He said in a weird voice: “Is it a birthday party?”

“Don’t use that voice.”

“Is it a birthday party?” He coughed, exhaling smoke into my face.

“No, it’s a college party.”

“I’ve never performed at a college party before,” Bob the Clown said. There was something in his eyes that suggested that I should probably retract my offer. But this was exactly what I needed to impress my friends after what happened last semester that got me expelled.

“Great,” I said. “I’ll see you on Friday. 9 o’clock.”

Bob the Clown just smiled at me, his cigarette hanging out of his mouth. As I walked away from him, he never stopped staring. What a guy. This party was going to be amazing. Bob the Clown would be a hit with everyone. I just knew it.

The Time Traveler

Okay, maybe I only picked this picture because of Zac Efron's stunning physique, but I'm sure there's a story here. Oh, God, I can't think of a story to write. But no. No. You cannot go back up and change it now. You picked this one. You're stuck with it. You can change it, you know. No. This will be your challenge. You can do it.

What is Zac Efron doing with a backpack and orange short shorts? This is an interesting picture. You can do this. And there's a guy dressed up like a clown, well, almost a clown, and a woman in pink with strands of pink hair. She looks pregnant. They're at Braxton University, but what if they were somewhere else? Can I do that? Is that allowed?

That pregnant woman looks stuck in time, like stuck in the 80s or 90s or something. I don't think I'm doing this assignment right at all. My name is Zac, and I came to party.

Yeah, you did.

Gay pride parades are not what they used to be.

I can't really write a story right now. This picture is just too bizarre. Why did I choose it again? God damn it, Rob, it's because of shirtless Zac Efron again, isn't it? You always do this.

-"Look, I'm here because clowns are not respected in our society."
-"What is this, a clowns' rights movement?"
-"I'm here because I heard there would be quinoa."
-"What the Hell is keen-woo?"
-"You're all just drunk."
-"Clowns don't eat quinoa. They eat little children."
-"That's just in the movies, man. This is why we're here. To change the way our society perceives clowns, once and for all."
-"I thought this was a gay pride parade."
-"Maybe we're time travelers."

Braxton was that kind of university.

Now this is getting too confusing for me. I'm sorry, I didn't know you wrote experimentally.

"I'm not even a clown, man. I just dress like one." "And I'm not really pregnant. This is just a bowling ball."

But wait? What are they looking at? I think that's really the question.

Reading as a Writer: "Emergency" by Denis Johnson

I admire the craft of writing shown in Denis Johnson's "Emergency." Johnson demonstrates a clear command of language without ever becoming convoluted. He brings a story that is as fresh as it is erratic -- patchy, even -- but all in aims at conveying a few themes and a wild, trippy tale that seems to have sprung out from the drug-luvin' counterculture of the late 60s.

Abstraction or Reality

To me, this story is really about abstraction and reality (in a literary sense), and as an extension, fantasy versus reality (in a symbolic sense). What we want may rarely be what we get, and we see that in this story. For example, Georgie is a character who, at heart it seems, really cares for others and wants to save them. This can be seen from his work in the hospital, as well as when he and Fuckhead run over a mother rabbit and cut the babies from inside her. Georgie desperately wants to feed them sugar and milk to save them. This, however, never becomes a reality -- mainly due to the characters' drug use and consequential negligence. This is one of the core elements of the story that dominates throughout: the fantasy/abstraction is that Georgie wants to be a savior, a healer, but the reality is that he is addicted to drugs and cannot actualize his desires.

Abstraction and reality can be seen in Johnson's writing as well. Where does the author draw the line between fantasy and reality? The story begins in relative abstraction: Georgie is mopping up the floor, which he sees as being stained with blood. To our narrator, appropriately christened "Fuckhead," the floor appears clean. Immediately, Johnson brings us into this world of what is real and what is not real, based on the perception of the characters and their hallucinations. It was a different time. Doing drugs was totally cool if you worked in a hospital.

The erratic writing style employed by Johnson helps to convey the sense of being stoned on whatever pharmaceutical cocktail the two main characters swallowed. Short sections dominate the first part of the story, shifting perspectives and introducing us to the lives of the characters. I really liked the disjointed nature of the different scenes. It threw me into the story.

When a man walks into the ER with a hunting knife lodged in his eye, the scene is relatively calm. One would expect that there would be some kind of panic, but the calm nature of all the characters is what really stuck out to me. This surprising feature of the scene made the story more memorable for me.

Surprising Language

On a closing note, I wanted to mention that Johnson's surprising language was something that I took away from this story. Throughout reading this short story, I found myself in awe of a few lines because of their bizarre-ness or because they made me laugh and were done well. Here are a couple of gold-star winners:

• "We'll get some milk and sugar and all that, and we'll raise them ourselves. They'll get as big as gorillas." (page 52) Whaaaaat?!! Rabbits as big as gorillas? I want some of what these guys are having.
• "A bull elk stood still in the pasture beyond the fence, giving off an air of authority and stupidity." (page 54) I just love the contrast here of "authority" and "stupidity." Somehow, this makes sense.