A MYSTERY, INSIDE AN ENIGMA

 

“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”

That which is so dense and secretive as to be totally indecipherable or impossible to foretell. It is from a line used by Winston Churchill to describe the intentions and interests of Russia in 1939

 

I was thinking about what makes an enigmatic character. Think Inspector Dalgleish from the P.D. James novels, or Clarisse from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Charismatic and lovable, but what drives them is only hinted at, never neatly solved.

 

These are my favorite kind of characters and my favorite sort of stories, where everything isn’t neatly wrapped in a bow.

 

Standing in awe of the mystery is what I consider contemplation prayer to be. It is how I understand notions of the divine. It is also what makes for the most powerful art.

 

The headwinds, when writing for young readers in particular, are the how-to conventions of the publishing professionals who insist on clarity of motives and neat endings that resolve all questions.

 

Maybe this is why I keep The Little Prince front of mind. He asked a lot of questions and, while a few answers float in here and there, the little guy himself remained an enigma.

 

This little prince is testament that even stories for all ages can feature riddles wrapped in mystery inside an enigma.

Looking for Mr. Monk

On the last day of the last year, noon-time December 31 2017, Mr. Monk vanished.

He left to go in the back yard, and I have not seen him since.

I took this photograph half an hour before he left that last day.

We have three cats, and I love them all. But Mr. Monk was, for me, the cat of a lifetime.

For eight weeks, I walked everywhere and looked, called, tapped on closed garages, rattled cat treats, and prayed. I posted with the microchip company, pasted Lost Cat posters nearby, and sent notices to all the shelters within thirty miles. I went in person to nearby shelters a few times. I let the neighbors know, posted on the neighborhood site, and spoke to people feeding feral colonies nearby.

Two different neighbors spotted a cat they thought could be Mr. Monk. We bolted immediately, both times, to check. Nope.

A kind neighbor thought she spotted a dead cat that could be him. Our car was in the garage, so she came in person with her car to take DH to check the body. Nope.

Another neighbor spotted a cat that looked like Mr. Monk on her security camera in the dead of night. She sent me the video. I looked at this lookalike and saw the makings were not the same. Nope.

Recently, through our listing on a website for lost/found animals, I got contacted by someone two neighborhoods away, asking if the enclosed photo is of our Monk. That lost kitty showed up in her backyard. His face came closest, and we spoke on the phone. The kind lady sent more photos. My heart was pounding.
Alas, another nope.

Yesterday, more than three months after we put Lost Cat posters nearby, (and the posters survived much rain and wind to still be hanging) we got contact from the chip registry that a neighbor saw our poster and may have seen our cat. We made contact with this neighbor, another photo exchange, and another nope.

I didn’t know any of these neighbors before, and felt so grateful to have their eyes and ears.

And my four-year-old soul-cat, my beloved Monk, is still missing.

While looking in person, the local animal shelter advised checking cats that are found and cats that are offered for adoption, because even microchips fail occasionally. I continue to do this every day.

In the course of looking at the cats online, I spotted one of the cats in a rescue, who needed a forever home. Something about her face and description just nagged at me. Day after day, and this kitty was still there. I did what I didn’t intend to. I made contact with the rescuer.

A few days later, this little one became our cat. DH named her Nougat, a play on “New Cat” and her coloring. He also said that should Mr. Monk miraculously return to us, well, “we’ll have four cats.”

Meet Nougat---

Little Nougat came to us with diarrhea, tapeworm, ear mites, cow-hocked hind legs, chin acne, (yup, cats can have that) a slight fever and a croupy cough. We have dealt with these, (minus her Charlie Chaplin legs, as "cow-hocked" is genetic and permanent) and with her adjustment. She’s doing beautifully, and our other cats have slowly been more accepting.

And I will never give up on Mr. Monk. I made my Instagram a one-topic site, where I can at least see him when I need to. I call it Looking for Mr. Monk.

https://www.instagram.com/mirkabreen/

January 30, This Day in HISTORY

There is something ominously grim when I look at January 30^th’s notable marks. On this calendar day in 1933, Hitler was sworn as chancellor of Germany. On this calendar day in 1948, Gandhi was assassinated. On this calendar date in 1956, African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

That’s just for starters. On this date, also---

·         1925 – The Government of Turkey expels Patriarch Constantine VI from Istanbul.

·         1930 – The Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the extermination of the Kulaks.

·         1969 – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The police break up the impromptu concert.

·         1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers open fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people; another person later dies of injuries sustained.

·         1979 – A Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo.

And so much more.

If this is your birthday, I apologize. I hope you celebrate with gusto and do something wonderful so the cloud hovering over this date lightens a little. Many small and a few great actions can make the kettle less black. Let’s polish it into a beautiful reflective silver shine.

I don’t know what is set in stone, predestined, or guided by unseen patterns. What I am sure of is that what we do matters.

History was. Now let’s make some.

The GIANT Experiment

Those of us who use the Window 10 operating system must have noticed the ever-changing screen photos that Microsoft so generously gifts us, always with the question at the right-hand corner of the screen asking whether we like their new selection. 

The choice of reply is couched in the gentle affirmation (“I like it”) or gentler negation, (“Not a fan”) with the promise to change the photograph if you clicked on the latter.

I noticed that the Microsoft deities change the ones I liked almost as fast. I also noticed they bring back some I decidedly was not a fan of before, and told them so. With the exception of two photographs in the many I have given feedback to, none were really what I wanted to have on my screen. But I found myself saying I liked the ones that were not too queasy-making after a whole series of truly unpleasant photos appeared as I feverishly clicked on the Not-a-fan option. I was ready to settle for the Not-as-awful ASAP.

Granted, all the photographs are technically brilliant. All would have their fans somewhere. But I tend to dislike close-up photos of  mechanical implements (think gears, tools, and such) or icy winter shots during a cold spell. I don’t care for the photos that give me vertigo, either. I’m not a fan of the desert or any arid landscape, having come from a land that has too much of that.

I want green and lush. I want to feel nourished. Once in awhile, the Micro-deities indulge me. I click on the positive, and get to “keep” the image for a wee bit. They have yet to offer what I really love— a cozy indoor space replete with rich traditional textiles and many books. I’d stay in such a space forever.

This whole thing got me thinking about the purpose of this operation. The Micro-deities do not do things without a purpose. So, Bill—what gives?

Until someone somewhere tell us the whole story, I have concluded this is some sort of experiment where the algorithms calculate not only who likes what, but also how fast they are at telling. This would explain the returning of rejected images. Maybe they were rejected on average at 1.2 seconds before, and on second round, they are rejected faster/slower. I wouldn’t be shocked if someone at one of the Ivy-leagues is compiling the data, paying the Micro-deities a handsome sum, and devising the cleverest way to market something.

It isn’t personal, and no one has to reply to the prompts. But you know what? I’d like to know what. That is— what’s up with that?

Invisibility Cloak

There are days when I wonder if I’ve inadvertently donned an invisibility cloak. You know, the Inbox is empty, the phone doesn’t buzz, and whatever good vibrations I had sent out seem to have faded at the universe’s horizon.

A good friend told me she just had one of those days. “I wondered if I actually died, and I’m the only one who doesn’t know it,” she said.

Exactly.

It doesn’t happen to me often. My inbox influx can testify to that. But when it does, it’s both eerie and unsettling.

My best way of coping with outer silence is to write, because that is a form of turning inward while staying wide awake to life. Another helpful action is to spend some time “liking” and such on social sites. (I keep it genuine, for to do otherwise would bring a feeling of spiritual demotion.) Facebook will immediately bring into my inbox others who liked the same.

Hey, it’s proof I’m alive.

The next day the floodgates open, and all those waves I had sent out come back to shore, seemingly at once.

 

This is good to remember: unlike earthly death, the invisibility cloak will slide off. It isn’t permanently glued on.

STORIES and HISTORIES

Ever wonder about the backstory of pets or objects in your household?

Where was this antique embroidery before it came to rest on my dresser? Who was my kitty’s mother, and why was he left at the doorstep of the animal-shelter?

If I didn’t witnessed the birth, or in the case of an object— was there at its making, there’s a mysterious backstory I invariably find myself wondering about. And then...

I conjure a story.

Storytellers have this advantage. We can make up likely backstories, and even get so attached to the stories that we no longer know where our conjuring began, and when verifiable reality took over.

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that history is filled with the same: someone filled a gap in certain knowledge, someone then repeated it, while citing the source, then a third scholar cited both as verifying each other, and voila—conjured backstory became history.

Bet it happens more than we think it does.

Back to my perch, conjuring backstories, I think how enjoyable it is for writers. We get to leave no stone unturned. We get to explain it all. Everything can—and then does—make sense. Even if I can allow for the unexplained, unexplainable, or unknown— my beta readers will insist I fill in every gap. Otherwise, they’d say, “This part doesn’t make sense.”

The Gore and the Glory

P.S.

It’s all glorious!

 

A short time ago DS went, on a lark, to audition for a role in a movie. He is not an actor and this was just going to be an experience, a la “why not? I won’t get it.”

 

He was notified that he got the job. We called him, in jest (and some amazement) the movie star.

But stardom didn’t last. After a few emails and even a rehearsal, as well as more fun details about his part, an email notified him of a change in the project’s direction and that his part has been cut.

 

Easy come, easy go? Well, it’s never easy.

 

I was reminded of my first traditional book contract. It came out of the blue from a small but traditional publisher. The advance was paid, the illustrator hired and everything was moving full steam ahead. The contract, in retrospect, was very generous on all counts. The experience of working with the editor and watching my story be illustrated was joyous.

 

And then it wasn’t. The small publisher closed its doors.

 

I think about a former neighbor, a talented writer who got her first contract to publish a thriller with one of the publishing giants, and a six-figure advance. For a year everything was on track, and then… By now you can guess. The project was canceled. Gone. Bye-bye.

 

Oh, it was great while it lasted. If only…

Back in Paris, where he’s in graduate school, DS was feeling bummed out. Then he did a few things right. He called his sister at Juilliard in New York, and they skyped for two hours. She told him about her many setbacks, (competitions that fizzled and auditions that didn’t work the way she hoped) and together they helped each other. I am so happy for my kids that they have the relationship they do.

The second thing he did right is write up a schedule for the next few weeks, one that is both productive for what he has to do and includes some things he wants to do, so he has what to look forward to. All in all, a positive response that makes me feel optimistic for him.

 

As one who has had quite a few “almosts” in publishing in addition to projects that made it to publication, I know well that nothing is until it is.

 It’s how you respond that matters. Abandon ship? Get back on the horse? These literary clichés have actual and practical meaning. Navigating is not simple, because real life, if it’s worth living, does not come with MapQuest directions.

DS started out just looking for the experience. He got that. Nothing can take that away. It’s all glorious, in the end.