Connections and Disconnections

A few days ago our family DSL line was disconnected for no reason that we, or the Internet provider, could figure out. DH’s polite phone call to the service center was answered with an equally polite admission of some technical mishap, but sorry-can’t-fix-it. A technician will have to come to the house, and oh, so sorry, the earliest will be a week from now. By the time I’ll post this our connection would have been restored. But I wanted to record this moment. Besides, what else does a writer do?

The experience of a super-wired household losing connectivity is both stressful and illuminating. In the grand scheme this is not even a dot, no dot com either. But holding a flashlight and surveying the situation revealed this picture.

  

Us: two teenagers, one tech-savvy adult, one writer, and a temperamental fluffy cat.

Two teens- flailing, trying to figure out how to do their homework. This is not an excuse. Who knew that high-schools and colleges now assign homework online, and some of it can only be done on the Internet.

DH- feeling not only disconnected, but disrespected. Getting a ‘good deal’ from an Internet provider that turns out to mean lousy service can do this even to the most polite and accommodating. Muttering to self a lot.

Writer- I find myself wondering if there’s a story in this. At least a blog post (this!) for sure. Wondering how many people think I am mad at them or plain cold for not answering their Emails.

Fluffy Cat- she’s faring the worst, absorbing all those irritated-but-holding-it-in vibrations. That is a cat specialty- to sense her humans’ condition.

Something knocked on the door of my memory house. I recall my early childhood in Israel before anyone on our block had a telephone. I’m not that ancient. Most Israelis did not have private phones until the sixties, and even then, the country was wired slowly.

How did we do things then?

Earliest memory: We were the first to have our own telephone, and neighbors lined up at our door to use it. They brought coins to cover our cost, and my mother waved their offerings. What are neighbors for? Everyone wanted to make a call even though there were few who could receive their calls. For a couple of years there was an almost steady line at our apartment door. It was a neighborhood meeting. A block party that went on and on.

This memory, surely distorted by time and glossed over by a polishing cloth of sentimentality, made me wonder: were we less connected then?

Linguistics

My son, taking a linguistics course in college, is enjoying it immensely. But as he shared tidbits from his professor’s wisdom, this old joke popped into my mind.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language where a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

This made me think of the subtlety of voice. For writers it isn’t the every dotted ‘i’ which is the meat of writing. Editors were created for a reason. It is the elusive quality, that thing called ‘voice.’

The little story above^ jars me from the world of academic analysis to where real writing makes an appearance.

Yeah, right. Tell me about it.

Who's That?

I’ve heard that no one ever sees themselves as others see them. There’s no way to prove this, but is seems intuitive enough.

So when my then thirteen-year-old daughter looked at me intently, then at a piece of paper, scribbled and fussed and, finally, handed me what she thought was a portrait of me, I was baffled at the image.

Who’s that? ME?

The image hung on the inside of my closet. I didn’t recognize it as myself, but I loved the gesture.

On those days when my daughter was in a less than friendly mood, I would look at the smiling image she had made. I noticed that her mother is portrayed with intensely green eyes, (I wish) and wearing adorable earrings. I liked the person inside my closet, even if she was not me.

That red haired person cheered me up on many grey days. She’s neat one, her. Always smiling. And look at those teeth. They haven’t yellowed with age, or from too much coffee. In fact, I might like to have coffee and chat with her. Bet she’s got a fun story or two.

And now she’s out of the closet.

The Rabbi and the Donkey

My father came to refer to my picture book texts as ‘Rabbi & Donkey’ stories. I have never written a picture book with a Rabbi in it, and while my father was alive and reading my stories, none had talking animals.

‘Rabbi  & Donkey’ was my father’s code-name for all picture books. He liked my longer books better. It was our inside joke.

So for Yom Kippur the year before he passed away, I wrote, just for him, my first and only Rabbi and Donkey story.

Yom Kippur this year is fast approaching. I want to share with you my gift to my father. It is as short as it is goofy, and he liked it.

The Rabbi and the Donkey

By Mirka M. G. Breen

   A Rabbi was walking on a beautiful sunny day to Yom Kippur services, when he saw a donkey on the side of the road. The donkey was looking decidedly gloomy.

“Why such a long face?” said the Rabbi to the donkey.

 “I’m a donkey, that’s the way my face is,” answered the donkey.

“Don’t be such a smart ass," said the Rabbi. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I can’t help being an ass,” said the donkey.

The rabbi scratched his beard, then his face lit up. “None of us can help being what we are. No atonement for that. But we can help what we do, and for that we must atone. Thank you, Donkey! You just gave the Yom Kippur sermon,” he said.

 “And you just gave me a reason to be gloomy,” said the donkey. “I always dreamt I would be a race horse when I grew up.”

{Written on Yom Kippur 5769, especially for Abraham Golek}

Mitzvahs

With the Jewish High Holidays around the corner, I thought I'd throw some ponderings to the universe. I'm definitely not a Rabbi, but I play one in my mind while vacuuming or folding the laundry. My late father noted my tendency to be ‘teachy-preachy,’ and so I haven’t changed.

Warning: A sermon, or what we call a DRASHA, follows.

G-d bless anyone who steps in where needed.

 There’s a Jewish belief that the world depends on the constant existence of the thirty-six righteous ones- simple unknowns, who do the right thing where others don’t. There may be more than thirty-six, but the number must never be below for then the world as we know it would cease to exist.

Taking this symbolic notion not so literally (the Hassidim actually do) I would say that the fabric of humanity depends on at least a small number of righteous acts.

I have never been one of those uber-righteous. I am more focused on just doing what I consider my narrow responsibilities. I have a friend who has so exceeded hers, I think of her as possibly one of those LAMED-VAVNIKS, =The Thirty-Sixers.

May this day give us the opportunity to do a Mitzvah. And laundry, now folded, doesn’t count.

Dreams and Gifts

While most night dreams are undigested odds n’ ends of the day, some dreams seem to have a different quality.

I think of these dreams as gifts, though I dare not name the giver.

I’ve had a few amazing dreams that let me resolve, emotionally, some earthly issues. I’ll tell you about the first. It helped me relate to my mother when she was declining. My mother had progressive dementia for seven years before she passed away.

Thirty years before, her mother, my grandmother, had an almost identical decline. When I was in ninth grade my mother flew to Florida to arrange a better nursing home for her mother. When I graduated from high school I came to the United States. After a coast to coast voyage with a friend, I joined my mother who was already in Florida.

I was shocked at the nursing home- it was an all right one, but I’d never been to one before. The state of the residents was heartbreaking. I couldn’t believe G-d could allow people to get to this stage and just linger on for years. I was eighteen, and knew of people who had died of cancer, were killed by war, or died of a heart attack. I knew of the Holocaust. But I had never seen corridors and gardens full of ‘the living dead.’

We visited my grandmother every day for the month we were there, and these visits did not get easier. Although I did not tear up uncontrollably like the first time, my head throbbed and my throat constricted on every visit.
My grandmother did not recognize us, but kept staring at me. “I could look at her all day,” she’d say. The other residents stared at me also. I was the only visitor younger than middle age.

I was haunted by the notion that her body was there, but where was she?

 ~~~

About two years after her death I had one of those gift-dreams. In it, I came to a great mansion, sort of like the gracious white-pillars and wrap-around porches one might have seen in the old south. In a flower filled lobby, kind-faced people told me my grandmother was ‘upstairs.’

Grandma Sarah came down, looking radiant. She was wearing one of those whole-garden-on-my-hat sort of hat. She told me she was fine and happy. She asked that I let my mother know she was in a very good place.

I told my grandmother I had been worrying about this for a long time, and when I saw her last, wondered if she was even aware.

My grandmother said, “I was always in there, I just lost the ability to let you know.”

I woke up from this dream feeling different.

Whenever I see someone whose awareness seems diminished, I remind myself that they are still there.

~~~

Wistful thoughts on this national memorial day. Like Scarlet, I’ll think of something funny tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day. 

Writers writing about writing and about being a writer

After re-reading the eloquent Take Joy by Jane Yolen, and being reminded by a dear friend that it’s all been definitively said, ages ago,  by the poet Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet, I ask myself: “Hey, Self, does the world need yet another writer ruminating on being one?”

And Self answers: “Does the world need another story? Does the world need another book?”

 I found me answering, simply, NO. PROBABLY NOT. DON’T KNOW.

What the world needs is above my pay-grade. It’s challenging enough to understand what I need, and what those dear to me need.

And so once again, I resolve to continue and tell my stories. I wish all of you the same. Tell yours, while Ol’ Man River will just keep rolling along.

If happiness is spending your life your own way, I wish you much happiness.

Time Capsule

I’ve posted before about the artistic impulse to ‘leave something behind.’ (‘Why?’ August 16 2011) I think of it as creating time capsules.

I just opened an unexpected time capsule.

My father died on November 28^th, 2009, in Jerusalem. His wife and life-partner, my step-mother (though she rejects the title) still grieves. Sorting through and making order in the home they had shared for forty-five years, she found a roll of never-developed black and white film.

Nothing on the outside told of the film’s age or content. But a specialist film developer brought it out.

From the many images of my siblings, it seems the photographs are from 1972. Nearly forty years after they were taken, and almost two years after his death, my father is peaking at me from behind a tree.

He was a gentle man and a gentleman, who chose to describe himself (tongue-in-cheek) as “an optimist and a guide for the perplexed.” He even had this printed on his name card.

I look at the tree, which forms a V.

I make the sign back to it with my hand.

Peace.

Publish or perish?

Another writer posted on a kid-lit chat board that she no longer cared if she got published. Her post made me reflect on my own journey. I’m either lazy or impressed with my post (possibly both) that I thought I would repeat it here.

When I began submitting, I gave myself an allowance: a number of rejections before I should give it up. (It was a ridiculously low number.)

When that number passed, I gave myself a time-frame by which I must have my first acceptance. (It too was absurdly short, in hindsight.)

Then I decided I must get my ‘break’ before I reach a certain age.

When that came and went, I took stock. I realized that I was happiest writing the first draft to a new story. The rest was justification for spending the time.

That settled it- I will throw in the towel when I no longer have these precious moments of happiness and can not see the point. No more numbers, dates, benchmarks.

That was when the first acceptance sneaked up on me. I’ve had many moments of happiness since, getting acquainted with parts of the process I hadn’t had a chance to before.

But no matter, I know THE WRITING IS THE THING.

A Rule for Writers

There is a lot of advice on how to be or not to be a writer. One bit I heard too many times to count is that a writer should write everyday.

It is a good idea to approach any endeavor in a disciplined way. But I wondered how a writer of primarily picture book texts, can write every single day.

Picture books are ideas, concepts, visions. The text is short. Can a writer sit down and pen a new picture book every day, day after day? Is mulling over the placement of one word considered ‘writing?’ Does revising count as writing? When the advice-givers say ‘write every day,’ do they mean any sort of writing? Letters to friends or even grocery lists?

Over time I came to understand my own writing rhythms, and assign myself quotas that made sense and worked for me.

I do not write a new paragraph of fiction everyday. I understand this advice in a way that keeps me productive.

So if I dare give advice now, I’d say- don’t be literal in understanding advice. (Though being literate is still a good thing, wink.)

Writerly Rules

Many how-to articles tell of rules for writers. I haven’t met a writerly-rule that hasn’t benefited from being broken now and then.

I just ^ did it. I made up a word, writerly. Using made up words is not a good habit for writers, the rule-makers say. James Joyce and Dr. Seuss were exempted, but they were brilliant.

And don’t use the passive voice, such as I just did. ‘Were exempted’ is passive, and passive construction is weak.

And what’s worse is that the made up word is one that ends with the dreaded ‘ly.’ Writers should not use adjectives and adverbs. Adverbs and adjectives weaken prose.

Beginning writers should follow the rules.

Not.

Dr. Seuss wasn’t always The Dr. Seuss.

Passive construction has a special place- to convey vagueness. To be a diffusing voice.

Adverbs and adjectives make good shortcuts in the right places.

I like knowing the rules, and I love breaking them.

Why?

I recall the thrill of walking on the beach in Israel. I was no older than four, kicking sand, when I found an ancient Roman coin.

The coin was brown with tarnish and had uneven edges. For a second I thought it was a pebble. But a closer look showed letters, and the head profile of some guy. The coin didn’t look like a treasure.

The thrill I felt was a realization that someone, a real Roman person, had been there.

Writers write for the same reasons artists create. We write because we have something to say, or we want to say something even when we don’t know what, and because we want to leave something behind. Something that says I was here.

IN THE BEGINNING…

The key to writing is to have a beginning, middle and an end.

This is the beginning.

It’s also the beginning of my new blogging adventure. I had to start somewhere, because my kind publisher said blogging is helpful. It helps readers connect, it helps a writer keep the writing flow, and it helps to keep the writer out of trouble. Because idle hands… you know.

So here it begins.