Life is Short – Enjoy It, Love It Now

We never know how long our lives will be. I’ve been pondering this since the brutal murders of 20 six- and seven-year-olds in Connecticut. And now last night with the news that one of my professors from grad school, Jake Adam York, just 40 years old, had died this past Sunday of a stroke. In perfect health. Just beginning to climb the pinnacle of his poetic expression, awarded a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship of $25,000 last month, getting published left and right. And he’s gone. Along with those 20 children. 
 

I don’t follow the news very closely because I don’t have cable TV, but I used to watch CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC news and rarely a TV show outside of that. Now I get my news late. It’s not so bad because I have more time to read, to write, to communicate on Facebook and through email. I received the news late about Jake.

I hadn’t read all Jake’s poetry collections, published since 2005, when I was taking his poetry class. And now I owe him that.

One of the little girls buried this week in Newtown was Jessica, 6 years old, and she was studying and reading about orca whales. I owe Jessica some research about orca whales.

What I owe myself is to live my life in the best way possible each day. To be grateful for every minute I spend on the planet. To live and realize my own passion for writing.

What is it you follow, what unsaid things are on your mind today? Today. Do it today. Say it today. And if you have lived a life according to your passion, pat yourself on the back and keep going.

I saw this quote recently at the beginning of Mary Karr’s second of three memoirs, the one called Cherry:

“Time’s march is a web of causes and effects, and asking for any gift of mercy, however tiny it might be, is to ask that a link be broken in that web of iron, ask that it be already broken. No one deserves such a miracle.” —Jorge Luis Borges, A Prayer

 Odd as it may sound, that gives me peace. We are not privy to the why of life. Only the what.

Visiting Vincent Van Gogh

     Going to the Van Gogh Exhibit at the Denver Art Museum is a stunning experience – not just to view the beauty of the works but to watch the development of Van Gogh’s artistry over his short lifetime. 

     I went to the exhibit with two friends, Leigh Dehne (he and I have ridden trains together but never visited an art museum) and Adrienne Baker, friend, co-conspirator and both of us former college writing teachers. Adrienne and I made comparisons to learning how to first write a five-paragraph essay (thesis, three supporting ideas, supporting details in each of the middle three paragraphs, and conclusion) to Van Gogh’s learning basic tools and techniques of painting, sketching, drawing and then developing those so he could reveal his ultimate artistic genius.

     Along those same lines, a writer would learn that five-paragraph essay first and then using that same format be able to write a much longer, more complex paper...and even a book. Or a poet might be learning the elements of poetry and developing along those lines. An artist is an artist, but all of them, in all genres, must learn their craft and many skills to evolve fully.

     Van Gogh took these basic lessons in art and then would turn them into his own style. Copying admired artists is a technique for becoming competent across all artistic disciplines. Van Gogh joined the Impressionists in Paris and later in southern France, at first copying some of their expertise, but then always making the techniques fit his own unique and growing style. It was always Vincent emerging. No cutout copy of another artist.

     We saw early works that used mostly dark, basic colors – blacks and browns and all versions of those. Sketches, drawings, then paintings. He liked to paint people, real people and not models. Peasants. Working in the fields. Their bodies and faces were real, and you could feel the emotion coming from their faces, their implied body movements.

     Then he began to add color. Just highlights at first. A touch of blue here, a bit of the French flag and the red stripes in it. Then the people changed. No longer peasants, they were people with their faces blurred and their clothes that of urbanites, walking in parks in Paris. Much more color was added, but beginning with the less brilliant – mostly variations of blue with vibrant touches of red and orange.

     The more he learned, the more he painted, the more colors appeared and began to dominate his paintings.

     Texture and brush styles were definitely his own. Many times he applied paint thickly so there was a depth just from the amount of paint on his canvasses.

     As we moved through the rooms signifying his stages, we learned more about his artistry and his unique brush marks, choices of color, and choices of setting.

     When I walked into the final room with his last paintings, my breath was stolen from me. By the vibrancy and fullness of the colors that I felt enveloped by – emotionally, physically, mentally. All his distinct signifying style marks were depicted in these paintings, but they had all come together to make a whole. He had literally disappeared into his canvasses. He was the poetry, he was the color, he was the brush mark.

     He painted forests of violet trees, skies with clouds so grand they were only possible from his heart and mind and hand, mountains with thick outlines impossible in nature, but certainly Vincent’s mountains. Colors so brilliant they stung my eyes yet I wanted more and more evidence of his artistic passion, more paintings, all of them.

     I wish I had turned around and gone back to the beginning of the exhibit and then walked quickly through the rooms, taking in his development, his distinct style, and then lingered even longer, in wonder, in the last room, in the crowning moment and cohesive whole of Vincent Van Gogh, the artist.

The Many Ways Reading Has Changed My Life

You know how you read a book and feel consumed by the world of it? It is changing your life and you believe the change is radical and permanent. And then a few years later, you can barely remember the title or the author’s name. Some books, though, remain with you and they aren’t the ones you expected to still be alive in your memory and affect how you think today.

I have that kind of piercing, all-consuming sensation sometimes with nonfiction books. Most of the time, though, it comes only with books of fiction. 

One of the first books I recall clearly in this way was Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I was so excited when I discovered Vonnegut’s books, and this one in particular. He includes the "Books of Bokonon" in Cat’s Cradle and I took the time to write down all the lines from those Books. Years later I turned the lyrics into part of a musical composition for a music theory class at the University of Hawaii. 

When I first read Vonnegut's book, I was deeply mired in the depth and darkness of my own depression while experiencing my first temperate zone winter – in Washington, D.C., age 23. Reading the book was a huge respite for me.

That year I also read Watership Down by Richard Adams and was delighted and surprised by the warlike rabbits. I bought a tiny notebook and wrote down all the names of the plants in the book. I still have the notebook somewhere.

It seems that all books assigned to me in school – until I got to graduate school – were meaningless and trite. I’m sure the list was impressive but I just didn’t care about them. Beginning with Jack and Jill.

The one novel of all the ones I read in my master’s program (probably 50-60 total) that stays with me is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

I eventually discovered that it begins with a sentence that is exactly 100 words long and that sentence contains, in its perfectly grammatical and punctuated form, the entire architecture of the novel, from beginning to middle to end. One hundred words. How many times did I read it without really seeing it, understanding it?

Eventually I wrote a paper about the book and this coded sentence. When did Woolf write that sentence? After she finished writing the book? Who would know? Perhaps Leonard Woolf, but he’s gone now, too. Did anyone ask him, ask her about it?

The book still holds my attention.

Since then other authors have moved me, enthralled me, puzzled me. Kazuo Ishiguro and The Remains of the Day. Many puzzling, intricately drawn characters and scenes, plus multiple themes and sub-plots. Atonement by Ian McEwan, though not so much his other books.  

The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr, a memoir about a person and writer extraordinaire. The book was published in 1995 and changed the world of memoir writing forever. The genre took a hard right turn and everyone writing memoirs has been playing catch-up to Mary Karr ever since. I read it before I wrote my memoir in 2007 and received implicit permission to express myself courageously.

Thank you, Virginia Woolf, for writing because of your talent and in spite of your depression. (And damn, I wish there had been antidepressants for you.) Thank you, Mary Karr, for your big-as-Texas heart and your wide open writing – skills, storytelling, sharp memories, all of it.

These two women (plus Dorothy Sayers for her perfectly designed and charmingly written murder-detective novels starring Lord Peter Wimsey) inspired me to write and to keep on reading and searching for books and inspiration and telling my own stories.

Who inspires you and what did they write that changed your life?

A Sleep Whine

I wish to hell I could sleep at night. I sincerely hate not being able to sleep. Even my naps during the day are pathetic gestures at making up for what I lost at night. I walk around with burning eyes most of the day.

Oh, last night driving home on I-25 for about 40 minutes, I could have fallen asleep at the wheel. And not really cared, except I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Yeah, driving ­– that makes me real drowsy.

But when I got home, not so sleepy anymore. My stomach hurt, still full from eating so much Thanksgiving food. And it hurt into the night, too. Finally had to take something for heartburn.

I must have gotten up five or six times last night. Who has time to sleep when you’re getting up so many fricking times? To pee, to drink water, to take something for heartburn, to pee again. All damn night.

I did some biofeedback (guaranteed to put me to sleep, right?) around 2 a.m. Still didn’t fall asleep. Read. Fell asleep around 3 or so. Woke up at what I thought was 5:30. No. It was 4:30 but I already had the light on, so I got up.

Tricked again. I probably slept two or three hours but only one hour at a time. How fair is that?

It’s 6:15 now and in 15 minutes the sun will rise and I’ll take Violet outside while she’s safe from dogs. Then I’m going back to bed, read a little, and probably sleep another hour.

I have a triple whammy working against me for this endless insomnia. A liver disease that includes insomnia as one of its advanced symptoms. A pill to keep breast cancer from recurring, removes all the estrogen from my body – Go To Jail, repeat menopause, do not collect $200. And age, as if I needed reminding.

I’m looking forward to a liver transplant, that’s one. I have to take the pill fighting back breast cancer for four more years. Age? Haven’t found the fountain of youth yet and don't plan on it. For now, biofeedback and reading help the most. Hooray for the Denver Public Library!

Surrendering to the Right Stuff

About a year after I started my daily writing practice in 1992, it became apparent to me that I could and that I wanted to become a writer full-time. I didn’t know how to do it, though. I saw others around me doing it. Writing books. Getting their poems published. Facilitating writing groups. Flourishing.

I didn’t see how I could do the whole thing. I needed to make money, so I had to have a job. That thought always boxed me in. I took that route, for more years than I want to admit. I avoided what was calling me.

I had a wake-up call. I didn’t listen. So I had another one. And another one. Finally, I started listening.

It wasn’t until this fall, 2012 – seven years after getting diagnosed with liver disease, 20 years after committing to writing daily – that I listened. That I finally surrendered to my passion, writing.

Since the spring of 2007 (a year after being diagnosed with a liver disease with only one treatment: transplant), I haven’t been able to work full-time. But then I didn’t see what was staring me in the face: I had a door wide open that I was ignoring. I couldn’t work at all after the spring of 2010, I had income from Social Security because I couldn’t work. I had time. I still had the daily practice of writing. I could call myself Writer.

I am, after seven years of living with it, grateful for liver disease. And since last year also grateful for breast cancer. That one seemed to be the toppling point. These two lousy diseases shoved me off my pedestal of indecision and hesitation and doubt about following my passion wherever it might lead me.

Liver disease has been teaching me how to listen with my heart and to act from my gut. Instead of always going to my head and listening to and acting from the craziness there. Reason got me well-paying jobs (that I hated) and good grades (they were nice) and a college degree that led eventually to nowhere.

Listening to my heart is harder – it has a quieter voice than reason – but acting on it is easier. Much easier. I just have to relax into it and the next right move shows up. I’m not used to it yet.

I still get caught up in long to-do lists and frenetic activity. But my liver beats me up when I push too hard on it. I get immediate pushback. I know when I’m tired and need to give in. When I don’t listen to those messages, when I allow myself to get absolutely fried from over-activity, I pay the price for days.

Listening. To my body, to my heart. I guess I always believed that wasn’t enough. I’m here to tell you it is enough. And it’s real.

Thank you, Universe, for these two crappy diseases. They have changed my life. They have changed me. I can never go back to the way I was. Thank you, Higher Power, Universe, the spirit within me, God, Goddess.

“I don’t know about you, but I am here to love myself. I don’t want to leave this planet in judgment of myself. I want to be my own friend. I want to have listened to my heart. I want to have spoken my truth. I want to discover all the colors of my possibilities. I don’t want to leave this earth, never having been myself.” – Tama J. Kieves, on Facebook, November 15, 2012. Author of This Time I Dance and Inspired & Unstoppable

The Story of a Reader-Addict

I’ve been reading for a long time. I remember reading when I was four years old and would read the Sunday comics aloud to my family, who believed they were safely ensconced in my parents’ bed before breakfast. I must have driven them crazy. I remember those times, though, with great delight. 

When I went to kindergarten the next year, we didn’t learn to read. But I kept on reading at home. In first grade we began in earnest applying our little minds to reading. Reading circles, books that were given to us for the school year, writing on very wide-ruled paper with pencils. I loved it all.

My brother David, four years older, would take me to the main library in downtown St. Petersburg regularly. Mirror Lake Library, sitting next to beautifully round and landscaped Mirror Lake. The building was Florida green – a fairly ugly color. But the building held magic for me.

David showed me the science fiction section and he would check out books for me. I adored the fictional world of fantasy, space exploration, life on other planets besides Earth, visits by aliens from those planets. I don’t remember reading any “girl” books. 

My best friend Martha introduced me to Nancy Drew, girl detective, and we spent many hours replicating her adventures with our own neighborhood “detecting.” The books we read in school paled next to these adventurous stories of extraterrestrials and girl detectives.

I used to tell people I was addicted to reading and that if nothing else was available to read while I was eating, I’d read every single word on a cereal box. An early consumer detective. That was when I was a kid; I still do that.

I grew up reading both English and music. I played the piano before I started reading words. My father, a professional musician, wanted me to learn how to sightread music, so I began music theory lessons when I was five years old.

By age ten I was sightreading and learning how to accompany other musicians. My father would gather his students (violin, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet) around our piano at home and we all played chamber music together. I learned how to keep time, interpret and play difficult rhythmic figures, keep track of exactly where we were at all times in the score. With music you learn how to live completely in the moment.

I finally earned a bachelor’s degree in music, and was still reading books (and cereal boxes and everything in between) voraciously. Ultimately, I ended up on the English side of the equation and earned a master’s degree in humanities so I could continue teaching writing and literature.

Then I got sick and couldn’t teach in school or keep a regular schedule of any substance.

So I write, and my reading informs my writing and my reading continues to deepen my experience of life.

Though I am most interested in 20^th century literature, I am now re-reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. But I always read more than one book at a time. I need the balance. My balance for Anna is The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, a fun story also full of mystery, metaphorical meaning, adventure and murder. I'm also reading cowgirl writer extraordinaire Pam Houston's latest book, Contents May Have Shifted, about her worldwide travels.

What are your first memories of reading? Did you like it, love it, hate it, or just see it as a necessity? What are you reading now? I’d love to hear because I love to talk about books. And I always, always, always want to hear about new ones, too.

I’ll be exploring reading on the internet and the authors who have changed my life in the next few postings. Stay tuned for more stories of the Reader-Addict!

Exercise Your Right To Vote

I have already voted – by mail. I have a great dislike of standing in any line for any reason, so voting by mail is perfect for me. I’m sure many others feel the same way I do about lines, and I hope you have taken advantage of a mail-in ballot.

I read on Sunday morning that voters in storm-devastated New Jersey will be able to vote by email. In the future, we may all be able to vote online.

The only thing I missed by voting by mail was my little sticker to wear proudly: I Voted. As soon as I dropped my sealed ballot in the drop-off box, I wanted that sticker! I heard that some counties in Colorado mailed the stickers with your ballot.

I voted several times in presidential elections before my candidate won. But I survived Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, and in return for my persistence was rewarded with Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama.

Why keep voting? Because it really does matter. If you think your vote doesn’t count, think back to 2000 when George Bush won all of Florida’s electoral votes and eventually the election by a 537-vote margin in Florida.

What if you had been one of the 537 voters who stayed home because you just didn’t think your vote mattered? Wouldn’t you make a different decision now?

I am not campaigning for my guy in this post. I simply want everyone who can to cast your ballot, have your say, make a difference. I’m not going to tell you it’s patriotic, or that others died so you could exercise your voting rights. Honestly, it is your civic duty to vote.

I suggest you do some reading, engage in some political discussion (and learn how to do it without attacking or getting personal) and maybe even do some campaigning for your party before you vote. You can even do that now! Really. An informed voter also learns how to participate in his or her local government and have a say in how their daily lives are lived.

Politics and politicians and government agencies are necessary parts of a democracy. The more involved you are, the more you get to understand what is going on around you and why.

People from all over the world want to move here just so they can vote freely – no coercion, no reprisals, all secret ballots. So, at the very least, please exercise your precious gift, privilege and right as an American citizen and VOTE.