Monday, October 29, 2012
Breaking The Surface, Catching A Wave...
With October winding down and November fast approaching, it occurs to me that November is National Novel Writing Month. I have, of course, been aware of this fact for weeks. It has bobbed in and out of my consciousness for days now, as I battled this cold or flu or plague that I’ve been suffering. Due to the fever and congestion and coughing my lungs up, my days have all run together over the past week or so and this medication-induced brain fog has not been conducive to memory building skills or the decision making process. However, when my wits were about me, I found myself debating with my newly resurfacing inner writer as to whether or not I should take part in the novel writing challenge this November.
It’s a brilliant concept: write a complete 50,000 word novel between November 1 and November 30. Thirty days and nights of literary abandon, as they say. It sounds exhilarating and liberating and adventurous. It also sounds frenzied and hectic and terrifying, especially to someone like me who has been away from the proverbial writing desk for many, many years.
Once upon a time, I was a working writer who consistently produced publishable work. I racked up a fairly impressive collection of publishing credits during that time. Then, over the course of a few short years, I began to feel the tug of a dark current born of too many life-altering events in too short an amount of time. I gradually became submerged in a continuous wave of anxiety and depression and the words simply stopped flowing.
Thankfully, I’ve recently begun to swim toward the light. With the support and encouragement of my friends and family, I’ve gradually been able to start writing again. I’ve been working on finishing an abandoned young adult paranormal romance story and plotting the outline for a partially written middle grade supernatural mystery that stalled after three chapters. I’ve been regularly posting to this blog. But am I ready to commit to a big project, like writing a complete novel in a month, just yet?
Some days I feel energized and eager to drag out that dusty old outline for my middle grade vampire novel that has been languishing in the dark recesses of my filing cabinet for the past dozen or so years. Other days I’m skittish and fear that attempting to write that particular story before I’m ready - before I’m back in full prime writer mode - might completely destroy all of the lingering possibility that still exists for this book which has been growing and taking shape inside me from the night I first conceived of it, practically fully formed, so many years ago. Although I have a detailed outline for it and I know these characters very well, I’m not sure I’m ready to risk it in my current weakened and vulnerable state. This project is too near and dear to my heart and I fear that, if I fail to live up to the task, it will be a major setback that I’m not sure the newly resurfaced writer within could recover from.
So, as I sit here today with my thoughts swimming through a sea of Musinex and Nyquil, I propose a compromise to myself. Yes, I want to get back into serious writing. Yes, I want to once again feel that sense of accomplishment that comes with finished pages adding up at the end of the day, ever nearing that finished project goal. Yes, I want that remembered thrill of an acceptance letter and yet another publishing credit. But do I want to officially commit to the National Novel Writing Month’s challenge of writing a 50,000 + word novel in a month? No, not officially. Not yet. I do, however, unofficially accept my own personal challenge of finishing my 30,000 word middle grade supernatural mystery by the end of November.
Who knows? I might just surprise myself and actually accomplish that goal. I might finally break the surface and catch a wave that will carry me closer to my writing goals.
In keeping with this vein of self-doubt and insecurity, the following is a short article I wrote years ago on some of the fears many writers face from time to time. It first appeared in the Fall 2001 issue of Once Upon A Time: A Magazine for Children’s Writers and Illustrators, Volume 12 #3.
A MATTER OF TRUST By Kelly Gunter Atlas
Recently, a close friend of mine and fellow writer noticed the pile of completed manuscripts sitting on my desk collecting dust and cat hair.
Incredulous that I had finished work just lying around, he asked, “Why haven’t you sent these out?”
My guilty brain quickly scanned, and then recited, the customary repertoire of excuses:
“They aren’t polished enough yet.”
“I haven’t had time to do the market research.”
“I’m out of envelopes and address labels.”
He recognized immediately that this was nothing more than calculated subterfuge and he called me on it. I was forced to admit the truth: I suffer from Fear of Submission. And I’m probably not the only one.
The very word submission has psychological connotations. My rational mind understands that it’s merely an act of presenting my work to others for consideration. Yet there is this underlying recognition that the word also means “yielding to the action, control, and power of others.” And, although I’ve had publishing success in the past, this fear still seeps into my subconscious from time to time and it can be paralyzing.
I believe this fear stems primarily from a blending of other, more accessible fears, not the least of which is the fear of rejection. When we write with honesty, we pour our innermost thoughts, feelings and philosophies onto the page. Presenting these intimate parts of ourselves for others to judge, and then accept or reject, kicks the anxiety level into high gear. When our work is rejected, we feel as if we, ourselves, are being judged and then rejected as not good enough.
Another fear, discussed less but equally as important, is the fear of success. Once we succeed, the pressure we sometimes put on ourselves to continue to perform at that level can be enormous. And this pressure can stifle our creativity, bringing about the very decline in quality that we fear the most.
In other words, it’s a vicious circle.
When these two fears are combined, they create the fear of submission. If the work is not circulating among editors, then it can neither be accepted nor rejected.
The bottom line is trust. Psychologists use an experiment to test a person’s level of trust. One person is asked to stand with his or her back to another and then allow themselves to fall backward, trusting that the other will catch them before they hit the ground.
Submitting your work to an editor is very similar. You must learn to trust not only in your own talents and skills as a writer, but in the experience and professionalism of the editors to whom you submit your work.
We may never be able to completely vanquish these fears. But understanding their causes can go a long way toward recognizing them and toward keeping them under control.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Dancing With The Darkest Muse...
Autumn was my mother’s favorite season. She loved the changing colors of the leaves and the crisp Fall air. She decorated her house with pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn. Chrysanthemums were her favorite flowers. And Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday because, every so often, her birthday would fall on that day. She loved this time of year.
Fifteen years ago today, I received a phone call in the early morning hours telling me that my mother was dead. It was exactly one month shy of her sixty-first birthday. I had talked to her just a few hours earlier, before going to bed, as was our nightly habit. She had been laughing and joking with my husband about how cold the weather had turned. There was a running joke between them because she always claimed our house felt like a refrigerator. When she called that night, she asked him what we were doing and he gave her his standard reply, “We’re making ice cubes.”
And a few hours later, without warning, she was gone.
It’s still difficult for me, even after all these years, to describe those first few days. It’s as though the events were viewed through a lens that kept zooming in and out of focus. I was an adult at the time and had been married for nine years. But on receiving the news of her death, I felt as if the umbilical cord had just that instant been severed. I felt unplugged, disconnected and, for the first time in my life, I felt totally alone, even though I was surrounded by friends and family.
I remember the drive to the hospital to join my family and view my mother’s body. I remember going back to her house where more family and friends gathered. Phone calls were made. Food and flowers were delivered. I went to the funeral home and made arrangements. But for that entire segment of time my mind felt numb. I couldn’t think further than the next task at hand and, through it all, I could hear her voice in my head telling me what needed to be done next.
You see, she was more than just my mother. I was her only child and we were extremely close. She was my best friend, my mentor, my confidant, my confessor. I felt lost without her. And, from the time of her death until the day after her funeral, I was operating solely on auto pilot. Because, if I let myself stop and think and feel, I was afraid I would break down and never be able to get back up again.
That was a long, cold Winter. I remember fluctuating between numbness and disconnection to grief and an almost manic compulsion to express myself through my writing. I would sit all day with notebook and pen in hand, and stay at my keyboard late into the night. Writing became my therapy. Rather than dwelling and wallowing in my grief and self-pity, I channeled all of my thoughts and emotions into my work, pouring them out onto the page. Ironically, I was at my most productive during those dark months and turned out some of my best writing. I sold three articles almost back to back. I wrote some of my darkest fiction and most philosophical essays. The bulk of the poems in my poetry collection, Dancing With The Darkest Muse: On the Death of Love and the Love of Death, were also penned that Winter.
In short, writing kept me going. It kept me sane. It helped me overcome the darkest time in my life and helped me to cope with my loss while learning to understand myself more deeply. It enabled me to grieve.
Today as I remember my mother, her life and her death, I am grateful to her for the life that she gave me. I am grateful to her for instilling in me a love of books and a love of reading. I am grateful to her for encouraging me to write and for all of her support along the way. I am grateful to have had her in my life, even though it was for far too short a time.
The following essay is one of the pieces I wrote during that time and the original version first appeared in Morbid Curiosity Issue #5 in 2001. While re-reading it this morning, I felt it
appropriate to the day.
So, Momma, this one’s for you.
The Presence Of Death by Kelly Gunter Atlas
Death is as familiar to my family as life, as intimate as an embrace. It’s walked among us for as long as I can remember, as integral a part of us as an elder relation one sees at every family gathering. We do not fear it, although we mourn our losses deeply. But we are trained from birth to receive it with hospitality upon its arrival, as we would any visitor, and to respectfully acknowledge it as the natural progression of life.
One of my earliest memories is of sitting vigil at my great-uncle’s deathbed. I couldn’t have been more than five. It was the middle of the night, and the entire family was gathered in his small apartment, three generations of us, talking with him, joking about the good old days. His skin had turned a sickly yellow and his face was bloated from the liver disease. But he was still our family and we loved him. He was one of us and we were there until the end.
There were many deaths and funerals while I was growing up and we attended every one, no matter how far we had to travel. Because, you see, family means everything to us. Aunts and uncles are extensions of our parents; cousins, no matter how many times removed, are raised like siblings. We are spoon fed the stories of our ancestors and they feel as familiar to us as if they had taken place before our very eyes.
As children, my cousins and I played among the tombstones of the old cemetery across the road from my uncle’s house. The stone angels watched over us, the mausoleums provided shade in the heat of summer, and the names on the headstones became as familiar to us as our own. We knew no fear in that place. It was as natural to us as the school playground is to other children.
When I was small, my mother heard me having a conversation in my bedroom. She knew we were alone in the house, so she came back to check on me. She asked who I was talking to and I told her, without hesitation, “Grandpa.” I even showed her the picture of her father in the hallway. But my grandfather died two years before I was born.
My cousin also received visits from our grandfather when she was a child. We never thought there was anything strange in that. After all, one of my cousins still had conversations with his dead brother. Another relative’s husband had shown her where he kept his will after he died. And my great-grandmother, even though she had been dead for years, held my grandmother’s hand during difficult times.
My mother dreamed her father’s passing before it occurred, just as I dreamed hers. There was no time to say goodbye or be with him when his time came and, sadly, I found myself in the same situation. She, like her father, suffered a sudden heart attack and was gone before I could reach the hospital. She, as well as others, sat up with his body all night at the funeral home, never leaving his side. I was denied this ritual because times and rules have changed, and I feel cheated because of it. It is part of our process. It brings closure and eases loss. We believe the bodies of the dead should be treated with respect. To us, they are not merely empty shells to be discarded as quickly as possible before decay sets in. They are who and where we come from. Their cells hold the memories of our origins, our genetic make-up, our connections to one another.
Too many people in this day and age not only fear death, they fear the dead. They distance themselves from the experience, as if to deny their own mortality. Why shun the hand I clung to only yesterday, simply because it has grown cold and still? Is it not the same hand of the woman who bore me, who dried my tears and quieted my childhood fears? Is it not the same hand that braided my hair with ribbons when I was small and held me safe in a crowd of strangers? The only difference is that it no longer returns my grip. Why feel reluctant to kiss the cheek I’ve kissed a million times? The warmth may be gone and the face may now lie in repose, but it is the same cheek I’ve seen wrinkled with smiles and softened by love all of my life.
Death was once respected. When someone passed away, clocks were stopped because time has no meaning during the season of death. Mirrors were covered because vanity has no place in the presence of death. When a funeral procession passed by, people stopped and lowered their heads. Men removed their hats in a show of respect for both the dead and the family they left behind.
Death is an aspect of life. It is only a cycle, like birth. The wheel turns, the cycle shifts, yet we all go on. We are changed yet we remain the same. They may leave us in body, but they are still with us in mind and spirit.
My family is a very old and proud family. Our lineage has been traced back to 1160 AD. Descended from Viking conquerors, Celtic mystics, Highland warriors and Cherokee braves, we are a clannish, tribal lot. We take care of our own and our strength flows from this. Tradition pumps through our hearts, as old as time, and we take our rites and responsibilities seriously. Death is a sacred occasion, like birth, and we celebrate it accordingly. We preside at the deathbed and hold our loved ones’ hands as they pass; we sit vigil over our dead until the time comes to bury them; we celebrate their life with food, drink and laughter and retell the stories of their lives for generations. And we continue to speak to them after they’re gone, because they are never far from us and are always
there when we need them most. They make their presence known to us in various ways and they watch over and communicate with our children.
Death continues to walk among us, as our lives ebb and flow through its constant and ever vigilant presence. It is our constant companion, the connecting thread, as are the loved ones who have gone on before us.
Fifteen years ago today, I received a phone call in the early morning hours telling me that my mother was dead. It was exactly one month shy of her sixty-first birthday. I had talked to her just a few hours earlier, before going to bed, as was our nightly habit. She had been laughing and joking with my husband about how cold the weather had turned. There was a running joke between them because she always claimed our house felt like a refrigerator. When she called that night, she asked him what we were doing and he gave her his standard reply, “We’re making ice cubes.”
And a few hours later, without warning, she was gone.
It’s still difficult for me, even after all these years, to describe those first few days. It’s as though the events were viewed through a lens that kept zooming in and out of focus. I was an adult at the time and had been married for nine years. But on receiving the news of her death, I felt as if the umbilical cord had just that instant been severed. I felt unplugged, disconnected and, for the first time in my life, I felt totally alone, even though I was surrounded by friends and family.
I remember the drive to the hospital to join my family and view my mother’s body. I remember going back to her house where more family and friends gathered. Phone calls were made. Food and flowers were delivered. I went to the funeral home and made arrangements. But for that entire segment of time my mind felt numb. I couldn’t think further than the next task at hand and, through it all, I could hear her voice in my head telling me what needed to be done next.
You see, she was more than just my mother. I was her only child and we were extremely close. She was my best friend, my mentor, my confidant, my confessor. I felt lost without her. And, from the time of her death until the day after her funeral, I was operating solely on auto pilot. Because, if I let myself stop and think and feel, I was afraid I would break down and never be able to get back up again.
That was a long, cold Winter. I remember fluctuating between numbness and disconnection to grief and an almost manic compulsion to express myself through my writing. I would sit all day with notebook and pen in hand, and stay at my keyboard late into the night. Writing became my therapy. Rather than dwelling and wallowing in my grief and self-pity, I channeled all of my thoughts and emotions into my work, pouring them out onto the page. Ironically, I was at my most productive during those dark months and turned out some of my best writing. I sold three articles almost back to back. I wrote some of my darkest fiction and most philosophical essays. The bulk of the poems in my poetry collection, Dancing With The Darkest Muse: On the Death of Love and the Love of Death, were also penned that Winter.
In short, writing kept me going. It kept me sane. It helped me overcome the darkest time in my life and helped me to cope with my loss while learning to understand myself more deeply. It enabled me to grieve.
Today as I remember my mother, her life and her death, I am grateful to her for the life that she gave me. I am grateful to her for instilling in me a love of books and a love of reading. I am grateful to her for encouraging me to write and for all of her support along the way. I am grateful to have had her in my life, even though it was for far too short a time.
The following essay is one of the pieces I wrote during that time and the original version first appeared in Morbid Curiosity Issue #5 in 2001. While re-reading it this morning, I felt it
appropriate to the day.
So, Momma, this one’s for you.
The Presence Of Death by Kelly Gunter Atlas
Death is as familiar to my family as life, as intimate as an embrace. It’s walked among us for as long as I can remember, as integral a part of us as an elder relation one sees at every family gathering. We do not fear it, although we mourn our losses deeply. But we are trained from birth to receive it with hospitality upon its arrival, as we would any visitor, and to respectfully acknowledge it as the natural progression of life.
One of my earliest memories is of sitting vigil at my great-uncle’s deathbed. I couldn’t have been more than five. It was the middle of the night, and the entire family was gathered in his small apartment, three generations of us, talking with him, joking about the good old days. His skin had turned a sickly yellow and his face was bloated from the liver disease. But he was still our family and we loved him. He was one of us and we were there until the end.
There were many deaths and funerals while I was growing up and we attended every one, no matter how far we had to travel. Because, you see, family means everything to us. Aunts and uncles are extensions of our parents; cousins, no matter how many times removed, are raised like siblings. We are spoon fed the stories of our ancestors and they feel as familiar to us as if they had taken place before our very eyes.
As children, my cousins and I played among the tombstones of the old cemetery across the road from my uncle’s house. The stone angels watched over us, the mausoleums provided shade in the heat of summer, and the names on the headstones became as familiar to us as our own. We knew no fear in that place. It was as natural to us as the school playground is to other children.
When I was small, my mother heard me having a conversation in my bedroom. She knew we were alone in the house, so she came back to check on me. She asked who I was talking to and I told her, without hesitation, “Grandpa.” I even showed her the picture of her father in the hallway. But my grandfather died two years before I was born.
My cousin also received visits from our grandfather when she was a child. We never thought there was anything strange in that. After all, one of my cousins still had conversations with his dead brother. Another relative’s husband had shown her where he kept his will after he died. And my great-grandmother, even though she had been dead for years, held my grandmother’s hand during difficult times.
My mother dreamed her father’s passing before it occurred, just as I dreamed hers. There was no time to say goodbye or be with him when his time came and, sadly, I found myself in the same situation. She, like her father, suffered a sudden heart attack and was gone before I could reach the hospital. She, as well as others, sat up with his body all night at the funeral home, never leaving his side. I was denied this ritual because times and rules have changed, and I feel cheated because of it. It is part of our process. It brings closure and eases loss. We believe the bodies of the dead should be treated with respect. To us, they are not merely empty shells to be discarded as quickly as possible before decay sets in. They are who and where we come from. Their cells hold the memories of our origins, our genetic make-up, our connections to one another.
Too many people in this day and age not only fear death, they fear the dead. They distance themselves from the experience, as if to deny their own mortality. Why shun the hand I clung to only yesterday, simply because it has grown cold and still? Is it not the same hand of the woman who bore me, who dried my tears and quieted my childhood fears? Is it not the same hand that braided my hair with ribbons when I was small and held me safe in a crowd of strangers? The only difference is that it no longer returns my grip. Why feel reluctant to kiss the cheek I’ve kissed a million times? The warmth may be gone and the face may now lie in repose, but it is the same cheek I’ve seen wrinkled with smiles and softened by love all of my life.
Death was once respected. When someone passed away, clocks were stopped because time has no meaning during the season of death. Mirrors were covered because vanity has no place in the presence of death. When a funeral procession passed by, people stopped and lowered their heads. Men removed their hats in a show of respect for both the dead and the family they left behind.
Death is an aspect of life. It is only a cycle, like birth. The wheel turns, the cycle shifts, yet we all go on. We are changed yet we remain the same. They may leave us in body, but they are still with us in mind and spirit.
My family is a very old and proud family. Our lineage has been traced back to 1160 AD. Descended from Viking conquerors, Celtic mystics, Highland warriors and Cherokee braves, we are a clannish, tribal lot. We take care of our own and our strength flows from this. Tradition pumps through our hearts, as old as time, and we take our rites and responsibilities seriously. Death is a sacred occasion, like birth, and we celebrate it accordingly. We preside at the deathbed and hold our loved ones’ hands as they pass; we sit vigil over our dead until the time comes to bury them; we celebrate their life with food, drink and laughter and retell the stories of their lives for generations. And we continue to speak to them after they’re gone, because they are never far from us and are always
there when we need them most. They make their presence known to us in various ways and they watch over and communicate with our children.
Death continues to walk among us, as our lives ebb and flow through its constant and ever vigilant presence. It is our constant companion, the connecting thread, as are the loved ones who have gone on before us.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Halloween Musings Part II: Halloween Then
Today I saw my first falling leaves of the season. Sure, they’ve been falling for the past couple of weeks. I’ve noticed the accumulation in the corners of my yard. But this morning they caught my attention as they pirouetted down in a golden flurry from my neighbor’s tree, dancing on the cool Autumn breeze, and that familiar thrill of anticipation began to stir inside me. Halloween is almost here!
I was fortunate to grow up during the golden age of Halloween. It was the heyday of Hammer horror films and American International Pictures. Dark Shadows aired on our television screen every afternoon. My mother’s bookshelves were filled with Gothic romance novels by authors like Marilyn Ross (a pseudonym for author Dan Ross), Dorothy MacCardle and Florence Hurd. On the weekends, we had weekly movie matinees of the Universal Studios monsters. We watched The Munsters and The Addams Family and Bewitched every week on TV. And we read EC Comics narrated by Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie and Tales from the Crypt. In short, we were steeped in the macabre. We were glutted on depictions of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches and goblins of every sort year round.
Granted, there were sometimes slight drawbacks to that immersion. I, for one, was a morbid child who staked my Barbies and buried them in my grandmother’s garden. But then my oddities can be saved for another post at another time.
My point is: Halloween was our favorite holiday. How could it not be?
In those days, Trick or Treat was more than just an excuse to binge on free candy. It was an event - a grand adventure - that we prepared for and meticulously planned for weeks in advance. Most of our costumes were homemade and pieced together with items we found around the house or salvaged from thrift stores. We supplemented these treasures with our mother’s makeup and costume jewelry and cheap plastic fangs from the TG&Y.
We carved scary Jack-o-lanterns, reveling in being up to our elbows in the sticky goo of
pumpkin guts. We decorated our houses and front yards with rubber bats and spooky spider webs and fake tombstones and witches on broomsticks and ghoulish dummy corpses hanging from our trees.
When Halloween night finally arrived, we were filled with a rush of fear and excitement. We
waited impatiently for sunset and then, grabbing our cheap, plastic pumpkin buckets, we
descended upon our neighborhood like undead marauders to plunder and pillage whatever tasty treats were to be had. Those were the days when it was still safe to accept popcorn balls, caramel apples, and Rice Krispies treats from your neighbors without worrying about hauling your bounty to be x-rayed at the hospital before eating them. As a matter of fact, half of the goodies we received were consumed along the way as fuel for our journey.
But it was never just about the treats. It was the experience of it all. You were outside after
dark, in the cold October air, trekking door to door among costumed “strangers” who hid behind masks and elaborate makeup. The familiar neighborhood of our daylight hours was transformed into a spooky, alien landscape. Candles flickered from darkened windows. Eerie music drifted from opened doorways. Creepy cackles filled the air. Our imaginations ran wild. Was that really Johnny who sat behind me at school or a ghost returned from the land of the dead? Was that the neighbor’s dog howling or a werewolf on the prowl? There, flying in the sky, was that a vampire bat or just a nighthawk searching for moths? Man, Mrs. Applegate looks really convincing in that witch’s get-up. Is that a real cauldron she’s stirring? Is she secretly a real witch?
Still, the best part of Halloween for me was getting to check out everyone else's costume
creations and parading my own with great pride. I’m not talking about cute little cowboys and shiny super heroes, mind you. In my day, you weren’t just an princess. You were the ghost of a dead princess risen from the grave to haunt the living on All Hallow’s Eve, while the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest.
Eventually, we would return home exhausted and high on sugar, with our senses and nerves on overload. We checked under our beds and inside our closets before crawling reluctantly into bed to relive in our dreams all the sights and sounds and spooky thrills we had experienced. And, even though a part of me knew it was only a myth, I stared out my window at the moon until I fell asleep, watching for a witch to fly past it on her broom.
But that was the mystery and magic of the holiday.
All things seemed possible on those long ago Halloween nights. And sometimes, when I’m lucky, that feeling and sense of possibility still visits me.
I was fortunate to grow up during the golden age of Halloween. It was the heyday of Hammer horror films and American International Pictures. Dark Shadows aired on our television screen every afternoon. My mother’s bookshelves were filled with Gothic romance novels by authors like Marilyn Ross (a pseudonym for author Dan Ross), Dorothy MacCardle and Florence Hurd. On the weekends, we had weekly movie matinees of the Universal Studios monsters. We watched The Munsters and The Addams Family and Bewitched every week on TV. And we read EC Comics narrated by Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie and Tales from the Crypt. In short, we were steeped in the macabre. We were glutted on depictions of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches and goblins of every sort year round.
Granted, there were sometimes slight drawbacks to that immersion. I, for one, was a morbid child who staked my Barbies and buried them in my grandmother’s garden. But then my oddities can be saved for another post at another time.
My point is: Halloween was our favorite holiday. How could it not be?
In those days, Trick or Treat was more than just an excuse to binge on free candy. It was an event - a grand adventure - that we prepared for and meticulously planned for weeks in advance. Most of our costumes were homemade and pieced together with items we found around the house or salvaged from thrift stores. We supplemented these treasures with our mother’s makeup and costume jewelry and cheap plastic fangs from the TG&Y.
We carved scary Jack-o-lanterns, reveling in being up to our elbows in the sticky goo of
pumpkin guts. We decorated our houses and front yards with rubber bats and spooky spider webs and fake tombstones and witches on broomsticks and ghoulish dummy corpses hanging from our trees.
When Halloween night finally arrived, we were filled with a rush of fear and excitement. We
waited impatiently for sunset and then, grabbing our cheap, plastic pumpkin buckets, we
descended upon our neighborhood like undead marauders to plunder and pillage whatever tasty treats were to be had. Those were the days when it was still safe to accept popcorn balls, caramel apples, and Rice Krispies treats from your neighbors without worrying about hauling your bounty to be x-rayed at the hospital before eating them. As a matter of fact, half of the goodies we received were consumed along the way as fuel for our journey.
But it was never just about the treats. It was the experience of it all. You were outside after
dark, in the cold October air, trekking door to door among costumed “strangers” who hid behind masks and elaborate makeup. The familiar neighborhood of our daylight hours was transformed into a spooky, alien landscape. Candles flickered from darkened windows. Eerie music drifted from opened doorways. Creepy cackles filled the air. Our imaginations ran wild. Was that really Johnny who sat behind me at school or a ghost returned from the land of the dead? Was that the neighbor’s dog howling or a werewolf on the prowl? There, flying in the sky, was that a vampire bat or just a nighthawk searching for moths? Man, Mrs. Applegate looks really convincing in that witch’s get-up. Is that a real cauldron she’s stirring? Is she secretly a real witch?
Still, the best part of Halloween for me was getting to check out everyone else's costume
creations and parading my own with great pride. I’m not talking about cute little cowboys and shiny super heroes, mind you. In my day, you weren’t just an princess. You were the ghost of a dead princess risen from the grave to haunt the living on All Hallow’s Eve, while the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest.
Eventually, we would return home exhausted and high on sugar, with our senses and nerves on overload. We checked under our beds and inside our closets before crawling reluctantly into bed to relive in our dreams all the sights and sounds and spooky thrills we had experienced. And, even though a part of me knew it was only a myth, I stared out my window at the moon until I fell asleep, watching for a witch to fly past it on her broom.
But that was the mystery and magic of the holiday.
All things seemed possible on those long ago Halloween nights. And sometimes, when I’m lucky, that feeling and sense of possibility still visits me.
Halloween Musings Part I: Halloween Now
It saddens me how much Halloween has changed since I was a child. I saw a commercial the other day (I forget now what it was advertising) which showed a group of costumed children merrily trick-or-treating... in broad daylight. I understand the reasons and rational behind it, but it still breaks my heart. In this day and age of child predators, roaming gangs, and food tampering, it is dangerous to allow our children to roam the streets at night, knocking on strangers’ doors and begging for consumables. The world is a much darker, uglier, more sinister place than it was in my youth and the Halloween experience is just one of the things that has been diminished by that fact.
In addition to the safety aspects, Halloween has also become commercialized and sanitized to the point that it is almost unrecognizable as the holiday I grew up with. Nowadays, vampires have been reduced to either goofy cartoon characters grinning from cereal boxes or lovesick, de-fanged, sparkling milksops. Werewolves are more like pets or guard dogs than ferocious, man-killing beasts. Ghosts have become scientific case research and poltergeist activity is accepted as the psychic overflow of pubescent energy.
Wiccan groups take offense and form protests if you even try to display a traditional Halloween witch and fanatical religious groups actively denounce Halloween as a celebration of evil and claim that its roots lie in Satanic worship. I even read a recent article about some students at Ohio University protesting ethnic costumes, claiming that said costumes are racially charged and mock their lineage. What are some of these costumes they find so offensive, you may ask? A geisha girl, a Mexican man in traditional sombrero, and a Native American. My husband is half Mexican and I am part Cherokee. We don't find these costumes offensive, but then we don't go around searching for things to be offended by.
In this raging sea of political correctness and fanaticism, is it any wonder that Halloween has suffered? What once was enjoyed as a fun-filled, spooky night of dress-up, mystery and make-believe is now a veritable mine field of anger, intolerance, and lurking danger from the real life horrors of modern society.
As I said, it makes me sad that the children of today will never know the wonder of the Halloweens that I remember from days gone by. They'll never experience the same thrills and chills I looked forward to every October 31st.
They'll never understand that it's not about the candy. It was about the experience itself. The candy was always just an added bonus.
Monday, October 8, 2012
From the Ashes...
Ah, the familiar fragrance of Autumn: the clean, crisp tang of fresh, chill air, the pungent scent of woodsmoke curling from my neighbor's chimney, the fruity, cinnamon spice of hot apple crumble... and the horrendous stench of my heater being turned on for the first time this season. Ugh!
Imagine, if you will, the olfactory result of burning away a year's worth of dust and rust and cobwebs within the flames of the furnace. Throw a few desiccated corpses of unfortunate insects upon the pyre and the malodorous blend is complete.
After a particularly miserable Summer, the hottest and driest that I can remember, the weather here has been pleasantly temperate for the past few weeks. Those few leaves still clinging tenaciously to parched branches eventually began to turn gold and orange and crimson and the breeze blew cool while the sun stayed warm. It has been a glorious reprieve in which I have reveled.
Then, literally overnight, our temperature dropped from 80 degrees on Friday afternoon to 40 degrees Saturday morning, prompting my husband to switch on the heater. Instead of waking up to the comforting aroma of fresh brewing coffee, I woke to the aforementioned acrid stench. I hate this smell! It chokes me and nauseates me and I dread it every year. But I also realize that it's a necessary part of the transition, especially if I don't want to freeze to death over the course of the Winter.
The point to this rambling diatribe? The experience caused me to reflect on the correlation between the heater and my writing career. For the past decade, my writing skills have been gathering dust and cobwebs from disuse. My career has been in limbo, stalled by a series of tragic events and the subsequent onset of psychological, emotional and physical struggles. Rather than putting pen to paper and writing my way through these obstacles the way we, as writers, are taught to do, I allowed my writing voice to go dormant and my skills to stagnate.
Then, a few months ago, a strange thing began to happen. I began to reconnect with old friends I'd lost contact with over the years. Friends from high school that I hadn't seen or spoken to in decades, and the beloved comrades of the younger, wilder hell-raising phase of my life, as well as my writer and editor and publisher friends from back in the day when I was still publishing Bloodreams.
Before I knew it, long forgotten embers began to smolder. A tiny flame began to flicker and grow. My creative fire was stoked. Wonder of wonders, I gradually began to think like a writer again for the first time in years. Characters, settings, situations began to tease the edges of my consciousness. I heard dialog whispering in my head. I fell in love with words all over again. Narrative description toyed with my thoughts as I observed the world around me. I dug through my old files and unearthed stories I'd started and never finished, book projects I'd abandoned, and I re-read my published stories, essays and articles. I was even pleasantly surprised to find that they weren't as bad as I remembered them to be.
So, I sat down and began to write again and quickly came to a disappointing realization. Very much like the fetor from the burning debris in my furnace, my writing attempts stink at the moment. But, also like the current stench permeating my house, I'm hoping this is only a temporary condition. Before my writing can improve, I must first knock the rust off my mental hinges and burn away the dust and cobwebs that have accumulated in my creative furnace. Once all the junk has burned away, my hope is for this reek to give way to an aroma of comfort and warmth and home.
Beginning this blog is only the first step toward that goal. Now, I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and pray I don't stumble.
Baby steps, I tell myself. Baby steps.
Imagine, if you will, the olfactory result of burning away a year's worth of dust and rust and cobwebs within the flames of the furnace. Throw a few desiccated corpses of unfortunate insects upon the pyre and the malodorous blend is complete.
After a particularly miserable Summer, the hottest and driest that I can remember, the weather here has been pleasantly temperate for the past few weeks. Those few leaves still clinging tenaciously to parched branches eventually began to turn gold and orange and crimson and the breeze blew cool while the sun stayed warm. It has been a glorious reprieve in which I have reveled.
Then, literally overnight, our temperature dropped from 80 degrees on Friday afternoon to 40 degrees Saturday morning, prompting my husband to switch on the heater. Instead of waking up to the comforting aroma of fresh brewing coffee, I woke to the aforementioned acrid stench. I hate this smell! It chokes me and nauseates me and I dread it every year. But I also realize that it's a necessary part of the transition, especially if I don't want to freeze to death over the course of the Winter.
The point to this rambling diatribe? The experience caused me to reflect on the correlation between the heater and my writing career. For the past decade, my writing skills have been gathering dust and cobwebs from disuse. My career has been in limbo, stalled by a series of tragic events and the subsequent onset of psychological, emotional and physical struggles. Rather than putting pen to paper and writing my way through these obstacles the way we, as writers, are taught to do, I allowed my writing voice to go dormant and my skills to stagnate.
Then, a few months ago, a strange thing began to happen. I began to reconnect with old friends I'd lost contact with over the years. Friends from high school that I hadn't seen or spoken to in decades, and the beloved comrades of the younger, wilder hell-raising phase of my life, as well as my writer and editor and publisher friends from back in the day when I was still publishing Bloodreams.
Before I knew it, long forgotten embers began to smolder. A tiny flame began to flicker and grow. My creative fire was stoked. Wonder of wonders, I gradually began to think like a writer again for the first time in years. Characters, settings, situations began to tease the edges of my consciousness. I heard dialog whispering in my head. I fell in love with words all over again. Narrative description toyed with my thoughts as I observed the world around me. I dug through my old files and unearthed stories I'd started and never finished, book projects I'd abandoned, and I re-read my published stories, essays and articles. I was even pleasantly surprised to find that they weren't as bad as I remembered them to be.
So, I sat down and began to write again and quickly came to a disappointing realization. Very much like the fetor from the burning debris in my furnace, my writing attempts stink at the moment. But, also like the current stench permeating my house, I'm hoping this is only a temporary condition. Before my writing can improve, I must first knock the rust off my mental hinges and burn away the dust and cobwebs that have accumulated in my creative furnace. Once all the junk has burned away, my hope is for this reek to give way to an aroma of comfort and warmth and home.
Beginning this blog is only the first step toward that goal. Now, I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and pray I don't stumble.
Baby steps, I tell myself. Baby steps.
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