Very small epiphany

I can usually remember what I was thinking. Sometimes I can remember it all too well. What I can't reliably remember is what I was doing: the shape of an hour, a day, a week. And that is why this journal is the way it is.

Pamela

Writing Update

It's been, I think, two weeks since I wrote anything using the computer. My office is in an advanced state of, well, practically decomposition, in truth, though I was going to say chaos. Though I did not do so in conscious reaction against this mess, I have in fact resurrected a practice that I first fell into with Pat Wrede, back when we both had day jobs in downtown Minneapolis; and later used successfully with Raphael. Pat and I (who were sometimes joined, I recall, by Will and Emma) called it a writing lunch; Raphael and I called it a writing hour, though it often went longer. I suggested it to Eric, calling it a writing date; and when I reminded Raphael of what we used to do, received the suggestion that since we both had work we were avoiding that could be done in company, the two of us might try having a working hour or date as well.

The idea is that, for the time determined on, one does nothing but work or attempt to work on whatever one has brought to deal with. I remember contemplating bringing my taxes to a writing lunch, but I knew I'd get a withering commentary from Pat. Mostly what I've done in all these sessions is writing.

The result of this for me, this time around, is a total of about 2500 words, which I have still not typed in. However, I've just succumbed to the forecast, which says 88 degrees as the high today, and turned on my office air conditioner. Climatic comfort obviates a certain degree of the effect of chaos, so this might work.

I am especially pleased that during the last session with Eric, which, I am smug to relate, occurred on a Sunday morning after coffee but before breakfast, I finally got the two main characters whom I have not used before onto the page. I wasn't planning to have them be viewpoint characters, but they are going to be. I quite like them. I'm a little worried about the structure of the book, with so many points of view. I know it's a solved problem for many another writer, but I haven't solved it yet.

Pamela

Why we are having these weekends

Eric and I started dating in February of 2002. All during the drawn-out tag-end of the Minnesota winter, I regaled him with tales of Nerstrand Big Woods State Park, and Carver Park Reserve, and Blue Mounds State Park, and Elm Creek Park Reserve, and Rice Lake State Park, and Lake Itasca State Park -- my favorites of the places I've gone with Raphael to hunt dragonflies and orchids. He expressed interest in going to some of these places with me.

However, his spring that year was hectic in the extreme, and we never went. Next spring, he will not be in Minnesota. The spring after that has plans attached to it, but the future is always uncertain. So, this spring, we are going to the parks, and also increasing our visits to such amazing strictly local attractions as Loring Park (herons!) and the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden (beauties too numerous to mention in a parenthesis).

This weekend we crammed a wonderful party at the Minnehahas' place, a job interview for Eric in a remote northern suburb, a trip to Carver (brown creeper defending a nest box! Dragonflies! Chimney swifts flying low overhead, chittering!), the aforementioned writing date, brunch at Natraj (Green mango chutney! Eggplant masala! Puri! Fresh Naan!), a swift trip to Eloise Butler (Lupines! Nuthatches! Water forget-me-nots!) and another to the Quaking Bog (this was the most amazing; we had been there in early spring when it was all tamarack and sphagnum moss, intensely beautiful but so sparse; and now it was all grown up with false lily-of-the-valley and calla lilies and tree seedlings and as-yet-unidentified puffy yellow flowers and blue flag iris); after which we had a marathon two-minute (for we had only eight quarters between us) car wash to thank Raphael for lending us the car, and then a brief stint of garden work (I watered stuff and Eric attacked the huge, huge buckthorn under the elm by the garage), after which we parted affectionately and reluctantly and I came into the house feeling I had been gone for a week, though I had been home on Saturday afternoon for half an hour or so.

David was off teaching a course. Lydy was bereft because one of her blood parrots had died. I felt bad too; I could even pick the late Helena out of the crowd, and she didn't run away if my shadow fell on the tank. My cat and Raphael were glad to see me, and I to see them.

Pamela