Monthly Archive for November, 2007

Artist Date with Death

Published on November 29, 2007 in Belette's Favorites, Meaning Making and Writing in Valencia. 18 Comments Tags: Self-Indulgent, Writing.

I have been doing my artists dates for the last six weeks, and up until now I enjoyed them, from the planning to the doing. For two hours out of every week I take my temperamental creator out on the town, for what might be considered “quality time.” If this sounds suspiciously like inner child banter forgive me for it is actually much more like bribery. If I take her to see Reservoir Dogs again she might actually agree to do some work on a novel. If not, my creativity is replaced with symptoms of Ebstein Barr, Chronic Fatigue, and fantasies of a glamorous career as a court stenographer. She seemed appeased by my bribery and I occasionally enjoyed our time together. But that’s before you. Now that you know about our relationship you will judge where I take my artist. Where before if I took her on a Denny’s style date, it didn’t matter, but now you will know and think I don’t love my artist. So I have to take her on a Le Cirque style date. This created pressure and a block. Before I just had writers block and now I have artist date block.

When I asked my artist what she wanted to do on our date, “Something really different….I know,” she said. “I want to go to Green Hills Memorial Park.” “That is a really stupid idea.” I countered, “We need to do something grand in scale to show how much I value you. Maybe we can jump into a boxcar and take the train up north and fly back, that would be really cool. Kerouac like” “No.” My artist said. “I want to go to Green Hills” “Sorry”, I told her again. “I know, we’ll go to Bristol Farms and buy $10 a pound Chinese cherries and we’ll go to Portuguese Bend and spit them into the ocean. Seems very literary” “I don’t want to.” She rebuffed, with her usual indolence “Green Hills!” The way she said it that time I knew she was about to leave me. She’s done it before. Before I’d know it we’d be going through our books and CD’s trying to remember which one of us likes Philip Glass.

“Okay the cemetery it is. What do you want to do at the cemetery?” “I want to go visit Charles Bukowski.” She demanded. I exhaled deeply at her drippy sentimental plan. “And I want to take him a beer. I want to drink a beer with Bukowski.” “But we don’t drink beer.” I countered and then silently thought with that winy attitude she was probably developmentally too young to drink alcoholic beverages. “Well I want to, If you don’t take me I am going to go on strike and you’ll be left alone, afternoons filled with ennui, Oprah, Court TV, and napping.” So I bought two beers, one for her, one for Bukowski, and none for me cause I was driving. She took along her tracing paper, black chalk, and Ham on Rye (the book, not the sandwich). I hid all of her things in my backpack, I was afraid they might throw me in jail for bringing beer into a cemetery (What as I going to use for my excuse? My artist made me do it!)

Once inside the cemetery office I asked for a map to his grave. “Oh” said the woman who looked like she was born to work in a mortuary. “We get lots of visitors for Mr. Bukowski. One of our directors will help you if you’ll just come into the office.” I leafed through brochures on my post-life options. Much more than just plots and cremations were being sold. So many choices: standing mausoleums, benches, statues and more. A young woman entered whose self-streaked hair, rugged complexion, and enthusiasm surprised me. “Hi, I’m the funeral director, Evie.” She was way too perky, she could have just as easily said, “Hi, my name is Julie McCoy and I am you’re cruise director. How can I help you?” What happened to somber men in black suits? Death isn’t what it used to be.

“I am here to visit Charles Bukowski.” I didn’t know what to say. I had trouble-saying visit, as it made him sound alive. I couldn’t decide if it was the right word. I considered “see” but I wasn’t actually going to see him and “pay my respects” seemed like something an old person would say, people who say “dope” for drugs and “brazier” for bra. I just can’t use those phrases without being a smart ass and I can’t be a smart ass in a funeral home. (Funeral parlor is another one of those old person words). “Great!” She replied with a startling enthusiasm. I found myself hoping she turned that volume down for people who had newly departed family members and only turned on that perky personality full blast for non-essential visitors such as myself.

She drew me a map to Bukowski’s final resting place, which was more of a memento of the day than a useful guide to finding the grave. Since I’m hopeless with directions, even as she was explaining it, I knew it would be an adventure for me to find him and it was. Bukowski, C, Ocean View, 190, 3 across, 7 down. Are those directions or a crossword puzzle?

We found him with a very cheery and bright “Spring Bouquet” lying at the bottom of his headstone, something that came from a FTD florist. A bouquet that is in a catalog that florists all across the country make every day, item # 3456, $29.95, there is a template for this bouquet so every one looks the same, no two are different. If you order one in Akron or in Tampa you will get the exact same bouquet with the exact same number of yellow carnations, white mums and pink tulips. Nothing natural or wild remains in the flower when it is placed in the bouquet the life is stripped away. It was everything that Bukoswki was not and it lay over his drying bones and yet I did not have the courage to remove them, for they could have been a well meaning token from someone who loved him and they did not have the symbolic horror for them they had for me. They were too much for me to bear, in defense my artist quickly got to work.

She opened Hank’s beer and gave it to him and guzzled her own getting some on my blouse in the process. She carefully rubbed over the marker with chalk black pastels, paying special attention to the words, “Don’t try.” His grave offers instructions to the living and a motto of the man just as descriptive of Bukowski as would be a headstone reading, “Loving Father and Husband.” There was the outline of a boxing glove on Bukowski’s grave in the midst of a jab as kinesthetic contrast to the carved placid mountain scene on the grave of the woman next to him.

When done with the rubbing my artist sat back and contemplated all the usual things you contemplate at the plot of a literary legend. (She made me promise not to tell you all of her ruminations; she thought you might accuse her of sentimentality and hero worship that would be more appropriate at the grave of a romantic poet).

As she did all that, I looked at the view Bukowski would never see, of trees framing the skyline of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. From where the three of us sat you couldn’t see the ugliness, the grime, and the deterioration of his city. The monotony of the local obscured by the fog of distant cities of equal mediocrity; knowing, as I look there, I do not want to be there any more than I want to be at the place I call home and yet I want to be no place else but here, here with her and here with death, sitting on the green hills that made me sneeze and made me think thoughts that made me dizzy, that made me want to eat a meal of hearty tuberose vegetables and brown stocks, to hear the voice of another and have them say words that proved I was here and real and have them say thinks like, “I will see you in January,” indicating I have a future that is guaranteed.

Under me was lifeless decay: rotting bones, worms, and perhaps even maggots and yet all I saw was beauty. “Let’s go,” the artist said, and we did, and so we walked and then the beer went to her head and she tried to tell me in a manic rush of
future tense all the plans she had for me, my art, and for my work. She was down right giddy. My mood had turned and everything looked so different and she didn’t even seem to notice.

Writing in Paris: Partie Cinq

Published on November 19, 2007 in France and Writing in Valencia. 21 Comments Tags: France, Paris, Writing.

One of the ways, my writing in Paris guru, Eric Maisel suggests to begin your writing adventure in Paris is to become a flâneur. According to Wikipedia: “The term “flâneur” comes from the French verb flâner, which means “to stroll.” A flâneur is thus a person who walks the city in order to experience it.”

Charles Baudelaire, the French poet and critic, forever changed the meaning and significance of the flâneur by elevating it to a great cultural import. According to Baudelaire, the “gentleman stroller of city streets” has a key role in understanding, participating in and portraying the city. A flâneur is a detached social observer and simultaneously impacts the environment he observes.So, Maisel is saying that to write in Paris one needs to stroll in Paris. I have to say, that, I am not sure if I am capable of anything other than a saunter in Paris. Okay, maybe, if I was trying to catch a bus I could up my pace to an inelegant speed walk–but there would have to be a very good reason to be in such a gosh darn hurry while in France. Maybe, if Laduree where giving away free Macaroons.

In New York I walk a very focused “don’t f*ck with me” walk. In Chicago, my pace is a little slower; it is still a city where you see women in business suits and New Balance running shoes scurrying to the Mercantile. However, one is less likely to be accosted in Chicago; so, the second city speed is a definite downshift to third. And as far as walking in L.A., haven’t you heard the song, “Nobody walks in L.A.”

On a recent visit, I decided to walk down Melrose Avenue and browse. I thought I might run into Heather Locklear or lesser cast members from Melrose Place, but there was no one there. I was all-alone on Melrose. I started to wonder if it was a holiday or if maybe there was a big casting call somewhere. Truly, for seven blocks of walking, I only saw one person who was waiting for a bus. Instead of feeling the freedom of the open expanse, I felt an anxiety one feels when in a ghost town (Um, not that I have ever really been to a ghost town; but I do remember a “Brady Bunch” episode where the family went to a ghost town. I remember feeling scared when I watched Greg and Marsha explore the vacant village). Melrose was so abandoned and spooky that I half expected tumbleweeds to blow down Robinson Blvd. and bluster into the open doors of Fred Segal. In Paris, I can imagine being a professional flâneur.

When I start to walk somewhere in Paris, I start out with the intention of a destination and yet as I walk the destination seems to grow farther and farther away as I surrender to the journey. To be a flâneur one must stroll at an extremely or even exaggeratedly leisurely pace. Slowness is not the only element to flâneurie. Intense observation is also fundamental to a successful flâneur. This is a walking meditation of transcendence and beauty— and certainly more transformative than any mantra I have ever half-heartedly mumbled.

As I walk, my heart rate continues to grow slower and slower. There is no cardio benefit to be gained from flâneurie in France. I assure you that flâneurie will never catch on as a fitness craze in the states. There will be no exercise DVD’s featuring Flâneurie Fitness, “you too can flâneur you’re way to fitness!” I can see Baudeliere spinning in his grave—and I am not referring to the sweat inducing bike class style of spinning! I feel confident in assuming that poets don’t go in much for gyms.

In Paris, I truly cannot walk more than a few steps without stopping to look at the way a grocer has arranged the asparagus. The tender loving care he has taken with turnips and the nurturing he has shown the nectarines. I am filled with awe and beauty and a sensory overwhelm. I somehow gain the strength to take a few more steps and then there is the cheese shop. I have to stop, even though I had just stopped at the cheese shop down the block. I need to once again fill my lungs with the perfume that escapes from the door when someone walks in to buy an ashy dusted round of goat cheese. The French, and they should know, describe that delightfully cheesy aromatherapy as the smell of angel’s feet. Aaaah, heaven!

I have to stand with wonder at the variety and assortments of cheese the way tourists in America stand in front of the Grand Canyon. There are pictures to be taken. There are souvenirs to buy. There are clichés that need to be said. “How can they create so many cheeses just out of milk and bacteria.” I have to stand in front of the cheese chasm that divides our two countries. And, I will wonder where America’s fear of unpasteurised cheese comes from. I will be overtaken with the fierce existential dread that I will not live long enough to try all of these cheeses. I will never know all of their names or all their pleasures. It is a moment of both pleasure and pain….life and death. Weakened by the experience, I take a few steps and look into the window of the pharmacy and see an ad selling a serum made by La Roche that promises to give me a smooth, supple and round ass, like the Casaba melon I had just seen so lovingly caressed by the fruit vendor down the rue.

I am trying to get to the 6th, but I wonder if I will ever make it out of the 7th. There are the flower shops that cannot be ignored. There are the bouquets that are too grand and elegant to be considered mere bouquets. I pause to worry whether all of the arrangements will be purchased. I ache with the imagining that some will decay without ever having someone fully love and appreciate them. And, what does that massive bouquet with the orchids, roses, peony, pineapples and peacock feathers cost, anyways? And, who will get it? My imaginings blossom.

None of these arrangements are available at my local FTD. I see no baby’s breath, bright blue carnations or assorted helium balloons. These are not mere florists—they need to have a better name. Maybe, haute flower designers or institutes for the elevation of the fleur to a grand art? I stand at the window; I am far too afraid to go in. I know my French is inadequate to express my profound admiration for their beautiful creations. I fear that my attempt at flattery would insult rather than inspire. I walk away feeling much like Eve must have when she was given her eviction notice from Eden.

And, don’t even get me started on the boulangeries and the bookshops, or, the chocolate stores with their ever-changing confectionery displays. Then there is the architecture; each building a new poem that deserves reverie and reflection. And then there are the bridges. I could spend a day at each bridge that connects the Seine in an effort to understand the vagaries of emotion each one inspires.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t need Maisel or, even, Baudelaire to tell me to slow down and stroll in Paris. It is all well and good to be a flâneur in Paris. It is a cheval of a different colour to attempt that in the Midwestern Mayberry in which I live. What I need to do is to start to be a flâneur here at home. I admi
t that strolling does not come as naturally to me here. My pace is quickened and intentional when I go to the Jewel to do my shopping. I feverishly bag the asparagus; I then make a mad rush to the deli counter, so as to get there before the 3:00 rush. I most definitely do not stop and lovingly gaze at the cheeses in the case and romanticize neither the Sarah Lee cheddar nor the Oscar Meyer honey baked ham that’s on sale. I hurry past the floral section of my market on my way to the register and am unmoved to stop and smell the wilted roses.

To be continued(sometime next week), Part Sept: The Artist Date

Cheese Variety, Paris, France Poster by Artist: Lisa Engelbrecht courtesy of Allposters.com.

Writing in Paris: Part Quatre

Published on November 13, 2007 in France and Writing in Valencia. 42 Comments Tags: Writing.

I remember with perfect clarity the very moment I read Virginia Woolf’s feminist classic, “A Room of One’s Own.” I was in my Laura Ashley dream room listening to The Cure. I remember that the advice seemed so important that I copied the following words to my journal in big loopy purple handwriting that still dotted “i’s” with hearts : “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

When I got married there were things that were negotiable—such as I was willing to have dinner with my in laws as long as I could complain about it for hours afterwards. He could watch Star Trek as long as the rest of the time I had full and absolute sovereignty over the remote. As you can see, what I was really trying to accomplish was gender equity. However, the one thing I was not willing to negotiate on was the room of my own. I had to have one.

I had planned on being a writer like Virginia Woolf, only I would write funny stuff and have better brain chemistry and, thank God, a better nose. I fantasized that once I got the room I would start to write at least eight hours a day. I would then be a real writer. However, once I finally got the room of my own, I found that I spent very little time in it and even less time writing in it. I would use my writer’s desk as a makeup and blow drying station. Occasionally my writers chair served as a purgatory for clothes that were not exactly ready for their decent into my hamper and or the ardours elevation to a hanger and closet.

I think sometimes it is the proximity of my writing office to the rest of the house is my albatross. I am often roused to leave my post by the siren song of the refrigerator. Or, I am annoyed by the sounds of “others” watching TV and feel compelled to come and see what it is they are watching. I reluctantly find myself sitting on the sofa engrossed against my own will and better judgment by “The Deadliest Catch” and proceed to try to analyze what it is exactly that my husband finds so entertaining about crab fisherman.

Maybe I need a room of my own outside of my home. Michael Pollan, author of the great book, “The Omnivore’s Dilema,” also wrote a book called “A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder.” In this book , Pollan documents his process of creating a place of his own in which he can write. A little writer’s hut that he built just a few feet from his home. A place where he can sit alone with his brilliant thoughts and effortlessly turn out books that are on the New York Time’s Best Seller List for weeks. What I would love to learn is whether this writing Taj Mahal is all that he had hoped it would be. Has creating the perfect writing room made his writing process any more perfect? I am, as ever, dubious.

Eric Maisel, my Paris writing guru, suggests not limiting yourself to a single room and to instead make the world your writing room—at least while in Paris. There are many suggestions in his book, “A Writers Paris: A Guided Journey For The Creative Soul,” of great places to write while in Paris. It is the café that is the absolute and archetypal writing place in all of Paris. However, like Maisel’s point that you need to be writing in Pittsburgh before you go and try to write in Paris, he also suggests that you practice your writing in public before you make the big trip to France and find you have not learned how not to be overwhelmed with ADHD symptoms when sitting in le café.

I am trying to develop my writing in public skills. As a matter of fact, the bulk of this post was written in a Thai restaurant as I attempted to eat a bowl of Tom Yum Goong soup and not get any in my hair as I bent over to slurp it up. While I wrote and ate and avoided soupy hair, I inadvertently overheard two girls trash-talking a co-worker. And, there were a table filled with four mid-life crises and their secretary. Each guy attempted to demonstrate his sizable masculinity by outdoing each other on how hot and spicy they ordered their food. In the background I heard a conversation of two Thai workers that’s content was obscured by my inability to speak their language.

I find writing at home difficult. There are so many things I could do instead. I find writing out in the world difficult. I am so easily distracted. I guess, the truth of it is….I find writing difficult. I am going to continue to practice my extroverted writing exercises. You may see me in your local Starbucks, I will be the one with the laptop, the vente whole milk latte and a look of creative block and introverted overwhelm. However, the more I practice the café writing exercise the easier it will get. Soon, I will be able to write in le café in Paris and maybe even in the room of my own.

To be continued.

Writing in Paris—Part Trois

Published on November 5, 2007 in France and Writing in Valencia. 11 Comments Tags: Book, Paris, Writing.

You may have more faith in me than I have in myself. You may believe that when I get to Paris I will write and that is one of the things I like about you. Sadly, I know myself better than you do. I have reasons not to trust myself. My capacity for procrastination and block are well documented and what the nice psychoanalyst called “intractable.”

Sure, I could spend six months in Paris and not write a single word, developing a case of F.E.S. (French Ennui Syndrome) and then come home and write about not writing in Paris. My sad tale of all I learned in Paris could be transformed into a big best seller and I could end up on Oprah’s couch and she might rave about all of the “ah-ha,” “light bulb moments” my witty tale of transformation contains.

French lemonade could be made of my bruised, bitter and long-suffering lemons of procrastination. I am, however, dubious. Instead of a sparkling and refreshing lemony beverage, I see, instead, the bowl of lemons that currently sit on my kitchen counter, that were intended for a chicken picatta, and have instead transformed into something that would make Louis Pasteur proud (and he was French, wasn’t he?).

I feel that I need to approach this in a different way than I have in the past. I need an apt metaphor for this pre-Paris process. Perhaps, I should look at this experience as as a marathon. If I was to train for a marathon, I would need to start out slowly, so as to develop the endurance required to complete the task. There are muscles I need to develop, special shoes to be bought and times to be beat. At least , the shoes sound good.

However, running seems too aggressive a metaphor and there is all that sweat and then there is the pull of gravity that would surely harm my face and breasts —and then there is the matter of my aging knees. No…I must find a chic-er and more gentle metaphor.

I think instead, I will look at my Pre-Paris plan as a recipe. A recipe that will guarantee that I will write in Paris. That is, if I just follow the simple steps and don’t ignore the details, like “boil the lasagna noodles prior to layering them in the pan”( I can tell you that was some al dente lasagna).

Cooking is certainly more chic and certainly less demanding than my marathoning metaphor. Tasks need to be accomplished in a certain order to end up with a successful souffle. Ovens need to be preheated, pans buttered, and eggs broken. Sadly, there are no shoes involved. There are chef clogs, mais no, merci. Um, abandoning the metaphor as metaphors are failing me, as they often do.

I turn to my Paris writing guru, Eric Maisel, and his book, “A Writer’s Paris: A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul“, for guidance. He claims, and I believe him, that only one in a hundred writers come to Paris and write up a storm. Grim, no? Maisel knows that preparation for your Paris fantasy is très important. “It is one thing not to write at home…. It is another thing, however, to not write in Paris.”

According to Maisel, the cure for the fear of not writing in Paris is writing where you are. And, I quote, “Every day writing in Pittsburgh is a day earned towards Paris. Every week is a week. Every month is a month. If you write for a full year at your own desk, you would earn the right to spend a year writing in Paris…By writing in Pittsburgh, you would purchase Paris on a layaway plan.”

I feel emboldened to slightly modify Maisel’s plan and make it my own. It is my sense that I need to write at home, for at least half the time I would be in Paris. So, if my plan is to spend six months in Paris, writing—I would need to write here for at least three months. This weird algebra has no explainable rational to it, which is my personal experience of all higher mathematics. According to self-help psychology, it takes 21 days to make a new habit. Three months would mean that writing would be something much more than a habit. it might be considered my way of life, or at the least it would mean I wrote for 90 days.

I have no requirement about the caliber or quality of the writing. I am a huge believer in Anne Lamotte’s theory on the Sh*ty first draft. I don’t have to write anything brilliant or even coherent, to proceed with my Paris plan; I only need to write every day for three months. I need to write things other than grocery lists and emails to friends. C’est reasonable, Oui?

If you haven’t read Anne Lamotte and you want to write and are having trouble, and even if you aren’t, read “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.” No other book on writing has helped me as much.

To be continued, some time next week, Part Quatre of Writing in Paris: A Room of One’s Own vs. Café Creating.

p.s. Pamela, the writer of Frog Blog and creator of Francophilia, sent me some great links to blogs of writers who have made their Paris literary dreams a reality. If you share my Paris writing fantasy check out Bold Soul Blog and Polly Vous Francais and see how they did it.

Painting pictured, “Woman Writing a Letter” by Henry O’Hara Clive (1881 – 1960).

Monthly Archive for November, 2007

Artist Date with Death

Writing in Paris: Partie Cinq

Writing in Paris: Part Quatre

Writing in Paris—Part Trois

About Me

Have La Belette Rouge delivered right to your door

Honorary weasels who are the nicest, smartest, funniest, and best looking people on the Internet

Follow Me

Belette’s Favorites

Belette in Psychotherapy

Belette on Writing

Belette on infertility and being childless not by choice

La Belette Rouge for the Amazon Kindle

Belette Rouge’s Tip Jar