Beatrice Writes

Words Sway Me

I just finished reading a stunning and heartbreaking novel about what might happen if an EMP was detonated over the U.S. Very realistic depiction, in my opinion. I don’t know what was worst; imagining this happening for real in my life, the deaths of the elderly, the cannibalism, the need to lock people up in asylums/sanitoriums again, or the death of a child due to lack of insulin. I could very easily turn into a survivalist if I think about it that much. Then again, I would head for my friend Shannon’s house in the event of an apocalypse–she would have plenty of green things growing. And a catapult or trebuchet for defense. Plus, those Baker boys are something fierce!

My mother has always said that words are weapons for me. I can slice you to pieces without ever touching you. I try to use my power for good, but it doesn’t always work. I guess it follows that words affect me in the same way. I cry much more easily while I am reading a well-written book than I do when I’m watching a movie.

There are books that I have been reading and re-reading for 10-15 years where the characters seem like old friends. There are books I can no longer read because of the deaths of those beloved characters. There is a book that haunts me, that I love, that was probably my introduction to the genre I most love; fantasy. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. It is such a book of humanity and haunting beauty. I want to read it again and again, to hold the words close to me. I can’t bear it, though. The unicorn’s story is too tragic. There is both great hope and great despair in the tale.

I marvel that this one story can absorb so much of myself. I marvel that this author has woven such a tale! Such a deft hand at the pen. Where does his story come from? I want desperately to have the same skill at writing a tale, the same power to bring tears, to have someone read and re-read my words fifty, a hundred times because of their weight, their aura, their transcendence. I fear that I have nothing so pure and amazing within me. I fear that I have that skill within me, but no story to tell. I fear that I have the story, but cannot find the right words.

Words hold me in their grip, tightly. I live my life along their edges. They susurrate over my tongue, whisper in my ears, grip my soul in both their hands and haul me under the deep blue of their gluttonous mouths.

Note: Cross-posted at My Kingdom for a Book and my personal Facebook page.

Planner

I bought a planner yesterday. It’s clean, blank, and has no entries in it. It has room for all possibilities the upcoming year holds. It’s beautiful and full of hope. It is not the blank page of writing, but something much less stressful.

One of the things I like most about myself is that I am usually able to live my life like this planner. Yesterday may have been the worst day I could have had, but I wake up in the morning to a fresh start. Yesterday is finished, and I can’t change what happened. Today is a new day. It was the same with my special education students. There could have been a huge fight the previous day. They could have flunked their test. None of that mattered. The day was full of potential, of possibility, of positivity.

It would be awesome if I could face my writing the same way!

2010 in Review

I am just now really catching up with the fact that it is now 2011! I don’t know what happened, but I got left behind. My habit the past few years is not to make resolutions, but rather to think about what I accomplished in the previous year and to set goals for the coming year. This is my list of things that happened this year.

The Good:

• I ended up with an awesome boyfriend.
• I don’t live with my brother and sister-in-law any more!
• I joined the review crew at www.RiseReviews.com
• I had a very productive writing year!
• I started a writing collaboration with two of my great friends.
• I finished all my Christmas presents BEFORE Christmas. (This is a HUGE accomplishment in my mind! I have a Christmas present from 2009 that still isn’t finished. Sigh.)
• I made a new friend.
• I added a new state to the list of places I’ve been.
• I visited a new place–Cleveland, OH.
• I submitted my writing to more than one place/competition/lit mag.

The Bad:

• My cousin was murdered 10 days before Christmas.
• My uncle passed away on Thanksgiving weekend due to a heart attack.
• I got unceremoniously dumped, hard-core. (This led to #1 on my list of good things to happen in 2010, however–I am with  now with a boyfriend much more awesome than the previous one.)
• I was still unable to find a full-time job.

The Bad stuff was bad with a capital B this year. I made a real effort to think of good things because of it. This year has a lot of excitement coming up. I’m starting school again. I am planning to submit my writing to some literary magazines, and maybe even a competition. I’m planning to set monthly goals. Hopefully I will be able to announce that I’ve gotten published this year! One of my wishes for the year (but something I have no control over) is that no one in my family will die for the entire year. I’d like to get through the whole calendar year without a death in my family because that hasn’t happened since 2006.

Violence

I object to violence because…the evil it does is permanent.  –Mahatma Gandhi
There is a man who lives a simple life. He is married and has two wonderful boys. He loves his wife and tries to be the best husband and father he can be. He loves baseball, hard rock music, and drives a taxi cab. He is generous in heart and willing to do manyalmost anything for his friends and family. He is not a perfect man, but he is a good man.

He picks up a man and drives him to the next city one night. He is to drop him off on a rural road. There is a party going on and the police have been called. They are already there when the passenger, a man he has driven several times stabs him with a Bowie knife. The police hear his screams for help and come in time to stop the bleeding and save the man from possibly fatal wounds.

His wife receives a phone call very late on Thursday night from the hospital telling her only that he has been taken into surgery. She calls a friend in tears and asks her to come take care of the children so she can go to the hospital. The friend drives as quickly as she can to take care of the boys in the middle of the night. In the morning, she must give excuses to them about why she is there instead of their parents. She takes the youngest to daycare and then tells the older child that his father has been stabbed.

The man spends between 7 and 9 hours in surgery and the doctors tell the family to expect his recovery to take months and further surgeries.

There are too many coincidences for it to be coincidence. The police were already there to call the ambulance, stop the bleeding, and set up a perimeter in order to catch the man who committed the violence. There is an airline ticket that has already been bought for his mother so that the man’s wife can go to job training in another city for a job that falls through. The man has just been added to his wife’s health insurance, so the surgery and hospital stay will not bankrupt the family.

The violence done to this man is not just done to the man. It affects so many other people. It affects his wife, his children, his parents and siblings. It affects the family friend who is called in the night to watch her children. It affects the friends that he has made, and his boss. It affects the family of those close to the man’s family. It affects the police officers who were on the scene and the family that was partying loud enough for the police to be called. It will affect the lawyers of the man who did the stabbing and the judge and jury on his case in the future. The violence is like a drop of water in a pond, rippling ever outward in concentric circles, touching more and more people.

There is a symmetrical outpouring of support. A member of the celebrating wedding party who is a biker offers to arrange a benefit ride for the man when they stop by the hospital to check up on him. The man’s boss establishes a medical fund for him. Friends clean the house and take care of the children while the adults are at the hospital. Food is provided for the family. Cousins call to check in and offer their support. The test will come when the man has been in the hospital for weeks. Will there still be such a strong outpouring of support then? Will the man have visitors in the hospital during the hard time when he is bored at the hospital but not well enough to go home? These are things the family worries about.

The violence is permanent. The man may have difficulty trusting anyone in the future, and fear many things he did not before his injury. He will most certainly have to find another way to support his family. He will suffer pain for many weeks, maybe months or years.  The man’s sons will remember for the rest of their lives the night that their father was stabbed. They will be less trustful of others. The man’s wife will fear for her husband every time he goes out late at night. The people in the neighborhood will lock their doors at night and remember the fear.

This is all a true story.

I am the family friend called in the middle of the night. I had the heart-breaking task of telling a very mature 11-year-old that his father had been stabbed. All of this happened only two days ago, and already it has changed my life in only a fraction of the way that I am sure it has changed the lives of the family. I have never been the victim of violence, even during 6 years of living in Los Angeles where I worked in one of the most dangerous parts of the city. I have never had any reason to fear for my own safety in more than 20 years of living in Kentucky where there is a fraction of the crime of L.A. I cannot stop imagining the pain and fear that he must have felt in those moments. I will be fearful of taxis for quite a while, and feel terrified when I receive late night phone calls. I understand Gandhi’s quote on a very personal level now, and I will forever be sorry that I do.

I am amazed at the support the family has received, and grateful on their behalf. I am willing and able to help in any way I can, but I am avoiding frequent calls to add to the flood of calls that I am sure the family is already receiving. I wish that I could help financially, but I will instead wait until I have the opportunity to help out again.

If you would like to and can help out the family financially, please donate. I don’t have the link up now, but I will as soon as possible. I believe that you can go to any 5/3 Bank branch, and let them know that you would like to make a donation to the Boggess Medical Fund.

Slowing Down