To Pablo, my Chilean love
It's hard to read Neruda
and not fall in love,
hard to not fall in love
with somebody,
something,
a god or goddess
or just the life around you
or maybe some poet long-dead.
I fell in love
with a certain dark thing
somewhere
and I've been searching for it
elsewhere
ever since.
I imagine I'll find it
when I stumble upon someone else
searching
for the same thing.
It was easy to read
revolucion
living darkly beneath my surface.
It didn't even take
cien sonnatas
to unearth it.
It was
aquí.
It was
dentro de nosotros.
It was
you
and he
and I
all along.
It would seem that Christmas time is nearly upon us. I love December. All the cool people are born then. Don Johnson, Walt Disney, some dude named Mark, a girl named Sunnie, Me, Jesus... Seriously. It's a month for awesome people.
And my brother, who has been in Miami since August, is coming home! I've actually kinda missed him. It's amazing how much better we get along when we no longer live in the same house - let alone state.
I'm just happy it's finally cold out. I love warm weather as much as the next person, but there's just something about the cold that makes me feel alive. It's also a great excuse to find a comfy spot and read a book. There's something to be said about the feeling one gets when finishing a novel in one sitting. :)
As far as gift giving goes, I'm taking the advice of www.adventconspiracy.org and conserving money. Instead of buy pricey gifts, I bought lots of yarn. I'll be using my extensive old-lady knitting and crocheting skills to *make* gifts instead this year. The money I save will be going to a Christian charity. I don't know which one yet.
Well, I'll update as the holiday season progresses.
God bless,
Sarah
Showdown At Super 8
based (loosely) on true events
(with apologies to JPD and Super 8)
The International House of Pancakes was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In a college-town like
It was nearing 10pm and the parking lot was its usual half-full. A couple of students pulled in, ready to devour a some Belgian waffles when lights began dancing before them. They watched as a
Across from the IHOP was a Super 8. This, in laymen’s terms, translates to “motel for the desperate.” There was nothing super about this particular Super 8. But something was apparently brewing there tonight. The officer in the patrol car skidded to a stop, left his lights flashing and took off running towards the rear of the motel. The students, still sitting in their car, looked at one another wearily. This sort of thing didn’t happen often. Do they stay in the car and watch the events unfold? Or do they traipse into the restaurant and demand waffles?
“Stay,” they said simultaneously, answering the unspoken question. Waffles would have to wait. Not a moment later another patrol car joined the first, its driver sprinting off to find the other.
The scene was eerily quiet for a moment. Only the flashing of the patrol cars’ lights interrupted the peace of the evening. Suddenly sirens began sounding from the left and right. Fire trucks were descending upon the motel from both directions. Within the next few minutes a dozen more squad cars arrived, along with three ambulances and 2 more fire trucks. The students turned the car back on and tuned into the always trusty local AM radio news station. The events happening before their very eyes were quickly turning into the big news of the night. After waiting a few minutes, the DJ repeated what everyone had been waiting to hear.
“There is a hostage situation now occurring at the Super 8 motel.” The students gazed into the flashing lights, stunned. This kind of thing just didn’t happen around here. They were certain this had just been an over-reaction to someone’s cat being caught up a tree. They were gravely mistaken. Apparently Bubba had finally crossed the line. No, really.
Bubba Monroe (pronounced MUN-row) had gotten tired of it. He loved his wife but it was finally tim0ed they both admitted that she was just after his money; and his trailer – it being one of those classy new double-wides and all. He had never really minded that she was a gold-digger. He knew she loved him all the same. That is until he found her shacked up with some chump from her bowling team. He had walked in on them after she had rented a room in his name at the Super 8.
Bubba, being the enraged husband he was, stormed out to his truck and grabbed his shotgun from its hiding location behind the seat. It wasn’t loaded, but no one would find that out until the next morning. The clerk had merely seen an angry man stomping up to one of the rooms with a gun in his hand. The cops were immediately called and now there was a major hostage situation right across the street from the IHOP.
So the students sat, watching and listening as it all unfolded before them. Unfortunately there was no trained hostage negotiator within the Jonesboro Police Department. Instead there was Rick. He was the night secretary down at the station. He was known for his level-head so he was handed the job of talking a now blubbering Bubba out of the motel room without firing the unloaded weapon at any of the room’s occupants. Bubba lasted a solid thirty minutes before he came out, crying like a baby. He had even tried making a few outrageous demands – a new pickup, a new wife, a new gun – but none were successful. It was later said that he cried all the way to the station.
Within the hour all of the noise and the lights had faded. The last squad car had driven away. The two college students turned off the car and sat in silence for a moment. Crime had been committed. Guns raised. Officers dispatched. What were they supposed to do now? In the end, there was only one thing left to do.
Waffles.
THE END
Books are such trouble-makers. Parents get into such an uproar about what their children read. In the past several years there has been multiple series of books come out marketed to the teen/young adult age group. They're mostly fantasy novels with a touch of magic or somesuch. It seems that many parents hear whispers of "unnatural" things in the books and they flip out, banning their children from reading them. Banning a book that you've never read is a good way to anger me.
I thoroughly support a parent's decision to monitor what their child reads. But banning books? Will you burn them next? First try turning off their TV and sorting through their DVD collection. In a book, an author can describe a fight scene but it's up to the reader to provide the pictures. TV and movies remove that step and shove blood and guts on the screen. It doesn't have to be that way with a book.
These people are banning books they've never read! They're judging them by their covers and their critics. I was under the impression that we were supposed to be teaching kids to think for themselves. Apparently not. It bothers me greatly that parents get so wound up about a book with magic or vampires in it and yet they haven't taken a look at the lyrics to their kids favorite emo bands - most of which are thinly veiled metaphors for self-harming, self-hate and suicide.
We are living in a society of instant gratification. We have our 3 minute songs that whine about our lives. We have our 2 hour movies where the hero almost always gets the girl and the bad guy gets his just desserts. Am I saying that books are lands of peace and rainbows? Heck, no! Books are filled with everything imaginable. Love, hate, peace, war, sex, drugs, foul language and morbidly depressed robots.
But books nurture imagination and creative thinking. They expand your vocabulary. Ask any professional teacher and they'll tell you: good readers make good learners. If someone is worried about the influence reaching their children's generation, books aren't the first place to look. Heard some mixed reviews about a book they want to read? Read it and decide for yourself. Don't have time to read a whole novel? Skim it. It doesn't take long. Please monitor what your children listen to, watch and read, but I beg of you to make up your own mind about a book. Don't listen to what "they" say about it. It might even be wise to talk to your kid!
And remember this: there's a lot of teen/young adult fiction out there that I don't like. Some of it I do, but most of it isn't my style. There are even some that I just can't stand. That being said, I may not personally like what they read but I will defend to the death their right to read it.
- standing on my soapbox
Ah. November. National Novel Writing Month.
This thought horrifies. It's still hard to believe that at one point I sat down and wrote a novel in a month. It can be done. I didn't really sleep much, but it happened.
Now here we are again. November. Apparently there's some sort of election going on. And some vampire movie is coming out. Whatever.
This is a whole freaking month dedicated to the craft of novel-writing. That means that if I go a day without getting something written on the novel, I feel like a jerk. A big, uninspired and uninspiring jerk. Ugh.
This is not going to be easy.
One of the rules for NaNoWriMo is that you have to start a whole new novel. No, "Well, I wrote a chapter or two of this thing last year...". Nope. Can't have that. But I just don't have the heart to write a whole new novel. My brain is swimming with stuff for this one. I'm scared to see what would happen if I swapped my trains of thought now. So what am I going to do?
Trudge on.
That's all I really can do. I'm hoping that all of the novel-talk will keep me going. Keep me typing. Let me tell you, folks. You want to know what the hardest thing about writing a novel is? The next word.
So, I'm just dedicating the month of November to the next word. In the end, that's really all I've got.
- Sarah
I'm currently getting a bunch of self-addressed, stamped envelopes ready. In the next few days I'm going to begin sending out my poems and short stories to every literary magazine I can find that will accept submissions. I'm a bit horrified, I must admit. It feels like I'm letting my children off into the world for the first time. They've never been so far away from me. I'm worried they won't be treated nice. At some point one of them will limp home with a rejection letter in their hand. I can't wait.
I watched Lord of the Rings last weekend. Friday was the Fellowship, Saturday was Two Towers and Sunday was Return of the King. I laughed. I cried. I was eerily giddy. I've watched these movies more times than I can count and I still have the same reaction each time. It had been over a year since I had seen them in their entirety. You'd think I would have calmed down a bit. But no. I'm still just as much of a die-hard fangirl as I was when I first immersed myself in Middle Earth back in junior high.
But how can you not love these films and these books? I know some people can't stand them, but I don't see how. They're just so epic. The story says so much about the human condition, about everything that's wrong and right with people. I can't help but feel a deep connection to it.
I could go on all day about the awesomeness of all things Tolkien, but I won't. Hopefully I'll write a book about it someday. Until then, I'll just be here, books in hand, watching the movies with my Legolas standee. :D
Writing frightens me. Why would something I'm so undeniably passionate about scare the crap out of me? How does that work? It just seems so impossible. Like I'm addicted to something I know will kill me, but I can't give it up. It's horrifying.
It pisses me off that somebody who's never given writing a second thought can jot down a note on a napkin or have a weird dream and then boom! they're bestselling authors and multi-millionaires. How can that happen to them and yet here I sit, the call of writing having been echoing in my soul for years, at 1:30 in the morning, anxious and restless because I don't know what to do with my story. I've been working on it for nearly a year and I haven't even written 100 pages. What the crap. I'm just stuck. I know where I want to go, but I don't know how to get there. And will anybody want to read it if I do?
Do people even read books any more? And I mean real books. Those not written on a third grade reading level. Ugh. I feel horribly pretentious. I'm just jealous. All those published authors who found the will to finish. I'm horrified that I can't.
~On a side note, this was written very early in the morning. I stared at my computer for a bit after writing it and then I pulled up my manuscript and typed out 3 new pages. Go me. :D
This weekend was the annual BCM Back-To-School Retreat. As usual, it was teh awesome. I'm never disappointed with what these guys offer us!
We had a wonderful worship leader, Frank Hendrix. I mean, come on. The guy started singing a worship song to the tune of "With or Without You" by U2. Seriously. And yes. It *was* that awesome.
Our speaker was Michael Kelley. He's an Editor for Lifeway and has written two Bible studies called "The Tough Sayings of Jesus" (I and II). He was GREAT. 1. It was cool to get to sit and chat with someone who, however accidentally, has published a book, and 2. he had some really awesome things to say and points to make.
He spoke about love - a favorite topic of mine.
I'm feeling the need to crawl up on my soapbox for a minute here. Try and bear with me.
I hate politics.
I am not a Democrat.
I am not a Republican.
I am not an Independent.
I am apolitical.
It's a game I just refuse to play. Will I be voting in the Presidential election in November? You bet your butt I will be. Blood was shed for that right and I'm not gonna throw it away. But am I going to tell you who I am voting for? Nope. I hate politics.
I'll be glad when the results are in and people will finally start shutting up a little bit. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the world will still be spinning whenever they announce the winner. Whoever it is, I doubt the world is just going to go into freak-out mode. Gas will still cost an arm and a leg. There will still be troops that aren't home. Kids will still be dying of AIDS in Africa. The sun will still rise in the east. It's still gonna set in the west. This whole election thing isn't really that big of a deal.
Now, calm down. I'm not an anarchist, I swear. I promise I understand the importance of the American President. I'm just saying that there are bigger issues out there and that by making our President the most important person in the country we're selling ourselves short. Power isn't in the hands of the President. It's in the hands of the people. We are horribly dangerous. Well... we have the ability to be. I'm just trying to say that, no matter who wins the election, the ultimate power will still reside with the American people. One, fallible man will be the leader of our country. But if he's not doing a good job, we can overcome that. We have to be the change we want to see. We can't expect our politicians to do it for us.
I'd also like to plead with my generation for a moment. Please turn off your TVs for a bit. At least... take them off the comedy channel. Freedom of speech is amazing. I'm enjoying it right now, but don't let yourself be spoon-fed. Shows like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are enjoyable and witty, but they are also teaching my generation that our leaders don't deserve any respect. I just think it's odd that we expect the rest of the world to respect our government but we won't. How sad. I'm gonna slowly back away from my soapbox now.
Much love and much peace,
Sarah
ARAGORN/GANDALF in '08!!!
Tonight, I thank my God for stories. I tend to find life difficult to deal with. Stories are my escape. I love happy endings. But sometimes I love those that aren't as happy just as much. I love both the trajic and the comedic. Perhaps it is because my life seems to carry touches of both. Some days it is strange how much I long for my happily ever after, my happy ending. But still there are those moments where I just want things to be right. Not necessarily perfectly happy, but right. As if the rightness transcends whatever "happy" may be. I love stories. Passionately. A story isn't just an event or series of events. It's more. It's happenings that form a grander meaning; that either in the moment or later on you learn from, or someone else can learn from. Our own stories may seem to be crazy-random-happenstance, but perhaps they could provide a wealth of knowledge to someone else. Perhaps someone else has just the story that we need to hear. God is the Author or our Faith. He's been on the best-seller list for a few millenia now. Surely we should take the time to listen to one or two of the few billion he's got in progress now?
Abba,
Thank you for stories.
Sarah
Yeah. I used to have my own website.
Dude. Those things cost money. And I'm poor.
So. I've gotten a blogspot. Not quite the same, but I think I can make it work.
Sorry I don't have anything deep to write tonight. I'm tired. Gimme a break.
Peace out.
