“What is the bridge from the water’s edge of inspiration to the far shore of accomplishment? [Insert laughter from a drunken undergrad] Faith. Faith that your story is worth telling.” – Q played by Rip Torn in Wonder Boys, 2000
This excerpt is taken from pretty close to the top of the film, which takes place during a very prestigious writer’s conference in New England. I assume it’s supposed to be something like Bread Loaf. (Do writer’s books get optioned at Bread Loaf?) I wouldn’t know because I’ve never attended. And I’ve only been to one AWP Conference, which, incidentally was because it took place less than 10 miles from my home.
I’ve never written an entire book, much less published one. And why? “Faith. Faith that [my] story is worth telling.” I have had challenges with that aspect of writing and creating altogether. I have faith that it’s important to me, but that it would be to anyone else enough to listen, read, or purchase that story? Infinitely less so.
Which is why I’m immediately a huge fan of anyone who finishes a complete collection of creative work – literary, musical, performance-based – all of it. Especially non-commissioned works. As a writer who hasn’t completed a novel or collection – I’ve written full length plays and songs, but not a book. And as someone who has tried via NaNoWriMo for the better part of 15 years, I have an idea about what it takes to complete a full-length work, but I don’t know.
Welcome to the brave new world, where your commute (unless you are an essential worker) is from your bed to the couch. Perhaps you are feeling a bit judgmental. With so much extra time on your hands, the thought I should be writing might be circling your brain.
For those who are new to working from home or have an ample amount of time due to being furloughed or being laid off, you may have realized that a 1-hour task can take 16 hours. The lack of structure, and the ability to make your schedule, might have you reeling for normalcy and discipline. Reeling seems to be a symptom of the pandemic.
My father, the king of ADHD and distraction, likes to say about himself, “It doesn’t take me all day to do an all-day job, it just might take me all day to get there.” Going from a film studio corporate structure with set hours and workload to being my own boss– I hate to say it, but I resemble that remark, especially with my inherited ADHD.
This thing called time organization might be new to you. I’ll be honest; it can be a struggle at the best of times.
Time travel is weird, y’all. You don’t even need a time machine to do it. Your mind might be rushing to the future. What will the world look like after this? Your mind might be on the present. Do I have another roll of toilet paper? Your mind might be in the past. I miss XYZ; I felt so much happier then. You might find yourself in a time loop, repeating the same time thoughts over and over again.
These days I see friends and colleagues lament on social media about their lack of productivity, and unsure of where the time has gone. I know where— time travel. The mind cannot be in the present if it’s occupied with the future or the past. Pandemics are great time traveling devices as there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties.
Remember the old idiom idle hands are the tools of the devil or another version of it idle hands are the devil’s playthings. Folks often believe this expression came from the bible, but we can thank Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee (1405) for the proverb. The character Melibeus says, “Dooth somme goode dedes, that the deuel, which is oure enemy, ne fynde yow nat vnocupied.” My translation of that is, stay busy, so the devil doesn’t find you some work. My interpretation is biased by my experience. Growing up, if my sisters or I said we were bored, there was always a woodpile or brick pile that we would have to move from one side of the yard to the other and served no other purpose. Amazingly, it cured us of boredom, or perhaps it just taught us sublimation.
To me, the idiom is not so much about falling prey to sin; it’s about how the mind can reel, how time travel happens when we are not otherwise occupied. Doing something with your hands can be very grounding. It can help disrupt the time loop. They say gardening and baking can help you feel more grounded, but maybe you don’t have the resources to do that. I have a two-ingredient sweet potato roti recipe for you. Works on a hotplate or stovetop. It will give you the opportunity to smash, knead, flatten, and roll. I dare you to attempt to time travel while making this.
2 Cups flour of your choice (I use Bob Mills 1-to-1)
2 Cups sweet potato
Pinch of salt (optional)
Flour for dusting
Steam the sweet potato(s), let it cool slightly. Peel the skin off the sweet potato when it is cool enough to touch. Mash it with a fork or potato masher until it is mashed really well, or all your existential angst is gone. Then stir in the flour. Knead to mix well, until dough forms. Divide into 12 balls. Put one ball on a flour-dusted surface, flatten it with your hand, then use a rolling pin to flatten it even more to about 2mm. Heat a skillet on medium heat. Once hot, place one roti at a time, flipping it after 2 minutes each side. If you don’t want to make 12, match equal parts sweet potato and flour, it will still work. The roti also freezes well.
After you have paid the devil his due, and enjoy the roti, it’s time to wash your hands and get back to writing.
Thea Pueschel is a hypnotherapist, yoga/meditation teacher. She writes, creates visual art, and teaches yoga teachers and doulas how to deliver and write meditations in and around L.A. and Orange County. She is committed to submitting, only in a literary capacity with light-hearted yet dark creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.
My mother used to warn about the perils of a leap year. “Este año es bisiesto. Cualquier cosa puede pasar,” her voice dropped to a lower tone for added drama.
Maybe because of that warning, I have taken this stoically, promised myself not to complain about the new circumstances. I can’t stop a pandemic with whining.
Compensating circumstances letter
I don’t want to think too much about the future either. I can have an earthquake kit ready at my door, and practice drop-cover-hold drills twice a year, but I can’t sleep with an opened eye waiting for the next big one. Although not as frequently as earthquakes and hurricane or those darn Oklahoma tornadoes, economic recessions and pandemics come and go. There is always a chance one or several will hit us in our lifetime. This is not a why-me situation.
Nothing is secure anyway. The idea of 50 plus years marriages, 40 plus years careers under the same employer, a house where you raise your children, your grandchildren visit, and becomes an estate sale when you die belongs to another generation. That generation, by the way, created the form of life we enjoy/or not, but it’s ours now. They are most at risk of dying in this pandemic, gasping for air, alone in a hospital, and placed in a zipped back and thrown in a refrigerated truck. Whether we appreciate their patriarchy, capitalist, conservative values or not, we are inheriting the country they helped shaped. At least we owe them the right to a dignified death surrounded by beloved ones. So I do my part, me quedo en casa, help flatten the curve, don’t infect somebody’s beloved grandma.
Many of us will have to rebuild. But if you think about this as a hurricane that hit the entire world at the same time, first you have to deal with the aftermath before you think of rebuilding. I think of Moore, OK, a town that has a talent for attracting devastating tornadoes, eight in 21 years.
We haven’t reached the aftermath yet. We are still in the eye of the storm. Social Media will let me know that NY is under control. That will be my indicator. And so far, that’s not what I am hearing. What I am hearing is this country’s inability to deal with uncertainty or to follow instructions– two basic adult skills –because we are a young nation, still in infancy, throwing tantrums to have a haircut because we want the lollipop.
Maybe some people are right. It’s easy for me to talk because I am privileged. I don’t have children to raise. So far I’ve kept my job. So far things are ok for me, and will never compared to their suffering: a single mother with a cashier job and no insurance, or a Venezuelan without electricity or water or food, in a pandemic, with a dictator. I try helping those within my reach. I feel bad, but not guilty. What they see in me today is the product of a profound transformation, of years of individual growth, battling my own demons alone. Even if they saw me at birth, they still don’t know all of my stories.
That leads me to another take away. I don’t have the right to call privilege on anyone because I don’t know their complete story arc, the size and weight of their cross. Even that Karen in yoga pants we all love to hate is carrying a cross – a stillborn, trauma she swallows with loaded margaritas, a stage four cancer she carries with stoicism.
In the meantime, I carry on with discipline: strict exercise routine, healthy food, enough sleep, and steady work for hours without interruption, advancing the goals I set for myself. Those goals do not depend on the economy or the pandemic, but on my focus and personal energy. It is a good time to do everything you want to do or do nothing at all. Just give yourself permission to live the way you feel life at this moment.
Call me selfish, but I have enjoyed every minute of owning my time. I have even gifted the joy in my face to neighbors passing by my window. “Es un año bisiesto. Cualquier cosa puede pasar.” And I decided to take a leap.
Lisbeth Coiman is an emerging, bilingual writer wandering the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada to the US. She has performed any available job from maid to college administrator, and adult teacher. Her work has been published in Hip Mama, the Literary Kitchen, YAY LA, Nailed Magazine, Entropy, and RabidOak. She was also featured in the Listen to Your Mother Show in 2015. In her self-published memoir, I Asked the Blue Heron (Nov 2017), Coiman celebrates female friendship while exploring issues of child abuse, mental disorder, and her own journey as an immigrant. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches and dances salsa.
A personal note this time around: I hope this post finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe during these trying times. I’m glad to be able to share this roundup and to be part of such a supportive community. Congrats to the published writers and be well to all! Laura
From Lisa Eve Cheby‘s “Taking Stock” at Verse-Virtual:
I conduct inventory:
Chad and Ed are sick, Priya is better,
Doug is improved, Jon is still healthy.
A friend’s father died,
as did a stranger’s.
Widows forced to grieve alone.
You didn’t want to come here. Los Angeles took you. Down to the basement, near Parker Center and the Deja Vu Strip Club, next to the new marijuana mall. Where tourists take photos and buy souvenirs while freshly tatted dazzling dispensary girls sell them strains with names like “Flying Monkey” and “Ganja Goddess.”
[LINDA SARSOUR’s] new book, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance, maps her journey from growing up as an outspoken oldest child of immigrants to former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and national co-chair of the Women’s March.
Let me not be thief of your story let me paint a still life of names you stand over me and below me I inhale the shimmer of your breath I will not betray your blame
As I write I am sitting in my front yard patio, a tiny courtyard well-defined by a surrounding low stucco wall. The wall reminds me that I am good at boundaries, from years of struggling with an over-identifying, tiny and close-knit family of origin, from years spent “individuating,” as a young woman, carving out my private life, my secrets. In this shaded area I can hide under the camellia trees, watch people walk their dogs, listen to the chirruping of the birds, follow a pair of hummingbirds as they build their discreet nest, be both simultaneously public and private. It’s the same patio where my reclusive friend Liv, once and only once, shared a pitcher of Manhattans with me.
Also from Désirée, “Census 2020: A Quiz,” at Lady/Liberty/Lit:
Quizzes can be a way to get to know yourself better. Please self-identify to the best of your ability.
1. During apartheid in South Africa these would be your choices. Choose the one that best describes you:
Every second of the drive to California for summer vacation feels heavy, weighted down just like our car, packed tight with the six of us, suitcases stretching at their zippers, and the big cooler stuffed full of snacks. Dad drives the station wagon along cool mountain passes, past Lake Shasta, and into a desert valley where the sky is clear and the hot sun pounds through the windows. There is nothing to see except hills that look like blankets thrown over sleeping giants. I watch for something to change, but nothing has looked different for hours.
When my mom died a year and a half before I got pregnant, however, the names we’d chosen no longer seemed relevant. We knew if I eventually got pregnant, we’d name our child after my mom.
They say it never rains in Southern California, but on a recent day clouds hovered over the hotel lobby where I sat in a corner booth sipping hot chocolate and eating breakfast sandwiches with Peter Harris and Adenike Harris, the father-daughter team behind Popsn’Ade, a project they started in 2016 to help others heal through creativity and call-and-response dialogue.
It was the summer of dead babies. At night I sat drowning in coroners’ reports and case files. Coyotes frolicked in the wash behind my house. Dry by summer, it held remnants of snow play—bright yellow and electric-blue plastic bits of toboggans. Brittle palo verdes littered with refuse from teenage parties, things like bottle caps and empty bags of chips. The hour of molting. The wildlings came in groups of three and four—clearing the mean ash-green pincushions and devil’s fingers in gleeful jumps. They danced, silhouetted against the black. Bats twisted above.
Congratulations to Janel Pineda who had three poems, “English” “Rain” and “In Another Life,” published in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext published by Haymarket Books!
“Ask your heart, from time to time, what is most important right now, in this moment, and listen very carefully for the response.” –Jon Kabat-Zinn
When I learned that my students would not be returning from spring break, it was like a shovel to the side of my head. I was jolted; cortisol ran through my body for days and weeks, and I had a constant, throbbing headache. I was asked to move my teaching, my content, my carefully designed community-building designed activities, online. Many of us found ourselves in the awkward and terrifying position of being told to stay still, and yet be heroically productive. Like the students, all my plans were interrupted, and my writing utterly side-lined.
I wavered between being frozen with inaction and indecision or distracting myself with constant movement: more dishes to make or bake or stockpile; more articles to read; audio books; an online course; youtube exercise clips; zoom meetups. Not still, not listening, just being certain there is noise and action and activity to crowd out stillness, thoughts and doubts and, in particular, fears.
That inner editor, that tireless nag, relentless reproachful, reminded me that other people were writing their wry think pieces, their touching essays, their profound poetry. Other writers signed agents; agents made deals, sold books. My inner editor, eyed me disdainfully, as if to say, “Why not you?”
In the meantime, I considered that “last days” have passed, without my even realizing it at the time: the last meal at a favorite restaurant, the last purchase at an independent shop, the last recognition of a student’s presence before they return to their home state or country. The last physical classroom meeting for this semester.
My husband was let go from his job; I heard from friends and students: their job losses, a ruined relationship, weddings delayed or dissolved. Financial hardships, moving away, moving back home, relatives on the frontlines.
I needed to be still, and ask my heart, and listen.
My heart said, it is okay to mourn.
I gave my inner editor the day off, the night off, the week off, the quarantine off. Shh, I told her. There, there, there.
*
We are humans, we are elastic and we accommodate the wonderful as swiftly as we do the unpleasant. We adapt. We are now a month or so into this odd world. Or three and half years, depending on your reference point.
We are in a holding pattern, in my case with its particular comforts and concerns. My home is cozy; in order to visit my 80-year old mother I can not see my children. My daughter is a cashier at a grocery store; people I know are suffering.
In one particular highly effective habit from Steven Covey’s iconic text he gives a Venn diagram and explains, where our area of concern overlaps our area of influence, therein lies our greatest power. I have tremendous anger and anxiety for so many current political outrages and utterly avoidable tragic outcomes, but that is far, far out of my area of influence.
What, out of so many concerns, lies within my influence? My words on the page. My interactions with and responsibilities towards my friends, family members, students, community. Where I invest my time and money. My attitude towards this situation.
What does my heart tell me now?
Out comes the printed draft with all my annotations, it is time to continue my revisions. I bite my tongue against the harsh words I have for my husband, borne out of spending so much time together. I connect and loop in with my friends and family. Put a colorful top and a cheerful face on for the zoom classes I teach. Reach out to the struggling students. Send money to people and causes in need.
The county announces a two week extension to our physical isolation. My doctor friend assures me it will be extended again. And again.
Disturbingly, thoughts of the future creep in. How will I survive in a summer like this without students, who give me so much meaning and purpose? Like millions of others, I wonder, will there even be a fall semester?
Stop! I shift gears, and ask my heart, what does it want, for the future?
My heart is very clear. It wants a tomorrow quite different from the yesterday that preceded all of this chaos. A yesterday where so many were struggling and financially subjugated.That makes me pause and reflect, now, looking to the future, what will we bring to tomorrow, to make this world anew?
Désirée Zamorano is an award-winning short story writer and the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Amado Women. A frequent contributor to the LA Review of Books, her essays and short stories can be found at Cultural Weekly, Catapult, Huizache, and Kenyon Review.
This isn’t the first time we, as a species on this globe, have experienced an illness that impacts every demographic facet of society. An illness that careens through the bullshit hierarchies and infects indiscriminately.
This is, however, the first time a new or “novel” virus has emerged during this current era. A new virus for a viral era. And because of all the different outlets we have to communicate to, with, and at each other, there are wealth of experiences and stories being shared. News-wise, there has been some looking to past viral outbreaks – more often than not the 1918 Flu Pandemic – seeking insight or lessons on how to divine the best way out of this current crisis with some degree of sanity and sense of safety.
This led me to wonder about the literature of the time. I couldn’t recall any “Flu Lit” subgenre from around the turn of the 20th century, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. What I did find was that, while it was a major historical occurrence, the Flu didn’t quite find its way into literature in a major way.
Think of what will carry you through this transformation but no longer be useful at the end of the crisis. It’ll be the metaphor of what you shed in this journey.
Accept the prayers offered to you. It might be all they have to give, and it might as well be your last meal.
If you might die of a suffocating disease, why are you strangling yourself? Practice breathing.
You don’t know if tomorrow you’ll be hooked to a ventilator, morphine dripping into your transition, unable to whisper, “te amo.” Call those who need to hear it now.
When deep in the trenches, even the toughest soldiers cry.
Lisbeth Coiman is an emerging, bilingual writer wandering the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada to the US. She has performed any available job from maid to college administrator, and adult teacher. Her work has been published in Hip Mama, the Literary Kitchen, YAY LA, Nailed Magazine, Entropy, and RabidOak. She was also featured in the Listen to Your Mother Show in 2015. In her self-published memoir, I Asked the Blue Heron (Nov 2017), Coiman celebrates female friendship while exploring issues of child abuse, mental disorder, and her own journey as an immigrant. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches and dances salsa.
We hope this roundup finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe! To ease the stress of these unsettling times, please enjoy this lengthy and exciting list of publications from Women Who Submit members. Congrats to all!
On that trip, I would ask you for the millionth time why you never taught me your native tongue and your answer would be the same, “What use would it have been?”
On March 12th, I woke up in my apartment in Spain to discover the president of the United States had announced a ban of all travel between the U.S. and Europe on account of the ever-growing cases of coronavirus patients.
From Kate Maruyama‘s “Not Yet” at Barren Magazine:
This was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention when his arm went around my throat. I tried a back kick, an elbow to the ribs, I tried to turn to face him. But I couldn’t move. I visualized a knee strike to his head—but apparently all of those years watching my boy do karate and jujitsu didn’t pay off, because I blacked out.
Congratulations to Bonnie S. Kaplan who had a piece published in Closet Cases – Queers On What We Wear edited by Megan Volpert!
Congrats to Tanya Ko Hong who had three poems published in Cultural Weekly. From “Yang Kong Ju”:
The day we got the keys to our new house in California, the so-called Holy Fire was blazing a few kilometres away. The sky rusted a kind of brownish orange, and on the piled boxes and half-dismantled furniture on the patio of our newly purchased home, ashes collected lightly, like dry snow. I had not been sleeping well and did not appreciate this omen.
Congrats to Helena Lipstadt who had her poem, “First Light June,” published in Undeniable: Alternating Current Press!
Do not call and ask him to hold your hand at the end of the world. Do not email him to get your things back. Do not drive by his house, slash his tires, slash your wrists. Do not confess.
My writing day begins at 4:00 a.m., or sometimes 5:00 a.m., or 6:00 a.m., or 7:00 a.m., or 8:00 a.m., when I wake up with anxiety. The first writing I do is in a notebook where I write down when I went to bed. When I woke up. If and when I fell back asleep and woke up again. How tired I am.
A single story, fortunately, is not what readers get in Tales from La Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology. Edited by Dr. Frederick Luis Aldama, Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University, Tales from La Vida offers a panorama of Latinx narratives, featuring seventy unique vignettes and over eighty contributors. With eye-catching artwork, some pieces harken to fotonovelas (Leighanna Hidalgo, Fernando Balderas Rodriguez) while others, like Zeke Peña’s fleshy heart pulsing with nopales, are stand-alone striking.
Congratulations to Li Yun Alvarado whose poem, “Hechizo Para Congelar,” was published in Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology!
I had something else in mind for today’s column and had found someone write it. She wrote a beautiful and important essay on allyship, but that was done over a month ago, and so much has changed since then. So like so much right now, that essay will sit and wait.
We occupy this strange place right now. The world as we knew it sits just outside our view, and we can’t see out on the other side yet, can’t quite make out the horizon. We are stuck here with our thoughts, our words, our works-in-progress, ourselves.
If there was ever a time to remind ourselves to breathe, it is now. I find myself forgetting as I scroll through the news or zone out watching anything-but-the-news.
WWS member Lisbeth Coiman is sharing a poem a day, and Xochitl Julisa Bermejo shared Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” yesterday.
Or listen to music.
Xochitl shared “You’re the Best Around” from The Karate Kid the other day.
Or write a poem.
There are still many ways to connect.
Whatever you’re doing, hang in there. Maybe submit something, or maybe just breathe.
Noriko Nakada writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. Publications include: Through Eyes Like Mine (2010), Overdue Apologies (2012), and I Tried (2019). Excerpts, essays, and poetry have appeared in Catapult, Meridian, Kartika, Hippocampus, Compose, Linden Avenue and elsewhere.
In light of the current state of affairs surrounding the COVID-19 virus, I’ve opted to switch out my original idea for this month’s post for my personal take on self-isolation, self-quarantine, and social distancing during this pandemic. As someone who has been practicing all three for a while (for various reasons not to do with communicable diseases), I’m experiencing this shift in social consciousness along with everyone else, and have observations – not necessarily solutions – that I hope can be helpful. Because one of -if not the – biggest reason I’ve been drawn to writing/storytelling since I was old enough to read, was to add another (my) perspective to a larger conversation.
* * *
I saw the pictures before I experienced it myself – first in Twitter and Instagram feeds, then from a friend of mine who lives in the town just north of me. I’m single, without children or a partner, and have been dealing with a spinal disc protrusion / sciatica issues for the past six months, so I’ve not been able to be in a rush to get anything from anywhere.
Noriko Nakada writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. Publications include: Through Eyes Like Mine (2010), Overdue Apologies (2012), and I Tried (2019). Excerpts, essays, and poetry have appeared in Catapult, Meridian, Kartika, Hippocampus, Compose, Linden Avenue and elsewhere.
