Wednesday Writing Assignment
On the farm, I feel like a little kid. I kick of my shoes and enjoy the dirt between my toes. I become greedy in that hopeful way we're trained out of: I hope I can find the BIGGEST bean; I snatch an extra handful of salad greens. A few weeks ago I heard a child ask his mom, "But why can't we pick more flowers? There are SO MANY!!" And my heart was right there with the kid, right on, let's grab huge armfuls, let's dive into the flower beds and soak in as much joy as possible. I haven't felt this sort of greedy glee in years. Have you felt like a kid lately, joyously or otherwise?
posted by kStyle @ 8:52 PM
7 Comments:
I am loaded down with grown-up headaches and worries. One thing, though, always makes me laugh like a teeanager, and that is playing music with my friends. The pain and knowledge slide away, and I have no more worry than "...I hope we alll end this one together"
Larry--sounds tremendous. I'd love to hear more about it, on your blog or here...
It's funny, though, how we think of headaches and worries as being the domain of the grown-up. Currently I'm reading "I Am a Pencil" by Sam Swope. The book chronicles Swope's experiences teaching kids writing, and it has reminded me that childhood can be frought with anxiety. I myself was kind of a nervous kid, all stomach aches and eye glasses. Now I have cool glasses and I've been to therapy for panic, so life's better.
Not to ramble, but I will...the thing about childhood is, a child has very little control over his/her life. It can be difficult, even with the best of families and schools.
I felt like a child just now in an all-day meeting, during the fourth hour of which I became extremely whiny and petulant, venting my frustration and boredom by making fun of people and kicking the chair next to me.
Not my finest professional moment, but it helped pass the time.
Eric, I imagine that you do "petulant" wonderfully.
I too read so-called young adult literature. As more and more quote-unquote adult fiction seems to be about little more than language itself, or the nature of fiction itself, and other such postmodernist claptrap trappings, sometimes one goes to the other shelf to seek out, you know, a story. Or people. The complications of life, minus the self-consciousness. Truth of that kind.
Regarding categories in general, I am persuaded by the author James M. Cain, himself a victim of pigeonholing after "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity," doubtless two of the best American novels of the last century, got him stuck with the label "hard-boiled crime writer" for the next twenty years.
Genre fiction or not, his work contains more truth per page than most, in a spare, exacting style that many have mistaken for simplicity. One can say of him the best that can be said of any writer: he never wasted a word. In a 1946 essay he wrote:
"I belong to no school, hard-boiled or otherwise, and I believe these so-called schools exist mainly in the imagination of critics, and have little correspondence in reality anywhere else. ...
"If, then, I may make a plea on behalf of all writers of fiction, I say to these strange surrogates for God, with their illusion of 'critical judgment' and their conviction of the definitive verity of their wackiest brainstorm: You're really being a little naive, you know. We don't do it that way. We don't say to ourselves that some lucky fellow did it a certain way, so we'll do it that way too, and cut in on the sugar. We have to do it our own way, each for himself, or there isn't any sugar."
Emma, yeah, me too.
Ann, I agree that the veer of cynicism/disinterest is trouble for the soul. Have you read "A Room with a View" by Forster? One of its main themes is that life should be lived, not sniffed at. And he writes beautifully.
And Eric, besides story, I find that much adult literature misses having a theme. My favorite writers are very thematic: Garcia-Marquez, Allende, Homer, Forster...
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