Friday, October 16, 2009

Jump Start on November

I'm dedicated to writing a novel in the month of November....The idea is that you join a huge group of wanna-be-writers in dedicating yourself to writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. Check out the website http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I am doing this! I will write! Come what may! It will be crap and that's okay! So, to get a jump start on things here's a little somethin', somethin' I've been working on for a good two or three years: (p.s., I have no idea where this "novel" thing will take me, but for once in my life I'm jumping in with both feet and no plan!) I'm not ignoring the fact that this is a very risky endeavor....I acknowledge the great personal stakes involved, mostly directed towards my pride. But, if I don't do it now then will when I do it? If I can't "publish" pieces at a time, how will I ever publish in its entirety?


Bedouin Fires and Suburban Street Lamps”

I saw myself retreat whenever he asked, "What are you thinking?" because he truly wanted to know what was in my mind and heart. I saw his fingers grip a pencil or a brush as they danced in a well-choreographed ballet over pages and canvases, mirroring the same motion from more private moments.

Love is the recognition of ourselves in others. I saw myself in the tension of the fist of his left hand as it balled-up when he had something to say but held his tongue. The way he pressed his lips together tightly, forbidding himself to say what he really thought. I saw myself on a desert plain in a strange land, illuminated by dying embers in white sand and blazing stars.

I saw myself in his deep-set ember eyes peering out and taking in.

"It's like nothing you would have ever thought. It's not dead--it's more full of life than any place I've ever seen." Two friends sat outside of the party at the mayor's house whose daughter, in her WASP rebellion, had invited just a few too many inebriates to really establish a "chill" atmosphere. We were children together in our yearning for adventure. I sat, 15 and inspired, on the cement curb under the glow of a hissing street lamp. He filled my mind with images of camels and desert mounds. As he described the scene from his summer spent half way across the world, I could just make out the shadow puppets of camels and shepherds illuminated on a field of yellow suburban street light, dancing in the shadows of the temped September night.

"Did you know astronauts say they can see the Bedouin fires from space? Imagine being an insignificant Israeli shepherd who built a fire one cold night to protect his flock of sheep that reached out to the universe." These were the types of "imaginings" I became addicted to. Imagining we were the only two people in the world who recognized the beauty of an anthill. Imagining we were experiencing the same earth-shattering connection that no one other than we could understand.

"I can only imagine,” was all I could say. And I could, only imagine. I had seen stars in a black sky as a child, driving out to an obscure corner of the world only to peer through the eyes of a microscope the size of a quarter to catch a fleeting glimpse at the smudge in the sky that was Halley's comet. I had seen stars from an Arizona plateau--infinite and spiraling in multi- dimensional constellations. I had seen fire--but I had never seen anything as beautiful as what he described now.

"We hiked. We swam in the Dead Sea. We rode camels even. Being in Israel is being in another world where people know where they come from and where they are going."

"Yeah," chuckling at the irony of his sentiments. Flashes of footage on the Gaza strip and protests at the Wailing Wall sprinted across my mind's eye. More like being at one with perpetual turmoil and unrest over a bunch of sand. I was 15 and I knew everything.

"It's not like here where people drive by sunsets that are magnificent every day and don't give them a second glance. People are too blind, especially in Texas, to see what's around them." He always had a way of revealing to me what was right in front of my eyes. It was in this moment that I so desperately wanted, needed to see through his eyes.

How did I look to him? For the first time in my young life, I wished I were a Bedouin fire, noticeable for its untamed beauty in his vast world. To be something so miraculous, so vibrant to anyone would be...would be...Well, it just would be earth shattering. I was envious of a Bedouin shepherd I had never given a second thought toward halfway around the world, who evoked such curiosity and amazement in his mind.

That night I dreamt of sand and warmth. I dreamt of the smell of leather, salt, and water, and I felt the earthy warmth of a desert fire that reaches into the depth of a midnight sky.

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