I have been remiss.

It occurred to me today that I haven't been blogging regularly here for one specific reason: I was waiting for ideas of deep and resonant literary merit to come along for me to write about.

I realize now that that's just silly: I hardly have time to read anymore. Where on earth would I find such ideas? So a new (old) idea: Rather than wait for ideas and content to come to me, I'll simply record what I'm up to. Because some of it's just downright weird.

For instance! I'm growing a mustache.

You heard me.

A mustache.
Like this:

November is now Movember - men all over the ... US? I think... are growing lush mustaches to support one another in their triumph against prostate and testicular cancer. (I said testicular!! OMG.) And they've allowed us women to join with them.

My husband is/was a pro cyclist and cyclocross rider. And from what I understand (I have no statistics) cyclists are cautioned to have their prostates checked earlier than usual.

Anyway, by Movember 30th, I'll be mustachioed and I hope the men in my life will be able to see past the silliness to how deeply I care for them and wish them health and longevity.

(Plug: If you want to support my mustache, go here. It only costs $10, but if I make $20, I can buy two!! The money goes to research. I get the mustache. And my husband. Win-win-win!)

Very well then I contradict myself...I contain multitudes.

I was re-reading a few of my last posts and noticed the theme of not being myself, not being clear or feeling unable to think clearly.

That's gone! It happened the Monday after the honeymoon: I was working remotely from a hotel room in Georgia, and I woke up that morning feeling rested, energetic, and creative. And since then, I've been clear-headed and myself again. And on the backside of everything, finally, people are coming out of the woodwork to agree with me: when you get engaged, you literally lose your mind. What I ask now, is why didn't someone warn me?!

For as much as I've been reading lately, I have little to report. I'm researching content: what is content? How do you manage it? What content is relevant to me? To my business? To my friends? How do you plan for future content? When does content expire? It's pretty fascinating stuff, to be honest. The expert people in this field are generally well-written and fun to follow on Twitter - an added bonus. I'm looking forward to finding some conferences to attend.

**Title line from "Song of Myself," by Walt Whitman

Remember that picture adage?

Our writing exorcisms at work this morning turned up a particularly interesting result. My mind is squirrely and probably works too hard on all the wrong things, but my bent is clearly fiction. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to have worlds inside your head, I suppose.

Prompt: Write 145 words using the picture below as inspiration.

The neighborhood was old – older than my Pappaw’s Pappaw. Buildings had cracked and broken, been repaired; and the repairs had broken. The people who lived there had grown to be like their houses, their cars, the neighborhood itself: they were grained and lined and worn around the edges, but sturdy, lasting. Spider-webbed window panes were washed weekly, no paper bits lined the gutters, no leaves rotted on the sidewalks. The old neighbors lived on the blurred verge of the past, when things were slower, quieter. TV’s shone dimly through hand-tatted lace curtains, flowered aprons polished old speckly silver spoons. They stood in the gentle golden sunshine and stirred the dust on their stoops, calling to each other in voices that creaked with use. Their ancestors carved out this close, concrete haven two lifetimes before and now it was theirs – to maintain, with tender, curatorial pride.

A Conversation, Expanded

I just want to get back to that place where I was happy again, she says. But what is happiness?

I’ve begun to think happiness isn’t a place we get back to.

I think it is a cloud.

We encounter clouds throughout our lives, but they are always in a different form when we see them.

Sometimes, we don’t recognize them until they are gone.

Other times we’re literally engulfed in clouds.

And often, we only just glimpse them or touch them and they are on their way.

But clouds are constant. They return, over and over.

And I think happiness has more to do with what we are looking for and where we are looking for it, like clouds.

Clouds are up in the sky, outside of our selves, our normal beaten path.

Nature is cyclical.

Our lives are cyclical.

Water collects in a large body, evaporates into the air, condenses into clouds, falls as rain, collects again.

We walk through phases of happiness, contentment; phases of staleness, discontent; phases of struggle, confusion. And we return again and again to happiness.

There are no shortcuts.

We cannot force happiness.

But we humans, we are backwards-gifted with hindsight.

We remember.

All the pain, fear, anger, hurt. But also the happiness, smiles and laughter, peace, joy.

We learn. The imprint of those phases settles like dust into the corners of our memories.

And as we cycle forward into a new phase, the dust is stirred up.

Our inner voice – the hushed voice we often choose to not hear – says, “I have felt this place before.”

I think happiness is a cloud.

It never wears the same shape twice.

It arrives when we are not looking for it, and cannot be found on the days that we search.

But clouds are constant.

I think it is the person whose heart-voice guides them

who sees clouds -

happiness -

truly.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

NewSouth Books and Professor Alan Gribben are editing Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  They are replacing the n-word with "slave" to protect the sensitivities of young readers. [For the record, they're also replacing "Injun" - because little boys from the deep South should never speak in dialect.]

I don't even know where to start with this ridiculous decision. My first inclination is, "Did anyone ask Mark?" Well, ok, he's dead, but he's already said how he feels:
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. (Mark Twain)

Is "slave" even an accurate replacement of the n-word? Off the top of my head, I can think of three, four, even five connotations the n-word bears that have nothing to do with slavery.

Is changing literature like this a good idea? What kind of precedent does it set for those after us? It tells them that we can just over-write the bits of history we find distasteful: apply a little white-out, pick a different word, and ta-da! Same, but different. No one's found offense with the slavery and abuse in ancient Greek plays (not to mention the incest, murder, mutilation, and rape). But Twain hits closer to home because he's more recently dead? I don't see how that's relevant. He wrote about his time period as he saw it in the language that was common then. It's not our place to edit the past!

In a Publisher's Weekly article announcing the new version, Gribben says he heard teachers across America complaining that they couldn't teach Huck Finn anymore because of the "hurtful" language. I ask: What good is a teacher who can't adequately set up the context for a historical piece of literature? who can't encourage and then manage a healthy discussion of the changes in language between an insensitive little white boy 150 years ago and (overly?) PC little children in America today?

As a writer, a scholar, a reader, and an English degree-holder, this debate gets under my skin. The fact that Gribben is a Twain scholar and an English professor is even more frustrating. Thomas Wortham, a UCLA Twain scholar, told Publisher's Weekly that "a book like Professor Gribben has imagined doesn't challenge children [and their teachers] to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'" Thanks, Gribben - as if we didn't have enough empty, cracker-like classes as it is.

It's lunch time. I can't stomach any more idiocy right now.

There is always some madness in love.

But there is also always some reason in madness. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

It must be love. I'm writing poetry. Icky-sticky poetry. It's been years since I've written anything resembling this stuff. I'm vaguely disgusted with myself, but I'm hopeful that it will shift a little as we settle into each other. I'd like to get back to writing myth poems. Per esempio:

Eurydice

I lead her this far,

hard-won with cleverness and

skill.  Even Hades

could not spare his stony heart

from the cry of Love’s sorrow.

The thread of her life

has frayed and snap’t.  I beg you,

return her to me.

Her shade follows your music.

Doubt not and look not behind.

With one hand in light,

I turned to my love, breaking

the single thread of

hope, watching her translucence

dissolve, grasping at shadows.

I sang out for death –

they came with equal passion.

Torn body and soul,

the Muses gather fragments,

scattering them on the winds.

Orpheus gazes

on her – no penalty for

reassurance now.

I miss writing this kind of stuff. That's a tanka, I think - Japanese form of poetry, syllable based. Someday, I'll publish a book of all my re-tellings and re-centerings, both prosaic and poetic.

Dusting off a few rabbit trails.

Since I haven't been writing for NaNo like I'd hoped (yeah, you read that - hoped; I had no particular zest behind it this year), I've been cleaning up a few loose ends of stories that have been swirling around between my ears.
Completed:

• a poem to my grandfather
• The Reproductive Habits of Lagomorpha leporidae pulvilagus
• several blogs (I write three...happy hunting!)
• journaling - I can't tell you how long it's been since I've journaled; there's a lot going on right now

I have a short list of story ideas still to be fleshed out. Wonder if these little tidbits can be part of my NaNo word count? It's writing, after all... And who knows - maybe my novel's not actually about Achilles? Maybe it's a psychological study of a writer...!

NaNoWriMo, Day 9 - Epic failure is imminent.

I've been distracted. I can hardly focus on my work, much less extra things outside of work. But I won't blame him - he's wonderful and encourages my writing, even though I'd rather not do it when he's around.


So remember my last post about how hard a time I was having with the high-English structure? And I kept finding myself bored with what was going on in the story. (Which is sad, since I'm only 6 pages in...) Well, the awesome people at NaNoWriMo headquarters sent around a pep talk today that really helped! It's by Aimee Bender, author of "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake." Aimee says,

"Go to that anthill, instead—maybe it'll actually lead you back to where you need to go. We are surprisingly structured and repetitive in our preoccupations. And this NaNoWriMo process does not have to be linear.

So, in a nutshell: go where the writing goes. Follow your interesting work...A poet friend of mine, Allyson, once said, "It's so strange how our mind knows more than we are aware of it knowing." It IS strange. It's one of the strangest things of all about being human. But it is also your great and unending resource, and your instincts and impulses, your non-plans, your tangents—although messy!—(if you follow this, you will finish the month with a mess of pages! That I promise! But who cares?) have a higher chance of leading you to a deeper, more layered book."

And now let the self-doubt begin! Do I have the strength of character to override my OCD, type-A personality and write (all in one document!) about whatever pops into my head? That terrifies me. (I'm weird, ok? Really linear and orderly for a creative.) And at the same time, does the fact that I'm a little bored with what I'm writing mean that Aimee's is a good suggestion for me? I'm beginning to think so.

Aish. Here's to liberation and strength of character and whimsy!

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

My Dear Roommate and singularly best friend, Rachel, is a photographer. She also likes to adventure. So we road-tripped to Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsdale, AL this weekend on a mini-adventure. We talked about a lot of things along the way, but one thing really sparked our imaginations. I mentioned NaNoWriMo to her (peer pressure = motivation, and since you lot aren't commenting on any of my posts, I've gotta get it somewhere!), and she said, "I wish I could write 50,000 words in a month."

We invented a photo challenge for her to go hand-in-hand with my writing challenge. So we're inviting you (if you don't write), to join Rachel on her adventure. Here's how it works:
November 1st to the 30th
10 photographs a day
NO editing/retouching/critiquing/whining

By the end of the month, you'll have 300 photographs (or 50,000 words) to show for your efforts, and then the editing can begin! So I'll be blogging here about the weirdness of WriMo, and Rachel will be blogging about the Create and Dream Photo Challenge at onthEdge Creations. Dare to push your boundaries! You're not alone... we'll be slogging along with you!

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

See if you can identify the word I didn't know in this sentence: "The personality might slowly elide until it is no longer recognizable or regainable as itself; it may cease to be the personality that goes with a particular self." (Larry McMurtry, from Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, in "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression," by Nell Casey)


elide: to omit, or suppress; to merge, as in "whole periods are elided into mere seconds on the silver screen;" from the Latin for "strike out"


McMurtry's essay explores self-hood after a quad bypass. It's frightening, yet puts words to things I have always wondered about (anaesthesia, major surgery, and the emotional/spiritual effects). The book is a collection of essays by writers on depression, and as morbid as it sounds, it's very well-written and engaging.


The book only confirms my private opinion: all writers suffer what I call "Virginia Woolf days": days when you feel those dark voices nibbling along the edges of your mind, when the clouds press down on your shoulders, when all you can see before you is a calendar list of like days and your mind simply refuses to open up enough to consider the possibility of sunshine. Woolf filled her pockets with stones, walked to the river's edge, removed her shoes, left her stick in the grass, and walked into the river. Her letter to her husband is a beautiful, bitter-sweet testament of their marriage, his courage, and her sensitivity:

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.
I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

On that note, I'm going to look at some LOLCatz...

Truth is truth - to the end of reckoning.

Adaptation of a Stephen King quote: All fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.
I've found in past writing experiments (and we're talking strictly fiction, here, people - the stuff I really love) that the truth always shines through.
By truth I mean this: the things I believe, the principles I base my life on, the hardest core bits of me that will never break up no matter the intensity or pressure from the outside. I think we can argue that fiction is fabricated so it can be completely separated from the person who made it up (and we do argue this to protect ourselves - from pre-judgements, from pigeon-holing, from criticism).
But at the same time, I think it can be argued that creators - no matter what medium they use - must infuse the work with some of themselves. A sculptor cannot create a piece of art without touching the stone, running his hands over the planes and textures, dripping sweat onto its surface, scraping his knuckles against it. In the same way, a writer cannot write a piece of fiction without leaving traces of herself in the work.
I would have it no other way! While it makes the writing process infinitely more painful - picking at threads of your soul and weaving them into a story other than your own leaves you frayed, to say the least - the end result carries that ring of truth that we all search for in books. It becomes a human work that speaks the same language as its readers.

All of this is going somewhere, I promise.
I've been encouraged to join NaNoWriMo this year, and I have. I'm terrified. I don't think I've ever written for a month straight. I am full of stories, though, and the terror is tempered by a building excitement.
So if you're interested (thousands of people all over the world writing 50,000 words in one month? curious...!), you're welcome to follow me: here at the WriteMe blog and on Twitter @ScribbleMeJ. Beginning November 1st, this blog will be a scratch pad for the NaNo process. I'll try to get the fancy word count widgets and such, but I make no promises (I suck at computers).

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Copywriting moment.
The sentence I'm wrestling with ends thus:
"and will maintain the fast, high-quality production standards which it has become known for."


Except that I want it to say:
"and will maintain the fast, high-quality production standards for which it has become known."


But I still feel more comfortable with the first one, because more readers will be able to identify with it.  Do we sacrifice grammar for readability?  I'm going to side with Churchill:
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."




Later the same morning, I found this lovely confusion:
"Charlie Acuff shined in the shadow of his famous cousin Roy by staying in the Knoxville area and becoming its best-loved old-time fiddler."


How old-timey was it?  Well, it was so old-timey we even employed verb constructions to show you!  Shouldn't it be "shone"?  And by the way, how does anyone shine in someone else's shadow?
*Face-palm...

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

Seth Godin recently posted a blog titled "Check-In, Chicken."  And while I'm not actually part of a small, closely-involved team that would have check-in meetings every morning (or even once a week, although maybe we should consider it), his suggestion is good for even an individual level.  So here goes:

What are you afraid of?
I'm afraid of failure - that everything I've done in my life and in my writing career to date will not be enough for the job I'm doing, and I will disappoint everyone (myself included).  In my mind, I'll run dry of ideas, be unable to contribute any further, and become a leech or burden to the company.  Conversely, I'm afraid that the company will decide I'm no longer providing what they want, to the standard they want, and I'll be let go without explanation.

I know these are unreasonable fears.  Growing up, I received approval based largely on my performance.  I know that I am able to (and most of the time do) outwork my peers, especially in the past decade as "my peers"have become increasingly less reputable.  And I know that I want to learn, I want to improve, I want to be taught and guided.  So I have nothing to fear except fear itself.  (Right? *Worried face)

I'm afraid of success - there are several new relationships (work, social, housing) that have the potential to be long-term - longer term than I've ever experienced.  Talk about new realms of scariness...

According to a New York Times article, 20-somethings these days have at least seven jobs before they turn 30.  I'm happy to only have accounted for half of my job quotient (although I have four more years till 30 arrives).  I personally would like the stability and routine of a long-term job.  I would also like to buy a house - I desperately wish to tear down wallpaper and repaint and buff floors and rebuild stairs without asking permission.  And I would like a stable, fulfilling relationship.  But it would take me pages and pages of writing to record all the even more terrifying things that go along with these desires.

Hi, I'm Jess, and I'm a chicken.

Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there/For some garment to clothe her fair skin

I’m in a stage of life that I’m calling “Hey, at least I dressed myself!”

Years ago I denounced fashion (tie-dyed bike shorts and sweater clips were on the way out anyway) and focused more simply on dressing myself.  That was the jeans-and-a-Goodwill-tshirt stage (which may have been a fashion trend, but I was either behind the fad or unaware of it).  But every seven years or so, I have a closet crisis: I wake up one day to realize that my wardrobe is unsuited (har) for the position I’ve found myself in.

For instance: I spent the last two years working at a bookstore, wherein I wandered barefoot and carefree.  All my jeans had holes in them; I layered tank tops like mad; my hair was usually tucked into a bandana or hat; and shoes were of the devil.  But then I got hired as a copywriter at a marketing firm.  And my closet disintegrated into a heap of threadbare jeans, de-elasticized built-in bras, and sole-rubbed flip-flops.

I’ve always looked through magazines like Newport News (which is really the only one I can remember looking through, now that I think of it).  And I used to tell my mom, “If I had a lot of money, I’d dress like that.”  Well, I have more money than I ever have now.  But I’m still not committed to my wardrobe or personal style enough to start buying expensive magazine pieces.

A shift in shopping ideals has helped.  I used to buy something I liked because I liked it, then realized six months later that I never wore it.  Now I’m working hard at buying something I like that will go with several pairs of my current pants/shirts and that I can see potential in – a piece that makes me want to buy new, slightly more mature clothes.

Here’s where all this gets tricky: I’m a writer.  We don’t have uniforms, we aren’t exactly artists (although I heart black clothing), we aren’t complete hippies, nor are we absolute yuppies.  I like all those styles.  Blending them into something that I like, that suits me, and that is appropriate for most occasions literally freezes me into a panicky statue.  Nine times out of ten, if I’m late to work, it’s because I was standing in front of my closet agonizing over what to wear.  And I’m not a three black skirts kinda girl!  Give me options, color, texture, variety!

So today, the stage I’m dealing with looks this: a loose silver v-neck sweater over an olive halter, tucked into jeans with a gold belt, gold and copper accessories and sandals.  It may be cute.  It might not be fashionable.  In fact, it may not work at all.  But the important part is this: I’m here, and I’m not naked.  Jess dressed herself!

Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Just when you think the world is on its way to hell in a handbasket, one individual redeems (and inspires) us all a little.

East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta has pardoned the men who attacked him a year ago.  Dr. Ramos-Horta suffered from three serious bullet wounds and was put into intensive care in Australia last February after a group of rebels assaulted his home.  He has fully recovered, and now he is pardoning his attackers.  He says they are victims of the unrest and chaos in the country.  According to the Timor News Line, Dr. Ramos-Horta has issued a call to the rebels, asking them to work with him for the peace of their country.

I don’t know enough about East Timor’s recent history, about Dr. Ramos-Horta, even about the rebels themselves to make a judgment on the president’s actions.  But I believe that he feels his decision will encourage his people and engender a spirit of understanding.  He’s taking a lot of flak for his actions – especially from inside his own government – but I applaud him.  No one knows what will come of the rebels being pardoned – Dr. Ramos-Horta is taking a chance.

Seth Godin, marketing guru, is all for taking chances.  And his risk principles came to mind when I read about Dr. Ramos-Horta.  Godin points out that, statistically, an initial risk is easy and has sure (if somewhat small) rewards.  However, going that second step and doubling risk also doubles reward.  Encouraging clients who have taken a risk on your company or product will inspire them to feel a little gutsier.  And don’t we all love to talk about how gutsy we are?  By being risky yourself, you have generated talk about your company or products.  And talk, Godin says, is one of the best ways to become remarkable.  Check out Godin’s blog on this principle: Risk/Reward Confusion.

Here’s to Dr. Ramos-Horta – may his risk bring double rewards for East Timor!

Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean become dirty, the ocean is not dirty.

This week Berkley scientists were surprised to find that microorganisms in the Gulf of Mexico have been “eating” the oil from this summer’s spill.  WikiNews Gulf of Mexico 

Why the surprise, guys?

I’m no scientist, but I’d expect that oil (a naturally-produced compound under the earth’s crust) has broken through before.  I’d also expect these eruptions to have occurred more frequently in the ocean (since oceans cover 70% of earth’s surface, stats found here: EOEarth).  We’ve only been able to explore the ocean’s complexities (especially the microscopic complexities) within the last three hundred years thanks to the advent of Leeowenhoek’s microscope.  So I’d expect there to be some kind of organism that feeds off these occasional under-sea oil eruptions.  Nature cares for her own.

This doesn’t mean I think clean-up efforts in the Gulf should stop.  I’m shocked at how long it took us to cap our mess.  Even though the ocean has proven it can restore balance on its own, we are still responsible for our actions in the water.  Having introduced machinery that exaggerated the natural state and frequency of oil plumes (in order to harvest it for our personal comfort), we are accountable for the excesses that have been leaked into the unassuming ocean environment.

Instead of surprise, it would make more sense for us to feel ashamed: tiny microorganisms in the ocean were quicker to clean up their home than we were to stop the problem we created.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.

“Repunctuate your life.”

What do you think this ad is for? Yup. Birth control.

I’m sorry – what?

Birth control. It’s a play on “period” – which I think is enormously clever, but also very sad. What a terrifying state to live in when you have detailed control over even the most natural of cycles! I find it nearly as mind-blowing as controlling the phases of the moon (which are predictable and have unseen effects on all of earth).

I can only imagine what kind of effects controlling your period (so that you only have four a year!) has on your body, which is designed to have one a month. I’m not good with math, but that’s less than half of the natural number of periods a woman is supposed to have per year. Can you imagine what your body must feel like, being forced to skip something that your DNA is driving it to do? My squirrelly mind immediately imagines your body taking revenge by storing it all up so when you have one of four periods a year, it lasts for three weeks and puts you completely out of commission. “Take that!” she says to you.

And of course there’s Kotex’s “Have a happy period” slogan. I vote they fire every one of the men on the design team and start over again – all women this time. Insensitive. Especially when they’ve never personally had the urge to overdose on chocolate. *Grimace*

The last commercial I saw was for pads with ultra-flex wings or some such. The ad showed a Gumby-like mechanical bull (saddle only, with embroidered flowers of course). A pad unfolds (like a flower, but grotesque) across the saddle and sticks itself down. The saddle rolls around like a sweet little puppy while a concerned voice tells you this pad will cover you even on your heaviest days. Yes, but have they fixed the “feels like I’m wearing a diaper” feature? Because I stopped wearing diapers when I was two, and I refuse to regress that far.

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.

“The President is obviously a Christian – he prays every day.”

This, boys and girls, is a sparkling example of an inductive fallacy. By his words, Mr. Burton – spokesperson for the White House – assumes that only Christians pray. Therefore, if someone prays, he is a Christian. Which would make Buddhists, Muslims, Satanists, and shamans (among others) Christians – they all pray, don’t they?

I find it hard to believe that a news reporting agency, born of the intent to provide accurate and informed information to the general public, could contradict itself in such a high-profile article.


This gem was recently featured on Yahoo’s front page. The piece begins, “The White House insisted on Thursday that President Barack Obama is a Christian who prays daily.” Which is logical. But then the paper prints Mr. Burton’s ridiculous quote. It would seem that in the rush to have up-to-the-moment news, a well-respected agency missed (or worse, overlooked) this blatant fallacy.

With the explosion of the internet, the standards for printed media have fallen through the proverbial cracks. Please understand, I am one hundred percent behind freedom of speech – I’m not criticizing anyone who posts to the internet (I’m one of them – us – we?). But the companies that lead the nation’s reporting and reading patterns (run by men and women who have degrees from Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Southern California, to begin) should be voluntarily striving for the highest of standards. And not just spelling and grammar – let’s put our brains (and degrees?) to good work and cover all aspects of writing a solid article.

I’m sure Mr. Burton meant to say that the President is a Christian (end thought). He prays every day (end thought).

When his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his feathers may wound you.

I'm learning about wings this week.

He will cover you with His pinions,
And under His wings you may seek refuge;
His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

Pinions are the long, stiff flight feathers at the furthest tip of a bird's wing. They are individually controlled by the bird to adjust to changes in the wind and air currents. The feathers on a bird's wing get smaller as they recede along the wing toward the body. Each feather has small barbs that lock the feathers around it into place, forming a solid, air-resistant wall of wing.

The bone structure at the end of a bird's wing is referred to as his "hand" - it's made up of various parts, specifically phalanges. In the Greek, phalanx was a tight formation, used in military and anatomical definitions. Anatomically, it describes the knuckle bones along the ridge of your hand - "originally the whole row of finger joints, which fit together like infantry in close order" (Online Etymology Dictionary). They form a barrier, a unified front that cannot be penetrated.

Think along those lines. Mother birds shepherd their chicks and sweep them under their wings at any sign of danger. If an enormous wing were to sweep down and cover you, the feathers would be stiff and tumble you, possibly bruising you in the movement. But you would be pressed into the soft down feathers along the bird's side. From the outside, nothing could get through to you.

Now look at this: the word "bulwark" derives from bole, meaning "plank, tree trunk" (OED). The word "phalanx," before it was used in the Greek, derives from the Proto-Indo-European word meaning "round piece of wood, trunk, log" (OED).

I'm still working on the significance of all this. But it's reassuring to know that I am in a place that is warm, safe, and impenetrable. I am protected, kept in line, mothered tenderly. And yet the protection set up around me that is so stiff and fierce is also a force that nurtures and soothes. Again...paradox.

I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.

It occurs to me that this Peter Pan thing has been a recurring theme in my life for at least the last six years. I'm going to essai (French for "test"; first used by Michel de Montaigne to describe his rambling, often circuitous explorations of his thoughts and feelings as he tested out their causation and results).

---

Peter Pan: a boy just before manhood - not so different from a girl just before womanhood, I think. Frightened of growing up, but desperate for it (thus all the dress-up and make-believe). Yet Pan is trapped in childhood - I wonder if he stubbornly flies in the face of everything adult just because he's frustrated by never being able to have it? Peter Pan is often played by slight women, and he does seem rather caught between the male and the female. That's an awkward balance to maintain for a little while, much less be for the rest of your life.

Wendy: a girl who is a woman but still a girl. Wendy sees the practicality and sense that adulthood demands, and she longs for a steadiness, a sense of order (which is why everyone was assigned roles and tasks, bedtimes were established, vitamins were introduced...). But she quickly and willingly loses herself in childish fantasy. She loves Peter's freedom and courage, and she chooses to believe the illusion of him growing up when he assumes the make-believe role of the papa. But for him it is a game, to be discarded when it is tired, while Wendy convinces herself it can exist.

Tinkerbell: a woman who acts like a child, but is deeply and truly a woman. Tink is petulant and spiteful to Wendy - she has been replaced. She has accepted Peter for the child that he is and loves him dearly, and she resents Wendy's intrusion to the core of her being. Yet she willingly sacrifices herself for Wendy in order to fulfill Peter's happiness... I wonder how her size and provisional nature affect the bond between her and Peter? I wonder - if she were full-size, would she have loved Peter as unabashedly? Or would a simple size difference have changed her understanding of the boy?

---

I have called myself Wendy. Realizing that the Boy I loved would never grow up, I went rather sadly back to grown up life and watched his adventures from a distance. He would visit when he remembered me, but the visits grew further and further apart.

I have been called Peter Pan. "An enchanting creature - not quite a woman, still a little girl, and part fairy, I think." Assuming Peter is rather above gender (or why else would they have cast women in his role?), we two are similar: physically, I am slight and boyish; emotionally, I act in turns masculine and feminine; I have a grown-up's intellect but choose to believe the fairy tales I spin for myself (and those of others as well).

And I understand Tinkerbell. She has a heart that is too expansive for her size, and a body that cannot contain the reach of her desire. She is a third wheel, the best friend, the girl he loves but doesn't choose.

"The last thing he ever said to me was,
'Just always be waiting for me,
and then some night you will hear me crowing."