Today I stood in the garden for nearly fifteen minutes.
Just standing, just feeling, just looking.
It’s a windy day, very windy, the best kind of day in Texas.
I stood near next door’s fence,
with their tall trees
and their line of fir trees
along the back. I envy them their yard.
They have the tall trees,
they have the line of fir trees
along the back. We have only
the wooden fence, and drivers in trucks can easily see in.
But I stood, very still,
more still than I can be normal,
two hands around my coffee mug,
and listened, and wondered.
I thought fish must be like this sometimes.
We live in only a kind of lighter water, after all.
We swim in it, walking,
we hear the currents, wind.
We cannot see what we live in.
Fish must float sometimes near coral or kelp
and listen to their wind blowing,
feel the current on their fishy faces,
and marvel, and think, what a beautiful sound.
Wind and waves sound alike with your eyes closed.
Then too, another race living in something lighter than air might look at us and say,
do you think they know they live in air?
They probably can’t see it, not like we do,
the other would answer. It’s just their world to them.
So what happens when they’re taken out, and lie gasping?
Are they aware their world is gone? I think they’re thinking of not dying,
says the other.
Let’s just leave them be.
I posted my Annual Writing Review a while back, and it made me realize how much value there is in assessing what I’ve written.
If writing is, as John Updike says, “nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that mankind has invented,” then reviewing it, revisiting the old projects, can tell us a lot about ourselves during that time.
I’m not alone in thinking this. I’ve read many essays from authors on their writing, and many of them talk about reading their old work and asking, did I write that? Like keeping a journal and rereading the high school bits and being totally aghast that you were ever that dramatic. I mean, really?
I thought it would be interesting to see what novel projects I’ve kept over the years. Unfortunately, when I moved abroad the first time, I cleared out a lot of old stories, not knowing how awesome it is to receive inspiration from the past, so much of the old, old stuff is gone. I was clearing out a lot of mental clutter and emotional junk at that time, and many things that should not have been forgotten were lost (did I just quote LOTR? oh yeah I did).
Regardless, in perusing the old stuff I did have, I came across some amazing things. I mean, a lot of it is trash, of course, half-ideas and flat characters and nothing more than a few words of an embryo of an idea. But there was some good stuff in there too, surprisingly. Stuff I’d like to revisit in future.
Story Ideas
A story about a half-tree man, a moon child, and some boy (probably only there to be romantic, the bugger)
A story about the war between angels and demons and two kids caught up between them, very allegorical, very dark, very Inferno-esque
A girl who locks herself in a tower and befriends the dragon (original at the time, since writing it oh, seven years ago, I have seen the same idea a dozen times)
A story about people whose destiny is just to die – as in meaningless deaths, very nihilistic, never fleshed out
A story set in a crooked house that leans from a windy hill in Peru – sometimes just the image is enough to get me an idea
“Little green policemen in little yellow suits wave little purple guns and shout their little shouts. They pitter patter after plagiarists, creeping into their brains and stealing back stolen ideas.” I have no idea why I wrote this down. Plagiarism police? Was I messing about with alliterations? No idea.
A world with everyday gods, like the god of parking. This was before I read Pratchett, who has his Small Gods which are very like what I had in mind. And American Gods, of course, touches on the idea as well.
A story about a girl who is a phoenix. Also not original, but my opening line is pretty good.
A story about houses with minds, who get up and follow their owners. I still love this idea.
A story about a girl who is queen of the hounds, based pretty much entirely off the book Prince of Dogs by Kate Elliott. (I read the book as a teen and thought it was pretty amazing. I wonder what I would think of it now…)
A story about a girl who can see sounds as things (the idea got totally ripped off by a Kdrama years later. I should sue!)
A story about people who fish among the stars. But for what? And why? And how would that even work?
A story about a society lost in the present time, when things moved but time did not
Themes
As I was doing this all-around read, I noticed certain themes, images, or types of story that showed up repeatedly. At some point, I’ll sit down to go through this and try to figure out what story I keep wanting to tell.
Hidden things
Darkness
Sleeping beasts awakening – the darkness inside of us, like animals, waiting to burst forth from their cages and cause us to do terrible things
Transformations, mostly to bad and gruesome
Vivid images – a lot of these earlier pieces I wrote when I was also making a lot of art, and images and contrasts were particularly appealing to me. I would see an image in my mind and note it, either as a picture I wanted to paint or a story I wanted to write. The two blended and became inseparable.
Folktale/Myth – many of my ideas take the form of folk stories or myths. I have always loved that genre, and I feel like it’s a more joyful kind of fantasy, even when it’s dark. I don’t really know how to describe it. Maybe because it generally takes place kind of in the real world, but makes it magic. It has its own vitality that is of a different quality than fantasy set in new worlds. I love all fantasy, epic, folk, dark; but there will always be a special place in my heart for folklore.
Melancholy – a lot of my writing comes from the darker places of my heart and mind, those places I don’t get to show the world. So then they come out in stories, where I try to work them out. Most of my ideas have violence, anger, terror in them somewhere. They aren’t tragic; I usually envision happy endings, but that too is a kind of working-out of my demons. I want my own life to end up happy, so my characters must. Or at least, until I grow up.
Moonlight – moonlight and starlight feature in a lot of my ideas. I don’t know that there’s a reason for that, but I will say that I have always loved the moonlight more than the sunlight. Sunlight hurts my eyes (I have lighter eyes and pretty bad light sensitivity), and so moonlight has always felt friendlier.
There was a lot more. A lot more dross, a lot more golden eggs. I had more than I realized when I set out on the endeavor. You know how you make folders within folders within folders on a computer? Well, every time I started writing again I would put all the old stuff in a folder marked (old) or (archives) or something. Turns out I have a lot of subfolders within my big writing folder.
But it was nice, overall, to go over everything. It was nice to be inspired. It was nice to know that I wrote some pretty decent stuff when I was younger. It gives me hope for my future.
If you’re a writer, have you ever looked back over all the old stories?
Sometimes I’m tempted to get angry that I have to stand here and teach English. I want to rage and rail and list my complaints neatly in ordered, alphabetized lines.
But I don’t let myself ever get angry. Not really truly deeply angry. I chose this life. I think I have no right to get angry that I chose it.
Choose something else, is the obvious answer. And yet I don’t. So fear is there. And laziness. The status quo. Inertia. A body at one job remains at one job unless acted upon by unemployment or very great determination. Workers first law.
I rage in silence at myself in the end. Why are you standing there teaching English? Layabout.
(Part 2, sometime later)
I am angry now. I have pulled up a great column
Of anger in my chest and am heaving it out, coil by coil,
Like a great slippery snake
Like a heavy rope on a ship
To coil and coil without end.
The deck is full of the slips and strains of it.
I am angry.
Angry that I feel beholden to something
I should not.
This life is toxic. It is destroying my body.
Why have I not left.
Why do I feel this guilt.
Why has this place given me such guilt that I can’t even walk away when it no longer serves me nor helps me nor is even safe for me.
Were I at home I wouldn’t hesitate.
No, just here.
I am rotting.
A carcass for carrion birds to find and harvest.
I will leave the shell behind and journey home.
The soul bright and untainted.
The long, long journey back to it.
Yes, the mountains. YES. But uh, where do I keep my chapstick?
My Story
I’m a big fan of minimal living. I am. I love the idea of living out of one suitcase, even though I’ve never managed that (although I did manage about 2 and a half at one point).
I’m also a huge fan of the KonMari method of organization. KonMari focuses on keeping only what sparks joy, which means discarding anything that doesn’t, and in America, that means about 90% of your stuff. It did for me. I had clothes I didn’t really like, books I had never read and never would read, knick-knacks that had no value and papers from everywhere I would realistically never need again!
I love throwing stuff away, as I’m easily bogged down mentally and emotionally by clutter. Organizing makes me feel fresh and rejuvenated, and the less stuff I have, the better.
Or so I thought. In reality, a few years after I started living pretty minimally, my opinion has changed from “keep as little as possible” to “maybe I should have kept some more things.” (I tossed a lot of childhood stuff in a fit of unsentimental get-rid-ed-ness, and I’m beginning to wonder if maybe that wasn’t so…)
Because keeping only what brings joy isn’t as simple as it sounds. When you’re on an organization bender, and you’re a specific type of person (i.e – me), you might find that what brings you joy in the midst of cleaning is the throwing away of stuff. It was like that for me. I was ruthless. I was as unsentimental about old stuff as it was possible to be.
I had a bit of a special situation when leaving Korea – I was trying not to ship anything or bring a third suitcase home (both very expensive) and that meant really, really keeping only what I needed and wanted. I left behind books and a lot of shoes and a lot of stationery stuff, thinking at least I could replace that easily enough.
(Bit of advice; if you love stationery and you live in Asia where you can get all that awesome stuff cheap, keep it. I’d somehow forgotten that you can’t find stores like that in America, and the stuff you do find isn’t cheap.)
The Downside
We rarely hear about the downside of minimalism, because the idea is good. You don’t need all that stuff. You don’t need that storage unit. Well, we didn’t; we just thought so.
So when is it a bad idea? When you get rid of too much. When the pendulum swings from terrible over consumption and over buying to not buying enough. There are benefits to having certain things, and sometimes those things can feel like a lot of things, but aren’t really a lot. Of things. Um.
Example; I just bought a few books. I was hesitant to buy them because a) money, and b) they were solid, real, tangible books that would forever be in my care unless I donated them later. Stuff has psychological weight.
I almost didn’t buy them. But I wanted them. Specifically, these are books related to D&D, something I’m really passionate about. I will use these books a long time, possibly for decades. D&D is one of my major hobbies, and it’s OKAY to spend money on your hobbies. That’s what I had to keep telling myself. It’s okay to buy things you will love and use forever. It’s okay to buy real books again.
I had to buy furniture to furnish my office when I moved back to Texas, and that was also really hard because fuuuurrrniiitttuuureeee is also expensive and so REAL. Like yeah, you’re rooting down.
And I bought my first ever desktop computer. Before, I’d always used a laptop because I was always on the go; to college, to Taiwan, back to college, to Korea. A desktop would have lain dormant.
Now I have a desktop. And two new amazing desks and an awesome shelf system for all my cool, favorite stuff.
It rocks. It’s not minimalist. It’s not. I don’t have 10 books spread between the 16 shelf cubes with only a decoration or two. No, I have a lot of books and a lot of souvenirs. And it’s perfect.
It’s given me a sense of belonging. When you live in transience, in the mindset of living with less, it’s easy to merge that with the idea of impermanence. Living with less so you’re easier to move around.
That’s fine for some people. It was great for me for a long time.
It’s not great forever, for some people. I loved buying a desktop. It was like buying a car. I’m an adult, I thought, finally. I loved investing in those D&D books. I want to DM, and those will be valuable resources.
As Matt Colville says, one of my all-time favorite Dungeon Masters, he buys a lot of expensive stuff for his D&D sessions. Like, hundreds of dollars worth of minis and sets and books and stuff. But he says that’s okay. He’s been collecting this stuff for over thirty years. He’ll keep using it. It’s his passion and his hobby, and that’s what living is for. To pursue your passions.
Don’t let minimalism and the fear of settling down starve you of the stuff you really do want.
I usually walk with headphones
To block out the world
But wearing earmuffs makes it hard
Anyway today I walked in silence
Muffled a bit all the same
But I heard the coldest sound on earth
Dead leaves
Leftovers of Autumn
Blowing in the wind across stone
Skittering
Beetle-like
But more romantic than beetles.
I saw the trees reaching naked into the sky,
Bare bones black bark
Bleary leering as I walked
Against the wind, earmuffed, masked, scarfed, coated,
A pad of heat against my back
Barely enough for biting weather
Barely enough for biting illness
Barely covering
A.M. EDMONSON 