I think it’s time

I wish for a moratorium on bad feelings between family members. It’s not my family of origin but P’s, and more specifically, it’s among his siblings and him mainly… and me, also. I don’t know what it takes or how it can happen or that it can. It’s just a wish and a desire. (I guess my feeling is that it’s probably not possible, probably not desired by those who it’s most up to.)

Big Sur getaway

Ondaatje on Divisadero

Last night, P and I went to Books Inc to hear Michael Ondaatje read from his book Divisadero. I haven’t read the book yet, though P — who reveres Ondaatje’s work– has. I will, though. And I do, also, love Ondaatje’s poetic, nonlinear writing. It was lovely to hear his voice reading, the lull of his accent and the different from Americanized English emphases on syllables. I loved hearing him say “Petaluma” which is where the opening section of the novel is set. I liked hearing him say how he likes the Northern California landscape.

Some of the highlights from the Q & A part of things follow.

On method: He writes in longhand. No one else can read his handwriting, he joked.

On trusting the process: He doesn’t plot out his novels and doesn’t know where they will go or what will happen. He begins with a small situation. A few characters, very vague. He lets his characters develop.

On research: He does this simultaneously, only.

On writing poetry while making a novel: He can’t do this anymore.

On living with another writer: It’s “very good!” I could be a bank robber for all she knows, he joked.

On what his novel is about: Authors shouldn’t do book tours until their books come out in paperback — up till then they are still stammering answers, i.e. don’t fully know what their books are about.

On the title: Divisadero has more vowels than my name, he joked. He professed to finding it difficult to title his work. He liked the sound of Divisadero; he liked the concept behind the street’s name: divisions, which seemed to fit or work [or perhaps extend the idea of?] the divisions in the novel.

He said many other things. In much better ways than my notes let on. I felt most comforted by hearing how it is a walk in the dark when first we start putting something to the page. Sometimes I need to see manifest, be in the presence of a good result come from that willingness to bear the discomfort of not knowing, braving the blindness, the storms.

A new favorite wine

Benziger — Biodynamic:

the highest form of organic farming. It goes beyond the elimination of all chemical inputs. It incorporates the environment in and around the vineyard and works with nature to apply the knowledge of life forces to bring about balance and healing in the soil.

Delicious.

On rage

or on acting out rage. Irvine Welsh’s principles in “I’m still Mr Angry.” And this rumination (my emphasis):

Another factor, however, was that I considered this guy to be patently confrontable, and let’s be honest, we make the judgment about the person as much as the situation. A harder-looking bastard, I would have thought twice. And that’s the real shame of it all; we like to think we treat everybody the same and that our rage is righteous and not about bullying, but that’s just the lie we tell ourselves to make us feel better.

On shelter

Shelter — I’m laughing at the use of that word.

The house I just sold back in the Midwest I could not buy here, in Marin County, for oh, close to a million. Maybe more. That’s more money than I have for spending on a house.

Now I knew that before getting here but I am just now getting to know it. P says that it’s just a number, now, and it’s all relative (to what he’s earning, and so on, but I am not – yet – earning more), to forget the $$. Some days that’s easier than others. Some days it strikes me anew as downright ridiculous.

For example, we were looking at a house (to rent: we’re just going to rent first before jumping in) and our host indicated a place beside the fireplace in the kitchen where a large rock rested on the hardwood floor. The rock, she informed, marked the area where we should not walk as there is structural damage underneath the floorboards (moisture, termites — two reasons slated) and we could fall through. How many thousands of dollars per month should one pay to rent such a place, really? My answer: zero.

We have looked at some odd things. A “unique” house turned out to be part of a church, the other part of which functions as a Buddhist meditation center, which might not be so bad (it would be quiet, right?) if it weren’t that in one room exists a door with a large window leading to the center’s kitchen, covered by a flimsy curtain. Oh, and the yard — a beautiful yard, granted — often serves a role for the Buddhists’ activities, including weddings.

I’m not in a place in my life in which I want to plan out when I might be outside. I want to be out there, writing, sitting, dreaming when I want to.

If I want to sing, play rousing gypsy music and dance, if I want to shriek (at P?) I don’t want to have to be thinking about those souls trying to meditate. I want to set that thornbush afire, not add another inhibitor to my living.

So the search goes on for the right place, for the suitable place.

This is what I’ve been doing for about two weeks now, scooping Craig’s List ads, responding, driving by, sometimes viewing inside. It’s a kind of a trance. I feel unable to concentrate on much else.

And I wonder about what’s next after the shelter thing is settled.

I start to worry.

I worry that I can’t write right now: I think I should be able to write NO MATTER WHAT. If I’m a real writer. I should.

Oh, a should. That’s right: I want to lose my personal religion.