Exploring what it means to live a life of words.

The Ache of Orcas, or Writers, Journey into the Mystery

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The Ache of Orcas: Writers, Journey into the Mystery

Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash

I remember the beach. The tree line right near the water. Some other family’s RV in a camping space nearby. But I don’t remember the animals, their fins piercing the water of Strait of Juan de Fuca. Or at least I think I don’t remember.

But this fuzzy memory – or lack thereof – is foundational to so much of who I am. A camping trip when I was 4. The first time I saw orcas, the animals I would seek in some way for the rest of my life.

Tahlequah’s Grief and My Ache

I have this ache within me about whales, all whales but especially killer whales. I imagine it comes from these early sightings, from the way my parents’ voices lowered as the black bodies lifted out of the water, from the huff of their spoutings. From wonder.

I imagine we read books and talked about this memory, one that was very important in my family, so important that we named our first dog Sooke after the fishing village near where we camped.

Somehow, orcas have become precious to me, and I don’t think it’s because of the time my brother and I watched one of the many Shamus practice her routine at Sea World, although that was very cool if also very sad, even when I was 7.

I’m exploring this haunt of longing just now, prompted by Tahlequah’s grief over her dead calf. I sobbed every time her story crossed my path, and I wanted to pull our son Milo so close, to hear him breath.  Tahlequah’s grief has blown sea-breath into the space in me that finds killer whales so powerful.

I’m going to write into this space.

The Aching Space for Writing

So much of writing is mystery, at least good writing. The writing that comes from the places we haven’t already worked out, the writing that sits in hollow spaces waiting for us to explore. Those places carry the breath of wordish life in them. . . and when we follow the shadow inward, we find truth and hurt and hope and big fishy breaths of life that we didn’t know we carried.

So much of what we read – especially online – is processed, carefully shaped into palatable forms that meet SEO standards or selling goals. So much is what we’ve already figured out, already understood because we think that a writer’s job it to provide answers. It’s not.

A writer’s true work is to journey into the mystery. We wander into the darkness of our own memories, our own questions, our own mysterious aches . . . and we let readers wander with us. That is our only work. Not answers. Not solutions. Not even understanding for anyone but, maybe, ourselves.

So journey into the mystery, friends.  It’s enough. It’s more than enough. It’s good.

I’m not sure what my journey into this ache and longing for orcas will be for me, but I intend to follow it wherever it will lead. I’ve already gotten started, and all I can say so far is that the ache gets deeper the further I go.

Avebury, Magic, and Circles of Words

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The air didn’t vibrate. I didn’t feel anything in the center of my chest shift.  My fingers didn’t even tingle a little the way they do when I’m bordering on excitement.

Avebury Ring from Flickr via Wylio

© 2013 Andy Perry, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio

Nope, when I visited Stonehenge, I didn’t feel anything. In fact, if anything the place felt depleted, used up, hollowed out.

Our coach unloaded in the parking lot next to lots of other buses, and we – a group of American students – walked through the tunnel up to the circle.  I don’t remember much beyond that – a wax-coated yellow rope that herded us around the stones like cattle, two Texans shouting into cellphones across the circle, boredom.  And disappointment.

I had expected magic here, something ancient, vibrant, something that caused the breath at the back of my throat to swell.

Nothing.  We climbed back into the bus and moved on.

I was done for the day, this place – this place that I had read about and dreamed out in some corner of my imagination in every word about England – it was dry. And so was I.

But our director Peter had another stop for us, and I was a good student, so I didn’t complain.  Just stared out the window at the A345 as we whipped through eastern England.

We pulled into Avebury, and without even looking, I felt it – that mystical energy that I had been seeking.  I don’t know quite how to explain it. . . except to say that it’s akin to the way I feel at the end of a night with friends when the conversation has been deep and easy. Or in relaxed prayer.

***

This morning, I read from Emily Rapp’s powerful memoir about the life and death of her infant son Rowan – Still Point of the Turning World – and she spoke of myth, of stories passed down with gaps for others to fill.  I read from Preston Yancey’s Tables in the Wilderness about the lost city of Atlantis and Plato and the way stories are the way we carry life through generations.  I felt something vibrate in me with their words, as if each of their books was a stone set at just the right place to tingle with my own electric magnetic pulse.

It’s not often that this energy comes alive for me anymore.  I’m too busy, too dedicated to my lists, too focused on “doing.”  In college, I was much deeper about my intention, about the ways I gave my time, about the places I filled myself, and there, then, the energy tingled in me constantly.  I was naive, and I was beautiful, and I was alive.

I could skip the naivete now. But the tingling aliveness, I’m always working to get back to there, then.

Now, I work that out in stories, in words on pages, cycles of the tales I tell myself from my life, of the fables and legends and myths that are the lives of others.  All of us winding back into each other again and again. Each of our lifetimes a stone in a ring that vibrates with the power of shared words.

Our stories are mystical, magical, an Avebury of words. The best ones don’t come in the ways we expect, in the places we have laid out with wax-covered yellow rope to mark the way.

Nope, mystery always comes unexpected, unplanned, for that is it’s nature. It’s magic.

***

I don’t know what I felt in Avebury that day.  And I don’t need to know.

I wandered amongst the stones and let my hand flit toward them, not touching but feeling their rough strength nonetheless.  I stood in their midst and let their power wash through me like lightening made into tiny, invisible volts of mystery.

I feel that energy building into me again now – in this slower, more intentional way I am rebuilding my existence – and it feels like it’s vibrating into the very center of myself – the place between my shoulder blades, in the space that hovers between my sternum and my spine.  The place of stories.

I don’t expect magic or miracles. . . but I do expect hope and words. Strung together, they are miracle and magic all their own.

When do you feel the magic of life in yourself?  What places or experiences bring that out?

 

My Recent Reading – Three Mini-Reviews

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So most of my reading, besides the essays/stories/poems I read for class, consists of audio books these days. Since I’m in the car about two hours a day at least (there is one good thing about commuting), I can manage to finish a fairly lengthy book in a week or so.

Recently, I finished listening to Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. It’s another post-apocalyptic novel (not sure if there are more book with this setting or if I’m just subconsciously drawn to them for some reason) set in a time when most of the humans have been killed by a plague of some sort. The story centers around a group of people called “The Gardeners,” who want to return earth to its natural state before we started using up our resources and genetically modifying everything (including animals who we genetically mate to create creatures like the “Liobam,” half lion, half lamb – it was an attempt to bring about the Biblical promise of the lion laying down with the lamb). As in most of these novels, the outlook is grim, but hope resides in a few survivors who persevere and begin to find hope in their own abilities and in each other. I really enjoyed it and recommend it fully, although it is long and might be a little tedious on the page.

At present, I’m listening to Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow and finding it quite intriguing, if subtle. The basic premise is that Quentin Clark, a lawyer from Baltimore, is trying to solve the mystery of Edgar A. Poe’s (he refuses to use the name Allan because Poe’s father “Mr. Allan” disowned him when Poe got into debt) death at a pub in Baltimore City. To do so, he seeks out the infamous C. Auguste Dupin, the Holmes-inspiring detective from several of Poe’s stories, who he believes to be based on a real person. The novel is a mix of mystery and quasi-historical fiction where Pearl’s massive research skills really come to life. Plus, since I still (for the next 8 days) live in Baltimore, I love hearing street names that I recognize.

Finally, I am reading – on actual paper – Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. Roth’s fundamental idea is that women overeat or constantly diet because we believe that somehow our ability to control our weight will give us control over our lives. This idea is one I can wholly agree with. I know that when my stress level goes up I will eat most things in site, especially if I don’t have time each day to wind down and think through my feelings. Perhaps the strongest thing I’ve taken from the book is that I need to face what I feel and not run away from it with food, TV, alcohol, or whatever other escape I want. I need to stare it in the face and move through the feeling instead of avoiding it. The book itself gets a little repetitive towards the end, but overall, I really appreciated what it taught me.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood – The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl – The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

Women Food and God by Geneen Roth – Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters – A Review

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My mom is a real connoisseur of mystery novels. She reads several a week, and despite that speed, she can remember them all. One of her favorite writers is Elizabeth Peters (not to be confused with Ellis Peters, who she also loves), so when I saw an Elizabeth Peters book on the library shelf, I thought I’d enjoy a little virtual time with Mom and pick it up.

A River in the Sky tells the story of Amelia Peabody Emerson, her husband “Emerson,” and their children – Ramses (they are Egyptologists), David, and Nefrette. The family, through a series of events involving spies and a potential, misguided hunt for the Ark of the Covenant, ends up in Jerusalem where there are kidnappings, murder, and general mystery-like intrigue. The plot is, in fact, rather lame.

But as Mom said when I asked her about why she loves Peters so much, it’s not the plot but the characters that make these books so fun. Amelia Peabody is hysterical, with her “trusty parasol” and Macgyver-like belt of medicines, flashlights, and other items that become invaluable when stuck in an ancient tunnel. Her husband Emerson has a temper but is all the more lovable for the many ways that Amelia has to “rescue” him. Ramses speaks a million languages and seems like the kind of guy you’d really like once you were done being insanely jealous of his intellect. The characters are, as Mom said, “well-rounded and fun,” and they’re personalities drive the book forward.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes the kind of personalities found in the works of the great mystery writers like Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie. And if you’re into archaeology, you might enjoy them, too.

Cover of A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters – A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

Lemon Tart by Josi S. Kilpack – A Review

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I finished chapter one of this book and wanted to bake . . . normally, I wouldn’t use that quality to rate a book more highly, but in this case, it’s entirely appropriate. Kilpack’s mystery about the murder of a suburban single mother combines the domesticity of home life with the standards of the mystery genre to make an interesting, thoughtful and very engrossing novel.

The basic plot involves a murder, a detective Ms. Sadie Hoffmiller (baker and apple sauce maker), and suspicions about all the men in her life. When her neighbor Anne is murdered in the backyard and Anne’s son Trevor goes missing, Sadie takes it on herself to “assist” the police with the investigation. She breaks into houses, hides under beds, and steals evidence, all for the sake of helping. It’s great reading.

Sadie is a very likable woman – flawed by well-intentioned – so I could get behind her, even as I winced when she did something particularly reckless. I also enjoyed the detectives in the book – Cunningham with his wry good looks and compassionate nature and Madsen, who I just wanted to see punched in the face for his arrogance. The other supporting characters – like Sadie’s daughter Breanna – are fun, too, and they help flesh out what could have become a very domestic, small, claustrophobic setting.

Interspersed with the stories are recipes, like, for instance, one for Lemon Tart. I didn’t really pay much attention to them, but Kilpack does succeed in keeping them from being annoying by only dropping one in every few chapters. I didn’t find the recipes added much, but since they didn’t distract me, I didn’t mind.

All in all, Lemon Tart is fun, and it kept me reading, mostly because I just liked Sadie so much. If you’re a fan of mysteries or women’s fiction, this book is for you.

Cover of Lemon Tart by Josi S. Kilpack – Lemon Tart by Josi S. Kilpack

If you’d like to win my autographed copy of the book, post a comment here and/or spread the word (let me know where you share the giveaway). I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday.

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