Day 15 & 16: Sideways Step and Test III

Happy Easter everybody! I hope you all found warm tables to sit around with good family and friends, chowing down on a good ham and all the fixen's that go with it! Haha!

Today's topics are Sideways Step and Test III

In Sideways Step, Natalie Goldberg wants to ingrain in us that when writing your memoir that you don't want to tackle head on, but rather to come up along side it. One way to do this is to pick one thing that you like; gardening, painting, working on cars... You name it. As you write about these experiences, you start digging in a little deeper: How old were you? When was this? What season was it? Where were you at? What was it like? Were your folks sick? Who were you dating at the time?...

These questions help to give a depth in your writing, but more importantly it gives you practice!

If you want to do anything you need practice, hard work. You need to be constantly looking, constantly writing about the happenstance's around you; tripping over a rake in the grass, something you notice while teaching algebra.

As Goldberg puts it, "you need to stay in touch with notebook and pen, to be connected with your search. If you don't know you're looking, you won't find anything."

What does this practically look like? A fellow by the name of Rob Wilder, he taught workshops with Goldberg for four years, had been writing short stories for nearly twenty years... but wasn't really well known or published from what we can tell.

Anyways, Goldberg tells the story that in writing, you can work hard for years, but it won't do you any good unless you are willing to jump off the ledge, get out of your 'comfort zone' (for all conservative christians out there) and become vulnerable in your writing.

So Goldberg would have Wilder get up and tell stories to the students, with each story that he told, they got more detailed, more involved. The students would sit enthralled to hear him and some would come to tears about what he was saying.

He would talk about how he got started writing, about his two boys, about his trips to England and other countries, all things that he regarded as old boring stuff. But after every story Goldberg would tell him to write it down, and he would merely have this perplexed look on his face.

Eventually, Wilder did write a story down, it was almost immediately published in an online journal, an writing agent sought him out and made deals, now he has a book out about parenting his two kids called, Daddy Needs a Drink.

What did I take from all this? 1) Write all the time about anything that you like writing about and about anything that happens to you. Because you don't know what stories will trigger something inside that will unleash the thing that you want to share. 2) Hard work will only take you so far. You need to know your voice and you need to be able to be who you are in your writing... no matter how that may look or how vulnerable that may be :)

Now that I've said all that!

Test III is simply a couple of 'I remember...' exercises that you do in a short amount of time. There were supposed to be 2 minutes but I went ahead and made them 3, just because I like the extra time to set the memory. The four exercises are:

• A memory of cabbage
• Some instance of war
• A cup you loved
• A peace march you didn't attend

Test III

A memory of cabbage:

I have a memory of sauerkraut, which I count the same since all it is, is fermented cabbage.

I was in Germany, the summer of 2001. I was probably in week 2 or 3 of our three month long missions trip around the world.

We were walking along the streets of his old city full of cobble stone roads.

There was a food stand we came up upon that had tables set out in the plaza, each one with a bowl, full of sauerkraut.

I had never had sauerkraut before, and instinctively put a bit of it into my mouth...

Time.

Some instance of war:

I was young, about 13 or so I want to say. The news was all a buzz with what was going on in Kosovo at the time and my interests in war had been peaked by a fascination with World War II that had been peaked not too long before.

I sat eagerly on our couch in the basement, listening to commentators talk about possibilities that the U.N. was going to send troops.

Still shots of the United Nations building filled the screen as we waited eagerly for the decision to pass.

Suddenly, word came across the air that America was sending troops!

In my little mind, America was going to war...

Time.

A cup you loved:

I actually still have the cup that I love!

It's a hand crafted mug that has a textured, salt glaze on it that was received probably from a six day wood fire.

I was helping my former instructor/mentor/good friend/master potter Fergus, set-up and run a booth that had his pots at the concert hall in downtown Columbia, MO.

My eye had been on this sleek, oval bottle that had a hole right through the middle of it...

My plan was that I was going to buy that bottle after the show had closed down...

Time.

A peace march I didn't attend:

When I was going to Moberly Area Community College about 3 year ago. I had this old philosophy teacher that reminded me of Santa Clause (now as I remember it, it seems that every philosophy teacher that I have had has reminded me of Santa Clause).

Sometimes, he would lean back in his chair in the basement of the college and start telling us stories of the peace matches and demonstrations that he used to take part in.

One such march, he was with a group of thousands that were demonstrating in front of the Pentagon in Washington D.C...

And... Time!

Well, thank you all for reading!

Let me know how you guys are liking the blog (i.e. what do I write that you really like? that I do well to illustrate?) and also any pointers to help me become a better writer (i.e. What are some things that I can improve on? punctuation? word usage? vocabulary? mental pictures that are created in your mind? Jazz like that).

Tomorrow's topics are: Monkey Mind and Wild at Heart

See everyone Tomorrow!

-Eric Alan

Day 13 & 14: No Mush and Scratch

Hello fellow blogrimagers, family and friends!

Today I got more than 6 hours of sleep! Which is fantastic since the past couple of days I haven't been getting that much from staying up late playing 'Nertz' with friends (if you don't know this card game you need to know), updating the blog, or catching up on some tv shows that I have missed (namely House, Stargate Universe and The Office).

Getting to bed at midnight and waking up at 5:40 am doesn't lead to a healthy sleep lifestyle...

Anyways, today's topics are a little more straight forward then yesterdays. We have No Mush and Scratch.

In No Mush, our dear friend Natalie Goldberg brings up a interesting point. That, "in order to write we must have an awareness of who we are- and who we aren't."

She goes on to say that writing is usually the pursuit of two opposites trying to make peace with each other, to become unified, but not to the point of, "mush."

What is mush? Mush is what happens when we compromise. An example that Goldberg gives is you have a girl that loves to live in the country, but is married to a guy that is an 'urban boy." Now, instead of either one submitting themselves to the other and embracing the challenges of a whole new culture, lifestyle and atmosphere... they decide to buy a house in the suburbs. Thereby "squashing" any desire and energy you may have gotten from either of the other extremes.

What is the challenge for today then? Write about bold, restless extremes that you carry inside. Go. Ten minutes.

No Mush

Bold restless extremes...

The biggest thing within me right now (or, on second thought, two of them) is traveling the nations of our world, and creating work through visual methods; i.e. drawing, sketching, painting, sculpting, printing, making pots, designing buildings and houses...

How do these come to a bold, restless extreme? Because at present I am not doing any of them.

Like the couple in this chapter that could live in the country or could decided the embrace of living in the city... each decision one person becomes deprived of a desire within them, but are faced with a livid opportunity to expand their experiences to a place that they have never known before.

The restlessness with can be attributed to the fact that I love to travel; I love seeing new places, experiencing how people live in different parts of the world and coming to regard strangers from a distant land as my friends (and let's not forget about the food!).

But I haven't been able to travel anywhere in about a year.

Creating, when I was at school, every semester I had an art class; painting, charcoal drawing, pottery, photography, screen printing, you name it... if it was an art class I took it and usually at least twice.

I remember the first day I had charcoal drawing, we used our hands to smear the charcoal across the paper and then used out erasers to create an image.

I remember coming home and feeling so alive, so excited, that my hands were covered in a thick cake of charcoal dust.

There was almost a glee to how I felt.

But it has been sometime since then...

Times Up.

Out next chapter:

Scratch

Write about a time you itched. It could be physical or metaphorical.

I remember being about 12, it was summer time because mosquito's don't come around when it's cold.

I had just spent the day playing outside.

The folks had us all come in for dinner.

All through dinner though, my legs itched like no tomorrow. I looked down and saw about 5 or 6 bites on my leg but I didn't think anything about it and decided that I would ease the itch by scratching it.

After we had finished eating I started heading to my room to get ready for bed. The itch on my legs would not go away and I was walking down the hallway I was scratching my legs like crazy (note: wearing shorts outside without bug-spray during a Missouri summer is usually a bad idea most of the time).

As I was going about my room getting ready for the night, I kept stopping what I was doing to scratch this itch... it was starting to get late out, the cicada's were being to strum their bed time song and it was getting darker and darker in my room.

My legs were so itchy, like someone taking pinpricks across my leg.

I remember going into my closet to put something away and turning on the light. As I looked down at my leg to see why it was itching so much, I had discovered that the 5 or 6 bug bites that I had from outside, now had become one, giant bug bite that seemed to have swallowed all the the little ones together.

A huge lump of itchy flesh.

I was horrified! I knew my folks had always told us not to itch bug bites, but I had no idea that they would grow so much... and the itch was even worse!

The night, as I laid in bed, my legs were restless. I prayed and prayed and prayed that I would fall asleep, so that this torture of an itch would leave em alone.

But that night I determined to myself that no matter how bad the itch got, that I wouldn't scratch it anymore. No matter how much I wanted to relieve what my legs were telling me to do, what my mind was screaming at me to somehow find a way to make it stop.

I held firm, I told myself over and over again that if I didn't scratch this terrible itch for the rest of the night, that the itch would eventually go away, the seemingly massive, mother-of-all bug bites would slowly fade away into my skin and that my leg would be back to normal by morning...

Times Up.

Well, it's always fun to chat with all of you ;)

Tomorrow's topics: Sideways Step and Test III

Hope to hear how you all are doing with your blogrimage's! I still need to just sit down one day and catch up with all that you guys are sharing.

Take Care!

-Eric Alan

Day 11 & 12: Nuts and Grade

Hey people, today's topics are Nuts and Grade.

In Nuts, Natalie Goldberg starts in a very interesting (and different) direction, she asks you to think about the history of nuts in you life.

Not so much about how you feel about nuts or, "I ate a lot of nuts when I watched tv." As Goldberg puts it, "History demands dates, place, a more distant reflection."

The chapter goes on to give more examples of ways to bring small things that we encounter every day into a new realm of thinking. What are these examples you may ask?

I shall tell you:

• A Romance with Chocolate
• An incident with vanilla
• A journal page of your experiences with tapioca (or rice pudding)
• Donut Confessions
• The Public Record of your pie eating
• Chronicle of Croissants
• Pudding Diary
• My Sugar Archives
• Coffee Ice Cream Accounts
• The Narrative of My Sweet Life
• A Roster of Caramel Tarts I've Eaten

The end goal of all these things is to take a creative, "fresh" way of how we view things. How we record them in our everyday experiences and relate them into ways that are not just engaging to read, but also could change our perspective of, "the everyday things that are there to save our lives." ('Stranger than Fiction' anybody?)

How else can this look like?

• Report of my Bad Teeth
• Lousy Day Recital
• Episodes with Mice
• My Legendary Dog
• The Saga of my Ill Will

(Personally I think these would make great blog titles!)

And last but not least:

• My Belief in Paperclips (Personal Favorite)

Needless to say, this chapter has a large, red sharpie circle around it, as I try to come up with creative ways of seeing the objects that I encounter and use everyday (i.e. Oh, the Places my keys will go!)

This chapter I will have to come back too...

In Grade, Goldberg asks something that we very seldom think about, Kindergarten (at least I don't think about it that much).

I kind of came off the beaten path a little bit here. Since I could remember nothing about my kindergarten experiences or what memories, go where, in my early schooling (1st-6th grade is a bit muddled up in my memory). I decided that I would focus on the earliest memory that I could... the house we lived in, in Oklahoma.

Grade

Tell me everything you remember about Kindergarten. Go. Ten minutes.

What I remember about kindergarten?

I remember the church/school that I always went too... But that wasn't till about 3rd grade, I want to say...

My oldest memories, the one that I think is close to kindergarten (how old are you in kindergarten anyways?).

I was young, we lived in a small house in a busy town... there was a room in the back of the house that led to the backyard, but this room also contained the washer and dryer.

On stepping out to the back, it was a warm day, bright, sun-shining strongly down on the hard packed earth.

The most notable feature of this yard, besides the old, warn fence, that ran around it (and possibly a shed?) was a metal pole sticking up out of the yard.

From it branched several other poles that were hexagonally arranged and had a small rope running along the perimeter of these 'branches'.

There were several layers of rope too, about three if I remember right.

Now, jump forward a bit of time, I was still young, my Father & Mother were attending church at a place called 'Grace Family Fellowship.'

It was a summer night, still warm but the night giving it's edges a bit of coolness to it.

The church softball league was meeting.

My father playing with his friends, all of them sitting in the dug-out.

The lights giving, what seemed like day to the field. They were being swarmed by hundreds and hundreds of flying bugs.

A dizzying array of lighted specks dancing against a dark sky.

Times Up.

Now before you stop reading this chapter, Goldberg tells a short story about a time when she taught a workshop and has everyone write about 'third grade.'

At the end of the writing session, she had several people stand up and tell their stories. At one point, a gentleman raised his hand to share. He stood up and began his memory of third grade like this, "I did not go to third grade. At that age I was in Bergen-Belsen..."

This gentlemen went on to list everything that he had missed from not going to third grade because he was in a concentration camp.

Things like multiplication, conjunctions, apostrophes. These things that most of us take for granted he never learned.

Goldberg relates that after he got done sharing his memory, the entire audience was still. Not one person lifted their hand to share after he spoke. She states how they all felt the pain in a new way. Not in conditions of the camp, but "of how the horror of these camps... distill[ed] it down to a loss of third grade grammar and history had a startling effect."

So, there is another challenge to this chapter...

Grade II

What did not happen in your sixth grade? Be specific. You can also step out of the ordinary confines of the curriculum. You were eleven or twelve years old. What was missing?

Go. Ten minutes.

What was missing? A structured school curriculum.

This was the first year that my parents had decided to homeschool us.

Not knowing what steps to take, they bought these big workbooks from Sam's Club that were filled with different subjects; reading, writing, math, science...

They simply told us to do six pages out of this workbook and we were done for the day. This took all of a half hour to do and it was awesome!

For a boy that was used to three to four hours of homework each night from the private christian school that we attended, this was a dream come true.

What was I missing? My first kiss.

When I was about twelve years old, my interest in girls began to rise to the surface of my conscience. But ever since I was a young boy, my parents (namely my mother) had drilled in our heads, "You don't kiss girls till your married."

The fear of my mother would rise up within me and would overtake me, so much so, that I was wary of even holding another girls hand for several years down the road.

What was I missing? Athletic sports, middle and jr. high school socials, friends that I had made back at that christian private school, playing with army mirco-machines in the dirt during recess, recess, school lunches (not something that I missed terribly), learning how to broach a non-awkward conversation with my peers, learning how to talk to girls that I liked.

What did I miss in these years?

Some things that have proven inconsequential, but other things that took me several years to adjust too.

Well, that was actually, refreshing. You never know what you will come to mind until you face the questions that you would have never thought about on your own.

Tomorrow's topics: No Mush and Scratch

See you guys tomorrow!

-Eric Alan