Memento Adulescentia - Concerning diaries and fathers

 Undine in the Doorway

Someone asked me why the name of the blog is "Every seed and leaf." and I debated on whether or not to post this as it is one of the more personal things in my folder, but decided it couldn't do much harm.  Perhaps I'll look at it from a different perspective and be able to make some good changes to it. 

1999

Christmas Eve

Fayetteville, NC.                                

I am seven going on eight, sitting at the kitchen table, writing by the dim glow of Christmas lights and the great tree in the family room, and pinecones burning in the fireplace…  This is how the first entry of my first diary began.

Life was flawless.  It was golden.  Each day was a blessing, each breath of air a miracle, each bout of laughter a shining lantern in the dark.   I had two older brothers, a mom, and a dad.  The dad was kept busy much of the time with work, and in his absence we flourished.   His vacancy was like a warm cozy chair anybody could sit in, passing the hours of the day in peace.  When he retired, we found that vacancy suddenly filled.  It was filled by a new element in our household- one that threw us all off balance, like a rock causing endless ripples on a placid lake.  The ripples of his coming home never subsided; they continue on deep inside each of us, my brothers, my mother, and I.  His force lives on not only in my genes, but in my memory too.  He is a wrinkle that will never lay flat, a jar that refuses to be opened, a weed that won’t keep out of the garden, that keeps coming back to choke the life from every seed and leaf…

The first memory I hold of him is fear.  The last memory of him is that of indignant anger.  Everything in between is not much different.  I do not know how my mom married him, but thank god it was her of all people that ended up being my mom.  Where he was a tyrant, she was a democracy.  Where he was blind, she understood with a glance.  Where his hand dealt pain, hers was the soothing hug that healed us after.  She was a magician, he was a soldier.  She was an artist, he was a con artist; a thief that made off with my childhood and never gave it back. 

But not all clouds hold rain, and not every diary entry of mine was filled with rambles about my dad.  As a matter of fact I chose to omit him from my diary as much as possible.   He had little place in my heart, and therefore had little place in my writing.  So despite having just been screamed at for some stupid thing or another by the man himself, I began my very first entry with as free and light a heart as any other little girl had.  Thus…

HI!  My name is Mary Ann and this is my diary.  Also my brothers are SUPER dumb!  They are!

This is so GOOD!  Christmas morning is coming!  And tonight I will go downstairs and wait, and see if there IS such a thing as Santa, because I don’t believe in Santa ONE BIT.  My mom and dad, well just my mom, says this when we don’t do our chores: “that’s one less present!”  I’m tired of that!  I already found where the presents are anyway.  They are under my parents’ bed.  Not really a good place.  Eh?  Hey WHY DO I HAVE TO CROSS OUT THAT MY BROTHERS ARE DUMB!  It’s MY DIARY so nobody should be reading it anyway!!!

And it's been a bloody roller coaster ever since!  I'm on my fifth diary, as of now.

2nd Current

 Undine in the Wind

Writing: An untitled short story
About a man with Ondine's Curse, a non-professional name for a type of sleep apnea that could result in death, if not properly addressed. But the man can't afford the equipment needed for this disease, so he robs a hospital. 
Reading: "The Likeness" by Tana French
Nearly halfway through it.  Still skipping paragraph after paragraph of drippy prose to get to some actual dialogue, let alone action.  
EDITOR WHERE YOU AT?
Listening: "I Giorni" Ludovico Einaudi
Do you ever feel like some music is just good for you?  It's like, "Aaah... Yes.  This is what I've been longing to hear all day..."  I sigh as the sunlight streams over the patio, warming my legs, and a gentle breeze flutters the curtains ever so slightly..
Drinking: Kool Aid
It's like juice, except that it's devoid of any nutritional value whatsoever.
Favorite Color: Bright Green
Because that's the color of the new leaves bursting from the branches at this moment.

I'll probably revise this again after I post it

Gulliver's Travels 

This blog, (unlike fucking Twitter,) was a very good call.  I’m not expecting feedback, which is fine.  But there is something about placing writing in a place where anyone can see it that makes me edit just a bit harder; I’ll review it again, then once more, and once more again.  I comb through it with a slightly harsher eye.  It’s like making out when your door is open; you’ll try to be just a bit quieter, whether people are listening or not.  Usually when I’m done typing out an idea I simply leave it at that.  Unrefined and unpolished, I’ll tap save and close the window.  But when it comes time to decide which writing to put on that (silly) blog, I’ll spend a good deal longer on the piece than normal.

As a rule of thumb, I won’t submit any writing to a magazine unless I’ve thought about it over a 24 hour period.  For example, it’s 12:01 am on Sunday, and I have a tab open for a zine that says SUBMISSIONS.  It’s asking me to upload a document, and I have the intended document open now.  I’ve read through the piece start to finish, middle to finish, finish to start, with music playing, without music playing, fucking upside down, and now I finally feel there is nothing I can do to make it better.  I have written and edited to the best of my current abilities.  I upload the document, but don’t click submit, and then…

 I make a cup of tea.   As I wait for the bag to steep, I close the whole window, and finally shut down the computer.  Over the course of tomorrow I’ll ponder the piece some more, look back at it, and make yet more changes.  If all goes well, by 1 tomorrow night I’ll have sent it out.  What I’m getting is that no piece is ever as good as it could be with just a bit more thinking, a bit more soaking.  The less the teabag soaks for, the weaker the tea.  Granted, if I let something sit around for too long, the original feeling or idea behind the piece can become muddled, to the point where the initial inspiration behind it is lost.  That’s bad.  Too-strong tea is disgusting.  That’s when something must be done with it.  Check it for grammatical errors, check the mechanics of it, oil the squeaky parts and find the right magazine to submit it to, and then toss it out there before it gets cold.

Too often I would submit something, and then read over what I had submitted the next day.  On one occasion I actually choked on aforementioned tea because there were not one, not two, but three commas in a row where there shouldn’t have been any at all!  Damn!  So really, this blog works.  I’m going to upload what I’ve just written after about three more revisions- not because it’s being read by a zine editor, or my close friends, or Charles effing Dickens, but because it’s going to a place where it’s fair game.  It’s being put in a place where anybody could come along and tear it apart if they wanted.  It’s exposed, and whether or not it’s read is not the point.  The point is that I want to be ready for said tearing if it ever does come. 

(Oh, but of course this is all about writing that I intend to submit to the outside world.  Things like personal essays and diary entries are never, ever edited.  That’s stupid.  Diary entries from straight from the deepest part of the heart.  Why would someone want to edit that?)

Memento Mori?

Grimm's Cat

Who really knows what their earliest memory is?   After all, we have such a little selection to decide from when it comes to our early recollections.  I think it was a tree.  I was in a car seat, maybe, and I was looking at wet tree bark, and it was cloudy.  I remember absolutely loving the rich pattern of the bark and the blue-green moss that clung to it.

Everything after that is total crap.

Once, my mom didn’t come upstairs to read to me.  I waited, all tucked into bed, with the book sitting on my dresser beside me.  After waiting and waiting I couldn’t wait anymore so I grabbed the book and tried to read it to myself.  I was maybe 4.  I’ve loved challenging my brain ever since. 

Once, it was dusk and I was playing with a friend, a little girl my age.  I wanted to play on her wheelie, which was in the back yard.  We were almost to the gate, and then these guys were going past.  Thinking back on it, they were smoking and had grungy T-shirts on.  They called out to us, saying something about bubblegum in their pockets.  Bubblegum?  My friend turned to listen.  Oh yes, a whole pile of bubblegum, but it was at their house, so come on we'll show it to you- and she was gone.  This part is blank.  I remember going to the backyard and sitting down on the wheelie.  Only then did I realize how dark it was getting, past the time when your parents would be calling you inside.  I ran home.  The strangest part is, I don’t remember hearing anything about her after that.  Granted, it was a military housing complex- people moved out and in and out again often.  But it still drives me crazy that I don’t remember.  Did she ever come back?

1st Current

Undine in the Wind

 "Currents" is an exercise of sorts that I started doing in seventh grade, when I realized that people's favorite color, word, and television show are always subject to change. The point is to write down what is currently going through my head. It's just another kind of diary entry, in a way.

Writing: Five common problems in people's lives, and how they might be resolved. 

The point of this exercise is to pinpoint topics that many people can relate to. The best stories are, after all, ones that relate to the human condition and possess a universal truth.
Reading: "The Likeness" by Tana French
Her editor must be slipping, because I'm skipping at least a paragraph every two pages. It's like reading the fucking Dresden Files all over again.
Listening: "Take Over Control" Afrojack
"...unless you want to show me a lovely place out of town, where you feel most at ease."
Watching: CNN's Live stream from Japan.
At the time of this writing, 350 confirmed deaths, number could raise as high as 1,000. 700 injured, several hundred missing. My brother is going to Japan in two weeks, where his girlfriend lives.
Eating: Ham and Cheese with Cran-grape juice.
It's delicious.