Sandra Gail Lambert

The History of My Van

In 1997, I bought a 1992, already w/c lift-equipped, van.  The man who owned it had died.  His mother sobbed when she handed the keys over.  His sister whispered that the first day he drove it, he came by her house and said "Get in, drunken road trip to the Keys."  And she did.  And off they went. 

And off I've gone.  Many years it's to the Everglades.   Natural disasters have interfered - Hurricane Wilma, my mother's illness, times when my equipment (manual wheelchair to scooter to power chair) hadn't yet caught up to what I needed.  But this year I took along a friend and I managed.  

We kayaked among orchids and crocodiles.  We took long walks past bushes covered in a snow of butterflies.  We (not really me, actually) pulled my chair through the sea wrack thrown up from the Florida Bay.  Rafts of shorebirds flew past us at eye level.  And I wrote.  I wrote with a thrilled satisfaction I've not had in a while. 

The van has 145,000 miles on it now which by my calculations is just a little older than me in my human mileage.  More road trips are in our future.  From the smell, I can tell there is still rotting sea weed in my axles.  So despite my lack of drinking, the best I can, I figure I've been doing right by the spirit of the van.      

   

Wake Up Without Losing the Dream

In this video, Henry Miller annoyingly talks over, corrects, and patronizes Anais Nin and she, annoyingly, lets him. Still, brilliant misogynist writers can inspire me. Miller instructs us on how to "wake up without losing the dream" in the most practical of terms (don't open your eyes all the way, stumble to your typewriter, etc.) but, for me, the phrase had different resonance.

I think that's because I'm heading off to the Everglades this week. Kayaking past mangroves trees that bear live young or over mats of periphyton where bacteria can photosynthisize or reaching up towards epiphytic cactus that wrap themselves around the branches of watery poison wood trees - it is a dream, a delicate one. Those same mangrove trees are diminished by rising waters and the sensitive periphyton is our first and best indicator of nutrient damage. "To wake up without losing the dream" seems to me a way we can travel through the natural world balancing joy and despair.

 

Rhonda Riley - The Road to Publication

Rhonda Riley is a writer friend.  And she has a debut novel, Adam Hope, coming out from Ecco (HarperCollins) Press.  And she's speaking this Sunday at the Millhopper Library at 2:30pm about how that happened.  Do not miss this story of going from an agent's slush pile to having a novel sold at auction.  (For those of you not obsessed with all things publishing, "sold at auction" is a big, freakin' deal.) 

The Writers Alliance of Gainesville - WAG - is holding this event.  Check them out. 

 

Horror in the Okefenokee

Here's another bit of my writing.  This one's a humorous (at least I hope it is) essay.

Horror in the Okefenokee

I'm sitting on a lump of cold flesh. Six hours of kayaking and a chilly day for South Georgia means the only reason I know my backside is there is because it always has been. Can you get frostbite on your butt? I decide you can't, but am planning an immediate precautionary hot shower as I paddle out of the swamp and up the canal to the marina. My wheelchair is still standing sentinel at the boat ramp.

I wedge the kayak between the uneven cinder blocks at the bottom of the ramp. Now all I have to do is roll out of the boat, scooch over the concrete, balance on all fours, raise onto my knees, and twist into the seat of my wheelchair. I prefer to do this with no one watching since sometimes people act funny when I crawl by. Besides, an observer always makes something go awry – like losing my shoes or trapping one breast under the seat on my way up. Either way, I'll do it. I let nothing interfere with a good day on the water.

Before I can start my roll over the side, a smartly uniformed ranger appears at the top of the ramp. He chats about the weather. He asks about my trip. How many alligators? Any otters? He lingers. Knees to chest, arms clasped around them to stop the shivering, I try to wait him out. In the middle of his story about the year it snowed, I abandon modesty and make my moves. More than once, I am butt-first in his direction.

Panting and finally sitting face forward in my chair, I smile at the ranger. His neck and face are sweaty and red. His expression is professionally bland, but I can see the horror underneath. Eyes averted, he mutters something and walks away, disappearing over the top of the ramp. This pisses me off. So what that I don't move the way he does. Why can't people just deal with, admire even, someone figuring out how to do whatever it is they want to do? Screw him.

It isn't until I am at my campsite, blood returning to my backside, that I feel something cold and bare. Have I mentioned that I don't use underwear kayaking? It gets wet. It bunches.

Squirming from side to side, I strip off the thread-worn, used only for kayaking pants. I hold them in front of me. Except for three frayed strips of material, the seat is gone. That last trip along the concrete was too much for it, and I had been left exposed. I picture my butt pointed at the ranger with the ragged remains of the pants stretched across it and looking not unlike a balding man's bad combover.

I was unfair in my assumptions about that ranger, and I'm going to have to apologize to him – but only mentally. Anything else will be too embarrassing for the both of us.

Originally published in Breath and Shadow.

Her Words as Witness: Women Writers of the African Diaspora

"I just went ahead and did it."  Over and over, with each setback, this was photographer Laylah Barrayn's approach.  And now she has created a "visual love letter" to seventy-six women. Included are Sonia Sanchez, Hanifah Walidah, Tayari Jones, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Demetria Lucas.  Here's a photo gallery sample of these tributes. 

Right now the exhibit is in New York, but soon it will travel.  We should be so lucky.   

My Last Read of the Year

"Everything is root and mud and twist."  This is how Janisse Ray describes the deep swamp in Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River.  This is a perfect description of a southern swamp, told with a perfect construction of a sentence, and it made me crawl out of my warm bed and go write. 

And tonight I'll read further into her tale of kayaking the length of a river, a river protected by Riverkeepers, her home river, a river, formed by the joining of the Ocmulgee and Oconee, that is the largest free-flowing, intact water system on the Atlantic coast. 

And this will be the last book I put on my "What I've Read - 2011" list.  Adding the 2012 heading, seeing it here on the side of the blog with nothing, as yet, underneath it, thinking about the books still in their final edits that might end up listed, the books waiting, well-worn, on library shelves - well, it's a Happy New Year for all.      

Nikky Finney's NBA for Poetry Speech

"I am now officially speechless," she ends it.  More accurately, we all are speechless. Start at the four minute mark to hear Nikky Finney's awesome acceptance speech for her collection Head Off and Split. 

LGBT Writers in Schools

Did you ever dream that some day you, in all your queer writing self, would be invited back to speak at your high school, middle school (if they had those then), or even your elementary school?  The Lambda Literary Foundation is wanting just that to be possible.  They, along with The National Council of Teachers of English, are pulling together a pilot program to place authors with classrooms. 

Right now, I think they're just "taking names" for this LGBT Writers in Schools program.  Go sign up.  They are especially looking for authors that write for young adults. 

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve - as good as any of those writers retreats

I went camping and came home with a decent draft of a new short story and the mushy beginnings of an essay.  Not bad.  The morning seranades by meadowlarks and the wild turkeys that wandered through my campsite helped.  And let's not forget the loggerhead shrikes, the crested caracaras, the woodstorks, the bob whites, the insatiable butterflies, the snipes (yes, they are real), and the mama alligators that kept living their lives all around me.

And many thanks to the staff (paid and volunteer) of Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park who are devoted to the restoration of this ancient landscape. 

Oh, and check out my new wheelchair . 

Writing in the "Real Florida"

A good part of my writing has been done at one or the other of the state parks of Florida, but it's been awhile. So I'm thrilled that this year I've tuned up, cleaned out, and packed my 1992 Ford Econoline Club Wagon that has the back seats ripped out to fit in a platform bed with six inches of foam mattress topped by an egg-crate and that topped with a quilt and five pillows - my writing bower.

The old gal of a van and I are off to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. Here's a landscape that epitomizes the "Visit the Real Florida" motto of our State Park System.