Sandra Gail Lambert

Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin

Okay. Why is this novel on my "2008 books that have changed my life" list?  First of all, I've sunk happily into LeGuin's novels for almost forty years.  Second, I'm working on a book that tells the stories of women and girl children who, like Lavinia, history would never have remembered.  Third of all, Lavinia is a novel written with such exquisite power that I think about it all the time even these many months after reading it. 

How does she make-up a story and it reads like an ancient myth passed down to you by ancestors and makes you also laugh out loud in parts?  How did she put so much strength into her characters?  How much owl imagery can I have in my novel and not be considered a plagiarizer?  I want to make readers feel the way Ursula K. LeGuin makes me feel - as if I've touched something ancient and deep and tender.  

  

Body, Remember by Kenny Fries

At this end of year time, everyone has their "best books of 2008" list.  I think what I want to do instead is talk about the "read in 2008" books that stirred the emotions underneath my writing.  

First, and in no particular order as they say on "Dancing With the Stars," is the memoir Body, Remember by Kenny Fries.  He writes about growing up disabled with enough effect that it sort of sent me into a week of PTSD. (But in a good way?)  I wrote out this quote from the book and have it posted by my writing bed.

"From the car my parents wave.  As they pull away, I feel as if I am once again their child in the hospital, and even though they left my bedside only moments before, I am already anxiously waiting for the next day when they will return.  And although I am standing with Kevin under the vast expanse of the New Mexico sky, when I can no longer see their car, somewhere I hear the hospital elevator close, the sound that begins to stir the distinct loneliness I still carry with me after all these years." 

I have his latest book, The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory, at my bedside, but I'm picking my moment to read it.  Just the title makes me remember the shoes that had a bar between them that I had to wear at night, the one style (but I could choose black or brown) of shoe available to fit on my braces, how, once I was financially responsible for my own self, I would get them resoled over and over and over because they cost so much, and how when I started using a wheelchair and could get any shoes I wanted, I vowed to (but never did) become the next Imelda Marcos.   

 

 

Danger to our State Parks

The state government is considering a "cost saving" proposal that will close many of our State Parks.  This is wrong headed in so many ways and Sandra Friend, author and environmental protector, has set up a website that says why.  She asks us to write letters and e-mails and provides talking points and links to the appropriate e-mail addresses. 

Here's the letter that I sent to Governor Crist, DEP Secretary Sole, and Florida State Parks Director Bullock:

"Please reconsider the proposal to close state parks as a "cost saving" measure.  There are many reason why I oppose any closures - the economic benefit of them to their surrounding communities, the value of the volunteer hours that will be lost, and that in these stressful financial times they are an inexpensive place for families to relax and have fun. More personally, is that for the most part, they are wheelchair accessible which makes it possible for me to be part of the wildness of the "Real Florida."
   
The biggest heartbreak, for me, would be the closure of Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.  Large preserves such as this are invaluable to our State.  They don't bring in the public as much as more recreational places, and they shouldn't.  They exist to protect an environment.  My visits there have expanded my idea of what Florida is and was.  The Preserve sent me back to my home more committed to volunteering for our amazing system of state parks and searching out ways to leave less of an environmental imprint in my daily life.
   
I am a writer living on a fixed income.  Most writing retreats and classes are out of reach for me.  But each year I look forward to my days camping at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.  I wake up to turkeys and deer wandering through my campsite.  I stroll the paths listening to meadowlarks and looking for the orange flash of pine lily in the tall grass.  I come back to my quiet site and write in a deep way that would be impossible anywhere else.

You may have a policy against opening them, but I've attached two photographs that I took at the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve." 

        
   

Carrie Green - Poet

Remember Carrie Green?  One of the poets in my Kelly Cherry group at the Atlantic Center for the Arts?  She was writing a cycle of poems about Lue Gim Gong? 

Well, she's just had some of the poems published in Gulf Stream.  Yeah, Carrie!

Girls Write Now

Hankie alert.

So much could be said about this.  And nothing needs to be.  This young woman more than says it all. 

Although I will say that my blogger friend Tayari Jones will match any donations that are sent to Girls Write Now, the organization that fostered this young writer's voice.  And she wants us to post pictures of our own teen aged selves.  See below.

Funny - Sort of

Florida Love

 

What I like best about Decembers in Florida are the signs of spring. 

In my yard, Stokes Aster's first leaves flop over the top of this year's drop of oak leaves, and there are two poppy mallow stems almost hidden under the fall fluff of the garberia.  The blue-eyed grass is showing as tufts of stiff yellow-green.  The branches of the ash magnolia are topped with a pointed swirl of cream that looks like the tip of a watercolor brush.

      

This is my twentieth December in Florida.  Before, when I lived in Atlanta, I used to day dream about living among live oaks and palm trees.  And here I am. 

When the going gets tough . . .

. . . the tough go a fun, fantasy land place in their mind.

"Lame" rant

I'm tired of it.  I have been for a long time, but it's always worse after an election what with the thousands of "lame duck" references.  So I'll say it another time.

Stop using the word "lame" to mean pathetic, ugly, ignorant, ill-advised, dorky, boring, ineffectual, uninspired, or insipid.  Lame means that you have a hitch in your get-a-along.  That's it.  

 

The Last Scene

I'm writing the last scene of the last (most likely) chapter of this novel.  Yikes.  It snuck up on me.  I'm eager to start on revision.  It's my favorite part of writing.  But this scene will take awhile. 

Like this morning, I was writing, and then I checked in my mother and it's possible that yesterday she took way too many of her steroid pills.  Or maybe not.  I'm poised to go out there, but my poet friend (whose mother lives in the same retirement community) will drop by first and check it out.  But I'm in hold-my-breath mode until she does. 

So I blog.  And listen to last week's episodes of Tell Me More.  Michele Martin comforts me. 

The New York Times and Dykes to Watch Out For

The NYT has a glowing, intelligent review of Alison Bechdel's The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For.  Which means, sort of, that they did a glowing, intelligent review of my life. Which means that they said "dyke" in the NYT.  Which means that Alison Bechdel's talent and devotion to her own and our lesbian selves has, among so many other things, opened a bit more space for lesbian writers. 

P.S.  Me, I'm a combination of Mo and Clea who in the past years has relaxed enough to add a good bit of Harriet.  How about you? 

Take Back the Book

They say books are dying, passe, bad business.  They say no one reads anymore.  They say people don't spend money on books.  Well, here's a place to refute that.  Go to the Buy More Books link, and in the comments section list all the books you've purchased (purchased, not read) lately.  They will be tallyed into concrete proof that books are valued, are wonderful gifts, are lasting treasures worth spending our money on.

Plus, you get to peak at what everyone else is buying. 

And, if you don't have anything to put on the list, buy books for the next ten gifts you give.