Journal Camp: Day 29

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Cynthia G.

Ala Carte Blue

The color of her dress was a cross between periwinkle and the dusty blue of a prairie sky just after sunset. There was a pattern of small white flowers infused into the fabric that swayed in time to the movement of her hips. She was strong and young still, years from the strain of farms at auction, of entire communities vanishing, tilting toward the promise of union wages. Her eyes were green, and her nails were painted Ala Carte Blue. The hue of her dress and the blue of the tips of her fingers provoked a kind of stupor, a trance of scalded milk and blurry edges. The hem of her frock fell to just above her knees, exposing a slim white scar, the result of a tumble off her bike on that gravel road just off the old Red Rock bypass. When she walked a cup of coffee across the café, every head turned to watch the sway of that blue skirt, the set of those shoulders, the cadence of the quiet hum of her heart. The all wanted that coffee. They all wanted to be the cup in the palm of that hand.

J Camp Day 15

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Cynthia G.

getting lost

“Get lost,” she said, closing the door with a dramatic flourish, something she’d harbored fantasies of but had never actually done. “Bye-bye,” she said, to the oak paneled door, bowing and backing away as if to attest to the gravity of the moment. She hadn’t thought about it. They had been talking, then hotly debating, which evolved into a rant, an argument, several accusations, and ultimately, a crossing of a line in a sea of sand she hadn’t known existed until now. She had tolerated the small crises when they arose, and met them with compassion. Still, when he tried to sneak something in: a package, a golf bag, a box of detritus, she called him on it. “Please remove it asap,” she wrote in dutiful, polite emails, paper trails of the millennium. There was always an excuse, high dudgeon. So much drama! For a lawyer, she expected something more. Something somewhat more dignified. The debris of one marriage, two marriages. It was too much. “Storage was never part of the deal,” she said, when she found a rental van backed up to the garage, discovering a deceit he had hoped to conceal until the deed was complete and then what could she do but protest inertly? “My brother in law moved,” he lamented. “It’s only temporary!” he cried. How did he manage to pass the bar? How had he survived this long in a liberal hotbed of assertive women and sensitive men? His mother had coddled him. His wives enabled him. “I told you. This is not your storage solution.” Then it came to her that all the times when she said no, he had feigned concern but had ultimately rejected her protests. In his head he muted her voice, her opinions dismissed as irrelevant. She didn’t want to be that gorgon, but now she craved to be heard, to bear the weight of relevance. “Go now,” she said gently, to herself, bowing and backing down the long hall toward the kitchen. Go. Now. To that place of lost treasure.

a gift for fiction

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Cynthia G.

Eight out of 10 people believe they have a book in them. Do you need help getting yours out?

book coach3

Journal Camp Day 30

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Cynthia G.

Finding my voice

Finding my voice took some practice. For the longest time I wailed: I want to be a writer! Some very good friends said: So? Write. So? I did.

I once had a cra-cra writing mentor who—I learned later—had been using heroin while she taught us and which in retrospect makes so. Much. Sense. Anyway, that writing teacher was brilliant, which explains how she could teach while zonked out of her mind, or fighting the pangs of opiate hunger while she taught, which also in retrospect makes so. Much. Sense. Well, this brillint writer/teacher said: just write. Don’t’ try to make sense of it, your subconscious will connect the dots. Best writing advice I ever got and has served me well for years. Maybe it takes that reckless, dangerous behavior to get to the really good stuff, because after all, writing is a physical act. Writing is a physical act that brings the immaterial into physical being. No, it is not simply mental or imaginative. Writing. With a pen and paper, is really writing. If I were super famous, I would expect a landslide of email contradicting that point, but this is my process and one which incidentally, requires fine motor skills, and a good pen moving across reasonably fine paper to translate neural impulses that form into thought in one part of the brain while another part of the brain parses the sounds of Mozart on the Dot and finches in the hedge outside my window. Physical. Here. Now. Finding voice takes practice. If for nothing else, to discover belief. It takes familiarity with your own voice to learn to believe it, and to believe that others might believe it, too.

Journal Camp, day nine

Posted on July 9, 2018 by Cynthia G.

Stories I Tell Myself

One more cup of coffee won’ hurt
But I need these shoes
That spider could bit me
Once bitten, twice shy
My roommate is an absent minded genius
I will drink more water
I will relax in traffic
Traffic isn’t so bad
I have the best commute in the world
Other people do more
She makes it look easy
The world is falling apart
The world is a shared hallucination
Quantum physics
My chakras need clearing
I love it when it rains
If I eat the tomatoes now, I can save the artichoke for later
Its hot enough to go to the pool
Ninety degrees is the minimum to make the pool a good idea
Check windspeed
Journal Camp is awesome
Here I grow again
This is my favorite summer in years
Its never too late for a happy ending
I am a creative genius
We are all creative geniuses
Hooray for creative geeks!
I am grateful
I could be more grateful, more often
Wahoo!

Journal Camp, Day 6

Posted on July 6, 2018 by Cynthia G.

Relics in the Attic

There was an apartment in my grandmother’s house where an attic would have been. Up the staircase, there was a kitchenette, living room, bathroom with a clawfoot tub, closet, bedroom, and screened porch. It was only used as often as we visited, arriving in a station wagon loaded with kids, luggage, and the detritus of a small tribe. The apartment smelled of dust and mothballs. It seemed enchanted somehow, a miniature house. We had never seen an apartment and it held a special charm to me. The living room was by far the largest space, with an overstuffed sofa, braid rug, ancient radio cabinet that might have broadcast reports from a faraway war, a window that overlooked the backyard garden and Italian plum tree. When we descended after five hours on the road, children scattered like marbles on a linoleum floor. We touched every room at once: kitchen, pantry, back yard, cellar, upstairs apartment. We slept everywhere too, sofas made into bed with sheets and chenille spreads, screened porch and sleeping bags. Family legend maintains that my parents lived in the apartment their first year of marriage: playing house in an attic filled with relics of austerity.

six word story no. 189

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Cynthia G.

She trailed petals in her wake.

Brought to you with fuzzy peeps by Journaling as Sacred Practice. Find your copy here.

six word story no. 188

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Cynthia G.

Be more like your dog, yo.*

* brought to you with everlasting curiosity and a steady heart by Journaling as Sacred Practice: An Act of Extreme Bravery, available in print or e-book. April is National Poetry Month! Treat your inner poet to a new book.

six word story no. 187

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Cynthia G.

Like love, the archers are blind*

*excerpted from the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca and brought to you with a steady heart by Journaling as Sacred Practice: An Act of Extreme Bravery, available in print or e-book. April is National Poetry Month! Treat your inner poet to a new book.