Hearth and Home and Hamlet

I have to say: my basement can be soggy hell when the winter rains come, but right now I probably have one of the most comfortable dwellings in the Seattle area, because it's at least 20 degrees cooler down here than anywhere else. (thomryng would you like to come visit?)

Today is going to be primarily dedicated to domesticity. I made grilled chicken with noodles a couple of nights ago, and there are still garlic-y dishes in the sink. The bathroom needs to be scrubbed. The floors need to be washed and swept. The garbage and recycling should be taken out. And I have to go grocery shopping.

Fortunately, I have an appointment for a massage Sunday morning.

Last night, thanks to Jeannie being out of town, I had free tickets to a performance of I Hate Hamlet, and rocket_jockey did me the honor of joining me for dinner and the show. The play was a solid "B" effort, with an especially fine performance by the actor playing the ghost of John Barrymore, back from the dead to coach a young tv actor who has been cast as Hamlet for New York's Shakespeare in the Park. There were some lovely moments, one of my favorites being Barrymore sitting in a chair and the young actor, costumed for the first night's performance, sitting at his feet, panicking, and Barrymore going into the "Speak the speech, I pray you" speech in such a gentle, natural way that it gave the lines more heart-full meaning than I'd ever heard.

If you're looking for something to do tonight in Seattle (the theater is air-conditioned!) check out the Bellevue Civic Theater at Meydenbauer Center.

Meanwhile, I have some scrubbing to do. . .

Writerly Ramblings

If I'm embracing my feral aspect, which is largely about a disregard for the restrictions of convention, why am I feeling guilty contemplating writing a fairly ferocious POTC:DMC scene in which Norrington takes his revenge on Jack, Will and Elizabeth?

Yes, such a story would have various characters doing things that would violate my ethics -- but that's one reason I write: to explore things that I have not done or would not do.

Who am I trying to please or impress by censoring myself from writing a story that never need be shown to anyone?

It's not like I don't already know I have a dark side, or haven't spent more than a few hours indulging it through role play and fiction writing.

Or. . . (it suddenly occurs to me) . . . is it that on some level I am so willing to believe in the spiritual reality of characters, that within my own spirit I feel like I would be violating them -- or at least their truth, their integrity as characters -- if I wrote such things?

Or is it that I both want to watch Norrington do certain wicked things and want to believe he would never do such things?

In any case, the only real solution is to write the damn story. If certain acts are truly beyond the pale for Norrington (and/or myself) then the process of writing will reveal it. Characters can be damnedly stubborn when you try to force them to do something that is against their nature. Either they simply refuse to be written, or the whole scene goes utterly flat, so obviously a lie that no pleasure can be taken from writing or reading it.

Running With Wolves

I never thought much about wolves growing up, except when I read The Jungle Book and memorized the law of the pack. When I got older, I found out that my sister had an affinity with wolves the way I later came to have one with bears. Later still, as I was looking at fairy tales through the lenses of feminism and women's spirituality, I gained an appreciation for Wolf as a symbol of the wild and dangerous, especially in the area of the sexual.

Funny thing about wolves: we use them as symbols, as literary shorthad for the untamed, the dangerous, the wicked -- but wolves are among the most social and orderly of animals: cooperative, nurturing of the young, disciplined. But we use them to represent the untamed and anti-social. We call criminals "wolves" among us.

When I started writing my novel, the elite of the mercenary troop who invaded my heroine's home were known collectively as The Wolves. To me it symbolized strength, skill, and cunning beyond that of the average man, and pack loyalty.

But wolves meant nothing to me personally until I was a few months into being a mother, and desperate to try to reconcile myself to my new reality. I picked up Clarissa Pinkoles Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves, and it was a sanity-saver. (She should get the credit for my filtered post of a day or so ago about "feral" -- since that's where I learned the definition of feral as "once tame, now wild.") It was a huge psychological turning point for me when I had the image "Mommies who run with the wolves": which was myself as a Native American woman, carrying my daughter on my back, running with wolves through the forest. My daughter, not at all concerned about this unorthodox behavior, was wearing a "lost boys" style bear-ears cap, waving a bone rattle, and laughing. That was when I realized I could be a Good Mother in my own way, not have to limit myself to the way that my mother was a Good Mother.

So to me, wolves have always symbolized what is both admirable and alien to myself. Whether the wild pack in the forest, or the dangerous men of the warrior-breed, I found myself using "Wolf" to symbolize what I both desired and feared to become (or embrace).

Then, during my most recent spiritual direction session, my director and I were discussing my iminent return to seminary. I said that not only did I yearn for the community, and for others of 'my own kind' who delighted in the combination of intellectualism and spirituality, I also felt that I brought a unique gift to that community: a vision of what lies beyond its borders. Because I, Journeyer-like, speak the language of the academy and of orthodoxy, I can communicate alien theology and beliefs in ways that are more easily understood, which stress the places of commonality first, giving my sisters and brothers an experience of recognition, before stretching their paradigms and asking them to absorb (although not necessarily agree with) the radical.

His response, in part was, "You are the wild woman. You are the woman who runs with the wolves."

*blink, blink*

I, a Wolf to others?

What a fascinating thought. . . .

And Speaking of Seminary. . . .

Now that I'm re-admitted, I'm finding it hard to muster much enthusiasm.
Dealing with the federal student loan website doesn't help.
Nor does the prospect of rows of chairs and writing to assigned topics.

"Feral" feels more and more apt. I'm not looking favorably on the prospect of conforming to the demands of the Academy.

At the same time, I want the credential, I want the community, I want the stimulation and the excitement that going to classes brings to my life.

Hmmm. . . Maybe I need to approach school with the same kind of paradigm shift with which I approached motherhood. I've spent all my life concentrating on being A Good Student. What if I went back to seminary embracing both academic excellence and the archetype of the Wild Wolf Woman? I kind of started out that way, when I promised myself that I would not betray my truth, even when it meant speaking heresy. And that worked very well -- both for me and for those around me.

It's just that the vision of those neat rows of desks is scaring the heck out of me. . .