L'aura del Campo

Doing and don'ting. A scene in 2nd person.

Doing and dont'ing: action and passivity. Personailty disorders. Nicognito is baaaack! A scene written in second person (speaking to the reader) from a novelette I may write some day featuring one of my characters, Ake. Snow in the Great Lakes; frost in Kansas.

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███████          L'aura del campo           ███████

AUTUMN: 16 Mashiyyat (12 October)

'é a lua,  é a lua,  na quintana dos mortos'
♣    Federico García Lorca    ♣

Doing and don'ting

I was raised to don't. I was well trained to avoid doing anything wrong by not doing anything at all. I would feel guilty of anything and everything. I had little sense of what I should do and how to do it.

Because my parents did not discuss 'real life' i.e. sex, gettin along in social groups, living on my own ... I had no self-confidence and was frightened to take risks. So mostly I 'didn't'. Except when I 'did'. With no family to talk to and no close friends (I trusted no one) I had difficulty sorting out these experiences that most people take for granted.

I've spent life stumbling around ever since. Even now I am far too dependent and hesitant. The 'traumas' still hold me back and instead of 'doing something about it' I simply 'don't'.

(edited from my journal page 1,015)

IMAGES

Two days before the frost:

White asters; dandelions; red crab apples; mimosa seed pods, yellow-green and light brown; yellow flowers of velvet weed; pink roses; dew on the knotweed; scarlet berries of the bush honeysuckle.

where I am : 53º
Buffalo: 33º
Bismarck, ND: 36º
Tromsø, Norway: 43º

When Tromsø, north of the Arctic circle, is warmer than tonight in Kansas I get to smile. Buffalo is getting socked with snow. The winds are coming straight down the lake (from the south-west) and it's been snowing for hours now. I suspect they'll get more than the predicted 1-3 inches.

WRITING

Well, this is a scene from a novelette I'll write some day. It is in second person, written in the voice of Ake addressing the reader. It was originally written in 3rd person - distant, but our teacher Tasha Haas wanted us to rewrite it this way as an exercise. It does bring an entirely different feel to the work.

Ake, is a main character (an old mountain, 'eternal', distant-almost-narrator, red). Other main characters: Ao (young man, 'the sky', on a quest for healing or something, sky blue, spring); Hanada (middle aged man, 'the sea', on a quest, dark blue, summer); Ume {a young plum, 'childhood', winter) ; Sakura (an old cherry, 'old age'); Ki, (the woodsmen, 'death and renewal', yellow, autumn).

You who are reading, look! You see me sitting, immobile as a mountain. You don't see Ume, Sakura, Ao or Hanada and it dawns on you they are not yet born. You gaze at me through the eyes of a spirit and ponder whether each of them (you too) would be born of this moment.

You see the seeds planted. You taste the sweet blood of conception.

With all your senses on alert, you know the wedding ceremony has begun. You hear me cough and see the opening crack, the roof falling in slow motion, the young girl weeping. You hitch a ride with the sun. 40 moons later you have returned to smell a stranger standing by the redressed bride. You overhear how the Ki consider him short and ugly. At what point do you realize that from this union all that transpires now had been put in motion? [163.384]

MY LIFE

Students are on Fall break. I'm studying Spanish to catch up. I'll be meeting with two of my tutees next week.

Writing Class was great again. This time it was point-of-view. So hard to write about my character Ake 'doing something'. I had to write about how this character caused trouble at a wedding. So, I wrote.

Critiquing on Tuesday went well too, but I should try to have something of mine ready by then. Some of the class is going to see Sedaris on Friday the 13th but I just don't have the money.

Been watching too much Bravo: "Six feet under", "Runway", "Top Chef". "Runway" has me hooked.

Weather is turning. Got most of the tomatoes and peppers plucked on Wednesday. My problem is feeling good one hour and like crap the next. I was totally exhausted and wheezing by the time I finished. Not good.

I went to therapy and brought a personality disorder test to Susan's attention. I was high on 'dependent' and 'borderline'. She wasn't so concerned about borderline as we are working on PTSD and that could be similar to severe trauma. As for dependent ... it feels too close a fit ... so maybe.

BLOGVILLE

finnley has an entry on personality disorders in her blog: "Invalid Entry" .

This is the link for the test: http://similarminds.com/personality_disorder.html

My results (second number is site average):

Paranoid |||||||||||| 50% 49%
Schizoid |||||||||||||| 54% 53%
Schizotypal |||||||||||||||| 66% 53%
Antisocial |||||| 30% 47%
Borderline |||||||||||||||||| 74% 47%
Histrionic |||||||||||| 42% 43%
Narcissistic |||||||||||| 42% 41%
Avoidant |||||| 22% 39%
Dependent |||||||||||||||| 62% 37%
Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||| 38% 40%

andrew has an interesting and important entry on the process of 'coming out' and embracing oneself. "Invalid Entry" 

Remember Ramadan. Read "Invalid Item"   by A Guest Visitor

C.L. Hanna ~ *Writer For Hire* speaks out about not turning our schools into prisons in "Invalid Entry" 

And nicotico is BACK!!!

TREASURE OF THE DAY

"There will never be a way to remove all threats against our schools or our children. At best, we may be able to lessen the effects of threats...but we will never eliminate them. That being said, our children can not be placed in cocoons nor our schools sanitized to the point of being sanitariums which prevent the "plagues" of society from reaching them.
...
Schools under lock-down. Students under lock-down. These are not credible solutions to the problems of school violence or attacks on children. It may be a remedy for the criminally insane, but it would never encourage the learning ability of a child. Locking our children behind steel doors and isolating them from the rest of the surrounding population will not increase their enthusiasm for achievement on any level.

excerpts from: "Invalid Entry"  by C.L. Hanna ~ *Writer For Hire* . Go read the entire entry and leave a comment!

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