Sponging

Today's Mood: Content. Today's Music: Robert Pollard Is Off To Business--Boston Spaceships. Today's Writing: Revision, Black Dragon Part II. Today's Quote:

"It's been an adventurous day. The ship floats but it won't float away." -Robert Pollard (I always thought it was "shit" not ship, but when I googled it, lots of people had it as ship. I'll have to look at the liner notes. Gotta say, I like "shit" better!)

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This past weekend my husband and I went to Ann Arbor to see the Boston Spaceships perform at the Blind Pig and to attend the Michigan Game. Despite Michigan's poor showing, I had an absolutely wonderful time. And I didn't even feel guilty about not writing for 3 days because I was sponging. Soaking in atmosphere, dialog, character, setting. The concert was great, the band tight and loud. I could not sit (or stand) still, my feet just kept wanting to dance. Of course, I second-handedly smoked at least 50 cigarettes, drank enough hard cider to feel very flushed (although, that's really hard to say since it had to be at least 90 degrees in there as well), and whooped and hollered enough that my husband is sure he can hear me on this YouTube Video from the concert.

Throughout the concert, dinner, walking around town, and at the game, I found myself watching people, observing their faces and gestures, listening to what they were saying and their tone of voice. I felt like I was absorbing it, so that at some later date, who knows when, I'll be able to wring it out on the page, and readers will be able to see, taste, smell, and hear it. From the tangy ginger sauce on the Mongolian Stir Fry, to the acrid stench of the cigarette smoke in my hair.

Then there was the driving around a fairly empty Ann Arbor at 2 a.m., lost, but so wound up from music and the excitement of not having to be a responsible parent, that it didn't matter that we were lost. The color of the city takes on different shades and tones at that time of the morning, the sounds are different, even the smells.

Being a fairly goal-oriented person, I have to remind myself that living is a part of writing as well. Yes, I have to put my butt in the chair and write, but yes, I have to get my butt out of the chair now and then and experience things in order to write with a passion.

Where are some of the best places you have absorbed? This summer I did some major sponging when I went to Michigan Adventure with my kids (always a wide variety of people there, plus going anywhere with my kids is a chance to soak up new experiences).

So.... go sponge. Write, live---live, write. Go. And then come back and tell us about it.

Maine-inspired Poetry

Hey All! I'm stuck in the Portland, ME airport--my flight from Chicago to GR was canceled due to freezing rain, so the airline got me on a competitor's flight into Cleveland, then home. No biggie. Better safe than too dead to be sorry, as I say. However, I had to PAY to use the airport's wireless and there's only ONE electrical outlet for every hundred or so seats. I'm not complaining, just surprised that even this small airport hasn't moved to become more business-traveler friendly. The Starbucks tastes the same, though.

Yesterday, as I said my goodbyes to my Cottage By The Sea, I managed to write a few lines about the moornise the night before. The beginnings of a poem, methinks. Me also thinks that more will come as I process everything I saw and did. I think now that my non-writing while in Maine was more because of my desire to be on the road seeing and doing, instead of writing. Perhaps the next time, or the time after, I'll be more inclined to sit by the water and put thoughts on paper. For this first trip, I needed to experience everything.

The other thing is/was sensory overload. Sometimes I get so numb, or maybe paralyzed is a better word, because I have absorbed too much--too much color, texture, mental videos, information, too many smells, too many new ideas, etc. I tend to become unable to do anything but veg out. I play solitaire or online Euchre, stare at TV, or read, just to focus my senses on only one thing so my brain can process all the other stuff. Jigsaw puzzles are good for this purpose, too.

Does anyone else have this problem? Does it negatively affect your writing? How do you deal with it?

I also discovered on this trip that because I write so much on assignment, when I don't have an assignment to write about I can't come up with anything on my own. I go blank, and because writing then becomes a chore, I don't PBIC (Plunk Butt In Chair). If I did PBIC, chances are I'd come up with something to write about. Hmmmm. OK, guess I just solved that conundrum by writing about it!

Well, I'll be home tonight. I've decided that three days a week (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) I'm going to set aside 30 minutes first thing in the morning to write my own stuff. That will get me back in the habit of coming up with my own "assignments."

Blessings!
Deborah

The Flu in Maine is the Same as in Michigan

Blogger: Deborah Music: James Taylor, Fire and Rain, on The Maine Grind coffeeshop (Ellsworth, ME)sound system Weather: rainy, gray, windy, cold, foggy

The first photo is the view of the bay I'm on, Pigeon Hill Bay, from atop the hill south of my cottage. I thought this view was cool, with somebody's summer house and garage in the foreground.

The second photo is what I saw further up the hill ("behind" the camera) at the Petit Manan nature preserve -- an inland swamp surrounded by wild blueberry bushes -- they're the red things. The wild blueberries here are a major income source, and though they're wild they're actually cultivated, harvested, and sold worldwide. The bushes are only about eight inches tall, and they cover the hillsides wherever there aren't trees.

Well, I've had the stomach flu since two days after I got to Maine. I went to MedNow yesterday and they said it could be the flu or it could be the microbes in the water at the cottage I'm staying in, so they took blood and I'll know in a few days, after I get home. All I know is that having chills in the middle of the night, alone in a cottage on a desolate peninsula hundreds of miles from home, isn't fun. But hey, Immodium A.D. is my new friend!

This coffeeshop I'm in is really cool -- it's in the former Masonic Lodge, a hundred-plus year old four-story brick building that has a dance studio on the lower level, and two cool gifts shops in the front of the main floor, and this big open coffeeshop/deli in the back. They serve fresh sushi made by an Asian restaurant in Bar Harbor, and beer. All the coffeeshops here serve beer. I didn't think the sushi would sit well on my tummy, so I opted for homemade spinach quiche instead, and that was really good.

This place has the original wood floors, original dark walnut trim and built in cabinets, and the walls are painted a sunflower yellow and the ceiling is grass green. I love being surrounded by these colors.

Well, I've got my new blog designed, but haven't written on it yet. I plan to "tap" into that today or tonight. This place is only open until 5:30, then I have a 45-minute drive to the Eagle Hill place where I can get online until they close at 9 PM. The blog address is www.urbanappeal.blogspot.com (I think) -- and right now it's entitled Urban Appeal.

I'm quite excited about the blog. I want to do some serious writing about the writing I do, the people I talk to, the developments I see happening and how I see (or don't see) God's hand in it. I think people often think they can only encounter God in nature, and they have to get out of the city or get to a park to do it, and I want to push back on that idea. Although God is certainly in the beauty of the trees and sky and moonlight and flowers, he is also in the beauty of architecture, a revitalized neighborhood, and a thriving city. He's in the new grassroots efforts to reduce light pollution and to build buildings, indeed entire neighborhoods, that are earth friendly, energy efficient, and feed the souls and lives of the residents.

And I want to write about these things and explore my thoughts in writing. Or, more accurately, I'm GOING to write about them. And I'm starting today.

Hey! I forgot to say that 31 years ago yesterday I became a mom! Wow. That's unbelievable it was so long ago. And it's also very cool. Very cool. Blessings!

Deborah