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........THE
FAMILIAR Vol 1, Iss 2..............................................................................................................................
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BEHIND
THE SCENES OF AN EMOTION LITERACY E-ZINE MISSION
STATEMENT THE FAMILIAR VOL. 1 ISS. 2. Missed an issue of the familiar? Click here to browse through our entire back-issue archive! |
into the mix After two sessions on the phone, I meet with Pamela in her studio again. I like seeing her in person though today she is slightly worn down by the planes overhead that cut a three-minute interval flight path right over her studio. But other things are taxing her as well which I detect in the depth of her eyes and in the way her body moves more carefully in and out of the plane shadows that escape through the skylights. After some talk of health and happenings, I read to her the parts of my novel I have been adding in as a second layer of plot. Pamela listens with pen in hand; she sniffs at a leaf, listening with her eyes and ears, visibly. I read, skipping from one section to another, I pay a satisfying chunk of change to have her sit and listen to me read the pieces of a novel I am hoping, for once, to finish. I have always likened my session to an hour long piano lesson: the piece I have practiced is what I have written: the gain I make is the one or two comments I absorb as Pamela responds to my writing. "Wow-wow—what’s that?" she says stuttering in concentration, "read that again." Her long fingers reach and point at me strumming the echoes of what I have just read. I read two or three lines up. "No, no, the part about cost, what’s that about the cost, or the price, what did you say?" she probes as if in thought meditation. Like a digger, she’s excavating my creativity. I try to find the spot. The line is: it would have cost her nothing…"It would have cost her nothing to go over to her brothers’ bed and ?…" "Yes. That’s it. Read it again." "It would have cost her nothing to go over to her brothers’ bed and comfort them as they…" "Yes, yes," she says, "That’s interesting, that’s very interesting. I don’t know why." She admits, "but there is something there. The cost. It would have cost her nothing. That stands out. That really twists things around a little." "My character says this, but I am not quite sure it is true," I explain. "She is wracked with guilt in this part." "Yes she is, isn’t she," Pamela says thinking, the leaf against her lips. "To comfort her brothers...I just don’t know why I am so drawn to that line." She smiles and is lightening. I know she is listening because I feel the thoughts she is having about my story lifting her spirits. She is getting excited about what I have written. This line has apparently pressed a button and I am not sure it is what I have written that has produced this result in Pamela or the way she was feeling as she was listening to me read. I am thrilled. I feel awakened by her as she has awakened in my presence from the tedious thoughts and the airplanes and the worry she has about paying bills, just like we all do. How much would it cost to get her out of her house and into a house somewhere else where she would not have to listen to planes roaring overhead? Probably a lot. Today everything’s got a price on it; so much is determined by price—can Pamela move, can she not move. In my story, Molly the main character is lying in her bed listening to her brothers crying as they have just been given a beating by their father. Molly doesn’t move. She listens to them but does not move. Little Molly’s feelings have already been dulled enough to survive her father’s house. Her dulled feelings is the price of her childhood. Living costs us. I don’t just mean in money. Living taxes our senses; asks a great deal from us; requires steady refueling. We sleep—that’s a cost on our time. We eat—that’s a price in energy to prepare, in addition to time spent doing it and then of course the monies required to buy the food. Obvious stuff. Thinking costs though too; and so does feeling; and so does becoming conscious of how we feel. Every time you reach out to love someone, it costs you something. I am amazed to find that Molly, already at a young age, senses that reaching out to her brothers will cost her too much so that she doesn’t do it. In retrospect, adult Molly chides the young Molly, arguing that it would have really cost her nothing. How much is Molly’s survival of her childhood home dependent on her not feeling or reaching out to her brothers? How much does psychic survival cost her in feelings toward her brothers? Like Molly, we are faced constantly with a weighing of costs, and we must begin to recognize that dulled feelings is a price we pay for survival. Molly does not go to her brother because this will block her ability to survive her father’s household. We often think, what do I need to spend in order to survive. What feelings am I not having toward my fellow man, toward humanity, toward the destitute, toward innocent children, so that I can survive? Once I ask this question I can begin to determine whether my idea of survival is healthy and I can start to have a vision as to how things ought to change. Pamela needs to decide how much her survival is linked to the airplanes; she needs to assess costs and balance out her basic necessities for healthy living. Adult Molly in my novel is beginning to become aware of little Molly’s emotional cost for survival and how this cost put her into debt as an adult. I leave Pamela’ studio once again enlightened to my own choices, especially the ones I make to survive. What have these choices cost me? "Cost." It sounds so hard and cold. Have my own feelings been bartered for? How? When? Where? Ah…another million things to think about, to mix into the mix, to familiarize myself with in order to fuel my creative process. Just like a new car or a better home exacts a sacrifice from the physical world, so does psychic survival demand a price, a feeling price. The question I need to ask myself is: was it a fair price?
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