My Close-up, Mr. de Mille!

The struggle for supremacy between words and pictures continues. The winner gets my attention and whoever gets it makes it to the show.

The day was so pretty yesterday that I frittered the afternoon away taking pictures instead of going to the gym. I don't regret the lack of discipline. The pictures were great. Trees were turning, ahead of the crowd the maples. The red maple in the courtyard outside my bedroom window is aflame. Against the cloudless blue sky, the tree epitomizes the prettiest images of autumn in Indiana.

At Gloria Jennings' office yesterday I chatted with her office manager, Meredith. He has been writing a blog since last fall. He told me he was raised in a conservative Pentecostal family and was never allowed to swear. Now a grownup he has given vent to his feelings as he navigates through the pain of breaking up with his girlfriend and not being able to see their daughter. Cuss words have their usefulness and in his blog really shine.

Meredith is also pretty aware of his belonging to the African-American community. He writes, he told me, as he speaks, at least inside his mind. His written prose certainly is colorful and conjures tribal qualities, the unique way people in communities choose words and phrases to communicate with each other.

My own prose seems colorless by comparison. For years I've told the few people whom I've told of my occult dream to write for publication that I was still looking for my voice. To a stranger maybe I already have my voice, my own individual ways of using words and phrasing them to express ideas. Certainly the topics I write about when taken together help to identify me. I can't use tribal colloquialisms as Meredith does. That would not be me. And I am not interested in fiction, in re-creating myself to write something others might want to read.

However I do know that if I wanted to break through the glass ceiling and into the public sphere I must keep to some rules. So far I've written solely for myself. Frankly though if I didn't know me I would probably find what I write dull. I'd read a few words, diagnose the writer as inept and narcissistic and move on.

I've admired many published writers. I have a revolving gallery of prose heroes. I can pinpoint what they are doing right; I just can't make myself write as they do. 

The latest is Tahir Shah, the offspring of "Afghan royalty" who grew up and now lives in the U.K. I came across his second book, Trail of Feathers, at Half Price yesterday before I decided to junk going to Bally and spend the rest of the day snapping pictures instead. Tahir certainly has found his voice. He writes in simple sentences that seem to come straight out of my mind, at least, the idealized mind. (The real mind is going hundreds of miles faster, crowded with wordy vehicles all streaming towards nowhere in particular.) He writes with humor and sets the stage over and over to grab his reader's curiosity. He describes himself as inherently a curious man and it's his curiosity that led to his writing books.

Curiosity, that curious quality some of us have who grapple with seemingly endless numbers of topics. The world is truly a wonder, its details insuperably intriguing. But curiosity is not enough. We must husband it and yoke its energy to a project. This may be the difference between a rock and a man. The latter believes he is master of his fate while the former simply is.

Lunch with Tony at noon became stressful. When he arrived I was urgently washing pans and cooking utensils while the food that I had already plated was going cold. It was a great spread though if I might say so. I'd bought a fennel bulb intending to make a version of coleslaw using it instead of cabbage. I was going to eschew mayonnaise and make a lighter dressing. I envisioned poppy and toasted fennel seeds to top it.

Well I never got around to making the slaw. Today I sliced up the fennel into crosswise strips, added a smaller portion of celery also cut into crosswise strips, quickly fried these in olive oil with rehydrated wild mushrooms, bits of scallion and walnut halves and the result was ecstasy!

So okay I may never have my moment in the public eye but I have art nonetheless though only for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of my few friends. Life can be better, definitely better, but what's to complain. It's all good. As Hildegarde, the medieval Catholic saint sang, all is well is well is well...