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Falling into Autumn

The days are getting colder here in Bay Area, California. This really just means that we can wear out light sweaters, maybe with a thin jacket over top. Meanwhile, it will probably be sunny outside, the light bright and happy, despite an ever so slight chill to there. If you’re out taking a walk, you might even build up enough warmth to forgo the jacket entirely.

The leaves are beginning to change, not in a dramatic display of colors as in other region, but a yellowing and the occasional orange. Some trees with skip the over the colors altogether and simply fall in heaps of brown. Others stay solidly green, as though they do not even realize Autumn is upon them.

I have to be grateful for what passes for winter here. How can I not? How can I complain about it being 55°F outside, when there are some areas steadily inching toward subzero temperatures as winter approaches?

And yet, I grow tired of the sunshine and some part of myself longs for a proper storm, for pounding rain, for growing puddles and growling thunder and flashes of lightening. (It would be too much to hope for snow.) I find rain to be cleansing to the spirit. It makes the world smell green and clean, and I feel lightened.

When I was a kid, my brothers and sisters and I would run out into the rain in tank tops and shorts. We’d go down to the parking area, where the spouts spewed water from the second story like a waterfall. We would stand beneath the spouts and pretend they were waterfalls.

Now, I enjoy sitting on the porch, while water falls around me, letting the sound thrum me into relaxation. The tap-tap-tapping of drops in the leaves. I wrap myself up in a blanket, pour a cup of hot tea, open a book, and let it be a backdrop to my afternoon — at least until my fingers grow too cold to turn the pages.

I think days of rain (and maybe it’s because they come so sparingly) are my favorite part of Fall and Winter. They allow moments of comfort and warmth, as you huddle inside, drinking hot cocoa or tea, eating cookies and comforting treats. They allow internal searching, an implied intimacy, as you cuddle close to a loved one.

What are your favorite things about Autumn and Winter?

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Witches and Woods and Good Fairies

Autumn woods
Autumn woods by Mel Green

Sophie Masson wrote a lovely post about a home she grew up in, which seemed to possess the soul of a good fairy. It was a home of secrete histories and ghosts and wild places to explore (and I recommend reading it, rather than taking it at my sparse description).

Her post immediately reminded me of the park and little woods in Anchorage, Alaska, where I used to live when I was a kid (seven-ish). The park across the street looked out over Cook Inlet, the water grey and, in the summer sun, sparkling. Two sides of the park were framed with little woods, patches of trees that separated the park from other peoples homes. I remember running through those woods and believing them huge, giant forests almost filled with wonders and strange creatures. I remembered looking up at the tall trees and feeling very far from home. I remember stepping only a few feet inside the little woods and feeling as though I could become utterly lost.

As kids exploring the little woods, we once stumbled upon a tree house — just a platform, really — that sat perched at what seemed to be the tippy top of a tree, which we were never brave enough to climb. But we imagined the kind of strange, brave person who would live at such heights.

Another time we discovered a cement slab (something industrial) hidden in the trees. It became the framework for an invisible house in which we pretended to live. It became a stage upon which we pranced and gave our bows. It became the home of an evil man who kidnapped good children and hid them away. It became so many things.

A few years ago, I was remembering the little wood and wondered what would happen, if such a small wood, the kind it was impossible to become lost in, actually hid in its heart an older, much greater wood — the kind one might never return from. That idea inspired a a short story, called “The Witch of the Little Wood,” grew into a novella, which transformed into part one of an unfinished novel that I plan to finish eventually.

My life inspires my writing quite a lot, usually in unusual ways. “The Witch of the Little Wood” makes use of several moments from my life, all unconnected. A phrase shouted at me by my sister during the middle of a fight (which made us laugh at the time) becomes barbed cruelty tossed at our MC by a bully. The awkward feelings of junior high, in which several people whom I thought were friends suddenly changed and became bitter enemies, makes it into the story. Bits of life here and there, hurts and loves and joys, travel through me and become new unrecognizable scenes in my characters lives. Bits of myself show up in everyone, from the heroes to the villains.

Writing is a fascinating process that way. Reading is, too. How you can look at a story just discovered and realize, oh, this is me, this is my life, here is everything I love and hate and need and feel all right there on display.

When you write or read do you often discover yourself in the stories? Does it surprise you?

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A Black Hole of Baby Love

I have long since dubbed my sister’s house the Black Hole of Baby Love, because ever since my niece has been born, visiting her house means the loss of hours, time sucked away in gleeful love of the cutest little girl currently in existence. In our family, little Sienna has become the center of gravity from which none of us can escape — not that we’d want to anyway.

I had tentative plans this weekend to clean my bedroom (which had dissolved into a disaster of epic proportions) and catch up on some reading.

However, I decided to visit my sisters house for a few hours (hah!), which turned into many hours. As the day drifted on we decided to lounge around the house and watch some movies. We watched The Monster Squad (which I hadn’t seen since I was a young teen), while also chasing the baby around the living room, watching her giggle in delight as she tried to get away from me. And, then once baby went to bed, we watched The Conjuring (a terrifically creepy movie, all the more so because these people portrayed were real).

I told myself to go home that night. I told myself that if I slept over, as my sister invited me to do, then I would surely spend the entire next day there and get nothing done. I told myself in earnest that no matter how scary the movie might be, I could walk myself through the dark knight to my car and drive home.

In the words of Alice, I gave myself very good advice and didn’t follow it.

In other words, I slept over. (Though, this was in part because after The Conjuring finished, I had a headache so massive I could barely concentrate on falling asleep, let alone driving anywhere.)

Waking to the sound of my niece babbling in the next room, though, was a great reward for staying over. Plus, I got to have early morning cuddles with the baby, which are absolutely very different from any other kind of cuddles.

I might have gone home, if I wasn’t made aware of baby’s first pumpkin carving to happen that afternoon. Why go all the way home only to have to come back again, right?

So, I hung out and carved pumpkins.

Let the carving begin! #pumpkin #halloween

Baby Sienna took one tiny poke at the pumpkin guts and then wouldn’t touch it again. We tried to show her how it was done, but she wasn’t having it. Little Sienna is very dainty that way; she doesn’t like to get dirty (at least, not that kind of dirty). Her avoidance of even touching the pumpkin was adorable, though. (^_^)

Honestly, I feel ya, baby, I hate the “guts” stage of pumpkin carving, too — the icky, slimy, stringy, gooey that has to be pulled out is not the fun for me. ‘

My sister Pilar (other sister, not the baby mama), meanwhile, LOVED the gooey stage and dug into her pumpkin’s guts with delight. “It’s just so messy! I love it!” she squealed. Yup, that’s my Pilar.

But the carving stage I love. And this was my final result (sorry about the bad cell pic, plus the candle light wasn’t quite bright enough…).

Finished! It needs a brighter candle, but I've done Cthulhu. #pumpkin #cthulhu #halloween

All praise the Elder Pumpkin, Cthulhu!

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An Assortment of Five Things

1. I picked up my sister from the airport on Tuesday. She had just got back from visiting my grandmother in Anchorage, Alaska. She’s 90 years old and my sister and I started talking about how important it is to record her life in some way. I told her that I have photo copies of her homesteading journal (which I’ve been meaning to do something with for a long time) and we both agreed that it would be great to put together a kind of memoir. Likely we wouldn’t try to publish this, though we might put it as an ebook and make some print copies for family through LuLu or something. We just need to make sure we make steady progress on this and not let it be just one of those things we talk about.

2. Speaking of writing, while I was digging through my filing cabinet looking for the copies my grandmother found me, I noticed a stack of paper about an inch thick in one of the files. I couldn’t help but take it out and read it — turned out to be movie script. I started reading some of the pages.

My thought: What is this? Did I write this? I didn’t write this. There’s no way I wrote this. *keeps reading* Oh, my god. I DID write this. I can’t believe I wrote this.

Turns out that stack of paper was the crappy martial arts script I tried to write about a guy and a girl who train and go take part in a tournament in China. It is so, so bad and I’m sure chock full of cultural inaccuracies. This will never ever see the light of day.

3. I saw Pacific Rim and loved it. It was in truth long sequences of robots smashing kaju, which was stunning in its realization, as in jaw-dropped, me-sitting-up-straight-in-my-seat in awe stunning. Beautifully wrought action sequences. It also had characters I like and story that dealt with countries and cultures working together for a common goal (that, importantly, did not revolve around good ol’ US of A saving the day). Rinko Kikuchi is wonderful and I will now be looking to watch every movie she has ever been or will be in. So, yay! I’m so glad I saw this one in theaters.

4. Also, in movies, I recently purchased Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, a fascinating art project, in which curator Mike Schneider asked artists from around the world to animate sections of George A. Romero’s 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead. All of the sound for the original movie is the same, the only difference is that the visual element has been changed (which can be done because the original movie is in public domain). Every minute or so, a new animation style flashes on the screen. It’s a little confusing at first, but quickly becomes hypnotizing to watch. A very cool art collaboration (with zombies!).

5. I went to a Curvy Girls Fashion Show (Curvy Girls is the name of a store in Santa Clara). It was just so cool to see a dozen women of varying shapes and sizes, bravely sporting lingerie walk down this make shift runway, while everyone in the audience cheered them on. Good feelings. Also some really cute stuff, costumes and some day ware too, so I may have some shopping to do soon.

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Hello

I am currently in Mexico (since Sunday) doing a combination of fun visiting things and fun work things. I’ve been meaning to post about the sites I’ve visited, but I’ve been too sleepy at the end of the day (which means I have a lot of blog writing in my future).

So, anyway, I’m not missing in action, just doing things. 🙂

Buenas noches.