Tag: Indie Ink

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Slow Dance

“We need to find you a boyfriend.”

This was me pre-braces, circa 1984-5. I can't find any REALLY awkward-looking pictures from that time period, but maybe that's a good thing.

It was the fall of 1986. Earlier that year, the space shuttle Challenger had disintegrated 73 seconds after launch, and Halley’s comet had reached its perihelion. I was 11 years old, going on 12, and had just started the seventh grade. My gangly limbs seemed to grow faster than my body. I wore braces and glasses, and my frizzy brown hair had a mind of its own. Never mind the fact that I played first violin in the orchestra, attended GATE accelerated classes, and couldn’t get enough of Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels. You guessed it: I was a nerd.

“Who, me?” I glanced at my new friend. Rose and her father had moved into a house down the street a few months earlier. She went to Hoover Middle School, just like me, but she was far more sophisticated than I. We ran in completely different social circles at school, but when we were at our houses, away from school, we got along just fine.

“Yes, you. Don’t you want one?” She held up her hand to her face, palm facing me, and began gently blowing on her newly-painted blue fingernails.

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I picked out a bubble-gum pink polish from her collection and began to paint my own fingernails. I always kept my fingernails short to play violin, and I was dismayed to notice that my stubby-fingered manicure paled in comparison to her graceful, slender digits.

“What kind of boy do you want? I can get you anyone,” she boasted.

“Uh…I don’t know.” My mind lept to Richard, my first crush, but I quickly tossed out the idea. I had come on a little strong the previous year, and now he wasn’t talking to me anymore. Okay, so I’d named my pet rabbit after him and drawn lots of pictures of him in my notebook. In hindsight, maybe that was a little creepy.

The only other boy I really knew was Gabe, a scrawny pipsqueak of a kid who was in my English class. He had a ready smile for anyone and liked to make fun of our English teacher, which made me giggle, but…well…he wasn’t exactly dreamy.

“Well, let’s see…” she paused, mulling over what must have been her extensive mental Rolodex of single boys. “Do you want a virgin or a non-virgin?”

The question took me aback. Were you supposed to pick out boyfriends as if they were bottles of olive oil at the grocery store? “I…er…”

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I think you’d be better off with a virgin. That way he won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

This kind of conversation was a little beyond my comprehension. I had only just begun to read ‘Teen magazine, which touched on issues of sexuality, but only in an abstinence-friendly kind of way. I had not much contemplated being kissed, much less that there might be something else to do after the kiss.

But I could tell Rose was determined to set me up. “Um. Okay,” I said, as I watched her frosty glossed lips curve upwards into a smile.

“Fantastic! I know just the guy.”

At homeroom the next day, the tinny voice over the loudspeaker announced that Hoover would be holding its annual winter dance in two weeks. Rose looked over her shoulder at me and mouthed, “This is perfect.” Embarrassed, I looked down at my textbook and pretended to be studying math.

At this point in time, the entirety of my romantic world view was informed by Judy Blume books and movies like Sixteen Candles. All I knew was that a dance would mean that I might meet that special someone, and I would have to dance with him. Maybe even slow dance. How would this even work? Was Rose going to invite this boy to our school dance? Was he going to pick me up and take me there on his bike? Or would we have to take the bus? What if I didn’t like him? What was I going to wear?

Endless questions swirled in my mind for the next two weeks. Rose was swept up in her own preparations and had no time to talk to me, even after school. And then, the morning of the dance, Rose slipped me a note in homeroom. I opened it to find these three hastily-scrawled words:

“HE’S NOT COMING.”

Crestfallen, I glanced at Rose, who was studiously avoiding my gaze. I thought I should feel sadder, but somehow I was okay with not meeting this mystery boy. Truth be told, I had been a little frightened of meeting him.

I decided to go to the dance and just hang out with my friends.

The winter dance was held at the gym of the school, just as you might expect. There were some balloons and streamers decorating the walls, but it still looked and smelled like the gym. The lights were dimmed and a DJ was set up on one side of the room. Kids were mingling, but not very many were dancing. Everyone seemed a little too scared to actually get on the dance floor.

I did a little bit of bobbing up and down to the beat from where I was standing, but mostly I looked around to see what everyone else was doing. Rose was in the corner with her circle of friends, laughing loudly. Only two of my nerd friends were there, and they weren’t dancing, so I felt a little exposed.

I saw Richard on the dance floor. I waved at him, and he half-smiled and turned away.

I swallowed and felt my cheeks getting hot.

“Hey, how are you?” a voice said behind me.

I turned around. It was Gabe. Skinny Gabe with his crooked teeth. He was smiling at me.

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“I can’t tell if you are dancing. Are you dancing?”

“I don’t know.” I smiled and shrugged as I bobbed to the music. “This isn’t dancing?”

All of a sudden, the song ended, and the next song that came on was “Open Arms” by Journey. The piano/synth introduction played out as many of the kids fled the dance floor. Gabe held out his arms. “Do you want to dance with me?”

“Um. Okay.” I took his hands.

It was awkward. We didn’t know where to put our hands as we swayed to the music. Gabe kept making jokes about how silly the other kids on the dance floor looked, and I tried not to think that we looked just as silly. I didn’t really feel like leaning in to him the way they did in the movies, and he didn’t make any moves to pull me close.

After the music ended, he waved goodbye to me and went to talk to some of his other friends. I joined my nerdy friends at the side of the room, and the dance was over soon afterwards.

Gabe never stopped smiling at me in class, but he never made any attempts to go out with me either. I think neither of us was ready for that kind of commitment, but we both wanted the experience of dancing a slow dance. And I don’t know about him, but I’m glad I got to do it with someone that I trusted.

This week’s Indie Ink Challenge came from Runaway Sentence, who gave me this prompt:

open arms. not the journey song. unless you insist. ah, it’s up to you.

Most of what I wrote here is autobiographical. I had to change up some of the time frame to help with the storytelling, but essentially it’s all true.

You can read FlamingNyx’s response to my prompt here before the end of the week.

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Indie Ink, Baby!


My piece, “Dark Highway,” which I posted here back in March as a part of the Indie Ink Writing Challenge, has made it to the big time! I’m a featured writer on Indie Ink today, so go over there and check it out!

Also: my friend Steve’s artwork will be featured on Indie Ink tomorrow, so clearly they have good taste. Be sure to go there today, tomorrow, and, well, heck, every day!

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Yin/Yang

Artwork by Pawat Kongkoonchat

You think you know me, but you really don’t.

My name is Ed Yin. I was born right here, in Oklahoma City. I was raised by strict parents who expected a lot from me. I was one of the only Asian kids in my class, and I got ridiculed for the way I looked all through grade school. It was a tough way to grow up, but it made me a better person, a stronger person. And before you ask: no, I don’t speak Chinese. I’m an American. I speak English.

The reason I’m here, in front of this abortion clinic—this house of death—is to tell all of you that I will fight with every fiber of my being any law that allows women to murder their unborn children. I see those folks on the other side of the street waving their “pro-choice” signs, and I say to you: this is not a question of choice. If I choose to do so, I could kill any one of you. I’m a trained EMT. I have plenty of empty syringes in my truck. But I don’t do it, because it would be morally wrong, and nobody, not even those testosterone-riddled she-male freaks over there, would argue with me.

Do you hear them now? They are chanting about rape and incest. Well, I’ll tell you what: there are lots of things that we all have to do, things we have to hide about ourselves, just so that we can peacefully coexist in this society. If a girl was raped by her father, that is certainly a tragedy, no question. But it’s not the fault of that poor baby. That girl can get through it. I think we coddle our citizens too much these days. All of a sudden, everyone has neuroses, and more often than not, these “conditions” are just hypochondriac fantasies created by psychologists to keep themselves in business. We never had problems like this 60 years ago. Back then, if a tragedy like that happened to a girl, she would get through it. She would get stronger. And she would bear that child to term and give it to a loving family if she didn’t want to raise it herself.

You want to talk about ridiculous neuroses that these people are trying to legitimize? Look at homosexuality. I mean, sure, every guy fantasizes about having sex with other men. You just bury that urge, though, way down deep, because it’s not natural. Sex is for procreation, and if you are going to do it, you should do it with someone of the opposite sex, in order to create life. Not to MURDER BABIES LIKE THAT BITCH WALKING TO THE CLINIC RIGHT NOW!

Sorry, where was I?

Ah. I see you guys are ready for me to step down and let someone else speak. Okay. Before I go, I just want to say one more thing.

You may look at me and see a Chinese-American guy in a suit and assume I’m some sort of banker or accountant. I’m not. Here I am at this pro-life rally, so you might assume I came here with my church group. I don’t even have a church. I just know there is a higher power, and that He put me on this earth to save lives. I do that every day at my job, and I’m trying to do the same with those babies right here, right now.

And you may look at those women across the road and think they don’t care about babies at all, and all they care about is their “rights” as women. But maybe they aren’t what they seem, either. Maybe some of them have come to be educated about the abominable acts that this clinic commits. I came here to reach those people. I came here to save lives.

You may think you know me, but you really don’t.

This week’s Indie Ink Writing Challenge came from Peter, who wrote:

Write something that your exact opposite would write.

I had so much fun with this challenge, because I had to figure out what the exact opposite of me was! I mean, I have so many traits that don’t have exact opposites (what, exactly is the opposite of an opera singer?). I ended up putting together a grid (see below) that would help me figure out what kind of character my exact opposite would be.

Once I had in mind this guy’s likes and dislikes, and the things that made him tick, I had to let it simmer in the back of my mind overnight. And, boy, did I have some crazy dreams last night! But once my mind had really developed Ed’s character (and his name! I did actually dream his name), I was able to write the piece itself pretty quickly.

Trait ME MY SHADOW
Gender Female Male
Ethnicity 3/4 Caucasian; 1/4 Asian 3/4 Asian; 1/4 Caucasian
Marital Status Married Divorced
Sexual Orientation Heterosexual Homosexual
Religion Agnostic (with a side of Wiccan) Gnostic (with a side of Mormon)
Politics Liberal Democrat Conservative Republican
Sports Zzzz… Gets scores of every game automatically via text message
Entertainment Geeky/nerdy stuff like Star Wars, Princess Bride, Dr. Who, and anything related to Joss Whedon Bill O’Reilly, anything on Fox News, anything written by John Grisham
Myers-Briggs Personality Type INFJ ESTP
Profession freelance opera singer full-time EMT

My challenge went out to Catherine, who will answer it by the end of the week here.

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Pick-Up Artist

“Pardon me, miss?”

“Yes?”

“Your legs…”

“What about my legs?”

“Well, I was just thinking they must be tired.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because they’ve been running through my mind all night long.”

“Are you kidding? Did you really just say that?”

“What?”

“Did you actually just try to pick me up with that cheesy line?”

“Is there something wrong with trying to make conversation with a beautiful woman?”

“No…I guess not, but—”

“I mean, I’ve got to say something to break the ice, don’t I?”

“But did you have to say that?”

“What’s wrong with what I said?”

“Well…it’s just not exactly appropriate.”

“Why not?”

“Look around you. We’re not in a bar.”

“Oh, so I have to be in a bar in order to talk to you?”

“No, but—”

Photo by Felix Davis

“I don’t get it. Why do you make it so hard for us?”

“Me?”

“You women. All of you. If a man approaches a woman at a bar, he looks like a jerk. If he tries to make conversation on line at a coffee shop, he looks like a creep. If he hangs back and waits for her to make the first move, he looks like a wuss. What am I supposed to do?”

“I still don’t think—”

“I’m just tired of trying to put myself out there and continually getting shot down by uppity cheerleader bimbos who think they’re better than me.”

“Are you calling me a bimbo?”

“No, no, not you! I’m sorry. I know I’ve messed this whole thing up royally by now. Maybe I just don’t have anything to lose anymore.”

“It’s okay. I’m actually a little flattered, to be honest. I just…well, I think you might need to do a little reconnaissance first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, first of all, you might want to think of saying something a little more appropriate to your location.”

“I already told you, I really don’t think I have to only go to bars to pick up women.”

“No, no…it’s just…well, take a look around you. Where are we?”

“A hospital.”

“That’s right. Not exactly the most conducive place to romance.”

“I thought this would for sure be a place to find desperate…er…women who might need a little cheering up.”

“Well…um, okay. But there is one more thing you missed before you came over to speak to me.”

“What’s that?”

“Think about it. You mentioned my legs?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m in a wheelchair.”

“So?”

“Take a closer look. I don’t have legs.”

This week’s Indie Ink Writing Challenge came from The Onion, who gave me this prompt:

write about whatever you like, ONLY using dialogue.

My challenge went out to Andrea, who will answer it by the end of the week here.

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Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
— Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“You WHAT??!!!”

Ulysses paused mid-stride. That unholy screech sounded like it had been uttered by one of the Eumenides, but something about the tone told him it could only have come from Penelope. Without turning, he said, “I guess you found my note.”

“Yes, I found your note. More like suicide letter.”

Ulysses stayed where he was, facing the ocean and the setting sun. He had hoped to get to the docks before his wife had discovered him missing. Sailing away on a ship into the sunset seemed much more of a romantic exit than…well, this.

He heard her sandals clacking on the stone as she walked down steps of the house towards him with deliberation. “How did you expect me to react?”

“I didn’t really expect anything. I’m not meant for this place.” He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, but he heard her come closer. He could smell her now, that familiar, cloying smell of garlic and basil and body odor. She must have been no more than three feet away from him when she finally stood still.

“So I read.” He heard a rustle of parchment behind him as she unraveled his poem. “‘How dull it is to pause, to make an end.’ Is that what you think of the life we’ve made here? You only just returned a few years ago!”

“Try seven years.”

“And now I’m an ‘aged wife?’ When not even a decade ago I was surrounded by men who wanted to marry me and take over the estate?”

Photo by Stephen Fegan

Ulysses kept silent, looking steadily upon the dark waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The sun was beginning to set now, and its rays cast an orange glow on the waves.

She took a few defiant steps towards him. “Maybe I should have married one of those men.”

Ulysses let out a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t know, Penelope. Maybe you should have.”

Silence. Seconds ticked by. He knew she was crying. He imagined her there behind him, her tears flowing silently down her face and her hands balled up into fists at her sides. Her long gray hair had probably escaped their braids in her agitation. He fought the urge to turn to her, to comfort her.

Keeping his eyes on the horizon, he explained, “I can’t help the way I feel, Penny. There’s just so much yet to explore.”

“Then take me with you.” It was barely a whisper, uttered between sobs.

He swallowed and looked at his feet. “I can’t.”

How could he tell her? I want to get away from you just as much as I want to leave Ithaca. The mere thought of spending another night with you after having sampled the mystical charms of Circe and Calypso leaves me empty and unsatisfied. I need more, and you simply cannot give it to me. Every muscle strained to turn and spit those words out at her, this woman, who used her twenty-year chastity as a weapon of guilt to hurl at him whenever she could.

A bell rang out from down at the docks. High tide. It was time to go, and they both knew it. He adjusted the pack on his back.

“Don’t. Leave. Me.” The words came through gritted teeth, those old-woman teeth in that wrinkled mouth that he didn’t even want to kiss goodbye.

“I must.”

She threw something at him. It hit his shoulder and tumbled a ways in front of him. A coin. It glittered orange in the rays of the setting sun. He bent down to pick it up.

Imprinted in the metal was a picture of her. His wife. Penelope. Only it was what she looked like 27 years ago, when he had married her, before he had left the first time. Beautiful, with long, curly locks and a mysterious, alluring smile. She never smiles anymore, he thought. Maybe she’ll smile more when I’m not around.

He almost turned around, but stopped himself. It’s better this way. He pocketed the coin, and without any further goodbyes, continued down the road to the dock, to his ship, to freedom.

This week’s Indie Ink writing challenge came from Binaryfootprint, who writes:

Put yourself in Ulysses’ Sandals. Explain to your family why you are bored with life and have to go away on a journey and what you intend to do with your life away from them. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson/section4.rhtml

I have to admit, I was a little stumped on this one! My main sticking point is that I really have never had very much wanderlust at all, so it’s hard to relate to Ulysses on this level. So, with all due respect to Binaryfootprint, I used the prompt more as a jumping off point than actual instructions. I hope I didn’t disappoint.

My prompt went out to runaway sentence, who answered it with typical bad-assness here.

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Brisé (Broken)

I loved you from afar for so long.

I first saw you on stage at The Nutcracker, and immediately I wanted to be in your arms. I was so young then, a child — far too young for this kind of love — and you were already older than I realized, but I had no thought to our age difference. You had the ability to sweep me off of my feet and carry me away from all my troubles, and that’s all I cared about.

But you knew I was too young. You were kind to me, but made no demands, and when I left you to pursue other pastimes, you let me go.

I was 16 when I thought I was ready to pursue you. I was barely a woman, limber and energetic, but I knew that was the kind of girl you liked. So I went for it.

That was before I found out how cruel you could be.

First it was my weight. If I was serious about you, I’d have to lose the weight, you said. And then, when I didn’t do what you asked, you hurt me.

The punishment started with little things. A sprained ankle here and there. I wasn’t too bright, you see. I didn’t know exactly what you wanted me to do. But the day you pushed me down in front of my entire jazz class and dislocated my knee, I started to get the message.

After that incident, you and I parted ways for a while. I healed, but not completely. We met again that year after college, when we both worked at Busch Gardens. I was more mature, a little more savvy, but I couldn’t help but fall back in love with you. We danced the tarantella every day. When we were together, I felt exhilarated. Beautiful. Graceful.

But I still wasn’t good enough for you. I saw you with those other girls, those younger girls, those prettier girls. You had plenty of pas de deux to dance with them, and I got jealous.

We had fought that morning, you and I. During our warm-ups, you threatened to hurt me again. I ignored you. I didn’t think you would possibly do it again.

But you did.

It was the last show of the day. I was exhausted and sweating under that hot sun, and we danced one last tarantella. I made a turn, and you pushed my knee out of place. The same knee that you dislocated before. I collapsed, screaming, on the stage. And suddenly, you were nowhere to be found.

A few days later, at a follow-up visit with my doctor, he told me that the muscles around my knee, because of the repeated injury, were intrinsically weak. I went through physical therapy to get back to baseline, but I would have to continue to maintain my leg muscles for the rest of my life if I wanted to not dislocate my knee a third time.

That’s when I knew you had broken me in a way nobody could fix.

That’s when I realized you and I were never really a good fit.

L'etoile
"L'etoile" by Edgar Degas

But you, Dance (Terpsichore, Nataraja, Cernunnos, or whatever you wish to be called), you are a bigger dream than I could ever hope to catch. I still love you…I always will. But I will love you from afar, watching you leap and promenade with my dancer friends, the ones who are strong enough to stay with you.

I know you still love me, too, in your way. I see you in the eyes of my waltz partner. I hear your heartbeat in the rhythm of the songs I sing. But I stay on the safe side of your love now, because I am afraid of what you might do to me if I wander too close to your brilliance.

This week, my Indie Ink challenge came from FlamingNyx, who wrote:

Write an uncensored letter to the one person that broke you in ways no-one would ever be able to fix.

I hope FlamingNyx can forgive me for taking a little bit of artistic license, since Dance is not technically one person. Everything else about the story is true, however.

You can read Leah’s response to my challenge here (it’ll be up by the end of the week).

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Eggs Wait for No Man

I was six years old when my mother started teaching me how to cook.

We started by making chocolate chip cookies, and I loved the idea that you could take several different things, mix them up, and they would magically turn into something else. We had taken it slowly, step by step, my mother watching as I carefully measured and poured the flour and sugar, and even letting me stir the batter until my arms got too tired.

The next morning, I was eager for more kitchen wizardry. “Mommy, how do you make eggs?”

Ever obliging, she pulled a chair up to the counter and invited me to stand on it so I could watch and learn while she made breakfast.

Photo by Martha Steele

Crack-crack-crack went the eggs on the side of the bowl. I watched the yolks pour out of the shells and float like little golden islands in a sea of egg white.

My mother pulled out a fork and started furiously beating the eggs in the bowl.

“Can I try?” I asked.

She handed me the fork, but all I could do was impotently stir it around in the bowl. I looked up at her questioningly.

“You have to do it really fast, Mae-Mae, and you shouldn’t really be stirring. Watch me in slow motion.” She lifted the fork a half an inch above the liquid and then plunged it back in. She started off very slowly, and got faster and faster, until all I saw was a vertical fork-colored oval shape rising out of the frothy eggs.

I giggled.

She handed me the fork again, and this time, she moved my hand to show me how to do it. I could make the motion now, but I was not nearly as fast as she was. I was upset that I couldn’t blur the fork, but she said that I didn’t have big mommy muscles, so of course I couldn’t go as fast as she could.

When the yolks and whites had blended into a lovely yellow mix, my mother announced, “Now we add the special stuff.”

She directed me to sprinkle chives into the bowl as she added a dollop of milk to our concoction (“to thicken it up,” she insisted). Mix-mix-mix went the fork, and at last it was time to heat up the pan.

She dropped a tablespoon of butter into the heavy cast-iron skillet, and I watched the creamy square bubble and sizzle as it melted. She picked up the pan by the handle and angled it this way and that so that the butter could slide all over the skillet (“No, no,” she warned, “only strong mommies should pick up the pan.”). It was important, she explained, that we cover the whole bottom because we didn’t want the eggs to stick.

“And now,” she declared, “it is time to cook the eggs.”

I watched, enthralled, as the golden liquid poured out of the bowl and began to coalesce into solid form before my very eyes. My mother began to quickly move the eggs around with a spatula, telling me that this is why they’re called scrambled eggs, because she’s scrambling them around the pan.

And then, to my dismay, I felt the call of nature.

When you’re six, and you get that urge, you don’t have a lot of time before it turns into an accident. “Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom. Can you wait for me?”

“Okay, sweetie.” She continued working on the eggs as I raced to the potty.

When I returned, refreshed, I was very disappointed to find that my mother had finished making the eggs; they were now on my plate at the kitchen table.

I had wanted her to wait for me. I had expected that she’d be able to stop cooking, to pause as if on a tape, and pick up exactly where we had left off. I began to whine.

My mother looked at me. “Eggs wait for no man,” she declared with a flourish. “Now eat them before they get cold.”

Photo by Mu Sun

That simple sentence meant more to me than my mother ever thought it would.

It was the first time I realized that the world didn’t revolve around me, that things would continue to happen whether or not I was in the room or observing them. My world suddenly got much, much larger, and I was ready to accept that reality.

Eggs wait for no man. Once a physical reaction is set into motion, it is difficult to slow or stop it, and almost impossible to undo. There’s no use bemoaning the past; just make sure your eggs don’t burn, and enjoy them before they get cold.

So, while some people might compare life to a box of chocolates or a bowl of cherries, I say life is like a plate of eggs. Scrambled, poached, or sunny-side up, those eggs are the irrefutable result of change.

And I think change can be deliciously good.

This week’s Indie Ink Writing Challenge came from Jen O., who gave me this prompt:

Reflect for a moment on how something from your very early childhood, seemingly menial at the time – a television program, something you overheard an adult say, etc – came to affect you profoundly in your adult life. If you can’t think of anything appropriate, this can be fiction.

Jen O. gave me another prompt a couple weeks back; you can read that response here.

You can read Karla V.‘s response to my challenge here by the end of the week.

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Monster

Madness runs in my family.

My mother assures me that its power dilutes with each generation, so the worst I might experience is some anxiety or depression. I hope she’s right.

Because I’ve seen it for myself.

I’ve felt its insidious pull in the darkest corners of my mind. It rides waves of sadness and anger to the edge of my consciousness and whispers to me, You’re not good enough. Stupid girl. Worthless girl.

I heard it the loudest when I was a child, playing the violin. The very act of practicing, and for so many hours at a time, left open gaping wounds of mistakes through which the madness could seep.

Even now, it magnifies my faults and diminishes my triumphs. You’ll never be good enough. Stupid girl. Worthless girl. It can pull me under, drowning me in a whirlpool of my own self-pity.

Spitting me out onto a desolate landscape.

Stairway to Hell
Photo by Josh Van Cann
It’s easy to get lost here. Time moves differently in this place. Some people, desperate to escape, cut or starve their living bodies, so their souls can feel their way back to the world.

Luckily, I know a secret way out.

While I was caught in the wasteland as a child, I learned that the more I denied the madness, the stronger it would become; so I gave it a voice. I said the words out loud and listened with my ears to how silly they sounded: “You’ll never be good enough? Stupid girl? WORTHLESS girl? Ha!”

It was then that I discovered that the madness shrinks back when it sees its own reflection.

It used to be that I had to follow the dark path all the way down to the bottom before finding my strength. But now I leave signposts for myself. When the madness strikes, and I find myself falling inexorably into that labyrinth of despair, I reach out and find a thread.

I tug the thread and it tugs back and it hums with life and love. I follow it back to the world.

And I say to the madness: YOU HAVE DARKNESS, BUT I HAVE LIGHT. YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME.

And the madness recedes.

And waits.

This week’s Indie Ink challenge came from Jason Hughes:

The monster from your childhood that haunts you to this day, and how it still affects how you live…

You can read MyPlaidPants‘ response to my challenge here before the end of the week.

And I promise, I’ll have something happier to write later this week.

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Wakening

In the warm unfurling of the morning, after the first alarm has sounded to begin the day, we have nine minutes to traverse the road back from Morpheus’ realm to this world. We are two spoons lying lazily in a web of comfort, teasing each other with giddy giggles. I am always quick to start my busy day, but he reaches his arm around me and stops me from going anywhere. He is helping me, he says. Helping me go back to sleep, I think.

This is the warm comfort of our everydayness that brings me home each night. The magnetic happiness that pulls my heart to his.

The second alarm sounds. His day and mine begin when our feet hit the floor; clinging desperately to our nine-minute curling-upness, we play horizontal footsie to prevent each other from getting too close to the edge of the bed. More smiles. Kisses. We know we must get up, but we still do all we can to stop the clock from advancing.

We do not know if today’s daywork will be drudgerous or adventureful, nor do we care; all we know is that we have safe haven in our nine-minute infinity.

My Indie Ink Writing Challenge prompt this week came from Rachel in the OC, who wrote:

You close your eyes and the first word that pops into your head that describes your last lover is:______. What emotion does that invoke in you? Write about the word and the emotion.

My last lover was my husband (and still is). I have many words that pop into my head when I think of him, so I decided to just riff on a feeling that I get when I’m around him. I hope I was able to get the idea across.

My challenge will be answered by Melissa before the end of the week.

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The Littlest Bird

Everyone loves the underdog. From David and Goliath to Rocky, there’s something eminently satisfying about seeing the little guy win.

Are we all underdogs? Most of the time, I certainly put myself in that position. I have terrible self-esteem (like most artists), so I automatically assume everyone I compete against is better than me. I struggle with my perfectionism constantly, and even when I know that I have achieved quite a bit, I still see myself at the bottom rung of the ladder.

But I always thought this mindset was a strength. I was raised to be modest, to never get a “swelled head,” as my dad put it. And I think that modesty has gotten me far, because it has made me work hard to get ahead, never stopping to rest on my laurels.

This week, I attended a seminar by Dallas Travers with my fellow Divas. Although Dallas works primarily with stage and film actors, much of her message carries over to the singing world as well, and I found myself taking furious notes (that’ll be another post entirely). One thing she said resonated with me more than anything else that night: “Your odds are entirely determined by your expectations.”

Your odds are entirely determined by your expectations.

Underdog, long shot, sleeper: what pessimistic synonyms to describe the person who is least likely to win! No wonder I always feel like I’m on the bottom rung if I have placed myself in this role. There I am, being the submissive dog, rolling onto my back as the winner dominates me. The target is placed so far away I can barely see it, much less pull my arm back on the bow to let the arrow fly. Am I asleep, that the contest is almost passing me by before I awake?

My odds
are entirely
determined
by my expectations.

This Saturday, I am singing in the semifinals for the Oratorio Society of New York’s solo competition. If I make it through to the next round, I will sing in the finals at Carnegie Hall* on April 2. Instead of looking at my competition and thinking of them as so much better than me, I don’t want to think of them at all. This competition is not about them; it’s about me, and how I expect myself to perform.

So, how should I picture myself now? Am I still the little guy? The dark horse? No, I think I’m the littlest bird who sings the prettiest songs. I’m the artist I have always striven to become, and it only gets better from here. I love singing, and I love bringing music to people. I love my voice, and I think you will too.

But I still won’t mind if you all cross your fingers for me at 1:50 pm on Saturday, March 26.

*don’t even ask how to get there, I’m practicing already.

This post was an Indie Ink Writing Challenge response to this prompt from Jen O.:

Write anything – any genre, fiction or non, any length – around my favourite metaphor: The littlest bird sings the prettiest songs.

You can read Wendryn’s response to my challenge here.
P.S. – In case you’re curious, this is what I sound like: [audio: http://www.supermaren.com/Music/Theodora_Wings.mp3]