Category: Musings

RIP Ray Bradbury

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
-Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

We lost a great writer yesterday with the death of Ray Bradbury. One of the panels I did at Balticon was Stories We Like to Hear Out Loud and I read Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary,” a great little story about a boy and his dog. The boy is bedridden and depends on his dog to tell him about the world, but the dog also has a bad habit of bringing things home, things he shouldn’t. I love the opening paragraph:

“Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees. In dark clock-springsof hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees. Dog jumped. Showers of brittle fern, blackberryvine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted. No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!”
-Ray Bradbury, “The Emissary,” from The October Country

Years ago a friend took me to a great used bookstore and introduced me to Ray Bradbury. My favorites are The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Fahrenheit 451, and Dandelion Wine. Bradbury was such an amazing writer and truly had a gift with language and storytelling. If only we could capture his talent like bottling summer in a bottle of dandelion wine. He will be missed, but he will live on in his stories. And who says genre fiction isn’t literature? Just read one of Bradbury’s stories to see how powerful science fiction and fantasy can be.

Happy Mother’s Day – let’s end the “mommy wars”

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! My daughter is four, and I still feel like I’m figuring how how this “mom” thing works. Of course, every time you figure something out, it all changes. One thing I’ve realized, though, is that it’s hard to be a mom. There’s something to be said for needing a village to raise a child. When I was pregnant, I decided I was going to go into it without any expectations. I really had no idea what to expect or whether once the baby came home I’d change my mind about things that initially seemed really important. It’s scary enough reading all the pregnancy books that tell you all the things that could GO WRONG. Then there are so many choices you have to make. Breastfeeding vs. bottle, cloth diapers vs. disposable, co-sleep or not, organic, toxins… Even just what kind of stroller to buy involves research. Then do you stay home, work, do day care, find a nanny… It’s mind boggling. And the guilt! It seems like there is always something to feel guilty about. Then the media pits moms against each other depending on the choices they make, when really, we all need to be in this together. It DOES take a village to raise a child. Different opinions, respectful opinions, are good.

Everyone has probably seen the recent cover of Time and read about all the controversy that has stirred up. Frankly, I’m not going to judge another mom for deciding what is best for her family. I don’t think I have that right. I would hope others would do the same. Bottom line, we all want our children to be healthy and happy. How we get to that point is not as important because there are so many ways to get there. We just have to deal with whatever life gives us and make decisions as they come. Sometimes nothing ends up as we expect, but we find a way to continue just the same. That’s what moms do best, right?

I also want to thank all of the women who aren’t moms and have offered support through this long, strange journey. These are the “aunts” to my daughter, the friends I live vicariously through, the ones who are willing to offer adult conversation and remind me that I’m still my own person, in addition to being “X’s mom.”

So to all my wonderful mom friends out there, I hope you were pampered and loved even more today. You deserve it!

Never again

Holocaust Remembrance Day was last week. A dear friend volunteers at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. I’ve been there a few times and it’s incredibly moving. Not something you easily forget. And that’s the point, of course. We want to understand why and how such a horrific thing could have happened so we can prevent it from ever happening again. Yet slaughter on a large scale keeps happening. Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan. The fact is that the world has not stepped up to prevent things that “may” or “may not” be genocide. I realize I’m getting up on my soapbox here, but this is something I feel strongly about. People may argue that the rest of the world is not our problem and that we have enough problems here at home to deal with. Yes, there is a lot of work to be done in reducing the disparities in our own country, but we live in a global society. The world is everyone’s problem. Humankind should be our concern, regardless of country of origin, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation–we are all human beings and we all deserve a chance for a decent life.

I could go on about the ugliness that seems to have pervaded our country lately, the lack of respect and common decency, but I’d rather end with two quotes that really speak to me.

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
―John Donne

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
― Martin Niemöller

This is why we should never forget.

Thoughts on The Hunger Games

So many people have recommended The Hunger Games to me that I figured I ought to read it before the movie came out, on the off chance that I might actually have a chance to see it. No movie yet, but I finished the book two weeks ago. I really enjoyed it. The first page hooked me. As a writer, I admire the author’s use of first person present tense. Most books are written in past tense. Present tense is challenging, but I think Susan Collins pulled it off well. It really created an immediacy with Katniss, who is ranking up there with some of my favorite young heroines.

Even though I haven’t seen the movie, I’ve heard a lot of about it, how the violence (really, this is a book about children fighting to the death and killing each other) was more implied than shown for the film, and a few of the changes from the book. So far the people I know who have seen it and read the book give it a thumbs up. I keep thinking about the irony of portraying The Hunger Games on the big screen. The main point of the book is that these Districts are being brutally oppressed and forced to send a boy and a girl to fight in the games, which are televised for the entire populace to see. As retribution for a rebellion that I really wanted to know more about as I was reading. Maybe that’s in the next book, which I haven’t read yet (no spoilers, please!). But the book shows how twisted society has become, that murder televised live is entertainment. And here we are, flocking to the movie that allows us to see the Hunger Games in all their “glory.” As part of the hype, people are even choosing which District they’d be from. I wonder if they have the proper amount of horror when the Tributes from their chosen District are killed?

Yes, I know it’s just a book. It’s not real, so I can’t be outraged about it. But the book drew me into that world and made me think. What if those things really happened… What if the people stood up and took a stand against the Games… What if they’d had enough and refused to let another child die. Katniss plants some of those seeds.

Fortunately we don’t live in that world, but there’s plenty of hatred and violence to go around in our own. What if we all did the right thing? Too much to ask?

Hey Jack Kerouac

Today is Jack Kerouac’s birthday! He was born today in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is not far from my hometown. I’m a big fan of On the Road. It was one of my post-college used bookstore finds. I think  I got it for a quarter, along with A Clockwork Orange and The Grapes of Wrath.

I found this quote on a magnet and had to buy it:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Those beaniks were pretty wild.

As a counterpoint to the madness of Jack Kerouac, I’m a guest on Ciara Knight’s blog today with some tips for getting myself motivated: http://www.ciaraknight.com/2012/03/12/guest-cindy-young-turner/.