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Last month I said, "So much happened last month that I haven't been able to take a breath and write." This month, I wish I didn't have to say, "So much has happened in the past few months that I can barely breathe."
Because it is almost literally true. Last Friday morning I pulled out of our garage, into an eerie Halloween-orange light. Morning light is supposed to be blue and clean. Crisp. Bright. The light that morning was damp, hazy, sullied. And it was an unnatural orange. Not the golden hue of the golden hour, not the deepening amber of dusk. It was a nauseating, liquid plastic Halloween orange.
That is the light of massive fires.
We had seen it before... just this past July, with the terrifying Carr and Mendocino fires. But this time I could feel the smoke grazing against my throat as I drove Aria to school. She covered her face as she ran to her classroom, and a few hours later I received the email I knew would come: "We have been advised that all should stay indoors today." We used to have snow days on the East Coast when I was growing up. Now we have smoke days.
"I can barely breathe."
It is literally true for thousands of my fellow Californians directly impacted by these latest fires, just a few hours' drive north and a few more hours' drive south. In Thousand Oaks and Malibu there are the Hill and the Woolsey fires. The one up north is the Camp Fire, its name pulled already burning from a twisted irony of its origin: Camp Creek Road. Yes, this is how wildfires are named.
Read the rest of this month's Musing.
~ Birgitte
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It has been a long time since I wrote poetry.
My first was at 6 years old, a short little poem I composed for my baby sister when we were supposed to be sleeping. It was about a teddy bear. I mention this not because it was some sort of literary achievement but because that was the moment I realized I was a writer. And the moment I realized I wanted to be a writer for the rest of my life.
The second poetic era bloomed when I was 13-14 years old. We had recently arrived in the United States, and I had learned a new language. I wrote a novel, an adventure quest that involved 5 riddles written in iambic pentameter. I wrote other poems that I submitted to the World of Poetry, an organization I had somehow discovered (this was prior to the age of the Internet), and to my amazement started receiving awards. Gold. Silver. Honorable Mentions. I was invited to fancy award events, none of which my family could afford—we didn't even have a refrigerator the first few months in the U.S.
Years later I found out World of Poetry had been a scam, literally printing award certificates en masse to collect convention fees. Ironically, my family's inability to afford the events had saved us from their fraud. I destroyed the award certificates.
I would then turn my attention to short stories and novellas, and poetry wouldn't rise again until the 2000s, when various events inspired the poems published on my site.
The most recent, and the most moving, inspiration was sparked by a true story recounted by a dear friend. It took a few years before I sat down to write it; but the moment I heard the story, I knew it had to be honored with verse.
It's called Young Boy in Iran.
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Next week, we celebrate Thanksgiving, and then it's a heady dash toward the year-end holidays. One of my favorite times of the year.
As a publisher, perhaps I should participate in the marketing frenzy. Splatter special Black Friday ads all over social media. Launch a campaign for Small Business Saturday. And maybe a digital gift card specially designed for Cyber Monday. As for Giving Tuesday, we've definitely got something planned—but to give, not to receive. There are many fine organizations doing the hard work of holding the fabric of our society together, that need to be supported.
That's the trouble with us poets and authors. Always creating rather than marketing. Commercial promotion might as well be an alien life form that's infiltrated our paradise.
But I did prepare a little something... for only you, the people who read The Muse. Through the rest of this month, we're giving a 15% discount on all of our books and greeting cards.
Here's the discount code: JOY2018
And here are links to:
• Non fiction titles
• Fiction titles (most are still on my author site but we're moving those over to the publishing site)
• Greeting cards and posters
Above all, enjoy a blessed Thanksgiving. I'm grateful to have a roof over my head... cannot stop thinking of the families who lost their homes in the fires. We're donating emergency funds with my daughter's school community.
May the heavens gift us a little rain.
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