New Poem & Year's End Musings

Is the California drought over? Judging from the greening of the hills, the hopeful sight of bulbs poking through the soil, and reports that this last bout of storms brought nine inches of rain in 24 hours (!) I would venture that this has certainly made a dent in the harrowing lack of water in our state. It feels like a true Northern California Winter's day here today, a week from Solstice, the soupy grey light a sharp contrast to the dazzling green fields, the crystalline beads of water clinging to the tips of every branch and leaf and bough, . We have not had a hard freeze here in The North Bay yet, so some soggy flowers persevere. A good writing day, short on light, big on quietude. It is a glad sight and makes it truly feel like the holidays, the end of a very full and varied year.....that and my annual Wreath-making pre-mega-storm yesterday. Wishing everyone a Yule season with much to appreciate, brightness, and a healthy, joyous 2015. I am never sure who actually reads these blogs, but every writer is told to "amp up the social media," so I contribute to this page from time to time. Often, with poetry, as in the following I wrote just now:

Fern Lake

Witnessing Fern Lake 

recede 

these many dry months has hurt

my eyes.

I watched 

on each outing as

it went from 

healthy oasis, antidote to

the brown hills-

The electric cackle of a Kingfisher

as it zeroed in on a fish, dives-

& amorous duets of Mallards as they sleekly parted

its surface,

the “V’s” of their wakes forming

a second set of wings,

to a mere puddle as if someone

had pulled a plug, leaving 

gaunt Egrets and angular Herons to stab

at the muddy banks

in vain.

Now it is two weeks before Yule & 

the rains, at last, are back.

From my perch/my porch

the persimmons become ornaments

glossy orange 

against the wet, black, bark.

The birds here, closer

to Home

are giddy, shivering

with delight

in new pools.

And the pomegranates 

split wide, their

gory jewels exposed

Gape at the

drenched reveling

open-jawed,

another glistening

offering.

Fellowship In The Land of Enchantment

Since October 8th, 2014 I have had the great good fortune to be a fellow at The Women's International Studies Center in Santa Fe New Mexico, my former home and a most beloved environment. October is such a special time here, when the Aspens are shimmering gold in the moutons and the farmers market smells like roasting chilies, and pumpkins make you happy just by their shapse and colors, stacked everywhere on bales of hay.  I cannot believe I have to return to quotidian life in one week. My quotidian life in The Bay Area is not a bad one by any stretch, but this respite has given me that great gift of time and focus. I can honestly say that I have never been so productive with my work as I have at this Fellowship. There is something about an organization believing in you, taking your ideas seriously and showing it by saying: here is a beautiful room in a beautiful little adobe on a beautiful street in a beautiful city, now off you go, WRITE! Not having to be a wage earner or even walk the dogs for four weeks, I have been able to immerse myself in my second book.  I wake up at 7:30 each day, wolf down some brekkie, make two tall glasses of Earl Grey tea with honey, carry them into my room, shut the door, after saying good morning to wonderful fellow Fellow from Turkey, Ozlem, across the hall, sit down at my desk, look out the window at "my" dirt road and "my" faded blue truck, (which I have grown extremely attached to,) unplug the WiFi and write until 1:30 or 2. As Hunter S. Thompson once said, Kill the body and the head will die, and here I am also reminded of the classic film Night of the Living Dead in which the opposite order of that line was mentioned.  So with that sage advice, I head for the trails every afternoon, breathing in the cedar perfumed air to move the neglected limbs. My suitcase will weigh twice what it did when I left since I seem unable to hike for any amount of time without picking up one or two of the dazzling rocks I find, flashing their mica or quartz in the sunlight. If anyone saw my windowsill, they would guess me to be a geologist.

New Mexico has always spoken to me since I attended three years of summer camp up in the Northern part of the state, in Ute Park at Camp Cimarroncita, where the days were filled with archery, horse riding, songs, pottery, swimming, hiking and jewelry making, (and the nights were filled with huddling around our adored hippie counselor Susan's pilfered copy of Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask.)

Enacting the requisite Mid-Life Shake-Up, I like that term more than crisis, I actually moved to the state after turning fifty, not knowing anyone but my boyfriend and not having a job.  It was bold and exhilarating and atypical for practical me, and I have such fond memories of setting up house, exploring the state by doing a different road trip every week: to see the cranes migrate at The Bosque del Apace south of Albuquerque, the hike the white marble canyons of O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch, to talk with farmers and buy chili ristras on the High Road to Taos, to participate in the Day of the Dead cemetery walk in Old Mesilla, to dodge thunder and hail storms in The Galesteo Basin with the dogs, to fall asleep to the sounds of coyotes yipping and howling in Eldorada, to shell the peas I grew (under a screen to protect them from rabbits and ravens) at an old table on the back porch as the sun set over the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

I have always resonated with the desert's singular charms. Its vastness and that undiluted light make some feel an odd mix of too minuscule and overly exposed. But for this writer, it's a gift that puts everything into perspective, and invites exploration, both within, and outside, amongst its challenging, varied, bracing, limitless terrain.

Musings From The Back Porch….

My back porch is the power spot, or as they say in Sedona, the "vortex," of my property. It is there, sipping a bowl of tea with milk and honey, binoculars within reach, that I do some of my best thinking and get many ideas for stories. I am out there in all seasons, hence have tried to make the surroundings a magnet, a haven for bird and beast. My panorama includes a fence that badly needs repair, sagging under the weight of dense and randomly intertwined Trumpetvine, Honeysuckle, and Jasmine. A bluebird box with three hatchlings peeping to be fed is next door to a Bat Box that I am hoping will draw some takers this year. Hollyhock, started from the seeds I brought back from Santa Fe, grows extraordinarily tall in its more cushy, non-desert home. Volunteer sunflowers are sprouting up hither and thither bellow the bird feeders, and Goldfinches, impatient for the heads to turn to seed, simply begin munching on their leaves.

Today, on the back porch, I was appreciating how lucky I am to be a part of the tribe of Artists, to have felt that kinship with poets, dancers, painters, novelists, musicians, the whole bohemian parade, since childhood,  that need to tell a story, to write it all down, to express. It is often lonely business full of self-doubt, this work, and just to know there is a community out there struggling in the same way is a balm. Call me elitist, but I do not think everyone and his or her Aunt Sally "has a book in them." I do not think my friend's twelve year old son or daughter "does paintings that are just as good as Picasso

." I still believe artists are special, that one does not suddenly just "decide" to be one.  How much of the end product is the result of discipline and application and how much just innate talent is an ongoing debate, as is the odd equation of success. But I believe it boils down to: NOT doing it, not creating/expressing/dancing/playing/carving/welding/painting/acting is simply not an option.

I was thinking about which of the five senses the artist in each given field needs to hone. Some are obvious: the Musician: hearing. Painter: sight. Or maybe not. I think the interesting work takes place where the senses overlap. The writer needs a hefty does of empathy. Perhaps empathy should be the sixth sense: being able to imagine what a totally fictionalized character would eat/wear/feel.  How he or she would speak. What their bedroom would look like. What secrets they hold. It is ironic that writing is such a solitary pursuit, when people-watching and eavesdropping are such helpful components to the task. I empathize to a ridiculous degree, helpful in the literary world, but what may be seen in modern parlance as "boundary issues." I have to turn away from newspaper articles that show atrocities, be they  starving children, mutilated elephants, animals in a factory farms. The anguish lodges in my brain and heart for too long and I have a hard time shaking it.

But the up side of empathy takes place on the back porch. If I eat a melon, I make sure to step outside and scoop the seeds onto the ground. I take much delight in watching a towhee hop up to those strange and delicious seeds and taste one for the first time. Maybe a little part of me becomes that small bird, for  just an instant, experiencing something as wonderful as a new flavor. Maybe it is as Picasso himself once said:
"Everything you can imagine, is real."

Another new poem

First Summer

-For K

I am a happy insomniac-

serenaded from midnight til dawn by

a lovesick Mockingbird.

In the light of day,

too softhearted even for the

flyswatter,

I access it all from my porch-

The way the tiny Goldfinches splash 

in a pan of water-

 feed each other

thistle seeds.

& I am reminded 

of you, the way you

care.

I could make a fine summer list-

Apricots?

Your complexion.

Ten feet tall Hollyhocks?

Your stature.

Then there is the way the breeze sets them

ticking-

floral metronomes

blessedly soundless so that Time

can remain an abstract, something

on the periphery.

The plums too could snap me back

into a world of hours, days.

The plums ripen all at once,

the ones beyond our reach 

plonk

to the ground, untended.

But the harvested ones,

jam now,

an open jar of it at your own table 

& I picture

licking it from your upper lip.

My yard is full of chase &

indolence.

Darting scarlet-necked Hummingbirds speeding past

floating Yellowtails hovering above a blossom-

Any movement more like a tremble.

The two kinds of sweat:

cold on my glass of iced tea,

then the other-

at your temples,

the nape of my neck.

Inside, a pint of cherry ice cream

puddles on the counter

forgotten, but not

the cherry stem

you tied into a knot

with your tongue.

Green leaves sag in the afternoon heat, the figs

pendulous & warm.

I pluck two from the tree, bring them to you

in the hammock.

It is there I feel 

I cannot contain it all-

Not just the way we look

into the blues & greens of

each others eyes,

but more than that,

The way we really see.

New Poem:

First Spring

-For K.

On the island where

everything is voluptuous where

the inside of a coconut

is called "meat." 

Where

svelte palms shake

their tresses

against a milky pink sky-

We rise at dawn & enter

the ocean.

The goosebumps, the sountrack of

breath-

the way the pull of tides

knocks us against one another-

The salt.

& like this on land as well.

So the days & nights run

together-

the color of the fish, their lips

an "o" of surprise-

turning onto their sides to

regard us hovering above-

& the riotous, provocative 

flowers-

The geckos, the cardinals, the lone butterfly

that was always at

my shoulder.

Until the days end, the ocean

gulping down

that warm, ripe sun.

It was almost too much

to contain, almost.

Every sense primed &

bursting.

Leaving the island

I did not want the old rules

to apply.

How fortunate to return to 

Spring. Our first

together. To part

but only

to another green.

And each softer somehow,

humbled by such pleasures.

You are back in your home where

the rush of the freeway

can sound like the sea. 

Where that mountain can appear

volcanic

in certain light.

I am back in my home

& I walk past

the low, scone-shaped rocks, wading

in pools of wild yellow

mustard or orange poppies.

I cannot smell the Plumeria but soon,

lilac.

Back to the rhythms 

that we know yet perhaps

altered now-

a frame of reference

more felt

than spoken.

LIFE IMITATES ART

One of the features that has always drawn me to both the writing of and the reading of fiction, is the way that fiction writers often begin their books by asking the question: "What if....?" Historical facts, actual events, accurate portrayals of the clothing people wore or the food they ate during a given period, these can become springboards from which a believable story emerges, as opposed to actually being the story. Non-fiction writers are more bound to the facts when they write, while for fiction writers, these facts serve the same purpose as shading or color in a painting. They give the work dimension and credibility, but it is the embellishments, empathy, and flights of fancy that give the characters their breath and the settings their immediacy.

The recovered Chagall

I wrote my novel Phoebe & The Ghost of Chagall over the course of three years, and it involved a fair amount of research in the areas of:  Hitler's troubled relationship to art, the rich and compelling life of Marc Chagall who graced this earth for almost a full century, the circle of now-famous artists before their fame in pre-World War One Paris, the occupation then liberation of Paris, art theft and the thriving black market and how they work in tandem, art stolen from Jewish homes and elsewhere by the Nazis during World War Two, and finally, the most compelling fact of all: the one hundred paintings that actually went missing during Marc Chagall's lifetime. In real life, these "lost" painting were a source of great trepidation for the painter, so in my book, with the liberating format of fiction, Chagall gets to come back to the world of the living and retrieve one of these lost paintings, and help a woman with some very real problems of her own in the process. I think in fiction, the goal is to let the research fuel the story, make it seem plausible, without taking the reader out of the tale. Facts should have the role in fiction much like that of a very skilled waiter. The flavorful dishes appear before you and are whisked away and replaced by others so seamlessly and unobtrusively, that one forgets the waiter is even there. But without the waiter, the excellent experience could not happen.

I have attended quite a few writers' workshops and there was a moment in one of them where we were critiquing a fellow writer's story and someone said: "It just doesn't feel real."  The author, even though she was technically supposed to be in the "cone of silence" part of the class, shouted triumphantly: "But this really happened!" At this point, the teacher jumped in, making a harrumphing noise and holding up his hand in a shushing motion, telling her: "That doesn't matter at all if we don't believe it." This has always stuck with me, and served as a beacon in the partially-made-up land of fiction. Along these lines, I love stories about real-life events that begin: "You can't make this stuff up." What follows this opener is usually compelling because indeed there are times when fact is stranger than fiction.

And then there are times like this week, when fact and fiction collide. I avidly follow any news or current events that involve Chagall or stolen art, because frankly, I became a bit obsessed with these topics while I was working on Phoebe & The Ghost of Chagall. A few days ago, I found a link containing an event that could have come straight from the pages of my book.  It was a fantastical story that told of 1.4 billion dollars worth of stolen art, masterpieces of so-called "degenerate art" that were thought to have been destroyed by the Nazis. Instead, these paintings had been hiding in a run down apartment building in Munich in 2011. The current occupant of the building, and hence the owner of this cache, was the 80 year old Cornelius Gurlitt, son of Hildebrand Gurlitt, the modern art specialist recruited by Hitler to sell off some these appropriated paintings to raise money for the Third Reich.

Just this initial story raises a wealth of magnificent and juicy questions, the stuff of good fiction. How could Cornelius, who was caught while being investigated for tax evasion, not have known the origin of these paintings, as he claimed? He was described as a man living in squalor who would sell a painting every now and then when he needed cash. And why did the authorities wait two full years to go public with this story? They expressed that they were concerned that claimants would be coming out of the woodwork, and authenticating such claims would be a nightmare. But meanwhile, records are dying along with the rightful owners, who are now in their 80's and 90's and knowing this, it would seem that time would be of the essence. Plus, there is a well-known organization called Art Recovery International that has long been in the business of reuniting Jews with the art stolen from them during the Second World War. Would posting pictures of the newly-rescued art on this site not have been a terrific place to start?

The recovered Matisse

I think there should be compensation for the rightful owners.  That said, I have hopes that this generation will see fit to make sure that art of such magnificence finds its way to the walls of museums.  I strongly believe, as does Chagall, or rather the Chagall character in my book, that beauty of this caliber should be seen by many eyes, not squirreled away in the darkened apartment of the nefarious Corneliuses of the world. My book has a happy ending. Justice is served, paintings are in the hands of their rightful owners. And some will, of course, continue to remain unaccounted for, just as in this real life drama. So here is where we are experiencing that rare and wonderful moment of overlap, where writers and readers of both fiction and non-fiction can eagerly await the next installment.





Link to purchase Phoebe & The Ghost of Chagall:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=phoebe%20and%20the%20ghost%20of%20chagall&sprefix=phoebe+and+the%2Caps%2C206&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aphoebe%20and%20the%20ghost%20of%20chagall

Autumn 10/26/2013

I have not added to this blog in a ridiculous amount of time, but not because of idleness. In truth, I would rather be working on my new novel, or a new story than on my little blog.  And yes, I am the first to admit that the jury is still out in my mind as to the value of social media for authors. But more than that: time feels sped up. It is early morning and there are the rituals there, the yoga and the walking of the dogs & the writing & the pruning of the suckers on the olive tree, then in no time, as if in those old films where there is a full-screen shot of a timepiece whose hands are wildly moving clockwise,  it is suddenly 3 p.m.! Perhaps I am not alone in this phenomenon? But when life gets juicy, with highs or with lows, I am always drawn back to poetry. I find it to be the most immediate and arrow-to-the-heart form of expression in words. Here then, a freshly minted poem:

Falling

By: Jill Koenigsdorf

And so it begins-

the cracking open & path

clearing-

Your eyelash found,

a fine sickle, dark

against the surface

of a new stick of butter.

The sawdust you made first,

then the ashes.

Spring has the reputation

as the time of awakening-

                         rebirth

But I say it is Autumn.

So much urgency-

a quickening before

the journey inward.

The earnest impossibility

of preparedness.

Squirrels bury the neighbor’s walnuts

in every pot they find,

making a mess of what

was carefully smoothed &

patted down-

nudging aside old roots.

The last figs

dry

on the branch.

The last tomatoes

puckered

as the faces of old women, cling

to the vine.

The last, the last,

but also the sweetest.

And all the showiest flowers

a study in duality-

half in their vibrant, summer glory

the other half

brown & rich

with seeds.

They too long for surrender-

to close the distance between themselves &

the fertile soil below.

They lean forward-

teetering towards that contact-         

then

coming to rest there

where they await the rains

that will make them green

again.