Email: rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com



 

Lusty Lady

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Two writers walk into a bookstore...

Wendy Spero is deceptively tiny. You go to hug her and you feel like you could crush her. She is wearing sparkles on her eyelids and a sparkly barrette in her hair and a pretty red dress and pretty shoes. She had gorgeous cupcakes at her wedding. She is like a little kid crossed with a very wise adult/big sister. I fear I have physically maimed her when I tell her I heard that FAO Schwartz in New York closed (I was wrong). I have been immensely impressed with her since her book, Microthrills, made me cry, and even more so last November when she drove to pick me up in Sherman Oaks (she, like me, is petrified of driving, but unlike me, she does it). We go for Japanese food and talk about writing.



The look on her face brooks no argument: You must reread Bird by Bird. You have to. We go to Yolato for me, then Tasti D-Lite for her. She schools me on the firmness of Tasti and then gets chocolate in a cup, but eats it like a cone. We go to Borders, and I ask for her book, and learn that it was an uphill battle to not get it stocked in humor (it is stocked in humor, but it’s SO much more than that). We go to get me another copy of Bird by Bird, because who knows where mine is. “Oh, you should totally read Writing Down the Bones, I tell her, pulling out one of the tiny pocket-sized Shambhala editions.



Wendy tells me she read Bird by Bird several times while writing her book. “It’ll help. She talks about everything you’re talking about. You have to read it.” I literally feel like I have no choice, but I kindof like that. Wendy tells me to let her know how it goes. When I check my email, there is an assignment waiting for me. I would say as if from G-d, but that’s too grand even for me. It is a sign though, of many things. It’s an assignment from someone I owed an email of apology to, for flaking, a long list in a long line of apologies owed. But it’s not asking about that. It’s new, and the assignment is about renewal. About everything I need to be doing and am not. Supposedly, I’m an “expert.” Oh, do go on and make me laugh harder than any comedian. I’m an “expert” in being clueless about dating. I’m an “expert” in misreading signals and people. I’m an “expert” in agreeing with what everyone else wants, in liking people back simply because they like me. I’m an “expert” in seeing what I want to see, rather than the plain ugly truth right in front of my face. But you know what? I’m broke and I need the cash and maybe I can just fake it till I make it, imagine I were someone else and give her the advice I clearly need beaten into my head by force. Oh-so-appropriate. I reply that I have plenty of ideas, from personal and professional experience.

I tuck the Anne Lamott book into my purse and reread those first pages on the subway, where I go hear about martial arts and conflict and war and a Columbian drug called scopolomine. I stand against the wall and try to keep my shoulders straight and balance in my heels. I note, as dispassionately as I can, which is not much, that my stomach does that complete roller coast somersault when I see him out of the corner of my eye. I write notes that I pretend are for my novel: “like I could faint or vomit⎯or both.” For a second. But we don’t do that being in the same room together thing anymore. It’s funny because he’s there anyway, even when he’s not. The subject matter has his name written all over it, and I know that. But I was invited and want to learn things that have nada to do with sex. I’m bored with the usual suspects and fear being stuck like quicksand in the pink ghetto, dying there and never being able to escape. I marvel at the fearlessness not of the VBS people to fly all over the world, to Columbia and Baghdad and China, but to keep on asking, “What’s next? What’s new? What can I do/bring forth into the world?” I used to do that, on a smaller scale, maybe. Or maybe I never did. But now I feel like I never do.

And now I’m asked to give advice and I have to step outside myself and ask what advice I need. How to propel myself not just into a new year, but a new mindset, a new way of doing things because the old way isn’t working. That’s a broader question but I know it’s all connected. Wendy, Anne Lamott, my book, this assignment, showing up. Bringing an open mind, as we were asked. And I hope, or at least I strive, to have an open mind. I am like a sponge, and I wonder if I’ve been absorbing the right things. Hearing the martial arts guy talk about the various benefits of his style of fighting (he called martial arts “human living sculpture”), I couldn’t help but be reminded of Crossfit. Sticking it out there, physically, financially, just doing it, when it feels good and when it doesn’t, means something, even when I don’t want to, even when I still feel too big and fat and weak. I think it’s good for me to hit rock bottom sometimes, to go so low that I almost can’t go any lower (though of course, you always can). To remember that one day at a time means that tomorrow is literally a new day and a new chance to make amends, to move forward. Baby steps, in high heels.

And inspiration in the form of people getting out there and doing it, not sitting around worrying about what ifs (watch more of the "Columbian Devil's Breath" series at Vbs.tv:

1 Comments:

At August 29, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

rachel, i have to say, you are so lucky to be starting writing now, well, then. you've gotten into the habit of putting yourself out there and no matter how angst-ridden you are about it, it is habit. trust me, it is harder later and you will be so much better for having taken the leap early because i struggle with the 'putting it out there' thing.

anne lamott rules. get beyond bird by bird (which is AWESOME) and read more of her in your spare (ha!) time.

~jo

 

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