Miscellany

Spirit of the Hour

posted by Jenny Argante @ 1:05 AM 0 comments

In the Land of Hospitalia

posted by Jenny Argante @ 1:39 AM 0 comments

In Memoriam AGM b. May 1942 d. May 2006

Gerard

You say I cannot speak,
that I am mute,
and hide myself away from a pursuit
that aims at hunting down a secret part
that, for this time, must stay
inviolate.

The only language I can speak to you
is not the impact of a verbal flow,
but sanity and healing in a touch,
hand upon hand,
and long arms folding in
to hold me at your breast.

O comfort welling deep
to meet my need!

I catch the drops.
They nurture and sustain.
Do not expect to salve my inner scars
with this libation.
I must drink the cup
that's taken from your hand,
and drain it dry:
then I'll reply.

To turn away my glance seems to negate
this suit I prosecute to your regard.
The truth is, in your eyes I see
a shamed and pitied me.
I will not play the beggar to your king
because I have it in my power to bring
this benefice to you,
a mended self.

Conviction is too easily achieved
in this my plea.

That look to me which mothers all my being
into one craving
is not a merit made to me alone:
it's Duchess-of-Ferrara to the world.

Though Gerard is mon preux chevalier
and parfit gentil knyghte
and all to my delight
as gillyflowers or blossoms swinging high
against a blazoned sky,
this lyric impulse runs its course in me:

it's, in your view,
insensate.

© Jenny Argante

After the Act

Shaping how she will tell her story, she sits alone in the drab and dreary room. Around her is all the disorder of a temporary halt. Notes from a guitar play over and over on the radio-recorder.

These repetitions have released the sadness in her that, now and finally, must be mended by confession. She picks up her pen. And pauses.

She has given up those compulsive accounts insisted on by her therapist. She has given up her therapist - with no excuses, no regrets. For whom then is she writing?

Not for her children. She has been too wounded and affronted by their candours, by some incident repeating a folly of her own.For who then is she writing?

Not for her mother.No.She has kept from her, disclosed to her, too many secrets, both old and new. This is now unnecessary. What love there is between them rests no longer on such admissions of defeat.And she has learned the hard way to withhold her history from the latest, replacement lover.

If she had the energy - if the music could play on and on, and her hand slide for ever across the yellow notepad with its narrow ruling - she would make of her story a novel and call it A Year Away From Home.

No television play.She has cringed too often at some intensely personal drama-documentary recording Love, Terror, Grief and Abandonment. Faces of stone and faltering, faulty tongues; trivial and unbearable.

She has this interim space, and, to fill it, the overflow of pain that tomorrow will be banked down by new places, other faces. She must tell her story now. For whom, then, is she writing?

It must be, no matter what she thinks, that this story is for him. Forcing him to understand that his memory of what happened may differ substantially from her own. That she has carried the grief and anger for too long, and it's his turn now to take up the burden.

To make a distance between them, she must choose a name for the woman in her story - that character which is herself. She thinks about this carefully, and decides to be 'Helen'. It's a name with a cool resonance that she likes. Yes. In the story she will be Helen.

How will she begin this story about Helen? Go back too far and she will stretch it out too thin. Helen has a beginning and an end. She continues.
Where will she begin Helen's story?

She begins by dressing Helen in conventional black swimsuit, puts her in the water of the pool. Helen watches from the side the others at play. Helen wants to join in, but is scared of duckings and rough-house teasing; of being found out; marked down as inadequate. Helen watches from the side (as she had watched); forcing a smile when anyone gets too close to show she is having a good time.

Suddenly he is there, thrusting up from the water like a seal. Brown eyes; and Helen likes brown eyes. Skin warmly-toned, toast spread with honey. His wet hair shines black under the slanting window-roof, though when he walks her back to the hostel it dries ordinary brown.

Helen is thirty-one, recently divorced. Her two daughters are presently in the care of her own mother while she is away at college on a teacher-training course.For many reasons not directly related to the plot, she has struggled six years for this freedom. Now it's hers she can't think what to do with it.

Helen doesn't believe in love; but there's an ache inside when she says this. Helen writes poetry alone in her small study-bedroom. She misses her children, and she is frightened of failing on this course. Helen has heard too often, I told you so.Now a man looks at Helen and listens to her. A man with brown eyes, and Helen likes brown eyes. Even in the water she can see that he is tall, solid. Later on he may grow fat. Helen imagines him old and fat with grandchildren crawling over him, his smile forever placid and undemanding. At her door he says goodnight and lightly walks away.

Helen dreams she is making paper snakes, concentric circles cut out of sugar-paper and pulled down to bounce into spirals. She brushes them with glue, sprinkles over gold and silver glitter.And now the snakes are real, and in her bed. Helen cries out. This wakes only her. Out of bed, she cowers against the wall; somehow finds the courage at last to pull back the sheet and blankets. No snakes in her bed.

Two days later, coming away from the sociology tutorial, she meets Gerard in the corridor and he asks her to his room.(Gerard isn't really his name, of course.)

How carefully Helen dresses up in blue cotton trousers and white handkerchief top with broderie anglaise trim. Her hair is washed and smells of lemon, her eyes delicately lined with kohl. On her lips a pale pink shimmer.

Helen enters late a room full of people. She clutches her glass and sinks into a chair; watches Gerard, who is sprawled sideways on the bed with five others. How nice he is; nice to everyone. Nothing special in his being nice to her. Helen had wanted to be alone with him, solid and glowing; to fold herself in his arms and weep on his chest. A girl beside him casually offers a kiss.

Helen gets up and goes, taking with her somebody called Terry who makes love to her competently and indifferently before he departs.After that, whenever she sees Gerard, she turns away; turns aside. Her room offers silence and words on a page. If she cries, it doesn't show. She begins to visit the common-room, learning to play table-tennis. Unexpectedly Helen finds she is good at this. One night she beats everybody. She laughs, rosy and triumphant; flourishing her bat in triumph.

Gerard has come in. He puts himself opposite to Helen and briskly defeats her. (Her game has gone to pieces.)

Then he walks her again to her room, she without a word beside him. He speaks once."Are you scared of me, Helen?"Helen shakes her head. If he touches her, she'll break to bits.He touches her. His large and gentle hand presses down on the nape of her neck. From Helen's bowed neck the fallen hair swings forward and softly brushes his yellow sweatshirt.

Close enough to feel his heart beating, Helen trembles. Gerard releases her, angles off into darkness.Onto the ceiling of her room Helen projects a range of scenarios. In the Ice Age she knew him, and in ancient Rome. At the court of Queen Elizabeth they were secret lovers. Sometime, somewhere, he has always been waiting. Waiting for her.

This is imagination.Helen does not, can not, believe in love.Oh, yes; she loves her daughters. She is bonded to them. To be away from them is necessary grief and sorrow. But her husband was a man she was wary of, and whether he failed her or she failed him is not important except that it taught her the unreality of love. Helen is thirty-one, and she has let go of her illusions. Had them surgically removed in order to survive.

Wednesday is her first practice teaching. Helen has prepared a lesson on the Brontes. Her lesson is well planned. She has audio-visual aids and a handout.Gerard sits benign and smiling in the front row. Standing in front of the class, pretending to be a teacher as they are pretending to be pupils, Helen comes to a halt. Dries up. She can't get going again. Her fellow-students stare at her in self-fearing apprehension, but Gerard folds his arms and stares down at his shoes.

Released, Helen edges out of the room and throws up in the nearest toilet. Then she runs back to her room, to the safety of a locked door.Gerard knocks and speaks her name, but she won't answer. When he is gone, she drops to sudden sleep, waking to a great hunger seventeen hours later. Breakfast is long over and everyone gone to the Main Hall.

Helen settles on the bench beneath the maple tree. A drowsy brightness filters through the claret-coloured leaves and she yawns. Her eyes droop shut, opening as a deeper shadow falls over her.

Gerard has brought her coffee and a doughnut on a bent tin tray. He sits beside her as she eats, talking quietly of nothing in particular. When she is done, he looks at her, and says, "I told the teacher you were taken ill. She's put you down to repeat your lesson next week."

Picking up her hand he spreads out her fingers as if to count them. His own hand is warm and dry. His skin smells warm and clean.Helen shrugs, and smiles. "I can do it."

He smiles back absent-mindedly. "I know." He is still playing with her hand when he invites her to the Friday night disco. Helen nods agreement.Now he faces her directly.

"Why do you hide from me, Helen?"

"I don't know."

Helen does know.She is scared of her feelings.They are what she wanted when she was sixteen, and waiting to be happy. They are what she wanted with her husband. She would like to pull Gerard down with her on the newly-mown grass and slide him into her body. Instead she stares unhappily at the Mount House Annexe and murmurs again, "I don't know."

In two days, dancing in his arms, she will have legitimate reason to press her body against his.Helen's new dress has tiny white flowers scattered on a black ground. Puff sleeves match the ruffled, front-buttoned skirt. Drying herself, her body tingles and her skin feels moist and needy.

Regretfully she covers up her full breasts, and her legs that are long and white.

Later, when the strobe lights flicker, Helen blanks out. Gerard, concerned, takes her back to her room. He follows her in, but refuses tea and coffee. There is no wine.

Helen regards him numbly as he leans against the wall, arms folded tightly across his chest. When she begins to undress he shuts his eyes and flings wide his arms like a man newly crucified. Helen opens up his shirt to push her cold breasts against him. At last his arms close round her, and they lie upon the bed.

And nothing happens. Nothing happens.Twice this man has been made redundant. His wife has taken a lover, thrown him out. He misses his four-year old son. Gerard is a real person, and he has been hurt.

Modestly, and in sorrow, Helen touches him, here and there. First he stares at her, and then, as her hand closes on him, he flings an arm across his face. Helen puts her mouth on him and waits. Now she is open to his power and his belonging.

Afterwards Helen creeps in close. Is he safe? Does he know why she is there? Turning, he draws her to him, his hand curved strongly round her hips. Legs tangle together.They settle into sleep; both happy; both In Love.

(Here I begin to have problems with her text. Is it her, writing the story, or Helen, living it, who decides she can't risk the challenge of his weekends away, visiting his son.Necessarily visiting his wife.Is it her, or is it Helen, so in love her own children are at risk? Helen can now envisage a life without them; she wants nothing but Gerard.)

Helen is scared by how much she wants him; by the days when she's excluded. Days when he drives away to Southampton and she brightly hides her pain and he awkwardly hides his guilt.

Scared.

How will she survive if he goes away for ever? If he's not there to wake to? If she can't join him under the shower, or loll with him in Richmond's daisy meadows?

There are nights when she can't sleep for thinking of him somewhere she is not and she crosses the space between her hostel and the men's to drink wine with Terry.

Beds him, grateful to find there is something left when Gerard isn't around.

(I don't approve of Helen's behaviour, or the fears that swamp her once a month when he's away.)

When Gerard is there, Helen can let go of her fears; those she had when he first knew her; those he brought into her life.Making love with Gerard, Helen can let go.

(I don't approve of Helen's behaviour, but I begin to understand as she unfolds Helen's story. What Helen does with Terry is for insurance; to keep her safe for her daughters, able to continue. I decide to forgive Helen, but can she forgive herself?)

Helen's story is ordinary enough; she was half-ashamed to tell it. Except she knows love must be safely tucked away beneath the covers, converted into myth. Make it real and omnipresent and you'll never live without it.

With Gerard, Helen believes herself to be in heaven. With Gerard, only with Gerard. She is happy, in love.

But Gerard is struggling for a different kind of sense than hers. He tells Helen one night that he can't take his son from Emily, the mother; that he can't live without his son.

Dumb Helen. So it's all over. Gerard, she knows, will go back to Emily. How can Helen fight a four-year old boy?

At the last dance Helen wears bronze silk and Procul Harum sing A Whiter Shade of Pale. Even twenty years later, she can hardly bear to hear them. Helen and Gerard clutch and hold and make little swaying movements.

If he asked her to, she would lie down on the floor and let him take her, take her, take her. Instead, with every other goodbye said, they go back to her room and say their own, storing up a final knowledge of each other.

She must return to York and the daughters in her mother's care.

Standing with him on King's Cross station she carefully guards herself against excess of emotion. She is as fragile as the tissue rose he buys her.

He demonstrates by look and touch his anguished love and guilt. He talks of Brief Encounter. His brown eyes glisten with unshed tears. Helen excuses him; he didn't mean to undo her. Blame it on his sad brown eyes and all those past romances. Next time round she'll get him.

But hush.Gerard is speaking to Helen."Don't think it wasn't really love."

Now she is in the train, and looking down from the window. He grabs her hands and crushes them in his own. "How can you bear to let me go?"

But this is her question. She can't answer it for him. Her hands slip from between his and the train slides away. Helen can fight a grown-up wife; she won't fight a little boy.

(She should end the story here, but she will not. She wants to deal with the pain. When it comes, she cannot make it real.)

Helen has arranged for the girls to go to their father so she can cry without any holding back; howl and scream at midnight and bang with clenched fists on the blank surrounding wall until something snaps in her chest like a rubber band breaking under strain.

For Helen needs Gerard much more than any little boy ever can, ever will.

(Oh, why has she isolated Helen in that grimly dark house? She knows Helen has neighbours, and a mother just across the street. Is it to punish her? Or to make Helen's pain bearable by keeping it private?)

And Gerard doesn't play fair. Won't quite let go. He writes to Helen and Helen writes to him. Sometimes when the 'phone rings in her mother's house, it is him, and they talk for a long time together.

A line in his letter haunts her. "I do love you, Helen, but Jeez! you are a burden sometimes."

Years later - loved again, if not loving - she can understand. He is expressing his guilt as concern about her; he wants to be free of the worry.

Years later, and she still can't understand. Did he know what he threw away?

For he can't quite let go.

The first day is over in Helen's new job. She comes out, tired and drained, and he is there. In the rented cottage that waits for her children he makes love to her again. Her body remembers, arches beneath his; calls out and is comforted.

In the morning he is gone.He 'phones a few weeks later to plan a stay in London. She puts in her overnight bag a peach nightdress as new as the toothbrush she has bought. But when they meet he is gloomy and cuts the day short. Helen, embarrassed, hides the bag under the seat.

No pattern is formed by his visits. Sometimes he will love her, sometimes he will not; and never does it depend on what she is or what she does.
Beneath continuing sadness, Helen is beginning to learn anger. But you mustn't mix love with anger, and she presses it down.

The college reunion is coming up. One full year since they left that life behind. Gerard says he wants her with him. Yes. Oh yes.

Only five days later he admits his wife has decided to attend; and she has every right to. Helen has made herself a culotte dress in white and gold. She has bought a gold belt and gold sandals.

She gives them all away. She gives away the bronze gown and the black frock scattered all over with tiny white blossoms. She gives away the peach silk nightdress, but keeps the toothbrush. The bristles are worn down already.

On the night of the dance, Helen can't bear to be alone. There's a man who works with her, and she invites him to the house. Next month her children will return: tonight she is alone, and Helen can't bear to be alone.

The man surprises her. Being a man who knows women's bodies, he makes it possible to find something at least without Gerard. Helen doesn't understand, though a fleeting memory of Terry crosses her mind. She needs time to work it out. What is the difference that makes a thing love if she can find a splendid passion with a stranger? Why does she still want Gerard?

She has dreamed of him, waking with wet eyes as the alarm buzzes and they've only just begun to climb the stairs together.

The man asks to return; Helen puts him off. Soon she will have her children back as shield and excuse. She can hide away and think about it. Does she want the shadow if she cannot have the substance?

There is another problem.Helen is pregnant, and it isn't Gerard's baby. That is sorrow, too.The man has talked about his own unhappy childhood. He will never marry, he says, but someday he would like a child. Helen is scared. She cannot keep this baby; there's no excuse for it.

If the man will take it, she will care for the baby until it's old enough to go to him. Oh, yes, she can give it up. Helen has learned the hard way how to let go.She sees the man crossing the courtyard at work. She tells him she is pregnant. He is mildly curious. "Who's the father?" he asks, and Helen walks away.

That night the man comes round, and finally believes it is his baby. But he doesn't want it. She mustn't have it.

Helen agrees to an abortion. This isn't Gerard's baby and she has her other children to consider. She must do the right thing.

Before she goes into hospital she dreams of babies dropping from her body to be sliced in bloody pieces on the floor. The man is tender and regretful. He drives her to the hospital and leaves her to it.

After the act, he comes visiting, along with the fathers. He brings flowers and an uneasy smile. He is a man who wants to be liked; he is very likeable. Helen doesn't hate him, though she does wish he had meant what he said.

Back home and he is there, holding her through the bad dream that will repeat over and over in the years ahead. Endless babies born to death.

Four days later her other children return. Helen fears her mother's sharp eyes; fears that a sour justice will deprive her of her daughters. She washes up the dishes after the long evening meal, her insides hot and aching as she leans against the sink. She doesn't feel the sadness; can't stop the tears that fall and fall into the water.

(She should end the story here, but she's not quite ready to. She wants to record that last telephone call when Gerard tells Helen that he and Emily have a new daughter whose name will be Victoria Helen. She wants to record the silence before Helen puts down the 'phone.)

Now his love letters are burning and hot ashes drift on the wind. Men come and go. She can't record them all.

Shaping how she will tell her story, she sits alone in the drab and dreary room. Twenty years behind her. Time to let Helen go and learn to be happy again.

Once she thought the story was for him, forcing a share of Helen's pain and guilt.

Now she understands it's for herself that she has set it down. She stretches out and lays aside her pen. It is done. She has made of Helen's tragedy a commonplace story with ordinary characters, unimportant acts.The night is ended. Today she will move on.

(She picks up the pages of her story and begins to read them through.)

© Jenny Argante

Boxed

You made your decision thirty years ago.
I acquiesced, & every day was seasoned
with a thought of you. But the brain
won’t dream to order. Like the man
who loved Cynara, I was faithful
- in my fashion.

Nights would have been desolate
without those trivial consolations.

I’d check you out
in this year’s telephone book to see
if you were living at the same address,
& there you were, fixed & resolute,
cocooned & rounding,
something different
from what you should have been,
& I, the restless anchorite,
finding new prisons
everywhere I go
instead of building home
& sanctuary.

You told me once before I came out here
- the distance
still not far enough -
you had a box you dared not keep
at home. I wonder what went in it,
want to know
how you have codified me, what souvenirs,
what elements of air & fire & steam
have grounded me
within your definitions;
& whyI failed to be
enough to satisfy.

I am in the box
where you have placed me.

You said that I should talk
& open up
the floodgates of memory & desire. My dear,
floodgates are there to keep the depths
from drowning us, & memory is
a sharp master, desire a raging tool.

Beyond the floodgates there could be
truth, honesty – a moving-on
together, alone:
or pain so keen & bitter
it could terminate a life.

And yet inside the box
the girl who once was me
is still anticipating,
so unlike this old grey moth
I’ve faded to
whose candle has gone out,
& who has long forgotten
how light & heat can draw us fatally
to unwise explorations.

© Jenny Argante

posted by Jenny Argante @ 2:32 AM 0 comments

Conversations with a creativity coach

21 October 2005
From JA (writer) to PV (creativity coach)

I am so pleased to be your subject while you train as a creativity coach. The creative challenges I would like to address are how best to fulfil my long-withheld ambition of becoming a well-known published writer in my third age. The main blocks to this are: doing too much childcare for my daughter - and being unable to say No to her; struggles with the IRD that I allow to crush me; gradually phasing out unpaid or commissioned work - of which I do plenty so I can do the writing that is locked inside me. I have had enough successes to know I have the ability to write - it is focus and putting me first that is missing. Also some block that makes me fear success.

I have even considered exploring this block under hypnosis and it seems to be centred round, "How will I know I am loved as me alone if I become rich and famous?" Significant others in my life have withheld love and praise when I needed it and now I am a greedy and fearful child within this sane and competent exterior. I hope that gives you something interesting to work on, and I look forward to what we can achieve together. I am honoured and delighted to be given this opportunity. Thank you - and thank Eric Maisel.October 20, 2005 My name is PV and I am training under Eric Maisel to become a Creativity Coach. Each of the creativity coaches-in-training was given a list of 165 individuals and the information that they initially provided to Eric. You are on my list of people that I asked to work with--so I am happy to learn that you were assigned to me. I look forward to working with you for the next 16 weeks. I am interested in learning more about you and your creative life. What creative challenges would you like to address during the coaching process and do you have a sense of how you would like to proceed? Thank you for giving me the opportunity to develop my skills as a creativity coach. I hope you find the process rewarding as well as fun. I look forward to hearing from you.

23 October 2005
From JA to PV

I feel as if I am presently TOTALLY RUSHED and ignoring you. Please hold on - you're not forgotten. I am just 'doing' Bravado send-outs and end of term assessment marking and deadlines, etc. Total productivity – with two weeks free of childcare as my son-in-law has been on leave, and there's a message in there somewhere. No time for anything else until the weekend when I will report it.

When will it end, O Lord? And why didn't I start all this when I still had my youth and strength. And boy, does it feel good to PRODUCE.

26 October 2005
From PV to JA

It is good to hear back from you. I'm glad that you are excited about working with me as your creativity coach-in-training. I definitely think we will have interesting things to work on, and I hope you find our association beneficial. Thank you for telling me more about yourself in your response. It sounds as though you are doing a number of things right now for other people--child care for your daughter, volunteer and unpaid work, and some commissioned pieces as well.

Would you give me an idea of what a typical day (or typical week--whichever you think would give me the best idea of how you spend your time) looks like for you? You also said that significant others in your life have withheld love and praise from you in the past and now you see yourself as "a greedy and fearful child."

Would you be willing to elaborate on that? Do you have supportive people in your life at present or is this still an area where you experience a void? I have another question. I live in the United States and am not familiar with the IRD to which you refer in reference to your daughter. As we go along, I may have other questions of that nature. I hope you don't mind. And if I say something that does not make sense to you for any reason, please feel free to ask for clarification.

As to the structure of our continuing communication, I would like to suggest that you email me whenever you want and write as long or as short a message as you wish. I will respond to your emails twice a week. This will you allow you to write when you feel the need and will give me time to thoughtfully respond to you. I look forward to working together. P.


October 26 2005
JA to PV

First of all, every day I have a commitment to go online and check out my students' progress on the Waiariki IT Certificate in Creative Writing course. That could be as little as 10 or as much as 40 minutes, and that is paid work, and I designed the course, and I am proud of it, and it is important to me.

On Monday I am a volunteer at the Tauranga Environment Centre. I have been setting up a learning resource unit for them - the EnviroLibrary - and didn't really want to do that past the New Year. So I am trying frantically to get all the backlog cleared, and train the volunteers in how to classify and catalogue, and how to use the Staff Manual to do jobs right. The problem for me is that they ARE volunteers, and one particularly is an old lady, obviously there for companionship, who keeps making messes I have to clear up and who talk-talk-talks until I could strangle her. Either I have got to redirect her to wok she can do, or get rid of her, as she is a major block to my freedom from TEC.

On Monday night I go to my daughter's overnight, and I am there for a rushed morning of getting herself to work, three children to school and Rosamund aged three to kindergarten. I do childcare also on Wednesday from 8.20 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. - and through the school holidays - and again on Friday 8.20 to 1 p.m. I am also often asked to babysit for special occasions, and these I have no problem with. I told Andria, my daughter, I would NOT babysit past Rosamund being three - which happened on 1st October - and still here I am.

I have foot and knee damage from an accident and I had determined to be a writer in my Third Age and I can't seem to say No to Andria because they need the money from her work, and because I like to see my child happy. Thursday is supposed to be absolutely free for writing and because of commitments on other days often ends up being stolen for professional meetings, workshops, etc. I need a stretch of time guaranteed and regular to achieve what I want to do.

Here are my other regular commitments:

I teach on 5 modules a year for Waiariki, 6 weeks, paid for as 25 hours for the six weeks and ALWAYS extending beyond that. PAID WORK.
I am Secretary of Tauranga Writers and create all the material for the monthly Newsletter, which is ongoing. UNPAID WORK.
I am co-ordinating editor for Bravado, a literary arts magazine and cannot get people to keep to schedule so I can plan around publication dates which are never on time. We seem to stagger from crisis to crisis and I got the funding so I feel responsible if we don't achieve what we got the funding for. UNPAID WORK
I organise poetry readings monthly as Bravado @ Browsers - Poetry Live in the Bay! and do all the getting poets, creating posters, PR and promo. UNPAID WORK.
I attend Poets Parlour monthly and because I am a teacher of creative writer end up as the main adviser to beginning poets so that I feel I am giving and giving and never getting back. UNPAID WORK.
I try and send out at least six pieces of work a month, most of which is accepted - overseas - I have not cracked the New Zealand market or won a major competition mainly because my own personal work is rushed and done at the expense of the other things I do. This builds up so much resentment I find I can't work even when I have a few hours free. I sleep badly, and I am overweight and easily tired and I have no energy left to deal with this. I am a superb writer and editor who is operating below par and under so much 'stressure' I am close to giving up my dreams and WHY SHOULD I?

I have waited so long and so patiently to be a writer, and boy! am I good. That I DO know. (Would you like a sample of my work?)

I keep turning down PAID WORK because these external (non-writing) commitments make me unsure I can deliver as promised and that to me would be unprofessional. A typical week is running round like a blue-arsed fly castigating myself for not saying No and for letting other people rule my days. The supportive people in my life are a wise and wonderful elder sister, and a writing buddy who is both friend and mentor. I also have two cats who are great tranquillisers when I get stressed out. I am a twin to a brother and that has shaped me, I believe...

I have often wondered about whether rebirthing or regression hypnotherapy would help. I am a word person in a family of magicians. I am Blabbermouth in the land of the silent. I am scapegoat. I am poor so they can be rich. I am story, parable, the Bad Girl, unreasonable, irrational and 'mad' - strangely enough I am NOT the one in the madhouse, and although my father never let me drive his car - 'because I might crash it' - my sister wrote off the family car and was never banned from driving the next one bought!!

Go figure. I am tired of being defined by others, or by circumstances. I am ready to be a STAR.

IRD is the Inland Revenue Department (your IRS) - BAD people to cross. And I have put my head up above the parapet in running The Equity Campaign to highlight pension abuse and discrimination in New Zealand. So they have dipped into my bank account and taken cash without warning, imposed punitive interest and penalties - I never know whether I owe e.g. $NZ8000 or $NZ3500.

I am happy with the arrangement you propose and I am happy to answer any question at any time.

29 October 2005
From PV to JA

You are a very busy woman!
Several statements that you made really grabbed my attention. They are:

"I feel I am giving and giving and never getting back."
"I am a superb writer and editor who is operating below par and under so much 'stressure' I am close to giving up my dreams and WHY SHOULD I? I have waited so long and so patiently to be a writer, and boy! am I good. That I DO know."
"A typical week is running round like a blue-arsed fly castigating myself for not saying No and for letting other people rule my days.""I am tired of being defined by others, or by circumstances. I am ready to be a STAR."
"Thursday is...to be absolutely free for writing and...often ends up being stolen...."

I wonder which of the many activities--paid or unpaid--professional or personal--you would be willing to let go of in order to keep your Thursday from being stolen?
I am curious to know what stage of the creative process you are in on your books, The Crafty Entrepreneur and The Poetry Activity Book? I look forward to hearing from you.

29 October 2005
From JA to PV
Sorry I've been out of touch. The first year-long Certificate in Creative Writing course ends this week, and it has been an astounding success. To get everyone's certificates out meant we had to mark all the assessments as soon as they came in.

Also, I've had two weeks free of childcare and managed to get some good writing done. I am not teaching now until March 2006, and Rosamund has been accepted for kindergarten THREE mornings a week, so I want to focus on three projects:

completing Under a Different Moon - a novel, first draft
completing A Double Helping of Poetry Pudding, compilation of poems for children
organising synopsis, and three sample chapters of The Poetry Activity Book

I also want to do more interviews as I have had an excellent response to the three I just did, and they pay well. And I need to address health issues and my addiction to Freecell...

3 November 2005
JA to PV

I sat down yesterday and wrote this as the basis for a That's Life! submission. I thought it had interesting things in it that would help with the creativity coaching. If they publish, perhaps we can add details of the creativity coaching as a sidebar? When we were girls in England my sister and I loved reading and we used to go three or four times a week to the library. We read books like Forever Amber and Scaramouche, rollicking tales of love and adventure.

A long-term favourite of mine was Green Dolphin Country by Elizabeth Goudge, a love story set in 19th century New Zealand. I longed to write books like that, and to go to New Zealand. “I want to be a writer when I grow up", I said to Sheila as we walked home with our arms full. But in a family of mathemagicians, word wizardry was not appreciated. I was always first or second in class but Dad would run his finger down my report card until he came to mathematics, and bawl me out when he saw the usual F for failed.

In secret I wrote stories and poems that I never showed to a soul. "You're fond of books", said the careers teacher, "why don't you try library work?” So at 17 I became a library assistant, at 20 I got married, and at 26 I got divorced. My first husband was an airline pilot who resented the time I spent scribbling as much as I resented the time he spent away from home, and with other women. One day he burned all my stories and poems and I burned all his love letters in retaliation. No happy ending for us.

Now I was a single mother of two daughters, busy training first as a chartered librarian and then as a teacher. I was doing plenty of writing, but not the sort I dreamed of - course notes, essays and a thesis; annual reports and committee minutes, and resources for classroom learning. From time to time I wrote the occasional article that was published, unpaid, in a professional journal. My girls were 12 and 14 when I got married again.

Allen had two children from a previous marriage and his own dream - to be an artist. Like lots of women, I found it easier to help someone else get what they wanted than to get it for myself. Soon Allen was off to art school in Stafford and within two years the uncomplicated man I'd met when he worked on the shop floor at Cowley was an Artist in a smock, earning a living as a ceramic sculptor. Allen took up pipe-smoking and grew a beard. He was now 'a free soul' who left worrying about our four kids and how to pay the bills to me. His son was a disturbed child, and that marriage ended when Jeremy attacked my youngest daughter with a knife.

The house bought with my superannuation (taken out early) was sold and I had to split the proceeds with Allen. Starting over was hard work, and once again I put my dreams on hold. During my time with Allen I had written two romance novels as 'Jane Harmer' that were published by Robert Hale, but I knew that kind of writing was not for me. When I left Allen and moved to Wolverhampton, I got involved with a women's writing co-operative that published a monthly magazine called Distaff. The other editors inspired me to create new poems and stories. Some I sent to magazines and competition and I had enough success to encourage me to go on.

But there was never enough time left over from working to seriously engage with writing.To be a writer is hard. You have to be able to deal with rejection, and, if poetry's your thing, with the problems of small press publication. Like having a book launch organized in London and the publisher rings you up on the day and says, "Sorry, Jenny, they're not ready. I ran out of money." My friends and I got to work frantically and put together a set of 12 broadsheets and a presentation of words and music to keep the punters happy. We took orders for Writing in the Cracks Between (Aquila) and the book finally came out six weeks later.

About this time I met and married Malcolm. "I've been married twice before", I told him. "I don't think I could stand another marriage break-up. So be very sure that you want to last the course." Malcolm was a good man, a lay preacher, who worked hard for Oxfam and Amnesty and the Hunger Project. I found myself driving him to distant towns and villages to take church services. I did the Bible readings for him. "You don't need a microphone", said the old men, admiringly. My writing skills were put to good use - sermons and reports on meetings, letters concerning political prisoners, funding applications and project plans.

I was still working full-time as a teacher-librarian, which also involved much writing. I had given up writing poetry after the book launch that didn't happen, and rarely found time to sit down and create a character, work out a plot, and write the stories that still crowded my brain. I wanted to build a home with Malcolm, but he had his own ideas on that. "People should live in bedsits", he would say, "or in communes. You should buy wallpaper you don't like and train yourself to like it". He would give away large sums to anyone in need, but to get any housekeeping money from him was an impossible task. He bought his clothes from op shops and his favourite breakfast was leftover spaghetti, eaten cold. Once when I threw out a baked potato for the birds he ran down the garden and got it back. He brushed off the dirt and grass and had it for his tea. After four years, we parted, and five years later I finally brought myself to sign the decree nisi. We still love each other, and we're better apart.

My girls were grown up. Gina earned good money in the catering business, and Andria was doing an arts degree when I moved to London to start a new job. I was clinically depressed and writing was something I had put aside and forgotten. That dream, I thought, had died. I ended up working for HRH Consensus as a freelance abstractor, producing online information bulletins for clients like Hewlett Packard, Ricoh and the World Wildlife Fund. We had a client brief for each of them, and our team would start work at 6 a.m. and cut out stories and reduce them to a brief paragraph under different headings to be on the client's desk by noon. We worked under pressure, and there was one young guy there who kept us sane.

Leslie was the first to help if you had a computer shut down, or couldn't work out if a story should be in and out. Leslie would go out at 9 a.m. and come back with croissants and hot coffee to keep us going. Leslie was first to finish and would immediately help whoever was lagging behind. Leslie was also dark and good-looking, and a New Zealander far away from home. I told Joanna who also worked at Consensus, "That's exactly the sort of young man I'd like one of my girls to marry."

A few months later I wanted to go to America and stay two months with my sister, still my best friend, still a reader like me, and struggling with her own sorrow at losing a daughter, Adrienne, to a brain tumour. I asked my boss if I could train Andria to take over my job for two months, and she agreed. The company paid me to train Andria and paid Andria while she was training. She had finished her arts degree and needed the cash and took to the work like a duck to water. I flew off to Colorado and came back to find Leslie had moved in with Andria and I was out of a job! They preferred my daughter to me and that was OK - I was soon working happily elsewhere. Andria and Leslie got married and first George was born and then Sam. I was the happiest grandma in the world and found out the real goodness of Andria and Leslie as they loved and cared for their boys and for me following a serious back operation that put me out of work.

Dad died and I moved home to York to be near my mother, who, sadly, died less than a year later. Then Andria told me Leslie was homesick and wanted to go back to New Zealand, and now that her beloved grandparents were gone, she had agreed to go with him and start a new life in Godzone. Gina and I waved them goodbye. "You can join them when you retire", said Gina. "I don't want kids and I do like to travel. I can come and see you there."

I flew out for a visit when Lilian was born, and I liked what I saw of New Zealand. I came home to my job in York Hospital, 20 hours a week only because of the back problems that prevented me working full-time. I got a computer and rediscovered writing. I set up a Women & Words writing circle that is still growing strong. I did the occasional piece, but mainly I helped other women write. Women & Words met monthly in York's historic Red House and I was coming away from there one sunny day in August when I tripped over a small irregularity in the pavement and into disaster.

I fell diagonally with my whole weight across my left ankle. I heard it crack and the pain was excruciating. But that wasn't all. I was wearing expensive sandals with Velcro ankle straps. The strap on my right ankle burst open under pressure, but the strap on my left ankle did not. The leather was literally cutting into my ankle and as I lay there screaming I could see white bone and ligaments curling back and red blood spouting. Japanese tourists were taking photos and my friends came running. The paramedics arrived eight minutes later - the longest eight minutes in my life. One of them was kneeling on the ground and I asked the other what he was doing. "Picking up bone", she said.

I had three operations to save the foot which is now reattached with three titanium rods to keep it in place. I told the surgeon who performed this miracle, "I love you and I want to have your baby, but we'll have to go to Italy." (A woman of 60+ had just given birth in Milan.) Recuperation was a slow and painful process and Gina suggested I went to New Zealand to recover. When I agreed, she bought me a return ticket and put me on the plane. I needed a new passport before I could go, and when the application form turned up some impulse took hold of me. Where it asked for occupation, I wrote 'Writer'.

That was a bold step for a woman in her 50s who had tried and failed for so long. I’ve now been out here five years. I joined Tauranga Writers and met Sue Emms, a short story writer and novelist. Sue became my best friend and writing mentor, and a continuing inspiration. Within six weeks of landing I sold a story, Green, to New Zealand Women's Weekly. Within six months I won prizes in the Friends of Whakatane Short Story Competition and the Takahe Cultural Studies Essay Competition. I enrolled on the Whitireia online creative writing course to learn 'to write Kiwi', doing a Poetry module and Short Fiction 1 and 2.

Within a year I had poems and stories published in Poetry New Zealand, Blackmail Press, Magazine, Catalyst and other publications. I sold work in the UK and America. I was newsletter editor for the New Zealand Poetry Society for a year, and I do regular book reviews for different papers. I'm secretary of Tauranga Writers - visit out website at www.taurangawriters.org.nz.

Usually it's me who writes our Saturday column in the Bay of Plenty Times, the Write Place. Last year Hen Enterprises published Constructive Editing and in 2006 Peapod Press will bring out The Crafty Entrepreneur. For two years I've been part of the Editorial Collective that produces Bravado, a literary arts magazine from the Bay of Plenty that this year secured substantial funding from Creative New Zealand. (Yes, I wrote the application!) I'm a creative writing tutor at Wairaiki Institute of Technology in Rotorua and this weekend I'm off to run a seminar on memoir for the Rotorua Writers WORDshop.

Living and working in New Zealand is not all joy. I often long to go back if only to say a proper goodbye to family and friends as I could not do when I left. It's so many miles away when things go wrong. Gina's first husband died only six weeks after I got here and there was no way I could return for the funeral. I also hate the IRD. We're mutually incompatible and I resent the time and energy it takes to keep them off my back and how they can dip into my bank account and help themselves whenever they feel like it. I am fighting the Equity Campaign alongside many other expat pensioners here and in Australia who lose out on income simply because a son or daughter fell in love with a Kiwi or Coker.

But if home is where your heart is, then I'm where I ought to be. Tauranga, simply put, is where I want to live and die. And Kiwis are amongst the kindest people in the world, as I first learned from Leslie. Finally, this year, I finished a novel that I've long wanted to write. Roads has been entered for the Richard Webster Popular Fiction Award. I don't know yet who has won, but it's probably not me, as this love story is set in the Midlands (UK). But merely to sit down and finish something that is 60,000 words long has been worthwhile.

I'm now working on another book, Under a Different Moon, set in 1965. The action takes place between Auckland, Denver and Taos (New Mexico) - all places I know. The heroine Meredith is a Kiwi girl whose mother's wartime marriage to a US Marine did not work out. (I know about failed marriages, too.) The hero Joel is madly sexy and I love him to bits. He's half all-American boy and half Zuni warrior, a devastating combination that Meredith simply can not resist. I still do too much for other people, especially childcare for Andria who has now had her 4th - and last - child, Rosamund.

Will I finally make it big-time as a writer? Yes, that's possible now I have resurrected my dreams. And signed up with a creativity coach to help make those dreams come true.

10 November 2005
PV to JA

I enjoyed reading about you and your life and what brought you to New Zealand. When your article gets published, if you still think a sidebar about creativity coaching is appropriate, I think that is a good idea. It sounds as though you have set your dreams aside many times to help others achieve theirs. I certainly support you at this time in your life to put yourself first and to follow your dreams.

With that goal in mind, I am wondering if you managed to keep last Thursday for yourself to dedicate to your writing? And how about today? Have you kept it open for yourself and your writing? As an alternative, what do you think about writing first thing each morning for an hour rather than dedicating one day a week? I look forward to hearing from you.

12 November 2005
JA to PV

OK, well, fate has thrown a spanner in the works and I have got to decide if I want to go for it or not. I've been asked to do a biography of a 99 year old who has contributed a great deal to New Zealand history. He is bright, and it is hard work, and it is highly paid. I am waiting for a final decision on that by the client, and a final decision also by me, and then I will be able to prepare my timeline. It means a lump sum that could free me up for private writing, but it also means a commitment to an imposed project for six months.

15 November
JA to PV

I have sold two of the three interviews that I did already. That's good, isn't it?
An undisclosed goal? Nothing to do with writing. I don't think I have fear of writing anymore. Exasperation at wasting so much time, perhaps. I have let go of two dreams - being the next Poet Laureate isn't going to happen now, and I am beginning to think I have left it too long to engage fully with the kind of 'big' novel I always meant to write.

However, I do know that it is writing that is important - saying something, and finding a way to say it clearly and well. Yes, I am sad some of those characters I imagined won't come to life, are stillborn in my brain; but making a living from writing is going to be the real achievement, and perhaps even making enough money to beat the tax man into submission and live a comfortable Third Age.

I have been a phoenix all my life, rising from the ashes, and I began to fear I was nothing but a hologram phoenix. I am hoping I will find the energy - and the flames - to rise one more time...

Those unstated dreams? Well, I'd like to be slim again - I'd sure look better in my evening dress when I collect the Nobel Prize for Literature! I'd like my ex-husband to decide he does love me enough to start over here in New Zealand with me. And I'd like the metal rods out of my ankle and to be 'Dynamo' once more.

That ain't going to happen, P., and I'd rather stay with the possible dreams.
6 December 2005
From PV to JA

You have an excellent list of goals that you have put together! I just want to check into one thing before we go on to figure out how you will reach these goals. Is there a goal that you did not put on your list that is at least as important as the others--maybe something you left off because of fear, disappointment, or for any other reason?

I am curious to hear how you have prioritized the goals that you mentioned in your email. Which one is at the top of your list? How is your new schedule working out? I look forward to hearing from you.

12 December 2005
JA to PV

The pros - big bucks. The cons - a morbid fear of boredom. People's 'fascinating life stories' are usually not, and it is hard work spinning gold from straw. I am getting good responses to the poetry compilation I put together, A Double Helping of Poetry Pudding (for children 9-13) and it would make great sense to bring out The Poetry Activity Book (on the writing of poetry) at the same time. That is my work, and it is all done on spec - i.e. without income, only expenditure...

And so ...Feel the fear and do it anyway? What do you think, P?

13 December 2005
PV to JA

Congratulations! You say you need to make a final decision as to whether or not you want to do this. I am curious--what do you see as the pros? the cons?

14 December 2005
PV to JA

I think you're on the right track. It sounds like your real love is the poetry books and it sounds as though you are working on the activity book--or planning to. Can you do both projects simultaneously--the poetry and the life stories? You are right--feel the fear and do it anyway. What do you think?

26 December 2005
JA to PV

Now the holiday is over, it's back to work. I have completed an outline and chapter contents, and the first chapter, for The Poetry Activity Book. This first chapter is so good it is inhibiting me from writing Chapter 2 ... Do you understand that daft statement? I teach a course on How to Read and Write Poetry for Waiariki Institute of Technology, so until I get my nerve back for Chapter 2, I will copy and paste relevant sections into relevant chapters for later revising, rewriting, additions and amendments.

I have signed the contract to do the life story, as I need the money, but we have limited it to 15000 words, and to being an intensive 3-month project as memoir rather than a 1-year ongoing 'biography'. I have also got the family organised to put their own material into folders that match my chosen topics through which to tell his story, and this will save me time, too. I need to give up more free work, and to stop playing Freecell. Do you have any electric shock aversion therapy you can use for Freecell addicts?

If I give up Freecell, I can start a weblog and my audience can then take over the role of creativity coach - as when I publicly state I am going to do something, pride forces me to do it. Promises I make only to myself are too easily broken. If you want to read that magnificent first chapter, let me know ... Perhaps you can convince me it's not so wonderful after all and free me up to do 2 and 3 and 4 and ...

28 December 2005
From JA to PV

Freecell is online solitaire and it is addictive. You win with a low score and I have never got lower than 4. I wanted to be 1 before I quit, but it gets harder the nearer you are to getting the score down to zero ... so come January 1st I am going to quit cold turkey. I talked to my friend S. about getting on with the book, and she reminded me I already had the content - on my 6-week course How to Read and Write Poetry - and that I was the best editor she knew so once it was down I could make it as different and good as I needed it to be.

This was exactly what I needed to hear, and I have now downloaded all the content of my course, and will print that out, and the chapter outlines and see what can go in where as a starter.

First chapters often come out best because of the thrill of starting a new chapter, and because of your passion to convince yourself and others you, too, "can making something good, and joy in the making." S. also told me I am better at starting things than finishing them and this is the pattern I must change. So there is no unfinished work anywhere on my schedule except the poetry book and the memoir, which are scheduled for 2006 anyway. Of course you don't need to read it - that might have been ego talking. Ego never knows when to shut up.

No, I haven't quite worked out what 'free work' to give up. Probably better to simply say no in the future and watch it decline that way. And I did consider what you said about a weblog being another diversion from writing activities, and I also considered my nature. If I am in the public arena, I perform better because of that side of me which is exuberant and extrovert. So by announcing I intend to finish, e.g. Chapter 2, online by such and such a date, I will.

Because I don't like others knowing how indecisive I am, and how things hang around and sap my energy. This is the pattern I am trying to break, and I think the weblog will help with that. I am also hoping that given users' insatiable appetite for showing off what they know and how people are drawn to 'work in progress' and the idea of contributing to it, I might want to ask the weblog visitors for help. For example, I want strange and little known facts about poets and poetry as 'discovery inserts' in the book.

I am trying to get hold of an out of print book, Literary Curiosities (Penguin) that was choc a bloc with them, but most of us have a few odd facts tucked away in our brainboxes, so it seemed I could see what visitors came up with ...The weblog becomes easier right now because I have a friend who can help me do it at first, take me by the hand and lead me to the weblog land ... P., you have helped enormously. Happy New Year.

29 December 2005
From PV to JA

Congratulations on negotiating what sounds like a good format and schedule for the memoir and for completing the first chapter of y our poetry book. I'm glad to hear that completing the first chapter has not stopped you from continuing to work on this project, even though you don't feel ready to start the second chapter.

Would starting another chapter before Chapter 2 be helpful? I wonder why writing a great first chapter is inhibiting writing the next chapter. As you know, creating is hard work and challenging. Perhaps you could just "go for it" and see what happens. As to reading your first chapter, my role as a creativity coach is not to be a critic but to help you discover your dreams and keep you motivated. It is not necessary for our process for me to read it as I trust your judgment that it is magnificent.

Do you know what free work you want to give up? and are you ready to do proceed with that plan? It sounds like a good one as it will give you more time to do your own creative process.

I do not know what Freecell is. Starting a weblog sounds interesting, although I am wondering if it would be another diversion from participating in your writing activities on a more committed basis? Happy New Year to you! P.

3 January 2006
From PV to JA

Happy New Year indeed. It sounds like you have lined up a lot of support for yourself and your creative activities for the new year and that you have good plans ready to be put into action. I support your decision to stop Freecell cold turkey. I was once addicted to a solitaire game on my computer and I had to erase the program from my hard drive. I was very compulsive and often stayed up all night playing it without realizing what I was doing until dawn when it began to get light outside. I never regretted that decision and I haven't missed it (and that was 7 years ago.)

The weblog idea sounds like it will work for you. I'm glad to hear that I have been helpful. Let me know how things are going for you this first week in the new year.

27 January 2006
PV to JA
Next week is our last week together. I have not been to your blog site yet. Were you waiting to hear from me on that? Is there anything else you would like to cover before we finish? I hope this was of some help to you. I have learned from this experience that I find it easier to meet with someone in person rather than through emails. How was the experience for you? Do you think phone calls would have been more helpful? Please give me any feedback--good or bad--that you have. It would be helpful. I have enjoyed communicating with you and wish you the very best. I look forward to reading one of your published books in the future. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and any other topics you want to tackle. P.

31 January 2006
From JA to PV

I hear what you say about e-mailing not being as effective as person-to-person. I sure would like to meet you and say hello! I have found out my biggest problem is getting sidetracked by rage, which you will understand if you DO go to my weblog, and check out Insane Rant About the IRD under Miscellany ... (Perhaps better not.)

I am difficult to track down by phone, and not especially good at talking on the phone, so that wouldn't be a good alternative for me - and who'd pay for the calls? I found you focused and positive, and would certainly choose you as a creativity coach if I were to proceed with one, and if we lived closer.

Because I agree with you, face to face works better! And you did do me some good - I have got two manuscripts out there, and about five articles booked from editors. So I know I can do it, and have no excuses not to.

Thank you very much, P.

posted by Jenny Argante @ 3:21 AM 0 comments