Erm, not a lot of fun to report, so it's a good thing that most of the subscribers to this blog seem to like me. On Saturday, I drove up to a place I have come to love, on the coast in the south part of Mendocino County. The intent was to get away with my fab five (dogs, that is) and spend nights in a place where sleep is a given. The house I have stayed in lives on a ridge, where the sun shines even on foggy coastal days. In fact, I've been so enamored of the place that I have been contemplating a move there - that may now be moot, but more about that later. Or not.
I have also started a novel - to write one, that is. This is odd because not only have I never written fiction before, I don't read it. The last novel I willingly read was Keri Hulme's 'Bone People' which shocked and upset me, and took me six months to get through. Before that I think it was the force fed diet of my english grammar school....Chaucer's 'Troilus and Cressida', 'Hamlet' by Will what's his name, perennial educational fare 'Animal Farm' and '1984' and Graham Greene's astonishing novel about Catholic guilt, redemption and death: 'The Power and The Glory'.
So, I have been writing a novel - inspired by the potency of this small town and the area that I have fallen orgasmically in lust with, not to mention the owner of the house with whom I had fallen hopelessly in love. The first sight I ever had of the ridge was on a bright sunny day last July, and as she drove me to her paradise, I was enthralled by the firs growing out of the yellow clay contrasted with the rich creamy blue of the summer sky. It reminded me a little of Tuscany, a little more of the land outside Adelaide. Whatever, it tugged at me with a sweet siren call.
My novel writing started auspiciously enough but has suffered in recent weeks from lethargy, depression and tragedy. Recently, I worried that I wasn't writing enough - so I went to Barnes and Noble with a friend and we stood, counting the words in the current 'New Fiction' books, just to make sure I was on track....
But last week as I headed north, I had wanted to write, and with the rain still slapping forcefully on the tin roof, it was a perfect time to sit in front of the computer and do just that.
But in the intervening days I have had to make a decision to euthanise two dogs that I loved, and to care for the tiny love of my days, Roo (a papillon mix), who was almost mauled to death by them.
And when I thought that perhaps this deep feeling of guilt, shame, and horror at the actions of the two dogs and my actions thereafter, would make good fodder for my book, I found myself recoiling from the very thought that I would write bad things about animals....either them doing bad things or my doing bad things to them. How strange.
I know some things: that I will never forgive myself for their deaths, even though I believe it was an inevitable decision, that Roo may never be the same fearless spirit she was until Easter Sunday morning, and that I will never again make a joke about it being Passover and therefore, as a Jew, most things would pass me by. Perhaps being only half a Jew this really doesn't work.
And then, on the drive back to the Bay Area, while the smell of death lingered in Gualala, I passed a clean cut youngish man driving a pale yellow modern era Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and I swear - as he passed he made the sign of the cross while looking at me. Was this redemption on the road to Damascus or Santa Rosa? He didn't smile, he didn't stare. He just seemed to exist, and disappear.
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