Visionboarding & Organization
Author: Terah Van Dusen
Writer of essays, poetry and memoir.
SPARK Project: A Fortune Teller Once Told Me (True Story)
Here’s my submission for SPARK. My partner Helen will respond with a photograph inspired by the piece. You may or may not remember this poem but it made an appearance on my blog many moons ago. Enjoy! I hope some folks are considering learning more about SPARK–you can participate in the project from anywhere.
A Fortune Teller Once Told Me (True Story)
By Terah Van Dusen
Several years ago
I had a psychic reading
Not at one of those hole-in-the-wall places
with the flashing lights
and crystal balls
It was done in my living room
My former roommate, Sydney, had her future read frequently
Sydney had the same lady come over to our house
oh, every couple months or so
Always when nobody was home
I don’t remember how it was arranged
but the next thing you knew,
I too was signed up for a reading
Sydney promised not to tell the “medium” a thing about me
That way we could insure accuracy
The medium didn’t wear a long, flouncy dress
Or bring a satchel full of rocks and crystals,
She showed up in her Subaru car,
dressed in a North Face pullover and jeans
Said to me, this isn’t my day job
We sat facing each other in the quiet house
Nobody there except for us,
That was one of her rules
That nobody else be there
She took a few minutes to gauge me,
Had her eyes closed, seemed to be sniffing around at the air
Like she were some kind of animal.
I closed my eyes too, I was tired
Maybe its custom to start out by saying a
few nice things about the person.
Because that’s what she did at first,
mentioned a few of my qualities,
built me up a little bit.
She said she noticed that I was a writer.
She told me:
Keep writing, someday there will be people helping you.
As you can imagine, I was pleased
This lady was good
She went on to say that there was a person from
my past, a person who wished to speak to me.
From a past life, from a past life, she clarified.
The medium then, with her eyes still closed,
began speaking in a stranger, lower voice
I realized that the spirit was speaking through her:
It’s you! It’s you! I cannot believe I can finally speak to yyyooou!
The emotion that came with this voice brought tears to my eyes
Ooooohhhhh, youuuuuuuu!
Oh, oh, you are sssso lovely in this life!
The voice was truly eerie,
but my, what a compliment! Lovely?
The medium broke the contact with the spirit
She looked at me and said:
Whoever that was they sure are fond of you.
But, know that not every spirit is good.
Spirits, like humans, are both bad and good.
Let’s move on, she said
I have some advice for you, based on what I’m seeing:
First, know that a good way to gauge your happiness, is that
you are happiest when you are light on your feet.
I would imagine…
Second, you should eat less spicy food. More fresh food.
No and okay.
You are very serious, watch more funny movies and TV shows.
Now, I have given you some advice about how to better your life,
I’d like to mention just a few other things before we close:
You are wondering if you will have
everlasting love: you are not the type.
You will not be with the same man for all of your life.
I’ll show you!
You are wondering if you will be happy when you move from Arizona.
You will be happy, you will be more whole than you have ever been.
In the distant future I see you standing up on a hill,
inside of a prairie or meadow.
Your arms are wide open.
You are rejoicing because
you have finally reached the place
where you’ve been headed all your life.
I will keep my eyes wide-open for that place…
That was the last psychic reading I’ve had
The only psychic reading I’ve had
The woman told me all I needed to know,
and then some.
Knowing your future is not fun.
Whether its true or not.
I mean, there’s the good:
I should keep writing!
People will be helping me!
I’m going to stretch my arms out wide like a crazy
person while standing in a high-elevation prairie!
And then there’s the bad:
I should give up Thai food,
No relationship I will have will last.
Enough is enough,
I know enough now.
I will seek that meadow where
I will be whole and free
and I will try my darndest to have a long,
happy marriage someday.
Regardless of my “destiny”
I paid the psychic $25 bucks that day.
She told me a whole lot more
But its been so long that I forgot it.
I hadn’t written it down because
at the time I was sure I’d remember it all.
SPARK Project: One Red Elephant by Helen Lewis
I am involved in something called The SPARK Project. It’s awesome.
The general idea is this: I’m assigned a partner. My partner sends me a photograph and I write a story about it. Conversely, I send my partner a story and they take a photograph inspired by it.
Other types of artists involved in the SPARK project are musicians and painters.
Here’s a description of SPARK (I copied it straight from Facebook):
SPARK is a call-and-response creativity project in which artists, writers, and musicians from around the world use each others work as inspiration.
Wish me luck–I have 10 days to write my response piece to One Red Elephant by Helen Lewis of Suffolk, England (bonus: Helen’s a writer too, and a veteran of SPARK).
What I Really Really Want Deep Down Inside Of Me
Just do normal things
Get up
Get dressed
Eat
Drink
Work
Play a little
Rest and
Do it again
And again
Stay away
From the poison
You are highly susceptible
To the poison
Of falling
Under its spell
Believe in the magic
Of yourself
Through all of that mundane
The mundane
Is fulfilling through
Time
The mundane
Will love you back
The fast-track
Will not
The fast-track
Will make an
Old woman out of you
A quiet,
Simple life
Will give you health
And the foundation
You’ve always wanted
People will love you
If you love yourself
You’ll see
Be organized
Be adult
It’s OK
You can let go
Of that angsty teenager already
You don’t need to act out
For attention
Be a woman
Pride yourself
In your work
Save
For a rainy day
Send out Christmas cards
This year
Call your niece
Wash your face
Go to bed
Put the child to rest
Memoirs of a Breakup
I gazed at the far wall above the fireplace where I’d hung an abstract painting I found at the Goodwill, and on each side, two wooden toy guitars. I know I wasn’t the first person to procrastinate a break up because of all the work it would take. All the dividing, he gets one toy guitar, I get one toy guitar.
In the end, he would get the abstract painting. He would even get my mountain bike for fuck’s sake and yes I’m still bitter about that. I would get the curtain rods and the fancy curtains we bought down at an overpriced bohemian home decor store that I can’t even remember the name of now and he would get all the good wine glasses, of course. I would get most of the art and knick knacks and he would get the cat because it was his mother’s to begin with. I would leave him with the furniture because there was no way I was going to keep going back into that apartment. The guilt. The holes in the walls that we both made.
Two weeks later I had a new boyfriend and a new neighborhood, and oh, I got to keep all our friends. I was having sex again, and enjoying it.
I remember the night I’d pranced around in a brand new purple silk nighty from Victoria’s Secret. I’d dropped hints like bombs around the living room before he told me he wasn’t attracted to me anymore. He’d told me “you didn’t have that mustache when we met”.
Music Inspiration–Because When I Can’t Write, at Least I Can Listen
Feature O the Day:
Cat Stevens–If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out
Well
If you want to sing out
Sing out
And if you want to be free
Be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are
And if you want to live high
Live high
And if you want to live low
Live low
‘Cause there’s a million ways to go
You know that there are
You can do what you want
The opportunity’s on
And if you find a new way
You can do it today
You can make it all true
And you can make it undo
You see
Ah
It’s easy
Ah
You only need to know
Well
If you want to say yes
Say yes
And if you want to say no
Say no
Cause there’s a million ways to go
You know that there are.
And if you want to be me
Be me
And if you want to be you
Be you
Cause there’s a million things to do
You know that there are
I’m not Unemployed, I’m a Writer
I’m a private person. With the exception of writing my memoir, I get squirmish if too much about me is revealed. I’ll often write a post here on WordPress and then just save the draft not wanting you to know my thoughts. As if knowing those thoughts you can crack the code and know everything about me. A lot of those posts are your everyday post/rant-types. A sort-of “I’m not feeling inspired to write actual memoir or a pretty poem (as if I do that) or a short story so I’ll blah blah blah on here for five minutes about my day.” It’s like posting a status on Facebook only painfully longer.
My fellow bloggers do this well. Most the time, not all the time, I enjoy those though. I don’t mind reading that a blogger whose writing a thriller took the day off to do her laundry or that a musician strolled the art walk and didn’t play guitar but took pictures and here they are. I guess I’m always afraid of being irrelevant. But irrelevance is OK. It happens. Daily. Why not let a few of these rant blogs slip through. Thing is–it appears that at least a couple people look at my blog every day. Well, this blog is for you. So you don’t leave empty handed headed.
I’m not Unemployed, I’m a Writer 
On October 31, 2012 I applied for unemployment. I was officially laid off on the 30th. I can now go change the bio on my blog to read “unemployed” instead of “work at a young women’s substance abuse residential treatment facility”; or I can just leave that out, or just say “writer”. Now, for the first time, I am not a social worker and then writer or a park ranger who writes or a pizza slinger poet: I’m just a writer. I’m nothing else. And, I don’t have to accept work that pays less than my former job did or that isn’t work that I’m qualified to do. In other words: I don’t have to work until I find the right job for me. So for now, I’m a writer. If anybody asks, that’s what I am. And guess what? I just hired myself.
Wait what?
I just hired myself on the condition that I show up for work on time, can meet deadlines and be a great team player. Not wanting to wear myself out, I gave myself the ideal schedule. I work part time (in a perfect world, wouldn’t this be the case for all of us?) and have the weekends off.
Schedule:
Monday: 10 – 2 (I just love Mondays! Everybody’s buzzing about, getting down to business!)
Tuesday: 3:30 to 11:00 p.m. (during this time I drive to my writer’s workshop in Portland) *every other Tuesday
Wednesday: 10 – 2
Thursday: 10 – 2
My office:
Eugene Public Library (just a skip, hop, jump from home)
Additional perk:
I get to wear whatever I want to work!
Here’s the thing: I must stick to it. I must be the nicest most stern boss I’ve ever known!
Tips? Have you done this? I know I have the determination but too my fear of failure sickens me. This is my dream schedule and my dream job. Surely I won’t quit or be fired. Here’s a post from a fellow blogger whose doing the same thing only she has a real job and kids and a husband and a…(pet, probably?)
Props to Marlene Luneng for making a schedule and sticking to it. (You’ve inspired me!)
Elizabeth Gilbert Inspiration
Heard her name? Let me remind you: Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love, a memoir that was wayyy popular back in 2006–and turned into a movie where she’s played by Julia Roberts. Good stuff!
Here’s Elizabeth Gilbert’s recent interview with The Rumpus! Enjoy! (I personally find the things she says here super inspiring and relatable).
Things Just Are
Usually
a coffee-shop
book
coffee
bagel, just in case
decent-looking gentlemen reading or
sitting closely with their girlfriends,
Warm middle-aged women conversing
Autumn leaves,
day-off,
Not a cloud in the sky
Type of day works
But not today
Despite all the people,
I’ve got nobody here to really
connectwith
A young man reads his journal
I can see his handwriting from here
I think we’re all looking for something in each other
And not finding it,
too afraid to speak
I’m scared to death of the older man
sitting to my left
And not in a good way like
I’m scared of my boyfriend and the boy
With the journal
Like they might steal my heart
I’m going to leave now
My work here is done,
But it wasn’t any good
At least I wrote a poem
I despise poems about writing poems
But sometimes things aren’t good nor bad,
They just are.
Pearls of Lidia’s Wisdom Part II
Reflecting upon the 4 sessions I spent writing with Lidia Yuknavitch, memoir goddess and fantasy mother-figure to my wounded child-soul, I’m inspired to share some direct quotes from the workshop. I’m a fan of direct quotes and did my best to record Lidia’s one-liner’s word-for-word. Let’s get started:
“I can write about rocks and water for ten pages and tell you more about my life than if I told you the top ten events of my life.”
“Your objects and metaphors will carry the weight of your truth, will carry your story.”
“Don’t explain shit to the reader.”
“Trick the audience in the beginning, such as, start out with a fairytale-sounding-story then let it disintegrate and achieve your own voice.”
“Find the music of your own voice.”
“Repeat things and they take on weight.”
“There is developing your voice and then there is masturbating (i.e. doing what you already do). You want to continue to develop your voice.”
What do you think about these quotes? Do you like them? Do they make sense to you and for your writing? I think they’re gold. To a certain extent of course–to the extent that they work for me. For example, “Don’t explain shit to the reader?” I love the idea of leaving things up to the imagination. Read Lidia’s memoir The Chronology of Water and you will find a story about sexual abuse with a bunch of big, gaping holes. Wait, what really happened? Was it worse than we thought? Not as bad? Who knows, damn Lidia…but at the same time I don’t want my memoir to read like a movie watched when at the end you No, wait, what? I’m gonna have to watch that one again. I want the reader to understand the first time, but yes, to be left with a sense of mystery, a sense of: No, this isn’t a tell-all. You’re gonna have to call me or lay me or get me drunk to find out the rest.
The Chronology of Water is my second model-memoir. Model-memoirs are memoirs that I study. I don’t copy…that would be too hard, to do exactly as they did, in every area of the book. No, it’s not that at all. I’d be surprised if when my book is published, a person could look and say Ah , she definitely used Lidia Yuknavitch as inspiration. But you never know. Model-memoirs are just books I use as rough references for what I’m going for. Things as simple as chapter length and how the author begins a story. I’m gleaning from Lidia wisdom on creativity, and brave-writing to the maximum. Loose writing. Free writing.
My other, first-discovered model-memoir is Jeannette Wall’s The Glass Castle. Jeannette Wall’s has a very to-the-point, factual, journalistic voice. She is in fact a journalist. When I first began writing my memoir, I used her approach: just tell the story, as it happened and let the reader decide what to think of it. Little retrospection. I was unable to reflect at that point. Didn’t want to think about how I felt about things. Now, I’m able to do that. It happened before Lidia’s workshop, that I began to “open up” in my writing. Less what happened and more I was fucking pissed, scared, sad, lying, a dirty-girl.
Lidia and Jeannette are two very different writer’s. Studying them both has and will continue to be somewhat of a tug-of-war, in the best of ways…a challenge and I love those.
TERAH RACHELLE VAN DUSEN 