Sandra Gail Lambert

Another Essay - Done.

Well, not done, done.  It doesn't have a title, one paragraph transition is so problematic that I'm thinking perhaps the whole section about gagging has to come out, I use the word "perhaps" way too many times, some of the sentences are overwrought, and I'm thinking perhaps (g) the tone jerks around too much.  But it has a beginning, middle, and what I right now think is a perfect end.  I got to have that surge of joyful completion as I smacked out the letters of the final word. (Which was "that."  You had to be there.)   

Cinema Verde Environmental Film and Arts Festival

The Third Annual Cinema Verde is happening.  Check out this chock-full schedule of events.  Once again, it's a good thing to live in Gainesville.

Thoughts While Essay Writing This Morning

"Why am I writing about my arm hurting?  It doesn't fit in anywhere."  "Is it okay to swear in an essay?"  "This part has to go - it'll make readers cringe in embarrassment for me."  "It might not even be true."  "I'll write it and then plan on deleting."  "Boring and stupid, boring and stupid, boring and stupid."  This won't ever come together into anything, ever."  "Maybe I'll make tuna fish for lunch."  "Ohhhhhh, that's a nice little transition."  "And what if I flip these paragraphs?"  "And then this cringy part would slip right in here." "Damn."  "I should walk the dog now."             

Lesbian, queer, dyke - all that.

Sometimes, something makes you look at your website with "fresh eyes."  I did that today and, yikes, I had a panic that it wasn't lesbian enough.  It's great that these days we don't have to proclaim "lesbian here, right here" all over the place just to keep the world from closeting us, but maybe I've become too casual.  And it doesn't help that I'm single and so don't have all those homey couple pictures to post.  And that as of late I'm not the type to write much about sexcapades.  (Although I appreciate those who do.  Ummm, maybe I should think about that.)  

So, here you go.  A little bit of "lesbian visibility."  And the image above is by Tamara de Lempicka.  Ellis Avery has written a grand novel about, sort of, this artist's life called The Last Nude. 

I Love a Syllabus

I've spent the morning immersed and thrilled by lists of class descriptions.  This summer I turn sixty, and a friend told me this means I can audit University classes for free.  (She's got hers all picked out.)  I don't think they'll let me into any of the MFA workshops, but still there is undergraduate Fiction Writing.  And all those other classes that will only improve my writing - Surveys in American Women's Literature!  Asian-American Studies!  The Folktale!  A whole term studying Zora Neale Hurston!  Or Chaucer!  Caribbean Literature! 

I can't wait until the Fall list of courses is released ( in March).  I can't wait to be holding a syllabus.  Really, it's exciting the way they have everything itemized and scheduled class by class  And list required readings.  And suggested readings.  And order you to write papers.  As someone who teaches herself things, it's comforting to leave the driving to someone else.   

Tales of the New World by Sabina Murray

How do you have a collection of "page-turning" short stories chock-full of mystery, murder, and mayhem that are also deep explorations of philosophy, history, and politics?  Oh, and often the words come one after another in those smooth strands of enchantment reminiscent of a prose poem. 

Really, how did Sabina Murray do this in her Tales of the New World?  I'm re-reading sections to figure that out.  If you see the collection somewhere, just pick it up and turn to the Balboa story.  It's short.  You can read it through right there.  It will mess up your mind - in that good way.  

I always like to say how I heard about a book - its provenance, sort of.  On her Facebook status Susan Stinson just outright ordered us to read Tales of the New World.  I found that our fabulous library had a copy.  And that was that. Although I might go buy a copy so I'm able to loan it out myself.       

The History of My Van

In 1997, I bought a 1992, already w/c lift-equipped, van.  The man who owned it had died.  His mother sobbed when she handed the keys over.  His sister whispered that the first day he drove it, he came by her house and said "Get in, drunken road trip to the Keys."  And she did.  And off they went. 

And off I've gone.  Many years it's to the Everglades.   Natural disasters have interfered - Hurricane Wilma, my mother's illness, times when my equipment (manual wheelchair to scooter to power chair) hadn't yet caught up to what I needed.  But this year I took along a friend and I managed.  

We kayaked among orchids and crocodiles.  We took long walks past bushes covered in a snow of butterflies.  We (not really me, actually) pulled my chair through the sea wrack thrown up from the Florida Bay.  Rafts of shorebirds flew past us at eye level.  And I wrote.  I wrote with a thrilled satisfaction I've not had in a while. 

The van has 145,000 miles on it now which by my calculations is just a little older than me in my human mileage.  More road trips are in our future.  I can still smell rotting seaweed in the wheelchair's axles.  So, despite my lack of drinking, the best I can, I figure I've been doing right by the spirit of the van.      

   

Wake Up Without Losing the Dream

In this video, Henry Miller annoyingly talks over, corrects, and patronizes Anais Nin and she, annoyingly, lets him. Still, brilliant misogynist writers can inspire me. Miller instructs us on how to "wake up without losing the dream" in the most practical of terms (don't open your eyes all the way, stumble to your typewriter, etc.) but, for me, the phrase had different resonance.

I think that's because I'm heading off to the Everglades this week. Kayaking past mangroves trees that bear live young or over mats of periphyton where bacteria can photosynthisize or reaching up towards epiphytic cactus that wrap themselves around the branches of watery poison wood trees - it is a dream, a delicate one. Those same mangrove trees are diminished by rising waters and the sensitive periphyton is our first and best indicator of nutrient damage. "To wake up without losing the dream" seems to me a way we can travel through the natural world balancing joy and despair.

 

Rhonda Riley - The Road to Publication

Rhonda Riley is a writer friend.  And she has a debut novel, Adam Hope, coming out from Ecco (HarperCollins) Press.  And she's speaking this Sunday at the Millhopper Library at 2:30pm about how that happened.  Do not miss this story of going from an agent's slush pile to having a novel sold at auction.  (For those of you not obsessed with all things publishing, "sold at auction" is a big, freakin' deal.) 

The Writers Alliance of Gainesville - WAG - is holding this event.  Check them out. 

 

Horror in the Okefenokee

Here's another bit of my writing.  This one's a humorous (at least I hope it is) essay.

Horror in the Okefenokee

I'm sitting on a lump of cold flesh. Six hours of kayaking and a chilly day for South Georgia means the only reason I know my backside is there is because it always has been. Can you get frostbite on your butt? I decide you can't, but am planning an immediate precautionary hot shower as I paddle out of the swamp and up the canal to the marina. My wheelchair is still standing sentinel at the boat ramp.

I wedge the kayak between the uneven cinder blocks at the bottom of the ramp. Now all I have to do is roll out of the boat, scooch over the concrete, balance on all fours, raise onto my knees, and twist into the seat of my wheelchair. I prefer to do this with no one watching since sometimes people act funny when I crawl by. Besides, an observer always makes something go awry – like losing my shoes or trapping one breast under the seat on my way up. Either way, I'll do it. I let nothing interfere with a good day on the water.

Before I can start my roll over the side, a smartly uniformed ranger appears at the top of the ramp. He chats about the weather. He asks about my trip. How many alligators? Any otters? He lingers. Knees to chest, arms clasped around them to stop the shivering, I try to wait him out. In the middle of his story about the year it snowed, I abandon modesty and make my moves. More than once, I am butt-first in his direction.

Panting and finally sitting face forward in my chair, I smile at the ranger. His neck and face are sweaty and red. His expression is professionally bland, but I can see the horror underneath. Eyes averted, he mutters something and walks away, disappearing over the top of the ramp. This pisses me off. So what that I don't move the way he does. Why can't people just deal with, admire even, someone figuring out how to do whatever it is they want to do? Screw him.

It isn't until I am at my campsite, blood returning to my backside, that I feel something cold and bare. Have I mentioned that I don't use underwear kayaking? It gets wet. It bunches.

Squirming from side to side, I strip off the thread-worn, used only for kayaking pants. I hold them in front of me. Except for three frayed strips of material, the seat is gone. That last trip along the concrete was too much for it, and I had been left exposed. I picture my butt pointed at the ranger with the ragged remains of the pants stretched across it and looking not unlike a balding man's bad combover.

I was unfair in my assumptions about that ranger, and I'm going to have to apologize to him – but only mentally. Anything else will be too embarrassing for the both of us.

Originally published in Breath and Shadow.