Sandra Gail Lambert

My Biannual Rant About Native Plants - Just in time for the Native Plant Sale.

Stop it, just stop it, with the drug and water-addicted yards. Don't make me go on about water supplies, pesticide run-off, and the rest of it.  Plant native plants.  Or just don't mow for a bit and see what comes up. 
All the plant photos on this post - butterfly weed, giant ironweed, green dragon - they're native plants that grow in my yard pretty much all on their own.  Many of them are host or nectar plants for butterflies.  And most of them can be found at Saturday's (March 31st) Spring Native Plant Sale at Morningside Park here in Gainesville.  

If you're a member of our Paynes Prairie Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society or Friends of Nature Parks, you can come to the private Friday night sale.  If you aren't, come anyway and join on the spot.      

Yaddo! Happy Freakin' 60th Birthday to Me.

It was like being a senior in High School waiting for news about colleges.  I was at the mailbox, expecting the rejection like always these past four years, ready with my Plan B of putting together some sort of on-my-own writing retreat this summer, and I saw the envelope with Yaddo's return address.  "That is a big envelope," I thought.  I held it awhile.  It was big and it had heft.  I slit open the top and slid the papers out past the letterhead, date, my return address, and the salutation.  The phrase "pleased to invite you" came into view. 

So in June, a few days after my 60th birthday, I'll be heading to Saratoga Springs for a six week residency at Yaddo. (For my non-writer friends - this is a big deal.  Check out the list of alumni.) 

All of you writers with Yaddo experience, especially any of you who use wheelchairs, send advice my way.  And such big thanks to you alumni who provided references.  

Banning the I-Touch From the Bedroom

For the first time in my life since I was six, I wasn't reading anymore - all because of my bedroom relationship with an I-Touch.  There was self-delusion (one more game of Scramble and then I'll pick up that novel), justification (I've had a hard day and deserve to relax and surf the Huffington Post articles.), rationalization (I have to see what's new on Media Bistro.  It's important for my writing.)  I was doing better and had even deleted all the games, but then one night I checked my e-mail just one more time and there was that acceptance from North American Review.  It set my recovery way back. 

Two weeks ago I willed myself into a cold turkey docking of the temptation every night in its charger in the kitchen.  For awhile I woke up in the dark lonely and lost, but now I've made new friends to play with in bed.  Like Carol Anshaw's brilliant novel Carry the One.  Or Jeanette Winterson's memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?  Really, it's a party every night. 

And last night I woke up at three, pulled the always-waiting, long-patient yellow pad over, perched it on a pillow on my lap, and scribbled down what might be the first scene of a novel.  This was so much more than a just a good time.  It's too soon to say, but there might be a relationship developing. 

Wild by Cheryl Strayed - I Can't Wait to Read This Book.

Cheryl Strayed's mother dies and she takes her grief on an eleven-hundred-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.  You know this video had me crying with that first photo of her mother.  Cheryl says "Everything I am is born of everything I gathered back to myself on that trip." 

Here's the promo video for Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Say It.

Alice Wong says "This video is a response to the current political rhetoric around low-income individuals on programs such as Medicaid who are often seen as passive recipients to services rather than people with something to offer. I believe when people are provided basic support services that allow them to live with autonomy and dignity, society is stronger and more vibrant as a result."  Here's her video.

Crime Fiction Read-Along

I've "internet known" Juliet Grames for many years, and she's always coming up with ways to form community around books and reading.  Her newest idea is a read-along crime fiction project.  I'm thrilled since the read-along she organized for Middlemarch was pretty much the most fun you can have in an online bookclub.  And now, as a senior editor at Soho Press, she's decided she needs to understand more about the origins of crime fiction and its modern influences.  She's inviting us all to spend a year with her doing just this.  Juliet has read fifty of the classic crime novels to prepare, and she'll choose ten of them for this project.   Here's a Books On the Night Stand podcast interview with her about it all. 

The first read is a short story - Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue."  The discussion will be on March 20th, but before that, also on the Soho Press Blog, Juliet will post some, probably juicy, backstory on the story.  

I'm sure we'll have a great discussion of what it is in mysteries that satisfies us as readers.  But also, for me, a writer who doesn't always have the strongest plots (Hah!  I'm being way kind to myself here.), I'm hoping to have some of the craft rub off and into my next novel.      

  

Everglades Artist in Residence Program

During my most recent Everglades stay, since I'm an American, I found a little time to shop.  In-between the t-shirts and field guides, below the postcards, I discovered a book of poetry by Roger Mitchell.  In 2002 he had been one of the artists invited to spend a month in the Park.  A requirement of the residency is that you leave something behind.  His gift was this collection of poems accompanied by the sketches of Frank Duval, another artist in residence.  Here's the beginning of his poem about kayaking on Florida Bay.

"At low tide.  There might be an inch between me/and the peninsula's marly run-off./I couldn't be any closer to the earth/if I tried, here where it is land one hour/and sea the next.  Birds blow by in clouds, . . " 

Then on our way out of the park we stopped at the Anhinga Trail where Eileen Powell, the current Artist in Residence, was encouraging visitors to collaborate in the construction of a ceramic tile wall.  Way cool.    

Here, here's a fine example of our government money at work.  And it's another reason for me to keep writing. Forget the fame, the fortune, the  groupies - someday, perhaps, I'll have built a resume good enough to get chosen as an Everglades Artist in Residence.        

 

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.

Her Words as Witness: Women Writers of the African Diaspora

"I just went ahead and did it."  Over and over, with each setback, this was photographer Laylah Barrayn's approach.  And now she has created a "visual love letter" to seventy-six women. Included are Sonia Sanchez, Hanifah Walidah, Tayari Jones, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Demetria Lucas.  Here's a photo gallery sample of these tributes. 

Right now the exhibit is in New York, but soon it will travel.  We should be so lucky.   

My Last Read of the Year

"Everything is root and mud and twist."  This is how Janisse Ray describes the deep swamp in Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River.  This is a perfect description of a southern swamp, told with a perfect construction of a sentence, and it made me crawl out of my warm bed and go write. 

And tonight I'll read further into her tale of kayaking the length of a river, a river protected by Riverkeepers, her home river, a river, formed by the joining of the Ocmulgee and Oconee, that is the largest free-flowing, intact water system on the Atlantic coast. 

And this will be the last book I put on my "What I've Read - 2011" list.  Adding the 2012 heading, seeing it here on the side of the blog with nothing, as yet, underneath it, thinking about the books still in their final edits that might end up listed, the books waiting, well-worn, on library shelves - well, it's a Happy New Year for all.      

Nikky Finney's NBA for Poetry Speech

"I am now officially speechless," she ends it.  More accurately, we all are speechless. Start at the four minute mark to hear Nikky Finney's awesome acceptance speech for her collection Head Off and Split.