Intermission

Hi, folks! This is your story teller, taking a moment out from the narrative for a couple of reasons, now that the blog is up and running. For one thing, the promised Devil’s Daybook is giving me more trouble than expected and I need a bit more time. For another, a number of people reading this are new to the world of blogs, so I need to note that on arrival, the best way to read this is to go to the list to the right of this text and begin with the posting titled “Introduction,” and then follow the posts down the line in order.

But the main reason for this intermission is the fact that my friend Joe of The Bronx who has been reading this—he is the follower called josephley in the line up to your right (hey, Joe, give us a picture already!)—called earlier this week and I wanted to share some of that conversation.

I had told Joe that he was the prime inspiration for the Travis character, and sort of off handedly asked him, “Do you have any idea how Travis got his name?” My original backstory was that Travis was conceived (unlike Joe!) in the back seat of his parents’ car before they were married, when they were going through their country western phase. For a variety of reasons (taste included) I had jettisoned that one (be forewarned: taste will not normally be a criterion for editing stories).

Well, Joe took my question seriously and came up with a great explanation for Travis’s name that I am tweaking a bit but which will appear shortly as a separate post. Here is why I am bringing this up: Joe’s suggestion demonstrated to me—and will, I hope, remind you of—the capability that we all have to imagine, and promoting imagination when it comes to important values and issues is, to be honest, the primary reason for all of the work I do.

Consider letting your imagination run free a bit and sending suggestions to fill out or bolster the plot. One of you has already suggested that we all write the story together; I am a bit unnerved at losing all control over the narrative (and having to deal with bruised egos as things get tweaked, edited or dropped), but hey, I am open to that if enough people want to jump in. Another reader has volunteered to add some original poetic commentary on occasion, and still another—Janice of Texas, a/k/a Juanita Technologia—wrote and suggested the map now found at the bottom of this page so we can get a sense of who is reading with us.

I am hoping that as we go along, others will enter what I want to be a conversation, with suggestions for plot and character, yes, but also ways to improve the blog site, links of common interest to add, and most especially, commentary on the issues raised by the story (I also would appreciate corrections of grammar, typos, anachronisms, and the like, but I would ask you to spare my pride—and other readers’ time—by sending those to me privately at jlanci@comcast.net). If you are a bit shy about sharing your plot suggestions with the universe, do feel free to send them to me at that address and we can chat and perhaps develop your ideas.

Doing this blog over the last few weeks has opened my eyes to the very diverse (dare I say weird?) community of people I know and enjoy in the many different social worlds I inhabit. So far, readers include—among others—a couple of grad students, a poet who works in a prison, some undergraduates on summer holiday, a marine biologist, a UPS driver, a couple of just-exonerated library trustees, some old style housewives, a school bus driver, a couple of college professors and an archaeologist or two, as well as my friends Janice and the other poet, and my only blood-related sibling. The thought of some of you being in conversation with each other, and not just me, boggles (should I say bloggles) the mind.

Think about it.

In the meantime, in honor of the fact that so many of us were born in August and are thus, to a greater or lesser degree, contemplating mortality, here is a bit of poetry from—surprise—Mary Oliver. It is taken from the poem, “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass,” found in her newest book of verse, Evidence (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009) 38-39:

“What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.

I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).

“And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

“And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”