Poetry Under Stars

It’s too cold to be outside, but we take blankets out. We can’t resist the stars. After a moment of looking, guessing constellations, Abigail opens up her poets.org and I my Emily Dickinson. Without explanation, we take turns reading. Abigail reads with her gusto, words shooting from her mouth like they’re trying to escape to the stars. I read hesitantly, not belonging to this world of poetry Abigail loves. But we are friends, and tonight is one night that will be perfect as we huddle on a damp blanket, reading words I can’t understand, but words that light up her soul – I can see it in her eyes. This is our friendship: watching Abigail become enlightened at the touch of anything beautiful while I look on, wishing I could understand and feel and become. Wishing I could produce something as beautiful as her soul.

Words on a Page

There is something about words on a page. Words made up of single letters and pages made of words – all interacting on the physical print of a page and in the minds of readers. These words strung together make emotion, tension, and story. Simple letters combined into words, combined into pages, combined into books, combined into ideas. Ideas and books I love.

March 1st is World Book Day. Kids across the globe dress up like their favorite book characters for school – Dr. Seuss hats, various princess dresses, and Robin Hood garb show up in classrooms, and teachers monitor fake swords, plastic bows and arrows, and Thor’s hammer (though they may wonder if comics count as books). These kids celebrate words made up of single letters that turn into pages, books, and ideas. It is a day of personal connections to our quiet characters.

Books hold a special place in my life. My battery life data on my phone will tell you Goodreads is among my most visited apps and my husband will tell you I spend almost every allowance on a novel or two. Students studying at tables in the BYU library will tell you I visit the young-adult section almost every week, pacing among the tall shelves, often with a load in my arms and my coat swishing against my legs.

My heart will tell you that books hold a perpetual longing for me. A place not of escape, but of blessed inclusion in life. Escape seems too negative a term to be associate with books. They offer solitary inclusion – a way of looking and feeling the world in quiet and discovering your place in it.

In celebration of World Book Day, I reflect on books that have offered me a connection to life and have helped me discover a place. Books that showed me what life was like, how to love, how to understand. In special remembrance, almost as if recalling first elementary crushes, I list some of them here, with the accompanying memories.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles. A story of choice, rape, longing, personal discovery, hope, forgiveness, and love. I discovered my place as a woman and as someone who loves. Someone who accepts hard things.

The Rent Collector. A story of stories, reading, and opportunity. I discovered my place as an influencer because I read.

Spilling Ink. A book of writing. I discovered my place as an imaginer and a creator of worlds and people. A writer of letters, words, books, and ideas.

East. A story of legend, trust, discovery, love, and journeying. I discovered my place as one who journeys for important people, places, and ideas.

Unbroken. A story of suffering, hope, survival, and love. I discovered my place as one who is small, but infinitely important.

These are just a few. You can see more of my favorites on Goodreads. What will you do in celebration of World Book Day? What books do you hold in special remembrance? I’d love to hear!

Small Talk

High school can often be described as an awkward confinement – a prime breeding ground for mortification with nowhere to run. I felt like its prized guinea pig. I had my friends and my classic literature, but what I didn’t have was the courage to talk to people I didn’t know, especially the popular kids who carried themselves easily – who seemed to avoid high school mortification. The lucky ones. They didn’t seem to struggle with small talk like I did.

I have a memory that explains my struggle quite well. A rather mortifying one. As I returned from a bathroom trip and walked down the the hallway, I saw Sam Moore. I knew him ever since I moved to Mapleton years before and heard about his many flirtations and experienced his evening bagpipe playing in his backyard. Was he intimidating? No. Did I know his name? Of course I did. What was the problem? You tell me.

As Sam and I came closer in the hallway, he waved. “Hey Savannah!”

If I was a normal human I would have replied, “Hi Sam! How you doing?” I don’t think being normal was part of the whole high-school-mortification program. Instead, I said:

“Hi Savannah!”

An endless pause. Then Sam erupted in laughter. “Did you just call me by your name?”

Yes. Yes, I did. With nowhere to run and my face as red as my hair, I laughed with him and hurried away, feeling the physical pain of shame and embarrassment every time I recalled my idiocy.

See what I mean? Small talk was not a skill I claimed. So when Jennifer Latson’s article “The Secret to Small Talk” popped up on a google search (don’t blame me for searching), I jumped on it. I had to know that simple secret.

Here’s what I learned. The secret to small talk is not sticking to a formula, such as starting with a compliment, asking how a person is doing, then choosing an appealing and common topic to start a conversation. It’s being earnest and genuine in putting yourself out there and connecting with others. It is, in fact, being awkward and accepting flaws in interaction for the sake of that connection. Jennifer Latson expresses this through telling a story of a boy who has William’s syndrome, which makes him very friendly and outgoing. In his conversations, he makes mistakes such as calling someone by the wrong name and asking about unique qualities and flaws such as acne or a deep voice. Latson shows that in each of these encounters, the boy is readily forgiven because of his genuine earnestness to connect with people and friendliness. This is the secret: for excellent small talk, one must have a genuine desire to connect with someone and accept that mistakes will be made.

In applying this secret to my life, the awkward high school situation above has greater hope. Instead of dwelling on the mortification in calling Sam my own name and walking away blushing red, staying and connecting with Sam could have been a better remedy.

After reading Jennifer Latson’s article, I am relieved to learn there are others who struggle with small talk like I do. I also have an increased aspiration to get at the heart of small talk – connection. Knowing this secret doesn’t mean talking is any easier, but I have hope for better times ahead, accepting all the awkwardness and mortification that may come.

Perfectionism is the Villain

On the second day of creative writing class, sitting in a small, dim classroom on the outskirts of BYU, we were asked to give our name and reason for taking the class.

I gave my answer: “My name is Savannah and I’m taking this class because I have a complicated relationship with fiction writing.”

My professor laughed. “So you’re taking this class as a punishment for yourself.”

That is correct.

I love writing. But I also hate it. I believe if you ask any writer, they will say something similar. In a conversation with a creative writing graduate student a week ago, she highlighted the true binary in writing: it is work and it is play. But mostly work.

As a result of my creative writing class and involvement with BYU’s literary magazine Inscape, I’m forced to confront how I feel about writing. Do I really like it? Do I have potential to grow? Do I have the patience to grow? My saving grace in answering these questions was found in a book (as answers often are).

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Perfectionism is the true villain.

In her (entire!) chapter about the evils of perfectionism, Anne Lamott makes a very striking point. “Perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force.” The matter of whether we want to write or not is irrelevant if we let perfectionism win.

The fact that I am a perfectionist in writing was made strikingly clear to me. After every paragraph, I rewrite like crazy, sometimes spending a half hour on a paragraph I’m going to delete later. Where is the logic in that? Maybe the reason for my complicated relationship with fiction writing is my perfectionism. It halts my exploration, expression, and growth as a writer.

So DOWN with perfectionism! The growth of myself as a fiction writer is much more important.

3 Things that Haunt

Happy almost Halloween. In honor of my least favorite holiday, here is a list of things that haunt, courtesy of my life.

A Reflection of Past Life
Harriet*, once healthy, now shuffles around a memory care dining room, scooping bread crumbs from glass tables into her long, wrinkled hand. In seconds, she forgets the crumbs in her hands and lets them drop to the floor. This is a reflection of her past life – a life she will no longer remember, when she cleaned her own kitchen, surrounded by family. She continues to shuffle, scoop, and mutter to herself, haunting the dining room.

Ugly German
Carter*, a young man in a college German class, sits far away from the others. His method of interacting is not like the others – in English or German – and for that, receives snickers and satirical questions. He never gives up trying to be liked, but the others never give up their play. The man is haunted by people no better than he, for his ugly, evil-sounding German.

Blindness in October
Julie*, who’s had far too many troubles in her long life, is now mostly blind from failed surgeries. Her eyes never look at the same spot, and she keeps the house closed and black. The possibility of permanence haunts her as she looks past me, holding on to the wall for a foundation in her dark world.

*names have been changed

M-I-A

I want to apologize for being missing in action so much the past couple months! Life hit a big turn from my summer chilling to the start of my sophomore year at Brigham Young University and working in the BYU English Department. However, these are no excuses because writers write no matter what is going on in their lives – it is simply how we live. 

That being said, my writing may have dulled the past couple months, but my brain has not. I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction of this blog. I threw a few ideas around with my husband – about a book blog, a photography blog, a writing blog, and even a flower blog. But I couldn’t pick just one. I don’t think I’m ready to confine my writing into one subject. And so, my blog will stay Savannah’s Secretaire for now.

Writing is like that, I think. We have different moods and styles as our lives take different turns. Being a writer means staying flexible, and that’s not always easy when you are in college, have kids, or working overtime. However, if writing is important to you, you make time for it. That’s just the way life works. It’s important to have flexibility in changing your writing style, making time for it, and sometimes, you just have to force yourself to like it.

I’m trying to come back, folks. One blog post at a time, and open to suggestions.