Sunday Storm

Char
Originally uploaded by Jessica & Greg

Being artists, it's easy for us to get into a routine of hunkering down in our house and doing the art thing all day. The typical weekend begins with a workout, reading the news online over breakfast and then retreating to our respective worlds. Too much of this, and life runs the risk of growing stale and dusty.

New ideas come from new experiences. Inspiration comes from all around us. People encountered, environments, clouds passing through, dragonflies dancing en masse over the saturated ground at the shabby medical center across the street from our house.

We've been in Tucson for a good 9-10 months and we hadn't been to Mount Lemmon yet. We still have gone all the way up, since a storm rolled in part of the way through our excursion, but we did hike a bit, took pictures (of course) and had a little picnic in a pine grove with thunder threatening overhead.

Excursions

For the second Sunday in row, I got up early and went out to take pics of my current digs. Since Greg is home this weekend, we made some soy cappuccinos and headed to Downtown together. This week's exploration included some of the warehouse area. I don't know if it's elaborate enough to actually call a district. Many of the original warehouses, located along the railroad tracks, have been converted into art studios and galleries. Some are abandoned, while others currently serve as offices for one thing or another.

Then we went "Downtown". After living in San Diego and Naples, Downtown Tucson seems to be lacking, both in magnitude and impact. It doesn't help that many of the quirky original buildings developing in the late 1800s and early 1900s have either been left abandoned, converted into car garages, or completed demolished in favor of bland skyscraper, metal and glass architecture. These urban planning--in my opinion--mistakes have left Tucson without a distinctive heart. The Presidio area I visited last weekend had so much more individuality and was much more visually interesting than what I encountered on this visit. But still, there are some gems if you look hard enough.

Check out the pics here: Pics

After the thunder

Fire and Blood. Some of you know it. The young adult fantasy fiction series I've been working on for a while. The first book was generated in the mad, motivational rush of NaNoWriMo two years ago. Before I had focused on primarily short literary fiction. Fire and Blood was my first attempt (and a damn good one by the end of the process) at a full-length novel. I spent the last year and a half editing it (with the help of some gracious readers who put up with the horrors of a first effort) and getting it the point to play the query game (which will start in September).

And now (cue the timpani) the draft for the second book in the series is done. Finito! This book includes a broader scope of the world. Political intrigue is rife, as are bounty hunters and evil people scheming for power. Murin is angry beyond reason, and Aldin is a whole other turbulent sea. Betrayal, hurt, romance, and magic. Book 2 also develops more of the overarching story that will, eventually, link the series together with a common plot that goes beyond the individual trials.

Email me or comment if you're courageous enough to brave the pages of Book 2 was a first reader.

For Greg, July 23rd 2009

She walked into the garden with the sheers in hand. It was the fourth year of marriage. The accounting everyone seemed to go by, even though years had passed before.

She dragged her fingertips through the bushes, relished the soft petals, the wet, even the prick of a thorn. But what flowers should she cut for him? And the trees, they were bowed with apples, cherries, pomegranates. But what would he eat? How much? Not to mention to the symbolism of the things.

Pausing, she looked deeper, breathed in the scents, delighted in the colors. The garden became more clear to her. She went back in the house, took the brush from his hand and dragged him outside. They lay down on wet ground together. Raindrops still clung to everything. The sun lit the clouds in a funny way, transformed them from grey to a tone suffused with gold. They marveled at the way it chased away the shadows.

“Happy Anniversary,” she said.

On Goodbye

I think we have a natural tendency toward narrative in our lives. We are a story, a collection of stories each with a beginning, middle and ending. So the last goodbye is like an ending. It has to be satisfactory, does it not? Otherwise, when the book is over, when we set it aside and think about it we are left reaching. We get emotional if the ending is mishandled in some way. “Well, that just isn’t fair." Or "That’s not the way it should end.”

This depends partly on the rest of the story.

Was it rich and vibrant? Did it have a song that was as unforgettable, undeniable as the hush and roar of the tides? Did it have peaks and valley, an artful arrangement of chiaroscuro?

The other part depends on the whole concept of a linear life in the first place. It would be easy, or easier to live in a neat and tidy world, a place where everything exists in its special compartment, where logic and order reign. But this is not the world we live in. It is complicated. Messy. Sometimes undesirable, unfair. Surreal. One foot in logic, one in emotion, another in sensation, and another still in intellect. All these different ways of experiencing until we have more legs than cells, uncoordinated and unruly. Maybe part of the dissatisfaction and the difficulty with endings is that they don’t really exist.

In this life-as-narrative framework, the readers are still there. We are still living the story. So we try to rectify this incongruity, the book has ended, but the story continues.

Ruminations on Life and Death

We are mortal, mutable. We’re born, we live and die. Our lives can be a universe of possibilities, with each choice acting as matter condensing in our lives. Real and tangible. Plotting out the course of our journeys, each as unique and singular as a snowflake, and yet connected, too. And our deaths. I’m not sure - there are so many variables, so many individual beliefs and biases that it’s hard to make any kind of statement or reflection on that subject without coming off as naive, myopic, or so tenderly innocent that we, at the end, stare in shock at all that we’ve misjudged.

It can be a difficult thing to say goodbye. I can hardly talk about death or the people I’ve lost without getting weepy. My voice shakes and I have to hand off the phone, walk out of the room, or hide my face in a veil of silence before I make a blubbering idiot out of myself. I’m not trying to be ego-centric, but grieving is about the people who are left behind, not the ones who have passed on. Their souls, life essence, whatever you want to call it, has gone. The body is quiet. There is no pain, unhappiness, dissatisfaction. There is silence. Processes of the returning. The body is no longer a home for life, so it degrades, decays and becomes other things. And life again, but in a different form.

But that is only the body. If there is a soul, it leaves a residue on each person it touches. A lingering fragrance. Maybe it isn’t at the foreground of our lives, it can hover in the background and exert effects that we can only feel as something vague and diffuse, without a definable origins.

The person is gone, but lives on in so many different ways, concrete and indistinct.

For Shep, with love

Today we say goodbye to a kind and gentle soul, a good friend and man, and an even better musician. Shep Meyers was a jazz musician, a husband and father. He created beauty through his music and laughter through his conviviality. We’ll remember him as a man who lived with adventure in his heart and dedication to his art, unfailingly.

Shep Meyers

Road trip Poetry: A desert collaboration

Mountains - ground down molars
aching to chew the sky
Air and wind,
erosion of time
slithering by, fat belly to the earth
scales scraping one by one.
Snake consuming life, energy
crackling the heavens with dancing light
jittery, pacing.
Gods, molecules, lightening
strikes and turns the world to glass.
Sparkling serpents skin becoming dust
storm on the horizon, a vague inclination.
Something constant, yet always changing.
Icons fade. The trail bends.

Pattern: Alternating lines, Jessica, then Greg, then Jessica, et cetera.

Road trip Poetry: A desert collaboration

The heavy desert sky, grey, purple
berries bursting wet sweetness, a roar of thunder.
Saguaro of the earth, thirsty.
Needled arms tingle numb -
standing tall. Proud of life.
Gravity weighs, ribs scatter to the earth.
Survivors of desert salt. Waiting
Patiently.
The bloom withers.
Valley of Death becomes the valley of life,
narrow and lush with humid dirt -
mountains sprawled open.
It starts small. Drip-drop-drip.
Open, it beckons.

Pattern: Alternating lines, Greg, then Jessica, then Greg, et cetera.

Publication Strikes!

I am very pleased to announce that I have a short story appearing in the April/May/June issue of the Storyteller Magazine (or so they tell me). This is my first publication in print! The story, entitled "Beautiful Stranger," centers on the resident ghost of the Hotel Del in Coronado. That's it. That's all you get. No other hints. I will say that it's a blend of magical realism and the classic gothic ghost story genre. Please check it out if you have a chance (and the cash).

The website for the magazine can be found here, however the story is only in print:
http://www.freewebs.com/fossilcreek/storyteller.html

My numerous (3) online publications can be found here:
http://www.storyglossia.com/24/jc_walking.html
http://tclj.toasted-cheese.com/2007/7-4/colomb.htm
http://www.foliateoak.uamont.edu/archives/december-2007/prose/jl-colomb/winter-shadows

Ping

What's been going on since the last post and what is up with this blog?

Well, originally the blog was meant to narrate our lives in Italy to our friends and family. Now we are back and we're not quite sure what to do with it, or even if we have the time to maintain something on a regular basis. We also haven't done much traveling since returning to the United States. You could say that a transatlantic move takes a lot of energy, as does working toward a graduate degree, working full time and developing short stories and novels.

Since January, life has actually been quite eventful. My mom and Andrew came out for visits to the great southwest. Separately of course. We no longer have the mansion in which to house our guests. A small trade off for reducing cleaning time from 6 hours to 2. Pictures from their visits are now up on the flickr site.

Bobby and Cindy had their official ceremony, complete with tuxes and satin. Greg was the best man. He's really proud of his brother for making such a great choice in a life partner and for making strides in the sometimes painful processes of maturing. I don't think that process is ever complete. A rightfully so. I can't imagine how boring life would be having all the answers, seeing all there is to see...

My grandmother celebrated her 93rd birthday. She is happy and healthy and enjoying her new home.

Stay tuned for musings on the desert life, writing, and art.

Greg's studio

Greg's studio
Originally uploaded by Jessica & Greg

Poor Greg. Now he has to share the space with me for the most part. Not that he complains at all. His two studios in Italy have merged into one, and without all the built-ins that seemed perfect for stashing things like illustration board or watercolor paper. Although he is not doing all that poorly since he's sequestered an area of the backyard for oil painting.