I Once Was Lost

“Not all those who wander are lost.” J. R. R. Tolkien

We’ve spent much of the last two weeks getting lost. Of course. We make one wrong turn down a cobblestone street and find ourselves in a labyrinth of French and Dutch-named streets. If we are wandering without a destination, we cannot get lost. It is only when we are keeping to some schedule, especially before we figured out how to get a European cell phone and couldn’t call to say we would be late, that we find ourselves panicking and frustrated. We spread open the map and argue about which direction is north.

But if we are not worried about here or there, right or wrong, then we are free to wander pleasantly through the alleys. We see every detail. We see the smiling baby waving at us and the grandmother eating an ice cream cone. Here is our destination. Always. Here is where we are supposed to be.

David and I had been reading The Tao of Pooh over and over again like a mantra for the last nine months. In preparation for the transformative journey, we knew that the biggest threat was the need to be in control. I am guilty of this sin every day. I hungrily seek control over every situation. I want to know what is going to happen. I don’t like surprises or accidents. I am solid like the stones that I continue to trip over.

When I was fourteen, I learned how to ride a horse. Well, not exactly a horse. It was a pony. A big pony named Lady, which she was not. Lady hadn’t been ridden much and was not trained very well. I learned how to ride at the same time as learning how to train. The most important thing I learned about horseback riding was how to listen with my body. If I felt what the Lady was doing, I would know when she was afraid. I would feel when she was about to run me into a low-hanging tree branch. I could move with her if I was relaxed and aware.

It was my first lesson in listening. Being aware. Going with the natural flow of things. I didn’t need to be in control because control was an illusion anyways. But I could be at peace because I would be soft and pliable. I would be like a dirt path instead of a cobblestone sidewalk.

Couchsurfing.com has provided us with the means to live in this way. The members are all people who are welcoming and open to connecting with others. The generosity and hospitality is reminiscent to those hippie followers of Jesus in the Book of Acts. All for One and One for All. Couchsurfing.com is about giving others a home, a place to relax when one is traveling. This lifestyle rings true with me.

One of our fellow couchsurfers said it simply. She’s a French-speaking Belgian with a very good knowledge of English. In her favorite bar near Place Flagey, a dark place where a gnome on the counter grins at you when you order your Kriek, she told us that her new word to live by was: Easy. If something is too difficult, you need to stop. Listen. Breathe. Life is easy when you learn how to let go. Be more like Winnie the Pooh.

Letting go is a process. It can take many forms. David finds that he lets go of much while he’s boxing or working out. I let go when I walk through a quiet park and feel the tree branches above my head. Both of us find this place of letting go through the process of creation. All anger, frustration, stress, and heartache are transformed with each movement of the paintbrush or key stroke.

The calm of this lifestyle has created a place—a room of my own—where characters begin breathing and moving. I am free of the daily grind, the mundane stress of work, work, work. Meaningless work where every minute counted only towards paying bills.

Here, I am free to play god. I can write without distraction. I disappear into the background. I am the cobalt sky, the crooked sidewalk, the illuminated lamppost. I am free to pour past failures and dark conflict into the characters, bringing the story to life.

Yesterday, we rode the elevator to the top of Parking Garage 58, just steps away from St. Catherine’s. It is the best free view of Brussels. We could see the Atomium from there. We surveyed the steeples and rooftops and traffic jams and we saw that it was good.

On top of the parking garage, I imagined how Jesus felt when the devil took him to a high place. Like Jesus, the devil tempts us with his twisted offering. “All this could be yours…if only…” That “if only” binds us in chains of sleepless nights and mental exhaustion. We think that if only we had that perfect career, that perfect marriage, that perfect outfit, we would have it all. But it already is ours and the devil has nothing to offer. When you don’t own anything, you have everything. When you give it all away, it is all yours.

Of course, I am still afraid. But I have been in the presence of freedom. When our hosts gave us—strangers with tattoos and piercings—keys to their lovely apartment. “Come and go as you please.” We were given the gift of trust. I am still afraid but fear has an enemy. I will not let fear keep me caged. It may feel against my nature to let go, but letting go is what my nature truly yearns for.

Couchsurfing.com is part of this redemptive process: the letting go of that which is not important. We find healing and restoration in the simple sharing of blankets and towels, early morning hellos, and the offering of much-needed coffee.

In this place of vulnerability, we are not lost. We are home.

(For photos, check out my other blog or facebook.)

Writing & Traveling

Greetings from the future! (I still find this humorously after living in Brussels for two weeks. We're about six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.)

For the time being, please follow my travel blog posts at www.open.salon.com/blog/gwendolyn_glover.

I'm unable, perhaps because of poor internet connection, to copy and paste my blog posts into blogger.

You can become a fan on facebook or email me to get on my mailing list: gwendolyn dot derosa at gmail dot com.

Cheers!

What is "TwitLit?"

Meet Jason Pettus.

I met Jason Pettus, founder of The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, at the Pilcrow Lit Fest in 2008. This well-spoken intellectual is intrigued by quality literature and film and has dedicated his life to promoting the arts. He is intricately involved with the Chicago literary scene and is a strong supporter of self-publishing. On the CCLaP website, Jason reviews books (including self-publications) and movies, discusses artistic movements, and interviews authors via podcasts.

“CCLaP is currently a one-person operation, put together by me, Jason Pettus; for those who don't know, I studied photography at the University of Missouri in the '80s and '90s, and then became a full-time creative writer myself once moving to Chicago in 1994. Among other fun experiences during those years, I […] received a grant from the Illinois Arts Council; released three novels, two travel books and a host of miniature "chapbooks;" went on numerous American tours and two European ones; […] all while remaining a self-publisher the entire time and without once hiring a publicist or agent.”

“TwitLit”?

Recently, Jason became interested in how Twitter can be used as a publishing tool for short literary expressions. So he came up with the “TwitLit” experiment.

“CCLaP Publishing is happy to announce "TwitLit," the center's first-ever story series. Written as a collection of haiku-like chapters, each no longer than 140 characters, TwitLit stories are first published serially through the short-message service Twitter.com, then published here as high-quality, printable poster versions.”

What the project means to me?

I was thrilled when Jason asked me to be a part of this project. In the past couple of years, I’ve been experimenting with short fiction. I want to see how much of a story I can tell in the least amount of words. It’s similar to writing poetry. Every word is important. Every word is a gem.

You can follow my TwitLit story “Cat” starting March 10th.

Do you want to get involved?

“CCLaP is always on the lookout for intriguing TwitLit projects, ranging from 10 to 50 parts; simply email Jason Pettus at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com with your submission.”

Interview with Robin Sneed

I had the pleasure of reading one of the first copies of Flowergirls, A Mirroir by Robin Sneed. This debut novel is a beautiful and intimate mesh of memoir and fiction.

"Robin Sneed was born in Los Angeles in 1962. After an eight year career in television as a child, she went on to have a 17-year career in corporate hell. A Physics major, activist, and adventurer, her greatest accomplishment has been to well and truly love another."


Erotic, brash, and sometimes profane, Flowergirls, A Mirroir, will change the way you think about marriage. The eighteen-year chronicle of two women who fall passionately in love through years of socio-political upheaval and change in Los Angeles, will leave you believing in the intrinsic sanctity of the heart.

I always want to know the story behind the story. What inspired you to write this book?

The love of my life, Rebecca, inspired me to write Flowergirls. After she died in 2001, I went through a very rough time of it in grief. It was truly devastating. We had talked about me writing a book, and so, I did. Although I have always written, it makes absolute sense that my first novel would be about our lives together. I created a couple of fictional plots in the book so that I could express my grief without writing about her death. I wanted to write a very alive book as a gift for Rebecca. A book with an ending she truly deserved. God, I love that girl.


While I was reading, I felt like I was eavesdropping on the lovely relationship between these two women. I think the diary form enabled this closeness between the reader and the main characters. Why did you choose to write it as a diary?

I kept a diary early in our relationship, although sadly, I do not have it now. I wanted the very present tense of a diary...while writing Flowergirls, I was working through grief, and by writing the book in largely journal form, I could get 'close to the blood' as I like to say...it was an intense experience working that way...exhausting even...to let myself get into that space and relive those days...it was also very healing.

Flowergirls, A Mirroir is a hot and steamy love story. Were you worried about family members reading it?

I never thought about that. Flowergirls is our story and one we wanted to tell. I have express permission from Rebecca to write of our erotic connection...we wanted to 'throw the doors open' as Beck would say. This is an interesting question because...I think that kind of self editing probably gets in the way of a great many potentially brilliant books making it to the stands.

Someone asked me this question in an interview and I thought it was timely due to the recent incline in self-publishing. Why did you decide to self-publish this book?

Because I don't like asking for permission. When I wrote Flowergirls, I wasn't even thinking about publishing. It took me a couple of years to let go of it. At any rate, I don't like the idea of asking permission to share what I write...most especially with this book.

I seem to always have one or two stories in my head, even as I’m working on a current project. What are you working on now?

I'm working on a second novel, The American Daughter. This book chronicles my life growing up in Los Angeles in the television industry. About knowing I was gay, about my father being in the military. I was a small child during the 'hippie movement' and during a resurgence in feminism. It has a lot to do with being a child who was thrust into the world of entertainment, and there was a dark side to that. At that time, I desired nothing more than a life in science and philosophy. I think many women felt that kind of longing growing up, for whatever circumstances they were thrust into. And during all of that, I'm feeling that I'm a boy in a girl's body! The American Daughter is a book about the resilience of dreams and natural inclination; one does not have to win the Nobel Prize nor solve world peace to know intellectual and spiritual.