The Simple Life

Four days after Marathon Monday, I desperately grabbed for my friend's hand across the aisle of our six-seater plane. Somewhere over a Costa Rican jungle, we bounced like a paper airplane caught in a gale-force wind. Rain pelted the windows and all we could see was white as we hugged tighter into the center of a storm cloud.

This is it, I thought. This is how I will die. This is the week. Not a bomb, but a plane crash in Costa Rica.

The pilot turned back to us--two of the plane's three passengers--and gave us a thumbs up.

And much to the credit of those pilots, we didn't end up crashing into some lush mountaintop or sinking into a stingray-laden bay. We landed safely at the Golfito airport and began the next leg of our trek to the Yoga Farm in Punta Banco, Costa Rica.

It felt wrong to be traveling. To be having fun. We had left San Jose that Friday morning with the news that Boston was on lock-down. Something was happening, something with gunfire and grenades, something with the Marathon bombing suspects. Something sounding like a bad action movie. But we didn't know what or if our loved ones were safe. We were entering a week without cellphones, Internet, or TV.  I had naively envisioned that after Marathon Monday's tragedy, that was it.  As horrible as it was, there would be no more bombs, no more lives lost. Somehow I had forgotten that those responsible were still out there.
               
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Our Spanish-only speaking cab driver fought his cuatro-por-cuatro vehicle up a nearly-vertical hill, and my travel buddy and I once again exchanged are we going to make it glances. He let us out on the narrow dirt path next to a small hand-painted "Yoga Farm" sign. Lizards zig zagged across our path, and with our giant backpacks, we wandered into the jungle. The small dirt path we chose led to a long wooden table under a thatched roof--the kitchen that would be that place of all of our meals, many rounds of Bananagrams and great laughs with new friends.

"Hello! Are you new? Put down your bags. Lunch is ready," someone told us. Shell shocked and starving, we helped ourselves to the huge bowls of fresh salad topped with starfruit, rice and beans garnished with cilantro and a pile of deep purple beets. Where was the check-in desk? Who was running this place? Where was our room? Volunteers popped in and someone showed where we were to sleep and filled us in on how the place was run. Watch out for the poisonous snakes. The outdoor shower has the best water pressure. Composting toilets need mulch after you're done and yoga is at 6:30 a.m. 

"But how will we wake up in time without an alarm?" I asked. I'm the type who sets two alarms just in case.  

Oh, you'll wake up, we were promised.

Wake up we did--to the monstrous grunting of the howler monkeys and the cacophony of bird and animal morning song. That first yoga class was challenging in a way I didn't expect. Although we laid out our mats on the yoga deck (pictured above) with the gentle ocean breeze filtering over the trees and the relaxing sounds of the jungle backing our class, I couldn't stop shaking. Even just sitting, it felt as if my body was trying to let go of this deep tension I held tightly to, but I was resisting. I fought the onset of tears.

When fellow travelers heard we were from Boston, they naturally asked about the bombing and our experience. I had trouble making eye contact during those initial conversations. I wanted to be away from it. To cut myself off. I was still jittery, but by our second day there, we were told if we needed to use the Internet, we could buy a smoothie from a local family at the bottom of the hill and hang out in their yard to log on via our smart phones.  We wandered into stranger's backyards until we found them, more welcoming than anyone you'd imagine in the U.S. We were happy to see that the city was no longer on lockdown. One suspect was dead and the other was caught.  Finally, I felt, I could breathe.

After that, relaxing was easy. It was simple, in fact. Everything was. The meals were healthy vegetarian dishes made largely from fruit and vegetables grown on the property. Days consisted of yoga, reading in hammocks, and swimming at the beach.  Without our ferocious need to connect electronically, we forged friendships with the strangers sleeping around us and shared the types of conversations about things like improving the earth that you can only have with the idealistic in remote corners of the world. By the end of the week, the aching of tension in my shoulders and back was replaced with a slight tan. I was smiling. Couldn't stop, in fact.

Sometimes you are just lucky enough to end up with one of those trips that gives you something to bring home--not a bag full of souvenir shirts neither you nor your loved ones will ever wear--but something I wanted to cultivate in my own life.  Something like simplicity.  Something that could be garnered from clean food, simple living, sweating, being outdoors, working with your hands, shutting off technology, doing yoga, exploring, being dirty, meeting new people, not bothering with makeup or nice clothes. How good it felt to pare down and yet to have all of this.

The Thing About Tragedy

The thing about tragedy is that it changes when it's not your own.  When it's not personal.  When it's shared not by pressing your wallowing face into a pillow, but with the entire world. It's hard to take it personally when you can't truly own it. When there were so many people hurt, when there were so many witnesses, so many who's body tensed with that first boom.

When I see Krystle's face on Boston.com, on PerezHilton, on Access Hollywood, it seems so strange, so abnormal, to see a familiar face--not much changed from the elementary/middle school version I remember--made so public. People from over the world are mourning and signing the guestbook for a girl who's voice I can still conjure up in my head around 2 a.m. during a 5th grade sleepover.

"Can I ask you a question?" said a girl in my yoga class this morning, "did you run after the bombs went off? Because I can't stop thinking about how cowardly I am. Just hearing the sound and seeing the crowds, I took the first bus I could find out of the city."

And I did. I ran. Or walked. Straight out of Boston.

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When we first got to the Boston Marathon this past Monday morning, my friend's mother apologized for not being able to get us through the crowds and closer to the finish line. We blamed it on having that extra mimosa with brunch.  We blew it this year, we said, got in too late.  The crowds were too thick.  We settled for a second row spot right within the 26 mile mark. We cheered on strangers and the husbands/wives/friends of the strangers around us.  We teared up watching runners help their limping companions cross the finish. We talked about what a perfect day it was for running.

Watching the runners near the finish! Come meet up! I texted my sister precisely 8 minutes before the first bomb went off.

It was a lot like one of those fireworks--those big thundering ones with the white flash, that reverberate deep within your chest. And then it seemed like there was a moment of silence, where I wondered if it was some sort of celebratory canon.  But as we watched the cloud of smoke open up over the crowd and--perhaps most horrifying--the runners reverse their course away from the finish, the second one sounded, closer this time. When I look on the map, it tells me that bomb went off on the same block we stood on.  But that one I don't remember all that much because we started to run, all holding each other, as people screamed, tearing around us.

"Wait. Stop. Calm down," said my friend's mom.  She didn't want us to panic.  "What was that? What's happening?" my friend asked.  It was a bomb. I was sure of it. I said as much.  It smelled like what I'd imagine a bomb to smell like, the air think with a gunpowder haze. But I didn't want to stop. I wanted to run, to scoop up everyone I knew and run them out of the city. It didn't feel good to be in an open space, but the tall buildings to our right and left didn't look safe either. We looked to the sky, wondering if bombs were being dropped, or if they were in the buildings, and for the brief moment frozen in place we wondered if we were next, standing in the spot where the others--if there were others--would erupt.

We moved further down Boylston glued to our phones, trying to get in touch with friends and family in the area. Calls wouldn't go through. Miraculously, my friend's boyfriend came crashing into us, in hysterics, nearly collapsing. He had seen it all. "Bodies everywhere," he spit out through tears.

I want to get out of here. I can't stand here, I kept repeating. Our group grew as we picked up a foreign runner confused and lost without a single friend or person she knew in the city, and then all at once, we were separated, and I was left with one friend careening down Mass Ave. and over the Mass Ave. bridge into Cambridge as helicopters buzzed towards the city and sirens wailed.

A girl followed close behind us, tears slipping from underneath dark sunglasses. "Do you know what happened?" she asked. As with many, she followed the masses without really realizing the scope of what happend. She was alone and didn't know where she was going. So, my group grew once again and she stayed with us for the rest of the day until we could drive her to a friend's house that evening.  I fought the urge to hug every distraught individual walking alongside us in tears. And maybe I shouldn't have fought that urge. Maybe they would have been okay with a sweaty-palmed hug from the stranger walking beside them.

We walked for miles, straight through Cambridge, and when I finally got home and sat on my bed, I wondered, what now? How did you do anything after something like that? Did I do that pile of laundry sitting on the floor? Or maybe some deep breathing exercises to stop the shaking? Or as a writer, should I write it down now? But I couldn't do anything. Not for myself or for all the poor people who were hurt.

I wished I was still walking, wished I had miles to go.

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My dad asked me if in a weird way, was I glad to have been there, to have experienced such a thing, and luckily, escape unharmed? And although it felt wrong for some reason to admit it, I sort of was.
Despite, the horror of such a tragedy, I had learned something. That I would run. That fear makes my heart open and want to reach out to anyone within arm's distance. That I felt the strange surge of pride and allegiance to my city.  That you can't control the bad things that happen because they just happen. That everyone in the city of Boston will be bonded together eternally in some way after that day.

And it Falls Again

Yesterday was the first day of fall in Boston. Sort of.  It was the first time I left my house in shorts and flip flops and stood shocked on my doorstop (granted, at 5:45 a.m.) that I needed something warmer. Like, much warmer. Socks, closed-toed shoes, jeans, jacket, the works.  And it was perfect.  Clear and bright, warming in the later afternoon.  I drank tea and actually looked forward to a hot shower and --all the small niceties you take for granted when its full-blown summer.

The other nice thing about the fall weather: books on my cozy back porch in the evenings with this list of must read books for September and this:

Monday night I went to Coolidge Corner and got a pumpkin spice latte and wandered around Brookline Booksmith (which has a better discounted book section than any of the other Boston-area bookstores I've been to so far) and then I went to see For a Good Time, Call about these two girls who start a sex phone line.  It's the femme crush response to all the recent bromance movies.  The ending scene involves the two besties running towards each other down a swanky NY block, finally ready to drop the "L" bomb (yes, love). It's pretty funny, and given their $12,000/monthly income from running a phone sex line, I'm considering a new career this fall.

Addicted to Love

So, first off this:

And second of all, I was talking with my friend Lisey yesterday after visiting a local book shop (where the shop owner informed us that Shades of Grey is about to hit 20 million copies sold) about why these book series are so popular.  Seriously, my mom, sister, roommate, aunts and just about every other female I know is reading it. (Not to mention the guys who aren't admitting to it). And I heard from many sources that it's not a very well written book.  So, what is it about these book series (including Twilight, The Hunger Games etc.) that makes readers eat them up, hide them in their laps at the dinner table or under the brim of their XL sunhat on the beach?

My theory--having left behind reality this past week to finish the last two Hunger Game novels of the trilogy--is that ladies are still gaga for love and in the market to indulge their fantasies a bit.  Sure, romance novels were the thing for a while, but who in this day and age still thinks Fabio is attractive? What about something more modern and a little bit darker and sexier like Shades of Grey? And who doesn't like a good 'ole fashioned love triangle with two equally strong, protective and very attractive male suitors (re: Twilight and The Hunger Games)? Which guy will she pick??!! OMG, the suspense is killing me! It becomes something of an obsession.  (Don't believe me, look here.)

The third thing is the opportunity to get lost into something that is so completely different from your own life, which incidentally may feel dull and totally unsexy in comparison to that of the book.  Sure, we don't want our loved ones ripped apart by vampires or tortured by the Capital, but there's something to be said about becoming entirely wrapped up in the drama of it all, romantic or otherwise.  Novels achieve this far better than any TV show or movies because it's in your head, you're filling in the details, you're the director, narrator, etc. You get to live it to a degree.  Which is why novels will never die.

I haven't felt that in a long time.  Where I literally couldn't stop reading, or put any attention into my real life, because the one I was reading was that much more enthralling, even though I found the protagonist annoying at that point.  And then you're done, and it's a little depressing. Because they're gone--those characters you devoted so many hours to imagining and following--especially once you committed yourself to a trilogy.  But maybe that's the definition of a good book: a rabbit hole that makes for a swift and sexy escape out of your real life and into something else.  Better than hallucinogenics, I suppose.

Passing 100

Today, I passed the 100-page mark on the current novel I'm working on, my third novel attempt to date. It takes place in New Hampshire and is from a male perspective who might sound a lot like a girl. 

The books you read while you are writing a novel can really influence your writing at the time.  But  it seems that the right books come into your hand at just the right time to teach you what they need to.  For a long time, I had been only reading books about Yoga (there are still a bunch more on my to-read list), which weren't very helpful for my writing.  But it's summer and I'm going to Martha's Vineyard this weekend and it feels like I should be on the beach luxuriating in novels that I can read within a few days.

This week I started reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Stern Men. Yes, Elizabeth Gilbert as in Eat, Pray, Love.  I bought this book without really wanting to read it, but the back cover told me it was about an 18-year old girl spending her summer and Maine working on a lobster boat, i.e. sounds exactly like the novel I'm trying to publish right now.  I've been stockpiling books that sound similar to mine based upon the back cover in hopes that no one else will read those and maybe would want to read mine instead once it is published.

But Stern Men is "adult fiction" opposed to "young adult" (my novel), told from a third person perspective, and is surprisingly very enjoyable.  It's got all the things I like to read about: lobsters, Maine, wierd people, cold ocean, but it is vastly different than my own story.  It's nice to see how different people can look at the same thing and get two completely different stories out of it.  I guess that's the whole point in reading--to see things from a different angle.

This is What I Forgot About New England Summer

Wearing shorts at night and not being cold, pollen coating your car within minutes, the sun being up before you, even when you try to wake up really early, the sound of paddles on a still pond, big heavy tadpoles right before they become frogs, ticks, getting kind of tan (even though you're Irish and "tan" is very subjective), reading summer paperbacks on a hot beach, ones that you bought from a yard sale with already folded pages and a worn cover, tons of yard sales, tons of ice coffee (especially hazelnut iced coffee with soy), the way old boats look on new days, Cape Cod traffic, more bugs, grass that needs to be cut, how the heat makes you need a body of water, how good water can taste, how good popsicles are (Trader Joe's coconut water ones are delicious!), breezes you appreciate, the amount of green, thunderstorms so bright and loud they’re amazing but also you’re kind of scared. 

The Standard Rejection

"Christine,

Thank you so much for sending a sample of your work for my consideration. Unfortunately, I will have to respectfully decline your invitation to see more. As you know, these decisions are highly subjective, and another agent may have an entirely different opinion. Thank you again for thinking of me, and I wish you the best of luck in finding a good home for your writing."

This is kind of how I feel when I see this sort of thing in my inbox:

I have been sending out queries in order to find an agent to represent my novel. And the feeling depicted above can last anywhere from a couple minutes, to a few hours or flip the switch on your entire day into a grumpy one. And even though they always put the ubiquitous "highly subjective," you can't get those stupid words out of your head repeating your writing isn't good enough. But I like my book. I really do. I spent lots of hours (and years) working on it, and I think I maybe just need a new approach to my query letter. Maybe my book is actually a totally different genre? Maybe the writing in the query doesn't accurately represent the writing in my novel? Maybe I should just be happy that I got any response back even though it was a negative one?

As a creative writer, rejection is par for the course. You can try developing thicker skin. Or give up and use your manuscript as kindling. You can practice dismissing your fear of rejection by asking out only the most attractive/intelligent/witty people. You can go out on limbs (literally and figuratively). Or practice visualizing the outcome you desire becoming your reality. Kneel down and start praying to the Gods of published literature. Or maybe you just keep writing, and keep doing what you can to move forward. And then maybe someday, something positive will land in your inbox, to get you feeling like this: