Kerry Bennett, Rj Garn and Elizabeth Venetiou met last week’s challenge. The challenge is always with you. Please feel free to send me your response to it (Kerry persuaded me to take out the sarcastic bits!):
Take five minutes and write to your writing. Then be anywhere but on the internet or in a computer game for twenty-four hours. When your internet fast is over, read your five minute letter to your writing and continue writing. I would love to read what you discover . If you follow the instructions, please send me what you write. I’ll publish it in next week’s Breakthrough Tip.
Here are Kerry, Flagstaff writer and marketing whiz; and Rj Garn, New Mexico writer and stand-up guy. Breakthroughwriting will post Lis’ piece next week.
Kerry Bennett
Forever. And ever. Forever. And ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
When we were kids, forever was the shiny pink castle we’d live in once we married our handsome princes. Forever was where grown-ups went after they graduated from high school. It was a place from which they didn’t often return.
We knew what forever wasn’t. We knew it wasn’t going to Foodtown every Wednesday for groceries. Chasing each other up and down the aisles until your mom made us wait outside in the VW bug, where we played with the knobs and dials and stick-shift, wondering how to make it go.
Forever wasn’t watching your dad getting ready to drive to his job at the pharmacy in Birmingham every morning, shouting orders as he drank his coffee and put on his thin tie. We all tried to eat our Lucky Charms and white buttered toast in quiet.
The days were so long back then, it seemed like forever between morning and twilight, when the air would be silvery dusk, and the porch lights switched on up and down the street as mothers stepped outside to call their children home for dinner.
Forever was how long it seemed until next Christmas. We’d all swear to be good, and in the next moment forget our oaths as we squabbled and teased each other. We always knew we’d get presents no matter what. Nobody was that bad.
Then, through the long snowy winters, forever was the promise of summertime, that magical season of barefoot dancing in the thick grass, mindlessly playing whatever game was at hand, and rolling down the gentle hillside in the box from your mom’s new refrigerator.
Back then, forever was how long you’d love someone when you grew up, or at least when you were old enough to go out on a date with a boy. And of course he was going to look like one of the Monkees or one of the Beatles or even Elvis. Or he’d be a prince with a beautifully groomed horse.
When did forever go away?
The country singer’s voice was haunting. “Don’t talk to me about forever,” she was saying. I turned the radio off. The house was silent.
Forever doesn’t mean much to me now. Absurdly abstract, it reminds me of the wind and the rain and the stars. I can’t touch forever or wear it around my shoulders like a warm woolen shawl. It doesn’t pay the rent or buy me a pair of soft sheepskin boots.
I look out my window and watch the leaves falling to the pavement below. The teakettle, which used to whistle merrily, rasps like a wheezing old man. I get up from the desk to make a cup of green tea in my favorite mug. Its coppery raku glaze shimmers in the thin white ray of sunlight.
***
Rj Garn
Dear Wayne county blues, fuck you. Who do you think you are, coming into my life, no invitation, burrowing into my brain, keeping me awake, making me burn my dinner, making me question myself, my creativity, my fucking life choices, just leave me the fuck alone, stop screwing with my sleep, I didn’t ask for your aggravation, I’m a musician, not a fucking novelist, you don’t belong here, So fuck you, that’s how I feel today…
Mary here: Thank you both…and I second all those emotions.
The challenge
Rj Garn Dear Wayne county blues, fuck you. Who do you think you are, coming into my life, no invitation, burrowing into my brain, keeping me awake, making me burn my dinner, making me question myself, my creativity, my fucking life choices, just leave me the fuck alone, stop screwing with my sleep, I didn’t ask for your aggravation, I’m a musician, not a fucking novelist, you don’t belong here, So fuck you, that’s how I feel today…
Forever. And ever. Forever. And ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
When we were kids, forever was the shiny pink castle we’d live in once we married our handsome princes. Forever was where grown-ups went after they graduated from high school. It was a place from which they didn’t often return.
We knew what forever wasn’t. We knew it wasn’t going to Foodtown every Wednesday for groceries. Chasing each other up and down the aisles until your mom made us wait outside in the VW bug, where we played with the knobs and dials and stick-shift, wondering how to make it go.
Forever wasn’t watching your dad getting ready to drive to his job at the pharmacy in Birmingham every morning, shouting orders as he drank his coffee and put on his thin tie. We all tried to eat our Lucky Charms and white buttered toast in quiet.
The days were so long back then, it seemed like forever between morning and twilight, when the air would be silvery dusk, and the porch lights switched on up and down the street as mothers stepped outside to call their children home for dinner.
Forever was how long it seemed until next Christmas. We’d all swear to be good, and in the next moment forget our oaths as we squabbled and teased each other. We always knew we’d get presents no matter what. Nobody was that bad.
Then, through the long snowy winters, forever was the promise of summertime, that magical season of barefoot dancing in the thick grass, mindlessly playing whatever game was at hand, and rolling down the gentle hillside in the box from your mom’s new refrigerator.
Back then, forever was how long you’d love someone when you grew up, or at least when you were old enough to go out on a date with a boy. And of course he was going to look like one of the Monkees or one of the Beatles or even Elvis. Or he’d be a prince with a beautifully groomed horse.
When did forever go away?
The country singer’s voice was haunting. “Don’t talk to me about forever,” she was saying. I turned the radio off. The house was silent.
Forever doesn’t mean much to me now. Absurdly abstract, it reminds me of the wind and the rain and the stars. I can’t touch forever or wear it around my shoulders like a warm woolen shawl. It doesn’t pay the rent or buy me a pair of soft sheepskin boots.
I look out my window and watch the leaves falling to the pavement below. The teakettle, which used to whistle merrily, rasps like a wheezing old man. I get up from the desk to make a cup of green tea in my favorite mug. Its coppery raku glaze shimmers in the thin white ray of sunlight.
I think about the years that have passed. I think about the years that are yet to come. Whatever they may hold, I know they are mine to keep. Mine alone. Forever doesn’t really matter, after all.
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