The World Spins Madly On

Yes, I'm still here.  You were wondering, weren't you?  I'm also still writing, though you couldn't tell by looking on this blog.  Currently I have two projects in the works: a novel, still in the very early stages, tentatively titled The Man in Question, and a collection of very short things (some flash fiction, micro-essays, etc) that I'm calling A Phantasmagoria, partly just because I like that word, and partly because its definition (a sequence of brief, dreamlike images) is particularly apt.  

Writing with a toddler is weird.  All those who have done it successfully have my unwavering and eternal respect.  I mostly write while Griffin naps, which is more conducive to short pieces than the long arc of a novel (thus, the Phantasmagoria) but is infinitely better than nothing.  However, I am occasionally able as he gets older to write while he's awake.  For instance, this evening I am updating this blog while we watch Chicken Run.  He likes chickens, and airplanes.  I write well with white noise.  We get a companionable evening.  Everyone wins!

While it may not exactly qualify as writing, I did recently revamp all my covers, and have officially switched to using my full name (it's now Melanie Rose Huff, thank you very much). This was for multiple reasons.  Anyway, the books with the new covers can be found here, and the website has been updated...at least mostly.

I also opened a cultural center in my hometown last year in memory of my husband, fulfilling a dream we had together of opening a quality facility for arts instruction and performance.  The Aaron Huff Memorial Cultural Center (or the Cult, as I usually shorten it...Aaron would have approved) is on Main Street in Chewelah.  I rent the space to dance and music teachers, and have events there periodically, the most recent being the local farmers' market's Christmas Faire.  During the week there are lessons in ballet, piano, Irish dance, voice, clogging, yoga, and more.  I take class there myself three days a week.  There's still more I want to do, but it's coming along.

So that's the last two years in, if not a nutshell, possibly a banana peel.  I still miss Aaron so much.  I miss our weird little inside jokes.  I wish I could see the look on his face as he watches his son.  Yet I am fortunate, and Griffin is fortunate, that we have his music.  Griffin will grow up knowing the sound of his daddy's voice, and I'm learning what a blessing that is.  And Griffin is more like Aaron every day.

And things go on.  I try not to be too much of a hermit crab, and Griffin helps a lot with that, as he's a pretty social midget.  He also has good taste in literature, but that's a post for another day.

There are long icicles hanging from the vines outside my windows.  The moon is just past full, and very bright.  Outside it is extremely cold, but inside it is warm and cozy and the lights on my Christmas tree are bright spots of color twinkling at me from the corner.  Chicken Run has been done for some time and Griffin is asleep upstairs. Our dog is asleep on his blanket in the corner.  I should not be awake right now, but it's quiet and peaceful.  I have hope for tomorrow.  One thing I've learned: optimism is incurable.

This has gotten far too long and rambling, so I'll leave it here, with a bonus in the form of one of my favorite bits of poetry for this time of year, by Susan Cooper:

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Requiem

On this day one year ago I saw my husband for the last time.  I didn't lose him, like a pair of sunglasses or the spare house key.  He didn't leave me, for there was no abandonment.  We said goodbye that morning like any other, but more carelessly.  It was a Friday, a short workday for him.  He would be home in a few hours.  But he wasn't.

I never saw him again, in life, that is.  I see him often, though not often enough, in dreams.  I never had a last goodbye.  There was a viewing, but I was in the hospital, in labor with our son.  I still don't know if that was a blessing or a curse.  I never got the finality of farewell.  But I can also always keep my final image of him the way he looked that last morning: living and bright and whole...himself.

At the funeral home, put yourself there: they ask you all sorts of horrible questions.  It's not their fault, I suppose, just their job, but the questions are horrible, little needle-jabs of mundane detail.  Your world is dead.  The colors have drained from everything around you...and they ask you whether you like the black or the green better for the urn.  The undertaker holds your hand and gives you a look of obsequious sympathy, but his hands are white and pasty and clammy and all you want to do is take the stupid urn and break it over his head.  But you don't.  You sit there and force yourself to make calm replies.  You try to think clearly.  He asks you questions for the obituary.  You feel like you should write it yourself, but you can't, so you come up with lame little details in response to his prompting.  He loved his family.  Duh.   He was excited to be a daddy.  Yes.  He was active in his community and his church.  Sappy, worn cliches like cardboard cutouts of the truth.  You met at a coffeehouse open mic night.

The obituary, when it's finished, reads like a Nicholas Sparks novel.  He would have hated it.  They say they'll send you a copy to go over before it prints, but they don't, probably because you were in the hospital having a baby.  You see it in the paper.  "Mic" is misspelled.  You wonder who this "Mike" is, and why he was so open that night.

So, this is the obituary he should have had: his requiem.  Sit back, because this could get long.

***

Centuries ago, Aaron Gabriel Huff would have been a bard.  He would have sat in the corner of some noble's hall and spun stories to the music of a harp or a lyre.  A peaceful man in a hall of warriors.

He was a perfectionist, particularly in his art.  He never took the easy rhyme, and lazy songwriting always bothered him in others because he was so ruthless with himself about it.  He would agonize for days over one line.  We were a good fit that way.

He had deeply held convictions, both spiritually and politically, but he never forced them on anyone else.

He worked hard.  He laughed often.  He had no poker face whatsoever.

E.M. Forster said:

"We cast a shadow wherever we stand... Choose a place where you won't do harm -- yes choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine."

That was him.  He wanted so much to never cause harm, to brighten rather than shadow the lives around him.  He spent his life standing fast in the sunshine.

He was an idealist with a veneer of cynicism.  He was a romantic with a shell of bravado.  He was a swirling whorl of humanity with a flame at its heart and a cool exterior.

We were both avid fans of the British detective, in books and film.  He was a sincere devotee of Sherlock, but he wanted to be Lord Peter Wimsey...and in many ways he was.  That reference will register with only a few of the people reading this...but he would have liked that too.

He loved to make people laugh, and was not at all hesitant to tell stories that made himself look ridiculous in order to do it.

He was more than just excited to be a daddy.  He was elated.

If he was here, he would be so proud of his son.  He would play music for him, carry him around on his shoulders, teach him to play baseball and cheer on the Yankees.  He would tell him about all the best comic book plot-lines, read to him from Shakespeare and Tolkien, teach him to call Justin Bieber "Poor Meatbag".  He would have been an amazing father.

He was an amazing husband.

We had our difficulties, our bad moments, our financial woes, our misunderstandings.  What young couple doesn't?  But we were happy...happier than most, and our last year together was as close to perfect as you get.  I'm holding on to that.

Concerning Baldness...and Inside-Out Nightmares

So, I had my head-shaving party on Friday, and now Aaron and I are both bald as eggs.  The reports are in for June, and I will be donating just over $100 to the UICC.  Not so great as I hoped, but not terrible either.

Again, what surprises me, though it probably shouldn't any more, is how wonderful I feel without hair.  Judging from the various facial expressions of those around me, I'm not the only one surprised by this fact.  Some pretend not to notice anything different; some openly stare; some shake their heads; some suddenly appear intensely interested in something else...but my favorites are the ones who break into irrepressible grins.  It seems to me that somehow they understand.  I feel at my best this way...my strongest.  I feel thoroughly myself.


I believe it was Emerson who said: "We acquire the strength we have overcome."  He couldn't have said it better.  Really, in that way, the closer something comes to killing you, the more you have to thank it for.  But only if you can drum up the courage to turn the nightmare inside out.  Perhaps that's a barbarous way to think of it, but it's how I see it.  The more we wallow in our own pain, or relax in our own pleasure, the weaker we become, but if we can turn our tragedies into triumphs and come out laughing, we become the best, strongest, and most honest versions of ourselves.  Maybe that's why I feel at my best this way. It's my inside-out nightmare.


In any case, it feels kind of awesome, especially considering the hot weather we've had recently.  And you don't have to worry about doing your hair in the morning, or using too much shampoo, or getting tangled when you drive with the window down.

The Plunge...and a Taste of Violet Shadows

You know that first swim of the year?  You go to the lake, or the river.  The sun is out, and the water looks so inviting, so you step in.  Then you realize how cold the water is, and you stand there in the shallows for a few minutes while your feet get numb and you try to decide what to do next.  Do you stay in the shallows, half wet and half dry, half cold and half warm, or do you take the plunge all at one go, get the shock over with so that then you can enjoy yourself?


My life lately has been rather similar to this, or seemed so.  So many things have been going on, opportunities presenting themselves all at once...my choices seem to be to say yes to everything, to take the plunge, or to pick and choose, remain safe and sane...but also less fulfilled.


...so I'm taking the plunge.


First of all, Violet Shadows has hit its stride in production.  The final edits are in, and the whole process is moving along at an alarming (yet delightful) speed.  The proof is ordered, and I should have it in hand next week.


I have the opportunity to release Ashford as an audiobook, an option I hadn't even really considered until recently.  It's in production now, and should be available in early August through Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes.  I'm very excited about this, and very grateful to Miss Amy Burzak, who will be doing the narration.


This Thursday we're performing again, centerstage in the Chewelah Park for Chataqua, Chewelah's big annual festival.


This Friday is my ten-year celebratory head-shaving party.  Huzzah!  Had to wait until after Thursday, as performing classical ballet with a shaved head covered in henna tattoos might not look quite right.


My sister and I may be going to Hawaii in early August for a cousin's wedding.  Still working out the details.


Meanwhile, my brain is going mad with ideas for the next novel.


So...all things taken together, I'm floating.  The water is cold, and a little scary, and I may be covered in goosebumps, but I'm floating, not sinking, and things are coming together.


I'll leave you with a preview of Violet Shadows.  Thank you to the wonderful Katherine Owen for the splendid early review!


Melanie Rose delivers, once again, with her new novella, Violet Shadows. Picking up from the story-line of her debut novel Ashford, the author focuses upon Violet Creeley, who has left behind her life in beloved England because of the unexpected violent death of her brother Tristan. In Violet Shadows, Violet has taken on a new identity as "Marie Severin" and joined the French Resistance. As is characteristic of Rose's writing, the author focuses upon the little nuances within her story-line that make it both refreshing and distinctive. Readers are soon pulled into Marie's new world, which is inundated with distrust and great fear, during the turbulent times of World War II, in her newly adopted country of France. With her usual literary flare for finding poignancy within ordinary characters that become extraordinary and extends beyond the page, readers will admire Marie's courage as she bravely serves the French Resistance and lives with the constant danger. Nothing is quite what it seems, and soon, Marie must make a choice between the cause and the individual. 

What makes Melanie Rose's literary work a standout is the way she portrays and develops her characters, illustrates their humanity in distinguishable and unexpected ways, and writes prose as if playing classical music. What a delightful read! The story-line is captivating as well as poignant with just the right amount of twists and turns that will hold a reader's interest. If you enjoy historical fiction that is full of promise and redemption and love a story-line where characters must discover for themselves what it means to choose and love someone beyond the cause and the war, you'll love Violet Shadows.

-Katherine Owen, Author of Seeing Julia, Not To Us, and When I See You

The Elegance of the Hedgehog...and remotely related thoughts

This morning I finished reading The Elegance Of The Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.  It does not, as you might think, have anything to do with hedgehogs, except for the single paragraph from which the title was born, but it is, in my opinion, a brilliant creation.  It's the sort of book you absorb rather than read, an interesting mix of novel and philosophical work.


I picked it up this morning after Aaron left for work at 5:30, thinking that I would read a few chapters before I started the day.  I was a little over halfway through it.  I love those early morning hours.  They give you the chance to prepare your mind for the day.  Anyway, before I knew what had happened I was only pages away from the end and I knew it was hopeless to attempt anything else until I was done.


The final impression it left on my mind was one of beauty and triumph, contained within a shell of lovely, thoughtful prose.


“I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that's it, an always within never.” 


We live for moments of beauty, however brief.  The trick is learning to see.  This may seem overly simplified, but I don't think it is.  So many people stumble around blindly, thinking they are doing important things (like Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh, incidentally) but missing the beauty of life along the way.


“...This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond...We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy...As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.” 


C.S. Lewis said that he began his journey to Christianity from Atheism when he read George MacDonald's book Phantastes.  I read Phantastes myself when I was in my teens.  It's a lovely fantasy novel about a young man who finds his way into fairyland.  There are dryads, both beautiful and frightening, fairies, living statues...but no mention anywhere of God, of Christ, of Faith.  Only a piercing beauty.  Reading that book makes me feel the same way I do standing in an open field in early spring, with no one for miles and mud between my toes, a cool breeze ruffling my hair.  For C.S. Lewis, he said that what caught him in Phantastes was goodness.


Goodness, beauty...for me they are inseparable, intertwined, essential, and for all of us, no matter what creed we follow, they are things we can give to each other.


...I think I'm done now.  The novel has been neglected today, but I still have most of the afternoon, and this blog post has been brewing in my brain for some time now in various forms.  Cheers!

Prologue To a Busy Day

Greetings at the beginning of a very full day.  This morning: finishing off a going-away gift for my good friend who is leaving for college next week, baking a batch of croissants as a thank-you gift for a certain very generous favor (and, incidentally, for breakfast tomorrow), getting a decent start on the next chapter of my novel so that tomorrow when I have more time and concentration I can delve directly into the next tragedy which will propel the plot forward and in which I shall not have any sentences this long or confusing.  This afternoon: demonstrating for a ballet class full of brand new adorable urchins, helping my mom set up her Etsy shop, going back for my own ballet class and staying late for photos, after which I shall come home and gratefully fall into bed.


At least I'm hoping to get all of that done today.  I make no promises.  The novel is coming along nicely these days, and I think my new-found dedication is starting to pay off.  There are still some days where I write only very little, don't like that very little and delete it the next day, but I try to tell myself that those days are as much a part of the process as the productive ones.


Lately I've taken to reading Robin McKinley's blog.  Check it out at www.robinmckinley.com if you're interested.  I've always loved her writing, whether it's her YA work (Beauty, Dragonhaven) or her more adult stuff (the wonderful and unsettling Deerskin, or Sunshine).  It's fantasy with real literary merit.  In any case, she blogs daily -- which in itself is impressive to me -- about life in general, which for her often involves raising hounds, ringing handbells, gardening, chasing bats out of her attic, and writing of course.  I find it delightful.


Just to let everybody know, I have changed my settings to allow for comments from readers who are not officially followers of my blog.  I didn't do this at first because I was trying to avoid spam, but I do enjoy comments and I like feedback, so I changed the settings so that anybody can leave a comment but I have to approve it before it posts.  Hopefully this will help.


Cheers!

Release, Richard, Rants, and a Feral Ballerina

The album release party was a success.  Everyone enjoyed the music, and we sold a number of cds, perhaps not so many as we hoped, but not so few as we feared either.

As a follow-up to a recent post, I must say that Richard III was quite good, the setting in the 1930s done very well, and Ian McKellen simply perfection as Richard, slimy and charming, wily and paranoid, all at once.  So the woman at the junk store was once again proved wrong, not that I ever listened to her recommendations much anyway.

I leave Thursday morning for my annual writers' conference, and find myself in a state of mingled excitement and worry, as usual.  Excitement because of the cathartic experience of spending four days in the company of fellow writers, concentrating on writing, writing as life rather than an accessory to life.  Worry, because of meeting editors and agents and exposing my writing (and through it, myself) to the scrutiny of others.  These things will always be harrowing experiences I think, no matter how my writing eventually fares, or how much confidence I gain.

The four days of the conference serve another useful (at this point indispensable) purpose as well.  They shall offer me a brief respite from work.  In general it hasn't been too bad.  I've met some lovely people, found an endless new supply of character ideas, and the tips aren't so bad either.  The last two days, however, have worn me down into a fine paste.  There are always days like that, there always will be, at any job.  At the coffeehouse there was the man who invited me out to his "ranch", the one who always asked you to stir his coffee with your little finger "to sweeten it up", the woman who went on a tirade when you ran out of her favorite salad dressing.  At the golf course there is the man who offered to be my sugar daddy, or the one who mocked me as I split up his tab, or the woman who insisted I stop and take her party's order as I was on my way to the kitchen with three water glasses in each hand, menus under one arm, and the ketchup and mustard carousel dangling from my little finger.  Not that my days are made up entirely of these occurrences.  Hardly.  There are generally plenty of good things to balance out the bad.  I don't mind cleaning up after people, really, and I actually quite like waiting on tables.  What I don't like, what makes me see red, is the air of entitlement which so often comes with the aforementioned actions, the attitude that the fact that you are waiting tables and they are not gives them the right to treat you in any way they see fit, to mock, harangue, or hit on you without compunction.  Meanwhile, they expect speed, efficiency, serenity, and grace from you.  Generally I can manage the speed and serenity, if not always the other two.  The last two days I've been slipping.  Four days of rejuvenating literary immersion should be just what I need.

Rant over.  By next Monday morning I will love customer service again, or at least see the amusing side again and dislike it a little less fiercely.

I must conclude this post with a photo of my alter-ego, the Feral Ballerina, from Stephen Pastis' comic strip Pearls Before Swine.

A Moment

It is cooler today, with a light rain.  Inside, the house smells of freshly baked bread.  Outside, the breeze brings the scents of rain and lilacs.  I've been gathering up my sewing for Sunday, when some of the girls are going with me to help take photos for my portfolio.  I like looking at the fabric, lying in a heap, all the colors together.  It's been an idyllic, dreamy sort of day.  I've been alone since Aaron left for work, and it's been one of those days when I think sometimes I will forget how to speak.  The silence goes so deep that I don't like to break it.  In a moment I will leave for class and there will be music, life, movement, laughter.  That is a dream of a different kind.  Just as pleasant, but as alien to this other as the fresh-baked bread to the lilacs and rain.

...with an apology for the longer-than-usual delay.

I did mean to post yesterday.  Then our internet went down for the last half of the day and my plans were foiled.  This weekend was strangely unweekendish, full of things that on their own are rather nice but crammed all together make a big mess, like trying to squeeze leftovers into too small of a container.  So now it's back to the weekly grind, and my brain feels stagnant and overwhelmed at once, full of things I want to do and write but too tired to do more than think of them.


We danced for a fundraiser Saturday night... always a good time.  Rehearsals begin in earnest next week for our show in May.  I'm also doing a fair bit of costuming this year.  Yes, it's piling more on the plate, but dancing rests my mind even while it wearies my body, and sewing for dancing is the best kind.


The weather today has been a mix of snow and sun and rain.  It mirrors my mood and helps to bring me back in tune with life.  It is people who muddle me the most.  Looking down at the world from my imaginary tower I can feel in harmony with all, yet set me down amongst them and it is a different matter.  Down on the ground they confuse and intrigue me, fascinate and disgust me, amuse and frighten me.  I long to hide from their staring eyes.  And yet I know I am one of them.  I cannot escape humanity until I can escape myself.  Therein lies the conundrum.

Life as a Novel

I like to think of life as a novel.  You write it, in a way, as you would a novel.  It has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  It's full of wacky characters, some of whom are so unique that if you wrote them into actual fiction no one would find them believable.  You choose whether to be the protagonist of your own life, or to stand by as a supplementary character while somebody else commands the stage and directs the course of the story.  You can be the hero or the villain, or merely a sidekick or flunky.  You may create an outline, but more often than not, the plot changes as the characters grow and change.  (At least, this regularly happens to me.  I do know some people who keep strictly to their outlines, but my characters nearly always change their minds about what they want to do at the last moment without consulting me.  And they are generally right.)


As in a novel, there are things that might happen, things that perhaps should have happened, things that you regret, but the trick is to make what does happen the best, the most satisfying it can be, even if, or especially if, it pulls at the heartstrings a little.


Most importantly, I think, you choose how the novel is written.  The same basic plot can be interpreted in so many different way.  It is because of the genius of Charles Dickens that the end of A Tale of Two Cities is a triumphant one.  Had he written it differently but kept the basic story the same, Sidney's death could have been a pointless thing, one more pointless tragedy in a particularly messy time in human history.  As it is, it is one of the most triumphant moments in literature, which actually makes it more heartbreaking.


Just a thought.