Jessica Handler's Blog, page 2
February 22, 2014
Saudade
You know how
you hear a word that’s new to you and suddenly it’s everywhere? For me, that word is saudade. It’s Portuguese, and means a kind of deep longing. I read it yesterday for the first time, and remarked on it to myself, because I do that with new words, and then damn if I didn’t hear it again this morning in an NPR story. I’m not experiencing saudade (say it, it’s wonderful) for anything in particular, and actually less so than usual, but there it is. Saudade.
I feel a deep longing for new words. I love them. They’re like candy, but more satisfying. I don’t love candy, but I’ll fight you for a Mint Milano cookie.
February 12, 2014
Birds don’t need milk and bread
The newspapers and media are hollering about stocking up on milk and bread, which leads me to wonder if people eat milk sandwiches. I don’t drink milk, and I have plenty of bread. I love bread, which is a downfall of mine. Too much bread and I am unattractive. However, I do shake the crumbs and seeds out of mostly-empty bread bags and make snacks for the birds.
This morning, M. and I suited up, took a WALKING STICK which is mostly decorative but useful, and headed out into the freezing rain and slushy snow. We poured salt on the back steps, which in my mother’s parlance would be the “dooryard,” or “doah yahd” if you want to get way New England on it, which had mostly faded from her speech but could be easily restored by proximity to a fellow traveler from, say, Framingham or New Hampshire.
Anyway. The birds. M and I reloaded the bird-feeder outside my studio window, which you see here. A lady cardinal (Claudia Cardinale?) is dining on the seeds. Her man is not in the shot. Neither is the woodpecker who sometimes noms on the bricks.
Good work done for the ice-storm.
February 3, 2014
The bookstore where I signed my name on the toilet door, the bookstore where I saw a bunch of my friends, and the bookstore where I met new ones and then went to Robert Johnson’s grave.
First things first. When you go to Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia (not if, but when) you might want to sign the door to the toilet, like this.
Which is not the only reason visit Avid Bookshop, by any means. There are the books, which are delicious and highly hand-picked. And the booksellers, like Will and Frankie, and Janet, who owns the place. And Rachel, who books the special events. Last week we closed the doors and had a workshop right there in the front room, and wrote interesting things with lots of detail about setting a scene. And we talked about hybrid form, like if you put photos or poems into other text. And we ate tofu dip, which I would have taken home but we were out of forks.
Athens is only about ninety minutes from my house, but Oxford Mississippi is five hours and Greenwood is six, which means that I had to buy a new charger for my phone to keep it alive in my car, but the trip was way worth the fourteen dollars I spent at a Love’s travel stop for the charger thing. The generous and fun Neil White pretty much wound me up and pointed me in the right direction – toward the very full house! – at Off-Square Books, where I realized I’m all prepared to teach a workshop but had forgotten to pick what to just read. Neil vamped while I flipped through my book, and everyone was very kind and signed my guestbook and spent their money to buy my book. And then Neil and his wonderful wife D., and I did what people seem to do in Oxford, which is enjoy good food, good drink, and outstanding talk. And they gave me directions to Greenwood Mississippi.
I did bear right at the fork on Route 7, in case that comes up, and made very good time.
Which leads us to TurnRow Book Company in Greenwood. “Oh, what a gorgeous bookstore,” said eleventy-hundred people before I got there. When I got there, I said, “oh, what a gorgeous bookstore!” I have this problem in bookstores. I want to buy everything. TurnRow also has a cafe upstairs. I bought vegetable soup, home-made. (I also bought books and a t-shirt for M.) TurnRow also has a porch on the 2nd floor, and that’s where we held my mini-workshop. We talked about ghosts (not the Casper kind or the “have you seen the ghost of John” kind, but the character-motivation symbolic kind.) We also talked about obsessions, and how making connections between who we were “then” and who we are “now” generates plot in writing about grief and loss.
And Jamie, who runs the place, and I talked about fiction and draft. And Ben, who works there, and I talked about classical percussion and interesting instruments.
And then I went to hear some good music with two new friends from my workshop! This is serendipity.
And in the morning, in the rain, on the way out of town, I drove across not Billy Joe McAllister’s bridge, through the grand part of town, and out into the country, so that I could go here. 
January 26, 2014
I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the drums all day
My friend P., a
drummer and a writer and a dad, is going to plug his ears and introduce me to a drum kit. (The dialogue will be as follows:
P: Jessica, this is a drum kit.
ME: (grabbing sticks and flailing) HI DRUM KIT!
He’s agreed to do this because I’ve agreed to participate in Ladies’ Rock Camp. Why? Because my friend A. talked me into it. Because I played guitar for years and years, as in “sometimes even in public,” and CAN NOT play at all anymore. Whatever talent I had, or perseverance, or callouses, are just gone.
I can still sing, however. But what I really want to do is try my hand (hands?) at drumming.
Wish me luck.
PS. In case you’re a rock and roll purist (as I am) yes, I know the title of this post references a Todd Rundgren song, and this is a picture of Ringo Starr.
PPS. Ringo Starr is a really great drummer. Don’t argue with me or I will hit you with my rhythm stick.
PPPS. Yeah, I know that’s Ian Drury.
January 16, 2014
Ten things about traveling to promote a book, or, a post in which I take my own writing advice
So, in Braving the Fire, I borrowed (with permission) a writing exercise from Janisse Ray, in which she suggests a way to write when you’re too busy to write: jotting a list of ten things taking place around you that you want to write about when you get the time.
Seeing as how the last week has involved Charlotte, NC, Atlanta, and my wonderful students at the Hogwarts-looking local college at which I also teach, here’s my ten…
1. Doing crow pose with my friend K. at Wingmaker Arts Collaborative before the workshop attendees arrived. Crow post (bakasana) in boots and jewelry. (This is my cat Alice, posing with a papier-mache crow.)
2. Realizing that credit card machines don’t have that satisfying ka-thunk when you swipe the card. Everything’s silently, creepily, digital.
3. Panthers-game tailgaters reminded me of New Orleans Jazz Fest, but without the music. Or New Orleans.
4. A very gutsy talk about how research informs scene (I’m talking to you, S.J., in the workshop at Charis Books.)
5. An outstanding dialogue about writing dialogue (I’m talking to you, J.M. sitting there to my right at the workshop table…)
6. Writing for an hour in my hotel room, getting the bones of an essay organized. Sort of.
7. Okay, I admit it, I bought a bag of chili-lime cornchips at a fancy market in Greenville, SC and ate them while I drove. All of them.
8. Realizing that I can’t keep eating like this when I travel. Also realizing I need to vacuum out the inside of my car.
9. Seeing K., her husband T., our pal A.
10. Visiting the folks and Yola the dog at Park Road Books in Charlotte.
January 6, 2014
No rules, or lamenting and looking forward at the same time, in Psychology Today
January’s tough. And there was phenomenal fog over Candler Park the night of my book launch. And somewhere, a recording of ‘Tis a Gift to Be Simple’ played, muted by the dampness. All of which led to this, from me, in Psychology Today, about noticing the birthdays of loved ones who have died.
January 3, 2014
Tears of Joy look different under a microscope than tears of sorrow
These photographs are fascinating and lovely. Tears of joy look different than tears of sorrow. Look here.
January 1, 2014
Rituals, or, “I’m not eating that!”
I made beans and greens this morning, because I live in Georgia, and I am from Georgia, and that’s what we eat on New Year’s day! As I 
chopped the (organic) collard greens, and sauteed the (vegan) sausage, I thought about the section in Braving the Fire where I wrote about rituals and how they help us make sense of our lives, even when the rituals themselves don’t actually make sense. (I mean really, eating greens won’t get you money, and collard greens don’t look like money, and beans and luck I don’t get except they’re protein which is good for you.)
But I like ritual for the sake of ritual. I bring salt and bread to friends’ new homes. I turn knives facing inward (long story.) I say keynanhora a fair amount, which doesn’t go with beans and greens, culturally. Except if you read Shalom Y’all, you’ll know that it does.
All this is to say Happy New Year. Turn over a new leaf, or a collard green, and write about what’s good, what’s troublesome, what new leaves you’re turning over. And then face a new page: I guarantee it will welcome you.
December 23, 2013
Thank you notes
I could tell you about the wonderfully fun Atlanta launch party for Braving the Fire. I could tell you about the leftover candy and wine that M. and I ate the next day, because even with all those people there someone was kind enough to put aside a bottle of wine and some holy-moley get these away from me sea salt caramels. I could tell you about my friend C., who’s going to make me actually firewalk as a book launch gift. (Yes, you can apparently buy gift certificates for this.) 
Or I could tell you about the spontaneous thank you notes I’ve gotten this week from readers, telling me stunningly nice things about how Braving the Fire is helping them write, or helping them see why they haven’t been writing and how they can, or helping them (a little bit) brave their own fires.
There is not one “thank you” note big enough from me.
