Elizabeth Dutton's Blog, page 2
January 16, 2016
“here is the deepest secret nobody knows”
thinking of all the things we keep tidied away inside, the glistening emerald truths we selfishly nurture for ourselves alone, the iron notions we deem too fragile to expose to the anticipated cruelty of this cruel, loving world, I keep coming back to this poem I love:
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
BY E. E. CUMMINGS
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
“[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” Copyright 1952, © 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
It’s all fleeting. And it’s all as hideous as it is beautiful. Stay vulnerable.
xo
January 7, 2016
I’ve heard that you’ll try anything twice
awesome:
the freedom of the blank page
cold sunshine
daysleeping
running jokes
dreaming of the ocean
underdogs
when one person transmits happiness to another
not being who I was before
non-awesome:
the general fuckery in the world
icy windshields
persistent self-doubt
chronic congestion
the lowest common denominator
not being who I was before
Lastly, I have nothing to share about writing. However, this song was on in the car today and now won’t leave my head.
XO
December 31, 2015
bonne année, mon amoureux
goodbye 2015/ hello 2016
The writing updates I have for you are as follows:
Driftwood will be released in paperback in June (with a swell new cover).
I did a video interview with a vlog/blog that should be released in the next couple of months (it was super fun, but I am TERRIFIED to see myself on video).
I’ve put my current novel-in-progress on ice for now. Not an easy decision, but the right one. I’m currently developing something new. The clear slate is both refreshing and anxiety-laden. Like life.
That’s about it.
Please enjoy the poem above from the extraordinarily beautiful collection, Felicity, by the extraordinarily beautiful Mary Oliver. Between reading this collection and watching all of the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, I’ve become an unlikely romantic. At least for now.
xo
December 6, 2015
November 16, 2015
walk the line
Chasing the Sunset
Honeysuckle, gardenia, tuberose, star jasmine:
Sweet scents of the dying light
Bid the dipping sun another farewell.
GO WEST
That is the endless blessing and curse of the light.
That is the pull.
Racing on blacktop or through the cloud-muddled air
It teases forward all motion,
Stays just beyond reach, an illusory destination.
That light is waking the other side of the world
We chase its tail
Snap photos and upload them and marvel in either sincerity or
Fatigued false interest.
GO WEST
We all need an endless pursuit.
What better way to count down the hours and days than to chase
A sick sweet dream
An invented future
A rosy orange glow of dying light and budding desire.
October 21, 2015
put a little blue bird on it
I am back on Twitter, my loves. It’s a long story why I ditched it originally, but I have returned to that odd playground of updates and promos.
You can find me here:
ELIZABETH DUTTON’S TWITTER ACCOUNT
With a new account comes a new format. My main influence in writing (and in life) is music. It keeps me alive and cooks my ideas. That said, I am going to try to post my “Song of the Day” on Twitter — the song that is ruling a particular day for me and providing that blessèd inspiration or relief. This, I know, will most likely only be interesting to me, but sod it. I do what I want!
It is sunny and crisp where I am today — a lovely day to be sure. I hope you are having an equally brilliant day and wish you lots and lots of love (I know you don’t think I mean that, but I most certainly do).
xo
October 14, 2015
scribbles, scratches
Work on the novel has hit a moment of warp speed, which feels lovely. What has been brewing is spilling out at long last. At the same time, I still can’t help but write poems in my head. Here’s one.
There Will Never Be Another You
When you listen to Lester Young
there is a waiting for the big reveal that never comes
When you listen to Lester Young
sound spills and floats like ideas
from dreams in those first moments after waking
When you listen to Lester Young
loose secrets are passed about —
those secrets live somewhere
between giddy promise and sinking remorse
When you listen to Lester Young
every tilt back in a chair
brings views of blankets of stars being
endlessly whipped by in a deep plum sky
When you listen to Lester Young
longing is only for what has never been known
When you listen to Lester Young
the breaths that coat each note are bourbon
whispers fogging eardrums,
pleading to be understood
When you listen to Lester Young
think of me
•••⊗•••
xo
October 2, 2015
stolen from sleep and stretched to the limit
What the Doves on the Power Lines Know
musical notes against the flannel sky
grey on grey on grey
a single line, a single note repeated
heads up and noble
mourning doves perch on power lines.
grief and peace, that name.
grief and peace.
September 21, 2015
show me the way to go home
I’m tired. This is mainly due to the fact that I teach late mornings all the way through to the evening classes and, mentally, I don’t really get into gear until about two in the morning. So it goes. No complaints or regrets.
Here’s something I whipped up for you. This one goes out to all the early risers, day sleepers, moon walkers, tree shakers, ah whatevers.
“The Buddha’s Birthday”
It’s like riding fucking glittered candy floss, it is.
That happiness.
A sparkle and a weightlessness
a deep breath of the cleanest, coldest, sharp air
every glistening cliché
because clichés become cliché because they are true.
Wanna know a secret?
let’s keep our voices low
laughing muffled whispers.
You want to know?
First, a person: you, me, the guy over there, the billions around us,
Gautama Buddha Keanu Siddhartha himself
brews his or her own happiness,
his or her own despair.
Nothing gifted or sentenced.
Sure, the Buddha reminds us
life is suffering.
Sure.
The Buddha says: let go.
So let’s go.
The Buddha says: be love.
Be love, not loved, just love.
Turn the dial to maddeningly magical,
make everything the safest cloud,
feel like a damned sky pillow, for crying out loud and the love of Pete.
Check this out:
You pick an emotion like slipping
a card from a deck.
Don’t like it? Shove it back.
Think the whole game stupid? Smack down the cards and walk away.
That secret?
Lean in and I’ll breathe it in your ear.
No one gives you a card.
You carry your own deck.
Lay them out.
Let’s go.
September 13, 2015
don’t look back in anger
We are all fueled by different things. While waiting for my pack of dogs to return from a midnight run in the woods, I watched a show called Fameless. It is, apparently, a prank show created by David Spade. He gets people desperate to be on reality shows to participate unwittingly in a false show that ends in their pranking. It is mindless at first, but then it becomes incredibly sad. The interviews with the would-be reality “stars” consist solely of them mugging wildly for the camera while announcing their greatest desire: to be famous. They want to be famous more than anything. When asked why, they generally reference a talent for being… energetic? I am not sure. Not much sense is made. Many of the pranked on the show talk in their intro interviews about which celebrities they NEED to hang out with because they are equally “fabulous” or some such. This makes me sad.
These dear people have been sold a bill of goods that fame, especially for no real reason, is the ultimate goal in life. Everything is superficial. Everything is artifice. They are driven by a need for invented social status, for material goods, for validation, for lazily achieved recognition. My gran always said there were some people who would shit in Macy’s window if they thought it would get them attention. She was always right.
I had to stop watching the show because a) reality tv in general gives me the willies and b) the people were making me sad. I felt terrible for them; I felt awful watching their sincere drive for insincere goals mocked, often with them still clinging to the hope that perhaps THIS, this public humiliation, would make them famous.
As I wondered what drove these people to debase themselves in order to obtain “fame,” I started thinking about what drives me. I do not in any way want to be famous. The notion of fame is foreign, empty, and terrifying to me. I love to be a hermit. I don’t even want to be monetarily wealthy. I just want my voice heard. I suppose the people on the show are just like I am. We just traffic in different media, have different means of yelling out to the world.
For more than a year now I have been looking for truth in my life that evades me, learning to be honest with myself, and digging at the parts that hurt the most. Fear not, this is not some uncomfortable confessional. I save that for my bi-weekly therapy appointments.
I have written before about the importance of drive and purpose. What drives me? Of course, I feel a deep, almost atomic-level need to write. That is really all I know how to do and the only way I can really communicate (there’s such safety and distance in words). I am neither the best nor the worst at this trade, but it’s all I have. And this is more than just the high-minded platitudes that spill from the lips of every MFA/MPhil writing grad. Writing is all I can do. I wish it was all I had to do. For whatever reason, I have always written and will always write, whether others read it or not. I may be shouting into an abyss, but my voice has been made tangible.
You know what else drives me? I have that same desperate need for validation that the dupes on Fameless possess. The difference is that I want so badly to be validated in so many ways and yet I never believe any praise or kindness. I do not trust anyone. Not a soul. I am of a mind that this is for good reason. A hard heart is a solid heart. Yet I really would give anything to feel truly necessary and vital and loved and relevant. I also wouldn’t know or believe it if any of that happened. Like my beloved Walt Whitman, I contradict myself. I really am large, and I do contain multitudes of something.
Deeper down, I have to admit a real driving force for me: anger. I am a very angry person. I didn’t think this, didn’t believe it for a very long time. Someone pointed it out to me months ago and it was like realizing there was window in your bedroom that you never knew about. I am totally angry. I generally take it out on myself, but I also take it out on others far more than I care to admit. Sure, I have a vast array of anger sources from which to choose, but there aren’t really different flavors of it. Anger is anger. A lot of my writing originates in anger. This is especially true of my current novel-in-progress. I am taking aim at things that make me angry. No, it is not a manifesto (although I do look particularly striking in a hoodie and reflective aviator sunglasses). I’m subtle with the anger, more so than I am in real life. But I am very, very angry. Maybe I actually let that rule me rather than drive me. Can anger be harnessed? I’ll try. I would say I am going to just get rid of it, but that takes time. I am working on that. In the meantime, I am going to acknowledge it. That’s the best I can do. That, like stringing words, is all I can do.
For old time’s sake:
awesome:
perfectly ripe white peaches
impending cooler weather
conversations that make you feel light
getting ready for the annual Halloween party
perfecting liquid liner cat eye makeup (yet nowhere to wear it)
binge re-watching The West Wing (such an antidote to the Trumpization of politics)
my sweet pack of dogs
despite a couple of medical conditions beyond my control, I am actually in very good health
non-awesome:
forgetting things/memory gaps
dashed expectations
others focusing on the aesthetic effect of my meds, while I focus on the lifesaving part
being so far away from my brother and my friends
people who either interrupt conversations or simply ignore what the other person is saying and plow forward with their own thoughts — give and take, people
creepy letters
Lastly, the updated Smile book comes out next month #ShamelessPlug #ThisLadyNeedsToGetPaid #NotSureWhyThisIsGettingPublished #IHateHashtags. Despite the glamorous look of writing little-known novels and humor titles while teaching at a technical college, I do not yet possess money, power and gloryyyyyyy. Help a sister out and at least recommend the book to someone. As a friend of mine who is a really excellent writer recently told me, he thought the original Smile book would be cheesy and embarrassing by proxy, but he read it and actually found it rather funny. So there. I got that goin’ for me.
I may be angry, but I still love you all.
xo
