Guides for Souls

[[File:Walkyrien by Emil Doepler.jpg|thumb|Walkyrien by Emil Doepler]]

To entertain ourselves while waiting at the DMV, Daughter Dear told me about a Tom Cruise movie she watched last night.  

 

I had never heard of it. What? I missed a Tom Cruise movie? When I looked up Tom Cruise movies, I found I had missed several. However, the one I’m talking about is Valkyrie. 

 

It isn’t a movie I would choose by its title, for I didn’t know what Valkyrie meant. 

It means “choose of the slain” and is typically depicted by a female hero, so I wondered what they were saying. As best I can understand, Valkyries are female figures who guide the souls of fallen warriors into Valhalla, a magnificent hall where fallen warriors live in bliss.

 

Daughter Dear warned me that the movie doesn’t end well, but then we would have known if a Nazi attempt to assassinate Hitler had worked.

 

If the Germans had destroyed the wicked regime from within, it could have changed history. The Germans would have been heroes instead of vanquished. Perhaps the bomb wouldn’t have been dropped, and the Berlin Wall wouldn’t have been built. It was a gallant try. Unfortunately, it failed and is true.

 

So the story goes: 

 

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) sees that Hitler is about to destroy his country. So with time running out for Germany and the rest of Europe, von Stauffenberg joins a group of like-minded, high-ranking men who want to overthrow the Nazi regime from within, with Col. von Stauffenberg becoming the trigger man in a plot to assassinate the evil dictator.

 

Daughter Dear and I had been discussing how people generally do as they are told, follow directions, and are a part of the herd. However, out of the many come one who rises like cream to the top of milk. Those are to be celebrated.

 

I once read and hoped it was true that a woman walked out of a concentration camp, and no one saw her. I’ve heard stories of a family who escaped Germany in a hot air balloon they built. One a man carried his wife out of Germany in a suitcase. He was a professor who carried books across the border so often that the guards stopped examining his suitcase, and thus he got his wife out. (And he had built up the strength to do it.)

 

I loved hearing a discussion between Oprah Winfrey and Jean Huston where Huston said, “We are made for these times, and we are up to it.” 

 

Let’s prove her right.

Wednesday, Painting my Life

 

Below are the first few paragraphs of a new project I began on May 1, 2023. I began it by typing as I looked out the window at the pink dogwood blossoms on an old tree. 

Today I reached my goal of 50,000 words.

 

 

A Corner of My Mind

from a Badass in training

 

Do you remember this movie technique? Disney used it, and others too—a paintbrush would swipe across the screen, and its wake, birds, scenes of villages and farmlands, animals, and people would magically appear? Maybe even a dog would run off the page.

 

I am attempting to swipe the blank paper, although I have outlines, pen, and ink drawings that my brush will fill with living colors.

 

"Pay attention," wrote Julie Cameron—" of life and what you see there." What I see out my window is a pink dogwood tree in full flower. When we moved here, it was an old tree cut down to its bare bones, a trunk, and five branches. I had no inkling what sort of tree it was, but for the last couple of years, it has branched, leafed, and revealed itself to be a pink dogwood, one of my favorite trees. 

 

This is May 1, 2023. A time of revival, and we've endured a lingering sadness over the past few years, wondering about our lives, health, and world conditions, but I'm not going there. This is a time to thrive and to live abundantly. We are the carriers of a new time. So, let's get cracking. 

 

I have heard people talk about "Building memories," and I wondered, are my memories for me only? Could they be attractive to others? Perhaps in writing my memories, I could motivate others to join me. I was inspired by another writer, Natalie Goldberg, who said many years ago in Writing Down the Bones, "Writing will take you where you want to go."

 

Natalie was the first writing teacher to say writing is a therapeutic experience.

 

So, this is a memoir—or whatever it turns out to be.

 

A memoir needn't be an old person's story as we sometimes think; I was born in so, went to school at so in so High, and married my high school sweetheart. Boring. In Goldberg's book Old Friend from Far Away, she explains that memoir is for the moments that take our breath away. Like the hot day, you stopped the car by a creek, stripped off your pantyhose, waded into the stream fresh off an ice flow, and felt alive.

 

I wanted to know if I could complete 50,000 words before the blossoms fell in pink snow to the ground. No, the flowers fell from the tree in May 21,  but wait, I have a small tree in the front yard that I planted a few years ago; it is called "Mom's Tree," and it is also a Pink Dogwood. I decided I got an extension on this writing and began using those blossoms as my timer. They look scroungy and bleached-out white, but still they hold on.

 

Maybe Mother is holding them. Tomorrow she can release her grip.

 

For today I hit 50,000 words.

 

That count will go up or down as I go back over the pages, but I hit the target. 

 

When I heard of the technique called, NaNoWriMo, I thought it was absurd. Yeah, you can write a novel in a month, but then it will take two years to edit it. It was insulting to those who have spent years writing a novel. But this isn't a novel, and I know about keeping one's hand moving. And I lived the story; so I don't have to make it up. 

 

Boo Walker wrote in his newsletter that he was celebrating the completion of his a novel’s first draft, but, he said it stank. However, he had words to edit, and he knew he could fill in the descriptions, dialogue, and such later on. His wife said his wardrobe was as bad as his first draft and was taking him shopping. "Nooooo!"

 

I am going outside in a little while to let the sun heal me. Whoops, no sun. I’m going to the grocery store, But first, carry on and do good work

 

Adios,

Jo