Rhena Writes

Tag: books

  • I am the book.

    Daily writing prompt
    What book could you read over and over again?
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    I am a book. My body is a book. My life is a book. My home, my heart, my spirit … all are books. Some of these were tucked away in hidden tomes in the special reserved section or banned altogether. Each day, each moment, I open another volume, a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence, a word, the spaces between the letters and the punctuation. I’m returning to this same book of me over and over but each time, it’s different. The textures, the language, the characters, even the story itself, it’s a slippery something, evolving, endlessly entertaining. A choose your own adventure only better, unbound.

    I am the book that I read over and over again.

    And the novel I am writing is one that I read over and over again.

    And the bound book, Beloved, by Toni Morrison is one I could read over and over again.

    I hope Toni Morrison wouldn’t take offense that her work isn’t first on my list. She did, after all, say, “If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

    To read me over and over again is to write me over and over again. Each day. Each hour. Each moment. Each breath. Each word.

    And so I begin. Anew.

  • The two jobs I already do for free: parenting and writing

    Daily writing prompt
    What job would you do for free?
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    Would I like to make money from both of these jobs? Sure! Who would say no to money? It’s the strings attached that I haven’t been able to accept.

    I pay to publish my writing here on this blog. Once upon a time, I paid for the privilege of writing in the form of graduate school tuition. (Guess which one costs more?) For brief periods of time I was paid to write. Although I didn’t really get to write what I wanted to. Other times, I’ve tried to get paid to write, but I just never seemed to be able to figure out what, exactly, publishers and editors were looking for in spite of all of the time and energy I put into trying to figure it out. Sometimes I even paid a few dollars for the privilege of having one of these publishers or editors take a look at my writing and decide whether or not it was what they wanted. It never was. My writing suffered for it. And as a result, I suffered for it. Always trying to guess at what these other people wanted meant that I spent very little time considering what I wanted.

    Octavia Butler worked what some would consider “menial” labor (as if there is such a thing) to support her writing. (For more information about Octavia Butler, her work, and her “work”, please read this essay by Dedria Humphries Barker.)

    I try to remember this whenever I taste a little bitterness at the thought that I don’t get paid for my writing, that I pay to publish. The good Lord didn’t bless me with the kind of discipline, the kind of commitment to her work that He bless Octavia Butler. He blessed me with the financial stability that allows me to do both of these jobs for free, few (or at least tolerable) strings attached.

    As for my job as a parent? Sure, it would be nice to be paid for that too. I try to call to mind all the women who weren’t (aren’t) allowed to raise their own kids because they had no choice but to raise other people’s kids.

    A blessing is a blessing no matter the relative size.

  • Pen, paper, and the word of Doechii

    Daily writing prompt
    How has technology changed your job?
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    I admit that one of my current struggles is taking my writing from pen and paper to the keyboard and screen. The problem is that I love my handwriting. And I love the physical sensation of putting ink on to the page of a notebook and watching the words unfurl. So much of writing is living inside my head with my own thoughts that the physical aspects of the process (the job) become magnified. As does my enjoyment of them. And my discomfort.

    When I do sit at the computer (as I am now) to write, it feels decidedly unnatural. I’m sitting upright in a chair (rather than curled up in a chair when I’m writing by hand). I never really know what to do with my wrists. And do I leave my bracelets and watch on or just kind of tuck them out of the way? Excuse me. I’m going to pause a moment here to change my pants to ones with an elastic waistband as I have suddenly become intensely aware of the stiffness of my jeans.

    Ok. Much better. But see what I mean?

    I have loads of handwritten poems and stories and essays and errant thoughts and musings, but until I can transfer them into my computer and send them out in the world, do they have meaning? I’d argue that, yes, they do have meaning. Very deep meanings. All that work, using seemingly outdated technology of pen and paper, has meant a great deal to me. And I’ve come to the recent realization that my job as a writer being meaningful to me and me alone is enough.

    I’m going to stop writing for a moment and think about that (in my awkward upright chair that I don’t really know how to sit in). All of those notebooks and scratchings? They reveal something. And it think it’s a life lived. Thoughts. Dare I say: a soul? It’s the cumulation of thoughts and moments and lessons and exchanges and interactions of a life and mind. But I could burn them all tomorrow, or today, and all of that would still exist. In fact, I’ve thrown out a good deal of my writing. Sometimes I’ve even burnt my writing ritualistically in moments of attempting to let go of something and perhaps to have a better understanding of the transient nature of life. Other times, I’ve just tossed out entire journals in a move or housecleaning. We can’t take it all with us.

    And servers can also go up in flames. Computers crash all the time. Even our technology cannot save us from impermanence.

    So the obvious question is why am I even writing on this computer, posting to this blog? Why use this technology that makes me physically uncomfortable when pen and paper bring me so much joy? And it’s an excellent question, one that I ask myself pretty much every day.

    The other day, I mentioned to someone that I’m a writer and she said offhandedly something along the lines of, “I guess with AI, there’s not really a need for writers anymore.” I wasn’t offended. This is the reality that writers, everybody with jobs that involve creating are up against right now. If we choose to be. The woman who was speaking is herself a visual artist and we all know that one of the first things that people did with AI when it became commonly available was to use it to render visual art and images.

    The easy answer would be that this blog, me posting to the internet regularly is a last stand against AI. But I’m not really a last-stand kind of person aside from the fact that I don’t think this is really a last-stand narrative that we’re in the middle of here. AI is just the most recent of many tools that have, in the wrong hands, been wielded against the better angels of humanity.

    When I write by hand, I am very much aware of what my body is doing and what my body is capable of. In other words, I feel very human in those moments. And when I say human, I mean all of it, the messy and the creative. I feel as though I am wading into the rivers of my source. Listen to Doechii’s track, “God”, on her album Oh The Places You’ll Go if you want more insight into what that’s like. She talks about her realization that her source is infinite and then the complementary thought that that means everyone’s source is infinite. Each person’s creativity is already limitless. Including mine. Including yours.

    And that is what pulls me out of the just “enough for me” existence. My job as a writer is to, yes, tend to my own humanity first and foremost but it’s also to tell the stories, to share the thoughts and connections, to announce, “I’m still alive and I’m a human” to whoever needs to hear it, and also and maybe even primarily to spread the word of Doechii.

  • Book Rec: On Thriving by Brandi Sellers Jackson

    Over the past year, I’ve been on a lot of difference medications, more than I think I’ve ever been on at one time in my life. I’ve spend part of three of the last four mornings trying to deal with my latest prescription: getting it filled, getting it paid for (yes, I have private insurance but apparently they don’t cover everything), and getting the instructions for taking it. Turns out, one of the drugs requires an EKG before starting and follow up ones after you’ve been on it for a while so now I’m trying to figure out how to get a copy of my last EKG to the prescribing doctor.

    But Oh Lord! the only thing more painful than trying to untwist the knots that comprise our health care system is writing about it. So I won’t. Instead, I’ll write about the prescriptions that I’ve received from bibliotherapist Emely Rumble (aka Literapy). How grateful I am that her lists of suggested readings don’t require an EKG or hours on the phone trying to get them filled!

    I got to enjoy a lunchtime talk by Emely Rumble in The Sanctuary (just another reminder of all of the amazing benefits of being a member of this virtual community for women of color) last year and her excitement about books and connecting people to just the right reading was infectious (see what I did there?). Emely has her own book titled Bibliotherapy in the Bronx coming out in the spring. I was inspired by her comments about how she had to push for the title of her book. I’ve read that some publishers don’t like to have place names in titles because… well, I think it’s just because publishers are going to have their elitist ideas about a lot of things and assume readers and buyers are the same way. As someone who loves to read about what it’s like to grow up and live in specific neighborhoods and as someone who can relate to a feeling of pride about the place you come from, I’m drawn to her title. I’ll for sure be getting a copy in April. In the meantime, she has loads of resources on her website for people interested in bibliotherapy, including book prescriptions.

    I found my current read On Thriving by Brandi Sellerz-Jackson on one of Emely’s lists. The subtitle is “Harnessing Joy Through Life’s Great Labors.” My first thought when I see the word “labor” is that I want to stay far away from it. I mean, labor is work and, honestly, I’m not looking for more work. Sellers-Jackson’s four great labors are relationship, mental health, grief, and being othered. I realized that these are labors that I’m already going through by the very nature of being human. And who couldn’t use a little guidance on “harnessing joy” through all of that? Certainly not me. And Sellers-Jackson proves to be a gifted guide. Her stories are not only beautifully told, but deeply personal in a way that cracked open my own vulnerabilities as I was reading.

    A couple of quotes that struck me:

    “[Self intimacy] is knowing and deciphering our voice as our own apart from others and those around us, finding it at its youthful genesis and unearthing it even when it is buried deep within the silt.” (P.17.)

    “[We] will find ways to be the most intelligent person in the room, not because we necessarily want to be, but because if we are, we can protect ourselves from those who possess the potential to cause harm.” (23.)

    Phew! These were just two sentences of many dozens that made me pause for a moment to realize, “she just unlocked some truths that I’ve known but never been able to acknowledge or express for myself.”Bibliotherapy indeed!

  • The Gift of Books

    Two weeks ago, I had 57 unread books on my shelves. Here’s what I’ve learned since then: it cost me 60 bucks and two newspapers for my eleven year old wrap them each individually, number them, and create corresponding “tickets” on scraps of paper within a specified time frame.

    I saw this system of randomizing your reading many years ago on Instagram or some other social media. At the time, I probably scoffed at it. “What a waste of paper! Just pick a book and read it!” But the idea hung around somewhere in my brain until I was 57 books behind on a bad book buying habit with an 11 year old eager to earn some cash and with a passion for gift wrapping whilst watching “Only Murders in the Building” with her mom.

    Here’s how it works. All the unread books (or at least the ones that aren’t in boxes in the basement) are wrapped up in paper. She then labelled each with a number, which is then also put on a small piece of paper. I keep all the numbered papers in a small box. When I’m ready to start a new book, I pick a number and read the book. This saves me from fussing around when I’m trying to decide which book to read next. And I’m a notorious fusser. Besides, making decisions is exhausting and I’d much rather spend that decision making energy on something more meaningful, like which murder mystery series to watch with my daughter next.

    “But why do you wrap all of them in newspaper?” my husband asked. Maybe you too have the same totally reasonable question.

    Two reasons. One, if the books are just sitting out, unwrapped, make no bones about it, I’m going to get distracted by them. I’ll go to retrieve my randomly chosen book and “Ohhhhh… look at this one with the pretty cover and pages and words….” and before you know it, I’m three chapters in before I realize that this is NOT THE SYSTEM I DEVELOPED! And then I have to go back to the chosen book. A few weeks or months later when pretty cover book is randomly chosen, I will have already read a few chapters and it will be very confusing. The second reason the books are wrapped is so that they can be unwrapped. Who doesn’t like unwrapping a book? It’s like a little gift to myself each time I pick a new one.

    So far I’ve picked two books. The first ended up being The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. It’s a stunning book. My most measures, I’ve had a varied education in terms of what was “assigned” reading in the different schools I’ve attended. I continue to be shocked and kinda pissed off when I keep finding books that weren’t assigned in school. I mean, I’ve taken at least a few literature classes across various levels and I honestly cannot remember being assigned any James Baldwin. It’s a travesty.

    The second book I picked was volume 124 of the literary magazine Bamboo Ridge. I’m currently about a quarter way through it and it’s lovely. I’m so glad that I ordered it (and another handful of Bamboo Ridge volumes) some months ago in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. My present in-need-of-personal-and-local-stories-and-poems self thanks my past insomnia self. For many reasons (although mostly that indigenous Hawaiians have asked tourists not to) I will not be visiting Hawaii any time soon. But the writing in this journal is so much better than visiting a place where I would only ever get to experience it as an outsider, a tourist, someone extracting and not giving. I feel like I’m experiencing real Hawaii (and real life) as I’m reading it.