Speaking Out Loud

I am a South Carolinian.  I am a writer.  I am speaking out loud.  South Carolina politicians are stripping funding from public colleges that teach books with LGBTQ themes .  The College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate had each selected a book for students to read, study, discuss, etc.  You know?  What students do at a university?  South Carolina Representative Garry Smith, a Republican from Simpsonville, proposed the cuts.  It started with a complaint he received from one constituent.  The constituent's daughter was going to the College of Charleston and would be reading "Fun Home."  This book was not even required reading.  It was part of a College Reads! program.  When others, politicians and citizens, wondered aloud about academic freedom, Rep. Smith stated, "It's not academic freedom -- it's academic totalitarianism."  Hmm. 


Academic freedom is defined as the freedom of faculty and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Totalitarianism is defined as the political concept that the citizen should be totally subject to an absolute state authority.  Again, hmm.  College is a place for learning, expanding, disagreeing, growing.  The list could go on.  College isn't about restricting knowledge.  If this is the type of experience a student wants to have, then there are private colleges.  My state government took my tax dollars and told the faculty of a public university what concepts/subjects they could teach, and this scares the hell out of me. 


While both of the books ("Out Loud") that were chosen dealt with LGBTQ themes, this censorship goes way beyond that.  When we allow the government to decide what we will read, then where is our line?  What's next?  In any relationship there are boundaries.  If we, as South Carolina citizens and citizens from other states, let a state government push our boundaries too far, then we will all be sorry.  No matter a person's view on the LGBTQ community, he or she should be able to understand that we do not want the government choosing our reading material.  If the students had been this upset about the reading material, then why weren't they protesting? 


I have been left with so many unsettling questions.  As a former faculty member of a public college and as a writer, I am Speaking Out Loud.  I encourage you to do the same.  Please go to Speaking Out Loud to find out how. 

A Poet!

I am so excited.  Please check out this link. 


http://spiltinkpoetry.tumblr.com/post/83511789776/1977-caprice-classic-not-for-sale-by-Kathryn


I wrote this poem in my pajamas one morning, while sipping coffee.  I had just gotten off of the phone with my friend Penny, and I remember not liking how she was feeling about herself.  From there?  I wrote.  :)  I hope you enjoy it. 

Idling

Stuck, stuck, stuck.  This is how I feel lately.  Oddly, I have a ton of decisions to make because of new, exciting things cropping up in my life.  On the other hand, I can't seem to get motivated to make any decisions.  I'm idling.  When I get like this, I tend to zone out with music.  In a sense, it's what keeps me Marching Fourth.  So, until I can shift into a higher gear, how about I share my top ten bands? Yes, that's what I'll do.  Here they are--in no particular order.


1. Grace and Tony
2. The Avett Brothers
3. The Carolina Chocolate Drops
4. The Steep Canyon Rangers
5. The Lumineers
6. Loretta Lynn
7. Macklemore and Lewis
8. The Oak Ridge Boys (don't judge)
9. Edie Brickell and Steve Martin
10. Def Leppard

And, I will leave you with one of my most favorite music moments.  Yes, that's me with the Oak Ridge Boys.  Oh, how I love William Lee Golden.  *swoon*

April 16, 2013

"Katy, I need you.  Can you get to me?"  This is what I heard when I picked up my office phone on April 16, 2013 before lunch.  I didn't know it at the the time, but I had lost my friend.  My husband had lost his friend.  Penny had lost the future she was planning.  I arrived on the scene, and I can't even describe what I felt or what I saw.  Well, I could describe it.  A year later, and I just still can't seem to share it with anyone.  This day changed a lot of lives, but I can only share how it changed mine.

Lee

Lee was a lot of things.  He was a father to three children.  He used to tell me, "Katy, they are my heart from my body."  He was a stepfather to Penny's child.  He was a fierce and loyal friend to my husband.  He was my long lost brother.  He was Penny's new beginning--her love--her heart from her body.

I like to try and remember him like he is here.  He loved nature and the trees.  He died doing what he loved.  He died with the trees.  When I think about him, I find myself shaking my head and saying, "God damn it, Lee!  What the hell were you doing up there?"  I know there isn't an answer.

I've watched Penny this last year.  She wakes up each morning.  She puts one foot in front of the other.  What else can she do?  I try to be to her what Lee would be to my husband.  I know if the roles were reversed, Lee would do whatever it took to help my husband.  Sounds like lip service.  It's not.

I would like to say I don't take life so seriously anymore.  I do, though.  I try very hard not to.  When I allow myself to get too bogged down, I look at his grin and remember.  I remember to live.  I remember to love.  I remember to tell people how I feel about them.


We celebrated Lee with music and good beer this past weekend.  It's what we did together.  We celebrated.  We were happy.  There is an Avett Brothers song with a line in it that sums up how I feel.  "Hurts so bad.  More than I expected that it would.  Worse than that.  It seems to be lasting just a little longer than it should."  It hurts so bad to watch those I love suffer.  I wish I could put Lee into better words than I have.  It's hard.  I think I'm too close.  Maybe one day.

I don't March Fourth through this tragedy.  I'm stuck.  I think we are all going to have to find that melody alone.

A Novel Idea

"I had a fever as a child.  I remember being in an ice bath.  I think I had a vision.  Or something."  This is a piece of the conversation I had when I first met Lisa Snellings.  I'm not positive this is how the conversation went, but it is what I heard.  Is that what counts?  Hmm.  Lisa fascinates me.  Lisa inspires me.  I look up to her.  I came home and told everyone about meeting her.  I wasn't really able to do the meeting justice, though.  How many times can you scream, "But it was the artist Lisa Snellings!  Lisa Snellings!"  My friends and family stared at me politely and smiled widely.  I could tell they didn't get my excitement, but I could also tell they wanted to get it.  Yes.  Yes, this is what counts.  My excitement about meeting Lisa had caught on.  Hmm.

The conversation about the ice bath has played over and over in my head.  I want to do something with it.  Something, but what?  I had a five hour drive yesterday.  I was all by myself in the car.  I turned the radio off for most of the drive.  It was sort of like being in a meditative state at 70 miles an hour.  The ice bath.  The ice bath.  The Ice Bath.  THE Ice Bath.  THE ICE BATH.  It was screaming at me.  This is all it did, though.  I finally made it to my destination late last night.

I'm with my family at Holden Beach, N.C.  I have been coming here since I was born.  Literally.  In an odd turn of events, I am here with my parents, my sister, and my nephew.  No husbands.  They couldn't make it.  It's like being a child again.  THE ICE BATH.  Still screaming.

I woke up this morning to fresh coffee and grits on the deck.  Not too shabby, eh?  I had breakfast with my family as my nephew danced around us with his Nerf gun.  Yes, it was still relaxing.  I came inside

Holden Beach, N.C.

and sat down with my coffee and the latest issue of The Writer magazine.  There was a great article titled "Four Walls and a writer."  Do you know how you can read an article and take something away from it that may not have been intended?  I think that's what happened to me.  The article was about giving writers houses that have been in foreclosure in Detroit.  The article got me to thinkin'.  Are my four walls good?  Are they too small?  Perhaps.  I took a walk with my sister on the beach.  I finally uttered the words to her.  "So, can I tell you about the ice bath?"  I told her Lisa's story, and I now had the magazine article stuck in my head.  Did I come on this trip because my four writer walls needed expanding?  I believe I did!

I have been working on a novel titled Prue and The Needle Factory.  So far, I have been in the research and brainstorming stage.  I have lots of words on the screen, but I'm not sure the story has taken shape--until today.  Prue=Lisa.  Lisa=Prue.  I have been trying so hard to create my character, Prue, and she has been with me this entire time.  Prue is Lisa as a child.  Prue is in the ice bath.  Prue=Lisa.  Lisa=Prue.

I came in from my walk with my sister, and I began frantically spilling everything from my brain to a legal sized notepad.  As it began to fill up, Prue began to take shape.  I think this was swimming around in my head since the first conversation I had with Lisa.  I believe it was sneaking around in the back of my brain on my drive yesterday.  I know it came out to play a bit, while I was reading the article.  Then, I expanded my four writer walls, and the ice bath had meaning.  Prue had meaning.  My conversation with Lisa had meaning.  No wonder people had no idea what I was babbling about when I would talk about meeting Lisa, yet they still had these interested and excited grins on their faces.  They saw it, too.  None of us knew what it was yet.  And, this is ok.  It was a novel idea.

The Writer article.

What now?  How do I keep Marching Fourth with this novel?  I don't have the answers.  I have to trust the process. I need to keep expanding my walls.  Changing them.  Sometimes making them smaller.  Always allowing them to move.  Yes.  Yes, this is the answer.