Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Research & Write

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

PROMPT INSTRUCTIONS: Do some research relevant to your topic, then apply it to a section of your prose that felt insubstantial or thin.

Feedback on previous pieces, has requested more background on what is not working between Rex and I. By going back into my journals I found concrete details and then created a hybrid of them as a journal entry below.

 
JOURNAL ENTRY

September 30, 2003

I’m here on the bed, while Rex is in the other room, babying his acoustic guitar. I can see him winding the fresh, new strings, plucking each one to vibrational perfection. But I feel no harmony.

He’s mad, and has turned to his instrument, polishing the curves of its wooden body, with rapt attention. I’m jealous of a guitar. My burgeoning belly begs for just a simple touch. The Mama Massage Oil we were gifted hasn’t even had the seal broken. I want to scream, then sob. But I cannot risk to feel the loneliness of this pregnancy. I, too, am stringing a symphony – our mutual composition – of neuro-pathways, fingernails and a nervous system. I want this being to sense only welcome, not one trace of sadness in my veins. Yet tonight is just another night, watching the hunch of Rex’s shoulders, him facing anything but me. And I’m here with my body, beautifully transforming, in our house thick with tension as he strums.

I’m trying to take responsibility for my part of all this upset. Rex says I need to meditate. I’m sure it would be beneficial. But it’s hard to take that advice from a man whose meditation nook is covered in dust and dried gecko poop. Which is the source of tonight’s upheaval. Apparently, in my attempt to dust the myriad of saintly photos collecting spores galore, I accidentally bent Meher Baba’s picture. So as the Indian-style font beams out from beneath his holy beard, “Love Alone Prevails,” Rex is reprimanding me like a child, scolding me for carelessness.

This outburst leads to his more favored form of meditation these days, a cigarette break outside. It’s supposed to keep the second-hand smoke at bay, but smokers never realize the clouds they create. Their sooty exhalations are far-reaching, impervious puffs that slink in sideways, heavy, invisible but stinking.

courtesy of Daniel Costal
courtesy of Daniel Costal
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 3 Comments

Re-write An Existing Piece

courtesy of Hubble ESA
courtesy of Hubble ESA

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

PROMPT INSTRUCTIONS: Re-write a piece that needs clearer purpose. Identify in one sentence the goal of the essay, then advance that purpose.

 

One sentence: Convey the sense of abandonment felt during a child-birth experience and the subsequent feelings of failure and self-doubt that arise as a result. (Note: Sally is the midwife)

 

Sally moves her face back to mine with a look that solemnly conveys, either get this child out, right now at home, or we’re going to the hospital.

I am not religious, but I believe myself to be spiritual. In this moment, however, the delineation between the two is meaningless. Religious or spiritual, it matters not. Life and death weigh upon me, and I call upon every deity, avatar and saint that I can conjure: God, Goddess, All that Is, Jesus, Buddha, Mother Mary, Meher Baba, Mary Magdalene, Infinity…please help me birth this baby. Please offer up your divine powers to help me get this child out.

There has never been a moment when my prayers have mattered more. Yet, as I hear my inner pleas to every figurehead I can imagine, all requests fall flat. It’s as though my words are rote recitations, no substance. I flail to feel some kind of connection to these supreme beings. In the flickers of candlelight, the thumb-tacked, wise-eyed photos of a few, gaze upon me from a nearby wall. All seems a mockery, two-dimensional, paper-thin. I fumble at the door of distant acquaintances, wondering if they ever really lived there.

I am stunned to silence, falling. Fast and certainly, I am encompassed by a void of black nothingness, infinite in its depth, indifferent to my plight. There is no ground in this abyss. Any thought, any semblance of a foothold to secure me, quickly evaporates into empty space. At the time when I need Grace most, I am free-falling into darkness.

If God exists, but is not here with me, than I must be doing something fundamentally wrong. Sally says I’m not pushing correctly, and it seems even my prayers are failing. My utter inability could mean death. I flounder in defeat as the next contraction builds.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Write About…Your Own Topic

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

 

Instead of responding to today’s prompt topic, I chose to work on a portion of something that I hope to incorporate into a longer piece, and it may come into one of the 1000 word assignments.

 

Matthew 7:8 “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

I’m seeking. I’m knocking. I’m trying to remember the exact verbiage the camp counselor gave us, when he encouraged us to step out into this night, be alone with ourselves and God, and invite Jesus Christ into our hearts.

He made it sound so good. So simple. That all we had to do was ask, and we’d be privy to the bridge. A direct line of communication to God, and the essence of unconditional love filling our hearts. Jesus was waiting, he said. Available in every moment, but we had to ask.

As I walk in the open field, I can see the white of my Keds in the moonlight. I look up to see millions of stars, a splay of crystals on black velvet. Is He there? Tall mountain pines stand sentry at the edges, housing a few other seekers, whose shadows I see moving slowly about immense trunks. They, too, are finding their place, looking for the spot where they can sit, make their request, touch God.

I stop wandering and wait. Sit down where I am and listen. There is the sound of crickets in the blades. A cabin door shuts in the distance. I search my heart, this doorway he said, was the way in which I could be received, accepted, reborn. I lace my fingers together, feel the wrinkles of my knuckles. Unlace my fingers and trace the knotted string of the friendship bracelet around my wrist. I try to clear my mind of all thought. I ask again, listen, wait. But there is nothing.

I thought I’d hear a voice. Or maybe get some kind of sensation. Butterflies in my stomach, or a presence, very clear, inside my chest. I only smell pinecones on the summer breeze that floats across the lawn. See the outline of tree branches bounce with the moving air.

When I go back to the group tomorrow I will accept the invitation. Raise my hand and step forward from my metal, folding chair. Yes, I have asked Jesus into my life, and I will be his follower. I will make this claim, believing. Hoping. Never wanting to ask if I was the only one who didn’t feel Him. Unable to face the fear that, perhaps, there is something intrinsically wrong with me. Too afraid to question why God didn’t come, even when I asked.

 

courtesy of Jason Trbovich
courtesy of Jason Trbovich