Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Write With Fragmented Chronology, Use a Different Kind of Logic

~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

One

God comes in many guises. Here, he’s Rodney, an alcoholic in his forties, living at the beach, and continually telling you how good he is in bed. Just give him a chance. You may be wide open to anything, living in a 1978, olive-green Westfalia, camping by the beach in Hawaii, but you’ll never sleep with Rodney. He’s crude, but good at heart. Sometimes you let him sit with you at the picnic table.

Rodney drinks with crusty campers, including an ex-jockey who’s supplying the crew with cheap drugs. One morning Rodney tells you he’s been listening, and you don’t want to know what those guys have been planning.

He leads you to a quiet beach beside the Outrigger Resort. Introduces you to the night security. Asks him to keep an eye on you in your van. Shows you the pay phone and the public bathrooms. Saves you from who-knows-what. Still saying, “Girl, come on. It could be so good with me…”

 

Two

Six, sitting on the red cement steps by the ivy. You and a cattle dog, a rare moment, off the chain. You caress velvet ears, his black, damp nose poised, transfixed. Gazing into dog eyes, you sing through baby teeth, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Your little lashes are wet with a moment, two mammal hearts beating, down a gravel driveway, in the orange grove. Your first touch of Grace.

 

Three

“There is no name for what you receive.” So says the Healer in my friend’s back yard. His helper stands behind those receiving the transmission, because everyone falls backwards after the Healer hugs them. I doubt I’ll fall, and when the Healer approaches, he buries me in an embrace, zapping the center of my chest in a cascade of warmth. I go down easily, gently caught by the helper. Laid down upon the grass. Reverberating in rushes of Christ, the disciples, Mary Magdalene and a river, in some vast, familiar, ancient, abiding love.

 

courtesy of Abdy
courtesy of Abdy
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

Write About A Story Your Parents Told You When You Were Growing Up

~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

PREFACE: Since all experiences in life come through our own personal filters, so it is when we hear stories, as well. Every tale we’re told comes through this same filtration, as we take in the details of our choosing. Mom, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this story of yours so publicly, and I hope I’ve at least conveyed the gist of such a transcendent, personal experience. It’s interesting for me to consider that perhaps this is my version, not my mom’s story at all, as it’s the one I’ve created over the years, based on what I remember of her telling.

Childhood with my mother was sweet like the juice she’d squeeze, fresh from the trees, in the orange grove where we lived. She was beautiful in her two long braids, tied with leather cord and turquoise, looking at least ten years younger than her age. Perpetually positive, she’d crank John Denver while doing the dishes, then swoop over to hug one of her three children with soapy hands. I never doubted my mother loved me, and it seemed as though my siblings and I were, absolutely, one of the best things in her life.

But the story goes that it wasn’t always that way. It was hard in the early years, with kids close in age, and each of us in some form of diapers. Dad was working ranching hours- gone early, home late. When he was with us, he wasn’t always present. Unhappy and struggling, Mom thought she was sick, and went to an MD for diagnosis. He gave her a clean bill of health, but saw pain in her soul. His suggested remedy, a book by Billy Graham, “How to Be Born Again.”

For a series of days, Mom set up childcare, while she parked our station wagon in a quiet, shady spot behind the citrus packinghouse. She read the book in detail, finally coming to Graham’s instructions on how to ask Jesus into her life.

Over the years, she would recount to us her supernatural experience, there in the car that day. How she made her request, and the undeniable, loving presence that responded. The voice from within that she vividly heard: Go home and love your children to the best of your ability. Her perspective was completely altered, returning home to us, seeing nothing but absolute perfection.

In a bubble of deep love, she joyfully floated. For days, weeks…years to come.

 

courtesy of Tom Hilton
courtesy of Tom Hilton