Writing RAIN COREY MADDEN

Writing RAIN

I don’t know exactly when I started, but I like to write very early in the morning with my eyes closed and all the lights off in the house. It’s as if I can be in two worlds when I do; one glimpsed through my lashes, the worn out “N” and “S” keys on my laptop glowing like beacons; the other, a dream world dimly recalled but rich with meaning.

My fingers move over the keys like the stylus on an Ouija board. I type, “Do you believe in Fate? Unfortunately, I have to.”  It scares me to read it later that morning sipping coffee.

But both the characters Persephone and Demeter must admit this and I might as well, too.

I think the world can be divided into two camps: those who believe Fate has a heavy hand in shaping their lives and those who are still riding a long streak of dumb luck.

When I read Craig Arnold’s blog in the weeks after he’d gone missing I couldn’t help finding portents of his fateful climb up Kuchinoerabu-jima.

Craig writes about being deeply attracted to what he calls the sublime, a profound awareness of death in life. He’s constantly seeing the beauty and the decay at once.  I relate to this…having had a few too many encounters with trauma and sudden death as a youngish woman.   Was he depressed?  Maybe. Suicidal?  I don’t think so.

More interesting questions for me: Did Fate play a hand in his fall?  Did his preoccupations lead him close to the precipice?

This is what I wrestle with in the piece. And try to do it in a way that’s reflective of the way my mind works on these kinds of questions. Fragmentary and dream like. Like writing with your eyes closed. Or as someone who visited the rehearsal at PAM last week said.  Like scuba diving. Scuba diving through poetry!