BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 14)

Chapter 6: Luke (Continued)

You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.’

John 3:7

The next day I’m up early. I'm woozy and my head hurts.
     “Hurry Peyton,” my mother yells. “I don’t know the way. We’ll be late if we don’t leave soon.”
     As I come down the stairs, I notice that her lips stick together as if life depends on not breathing. “I don’t see why I have to go,” I whine.
     “Hush,” she says, ushering me out the front door. “This will be good for you.”     
     “How do you know? Nobody knows what’s good for me except for me,” I say knowing it’s a lie.
     “Because I’m your mother and I love you,” she says as if it’s enough to answer any question I could possibly have.      
     As I get into the car, I predict, “It’s gonna be boring.” 
     We’re going to visit a new church she heard about. She says that perhaps God has something to tell me—but I don’t want to hear God in her way. I want to hear him my way although I’m not sure what my way is yet.
     Of course, I’m familiar with hers. It comes with raised arms, and with foreign words pouring between the pews, lifting the congregation until we’re truly in the presence of God. Then the singing begins and the tears come. When that happens, I often imagine Jesus sitting beside me. His warmth is the wide-oven heat I crave. I imagined him whispering that he loves me. Then he asks me why I don’t love him the way my mother does and everyone seems to crash to the floor.      
     After the church split we didn’t go for a while; it was too painful for my mother. But it wasn’t long before she returned to the charismatic world. In fact, she recovered from the split more quickly than the rest of us. I often wondered if that was because she loved God more than we did or because God loved her more than he loved us.
     So now we’re looking for yet another church. As we race through town, images flash at me in wide vertical sections and thin horizontal bars, the colors and shapes distorted by our speed. The winter sun rides alongside the car. We drive past a mile or two of tall pines.  The sun flashes through the empty spaces the evergreens can’t quite fill.   
     “These big trucks drive me crazy,” she says as the tires screech. We’re on I-20 and our front bumper trails behind an eighteen-wheeler. “Lord, give me patience,” she prays, waiting for a chance to change lanes. When we finally veer to the left and zoom past, I watch the big truck struggle to move up the subtle hill we’re climbing and I think of Matt’s dad and all his burdens.
     “Mom, have you ever had a dream that was so real that you thought about it for days?”
     “I’ve thought of some my whole life,” she says, eyes darting around as her search swings into high gear. The church is in a neighborhood we rarely visit.
     “Why do certain dreams seem so vivid?” She starts to shake her head and I say, “It’s not just visual. I mean vivid in a different way.”        
     “Those dreams usually come from God,” she says. “That’s one way he speaks to us.” She squints in order to read the next sign. “Help me watch for Jackson Street.”
     “How can you be so sure it’s from God?” She loves the subject so I know she’ll listen.        
     “You feel it,” she says, pointing ahead. “Is that Jackson up there?”
     “No, it’s Juniper,” I say, staring out the window, looking for the next sign.
     She says, “We feel God’s voice. His words touch the soul.” The transmission groans as she downshifts to make the right-hand turn. “There it is.”
     I struggle to tell her my dream while reading the signs that come much too quickly. Between interruptions, I describe my journey through the church and my final struggle to break free.    
     “Well, that sounds like God’s voice, clear as a bell, to me. Don’t you understand what it means, Peyton?” she says, turning sharply into the parking lot of the large brick church. The sign reads, God’s Church. Join us in God’s Church. Meet us in God’s Presence.
     “This church is supposed to be just wonderful. I heard that nearly thirty people have joined every month since it opened.” Her eyes sparkle. I love seeing her happy although I realize she has characteristically lost our conversation to the church. She glances my way and sees my disappointment. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m listening.”
     “It was almost like birth,” I say. “I was squashed and needed someone to pull me through—a doctor or somebody like that.” My voice trails off. The dream doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I know it wasn’t a doctor I was searching for.
     She puts the car in park and turns toward me. The left side of her mouth curves up and her left eye reaches down to meet it. “Grown people aren’t born like that.”       
     “I know. But in my dream ...”
     She smiles, shaking her head. “Grown people are not born like that.”
     She’s not helping. I think of the retarded girl, her baby, and the lady who wouldn’t shut up--who just kept saying the wrong thing over and over and over.
     “Mom, I know that. I’m not retarded.”
     “There’s only one way to be reborn and it’s through Jesus. Don’t you see? God’s really speaking to you. This is great.”
     Oh great. I brace myself.
     “He knows the pain you’ve been through. He knows about the baby and all the terrible mistakes you’ve made. He’s the only deliverer, Peyton.” She reaches out to touch my leg. My body stiffens but I don’t move it away. I can feel her hand through my cotton pants. Her answers don’t make sense anymore. The issue seems to go beyond good and evil.
    Good and evil would be easy.
     I turn to her as if to say something. Several silent moments pass as my mood fills the car. It ripples like water disturbed by a small, hard rock. The spot on my leg beneath her touch is the point of origin, the location where something hard and unfeeling has disturbed something soft and alive. But I’m not sure if the hardness is the tight muscle in my leg or the touch of her dainty hand. The boundaries between hard and soft in my life are becoming indistinguishable. I can barely move. The air I need seems used up by her. She is so close. Unable to hold it in, I finally scream, “It was more than that!”
     Her face twitches and she scratches her head. “You don’t have to yell. I’m right here,” she says sweetly. “I’ll tell you what, we’re a little early so instead of goin’ in and meetin’ people (like I normally do), we’re gonna sit right here and talk about this.”    
     Her tone infuriates me. “I do have to yell! I’m tryin’ to explain somethin’ to you and you’re not listening. You’re not hearing me. You never hear me.”
     “I said I’m gonna sit here and listen.”
     “I’m sayin’ that it was more than bein’ born again. I mean with Jesus and all.”
     “How can there be more, Peyton? There’s nothin’ more than that. If you think there is you’re just kiddin’ yourself. The reason we exist is to come into his kingdom. All righteousness and truth come from God and everythang bad comes from Satan. Don’t you see that?”
     I take a loud, deep breath. My heart beats like feet racing toward something that makes sense, or perhaps escaping from what doesn’t. I’m confused. My lips move and I hear a strange voice that doesn’t sound like mine. Carried by the power of those running feet, it fills the small space between us. It says “Then where the hell am I?”
     “What?” My question startles her, which surprises me. I think it’s the best question I’ve ever asked.
     “Where am I, Mom?”
     “Peyton, we’re all just pawns in a spiritual war. You know that.” She fights back tears.
     “You don’t understand. I want to be Peyton Bound. I don’t wanna be a spiritual battleground. I wanna be me. How can there be a me when everythang good and right is from God, and everythang bad and wrong is from Satan? Isn’t there some kind of in-between or neutral ground, some boundary?”
     “Of course there is. That’s what makes each of us different and unique. No two people are alike.”
     “Like snowflakes?” I ask, thinking about the crumpled car at the Exxon station.
     She looks pleased. “Exactly.”
     “Well, maybe neutral ground is not really what I’m talkin’ about then. It sounds like a desert. A place where you just walk around in circles doin’ nothin’, thinkin’ nothin’, touchin’ and seein’ nothin’, because the minute you do, you make a choice. And in that minute, when you choose, you’re just a bloody battle ground all over again.”
      “That sounds horrible.” She stares at me, shaking her head. Her beliefs are tightly woven into who she is; she can’t help it. It’s a symmetrical weave that keeps her warm and makes her strong. There’s no question in her mind that I’m just a confused teenager. She is right and she is wrong.
     “I feel horrible,” I say, hanging my head. “I don’t think I can go to church right now.”
     “Think about the dream,” she suggests as if she’s found the perfect opportunity to share God’s message.
      “I already belong to God. I have for a long time.”
     “That is true, Peyton.”
     “I think I need to be born into somethin’ different altogether.”
     “But into what?” She looks worried. A shield moves across her face and she says, “Will you hand me my lipstick. It’s in my purse somewhere.” Her attention shifts to the rear view mirror. I give her the lipstick but don’t answer. I just look out the window; I don’t know the answer.
     “I’ve told you how special you are a million times,” she says. “You’re not a desert.” The words warble their way out of her rounded, open lips as she slathers the rich, red color over them. “You’re an ocean with beautiful treasures beneath the surface.”  
     “But I cain’t even open my eyes under water. I’m blind.”
     “Maybe your perspective’s all wrong. Maybe the real world is below the waters.”
     “I don’t think so. Everybody I know is sailin’ around on giant, colorful sailboats, feelin’ the breeze through their hair. I’m beneath them and I’m poundin’ on the bottom of their boats. I’m down in a pitch black ocean and all I can feel around me are dirty, smelly fish lookin’ for their next meal, just tryin’ to survive!”
     “Please calm down,” she says, messaging her head.
     “We’re all swimmin’ around lookin’ for just enough to keep us alive.”
     “You’re just feelin’ sorry for yourself again. I’m not gonna tell you again that you’re special. Who did you say was swimmin’ around with you in that ocean?”
     “Just a bunch of scummy creatures,” I say and start to cry. “There’s no light, and not one stinkin’ fish can ever dream of liftin’ up its head to suck in one single breath because they don’t have the right equipment. They don’t have lungs. I don’t have lungs. Where are my lungs, Mom?”
     “Honey, those creatures are demonic. Peyton, this is your life! You have to listen to me on this.”   
     “Fine, we’re back to this again. You just cain’t understand. I feel so fragile, like I’m gonna break any minute.” I dig through her purse in search of a tissue. Make-up streams down my face. “Oh great,” I whine. “It’ll take them about a second to spot me as a person with a problem.”
     “Peyton, fragility can be beautiful.”
     “But I don’t feel fragile like a snowflake. That’s how I’d like to feel. That’s a fragility people cherish. No two snowflakes are alike and when people get the chance to see one up close they appreciate it. Nobody appreciates how fragile the tip of a cigarette is after it’s been smoked for awhile.”
     “Peyton!”
     “It’s true. It’s like you hang on and on, hoping someone will notice that you’re just about to fall. Then you fall. Just like that.” I snap my fingers. “Nobody cares.”
     “Peyton, I love you. I care and I’m not the only one. I can tell by the way Peter looks at you that he sees how special you are. And Becca cares …”
     “I thought you weren’t gonna tell me again how special I am.”
     “I know Peter’s not Matt Adler. And he is shorter than you but in the end that kind of stuff doesn’t matter.”
     “He’s a very kind person,” I say, opening the car door. “Kindness is good.”
     “It’s very good.” Her car door slams and we walk toward the church with the strangers who are popping out of cars left and right.
     “I talked to Matt last night,” I say as we reach the church doors. “He said I can borrow one of his textbooks.”
     Ignoring me, she bounds through the heavy wooden doors of God’s Church, a broad smile already in place. Cheerful greeters instantly surround us. They grow like weeds from the walls surrounding us, the hallways leading toward us, and the cracks in the floor beneath our feet. They are the epitome of Southern kindness. I remind myself that kindness is supposed to be good. Moving into my personal space, their uninvited arms embrace me. Their big smiling faces dance around me, asking questions, assuring me that God is happy to have me in his home.
     I straighten my clothes and frantically search for my mother. I catch a glimpse of her as the friendly churchgoers swallow her whole.


Frozen grass crunches as I approach Matt’s splintered wooden door early the next morning. I know he'll be there. The book is lying on his porch. There’s no note, just a cold book, pages flapping in the winter breeze. My face stings. I bang on his door and the splintered paint stings my fist. The wind rises, turning the pages of the book. I know he’s home.
     I’m not stupid.
     My hands shake from the demons my mother so lovingly gave me. I imagine they’re all laughing, heckling that no one loves me. I swear that I’ll stay and beat on the door until I see him. I’ll prove he’s here and that he loves me. “Don’t ignore me, Matt!” I yell. I feel my face turn ugly, stretching into a horrid, unlovable shape. “You think I’m stupid but I’m not stupid!”
     “Excuse me,” says a quiet voice I didn’t see coming. I move aside as the mailman pushes Matt’s mail halfway through the door slot as if I’m not really there. I sit down on the doorstep, hug my knees, and watch the mail slowly disappear through the slot. My foot taps nervously. The mailman continues on his route. He looks back every few minutes and I look away. He finally looks one last time, walks around the corner, and disappears. I bolt up and push the doorbell once, then again and again. It doesn’t seem to matter if Matt’s there or not. I can’t stop.
     The door finally opens and I nearly fall though. Matt grabs me by the coat. “Are you crazy?” he shouts in my face. By the time his words register, I’m in his house, in his arms.
     “Why are you ignorin’ me?” I ask as he tugs at my clothes.
     “None of this makes sense,” he says, breathless.
     I pull his hair, forcing his head back so I can see his eyes. “It does,” I say.
     I continue to beat on his door that winter and he keeps pulling me through. He peels my skin with his alternating love and rejection. He digs into me as if I’m an onion, exposing layer after layer until only a small core remains. And all the while, he struggles to keep quiet, to look away. He fights, night after night, to peel my onion soul without caring about it. I never see his tears but his eyes burn as they fill with the putrid smell of my insecurity, anger, and pain. He loves me in glorious bouts of unreserve, swearing I’m all he thinks about and all he wants. Those precious moments are worth the hatred he has for me in the hours and days that come between.
____________________________________________________

Chapter 7 coming next week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST. 

Making Ideas Happen: Scott Belsky

"Society shuns what society celebrates."

I grew up noticing the injustice around me, feeling helpless to change anything. Maybe it was because I emerged from a highly religious environment where everyone was supposed to turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor, and forgive ad nauseum.

In my impressionable mind, to be successful at loving all my neighbors, I had to find something lovable in each one--so that's what I desperately tried to do. Sometimes that took a lot of observation, creativity, and free association on my part.  Everyone deserves to be loved, but for a kid experiencing a bunch of crazy, mixed-up adults saying one thing and doing another, it was often tough, confusing, and downright impossible. The kid develops creative coping mechanisms to achieve those challenging love-thy-neighbor goals.

When a kid like that grows up and finds herself in the heart of corporate America, guess what happens? In the midst of office politics, corporate initiatives, raising bars, employee evaluations, and a million directives, that kid observes and uses the same creative gifts to navigate tricky waters while also trying to accomplish company goals. Let's face it, sometimes the office can be like a dysfunctional family.

Well, guess what? Many sectors of corporate America don't always appreciate the creative soul.  Sure, I'm far from perfect, but my approach has always been based on a combination of brains, tenacity, and creativity:  

• Let's see how we can miraculously accomplish the goals with what they've given us to work with. 
• Let's see how we can make this team super high functioning when our numbers are few but our directives are numerous. 
• Let's see how we can generate usable data with sub-optimal tools and little time. 
• Then let's go a step further and see how we might be able to avoid these issues next time. 

Anyone who says creativity isn't an asset in industry is missing a few IQ points.

Aside from the day to day challenges in the workplace, there's also product development. It's a given that those involved in coming up with innovative gadgets and whirligigs should be creative, right?  I often wonder what roadblocks those creative souls crash into on the way to making all their fantastic ideas happen.  Is it easy for them?  Or could it be that the pervasive corporate aversion to risk taking, and the push of ongoing operations dampens their efforts as well?  Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to identify and fully utilize all the creativity stuffed within the dark bowels of corporate America? 

My guest today, Scott Belsky, believes there is a way.  His book, Making Ideas Happen, focuses on how to tap into, organize, and execute creative ideas, particularly in business environments.

I find Scott's work fascinating. I'm a creative who ended up with degrees in Biology and Quality Systems, and spent twenty years in the pharmaceutical industry. A few years ago, I wrote a book for McGraw-Hill on how to apply the underlying concepts of Six Sigma (a popular quality management methodology) in day-to-day work--no matter who you are or what responsibilities you hold. In my study and work in corporate quality systems, I rarely came across a focus on creativity.

Here's an idea! Perhaps creativity should be added to the most common underlying concepts found in the major quality philosophies and methodologies that are driving American industry forward: customer focus, collaboration, data-driven management, process focus, and strategic planning.

When I read about Scott and his book in Newsweek, I was interested in interviewing him both from a creative and quality systems perspective. He has identified a gap that I've personally struggled with and have had to work around in various ways over the years.

As the kid who was taught to turn the other cheek and love my neighbor, I put my best foot forward every single time I was asked to keep my head in the corporate box while pleasing my superiors, handing them deliverable after deliverable, and keeping my overworked employees happy.  The creative woman who is blind to boxes has been waiting for Scott for some time now.

She is cheering!

What's your story in a nutshell? Why are you into creativity, and how did your interest evolve into building a company that develops products and services for creative industries?

I did study some design as an undergrad, and I always had a fascination with business and the creative industries. There are two things that really inspired me to start Behance:

1) The stuff that makes our lives interesting - the art, the design, and all of the original content - is all created by the creative professional community. But, unfortunately, creatives in particular face unique obstacles when it comes to actually making their ideas happen.

2) There is SO MUCH discussion in the creative world about inspiration and creativity, but very little discussion about organization and execution. I found this VERY frustrating. It seemed that creative professionals would become more effective - and thus benefit society even more - with assistance on execution, efficient self-promotion, and organization.

I was fortunate enough to meet Matias Corea, our Chief of Design, in the early days of the idea. Together, we discussed the role of design in solving these frustrations and created Behance with a very specific mission: To organize the creative world. We are not trying to increase creativity. On the contrary, we are trying to help creative leaders harness their own creativity and actually make ideas happen.

I think it's safe to assume you're a highly creative yourself. Were your current philosophies and methods around creativity developed through your own trial and error? If so, can you tell us about that?

My own experience as an entrepreneur and a practitioner of idea generation/execution has certainly proved a valuable laboratory. But I must credit the research - and countless interviews - that went into my book Making Ideas Happen as the most helpful base for me to learn how to be a productive creative and run a productive business in the creative industry.

I worked in corporate America for twenty years and was often frustrated by the lack of or fear of creativity. It often seemed that the unwritten rule was: Think outside the box! -- as long as you stay within the distinct parameters we've set for you by creating a tiny bit bigger box. Can any industry or company be a creative one, and if so, what so often holds them back?

Yes. Two big things that hold large companies back:

1) Risk. When you are big and successful, the potential costs of taking risk often outweigh the benefits. This stifles innovation and encourages us to stay close to the status quo.

2) Gravitational Force of Operations. When you're running a large business, it is hard to focus sufficient energy on NEW ideas because the daily demands and "urgent" stuff is always prioritized over long-term strategic initiatives.

I once had a new boss, a Vice President, ask me, "So what is unique about you? What is the one, most important thing you'd like me to tell the board about you?" I thought it over and replied, "I'm creative." She literally laughed in my face because apparently that trait held little value to her and her colleagues. A sad story, in my opinion. (Note: She promoted me within a year for my ability to get things done in a challenging environment.) What does corporate American lose the most when creativity is undervalued or squelched?

Well, I do believe that the ability to execute and push ideas forward is as (if not more) important than the ideas themselves. But creativity is also the source of answers to our gravest problems. Corporate America will lose the global fight for innovation across industries if creativity is not valued, hired for, and then supported.

I've also been concerned about the often difficult team mix of creative and more traditional thinkers in the workplace. Both are valuable to team success. Do your philosophies and suggested methods around creativity touch on this particular topic and how?

Absolutely. In my book I try to describe the three types - Dreamers, Doers, and the Incrementalists.

The Dreamers have the tendency to always think of a new idea - and jump from idea to idea to idea.

Doers have the tendency to focus on the practicalities; and ground ideas with restraints like budget, timeline, etc...

The Incrementalists have the ability to shift from Dreamer mode - to Doer Mode - to Dreamer, etc... But Incrementalists get in trouble when they create too many projects and are unable to scale any one of them.

No doubt, a team with a mix of people that round off each others tendencies is the best possible chemistry.

Have you ever had to deal with people failing to understand your own creative personality, interests, or drive? If so, can you tell us about it and how you've dealt with it?

All the time. Especially in the beginning... The way I look at it: If everyone understood the value of what I was doing, it wouldn't be new or lucrative enough to pursue. Society shuns what society celebrates. College drop-outs who leave to pursue their ideas are doubted by society until they are celebrated once they start Microsoft or Apple.

Gain confidence from doubt. Listen to feedback, but take it all with a grain of salt.

I often ask if there is a difference between being talented and being creative. What are your thoughts on this and how does the distinction play out in the workplace?

Yes, there is a difference. Talent can relate to specific skills, but does not necessarily mean that one uses them to generate new ideas and solve non-traditional problems.

In your opinion, what qualities does an organization (and perhaps an individual) need to be successful in transforming an great idea into reality?

I believe there are three main FORCES that make ideas happen, noticeably ORGANIZATION, COMMUNAL FORCES, AND LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY. The most productive leaders and teams across the creative industries have found ways to tap into these forces. Structure, it turns out, is a competitive advantage (even though we, as creatives, sometimes despise it).

What is your primary motto or mantra in life? Why is this important to you?

Nothing extraordinary is ever achieved through ordinary means. Whenever I regress to the way things were done, or should be done, or the status quo...I remind myself of this truth.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 13)

Chapter 6: Luke (Continued)

When I finally get home I don’t want to go inside. I struggle to think about something else but can’t. I walk around the end unit townhouse to our small back yard. My mother's landscaping is half dead. My legs are unstable, my mind crazy. The champagne bottle swings in my hand. I go to the back edge of our tiny property and walk beneath the limbs of the Crepe Myrtle that has grown up beside me. I feel a strange compulsion to climb the white stucco fence that serves as the boundary between our miniature yard and the real yard on the other side. I don’t need to get to the other side; I just want to see it.
     Climbing the fence is easy but staying on is difficult. The narrow ridge cuts into the tops of my legs as I struggle to keep my balance. I try to drink the rest of the champagne but drop the bottle. I stare into the neighbor’s yard. They’ve set up a new kennel. There, trapped inside, is the ruddy-haired dog. I watch him watch me and swear to God that one day I’ll cross the fence and set him free.
     Once inside the house, I pull the ruffled edges of my bedspread up around me until only my eyes peer out. I decide to forget Luke’s name. Soon I’d forget the whole night altogether. I wipe my runny nose with the side of my hand and try not to cry.
     The demon in my head urges me to grab the phone.
     I can’t resist. “Matt, it’s me,” I whisper.
     “What do you want?”His voice is hollow and businesslike.
     I draw a blank; I'm not good at business. “I don’t know. I was wonderin’ what you did tonight. I mean, for New Year’s.”
     “That’s irrelevant.”
     “Did you think about me?" 
     “That’s irrelevant,” he repeats.
     “You keep sayin’ the same thang.”
     “And you keep saying nothin’. Just tell me what you want,” he begs, his voice becoming more animated and real. “You cain’t just call me in the middle of the night and not have anythang to say. People don’t do that.” He seems sincere.
     “I think they do.”
     Silence.
     He finally says, “Nobody I know does. So what do you want from me?” His silent moments are like opening doors, full of possibility, but when he speaks, they all close.
     I’m mute. The lingering fizzle of champagne eats at my throat. But in the end, not even drunkenness can perforate my narrowness. So I struggle to come up with what I imagine is a legitimate reason for calling. “I’m taking Medical Sociology next semester,” I blurt out, oddly cheerful, “and I was wonderin’ if I can borrow your book? I promise to be careful with it.” He worships textbooks. He never touches them with the highlighters most college kids use when they study. Once, when we first met, he’d carefully placed his thick histology textbook on my head saying, “Knowledge really is power.” I stood still, gracefully balancing the book on my head for several minutes. He made faces at me until I laughed. When it finally fell, he caught it and put it back on the shelf where it became just another book.
     “You called me in the middle of the night to ask if you can borrow a book?" he asks, sounding disappointed. "Do you realize how stupid that sounds? Why do you think I threw you out of my house last night?”
     “I’m so confused. Just tell me.”
     Silence again.
     “Fine, just borrow the stupid book,” he says. “Can I go to sleep now?”
     “Just tell me if you’ve thought about me.”
     “That’s irrelevant. Good-bye, Peyton.” He sings his good-bye. It almost sounds nice.
     “Wait! What are you trying to say?" I ask. "What do you mean?”
     “Look it up in the dictionary.”
     There’s something hidden in his words, between the lines, hiding in the tone and the pauses. I learned the fine art of deciphering the spoken word early. I was my mother’s sounding board as she scrutinized Simon Taylor’s every syllable with a precision that would astound any psychologist. I observed firsthand how a lonely but sharp mind can hear and see amazing things in a bunch of absolutely nothing.
     Now I know that some of those hidden pearls of truth exist but some are just empty shells that trap us.
     That night I have another dream. I’m standing on the third floor of the LSUS library. A wall of glass created by several large windows separates me from the students filling the courtyard below. Their preppie clothes and punk hairdos form the dotted colors of a picture framed by the surrounding buildings. The spring day is perfect. What was once dead has been resurrected, but several gardeners pluck away weeds that no one notices.
     As I watch from my secure position, torrents of rain suddenly splash down on the startled students. Their bodies twist and flop like plastic toys in a bucket filling with water. I watch as the vibrant colors melt into a psychedelic mess. A bleeding sea teeming with their unidentified dreams closes upon them, swallowing them whole, while I stand like Moses, safe on the mountain’s edge. I dance around the library. “Thank you, God. I knew you’d save me,” I pray. My everlasting life lifts me higher than my lingering drunkenness ever can. Driven to continue, I laugh as I gyrate in circle after circle. I’m not sure what will happen if I stop.
     Then I begin to feel dizzy.
     I manage to slow myself down and just as I feel the last sick feeling ebb away, I look up at the giant wooden cross of Simon Taylor’s church. Oh, God! I knew this would happen. This is not where I’m supposed to be.
     Desperate to get out, I race through the corridors I remember from childhood. The familiar musty church smell clings to me. The unattended nooks and crannies fill my senses with mold and mildew. The very things man failed to do here choke me. Soon I’m lost. There are only twisting pathways that seem to lead in circles. There are no thresholds to cross, no windows to open. As the way becomes narrower I lose my sense of space, and am filled with myself alone. The claustrophobia becomes unbearable.
     I fall to my knees and begin to crawl.
     At last I see a dim light through the darkness. Crawling through the dirt and cobwebs, I come upon a small opening in the side of the wall. I pull my body up and into what turns out to be a narrow tube. It quickly envelopes me like a dry cocoon. I can’t move. Sucking forth what seems my only tool, I spit at the sides of the tube. I vomit. Sliding towards freedom through my own filth feels right. Perhaps only the sick part of me can somehow save me.
     When I come to the end of the tunnel, I can only squeeze my head through the small opening. I’m trapped. I can see freedom waiting just outside the canal. I call for someone— anyone—to pull me out.

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More of Chapter 6 coming this week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 12)

Chapter 6: Luke

Is it not written that my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.

Mark 11:17

I sleep the entire next day away to avoid it and then find myself at Humphrey's, a popular local dive. Neither fancy nor flashy, it’s a place where people can drop all pretenses. I sit on the wooden bleacher-like seat. Its three levels wrap around the room, only stopping to allow for the bartender’s station and the restrooms. The design forces me to sit by people I don’t know, but also allows me to blend with the crowd. We sit like fans filling every possible space. I know that if I get up I’ll lose my spot, so I stay.
     Faces laugh next to me and bodies dance around me yet they exist in a different realm. I’m an alien. While they laugh with their friends, celebrating the New Year, rejection spreads through me. My stubby fingernails break off in my mouth one by one as I look around the room. A tight, sharp feeling begins to squeeze its way toward my throat. The rejection I’ve tried to ignore for years is materializing into something real and frightening. It rears its ugly head like the sick demons my mother so graciously showed me. My head lowers momentarily and then shoots up as the beast she said was always there shoves its way into my mouth. I hold my chin high and take a deep breath. The demon’s head hangs low because it doesn’t quite fit into mine; the back of its neck is tight against the back of my throat. I feel its eyes glaring into the backside of my youthful lips. An undeniable pressure forces them open.
     I know then what I have to do. I can have any guy in the crowd. I’ll choose one and he’ll notice me. He’ll dance with me. He’ll do anything I want him to do. I’m that attractive, that beautiful.
     Proving my theory will feel good and I need to feel good.
     I’ve felt bad for a long time.
     With the decision made, the demon’s head pops into my brain like a bubble. His eyes become my own and I feel delightfully evil. His spindly legs and feet press against the tops of my legs and what is in between. My straight back holds up the demon’s head as it slowly turns from one side of the room to the other. After checking every face and every set of eyes, I find my target. He’s tall with curly blond hair, and he’s the best looking guy there. I stare at him until he looks at me.
     Screw Matt.
     Within minutes, the curly blond comes toward me. He looks as if he’s found a treasure, which is exactly what I want. He thinks the gleam in my blue eyes is merely sex appeal.
     “You’re starin’ at me,” he says with a drunken slur. “Is there somethin’ I should know?” He looks down at himself. “Is my fly down or somethin’?” His sleaziness makes me sick. A chunky gold necklace hangs around his neck.
     I smile and stare at his crotch. “No, you’re just nice to look at.”
     “You wanna dance?” he asks.
     My eyes travel up his body. “Of course,” I say, smiling.
     The band is taking a break. Chrissie Hynde sings about how special she is and her words become my own. I feel sorry for women who never get the opportunity to feel like I do at that exact moment. The curly blond puts his hands around my waist. He is attractive but he’s only my New Year’s Eve experiment. This proves I don’t have to be alone. I realize I’m acting like a slut—as defined by all the people I know. I also know that I don’t care anymore and that’s an even colder reality.
     “What are you drinkin’?” he shouts over the music.
     “Just beer.”
     “What kind?”
     “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take whatever you wanna give me,” I say, winking. “What’s your name anyway?”
     “Luke ... like in the Bible.” He smiles.
     The irony of it makes the demon in my head cheer. “Forget the drink,” I shout. “Why don’t we get out of here?”
     “They’re givin’ away free bottles of champagne when you leave. We can have our own celebration.” His arm is already around me, pushing me toward the exit.
     The moment I walk into his apartment I begin to feel uneasy. On the television, bulky, sweaty wrestlers scream out the horrible things they plan to do to each other. A guy sits on the couch smoking and drinking a beer. His shabby clothes and longish greasy hair, along with the smell of the place, tell me he’s a pothead. He looks sleazy and he looks at me as if I’m sleazy, too.
     “That’s Jim, my roommate. Just ignore him. I’ll get a corkscrew and we can disappear.”
I stand at the center of their small living room expecting Jim to get up, but he never says a word and never moves. Looking around, I can tell their apartment is not the home of two educated, up-and-coming young men. It smells like a rock concert. Instead of textbooks, there’s an open Hustler on the floor. A stereo and a set of huge, oversized speakers dominate the room. I had accurately judged my prey but the scene surrounding me is foreign and frightening. I fear that I’ve made a mistake and wonder how I can get out of it.
     “Let’s go,” says Luke.
     “Where are we goin’?” I ask.
     He smiles. “To my room. Where did you wanna go?”
     I suddenly miss Becca.
     There’s no use arguing or trying to run. He’s right; there’s nowhere else to go. I’m a prisoner of my own stupidity.
     Once in his bedroom, he pours champagne into a beer mug and shoves it toward me. I wish I could bite his head off like a praying mantis. Then I wouldn’t have to look at him while he has his way with me. In the end, I would chew him up, swallow him away, and never see him again. But I know he’d still be inside me.
     I’d felt used before. Every time it happened, I created a reason why it doesn’t count. As Luke sits on the bed, expecting me to follow, it strikes me that I always know it’s happening--yet I never stop it. It humiliates me more to think that each guy believes I’m gullible, or worse, just dumb. But I’m not dumb. I’m a bright girl.
     I sit down on the bed and he pulls at my clothes, I realize the situation has changed. Luke doesn’t know he was my target. In his mind, I’m the target. The demon in my head celebrates a sick win as Luke turns me onto my stomach and pulls me to my knees like a dog. He doesn’t care if I’m not ready for him. He does what he wants.
     “I bet you like that. Is this what you came for?”
     I moan as his brand of pain fills me. I don't speak and can't see his face in the dark. All I think about is Matt.
     “It was nice not meeting you. Come again,” his roommate says when it’s over and I walk through their apartment clutching the half empty champagne bottle. Luke was apparently too tired to walk me to the door.
     The free alcohol is all I had left. I roll down my car window and blast Madonna’s voice into the freezing air. I drive through the icy city trying to erase the night, hoping to find a reason why this time doesn’t have to count either.
     As the champagne pours into me, its fizzle makes me feel better but the feeling dies too soon. The demon has summoned his family and they’re moving in. Every guy who ever rejected me stands before me, laughing and telling his friends about me. Having my naiveté taken advantage of was much less painful; that only happened once. The subsequent pain came from my silence as I allowed the others to crush my spirit. It’s my fault because I could have stopped it.
_________________________________________________

More of Chapter 6 coming this week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

Earth Matters and So Does Art

Today my art went up at Earth Matters, a trendy organic food market and cafe in New York City.  Seeing my paintings on walls that aren't mine for the first time was exhilarating!

When I began painting two and a half years ago, I was determined to create art that is honest, insightful, and filled with my own definition of beauty. I knew it was a lofty goal but I had an bizarre feeling that I could do it if I put my mind and heart to it. Even so, I never dreamed that my work would be shown on New York City walls within a couple of years.

It's scary to know that people can now see my art up close -- not just in photographs on the Internet. My work is still progressing. I've yet to reach my full potential. I strive to improve with each new piece. What you'll see at Earth Matter is just the beginning. I look forward to many years of continued progression as an artist.

If you happen to be in the Lower East Side, I hope you'll swing by Earth Matters for a cup of coffee, some healthy food, and a dose of art by Penelope Przekop.
_________________________________________

More of BOUNDARIES tomorrow!

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 11)

Chapter 5: Judas (continued)

You blind guides!  You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Matthew 23:24

“Believe it or not, it’s supposed to snow tonight,” my father says, the newspaper covering his face.
     “I’ll believe it when I see it,” I say. Lately all I can see is the past.
     We never get real snow in Shreveport--only a tease. As a child, I cheered at the site of snow thinking a real winter had finally come. I waited for the heavy white blanket I’d seen in pictures.  In the end, what looked like a thin white sheet melted into dirty sludge and turned to ice that we weren't equipped to handle. It paralyzed the city.
     It’s becoming difficult to avoid thinking about the past; it's as if childhood memories that were once fuzzy are becoming clearer. Those sharp disappointments seem to trap me like the ice; I can't seem to move forward. One of those memories is the time our family got kicked out of the church; asked to leave and never come back.
     There was an embarrassing scandal, and of course, my mother generously shared details that were over my head. I only knew that she had somehow caused the trouble. A formal church hearing was called in which she appeared before the elders and deacons. Simon Taylor stood by her side, but according to my mother, he told lies while she told the truth.
     On our last Sunday, I watched my father watch her stare into the eyes of Simon Taylor as he shared words of comfort with what was left of the congregation. It turned out to be his last Sunday, too. He and his wife, and their four small children, tossed their baggage into the largest truck they could find and moved north. That time in our lives became known as when the church split. Our family also split but within months we reunited. In the years that followed, my mother spoke of Simon Taylor as if he was a god--far away but still living in her heart.
     I grab my keys and head for the door. “Where are you goin’?” my mother asks. “Even if it doesn’t snow, watch for ice. Remember when we slid around on it that time on the way to Dallas?”
     My father continues reading the paper.
     She makes a face and asks, “Thomas, are you listenin’?”
     “Sure,” he says, still reading, “That was terrible. We never saw it comin’.”
     They forget to find out where I’m going and in a way, I’m glad. I don’t want them to know I’m going to see Matt. Nobody knows I’ve been sleeping with him for months. Not even Becca. I wanted to tell her when she came home for Thanksgiving but I chickened out, ashamed even to tell my best friend.
     Part of me wants my parents to yell and scream, to force me to my knees if that’s what it takes to get the truth. I need them to hear it. Only then can they save me from it.
     As I turn to leave, my father says, "They're saying here in the paper that AIDS is definitely a transmittable disease."
     My mother yells, "Be careful!" 

On the way to Matt's apartment, it begins to snow just as my father predicted. The flakes grow larger and come down faster. Soon I’m engulfed. As I drive past the neighborhood Exxon, I try to keep my eyes on the road. In the corner of the station lot a yellow piece of construction equipment holds up a small, crumpled red car. A giant sign reads, “Don’t Drink and Drive.” I wonder how the bodies of my three friends were able to fit into the ball of mangled metal. I wish the snow would cover it. Then I could pretend it’s a giant snowflake. I look but only for a second.
     The snow seems to have made its way into Matt’s apartment and a good two inches covers me. Like a veil, it’s a lie draped across my body. He hasn’t offered to take me on a date and I haven’t asked. It seems the business we have together is too powerful for the normal rules of dating.
     We run in the same social circles but when we see each other in public, we behave like strangers. I know it's stupid but I can't seem to snap out of it. We’re bizarre performers, each striving to show the other how alike we are, yet we can’t interact. It’s somehow too painful. But late at night, after the ordinary people carefully wrap up the contents of their day, storing it in its proper place, he and I yank everything out of our boarded up closets. We throw the junk on the floor and roll over it together.
     I should have known it couldn’t last. The timing is off. The climate is all wrong.  But the human mind is steadfast in its belief that the seasons will change and that the one it’s anticipating will arrive.
     We're lying in bed. “Few people make it.” He says, tracing my hairline with his thumb. His voice is smug, as if he’ll make it but I won’t. I have no idea what he’s talking about but I know I want to make it, too.
     “Make it to what?” I finally ask.
     “Self-actualization.”
     I shove my hips toward his. “What’s that?”
     He smiles. “That’s the theory of a man named Abraham Maslow. He believed that in order for a person to meet his higher needs he has to take care of the lower ones first.”
     “I have lower needs.”
     “I know,” he says, straddling my calves. In the darkness he seems so far away. He claws at my thighs with his chewed fingernails. “Maslow believed a person will scratch and claw his way to the highest point on the ladder of needs.” He scratches faster and harder and I beg for it. His brand of pain is healing, like a fever. “The lower needs are thangs like food, shelter, sex, love.”
     “What made you think of self-actu … whatever?”
     “You make me think about a lot of thangs.”
     “Why me?”
     “Shhh …” he whispers, disturbing my snowy layer, that lie I'm trying so hard to believe.
     “No, I wanna know why I make you think of thangs.” His large hand covers my mouth and parts of my nose. I can’t breathe. A scream is building. I can see the truth, like a treasure on the other side of a steep, slippery wall. I can’t quite make it out but it looks like salvation. But realizing there are no footholds on which to anchor myself, I give up. His hand falls away and I take a deep breath. It’s hopeless. “What are the higher needs?” I ask. “I thought love would be the highest.”
     “You believe that because that’s your highest goal.” His hands travel to my small breasts. “You’re struggling to reach that level.”
     “I have love,” I say, clinging to him.
     “Maybe you think you do.” His words filter through my mind, falling onto my snow, his hot breath melting it. I know the ice will soon come--fast like it always does with Matt. “Self-actualization is the highest pinnacle a man can reach. Actualization means the act of realizing in action or to make real, also the act of describing or portraying realistically.”
     “You sound like a dictionary."
     He smiles.
     "So it means bein’ realistic with yourself?" I ask. "I can do that.”
     “No, it’s more than that. It means knowin’ your absolute dream or purpose, and bein’ able to carry it out without losing the fulfillment you have in all the lower needs. Very few people ever rise that high.”
     “You’ve risen pretty high,” I whisper. He laughs and I curse myself for making such a crude comment that was probably predictable. Hoping to redeem myself with an intelligent question, I ask, “What do you think makes a person capable?”
     “If I could answer that question I’d probably be able to solve the world’s problems.”
     “Do you think everyone has a higher calling?” I ask.
     “That’s the theory, but most people are so burdened by their lower needs that they never even hear their true calling.”
     I touch his face. “Do you feel called to be a doctor?”
     Rather than answering, he gets up from the bed and walks away. It feels like rejection.  As he goes toward the window I realize that I overstepped my bounds. There’s no natural out, no way of bringing the oddly emotional situation back to normal.
     “The snow’s not gonna stick,” he says, looking out the window.
     “It never does.”
     He turns and looks at me but I can’t see his face clearly in the darkness. “Bein’ a doctor is just a job,” he says.
     “But it’s a special job.”
     “I don’t know,” he says. "Maybe in some ways."
     “Do you think we’re on that ladder … of the needs?”
     “Why would you be different from anybody else? Why would I?”
     “I don’t know. I’m weird.”
     He doesn’t argue.
     I say, “Well, I don’t know about havin’ a callin’, but I’ve decided to change my major to pre-med.”
     “Why would you do that?” He seems surprised.
     “I wanna be a doctor, too.”
     He turns his back on me again. When I realize he isn’t going to respond, I stand on the small bed, feet apart for balance. “Don’t ignore me,” I say, swaying from foot to foot until my nakedness becomes silly. I feel like an idiot. My assertiveness seems to be failing when he suddenly swings around and comes toward me. In the dark it almost seems as if he’s flying. Falling to his knees, he wraps his arms around my ankles causing me to crumble onto the bed. He doesn't say anything.
     “Please say somethin’,” I beg. “Didn’t you hear me? I wanna be a doctor like you.” I begin to cry. He can no longer ignore my tears so he wipes them away.
     I’m sure he loves me.
     After we make love, I feel his body change. His muscles tighten and the veins on his forehead bulge. He stares up at the ceiling. It’s mended and perfect now. “I want you to go,” he say as if he hates me.
     “What’s wrong?”
     “Just go.”
     “What’s wrong?" I ask again. "You can tell me.”
     “I can’t tell you anythang,” he says. “This is all wrong.”
     “What’s wrong?”
     “You bein’ here," he says. "You shouldn’t be here and I don’t want you to come back."

The drive home is slow; icy sheets cover the roads. I curse myself for being so dramatic and for being who I am. I’m sure God forgot to give me some detail or component that everyone else in the world has. Matt’s right. Whatever it is--it's at the top of my ladder. I'll snatch and crawl to find it.
     I hate myself.
     I drive faster; I don’t care what happens. If I die it will be his fault. He can feel guilty about it for the rest of his life. I wish God would take my life. My mother taught me to love the Lord. She said that God should come first but surely He understands our love for one another--our humanity.
     I hate her, too.
     Like an answer or a punishment from heaven, the car lifts from the ground. Then it slides across the ice and turns in circles. No matter how frantically I hold the wheel or which direction I steer, the car will not obey. I cover my face with my hands. “God, please help me,” I call out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
     Finally the car slows, hits the curb, and stops. When I peek between my fingers I can’t tell which direction I’m facing. I’m lost on a road I've known all my life.

_____________________________________________________

Watch for Chapter 6 next week!

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning, go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

The Only Way Out is Through: Linda Wisniewski

"As a memoirist, I learned to understand and accept that some people prefer not to look at painful things, but I'm a firm believer that "the only way out is through." 

If you've visited Aberration Nation lately, you've seen BOUNDARIES, BOUNDARIES, BOUNDARIES splashed everywhere. Boundaries is a novel I wrote during my twenties--my first attempt as a novelist. I worked on it for five years, telling only a handful of people that I was writing a book.

I feared that most people would roll their eyes and snicker ... or ask me what the book was about. I couldn't bear to be grouped together with the millions of people who say they're going to write a book someday. I knew I was born to be a writer and that the time had come to follow my destiny. I was still young, bruised, and bleeding. I couldn't bear to not be taken seriously. (I'm still like this in many ways.)

Boundaries is based on my own story--a life I'd spent 25 years trying to hide. After I thought I'd finished the book, I spent a year looking for a literary agent. After finally signing with an agent, the book was read by quite a few major publishers. The general sentiment was that the book wasn't finished in some way, and that I still needed to grow as a writer. Aside from that, one editor said, "This stuff just doesn't happen to people."

Yes, it does.

Although I had lots of friends, I grew up emotionally isolated. Each child is different; my unique disposition and personality played a role in how my environment affected me. But like many children living in dysfunctional homes, I didn't want my friends to know there was anything different, odd, demonic, or unusual about my family.

Demonic? Yes, things were that weird ...

I spent a tremendous amount of emotional energy trying to block out anything abnormal and focus on the normal. It was a coping mechanism and it was tough!

At 25, I never considered writing a memoir. I wanted to take what had happened to me and make some sense out of it. Even at 25, admitting certain truths about myself and my family was simply too painful. Writing a novel based on the truth was much more palatable. Like Pat Conroy, it seemed to work well for me  ... and still does.

My guest today, author Linda Wisniewski, says that the great solace of being a writer is that we can "make lemonade," i.e., a piece of art from our sorrow. I was squeezing lemon after lemon during the years I spent writing Boundaries. I squeezed until my hands ached.  I started the novel wanting to write about an intense, destructive relationship I had during college. I needed to understand how and why it happened. I was haunted by the experience and writing about it seemed the best way to finally find some peace.

As I wrote the story I realized that the events, or aberrations, that struck me during those years--when I was finally on my own, finally away from all the dysfunction I'd tried to ignore--were inevitable; it was an outpouring of all the suppressed emotion that came before. Although sometimes dark and disturbing, Boundaries, is my overflowing pitcher of sparkling lemonade. In the end, it defines who I am and where I'm still headed today. As Linda put it, the novel demonstrates that sometimes "the only way out is through:"

I share Linda's desire to relay to children, especially girls, that other people don't make us happy.  We must choose for ourselves. It's not easy and that's why sometimes we have to wade, break or crash through a lot of crap to come out on the other side. Whether you're a young girl, a 25-year-old woman writing her first novel, or a 50-year-old man, it takes a lot of courage and tenacity.  

Here on Aberration Nation, WE DO NOT GIVE UP. Hope is our weapon, creativity can be our guide, reality is our kingdom, and love of self is our reward.

People like Linda are our champions.   

What's your story? Are you surprised by where you are today or did you always see it coming?

The blurb on the back of Off Kilter says it well: "Even before she was diagnosed with scoliosis at thirteen, Linda Wisniewski felt off kilter. Born to a cruel father and a long-suffering mother in the insulated Polish Catholic community of upstate New York, she learned martyrdom as a way of life. Off Kilter shows her learning to stretch her Self as well as her spine as she comes to terms with her mentally deteriorating, widowed mother and her culture. Only by accepting her physical deformity, her emotionally unavailable mother, and her Polish American heritage does she finally find balance and a life that fits."

I'm not surprised at where I am today, but the twenty-year-old Linda would be. She liked to write but didn't see it as the key to happiness and fulfillment as the sixty-year-old Linda does.

With regard to your current creative focus, was there an "ah-ha" moment you can tell us about?

Currently, I'm writing a novel about a female ancestor who time travels into the present day. I want to explore her reaction to women's lives in the twenty-first century. The "aha!" came in my cousin's kitchen near Amsterdam, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Her niece had composed a family tree that went back to a woman born in 1778. I literally felt excitement all through my body in that moment. I wanted that piece of paper, and I wanted to know that woman. There is very little information on her, so I'm making it up based on research. This summer, I'm going to walk in her footsteps in Poland, and I'm very excited about that.

Expression is my primary motivation. It's why I write even when I'm not sending much out--as I'm doing now while I work on the novel. Being heard and acknowledged is very important to me, as I suspect it is to most writers, but I want my work to be good, well thought out, artful, even innovative and unique. That's where "creation" comes in at a close second.

Do you believe some of the various attributes related to being highly creative have caused you aberrations in life, helped you deal with life's aberrations, or both? 

My creativity has helped me deal with aberrations but a few times got me into trouble. As a highly observant person, I sometimes blurt out things I shouldn't. I tend to be direct to the point of bluntness at times. I have no patience for people making excuses for not doing what they want. This translates into no patience for myself, either. When I want something, I do my best to get it.

During challenging or difficult times in your life, how has art comforted or inspired you?

My journal and reading have always been my refuge. More than art or music, because listening and observing are comforting but also passive activities. For me, healing and solace come from actively creating something new with words, if only a very private personal insight. In recent years, I've come to realize how much nature has been a comfort and inspiration in my life, and I enjoy the nature writing of Kathleen Dean Moore. Right now, I'm enjoying her most recent book of essays, Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature.

Have you had to deal with people in your life failing to understand your creative personality or drive? If so, can you tell us about it and how you've dealt with it?

I've been very fortunate to have the support of a community of writers in two wonderful organizations: the Story Circle Network, www.storycircle.org which promotes women's life writing, and the International Women's Writing Guild, www.iwwg.com, whose purpose is the empowerment of women through writing. The friends I've made through these groups has sustained me in times of rejection. Sometimes people don't understand why we write what we do; that was my experience when my memoir came out. A few relatives didn't approve of my sharing the negative aspects of my childhood. They felt it was disrespectful to our deceased elders. As a memoirist, I learned to understand and accept that some people prefer not to look at painful things, but I'm a firm believer that "the only way out is through." And the great solace of being a writer is that we can "make lemonade," i.e., a piece of art from our sorrow.

Can you tell us about the work you do to inspire young women through writing.

This is a new venture for me, through the YWCA of Bucks County, www.ywcabucks.org. I facilitate a journal group for young women of middle school age. My purpose is to get them to think about what is important to them, and to put it into words, to find their voices. They also use stickers, markers, and pictures to illustrate the journals, which are strictly private for now. My hope is to someday inspire them to share their writing publicly at a small open mike or coffee house type reading. And this summer, I'll be working with a wonderful local writer, Carla Merolla Odell, on a summer writing project for girls based on Sandra Cisneros' book, The House on Mango Street, also through the YWCA. I'm very excited to be working with young women, as so far I've taught memoir writing at retirement centers and adult education classes. It's a whole different milieu!

Is there a difference between being creative and being talented? What are your thoughts on this?

Yes, I do think there is a big difference between the two. Writer Jessamyn West said, "Talent is helpful in writing but guts are absolutely necessary." In my opinion, too much is made of talent, some innate mysterious ability that not everyone possesses. But everyone has the potential to be creative. The great feminist author Mary Daly said that "It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God." I believe we have a responsibility to nurture that creative potential, whether in art, music, writing, child-raising, office-managing - all of life asks us for creative solutions, for new ways of doing things every day. For me, creativity is active and much more interesting and fun than "mere talent."

What is your primary motto or mantra in life? Why is this important to you?

My motto is "We create our own happiness." I knew this fairly young, but only recently put it into those words. For most of my youth, I felt powerless. Then I thought love would make me happy. Or the right job, house, even reading a book. I watched my mother try and fail to change my dad, believing that other people don't make us happy. And finally, I gave myself permission to choose to be happy by following my own dreams and desires. Nobody else can give us that. I wish we could teach that to every child. Especially girls!

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 10)

Chapter 5: Judas

Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed spouts and grows, though he does not know how.

Mark 4:27

“I don’t feel grown up. Do you think we really are?” We're at the park. It's dark and drizzling.. Becca sits twisting her swing from side to side. Her long, blond hair sways in the opposite direction. Her feet remain perfectly straight as she pushes them down into the mud. It oozes up the sides of her white tennis shoes.  I'm not sure why but she seems to enjoy it. Mine come close, time after time, as I swing faster and higher. But they never touch the ground.
     “We’re legally adults so I think that means we are,” I say. “We’ve done just about everythang adults do.” I know my voice becomes unnaturally loud each time my swing comes down to her level.     “Will you stop so we can talk?” she whines. “I’m only gonna be home for a couple of days.”
     I keep swinging.  “I just cain’t get past the fact that I feel the same. I wanted to feel different when I grew up. Do you know what I mean?”
     “Maybe that means we’re not grown yet. Maybe that just proves it,” Becca says, shrugging her shoulders. “If we still feel the same, maybe that means they didn’t get the chance to grow up?”
     I don’t answer. My pace never slows and she doesn’t ask me to stop again. She knows me well enough to understand that I have to keep swinging. We’ve been here before. At times, we said plenty and, at times, we said nothing. She would wait and if I never answered, we’d still be friends.
     It’s already Thanksgiving and like the seasons, we're both changing. But I barely notice, moving through the unconventional cycle in which we exist. The seasons, like the people around me, hints of the real thing, slip in and out of one another without delineation. Spring always diffuses into summer and when winter finally comes, it’s never complete. Among the withered brown death, there always remains a bit of color, a touch of life. Cheated from the miracle of rebirth, the life that can’t die struggles all the harder, striving to recreate what the Louisiana winter sucks away. No white blanket of snow can cover the ugliness for people like me.
     For every bit of southern nature that manages to find peace in death, there reigns its dichotomous brother, the evergreen. They dominate our landscape like preachers, pastors, deacons, and ministers. They draw their power from the fact that they will never change. They’re immune to the forces controlling the life they look down upon. And between the peaceful dead foliage and the vibrant evergreens you find pathetic life (like mine) caught in the struggle, surviving only at the mercy of the weather patterns, of the skies, of God.
     You see, seasons in the deep South don’t correspond with the calendars we're all taught to follow. The pictures we were shown as kids do not reflect our world but we're still required to memorize and expect those perfect seasons that arrive on calculated dates. Nobody explains the reality, and so we try to make sense out of it. We have to. With ignorant eyes and yearning hearts we search for smells, colors, and fantasies that can make our less than picture perfect world worthwhile. We embrace the struggling greenery, the crushing heat, and the strangling moss that winds itself around those regal pines. Most of us never question the accuracy of those pictures or the calendar.
     “I say we’re grown!” I yell. “I’m tired of growin’ up and I, Peyton Bound, of sound mind and body, do hereby declare that I am absolutely grown. You can speak for yourself.” Becca’s eyes flutter as I pass by and I feel like a jerk. “I don’t know about Tammy and Cheryl but Anne was grown. She had to be.” It’s a question as much as a statement. It’s the best I can do. “If you knew her as well as I did, you’d understand. She was one of those kids who seems like their grown in the fourth grade. She knew exactly what she was gonna do with her life. I don’t remember what it was, but she knew.” Then I thought of something else. “When she was little lots of kids made fun of her.”
     “What was wrong with her?”
     “She looked like a little witch with that stringy red hair and no eyelashes. Her glasses just magnified it.”
     “How can someone not have eyelashes?”
     “Allergies or somethin’. And she was so skinny. When you met her she’d just moved back from some other state. Her dad took her away for a year because of her allergies.”
     “She seemed healthy to me,” Becca says as we both look up into the night.
     The park lights hinder us from seeing the stars. Cheryl is dead now, too, and I wonder if Becca and I are really the lucky ones. Perhaps the real tragedy is that we have to stay and endure the struggle of growth and the torture of stagnation. “I guess it helped her to get away,” I say, feeling a pain that tells me it’s time to cry.  I try to ignore it. “Remember when we used to jump off the swings? I could never do that now. I’m too scared. It’s funny how when you’re little it doesn’t seem that far down. It should have seemed farther back then but it didn’t.”
     “The first week at school, I cried all the time,” Becca says, ignoring my attempt to change the subject. She pulls her shoes out of the mud. “College will never be as great as I thought it would. Maybe I’ll be grown up when I finish college.”
     “Suit yourself but I’m grown and I’m not changin’ my mind,” I say from high above her.  Then I  jump. For a moment, I’m weightless and free. I'm flying. But when I hit the ground, pain floods my body and I can't ignore how it feels. I don't move.
     Becca cries softly to herself.

Several days later, I'm surrounded by dead bodies. A thick, putrid odor rises from the perfectly spaced tables that fill the large medical school gross anatomy lab. As I follow Peter to the far end of the immaculate room, I think about Anne. I wonder if she spent time in a shiny black bag like the ones surrounding us. The chalkboards on either end of the room are covered with strange mnemonic devices. The chalk seems to grow like mold. Everything else in the room is dead and sterile.
     “There are four students to every body. This is Matilda," Peter says, unzipping one of the giant body bags.
     “Where did they all come from?” I ask, still looking around.
     “They were donated--either by themselves or their families. Some were prisoners. Some John Does.”
     Matilda is turned on her stomach. Her back is cut open. Detached from the insides, her skin spreads out like the covers of a leather bound book. Fascinated, I step closer. I expect a bloody mess, but only see meat and bones.
     Suddenly a booming voice fills the room. “The many faces of death are drawn with the few edges of heaven.”
     My stomach lurches. There's a tall, thin guy hovering over his black bag at the opposite side of the room. His lab coat is stained and his gloves are pulled up to his elbows, but it’s his wild hair that startled me. It looks alive.
     “Who said that?” Peter asks.
     “Me. You got a problem with that?” the guy says, holding his face much too close to the body he’s studying.
     “No, I mean who are you quotin’?”
     “Me," the wild-haired guy says again. "You got a problem with that?”
     Peter grabs an eraser from the blackboard behind him. “Future pathologist,” he says, throwing it at him. The guy doesn’t flinch when the eraser hits him in the head. It bounces off his wild hair and falls to the floor.
     “Are you sure you wanna come to this place?” Peter asks me.
    I shake my head. "Why not?”
     “For starters, twenty-five percent of the people here are eccentric as hell, twenty-five percent are boring, twenty-five percent could be called normal and the rest are stupid as hell. Secondly, you’d have to dig into somebody’s dead body.”
     “Judas!” yells the future pathologist.
     “Just ignore him,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. “We know what category he belongs to.”
     “How can you get into med school if you’re stupid?” I ask.
     “Some people may be able to pass a test, but that doesn’t mean they have any common sense.” He digs his hands into Matilda’s body as he speaks.
     I look at her blank face. Her leathery wrinkles look like woodcarvings. I wonder if she had any family. I hope Peter isn't going to turn her over, exposing more of her nakedness.
     “Some people have nightmares about this,” he warns. “You’d be surprised. The hands actually bother people the most. When you think about it, our lives are basically made up of the stuff we do with our hands.”
     I look down at my hands.
     “That phenol smell sticks with you,” he says, sniffing. “I can smell it in my car and in the apartment. It ain’t pleasant to be in bed at night and get a whiff of it. I can see why some people have nightmares. I sprinkle baby powder all over the place. It absorbs better than anythang.”
     “This won’t give me nightmares,” I say. I have them anyway. “It’s so interesting. I could stay here all night.”
     “You can come here anytime, day or night, and find somebody studying. I’m surprised it’s so empty now. Since it’s the weekend, more people will show up after midnight.”
     I wonder if Matt will come, and which body is his. I imagine his hands entering my body. “So it doesn’t bother you to use them like this?” I ask, looking around at all the bags again.
     “It’s all in the name of science. How else are we gonna learn unless we cut up these folks?”
     My hand goes to my stomach.
     “Would you rather we practice on you?” He stares at me until I feel uncomfortable.
     As soon as he looks away, I say, “What do you think of abortion?” The question pops out before I can catch it and stuff it back into my overflowing closet. I’m immediately sorry I asked.
     “Why? Did you have one?” He doesn’t look up from his large anatomy book and I realize he already knows the answer; I waited too long to answer.
     “It was a long time ago," I whisper. "It doesn’t matter.”
     “Then why did you bring it up?”
     Silence.
     I struggle, knowing I have to say something. “All these dead people made me think about it.” I look around, and then back at Matilda again. “They’re so lifeless now but they were real. Do you think it was real  ... or lifeless?” It’s actually the last question I want answered. If it wasn’t real, my grief will be stupid and wasted; and if it was, all the things my mother said will be true. “I really haven’t thought about it much,” I blurt out before he can answer. “I didn’t think about it at all until a couple of months ago.  After it happened, I just wiped it out of my mind like it never happened.”
     “I’m sure it wasn’t fun. I do think it’s important for people to put some thought into the thangs that happen to them. Thangs happen for a reason, and sometimes you have to search for the reason until you find it. I’m sure you made the best decision you could at the time.”
     Why does everybody always say that? “I don’t know if it was the right decision. It was strange. When I found out I was pregnant I was too scared to think.”
     His slimy, gloved hands maneuver Matilda’s vessels and muscles, searching for something specific. “Maybe you can think about it now. Then you’ll probably feel better.”
     “But what if I feel worse?”
     “Then you’ll know you’re not through thinkin’ about it.”
     “What if I have to think about it forever?”
     “You won’t.”
     I look at him intently. His hands are buried in the old lady’s back. He appears to have a basic understanding of life that I’m sure I’ll never find. “I still think you’re older than twenty-one.”
     “Once you’re grown, age doesn’t matter,” he says, winking. “We’re all the same.”
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Read more of Chapter 5 later this week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 9)

Chapter 4: James (continued)


For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Luke 11:10

Peter and I ride home from the party in his old El Camino. I stare out the window, listening to the radio, wishing I can sing. I envy people who have such a handy outlet for their emotions.
     I turn down the music and say, “I’m thinking about changin’ my major to pre-med.” 
     “I didn’t know you’re interested in science.” He’s impressed; I hear it in his voice.
     “This summer I bought an anatomy book for Matt ... for his birthday. The pictures were gross, but I just kept lookin.’ I got to thinkin’ about all the people I met this summer who were in pre-med or med school.” I rolled down the window. “I kind of fit with them.”
     “Fit?”
     Hot air blows into my face.  “I’ve never found a group of friends who were really on my wavelength, if that makes sense.”
     “They’re just people," he says.  "I’m sure there are similar categories of people in any profession. I don’t know if you should base a career decision on a group of people you met one summer.”
     “I don’t know if I’m smart enough, “I say, ignoring his advice. “I made good grades in high school, but my teachers always said that I could make straight A’s if I put my mind to it.”
     “There’s a lot to be said for focus.” His eyes never leave the road.
     “So you think it’s possible? Do you think I'm capable?”
     He glances over at me. “You just have to want it bad enough. It means more to the people who work for it.”
     We drive into my neighborhood and pass the elementary school I went to. It sits on the side of the road like a giant memory. “When I was thirteen I used to sneak out of my house in the middle of the night and go up to that school.”
     He looks surprised. “You must have been a brave kid.”
     “I loved it. I took a blanket and my radio. I laid in the center of the playground looking up at the stars, listenin’ to the music. There was one song I used to love. I sang it so loud—out on the playground. I think it was Christopher Cross.”
     “Sing it for me.”
     “Are you crazy? I cain’t sing.”
     He smiles.  “Come on. Everybody can sing.”
     I clear my throat and softly sing. “It's not far down to paradise. At least it's not for me. And if the wind is right you can sail away ... And find tranquility.  The canvas can do miracles ... just you wait and see. Believe me …”
     “Hey, that’s not bad.”
     “I remember lying there, thinking that one day I'll just sail away.” I shrug my shoulders and laugh nervously. “That sky and those stars made the universe seemed so big. It should have made me feel small, but it didn’t. It made me feel like a giant, leaning up against the world. Like I was the only one in the world God could see.” I pause, wondering if I made a mistake by mentioning God. “Do you think I’m weird?”
     “Not at all. It might not be something the average person thinks about doin’ … you know, goin’ to a schoolyard in the middle of the night. Actually, I think it says somethin’ important about you.”
     “Probably means I’m a weirdo.”
     “No, you’re special, that’s all.” As he speaks, the words become real and true. We ride in silence for a few minutes, and then he says, “Matt knows that, too.”
     The mention of Matt’s name jolts me from my dreamy state. “Apparently not, " I say.  "He broke up with me, didn’t he?”
     “Trust me, he knows. He’s a genius--a real genius. And he’s a great guy but he’s a little weird. For real.”
     “What do you think’s wrong with him?”
     “He goes around makin’ all these wise statements but if you watch him, he’s young … emotionally. Sometimes I think he’s talkin’ to himself. I think he remembers everythang he hears and, intellectually, it makes sense … but maybe, emotionally, he’s tryin’ to decide if he believes his own advice.”
     He turns the radio back up.  Neither of us speak for the next couple of blocks. Then he says, “If you ever figure out how his mind works, I’d appreciate the information.”
     His words clot in my ears. Then the chanting begins. Don’t go. Don’t go. You shouldn’t go.
     I know I’ll go.

Remember when I said you wouldn't like me?  This is the night all that begins.  Although there are deep, powerful reasons for self-distructive behavior, very few people care about all that when they see you making mistake after mistake.
     They say that no one can love you if you don't love yourself but I beg to differ. Loving someone who's lost is the worst kind of real love, the kind that rips you up and spits you out. The kind that holds a mirror to your gut and forces you to look.

When I get to his apartment, Matt’s porch light shines like a beacon. I knock on the door and wait. When he doesn’t answer, I start peeling the cracked paint from his door.
     The door suddenly swings open. I fumble for my balance. “Why are you standin’ so close to the door?” he says, his eyes narrow.
     “No reason. What are you doin’?”
     "What are you doin’?”
     “I wanted ... to be with you all night,” I say. “You were starin’ at me.”
     His head shakes in denial.
     A music teacher in my head reminds me to sing with my diaphragm, but I don’t know how. I remember that Peter said everyone can sing. So I try until it’s painful, my voice carried by some huge breath I manage to call forth, not knowing if it’s right, effective, or anything near what she’s looking for. “Didn’t you read my letter? Cain’t you admit that you were watchin’ me all night?”
     “Lookin’ at someone and wantin’ to be with them are two different thangs. You’re interpretin' thangs the way you want ‘em to be.”
     “No, I feel it.” My voice is stronger. I’m getting it; my voice is coming from the right place. “I feel a lot a thangs other people don’t. I feel thangs I don’t wanna feel and I know what you …”
     “How can you possibly know how I feel? And you think this ability you think you have makes you somethin’ special?” His eyes drill into me and I see a flicker of pain. “You don’t know anything.”
     “Matt ...”
     “I think you‘re fuckin’ crazy,” he says with a force that shakes me. The shaking escalates as we smack together with a force that's surprising yet natural. We fall to the floor next to his narrow apartment stairway. There are no gentle caresses or kisses. Instead, we grab and snatch. Tugging at our clothes, we make our way toward the stairs. We move up, step by step, using each other as a tool to climb a ladder we both need. His breath is full and heavy and his eyes wild. I pull his hair, stretching his neck out long and bumpy. His windpipe and vessels trace a path, an open road toward his body. His vulnerability fills me with aggression. Finally reaching the top of the stairs, we make our way toward his bed.
     “Don’t,” he says when I try to turn off the light. “I want to see you.”
     He stands behind me, bending his knees and pushing them into the back of mine. His palms run along the length of my thighs and hips. Reaching behind me to cup his rough backside, my hands struggle to pull him closer. Then without warning, I spin around. I never looked at a naked man and thought him beautiful until that moment. He lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist like a mother scooping up her child. We sink onto the heap of sheets and blankets covering the bed. Then I grab his head between my long fingers, forcing him to look at me. “Tell me what this means,” I say.
     “Why does it have to mean anythang?”
     “Everythang means somethin’. You told me that. You said life is a road. Don’t you believe it?” He stares at me and I feel silly. “I just want to understand.”
     “What needs to be explained?”
     “Why cain’t you admit that you want me ... really want me? You stared at me all night and now you won’t admit it. You broke up with me but now we’re together, and it means somethin’.” His silence makes me cry but he doesn’t seem to notice. He wanted to keep the light on, but although I’m in front of him, right on top of him, he can’t see me. He kisses the parts of my face where tears rest and, as crazy as it seems, I’m still not sure he realizes they exist.
     Music floats through the tiny room, and we move like wild birds in perfect formation. We’re young and freakishly innocent. We exist in a fantastical but painful place bordering adulthood.
     I feel inside out.  “Matt,” I whisper. “I want to tell you somethin’. It's strange.  I don’t know why, but I …” My voice cracks as I force myself to remember. “When I was fifteen, I had an abortion.”
     His hands don’t stop exploring. “That was three years ago,” he whispers. “It’s over.” He’s not trying to comfort me, but I’m comforted.
     “If it’s over, why do I feel the need to tell you?”
     “You don’t need to tell anyone. You just have to move on. You did the best you could at the time and now … it’s already a long time ago.”
     I wonder how he’s so sure I did the best I could. He doesn’t know anything about it. The more emotional I become, the more he responds. In the end, we lay together as if we’ve shared something profound, but he didn’t asked me any questions and I didn’t find any answers.
     My pain has just begun to surface.
     I shiver and he says, “I’ve got what you need.” He jumps up from the bed and moves toward the closet on a mission to care for me.
     I close my eyes, feeling beautiful.
     He says, “My mom just gave me this today. Moms have a way of knowin’ just what you need, right when you need it. It’s amazing.”
     When I open my eyes, he stands godlike at the foot of the bed. The blanket he holds in his outstretched arms hangs between us in a deep red, fluttering wave. In a violent moment, he flings it over me. As it descend upon me like the sick red of my dream, he flips off the light and jumps on the bed as if to imprison me beneath its red, woolen grip.

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Read the Chapter 5 next week!

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.