didaink

Happy Birthday, dear Dragonwagon (Love, Dida)

I often can’t get to my words as fast as I would like each day, as I sit and face my blank screen or piece of paper. And on those days, when doubt speaks too loudly and drowns out my quiet instincts, I hear it bully me again. “It isn’t even important, what you have to say! Let a ‘better’ writer say it, dummy!” That’s when I hear my fearless leader’s voice, “Do NOT call my friend, Dida, a dummy, under any circumstances!” She's right there, standing up for me, the little novella in Danny Shanahan's New Yorker cartoon.
It’s her voice I hear now in my heart and it shuts Mr. Doubt right up. Her name is Crescent Dragonwagon (no, really, it’s Crescent Dragonwagon, that's her logo on the left) and she reminds me on a daily basis that what I have to say *is* important, even if it’s just for me to see and read, and even if no one ever reads it, and no one is ever moved by it one way or another, I am moved by it. This is why I write the words down in the first place and that is enough. At the end of the day, that is more than enough.

Another writer asked me recently what my ultimate goal is for writing a novel. "Do you want to see your name in Barnes & Noble next to Barbara Walters or Danielle Steel?" she asked. I had to admit (and I might have even laughed a bit too loud at the thought of my name next to those names) that I had no desire to see my name in Barnes & Noble.

"But, don’t you want to sell it and see it in print? Don’t you want the success that they have?"

No, I said, I really didn’t care about that kind of success. That’s the publishing world’s idea of success, not mine. And at almost forty-nine years of age, I can finally say I don't need anyone else's approval of my work to call myself an authentic writer. After taking Crescent's 36-day “Virtual Fearless Writing” workshop this year, I finally feel I am already "successful," two of the short stories I am most proud of have been featured on NPR, thanks to Tales from the South and living in Arkansas, something that is truly incredible in and of itself. I am also writing every day which is another miraculous gift. But the most fantastic achievement of all is that I am finally at peace and enjoying the writing process. I am finally discovering new ways to layer and season my work to reveal a richer, more authentic, heartfelt story. I couldn't care less about any money I might or might not receive from finishing my book.

This fellow writer from my writer's group did look at me a bit sideways after I gave my little speech about why I write and what my ultimate goal is for my novel, which is just this: to finish it for my own self-satisfaction.

I do have a deadline, though, not because an editor gave me one but because I gave it to myself. My deadline is my 50th birthday (you'll just have to ask me how far away that is judging by the look of me that day!) but if I don’t meet my deadline, I know it’s not the end of the world, not by a mile, not if I enjoyed the process and wrote the story authentically, embracing fear as my partner, finding my 'helpful inner editor' waiting on the shore up ahead. I have Crescent Dragonwagon to thank for that realization, something it has taken me ten years to understand. I now know, thanks to her voice, that I am no dummy, not under any circumstance. Crescent, I am so grateful that you were born, Fearless Dragon.  Happy Birthday.

L  ike a present sent just for me, even on your birthday, I am still opening up this gift

O  ften unspoken as I write, although I do sing it throughout the day

V  essels of gratitude setting sail to you ~ on board, what you have given me and

E  ach one of your students. I call myself one of the lucky, one of the sacred, one of

 

D  ragon’s fearless writers and finally, I can let go.

I   ‘m finally moving forward, my instincts holding me steady, holding me tight.

D  on’t even try to get in my way now, I’m not stopping, I have a story to tell

A  nd I will write it with honesty and passion and love because you, Crescent, taught me so well.

 

 

 

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Carl Liu! Look at you!

There was something about Carl that I could never fully describe. And I would try. I'd relentlessly try to tell people about this man I worked with and his amazing drawings and designs, but I just had inadequate words to describe him and his gifts. I had never met or seen anyone work like this before, especially a designer. I would see him quietly sketching in his little black book every day, throughout the day, taking small things into three dimensions loaded with brilliant colors and toy-like features, and I wondered how he saw it all in his seemingly quiet mind. What did this fascinating brain really see before he took it to his fingers and pushed it out through his pencils and pens and onto paper?

“Carl what are you working on? Can I see?” and he’d show me his work like they were stick-figured cartoons.

“This is incredible. Incredible! How do you do it?”

 

I think he got tired of listening to me constantly telling him how awesome he was, but I didn’t care ~ I might have been a broken record to him, but I couldn’t help it. His humble demeanor blew me away every day when he came through the studio’s double-metal doors with his bike and helmet. He was the most gifted artist and designer I had ever met, and I had worked with many talented artists over the years.

There was a girl who had broken his heart the year before I met Carl. He had asked her to marry him and they were engaged until he found out the truth about her, something that silently tore him apart.  He reluctantly told me what happened on a day when I had asked too many questions over lunch. I was always asking him questions, though, and he would politely answer, always shy and a bit wary of women and for good reason.

He worked quietly and seriously in the office, but then when he would bust out laughing and his giant smile opened wide and made you sing, I would think to myself, How could she do it? Rip this angel of a smile to shreds? I wanted to hunt her down and confront her, make her pay for what she did to my buddy Carl.  I might have secretly wished that Carl was my real brother.  Maybe that’s why I asked him so many questions about his family in Asia.  Unbeknownced to Carl, I’d dreamed of having a younger sibling my whole life, particularly an Asian brother or sister, and I never really knew why.  Years later I found out that my father had wanted to adopt a Vietnamese baby after I was born.  Maybe I overhead my father talking about it when I was a child? I don’t know… but very soon after I met Carl at Motorola, I felt this unexplained kinship to protect this very tall, little buddy of mine, Carl Liu. 

To see him now so happy with a genuinely beautiful, loyal partner and their two gorgeous girls, makes my heart sing gospels on this Sunday morning. “Carl Liu! Look at you!” Your blossomed smile brings me such joy today, little buddy. I knew from the moment I saw your work that you had incredible gifts to offer the world.

Rainy Day Comforts

It's raining and I'm listening to my cat, Big Lini, nap behind the armoire in my office. She goes in and out of snoring just like anyone would, old or young. I know when she stops snoring that she’s heard something, a gust of wind or my fingers tap-tapping across the keyboard. The Noodle Monster dog is curled up by the door, and her tummy is making wide-mouth yawning sounds. I am transported back to my childhood bedroom. 

“When I grow up I’m going to have as many animals in the house as I want!” I scream at my mother who is downstairs and out of earshot. She has just discovered that I snuck my cat, Fluff, up to my room, and she has confiscated Fluff and banished her to the backyard. I am crying, shaking my head sitting on my bed alone, wondering how my mother could have been raised on a fruit ranch and never allowed an indoor pet.

 

“The dogs were Grandpa’s,” she tells me, “They were only for hunting and they stayed outside. We didn’t know what kind of diseases they might be carrying.”

“But, didn’t you ever play with them?” I begged.

“No... I didn’t like the way their hair felt on my skin,” she answered.

How could this woman be my mother? How could I possibly be related to a person who didn’t love animals? A person who didn't want to touch or play with them? At eight, I didn’t understand. In many ways, I still don’t.

The nice white carpet behind the armoire is covered with Big Lini’s calicoed hair, and I couldn’t care less. She is still asleep in her safe place, her secret getaway, and I would like to squeeze in back there with her and nap, too. She lets out a few more snores and settles into her breathing pattern, curled up and at rest, while her nose sings a low, soft rhythm to the rain that hits the windowpane. A cat’s internal clock knows nothing of time and tolls or rules and schedules. How I wish my mother had a cat to keep her company, to sleep alongside her, as she counts the days down in her weakened bodily form. 

How I wish I could bring her old Big Lini, my calico, or the young, dashing Great Gatsby, our tuxedo, or even my eleven year-old puppy-dog, Noodle Monster, and have them each lay beside her in quiet slumber as they do near me. Their bodily sounds self-soothing them deeper into the world they are visiting, out of their failing bodies, and into a place of dreams. What would she say if I did bring one of my pets to her room to nestle with her? If my Noodle Monster was there at her feet, her sweet, shaggy face warming the blankets that cover my mother’s immobile legs? 

Would she still say that she didn’t like the way their fur felt? Maybe so... But, then I see my mother, a woman who gave birth to eight children, holding that newborn puppy-dog eleven years ago in the passenger seat of my car on the way to Tiburon, her 'once lost' wedding ring diamond in a small brass box covered in jade, sitting in her purse in the backseat, patiently awaiting appraisal by an antique jeweler overlooking the San Francisco Bay. 

That day she held my baby puppy-dog just like a newborn. She cradled her in the nook of her arms and maybe realized for the first time in her life that a pet's fur could bring comfort on a rainy day, because it had softened a long bumper-to-bumper ride across the Golden Gate Bridge.