North Avenue Lounge: Gaming

My 8/18/14 episode of the North Avenue Lounge featured Dave Leach, 6-time Jeopardy champion / founder of Well Played Board Game Company, and Kevin Stallard, director of the DragonCon Video Game track.

If you want to get your geek on, like gaming, want to delve into the debate of Geek culture vs. pop culture, or if you just want to hear four people laughing a lot, click here.

North Avenue Lounge: Gun Violence Prevention

Dear Friends and Fams,

I have another episode of North Avenue Lounge to share.  The interview took place on Monday, July 7, 2014 with three members of Georgia Gun Sense.  I'm really proud of this one.  It took a lot of work to put together, and I'm sure you remember from my life story why the topic of gun violence prevention is an important one to me.

As I've been doing lately, there was a monologue at the end under the title "One More Thing."  You can listen to it here. [Trauma warning ~ if you were there at Virginia Tech when the shootings happened, that is partially the topic of the monologue.]

Hope you're all well in your respective corners of the world.

Love,
Shannon

North Avenue Lounge: Food Justice and Sustainability

Hey, Friends and Fams,

There've been several episodes of the North Avenue Lounge since I last posted, covering topics such as drag queens in Atlanta, visual artists of color, improv comedy, and playwrights.  Today's episode was about Community Farmers Markets and the food justice movement.  It was a very interesting topic to explore for sure.

I can't ask you to go back and listen to hours of old radio (you've got lives to lead), but I thought you might find it interesting that I've started doing a new closing segment at the end of each episode.  I've been experimenting and have finally taken to calling these bits, "One Last Thing."  Here's today's segment under the new name.  It contains a special shoutout to my dad, to Blacksburg (especially the YMCA Community Garden and Emily Stewart, may she rest in peace), and my friend, Eleanor.  Hope you like it!

As always, would love to use this as an invitation to hear from you in your respective garden patches of the world.

Cheers,
Shannon ~*

Gabby, Flabby, and Crabby

This is the story of Gabby, Flabby, and Crabby.

Gabby, Flabby and Crabby were the best of friends.  They went out together everywhere.  They knew each others’ secrets.  It was almost as if they were the same person sometimes.
Except they were all so very different.  They had distinctively different ways of moving through and dealing with the world.

Gabby was embarrassing at parties.  She’d get soooooo loud and boisterous, spouting half-truths, misquoting headlines from publications she really didn’t read.  The other two would just cringe when she had the least little bit to drink.  Sometimes, they would hide under tables or even try to sneak out the door without her, but try as they might, they couldn’t seem to be anywhere Gabby was not.  The biggest problem with Gabby was that, when she got cranked up, Flabby would start acting up too.

See, Flabby had a bit of an eating problem.  She just couldn’t help herself.  She felt so lonely sometimes.  When Gabby was embarrassing the group, Flabby would hide in the corner and start stuffing her little ol’ face.  She hated herself for it but couldn’t stop.

Then, whenever swimsuit season came around, all three of the girls would go to the store to look for a new suit together.  That’s when Flabby would most regret her past behavior.  She would just pitch herself down on the floor of the dressing room like a two-year-old and cry.  Or she would jump up and down and scream.  The other two would yell, “Down, Flabby, down!”

And then, heaven help us, there was Crabby.  She was the worst of them all.  Crabby just couldn’t stand the other two.  Really, it was kind of ridiculous that she was stuck with these two lamebrains, but try as she might, she couldn’t seem to shake them.

And they couldn’t stand her either.  Gabby might make herself happy by being loud and boisterous, entertaining her friends with funny stories.  Flabby, as we’ve established, would find happiness/misery at the bottom of a potato chip bowl.  But Crabby?  She was never happy.

Crabby would sit in the corner of just about any place and pout her pretty little head off.  Crabby could find the worst in any situation.  Everyone hated to see Crabby coming.  Pretty day outside?  Crabby brought up allergies and sunscreen.  New job with awesome benefits?  Crabby would grumble about early onset Alzheimer's.  Crabby’s condition was contagious.  She made Gabby so depressed that all she could do was try to talk to everybody about the most nonsensical stuff.  And poor Flabby of course would just overdose on chocolate every chance she got.

So, whatever happened to Gabby, Flabby, and Crabby, you ask?

Ending #1
Why, nothing!  They’re everywhere you look.  Their story goes on and on and on…

Ending #2
One day, Flabby decided that just for once she was going to skip the party and go for a walk instead.  Crabby mocked her, tried to shame her back into being a part of the group.  “What, are you going to lead a life of rigor now? Are you meant for the abbey?”  Flabby just ignored her, and went on her way.

Inspired, Gabby kept quiet for once, and thought, “Hey, a walk.  By myself?  That idea’s not too shabby!  Maybe I’ll gather my thoughts for once before I speak out of turn.”  And with that, she walked out the door.

Crabby just sat there and harumphed, but then...after a while, realized she felt a little better without those two bozos around.  Maybe she’d do something to make herself happy, rather than try and drag everyone else down.  She’d always liked cats.  Maybe a tabby!

Ending #3
Gabby found her voice and the perfect venue for her outgoing personality through a local storytelling group.  Seeing Gabby's happiness and not being "set off so much" by her behavior, Flabby found yoga, cycling and the farmers market and is no longer yelled at in the dressing room. Crabby, seeing them both happy, defected to North Korea where her unhappiness is shared by all and she never bothered Gabby or Flabby again.

[ending submitted by Becky Alley McLaughlin]

Ending #4
Crabby kicked Gabby & Flabby to the curb, and continued to enjoy her bad mood with no interference. She considered running for small-town office since she was already grumpy.

Gabby found a job as a Fox News reporter and enjoyed her public's adulation.

Flabby got a part-time job as a greeter at Walmart where she could buy snacks & elastic-waist sweat pants at a discount.

Every Friday they would meet for 2-for-1 Ladies Night drinks at Appleby's and close the place down.

And they all lived thereafter.

[submitted by Kathie deNobriga]

Ending #5
The girls decided to start a rock and roll band called The Cabbies.  It was the only thing to do really.  They took their show on the road.  Gabby was clearly the lead vocals, ever the not-so-gracious forward face.  But, she had great pipes. Also, she wasn’t bad on the guitar.  It was surprising that she could do anything well, but flap her jaws, but it turned out she had a great sense of rhythm and harmony.

Flabby held down the bass.  We don’t know why.  It just makes sense.

And Crabby found herself to be very happy banging on a drum all day.  So happy, in fact, that over time, she frankly became less crabby.

In turn, having less negativity and more music in the group led Flabby to curb her appetite, even dance about here and there, slowly slimming down.  (She kept her beautiful, little round belly and generous thighs, though!)  All this led Gabby to ponder her life’s direction and even to share the spotlight with the others when they felt so inclined.

They lived happily ever after.

The Atlanta Weather Report

For all of you not in Atlanta, here's my weather report.

New North Avenue Lounge Episodes

Hey, friends and fams.

I've done a couple more episodes of The North Avenue Lounge since the last time I let you know that.  These days, I've been doing my show live, rather than recording it beforehand and then airing an edited version.  It's a very scary and alive feeling, but seems to be working out for the most part.

Today's episode with Carlton Mackey and Roni Nicole Henderson talked about art, creativity, spirituality, and race in Atlanta, including whether Black History Month is still culturally relevant and whether there's segregation or self-segregation in the Atlanta arts community.

You can read more about Carlton Mackey's projects at 50ShadesofBlack.com and TypicalAmericanFamilies.com.

Three weeks ago, I did an episode about storytelling, in which I interviewed Anthony Vinson and Shannon McNeal in anticipation of the Peach State Storytelling Festival.  We talked about the differences between reality storytelling and traditional storytelling, as well as Anthony and Shannon's lives and careers.

Snow Bound & Stir Crazy

I listened recently as some Slate podcast pundits hypothesized that depression is the ailment of people who are obsessed with the past, while anxiety is for those who can't stop thinking about the future.  It was, admittedly, too binary a proposal, even for them.

I know it can't possibly be true for me; I have a great deal of anxiety about my past.  What if my past wasn't good enough?  What if memories of my youth, the stories that I'll be telling when I'm old, just won't stack up.  I have this constant dread that I spent most of college as the designated driver to other people's wild abandon.  What if I'm already so far behind on adventure I will never catch up?

I've always been a person who dwells more on the past than on the future.  I remember the first time I realized this, and when I did it hit me visc-ehr-a-lee.  I was laying in bed with my mom on a lazy Saturday afternoon in late winter.  We were both half dozing, half watching television.  Into the near darkness of early dusk she spoke, "Do you realize where we'll be this time next week?  We'll be on vacation!" 

I was startled because I had been lying there, reminiscing about where I'd been exactly one week prior to that moment.  I think I'd been getting ready for some dance or some nonsense of unrequited teenage love was in the process of playing out, which is why re-living it, re-telling it to myself in my head, seemed very important at the time.

But it really struck me that my mom was thinking about the future at the same time that I was living in the past.  Ever since then, this little tendency has stuck with me, plagued me at times.  I'm constantly thinking about what I was doing this time last week, this time last year, especially when significant events come 'round.

Here's a metaphor for ya ~ a few Christmases back, my grandmother gave me a "hope chest."  You know this old tradition?  You give a single gal a piece of furniture, and she's supposed to fill it up with things that represent her future marriage.  You know what I put in it?  Memorabilia...scrap books, photo albums, little mementos and tokens from the past.  

At times, I try to re-frame all this away from judgment about what this means about me as a person, and I think to myself, well, at least this makes me a better storyteller, right?  The ability to recall things in the past with great detail?  It must have some greater utilitarian purpose!

I don't know, though.  Perhaps.  I sure would like to get around to a place where I could enjoy the present moment while it's happening more often.  And even think about the future even.

Yesterday, I went out for a walk as the snow was falling, and the city of Atlanta was beginning its long, slow descent into chaos.  For me, it was the proverbial walk down memory lane.  I kept thinking about my college years.  It snowed a lot in Virginia during those years seems like.  I kept having flashes of sense memories about ~ 

...the time I fell down the stairs on the first day of classes in January, and everyone thought I had died because the EMT guys covered my head with a sheet when they carried me outside, but really it was just because it was snowing and icing in my face.  

...the time we did "homeless for a night" and slept in boxes all over campus during an ice storm and watched Barbara Kingsolver, who was an artist in residence that year, fall in love with her current husband.  

...the time we tried to go to DC for a NOW rally but got snowed in along the way and ended up drinking ourselves blind at a friend's house and then having a huge, blowout fight.

There's something about snow that, in its extreme, brings on the extremes in humanity. It can both unite and isolate us.  It can inspire and depress.  People talk about how beautiful and clean everything looks when the blanket gently falls over the landscape, but digging out is an ugly, muddy assault to the senses.

The one thing about snow, though, especially for those of us who live in places where it happens rather rarely, is that it does bring up romantic notions of the past.  Misty dreams of popcorn and hot chocolate and fireplaces.  

Now that I live alone, though, all I can say is thank goodness for the internet.  If I hadn't had Facebook and online dating sites and Netflix, I'm not sure what I'd have done in the long hours over the last few days.  Read?!?!

I'm really looking forward to digging out - to everyone digging out - soon.  Another one of those stupid invitations to dwell in the past is right around the corner, and I can feel the maudlin mopey-ness tug down at the corners of my mouth, filling my ears with that prickly, cottony feeling, even as I stare out my window at frat boys playing soccer in the snow. 

The one thing I've learned, though, about how to overcome the cotton-filled, mouth-tugging feeling of January (whether it snows or not) is to get up and move, even if snow soccer isn't quite my panacea.  I may not completely escape it, but at least I'll move my way through it.  I'll blast the Rolling Stones and dance, hurdle, stair master, popcorn, and maybe a little bit walk-down-memory-lane my way through it.

The Crying Man & The Can Man

Bridge to Terabithia was one
of my favorite "juvenile lit" books,
and they made it a terrible movie.

This weekend, my current boyfriend and I went up to Lake Lanier and explored several islands--from tiny ones no bigger than a beach with two trees to great big ones, miles long end-to-end, with their own ravines and deer and sub-islands and even ancient ruins.  It was a grand enterprise that made me feel like we were the adolescent boy and girl from Bridge to Terabithia.

While the trip was mostly a blast, full of beautiful, natural sites and wonder, there was one dark cloud that hovered over every stop we made.

Garbage.

Every single time we would roll up on a beach, seemingly pristine, almost like we were the first to discover it, wouldn’t take long before the evidence of previous human visitors became glaringly obvious.  With our boat perched on the sand, the promise of island adventure before us, sometimes I would just stand there for a second and stare at the strewn beer bottles and cans and styrofoam pieces, and think of old Iron Eyes Cody and what an impact that commercial had on me as a kid. (Although, ironically, I just learned in looking for this link that said memento contained a bit of controversy. Ah well, yet another childhood illusion shattered.)

This photo was blatantly
"borrowed" from here.

Christmas 1994

View from my window at the
Buffalo Mountain Camp Retreat Center.

Just last week, I found myself, quite unexpectedly, commit an act somewhat out of character for me. I was driving along when someone threw their trash out a car window right in front of me on a city street. Before I could even think what I was doing, I honked my horn and threw up a single, hot pink, gloved finger. Now, I really know better than this. Particularly in the neighborhood where I was driving, and really anywhere, it's best not to provoke strangers in such a manner.

I don't know why, of all the crimes and misdemeanors against humanity and nature that people commit on a daily basis, litter gets my goat so greatly. More than anything, I'm pretty sure it's because, even when not on a conscious level, it reminds me of my grandfather.

My Papa was a quiet man. He loved a few things in life, and he loved them all quite fiercely. When I think of him, I have sense memories of Wrigley's chewing gum, old fashioned thermoses tucked into old fashioned, black lunch pails as he left for work at the TVA plant, and coffee cans with paper towels stuffed into them to collect snuff spit.

In the mid 80s on into the early 90s, our family suffered an incredible amount of loss, including the unexpected deaths of two his three children, both in their early 30s; Papa's health began to decline as happens when a person enters into his last part of life. In the space of just a few years, he had open-heart surgery, both of his knees were replaced, and I think a couple other things I can't remember. My mom could tell you better. What I do remember, though, is that after all that, he landed headlong into some deep, dark depression that eventually led to bipolar disorder. And for all of that, healing of knees, heart, and spirit, the doctors agreed he needed to get up off his La-Z-Boy recliner and start walking.

And he did!

He walked all up and down the country roads and highways of East Tennessee, and somewhere along the way, discovered the best way to keep himself motivated was to make his adventures functional. He started taking garbage bags with him, fashioned a little contraption with which to spear cans.

Papa would take his cans and bottles to the recycling center and donate the money he got in return to the church for renovation projects. Before long, my Papa became known as The Can Man.

One glorious autumn day, in the year after I graduated from college that constituted my Wandering Phase (living at home & camp, working about 4 jobs at once), Papa came up to camp, and we spent the day together picking up cans on the six-mile stretch Dry Creek Road. It was one of the best days of my life. We shared secrets and long stretches of shared quiet time as we walked and things I won't even tell you about here--guess those are secrets too.

On that day, and this past weekend, I just kept thinking about what a beautiful person Papa was, that he could take the ugly, discarded refuse tossed away so carelessly by other people and turn it into a gift for others, as well as his own healing.

On his final day on this earth, Papa got up, ate his breakfast, looked at my grandmother and asked "Where do you want to go today?" They tossed around a few ideas, and decided he would take her clothes shopping in Kingsport. When they got to the store, as was totally his usual, he let Ma off at the door, told her he'd park the car and be in later. He was going to walk the parking lot for a while.

That's where they found Papa not long after. The doctors said that he was probably dead of the massive heart attack before he ever hit pavement.

In my mind's eye, when I picture the scene, the crowd of strangers gathered around, working on his body, I like to think of him, arm outstretched. Maybe three feet away there lies one, final, flattened beer can...just out of reach.

poem

Green oranges at St. Bernard's Parish in New Orleans.
I was told they shall be ripe by Thanksgiving.

I wrote this when I was in New Orleans this past weekend.  Just wanted to archive it somewhere:


neither straight nor bent
neither up nor down
neither fearful nor free
neither lost nor found

neither old nor young
neither naive nor wise
neither, maybe both
seeing with clear eyes

we'll live as though time is
     abundant
but we will not spend it
     with reckless abandon
let us shore up our house
join hands
     & dance
in the psalm of
     love & life

"The Navigator"

Here's a link to my second episode of The North Avenue Lounge - click here.

Many thanks to Billy Gewin of Cave Cricket Studios for the recording & editing support.

I Am Dexter, I Am Walter White, I Am US!

Borrowed from Scotch Cinema Blog

In the next couple of weeks, two of the most fascinating shows that have characterized "The New Golden Age of Television" will be wrapping up.  Both Dexter and Breaking Bad have kept millions of watchers enthralled Sunday nights with their high drama, compelling characters, and more than anything, they've kept us leaning forward in desperation with their achingly short seasons.

Both Dexter and Walter White of Breaking Bad are fascinating character studies for sure, and I find myself thinking about them a lot.  Other shows that have dotted the popular landscape during this Golden Age include:

• Deadwood
• Luther
• The Sopranos
• True Blood
• Justified
• Weeds
• Sons of Anarchy

All of these shows' leads are deeply flawed, conflicted, often morally bankrupt, and yet, through the magic of brilliant storytelling, somehow we wind up actually cheering for them.  They are the very definition of the anti-hero, but their occasionally heroic deeds, and more - because we wind up learning so much of their backstory and motivations, their beautiful complications - we simply forget that they occasionally beat their wives, steal, kill people and get away with it all. Mostly.

Still, I just can't stop thinking about these heroes we're so fascinated with these days and how they compare with the role we play on the global stage, particularly while the U.S. is considering missile strikes on Syria.  Once again, we're acting as know-it-all parent to the world.  It's complicated for sure.  I've heard the arguments about why we can't sit idly by and let anyone use chemical weapons, even if it's against their own people.  I've heard the arguments about the foolishness of rushing into yet another war.

So, why, you ask, am I thinking about Dexter and Walter White when I think about U.S. v. Syria?

Let's look at Dexter.  By all rights, the character is a psychopathic serial killer.  He may have his tragic genesis story, his code, and his evolution toward emotional connection & compassion, but at the end of the day, he's still a serial killer who hunts people down, kills them, and leaves their chopped up bodies on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

What's important to remember about Dexter, though, is that code.  He only kills other killers.  He stalks those he believes have committed atrocious crimes, and before he kills them he ceremoniously holds up pictures of all their victims.  Dexter sees himself as ridding the world of bad people, his own personal crusade.  He just conveniently has this dark passenger inside him that compels, or even, emboldens him to do so where others would not.

How like us (U.S.) that we see ourselves ridding the world of bad people?  

Walter White, of Breaking Bad, begins his character's journey when he's diagnosed with cancer.  He's an intelligent man, trapped in middle class existence.  His cancer treatment leaves him on the edge of bankruptcy.  So, tish tosh, piddly poo, he becomes a drug dealer to make a little extra on the side. Before Walter White can bake up too many batches of crystal meth, we realize he's stumbled headlong down the rabbit hole.  His character changes as he makes grander and grander mistakes. He gets better at rationalizing and deceiving.  At some point, you can almost imagine him taking out his moral compass, stomping on it, and burying it in the dessert like so much drug money.

How like us (U.S.) that we defend our actions, the dirty deals we make and the people we kill, the money we hoard and lord over the world, because we think we're protecting our "families", our interests?

Remember back in the day when heroes rode around in white cowboy hats and were not very complicated?  Straight up good vs. bad? Cops vs. robbers? Now, the cops are dirty and the robbers are really trying to support their families and start a new life.

Please hear me that I very much trust and appreciate this newer style of storytelling.  It's highly entertaining. And, I think, it's more realistic.  The problem with the way our entertainment used to exist was that, not only was there not as much complexity, there also wasn't as much diversity. Now, instead of cowboys and indians, we have American Family and The Wire.

I'm just simply saying that the stories that are emerging from our popular subconscious these days might perhaps be a retelling of something we're perpetuating over and over again.  A feedback loop as it were.  No matter what, we've decided we're, dare I say Justified?, in our actions in all their moral complexity.

After all, does make for a better story.

North Avenue Lounge

Hey, Friends and Fams.

I know it's been a while.  Have no excuse.  This year has been a wild roller coaster of international travel, professional growth, and some heartbreak thrown in there for good measure.  

But now, I bring you some exciting news.  I'm going to be periodically guest hosting the North Avenue Lounge on WREK Atlanta, 91.1 FM, Mondays @ Noon Eastern. My first show airs next Monday, 9/16, featuring an interview with Slash Coleman as we discuss his new book, The Bohemian Love Diaries (available on Amazon.com, at Barnes & Noble, and at Audible.com ~ read by the author himself!)

If you miss us on air, you can listen on the website or by podcast at: http://northavenuelounge.com/

Listen to Slash sing a song from the forthcoming show based on 

The Bohemian Love Diaries.

This may turn into a monthly thing for me, so I'm pretty excited.  Tune in if you can!

(And don't forget to let me know how and where in the world you are.)

[After note: Click here to listen to the show because the archive version is now up.]

Arts Health Day

This past weekend, Alternate ROOTS (the organization I work for), joined forces with C4 Atlanta and WonderRoot to create a Health Day for Artists.  We were each inspired for different reasons to support our local arts community in this way.  Personally, my driving force was all the fundraising we've had to do for our artists at ROOTS when they come upon a devastating illness, most notably Jo Carson.  It's never made sense to me that, in anyone's time of most extreme need of physical illness, they are also faced with mounting financial debt and the stress that entails.  I always think about that in rural restaurants when I see those cardboard card standups where you can add a quarter to someone's diabetes or cancer fund.  Those quarters seem so hopeful and so ridiculous to me.

Anyway, in an effort to try and support our local artists that was somewhere between the cardboard coin collector and systemic healthcare reform, we hosted a day for our artists, that included a health resource fair, lecture/demonstrations, biometric health screenings, and a speaker about the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) and how it will hopefully improve our support to individuals and small businesses.

Our local NPR station came and did a great follow-up story about the day.  Please read and/or listen to it here.

Cucalorus Film Festival

Hey, Friends & Fans.

I had the good fortune to publish another article on Arts in a Changing America.  This one is about the Cucalorus Film Festival and why everyone should go.  Here it is!

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Shannon

Carapace Story: Taboo

Hey, Red Crickette Friends & Fans!

Just archiving the audio of a recent story I told at Carapace, October 2012, Manuel's.  Click here to listen.

Cheers,
Shannon

Native

I wrote this piece for a competition called Write Club - Atlanta I was in last week.  I lost.  But it was a good exercise.  I was up against a writer who assigned the theme "Transplant."  Just using this space to archive.

________________________

She sat in the pale afternoon sunlight, pushing the bruised skin in the crook of her elbow, watching as it slowly changed colors after pulling her finger away.  The wind made it seem colder than it should be for a Saturday this early in autumn. Push on the bruise, feel the pleasing, slightly painful feeling, pull away, watch the yellow, green, blue, purple Technicolor show.

After a while she looked up and realized that the junkyard owner was watching her over her boyfriend, Mark’s, shoulder as they talked.  She suddenly felt very self-conscious and pulled her shirtsleeve back down.  She wondered if he thought she was a drug addict and the bruise was a track mark.  Or if her boyfriend had perhaps grabbed her a little too hard.

She looked away, over to the trees on the skyline, watching the leaves rustle in the wind.  A Japanese maple, looking quite out of place in this part of the country, shivered on the corner of the property, near the junkyard owner’s trailer.

A little girl, around 8, based on her size and sass, was playing with a puppy. The junkyard owner’s granddaughter, based on her incessant shouts to “Pappaw.”

The two men walked around to the other side of a rusted out truck. The wind blew up another cool gust, and she decided to head back to the car for shelter.

She and Mark hadn’t been seeing each other long.  Just about seven months, but she was about the most content she’d ever been in her life, given that her life, for the most part, had been anything but contented.

Her father had been a traveling salesman and itinerant preacher, which is really just a traveling salesman of a different sort. Until she was 12, they’d lived their lives on the road, chasing good sales and the Devil, or at least the next church fellowship hall run by fine Christian women who knew how to cook fried chicken.

That all ended when her father was discovered with his throat cut in an airport hotel in Knoxville. Because it was the 70s, and things being what they were, it took them a few days to find her. The police said probably a hooker was involved, but apparently there were other things about the state of the crime scene that were never discussed with her. They weren’t from around there anyway.

She was placed in foster care.  She didn’t like to think about that time, but the unpleasantness lasted for about three or four years.  Until they found her grandmother, her mother’s mother, a woman she’d only met once, and was a little afraid of because she’d thrown up chocolate milk on the good sofa.

They spent the first bit of time in a tenuous dance, the wary, untrusting teenager and the elderly woman whose daughter had hated her so much she had left home at 16 and never been in touch again. Next to this time now, with Mark, the five seasons she spent with her grandmother were the happiest.  She grew to know the power of staying in one place.  Her grandmother’s house was her home; the yard was her yard.  She didn’t have to keep memorizing where the bathroom was, mapping out escape routes.  She pretended she’d always lived there.  

One day, she came home from school to find her grandmother in her rocking chair, Bible open in lap, glasses slightly askew.  She went to her room, packed a suitcase, scooped up the keys to her grandmother’s 1978 Granada, took $250 from what her grandmother called the “heart fund”, and hit the road.  She stopped at a payphone at the edge of town to call the neighbor, told him her grandmother was dead.  She’d left the front door wide open, said she was fine and begged him please not to send anyone looking.

She lived in the Grenada for a while.  The heart fund started running low.  So she lied about her age and got a job waiting tables in a small town outside of Little Rock.  The other waitresses tried to make her acquaintance, but because she was scared they’d find out how old she was, or that she was sleeping in her car in the parking lot of the Piggly-Wiggly, she kept mostly to herself.

She got pretty good at keeping up the exterior.  Friendly, but not letting anyone get too close.  

At night, after she’d finished stocking the sugars and filling the ketchup bottles on the counter, she sat and read customers’ forgotten magazines and newspapers, sipping root beer.

A kid left behind a copy of The Little Prince.  She picked it up, spent all night absorbed with the story of the little boy from a tiny asteroid who takes care of his kingdom.

She started imagining herself inhabiting a small, lonely planet.  Her planet was her own; she was its native. 

Years went by, while she slowly improved her life by increments. Eventually, she made enough money to get a little apartment, the castle in the kingdom on her planet.  She went through her days, afraid that anyone would ever truly notice her.

She got her GED, took some classes at the technical school.  Still, her planet remained the same.

One day, Mark showed up at the restaurant counter, ordered a stack of flapjacks, and asked for directions to the local junkyard.  She told him how to get there, and started to walk away, but he started talking about how he was in search of a carburetor for his newest fixer-upper truck.  She affected interest, patting the coffee pot in her hand, and tried to back away, but he kept talking.  He was from Maurnelle, two towns over, and went on to explain how he couldn’t believe he’d never heard of this particular junkyard, thought he knew them all in a 60-mile radius.  Even as she tried to extract herself, she thought about how she liked the way he lived so comfortably in his own body, how conversation flowed out of him like cool water.

Months later, here she sat in a junkyard, one of about a dozen she’d visited now.  He had a bit of a habit, but as habits go, junkyards were relatively benign, especially considering some of the shit she’d seen in her life.

The first time they’d gone out, he’d brought her flowers.  She felt a small mountain on her planet collapse in a landslide.  Eventually, she invited him over to her apartment, her sanctuary, and fixed him a simple dinner.  She sat at the kitchen table and watched as he did the dishes after, then took him to bed for what was her first time that didn’t involve predation.  Continents collided violently.  He brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, told her that he loved her. CRASH! Huge chunks of her planet broke and spun off into outer space.

Despite the short time, she could see their future lives, as she sat in the car and felt the wind gust around it. 

The little girl and the puppy ran across the yard and mounted the stairs of the trailer.  Apparently they too were yielding to the wind.

He’d already started talking about babies.  In fact, that was the source of the bruise on her arm.  He’d asked her to go to the doctor to have the test to see if their blood was compatible, and just make sure everything else was fine.

She fingered the car keys as they dangled from the ignition.

A little more than half a year later, her planet was nothing but a small pebble, something she could fit in her hand, slide into her pocket. She’d never really imagined herself as the baby-having type. Taking care of herself seemed like struggle enough.

It was scary.  Despite everything, could she really trust him?  It was a lot to let go of. What if he went away tomorrow?  Her planet was virtually gone now. She was so vulnerable. Could the safety Mark seemingly presented really be the new place to set up camp?

She continued to fiddle with the keys, staring out the windshield.  Mark looked up at her, noticing for the first time that she’d moved to the car.  He smiled, winked, and gave her a little wave across the hood of the truck.

She smiled and nodded, keeping her hand on the keys. The wind bent the trees low.

City Cafe Story

Hey, friends, fans, & fam.

Here's the link from my story on City Cafe this week.  I was even on the front page of the WABE website for the day. It was a great honor and pleasure to have this opportunity.  Thanks to those of you who were able to listen in live.

Next stop, This American Life. ;)

Cheers,
Shannon

Some fun news on the Red Crickette Front!

Hello, there, Red Crickette Fans!

I have some fun news to share of things a-foot in my world.

First, today I will be featured on a blog called I Write Because.  Thanks very much to my friend, Lesley Howard, for introducing me to the opportunity.

Even better, on Monday, September 19, I will be on City Café, the noon time show of WABE, Altanta's NPR station.  I went into the station last week to record my story - one of my greatest hits about camp and unrequited love.  I have no idea when in the noon hour it will play.  If you're not in the Atlanta area, but want to listen live, you can stream WABE on their website.  However, I will receive a link after the fact and will be able to send it out.

Speaking of my beloved childhood camp, sadly, it was destroyed by a flood on August 5, 2012 - over $1 million in damage.  You can read about the recovery effort here.  (I have a little story on there too.)

Thanks for all your love and support!

Cheers,
Shannon

New Articles on the Interwebs

Hi.  I'm just archiving a few recent articles here.  Thanks for reading. ;)

• Art or Voyeurism? Real People Telling Real Stories - article I got published on the new journal Arts in a Changing America
• Faces of Carapace: Shannon Turner - profile of me about storytelling in the East Atlanta Patch

Don't Go Back to Sleep

Last night, I had a dream that the world had devolved in a way that seems to me very logical in the way things are going. Now, I once heard someone say that you should never recount your dreams, and if you must, you should sum up their plots in one sentence. I cannot do that with this dream, and I seem to want to share it.

It started out mundanely enough. Don’t all dreams? I was wearing a frog on my shoulder and walking, naked to middle school. Just kidding.

In my dream, I went to the Project South offices to help in the getting ready for their upcoming 25th anniversary party/fundraiser. I was preparing platters, joking with the staff that I was very worried about what to wear that night, when all of the sudden someone came running into the room with news. That was when I realized that things were quite different than I realized.

The young man was arriving from what had started out as the Occupy Atlanta movement. He was urging us to get down there right away because we were under attack. I started to remember, in my dream reality, that the whole world had settled into two encampments. Do you remember the Stephen King book and miniseries, The Stand? It was a similar scenario.

In my dream, all people who identified as liberal/Democrats/progressives were in one camp - literally - and all conservative/Republican-types had settled somewhere else though nearby enough that guerrilla warfare could ensue. Independents, libertarians, and anarchists had finally had to make their choice to be in one camp or another, or else they were literally living independently—out in the wilderness. Sometimes, the most ruthless of the independents acted as messengers or traders between the two camps.

The scene changed to inside the liberal camp. At the heart of it was a stadium, not like a football stadium, more like an ancient Roman amphitheatre or arena for battles between men and tigers. The crowd was restless and chanting; it was hard to discern the nature of their unease. I made my way to the front.

There were two young, white men bound, a little bloodied and stripped to their waste at the center of the fray. They had laurel wreaths on their heads. In my dream, I thought to myself, they kind of look like frat boys on their way back from a bacchanalia. The frat boys were from the conservative camp—infiltrators, spies! They vigorously wrestled with the leather ties at their hands and spit on their captors, looking at them with utter disdain. The throngs of people in the stands chanted for their deaths.

And then, my friend, Elise, came forward, stepped in front of the young men, and held her hand out to the crowd. “No,” she said quietly.

The dream changed again. We were in a small cabin on the outskirts of our encampment. The young men had been given showers and new clothes. I was skulking around the door, listening and peeking in, as Elise attended to them. Even though she was taking care of them and had spared their lives, they were still taunting her.

“This is just what a liberal would do!” one mocked.

“Careful,” the other retorted, “she’s secretly a fascist. If they win, that’s really what they’ll do. They’ll turn us all into fascists!”

“Young man,” Elise quietly said, “do you know what a fascist is? My family is from Europe, and I can tell you that you don’t know what you’re saying.”

There was an awkward pause, where everyone seemed to be thinking.

Again, scene change. I was somehow able to travel the whole world quite rapidly, with ease, but without things appearing to go by too quickly. I was gliding very close to the ground. I was working with someone or something unseen. My task was using stop-motion photography and global positioning technology. We were trying to capture every possible image of every possible part of the globe. Even though I was enjoying these beautiful, lush landscapes, there was a strong sense of urgency to what we were doing. Everything needed to be captured and catalogued as quickly as possible, but I wasn’t sure why.

After having traversed many beautiful landscapes, I paused and took a break. I was hovering over this beautiful lake with a mountain and forest spread out before me. A light mist danced across the lake. In my ability to just sort of lay in the air wherever I wanted, I reached down and dipped my hand in the mist and swirled it around. I watched as that stirring made the mist dance in ripples further and further away from me. My glance made me look up to see dark black clouds had started rolling in. They were as close to the ground as I was and were eating everything like The Nothingness from The Neverending Story.

I suddenly remembered something the two young men had said when they didn’t know I was listening in on their conversation.

“They really are being nice to us,” one boy said.

“I know. It makes me feel bad. Perhaps we should stop the clock.”

With that, I awoke with a start in that way you do from dreams when everything becomes frightening. Because somehow, I knew in my dream that what I was experiencing was the world coming to an end. Something had been set into motion by humans that couldn’t be reversed, and my body was about to be enveloped by nothingness.

* * * * * * 

I do this thing when I awake from nightmares where I try to keep myself from falling right back to sleep. My logic is that it’ll prevent me from going right back into the same dream. As I lay in my bed and tried to get every muscle to unlock, I thought I know what the answer is. I was sweating a little bit. I know what the answer is! But I swear, this morning, as I write this, I can’t remember the answer anymore. I’m not even sure what the question is. *

* * * * * 

Post script: After I finished writing this initial text, I went on to other things. I was soon re-reading an email from an old college friend who had just seen the latest version of Godspell in New York. He thought that “Turn Back, O Man” was a song that I could really rock someday. [Clearly, it’s been too long since this friend heard me sing.] Still, being unfamiliar with the show, I went and found the clip on Youtube. I was struck with the words and their timeliness in relation to my dream:

Earth might be fair 
And all men glad and wise 
Age after age 
their tragic empires rise 
Built while they dream 
And in that dreaming weep 
Would man but wake 
From out his haunted sleep 
Not till that hour 
Shall God's whole will be done 
Now, even now 
Once more from earth to sky
Peels forth in joy 
Man's old undaunted cry 
Earth shall be fair 
And all her people one 
Turn back, oh man 
Forswear thy foolish ways! 
Old now is earth 
And none may count her days