Themes

[perelleth]

I should have been on a plane, but a volcano erupted on the central part of the country and all flights going south have been cancelled. I've been told that the fireworks are visible from any of the various vantage points in town but I was too tired, so I came back to the hotel straight.

I have had some busy days, in which I discovered that I was

Comments

[bodkin_ra]

a friend of mine introduced me to another friend of hers Matchmaking? Or is the result just a chance outcome of your general adorableness?

I think it takes a certain arrogance to think you can just write about your own experience and think that everyone will be gasping to read it - but it is true that someone's fairly ordinary experience can be wonderful to someone else. Your description of 'how the plane suddenly transforms itself as the women begin dressing up for the landing' really surprised and impressed me. Because, although people could fly to Teheran and see it for themselves, most of them don't - and the only way they see these things is through someone else's eyes. Much of the world still is an adventure to most people - and seeing pictures and hearing tales of odd encounters is a close as they will get to experiencing them. Some writers can make you see what they see - and that is a delight

[perelleth]

Matchmaking? I fear so! And I thought I had left that behind long ago! "Dissuading a persistent suitor" is now among my weekly routines!

writers can make you see what they see - and that is a delight. LIke you do, BOdkin. BUt to me it is such a slowly and painful process, and requires a mix of feeling in the gut and kind of explosion of words in the mind, and it really happens very slowly and rarely. So I am amazed when I pick up those travel books lined with anecdotes and the writers self righteous and opinionated voice. On one hand, because I feel that using other people's only glimpsed lives to sell a book is not exactly very honest. Chatwin did it but since him everyone is trying to do the same in the same style, and so it becomes quite banal. And on the other it takes so long to understand the subtleties of life that those quick, short senteced judgements with a humorous twist for the reader's sake many times become disrepectful for the people and places they are describing...in my eye. Pointless answer too

[dot_o_choillmor]

If it helps at all, I think anyone who can start a conversation with “I should have been on a plane, but a volcano erupted on the central part of the country and all flights going south have been cancelled” would write a pretty interesting book

[dawtheminstrel]

I think anyone who can start a conversation with “I should have been on a plane, but a volcano erupted on the central part of the country and all flights going south have been cancelled” would write a pretty interesting book

I agree with Dot on this one!

[perelleth]

Nice that the friend can be amused, eh? *groans* I'm tiring of her amusement.

would write a pretty interesting book ;-) LOLOL ONly it would take quite a long time, since sentences like that do not happen so very often, and I would have to fill it with some content like " went to the office, met with an ill intentioned vice minister, worked with a nice person, had a delicious lunch, had three meetings on a row and walked into a man with bunch of goats right in the middle of a one million people city country capital selling goat milk door to door on my way o the hotel to pick up some stuff to go to the airport... It wasn't an uneventful day, but after a week you would be bored!

I’m in absolute awe of people who can worldbuild Me too. And as I was reading Bodkin's post, listing what she sees in Tolkien's world, it struck me that actually those are thethngs we find in our own world!

[dawtheminstrel]

Wow, Perelleth. Those are impressive themes, the big ones. Is it okay if I copy it and stick it on my computer somewhere?

You may think of your life as ordinary but when you start talking about it, it doesn't sound that way to me, sitting in my suburban house in the American midwest. And I don't think you ever have to worry about writing uninteresting characters.

While I like characters best, I think plot is the hardest thing for me to do well. Judging by what I see on the Online Writing Workshop, I think that's true for a lot of people. They make up interesting characters. They just can't find anything for them to do.

[perelleth]

They are for sharing! And you are all welcome to add up or reformulate! I began listing them some months ago and it was fun,for most are entwinned...

They just can't find anything for them to do. NOw that's interesting! Maybe I should begin another list, of situations and things people do that could be used as inspiration! When I was younger I wanted to write one of those travel books, but as I began reading many of those with some dedication I found that too often they were too pointless, an academic exercise, perhaps, dressed in a somewhat daring travel, and that was all.

I wished I had the time *and the inspiration* to find a deeper thread to connect what I see and the many wonderful people I've met to make them justice or give them sense...

[fafojoy]

As the friend who introduced us emailed me some time ago, quite amused by the whole thing, he rather wants to start a new *life*. Beh.I was giggling as I read this thinking 'Poor Perelleth.... so glad its you and not me!' I was actually glad to read a certain age as well meaning matchmakers have now given up on me (I think its being past the typical child bearing years that has done it

[perelleth]

I was actually glad to read a certain age as well meaning matchmakers have now given up on me You are so wrong!!!! One never knows! THe stupidity of friends does not know boundaries :-) But you can laugh at me, it's ok, ;-)

I was reading BOdkin's answer and it was like a silly illumination to me, for all the things she lists are the things that are the deeper truth in our world, much as in your own list too, only we are slowly forgetting the ability to see them, I'd say.

not everyone lived happily ever after That is another intersting point,which I like to reformulate as "anybody lives happily ever after" since life is never wholly happy, or wholly sad..

You are welcome to add, use or reformulate.

[meckinock]

Wow, Perelleth, you've sure given me a lot to think about. I can see your point that you would find it unenlightening and somewhat boring to write about your own experiences, but I also agree with Daw, Bodkin, and Dot that others might find them utterly fascinating. I was struck by your "jumping on a plane to Teheran" analogy because I actually have been reading a book about a guy jumping on a plane to Teheran that I find utterly fascinating. It's called "A Persian Odyssey" by Rami Yelda. He's an Iranian expatriate who traveled back to his home country in 2002 for the first time in about 30 years. I found his account so riveting because he shows us little everyday details of Persian culture, like the fact that to pay for your meal at a cafe in Iran (even in 2002!) you have to engage in a stylized, ritualistic exchange with the cashier in which they tell you they couldn't possibly accept your money and you insist on paying. That kind of stuff fascinates me. So I agree with the others that we would eagerly devour your memoirs

[dawtheminstrel]

at times, life only gets its meaning when it meets death, and you may not survive to appreciate it

The Greek Solon said "Call no man happy until he is dead." He didn't mean that life is terrible and we're only happy when it ends. He meant that until someone dies we can't see the shape of their lives and know whether they were happy or not. Until then, anything could happen.

[perelleth]

Yes. And this was added recently. A couple of weeks ago I learned that a long time friend died in car crash. It is hard to learn of loved one's deaths when you are so far away, for you cannot share with anyone, but the irrealty of it all gives you the distance to think about it.

I have pondered Solon's saying for a long time bt it was the other day, contemplating this friend's passing, and the loss it means to me, to his wife and litle girls, to all of our friends, when I finally understood that, young as he was, (43) he was truly fortunate because his life had a true meaning and made real sense, although I am not sure if he was aware of it.

[perelleth]

LOL! Well, as you say, writing about job is like never getting rid of it.. unless you find an entertaining thread. I am not sure I would be able to find the plot line to thread all those things together. IN your example, the man surely has a theme, going back home after thirty years si a powerful one, which reminds me to add Exile to my list, (one of my favourites and just left out!) In my case, I have the memory, the feelings, the silence and the conniving winks exchanged, but in my opinion that is not enough.

I almost always find myself more delighted to be enlightened by the hitherto-unknown ins-and-outs of, say, the dry cleaning industry than to read about the exciting world of professional skydivers.. THe same to me! I am delighted to be enlightened by anyone who knows his/her trade beyond the simple practice and can tell you the tricks that make that trade an art. I am almost overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge that was needed to perform in a perfect way many of the tasks that are now unsatisfactory performed by machines,