Loquacious: "Lorelei" by Jennifer Koski

Loquacious is an essay series that explores and revels in language. Read other installments here.

This essay, by Jennifer Koski, is part meditation, part memoir, and pure delight. Jen herself is delightful, with an infectious energy, a joie de vivire, and a penchant for unfettered laughter. I hope you enjoy this lovely, lilting, and lively essay as much as I do.

Lorelei

By Jennifer Koski

The words I love change. Year to year, month to month, week to week.

There was the summer of "ineffable." The fall, my junior year in high school, of "languid." The brief span of "histrionic." The decade of "cacophony."

Today, this week, this month, it's Lorelei.

Beautiful Lorelei with its narrow lines and round vowels. Its soft femininity. Its emotional core.

My grandfather says it to me on a sunny day I don't remember. But there it is on the DVD my husband slides into his Mac, saying, "Look what I found when I cleaned my office."

I'm holding the camera, shaky and uneven, in my grandparents' lake cabin. My toddler's arms cinch my knees as he shouts, "Mommy! I a big boy!" My sister laughs somewhere off camera. Her husband crosses the back of the frame, opens the refrigerator. My grandma feeds her great-grandson a bottle. 

But I have eyes for only one man. His silver hair combed back and to the side, his striped, collared shirt picked out by his wife, his robin's-egg blue jeans ending at stark white tennis shoes. He reclines in a familiar, blue leather chair, looks up at me in curiosity, a stack of completed crossword puzzles, a box of Milk Duds, a dictionary, on the table next to him.

"Say something witty," I demand.

"Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten," he says, not missing a beat.
"Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

"Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt, 

Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt 

In Abendsonnenschein…"

The room around him silences. My camera moves in time. It's five years before his death, a time when he frequently grumbled about how it was ridiculous to still be alive at 89, 90, 91. About how his mind didn't work for shit anymore. About how he couldn't remember a goddamn thing.

He finishes the poem ("…Und das hat mit ihrem Singen  / Die Lorelei getan"), his gaze holding the lens. My son, in Batman undies, dashes into the kitchen in a slapping, flat-footed run. My nephew yells for his mom from a bedroom.

"I think I caught 'gesundheit,'" I say. "What does it mean?"

My grandfather laughs. "It's 'The Lorelei'," he says. His hands fold in front of his chest. He studies them. Lines his fingertips up, one by one, starting with his thumbs.

The camera steadies.

"It's a legend about a boatman on the Rhine. He hears the song of a beautiful woman—the Lorelei—sitting high up on the mountain. Her song is so beautiful that he watches her instead of the rocks, which will cause him to crash and die."

I settle on his face, his sparse, white, five o'clock shadow. I want to impress him by knowing the legend already. I want to recite it to him, like I did with a dozen poems of my youth—the ones from the leather-bound Treasury of Best Loved Poems he gave me when I was nine.

"Do you want a piece of cake, Van?" my grandma asks.

"No," he says, dismissing her question with a raised hand, a flick of his wrist. "I'm OK."

I turn the camera to my grandma. Follow her to the kitchen.

* * *

My husband gives me the DVD. I write "Grandpa" on it in red Sharpie, adding a heart below his name. I put it on the shelf next to my bed.

The next day, I look up "The Lorelei"—in English first, then its original German, written by Heinrich Heine. I memorize, "She sings a song as well; Whose melody binds an enthralling, And overpowering spell."

I try it in German: "Und singt ein Lied dabei; Das hat eine wundersame, Gewaltige Melodei."

I think maybe I'll teach it to my sons—now 11 and 14. Maybe I'll even pay them to memorize select verses, like my grandfather did me: 50 cents for "Jenny Kissed Me." $5 for "No Man is an Island."

Maybe Heine's Lorelei is their Donne.

A week later, when I claw through the recycling bin for the crossword puzzle, I've already forgotten. I push aside Monday's newspaper (too easy) and Sunday's (too hard). I settle on Wednesday's. The puzzle is on B7, the same section as my weekly column, "Jen's World." For this edition, I'd written about watching the DVD with my husband. About seeing my grandpa. About poetry and other unexpected gifts.

I fold the page into quarters. Crawl under a blanket with my blue pen.

1 Across: School dance.

14 Across: Writer Anais.

34 Across: Rock producer Eno.

I'm buzzing through them—until I get to a clue I've never seen before. One that fills me with love and gratitude and belief and the final turn in a new favorite word.

37 Across: Lorelei's river.

** ** **
Jennifer Koski is a weekly columnist for the Rochester, Minn-based Post-Bulletin, and the associate editor of Rochester Magazine. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, she holds an MFA in creative writing. She is the founder of the Write @ writing workshops, because she knows that everyone has a story (or twelve) to tell. She can be reached at jenniferkoski[at]gmail[dot]com.

Everywhere a Metaphor

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. 

Be astonished. 

Tell about it.

("Sometimes," Red Bird, Mary Oliver)

One of the best practices I've learned as a writer (and as a person) is to cultivate an attitude of awareness. I used to think that I'd never be a "real" writer because I didn't know what to write about. But for years before that, I felt as though the writer-in-my-head never stopped writing; she was always taking notes, even in the midst of intense life experiences. I'm not sure when the "always writing" switched over to "I have no ideas," but I think it started to switch back about six or seven years ago.

Now there are stories everywhere I look. It's a landmine of ideas out there. I'm telling you, there are essays and poems lurking in everything. I'm even starting to discover short stories and novels in everything from the sound of the wind to the news reports on NPR.

Most of what I write comes to me in snippets and flashes. I'll get a whiff of a trace of something, and then I have to chase it. Sometimes I have to chase it a long time to figure out what I'm really writing about.

I won't go so far as to say that cultivating an attitude of awareness has its pitfalls, but sometimes I do wonder if I'm a little bit off-kilter. When you're awake to the stories around you, every little thing can become an iconic image, a epiphanic detail, a meaningful metaphor.

Just this week I've glimpsed poems and stories in a leaf that curled around my car's antena as I drove and the way it fell to the ground as soon as I came to a stop. In the way my hands burned for hours after I cut up a poblano pepper. In the sound of Amish men working on my neighbor's roof. In the streets of my town, which have been scraped down to reveal old brick beneath the asphalt. In the hummingbird, the dragonfly, and the cicada that have flown past my windows.

It can't all mean something.

Or it can.

Either way, I'll never write about all of it. There's just not time for that.

But that doesn't mean I'll ever stop being astonished by it all.

** ** **

Some Ways to Capture & Share the Stories (and Poems and Essays) Around You

One-moment Memoirs
(Coming soon!)
Some experiences beg us to write about them, but we often feel overwhelmed when trying to capture the whole story at once. One-moment Memoirs (OMM) helps you take a relaxed yet focused approach to telling life's big and small stories in bite-sized pieces. We'll explore the art of writing short essays, blog posts, and flash nonfiction pieces. By using writing prompts and exercises designed to help you connect with the heart of your story, we'll dig into the details of a single moment. You'll then use what you find in that moment to write your very own one-moment memoir.

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Verbal Snapshots
These moments of meaning are why I started writing "Verbal Snapshots," which are short descriptions (usually small enough to fit on Twitter). Think of them as the word equivalents of Instagram and all those photo we take with our phones on the go. Verbal Snapshots are little "Language-grams," my way of capturing the stories and poems popping up all around. Play along with your own word-images by using the hashtag #VerbalSnapshot on Twitter and Facebook. You're also invited to share them over here.

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Everyday Essays
Sometimes the moments of meaning begin to bloom into something more. I publish these "Everyday Essays" on the blog from time to time. At least a few times a week I jot down notes about something -- usually a small moment, detail, or thought -- that I want to write about. Everyday Essays is my writing practice to allow some of those notes to move beyond infancy. I share them on my blog from time to time, even if they're still half-naked or half-baked. The word "essay" comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. The essay is a reckoning, a rambling, an exploration, an attempt. Think of Everyday Essays as freewriting exercises, rough drafts, or the jumbled, interconnected contents of my mind, which may or may not take root and grow into longer (deeper) essays.

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Loquacious: "Eulogy of a Word" by Angela Sparandera

Loquacious is an essay series that explores and revels in language. Read other installments here.

When I think of Angela Sparandera, this week's Loquacious guest, several "f" words come to mind: friendly, funny, and frank. She's an engaging writer who takes on the kind of real-life emotions and situations that a lot people shy away from, and she presents them with vulnerability, humor, and, ultimately, deep kindness. She is a wonderfully human (and humane) writer. In this essay she tackles a particular "f" word that's she's ready to put to rest.

Eulogy of a Word

By Angela Sparandera

We are gathered here together today, on my behalf, to say goodbye to a word that was once an integral portion of my past vocabulary. A word that I chose to define myself for so long. I have decided to retire this word from my repertoire with much thought and respect to its classic definition.

Fat, by its dictionary description is "Well filled out. Thick. Well-stocked. Swollen." But to me, it was a portrayal of myself as a singular piece of person. Fat was both an enemy and a crutch. I chose to let this one word describe the very essence of myself; not smart, of funny or caring or artistic. I was fat. And I let that be the most substantial part of me.

Fat was the one word I dreaded to hear as I walked down the hallways in middle school, waiting for the class bully to look at my body in disgust and snarl the word to his friends. Fat was the word I waited to hear whispered behind my back as I sat down in class, the L-shaped metal bar digging into my side. Fat is the one word that can unravel me into a crying child, void of all the confidence, pride, and self-worth I have worked so hard for.

It is with much contemplation that I nix this word from my arsenal of adjectives. I am done hanging out with fat as a way to define who I am.

What's funny is that I hate saying fat as much as I hate hearing it. For a word that has saddled up so closely to me over the years, I am even uncomfortable typing it now. It’s a word of crazed taboo. Fat is the one word nobody wants to hear but everyone is thinking when they see a well-filled out, thick, well-stocked, swollen person in their eye range. It becomes not an adjective, but a perverted thought meant to judge and size-up someone's worth.

If we break it down, fat, really, is not meant as a word to be upset about. It's just an adjective describing something of large stature. Fat, I believe, did not mean to be so negative. It was us who made it a monster, blowing it up into the very thing people do not wish to see themselves as. And for those who are, we collectively stamp them with this label of a word and leave them with those three letters of shame. Fat has become fat itself.

In my current life, I choose not to use this word any more. I choose to put fat back where it originally belongs and will continue henceforth to use it only as a surface remark with no secret agenda hidden behind it. In fact, there may never be a reason to use it again at all.

I’m sorry to have to make this so morbid, killing off a word in public, but I need this closure. Fat and I will go our separate ways, no matter what I look like. And if the word should creep its way back onto my tongue somehow, I will try my best to acknowledge its presence and set it free, like a specter of the past that lingers its way through homes and cemeteries, hoping to relive its original glory. I won't give it that.

** ** **

Angela Sparandera has since chosen the word fantastic to refer to herself  and continues to search for other swell adjectives to use. You can find similar essays of hers on Connotation Press, where she was recently published, or on her weekly blog, In the Land of Twenty: Perspectives on a Confusing Decade.

Angela and fat have not spoken since the publication of this essay.

"Sugar Baby" Published in Extract(s)

I'm delighted to have my essay, "Sugar Baby," published by Extract(s) today! Below is a snippet of this short piece, but please head over to Extract(s) to read the whole thing.

Every time I clean my kitchen sink, I think of you. You, who gave me housekeeping tips about a shiny sink while you were dying (and trying not to die) of cancer there on the other side of the world, down under, we call it. I think of you and how you can no longer shine your own sink, because despite trying not to die, you did. Tonight, I think of you and clean my stainless steel sink before washing a dusty watermelon. [keep reading]

About Extract(s), in the editors' words: "Extract(s) features bite-sized literature in surprising forms. We don’t want to be your everything, but we do want to be one thing that makes your day more interesting. Drop by for a few minutes every day. We'll give you something to think about."

*watermelon image by Christopher J. Anderson, Founder & Executive Creative Director of Extract(s)

Self-Trust & Ways of Knowing

This post is part of The Declaration of You's BlogLovin' Tour, which I'm thrilled to participate in alongside more than 200 other creative bloggers. The Declaration of You (published by North Light Books and available now), by Michelle Ward and Jessica Swift, encourages readers to step passionately into their lives, discover how they and their gifts are unique, and uncover what they are meant to do. Today I'm sharing some thoughts on the theme of trust and how I've learned to trust myself.

"At the center of your being you have the answer;
you know who you are and you know what you want."
 ~Lao Tzu

I have a long history of indecision and self-doubt. I want my choices to be good, to be right, to be the best – as though these things were attainable absolutes. As though the choices I make define my worth as a person.

This form of perfectionism has shown up everywhere in my life, from the profound to the mundane: Should I have a child? Pasta or Mexican for dinner? Should I quit my job to be a writer? Which shade of brown sandals should I get: "chocolate" or "espresso?" Should I go to graduate school? Blue or neutral toenail polish?

A woman could go mad this way.

I've labored over seemingly simple decisions since I was a child. For a long time I thought I was just wishy-washy. Then I thought that maybe I'm too thorough.

Now I'm realizing that all of this fretting boils down to one tiny word: Trust.

More specifically, one slightly bigger, but still small word: Self-trust.

And boy howdy, is that little one little hyphenated word enormous.

I grew up learning to value logic and systematic thinking. Along the way, I got really good at them, too. But decision-making never got any easier for me. I wrestled with big life choices. I made long lists of pros and cons. I analyzed every angle of the situation. I exhausted myself with logic.

Several years ago, I decided (after much internal debate) to apply to graduate school. But then I had to decide where to apply. I did a ton of research (another thing I learned to be good at) and made a spreadsheet with lots of columns to compare all of the information. I narrowed it down to seven (seven!) schools and started the application process. I applied to so many because I wanted to increase my chances of getting into at least one.

And then the worst-best thing happened: My top three choices accepted me.

The Exhilaration!

Which quickly led to: Decision Exhaustion!

I agonized over which school to choose. I knew that going back to school was a big transition and a huge commitment – lots of time, and lots of money would be involved. For a week I made myself sick over which school to choose. I made lists. I talked to administrators, professors, students, and alumni at each school. I made more lists. I cried – a lot. All the while, I realized the twistedness of being stressed out over having too many wonderful choices.

I couldn't trust myself to make a decision.  

Deep down, I already knew which school was the best fit for me. But I wouldn't allow myself to trust to my gut. I was so constricted by the need to be rational and thorough that I couldn't acknowledge my intuition as a valid way of knowing.

This tug-of-war shows up in my creative life all the time. My writing is best when I stop analyzing and parsing out every little detail, when I simply show up on the page and trust that the story that needs to be told will come.

When I allow myself to trust my intuitive ways of knowing, my life, my work, and my play flow more easily.

This doesn't mean that I throw logic and rationality out the window. It means that I allow these two modes of thinking and being (logic and intuition) to dance together as partners. They can take turns leading, but when I'm spinning my wheels in a moment of frantic stuckness, I try to remember to quiet the chatter and fear so I can hear the answers already whispering to me.

I have to practice trusting myself. And if the decision I make leads me to an undesired outcome, I remind myself of the advice my father has often given: "Make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time. And then trust that it was the right choice no matter what happens."