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My reaction to "The Ocean at the End of the Lane"

... because I can't really call this a review.


The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm amazed I got through this book. I was deeply frightened and repulsed and yet I read on. I liked the boy with no name and wanted to know what happened to him and Lettie.

The best Neil Gaiman I've read so far. I am not a Sandman fan. I came in with American Gods after reading Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch with a Barnes & Noble online book club. I didn't particularly care for Anansi Boys, so I may not be the best litmus for a Gaiman fan. However, for the rest of us, this is a well-crafted story with intriguing and original characters, carefully told in a compelling and spooky way. Sort of like "Coraline" as teenager or adult, if you can imagine a story growing up.

No way would I recommend this as a book for children. It deals with adult themes in a manner too deep for most children, i.e, the interrelationship of bereavement and fear.

The story left me sad and a bit weepy but in a good way.

View all my reviews

Who I write like today ...

I write like
Mario Puzo

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Because it's a different author every time I try this. Perhaps I am an emerging novelist.

wanshank: bad target

Apogee

There are times in the cycle of my life when I use up all the stored resources I can find, anything tucked away in a special place, in short, I liberate every financial store available. I get down to zero, clear out the records, and start again.There have been a few these already. I thought I was over that. I'm discovering it's part of my pattern.

The Fool, Circle of Life Tarot deck
© 2008 Lo Scarabeo

The fallow periods seem to last about year. Each time, lucky for me, someone has been there to catch me. After high school and college there were my parents, their couch, and months of old movies. After the divorce, there was my New Man, months of travel, and a lot of freedom. During the next rough period I was still with the New Man. He didn't appreciate my laying fallow but he hung in there and I began again.

Following each fallow period, I took refuge in a job for job's sake—primarily to make money. Each time the job was a little closer to my true nature. This time, I'm resisting the "jane job." I'm trying to find a way to generate income that will give me joy and let me make a contribution doing what I love to do. Hopefully, to avoid another fallow period. I'm tired of starting over. And I want to do work that lets me use both sides of my creative nature, not just the conceptual, outside, organizing part.

This time my personal low cycle has coincided with the world's depression, making the fallowness twice as long. This time there is no safe haven. I don't have the luxury of disengaging completely and cocooning. This time, although I have been helped by family, it's been mostly the government there to catch me. They catch neither gently nor with loving concern, patience, or understanding.

Where there is apogee there must be perigee. Where there is nadir there must be apex. Any gambler or Taoist can tell you that. I'm gambling that all the effort I've put into developing work congruent to my true nature will pay off. That I'll be able to generate income from work I love and feel called to do. I'm not sure exactly how that's going to happen. I'm leaving that part to the powers that be.

The Sun, Mantegna Tarot Deck

The Weekly Round

 No  matter how hard I try, who I promise, or what number of interesting topics flit through my mind, once a week seems to be the limit on this blog.

I have noticed that my other output to twitter and the facebook page is also down. I guess all this activity is indoor stuff.

What I really need to do is officially become the Traffic Nazi with a subspecialty in bicycles. But that would mean research and discovering that someone is already at it and I would have to specialize or at least distinguish myself some way. Or I could, I suppose, be just another traffic blogger. I would get some release from my frustrations. I know from past experience that the best way to exorcise anger and irritation is to write about it on a blog. The anger goes away. I wonder if the buddhists have considered it in addition to meditation?

Anyway, all I have today are two drawings I made of me in differing color palettes. Don't ask me to make one for you. I'll never get around to it even if I say yes.

Where is here?

"X" marks the spot.

While meditating one day I kept bringing myself back to the present, to my breath, by telling myself "Be here." or "Come back here." and "Welcome back!" And then I thought, "I am here." I'm here physically. Sometimes I'm elsewhere mentally, yet when I am "elsewhere" I am "here" in the thought. And then wondered where "here" really is.

Is here where my physical body resides? Yes. Is here where my mind is? Yes. Especially when I'm meditating because when I'm sitting in a chair and following my breath the only way to go anywhere is in my mind. Which brings me to my emotional state.

At some point I have to acknowledge my emotional state while I'm meditating. Because there always is one. The way I'm feeling influences where I go mentally and how difficult it is to stay present. And that's another place, another "here."

When I'm reading a book or watching a movie, particularly a engaging fantasy, I'm somewhere else entirely. Which is here and not here. Dreaming is another state that puts me in a dualistic "here."

There's also the parallel, tangental, and intersecting universes that spread out from where I am, spread out in mind and body and spirit. And spirit is another way to be "here."

For me, here is anywhere my awareness resides. I've kinda decided where "here" is can't be determined and doesn't really matter.

Where is "here" for you?

Start anytime. Start now.

You can start a new life anytime. You can begin right now, where you are, without any special knowledge or materials. 

• Pay attention to your breath. Become still and focus on your breathing. Experience the air entering and leaving your body. Do this as long as you can, whenever you can. I've done it while driving, while getting my blood pressure tested, and during meditation. This deceptively simple process can bring big changes.
• Turn off the labels. Stop labeling everything you see. Try walking and looking at your surroundings nonverbally, without having a running dialogue. Experience everything as if it had no name. As if you were a child who did not know what the names are. The label dampens experience and limits your awareness to a circumscribed level.
• Meditate. The simplest form of meditation is to sit comfortably, soften your gaze, and focus on the out breath. That's all there is to it. This is good practice for everyday living because it will heighten your awareness.
• Accept what is. Whatever is happening now, wherever you are, wether alone or with someone, you are exactly where you are meant to be. See your current circumstances as a gift. Embrace the universe. Stop and look around. See your reflection in the computer monitor, notice the dust being blown by the heating system, smell the odor of your space, hear the wind rushing through the trees, feel your skin holding in your intestines.
• Release your expectations. Expectations, like words, limit your experience. You will only see what you expect to see. What if you had no expectations, were not attached to any particular outcome? How would your situation change?

You can do any of these practices almost anywhere, almost any time. They are simple and free. You don't need a new year or a Monday to begin. 

Start now.

Our Stories

We all have stories that we tell our selves which define who we are and describe patterns in our lives. Your story might be that you are always left and your partner always takes the good stuff. Over and over again this story is enacted in your life. The truth may be that you get tired of your partner and then agitate the situation so that they leave you. Since you feel guilty about that you tell them to take whatever they want. Later, you only remember that they left and took the good stuff. And you do this because this is your story. While you might see a more complete picture while in the thick of things, after time passes, and that particular story ends, all you remember are the pieces that fit.

A lot of time can pass as you relive your story over and over again before it occurs to you that maybe you might have some volition in this story or that maybe you could have a better story, a nicer story. Although, not all stories are bad. Perhaps yours is that you are the compassionate one, the waiter, the kind one, the one who gives. You ignore the sort of pressure being the kind one puts on others and fail to see the manipulation in that. Or perhaps you do see it and are supported by thinking you are uplifting others by being a good example.

Having stories isn't necessarily a bad thing. They can help us feel secure and put some order to the chaos. Stories don't show us the entire truth – the entire objective truth. (Is there an entire objective truth? Since we can never experience it, we can't verify that.) So, we have these stories. They define us and order the world around us. They bring sanity to madness and chaos.

We get the story we ask for. There are a lot of stories. Choose well.

I never really chose and that's my story. I never had a firm answer to the question "What are you going to be when you grow up?" A lot of options flitted through my head. For one year in the fifth grade I was determined be a second grade teacher. As the years passed, the only firm answer I could come up with was, "Older."

There have been times when I've lived a story because it was convenient or the story of the moment. Sort of like wandering through a wood and finding odd paths and following them to the end to see where they come out. I've been to many of the usual and some of the not so usual places. It has been interesting – very interesting indeed.

Which is what I like about National Novel Writing Month. I get to dive into the woods and pick a path and follow it (or not) for an entire month. I get to make up the wood I'm in and the path and what happens when I get the end. Most of the time that's what I do. The rest of the time the wood takes over and paths appear and disappear for no apparent reason. Characters come and go and do pretty much what they feel like doing and I just follow. Perhaps that what I really like about stories, I can simply follow.

The point I thought I would be making about now is that the stories are merely stories. We can be outside of them. This is called buddhism or taoism. Or it might even be yoga. Letting go – letting it be. Seeing what is without trying to make sense or have everything fit into a story. It might even be a way to break a pattern and freely be who you are.

Not the What

What's that?
What was that again?
What did we have?
Or did what have us?
What not quite benevolent ... what indifferent ... chaos.
What that grabbed us, swirled and then
   put us down
   somewhere else.
At this long distance I see you more clearly —
   but not the what.

Magical Message from the Universe

I hope someone can figure this out. These must be runes or ideograms in some ancient language.