OTHER THINGS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Sounds of nothingness surround me as if I were in a tomb. At first my mind questions the static not quite silence, but soon accepts it. I usually write with music in the background, sometimes quiet as if an afterthought, but often nearer to blaring. As a teenager, I’d always done my homework with the Top 40 on the radio blasting away. My mother never could understand. “You can’t hear yourself think in here,” she said more than a bit exasperated. Do we hear ourselves think?

When I am stumped on a plotline, I resort to “other things.” Laundry suddenly calls my name. I find myself wondering if I should organize the pantry or go to the post office to see if something is sitting in the mailbox needing my attention. It’s difficult to fight those moments and stay put in my chair.

Sometimes, the only ways I allow myself to do “other things” instead of writing, is to make it into a study period. I can do two things: read or find a good movie that is well written. Both I must use as a springboard by dissecting the elements that make it worthy of the intended audience.

Our good friend Travis Erwin suggested I watch the HBO series Treme. Creighton, played by John Goodman, is an English professor at Tulane and is struggling with his own novel in progress. His writing isn’t going well, although he doesn’t reveal this information to his wife and daughter. We can see his turmoil and how he decides to solve his problem, though we don’t want to see how this story will likely unfold. The writing as well as the acting is phenomenal and a great example of what I’d like to accomplish. The characters become so real that I am taking each victory as a personal accomplishment and each setback as one of my own. I feel like I live and have always lived in the Big Easy. I struggle with a music career or trying to be a chef in a city where too many people have fled or died during Katrina. I am making a feathered suit to celebrate with too little time, too much left to sew and not enough blue beads. Thanks, Travis. You were right. I did need to see this series.

I flipped the channel to witness Barbara Stanwyck deliver yet another fabulous performance as Stella Dallas. I understood her pain as she wanted more out of life, but didn’t quite know how to get it beyond the rich husband. Her daughter’s devotion to the mother who had raised her practically alone and the sadness when she believes her mother wanted her gone. I adore the unparalleled empathy of the new Mrs. Dallas as Stella makes the biggest sacrifice for her daughter’s better life. Do we ever believe these people didn’t live beyond a movie screen? I ache for them still as if they were my close friends.

Back at my computer, I start to type. I’m almost there and in the zone when I swivel around to switch on a CD. John Mellencamp bellows tune after tune and my mind begins to spin a tale of intrigue. The Cougar is freeing my soul. My heroine isn’t quite Creighton or Stella, but she is beginning to take shape in my mind. She has a story to tell and I’m ready to listen.

As John finishes one song and moves onto the other, I turn up the volume when the track changes to my favorite, Cherry Bomb. As he belts out his angst in a lovely rhythm, I remember when dancing really did mean everything. I jump from my chair and dance around the room. When you feel this good, dancing still means everything. When the CD ends, I return to my chair, feeling like I just won the lottery.

I begin to type, words spilling onto the screen like Jambalaya, spicy and rife with intermingling flavors meant to savor and not soon to be forgotten.

Content with the wild soundtrack playing in my mind, I think I can actually hear myself think. It sounds good, Mom. It really does.