From Word To Word

My friend Lauren Anderson has just posted about finding an old binder full of her juvenile writing, some of which she was brave enough to share, and it made me reflect on how much of this kind of writing there must be, lying in the neglected folders and binders and boxes of even the most accomplished writers.  I found myself wondering what might happen if everyone were brave enough to share this kind of thing with each other, whether this might not encourage people to see writing and writers a little differently, a little more accurately, a little more humanly,  and so I thought that I might also share some of my own highschool writing as a beginning to that end.

Now, my juvenile writing is certainly as horrible as Lauren’s, but it is horrible for all different reasons.  Mine is horrible because I was reading far too much Coleridge and Wordsworth and Keats and Shelley and Shakespearean romance, and because I desperately wanted to be a Romantic poet, more than anything, which produced poetry of only the most painfully maudlin sort.  Let me give an example from a poem called “The Prayer of Sir Gawain”.  I am particularly fond of the affected archaisms and the constantly inverted, yoda-like, sentence structure:

A solemn vow to Knight of Green
I made before my King and Queen
That, if my stroke did fail to part
His mighty head and stop his heart,
Then when a year and day had gone
Should I my fullest armor don
And ride from Camelot away
To where that Knight doth hold his sway.
So reaching that unwelcome place
There give myself unto his grace.

So now I kneel ‘neath awesome fear
As quick the payment stroke draws near.
My mind does see the chapel there
That fearsome Knight’s most dreadful lair.
And in his hands an axe of steel
which on my neck I soon shall feel.
I see that helmless head before
My eyes, and here his roar
Forever ringing in my ears,
Forever playing on my fears.

Unfortunately, the melodrama of Sir Gawain seems almost restrained in comparison to these lines from the fabulously titled “I Hamlet Unto Thee Ophelia”:

These tears, great sobbing tears, adorn my cheeks.
Why did I stay away so long a time?
For Fate did take within those absent weeks
Your mind, soul, heart and very life betime,
Forever stole from me, your grace sublime.

Now my lament must seek to cleanse my soul
Of grief, deep seeded guilt which rends it now.
My inaction, only mine, made this bell toll
Which now decries dread Death upon your brow,
The icy grip of hell I did allow.

Now Death alone can give me my desire.
This life can never show to me your grace.
Right gladly will I face Death’s fearful fire,
For only in that dark and unknown place
May I look once again upon your face.

I could go on, but you get the point, or I hope you do, because I would be very pleased to have people share their own such youthful secrets with me in turn.

My friends Mike Butler and Lauren Anderson were over yesterday afternoon, and in the course of the conversation Lauren mentioned that she had always wanted do run a used bookstore.  She knows, of course, that there is little money in this, especially since she would refuse to stock the kind of trash fiction that is the primary sustenance of these stores.  I mentioned to her that I have long had a similarly inefficient business model in mind, one where I would only sell things that interest me particularly.

As I was saying this, it occurred to me that what Lauren and I really want to do is to reverse the standard business model by taking literally the idea of going into business for ourselves.  Most businesses, of course, are not in business for themselves.  They are in business for their customers, at least to the extent that they need to provide what their customers want in order to make any money.  They are not in business for themselves.  They are in business for other people in order to make money for themselves.  If they could afford really to be in business for themselves, they would likely have very different businesses than they do.

By way of example, here is what my business model would be:

I would sell books and films and music, whether new or used, and I would loan these things also, maybe for a minimal fee.  I would sell coffee and tea and preserves and cheese.  I would sell beer and wine and scotch and pipe tobacco.  I would sell seeds.  I would also have film screenings and canning bees and scotch tastings and book readings.  Some nights I would also be a restaurant, but only now and again, when I felt like it, and the menu would only be what I wanted to cook that evening.  My hours would be irregular in the extreme, but customers could always come by the house and ask for the store to be opened if they needed something in an emergency.  There would be comfortable chairs and a bar, but  there would be no televisions or wireless internet.

I would not be in the business of supplying either necessities or desires.  I would not be in the business of enabling either amusement or labour.  I would not be in a business where the customer was always or even often right.  I would not be in the business of efficieny or profit.  I would be in the business of sharing the things that I love.  I would be in business for myself.

Dave Humphrey has recently tagged me with what is essentially a chain letter for blogs, the sort of thing that I usually ignore outright.  Since it comes from Dave, however, I will only ignore it partially.  I decline to list the rules of the game, and I decline to tag others in turn, but I will condescend to list seven things that people may find interesting about me.  Of course, you need not be interested unless you want to be.

1.  I am one of nine children: I have four birth brothers, three step-brothers through my father’s second marriage, and a step-sister through my mother’s second marriage.  Though I enjoy them all, I count myself fortunate that we did not all live in the same house at the same time.

2.  I have never in my life paid for television service, whether cable, satellite, or anything else.  This is a point of chagrin for telemarketers, who routinely disbelieve that this can be true, demanding to know why I would hide the identity of my provider.

3.  At one point, sometime about Grade 10, I was seriously considering being an accountant, until my accounting teacher drew me aside and told me that I might be better suited for something else, anything else, anything at all.

4.  As a result of practising for my highschool’s production of The Hobbit, I was, for a short period of my life, able to drop from standing to the jazz splits.  I discovered, rather painfully, that I was no longer able to perform this feat midway through the dance at my brother’s wedding.

5.  My wedding dress cost more than my wife’s.  The cloth for my hand-stitched kilt and plaid was imported from Scotland, which made it quite expensive, though I justify the cost on the grounds I that have since been able to wear my dress on more occasions than she has been able to wear hers.

6.  While working as a Youth Leader at a local church, the kids that I was supposed to be supervising lit a bonfire in the parking lot.  The blaze was so large that it attracted attention from drivers on the highway who called the local authorities.  A fire engine and two police cars were mobilized to the scene, and some of my charges were taken into custody as they were riding home on their bikes.

7.  During university, I worked as a security guard for the La Senza Lingerie retail chain.  I was told that I was the first male ever to work on the retail floor for the company.  Many of my friends claim that I will never be able to surpass this achievement.