Category Archives: human behavior

relationships; society; sociology

An Imperfect Christmas Morning.

December 25, 2020addiction, Christianity, creative writing, grief, healing, human behavior, relationships, sociology, Uncategorizedruth ann scanzillo

The pajamas were red. That part she got right.

The rest was pretty much a bust.

This time, the title would come from her muse, Mr. Keillor. But, while his was Perfect, hers sounded much more like many others, perhaps for the first time in her own life.

Beyond piano or cello, writing was her succor. And, moments ago, clamoring to the keyboard of letters had been an act of quiet panic. Hurry, get it typed in, before you weep uncontrollably. That was the picture.

Sobbing the body needs, but the heart demands both an object and an outlet. She’d devoted hers, utterly, to someone who could not return to her love, whose ghosting absence was successfully crushing.

The reality that it had all happened on Christmas was just more proof of a level of oblivion; apparently, there were those to whom the holy observance was just another day. Or, an effective tool capable of sending one, life-draining message: I don’t. want. you.

Advice had come in droves, in direct proportion to blessing; those most blessed had the most to say. Blessing was proclaimed by the blessed. Only those who were actually in the gut-punch of bereft abandonment, these kept their advice to themselves.

The house was warm. The view, white and wondrous. The silence, frightening.

Her kitchen was stacked with boxes. Gifts, several, for the one who could not reciprocate. So many who would have felt her love had she redirected it not named among the packages. Loathing self now came to mind.

Those who got paid to define it all would say that thoughts were not us, that they may plague our heads but we’d have the power to at least subsume them. Not on Christmas Day. This day was all about feelings, and memories of feelings, and recollections of those who’d given us security and the belief that we would never be left alone. And, the best among them had encouraged us to accept that, even though we could neither see nor feel God, we were loved in ways that surpassed all human understanding.

A few of these had lived by example that to give was better, that to give all would bring not just the desires of the heart but fulfillment of every need. Her mother was one of these. She’d sacrificed her entire breath for others, pressing and plodding on until the tumor invaded the space where she formulated and articulated her thoughts and morphine carried her over while she slept. On this Christmas Day, random assignment of blessing and fulfillment felt far more believable. There was a certain clarity in this kind of logic.

Speaking of which, her body had chosen to take what it needed through the morning and into the afternoon. Like death, or coma, the merciful absence from less bearable reality was the gift of sleep. Perhaps the homeless understood.

Her heart felt homeless, today.

And now, in just a few more days, hundreds of thousands might be on the brink of being so. Responsible citizens, many with children, with no place to lay their heads. She’d been writing about her own life but, on this Christmas morning, now represented the impending innumerable.

God had spoken. Perhaps the All Knowing had chosen her to suffer these by feeling their need.

Redemption?

Might just have been right about that.

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Protected: The New Top.

December 24, 2020contemplation, creative writing, human behavior, philosophy, psychology, relationships, short stories, sociology, Uncategorizedclarity during the pandemic, epiphanies during the pandemic, holiday ruminations during the pandemic, unmet needruth ann scanzillo

Recycling The Insufferable Optimist.

October 25, 2020arts education, blogger theft, brain research, contemplation, creative writing, human behavior, letters to readers, mystical experience, plagiarism, plagiarists, political commentary, psychology, publishing, social commentary, sociology, thoughts, Uncategorized, winter woesabdication of reason, acts of denial, apologism, book reviews, Braveheart, California coast, CEO of Google, Edinburgh Festival 1997, fall foliage in state parks, frustrated creatives, house sitting, insufferable optimism, laryngoscopy, leap of faith, Mel Gibson, pessimism, politics 2020, prophecy, Ruth Ann Scanzillo, screenplay marketing, screenwriting, search engine monopoly, vocal fold surgeryruth ann scanzillo

She couldn’t get into the house quickly enough.

The idea for her next piece had come during a drive around the local state park, taking in the last burst of color before its erasure by the wind. She was anxious to begin. The title alone was so compelling; she could already feel the thing writing itself.

Yet, oddly, a thought intruded: one quick Google might be in order. Best to rule out whether her gem had erupted from another in some deep, subconscious past.

Fearfully, she pulled up the search bar. Sure enough; at least two, both of them published, had already coined the phrase, one as far back as 1997. The moment was heart sinking.

Her mind sought solace, in reverie.

1997. That had been a year. She’d spent its post-Braveheart winter completing a screenplay to star Mel Gibson, the summer gallivanting up the California coast and across to the UK for the Edinburgh Fest. No time for a book review, let alone a book. Besides, her larynx had developed a pesky resistance, stuck in head voice for hours at a time; and, forced to leave her precious elementary string program (bumped by a seniority bid) she’d endure the fall and early winter teaching middle school chorus, reduced to a rasping breath by day’s end.

Come spring, after a bout with bronchitis which had left a three week hack in its wake, her fate seemed sealed: laryngoscopic surgery, slated for St Patrick’s Day, in Pittsburgh. She’d spend the rest of 1998 enduring its laser focused rehabilitation. No time for a leisurely book review, or even a book; the risk of absent minded coughing or even throat clearing lurked, at every moment. No time, either, to take a phone call from a prospective literary agent. Besides, while away she’d let a frustrated creative house-sit; he’d used the phone she’d dictated as off limits because of its receiver’s annoying habit of cutting the line. Had there been any call backs, none would have registered.

Her next pre-emptor appeared in 2015. They shared one commonality; both were anonymous bloggers, casting their carefully cultivated and diligently edited pearls before any number of earnest freshman composition students and swine.

The most recent, in spring of 2020, would be by far her most formidable: former CEO of the aforementioned search engine monopoly. Perhaps he had sent her routing out the competition with a penetrating thought weapon. After all, how dare anyone attempt to supplant his definitive take – on anything!

So how, now, to proceed? Pretend that she somehow possessed a distinctive version of an image so vivid, indeed more timely than ever?

Unlike her predecessors, hers was neither embodiment nor apologism but a sweeping observation. Her intent was to characterize those who could not or would not bow to prudence, refusing or unwilling to acknowledge the gravity of either forewarning pronouncement or prophecy. She would out every leap of faith, all abdications of reason, each act of denial in one grand gesture of indicting condemnation. If she had anything to say about it, the virtual world would be wiped clean of the last of the insufferable optimists.

Yes. Pessimism would have its day.

And, that season couldn’t come soon enough.

© 10/25/2020 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, anonymous or no, whose name appears above this line. No copying in whole or part, including translation, permitted without written permission of the originator. Sharing encouraged, by blog link only. Thank you!

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