Riding the wave...

I was flipping through channels this morning looking for something vaguely entertaining to watch as I folded the laundry. I stopped when I heard the voice of Bill Kurtis. Wherever his voice reverberates lies a true crime buff's interest. I stopped for a second to watch to see if perhaps it was a case I was familiar with when I heard him say, "Jacksonville Beach". My ears immediately perked up as I remembered my husband telling me once of a girl he had vaguely known who had been murdered. It was her. The case was intriguing, and just as everyone says, it was disturbing to hear of such things happening in your very own neighborhood. But there was one line in the show that moved me the most. For one reason or another I am a one-liner junkie. There always seems to be just one line that flashes at me like a neon sign. (This is why I liked The Kite Runner, there were about 20 one-liners that shook me.) It was uttered by a police detective out of Duval County, I believe. He said, in rough estimation, "I believe every man is capable of murder given the right circumstances."

Well, this jumped out at me as I have blogged recently about what causes a person to cross that line between murder being the most heinous of sins and murder being fathomable. This question has been echoing through my brain in recent weeks what with the stories that have intersected my path. For some reason, I feel like this must be a necessary step for me in my progression as a writer, perhaps as a person. I guess it began with The Reader. I had no idea what the movie was about, but knew it was highly acclaimed and knew I loved Kate Winslet, and so watched it. Its merciful portrayal of her character's participation in the concentration camps of WWII opened my eyes to another side of the coin. Then there was Defiance. Again, I had no clue what it was about. My husband actually added it to our Netflix queue, and though I didn't really want to watch it, thinking it an action movie from the cover, I did. And, it depicted a completely different side of the Holocaust, the side that fought back. Well, out of the blue, my husband's aunt had mentioned weeks before of a book a friend of her's had written about his mother's survival of the Holocaust. It sounded interesting, so I am now in the midst of that harrowing tale. Upon posting about Defiance, a friend suggested another book written by a survivor about forgiveness. It is waiting on my nightstand, next to be devoured. The Kite Runner, a story of similar inter-class violence, I read because it was one of my students' summer reading assignments, and I had heard it was good. Then, the other night we were flipping channels and The Green Mile came on. Though I remember not liking it when it first came out, I was glued this time to its beautiful metaphor of murder and forgiveness. All these things coming at me completely by chance combine to point me in a new direction toward new realizations, new view points, a new understanding of the world.

It's interesting; I am starting to notice phases in my blogging. I feel I am currently in a 180 from my initial blog posts of life and love. My new focus seems to be on death and hate. I suppose it is necessary to understand both sides before being able to really deconstruct my characters. But I still love how it all just seems to be happening, and I am just riding this wave of inspiration. Whether a bright blue cool wave or a dark black rough wave, they both seem to take me to the same destination.


My new favorite model. I have to break up the dark subject matter with something. Why not a cute little pup?