Alright!

While getting my MFA at Western Connecticut State University, I distinctly remember having an argument over whether "alright" was a word or if it was a mistaken attempt at the words "all right." I was a huge proponent of "alright" being, well, all right. But it turns out, upon further review, that most grammar sources consider the word "alright" not a word at all.

Who cares you might ask? Well, until just today, I sure didn't. A wise young lady pointed out to me that the beauty of language is that it changes over time anyway, so I'm perfectly alright with "alright." But "all right" is all right with me, too.

Why did it start mattering today? Well, I was listening to the song "Revolution" by the Beetles, a song that poignantly asks, "Don't you know it's gonna be all right"?

Is it, now?

This year has been filled with tragedy. Newtown. Boston. Aurora. The list goes on. If a friend of mine told me he or she had decided to never leave the house again out of fear, I could almost understand that. I would argue, but I would understand.

And the times we live in are getting so damn confusing. We're a country that invented the atom bomb, yet is shocked at the extent to which bombers would go to make sure their bombs did the most damage possible. We think our nation is going to hell in a hand-basket, yet other places in the world face more destruction and evil than we could imagine--Israel, for example, where there have been 140 suicide attacks since the year 2000. The same policy makers who believe we should tighten immigration laws for our security refuse to vote for background checks on firearms in the name of freedom, and as we lament a marathon being attacked by "foreigners," American drones attack weddings overseas.

Arthur Miller stated in the published version of his play The Crucible that "When one rises above the individual villainy displayed, one can only pity them all, just as we shall be pitied someday. It is still impossible for man to organize his social life without repressions, and the balance has yet to be struck between order and freedom." This is evidently still an issue. We definitely deserve pity.

Where we strike that balance between safety and freedom will significantly determine the quality of life we chose in this country, the kind of life we leave for our children. How can we live as freely and safely as possible? It's a complex time, alright (all right?), with complex issues. We spend so much time wondering what the "founding fathers" would say if they were alive today, what they meant by playing the elaborate joke of lacing our Constitution and Declaration of Independence with so much freedom. The truth is that they'd probably say, "Just stop killing each other, knuckle heads."

But here's the deal. This isn't new. As Billy Joel taught countless high school history class students back in the eighties so their teachers could seem cool, "We didn't start the fire." We're talking about a world that once thought it was okay to flog and crucify individuals. Since the dawn of time it seems we've always looked back at the good old days. When were they? Humans can be violent. The potential is in us all. It always has been.

And the violence is fairly limited. The accidental explosion of a fertilizer plant in Waco, TX did more damage and had more casualties than the bombings in Boston. Yes, any loss of life is a tragedy, and when I think of the amputees, especially children, my heart breaks. But, compared to some places in the world, we are very safe. More people die in car accidents than mass shootings. We can't let this define us.

I like to say that for every bomber, for every mass shooter, for every inner city drive-by, and every cold-blooded murder that garners national attention, there are millions of broken hearts. The number of people in Boston who pitched in, sacrificed, gave blood, gave shelter to the displaced, and who continue to pitch in to help out far outnumbers the two men who carried out the deed. What all these tragedies show us is that people are good. People are great. Not just New Yorkers or Bostonians, not just Americans, human beings in general have an enormous capacity for compassion and love when shaken from the complacency of their everyday lives.

So that gets me back to the debate between "all right" and "alright." I'm going to use the mistake "alright" from now on. For certain, there are problems in this world, horrible evils that threaten us daily. All is not right on Earth, in America, or in your town. We, as humans, are not all right. In fact, nobody is right all the time. But even though all is not right, we will be, for certain, alright. As long as love and compassion outweighs evil and hatred, we're going to be alright. We will move on. We will live our lives. We will be okay.

Or is it "O.K."?

Here we go again!

Epiphany

Got writer's block? I suggest you go for a walk...or maybe not. I'm currently 40 pages into the first draft of my third project--which I may have stumbled upon a title for today--and because of one little walk I now have a fourth. An overactive imagination may be key to a sustainable writing career, but it can also be a burden.

It really came from one little concept that struck me on my walk. Basically, I walked from my house to a little park with cute benches at the mouth of the Niantic River, just beneath the draw bridge, which is a bit of an eyesore. However, if you sit in the park on one of those cute little benches looking out on the river, the view is inspiring. And I mean that literally.

I found myself thinking about the Transcendentalism I teach in my American Lit classes, wondering why if mankind was ruining the beauty of nature, did this view look so much more interesting and spectacular with the little houses smattering the coast and dotting the hills on the horizon, not to mention the fleet of sail boats crowding the docks to my left. Sure the hills and the river would be pretty on their own, but it wouldn't be the same. Think of all those nautical paintings you've seen hanging in seafood joints. They're something special.

Then I pictured the boats and houses just stuck there on concrete or glass or gravel or something. Just plopped down in the picture without the green strokes of the hills or the blue ripples cascading across the river's skin in varying patterns. On their own, left only to the devices of man, they simply aren't spectacular at all. I had an epiphany. As is usual with most arguments, it isn't the artistry of nature or that of mankind alone that provides us with the most perfect look at beauty and inspiration. It's the balance of both.

Think of a beautiful man-made fountain with a cool sculpture without the flowers around it or the water to pour out into the main pool. Not nearly as inspirational--just dry, hard concrete. Bleh.

Then I thought of Boston. Though I love "The Big Apple," there's just something I find more aesthetically inspiring about "Bean Town," and it's not just the legumes. It's that balance of old, historical structures juxtaposed with a new, modern urbanhood that truly makes the city grand. You can gaze upon a rickety old church and graveyard with Paul Revere's dead body rotting six feet beneath your shoes with dilapidated cultural foundations crumbling all around, and if you tilt your head up just a few degrees, you can see a monument of modern economic domination towering above. One if by land, two if by sea, indeed! Lo! They've come by air!

I love these concepts. Everything in moderation is something we all sort of except as true, but what does that really mean. It's not just food, drink, and sex. It takes the old and the new. It takes tradition and impulsiveness.  Reality and fantasy. Conservative and liberal. Dogs and cats. You get the point. I often tell my students when there's a passionate argument where both sides are unwilling to budge, it's usually because both sides are wrong...and right. The answer is usually somewhere in the middle, or non-existent.

I want to capture this concept and show it working in the real world--and the imaginary. Think Anne of Green Gables and her Romanticism melding with Marilla's no-nonsense Realism. (Yes, I'm reading that book to my daughter now. What of it?)

Now, it's not just this concept that came to me out there on that hike. An entire plot, all of its twists, all of its characters...title and all, came to me on the half hour walk home from the point that had so inspired me. It wrote itself. It was an epiphany. And that's the title. Even a character's name. I love it when a plan comes together.

Now this blog is about the struggles and triumphs of an unpublished writer, so it wouldn't be right without pointing out that this poses a unique problem. As I said earlier, I'm 40 pages into my third full-length novel that I love oh so much and must, can, and will finish. So where does that leave me? I took a bunch of notes when I got home...on desktop stickies on my laptop. But will that idea still be as fresh and interesting to me in the year or two it takes to finalize this project? Well, let's hope.

If not, I can always go for another walk.