GRAVITY IN GARDENS by TR

[Tragic Rabbit]

http://www.awesomedude.com/drawn_from_life..._in_gardens.htm

The second story written for our Drawn From Life section is this coming out story from Tragic Rabbit, Gravity in Gardens. He mixes theories of gravitation with memories of childhood to explain, to himself if not the reader, how he came to know, beginning at age six, of the differences in his nature. Apples, mothers, fruits, gardens, plantings, harvests, hearts in boxes, a falling down and a rising up, these images tell his tale in an oblique manner that might manage to be distracting, but don't let him get away with it. This is a poetic mood piece set to prose standard and perhaps more from the heart than first glance might indicate. Give Gravity in Gardens a read...and then let us know what you really think.

Listen, and let me tell you...

From Gravity in Gardens:

And the look on Mother?s face, ever when I brought my boxes, those awful offerings, my questions. A hardness behind her eyes, like onyx. My God, she was, in truth, and so I brought to her, asked of her, sacrificed to her, longing for surcease. Tell me, tell me, answer me true. Save me all unknowing. But she was not a god, she was my mother, and she could never understand my boxes, could never know that thing inside, that thing I brought to her, my silent self. My own indifferent goddess, who daily raised up the sun to only slay him. Magna Mater. Green Man running, dying, arrow in his side. Cybele Triumphant.

And to think, I brought my heart in boxes.

I was nine before I realized. Empirical observation. After that, I kept my counsel; small diplomat, I learned to lie.

*

[Tragic Rabbit]

Can we just use this thread? If anyone has comments, I'd be interested. Feels weird talking more directly about my own life, though I guess I've gotten more used to it with poetry. Still, the stories that are, in parts, about me are a lot more disguised.

TR

[Graeme]

I've locked the other thread for you.

[Codey]

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 3:28 pm Post subject: Gravity In Gardens

I'm not sure whether this post should be in the poetry section or here. It's a great piece and could go in either forum.

It's like poetry and some of your other stories, I can't just read and enjoy but have to think too. I love the stimulation your writing gives me.

Codey

Sorry I used the wrong thread.

[Trab]

Please forgive me for asking a question here that has no direct bearing on the work being discussed, Gravity in Gardens.

Above in the first entry, there is a word which is unfamiliar to me, and I cannot locate a meaning for it. "...oblique manner that might manage to be distrating, but..." DISTRATING As far as I can find out, it is some kind of variation on a meaning similar to rescinding or retracting, but I cannot see how it applies in this sentence. I hate getting hung up by something like this, but I guess it's just another aspect of my AS.

I have not read the story yet, but even the short quote about the Mother God grabbed me by the gut and shook me at my core. If the whole works is of this calibre, I may not be able to take it emotionally. Despite the short sampling, I am convinced this is one powerful piece.

[Tragic Rabbit]

Above in the first entry, there is a word which is unfamiliar to me, and I cannot locate a meaning for it. "...oblique manner that might manage to be distrating, but..." DISTRATING As far as I can find out, it is some kind of variation on a meaning similar to rescinding or retracting, but I cannot see how it applies in this sentence.

Trab, I mistyped, the word is 'distracting'. Don't tempt folks, there is a reason for your fate in A Funny Thing.

Mother as Goddess is not my invention, though it was my experience.

No one is required to read anything at all here at AD. Including this post.

TR

[blue]

The typo gremlin, or typo fairy, if you prefer, gets even the best of us. For the record, TR had only two typos in the prerelease copy I saw.

Trab, if a word eludes you like that, check to see if it might be a typo, a misspelling, rather than another word.

I saw the story while TR was writing it. It's very big on free-association, stream-of-consciousness, which fits my usual posting style just fine.

I liked it, though I'm having a hard time figuring out just why I liked it, aside from TR's usual flair for unexpected and insightful ways of putting together words.

Of course, the French was a nice touch also. The physics mostly went over my head, but Sir Isaac Newton's genius in formulating calculus and physics is still amazing. I'll confess, I liked calculus. There's something about the beauty of math, which I suspect "seriously rockin' Isaac" understood much more.

TR expressed a different side (maybe a few sides) of himself than I'd known was (were) there; very enlightening. Thanks for the wild ride, TR, it was quite a read.

[JamesSavik]

My goodness TR. When you snap out of a dry spell, you really come out swinging.

This is an amazing use of layers: layers of emotion, images and meaning. It may well be the most complex short work that I've seen here.

It is unique in that it is the only work of literature in which the physics of force and vectors plays a lead role.

:geek:

[Tragic Rabbit]

It is unique in that it is the only work of literature in which the physics of force and vectors plays a lead role.

:geek:

That comment got me thinking and today I wrote Exothermic Reaction in response. It involves heat in a high school Chem class.

And thanks for the nice things you said about Gravity in Gardens. Not too many people seem to have read it...or else it was just lousy. It did express my coming out feelings, at least one aspect of them; my coming into awareness (and pulling away from Mother). This other one, the Chem lab one, is a lot more playful and less serious.

Kisses...

TR