The Cloisonné Pill Box
He has always hated that jewelry store, but something catches Marshall's eye as he passes by on his walk home from the Gray Panthers meeting. Gold rings, watches, emerald earrings, pearls, and this thing that squats amid the glitter, colorful but practical.
*
What do other men give their wives for their eightieth birthdays?
*
Esta imagines a gemstudded bracelet in the velvet case from Smyth's. To think of Marshall in that flashy place, spending all kinds of money. And where would she wear such a thing? But when she pries open the case she feels a flicker of disappointment.
*
Must be from the east, she thinks, from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia, made by small hands in a far-off place, east of here. The Near East.
Seven compartments for the days of the week, with birds – some solitary, some mated – worked into the cloisonné design of each lid. Esta touches Monday's compartment lightly, a nightingale.
Cloisonné sounds like coitus. A coitus pill box would be a birth control dispenser. Esta sighs over a vague thought about pills and eggs, and birds. A sparrow lights on the feeding shelf in the window of the dining nook where she sits studying the pill box.
*
Most of Esta's medications address other medications and in this sense they have nothing to do with her. She can't remember the names of the medicines that come in identical orange vials and she has worried about mixing them up. Now Marshall counts them into the velvet-lined cloisonné compartments so Esta will swallow the correct number of the correct pills at the correct time of day. For this the pill box is an indispensable dispenser.
*
Tuesday's bird is the Canada goose. Esta has never been to Canada. She likes the shiny black neck of the goose on the pill box lid. Some of the other Gray Panthers travel to Canada every few months to buy medicine at lower prices. Many of the pills in Esta's cloisonné pill box are the cheaper Canadian varieties, but even so, Marshall and Esta budget themselves. They balance the checkbook together once a week, Marshall with his calculator and pile of receipts, Esta with a pencil she keeps neither too sharp nor too blunt.
*
Esta brings a tray with her pill box and a plate of cheese and crackers into the living room for the golf tournament, live from Pebble Beach. She puts the tray on the little folding table in front of Marshall.
"I got us a treat at the corner," she says. "Port wine cheese."
"Yech," he says, handing Esta her pill box.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Did you say pork rind cheese?" Marshall taps his hearing aid.
*
One medication dries Esta's throat, another moistens her throat again. One gives her acid stomach, another prevents acid, and so on. Some of the medications make her sleepy, so she naps twice a day, on the sly.
"Yes!" says Marshall, his eyes on the television, slapping his palm down on his leather lounger.
"Huh," Esta says from the couch, waking.
"You miss that?" Marshall asks. He worries when Esta seems not to have paid attention.
"What Tiger just did?" Esta says, seeing the golfer's face fill the screen. "I saw."
*
Cloisonné means "partitioned," and refers to the bonded metal that outlines the designs on the compartments, separating the bright enamel colors. Esta's favorite of the lids is Wednesday's. A pair of red-and-green love birds sit side by side, their heads turned toward one another so their bodies make the shape of a heart.
*
Marshall and Esta keep a weekly Gray Panthers vigil near the hospital, though the weather has turned cold. After twenty minutes of standing, Esta's ankles swell and hurt. Marshall's fingers stiffen from grasping the banner that says Universal Health Care Now.
"People don't sign petitions in this kind of weather," Esta says.
"Maybe Joe and Eileen could take over until spring," Marshall suggests.
"Did you notice if I had my pills at lunch?" Esta asks. "I don't remember touching the pill box."
People duck and hurry past. A young man with a shaved head and earmuffs turns and shouts at them, "Get a life!"
*
Esta shuffles toward Marshall with the pill box raised like an ax. "You didn't fill this," she snaps. "It's empty!"
Marshall cradles her arm. "This is Sunday night sweetheart," he says. "I always do it first thing Monday."
They go to bed, strangers to one other.
Before dawn, Marshall vacuums. In the softly creeping daylight he pushes the upright across the condo, the lamp on its base illuminating the stubbled beige carpet. He moves through the dark like a snow plow, leaving clean, combed trails. In his mind he prepares the pill box for Esta.
*
Esta tracks days by the pill box. The numerical date is of no concern. Marshall is the one who bothers about the calendar.
"Thursday," Esta says. "Eagles."
"January sixteenth," Marshall specifies. "With the roads like this the Panthers won't meet, but maybe I'll just check in with Eileen." He brings Esta the pill box. "Here, have some delicious pork rind cheese."
In the nook, Esta watches the sparrows flocking, bush to bush. One flits to the window shelf for some seed that Marshall has scattered there. Esta remembers reading somewhere that birds are the most monogamous animals. Sparrows are beautiful, but you have to look at them as if you've never seen one.
"All we ever get at this window is sparrows," Marshall says, standing with the phone to his ear.
*
"Where did you put my pill box?" Esta asks.
"Right next to your hand," Marshall says.
"Ha. I've been looking right at it."
*
It is Friday, February fourteenth, two white cranes.
"Why is there a chocolate truffle in my pill box?" Esta asks her husband. Marshall explains. She says, "You're my guy," and puckers her lips to kiss him.
*
Esta drinks water from a glass in her left hand and rests her right on the cloisonné pill box, running her fingers over its Braille-like finish. There are tiny bumps on the cloisons. She presses the tip of her forefinger against the heads of two swans, waits, presses harder, pulls her finger away and looks at it. The swans' heads arch in parallel there on her fingertip, an outline of tiny depressions.
*
Women's voices have become difficult for Marshall to make out, whispering nearly impossible. He leans closer to her mouth and twists his hearing aid. The hospital bed railing presses against his stomach. Her breath warms his ear. He feels the rough hairs of her upper lip. Out the window, cars in the parking lot fade to white under falling snow. Sounds are muffled by the snow, by the walls, by his hearing aid, as if he lives sequestered, inside a cell within a cell within a cell. But he works out the message from Esta. "Bring me my pill box," she whispers.
He almost answers, "But you don't need it here."
*
It is the only thing he brings home from the hospital, the day Esta stops breathing.
He puts it on his bureau to store loose change. Replaces the coins with razor cartridges and moves it to the bathroom. Tries it for his vitamins. Empties it. Leaves it empty.
*
On a Monday at dawn, after a night without sleep, he opens the seven jewel-tone lids, fills the compartments with birdseed, and places the cloisonné pill box on the shelf outside the window by the nook, for the sparrows, who need to eat more now, to get ready for breeding season.
© Nancy Graham 2007
He has always hated that jewelry store, but something catches Marshall's eye as he passes by on his walk home from the Gray Panthers meeting. Gold rings, watches, emerald earrings, pearls, and this thing that squats amid the glitter, colorful but practical.
*
What do other men give their wives for their eightieth birthdays?
*
Esta imagines a gemstudded bracelet in the velvet case from Smyth's. To think of Marshall in that flashy place, spending all kinds of money. And where would she wear such a thing? But when she pries open the case she feels a flicker of disappointment.
*
Must be from the east, she thinks, from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia, made by small hands in a far-off place, east of here. The Near East.
Seven compartments for the days of the week, with birds – some solitary, some mated – worked into the cloisonné design of each lid. Esta touches Monday's compartment lightly, a nightingale.
Cloisonné sounds like coitus. A coitus pill box would be a birth control dispenser. Esta sighs over a vague thought about pills and eggs, and birds. A sparrow lights on the feeding shelf in the window of the dining nook where she sits studying the pill box.
*
Most of Esta's medications address other medications and in this sense they have nothing to do with her. She can't remember the names of the medicines that come in identical orange vials and she has worried about mixing them up. Now Marshall counts them into the velvet-lined cloisonné compartments so Esta will swallow the correct number of the correct pills at the correct time of day. For this the pill box is an indispensable dispenser.
*
Tuesday's bird is the Canada goose. Esta has never been to Canada. She likes the shiny black neck of the goose on the pill box lid. Some of the other Gray Panthers travel to Canada every few months to buy medicine at lower prices. Many of the pills in Esta's cloisonné pill box are the cheaper Canadian varieties, but even so, Marshall and Esta budget themselves. They balance the checkbook together once a week, Marshall with his calculator and pile of receipts, Esta with a pencil she keeps neither too sharp nor too blunt.
*
Esta brings a tray with her pill box and a plate of cheese and crackers into the living room for the golf tournament, live from Pebble Beach. She puts the tray on the little folding table in front of Marshall.
"I got us a treat at the corner," she says. "Port wine cheese."
"Yech," he says, handing Esta her pill box.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Did you say pork rind cheese?" Marshall taps his hearing aid.
*
One medication dries Esta's throat, another moistens her throat again. One gives her acid stomach, another prevents acid, and so on. Some of the medications make her sleepy, so she naps twice a day, on the sly.
"Yes!" says Marshall, his eyes on the television, slapping his palm down on his leather lounger.
"Huh," Esta says from the couch, waking.
"You miss that?" Marshall asks. He worries when Esta seems not to have paid attention.
"What Tiger just did?" Esta says, seeing the golfer's face fill the screen. "I saw."
*
Cloisonné means "partitioned," and refers to the bonded metal that outlines the designs on the compartments, separating the bright enamel colors. Esta's favorite of the lids is Wednesday's. A pair of red-and-green love birds sit side by side, their heads turned toward one another so their bodies make the shape of a heart.
*
Marshall and Esta keep a weekly Gray Panthers vigil near the hospital, though the weather has turned cold. After twenty minutes of standing, Esta's ankles swell and hurt. Marshall's fingers stiffen from grasping the banner that says Universal Health Care Now.
"People don't sign petitions in this kind of weather," Esta says.
"Maybe Joe and Eileen could take over until spring," Marshall suggests.
"Did you notice if I had my pills at lunch?" Esta asks. "I don't remember touching the pill box."
People duck and hurry past. A young man with a shaved head and earmuffs turns and shouts at them, "Get a life!"
*
Esta shuffles toward Marshall with the pill box raised like an ax. "You didn't fill this," she snaps. "It's empty!"
Marshall cradles her arm. "This is Sunday night sweetheart," he says. "I always do it first thing Monday."
They go to bed, strangers to one other.
Before dawn, Marshall vacuums. In the softly creeping daylight he pushes the upright across the condo, the lamp on its base illuminating the stubbled beige carpet. He moves through the dark like a snow plow, leaving clean, combed trails. In his mind he prepares the pill box for Esta.
*
Esta tracks days by the pill box. The numerical date is of no concern. Marshall is the one who bothers about the calendar.
"Thursday," Esta says. "Eagles."
"January sixteenth," Marshall specifies. "With the roads like this the Panthers won't meet, but maybe I'll just check in with Eileen." He brings Esta the pill box. "Here, have some delicious pork rind cheese."
In the nook, Esta watches the sparrows flocking, bush to bush. One flits to the window shelf for some seed that Marshall has scattered there. Esta remembers reading somewhere that birds are the most monogamous animals. Sparrows are beautiful, but you have to look at them as if you've never seen one.
"All we ever get at this window is sparrows," Marshall says, standing with the phone to his ear.
*
"Where did you put my pill box?" Esta asks.
"Right next to your hand," Marshall says.
"Ha. I've been looking right at it."
*
It is Friday, February fourteenth, two white cranes.
"Why is there a chocolate truffle in my pill box?" Esta asks her husband. Marshall explains. She says, "You're my guy," and puckers her lips to kiss him.
*
Esta drinks water from a glass in her left hand and rests her right on the cloisonné pill box, running her fingers over its Braille-like finish. There are tiny bumps on the cloisons. She presses the tip of her forefinger against the heads of two swans, waits, presses harder, pulls her finger away and looks at it. The swans' heads arch in parallel there on her fingertip, an outline of tiny depressions.
*
Women's voices have become difficult for Marshall to make out, whispering nearly impossible. He leans closer to her mouth and twists his hearing aid. The hospital bed railing presses against his stomach. Her breath warms his ear. He feels the rough hairs of her upper lip. Out the window, cars in the parking lot fade to white under falling snow. Sounds are muffled by the snow, by the walls, by his hearing aid, as if he lives sequestered, inside a cell within a cell within a cell. But he works out the message from Esta. "Bring me my pill box," she whispers.
He almost answers, "But you don't need it here."
*
It is the only thing he brings home from the hospital, the day Esta stops breathing.
He puts it on his bureau to store loose change. Replaces the coins with razor cartridges and moves it to the bathroom. Tries it for his vitamins. Empties it. Leaves it empty.
*
On a Monday at dawn, after a night without sleep, he opens the seven jewel-tone lids, fills the compartments with birdseed, and places the cloisonné pill box on the shelf outside the window by the nook, for the sparrows, who need to eat more now, to get ready for breeding season.
© Nancy Graham 2007
Narrated by Nancy Graham.
Narrated by Nancy Graham.
POST RECITAL
TALK
BR: Nancy has driven from the civilization of Kingston NY into the wilds of Woodstock on this winter day. Thanks for joining us, Nancy!
NG: Thank you for having me in the wilds of Woodstock.
TN: So,The Cloisonné Pill Box... actually, I should say... I say cloisonné, which is my approximation of the French but I notice that you pronounce it cloysonay. Do you do that for any particular reason, or is it just the American pronunciation?
NG: Well actually in Merriam-Webster the first pronunciation is cloysonay and I think that's because that's an American distortion of the French, and I chose it for the story for a few reasons. I imagine that the jeweler said it that way to Marshall and that Marshall and Esta pronounced it that way, and then that led to Esta making the association to coitus. And it says something too about the size of their world and things they know and things they don't know. One of them is about where Cloisonné comes from. This pill box I imagine was actually made in China, where there's a longstanding tradition of strikingly beautiful work done this way, although I read that it started in Greece and Egypt so... Anyway we can say Cloisonné and honor the French and their beautiful word that comes from the Latin.
TN: Okay. Either that or I'll say cloysonay to honor...
NG: To honor Esta and Marshall.
TN: Yeah. The Cloysonay Pill Box... it connects to another story we had on the podcast recently, called Antiquity. Our discussion with the author, Petrie Harbouri, got into the territory of eldercare, or rather the unfortunate way that society seems to disregard the elderly. Did that have anything to do with your reasons for writing this story?
NG: Maybe, from a very different place. That's a beautiful story and it was beautifully read. I'll tell you where the The Cloisonné Pill Box came from for me. Back in the '80s I was doing Central America solidarity work and we were working on a directory of activist organizations in Manhattan, which before the Internet you had to make, and you know mimeograph and pass out to people so they'd know how to get in touch with each other and I was sent to a Gray Panthers meeting to get all their contact information. I'd never heard of them and I was really struck by these... mostly in this case-- it is a multi-generational organization, my understanding of it, but they focus on a lot of elder issues but over the years have done work in all kinds of areas but at this meeting it was more older people. And I think for the first time I was really struck by how an activist, someone who really is trying to change something, could be doing it for decades and decades and decades and get to the end of their life and still, you know, be working on this thing and we certainly have a lot of healthcare activists in this country that would fall in that category. So that was one impetus for the story. There were others but that was one.
BR: Well In your story, Marshall and Esta still have a romance, but in bed they’re strangers. So one of Petrie’s thoughts was that people are marginalized when they’re no longer thought of as sexual beings. So what do you think about that idea?
NG: I think that's really true. I think a lot of people who aren't seen as sexual beings are marginalized. But I also think we live in a time where people are kind of reclaiming their stories, and all kinds of stories are coming out of the wood work and that's really shifting in a kind of very democratic way through the Internet I think... you know, to the degree that you can find things that aren't corporate owned now by doing Google searches, which gets harder and harder. But yeah, I think in my story what I was interested in with them, is that they were almost like birds who mate for life. I was just watching a video about ravens and it said that ravens... they can mate for a very long time, sometimes for life, and you can tell how long they've been together because they move in formation. And you can see these ravens just sort of parallel. They were turning their heads together. They were so in tune with one another, and that's actually how I think of Esta and Marshall even though inside their private selves, their boxes, their body boxes if you will, they are kind of strangers to one another but they also have this incredible intimacy and this ability to fly in formation.
TN: And ravens are incredibly intelligent.
NG: Oh, I was watching another raven video... this could become a pastime for me...but they did this amazing divebomb, where they flip and then they flip out of it and they're playing when they do it. You hear about crows or various animals that play. It's really cool.
TN: And they can remember people's slights against them.You know, I like the birds theme... birds on the box, birds out of the window… and how, after Esta dies, at the very end, you say, “The sparrows need more to eat now, to get ready for breeding season.” They embody the endless cycle of death and birth. Can you say where those ideas came from?
NG: I think they do embody that cycle. And I don't know if that idea comes from anywhere. I think it's kind of the air we breathe isn't it? I mean... and certainly that's true for these characters.
TN: You know we once had a bird get into the studio during our interview, remember that Brent?
BR: Oh, yeah, that was with Guy Reed -- his story Eyes on the Road. That was pretty wild. It was flapping all over the place. We thought it had a message for us...
TN: It just shat on the mixing board and flew out. So that was that.
NG: What kind of bird was it?
TN: It wasn't a raven. A small bird.
BR: Brown and white. Who knows?
NG: Maybe a sparrow.
BR: Maybe, maybe...
TN: A throat warbler mangrove.
BR: Ah okay... Well back to your story… I like the fact that I learned something new. I never knew what the word cloisonné actually meant and now I do. And I get a very clear picture of that beautiful pill box. And also, I'm not sure if listeners will know in the audio, but the story is constructed in small partitions, like the pill box itself.
NG: Yeah. I love that you notice that Brent. Thank you.
TN: Brent notices everything.
ND: Brent is a good noticer. That has been noted like the sign in your studio says. That's a very funny sign. The image of the pill box was really the first thing that came to me and everything else came out of that and it started building up as vignettes. And I'm pretty sure I structured it that way without realizing that I was kind of mirroring a pill box in the construction of the story. And then when I noticed it I thought: “Oh should there be seven... you know should there be seven partitions because that would mirror it perfectly?” And I thought: “Let go of that idea.” I decided I didn't need to do that.
TN: I like those kinds of ideas. So, this is not a new story -- it was previously published in the journal Pindeldyboz. Is that how you say it?
NG: I think it is.
TN: Okay. It's no longer in operation anyway but what are you working on currently, writing or otherwise?
NG: Yeah it's sad how Internet journals come and go, and when they go they might really go. But a lot of things are archived which is nice too. And I think you can still find it by searching. I'm working on more theatrical writing. I'm an actor and so I have a few ideas that I'm nudging along. There's a screenplay, a short screenplay I completed. I don't know what will happen with that. And yeah... more like plays, short plays and I've a few stories that have been percolating but you know sometimes you have to wait for a story to tell you what it wants to do and you can't muscle it.
BR: That's true. Well I’ve always been interested in those dream diaries you were doing when we first met years ago. Can you say something about those?
NG: Yeah, I think... I'm not sure 'cause I do keep dream diaries when I have a dream but I think you might be talking about the somnilloquies.
BR: Yes.
NG: Sleep-talk. Yeah. I haven't done one in a while. I have performed them in the last couple of years. They're a form of poetry I generate by reading out loud while falling asleep and whatever the text is that I'm reading, after a while becoming sleepy I deviate from it and so the recordings are a record of the border state between wake and sleep and they just interest me as human artifacts.
TN: Are they full of non-sequiturs?
NG: They're full of non-sequiturs and anybody who has kids has had this experience, because if you lie next to them to read to them at bedtime it's inevitable as a parent you're tired and you start to say things that aren't there. And the child knows every book by heart of course, and they know when you're off the rails like “What are you talking about?” One time I was talking about a tuna fish sandwich and a wedding or something during Goodnight Moon. And I said “I want to know what I'm saying,” so I started to record them.
BR: That's great. Well we could probably talk about dreams and sleep-state for quite a while, but the time has come to stop. So thanks for venturing into the woods, Nancy!
NG: Oh thank you.
TN: Yes, thanks Nancy.
NG: It's so nice to be here.
TN: Yes. Indeed it is.
BR: Nancy has driven from the civilization of Kingston NY into the wilds of Woodstock on this winter day. Thanks for joining us, Nancy!
NG: Thank you for having me in the wilds of Woodstock.
TN: So,The Cloisonné Pill Box... actually, I should say... I say cloisonné, which is my approximation of the French but I notice that you pronounce it cloysonay. Do you do that for any particular reason, or is it just the American pronunciation?
NG: Well actually in Merriam-Webster the first pronunciation is cloysonay and I think that's because that's an American distortion of the French, and I chose it for the story for a few reasons. I imagine that the jeweler said it that way to Marshall and that Marshall and Esta pronounced it that way, and then that led to Esta making the association to coitus. And it says something too about the size of their world and things they know and things they don't know. One of them is about where Cloisonné comes from. This pill box I imagine was actually made in China, where there's a longstanding tradition of strikingly beautiful work done this way, although I read that it started in Greece and Egypt so... Anyway we can say Cloisonné and honor the French and their beautiful word that comes from the Latin.
TN: Okay. Either that or I'll say cloysonay to honor...
NG: To honor Esta and Marshall.
TN: Yeah. The Cloysonay Pill Box... it connects to another story we had on the podcast recently, called Antiquity. Our discussion with the author, Petrie Harbouri, got into the territory of eldercare, or rather the unfortunate way that society seems to disregard the elderly. Did that have anything to do with your reasons for writing this story?
NG: Maybe, from a very different place. That's a beautiful story and it was beautifully read. I'll tell you where the The Cloisonné Pill Box came from for me. Back in the '80s I was doing Central America solidarity work and we were working on a directory of activist organizations in Manhattan, which before the Internet you had to make, and you know mimeograph and pass out to people so they'd know how to get in touch with each other and I was sent to a Gray Panthers meeting to get all their contact information. I'd never heard of them and I was really struck by these... mostly in this case-- it is a multi-generational organization, my understanding of it, but they focus on a lot of elder issues but over the years have done work in all kinds of areas but at this meeting it was more older people. And I think for the first time I was really struck by how an activist, someone who really is trying to change something, could be doing it for decades and decades and decades and get to the end of their life and still, you know, be working on this thing and we certainly have a lot of healthcare activists in this country that would fall in that category. So that was one impetus for the story. There were others but that was one.
BR: Well In your story, Marshall and Esta still have a romance, but in bed they’re strangers. So one of Petrie’s thoughts was that people are marginalized when they’re no longer thought of as sexual beings. So what do you think about that idea?
NG: I think that's really true. I think a lot of people who aren't seen as sexual beings are marginalized. But I also think we live in a time where people are kind of reclaiming their stories, and all kinds of stories are coming out of the wood work and that's really shifting in a kind of very democratic way through the Internet I think... you know, to the degree that you can find things that aren't corporate owned now by doing Google searches, which gets harder and harder. But yeah, I think in my story what I was interested in with them, is that they were almost like birds who mate for life. I was just watching a video about ravens and it said that ravens... they can mate for a very long time, sometimes for life, and you can tell how long they've been together because they move in formation. And you can see these ravens just sort of parallel. They were turning their heads together. They were so in tune with one another, and that's actually how I think of Esta and Marshall even though inside their private selves, their boxes, their body boxes if you will, they are kind of strangers to one another but they also have this incredible intimacy and this ability to fly in formation.
TN: And ravens are incredibly intelligent.
NG: Oh, I was watching another raven video... this could become a pastime for me...but they did this amazing divebomb, where they flip and then they flip out of it and they're playing when they do it. You hear about crows or various animals that play. It's really cool.
TN: And they can remember people's slights against them.You know, I like the birds theme... birds on the box, birds out of the window… and how, after Esta dies, at the very end, you say, “The sparrows need more to eat now, to get ready for breeding season.” They embody the endless cycle of death and birth. Can you say where those ideas came from?
NG: I think they do embody that cycle. And I don't know if that idea comes from anywhere. I think it's kind of the air we breathe isn't it? I mean... and certainly that's true for these characters.
TN: You know we once had a bird get into the studio during our interview, remember that Brent?
BR: Oh, yeah, that was with Guy Reed -- his story Eyes on the Road. That was pretty wild. It was flapping all over the place. We thought it had a message for us...
TN: It just shat on the mixing board and flew out. So that was that.
NG: What kind of bird was it?
TN: It wasn't a raven. A small bird.
BR: Brown and white. Who knows?
NG: Maybe a sparrow.
BR: Maybe, maybe...
TN: A throat warbler mangrove.
BR: Ah okay... Well back to your story… I like the fact that I learned something new. I never knew what the word cloisonné actually meant and now I do. And I get a very clear picture of that beautiful pill box. And also, I'm not sure if listeners will know in the audio, but the story is constructed in small partitions, like the pill box itself.
NG: Yeah. I love that you notice that Brent. Thank you.
TN: Brent notices everything.
ND: Brent is a good noticer. That has been noted like the sign in your studio says. That's a very funny sign. The image of the pill box was really the first thing that came to me and everything else came out of that and it started building up as vignettes. And I'm pretty sure I structured it that way without realizing that I was kind of mirroring a pill box in the construction of the story. And then when I noticed it I thought: “Oh should there be seven... you know should there be seven partitions because that would mirror it perfectly?” And I thought: “Let go of that idea.” I decided I didn't need to do that.
TN: I like those kinds of ideas. So, this is not a new story -- it was previously published in the journal Pindeldyboz. Is that how you say it?
NG: I think it is.
TN: Okay. It's no longer in operation anyway but what are you working on currently, writing or otherwise?
NG: Yeah it's sad how Internet journals come and go, and when they go they might really go. But a lot of things are archived which is nice too. And I think you can still find it by searching. I'm working on more theatrical writing. I'm an actor and so I have a few ideas that I'm nudging along. There's a screenplay, a short screenplay I completed. I don't know what will happen with that. And yeah... more like plays, short plays and I've a few stories that have been percolating but you know sometimes you have to wait for a story to tell you what it wants to do and you can't muscle it.
BR: That's true. Well I’ve always been interested in those dream diaries you were doing when we first met years ago. Can you say something about those?
NG: Yeah, I think... I'm not sure 'cause I do keep dream diaries when I have a dream but I think you might be talking about the somnilloquies.
BR: Yes.
NG: Sleep-talk. Yeah. I haven't done one in a while. I have performed them in the last couple of years. They're a form of poetry I generate by reading out loud while falling asleep and whatever the text is that I'm reading, after a while becoming sleepy I deviate from it and so the recordings are a record of the border state between wake and sleep and they just interest me as human artifacts.
TN: Are they full of non-sequiturs?
NG: They're full of non-sequiturs and anybody who has kids has had this experience, because if you lie next to them to read to them at bedtime it's inevitable as a parent you're tired and you start to say things that aren't there. And the child knows every book by heart of course, and they know when you're off the rails like “What are you talking about?” One time I was talking about a tuna fish sandwich and a wedding or something during Goodnight Moon. And I said “I want to know what I'm saying,” so I started to record them.
BR: That's great. Well we could probably talk about dreams and sleep-state for quite a while, but the time has come to stop. So thanks for venturing into the woods, Nancy!
NG: Oh thank you.
TN: Yes, thanks Nancy.
NG: It's so nice to be here.
TN: Yes. Indeed it is.
Music on this episode:
Quintet for Clarinet in B minor, opus 115 by Johannes Brahms
Used under license CC BY-SA 3.0
