Secrets in a Strange Land

 "The secret always finds its way out, if not in words, then somatically, and most often in a way that it can be dealt with and helped in a straightforward manner. [Usually] So what does the woman do when she finds the secret leaking out? She runs after it with great expenditure of energy. She beats, bundles, and burrows it back down into the dead zone again, and builds larger defenses. She calls inner guardians and ego defenders to build more doors, more walls. The woman leans against her latest psychic tomb, sweating blood and beathing like a locomotive. 

A woman who carries a secret is an exhausted woman. Secrets cause a person to become haunted."

- excerpt from Women Who Run with Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

As you think we know........

Thetis: “Why then, child, do you lament? What sorrow has come to your heart now? Tell me, do not hide it in your mind, and we shall both know.”

Achilleus: “You know; since you know why must I tell you all this?”

The Iliad, Book I

As a writer I really have few ‘pet peeves’. If you place a comma in the wrong place, if you use quotation marks instead of apostrophes, or other slights and ambiguities of punctuation, we still get your meaning. If you weren’t raised on the Strunk and White bible, “Elements of Style”, don’t stress it. Strunk be damned and White was a hypocrite (he himself advocated ignoring his manual). As long as you use appropriate periods and spaces, you can get your message across. We really don’t have to be style Nazis.

However, a pet peeve that I do have, or it has me, is overuse of “As you know.....” or “As you already know.....”. YES WE ALREADY KNOW! Or NO, STUPID; HOW DO YOU EXPECT US TO KNOW?!

It’s a tropism used in writing fiction; a literary tool to give information or explain something to the reader that they don’t know otherwise, or have forgotten. But it has to be used carefully and not assuming that the reader (or audience) doesn’t know or does know where the lead in is going. But if the writer, or speaker, assumes that the reader or audience knows, and when that assumption has a high probability of being wrong, THEN DON’T USE IT! Recall that commonly used cliche! “‘Ass-ume’ makes an ass out of you and me.”? Well, it makes more of an ass out of the person that assumes, and it irritates the hell out of the ‘me’.

I see the use of this misplaced trope much too often on blogs and other social media, especially posts on FaceBook. “As you know, I moved across the country to this location.” I think to myself, ‘If you know we know, then why tell us that we already know?!’ It makes me want to shake the writer, or pull a Gibbs and smack the writer on the back of the head (TV series NCIS reference). Don’t use this trope unless you are writing a novel!

I have heard this trope used in some presentations, but it is placed well as a segue or to invite a question from the audience. Example: “As some of may know, not all grasses use the same photosynthetic pathway. Some species use the C3 pathway, others may use the C3 and C4 pathways.” Assumptions that all those in the audience know this is not implied, and the speaker explains a setting for the rest of his talk.

If you are writing a novel or short story, and a character needs to fill in a gap, this trope can be handy in dialogue, such as the example above of the speaker’s use, or to refresh the reader’s memory of an immediate and pertinent point. It can also be used to imply character personality, especially arrogance, such as with the famous character of Sherlock Holmes.

But if you don’t want to appear arrogant or pretentious, then DON’T USE IT!!

A-Z Challenge. N. What are 'Names.'

What is a name? What is 'in' a name? It's a Human thing :)

Lizard walked ungracefully into the café front room carrying a carafe of coffee, “Hey, my back legs get tired of holding up all my weight all day in here. But will ya look at these thigh muscles! The chicks are going to really like me.”

“You’re just lazy, Lizard. I see your brothers and sisters running around on their hind legs all the time,” Burro chimed in and quickly changed the subject. “So, I heard one of Juanita’s javelina babies got run over last night by one of those big metal things you humans hide in all the time. She and her family tried to cross River Road again in pitch dark. I keep telling her not to do that.”

Coyote briefly looked up from his bowl on the table and muttered, “Yup. Victoria and Hector were cleaning it up early this morning when I trotted by.”

She shook her head while pouring herself another cup of hot coffee. “What?” asked Lizard looking at She. 

“I’m still trying to get used to a pair of vultures named ‘Victoria’ and ‘Hector’.” 

Coyote put his front paws on the table, uttering a sound that could have been mistaken for a sarcastic laugh. “We only use names for you Humans. We really don’t have names; we have smells.” Lizard and Burro nodded. 

“You mean, each one of you has your own smell? And you name each other by smell?”

Burro chimed in with a bray, “I smell good!”

“No, you don’t, Burro. You stink!” Coyote uttered that sound again, more like a snicker, and proceeded to explain. “We don’t name smells. We just…..smell. And our smells change.”

Lizard nodded, swirling his long blue tail in between his front foot pads. “That’s right. We all smell, and you all smell. Your smell changes, too. I can tell when you are mad by smelling you."

“Right. You Humans stink, too. Now would you please fill my bowl? I’d like more cream this time.” Coyote pushed his bowl towards She.

“Only if you don’t splatter it all over the table while slurping it.” She picked up the brightly colored bowl with 'Coyote’s' painted on it in brown and filled it part way with water, adding a dash of cream.

- Excerpt from Green Lizard Cafe. Episode 1. Morning Cafe Chat.

Written by Myself. Her. She. It. Human. Call me whatever you like. :)