plot (plot), n., v., plot-ted, plot-ting.

plot (plot), n., v., plot-ted, plot-ting.
n. 1. a secret plan, usu. evil or unlawful.
2. the main story of a literary or dramatic work.
3. a small piece of ground.
-v.t. 4. to plan secretly or conspiratorially.


I think about plot but I don't do any plotting. I look up the definition of plot in my Webster's and copy it into my journal. That doesn't make me feel more like writing about plot.

I light a candle where I can see its low lights flickering across the room and believe calling in the sacred will make me write about plot. It doesn't. I've started the pen's movement on the journal page, but my stomach is plotting a rebellion of sorts. It feels like there is an anvil inside me that is weighted with sadness.

Yuck. I hate this writing. I'm plotting this writing.

The first definition of plot reads--a secret plan, usu. evil or unlawful.

I sit here on my 20-year-old Herculon sofa with my white fluffy mutt by my side. He is as close to me as the fluff on him will allow. Sunny, that's his name, is terrified of thunder and it's thundering. We are best buds at the moment.

I'm plotting an essay that will make the room dance when it's read, that will bring all eyes to attention, that will stop everyone else's plot and make them listen to mine.

There, I've said it.

I need my plot to be specialer, to be crispier, crunchier, flakier, more full-bodied, more endowed, new and improved over what everyone else has plotted.

That's sick. There's no sacred spirit in that. Maybe that's the heavy anvil feeling inside me--guilt for wanting recognition, for writing to want recognition. That’s the first definition of plot in Webster's after all--a secret plan, usu. evil or unlawful.

"Hello, my name is Karen. I plot secretly to write better than anyone else." Oh God, there's no hope for someone like me.

2. The second definition of plot reads--the main story in a literary or dramatic work.

Well, I think often about the plot of my novel, Marjorie's Rules of Order. I think about her main story, about what she is driving toward. I hear, the answer--search of self. Then I hear, "No one is going to read a novel about search of self.”

I think about the plot, the main story of my own life. It's been the same as Marjorie's--search of self. Maybe her plot is a way to help me discover more about my own story, what brought me to writing, what to do with depression, recovered memories of abuse and the disbelief that joins itself to that.

Maybe Marjorie’s plot is a way to allow me to accept my own.

3. The third definition of plot is--a small piece of ground.

As in a burial plot, I wonder. As in, all I want is a wife and kids and little plot of land. As in a small piece of ground to call one's own.

A small piece of ground--kind of an earthy room of one's own.

How much I long for my small piece of ground where I can say--in this square space of ground I am fine--the way I cook is fine, the way I clean is fine, the way I procrastinate is fine, the way I eat is fine, the way I look is fine, the way I write is fine. It's a fine piece of ground I'm standing on. No need for everybody to try to change it or criticize it or take their passive-aggressive anger out on it.

The other day I was telling my husband how my mom had said I used to come home from college in the summer and clean house from top to bottom for her.

My husband looked at my college-age daughter and laughed. "Now, it's hard to believe that ever happened isn't it?"

My own piece of ground where they don't make fun of how I clean or how often. If they had lived in a body worn down by cycles of depression, if they knew how hard it's been to accept that I'm never going to be the normal person I used to be, they wouldn't laugh.

But I'm fine. My plot of ground is fine.

It may not be as Windexed and Pledge-shined as their plot, but mine has smells of incense and wine, candle wax dripping warm down long stems of light. There are books open everywhere. Cushions abound in the deep red shades of Persian rugs. There are pages and pages to be written on my plot of fine ground. Some dust on a blank page never kept me from writing the next word.

4. The fourth definition of plot reads--v.t. (verb transitive), plot as a verb-to plan secretly or conspiratorially.

I plan to escape. I plan to plot freedom, to say, "For one year I'm moving out to see if the self hidden under everyone's objections still exists. To see whether underneath the adult me, the little girl who was always okay, whose eyes always opened huge as chocolate Tootsie Roll lollipops, the little girl who loved grape snow cones cold on her teeth, cool grass against her bare feet, Bazooka bubble gum and princess telephones, can come out to play again."

She is--I am--a verb transitive. I am action. I want to be action--my own action that takes on a direct object--me. Me. The object of me—now there’s a plot for you.

The fifth definition of plot reads-- to mark on a map or chart, as the course of a ship.

If I could plot my own course, writing or otherwise, I would tell everyone to leave me alone,and that I'm fine as I am. It took me 48 years to see it, but fine is looking back and smiling at me in the mirror.

I'd wake each morning to a lighted candle and writing words. I'd write through the early shift of sun across my window. I'd stop for lunch, walk in the afternoon, run errands, read and relax in the evenings. I'd extinguish the flame at night upon rest. I'd anticipate the possibility of the coming of the new day, the lighting of the candle in a way it has never been lit before. I would honor the plot of simplicity threaded into each moment.

kss