The Peter Pan Generation

"I shall title this journal, How Wendy Redbird Dancing Survived the Dark Ages of Nought."

-- Wendy Redbird Dancing

Ever read someone else's words and get chills that this stranger's on your very same wavelength?

Yesterday at Forbes, author Jason Oberholtzer shared his mind with "In Defense of My Generation." Though I couldn't have written such an essay, I do feel as if I've written such a book.

Image found at Scottish Book Trust


Wendy Redbird Dancing (protagonist of my novel) would agree with him that this time we're living in needs some name, so might as well pick one. He points out that the 21st century is "the unnamed decade." He lists common titles--"The Two-Thousands, The Ohs, The Naughties, Noughties, Aughties, Oughties, or The Aughts."

Wendy votes for "Noughts" in an age where she finds communications ephemeral, people undependable, and dark forecasts everywhere she turns. She would say a big amen to his assertion that "We grew up with loose ends, loose labels and high expectations"--and then promptly introduce you to her mother, Sunny, who deems everything negotiable.

Wendy who loves the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, as her lord, savior, and saint, would agree with Oberholtzer that she is indeed part of a lost generation. He calls it a "Peter Pan generation" mired in questions and fears, suspicious of all things institutional and people over 30. In an age of reality TV, TMZ exposes, 24-7 news flashes of scandal as leaders fall like Lucifers, Wendy can't help but see like Oberholtzer that "every institution we have been taught to hold in esteem has, in the last decade, given us ample reason to question their (sic) integrity."

Wendy has Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, George Bush, the Catholic Church scandal, WMDs, Enron, and Halliburton, Wall Street, and the housing crisis in her news feed. All are reason to wonder who can she trust. And that's just on her TV. The people closest to her have shown that material goods and fleeting feelings are the best things to cling to in a crisis--and we all know how that approach works out. At the start of the novel, Wendy realizes she can no longer cover for those responsible for her and needs to find a new path with true integrity.

Oberholtzer has at least six years on Wendy, but his spirit and analysis reflect her sober assessments. Here are a few of his thoughts that Wendy "plays out" for the reader, through direct experience and feelings:

--"Osama Bin Laden has actively defined my generation...The event that welcomed us to the adult world taught us that evil is real, justice is complicated and institutions are fallible."
--"So let’s please do away with the following seductive assertions: we have no regard for sacred institutions or hard work and we prefer our mother’s basement..."
--"We do not shirk responsibility. Our coming of age involved a massive reassessment of the meaning of responsibility. Individualism is often a characteristic of one who has reason to believe he or she is alone responsible for the future, when traditional models have failed."
--"We don’t want pity."

Wendy's coming-of-age tale forces her to confront some terrible truths. There's the internal pain from a past trauma she must face, but there's the external anguish from one person closest to her she must confront and overcome. She finds her target, takes aim, and moves forward with her destiny.

As minds shimmer with the same thoughts across cyberspace, radiating kindred feelings, Wendy whispers in my ear. She says that if this is so--people who are strangers can think so alike--then she does, strangely enough, have hope for humanity in this lost and limbo Age of Nought.

What Sayest Thou, Cicadas?

Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, Act V, scene v, Macbeth.

Image found at Reuters, "Hear That Buzzing?"

If you're a North Carolina resident, you're making peace with the alien, neurotic, machine-like whirring of 13-year cicadas recently descended in our midst. You may still cock your head as you exit the door--"What the heck is that?" Then your foot crunches on husks left behind, the shells of nymphs just exiting the ground. You see something sluggish and damp crawling through new grass and old leaves--a grasshopper gone worm?--and realize it's a cicada drying its wings before it flies. You lean closer to peer at the red-eyed critter that's been growing 13 years underground, one of billions emerging here in the South.

Then if you're like me, you think, "Wow, all this sound and fury for what, a couple weeks above ground? You got a raw deal, critters."

What was I doing back in 1998 when these brief little things were born? Besides entering my eighth year of teaching, I was cradling a four year-old novel close--not doing much with it, but still damn proud of the desire that birthed it. Little did I know my life passions of teaching and writing lessons would shelve my fiction till the summer of 2003. The North Carolina Writers' Network Elizabeth Daniels Squire residency with Doris Betts helped me grow new shoots and seek sunlight in hungry ways I hadn't felt in years.

Little did I know the novel would once again go underground in 2009 when ST. MICHAEL, PRAY FOR US, AKA HOW WENDY REDBIRD DANCING SURVIVED THE DARK AGES OF NOUGHT was born--hot and fast, furious like these cicadas. The 1994 novel--once called BUT YES--would re-emerge this year as the prequel to my current one: OUR WHITE LADY OF THE GENTLE SINS. Not so dead after all.

Some might call all these years since '94 wasted time. Dormancy is deadness, certain folk might say. Only it hasn't been a period of dormancy for my writing. Like the cicadas, my work was actively growing. Nancy Hinkle, a University of Georgia professor of entomology, shares how "The little nymphs are down in the ground, they've got their mouth parts attached to tree roots and they're sucking the juice out of tree roots." Apt image for us writers who seek out mentors, writers' groups, books, conferences, and now, agents.

I envy the cicadas in some ways: they grow uninterrupted, the equivalent of an ivory tower gone bunker, and then emerge for one big mating party. They get 'er done fast and furious. They leave a legacy in the soil. That has to signify something.

The 1994 novel has had a 17-year cycle, looks like. Not a periodical cicada, like the 13-year babies, nor an annual locust. The 2009 novel has been alive two years. But who's counting? There's no race here, though cicadas might have us believe their fretful drone says, "Rush!" Maybe they know something we don't about the private life underground. There, where they can't blog, Facebook, tweet, or brag, they do the tough work of sucking and growing, staying attached to the goal, eyes on the prize. And maybe their genetic code knows all along the fleeting nature of prizes such as publicity, fame, and other aspects of above-ground life. They stay focused on keeping the species--their stories--alive.

I get it, cicadas. That's where I'm headed. Back to my stories breeding in the silent, breathless soil.

Writing Prompts

-- What were you doing 13 years ago? 17? Write a scene from one of those times.
-- What did you think you would be doing today that you're not? What did you think that you'd be doing today that you are? What did you fear you would or would not do? What do you rejoice in?
-- What is horrible about waiting? What is magical?
-- Describe a time when you have been left completely alone and liked it. What happened?
-- Describe a time when you were very quiet and experienced peace. What caused that? What was that peace like?
-- What have you spent a lot of time, effort, and sweat doing but have not yet seen the results? How do you feel about the time, effort, and sweat? How do you feel about the lack of results?
-- Predict where you will be 13 years from now, in 2024--physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Write a scene from your future life when you emerge from the next 13 years.
-- Dr. Marcia Mount Shoop shares a blog post called "The Sound of Emerging." How would you describe your sound of emerging?
-- Look at your writing projects and find the one that has needed the most growth. Why? What has that time on task allowed this writing that something shorter and faster did not need? What do you think will soon emerge from this writing?