Learning Chinese electrifies me. When I come across a new phrase or finally figure out how the grammar works or get the phrasing just right...oooh. I nearly jump up and down with joy. Words, literacy, fluency: expressing myself in this new/old language, and getting it, really getting it without needing a dictionary or a translation or an explanation - that just makes me fly.

Every flicker of warmth i see in eyes and smiles of people, every gulp of air that gives a sense of freedom to be me, every moment i face a risk, every word i could utter and write,every beautiful day that turns out bad or good ...electrifies my sense of being on earth and makes it worth the journey here. 

Violation of Human Rights, and basically the mistreatment of people and animals is what electrifies me. I only have a few minutes but had to participate in this contest because I love your writing and because when I moved in May I lost the signed copy of Fruitflesh that I received from you years ago. It was one of my favorite books, one I read often, and one I recommend to people to this day. =) 

What electrifies me? Meeting and connecting with new people, discovering the common bond between myself and someone with whom I would not necessarily have expected to have much in common with.  I find it fascinating how friends and aquaintances will come in and out of my life; I am electrified by these connections and reconnections. Sometimes these meetings with people whose lifepaths intersect mine feels like serendipity or synchronicity, which also excites me whenever it happens.

In addition, being in wild places outdoors gets my inner fire burning. I feel very connected with nature, and am recharged when I am in those places where the impacts of people are absent or minimal, and the pure energy of wilderness can be felt. I get electrified in my work as an outdoor guide when I am helping people to have an "aha" moment connecting with nature, and they are awestruck and reach a new level of understanding of wilderness and their own inner wild essence.

I'm walking my dog in the forest after rain. The scent of moist Eucalyptus leaves and wet soil fills my senses. I feel the atoms of my body merge with the earth, life filling my body with each breath I drink. I smile. I am swimming in an ocean of life, my thirst is quenched.

The first time I heard the great jazz singer Betty Carter perform in some club on the Upper West Side in the raw New York l970's, now that was electric. The place was jammed with pimps, their girls, jazz musicians, fans, tourists.  And young girl me on my barstool, unwittingly stoned on some weed that had been treated with PCP.  I felt mad-crazy, ready to fly off the planet or at least my seat, but I forced myself to watch the lady leopard Carter bring ancient griot right up to the streets of Harlem.  Her sound was lazer, whip, velvet, fading moon, and always stopped on Time.  I was up to my skull on evil Dust but Betty Carter was so righteous, I was able to hang on and be with her.  She was electrifying. 

Life electrifies me. It's to short to take to seriously and to short to live carelessly: There's an expression that says "No one can ruin your day without your permission" & I try to remember that every morning.. Nothing can ruin my day unless I give them permission to do so. I make jokes about the bad things in life that I'm having to deal with right now. I've just had surgery on my elbow to repair nerve damage with only a 50/50 chance of it actually working. My first visit with my surgeon, I asked him when was I going to be able to go back to lifting weights? He stood there and looked at me with what I want to call the Deer in the Headlight look. But this was serious surgery and in order to make it through, I have to laugh at it. I always try to see the lighter side of all situations. It helps to keep Life's Stress under control. So life electrifies me.

A walk in the woods always electrifies me. What surrounds me there is never static. From day to day my senses appreciate the flood of color (pale mint green to verdant emerald) that marks the passage of spring into summer. Rushing streams in spring, tumbling over branches and rocks, become gradually concealed by foliage, only their sound giving away their location. Sumac leaves on gnarly branches turns from green to blood red as autumn chill presses in on the evenings. Birds trill, a parade of seasonal flowers emerge, bloom and fade away in whites and yellows and violets, to be replaced by the next wave, and then another. Hillsides of oaks turn to copper in the setting sun, and the corals and silvers and pinks of the clouds above are framed by living arms of the trees that surround me. Seated, still, on a huge boulder, the sounds of the forest are tantalizing, rustling, mysterious, energizing. I wait, alone in the cocoon of nature, and the ideas tumble forth.

Music. Classical music. When the violins soar, my soul gaily follows. Or oboes, french horns, a lone harp or cymbal whisper and sigh, I am electrified viscerally. When Puccini, with or without words, beckons, I'm there and my heart is dancing.

One rainy, windy evening in Westminster some years ago, we slipped into the open doorway of Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Church solely to escape the raw weather for a moment. Inside a quartet of young string musicians was electrifying a packed house with pieces by Mozart and Haydn. The strains of music floated upward and in perfect acoustical splendor in this ancient church. Pushed up against the back stone wall of the old church, we stood rapt for nearly 3 hours, no longer feeling the cold. So unexpected, and so electrifying.

What scares me is that I may die alone, or worse, continue living alone now that my baby dog has gone. I've been writing quite a bit for two years, starting with screen writing, then fiction short stories, which I find boring myself, then creative non-fiction which is quite a bit better, and making progress with publication of poems, my least liked form of writing, but much easier to finish.  I lost all my loved ones, through the last fiften years, except for my daughters, who live either in Europe or away most of the time.  In my memory writing, I wrote stories of sadness, and then switched to stories of my conquests, my heights, which were many at one time.  Actually, the listeners liked my weird stories the best, not the fun ones.  I start reliving the tortures of the past when I write about them, and soon stop.  I think I may try for magazine articles, as many people ask my advice as I'm definitely "been there, done that!"  Ask me about military, moving, rape, divorce, lawyers, tennis, golf, swimming, adoration, shame, mental wards, betrayal, convents, prostitutes, hotel business, millionaires, cheats, liars, religion (most any of them).  I know, I must be the "Shadow."    

What always excites me in life and in writing is coincidence and connection. I love the random way people seem to bump into one another only to find a primal connection to a "kindred spirit" that is serendipitous, highly charged and b'schairt (Yiddush for MEANT TO BE). These crucial relationships (these "bumps" along the road from Fate) occur all the time, and all around us, even within our own families, as our life's focus shifts and spirals outward, or inward.  I say WOW!

Its funny because I had an epiphany about this last week. I have been writing a fun story (that is now resting) but it wasn't getting driven by passion. I have a mobility impairment; while a memoir isn't in the cards I started writing a story with twin sisters one has a disability. It is central to the plot. I was always afraid to do this before. But it's part of my truth and electrifying!

Freedom. The fact that we all seem to work our whole lives hoping one day to be free, to be unencumbered, no debts, no obligations, no ties that we don't choose ourselves -- nothing that threatens to un-electrify us. And yet when we taste that freedom, when we're truly faced with defining our own destinies, it tends to terrify the bejeezus out of us, and we search desperately (usually subconsciously) for another safe box to place ourselves in.

Also, ballet. My god, the live symphonic music, the grace, the smile of an artist who know she or he has hit an unexpected moment of perfection... and the fun of taking ballet lessons myself, seeing my pointed toes in their canvas slippers as a vessel of grace and part of an ancient tradition and universal language that means the same in Paris as it does in Moscow... Rank beginner that I am, I love it.

And writing itself, using words to process life rather than letting all my thoughts, impressions, and impulses rattle around in a chaotic jumble that never bothers to work itself out... It means the world to me. I hope my next book will be about freedom. I just wish someone would pay me a very modest salary for the four years I worked on my previous book so I could do it without worry about a "real" job. :) Clearing about $10,000 for four years of work puts one well below the poverty line. Sigh.

I think what electrifies someone when they first start a project is very different from what needs to electrify them in the middle of it. I'll start with my electric triggers -- the forest, my father, intriguing issues like hoarding or cutting or sex addiction -- but then, when I'm in the middle of the project, it's those tiny truths that come out of character motivation and interaction that become electrifying and keep the project moving. When I realize a character must do something because it is in their nature, or I write down what explodes from their mouth even before I realize the full impact of their statement. Those moments are electrifying.

Change electrifies and terrifies me! I strive to keep up, stay current, keep thinking, wondering, wandering, and searching for meaning in my life.  I student taught in a foreign land; I moved South from the North when there were no jobs; I created programs and worked tirelessly to change schools for the better; I raised three children and as I kissed one goodbye  to go work at Berkely, I checked another in to a court ordered rehab center.  Now, at fifty six years of age, I have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which explains the strange pains I feel in my joints each day.  I keep reading, I keep writing, I keep my eyes wide open as the world turns!  Change terrifies and electrifies me and in my new job, I plan to convey some of the sparks that make life such a wonderful thing. For me, the changes have been so dramatic...  I am thankful for the changes and I wouldn't want life any other way and I plan to continue to write about it!

Stories grounded in reality, because reality is pretty darn terrifying!

My six-year-old granddaughter. My son is currently ill and unable to work so he is temporarily living with me. He and his ex-wife share custody of their daughter so she spends every Saturday afternoon and night and all day Sunday with us. Even on those rare occasions when I might think how nice it would be to spend a weekend alone, my mind is immediately changed after being on the receiving end of her glowing smile. As soon as I see my own personal ray of sunshine, all my problems or concerns disappear. She consumes my heart and allows me to view the world through a window of pure, unbiased amazement. Every Sunday evening, even though I may be tired, I know I have been blessed and energized by her presence and love. 

I have many hobbies, and I have often said that I subscribe to the "Jeet Kun Do" school of life.  Everything relates, everything you love, everything  you do interrelate, like the Samurai who studied calligraphy and the sword.  I have had days were I do not have an ounce of patience for my fellow man, but I can spend an hour tuning a harp in a store, just to see how it sounds.  But what really electrifies me: fencing.  It is both meditation and therapy, challenge and celebration.  And I can think of nothing more joyous than crossing blades with old friends.

What electrifies me to write when I write is emotional pain. I have so much of it that only putting it down on paper will most times stop me from self-harming. I am what you would say left alone a lot. By family members,my own children, friends that I think are friends but always find out that they really aren't.  The poetry I write is dark. There is nothing about me that is colorful, bright or cheery. I'm a adult survivor of child abuse, sexual, physical,emotional and verbal. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and life has humbled me instead of making be feel bitter. I will be the first one to help anyone if it is within my means or an ear if they need someone to just listen. My pen is my best friend.

Observing people when I'm in a crowd. Picking up bits of conversations, cataloging physical traits. It keeps my creative side busy and happy!

Today, the thing that electrifies me is all things medical. I'm working on a project about a small town, family physician who lived, loved, played, practiced, and died in my community. He was both beloved and loathed; he was inspirational and human. He blew it and he saved lives. Now almost daily, I record the stories of people who knew him AND I'm reading everything I can get my hands on about doctors and medicine, the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the crazy. I just finished Home/birth: a Poemic by Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker. Before that I read Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted, and before that The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. In the last week, I've spent hours in hospitals and care homes with elderly relatives and provided child care for my daughter-in-law, who is a midwife, while she attended a birth. Health care and medical practice permeate my days and my nights as stories and situations intermingle in fantastic, insightful collages. Thank you Gayle for naming this experience for electrified describes it well.

Helping people in great need electrifies me, that surge where you are not even trying and everything is flowing like a perfect stream. All parts are coming together naturally because you are not standing in the way of anything at all, fully allowing the universe to give to you what is rightfully there. Positive action, and truth electrifes me. Honesty, drive, learning, meaning a forever student, constantly delving into the next subject matter, exploration fo soul and mind and of others, humanity electrifies me, being in tune with what is going on with the world and understanding it, promoting it, advocating for people, thunderstorms, lightning, rain, Mother Nature, children, reading, poetry, writing, and art electrify me. Anything that is cerebral, real human beings who are simply living they best they possibly can without hurting another electrifies me, the beauty and ugliness of this world electrifies me.

Poetry does this for me! When I write or read these words of poems, it is energizing!

Dreams. I have the most electrifying dreams. I remember them in (sometimes painfully) vivid detail. I have entire adventures in dreams. I imagine realities extreme and complete in dreams. I even have orgasms in dreams. A huge portion of my writing is based on dreams; definitely the best and most vivid of my stories have that origin.

For a time, I stopped being able to remember what I'd dreamed about. It coincided with an extremely stressful time in my life, and that made it all the worse. I used dreams as an escape from reality, and without them, all I had was a looming reality.

Creativity. Authentic creativity.  I am so easily lost in it whether it's my own or someone else's creative -- doesn't matter what genre.