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An Encouraging Word

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

From the late John Updike:

[The rookie writer] may feel, as the gray-haired scribes of the day continue to take up space and consume oxugen in the increasingly small room of the print world, that the elderly have the edge, with their established names and already secured honors.  How we did adore and envy them . . . we imagined them aswim in a heavenly refulgence, as joyful and immutable in their exalted condition as angels forever singing.

Now that I am their age — indeed, older than a number of them got to be — I can appreciate the advantages, for a writer, of youth and obscurity.  You are not yet typecast. You can take a distant, cold view of the entire literary scene.  You are full of your material — your family, your friends, your region of the country, your generation — when it is fresh and seems urgently worth communicating to readers. No amount of learned skills can substitute for the feeling of having a lot to say, of bringing news.

He goes on to talk about what it’s like to be an old writer, and about aging in general — he knew whereof he spake, as he died just a few months after this article was published.  The golden years are as fascinating as they are unknown to me, but I can only hope and pray that I can someday write with half the gravity and elegance he seems to command at the drop of a hat.  I suppose, to use a clumsily mixed metaphor, that the grass is always greener on the other side of the generation gap.

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Posted in Literature, Virtues, Writing | No Comments »

The Family Y(ode)r

Friday, July 30th, 2010

I come from a big red barn,

From newlywed dreams of pigs and beef cattle

And maybe a few cats to keep the mice out of the corncrib.

I come from piles of warm, sleepy kittens,

From puffy tails, shaped like Christmas trees,

And insistent mewing than quiets only

When there is something interesting to chase.

I come from Varnes & Hoover Hardware,

From rows of shiny brass lanterns and sparkling Mason jars,

Where the cheerful Amish gentleman behind the counter

Is just as polite to the girl in the T-shirt that reads, in neon green,

“MY FEET HURT FROM KICKING SO MUCH ASS”

As he is to the woman in the pristinely pressed bonnet.

I come from grilled pork in barbeque,

From salads with sugar and mayonnaise

And overstuffed subs sold by the thousand

To pay a boy’s medical bills.

I come from toasted olive-nut sandwiches

At the Olympia Candy Kitchen,

Where patrons shake their heads and say airily,

“You just can’t find this anywhere else.”

I come from wide-open prairie skies,

Blue and hazy all day, inky black all night,

And in between, a glorious palette of golden-tinged pastels

That demands further investigation,

That demands you stop and gaze.

I come from an old, weathered pier, with flaking white paint,

From crawdads and leeches and seaweed

And the delicate balance between the hot skin of the water’s surface

And the cold, murky, uncertain depths below

That vulnerable toes would rather avoid.

I come from prizewinning eggplants and Merino sheep,

From the Big Pig sleeping on a pile of damp hay

And fluffy, trembling rabbits and feisty draft horses

And gowns with perfect, even seams

Made by tiny, deft fingers

Whose skills I can only dream of, three times older.

I come from lazy, roundabout conversations

About kids and baseball games;

From the pause between catching up and resuming a life lived apart,

From counting rail cars at a crossing,

So fully focused on the moment

That weightier matters slip away; instead,

128 (plus two locomotives) is all that ever mattered

in the whole wide world.

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Posted in Life, Writing | 6 Comments »

Pink Girls and Beyond

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

One of the most frustrating things about being a writer is the lack of honest, blunt opinions.  People who love you tell you it’s wonderful.  People who don’t love you sometimes give you a limited compliment; sometimes they invent a platitude (I’ve actually heard that line at the end of Sideways, the one about “a great book” with “no place for it right now.”)  But mostly, they just ignore you.  This is the worst thing they could possibly do, but I’ve come to expect and even accept it.  So when you get a real compliment, you hang onto it.

After my first year of classroom teaching, I wrote a piece for my school’s alumni magazine.  It was a half-rant, half-rhapsody about teenage girls and how wonderful and frustrating they were to teach.  At the time, I wasn’t at all sure I would ever teach again, so it was a sort of swan song, just in case.  A little like my friend Chris’ (sadly, his piece has now been archived and costs money to view, but you can take my word for it that it was compelling and true-to-life.)

That summer, I asked my dear friend Terry for some advice.  I wanted to write more, but I was lost about how to do it.  Getting into the business is a lot like getting into acting or fine art: you have to know someone, or preferably, know a lot of people.  What should I do?  I wondered.

Terry is nothing if not direct.  “I think you should write more about the Pink Girls.”

At first I didn’t know what he meant.  Then he started suggesting reading material: Reviving Ophelia, A Return to Modesty, I am Charlotte Simmons, unhooked.  I read them all, but I had more questions than answers.  Mainly: What on earth was going on in the minds and hearts of these women, who were barely younger than me but appeared unable to take part in a healthy, normal relationship of any sort?

Of the four, I think unhooked resonated most clearly with me.  I could sense the author’s concern, shock and bewilderment in every page, all emotions with which I could sympathize.  I wrote the author, Laura Sessions Stepp, and wound up in an extended e-mail and phone conversation that continued sporadically over a few years’ time.

It’s been simmering for several years now, boiling over every now and again when I hear another story of serial hookup followed by serious heartbreak.  So when I had the opportunity to write about an issue of social justice for my current class, Child & Adolescent Development, I jumped.  The paper is much too long to post here, but I’ll give you a teaser in preparation for the next few posts, which will contain controversy-laden excerpts (having done my research, I’m prepared to be attacked, as has everyone who’s written about this from a point of view I admire:)

It’s no secret that teenagers tend to be emotional, volatile and insecure, or that they take evident pleasure in flouting the rules set for them by parents, teachers and other authority figures.  The last decade, however, has revealed a disturbing trend among adolescents that persists well into young adulthood: the replacement of healthy short- and long-term relationships with episodes of unplanned, emotionally-detached physical contact called “hookups.”

Sex is easier than ever for teenagers; we live in one of the most permissive societies in history, in which sexual innuendo permeates even the children’s entertainment market.  As a result, teenage pregnancies are on the rise for the first time in over a decade. I believe this is because our sex-education programs (some of which begin in elementary school) are falling short in a crucial area: emotions and relationships.  We are failing our young women by denying them models of healthy relationships, experiences they can learn from and build on, and forums where they can define for themselves what they want out of a partnership.  In denying them the tools they need to negotiate in relationships, we as a society have essentially set them up for continual failure, and only through a focused effort to reverse these conditions can we hope to change the pattern for future generations.

How bad is it, really?  You have no idea.  Stay tuned.

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Posted in Current Events, Media, Vices, Why I'm here, Writing | Comments Off

Ten Pens

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Remember that lame thing everyone was doing on Facebook awhile back?  It was called “Twenty Things” or “Forty Things” or “A Whole Bunch of Unrelated Self-Centered Thoughts” or something like that.  Somehow it became undeservingly and wildly popular in a short amount of time.  (Which, normally, never happens on the Internet.)

Well.  I hereby present Ten Pens.  It’s way more fun, and just as free.

Take ten pens from around your house.  They must be free promotional pens.  If you’re short a few, I’ll lend you some: I rounded up 58 just by looking in the study.  They’re all going to school, in case anyone there wants to play (and because, seriously, they seem to multiply exponentially every 13 days or so.  I’m worried about the load-bearing capacity of my desk.)

Now, try to imagine how they might have entered your house.  Word limits are lame, but keep it short or your audience might fall asleep.  (All three of them.) Here are mine:

  1. Mini Cooper: Let’s Motor. This is one of those cool moving pens; when you tilt it, the little red car sliiiiiiides back and forth from the Hollywood sign to the Statue of Liberty.  And it was completely free!  All we had to do was buy a car.
  2. Revlimid capsules. Please see accompanying full prescribing information, including Boxed WARNINGS. I guess these prescription drug giveways must work, or no one would continue doing them.  I just have one question: “Boxed warnings”?  They don’t sound too bad.  Better than the free-roaming warnings that catch you by surprise, anyway.
  3. My school. Awwww. Actually, to be fair about 12 of the 58 were from my school.
  4. My school’s archrival school. What th–?!  I did tutor a couple of students from there, but I think I would have noticed this pen before now.  At the very least, I would think my school’s pens would be ostracizing it, but noooo, they’re playing nice and being friends.
  5. Best Wishes in the year 2003, Enslin & Son, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. My father’s family’s butcher shop.  We last visited there for my grandmother’s funeral.  It was a sad time, but wonderful to see them all, and I loved the tour of the slaughterhouse and my dad’s accompanying anecdotes from the summer he worked there as a teenager.  We also got married in 2003, so I think their best wishes might have helped a little.
  6. Mark & Anna’s Wedding: The Highlight of 2009. Most original wedding favor ever, from a very original couple!
  7. Sauza Tequila. Once again, what th–?!  We don’t own a bottle, and I’ve never even heard of that brand.  Tequila is not my scene.
  8. Microsoft. Steve, this means nothing to us!  We swear!  We don’t know how it got here or where it came from!  We’re burning it right this very instant and burying the ashes in the back yard under the Apple tree!  Isn’t that poetic justice?  Steve?  STEVE!  DON’T YOU WALK AWAY!
  9. Kone Elevators & Escalators. Courtesy of my husband, who goes to trade shows and can’t turn down a freebie to save his life.  Really, if he had to choose between certain death and a duffel bag of stuffed animals with building product manufacturers’ logos imprinted on their bums, I might have to raise Maia by myself.
  10. My high school alma mater. This isn’t technically a pen, it’s a letter opener — but it counts solely because of the number of times I’ve reached for it intending to pick up a pen.  A clever ruse, but I’m wise to it now.  Away, fiend!  Into the bag with the others!

Okay.  Your turn.  Comment here with a link to your Ten Pens post!  If it doesn’t go viral within a week, I’ll be personally offended.

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Posted in Life, Writing | 6 Comments »

Sweep and Sweep and Sweep

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

My mother had an LP of Hansel and Gretel when she was little.  The expositiondescribed Gretel’s evil stepmother in lilting polysyndeton: “She made Gretel sweep and clean and cook and sew.”  However, this being the Dark Ages, recorded media was imperfect, and the record had a scratch, so the previous sentence became, “She made Gretel sweep and sweep and sweep and sweep . . . ” and continued in this way the needle was bumped.

I was reminded of poor Gretel yesterday through a series of events.  My personal goal this Lent is to keep my house reasonably in order, such that I would not be embarrassed if someone stopped by unexpectedly. The thing is, cleaning is humbling — maybe the most humbling job there is.  As a liberated citizen of the twenty-first century, it’s hard for me to accept that my husband is the main breadwinner, that he works hard to support us, and that my most natural and  grateful response should be to work just as hard at my jobs: teaching, writing, and keeping our home so that it’s a peaceful and lovely place to live.

The goal is to tidy one room per day, and yesterday I surveyed the kitchen.  It wasn’t too bad: a few dishes to wash, recycling and compost to be taken outside, some old food to throw away.  And the floor.

Several years ago I put my foot down, literally and metaphorically, and decried the use of white sheet vinyl in kitchens.  There is just no way to keep it clean, I explained.  Rob kindly relented and we stuck down vinyl tiles over it, in a much more forgiving pattern of mottled “stone.”  Now almost nothing shows up, and the temptation is to pretend it’s as clean as it looks.  But if you’re wearing socks and they’re dirty at the end of the day, or if sandals and you feel crunching underfoot, you know the truth.

Out came the broom.  Sweep and sweep and sweep.  A nice, satisfying pile of dust and dirt.  Lunch was almost ready; the sweet potatoes were starting to squeal in the oven.  I decided to get a head start on breakfast by soaking my Irish oatmeal.  Quickly, open the freezer, grab the can by the top and –

If you haven’t done this, been deceived by a cute canister with an ill-fitting lid, then you really have no idea of the quality of steel-cut oats when dropped on a clean vinyl tile floor in 2-cup portions.  They’re a little like tiny ball bearings, making a most pleasing bouncy sound as they fall, roll and scatter to all corners of your previously-clean kitchen.  I actually laughed.  Then I thought, “Well, at least the floor is clean.  I learned a lesson here!”  The broom, again: sweep and sweep and sweep.  A nice, neat pile of oats.  But as I turned to drop them back into the can, I looked more closely.  There was some dirt — well, to be honest, quite a bit of dirt — in the pan with them.  I actually thought of rinsing them, but decided that was too much even for a cheapskate.  Into the garbage.

Now I reopened the freezer door to survey the damage: a rolling landscape of mounded oats all over the bottom shelf of the freezer, nearly burying the door of the closed refrigerator.  I touched the mountain — just touched it — and a cascade of oats rained down onto the floor again, tappity-tappity-tap.  After a few more similar showers, I gave up trying to keep the floor clean and scooped them out of the freezer, putting handfuls back into the can and consigning the extras to the floor.  In the end I needed to use a sponge, in the process wiping up several spills I hadn’t noticed previously.  How do things get this dirty?

Finally, I opened the fridge, and a line of oats neatly hidden in the folds of the rubber seal tumbled into the egg tray, the shelves and the crisper drawers.  (Yes, they somehow made it into the drawers.)  Again, out came the sponge, and again, I was most displeased to find that the refrigerator was not nearly as clean as I’d imagined.  Ugh.

I crunched over to the oven and turned off the potatoes.  One more time with the broom, this time all over the floor — those oats were awfully determined to get away.  Sweep and sweep and sweep.  Again, a pile of oats and dirt; I gave up wondering where it had come from and was just grateful it was going into the trash now.

Lunch was wonderful, maybe all the more so for the wait until the oats (now transferred to a Ziploc bag) were safely back in the freezer.  And an hour later, in walked my students, tracking mud and dirt in a trail from the door to the piano bench and back again.  I swept (and swept and swept) it up.  A thankless, never-ending task if ever there were one.  A task to keep you humble.

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