Inadequate

I just finished reading a few entries in Peter Terzian's blog on the Paris Review website, A Week in Culture: Peter Terzian, Writer, and am feeling...well, inadequate. The man is reading "Ulysses," for crying out loud. Not just reading it, he's parsing it; a little bit each morning. And he and his husband read poetry each morning at breakfast. That's after his daily dose of Joyce. Then he reads even more while commuting to his job.

I, on the other hand, am struggling with my self-appointed task of reading something—anything—of quality each day.

Of course, I must remember that I am writing (500 words a day, minimum); teaching (which includes quite a bit of reading); freelancing and dealing with the effects of whiplash. Oh, and then there's all this life to deal with.

Still. Come on. Can't I do just a little more, a little something to improve my mind, deepen my knowledge of classic literature, learn (finally) to appreciate poetry even if I don't fully understand it?

This is a beautiful day and I had a complicated dream that seems full of meaning—my father was in it (though I didn't see him, I knew he was there), Frank Conroy was in it and we had a joyous reunion that was way out of proportion relative to my actual interactions with that great writer/teacher, an old boyfriend or two, an acquaintance of mine who I wish was an actual close friend, and I lived (in this dream) in an odd little place with a front door I had to remove completely.

"Take down the barricade," I think is the meaning of that door. Or perhaps it is that, once I've opened the portal, it will take a large effort to close it again.

But haven't I already opened that door? And why was this dream populated by nothing but men (and me)? 

The View From Here

We'd had a lovely time at the party—met new people, had interesting conversations, laughed, enjoyed. The night had turned cool enough that I shivered, just a little bit, and pulled my shawl close as we walked to the car, commenting on how dark and quiet it was—so unlike our part of the world.

Of course the kid who hit us from behind was drunk, but we didn't know that for certain at the time. All we knew was that the car was damaged, that we'd sustained a shock. And my neck hurt, my back hurt, my fingers were tingling. When the dispatcher asked if we needed an ambulance, I said we did.

There's something odd about having a stranger holding your head stable from behind—faceless, bodiless (except for those hands with their firm grip), yet intimate. There's something odder about being strapped to a body board, head now stabilized by a neck brace and some sort of blocks; odder still, being able to only look straight ahead which means "up," into the faces of firefighters in full regalia.

This is the week when my capacity for remaining positive, for acceptance, for patience has been sorely tested. There's good news, of course. If marks were being given, I'm fairly certain I'd get a "C," at best.

But there's good news, right? We are both still here. No one died or lost a limb or use of a limb. So why do I feel as if some essential thing was lost? Why is looking up so hard now that the neck brace is gone, I'm no longer strapped in, that moment has passed?

Interview

So, I was interviewed on a radio show recently. You can listen to that here: Interview.

Writing

I wish I were always the kind of writer who writes every day. Sometimes I am (though the lie of that statement is contained in that one word "sometimes") and I have to admit that those are the times when I am...happiest? No, most content or most at ease with myself.

Between teaching and freelance and life, there was no writing at all this week. Which is why I am so pleased to have spent the first part of today absorbed in my own work, even though my toes have been cold because I neglected to put on socks (so eager to get to my desk!) and I kept thinking, "There are socks, warm, cozy, in the very next room." But I didn't go get them.

I'm inching toward what I believe is a complete first draft, filling in gaps, realizing that some things I've left out need to be put in. I'm not fooled into thinking this thing is "done"—I know myself well enough to understand it will never be done, really. Yet the idea of having made something whole out of nothing but air and memory and words and (oh yes) tears is satisfying and I can't wait to have done just that.

For now, though, I'm teaching and freelancing and life is happening. And I am trusting that this whole will be done and done soon.

Oh, If Only

There are, on the route I sometimes take driving home from errands or work, fourteen houses for sale. In some cases—quite a few, actually—the realtor signs were planted at the edge of the yards months ago. Three of them were for sale when we were looking to buy seven years ago; they were all priced just out of reach or not chosen for good reason, I can conjure the floor plans, the way the light streamed in a certain window, the one detail that made me think, "Oh, if only..."

That place with the dinky little kitchen has been remodeled and I wonder if there are now granite counters, was the w.c. sacrificed for a better flow, did they simply gut the entire downstairs to create a great room as we would have done had money not been such an object?

Seven years ago houses were, of course, being bought and flipped regularly; the wisdom of the day held that one might as well take the A.R.M. so you could get as much house as possible, then refinance before the balloon expanded. I felt like something of a coward because I couldn't bring myself to do it; if I were going to have a constant home I wanted a constant nut to cover each month, though I wondered at the time when I had become such a wimp. Why not buy the Cape and expand it? Why not consider a tear-down or a house that was too big, too luxe, too much—had I never heard of resale?

But I was looking for a home.

As I drive by—remembering that one had to pass through the bedroom at the top of the stairs to get to the expansive master suite that had been built on the back of that Cape on the dangerous curve, remembering how much I coveted the kitchen that opened on to the family room in the house with the sinking foundation, remembering the stench of mold in that house with the amazing yard (the one that has new windows, new siding, has expanded exponentially to cover the patch of irises a purple so dark it seemed almost black)—I think, "But what about the people? What's happened that they are trying to sell now?"

Divorce—perhaps brought on by the stress of remodeling, bad timing, an affair?

Relocation (I hope with corporate support)?

Are they simply cutting their losses? Or is there something more hopeful going on—someone got promoted, the business took off, that large inheritance softening the blow of loss?

But there's this: seven years is a long time, relatively. A lot of living has happened in those houses. They were homes. And even when it's time to leave, even when there are countless good reasons to go, "home" is hard to let go of.

Touch Them Only Gently

By happenstance, I took myself out to lunch today; the planned meeting at the diner waylaid, me without my cellphone, the timing of communications off. When I realized my friend wasn't coming, I wavered before deciding to order anyway, to sit and listen to snippets of conversations amplified in the specific way of diners that makes it almost impossible to know who is saying what.

"...so she had to, you know, totally disinfect the whole thing and I was, like, eeeewww! But, you know, what else..."

"I can't believe he said that! Can you? Can you believe he said that?"

Then this, from the booth next to mine: "You need to be careful with them because they're very fragile. So you have to touch them only gently, okay?"

It was the older of two brothers, a boy of maybe 6 or 7, at most.

Did I even know the word "fragile" when I was that age? It's a word I rarely use without casting some kind of judgment, usually harsh.

But fragile is exactly the right word for right now. So much time spent opening memory boxes, casting around in hope of finding what's hidden inside. So many of those I love suffering, managing, coping as best they can. So many blue sky September days resonating with what happened on that one particular blue sky September day.

The boys left with their mom and grandmother. I dipped my spoon into a bowl of split pea soup and thought about how good each sip tasted.

Labors

A breeze verging on "chill" is blowing, making music of the leaves and branches. Blue sky, sunshine--is there anything more lovely than these days when summer and autumn align in near-perfect tension?

My neighbors next door are leveling off a strip of their back yard, preparing to put down grass seed; there is also a small boulder that was just one of many they extracted from that patch--while she moves soil around with a shovel, he whacks at the stone with a sledge hammer. The whole yard is being tamed to within an inch of its life.

The people across the street are having their usual Sunday brunch gathering--yes, every Sunday. So someone is cooking (or at least putting out food).

The cats have been busy shedding so I ought to be busy vacuuming. And Nature knows there's plenty to do in the garden right now (the next door neighbors have been looking pointedly in the direction of my unkempt flowers and shrubs and rose bushes--the other day there was a not-so-friendly, "Wow! That's really going wild!" aimed my way).

But I'm writing and later I'll be grading papers and at some point dinner will happen. The fruits of my labors will not be immediately obvious to anyone other than me.