SuperMoon

We went to the beach to watch the moonrise, arriving as the sun was setting in the west. The parking area that faces east was as full as it would be on a summer day; some people sitting in their warm cars, leaning forward and scanning the horizon. Photographers had staked claim to each bench along the sidewalk that runs the length of the beach, their cameras sporting long lenses mounted on tripods. People were sitting on the sand and on the seawall, leaning against trees, standing by the water's edge or on the rocky shoreline.

All of us looked east.

We walked out on the wooden pier. After the sun had fully set the wind dropped for just a moment, then picked up again. We shivered and wondered to one another where the moon might rise. "Is the sky brighter over there, behind that island?"

Then there it was. A sliver of orange shivered at the top of a cloud bank. The sliver became a crescent, became an arc, became the full full moon. It seemed to pause, as if it knew we had been waiting, as if it knew we were watching.

There was a clatter of shutters opening and closing, opening and closing; a few flashes. And: "Oh!" And: "Woooooooooowwwww!" And: "Beautiful."

Mostly, though, we were silent as we remembered, again, that this wonder was part of us and we were part of it.

The Thing I Always Think About on St. Patrick's Day

March 18, 1972

I’m getting married. My father and I are standing in the entry way of the church, me in my white dress, the tucking of the bodice straining over my breasts that are already swelling, an absurd crown of flowers fading on my head.

This isn’t how I wanted to look when I got married, something I hadn’t even realized until that moment less than ago an hour when I stood looking at my reflection in my mother’s bureau mirror. Had I always imagined myself wasp-waisted in satin? How did I not know that about myself? But here I am, holding a bouquet of roses, my arm hooked through my father’s, and I am carefully not looking down the length of the aisle toward Mike because everyone will see, certainly, that I do not really love him.

Instead I look at the faces turned toward us, my dad in one of his everyday suits, me in this dress I cannot stand. Felicia and Lisa, seated on the aisle in the pew closest to us, wave and smile and wave again. Mike’s parents and sisters are down in the front, craning their necks for a better look; his grandmothers’ stare toward the altar, resolutely showing the backs of their heads. My brothers are on the other side of the aisle, and I can tell they are joking with each other. The rest of the pews are full of people I know and care about in varying degrees, people I’ve invited because it’s a party, right? Just a party.

My father’s arm flexes, pulling me off-balance, and suddenly I am closer to him than I’ve been in years, the fit of our bodies so natural and perfect that I remember suddenly the simple truth that I am made from him. I remember that I love him completely, in spite of everything.
“We don’t have to do this,” he says. “We can figure something out.”

Yes, I think. Yes, please, Daddy.

I can’t imagine, though, what else can be done. I have decided. The only way I can save myself is this way—marry this boy, have this baby, escape my mother’s madness. But yes, my heart says. Yes, my body tells me. Yes, yes, yes please let’s leave right now and go somewhere safe to figure out something else. Please save me.

But here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people. And he has offered this too late. I shake my head, pull away from his strange and familiar comfort. “I’m doing this,” I say. And he nods, the music begins and we step into the aisle.

If there were one moment in time I could summon back, it would be this moment when my father remembered—too late—that he had the power to save me.

"Essay"

I am working on an essay based on a section of the memoir. There is certainly so much work to do on the memoir itself, yet I feel compelled to rework this piece, to approach the subject matter in this section from another direction, to see the story through a different lens.

There's an argument to be made that I'm simply avoiding the hard work of revision, but I think there's something more going on. One of my students complained about how hard it is to write an essay—"How am I supposed to develop a thesis when I don't even know what I think about this yet?"

"Who said you had to write the thesis first? Why not think of the writing as the process that will help you figure out what you think?"

She asked if that's how I do it. In the case of this essay, it turns out that's exactly how I do it.

Packing for Travel

I had breakfast with a friend the other day; he's someone who has been a great supporter, a mentor, and something of a nudge (in the very best sense of the word). We were talking about how teaching takes such a commitment of time and energy and, because I'm an adjunct at two different schools, a sort of mental flexibility that can be challenging. Then he asked, "Are you writing?"

Not enough. I'm simply not writing enough. But I am thinking a lot about the work, which seems appropriate at this stage, when I'm revising the memoir. "Big picture stuff," asking myself the tough questions about whether this scene is necessary, have I gone off track here or does this chapter actually move the story along, did I serve the story well? Just as hard as the initial writing, certainly, yet progress is being made. Large chunks of marble have been turned to dust, revealing the shape hidden inside.

And there this: in one small sliver of my writer's mind, I've started to think about what to write next. So I was happy when, later in the day, I came across this:

There's a story here. I can't wait to find out what it is.

Snow. Again.

Again?

Or is it, more accurately, "Still?"

Just in case I was operating under the illusion that I have some kind of control over..Life, weather patterns, prevailing winds, cold and warm fronts continue to conspire to remind me that the only "control" I actually have is my choice of response.

This is the view through a window in my house.

It's kind of inspiring and, I must admit, beautiful. As fragile and insistent as Life.

Unflappable Normalcy

"When you write non-fiction, you have to at least pretend to be a person of some unflappable normalcy who is making reasonable judgments.” Nicholson Baker

I've been thinking about this quote since it landed in my inbox the other day, via The Writer's Almanac. As yet, I haven't come to any conclusions about it, but what a ripe juicy thing to roll around, to chew on a bit.

There are some assumptions to be made:
• He's probably not referring to writing memoir; rather, the non-fiction in this case is more likely essays or books about specific things, ideas or notable people.
• The "reasonable judgments" in question may be related to facts or statistics or something along those lines.

I keep thinking, though, that the very act of writing memoir does require one to situate oneself at a distance from whatever drives the impulse to write, the...abnormality? unreasonableness? dysfunction? surrounding the period about which one is writing. To be unflappable in looking back seems a minimal requirement, considering some of the events that haunt so many of us, making it necessary to write a memoir in the first place. Isn't there something hopeful about the idea of at least pretending to be "normal" (whatever that is) while involved in such an endeavor?

As I say, no conclusion at yet, but then there's this: the rest of the quote is about writing fiction, about which Mr. Baker says, “Fiction, on the other hand, allows you to be a little more provisional and vulnerable, and truer. You can think over the self-medicational function of rhyme and, on the same day, cut some of your finger off with a breadknife."

Now that sounds familiar.

Graduation

Last night was the graduation ceremony for the inaugural class of Fairfield University's MFA in Creative Writing—-a group of which I am a very proud member. To have witnessed the growth of these writers, to have shared the moments of struggle and of triumph, to have grown and struggled and triumphed in their company is a great privilege.

The ceremony had moments of particular magic—-lining up as a cohort, jittery about the hood ("is it right? is this thing on right?"); entering the chapel full of family, friends, the faculty, fellow writer-students; seeing everyone's proud smiles and hearing their applause; passing before the pew full of our writer-teachers who worked so hard for us; the call and response in Chris Belden's speech ("What are you going to do," he asked. "Keep on writing," we answered).

Then this: Baron Wormser, poet/novelist/essayist/wonder, called us forward and read our words as we walked across the altar to shake hands, receive hugs, get our diploma. Read our words.

One line. Chosen after much consideration--what one line can stand for all the writing we have done over the last two years?

Here's mine:

"The secret I carried closest to my heart, however, was that I still believed that if I could just say the right thing, my mother would remember that she loved me and she would come back."