Small Cakes

Perhaps it's because I've just come back from the 10-day summer residency for my MFA program—with what feels like a burgeoning summer cold—and the reality of the final semester looms large.

Perhaps it's because the Wondergrandchild is halfway around the world in South Africa, a trip she left on while I was gone, a trip I envy and which thrills me because just imagine that!

Perhaps it's the heat and humidity and the cicadas buzzing.

Perhaps it's that my mother-in-law is in the hospital, admitted for kidney stones and an infection, and is now dealing with sepsis.

Perhaps it is all of that, though I'm willing to consider that the underlying issue for my malaise is that I'm working on completing a first draft of The Memoir and I realize how much there is yet to do. No matter the reason, there is this: I am edgy, on edge, feeling as if my center is not quite holding.

But there is also this: Mr. Handsome Man has taken position on the section of desk I've designated "the editing room." He's sprawled out, appearing deep in sleep until I begin marking up the pages at which point he maneuvers his upper body onto the paper, wanting only to be as close as he can. His closeness is designed to keep me seated, available, working.

He needs me to stay with him as much as I need to stay with the work. But there are cicadas and there is the summer heat and there is the idea of one I love so dearly being so far away and there is the fact that one I love in a different way is in pain and there is the fear that I am not quite up to the task at hand.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that I keep thinking that operating a cupcake truck would be an easier way to live?

Articles of Faith

I've just returned from the 10-day summer residency for my MFA program—an experience that is always exhilarating and exhausting in almost equal parts. Just imagine the energy of over 100 writers—whose work is done in isolation—contained on a small island where every meal is shared, every morning is spent examining and discussing and defending our work, every afternoon is devoted to seminars on some element of our craft, every night is given over to socializing. It's a wonder that cinderblock dormitory is still standing on the 11th day.

One thing is certain: few of us leave that island without having shifted in some way. Another thing is certain: when many are gathered for a condensed period of time to grapple with the bare difficulties of writing, it is inevitable that conflict will erupt, feelings will get hurt, tempers will flare.

The centerpiece of every evening on that island are the readings by our faculty. They are held in the largest space on the island, the chapel with its crucifix, its religious icons—the Stations of the Cross, carvings of saints, some I cannot name because I'm not Catholic—its hard wooden pews designed to make one confront the bare difficulties of faith. Because I am not Catholic, because the closest thing I have to a religion is the craft of writing, I spend some certain part of each reading considering my faith—the quality of it, the mysteries of it, the challenges, the rewards.

Four times I have been to the island and four times I have been changed. Four times I have received some blessing that informs my writing and transforms me as a writer.

This time is was this: "Achieve Excellence Daily. Create."

Thus spake Da Chen—who I am proud to claim as my mentor and friend. It was one line from his seminar on memoir...could it be just two days ago? Yes, two days ago.

Achieve Excellence Daily. Create.

And so, to work.

"So What?"

I had dinner with some friends the other night—writers, all—and one of them admitted that the thing that is scariest about writing is the idea that the response will be, "So what?"

Yeah.

Perhaps the safer thing to do is make desserts.

Weather

The air today drapes over everything, impossible to ignore. There are some interesting things going on in the sky, things that command my attention when I really ought to be writing.

When I went out to the back deck for a smoke* the clear blue was giving way to clouds; pristine, wispy, the kind of clouds children lay on their backs in the grass to study and name. I gave in to the curve of the chair, let my head rest—for a change—on the long swoop of seat back, and stared at the passing white. “What do you see?”

It took me a while to let my mind shape those clouds into images; it was stunning to realize how hard it is for me to allow myself that kind of play. But then, suddenly, I could see them: a woman dancing, the joy of movement and twirl; an old man relaxing in a bathtub, mouth agape, feet bobbing on the bubbled surface; a horse galloping, front hooves raised, a rider hanging on, hair streaming just like the horse’s mane.

The white clouds gave way to darker, denser gray overcast; a thunderhead formed.
For the past hour or so a thunderstorm has been lumbering through the neighborhood, asserting itself once in a while with a sort of absent-minded rumble. “I’m here,” the rumble seems to say. “I could wreak havoc if I felt like it.”

The cats are taking refuge in sleep—Mr. Handsome Man is stretched out along my laptop. How can that be more comfortable? The heat coming off the casing is making my palms sweat. But he also has his paws wrapped around my left forearm; I can’t move without disturbing him. “I’m here,” his paws seem to say. “Are you here, too?”


* I don’t need any lectures about this. Honestly. I’m well aware of how awful this is.

Random

I've mentioned, I think, that I sometimes work onsite writing copy about "consumer goods." One of the benefits other than the money, of course, is that there is a certain social aspect of being on site; not that it's a cocktail party, but...one talks, you know?

Another benefit is that the company provides lunch; most of the time we go to the cafeteria, get our food and bring it back to eat at our desks. For a change of pace, a group of us decided to sit together instead. At one point in the conversation, one of my co-workers asked if I'd read Isabel Allende's memoir. I have; in fact, I've read both "Paula" and "The Sum of Our Days," both lovely pieces of work. And how nice, I thought, to talk about books.

Except.

"Now, I understand why Isabel Allende would write a memoir that everyone would read," the coworker said. "But why would someone want to read your memoir?"

I ask myself the same thing every day. In part I'm asking in hopes that the answer will be a clear, "There is no reason, so you don't have to write it. Go do something else, for pity's sake."

As a result, I didn't take offense (and I believe none was intended—it's an honest question, after all). Instead I muttered some catch phrase that I've been practicing in preparation for developing my "elevator pitch."

"Mostly, though, I guess that will be the test of how well I've written it. People will only care if the writing moves them in some way."

Which is the truest thing I had said all day.

Intention

This afternoon as I drove around the curve in the road I glanced toward the gorgeous flowering tree in my neighbor's yard and espied a female Mallard strutting across the lawn. It became clear that she had no intention of stopping at the curb, looking both ways, waiting for a crossing guide or any human intervention.

I was already going slow so I eased to a complete stop to witness this mama lead her seven ducklings across the road at a pace that broadcast a certain urgency. Those babies were running, keeping up, their little webbed feet tearing up the pavement. Through the open window I heard them calling to one another, maintaining some sort of ducky conversation amongst themselves. Their mother appeared to take no notice, head pivoting as she hurried along, keeping an eye out for danger (or opportunity?).

They paraded across the other neighbor's grass, making a beeline for the broad expanse of pachysandra that rings the front of yet another neighbor's house. I drove on, pulled into my driveway and jumped out of the car, sat on my front steps and watched to see what happened next.

The mother slowed once she had her babies safely under cover, though she kept moving. She maneuvered along the foundation and, a few feet short of the front stoop, emerged through the greenery which was, subtly yet distinctly, quivering with the movement of those seven little feathered bodies. She paused at the edge of the pachysandra, gave one short, decisive "quack" and, one by one, the babies tumbled out, gave themselves a little shake and off they went again, into the small wooded patch in that final neighbor's backyard.

And I sat in the sun for a few minutes longer, wondering how long it had been since I'd taken the time to simply watch ducks.

At This Point

I'm back to working on the memoir and realizing once again that I truly have no idea how to pull this off.

How am I going to avoid telling this story without appearing to whine about all that happened, without making myself out to be a victim of circumstance? Because while things happened—awful things, painful things, confusing things—and I was, of course, affected by those things, I was not (am not) a victim. The fact is I made my choices about how to respond to what life presented and I want that to get on the page.

The section I'm writing now is pivotal in that sense so I am slowing down, coaxing memory to reveal myself—the self I was at that point—to me so I can see how the person I was, the child I was really reacted to the events of the time.

How do I do justice to the story? How do I make art out of the stuff of life?


The only thing to do, I suppose, is to keep writing.