Laraine Herring: author's blog

Wounded Writing Warrior

2012-01-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

You'd think with my life of stunning athleticism, grace, Xtreme sports (you should see me on a skateboard) and just plain passion for intense physical activity, (sarcasm alert) that I'd be used to getting hurt. Not so.

I'm in Massachusetts today getting ready to teach The Writing Warrior workshop at Kripalu. I fell a couple of days ago on an easy walk around the neighborhood. It was almost 70 degrees, breezy -- all conditions perfect for me going outside (I have a four-degree comfort range....) We were 2/3 of the way done with our couple mile walk when I tripped on uneven pavement.

I sprained this ankle twice before. The first time was in Italy. I fell down a marble staircase with a suitcase, but I did end up with a dapper cane from an Italian pharmacia. I also spent the rest of the trip shouting "Basta!" and swatting at gypsy children who circled me right away once I was the wounded-walking-weak. The second time was two years ago after a yoga class. I tripped in a pothole in the parking lot behind the studio. That was before I was going to New York (a particularly fun city to be in with a busted foot) to teach at Omega.

So, as luck would have it, right before I'm scheduled to go teach in Massachusetts, I do it again. This one's the worst so far. I even had to get the sky cab in the airport to cart me around. I have a medical cane this time, some rank-smelling natural sprain relief cream from my acupuncturist, and about 600 ibuprofen.

One wonderful thing about being injured is the room upgrade Kripalu provided so that I could have a safety bar in the shower. It was almost worth getting hurt. Usually I'm put up in one of the monk-cells with a shared hall bath. That's fine (though I do prefer a Hilton), but I could just see myself tripping and slipping in the dark once again in a hall bathroom at 3 am where no one can hear you scream. (I know -you're thinking, but Laraine, you're so graceful. So fluid in your movements. Your very footsteps are a ballet...a waltz with the earth.)

This room has its own bathroom (I'd do the happy dance if I could) and it looks out at this view of the lake and the Berkshires:

Of course, it's winter now, but there's no snow on the ground, believe it or not, and its sunny and warm (relatively speaking).

So I'm now in my room with its very own bathroom with my foot elevated staring at the bruises. I will spare you pictures, but I am finding them fascinating. I hardly get hurt so I don't really know what bruises do. The color scheme is quite amazing. I'm trying to figure out ways to apply this to the workshop, since now I won't be demonstrating many of the yoga poses. I'll do the shaking practice from a chair or leaning against a wall on one foot, but it'll be a different class than I'd originally planned, which will be OK.

Right now, I'm thinking about the Wounded Writer idea. Where does our writing come from, after all, if not from those wounded, haunted places? When your body is injured, it's impossible not to pay attention to the wounded part. You keep, with every step, remembering you have a foot which touches the ground which propels you forward which does its job without your constant direction. When you can only walk at the pace of a walking meditation, you're forced into the moment. If you forget, your foot pain brings you back. Often in writing, I'll see people (and myself) write a story up to the moment where the real issue occurs. We'll write up to the moment of the first stab of pain. Oh my god - I'm writing that. Oh my god - I didn't know I still felt that. And we'll turn away. We'll spin on our healthy feet and run as fast as possible the other way and start a new book or a new story. When the pain is in the body, it's much more difficult to spin away from it. You've just got to look.

I think perhaps it might be easier, rather than running from what scares us in our work, to learn not to be scared of it. More often than not, the writing of the book helps shift that relationship. Maybe we'll talk about that this week.

No matter. I've got no access to wine, meat or felines. I have all-I-can-eat access to quinoa, barley, oats, millet, (basically pick your grain choice) kale, broccoli, spinach, carrots, cauliflower, tofu, nuts, bread, fruit, teas, milk, juice, and, of course, an injured foot. Who knows what stories we'll write from this place?

Happy New Year!

Sabbatical Days Ahead

2011-12-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

The most amazing thing is about to happen. I have graded my last paper, responded to my last discussion board, created my last Excel spreadsheet for eight entire months. Two hundred forty days.

Please pause for a minute and twenty-seven seconds of really happy (OK, projecting!) dancing animals:

This semester has been better than spring semester, where I think part of my problem came from teaching summer school and not getting any break at all from teaching for five semesters. Not this year. Fall semester, aside from the new math, pie chart graphs, and strange Edu-Speak I found myself uttering in meetings with high-level administration, has been much better. I have been busier, but the students have been better, kinder, and more interested in learning.

I have some plans - lots of travel - Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Taos, New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina. I have writing goals. Reading goals. (I'm shooting to read fifty novels. We'll see!) I finished a draft of a novel I've been working on for five years in November, and I plan to finish two more on sabbatical which are currently languishing at the magic 30,000 word stopping place. I am working on a teaching and writing project with my friend Cain Carroll. I am feeling very full - like I've been gathering and gathering and gathering for many years and now can harvest some of that bounty.

OK, pause for one more dance. Monkeys! Irish jigs! Computer-generated animation ...

But here's the real thing: I am at a place in my life where I understand what this means. I understand that this time off, with pay and good health may never come again. I understand that it doesn't ever come for many people, and that I am, frankly, profoundly lucky. I'm not a better person than others. I'm not smarter, more talented, more deserving. I've been dealt a good set of cards and the older I get the more I see the randomness of that deck and the more gratitude I feel for not only the most basic of things (food, shelter, health), but for a life which provides the opportunities for me to do the best I can with the deck I have.

I understand what is important to me and I understand how to best use this time to sow the seeds for the next decade of my writing career. I wouldn't have known this ten years ago. I wouldn't have been far enough along in my study of the craft of writing. I wouldn't have done so much work with my body - with yoga, with food choices, with meditation. There's more - always more to learn, to let go of, to move deeper into. But I know how to use this time so that I don't find myself on August 15 saying, "Oh my, I haven't done anything." This is a winning lottery ticket, and I'm going to spend it on the things that help me do the work I do in this life (write, teach) better.

I'll also probably get a new refrigerator. I expect the hot water heater to go at any minute. But I'm going to dream deeper than I've ever dreamed. I'm going to unpack the metaphoric basement and see what I've gathered and where it's supposed to go. I'm going to learn more about writing than I know now, and I'm going to stretch. I'm also going to have unexpected things happen. I'm going to leave space for wonder, space for surprises, and space for magic.

Thank you, Yavapai College, for this time, for this gift. I'll be back.

But not until August 15.

Basement Cat Writes a Novel

2011-12-05T19:08:00.001-08:00

The things that people want to know about writing are things that writers can't tell them. Not because we don't want to or because we're stingy or mean, but because we can't. Not won't. Can't. The things we can tell you about writing, we do. Here's how to write decent dialogue. Here's why a bundle of adverbs are not your best bet. Here's how story works. This is a driving question. This is how to build tension. These are tools that can make a character come to life. Those things are craft concepts and we teach them all the time. We write books about them. We use their vocabulary in classes and critique groups and we improve people's writing by practicing them. But all the craft practice in the world will not make art. Craft practice enhances art, but it doesn't create it.

I thought I would describe the novel writing process as it seems to work for me. This still isn't going to tell you how to make art, and it is not The Way To Write A Novel, but maybe it'll tell you something.

1 - 18 months:

A novel is coming. I feel it first, like an after taste. Then I hear it -- the sounds of its winds, its waters, the crackle of its fire. I start to see pieces. A leaf, a shutter, a piece of sidewalk. I don't know what any of this means, but I pay attention. A character starts to talk -- usually only one, and I don't know what to do with him or her. But I listen.

I go about my life. I work. I go to yoga. I drink red wine. I buy shoes. While all this is happening, Basement Cat is busy gathering souls for my very own basement in my belly. Basement Cat gathers books, sounds, CDs, plants, ideas, grief, questions, resentments, anger, tenderness, people (living and dead ones), television shows, and knick knacks. I don't know why he's gathering what he's gathering, but I have learned to trust him (and loan him the money to buy what he needs). These things, some literal and some metaphoric, get stored under black Basement Cat sheets. I feel the basement filling up. I literally feel this in my shoulders. I feel my dreams changing. My choice of reading material changes. My handwriting changes. I start researching things I never thought about before. My throat gets more full and more full and more full until finally it can't hold the door to the basement closed. I have to go down there and move things up the stairs.

18 - 24 months:

I don't know what to bring up, so I usually start with the lightest things, the things easiest to identify. Those get me started. I write about them. I listen to them, but they're not real. They're the early drafts. They run out of steam and I have to go back down in the basement and bring up heavier things, dustier things, louder things. Rarely are those the right things either, but I'm getting closer. Sometimes I arrange them in the wrong order in the upstairs. Sometimes I'm closer to right. Usually by this point, which is about draft number four or five, I see the thing that the book is about and it is too dang heavy and too dang old to pull up those stairs. I might get hurt. I might break my ankle. I might not be able to get rid of it once I haul it up the stairs. So I'll mess around with the things I've already pulled up the stairs but I know they're not the right things yet. They're the almost-right thing, and almost-right can be quite seductive.

24 - 36 months:

"Bah! Fine, Basement Cat!" I'll say, after rearranging the wrong things too long. "I will bring it up." Basement Cat is not paying attention to me. He is out gathering for the next book, which explains why more than once characters from a current book turn out to be making an early appearance for a different book. Basement cat is a trickster like that. Sometimes Basement Cat is just gone, and I have no idea where he went or if he'll be back or if I just wrote the last story I'll ever write. I forget that Basement Cat is a member of the Teamsters and has to take mandatory breaks. One day I'll remember this.

By this time, I know what it is. I know what's under the black Basement Cat sheet in the corner of the basement. Sometimes I argue with it. "No, not about that. I'm not writing about that (again, or still, or for the first time)." But it wins. It always wins because my body simply cannot hold it. And when I finally drag that crazy thing up the stairs and pull the sheet off of it, it sings. And I have a book.

I have this book not because I'm special, but because I listen to what Basement Cat is doing, and then I tell his stories. That's what I do. I write things down that I hear, that I notice, and that have been living in my basement-belly. I show up for this frequently, or else Basement Cat will get angry and start giving me stomach aches and back aches. He's vengeful like that, which I can understand because he did do all that work out gathering things for the basement while I was off having a pizza or seeing Phantom of the Opera.

In the LOLcat world, Basement Cat steals souls. Basement Cat never stole my soul. He always had it. From the very first story I wrote in kindergarten, Basement Cat was watching. My novels seem to take me about three years. They swim around in my basement-belly, knocking into things, clearing out the spiders and the rust, until they burst out like a geyser. I've learned this over the last twenty-five years of treating writing seriously. I've learned about the furniture, and the gathering, and Basement Cat's relentless search for things to bring back from the hunt. My job is to cull through those things. Keep. Store. Release. Keep. Store. Release. That's how I write books. I sift through what seems to be garbage until I find the life still beating underneath too many sock monkeys and the books on the Louisiana Bayou, and then I breathe the life I find into sentences. I can't say any more than that. I just don't know.

Long Live Basement Cat!

Warning: Math Ahead

2011-09-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

When I was in tenth grade, I wrote of a feud between the Scalene Triangle Family and the Equilateral Triangle Family. They were arguing over who had the biggest angle. I wrote this not in an English class, but in a Geometry class. I was undone by math. I was never great at it, but once math moved from two apples plus two bananas equals four pieces of fruit, I felt betrayed because I could no longer see what math was doing. This is ironic because I can read a story or a poem and I almost never take things literally, yet in math, I wanted the literal. Once I could no longer touch math with my hands, it disappeared (and don't even get me started on the insanity that are imaginary numbers). Yet I can out-metaphor anyone in writing. It's interesting to be overskilled in the same general idea in one application and woefully underskilled in a different application.

Today, I observed a colleague as part of our Peer Review mentoring program. She was teaching her first developmental English class. This is the class where students end up who are at lower than 8th grade reading level. This is the class where the students have many more problems than just low reading skills. This is the class where the students are terrified of school. They've been called stupid. They've long ago given up on school as a place for growth. Watching my colleague teach this group today, I realized part of why I love teaching at the developmental level. I love language so much, and even though I don't always convince all of them to feel the same way, I want the students to leave the class not hating sentences and books. I want them to feel like freedom is in those paragraphs, not prison. I wish there had been a math class for me with a teacher like that -- someone who loved math so much that she or he couldn't stand the fact that there were people with math anxiety out there, people who didn't see the beauty in the language of integers. And that teacher had the patience and huge heart to sit with all of us who didn't understand until we at least no longer cried. I watched these developmental students stare at the blank computer screen, frozen. Most of them were trying to do what was assigned. I could empathize with this.

I have many new responsibilities this year at work, and one of them seems to involve statistics and spreadsheets and some strange thing called a Pearson coefficient. There are people on campus here who live in the buildings of the Highly Paid who generate this data and distribute it and then require us to analyze it, make predictions, and make action plans based on numbers that I don't know how to read. I've had trouble sleeping this week, waking up in the middle of the night worrying that I'm going to make an arithmetic error (which I always do) that will somehow negate my program. I worry that my inability to make sense of numbers will adversely affect my program. If people believe so much in the data and I make an incorrect data calculation (which I always do) then what? I feel my chest contract, my stomach shut down. I printed out fifteen pages of Excel spreadsheet data on my program -- coefficients, (what really IS that?) graphs, pie charts, areas in red ink that tell me this is BAD data. Areas in green ink that tell me this is GOOD data. It has been sending me back to middle school. I look at it and I freeze. I do not know how to move.

I want to shout, "Look at all these letters from students! Look at how many have gotten into MFA programs! Look at how many have softened their hearts!" But I can't measure that last one, and it's the most important.

I walked across the quad yesterday to the math and science building. It's a scary place, filled with skulls, cadavers, labs full of chemicals, poison symbols on doors, and way way too many graphing calculators. It smells like formaldehyde. Math faculty live on the lower level and science faculty live on the upper level. Alright, I said to myself. I am 43 years old. There are at least seven faculty members who are my friends and who happen to teach math. Alright. I will slay this math demon. So I went to talk to one of them and felt the tears. Good lord, did I mention I'm 43 years old? I am terrified of math. I didn't know how deep the fear ran. I went to the faculty member who teaches developmental math. He and his wife are friends of mine. She owns one of my favorite coffee shops and she also is afraid of math, so I thought he would be safe. He can obviously talk to non-math people.

"Just call me and I'll come to your office and I'll help you build a spreadsheet," he said, as if I just asked him to do the easiest thing on the planet.

"Doesn't that terrify you?"

He laughed. "Piece of cake."

"OK, but is this a big deal? I don't even know how to ask the questions. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Piece of cake."

"What the hell is a Pearson coefficient?"

"What was yours?"

".73."

"That's good."

"But what is it?"

"It doesn't matter."

"But they talk about it a lot."

"They do. Don't worry."

"Really?"

"Call me."

Another student was waiting outside his office, book clutched to her chest. She went into his office, next to the Dr. Spock cardboard cut out and the poster "Math is Power." I have a similar poster about stories, and my cardboard cut out is of Johnny Depp. I slept better last night, though I still haven't figured out how to turn in my report with my synthesized data. I tried to fill in my average class size, which is below the college's required program average class size of 15, yet all my program's classes are capped at 15 because we have to read 50 pages of student writing and, gosh, we just can't use a scantron like some fields which Shall Not Be Named. It's bad that my class size is below 15 (yes, even though the caps are 15, so to get an average class size of 15, we'd have to have no drops, no withdrawals, and no failing grades. Even I can do that math.)

I tried to type in the number of my average class size that the Highly Paid Numbers People gave me of 13.2. The form turned red. NOT A VALID INTEGER, it said. Fine then. You gave me the number. If that's not valid, I'll round up because UP is positive and DOWN is negative. 14 is better than 13. An academic year average of 14, with class capacities of only 15, tell me that we ROCK. Maybe I should finish this on Monday when I'm not yelling at a form.

What does this have to do with teaching writing? I have absolutely no idea. How does this strengthen my program? I have no idea. How does this help me cultivate greater empathy in my students and a deeper respect for their own narratives and those of others? I have no idea. I'll fill out my form. It doesn't matter.

But maybe math could be an ally. One person's change affects all those around her. One person's deepening compassion affects his community. I think that's called geometric progression. I'm probably wrong about that. But I'm not wrong in believing that it matters.

I Remember When

2011-09-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Please watch the video above before reading any farther. :-) Mr. Neil Diamond and the unbelievable Barbra Streisand. Take a breath. Remember the 70s fondly. If it made you cry, that's OK. It makes me cry every time I hear it. This time, it made me cry to watch it because of the relationship I saw on stage between the performers. (I know they were performing, but that's fine.)

Writers. Pay attention. This song is a novel. Each character reveals something about the other character through his and her own lines. Each part in this duet enhances the other, and together, we get the whole story of the relationship. There's more sexual and emotional tension between those two on that stage than in many contemporary novels. Yes, the lyrics are melodramatic and probably wouldn't work in a novel verbatim, but look again at the video. The backstory is standing behind each of them. It's the backstory that is not directly revealed that is propelling the narrative of the song. It's the backstory that makes them three, not two, dimensional characters. And it's the multilayered conflict in each character that draws the emotion out of the reader. The specific details of the relationship ground the listener in that song. We don't hear "It makes me so sad that we're breaking up." We get the list of what we'll miss when the relationship is over, the list of what the relationship taught us, and then we get the image that's the title of the song -- "you don't bring me flowers anymore." This image touches each listener who's been in a relationship that slowly begins to transition apart. The action is a negative (not bringing as opposed to bringing). The line speaks of the absence of everything. This is why the song still holds power.

In my classes' writing I see lots of actual sex. Lots of violence. Lots of intrigue and espionage and snarky banter. Lots of convoluted plots. Medieval settings. Torture chambers. Alternate realities and crazy space robots. My intellect might be excited by it for a minute, but I'll forget it soon enough.

What I don't see enough of, and students, if you're reading, I'm begging you, make me feel something ... let me see actual people (or space robots) actually losing something that matters to both of them. No one wins. No one loses. They both are scarred and changed. You don't have to crush a skull with an anvil to make a reader care. Sneak in underneath the reader's armor with actual emotion and they won't know what hit them.

When I read a book where the characters actually make me feel something, I will remember them forever. The most recent book to do this for me was Boy's Life by Robert R McCammon. It had been a long time since a book got me like they used to when I was the age when Barbra and Neil were singing to one another. And it felt. So. Good. Felt. I didn't think -- wow, what a genius plot. Wow, what a complicated world. What fascinating aerospace details. I felt like a human, not a downloader of information when I finished Boy's Life. I felt real. And after I finished crying when that book was over, I was so grateful to Mr. McCammon for giving it all to the story so that readers could feel something authentic. It's harder to do than to create a sterile world or a space robot. It means you have to risk feeling something to write something that evokes emotion. You have to risk vulnerability and ridicule for standing without your masks. But when you read an author who risks it all, you take that story into your cells. You hold it and make it yours. It lives and lives and lives. If you want to write about space robots, make them feel something. And then take something away from them and watch them struggle. Break their little robot hearts again and again and again.

Writers. Give me that. Readers. Demand that. All the information in the world will never evoke a tear, never open a single heart. When information makes you sad it's because of the story you attach to the data, not the data. Writers. Go under the facts. Under the conventions. Under the structure and find the quivering chrysalis of possibility.

Write from there. And remember to breathe.

Home Improvement Part 3: In Which Laraine Marvels at How Much Fur Cats Make

2011-08-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

It all started with knobs. We were wandering through Cost Plus one afternoon and they had drawers of funky knobs for drawers. I thought - hey! A home improvement project I (read: Keith) can do all by myself (himself). I bought funky knobs and Keith put them on the two bedroom closets that had vintage 1970s handles. Then, the upstairs bedroom screen had to get fixed. The cats had, over the seven years I've been here, been diligently trying to make their way out of the well-furnished and well-stocked Plato's Cave that has been their home. True Value Hardware rescreened it and suddenly the floodgates opened. This is not my house anymore. Since I do live here, the next right thing to do was to make it my house again.

Everyone is gone now. The men with tools that make lots of noise. Their coolers of water and sandwiches. Their paint-stained radio tuned to classic rock. It's just me and the cats and we're trying hard to figure out who we are in this space.

Did you know that when these amazing men with tools come and lay down flooring, they actually vacuum and clean the cement floor underneath? They even shop-vacced in the walls between the baseboards. Even the walls!! Now, the cats make fur tumbleweeds every day. Sometimes they even play with them like balls of yarn. I can pick them up and put them in the garbage (the fur, not the cats) and the floor is clean. The fur to make a thousand cats must have been in that old carpet. When they pulled out the refrigerator to lay the floor, the cardboard it rolled over collected enough fur for six coats. How do they make that much fur? Maybe the purring is actually a machine generating fur.

I've always moved like this. I seem to not be doing much of anything (sometimes for years) and then all of a sudden the earth opens up and I completely step out of everything I used to be and move into something new in a matter of weeks. A big explosion of fire like a volcano eruption after years of simmering under the surface. I've always worked this way. Quiet, quiet, quiet ... Ka-BOW!

I'm turning 43 on Friday. Last night I went for a walk in the dark. The Milky Way painted the sky a haze. Bats darted against the street lights and bullfrogs sang by the Hassayampa Golf Course. I remembered how my dad taught me to ride a bike in the parking lot of Idlewild Elementary School in Charlotte. I had training wheels on the bike and then I had his hands on the frame and then he let go, but I didn't know it because he kept moving beside the bike. I was riding on my own, but I thought I was supported. When he stopped and I rode on my own there was a moment of terror when I thought I'd fall, but I didn't. My father is long dead. My mother lives in Phoenix. But they always run beside me, whether I'm reflooring the house, walking through Vancouver, or writing alone in the library. They gave me a foundation. Real wood. Solid structure. A safe place to sleep. And because of that, I know how to make places like that for myself.

This year I am writing a different sort of fiction. I'm moving into a different place with my art and with my teaching. My house has space. The wind blows from front to back through the new security doors. It will not blow me over. It will not chase me out. I know how to stand solid. I know how to ride, and I know how to breathe.

Creating a life is like creating a novel. At first, the Polaroid image is just an impression. Then, we add details. People. Things. Experiences. And over time, the concrete images emerge. The story of a life. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing in the picture and then when we blink, the entire photo has emerged.

Front garden (we're trying sunflowers!)

New security door on front

Backyard garden

New security door - backyard

front door/living room - oak lamin

living room

living room & giant cat tree

Dining Room (such that it is)

Entry way to hall

Kitchen

kitchen floor

upstairs bathroom (towel is wet, not stained!)

new vinyl for upstairs bathroom

Home Remodeling Part 2: In which Laraine lauds the work of professionals

2011-07-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

More than a few times, when I tell people I'm a writer or a writing teacher, I'll hear "I always wanted to write a book," or "I'm going to take a few weeks off work and write my story," or some semblance of that comment. I usually smile, but I'm gritting my teeth inside. Not because they want to write or tell their stories, but because they don't understand that there's a serious amount of work, craft, skill, and talent involved in writing. Yes, you might can sit down and write 10,000 words in a weekend, but that's not where it ends. That's not even close to the end. I say it every semester: You've got to respect the art. Respect the writing.

This is true with home improvement projects as well. Yes, Home Depot has the same supplies as the professionals. Yes, I can buy them cheaper there. Yes, I can watch a few do-it-yourself videos on YouTube and think that I am certainly capable of doing that. But the wealth of what I don't know because it's not what I do is stunning. This home improvement project had a variety of problems that aren't apparently uncommon, but would have stopped me from finishing, or at least finishing correctly. I will spend years on a manuscript, but not a hands-on project. We've all got our gifts. Acceptance is part of maturity. Ha.

Here's just a few of the things I learned during Professional Home Improvement Week.

1) Holes in the drywall. Professionals can patch walls and have them not look like wadded up tissue paper.

2) Strange wires that go nowhere. Professionals know how to cut them and not electrocute themselves or burn the house down.

3) Floors that are not level and would cause the new laminate flooring to crack. I would not have known that would be a problem, would not have known how to even measure it, and certainly would not have known how to fix it. Professionals mix things in big buckets, pour them onto floors and whistle. They have this big metal thing called a level that they place on the floor to check. Hmm.

4) Water damage to the bathroom ceiling from a roof leak three years ago. See # 1.

5) Masking and edging when painting. It's one thing to paint a wall a solid color. It's another thing to edge it. I lose patience. Good is good enough. I get tired, frustrated, and usually have the wrong kind of paint. Professionals know how to edge. They know what kind of paint to buy. They are not deterred.

6) Drywall that has come away from the stairs leaving gaps in the wall that the carpet won't fill. See #1.

7) Quartz crystals growing in my concrete floor in the kitchen. Did you know that quartz grows? Did you know that if quartz is in cement (it's not supposed to be) it will, over time, grow and crack your floor. Professionals know this, and are not fazed. They dig it out, sand it down, fill it in and finish laying your floor while you watch television. And oh yeah, they whistle.

8) Ladders. Simple. Professionals have the right ladders. And they're not afraid to step on them.

9) Fretsaws. Circle saws. Scary power saws on tables that make sparks when they cut through your floors. Yep. Pros have these. They even have the goggles.

10) Math. OK, I could probably have learned how to do the math at one point, but my math-window has closed. Pros. They can do math. And guess what. When you're calculating gallons of paint and how to cut the laminate so it all gets used and fits in the house, you're using math. And it matters.

11) Wallpaper from many decades ago that has apparently woven itself into the drywall. This delightfully patterned wallpaper was located behind a bathroom mirror we took down so we can put up new vanities when they're done. There may not be an app for this, but there's a chemical for it, and professionals have it.

12) "Hey, Laraine!" shouts the painter. "Come look at this." Never. Ever. What. You. Want. To. Hear. "For some reason, you don't actually have a wall here. Just a few pieces of cardboard." We're looking at the 'wall' where the awful paneling used to be. "You want we should make this a wall?"

Yes, you beautiful beautiful people. I want we should make this a wall.

Professionals.
Priceless.

Home Remodeling Part 1: In which Laraine realizes that foundation trumps accessories

2011-07-19T13:43:00.000-07:00


House-Falling-Apart-Kitteh Dreams of New Colors

Before I moved from Phoenix, I had new ceramic tile and carpet put in my house. I only got to enjoy them a year before I sold the house and moved to Prescott, and while I haven't missed a single thing about Phoenix, I have missed my floors.

I've lived in my townhome here for seven years now, on carpet that I am sure was original (1981), with light tan paneling (ugh) in the living room and neon yellow vinyl in the bathrooms that I have kept covered with decorative accessory rugs because I can't bear its neon-ness. I have lived with non-functioning baseboard heaters, a doorbell that is falling off the wall (again circa 1981), and a thermostat for the non-functioning baseboard heaters that, upon removal, was apparently merely decorative. Perhaps I missed the fad of decorative thermostats. Maybe it was from the same time the tan paneling apparently worked. The baseboards for the paneling, by the way, turned out to be styrofoam coated with tan paper. Yep.

I have spent a lot of time this summer in two of the greatest cities: Vancouver and New York. (San Francisco - I'm coming soon! I promise!) I can't get enough of cities. I love the neon and the trains and the people and the languages and the ability to have octopus at 2 am (not that I've availed myself of that, but I know people who have, and just being somewhere that is possible is enough). I love the dreams of a city. The sky shadowed by buildings. A life as vibrant under the ground as above the ground. It's harder for me to live in a small town, especially in the desert where the sky is so freakin' big and the trees are so freakin' short, but there are good things here too, not the least of which is an international airport only 90 miles away and the very slim chance of hurricanes or volcanic eruptions.

I will be 43 in a few weeks. There are things I hope to not ever have to do again. I don't want to work a half-dozen jobs to make $20 grand a year. I don't want to commute for hours every day to a job. I don't want to be in a cubicle from 8 - 5. I don't want to have to grant-grab and sell myself at every turn to teach workshops that pay in T-shirts and bottled water and sweet thank-you notes from haggard bookstore owners. Borders is closing and liquidating everything by September. The avenues through which I sell my books are coming apart at the foundation. There are transitions happening everywhere. Things are falling apart so new things can be built. It's exciting. Unsettling.

I can't pretend that 43 isn't the middle of my life (if it's not already past that). I can't pretend that I have not made choices that have opened some doors while closing others. As I re-examine my life, I keep returning to two things: writing and freedom. I feel good about my writing since moving to Prescott, and I feel even better about my freedom since moving here. My job provides the most freedom I can imagine. Yes, we have to do things. Yes, we have to show up at certain times. But we're not chained to the desk, and, dare I say, summer and winter breaks make up for just about anything the semester can throw at us. The college went through a huge transition last semester and next year will be full of challenges trying to implement the changes. I will be on sabbatical for the second half of the coming year, focusing on deepening my own work. My foundation. What other job lets you do that and keep your health insurance? I have several books I'm working on, and an exciting partnership with my friend Cain Carroll to teach together and write a book in the coming year. (More details soon!)

So I decided I have to invest in my structural roots. Today is Day 2 of the home remodeling project. It's really more of a face lift. No walls are moving around. No plumbing coming out of the walls. But it's a big deal, and as I took apart my house so it can be reassembled, I could see into every corner. Every baseboard. Every hole in the drywall that needs to be patched. I can put my eye up to the gaping hole in the wall where the doorbell was and see inside the walls. How cool is that? I can stand on the actual concrete foundation and watch it being turbo-cleaned and prepped for the flooring. Today, they have to fix the floor. It is not level, so the floor won't float. There's some magic thing they can do to level it out. (Yes, mom, another instance where math matters.) Tomorrow, they'll lay the oak laminate and finish the carpet and the bathroom vinyl. Then, the painters come and replace the baseboards, take down the tan paneling, patch the gaping holes, sand the walls and paint them green (and other colors). The cabinet doors and drawers come out to be sanded and repainted. The hood over the stove will suddenly become the color of nickel. Poof! The screen doors will come off and new security doors go on so I can keep the doors open and let more air run through the house. The fluorescent lighting will come down and track lighting go up. (I may be almost 43, but under full-spectrum lighting, I daresay I don't look a day over 39...)

They've stripped my house down to its essence. Its foundation boards peek under the drywall like feet. They are stable and thick. The concrete is cool and solid. The edges square. I know these things now. In a few days, I will be able to walk on new floors. By the end of next week, this will be a different townhome. I am not the person I was when I moved to Prescott. I have made a life here, and even though I need to leave it and go play in the cities of the world, it's important to invest in a solid structure. A place to lay my head that is safe, full of love (and a few cats), and full of enough freedom to keep growing, deepening, and creating. I don't write well when my life is in chaos. I don't write well when I'm worried about income. And I don't write well living in someone else's skin. Phoenix, even with good floors, was never my skin. For the first time in my life, I will have a home that, inside and out, reflects who I have become, and has enough space for who I will be.

I'll post finished pictures when it's done.

PTSD: Post-Traumatic Semester Disorder

2011-05-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

My mother tells me a story of a time before my sister was born. I would have been around two, and we were at the playground. I was on the slide, when a boy came along and pushed me off, giving me a bruise. I think my mother tells this story because she thought my response was so unusual.

"You didn't cry. You just asked why someone would do that."

I called her before writing this blog because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a story about my sister, or a story I made up. "No, it happened to you," she said. "Your sister would have pushed back."

She would have. My little sister ruled the school bus. I tried to slip in and out of the bus without anyone noticing me at all.

I remember the name of every bully in my life. That's not healthy, I know, but it's true. The girl who lived down the street from me, whose house was full of puppies, who tormented me on the walk to the bus stop every day in elementary school. In middle school, a group of girls took me on as a personal mission to be mean to. A boy spit on me, on purpose, from the monkey bars. In the classroom, when the teacher would leave, the girls stole my journals, read out loud from them, tossed them across the room.

I never said anything. They were bigger. Stronger. And what would I say? I didn't understand why they did what they were doing. I didn't know how to fight anyone, and I just thought if I became invisible enough, they would go away.

But I stewed, and as I've grown into my own life, I find that bullying is the one thing I can't seem to tolerate -- something I still haven't found the appropriate response to. Students can say or do just about anything, but when they bully me or someone else, I go back to the 5th grade in my body. Back to those girls who scared me so much I couldn't sleep. Back to my father saying, "You've just got to wait them out." My sister who probably would have just punched back.

This semester, I had the perfect storm of students in one of my on-line classes. The personal bullying began from the very first day. Before I'd even logged in on the first day of class, there was a slew of personal attacks about the course, the textbooks, the deadlines. I did what I did in middle school. My heart beat too fast. My stomach hurt. My shoulder screwed itself up into my jaw. Why are they doing this? What did I do that caused this to happen? So I hesitated, which is what bullies wait for, and I couldn't regain footing in the class the entire semester. I lost sleep for fifteen weeks over this class, these people. I'm used to frustrated students, but this was different. I couldn't shake them out of me. I couldn't reframe their posts for them and try and ease them out of their attacks into a more receptive place in the class. I tried for almost ten weeks before I went to my dean and told her I cannot keep responding to these people. I feel like I'm being shot at every time I offer feedback, every time I try and point out a craft concept. I'm not a new teacher. I've been at this almost twenty years. I know my subject matter and I know a great deal about how to work with various types of people, but this time, I was only ten years old. I felt like I was going to cry all the time, and I experienced the same feelings as I did in the 5th grade every time I checked my work e-mail or logged into that class. I was afraid to log in.

What could I do next time? Why isn't there a clear college policy on on-line behavior? Am I just supposed to feel poked and attacked several times a week just because it's my job? I don't think it's my job to be bullied, and I'm not in the 5th grade, and I am actually the one in the pseudo-power position in this circumstance. I started talking to other professors. What would you do with this? How would you have handled it? What can I do differently?

So I've made a course policy and a video on tone in the academic setting for next semester that probably won't change anything, but made me feel somewhat more empowered. I have some sample responses from other faculty that I can use right away if this happens again. But what I've really learned is that I still feel the shock and the disbelief that I felt in middle school when facing a bully. Did I make the right choice in the 5th grade not to hit back? I don't know. I didn't choose not to hit back out of any noble non-violence ideas. It just seemed stupid. They were bigger. I would lose. They would break my glasses and then I couldn't read.

Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. One particular student was the worst. Student X did not turn in the largest assignment of the semester. S/He had, in spite of being a bully, been earning an A because s/he was a very good writer. When s/he missed the assignment, at first I was thrilled. "Gotcha. Now you're not going to pass. Ha." But every day I waited for the e-mail. The reason it was my fault that s/he missed the deadline. That I have to take the paper. I still was stomach-aching anxious to log in to work.

Today there was a note that was not laced with the caustic tone I'd been reading all semester. The note explained what had happened, asked me if s/he could make up the packet. I don't know if the reason is true. This time in the semester we hear every reason under the sun for why things didn't happen on time. I don't want to read the paper. I want to post grades tomorrow. At first, my response was, "Should have been nicer to me, b---h." But that response, even reframed appropriately for office correspondence, didn't feel right. I actually do believe the reason given in the e-mail. I am in the position of power here. I have a no late work policy. I could have said no. It's too late. Too bad so sad, nanner nanner nanner. I win. It would have been backed up all the way to the top of administration. It's in the syllabus. I could win.

I walked around the building and came back to the computer. I responded that s/he had been earning an A up until that point. I responded that I would not include the points for that paper in the final grade calculation, so the grade will be what had been earned up until that point. I wished him/her a good summer, and I pressed send.

And then I cried a little, and I felt the shaking up in my body. I felt the hand loosen around my heart, and I felt my shoulder release a little. I don't know if that was the right decision. But as soon as I pressed send and felt the tightening shift, I knew it was the decision that was going to allow me to walk away.

Please! Stop asking for my opinion!

2011-05-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

Warning: Rant Ahead.

When I was in college, no one asked me for feedback. On anything. On anyone. This was not in the age of dinosaurs. This was in the late 80s. No one asked me if the chairs were comfortable. If the instructor was pleasant and accommodated my unique learning style. If I felt the assignments were fair. If I felt the instructor were qualified. No one asked.

No one should have.

When I was employed in my first "real" job, no one asked me for feedback. On anything. On anyone. How did I like the new restructuring? Do I feel secure? Do I want a blankey?

In the past week, I have been asked for my feedback from the following sources:

Travelocity: Would I please rate my booking experience?
My Dentist: Would I please rate my teeth cleaning experience?
The IT department at my college: Would I please rate my Help Desk Experience?
Every single commerce situation I've had in the past week: Survey on the receipts from: Bookmans, Fry's, CVS, Texaco.
Amazon.com would love to know how I'm enjoying my Kindle. (Ha, ha, I'm not going to tell them!)
YouTube wants to know how I like my channel.
Google Apps wants to know if I'm satisfied with the upgrades.
Yahoo!Mail wants feedback on its Beta Mail program.
My tax accountant: Would I please comment on my experience with my taxes?
My VISA card: How do I like the new allocation of points?
My employer: Would I please provide feedback on my immediate supervisor?
My recent Netflix InstantView: How did I like the movie?
My MFA alma mater: How has my MFA served me?
My MA alma mater: What would I like to see college X doing moving forward?

I'm convinced SurveyMonkey is a sign of the apocalypse. Except I don't think there is an apocalypse (wait: Why has no one asked me my opinion on how likely I think the world is going to end in my lifetime? hmmm... conspiracy theories abound.)

I don't fill out these surveys, no matter how much I love monkeys. And I do love monkeys.

My fabulous Keezel at the Omega Institute in July, 2010

If I have an opinion on something that I think might be somewhat educated and somewhat helpful, I may share that opinion privately with the institution or individual involved. But I rarely do even this because ... um ... my opinion doesn't really matter.

Am I satisfied with my teeth cleaning experience? Well, what were my expectations of that teeth cleaning experience? Were they reasonable or were they what I wanted rather than what I might have needed? Why can't it be enough just to have my teeth cleaned? If the dentist stabs me in the gum with a sharp tool, I promise I'll say something. Otherwise, just please clean my teeth. Were the heavens supposed to crack open? Should I have expected a Hallelujah chorus when she put the bite wings in for the X-rays? Did they serve me wine and cheese? Please. It's the dentist.

How did I like my recent car's tune-up experience? Well, actually, I would have preferred if you'd have used Bay 3 for the work as my car really is sensitive to north-facing windows. I also think the tool boxes should have been in red instead of that sad metal color, and I would have really liked it if my mechanic looked like Johnny Depp. What can I tell you about tuning up a car? Nothing. Because I. Don't. Know. How. To. Tune. Up. A. Car. If the mechanic slashed my tires, poured oil in the gas tank, and drained and forgot to refill the radiator, I promise I'll say something.

It's no wonder our students think their opinion matters above all else. That we are there to serve them slavishly and attend to their every need in the way in which they (at the ripe old age of 17-1/2) believe the class and the material should be delivered. In the past week, I've had to give out surveys to my students for assessment purposes. I hate doing this, but I have to (and then I get to give the school feedback on my assessment plan participation). The school also sends out a general student satisfaction survey this week. This is not training people well for a world that, although it may ask increasingly frequently for their opinion, doesn't really want it. But worse than that, it's training them that their opinion on things about which they are not qualified to have an opinion, matters.

It doesn't help that our college's advertising campaign (which thankfully was terminated this year in a positive spin on the budget cuts) had billboards that said: Yavapai College. We're there for you. Like your dog.

I wish I was kidding on that ad campaign. I'm not using even the slightest bit of hyperbole.

If my professor never comes to class, leers at all the girls, and spends more time on his iPad than talking to us, I promise I'll say something. Other than that -- it's his class. If it doesn't work for me, I can leave.

Too much idle chatter. Too much idle speech. Too much data collection.

And here's the other thing: I am not entitled to the exact experience I may hope for. If I am in a classroom of thirty people, I am part of a group. There is a group need that outweighs my personal needs. (Gosh, I hate that instructor because she uses the red dry-erase marker. Gosh, I wish he didn't spend so much time explaining polynomials to the 90% of the class who doesn't understand them and instead focused his energies entirely on me. Me-me-me. I-I-I. This is my experience, therefore it must be as I have predetermined it must be -- otherwise it was (fill in the generalization word: stupid, useless, a waste of time, dumb, boring) Stop. Please.

I am qualified to have an opinion on two things: writing and teaching. There is nothing else in my life that I have the education or experience in to offer an intelligent, helpful, opinion. Oh sure, I'm human, so I have opinions on all kinds of things. But they're based on nothing but personal preference, personal fears, personal everything -- so they don't need to be made public.

What does it mean that I "like" a certain item? Not one useful thing. It means I buy chocolate instead of vanilla, but that doesn't mean vanilla is bad or wrong or stupid or misguided. What right have I to keep vanilla from those who love it?

When you feel like you need to share your opinion something, ask yourself the following:

- Is it truthful?
- Is it necessary?
- Is it something that will unify rather than divide?
- Is it kind?

Aim for 4 out of 4 before you press "send".

I am not entitled to enjoy or 'like' or have fun in every experience that makes up my life. Who said that education was supposed to be entertainment? Why am I supposed to enjoy my trip to the OBGYN? I'm just supposed to do it.

Sometimes in life, we're just supposed to do things. Some of them will be hard. Some unpleasant.

Dear Ms. Herring,

We are sorry for your recent loss of (Contact: First Name, Last Name).

Thank you for using Funeral Service X. We strive to provide you everything you need at this very difficult time. To help us serve you and others better, please take a few minutes to fill out this survey about our service.

What could we have done to make your experience with us better?

Bring back Contact: First Name, Last Name.

And stop distilling every experience in my life down to a scale of 1- 5.

My life is bigger than that.

Elvis and Me

2011-04-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

painting, "No One Knows I'm Elvis" by Elaine Anagnos

Last night, we saw Robert Shaw and the Lonely Street Band's Tribute to Young Elvis at the Elk's Theater. I'm a sucker for Elvis. Any Elvis -- young Elvis, old Elvis, hot Elvis, not-so-hot Elvis, gospel Elvis, rock and roll Elvis, blues Elvis, ballad Elvis, bad actor Elvis, soldier Elvis, Las Vegas Elvis, Elvis in a tortilla...

Elvis died the year after my dad got sick. Our house had every Elvis LP imaginable. My sister and I would stand on the top of the itchy yellow and black sofa, jump rope microphones in our hands, teddy bears near by, singing "Teddy Bear", tossing the bears to the ceiling at the finale. The first time I heard him sing "Old Shep" I cried. When Elvis died, I was 9. My dad had almost died the year before. Our whole lives had been turned upside down. In the south, Elvis walked hand in hand with Jesus. The King Could Not Die. But he did, and in the way of things, a decade later, my dad did too. Elvis was 42; my dad was 46.

I'm 42 now, and at the event last night, I was one of the youngest people there. The man sitting next to me wore a silver snap-button shirt, the final three buttons open because his belly had exceeded the width of the fabric. In front of me, women my mother's age joined hands, singing with Robert Shaw. When Robert sang "It's Now or Never", the man next to me, who was there alone, whispered, "I played that a million times."

The audience screamed for young Mr. Shaw. Screamed. Women using walkers. Women with mastectomies. Women with thinning, beehived hair. Women stood for young Mr. Shaw. Women with grandchildren. Dead husbands. Dead children. They stood and they screamed and they stomped and they danced, leaping for the teddy bear he threw to the audience. Grandmothers. Great grandmothers. Screaming. Stomping. Dancing.

Mr. Shaw did an Ed Sullivan imitation. The audience laughed. They'd watched the show when it aired. To hell with censorship, said young Mr. Shaw, and commenced the wiggle.

Grandmothers.
Screamed.
Stomped.
Danced.

Swollen ankles dissolved into lacy bobby socks. Orthopedic shoes tip-toed into saddle shoes. The women's eyes were sparkling -- with tears, with love, with memory.

"I know there's some men out there," said young Mr. Shaw. "Just can't hear you."

The man next to me hooted, exposed belly wiggling.

I was twenty to thirty years younger than most of the audience. I knew all the songs. I hadn't played the 45s in my bedroom over and over or written letters to him when he was serving in Germany or cried when he married Priscilla, but Elvis was the soundtrack of my childhood as it was the soundtrack to their adolescence and young adulthood. Elvis made it OK. Elvis gave the sense of hope when there wasn't any; the sense of rhythm to a stiffening people; and he offered faith. Whether you believed or not, you believed when Elvis sang that gospel. No matter what else happened in his life, no matter how sick he got, when he slipped into music, he transported himself and everyone with him. He was living art.

After my dad's first heart attack, he spent some time talking to men at the Salvation Army. He brought Elvis' gospel LPs and played "Peace in the Valley" and tried to convince everyone that it was possible. Over time, it became less possible, and we moved away from the South, from Elvis, from who we were before Elvis died. Elvis may have lived on, grown stronger perhaps, in death, but it didn't work that way for my dad. Each year that passes brings fewer people who ever met my dad, ever knew him, ever loved him.

Last night, hundreds of us stood for young Mr. Shaw, many of us crying, for the gift of two hours suspended in time. For a spit of a second, we were all who we were when we first heard the sounds. We had not yet had our hearts broken and our bodies injured. We had not yet left friends behind, watched neighborhoods disintegrate, spent days in Hospice saying good-bye. We were girls and we were boys with the fire of all the world in front of us.

Perhaps now, because we have been marked, wrinkled, divorced, denied, loved, spurned, broken, built back up, perhaps now we could listen to young Mr. Shaw and see the beauty of the fleeting moment of youth. What we thought would never leave, leaves. This is true of everything. And when you really know that in your bones, you see that spark, that hip swivel, that sneer; you hear the seduction of the guitar's strings, and you pay attention to it. You know it's precious and primal and if there is anything divine in the world, it is in that spark. You look around the audience at the men with faraway eyes, the women with open mouths -- this group of people that you know differs as much as people can differ on religion and politics -- but they are standing up together. They are clapping together. We are young. We are young. We may have nothing else in common but we have Elvis and his promise of passion and desire and kindness.

We are young.
We are old.
We are beautiful and we are screaming together, not at each other.

The power of art brings that out and lets the rest fall away under our dancing feet.

Viva, viva, us all.

The video below is "young" Elvis singing "King Creole".

The video below is the "old" Elvis singing "How Great Thou Art".

When Expectations Collide with Reality ... it ain't pretty

2011-04-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

"All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared
to learn to draw?"- Banksy

It's April in academia. The birds are singing. The snow is still falling. The flowers are blooming (and freezing). And yes, as usual, it's the month of dead and dying family members from the sweet mouths of our students. If you've got a kid in college, be careful when you start the car. But most of all, April is the month when students' expectations crash and burn in the pyre of self-loathing and (perish the thought) work.

Here's what happens. The semester has almost ended (yes, yay, jumping in the halls, dancing in the streets, please oh please be over) and the students, those who do care and who have been coming to class and who have been learning and struggling, come face to face with the truth of: I haven't "gotten it" yet.

They think writing is something one can "get" in fifteen weeks. Nay, sooner, since they have been writing for 20, 30, 40, 50 years by this point. How hard is it to arrange words? They had visions of where they would be by now, and although those who've shown up and participated have indeed made lots of progress, it doesn't look like what they thought it would.

It never does. The tricky net of expectations has strangled many before them and will strangle many more after them. A semester is such an arbitrary amount of time, and it is such an insignificant amount of time in a life, that it seems impossible that we can teach anything at all of substance in a 15 week period. The art of writing is not a 15 week program. Yes, you can learn some things about craft in 15 weeks. Yes, you can read some forms of literature you might never have looked at before, and yes, you can stick your toes into the snake-infested swamp of revision. But you may find at the end of the semester you feel like you're in a worse place than you were when you started.

You're not. You're just beginning to realize what you don't know and what you didn't even know to ask about. You're just starting to see the ways literature can be written and read. You're just starting to see that writing is not a task ... it is a path. And for some of you, that ain't what you signed up for.

I get it. I really do. You're accustomed to outcomes and measurable skill sets. You're a bright person. You should be able to "get" this. Writers know that writing is a lifelong pursuit. That there is no one-day epiphany that solves every story you'll ever write. Each story is a teacher. Each poem a Zen master. Writing one story well guarantees nothing for any future story. Writing one story poorly does not sentence you to a life of bad writing.

If I had all the time in the world to teach writing in the way I truly felt was best, and if I had only students who were sincere in their educational pursuits, we would begin with the sentence, and we would not leave the sentence until we understood the nuance of the comma, the position of the verb. I haven't figured out any practical way to teach like this. Writers must come up with every aspect of the work first before learning the craft. To only address theory without practice is to spin and spin and spin. So instead, we write drafts and we talk about them and only after many years of writing practice do most writers come to realize the value of word choices, sentence structures, and paragraph lengths. The subtlety of rhythm contained within the way an author puts a sentence together. The places where the author left space for the reader to breathe. These things appear second nature when you read, but they are the result of thought and commitment on the part of the writer.

Students, if you're serious about "being a writer", remember these things:

- You will always be a beginner.

- There will always be people "better" than you.

- You will always be alone with the blank page. No one can be there with you. Figure out how to be OK with that.

- Take time away from writing. You can't produce twenty-four hours a day.

- Remember the joy and sense of play that first brought you to language. If you lose that, you're adrift.

- Study sentences. Study grammar. Look at books critically through the lens of a writer, rather than a reader. Start to get out of your own way when reading. It doesn't matter whether you like or don't like the work. Look at how the work was put together. That'll give you insight into craft.

- Practice detachment from your writing. The tighter you attach to it and to your construct of what it means, the less chance you have of truly developing it into something that can breathe on its own.

- There's no mastery - just deeper and deeper questioning. The more open you are to the questions, the more ease your writing practice will provide. If you attach and hold tight to wanting to know things and figure everything out, eventually you'll exhaust yourself. There's no figuring out. There's just experiencing and observing.

As you walk the path with your writing, hold its hand loosely. Notice the wind and the earth beneath you, and let this observation be enough.

E-Readers and E-Kitties and E-Thoughts and E-gads

2011-03-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

At first it was a little like admitting to a crack addiction. (Not that I've ever had a crack addiction, Employer Who Might Read This Blog). I'm a writer. I love books. I love bookstores. I understand that we authors don't make anything to speak of from our work. I understand that bookstores are in trouble. But I also am a part of the 21st century, and if I do nothing else in this world well, I sit and watch with the best of 'em.

I watched the music industry decide that people would always buy music in music stores. (How's that Tower Records stock doin' for ya?) Then I watched the music industry decide that only the pre-packaged monster acts would be supported. Then I watched the people who make the music tell them where they can take their studios. At first it was expensive and nearly impossible to make your own CD. Not so anymore. At first, it was nearly impossible to distribute that CD (um, cassette) unless you were affiliated with said Studio. Not so anymore.

And so I watched the publishing industry pretend like this transition has not happened to the music industry. They don't know what to do now, so they seem to be doing a combination of nothing and trying to negotiate higher e-book prices. But amazon beat them to the table and consumers aren't going to pay what the publishers want. Welcome to free enterprise -- you know, that class you had to take in 12th grade? Well, this is how it works. Anyone download an i-tunes song for $5.99? Didn't think so. The world saunters on. E-readers abound. E-books abound. The times, they are a-changin'.

Is this good for writers? Ultimately, I think so. Right now, it's a giant clusterf&*$(. But it'll shift away from that and people will wonder why they fought it so hard. The Authors Guild is negotiating for greater royalties for e-books. Will it happen? Don't know. But if I want to upload my new book straight to Kindle all on my own, can I do it? Yep. Is this freedom resulting in a lot of crappy e-books? Yep. But that'll shift around too. Gone to an art fair lately? There's a wide range of talent in the world. Literature is no exception.

So back to the crack addiction that I never had.

I used to read ALL THE TIME. I had books with me everywhere. And then, this pesky thing called a job showed up in my life, and that job involved continuous reading of student work for weeks on end. Last thing I wanted to do was read. Ever. Again. And really, the last thing I wanted to do was read on a computer or screen device since I did that all day long.

Enter e-ink.

Enter devices that were designed to be like a book. A device that dissolves into the background and lets the story come to the forefront. I didn't think it was possible. Books smell good. They have pretty covers. I can walk past my bookshelves at home and say hello to all my friends. Enter Whitney Houston singing "I Will Always Love You."

I will. Always.

But I have not been reading because my eyes are tired. I am at that over-forty place where the eyes start doing their own things. Reading glasses help, but not much. My eyes still tear up by the end of the day. Reading hurts them. It's really hard to read a book one page a day.

So under cover of darkness, cloaked in black, I went to Best Buy to touch the Kindle. I went to Barnes and Noble to touch the Nook. And then, making sure no one saw me, I bought the Kindle. I took it home. I downloaded a book. And ...

I read it.

Easily. No burning eyes. No tearing up. No headaches. I can make the font as big as I want. I can read it in sunlight. I can read it in bed. I can hold it at any angle and read. No glare.

My e-reader has given me back reading. I have downloaded and finished reading more books in the last six months than the previous six years. True, they're not on my shelf. But they're in my body now, which, at least from my perspective as a writer, is exactly where I want my books to be in my readers. I don't want them holding up knick knacks on shelves. I want my books read.

My Kindle helps me read more. As a writer, what could be more important? I don't care how you read my work. I don't care if it's scratched out on tree branches or sent up in smoke signals. Hardcover, paperback, e-book (Sony, Nook, Kindle, Kobo, iPad), audiobook. I don't care. But I want it read.

Books come to life when a reader enters the dream of the story. It doesn't matter what the door looks like. The more accessible and the more variety of doors we can offer as the transoms to our stories, the better chance we have of dancing in the dark with our readers, the better chance we have of our characters continuing to breathe.

I didn't want to do it. But I did, and because I did, I'm dreaming with other authors. I've got other characters in my body. I've got other stories in my cells. I got reading back.

So apparently, what I Will Always Love is stories, not the physical package of a book.

I didn't think it would be so easy to say good-bye, but it was. I didn't think it would be so easy to say good-bye to my '77 AMC Spirit that I drove in college, but it was. I didn't think it would be so easy to get rid of my land line, but it was. I didn't think it would be so easy to transition from an in-class instructor to a primarily on-line instructor, but it was.

I still feel a little disloyal, but it's passing quickly. Books want to be read too. They're only dead trees until someone opens the cover. It doesn't matter whether the cover is paper or a switch.

Just read.

Read.

Those of us who make the stories are grateful.

Magical Thinking, Reinvention, Shopping and Writing

2011-03-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here's how I know I'm a writer.

I'm a world-class clothing shopper. Some might call it an addiction, but that's such a nasty word. I don't buy everything. I don't have a compelling urge to buy flatware, or furniture, or cars. But I adore clothes. I love the possibilities of clothing. I've been thinking about this a lot this week as I did my spring cleaning. I was delighted to only have single-digit bags to give away, rather than the 40 plus bags of two summers ago. Whew! Addiction, um, enjoyable fun activity, in reasonable check.

I'm giving away a lot of really great things. Items I loved, most of them still fit (whew, again - weight has not fluctuated 40 pounds in two years). There's nothing wrong with most of them. I don't wear out my clothes because I simply don't wear them enough to do it. But about every five days, there's a pull to a clothing store that goes off inside. Perhaps this is located where my non-existent biological clock is supposed to be. (Whew, again - much rather have the clothing-shopping clock than the biological clock). If I had kids, I'd have to buy them clothes, which would substantially cut into the amount of clothing I could buy for, um, me, and frankly, I like to think I'm subsidizing the Goodwill shoppers of the world with some pretty fabulous, good quality clothing once a year. (Here's where the fabulous magical thinking part starts to occur.)

I don't think of clothing as a need. I think of clothing as art. So to that end, I'm continually creating and re-creating the canvas. Some people apparently only need five shirts and five pairs of pants. I simply do not understand how that is possible. Kind of like calculus.

But here's how the writing figures in ...

I find myself in a store. Oh, the sparkle! Oh, the mannequins with their fabulously accessorized outfits and really extraordinarily toned arms! Oh, the shoes! And here's where I fall into magic .... I could have the life of the woman who can wear that dress. I could have the feet that could run in those pointy stilettos. I could have the waist that could wear that bracelet as a belt. I could be in Central Park with that silk scarf and that fuschia bag. Oh yes, oh yes, I can.

So then (and here's the important step) I take the dress off the rack. My size is not there. My size is never there on THOSE dresses -- the ones that you see on the skinny mannequins and the Styles section of the New York Times. But, I've fallen so deeply into the wonder of magical thinking that I believe that I may perhaps suddenly have become a size 8 (the largest size, of course, on the rack of THOSE dresses). This is America. Anything is possible. I hold it next to me and some sort of bizarre quantum occurrence happens when I see myself in a mirror holding the dress next to me and I believe that the body I see in the mirror will fit into that dress with room to spare. It's miraculous. Maybe I should take the size 6 too.

Into the dressing room I go, and I've often wondered if there are still security cameras in dressing rooms because the show must be hilarious all day long. I step into the dress. It's not going to go above my knees. I can tell just by stepping in it. Of course, I knew that before I pulled it off the rack -- the only size 8s I have are feet -- but you know, it's America and anything is possible.

I could be the woman who wears this dress if I ...

- eat only broccoli and quinoa for the next three weeks
- run to work
- grade papers while running on the treadmill
- run to work with the kettlebell (go up the stairs twice)
- replace my DNA with Natalie Portman's

Excellent. Sold. The most logical of all these thoughts is the DNA replacement. Surely, that's covered under the health insurance plan.

Then it goes home. It's beautiful. I am on my way to Central Park. I am on my way to the National Book Awards. It goes in the closet. The dream is so complete, so full of possibility.

And then the next day, sigh, I remember my beautiful dream, my walk in the park with a parasol, perhaps, and an accessory cat, and I look in the mirror where at least my feet are still a size 8, and I gather the receipt and the dress and the imaginary accessory cat, and go back to the store.

But for a day, I believed it was possible. And that is the place you must get to in your fiction. You must believe 100% in the impossible. In magic. In this world you are creating and these people you are listening to. You must believe it. You can't think it's a joke. You can't think you're kidding yourself. Total immersion. Gotta go there.

But then, you've also got to be able to look at that draft and be realistic about it. What is actually working? What will never work? What was what you wanted to work, rather than what the story wanted? (Ah, the biggie!) In other words, the next day, you've got to be woman enough to take things back to the store, but still, the next time you sit down to write, immerse yourself once again in magic.

How Cursing Became Part of Common Speech

2011-03-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

I've been bracing myself for two weeks. I knew I'd have to call. You know who. The BANK. I have to call because the BANK's website is designed by monkeys on steroids. I have to call because I pay my homeowner's insurance myself, rather than have it paid from my mortgage escrow account and apparently this is a concept too difficult to handle on line from THE BIGGEST BANK IN THE F-ING WORLD.

OK. Breathe in. Breathe out. Coffee - two cups. BANK website open. Insurance company website open. Homeowner's policy pulled up. Numbers-a-plenty. Social security card. Property zip code. Mother's maiden name. First school. First best friend. Most annoying customer service center -- oh, wait, that's not an approved security question.

Every March I have to do this. Every March the BANK thinks I have let my homeowner's policy lapse and feels compelled to send me a letter indicating that they will be buying a policy for me and charging me for it. I've never moved my homeowner's policy. I've been with the same insurance carrier for almost twenty years. They automatically renew my policy every year. Funny, how they never seem to forget to automatically deduct the payment from my account -- the account at the same BANK that holds my mortgage.

I would love to renew this policy on the BANK's website, but it is not capable of understanding that I pay the premium myself. But just because it feels like spring today and the daffodils are starting to pop through the frozen earth, I thought I'd try. You know. Just in case. Like today could be the day when the world gives out free chocolate ice cream. Sigh. Today had no free chocolate ice cream.

Coffee. Third cup. OK. Dial. Hello Automated-Female-Person with False Human Inflection.

How can I help you today? Please press or say 1 for account services, 2 for payment services.

1

Which account can I help you with? Please press or say 1 for checking, 2 for savings, 3 for mortgage, 4 for credit card.

3

Thank you. (She's very jolly now) Please enter the last four digits of your social security number followed by the pound sign.

*$()#

Thank you. Please speak your mother's maiden name.

($*))#(( (How do people who do not know their mother's maiden names manage their daily lives?)

Thank you. Please confirm the zip code of the property you are calling about.

#*$()

Thank you. How may I assist you today? Please press or say 1 for property insurance, 2 for ....

1

Thank you. What would you like to do? Please press or say 1 for change or renew policy, 2 for...

1

Thank you.

(Here's where we're going to have a problem. I know this Fake Human can't help because I've tried it before. The Fake Human wants to pay my homeowner's insurance from escrow. She's extremely rigid. She could benefit from deep breathing.)

I'd like to speak to a representative.

I'm sorry? I thought I heard you say, (dramatic pause) "I'd like to speak to a representative."

Yes.

There are many things I can help you with. Frequently, there is a long wait to speak with a customer service representative.

I'd like to speak to a representative.

I'm sorry? I thought I heard you say, "I'd like to speak to a representative." (she's pissed now)

Yes.

I am capable of providing a wide range of services. Let's begin again. How may I help you? Please press or say 1 for ...

I'd like to speak to a (deep breath, don't swear at the Fake Human) representative.

Did you say you would like to speak to a representative? Please press or say 1 for yes ...

1

She doesn't even say good-bye. There's a double beep, during which time I am sure she has disconnected me. Within the untenable wait of twenty entire seconds, I am greeted by a gentleman who assures me that customer service is very important to him. How can he help me?

I need to renew my homeowner's policy.

May I have the last four digits of your social security number?

(Refer to conversation with Fake Human for the next series of questions)

Thank you, Ms. Herring. How may I assist you today?

I need to renew my homeowner's policy.

You can do that at www. THEBIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD.com

Actually, I can't because I pay my premium myself.

Pause. Can I put you on hold, Ms. Herring?

OK. You said you pay your premium yourself? Do you mean you write the insurance company a check?

No. I mean they deduct my payment automatically from my checking account in your BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD.com bank. You can pull it up. For the last seven years.

Pause. Can I put you on hold, Ms. Herring?

OK. Thanks for holding. You're trying to tell me that your insurance premium is not paid from the escrow account, but that you pay it yourself.

Yes.

So, you don't forget to pay it?

No. You can check yourself in my checking account in your BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD bank.

Pause. OK. How do you remember to pay it?

I don't have to remember. The insurance company remembers.

May I have the insurance company's number please?

*$))@*()$&()

And the policy number?

$*))&()#&)

What is the premium?

$ &&()

Is that even or are there cents?

It's even.

So we'll send a check to the insurance company from the escrow account.

No. I have already paid the premium.

Pause. Can I put you on hold, Ms. Herring?

OK. So you actually pay the premium yourself.

Yes.

OK. That is OK. I am sure that is OK.

It's been OK for seven years.

OK. I am sure that is OK. Let me just ... OK. So, you're all updated, Ms. Herring. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Can you put a note in my account that I pay my premium so I don't have to go through this next year?

Next year you can use www.BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD.com to update your policy.

No, I can't.

Oh, right. Because you pay your own premium.

Right.

That's very unusual.

OK. So can you put a note in my file?

I'm sorry. There's no field for that. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Nope.

Thank you for calling BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD. Again, my name is $*(*. Please have a pleasant day.

Until next March ...

How Captain Jack Sparrow Helps Us Write A Story

2011-03-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Warning: Extended Metaphor of Today's Blog May Not Work for All Readers (but don't deny yourself a little look at the lovely!)

Come on, ya'll. I know I don't have to tell you anything about that picture.

Hello, there, Captain Jack. Yes, indeed. I know you are clearly one of those Stranger Danger folks they told us about in third grade. I know it's never good to be with a man who accessorizes better than I can. I know you've not had proper dental care, you smoke, and I know that you give the same look to all the girls.

Sigh.

And I know it doesn't matter one bit. Because maybe, just this once, that look will be for me. I'll be the one who can change you, Captain Jack. You spend too much time with the skinny girls anyway. You're wounded. You just need someone to love you who understands you. It's me. I promise. We'll run away together to an island. You'll rescue me from cannibals and we'll find ourselves in a strange encounter with a voodoo priestess and after a few swashbuckling moments of fancy and fun, you'll find yourself at the gallows, or about to walk the plank, or about to spend seven years under the sea in the hands of a creepy-weird-monster-creature. It's OK, Captain Jack. I'll wait for you.

Sigh.

I think that when we write, we have a Captain Jack Phase. Let's call it CJP. In the CJP, we do a lot of things we wouldn't do pre-CJP. We do a lot of things we'll wonder about post-CJP.

Here's the Peer-Reviewed-Iowa-Writing-Workshop-Endorsed Captain Jack Theory of writing:

- We follow the prettiest, most bewitching idea. This is not necessarily a problem, until we can no longer see ourselves along the way. The prettiest, most bewitching idea has captured us, and we find ourselves enslaved by the spectacle, so much so we can't tell if there is substance beneath it, and we don't want to do the work to find out because, well, he's just so darn beautiful.

- We let ourselves get tricked, bewitched, befuddled and bewildered because we simply can't believe someone as FREAKIN' GORGEOUS as Captain Jack is giving us the time of day. Because clearly he is, we forget that he does this to all the girls. When the bluster of the night of sound-tracked love is through, the sword is gone. The rum is gone. The dirty dishes are there, the dirty sheets, the Visa bills. How did that happen to my story? I had THE COOLEST MOST AMAZING GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL ever. Why is my story gone?

- Our ego wins. He likes ME. He really really likes ME. The ego jumps on board with that, oh ye of the mousy brown hair and middle aged bosom, and says, "Oh yeah. Sign me up. Paparazzi? I'm right here." When this happens, we reflect back only the spectacle in front of us. We reflect back our need to be seen, to be good enough, smart enough, and pretty enough. We begin to exist through the eyes of others. Our center rises and falls based on external forces. That empty reflection rusts us.

- The seductive idea is exactly that: The Seductive Idea. Follow it. Only a fool would say no, no matter how many women have gone before you. But keep your center. Don't let the lure of the magnificence of your Seductive Idea, the promise of book reviews by that oh-so-powerful New York Times, the dream that Oprah will revive her book club just for THIS MOST AMAZING book keep you from seeing the actual book.

- The Seductive Idea splashes fire. We can't help but notice. Don't mistake the illusion for the steadily burning center. Too often we'll chase sparks because they're bright and loud and new. The work of writing doesn't live in the sparks. It lives in the coals.

- Pay attention to what is left when the fire burns out. Rather than blame the Seductive Idea for being exactly what it is: A Seductive Idea; instead, ask yourself what it gave you, not what it took. What were you questioning when you fell into its web? What were you searching for? And now, that he took his rum and his sword and his hair and left, what are you still asking? That may be the question of your novel.

- That explosion of seduction struck a match. Its nature is to burn out. Your job is to be thankful for the flame, and to then determine what you can do to sustain it after he's well on his way to another gal. What passions did he light? Explore those.

- The gift of the Captain Jack Phase is the afterglow, not the initial first blush of lust. He leaves you in the dark, panting, vulnerable and real. It's when he leaves, that you can write. Don't chase him. He won't come back. He's not supposed to stay. Wrap yourself in his abandoned nightshirt. Touch the place on your cheek he stroked on his way out your door. But don't chase. Stay still. Stay rooted in the rubble of what he burned. Dig there for your story's truths. Dig there for your glowing embers, and when you've turned them all over, cooled them with nouns and verbs and breath, take the ash and spread it in your garden. And wait. When Captain Jack knocks again, let him in. Look him in the eye. Hand him your pen and ask, "What are you about? Take off the makeup. Take off the braids. Take off the bandana. Who are you?"

The answer is your novel.

Go ahead and watch, ladies. Gents, I won't tell. Life's too short not to honor beauty.

And when you're done watching (and whatever else you feel compelled to do), write directly into that fire. Use the tip of the coal to scratch the words on the paper. Take that cooling fire and make your art. Not Captain Jack's art. Not the New York Times Book Review's art. Not Oprah's art.

Captain Jack came for you. Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't listen?

I'm Real! I'm Real!

2011-02-15T16:10:00.000-08:00

Some days you think you really have a sense of what's going to happen. The fact that life has always proven otherwise seems to always fall by the wayside.

Last weekend, we played Super-Sleuth trying to determine who was affected by the ginormous budget cuts our college is facing. We had bits of information. Connect person A to gossip B and get faulty conclusion C. But we knew something was coming, and that something was going to be big. On Friday, they said that all of us who were not going to be employed anymore have been notified. Whew. Add piece of information A to verifiable e-mail B and get one solid answer. Job Still In Place. Check. Whew.

Yesterday, we had an all-employee meeting. Who knew we had so many employees? They came out of cubicles and doors. They came from under the buildings and above the buildings. They came from facilities and faculty and staff and part-time and quarter-time and full-time and administration. We came for ... wait for it ... a Power Point presentation on the state of our lives.

Slides slid in and out. Charts appeared, morphed, and vanished. 15 full time positions eliminated. 18,000 part-time hours cut. Work week hours increased. Health center closing. Two sports teams eliminated. Ten open positions closed out. 11 faculty members who are eligible for early retirement will get to buy that Range Rover they've always wanted. And then, the organizational restructuring chart. We stared. 13 divisions condensed into 6. Alliances shifted. Who? Where? When? How? Seriously?

And then I saw the slide that set me free. I, a proud and noble department of one, long struggling (cue melodrama music) under the heavy shadow of Composition studies, have been divorced (amicably) from the English department. I am now actually officially a department, and I am now part of Liberal Arts and Sciences. My English department colleagues have become part of the Math department (how fun, though, it would have been to call my mom and tell her I've been moved to the Math department) under the new division of Foundation Studies. I've always felt like an impostor in the English department. I can teach anybody how to write better, but it's inauthentic to me to teach composition. I've pretended well, and I think because I understand writing, it's sort of worked, but my soul has shivered a bit. "It's OK," I tell her. "We teach composition so we can buy funky clothes." Usually that works.

But now, I can play with the other crazy art people where I have always belonged. I now can have department meetings with only myself instead of having to sit through hours of English department meetings which dealt with things I don't have to deal with. I no longer have to pretend that teaching rhetoric is important to me, and no one will expect that I care about or keep up with composition studies. It's been so exhausting (cue hand to forehead) being a twirly-crazy-dancy-person in a field of rigid paragraph structures and outcomes assessment. I can now talk about stories with the crazy Humanities instructor whose PhD is in mythology. The psychology professor stopped by yesterday and we wrote a poem together. My people! My people! I have arrived!

I also get to keep my supervisor, who has been a staunch supporter of creative writing and my program. So, I tried not to be too giddy as my colleagues of 7 years try to readjust to being with a new division with a new dean who does not know their subject matter. I tried to not be too giddy, but I am anyway. And ultimately, I'm grateful for a job, and if one day I find myself back in the English department, I'll be grateful for a job and the ability to diversify, and fewer years to go before retirement.

But in the meantime, I am very excited about what this new organization can mean for the creative writing program. Yes, we have to cut back and cut our course offerings like everyone else, but we have a chance at a legitimacy we could never have in the shadow of Composition. We will be able to grow up now -- to individuate and become something we could never be in an English department. I've already talked with some of the arty-folks no one knows how to classify about doing Guerrilla Art on campus and around town to try and promote the arts and general education classes. Spontaneous poetry? Dance? Who knows.

The administration waved a magic wand and set me free. At last. They see me, my students, and my program for what it has always been: Artists creating art.

Oh happy, happy day.

Calvin & Hobbes & Us & Them & Arizona

2011-01-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon above.

Most of you know I live in Arizona, a state that has been in national news a lot this past year for a variety of reasons, very few of them positive. This weekend, you've no doubt heard about the Tucson shooting. I have been thinking about what to say about that, if anything. I have been sitting for the past year in the cesspool of the political rhetoric in AZ on both sides on immigration, on citizenship issues, on English and Spanish language in schools. I know exactly what Safeway parking lot the shooting took place in. Tucson was my home for a little over two years, and I always think of Tucson in shades of yellow and turquoise.

I went to the YouTube site of the alleged shooter. I won't link to it here. You know how to find it if you want to read what he said. I went to his site because the man was a community college creative writing student. I went there, like I went to the Virginia Tech shooter's site (who was also a creative writing student), because each man was using language to try and say something.

It's my job to read people's writing and then try and help them figure out what they are trying to say. Every semester, we get students whose thought processes don't make sense on the page -- ideologies aside, their sentence structures are backwards, their logical leaps fall off cliffs. Every semester, we get students who are the lone wolves, the outsiders, the ones who don't gel with the group. Every semester we get a threatening one.

The last time I taught freshman composition, I realized the depth of the divisions among our students. For $50K a year, do I have the energy to incite them out of their belief systems and into honest dialogue? Not really. We faculty get told we're promoting left wing agendas. We get told we're communists. Elitists. Intellectuals. We get called all sorts of things, but most of us are just trying to help people think critically. Believe what you want. Vote how you want. But understand how and why you believe what you believe. Look at other points of view. When I first started teaching, I enjoyed teaching argumentation and rhetoric because it was fascinating to watch people open to other viewpoints (both sides). I don't see this as much, and in a state where we think it's OK to carry concealed weapons anywhere, I'm not inclined to push at doors that are sealed shut.

I read the writings of the alleged shooter. His thought processes (not the content, but the process itself) are very familiar to me as a teacher of developmental and first year composition. And though he's writing what appears to ramble, those ramblings reveal clues. He appears to recognize the importance of words even though he does not know how to use them well. He wrote, 'What's government, if words don't have meaning?'

I thought about that sentence a lot. I thought about how hard it is to accept the chaos and randomness of this world. I thought of all the religions and belief systems set up by people to help provide a way we can make meaning out of chaos. As humans, we seem to need to have a meaning almost more than we need oxygen. The commentators and news programs yesterday and today are already tracking the path of the shooter, laying down the clues, the breadcrumbs, that will help them write the story of meaning (or at least a reason for) the killing. Meaning helps us be at peace, it seems. Only, since no one can agree on meaning, the stories we create seeking peace often incite conflict.

We have been killing each other as long as we have had the tools to do so. We have yet, apparently, to find a story about it that makes it make sense to everyone. A story that makes it OK. Or a story that will convince all of us to stop. We continue our killing, actively and passively, and we then try and make a hierarchy of the dead so the illusion of order is maintained. (You can think about this hierarchy in the context of food -- this animal and this one are OK for food -- those animals are pets. Of course, choosing which animals are pets and which are food is the luxury of those with enough to eat.)

Our media is going to use language, words, to construct the story of this shooting and the story of the shooter. We are going to find a way with language to tuck this into the fabric of our country in the pattern we are most comfortable with. Right now, what seems comfortable is to blame the events on a climate of bitterness. It's this radio host; no it's that one! It's this cable show; no it's that one! The blame story, a familiar one, is also an external one. It is also only a single part of the fabric. I always had trouble teaching cause and effect writing because I don't believe there's a clear sequence. To me, causes and effects are simultaneous, and there are a multitude of factors involved in any action which results in a consequence. There's not a single reason for things, and often, I think, there is no reason at all. It just is. Things just are. The mind fights this concept. Observe it.

When I was in my twenties, all I knew to do was shout. I read books on feminism that made me angrier and angrier at what I felt had been denied to me because I was a woman. I read rants, wrote rants, and wrote plays and stories that attacked men, attacked patriarchy, attacked society.

I don't do this anymore. I have become apolitical. I vote, but I do not engage in political discussions except with those closest to me. I do not try to persuade or coerce. Instead, I have been listening, and rather than trying to shout back, I have been trying to live a life of quiet grace and peace. I honestly don't know if this is akin to burying my head in the sand. I know some would say so. My favorite bumper sticker of my early twenties was "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I have found for myself that outrage leads to high blood pressure, weight gain, a sore throat, and a closed heart. The fire-anger I stoked in my body began to turn on me. I had to find another way. If I put a bumper sticker on my car today, it would be something like: Shut up. Listen.

Words are my way. Stories are my way. I read books with content I'd rather not know about. I watch documentaries and television shows that keep showing me that the world is much bigger than my tiny mountain town. It is too easy to live in Prescott, and I do not want to fall asleep. The very least I can do is bear witness to suffering. The very least.

I do not believe in a heaven and a hell. I do not believe in a being of some type who has predetermined our lives or who is manipulating them or benevolently watching over them. I do, though, see divinity all around me, in what we label as sacred and what we label as profane. Our practice, as I see it, is to face ourselves. To sit with the conflicts raging within us and breathe into them. Soften to them. Open the door to the totality of who we are -- the parts of us who will rescue an animal from the humane society and the parts of us who will step over a homeless person on the street. Observe these things. Us and them, you and me, all contained inside each terrifying, beautiful human. Find the way to sit at peace with that.

Arizona has been bashed as a bastion of hate, bigotry, and intolerance. I am not prepared to deny those claims, and I am often ashamed and appalled by the rhetoric of Arizona, but I will propose that Arizona is part of a larger whole, and that which is found in Arizona is found in every state, in every country. These are not qualities of Arizona. These are human qualities. The shooter's website also stated "I am human." Indeed. Let us not turn our backs to that. Let us dare to look at the totality of humanness, not just its tenderness and gentleness. The more we turn away and deny the sides of ourselves we find 'ugly', the fiercer and louder they become.

I cannot imagine holding a gun and shooting a living thing, yet I eat meat, I drive a car, I wear leather. I cannot deny that I am a part of a world that kills, even if I am not the one with the literal gun in my hand. If I rage against the hunter while still consuming what he kills, I am fracturing myself into unrecognizable pieces. I cannot imagine the grief of the parents of the child who died, or the families of the other victims, or the feelings of Representative Gifford's husband, but neither can I offer them a half-sculpted story of the hows and whys. If I were sitting with them today, I could only sit with them, listen, hold their hands if they asked, stay silent while they cried.

My friend Cain Carroll tweeted this last summer: The heart may have to break a thousand times to make enough room for the kind of love it takes to embrace the world as it is.

My prayer and hope for us is that we sit still, listen without judgment, and breathe. That we allow our hearts to break open, screaming all the while until the breath runs clear and crisp and the edges we thought were barriers have vanished into stars.

As we write the story of these events, let's start inside ourselves. As we write the story, rather than look outward for meaning, look inward for compassion.

And then, may we let our stories go and stand empty in the field.

So You Want to Write a Novel

2010-11-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

If only I wrote this, but I didn't. But I could have. And at this time of the semester when I have heard everything (& I mean everything) about how easy writing is, how anyone can do it, why grammar doesn't matter (there are editors, silly girl!), why reading is dying, why there's no craft involved in writing, no work involved, no revision, no discipline (it's creative after all) ... how I want to be allowed to say, as this poor teacher in the video says, "I wish I could kill you and get away with it."

But I can't say it.

So, for all of you who are teaching writing, this is for you. And for all of you who are writing, this is for you.

And for those of you who are my students who do get it (and I know who you are, and I think you do too...) thank you. It's because of you that I can stand the rest of it. If you know why the phrase "fiction novel" is hilarious, thank you. If you know why this dear young writer is delusional, thank you. If you understand why phoning agents is hilarious, why "I've been living my life, not wasting my time reading" is hilarious, why "but my idea is a guaranteed bestseller", why the emphasis on "my work is copyrighted" is hilarious, and why "but I'm the talent" is hilarious, thank you, thank you, thank you. Come back to my class anytime. We'll work it.

And to whomever put this video together, thank you for saying everything that my overworked, end of the semester internal censor must stop cold at my teeth.

I'll see you on Oprah. :-) (that's hilarious too...)

In Defense of Fiction

2010-11-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

Something has happened. Somewhere along the line, imagination has become a bad word. Reading stories that are not "true" has become a waste of time, something one does while waiting for a root canal, or because one is in a literature class being force-fed novels. There are so many "true" books out there, why read fiction?

I hear this from my students (keep in mind, these are students who want to be writers). The gifts of a story, a piece of fiction, have gotten lost in the labyrinth of information and data and statistics that have become the ways in which we measure the success of our lives. I simply cannot tell you how this breaks my heart. Data never makes me cry (well, maybe in frustration). Information may tell me which train to take and what corner to stand on to catch that next bus, but it won't make meaning of my journey. The meaning comes from the filters. From the point of view, from the characters, from the false starts, the connections, the disconnections, the revisioning, and most important of all, the reflection.

The characters from my childhood fictions (Ramona the Pest, Harriet the Spy, Betsey, Tacy and Tibb, Paddington the Bear, the Velveteen Rabbit) are as much a part of my family as my literal family. Toni Morrison's stunning character Beloved, Shug Avery in Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, John Grimes from James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain, Rosa in Alma Luz Villanueva's The Ultraviolet Sky -- these characters, these people, (and thousands more) showed me something about myself. They showed me something of the world, of a different way of living, of unexamined possibilities.

Data did not tell me I could be a writer (though my childhood test scores showed that.) Harriet the Spy told me that. Data did not tell me I could move out of Phoenix, but Rose in The Ultraviolet Sky did. I don't know how to show my students how much fiction matters. The obsession with 'truth' in world filled, at best, with 'truthiness', is puzzling to me.

I fear that we are losing the people underneath all our knowledge.

I fear that we are losing empathy in our desire to be right.

I fear that we are losing compassion in a rush to be first.

What if we stopped dividing into true/not true and just told stories? What if, by "just" telling stories, we learned to listen rather than argue? And what if, in the middle of all of that, we heard one another rather than distilled each other's words down to the lowest common denominator?

Even I cringe at the Pollyanna-ish nature of that paragraph. (But Pollyanna, of course, was a fiction). But I am going to continue to shout it out because I cannot bear the thought of a world without stories. I cannot imagine who I would have been without them.

Read them. Write them. Tell them. Nurture them. Buy them. Make up characters and dance with them. Create storylines and inhabit them. It is imagination that will free us. It is imagination that will open doors.

This image below is from Phillip Toledano's website Days With My Father. The website is a gorgeous photo essay of the final days of his father's life. His dad had Alzheimer's and died at 99 years old. The photo essay opens with the death of Phillip's mother, Helene. His father doesn't understand where Helene has gone, and it's tearing both of them apart for Phillip to keep saying day after day, "She died, dad. Mom died." So, Phillip told him that she had gone to Paris, which seemed to help them both. A fiction. A truth. Please go take a look at Phillip's website. It ends with this note that his father had written to Helene (who had already died, of course, but was, to him, happily in Paris).

Now tell me again why fiction doesn't matter. Why only the literal truth (whatever that is) will save us. Tell me again why we communicate best in zeros, ones, and pie charts.

Tell me again, but please, tell it to me in story, the language of my heart, the only language of love.

So long, Ma Bell; it's been fun

2010-10-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every relationship when we must say farewell, good-bye, adieu, go away, so long, get out the back, Jack, get a new plan, Stan.

That's what I've done. Qwest could not provide me with the same service and the same pricing as Verizon. By disconnecting the land line and adding a data plan to my already existent cell phone plan, I still saved almost fifty dollars a month. This understanding falls within my basic math skills. We haven't had a raise in three years. Voila. $600 raise. A trip to San Francisco. Basic math.

I'm traveling more, driving more, flying more, and generally getting lost more, so I wanted Google maps. The Blackberry scared me. The iPhone wasn't yet available on Verizon. So, I got a Droid (and it was free, thanks again Verizon, new every two plan). I was on my way to the 21st century.

But then I realized I'd have to cancel my land line, for real. I remembered getting my first phone in my name in Phoenix in 1987. Arrival, baby. Adulthood. A phone. Keep in mind, I also remember busy signals and phones that were attached to the wall with a curly cord and answering machines that were actual machines that were housed in your house, not in the great voice mail void of the airwaves. My land line has messages on it -- a message from my friend Jeffrey when he was in the hospital before he died. Birthday songs. The first message Keith ever left me. They all had to go.

I put off calling Qwest. I didn't know how to break it to them. We'd been together almost twenty-five years. Would they be sad? Actually, they were.

"Can I ask why you're canceling your service today, Ms. Herring?"

"I'm moving entirely mobile."

The sigh. I hope there are boxes of Oreos and cartons of Haagen Daz in the Qwest offices. "If you'd ever like to come back ..."

Yes. We can still be friends.

The new phone arrived overnight. We took it out of the box and stared at it. We couldn't figure out how to slide open the keyboard. We couldn't figure out how to install the battery. We turned it on and it made a lot of noises. A little green droid that looks like Gazoo, the space alien from the Flinstones, popped up and wanted to talk. The pamphlet they sent with the phone was in English and Spanish, with only a few pages of truly helpful hints. We could request a manual, or download one (377 pages) from the website. Gazoo/Droid wanted me to input my google account information. Then, it wanted me to type in the letters I saw as a security measure. They were in 4 point font.

"Can you see this?" I asked Keith.

We squinted in the kitchen at the phone. "No."

I tried punching in what I thought I saw. Gazoo/Droid was sorry that we were not communicating and tried a new set of letters and numbers. I tried again. Gazoo/Droid was still sorry that we were not communicating.

By accident, I touched the screen and it got bigger. Who knew?

Gazoo/Droid was pleased that we were now communicating, and it would begin downloading everything I've ever done on the web, on e-mail, or in the darkness of my own room.

Gazoo/Droid tried to be friendly, but he really assumed a base line of knowledge that I did not have. How do you quit an application? Why does it need to run MySpace all the time? (Ever) Why does it need constant YouTube updates? Why does it have suggestions for me on what I might want to buy in the Droid Marketplace? Why do I actually want to buy anything in the Droid Marketplace? I just want to talk on the phone, find the hotel, and maybe call a cab from time to time.

"I'm afraid of the phone," I said. "It just does things without me telling it to do anything."

It beeps, burps, rings, buzzes, snorts, and jiggles. These sounds probably mean something.

"Call me," I said to Keith.

The phone beeped and the screen flashed. I couldn't figure out how to answer it before it went to voice mail. "Huh. Try again."

The phone flashed directions. SLIDE RIGHT TO UNLOCK! Press GREEN BUTTON to answer! (I could hear the underlying "you moron" underneath the words.)

"Hello?"

"Hello," he said.

We stood three feet apart talking to each other on the phone. "How do you hang up?"

PRESS RED BUTTON TO END CALL (you moron).

Fine.

It's been a week. Today, Qwest officially packed up the last of its clothes and left the house. I don't know where it'll go. I hope it'll be happy, find someone it can make a relationship work with. It wasn't Qwest, it was me.

I put away the actual phones with cords today. I wrapped them in plastic bags and stored them in the laundry room just in case Qwest maybe wanted to come back, just for a quickie, just for the good old days, just for one last farewell.

2 x 3 = 5

2010-09-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

Math.

See the poor kitty up there? This was me, staring at the green-covered algebra I book in ninth grade. It was me again in algebra 2. And then, three years later, in college algebra. See the poor kitty's answer? That was always my problem. The answers I came up with didn't necessarily fit the problem, though they were viable solutions. Does not this kitty's response make more sense? Do you not want to ask the kitty, "Dude! What were you thinking? There are ways of preventing an excess of kittens!"

I passed geometry by grace alone. The teacher knew I had no chance at any career involving numbers. I wrote the breathtaking saga of the Isosceles Triangle Family and its adventures through the land of Proofs and Puzzles. Do I see a Scalene Triangle lurking in the bushes? Get back, nave! Back to your own land of Scales! Equilateral Triangles were not very interesting story subjects, precisely because they were so even-keeled. No drama. No conflicted innards to delve into. They were the Switzerland of the triangle world, so unless you're hiding money in a Swiss bank account, there's not much left to do with them in a story. Every geometry test resulted in one more chapter in the Isosceles Triangle Family saga. Now that I've been a teacher for more years than I care to think about, I like to think that while this poor shmuck, the geometry teacher by day, baseball coach by night, was pouring his fourth glass of whiskey on another lonely Saturday night, he got a little laugh.

Last night, by a bizarre set of circumstances, I had a graphing calculator in my hands. A Texas Instruments 83, to be exact. It's a frightening piece of equipment, but for the record, it's not nearly as cute or as cool as an iPad. I suppose it does things that matter somehow. Lines. Slopes. Tangents. I tried to draw a kitty on it, but I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. Just holding a calculator like that brought me back to high school. My Texas Instruments calculator had a red display, and the most exciting thing I could do with it was type in 4377, turn the calculator upside down to spell 'hell'. To this day, I cannot punch in the numbers correctly in an arithmetic sequence. If you're doing division, which one goes in first? It's never the one you think. I figured out that if I ended up with a staggering decimal number with no end in sight, I probably need to reverse the way I put the numbers in. I'm adaptable.

2 x 3 = 5 was the mistake that followed me throughout my brief and fiery relationship with math. I do actually know that 2 x 3 = 6, but somehow, when I had to show my work in equations, that was the mistake I always made. One number off shouldn't make that much difference. But, in the inflexible world of math, it does. In came real numbers, imaginary numbers, x, y, and z axes, parabolas, (why??) and lots and lots of random letters, like Campbell's alphabet soup, suddenly dancing through the math books. As I've gotten older, I have more respect for math, but I have no concept of what it really is, what it can do, and why we need it. They had me when two apples and three apples equaled five apples. But once two apples plus the coefficient of x minus pi (not chocolate) and three apples equaled x - n + 4, I was onto a new romance deep in the hallowed halls of literature. The roots of my innumeracy are so deep in the earth no one can untangle them.

It drives me crazy when educated people misuse its and it's. Yet, I have two master's degrees and I have the mathematical literacy of an average third grader. All my classes have grading scales in multiples of ten. Every class has a total of 100 points -- no more, no less. I am a big fan of 10, and I don't see how expanding much beyond anything that can be wrapped in the big wide belly of a 10 would make my life easier. If it can't be done on my calculator with the REALLY BIG numbers and five functions only, then I don't really need to do it.

Here's a page from the TI-83 manual's attempts to help you understand what it can do:

A small forest of 4,000 trees is under a new forestry plan. Each year 20 percent of the trees will be harvested and 1,000 new trees will be planted. Will the forest eventually disappear? Will the forest size stabilize? If so, in how many years and with how many trees?

1. Press MODE. Press down-arrow, down-arrow, down-arrow, right-arrow, right-arrow, right-arrow ENTER to select Seq graphing mode.

2. Press 2nd (FORMAT) and select Time axes format and ExprOn format if necessary.

3. Press Y=. .If the graph-style icon is not(dot), press | |, press ENTER until (dot) is displayed, and then press ~ ~.

4. Press MATH~3 to select iPart( (integerpart) because only whole trees are harvested. After each annual harvest, 80 percent (.80) of the trees remain.

Press . 8 2nd (u) (() X,T 0, n) - 1 ) to define the number of trees after each harvest. Press + 1000 ) to define the new trees. Press † 4000 to define the number of trees at the beginning of the program.

5. Press WINDOW 0 to set nMin=0. Press down arrow 50 to set nMax=50. nMin and nMax evaluate forest size over 50 years. Set the other window variables.

PlotStart=1    Xmin=0             Ymin=0
PlotStep=1    Xmax=50           Ymax=6000
                      Xscl=10             Yscl=1000

6. Press TRACE. Tracing begins at nMin(thestart of the forestry plan). Press ~ to trace the sequence year by year. The sequence is displayed at the top of the screen. The values for n (number of years), X (X=n, because n is plotted on the x-axis), and Y (tree count) are displayed at the bottom. When will the forest stabilize? With how many trees?

(some symbols didn't translate into blog text ... not that I understand what they are...)

Here's my answer, courtesy of Mr. Theodore Geisel (Dr. Suess).

"Mister!" he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
"I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,
And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs" --
He was very upset as he shouted and puffed --
"What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"

I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees,
Which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please;
But I also speak for the brown Barbaloots,
Who frolicked and played in their Barbaloot suits,
Happily eating Truffula fruits.
Now, since you've chopped the trees to the ground
There's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!
And my poor Barbaloots are all feeling the crummies
Because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Catch! calls the Once-ler.
He lets something fall.
It's a Truffula Seed.
It's the last one of all!
You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.

Now all that was left 'neath the bad-smelling sky
was my big empty factory...
the Lorax...
and I.
The Lorax said nothing
just gave me a glance. Just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance.
He lifted himself by the seat of his pants and I'll never forget the grim look on his face
as he hoisted himself and took leave of this place through a hole in the smog without leaving a trace
and all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with one word.
UNLESS

Q4U:

If a faculty member is forced to attend 2.3 meetings per week, at a total of 3.5 hours of time, when she has 17.8 hours of student work to read and respond to, would it make more sense for her to travel to work by train or by bicycle or to go to the mall?

Not so hard, is it? 4377.

Helpful Hints For Your Weekend

2010-08-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

Keith bought a new Toyota last weekend. We spent many a fun hour reading the owner's manual. The result are these tidbits for your weekend fun.

Toyota is not responsible for injury or death resulting from not following directions.

When napping in your vehicle, remember to turn your engine off.

Keep limbs within the vehicle at all times.

Caution: Coffee may be hot. Use extreme caution when enjoying this beverage.

Do not drive while drinking a beverage of any sort. Sudden stops and changes in traffic patterns may cause you to spill. (In the unlikely event of a change in cabin pressure, please put the oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others.)

It is illegal to drive while drinking an alcoholic beverage or while intoxicated. Doing this may result in injury, death, or imprisonment.

Do not drive with the parking brake on.

Familiarize yourself with the location of the pedals. Use your right foot to depress the accelerator. (Note: We have fixed the spontaneous acceleration problem. No worries.) Use your left foot to depress the brake. Do not attempt to drive if you are unfamiliar with your left and right feet and their assigned pedals.

When driving in inclement weather, use caution. Failure to do so may result in injury or death.

If vehicle catches on fire, exit the vehicle promptly.

Toyota is not responsible for injury or death resulting from not exiting the vehicle in case of fire.

Do not drive this vehicle into standing water. Do not attempt to drive this vehicle into the ocean. Doing this will void the warranty.

Use only unleaded gas. Failure to do so will damage the engine, void the warranty, and possibly result in injury or death.

Your vehicle is equipped with front and side airbags. Do not place children in the front seat. Doing this may result in injury or death. Toyota is not responsible for this.

Remember, Kohl's cash is not legal tender and may not be used for making payments on this vehicle.

This vehicle is not a toy. Only licensed operators may legally drive this vehicle. Toyota is not responsible for accidents, injuries, or deaths caused by unlicensed drivers.

If you are passing more people than are passing you, you are driving too fast.

Toyota is not responsible for that either.

We value your business. Please enjoy this Starbuck's coupon.

But not while driving. We are not responsible. (See page 13)

Rip the Page!

2010-07-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'd like to welcome another Shambhala author to the blog today! Karen Benke's new book Rip the Page: Adventures in Creative Writing has been released this week.

A mutual friend put Karen and me in touch. She was kind enough to send me a copy of her new book. Although the intended audience is the 8 - 12 year old set, I think the book would help any writer. Most of my teaching experience is with adults. Adults often have trouble playing. They forget the importance of being a beginner, and they can often be afraid that they're running out of time and thus have to "get it all right" the first time. This will stifle creativity quicker than an assessment plan.

Karen's book is filled with experiments in language. She encourages the reader to "rip the page" from the book (another way of breaking a boundary and getting past a block). She uses well known poets and writers such as Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Soto, Lemony Snicket and Avi to help guide the young (and young at heart) writer on their journey. I intend to use some of the exercises in my college classes this fall -- especially when the class starts trying to think too much! For adults, the exercises could serve as jump-starts and ways to help get you out of your patterned way of thinking. Children will find these activities speak to their inner magic. Karen sees this magic in writers (of any age) and encourages that relationship to surface.

The back cover states: "This is your journal for inward-bound adventures." I love the phrase "inward-bound." Karen clearly understands that writing is first a way of deeply communicating with the self. She intuitively understands the importance of play. Of experimenting. Of seeing what works and what doesn't without a "right" or "wrong" distinction. I see many adults lose this important part of the writing process. When I worked as a writer-in-residence in the Phoenix area school system, I saw children losing this natural approach to writing very early on in their education.

If you're a teacher of writing to any age group, a parent hoping to foster a child's love of language, or a writer who hasn't gotten too serious with herself, do your soul a favor and pick up Rip the Page! Don't be afraid to play!

Karen shared her thoughts on some questions I posed.

1) What are some of the inhibitors you see adults placing on their writing that you don't see children doing?

Many of the adults I work with in writing relationships—a few call me
their their coach—are already convinced when they sit down next to me
that their writing has to be improved upon, fixed, made better by
someone other than themselves. There’s A LOT of duality that goes on at
first. There’s also a lot of apologizing and explaining. It can be
painful. Nervousness and a sense of anxiety, coupled with a critic
that’s well fed and vocal are what join many adults at the writing
table. I know this picture well . I’ve had a similar picture. So we
spend time untangling the creative child-like side of their minds with
the big, bad, red pencilled critic. We also use many of the writing
experiments and word tickets I’ve created to use with my playful second
graders on up to the too-cool-for-school sixth and seventh graders. Play
really is the anecdote…and pretty soon they are eager to read the best
poem of their life too the minute they walk through the door.

2) What are some things the kids have taught you about writing?

Kids have been my toughest, kindest, most playful, and encouraging
teachers. They teach me about trust and how to never let fear stop me
from writing and sharing what it is I most need to say. There was this
girl from one of my third grade workshops last spring who really let her
imagination rip down the page during our workshops. I invited her to
read at the annual Poetry Month reading at BookPassage, a wonderful
bookstore in the next town over. The annual CPITS Student Reading is a
big deal and is always well attended, often with over 100+ people and
standing room only. I even get nervous standing up there introducing
these star student-poets! Anyway, this little girl with her hair in
barrettes and a hint of blue eye shadow got up to the podium when her
name was called, then turned to me and said, “Wow, I’m really scared.”
She then proceeded to adjust the microphone, smooth out her poem, and
open her voice and her life to the crowd anyway. She’s my perfect
example of what Pema Chodron calls a person who is intimate with their fear.

3) From reading your bio on your website, it seems like you're balancing family, work and writing. Can you share any insights into how you structure your life to make space for everything that is important to you?

Oh, when I think of all the time I wasted prior to getting married
and becoming a mother. Now that I don’t have the luxury of what I had
then, one thing that has helped me prioritize is a nine year yoga
practice. It has helped me in more ways than I can name. Taking 90
minutes a few times a week and practicing sticking my soul to my skin
has allowed me to breath out all the un-needed thoughts and
how-am-I-ever-going-to-fit-it-all-in-today-worries, and truly create a
space where time spreads out and I feel this sense of calm abiding and
am able for longer stretches to remain in the no where else. That said,
I also have a very supportive partner who I “tag team” with. Both my
husband and son will say, “go to yoga; you’ll feel better.” Plus yoga
just makes me nicer person, to myself and to my family. And when I’m
nicer, I’m happier. And more creative…and can figure out ways to write
at baseball games when my son’s sitting on the bench and make sue of
those minutes in the pick-up line after school, etc.

4) When did you claim "writer" for yourself? In my experience, it takes people a long time to acknowledge that they are writers -- especially if they haven't published yet.

I love that verb “claim.” I claimed the word “writer” for myself with
a simple practice given to me at a workshop in Taos, New Mexico by one
of my early teachers, Natalie Goldberg. This was in the nineties, and
Natalie told a room full of us to spend time saying out loud to five or
so people we encountered over the course of day, a week, “I’m a writer,”
when we introduced ourselves. The whole week, every time I said it, I
felt like an imposter. I hadn’t published anything yet; this was the
trap my mind had set for itself…I could ONLY call myself the “W” word if
I had a publication credit. Then, shortly after that workshop, while I
was in graduate school, I had a prose poem published in an anthology
called WHERE THE HEART IS. I remember sitting in my boyfriend’s car
outside of A CLEAN WELL LIGHTED PLACE FOR BOOKS and crying. He thought I
didn’t like the book, but I was crying for that girl whose name came at
the end of the poem who had been a writer for so long.

5) Tell me about your cat. Anyone with a cat is clearly a fabulous human being.

Clive is a great wisdom being. He was abandoned on the streets of
Sacramento five years ago. A local woman in my county rescues cats from
Sacramento—since they euthanize them there—and brings them to a clinic
in San Rafael. My son had been asking for a marmalade-colored cat named
Gladys for months, so when my husband found a photo of a cat posted on
this woman’s website, he asked our son if a grey and white cat named
Clive would be OK. Well, Clive turned out to be more than OK. He is has
a huge personality and is scary smart. People who come to my house for
gatherings have been known to spend a fair amount of the evening hanging
out with Clive. Friends email me to ask after him. He’s that kind of
cat. He will greet you at the gate after a long day; spoon you until you
fall asleep. He hasn’t yet perfected the art of opening the back door
for himself, but when he stands on his hind legs, his front paws reach
the doorknob. Clive really holds the sacred space of our house. He’s a
younger brother to my son, and a muse to me. In fact, he sat to the
right of my keyboard for much of the time I wrote RIP THE PAGE! He’s
outside in the garden doing his morning meditation right now or else
he’d come thank you himself for devoting an entire question to him.

Rip the Page! Adventures in Creative Writing is available now from Shambhala/Trumpeter Books. Find out more about Karen at her website.

Just A Sweet Transvestite

2010-07-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

Tim Curry, as Dr. Frank N Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I have a black and white photograph of Tim Curry as Dr. F-N-F, dressed as above, on my wall in front of my computer. I am now days away from being forty-two years old and this man, dressed this way, singing in that voice that oozes everything, still gets me. I put the photo on my wall because this character was all id. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and he was glorious and fabulous doing it. He worked those heels and he worked a room, and when he moved, everybody watched him. When I feel stuck in my writing, or feel afraid to take a risk or tackle a particular subject matter, I look over at Dr. F, and I ask myself, "What would Frank N Furter do?" And the next step becomes clear.

In high school, I would go over to my friend Diane's house. We'd dress up over there in our fish nets and make up and drive over to Camelview Theaters to see the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sometimes we performed in the stage show. I was Magenta, once in awhile Janet. My friend Diane got to be Frank N Furter sometimes. She had the oozing down. We threw rice, squirted water guns, and we all waited with antici ..... pation (have to see the movie to get that one) for Frank N Furter to come down the elevator stomping his platform heels. When he threw open that elevator door, surveyed Brad and Janet, and claimed his space, we all knew, even if we didn't know we knew, that this was sex. I was not a Rocky Horror virgin, but I was a virgin-virgin, and still, I knew that whatever he was when he opened that metal elevator door was what I wanted -- perhaps not in a marriage partner -- but I wanted to find that place inside me that could exude that energy. I wanted to know how to ooze and I lived for the twenty seconds a week when I could watch him stand fully in himself and sing. I practiced singing the song. Tried to practice the walk (OK, the strut). Dr. Frank N Furter never fell down. In six inch heels.

Frank N Furter is not your best friend. He's not going to co-sign a loan for you. He's not going to show up on time and he's not going to be there when you're crying. He's not going to babysit for you, let you borrow the car, or let you for even one second look more fabulous in your heels than he does in his.

But honey, in 1985 when I was sixteen, I'd have followed him anywhere. A few years ago, I bought the movie (yes, pretty much just for the "I'm Just A Sweet Transvestite" song). I didn't think it would hold up. I figured my year with Rocky Horror was a moment, like so many, that are everything when you're in them, and nothing moments later. But when I was decades away from sixteen and I watched him throw open that elevator door, I still felt that yowza. I'd still jump on that man's, um, motorcycle and I know perfectly well he's going nowhere good. He's freedom. He's risk-taking. He's dangerous and he's unapologetic for who he is.

I don't use Frank N Furter as a role model for my friendships, but on days when it's me and my writing and I'm tempted to go safe, tempted to say, "can't write that -- too graphic, too sad, too angry, too fill-in-the-blank," I look over at Frank N Furter, hands on hips, defiant in his garter belt, mouth painted red and open.

WWFNFD? Damn straight. Write it down. Stand behind it. Own it 100%. No apologies. No baby steps. No skirting around the truth. Own it.

And for that, I'll love him forever. :-)

The seventeen seconds that started it all. Mom, you probably don't want to watch.

Reflections from New York

2010-07-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Some of my students: Writing Warriors! **

I spent July 4 - 9 teaching at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. This was the third summer I taught a workshop there. (I'm the one kneeling on the cushion next to the monkey. You can see the wrap around my foot). As is the way of things, I fell down the steps after yoga on the Thursday night before I was scheduled to leave. It was really a damn fine yoga class, too. My shoulder didn't hurt for the whole ninety minutes. I wasn't resisting the sweat and the heat of the studio. I felt ready to go to New York, open to listen to what the class would tell me.

Splat. Apparently I was resisting the stairs.

Now, I'm not a person who falls. I am not a person who runs, stands on my head, jogs, hikes, moves particularly quickly, or otherwise engages in high-risk behavior that might cause me to fall. Imagine my shock as I find myself lying on the gravel parking lot behind the yoga studio. No blood. Good. No bone sticking out. Even better. Fine. I'm fine. I'm a Southern Finn. I'm always fine.

Hmm. Ankle's hot. Swollen. Hurts. OK, hurts a lot. Still no blood. Still no bone. Ice, ibuprofen and a bandage-wrap and away we go with a 48.5 pound suitcase into JFK. Onto Airtrain to the subway. Onto the E train and off in Queens to visit some friends for a few days before heading to Rhinebeck. Can't really go up and down the stairs, especially not with a 48.5 pound suitcase. My fabulous friend meets me at the stop and carries my suitcase over the turnstile. (You should have seen it -- chivalry, darlings, is not dead). He gives me more ibuprofen and a pillow for my foot. He draws me a map to get to Herald Square and the next day I hobble forth into Manhattan (3 stops) and promptly find a seat in the new green folding chairs NY city has placed in the middle of the street in a few intersections.

What New York City looks like when you're sitting down in a cool green chair

watching everybody else scurrying around

Aha. Insight. I hurt my ankle so that I could not spend money in the shopping capital of the world. Gotta love bold-faced irony. I waddle down to Union Square and sit on a bench and watch everyone else seeing the city over their Blackberries and iPhones. I feel a little insecure with my phone-that's-just-a-phone, so I keep it hidden. I watch the sidewalk chalk artists and listen to a relatively awful band. I watch the squirrels jump from trash can to trash can. I am in the middle of the middle of New York City and I really can only sit and watch it all. How perfect.

My fabulous friend Rick and his fabulous cat Truman,

who only sort of came to love me by the time I left (but I know he misses me now!)

The temperatures begin to climb on the day I left Queens. My friend once again carries my suitcase (which has remained 48.5 pounds because I was thwarted in shopping-nirvana) over the turnstile and onto the E train and into the Port Authority and down two flights of stairs into the center of the earth where the Greyhounds and Trailways buses lurk. If I could have erected a statue to him in Central Park I would have done so that day. I promise the next time I visit I will be able to walk.

It's hot. I'm early because I'm always early. Finns are fine and early. A Trailways driver comes over and sits next to me. "You're the yoga writing lady," he says.

"I am," I say, realizing this is why I'm early in the dungeon of the Port Authority.

"I recognized you from last year."

He proceeds to talk to me about yoga philosophy. About Jung and Joseph Campbell. About meditation and Paramahansa Yogananda and the trappings of a spiritual path. "It's all fascinating," he says, "but it's not real. It's all stories. You the only one you got to listen to to figure it out. You got to always make sure you're hearing what's inside you. Of course, that ain't all that either."

A New York City unintelligible announcement comes over the loudspeaker. He understands it. "Gotta get to the bus," he says. "I like to go to the fifth floor of the library in Manhattan. Not too many people up there. I read everything." He points to his skull. "I read everything and then I let it go." He stands up and shakes my hand. "See you next year, yoga lady. Teach them how to let it all go."

And that becomes the focus for the week. The temperatures hit 100 degrees. The humidity slaps us silly. My non-air conditioned room only has hot water in the shower (not even kidding). I walk over two miles a day from the cabin to the dining hall to the classroom. My ankle hurts, but it's OK. I walk slow enough to see a garter snake, slow enough to watch the groundhogs, slow enough to see the flowers.

My class shows up ready to let it go. I don't have to do anything but listen and make a space. They are more ready than they know, and as we shake and dance and write and talk, they know less and feel more. They know less and write more. They move from brains to belly and surprise themselves. They don't surprise me. I know the bus driver's words are true: You the only one you got to listen to to figure it out. They don't need me. They need the space, the silence, and for the moment, the illusion that they need me, but by the time we pack it up on Friday, they've shattered that illusion all on their own and are ready, fierce, and breathing.

My green monkey friend Keezel surrounded by the offerings from the class. **

On Friday, I'm ready to go home. I'm ready for air conditioning and I'm ready for meat. And maybe a little wine. Delta Airlines, however, was not ready for me to go home. I find myself with a choice of being stuck in Newburgh overnight or stuck in Detroit overnight. I've spent the night on the floor of the Detroit airport before, so I opt for Newburgh. Delta Airlines apologizes, but they will not pay for a hotel because they are not responsible for the weather. It is indeed hard to argue with that statement, so I do not.

(Note to airlines: Why are all your hubs in areas of the country where there are always weather issues? Not sometimes weather. Not maybe weather. Always weather. All four seasons. All the time. Thunder. Lightning. Blizzards. Ice. Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Just a question.)

One of my students is also stranded. We decide to get our bags back and go to the Hilton and have meat and wine and conversation (oh yes, and air conditioning, and a shower with water pressure, and a bed with memory-foam and 500 thread count sheets and THREE pillows). We eat our meat and drink our wine and talk for hours until it is time to go to bed.

My airport shuttle will be leaving at 4:45 a.m. With any luck, I'll be back in Phoenix by lunchtime with far more gifts than my still-only-48.5-pound suitcase (take that, airline weight limits!) can hold.

Me at the Hilton, Newburgh, NY, July 2010 **

**Photo credits to Writing Warrior Kathleen Schmieder

Check out her website

Gayle Brandeis: Guest Blogger, author of Delta Girls

2010-06-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm pleased to welcome Gayle Brandeis as a guest blogger. Gayle has a new novel, Delta Girls, out today from Ballantine. Gayle and I met in graduate school, and we have gone on to become one another's early readers. Those of you who write know what an essential, and special, relationship this is. Both Gayle and I have novels out this summer that we helped one another with, and we wanted to not only share our work with you, but share some of our relationship with you. I wish all of you writers such a gift. Without further delay, please welcome Gayle!

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My novel Delta Girls marks a period of real flux in my life. In the two and a half years between the time I started writing the novel and the time it was released, I found myself with a different agent, a different editor (a series of three editors total for the book) and, most surprisingly, a different husband. It’s amazing to me how much can happen within a short span of time. In a recent four month period alone, I gave birth, lost my mom to suicide, bought and started renovating a house and lost my mother in law to a sudden heart attack. One constant through all of this intense, life-altering change has been my amazing friend and first reader, Laraine Herring.

I met Laraine when we were getting our MFAs in Creative Writing at Antioch University. I was immediately wowed by Laraine’s deep talent, her honesty and wisdom and absolute commitment to writing and its power to change the world. After graduation, we started sharing our writing on a monthly basis; this has been such a touchstone for me, such a gift. Laraine and I get each other’s work in a way that is so beautiful to me, so rare; sometimes it almost feels as if we’re the same person—we both love writing about writing and the body, and we approach language and voice in a similar way, so reading her work almost feels like reading my own, but with more clarity (and it teaches me to see my own work more clearly, as well). After taking some time off due to life chaos, we are reviving our work sharing this month, and I am so excited to have the gift of her eyes on my work again (and the gift of her incredible writing in my eyes.)

Laraine helped me find my way into Delta Girls (originally titled Pears.) I was a bit gun shy when I started writing the book; my editor at Ballantine had just rejected my novel, My Life with the Lincolns, which I had thought would fulfill my contract there, and I was given a year to write a new novel. (It’s helpful to remember that sometimes good things come from rejection—My Life with the Lincolns ended up getting published as a novel for young readers by Henry Holt, plus I probably wouldn’t have written Delta Girls otherwise, and now they’ve both found their way into the world around the same time. I love that both Laraine and I each have two new books out this year.) Because I was still stinging from the rejection and scared that whatever I wrote next would get rejected, too, I could only write in fits and starts. The first draft of Delta Girls was composed of chapters that were only a page or two each, almost like little prose poems, all I found I was able to write at the moment.

The book (which was inspired by a combination of dreams, breaking news and a friend’s stories about growing up on a pear farm) explores two alternating, but eventually intersecting, story lines—we follow Izzy, an itinerant farm worker, and her 9 year old daughter, who land at an organic pear farm in the Sacramento Delta, and Karen, an Olympics-hopeful pairs figure skater as she gets increasingly involved with her new bad boy skating partner. The back and forth rhythm was pretty extreme at first, one or two pages with Izzy, then one or two pages with Karen, and so forth. Laraine helped me see how this format could cause the reader whiplash, and didn’t give the reader a chance to sink deeply enough into either character’s story—just as she was starting to care about one of the characters, the focus shifted. Thanks to her notes, I was able to consolidate some of these micro chapters into longer blocks of narrative and create a better flow for the reader. Laraine also helped me see where some of my characters were a bit two dimensional, a bit cartoonish. I couldn’t stop smiling when I shared a new draft after I had worked hard to flesh the characters out and she wrote something like “Yay! They’re all a people now!” There were a few sentences that I particularly enjoyed writing, metaphors that surprised me as they came out of my fingers, and I was thrilled when Laraine made special note of them. The book is so much stronger and richer than it would have been without her touch. My whole life is so much stronger and richer for having her in it. I tend to be a fairly solitary person, but the writing life can still be a bit isolating; what an expansive, affirming experience it is to share the path with someone who both knows the terrain and is eager to explore uncharted ground. Laraine keeps me humble, keeps me honest, and makes me braver than I ever would have been on my own.
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Gayle is giving away a signed copy of Delta Blues. Please tell us about your favorite (or least favorite) rejection story in the comment section of this blog. Please make sure there's a way for me to contact you to get your information to Gayle for your book. We'll select a winner at random.

For more free books, click over to Gayle's blog for my guest post on our relationship and writing my novel. I'm giving away a free, signed copy of my novel, Ghost Swamp Blues, through her site. Simply post in the comment section at Gayle's blog what haunts you. A winner will be chosen at random.

Guest Blogs, Give aways, and Gardening

2010-06-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend we cleared out the garden in the front and back of the house of the plants who didn't survive our unusually cold and wet winter. I bought lots of lavender, some delphiniums, some sage, and a lot of annuals and on Saturday evening after the sun dropped behind the trees, we planted and watered and waited. It was hard to pull up the plants that died. I kept wanting them to come back. Maybe next week they'll bloom, I would think. Maybe just one more day and they'll be OK. After all, the ones that are blooming now looked pretty darn dead a few weeks ago. But it was time. As we were working in the garden, I thought about how much gardening is like writing, especially longer works like novels. You never really know what's going to work. You just plant. You wait. You water. You nurture. You prune away what isn't taking. You leave yourself open for surprises (this spring, my yard was filled unexpectedly with daffodils and tulips that no one I know planted). You trust that things are working underneath the soil that you cannot see. And so you watch and show up and let go. You re-remember that you can't determine how it's all going to work. And when things bloom, every time, you bow your head and say, "thank you."

On to new and exciting things:

I guest blogged today over on Lisa Romeo's website about the creation of Ghost Swamp Blues. Go check it out, and check out the rest of her blog as well. Lisa's forte is creative non-fiction and she offers a wealth of information on her blog. There's an opportunity for you to comment on her blog to be entered to win a free, autographed copy of Ghost Swamp Blues. All you have to do is post a comment on her blog by June 19. I'll also be stopping by her blog from time to time in the next few weeks to answer any questions you might have about the book.

To that end, if you find you have any questions about any of my books, about craft, about publishing, etc, please leave those questions in the comments of the blog or you can e-mail me. I'll be using this blog once a month to answer some of your questions. I might even do a vlog, depending on what the question is.

I'm also thrilled to announce the launch of my updated and redesigned website. Please check it out. Huge thanks to my friends at The Concentrium for their talent, time and generosity of spirit.

And finally, last week, I learned the basics of the FLIP camera and made some very amateur vlogs on some of the concepts in The Writing Warrior. Shambhala had asked me to demonstrate some of the exercises, and I did my best (all alone in a room with a camera that doesn't move and has limited editing functions). I'll get a little better, but probably not much. The intention is to help clarify some of the concepts I talk about in the book. I will also use the vlog to talk about some craft components and also answer some of your questions. Check it out on my YouTube channel. Feel free to subscribe!

I look forward to reading your questions!

It's the Crack that Lets the Light In

2010-05-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

We all know no human looks like that woman (or the striped kitty) on the magazine cover, right? But what is perfect? What is it measured against? If perfection means completion, then, as the yogis say, everything is perfect. The perfection lies in the thing's completion, not in its flawlessness.

When we were in San Francisco, I discovered a chest wrinkle. Yes. Bow your heads. For Christmas, Keith bought me a magnifying bathroom mirror (8X magnification!). Some things just weren't meant to be seen. Good thing my eyes don't see well enough to catch everything that mirror does.

Salvadore Dali, 1955

My right side of my body is bigger than my left -- the arm is longer, the leg is longer, the foot is longer, the eye is bigger, even the hair on the right side of my head fluffs better. Somehow, all together, I look like a human woman, and fortunately, human eyeballs don't magnify everything eight times. But, if you break me apart into right foot and left foot, eyeball with astigmatism, eyeball without, tooth #26, tongue, vertebrae, on and on and on, you'll get a pile of parts. Could be a woman. Could be a robot. Could be a monkey.

I did the mandatory read-through of Ghost Swamp Blues now that the real book is in my real hands (yes, I held it in my right hand). And of course, I found the errors. Six professional people read through the manuscript. I proofed it four times between March and April. Still. Errors. Nothing major. No big engine replacement. Nothing heinous like a whole different novel showing up on page 50 just to see if you're really reading. Just some errors. I knew they would be there. They always are. Every book I've got has errors. I keep a list, and when the magic "next printing" occurs, we can fix them. The errors don't alter the story. They don't make you scratch your head for days, but they're there. And of course, the six professional people didn't see them, so every other reader on the planet will see them. It's the unwritten law of the universe.

Still, the story is a whole, not a letter, not a page break, not a spine, or a bio, or an italicized word. The story is Lillian and Hannah and Roberta and Gabriel and the Four Sirens. The story is North Carolina. The story is a ghost story, a redemption story, a surrender story, a regret story. All these imaginary folks had the courtesy to get together in my heart for a decade. We duked it out. Lived together. Ate together. Slept together. Fought together. Ten years. Still, they hung out in the trees, in the swamp, in the old house by the creek.

I read the last sentence of the novel, for the four thousandth time (only a little hyperbole), with my fifth cup of coffee (no hyperbole) this afternoon at the Raven Cafe. I had been making my obligatory list of the typos. But I read that last sentence, for the four thousandth time, and those imaginary folks still sat at the table with me. I put the book down and looked at them.

"You did good, sugar," said Lillian.

"Wash it away now! Wash it away!" said Number One.

"It's in the river now!" said Number Three.

"It's that darkness," said Gabriel. "It's that darkness you brought into the light. Darkness can't get out without a crack. Until darkness gets out it can't go no place. Can't go away if it's trapped."

"We're all put together now," said Roberta. "You can move on along."

Hannah, too cool to say anything, smiled over the rim of her double-mocha-skim-latte.

I bussed my table, gathered my book and my notebook, and walked out into the bright Arizona afternoon.

Selling and Salvation

2010-05-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

And, um, I have this novel, and, um, do ya wanna buy it? Maybe please maybe please maybe? It's really good. You'll like it. Promise.

No one ever goes out with the person who's wishy washy. Does he like me? Does he really like me? You'll like me, I know you will. I'll be whatever you want. Ick. No one likes that. That person never gets a date, and that person will probably never make a sale.

The promotion phase of the book biz is hard for me. I'm not a good self-promoter. I feel like I need a bath after each dive into Facebook or e-mail I send. Not that I am not genuinely interested in getting the book out to readers. Not that I feel like I'm spamming strangers or hawking a bad product, but, well, I don't know what. I know it's absurd to believe that just because it's published it'll get read. People have to know about it, but when is it bragging and when is it simply conveying information?

"Here's my daughter, the most beautiful, brilliant, talented person you'll ever meet. Don't you want to take her out for dinner?" (too much!)

Or..

"This is my daughter." (information only)
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"Here's my novel. It's the most breathtakingly achingly painfully gorgeous piece of writing you'll ever read. Don'tcha want it?" (too much!)

Or...

"My new novel is out." (information only)

I try not to do the former. Like most writers, I'm not sure what I even think about the book now that it's a book and not a word file anymore. I already see things I want to change, chapters I want to cut, lines I want to rewrite. I do know that's always the way. It's part of being an evolving writer. It's part of being able to say, "I did the best I could, but that best will be different today because everything is different today" and I have to be alright with that.

I'm finding that self-promotion is a lot like writing. It takes awhile to find your voice with it. It takes awhile to find the rhythm (yes, carry books in your car, slip it into conversation (but only once!), update your FB pages, yes, yes) It takes awhile to find peace with it too. You have to let go of the myth that the publisher will do this for you. That's a hard one. If I wanted to go into sales, I would have. But I'm not in that Dan Brown-world.

The first creative writing class I ever taught at Phoenix College came as a surprise. I hadn't finished my MFA yet. I hadn't taught anything where people paid actual money. The program director called. The instructor bailed. Could I teach it? It started in two days. So I said yes, because of all the faults I may have, saying yes when opportunity falls in my lap is not one of them. I was terrified I wouldn't have anything to say. I overprepped. I over-everythinged. But I soon learned that teaching is less about knowing and more about being. If I was authentic in what I said, I could say things that made no sense and be given the chance to restate or explain or retract. If I was fake, over-confident, or arrogant in my delivery, no one would feel safe with me. No one would trust anything I said.

You may have heard this saying: When you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before.

I try to do that, and pretty soon, I'm not acting, I am in the end zone, and I'm making it my own experience. So I have this novel out now. That's my football, and I can stand still or I can run with it.

Here's an excerpt.

You can buy it anywhere books are sold. You can buy it from me. Send me your e-mail through the comments section and I'll tell you how to do that. If you're in Phoenix, I'm coming to Changing Hands in Tempe on August 13 at 7 pm to do a reading. You can buy the book there and support the fabulous independent bookstore that Changing Hands is. I'm also doing a writing workshop from 2 - 5 on August 14. You'll need to preregister for that through Changing Hands. The workshop costs $35.

I promise I will not be using every blog post to promote. But today, I'm in the end zone, and I've got to run.

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

2010-05-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

There's no place like San Francisco.

In five days, we:

- experienced camping in Union Square (our hotel's bed was more like a bedroll, slanted, and with pointy springs, and if Keith and I were obese, we couldn't have fit in the room together)
- heard dozens of languages on a single bus ride
- saw amazing silk embroidery art at the Asian Arts Center in Chinatown
- ate and ate and ate and even drank one meal (which was not as bad it sounds -- we just ate too much in the middle of the day and ended the evening with only a glass of wine and a piece of sourdough bread at the wharf)
- race/walked 2 miles from Castro and Market to Powell and Sutter to catch a play at 8 pm (the buses were too full and weren't stopping and the underground was down). I can apparently do 2 miles in 30 minutes. Take that, marathon-running people! Funny, how I can walk and walk and walk on concrete, but put me in anything that even appears like "the wild" (like an overgrown park, perhaps) and I can't walk 30 feet.
- browsed bookstores with cats who live in them
- walked past the con men and the homeless -- often not the same thing
- saw a man typing on a Remington in front of Ben and Jerry's on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Name your price, name your subject, and he'll type a poem.
- saw more ads for the iPad than ads for Starbucks
- saw a man walking down the street with a live chicken on his head
- went to Ocean Beach and froze in the sunlight
- had dinner with two fabulous friends (and when we couldn't identify some of the food on the menu, they had both iPad and iPhone options for us to look up the food) Oh, how I want an iP.... stop it! Stop it!
- saw hundreds of people trying to get to the Civic Center on Saturday night in tuxes and gowns for the annual Black and White Ball (and without Muni service it was fascinating to see how fast those women (and some of the men!) can go in those heels)
- watched the ferries depart from the Ferry Building as the fog fell at dusk
- were serenaded one morning by a man singing "This Little Light of Mine" on the sidewalk beneath our hotel/campsite
- saw too many accessory dogs and nowhere near enough cats
- ate dinner at 10:30 the night of the Infamous Two Mile Walk. In Prescott, your only dining choice at 10:30 at night would be Denny's. In San Francisco, well, it hadn't even gotten started yet.
- used the fire escape as a refrigerator because, yes, the hotel/campsite did not have a mini-fridge

What is it about San Francisco?

Perhaps it's because we get to the City on BART and leave on BART, so we have to emerge from underneath the earth to be in San Francisco, and then descend back into the earth to return to our "regular" world. That makes everything mythical from the first steps. Perhaps because so much is happening every millisecond, we are forced to forget the regular world and must adapt immediately to this extraordinary world. Perhaps because the City feels real -- the light with the dark, the creativity with the destruction, the abundance with the scarcity -- nothing feels hidden away. We can't forget that there are 6 billion other worlds. We can't slip into complacency without a lot of effort (or substances).

The City keeps pulling you back to it. Back to the concrete and the earthquakes and the crack pipes and the uber-chic-vegan-gluten-free-sushi-places. It pulls you back to all the possibilities available to you. It pulls you out of routine, out of predictability, out of stagnation.

You have to move, but even if you hop on the wrong bus, another one will be around eventually to bring you back. How's that for magic? Click your heels, baby. You had it all along.

Powell Street BART/MUNI station

Keezel and I at Ocean Beach

Poignant end-of-movie scene (cue Bette Midler song) where Girl and Monkey look out at Vastness of Ocean and discover Important Truth about Self and World and Impermanence.
San Francisco, you are the Wind Beneath My Wings.

Next Stop: San Francisco!

2010-05-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, we're leaving for San Francisco. Every time I go there, I think of the opening scene from Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City (Harper Perennial 1978). (...) indicates text deleted for purposes of the blog.

Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time. She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish Coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her mood ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland.

'Hi mom, it's me."
(...)
"Mom, I want you to do me a favor."
(...)
"I want you to call Mr. Lassiter and tell him I won't be in on Monday morning."
(...)
"I'm not coming home."
Silence.
Her mother began to cry. "You won't come back. I just know it."
"Mom. Please. I will. I promise."
"But...you won't be...the same!"
"No. I hope not."

I've only got one class on campus next semester. The rest are on line. It's a brave new world. "Hello? Yavapai College? I won't be in on August 16. You can reach me during my virtual office hours. Make sure your messages are in .rtf or .pdf format. Thanks!"

Perhaps I would have been gutsier at twenty-five. Still, it's nice to think about.

We will go to the ocean, watch the people, pay a homeless man for a poem, listen to how we are living in sin from the street corner preachers, hug a baby seal for a cause that exists only in San Francisco, buy a piece of turquoise from the vendors on Market Street, go watch a play that involves no sound, admire the costumes in the windows and on the people, visit friends, remember friends who are dead, trip on the earthquake pressed sidewalks, hear the voice of the Muni announcer, wish I had an iphone, stand in front of City Lights Bookstore and listen for Ferlinghetti, count the number of honest-to-goodness books people are reading on the train, watch men playing drums on the corner of Geary and Powell, pay too much for a cheeseburger, pay too little for a hug.

I will listen for my characters, who have been stuck in San Francisco for (in my world) five years. In the book, they've been there a lifetime and more. I will let the clang of the trolley chase the ghosts away and ring in new ones. I will wish Jeffrey were still alive so I could give him a copy of my novel because he read it first, nearly nine years ago. I will be glad my friend Dex is there, and that we will have time for dinner together, and I will be glad I am able to travel, able to walk the hilly streets, able to pay my own way.

I will return to Arizona to market my books, start another one, try to let the last semester slip away. I will water my plants, go to my yoga classes, drink coffee at The Raven, laugh with my girlfriends, and then pack up for New York in a few weeks, grateful again that I am able to travel, walk the hilly streets, pay my own way.

"Hello? Yavapai College? Thanks for direct deposit. I'll bring you back a flower for your hair."

Midlife Mid Career Writing Advice

2010-05-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

So far, for me, midlife (big assumption that this is where I am -- 82 is looking younger all the time!) has been about getting rid of stuff -- whether that stuff is 3-dimensional or emotional or psychological. It's been about accepting that what worked in my twenties (everything from types of food to exercise routines to types of relationships) doesn't necessarily work in my forties. Joseph Campbell said that midlife was about reaching the top of the ladder, only to realize that the ladder was up against the wrong wall. I realized my ladder was up against the wrong wall before mid-life. What's been a slower revelation are the transitions within a writing life and within a writing process as I age.

I was struck this year by the youth in my writing classes. Their fiery energy. Their certainty that there will always be another story, more time, more imagination. Their general lack of interest in revision, in craft, in process. Their drafts were disposable. Their experiments conducted without commitment. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. Compared to my students who are farther along in years than I who are afraid to let anything go, afraid to start, afraid to stop, afraid to create things that aren't perfect, they are a breath of fresh air. My older students are constantly aware that time is not on their side. My younger students think time will always be in service to them. It's an interesting dichotomy to have in the classroom -- the dance between "there will always be tomorrow" and "there may never be another time". The two sides are good for each other, and for me, standing not just in the front of the classroom, but in the middle of these two extremes. The edges help frame my perspective, help me realize what to let go of, caution me against the rigidity that could come next. I am in the middle of the duel between reckless and afraid.

I remember the writer's ego of my younger days. Part of that ego came because I am a good writer. The other part came from believing good was good enough, and that my good-enough would never be challenged. I remember doing just what my students do -- scratching out a draft right before the due date, never looking at the comments from my teachers, believing (sounding surprisingly like that part of me that believes I will be the one human not to die) that I was just not understood by the teacher or the group. I know this place when I see it in my students, and I know it has to run its course. I know that of my 100 students a semester, 5 are serious, fewer than that will make writing their lives.

I remember the urgency to say everything in one play, one story, one poem. The need to shout my perspective from the rooftops and slam the door on those who didn't share it. I remember how angry I was to realize that I had a degree in literature and had only been required to read the works of two women (Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf). I remember the power of the 1st person narrative, and how impossible it seemed (and how ridiculous) to write from any other point of view.

But something shifted. Shouting only made my throat raw. Being attached to how I was perceived and how others perceived things caused nothing but suffering. First person morphed into third person as a primary point of view choice -- perhaps as I morphed from a person whose eye was "I" into a person who could see a larger community, a larger world besides my own skin. The girl who wrote decent drafts in one sitting began to write slower, began to listen for a long time before she even put a word on the page. The girl who had always loved the ease with which the words had come began to notice that the words that came the easiest were not usually the right words. She began to understand the adage "only real writers revise" and began to look not just at the big picture, but at each word in the sentence, the placement of each comma. Her respect for writing grew as her need to be seen within it waned. And then she realized this, which stopped her heart:

The first draft is not a badly executed solution to the problem of the narrative. A first draft is, at its best, a scratching out of the problem itself. The first draft (yes, all 300 pages of it) if you're lucky, will show you the question of the narrative. It will contain signposts for you as you begin to do the rest of the work. It will contain clues. But it is not the solution. It is the submission of the question.

If one is lucky, humility soon replaces arrogance as a writer ages. Where is that fire? She might wonder. Where is the certainty? Was she no longer a writer? But like the rest of her life, the fire has ceased to rage and begun a more steady, constant pulse. And the certainty, well, now she knows there never was such a thing. And the purpose of that first draft becomes the seeking of the question, rather than the attempt to answer it. And because the fire has ceased to blaze out of control, it can become the fuel for the long journey of the novel.

Is youth wasted on the young? No way. My forty-one year old body can not sustain that anger or that energy. My forty-one year old body wants to watch and stretch and drink water with lemon. My forty-one year old body is interested in new writing questions, in the third person point of view, and in building a bridge instead of a wall. And if someone had told my twenty-year old body this, I would have dismissed it, if I'd have even heard it. So when I stand in front of my class of twenty and sixty year olds, I try to channel youth's blaze, use it to fan the waning heat of the others, and keep myself hydrated, flexible, and silent.

I Just Joined Twitter; I am Going to Hell

2010-05-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

On Facebook today, my friend, the novelist Mary Sojourner wrote, "There's an old story about how you can put a frog in water, start to heat it. The frog will adapt and adapt till it can't anymore and dies. I suspect we are all frogs."

She was writing about indie bookstores and e-books and all the chaotic upending changes going on at break-neck speed in the current publishing climate. She and I have talked at length about the world we're writing in, asking the question, "What happens when no one values the stories anymore?" What happens to those of us who only need pen and paper and a readership, but understand that the world we are living in requires we do and be more. E-books will be interactive! Outtakes? Bad drafts? False starts? Characters who didn't make the cut? Where do we draw the line? A new generation of young writers first learned to read and write on a computer. It's a different world, and no one knows who will emerge on top in this new world order.

My friend and I have spoken about the power of Facebook. As an author, you ignore it at your peril. People find you there. They ask you questions, and yes, they buy your books. You are not a multi-millionaire. You are not the Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling of the publishing world. You do not get your phone calls returned, even from the smallest of writing conferences. You must find your own way through the brush to your readers. The field is very crowded and noisy. Do you join in the din and try to shout louder? Or do you remain silent and believe in the "If I write it they will come" mantra. You do know better than that. They won't. But you also know that if everyone is shouting, no one is hearing.

I am lucky. I have two books coming out this summer. My novel, Ghost Swamp Blues, comes out on June 1. The Writing Warrior: Discovering the Courage to Free Your True Voice comes out on August 10. I have spoken to the publicists. We have lists -- they will do X, I will do Y. Where do I have friends where I might stay on tours? (If there were tours.) What conferences would I like to participate in? Am I willing to Skype with book groups? (Yes) Will I build a Facebook page for each book? (Yes). Will I blog regularly and continue to build my platform? (Yes) Will I launch a YouTube station with videos on the writing exercises and other writerly topics? (Yes) Will I offer to guest blog? (Yes) Will I send books to book-review bloggers? Will I give books away on my own site? Give my time away? Coach people with their own writing for free? Will I do all this for the possibility -- only the possibility -- of my books reaching an audience? And will I do all this while I maintain my full-time job (because much of the costs of book publicity come from my own pocket, "Sorry, Laraine, we just don't have the money ... ") which involves teaching writing to 100 students each semester, and by the way, Laraine, what's your next book? Will you send us your next proposal? What are you working on now?

Since I posted final grades on Tuesday, I have done the following:
- reviewed and edited press releases for both books
- followed up with the publicists
- developed lists of newspapers, book groups, and reviewers
- scripted four YouTube videos to shoot this month
- began writing a database of newsletters so I can stay in contact with readers
- organized lists of people who are preordering books from me
- rewrote the copy for my website re-design, which will launch on June 1 as well
- added content to my Facebook pages for the two books
- contacted several venues where I would like to present a workshop or reading
- followed up with Pearson/Longman on a creative writing textbook proposal we began working on this year
- joined Twitter @laraineherring

Prior to posting grades, I have done the following:
- created a teaching schedule for the next academic year that is primarily on-line so I can re-organize and reclaim some of my time and energy
- spoke to my supervisor and received approval to begin the application process for a sabbatical for 2012

What have I not done?

Real Writing.

To My Students: If you want this life (and make no mistake, I do want this life), be ready to work it. If you have to have a day job, then you have to have a day job. You will then have three full-time jobs -- the writing one, the marketing one, and the one with the check attached to it. You will have to find your own way into the pot of boiling water, your own method of adapting. No one can adapt for you. No one can tell you which way is the right way. You have to jump in, and then you have to know when to jump out.

All I ever wanted to do in this life is write stories. This is the time in which I am writing them. I can't change the time I'm living in. I can only continue to know that I must push back to keep the space I need for the Real Writing. I must continue to say no. Continue to set boundaries. Continue to do what I am here to do. I was born knowing my answer to the cliched deathbed question -- I will not wish I had spent more time grading papers. I will not wish I had spent more time outside. I will not wish I had had children or a dog or a church. I will only wish I had read more, had written more, because that is who I am. I have always known that, and I have always felt profoundly grateful for that.

So in this world, this time, this place -- I am a writer. And to do that, I have to do other things. I was given the talent and the tools. The assembly is left up to me. So, dare I say, tweet me, follow me on FB, check out the new website when it's launched, read my book, read the books of others, write to the authors (we're kind of lonely out here), share books, share stories, and write them down because the creation of such gifts are sacred, and even if the delivery method is rooted in zeros and ones, the story is still the reason for the method. Without the stories, we are empty.

To sleep, perchance to dream

2010-05-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream

The hospital room is narrow, more like a veterinarian's office than a surgical theater. Light pours in through a triangular skylight. There is not enough room for anything more than the single bed where my aunt lies, head bald from months of chemotherapy. There is not enough room, but still we are there, my dad and I at the foot of the bed.

He is enormous, in this moment, my father, and it is natural that we are standing there together though he has been dead 23 years. He watches his sister on the bed, her eyelids fluttering. She is only sleeping right now. The surgeon enters and the room with no room makes space for him. He is an African-American man wearing a frayed straw hat.

"Sam," I say, although I have never seen Sam.

Sam worked on my great-grandparents' farm in South Carolina. My dad and his sister played with Sam against their parents' wishes. "Sam was always good to me," my father said before he was 23 years dead. "Especially after I had polio."

Sam and my enormous dad look at each other. Sam nods, says something I don't hear, and leaves. Dad takes the anesthesia mask and places it over his sister's mouth and nose. I hadn't noticed he'd moved away from me. He is now at the head of the bed and I am now alone at the foot. My aunt's chest stops rising and falling and my enormous father becomes a young boy. His sister becomes a young girl. He runs, no limp, and she chases him, catches him, and they fall against the hospital wall which collapses into the thick woods behind their childhood home. The little girl and the little boy hold hands and skip into the woods as if they were going berry picking.

I can't move through the wall that became the woods. I am anchored in the tiny hospital room. Sam appears from behind a tree and the little girl and the little boy run to him and he holds them and the wall becomes wall again and I can no longer see where they are, where they are going, my enormous father who has been dead 23 years, my aunt, who is, on this side of the wall, not yet dead but moving closer, and Sam, who I have never known on this side of things.

The monitor in the small hospital room beeps steadily. I am at the foot of the bed near the feet of my aunt. I touch them and they are not yet cold, but the wind is coming. I touch the wall. It does not move. My own breath comes through the earth, my feet, my belly, my lungs. My own breath, for now, still rooted on this side of the tenuous wall that holds us all.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Unrealistic Expectations

2010-04-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

"April is the cruellest month."

- T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"

When I first got hired at the college, I was warned about April.

In academia, April is:

The month of dead grandmothers. Students come in packs to speak tales of woe about dead grandmothers and how these untimely and tragic deaths prevented them from turning in their work on time. Many of these students forgot that these grandmothers already died earlier in the semester.

The month in which students, who are never more than thirty seconds away from a possible text message, suddenly forget how to use the internet at home to turn in their papers. Suddenly, the technology that they avail themselves of in the middle of class is unavailable at home. It never occurs to them to go to the library. To turn in work before the very last second the assignment link is up. To plan ahead. They seem horrified to learn that this doesn't matter to me, and the work is still not accepted. I know. Bitch. (Say it with a snarl.)

The month of unparalleled audacity. "But I need to get at least a C! I'm on a (fill in the blank) - Pell Grant, athletic scholarship, etc, etc." This sentence of course comes from the student you have not heard from since February. Say it with me now. I'm the bitch.

The month of EverythingEveryonePutOffUntilTheEndOfTheSemesterWhichMustGetDoneNOW. This means assessment plans, performance goal plans, things for next semester that must get implemented before next semester in order to be available next semester, wouldn't-you-like-to-serve-on-the-NCA-self-study committee (NO) ... you get the picture.

The month of the Extra Credit Demand. You'd think I'd be used to the demands by this time. If I wanted something from someone, I like to think I'd ask first. But generally I get the demand instead. My syllabi (which I know no one reads) has a clear no extra credit policy. Still, they ask and then are put out. (Yes, bitch.) To all you teachers out there, here's the response that works: Why should I do more work to accommodate the fact that you did not do enough work? Even the ones with the fake-grandma-mourning clothes on can't speak to that one.

The month of I Used to Love You But I Had to Kill You (don't worry administration, not a veiled threat -- that's a reference to the Guns 'N Roses song ... you remember them, right?) Everyone who looked rosy in August now has a gray pallor. My office, which was once festive and funky, is now just cluttered and dusty and sad. I'm sick of my own itunes mixes, my own lesson plans, and my own voice. It's true. I am a bitch even to myself.

And I do have to tip my hat and my heart to the single student out of the 5000 on campus whose grandmother actually did die (or uncle, or brother, or mother, or friend) and no one believes her because, well, it's April, and let's face it, timing matters. I know. Bitch.

This year, April has brought winds of 70 + mph for days. Snow (twice!) It's been 80, then 40, then 20, then 70. Open toed shoes? Parkas? Mittens? Scarves? Tank tops? Stop!

Today is the last day of April. Go please, April, go gentle into that good night. Rage not against the dying of the light. (Sorry Dylan Thomas).

And if you're a grandmother, hold on for twenty-four more hours. You'll be safe tomorrow.

Crossing Over

2010-04-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

This month I have crossed over. I thought I could avoid it. I thought if I ate enough leafy green vegetables, did my eyeball-yoga, and drank enough water, I could avoid it.

But it came for me anyway.

Genetics trumps eyeball-yoga.

About ten years ago, I walked into my mom's house and saw her reading. She had a pair of reading glasses on over her regular eyeglasses. She has a little nose so the two pair of glasses didn't really fit on the bridge. It was both funny and horrifying. As the mother goes, so does the daughter.

The last time I went to the optometrist, he told me (young, young man that he was) that I probably had one more year to go before I needed bifocals. I'd already succumbed to reading glasses with my contacts because it was more horrifying to stand in front of my class and not be able to read from the textbook than it was to take on and off stylish reading glasses. I developed a swish and a flair with the ceremonious taking on and off of the purple glasses. I pushed them down on my nose so I could peer over them in true old-lady-English-teacher fashion. I was one step away from polyester and a beehive hairdo.

But bifocals. That's different. It is simply not possible that I am a person of enough miles to need those things.

The next thing that has come for me is the inability to wear my contacts more than about ten hours a day. They told me this would come for me too, but I did not believe it. I floss. I stretch. I eat barley. But it did. So, when I get home from work and put on my glasses, I cannot read anything because, um, I can't see the pages.

Unless...

I put on a pair of reading glasses OVER my existing eyeglasses. I have a little nose too. I'm sure it's both funny and horrifying. But, um, I can read again at night. And as long as I can put one pair of glasses over another, I won't need to get a bifocal prescription. Right?

Right.

This post is for our kitty, Shelter.

She grew old and sick in the last year with no attachment to what had come before.

We had to put her down on Friday, and in that moment too, with all of us holding her,

she still had no attachment to what had come before,

and no concern about what was coming next.

We love you.

Boundaries

2010-03-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

One of the things I learned very early in my teaching career is the word "no." As in ...

No late work.
No extra credit.
No, I will not be on line to answer the question you e-mailed me at 11:57 pm for an assignment due at midnight.
No, just because you have access to your on-line course 24 hours a day doesn't mean I am hanging out waiting for you to speak 24 hours a day.
No, I will not chair every committee on the planet.
No, I will not ...
No, I will not ...
No, I will not ...

At first, the word "no" feels hard. It is sharp. It has that solid consonant "n" sound. The "o" is long, and can be dragged out for emphasis. Expletives can be added for further spice. Euphemisms can be used, as in ... I'll do that for you when pigs fly through the window and turn themselves into bologna in my office.

At first, "no" feels mean. It feels unaccommodating. It feels unfriendly. "Yes" starts off so much softer. The "Y" has a tail. The "e" is a short "e" sound. The "s" ties the word together with sweet closure. Everyone likes you when you say "yes." When you say "no", you're a bitch. Or worse.

There are things we all have to do in our jobs that are just part of the job. We might say "no" if we could get away with it, but we can't, so we say "yes" and make the best of it. I'm not talking about saying "no" to everything just to be snarky. I'm talking about knowing yourself. Knowing your boundaries. And knowing what you're authentically feeling at the moment and taking steps to ensure that you support that feeling rather than ignore it.

A clear "no" makes room for an honest "yes."

As a teacher, it's very very easy to say "yes" to everything. There's no "no police" hanging out to make sure you're setting effective boundaries. Students, colleagues, and the administration will ask anything and everything of you. It's up to you to say "no." You've got to self-regulate. It usually takes a year or two of teaching before you figure out that saying "yes" to everything actually makes you insane and resentful, if it's not balanced with a nice dash of "no". What is in balance one semester may not be in balance the second semester. As you get to know yourself and your work habits better, you'll be better able to determine what structure you need to keep yourself healthy. This is my fifteenth year of teaching. "No" has become mandatory.

The last few weeks I've been talking with my division dean and other colleagues about feeling tapped out. It's almost April. We're all tapped out. No big news there. When I teach a class, I am 100% committed to that class and those students. I cannot do it any other way. It is, as I've said in other posts, a sacred act for me. When I feel I am not capable of giving it 100%, it is up to me to set a different boundary for awhile. It is up to me to self-regulate. To say, "yes", I know I have x,y,z contractual obligations which I fully intend to meet. But "no", I won't add a,b,c additional duties. How can we modify x,y,z contractual obligations in such a way as to ensure that I can still teach with 100% of me? How can we adjust scheduling in such a way so that what makes me a good teacher -- in no small part the fact that I am an active writer -- doesn't fall away and I become what I most fear -- a fraud. The writing teacher who has given up her writing because of the "job." The writing teacher who has become afraid of no income, and so has crammed every moment of her time with paying work so that she'll have enough. Only, (and I know this because I've messed it up before), when I do that I find I don't have enough. I have nothing.

I teach and write from the same place -- the very essence of my heart. I don't use my intellect nearly as much as I use my intuition in the classroom or on the page. I am an artist in and out of the classroom. There comes a time when the well has to be replenished.

If I teach my students nothing about writing at all, I hope I at least have taught them, and shown them through example, the importance of honoring their current feelings and needs. The importance of not pushing away what is popping up for attention. The respect for that small voice inside of them that knows when to say "no" and when to say "yes." Saying "no" often at first makes people angry. They can feel betrayed, or rejected, or embarrassed. You are not responsible for that reaction. You are responsible for your health and well-being. Create a structure that feeds you.

It takes self-respect and courage to say "no" -- to withdraw from activities for awhile so you can return to them with renewed passion and perspective. It takes courage to state what you are feeling honestly. But when you don't, those feelings will fester and resurface in far more aggressive ways. If you feel out of balance, state that. Honor that. Don't try to make it go away or ignore it or wish it away. Stay with that feeling. It will be different in a moment because everything is different in a moment. But if you haven't given that feeling voice, you're allowing it to claim a part of you. You'll find you're left with nothing.

"No" makes room for "yes." When you honor what you truly need, not what you "should" be doing, not what your boss wants you to be doing, not what your students want you to do, not what your long-dead whomever wants you to do, you're stepping up to your authentic self. You're claiming your power. You're moving into freedom by setting clear boundaries.

Your "no" allows you to fly. Use it. Dance with it. And as it surrounds you with the safety of the solid arms of its "n", your "yes" will not only rise up, it will soar with you.

"Yes" is clear and free because "no" is clear and solid.

It's a Mad, Mad World

2010-03-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am on a road that I'm not sure I want to be on. I want to be the person who can pack everything into her hatchback, cats included, and ease on down the highway to someplace new. OK, I think I want to be that person, but I know I have a strong affinity for 500 thread count sheets and indoor plumbing, so unless that trust fund materializes around the next mountain, I'm not that person. But I can play a little Bob Dylan soundtrack in my head and pretend that I'm that camping-chick (OK, the camping chick at the Hilton). I root so well it's easy to get stuck.

I'm bored at work. I've built a program up here. It's a good program. The classes are good. All the instructors are good. The students are learning cool things. Their writing improves exponentially with each class. Their hearts open as they develop a deeper relationship with language. They make me smile.

But there's no where else for me to go, and the endless days of the same classes semester after semester are starting to take their toll on me. I'm two years away from a sabbatical. I'm moving to primarily on-line teaching in the fall to try and better utilize my time and try to get some of my creativity back. I've given everything I have to creating new classes, prepping new textbooks, and designing new assignments. I don't have anything left, and if I don't figure out how to put it back, I'm going to be a lousy teacher. I'm not a lousy teacher. I think teaching is a sacred gift, so something's got to give.

I know this job is about as good as it gets, and I'm glad to have it. 500 thread count sheets aren't free, and I'm really not the person who's going to drive away with her cats in a car. But I'm thinking about it a lot, which tells me I need to try to figure out some other ways of doing things.

I think part of this springtime malaise is because I also feel creatively trapped. I am the only creative writer on a faculty of literature and composition teachers. We play well together, but we don't speak the same language. My tribe of writers has scattered to the four corners of the country. None of them are in Prescott. I am always the teacher, here, and that's unsustainable for me as an artist. Writing conferences don't come to Prescott. I've already been to grad school (could I possibly go again?) I could travel to some events, but they're usually in the middle of the semesters, when we're not allowed to travel. I've taken some online classes, which have been helpful, but don't cultivate the relationships I'm craving. I am on the way to becoming the teacher who writes instead of the writer who teaches, and I am absolutely not OK with that. I am supposed to be doing both. I am OK with that. But the pendulum has leaned far too much toward being a teacher in the past few years. In order to grow the program I've created here, writing took a back seat. It's tired of being the passenger.

I could go to Manhattan and sit in the subway tunnel and listen to Julliard trained musicians. I could go to San Francisco and watch the performance poets on the sidewalks. I feel pulled to wander, and with equal force, I feel rooted to a good, safe life here. This leaves me feeling like I'm going to be split in half. I told my friend on the phone yesterday, "I am artistically dying." It was so liberating to vocalize that at last. We had no brilliant solution, but at least it was out on the table.

I have two books coming out this year, and I asked myself in my journal yesterday, "Why is that not enough?" Why, in this world of publishing's collapse, is that not enough? And I came to the answer that the outcome, although cool, wasn't the reason for the writing. Publishing can't be the only outcome. It's too unpredictable. Too random. The two books coming out this year challenged me. One, though, is ten years old. It's been through many incarnations, but the puzzle of that novel is one I've lived with and worked with a long time. It's also complete. The challenge is over.

It's not enough because my writing is not as good as it can be. My stories aren't as complex as they can be. My sentences not as lyrical as they can be. It's not enough because I'm an artist, and a complacent artist isn't working in service to her art. It's not enough because I haven't stretched as far as I know I'm capable of stretching with my writing. I sit and stare at it and write the same old same old that works, but isn't pushing me. I don't know if I am capable of pushing myself. I know I'm capable of discipline and productivity. But I can only see what I can see. Everyone needs teachers to light up new avenues. Someone to say, "Yeah, that's good, but you can do better." Someone to say, "You've already written that story. Write something new. Start here." I give this to my students with every essay or story they turn in, but I seem woefully ineffective at giving it to myself.

So, OK, Universe:

I am artistically dying. Help me out. Thanks, much.

Love,
Laraine

Detritus

2010-03-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

There's water running through our town today. We've had so much rain and snow this winter that the creeks are not only full, but in motion. Water tumbles over river rock, splashing, even, along the banks. This may not seem like a lot if you're living in, say, Mississippi, but in the high desert, moving water is quite extraordinary. When I was considering moving to Prescott, I drove around town and stood beside the creeks and watched the water. In North Carolina, we had moving water all over the place. In Phoenix, water dried before it hit the ground. I couldn't live someplace with no water anymore.

We've been in a drought for many years. The creeks have dried to sand. I'd walk over the creeks that used to bubble and see the rocks, the trash, the aluminum, that accumulated over the years of far less rainfall than we need. This winter, we've had water. The ground outside my house is still so saturated my feet sink into it. There are puddles and pools of standing water. And the creeks are talking, dancing, splashing through town, washing the detritus of the riverbeds away.

My husband's mother is cleaning out her house. She's going through her late husband's things and laying them out in the backyard for the family to pick through. Packs of golf balls. Weights. Camping equipment. Books. Score cards. Post cards. Photographs where no one can identify the people. She is clearing out a life that does not exist anymore. Perhaps she is trying to create meaning. Why did he save this piece of paper? What is the significance of that note? Why are there thirty pairs of socks? Questions she can't answer.

I come from a long, proud line of hoarders. My grandmother had boxes of clothes under the beds that had rotted with the tags on. Our dining room in my childhood home was devoted to my mother's stuff. Today, she has a dedicated room for boxes filled with ... stuff. Granted, she was recently audited by the IRS and she had all the documents she needed to prove she was right (go, Mom!) So, take that purging-people! :-) Perhaps you know the phrase, "You never know when you might need..." It's a default thought for me.

I love stuff. I love attaching meaning to things. I think about who has touched the things in my house. Where they came from. What their stories are. Objects speak to me. Lots of my stories come from objects. Things that we have a tendency toward easily become out of balance. What can give benefit can also be a problem. You may remember my Great Purge of '09. Bags upon bags upon bags upon bags of stuff. So, self, your tendency is? Yes! Acquire too much stuff. Antidote? Keep stuff moving through like water.

This spring break, I have gone back through my closets and taken four more bags to Goodwill. Yes, only four this time, compared to a number-that-shall-not-be-named last summer. I'm doing much better. These bags were stuffed with clothes that I should have purged last time but somehow thought I might still become the woman who could wear that dress, or that top, or those shoes. You know the woman. I bet you have one of your own in your brain.

Do I need to put a post-it note in my closet?

Laraine. My darling,

You are not 5'9". You are not, nor will you ever be again, 125 pounds.

You are not, nor will you ever be again, 25 years old.

You do not have long, thick, flowing hair (so stop buying the headbands!)

You cannot pull off strapless. Ever.

Long flowy skirts make you look shorter than you are.

Stop the madness.

V-necks work. Structured jackets work. Wide leg pants work. Knee-length skirts work.

Layering is your friend. Shaped cardigans work.

Funky scarves work (ha! The true one-size-fits-all item!)

Laraine. My darling. Be real.

Love ya!

My husband's mother touches her husband's objects as she lets them go. They have stories for her. They have questions for her. I think of what people who clean out my life will find. What questions will they have? What stories? And I feel a responsibility to carry in my house, which is an extension of myself, only what is serving me now. Letting go of what used to serve me doesn't diminish what role those things have played in my life. Space, contrary to what I'd always believed, feels good.

I block my own flow. I create my own stagnation, stickiness, and mud. And so I am also the one who can move things through, keep the water moving, keep everything fluid and soft.

This spring, with water once again gurgling through town, is the perfect time to practice movement, letting go, and making room.

Granite Creek, Prescott, AZ

Smartphones

2010-03-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

I almost did it. I'm still not sure how I got so swept away, but I almost did it. Perhaps it was that sweet e-mail from Verizon telling me that my "new every two" time has arrived and I can upgrade my phone. Perhaps it was the visions of a life that somehow required 24/7 access, a portable GPS system, and the constant ability to use Facebook. I don't want that life, yet somehow I almost did it anyway.

I started researching Smartphones. After all, if you're going to upgrade, then you might as well upgrade. They do amazing things. Seductive things. Sexy things. They are a statement accessory. They're a power accessory. Oh, I can do this! Oh, I can find out the weather in Okinawa at the touch of a button! Oh, I can download my Excel spreadsheets (which I don't understand on a 25" monitor, much less a screen the size of my hand) and manipulate the document! Oh, I can speak to it! I can say, "flowers" and it'll google search for florists. (And just how often in the last year have I needed to do a google search for flowers? Zero.)

I did the math. A Blackberry Curve was going to be free with my "new every two" plan. I'd have to buy a data plan of course, which added $29.99 per month, but I thought I'd cancel my land line and end up ahead.

I went to my friendly neighborhood Verizon store. I thought I would give the money locally. Turned out, my friendly neighborhood Verizon store cannot offer the same deals verizon.com can. In order to give them my money, it was going to cost me $200. $200 versus free. Makes it hard to do the right thing.

I was able to play with the Blackberry and the new Droid. I wanted to fall in love with them. I'd already decided I wanted this, so they already had me at "hello". But they lost me at funky-dysfunctional-counter-intuitive operating system. Blackberrys and Droids are palm devices. Palm devices are PC-compatible systems. I started researching issues between Blackberry and Droid and the Mac and found quite a number of problems. My Macs aren't going anywhere. They're like the cats. They come with me everywhere.

(Digression: APPLE: Please! Release the iphone on Verizon. AT & T doesn't work well in Prescott!)

But OK, new diversion! I want an iphone because they're adorable. And I understand how to use them. And they're adorable. Did I mention they're adorable? My whole universe is Mac-based. Every time I've cheated on Mac, I've ended up having to buy a Mac anyway and wasting the money on the PC that never does what it's supposed to do and makes my head hurt.

But OK, really, I don't need an iphone either. (Maybe I need an ipad, or an ipod touch? Please? Don't I?) I drive a mile to work each way. I talk on the phone regularly to three people. I already have internet access 24 hours a day at home. And yes, at work. I don't travel much for my work. I live in a town with six primary streets. You just can't get too lost here. As much as I might like to believe I'm living in Hayes Valley in San Francisco, or in Manhattan or Brooklyn, I'm just not. I don't need constant access to the train schedules. I don't need to tweet anyone. I don't even need to text anyone.

The woman who owns my friendly neighborhood Verizon store was going to give me a deal. She still couldn't do free (who can?). I liked her. She let me play with the phones. She gave me a lot of information. But I couldn't do it. Not that I couldn't buy from her. I couldn't buy it at all. I watched myself getting ga-ga with all they could do. Then I watched the tightness in my chest over all they could do. I watched the distraction-quotient in my life suddenly escalate a thousand-fold. If I had this thing, I'd feel like I needed to use this thing.

And I don't need it.

I don't like talking on cell phones. I like land lines better. I don't like having to charge something all the time. I don't like being available all the time.

And I don't need it.

I am not the CEO of anything. I don't have kids who need to find me. Last time I checked, the cats are pretty indifferent to whether I am there or not. They certainly won't try to text me, or Skype me, or even friend me. I rarely take pictures and I'm not a designer.

I felt the glaze-over start. The siren-call of the new gadget. The potential of it. The status of it. The whisper of all it could do to help my life run smoother.

I don't need it. My life runs about as smooth as anyone can ever hope for. I don't need it.

As I left the cell phone store, I felt like I was stepping out of a tar pit.

They almost got me! Damn! How did that happen?

They almost got me. But they didn't.

Who We Carry

2010-02-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

One of the first things I fell in love with about the television series "Rescue Me" was the ghosts. I loved how Tommy was followed by the ghosts of the people (and cats) who died in the fires he was supposed to be putting out. I loved that his past hung on, and perhaps I loved even more that he hung on back.

Author Joan Didion tells us, "We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget."

I thought I would never forget the sound of my father's voice. The way he smelled after shaving. The way his polio-eaten leg hung loose in his wide-legged pants.

But I have.

I hear his voice on an old tape and I think -- no, that isn't him. That isn't what he sounded like. I sit next to a man who uses Mennen After Shave and I remember, but then I shake my head. No. That's not quite it. I conjure up his image in the La-Z-boy chair, scratching his foot with a putter, but I can't quite see. The edges have gotten blurrier than I thought possible.

Of course, I never thought there would be 23 years of him dead.

I thought I would never forget my first lover's touch. The way my grandmother's homemade chocolate cake (the only thing she could make) tasted. The way our house on Springfield Drive pulsed.

But I have.

I can pretend, but there's no point in that because the pretending enforces the illusion of permanence -- that illusion that has caused me untold nights of suffering. That illusion that has kept me hanging on to the ghosts that walk behind me. I was so afraid that if I didn't hold on to everything that had ever passed through me that I would lose it all. That holding pulled me deep into the swamp. It wrapped itself around me, delighted to be of service.

Holding on doesn't do what you think it'll do. Snuggling up in the scents of those long gone doesn't keep them with you. It keeps you stuck. Replaying the way you remembered the first kiss, the last touch doesn't sear those moments into your soul. It wears grooves into your flesh instead.

In "Rescue Me", Tommy walks around Brooklyn with his ghosts following him. Even when he lets them go, they still pop up like mad Jack-in-the-boxes. Sometimes I think the ghosts follow us. Sometimes I think we leave breadcrumbs. I don't suppose it matters much. What seems to be the truth is that every moment we have experienced has been absorbed by our cells. Those moments become transformed as we integrate with them. They do not remain in their original form. Stasis is not a natural state. Motion, transformation, integration -- these things occur over and over and over. This becomes that becomes this becomes that. No stopping.

One day I will forget the things I cannot imagine forgetting, and one day there will be no one left to remember me. But this is not the Great Tragedy I once perceived it to be. This is just an opening and a closing. A breathing in and a breathing out. It is all there ever was.

I Feel Pretty

2010-02-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

Today, my friend Debra is being removed from life support. It may have already happened. Yesterday when I got home from work after attending John's memorial service, I had a phone message waiting.

"I have an update on Debra," the voice said. "Here's my cell number. Call me."

I did.

"I would have called you sooner," the voice said. "We thought she was doing better. We thought she was going back to work in March."

Debra was my hair stylist. I have been seeing her every eight weeks since 1992. I have followed her through three salons. After I moved to Prescott, I still made the 90 mile drive back to Phoenix every eight weeks to see her.

I didn't do this just because she was an awesome stylist. I did this because she was my friend.

When I moved back to Phoenix from Tucson after college, I was even more lost than when I left. I returned to my safe friends from "before" my dad died. I found a job that paid $725/month. I rented an apartment in the city I swore I'd never live in again. But I stayed in that city for 15 years.

I've never liked my hair. It's straight and fine. My face is round and squishy. I wanted big fluffy 80s hair. I wanted long hair down to my knees that was silky and wavy. But I didn't get that. To compensate, I colored it all kinds of colors -- from jet black to platinum blonde. I spiked it. Permed it. Twisted it. Hated it.

And then I found Debra. She also had straight fine hair. She was hilarious. She told everyone where to go and what to do and they loved her for it. She and her husband had been together since they were in high school. He still stopped by work to say he loved her. They still had one day a week that was just for them. They raised three daughters who have gone on to have children of their own.

Deb loved what she did. She loved hair. She brought in books with new styles. She tried out new products. Every time I went to see her, her hair was a different color. She had tattoos up and down her arms. She gave me a big hug every time I showed up and every time I left. She managed the salon and everyone knew it. She had a moral compass that was always solid.

Deb was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. She recovered.

Another stylist at her salon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year. Deb went to see her every day. She brought her food. Did her nails. Painted her toes. Washed her hair. That stylist died in late November.

In December, Deb was diagnosed with lung cancer. She began radiation and chemo and steroids. She was getting better. She was going back to work. On Thursday, she wasn't feeling right, so her husband took her to the hospital. The cancer had spread to her brain. By Saturday, it had doubled in her brain. She could not speak. Then she stopped breathing. They put her on life support until her family could come in. Last night they all arrived. Today, they let her go.

I remember the last hug. "See you in January, darlin'," she said. "Be careful driving back up the hill. Say hi to your mom and Keith for me."

"See you soon," I said.

Deb made me feel pretty. No matter what was happening. She was ecstatic when I met Keith and wanted to meet him herself. Last summer, Keith came down with me for my appointment to say hello. Deb believed in love. She believed in loyalty. She believed in me.

Until soon, Deb. Fare well. Thank you for making me feel pretty.

Married By a Monkey

2010-02-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

Keith and Laraine and Keezel

May 21, 2009

An Open Letter on the State of My Marriage:

Allow me to introduce Keezel, monkey extraordinaire, counselor, friend, cherished son, teacher, and direct descendant of Hanuman.

Keezel arrived in our lives at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz in 2007. Keith's family was having a family reunion in Aptos. We went to the boardwalk and I saw, hanging in strapado from the tent flaps, my beloved Keezel. Alas, my beloved Keith could not win Keezel for me, so Norm, Keith's sister's husband, threw darts at balloons until Keezel could be mine. Keith's dad named him, and because I am who I am, an entire narrative began around the monkey. Keezel has since traveled everywhere with us. He comes to my workshops. He helps people cry. He helps people laugh. He was present at John's death last week. He is sometimes profane. Sometimes sacred. All times our friend.

Neither Keith nor I wanted a wedding. We're not fans of ceremony. We're really not fans of spending a zillion dollars on a single day, and it seems cruel and unusual to subject friends and family to buying a dress they'll wear once (and hate even then.) We're not religious. We don't need anyone else telling us what we are and what we aren't. We don't need, nor require, approval from an outside entity.

Today was John's "Good to Go" party. I was introduced as the daughter-in-law, which prompted many questions from layers of distant family and friends about when the ceremony took place. "I was married by a monkey at Ocean Beach," I said. When prompted, Keith and I couldn't even remember the exact date.

Every once in a while, Keith and I would talk about legally marrying, and both of us cringed. It feels like having to ask permission from some agency to do something. Doesn't sit well. We also have friends who are unable to marry because that same agency that would allow us to marry won't allow them to marry because they are of the same gender. That also doesn't sit too well.

Since you can send away for a clergy license to perform weddings, this seems to further illustrate the randomness and absurdity of who is licensed to perform marriage ceremonies and who isn't. My sister is even clergy. (If you knew her, you'd know how absolutely hilarious that is). So, why can't our monkey do it?

We went to San Francisco. If there's any place in the country where we could get married by a monkey, San Francisco is it. We took a bus to Ocean Beach. It was chilly. We had our monkey. We got off the bus, used the public restroom, and climbed over the sand dune until we saw the gray ocean. We held the monkey between us. We spoke to each other. And then, over the wind and waves, Keezel said, "Poof! You're married!" And we walked back over the sand dune, had a coffee, and took the bus back into San Francisco.

Price for wedding attire, dinner, and facilities fees: zero.
Effort spent deciding who to invite and who to leave out: zero.
Master of ceremonies fees: zero.

Reclaiming and redefining language: priceless.

Are we "really" married? Yes. We reject the state's involvement in our personal lives. We do not need a judge, a priest, a rabbi, a minister, to say it's OK -- to say we are OK. We knew we were OK a long time ago.

The only two people who needed to say it's OK for us to be married were there. And oh yes, our monkey.

POOF!

Closer to the Bone

2010-02-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

John M. Haynes

June 28, 1934- February 2, 2010

I spent most of last Friday through Tuesday evening at hospice with my husband and his family witnessing and assisting with his father's dying. I want to write about all of it. It was extraordinary -- as a detached observer, as a participant, as a member of the family, as a human being. I don't want to expose what was sacred to the family to the public, but I am a writer, and I'm always watching, and anyone remotely close to me should be aware of that. I'm looking. I'm stealing. I'm noticing. I'm processing. I'm filtering. And I'm going to write. It's just what I do, and I long ago learned not to apologize for who I am.

Each person present at John's dying has his or her own piece to tell. The relationship each of us had with him created part of the lens of the experience. Each person's experience with and beliefs around dying created part of the lens. If we sat in a circle and shared the story, perhaps we'd find the essence. Perhaps it doesn't matter.

This is part of the piece that's mine to tell:

John was diagnosed with cancer in mid November. He spent eleven weeks in Phoenix in and out of St. Joseph's hospital. He endured two rounds of chemotherapy, both of which put him in ICU with pneumonia and other complications. After the second round, he called his wife and said, "No more." He was transported back to Prescott on Friday evening and entered hospice care. By Tuesday evening he had died. He had two lucid days. His death, cliched though it sounds, was peaceful.

That's the nuts and bolts of what happened. Doesn't tell you very much does it? Could be any person, anywhere, any time. It's safe though. You'd find content like that in an obituary. No one could object to that. It's also boring. You'll forget it as soon as you read it. How does that honor an experience? How does that honor his living and his dying?

Let's get a little more real:

When John was in ICU in Phoenix back in December, he talked to me about death. He'd called Keith in the middle of the night. All of us thought he was dying that night, so we came up from Tucson to be with him. He had a mask on in ICU, and all of us who entered had to wear gowns and masks to protect his stripped immune system. John had been listening to a Kris Kristofferson song "Closer to the Bone" that he really liked.

"You know, Laraine, you always wonder your whole life what it'll feel like when you know you're dying. When you know for sure you're dying." He had to stop to breathe. "It's like this Kristofferson song. Everything is closer to the bone. Everything is raw. Everything that doesn't matter falls away."

Comin' from the heartbeat
Nothin' but the truth now
Everything is sweeter
Closer to the bone

When John entered his hospice room on that Friday night, he was visibly relieved. No tubes. No beeps. No frantic rushing to keep everyone alive. Just a space. Lots of chairs and a couch. We brought him tacos and a Dos Equis. Some member of the family sat with him all the time for the final five days.

"Looks like I'm not going to get to Pebble Beach," he said on Saturday. "Shit."

His legs had swollen to over twice their normal size. His feet were supported by blue foam. Nurses turned him every few hours. The first morning he wanted a paper. Then that fell away.

The next day he was silent. People came and went. His breathing anchored the room. We watched. Nurses still turned him every few hours. The family brought a wooden putter from home that he'd loved and placed it in his hand. He lay in the bed with his putter. Breathing.

Then, he woke up.

"Love you guys."

He ate his daughter's chicken dinner. His brother came from California. His friends came. Went. Came. Went.

Then he didn't eat anymore. Food fell away.

His wife spent his last night with him. She held him. His breathing anchored them.

Then water fell away.

"I want my Roseanne Cash," he said. We put the CD walkman around his ears. "Black Cadillac" began to play. "I'm gonna get working on dying now."

Then words fell away.

We put his putter back in his hands. We put his Pebble Beach US Open 2010 baseball cap on his head.

Then his color fell away, and a yellow glow moved up to the surface of the skin. His breathing kept us coming and going. Coming and going.

And then the first pause.

We put "Black Cadillac" on the room's CD player. We decided not to go for Thai food just then. We moved closer. I put my hand over his heart which was beating far too quickly for someone no longer moving.

Then the second pause came, and we knew.

"You're good to go, Papa," his children and grandchildren said.

"We love you, Papa," they said.

"Everything is taken care of, Papa," they said.

"You're good to go."

And during the last song of the CD, his breath fell away.

So I'll sail off on the good intent
To my true happy home
Yes, I sail off on the good intent
Never more to roam

I took my hand from his chest while his family stood in the silence, listening for the breath that had anchored them for a lifetime. We were no longer parents and children, brothers and sisters, lovers and friends. We were in the space where everything had fallen away.

We were closer to the bone.

Pandora's Box o' WTF

2010-02-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

Greetings everyone. It's been a wild few weeks, and once again it's snowing. I'm ready for cute shoes and no socks. Especially the cute shoes part.

I've got a few more blogs lined up, but I wanted to pass on some news. First, my father-in-law, John Haynes, died on Tuesday, Feb 2. I'll be writing some about that, but know that it was an extraordinary experience for all of us, and that the family is moving into the next part of their lives with grace. If any of you are in the Prescott area and knew John or the family, the Good to Go Party is Monday, February 15 at 11 am at the Mountain Club Clubhouse. Everyone is welcome. John planned out what he wanted for his party, and he'd want a big crowd and a keg or two (we're already taking care of the keg).

Second, I had the privilege of being interviewed by poet Lori A. May on her fabulous blog. The interview came out today.

And third, the book cover design for my novel, Ghost Swamp Blues, arrived last week. Much more on this book at it gets closer to the release date of June 1. Right now, I'm still catching up from last week and looking out my window at the thick flakes and wondering if they (please oh please) are going to call another snow day. Until soon ....

Destiny Thwarted

2010-01-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

At 18, this is what was supposed to happen in my life:

I was going to go to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was going to go straight through to grad school, becoming the writing phenom of the South by age 25. I was going to live in a blue bungalow house with a wrap around porch and many cats. I was going to teach creative writing at UNC (of course, since I would have won the Pulitzer by age 30, how could they say no?) and I was going to stuff my blue bungalow with books and books and books and the occasional climbing plant-that-can't-be-killed. I would have friends with cool green eyeglasses over and we would drink Malbac and eat cute finger foods and talk about Lit' Tra 'Ture. I would have a gardener (darling, have you seen the way the yards grow in the South?) and a housekeeper and a slew of graduate assistants who would read the students' papers for me. I would weekend in the Outer Banks and drink mint tea as the surf rolled in. I would be thin (nay, dare I say, lanky?) and I would be able to walk all day in pointy shoes and my hair would always bounce and be fluffy, no matter how humid the day.

Sigh.

At 41, this is the version that has happened:

My dad died, so I went to Phoenix College and then the University of Arizona in Tucson after high school. I took ten years off to work a cubicle job and then returned for an MFA at Antioch University, Los Angeles in 1998 when I was 30. I followed that with an MA in Counseling Psychology. I started teaching creative writing as an adjunct and began to study yoga. I got my agent in 2000 and we have gone on to sell a book about every two years, give or take. I have not yet won the Pulitzer, but I do have two books coming out this summer. I have a brown townhome with a deck that looks out at a mountain (or today, a snowstorm). I don't have a gardener, but the townhouse HOA takes care of the yards. I do have books and books and books, and the plant-that-can't-be-killed. I have many cats, and I am proudly unafraid to be the crazy cat lady. I have friends with cool eyeglasses to talk about Lit Tra Ture with, and I get to travel around the country teaching writing and yoga. I weekend in Flagstaff or Jerome and drink chai tea at Macy's Coffee Shop and watch the college kids doing laundry across the street. I am not remotely lanky (though I can still point to my elbows and I still have my original teeth), but I'm getting pretty good at the pointy shoe walking thing. I have no graduate assistants to read my 90+ student paper load, but I do have an office with a door, and the college found a Mac for me to use at work instead of a crappy PC. My hair bounces, but it's because there's no humidity here and I cut it short and use product.

Every once in awhile I long for the beach. More than every once in awhile I long for San Francisco, an urban environment with color, music, sparkle and trains. And yeah, the lanky-thing, too. But I look around me and I know that I got the boat I asked for, and even better than that, because the first dream-life didn't happen like I thought it would, I have the skills to make the oars and row the boat myself, and when the seas get rough, I've swum them before and know there's always a shore, even when I can't see it through the fog.

Sigh. :-)

The Gifts of the Copyeditor

2010-01-16T18:32:00.000-08:00

Copyediting matters. It's the point in the book publishing process where someone who doesn't know you, doesn't know your work, and hasn't read the manuscript before, gets involved. This person is usually a grammarian. This person is usually very logical. Very precise. Very concise. Very anti-metaphor. Very, in other words, not me. I can't imagine how difficult it is to move into work you don't know and try to make it clearer on the sentence level. It's also unimaginable how difficult it is for the author to get back the manuscript and try to figure out what has happened.

I've spent most of this week working on the copyedits for The Writing Warrior. Here's how it works. The publisher sends you two copies of the text. One copy has all the strike-throughs, changes, and notes to you and to the editor from the copyeditor. One copy is clean, so it's easier to read. However, you, as the author, have to not only read the clean copy, but read what changes the copyeditor did so that you can determine if they made it better, restructured for no apparent reason, or made it worse. And of course, the copyeditor is human too, so there are mistakes they make. You have to catch them. For example, the copyeditor added a sentence to one of the writing exercises I wrote using the word "sown." Only he used the word "sewn", which is the wrong word. It was just a simple mistake, but I had to catch it. Adding the sentence made sense. Using the wrong word made no sense. Another example: I had used the word "grad" in reference to grad school. The copyeditor changed it to "grade." That little e changes everything!

In my experience, about 85% of the copyedit suggestions make great sense and make the text better. The other 15% take hours to figure out what they did, if I want them to have done it, and if not, how to fix it. By this point, I can't see the manuscript clearly. I've marked it up. The publisher marked it up. Besides, I wrote it in the first place, so I know I can't see it clearly. Yet, I'm being asked to be the final eye on it. And of course, they want it back in ten business days.

Sometimes I feel like the LOLcat at the top of the blog. I feel like the copyeditor thinks my work has no validity or organization. I believe it too, because none of it makes any sense to me anymore, and I know that no matter how diligently I work at this, how many times I take breaks during this process, there will still be something no one saw, or a mistake that didn't get caught, or a meaning that got shifted. And then the book will be in print. That's just the way of it. I also have to resist trashing it all and starting over because I've re-read it so many times that it feels derivative, boring, self-absorbed, and just plain not valid. I have to recognize that as a false response, a judgment, and an attachment.

Reviewing one's own copyedits requires all the tools I write about in the book I'm reviewing the copyedits on (thank you, universe). I have to watch my ego saying, "No! Stupid copyeditor! You have no idea what I meant and it's entirely your fault!" I have to watch my laziness say, "It's good enough. Just do what they suggested and leave it alone." I have to watch my pride saying, "It was perfect as it was." But I also have to pay attention to the writing itself and to my relationship with it. I have to defend what I intended and I have to stand behind what I feel is not only correct, but a stronger sentence. Sometimes the most concise sentence creates the worst, clunkiest rhythm. I care more about the way a sentence and paragraph sound than I do about their conciseness. The end of a chapter should feel like an end, not just be a correct content ending. It's like the end of a song. You know it because you feel it.

And so, a full twenty-two hours later (no, not in a row), I am sending the manuscript back to the publisher. I accepted and agreed with about 85% of the suggestions. I told them to put back my original text in about 15% of the document. I have to believe in my own word choices. I really do select every verb (not in a blog, necessarily!) and look at the sentence structure. If I've used passive voice by the time it reaches a copy editor's stage, I meant to use it. If I said "voices of my characters" instead of "characters' voices", that's what I meant because I wanted the emphasis on "voices" not characters, and its placement in the sentence is what ensures that emphasis.

But throughout it all, I must practice the detachment I teach. I must practice the humility and the grace I write about. I must remember that everyone who has read this book is trying to make it better, and I must remember that this book is better because of everyone who has helped birth it. And ultimately, when I see that garbled sentence that did make sense to me, but that I can see is ever so much stronger (indeed - what was I thinking??) because the copyeditor moved everything around, I am indeed grateful that there are people like this -- linear, logical, concise -- people not so much like me, so that I, and my writing, can be brought into greater balance.

At the End of the Year

2009-12-31T13:45:00.000-08:00

Perspective is everything. This year and this decade have brought many challenges to us. I have been fortunate. The "aughts" have been the best decade of my life. This past year has brought good health, artistic fruition, and deeper relationships. But it hasn't always been this way, and it won't always be this way. Sometimes I'll feel like the cat out on the edge of the antenna all alone. Other times, I'll have the perspective to see that the cat is not all alone, the antenna is not without support, and the light is not as thin as I think.

I spent all day on Saturday re-reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I'm teaching it next semester. My late friend Jeffrey adored Capote, and for moments of the afternoon, it was like we were still sitting together drinking tea and talking about literature. I went to his website, which I do from time to time, only to find that it has returned to the realm of Available Domain names. He's still flourishing on Facebook, though, and every month or so Facebook urges me to 'reconnect' with him. Once in awhile I wonder how many e-mails are unread in his in-box, how many messages unheard on his voice mail.

I am leaving tomorrow for Massachusetts to teach at Kripalu. I am looking forward to heated floors, watching winter from indoors, and working with new students. I am also tired, so the trip will give me an opportunity to work with maintaining balance and stability.

This year crashed me into middle age, and I notice more spots decorating my hands, more lines under my eyes, and more cricks in my joints. I also notice more calmness and acceptance, less striving and struggling, more ease and softness. I stretch and move and shake. I sleep deeper. I have always been hyper aware of the impermanence of life. I have felt it more this year. I have watched friends and family struggle with illness and death. I have surrendered my hopes of shopping in the junior department ever again, and I don't find anyone in the cast of Twilight attractive. Such boys! I think. Sigh. Last night we watched Say Anything. I fell in love with John Cusack in 1989 with that movie. It held up OK, but wow, he looked so young. Such boys! Sigh.

This poem below was written by Jeffrey in 2008, a few months before he died. For those of you not from around these parts, Jerome is an old mining ghost town in Arizona. It's become somewhat of an artist's colony now.

::: Jerome, AZ :::

Slowly, stealthily, buildings slink away from their foundations.

Jerome's streets are cracked and crumbled lengths as if great, concrete serpents had
shed old skins
as they crept
up and down the mountainsides.

Buildings stand close together, like elderly friends
offering the promise of support,
which they could never actually provide.

Webs of weakness lattice entire walls
shifting with the light, from tiny plaster faults to grand lace designs.

Entire buildings have moved throughout the years
giving an all too literal interpretation to the phrase,
“There goes the neighborhood”.

Houses tilt toward cliffs and tease us
into imagining their futures as rubble.

Tourists, from places thought of as permanent, come
to see this curious town.

Of course, if they had the time
they could simply wait for Jerome
to go wandering and perhaps
even come to them.

- Jeffrey Hartgraves

There is a grace which comes from being who you are where you are, and a tension that comes from resisting it. In 2010, I wish you profound grace.

The Many Lives of Meow

2009-11-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

After a family dinner last night, I went to the Raven to have another glass of wine, listen to blues music, and talk to my ghosts. I had a dozen pictures with me that our family friends had brought from North Carolina. Pictures of me with large circular glasses. Pictures of my sister when her bones still poked through her clothing. Halloween pictures, my father even then a ghost in the background between my sister and me. Pictures of my mother with long hair, turned up at the ends, wearing cat's eye glasses. My beloved first cat, Charley.

The friends who joined us for dinner have known my sister and me since our births. They carried with them the easy conversation that comes from longevity and tradition. Their Southern accents hit a primal center in me. We would fall asleep to the sounds of Mom and Dad talking with these two people. They are part of the soundtrack of home.

It had been many years since I had seen them. Only one person lives in Arizona who has known me since I was born. Only one. Only two knew me before high school. There is a comfort among people who watched you learn to walk, spell, ride a bike. But even more than that, there is a comfort among people who knew you in the beginning. Perhaps this is why Arizona can never be home. That Southern question, "Who are your people?" has no answer here for me under this big sky.

When people know who you used to be, they can help illuminate who you are. I am not who I was when I lived in North Carolina. I am not who I was twenty years ago. Ten years ago. I have shouted and screamed and attacked everything I felt was unjust, only to find myself more angry, more alone, and more isolated. I wrote venomous plays that preached to the choir, but made no attempt to reach anyone else. My writing stalled as I stalled, underneath armor I meticulously built. I wrote in my diary in high school: If I didn't know you before we moved, I'll never fully let you in. I lived by this for decades, until it became exhausting and unhealthy to divide everyone into two camps. Until I realized the certainty of being unable to change anyone or anything except myself.

All I could do was soften. All I could to was release the armor, stop the ranting, the categorizing, the venom. Only when I stopped using my writing as a vehicle for an agenda did my writing begin to find its way into the world. Only when I stopped meeting everyone with steel did I find the ability to move. When I turned my exploration inward rather than outward, my writing expanded. When I changed the answer to the question "What am I writing this for" from to tear down X to to connect with X, I have found no shortage of stories, essays, and books.

The friends we had dinner with knew me best when I was angriest. I once thought the only fuel for an artist was anger. I couldn't write, I thought, without it. But it turned out, I couldn't write with it. It was eating my heart, and once it finished chewing, what would be left? Fire, I have learned, comes from many places besides anger. It doesn't have to be an uncontrolled blaze that destroys indiscriminantly. It can be consciously cultivated as part of our internal alchemy. It can be a consistent bubbling in the belly that helps us direct our next steps. Fire, uncontrolled, will also destroy the person who set the fire.

I love these people who came to visit. I loved talking with them and listening to them and watching the ghosts of who I used to be circling around the table. This is exactly what home is to me: The place where all our ghosts can gather without fear of exorcism. The place where all the lives of all of us can sit down, have a meal, and then disappear into the ring around the moon. And last night was the first time I have ever felt home here in the desert.

What a beautiful Thanksgiving.

I took digital pictures of a few of the photos they brought:

This is me and Charley at the side door of our house, circa 1980

This is my sister, Melanie (the blonde) and I in 1973.

Halloween, circa 1978-9. Dad is in the center.

The flash above his head was from the original photo.

Makes the picture a bit more ghosty!

Questions for self-evaluation of work

2009-11-10T11:52:00.000-08:00

Here is the handout I give my advanced students for revising. This is geared toward fiction, but I use a similar version for creative non-fiction classes. I thought this might be beneficial to some of you. Please feel free to use it in your own classes and on your own work.

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-EVALUATION OF WORK

View your own work with the same level of trust, respect, and compassion as you would view the work of another student. One of the most important skills you can learn as a writer is the ability to look at your work with detachment and clarity. The workshop process -- both of your own work and the work of other students -- is the key to learning these skills. Remember that this, like writing, is a process. You will get better over time.

Writing is a process. The beginning drafts (notice the plural) show the many directions a piece can go in. As you proceed through the re-vision-ing process, you let go of things that no longer stick. Recognize that you needed everything in the beginning to get to the heart of the piece. Some pieces are simply teaching tools for you. Some are stepping stones. And every once in awhile, you get one with teeth. It takes all the stepping stones to find the treasure. The sooner you can be OK with that, the easier your path as a writer will be. Trust me on that.

1) Reread the piece objectively. Read slowly and carefully. Reread it without a pen to mark anything up BEFORE answering the questions.

2) What is the driving question? It's OK if you don't have one yet. That's usually the case for beginning drafts. Write down a list of possible driving questions. You might ask yourself -- what does this story want? Early drafts are generally filled with the possibility of many driving questions. It's up to you to determine which one you want to run with.

3) What does the protagonist want? What is the yearning/desire within the context of the text? (This is not the same as the driving question, though it is often related.) Again, it's OK if you don't know this yet. It's just part of what needs to be uncovered in the piece.

4) What is in the way of the protagonist achieving what s/he wants? How can you make the obstacles more challenging?

5) What is the central conflict? If you can't find it, make some notes around what it could be as you look toward revision.

6) Is there a change or a movement toward a change in the character's arc? If not, examine where this could occur.

7) Read just the dialogue aloud. How does it sound in your mouth? Do you stumble anywhere? Is the dialogue serving multiple purposes within the story?

8) Take a highlighter and highlight parts of your story that are SUMMARY (telling). Take a look at the ratio of scenes to summary. Are you showing what you should be showing? Telling what you should be telling? Are you showing the key moments of change? Does the piece have a good balance? (There's no formula for this.)

9) Does the story have adequate sensory detail? (Are all five senses represented somewhere, somehow?) Where can you add more specific detail?

10) Do the details you have included add something to the story, or are they generic details (height/weight, etc) Make each detail you choose to include unique to the character or setting.

11) Examine the chronology and structure. Are there unexplained gaps in time? Do we have a clear place and time?

12) Are there characters introduced without explanation? Do all the characters included in the piece have a significant role? What would the piece lose if a character were removed?

13) Are there extraneous scenes that provide backstory that is not needed to understand the focus of the exploration of the story?

14) Is this piece a story yet? (Does it have a clear protagonist, a driving question, a conflict, a climax, a resolution of some sort?) Or, is it an event or a series of events? If it is the latter, what do you need to do to ensure that you have a story?

15) What POV are you using? Are you consistent with your choice throughout the story? What is gained by your POV choice? What is lost? Consider what would happen if you changed the POV.

16) What is still interesting to you about the story? Another way to think about this is where is the energy? The answer to this question will help you find a doorway into your next draft.

Suggested Next Steps:

1) Make a list of scenes you can include. Start the prewriting process.

2) Journal for awhile around your potential driving questions. See what you discover. Don't predetermine where you should go or what you should do. FOLLOW the writing. Don't direct it.

3) Ask your protagonist what s/he wants. Be open to the answer being different from what you think it is.

4) Don't be attached to what you have already written. Don't be afraid to let go of what you no longer need. You're not 'fixing' what's currently on the page. You're finding the next level of evolution in the story. The beginning is only the beginning. Nothing more and nothing less.

5) When you find your driving question, what scenes need to occur to meet the needs of the driving question?

The Lonesome Road of Revision

2009-11-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for revisions. I just got all my edits back from Shambhala. My students are in the throes of revising their work. I adore revision, but most of the time, my classes do not. Yesterday, in my advanced fiction class, we did an in-class self-evaluation on their current revisions. (Yes, these revisions weren't really the final ones... psych!) After about an hour, we had a chat. I thought the conversation might be helpful for some of you.

Two primary questions came up.

How do you know when you're done?

This is as obscure as how do you know when you're in love (or out of love!) The answer is different for different people and different circumstances. You may be noticing that the longer you study writing the fewer "answers" there are to anything. You're not imagining it. To commit to the life of a writer, you have to be able to look at yourself with honesty and objectivity. You have to be able to discern when YOU'RE bored compared to when the story has run its course. No one can know that for you. You have to be vigilant with yourself so that you don't fall into patterns of laziness or "good enough". This is hard. I'll never tell you it isn't. That's why people take classes, find writer's groups, stay in school, etc -- we seem to need other people to help us keep growing.

Some stories are just learning tools. They won't blossom into anything, no matter how much you want it. Some stories do arrive in better shape than others (but I assure you, the more you practice, the better chance you have of this occurring). Each draft teaches craft. Each draft increases the level of sophistication of your thinking about a work.

You might think about this in terms of a story's question(s). When the story has exhausted its questions for you, it's time to shape it and start sending it out. As long as there are still significant questions for you, it's likely still time to work on it.

Writing takes time. The semester format is a false one. All you can do in a semester is stick your toe in. If any of you go on to graduate school, you'll spend most of your two years rewriting the same book. This isn't so much to get a great book, as much as it's to instill the length, depth, and breadth of a true revision process into the student. It's to teach the level of thinking and detachment required to really shape and sculpt a piece of writing. It takes a long time.

Only you can determine what is arrogance and laziness (it's good enough, it's better than X's, it's just fine, etc) and what is the end of the story's arc. In my experience, it's rare for a story to work in under a year. My books take 3-5 years apiece. And I work on them A LOT.

How do you keep showing up?

If I had the answer to this, I'd be rich. I just know that you show up if it matters to you, and you don't show up if it doesn't, and you're not a good person or a bad person regardless of which choice you make. Writer's block comes from you, not from the writing, so examine what might be going on inside yourself that is keeping you from showing up for the work. The answer is always there. Then, you can determine if it really is the right thing to do not to show up (sometimes life really does get in the way), or if you can kick yourself in the butt, laugh, and start again.

You will ask these questions your whole writing life. Every time you ask, the answer will change. Practice not attaching to needing to know everything. Practice listening with an open heart to the story, rather than to the director in your mind. Follow one word as it leads to the next. You aren't creating the path. You're following it. When that mindset shifts, a lot of opening can occur for people.

Revising is where the fun is. It's where you get to peel away what isn't your story. It's where you get to test out your knowledge of craft. It's where your curiosity gets to play and where your real reasons for writing the piece start to speak. Revising your work is not a sign of failure. It's proof of discipline, dedication, and perseverance, qualities without which you will not be a writer. It's proof of your stamina and courage, and above all else, it's proof that you respect your art.

The Writing Warrior

2009-11-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

The Way of the Writing Warrior

If true freedom is going to survive within you, you have to be willing to fight for it. You have to have a sword in each hand at all times. One sword is for your own mind and the other sword is for everyone else's mind. You must be ready to use them. Anyone who wants to be truly free must be willing to stand alone in the truth.
- Andrew Cohen

The beginning always starts off easy. “I want to write a book,” you say. So, maybe you take a class or two. Maybe you buy a book on writing. Maybe you join a critique group. In the beginning, you are filled with possibilities, burning with potential and promise. In the beginning, you really believe that in one semester you can learn all there is to learn about writing and be on your way to the Great American Novel. And then the beginning, with its sweet kisses and daily flower deliveries, turns into the middle. What was once svelte and flexible and able to party until 3 am and still go to work the next day, turns into the same old stories, the same old morning routine, the same old conversation over and over and over.

“This is no longer love!” you exclaim, and toss your idea, once burning with fire and promise, onto the pyre of self-loathing and vow to start anew with something fresher, more exciting, more flexible and inspiring than ever before. These new kisses are even sweeter, the flowers ever more fragrant. This is the one. And then this beginning becomes a middle. And this middle has a spare tire around its belly. And this middle lost its job. And this middle’s eyesight is failing. What to do? This one was the one! Obviously, you don’t know how to pick ‘em. After all, how could something so right turn out so wrong? Next time you’ll pick one even younger. Stronger. With a faster car.

Stop.

Anyone can fall in love. Not just anyone can stay in love.

The path of the writing warrior is about staying in love. The path of the writing warrior is about ruthless self-study. It is about looking in the mirror and noticing, without judgment, what you see. It is also about recognizing what you don’t see. It is about accepting that you cannot see it all. It is acknowledging that you see the world through lenses, and acknowledging that each lens provides a distortion. It is having the courage to remove the lenses as you become aware of them. It is having the courage to know when you still need a lens. It is standing back and watching, with more than a little smile, the chatter of your mind.

A writing warrior stands steady in the center of his work, not reaching too far into the past or too far into the present. He is rooted to the earth and his spine is reaching toward heaven. She identifies and acknowledges the distractions and illusions in her path, and with compassion and clarity, strikes them down. She is aware of her patterns and tendencies to get in her own way, and she can laugh at herself, openly and with wide lips. He knows his time on earth is finite and wants to live it fully. He knows he has essays to write, stories to share, poems to create, and he knows it is his responsibility to write them. She knows that writing is sacred, that it carries great power, and that it takes work. She knows that though the stories and poems appear as gifts, they require her diligence, her patience, and her discipline to realize their full potential. He must be alert. She must be faithful.

The writing warrior’s pen is a sword used both to slice away the illusions of her own mind and the illusions of the world around her. The writing warrior does not pick up the pen lightly. He respects its power, its magic, and its teachings. He knows it carries responsibilities. She steps up to the page, the battlefield of the morning, bows to the pen, the page, and to herself. She is ready to cut away what does not serve. He is ready to carve out a new landscape. The pen is also ready, and bows to the warrior, offering its ink as a sacred covenant.

Welcome to the path. We have been waiting for you.

The Writing Warrior: Discovering the Courage to Free Your True Voice

Available Summer 2010 from Shambhala Publications

The Conviction of Things Not Seen

2009-10-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Keith and I went to see Hector Olivera at the performance hall on campus. We went because there weren't enough tickets sold so the school was offering two for one tickets to faculty. I had never heard of Hector Olivera. I just knew I was starved for something different. How many times in one semester can we go to Target? To Barnes and Noble? To Ross? To Papa's Pizza?

I pretended we were going to the symphony in San Francisco and put on black velvet and crazy-high heels. I wore a pashmina wrap, tried to pretend we arrived on the train instead of the Subaru, tried to pretend we could walk, after the show, to any number of bistros and cafes for an after-show drink and dessert (um, Denny's anyone?). I am a writer. I have great imagination.

Hector Olivera is an Argentinian pipe organist. I won't pretend to know anything about music or about the pipe organ. I made it through a sketchy Fur Elise on the piano when I was a child, but that's the extend of my musical expertise. But without understanding music, I love it. Live music makes me cry just about every time, any kind. Live performances, even the not-so-great ones, take my breath away.

We arrived about ten minutes early. There were only a couple of hundred people there. We were the "young 'uns". Hector came out in his tuxedo, bowed, and began to play.

In between arrangements, he spun around and talked to us as if he were at Carnegie Hall instead of the Yavapai College Performance Hall. He told us of playing the funeral mass for Evita in Argentina when he was seven. He tried to make cowboy jokes. He has been touring internationally for decades. He has designed organs. And he is in love with late nineteenth and early twentieth century western United States history. He'd spent the afternoon at Sharlot Hall Museum, a local museum honoring Prescott's early settlers. He was enthralled and did a set of pieces for us focused on spaghetti westerns. He made the organ go "clop clop" to imitate the horses' hooves. He filled the room with an orchestra.

And, (here's where I fell in love) he had a friend named Harry. Harry is a stuffed green German Lutheran frog who sits on his organ and carries on conversations with him and the audience.

"He plays puppets!" I said to Keith, knowing at that very moment that Hector was a soul mate and a true artist. "Only a real artist would admit to playing puppets publicly."

But it got better than puppets. After the intermission, he introduced all the members of his orchestra. He nodded to invisible people on both sides of the organ. He had names for them. Personalities. Foibles. (The trumpet player drank too much. The violinist was always late.) He acknowledged all sections of his orchestra, then sat down to play, nodding to each invisible player at the appropriate time to enter the composition.

When he stood to bow, he commented on how silly he was. How he appreciated our patience while an old man played with his imaginary friends. But then, after the laughter, he said, "You are even more silly than me if you think I don't believe they are there."

And there you have it. That's what makes an artist -- a writer, a dancer, a painter, a musician, a singer, a sculptor. He believes in what and who he cannot see. He believes in these things enough to share them with a group of strangers in a small town in the mountains of Arizona. He believes in play enough to take his German frog Harry on the road with him across the world.

As writers, this play emerges as your characters. You are not making them up from nowhere. You are entering the spaces where they live. You must believe they are there. Only then, will they talk to you. It helps if you smile and open your arms a little, too.

I am in love with Hector Olivera, and I am sure that the world is a better place because he embodies his music, his not-so-imaginary orchestra, and his German frog Harry.

Hector and Harry working on the organ.

Faculty Development Day! Hooray!

2009-10-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

Warning: Snarky Rant Full of Judgment and Generalizations Forthcoming.

Alright. I am basically a good employee. I am a dedicated teacher. I show up when I'm supposed to. I get papers returned quickly. I am generally friendly to everyone. And, I do love my job. Until days like today, which actually have nothing to do with my job.

Every few months or so it seems like people (who said people are and where they live remains a mystery) feel we need a day just to be collegial. Just to check in with each other. I know you know these people -- they're the Team Builders. The ones who think pitting the science faculty against the liberal arts faculty in a ropes course helps build trust. The ones who think it's fun to play get to know you games and arrange for holiday gift exchanges. These Team Builders are administrative staff. Every place I've ever worked has these people. They are nice people. But oh, how they love to group. Everything can apparently be done better if there's a group, a committee, or -- I'm all a-quiver -- a pot luck luncheon to discuss such absurd issues as grade inflation (yes, we're all doing it apparently. No more academic integrity. We just pass 'em all through), textbook costs (can we really do anything about that?), whether or not we should keep the dorms, and technological literacy (no, Virgina, just because they can reach level 5 on Grand Theft Auto does NOT mean they can attach a file properly).

I'll concede that the world is probably a better place because there are Team Builders, but I am not one of them and I don't want to play in their reindeer games. Faculty, generally, are not groupers. We work in academia because no one else will have us. Because we won't chant "Yay Corporate Employer X" or take the battle over sales numbers in women's accessories seriously. We're here because we don't play all that well with others. Our loyalty is to our field and to our students. I am a teacher. I don't want to be an administrator. I am not cut out for it. I am either a loner or a dictator. It's better for all if I'm left alone.

It's not just me.

Standing in line for the coffee at 8:30 this morning, one after the other of us murmured, "What a waste of time."

"I have mid terms to grade."

"I need to prep."

"I could be sleeping."

But here we are, because in these "trying economic times" we are all relatively happy to have work.

Today I learned these things about my job (via PowerPoint):

- The Original Sin in Academia: Question Everything, but Do We Question Our Own Establishment?
- The Pony Express went out of Business Because the Horses Weren't Fast Enough (I'm actually not making this up)
- We Have Inefficient Classroom Usage Between 8 am and 9:30.
- We Waste 15-20 minutes per Classroom Period Taking Attendance; Therefore When The Swine Flu Outbreak Hits and We Have to Close Campuses, We Can Just Give Students A Final Grade at 85% Completion Because We (did I mention) Waste 15- 20 minutes per Class Period.
- We Do Not Need to Teach Psychology to Nursing Students
- We Need to Focus on Job Preparation
- Why Do We Have Liberal Arts at All? The Education Model We Are Using is From Ancient Greece. They Are Dead.
- We Are Our Own Worst Albatross
- Private Institutions Are Making Money. We Are Not.
- We Should Offer Baccalaureate Degrees.
- We Need To Save Money.
- Each Student Costs the College $8000. Why Is That Not Enough For Them To Transfer To a 4-year Institution?
- Traditional Education is a Failed Paradigm. Directed, Skills Based Programs Like Sustainability, Public Service, Hospitality Management, and Nursing Are Our Future.
- Did I Mention the Pony Express Went out of Business Because The Horses Couldn't Run Fast Enough?

Oh, there's so much more, if that wasn't clear and uplifting enough. With each rambling run-on, I watched the faculty in front of me and around me cringe. The old-timers took it all with a grain of salt. "It's been the same rhetoric since 1994 when I got here," one of them told me. The brand new hires got really angry and started challenging the administration. We wrote notes to each other on the tables, sucked in our breaths, tried to let it roll off our backs. Tried, some of us maybe more successfully than others, to let the rhetoric just bounce off.

I get that we don't have any money. I get that there aren't any jobs. But I cannot reconcile any of that with a devaluation and deprofessionalization of teaching. I believe in the education of the whole human. I believe in a liberal arts education. I believe that understanding more about who we are and what we believe may be the only thing that prevents us from killing each other. I believe that we are better humans by reading, by writing, by painting, dancing, creating and listening to music. To try to make education even more narrow seems like it will create a world I want no part of. To be striving to create a person with skill but without soul seems a foolish and short-sighted goal.

This semester I've had several problems with fundamentalist students and the readings we've done in class. They've dropped. I don't have the energy to fight. I teach my classes. I go home. I avoid situations where I might have to get involved in campus politics. I cannot try to change minds. I can only open doors. Lead the horse to water as they say. (Hey, maybe if the Pony Express horses had drunk the water they could have run faster...)

I am glad there are administrators who get money for us and keep us paid and happy with indoor plumbing. Every school needs them, and we have a good one. But I am not OK with being told that what I do does not matter. No one gets into teaching for the money. We love our subject and we love our students. Mr. Administrator, don't you dare try to make critical thinking obsolete. Don't you dare devalue the arts. As William Carlos Williams wrote, "It is difficult to get the news from poems. Yet men die every day for lack of what is found there." It is not always, Mr. Administrator, about money.

I dare you, Mr. Administrator. Spend one week in the classroom. Listen to the students. They are not commodities. They are not dollars. They are not excel spreadsheet numbers. They are human beings. Our job as an educational institution is to help them be deeper, broader, richer human beings. And no, you can't measure that outcome (so I know, it's not valuable. I read that memo). And no, you don't always know at the time if you made a difference at all. But we keep showing up because we believe in something bigger than ourselves. We believe in our collective histories -- at its most brilliant and its basest. We believe that the more a mind can open, the softer we can become. We believe this when the world tells us it, and we, are irrelevant. We believe this when it seems no one hears or cares. We believe this because somewhere in the back of our hearts lives that teacher who first put on Beethoven for us, or who first read us Dr. Seuss, or who first showed us how the human heart works, or opened up a geode to its full sparkle.

It may be inefficient to believe in these things now. It may even be irrelevant. I may already be irrelevant. But I do hear my students. And I do love them. I show up every day for them with all that I have. And I do love stories and language more than anything else in the world.

You will not take this away, Mr. Administrator. There may no longer be a Pony Express, but there are still horses.

Giddyup.

Can a Leopard Change Its Spots?

2009-10-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

How do you know if you've actually done any work? You go to classes. You do the practices. You change your eating habits. You keep peeling back the layers that have, you thought, kept you safe. You keep showing up even when you don't want to, but you still don't know if your central beliefs about yourself and the way you navigate the world can fundamentally change.

How can you tell?

When every trigger you have gets pushed in a short period of time and you find that your responses are not the responses of the past. And, you find that you can't even really access those past responses. There's this whisper of a whisper, "Shouldn't I be feeling contraction? Shouldn't I be undone?" But the whisper has no place to stand, so it soon enough blows away. You are somehow no longer making assumptions about the present moment based on past experience. WTF? How did that happen?

We all have tendencies and patterns. My dad wrote to me, in my 11th birthday letter, that I resisted change more than anyone he'd ever known. That says something about an 11 year old! But it was a very perceptive observation, and perhaps a belief about myself that I have solidified, in part because it has truth to it, in part because it was something dad saw in me and so by holding on to it I was holding on to him, and in part because I didn't think there were options.

I have worked for most of my adult life on issues of attachment and aversion. Generally speaking, attachments arise from our previous experiences of pleasure and happiness. Aversions emerge from previous experiences of pain and suffering. Over time, our sense of self-identity is largely formed by a long list of such likes and dislikes. We have a tendency to define ourselves as a collection of our previous emotional experiences. For me, these issues have surfaced most around times of change -- when a relationship ends, when someone dies, when others around me are changing and I don't want them to, when I am afraid of moving away from what no longer serves me.

For years I've had this line posted above my desk in my office:

Unconditional acceptance of whatever is arising in the present moment is absolute freedom.

I posted it so I would see it every day because I know my tendency is to resist whatever is arising. My tendency is to attach to a particular moment that rocked and hold on to it until it's dead. My tendency is to be sticky. To root myself so deeply I can't move. To solidify inside and outside.

When I figured these things out about myself, I thought that was a pretty big piece of work. I thought at least I will have greater awareness when I'm living my life. Now that I know I do this, at least I can not project my own stuff onto other people. But I didn't really think I could actually cellularly shift those things. I thought my job was to work with them because they would always be there (see the false assumption I had that there is permanence?)

In the past few weeks, I've been hit with everything that would have previously unmoored me. It started when Patrick Swayze died and I spent a few days crying for him and for dad. I could cry though, and go on with my day. It wasn't debilitating. It was cleansing. Then the following week was the one-year anniversary of my friend Jeffrey's death. In the past, I would have created a drama around that -- something along the lines of I'll never see him again. I'll never have another friend like him. I'll never see San Francisco the same way again. And on and on. I did experience sadness, but it welled up, moved, and was gone. I went to his Facebook page (one never really dies on-line) and left a note on his wall, along with many of his other friends.

I finished the final draft of The Writing Warrior and sent it to Shambhala a few days ago. This is the first book I've written that Jeffrey didn't read ahead of time. The first book that will not have his keen eye on the text. When a manuscript is finished, there is a period of silence. A space where there is nothing to do but wait for what is next. In the past, I would have attached to wanting the New Book NOW. I would have attached to how much I missed Jeffrey's input. How much I miss Jeffrey. But I didn't. I sent the book off and I am now waiting, both for the response from the editor and for the next book to start to speak.

But the biggest awareness of the internal changes occurred on Sunday at a workshop I attended. My fabulous friend Ciara attended as well. Ciara was on her way out of the state to a new life in Arkansas after the workshop. Cain was teaching the class, and he was on his way out of the country for a retreat. Ciara and I met in yoga and both studied a lot with Cain. We shared lots of growing together. We rubbed warm jade balls on our abdomens and coughed up ickiness. We poured salt water through our nostrils and did hours upon hours upon hours of shaking practice together.

I was already weepy by the time the class started. Cain had done a third cupping session with me on Thursday (see pictures below) and that one moved a ton of remaining sludge from a frozen shoulder I've been working on for several years. (If you're interested, the internet has info on Chinese cupping. I was going to attach a link to a video, but I thought it would be too much for my mom! And I have to admit, if I'd have seen the videos before I did it, I'm not sure I would have done it.)

After the cupping, I found myself spontaneously crying, leaking, essentially, from every possible place once the sludgy sticky water in me finally moved. I wept in a way that was more like washing off a muddy sidewalk than a weeping of attachment. I just let everything move. I also found freedom in my shoulders and back that I did not believe was possible. I felt like I had a whole new body, and that made more tears come. I just felt so grateful to be able to raise my arms above my head without contraction. Raising the arms seemed somehow connected to opening my lungs and my heart. Each time I did it, I felt freer, like I imagine a newborn must feel as she explores her new body. I didn't know how much blood was stuck in my shoulder until it moved.

In the past, if I knew I was going to an event that was going to involve saying good-bye to two people I cared about, I would have created a drama: This Is The Last Time The Three Of Us May Ever Practice Together. I would have decided that was a terrible thing, rather than a precious thing, and I would have held the as-yet-to-occur moment of good-bye as the Thing To Be Endured. I would have added my personal favorite storyline of abandonment. Of loss (based on a previous history of loss). I would have added the storyline of attachment and aversion -- I am Attached To My Practice Continuing As it Has Been and I am Adverse to Anything (ANYTHING) Being Different From How It Currently Is. I would have spent the entire class focused on the ending storyline, rather than being in the class with the present moment experience. But I couldn't do that. The class was not about the ending of the class. It was only about the class.

Ciara and I went to lunch at the Raven at the break. Previously, the storyline in my head for that lunch would be: This May Be My Last Lunch With Her. I would try to attach to her not leaving. I would try to avoid the end of the lunch. I would not, in any way, be able to be present and enjoy the lunch. But I didn't do that either. We simply had lunch.

Class ended and Ciara and I went to say good-bye to Cain. I was weepy because I've been weepy now for weeks. Previously, I would have snuck out of the class to avoid actually saying good-bye. I wouldn't have been clean and clear about it. But this time, I told both of them how they helped me. I told both of them I was grateful. And we all said good-bye.

And I didn't die. :-) And I did not get tossed away. I couldn't even attach to trying to get tossed away. There was only the moment. I couldn't create the contraction that I would have experienced before. I just felt what I felt when I felt it.

I tried to bring back the feelings I was expecting to feel -- the contraction I was sure would come. The inevitable (I assumed) triggering of grief onto and into grief. But I couldn't. I felt sad and I felt grateful and I felt happy, all at once and one after the other.

I'd been given a chance to see if the internal patterns I have previously shaped my identity around could change. And they did. I don't know when they fell away, but they are gone. And there's a freedom in that I didn't know was possible. The bruises on my back and shoulders are fading, but the space inside them is still there.

Whaddya think, Dad? I walked right into change. I walked right into the ending of a phase of learning. I walked right into sadness and it didn't stick to me. On the other side of it is the next right thing.

Now, note to self: don't attach to this .... OK, OK. It's already different. Oh! Different again! And I'm still standing! Who'd have thunk it.

results of cupping 3 days afterwards (see, Mom, I'm smiling! It's OK)

back results of cupping 3 days afterwards

my friend Ciara

One of the trainings with Cain a few years ago.

(I'm in the green skirt and Cain's in the white shirt in front of me.)

You can see I'm not convinced I can move my shoulder like that!

Good Fences

2009-09-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Our house, July 2008

**The essence of this essay is true. The spatial details within the house have been rearranged.

Our house had not caught fire as I’d feared as a girl after watching the Walton’s house burn on TV, and then watching my father place his lit cigarette on the edge of the windowsill so he could kiss me good night. The house had not fallen to disrepair, as others on the street had, like the burnt yellow split level where my best friend had lived, or the one across the street, still the same chartreuse it was in 1980 where the cute bad boy with the long hair had worked on his black Mustang late into the night. The front door to our house had been repainted the same chalky red it had been when we lived here. My father had wanted to paint the house himself in 1977 because all strong Southern men could paint – should paint – their own houses. But he couldn’t. Or at least didn’t. The eaves were too high, his polio withered leg too weak, the fingerprints from his most recent heart attack tracked in blue across his chest.

“We’ll hire someone,” my mother said, and we did, and the eaves were painted the chalky red color we had hoped would symbolize vitality, a quality we no longer felt we had.

My father watched the young painters, flecks of dried red paint in their light hair, from the den as the Sunday afternoon golf matches droned underneath his thoughts. My mother worked on the lesson for her Sunday school class on the Remington typewriter that had both a red and black ribbon option, but no correction tape. Ben Hogan held the leader board for the day, but my father was not watching, not listening. He was watching the men – the boys really – with their strong legs and their strong hearts paint the ceiling of his family’s home. He was, perhaps, tracing the blue path across his chest with the fingers of his right hand while his atrophied left foot hung in his specially designed shoe. He was watching his children, who, for the moment at least, were not fighting. They were in the backyard also watching the young men who were painting the house. He might have wondered if his daughters wished for a father who could paint houses, or throw a baseball, or run behind a bicycle. His daughters wondered what the were having for dinner, hoping for spaghetti, expecting cube steak and string beans cold from the can.

When I walked up the driveway again at forty years old, two young men were still repainting the eaves. This time different men and a different color, though the spackles of thirty-year-old chalky red paint still dotted the brick side stairs.

“Do you want to come in?” they asked, and I had almost forgotten the need for permission to enter. It was, after all, my house.

Inside, the golf match wasn’t on. Ben Hogan wasn’t winning. My father was not sitting, not thinking, but the walls were exploding through the neutral beige and Navajo white they’d been painted to ensure a quick sale. The walls pointed to the windowsill of my girlhood bedroom where I feared the impending house fire would begin, where I feared the monster that took my father away one night and brought back an aged man, a graying, frightened, subdued man. This monster, the same monster that ate the other half of the pair of red mittens that always make it to school but never home, lived under every bed skirt, behind every closet door, inside the pockets of every winter coat.

The floor plan has been opened up. A wall knocked down to make a great room, ceilings depopcorned and raised, fans added and appliances updated. My room, however, was significantly smaller than it used to be; the closet wouldn’t hold a fraction of my current wardrobe. But the dead fly was still etched into the paint on the window frame of my bedroom, wings splayed open like a prehistoric fossil. As a child, I would run my fingertip over the outline of its wings, imagine how it died, drowning in beige paint, slowly realizing it was trapped. No matter how hard it tried to move it would never be anywhere but on this windowsill in this bedroom.

Outside the window was the orange fence, still standing after almost thirty years. The woman, hands on blue-flowered hips, watched me. Her hair had grayed, but I would have known her anywhere.

“I know the story of that fence,” I said to the two men with young bodies and strong hearts who were fixing up our house to resell. “When we moved to Arizona, we sold our house to a black couple. When we told our neighbor, the next day they built the fence. They stopped talking to us.”

The young men, young in the south of 2008, not the south of 1980, or the south of 1940, stopped installing the kitchen sink.

“They saved my dad’s life, you know,” I continued, even though these young Southern men were surely demonstrating ancient Southern politeness. “Her husband performed CPR while the ambulance was on the way.”

The woman hadn’t moved from her driveway.

“Looks like she’s alone now.”

“Her husband died a few years back,” said one of the young men.

This woman, older than my mother, was frail enough that I could push her to the ground while my young self shouted at her all the things she’d always wanted to:

    You betrayed us!
    You abandoned us!
    You gave me a New Testament for my birthday and then built this fence!
    I am glad you are alone! I am glad! I am glad!

But I didn’t say any of that. I have driven here in a red convertible rented car. I will drive away in less than an hour. I can no longer hear the golf match, the Remington’s keys, my friends playing kickball in the yard across the street, my father’s limp left foot tapping the floor. She is standing still, wearing a blue flowered housecoat and pink slippers, and I am glad.

I press my fingers one more time against the fly’s immutable skeleton. “Well, it’s sure been a long time.”

The young men, boys really, with their strong legs and strong hearts, nod to me. The house is so small now, it seems impossible it once held us all – mommy, daddy, sisters, and monster. I have grown through it and around it, my own strong heart, strong legs inching into the eaves, making sure the chalky red paint, the orange fence, the woman in the blue flowered housecoat, the ancient fly, do not dissolve into the same places as Ben Hogan’s win, my father’s blue-black scar, and the girl I used to be.

This is the fence now. It was orange when we moved in 1981.

This is the side of the house where there are still spackles of red paint.

This is where the fly is embedded in the window sill.

Baryshnikov Meets James Dean

2009-09-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Patrick Swayze is dead and I am crying.

I don't have time to cry now. I have to get to work, read papers, go to a curriculum meeting. But I am instead in my office at home destroying the makeup I just put on.

I was nineteen when Dirty Dancing came out in August, 1987. My father and I went to see it in late August, just a few weeks before he died. As far as I know, it was the last movie he saw in a theater. I've always equated the last song of the film, "The Time of My Life", with Dad's death. I like to imagine, though I have no idea, that if Dad could have, he would have gone out singing that song.

When Patrick Swayze leapt from the stage into the audience in the final dance number, I like to think I felt a little like young girls felt when they saw Elvis for the first time. Swayze's virility, his presence, his devotion to the moment of the music still makes me catch my breath. To move, not because the next dance step calls for it, but to move because your body responds in full force and without your conscious direction to the music, is one of the deepest sexual and life-affirming things to witness.

Dirty Dancing was perhaps not the most intellectual of movies. Not the most challenging of films. But if you were a young woman in 1987, I'll bet you remember watching that man move across the screen and wiggle something awake inside of you. I'll bet you remember his line, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner," and I'll bet you remember feeling something unexpected in your chest and in your spine when he looked Jennifer Grey straight on and with just a twitch of an index finger, made her shake.

Last week, I had to buy reading glasses. +1.50. The girl watching Patrick Swayze in 1987 couldn't imagine reading glasses. Couldn't imagine most of what her life has become, but most of all, couldn't imagine what it feels like to clearly no longer be the kid. Forty-one may be the new thirty-one -- whatever -- but perception and vitamins don't change the biology. I am stepping into a different space as I leave hippy clothes and peace signs and some of the openness of youth. I realize that there are things I will probably never do in this life. Some doors may open wider, but some doors do shut forever.

Friday is the 22nd anniversary of dad's death. Last night, Patrick Swayze died, and today I am crying. I am remembering that moment when it seemed, just like when Swayze leapt into the audience, that the future would always be huge, everlasting, ever expanding, and completely mine.

Yes, Virginia, It'll Happen To You

2009-08-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

Forty-one arrived earlier this month like a meal with too many beans. At first it was yummy and fabulous, and then later ...

I don't physically feel older, but let's just say I'm noticing some things that have probably been there for awhile. Case and point: the sagging breast.

Gents, feel free to stop reading.

Ladies? Here's my truth. I've never been one who was really jazzed about having a large chest. I'm always amazed women pay for such an inconvenience (shirts don't close, back pain, shoulder pain, chest pain, bras that have more steel in them than the Brooklyn bridge). I appreciate mine because without them I'd look like a pear, but since I never wanted children, their biological purpose never mattered to me. I wanted to check a box on the way into this world -- NO. Won't be needing breasts this time around. Thanks anyway. Want to be able to wear strapless things. Want to once, just once, go out in public without a bra without looking like I should have a can of Pabst in my hand and chewing tobacco between my lips.

But Something. Has. Happened.

My bras hurt. I can't wait to get out of them. I am burned by the straps, pricked by the closure. I thought I must have changed sizes, though I haven't had any weight fluctuations. A few weeks ago, I reached the point of almost taking my bra off in the middle of Cost Plus because it was driving me so insane. It had been a little over a year since my last bra fitting, so I thought I should give it another shot.

"These trying economic times" have taken away my Lane Bryant store from the mall. The only store in town where a woman with a chest larger than a 36C can enter and know she'll be among sisters. But it closed last year, and those of us who require bras be functional not decorative, are left proverbially flapping in the breeze. If I lived in a larger town, there'd be more options, but in Prescott, well, I'm left with the perpetual youth and size 2 that is Victoria's Secret.

The Victoria's Secret in Prescott is nothing like the Victoria's Secret in an urban area. Here, the mannequins are in cute PINK pajamas holding tiny stuffed dogs. Down in Phoenix, the mannequins are splayed open in the display window, red and black push up bra and thong advertising what they're selling. But even here, in a store about sleep not sex, a woman knows whether or not she belongs in Victoria's Secret. I do not. But I was at a crossroads. I'd have to venture into the girly-girl pink store and find a bra fitter.

Flashback to fifth grade. I'm the only girl who has to wear a bra. Not because I want to. Because I have to. I learn to cross my arms over my chest. I learn to slouch. I learn to wear shirts with necks up to my chin. I learn to be embarrassed of my own body.

Girly-girl pink. Fifth grade. And, lo and behold, a bra fitter who's in the fifth grade. Really, I'm sure she's at least eighteen. Well, seventeen. I'm sure she's at least an A cup. 34" around? Maybe. After she's had a cheeseburger at least. Or three.

"Ma'am?" ugh. "Do you need help?"

She's adorable. She's eager. The yellow measuring tape is longer than she is. She has the body type I've always wanted. She has no idea I want to squash her.

"Yes. My bras are driving me crazy. I wanted to get a bra fitting."

She whips into Bra Fitting Professional and whisks me off to the back of the store.

Ladies, I've got to tell you -- I want a bra fitting from a woman who has to actually wear a bra. I want a bra fitting from a woman ten times my size who knows how they pinch and hurt and squeeze and don't fit right and can tell me honestly which style is really going to work and which one is going to feel good for a week and then begin its slow torture. Which ones won't make the dreaded uniboob, and which ones won't create that boingy-boingy bounce that makes you feel like you should stuff dollar bills down your chest.

But this was not to be. The only other person working in the store was also very young. Very petite. If I ever own a bra store, I'm staffing it with women who wear 50F cup sizes. No one will be intimidated to walk in my bra store. But I digress.

When I was about ten, my grandmother and I went shopping. My grandmother is the only family member to also have a large chest. We were in the fitting room and I accidentally saw her without her shirt on. I will never forget. Never. I remember clutching my hands over my new breasts and begging them not to ever do that.

Age and gravity are the great equalizers.

The very young very small girl is efficient and sweet. "38DD." She smiles like she just gave me a cookie.

"Are you sure? That's the size I'm wearing and nothing fits."

"Ma'am." ugh. "You know that over, um, time, they move."

Yep. Just like all those beans I had for dinner.

You little girls best be gettin' out of my way.

And One Day There Was Nothing Left

2009-08-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

the center of the backyard patio

The clearing out began in my twenties with money. Credit card debt. A job that really didn't pay much at all. A shrieking loneliness that seemed to be filled only by the transactions in the stores, the exchanges with the clerks. It wasn't the objects I purchased that I craved. It was the conversations. Phoenix was so terribly lonely.

The clearing moved on in my thirties with grief work. Jungian analysis. Movement work. Yoga. Writing. Healing. Returning to stuffed pain and yanking it free, sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter. Learning to be in relationships again -- my friend Carol Anne, my friend Gus. Letting people into my house again after swearing that following the abusive relationship I had in college, I would never ever ever (not never, not no how, not never) let anyone into my space again. My space would be safe.

Before I moved to Prescott, Gus helped me clean out my dark hidden room. He had to kick the door down to get into it. I'm never terribly subtle in my work. We moved out boxes and boxes and boxes. I recarpeted the house. Tiled the kitchen floor. And then moved.

Then, the body called. Excessive weight. Imbalanced food. Sticky painful shoulder that made me feel sixty five, not thirty five. High blood pressure. Bleeding gums. Yoga moved in then, and over years, stretched me. Made space. Breath moved in. Friends in Prescott: Carolina, Cain, Revital, Grace -- helped me feel part of a community. Helped me find openings where I thought were only fences. Keith came then, and from the first conversation we had in his old truck in the parking lot of Outback, I knew he was my partner.

Then, the joints called, which sent me back into the body, learning qi gong, joint opening, abdominal massage, kettle bell training, and shaking. The more I shook, the more the fire stoked in my belly. The more the fire stoked, the more the earth, which is my dosha, my constitution, began to crumble and move. The more the earth moved ... well, you know that song.

Clearing out the body made room for the writing. There were books. There were teaching opportunities at amazing places in the country. There was a window to a world I didn't think I could touch.

The body called again, and this time the spiritual journey was cleaning the house. And finally, the outdoor landscaping was finished yesterday on my 41st birthday. I've never cultivated an outdoor space. I've been sitting in the patio with my tea and watching the birds and yellow jackets and butterflies come to the plants. I look through the trimmed alligator juniper to see not just the moon, but the birds making a nest in the branches. I talked to the flowers. Touched the velvet leaves. Bought a hose attachment that would let me water lightly, not in my usual forceful way. Wrote down the names of the plants -- the ones that would come back next year and the ones that wouldn't. Cain chiseled a hole in the fence so the water would drain and not stagnate in the patio. We dug a hole and put in river rock along the wall and out into the common area so the water had a place to flow. The whole house began to move.

I am tired. And even though I just got back from New York and could attribute the fatigue to the trip, I know that's not what it is. I am tired from carrying everything and holding everything for so long. I am tired in that great way you are when you finish a workout. The good exhaustion that says, yes, you worked hard and now, my sweet, it is time to rest. The good exhaustion that leaves you loose and flexible, not tense and rigid.

I'm a little unsteady without all the weight, but that's OK. My house can hold me. My earth can hold me. My friends can hold me. My writing can hold me. And without the heaviness, I will find ever higher places to fly as my heart remains rooted with those I love, my center grounded, my unsteadiness as perfect as wind.

back patio before the work

view of the backyard patio now

front yard before the work

front yard now

rock formation for rain drainage

Each day, let something go.

I Can Win A Pre-Paid Cremation!

2009-07-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

Historic cemetery in Davidson County, North Carolina

Somehow, in the Great Junk Mail Computer, which is so obviously a PC and not a Mac, I have become switched with my father. It happened when I moved to Prescott. I began receiving targeted junk mail about social security, AARP, Medicare Plans A,B,C,D and huh?, life insurance offers with the cute Snoopy on the front, invitations to refinance so I could live out my golden years in luxury, and notifications of the senior citizens' early bird buffets (which, in Prescott, are bountiful). I finally figured out what had happened when I received something from AARP preprinted with my name and birthday -- Laraine A. Herring. 01/20/41.

Nope. That was my dad's birthday. And, incidentally Great Junk Mail Computer, he's been dead 22 years. I know. Windows Vista sucks, doesn't it?

Today I received an envelope with a big blue banner on the front: Win a Pre-Paid Cremation! I had to open it. It's not every day a 40 year old woman gets a chance for something that spectacular. And it's only Monday. What could my Pre-Paid Cremation prize entail? Fireworks? Tony Orlando singing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree"? Ice sculptures or a personal eulogy from Clinton Kelly telling the world how fabulously I put outfits together? Alas. None of this could be mine.

The personalized letter contained seven punctuation and spelling errors. I would not entrust my mortal remains to a company that misuses an apostrophe and believes that there is such a thing as closure in the grieving process (facilitated, of course, by pre-buying a cremation plan.) A girl has to take a stand. Furthermore, is this the kind of mail I can look forward to as I age? Makes those viagra junk mails look better. If I complete the reply slip, I can even be entered in a monthly drawing! Oh my. I had no idea life was going to get this good.

I believe in the right to die. I don't want to hang on for months or years on life support. I believe in the right to die on one's own terms, and I believe each person has both the right and responsibility to ensure there are provisions for the disposal of his or her body in a way that feels comfortable. I also understand that this company has a right to sell its product. It's the Ed McMahon You Might Already Be A Winner! tone of the letter that got to me. That, and, for me, the idea of cremation in the first place.

I love the earth, and I want to go back to it. I don't want to be cremated. I don't want to be scattered. I don't want to be inhaled by someone else. I want to be under a tree -- a big one like the ones I can't find here in Arizona. One with roots that go clear to hell and branches that go straight to heaven. Preferably with moss and birds that are red and yellow and orange and green. And maybe a rabbit. Definitely a squirrel. And lightning bugs. Hopefully a cat or two.

Cremation, like beer, is for other people. Not me. Even if it's free. Even if they pay me. I go back to mushy, muddy, Southern earth. How else am I going to hang out in the branches and haunt everybody?

a handful of earth

cries aloud

i used to be hair or

i used to be bones

and just at the moment

when you are all confused

leaps forth a voice

hold me close

i'm love and

i'm always yours

- Jalaluddin Rumi, translated by Nader Khalili

Cat guarding Chopin's grave in Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris