In my Thinking Like a Working Writer class, in which myself and a handful of other graduating seniors stare at each other asking excitedly and not without a hint of fear, What do we do now?, we're supposed to gather a bunch of quotes that will guide us to an Amazing Body of Work.
What's an Amazing Body of Work? It's a lot of work. For me an Amazing Body of Work means being prolific, because if you're prolific that means you're getting a lot of practice, and if you have a lot of practice then, very probably, you're writing is good. It is the best sort of self-fulfilling prophecy—write a lot, be good a lot, rinse, repeat.
How do you become prolific? Besides the obvious answer—Just suck it up and write already—it means becoming Unstuck. Becoming Unstuck means getting out of the way of your own writing, it means letting things flow freely and often and always. Becoming Unstuck means listening to your Inner Voice and letting it do the crazy things, because who knows in what strange and wonderful places you'll end up. Becoming Unstuck means removing the filter, it means go go go, it means writing habits and it means looking at the world with genuine wonder.
An Amazing Body of Work begins with writing—a lot. And it means turning the filter off, and it means making a mess and worrying about it later. Maxwell Perkins said, "Just get it down on paper, and then we'll see what to do about it," and that's useful. It takes the pressure off, let's you go and go without waiting for the inner editor to catch up and whisper murky doubtful things in your ear. And then you have to be hard nosed, you have to press yourself and get tough. Stephen King said it best in his wonderful book On Writing, "Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work."And there's no way around it—an Amazing Body of Work means a lot of hard work.
And we must have courage. And we must be sincere.
Tim O'Brien gave a talk at Stanford last year. And Tim O'Brien writes about war. And Tim O'Brien said that he doesn't write about war—that war was the vehicle he used to write about the human heart. And we all write about the human heart, in one way or another, and we use our own vehicles to get at some Truth. And Truth means describing something deep in our chest to the best of our abilities. What I mean is—we must have courage to write about the things close to our heart, and we must be sincere in writing about them. Kurt Vonnegut said, "Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style." And that is advice that is true now and will be true when we are middle aged and when we are old and when we are long gone.
Michael Chabon said, “Nothing is boring except to people who aren't really paying attention.” I think we, as writers, not only should see things differently but I feel it is our charge, our obligation to do so. Roald Dahl said, “Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” And Albert Einstein—who was not famous for his writing but is certainly one of those sorts of people—said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
All of this is to say, our eyes must be Open. We must see things in a way no one else does. And actually this is easier than it sounds, because you are you, and no one else is you, and if you simply look at things in your own natural way then it will be different than the way others see them. To be more reductive—be yourself. If you want an Amazing Body of Work it will have to come from you. And not from you-who-is-trying-to-appease-others, and not from you-who-is-writing-to-the-market, and not from you-who-is-trying-to-offend-no-one. An Amazing Body of Work comes from the essential you, the one deep down, from the Inner Voice, and nowhere else.
I think that's what it takes. We must become Unstuck. We must have courage. We must be sincere. Our eyes must be Open. And, above all, we must write a lot.
Here are a few more quotes. They didn't quite fit in to my post as I was writing, but they're too good not to pass along.
"Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic." Stephen King, On Writing
"Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open." Stephen King, On Writing
“One of the few things I know about writing is this; spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.” Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Here's a link to Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Rules For Writing Fiction. These I love.
This is essential viewing: Maurice Sendak on the Colbert Report. (And don't miss part 2.)
And a great TED Talk on writing and creativity by Amy Tan.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Second Try: To Tata, on the eve of Something I Do Not Understand
I have been avoiding this. Doing it well, too: I have found every speck of dust to be plucked away on the floor of my room, I have made and gone to appointments, done my work early—I have finished every unfinished thing in order to prolong the inevitable, which is my second try at this big thing, this Something I Do Not Understand, which is Tata living in that strange twilight between this world and the next. She's not fully here, she's not fully there, and we can only get sips of her, cool little refreshing bursts of the Tata we knew before the bottom dries out again and the fog clouds her eyes and when I ask her ¿Entiendes? she replies in English, Not really.
When we arrive I hear her before I see her and she sounds tired and when I round the corner I see her—there, in that big armchair, looking small, looking around, seeing things a second after they happen. I go up and say what I always say—¿Qué pasa chica? ¿Qué pasa linda?—What's up girl? What's up pretty thing? and I bend down and kiss her on the cheek. Mi corazón, she says—My heart.
For the first time I see my grandmother's scalp. It's tan somehow, and leathery. Her skull is a good, round shape. Thin grey hairs sprout like so many untended blades of dying grass—and my grandmother is proud, too proud to have no hair, and I know this. You look like me, I say, I can give you haircuts from now on. I motion with my invisible electric clippers around my shaved head. Zip zip zip. And she laughs.
I sit down on the carpet next to her. I think she must feel very small these days, and I want to be small with her. So I sit on the carpet and rest my hand on hers, and mine is live and strong and hers is splotched with liver stains, and her veins rise up blue and inky like gorged rivers, and we talk.
Tata asks, How is your girlfriend? I tell her we're not dating anymore and she nods. She holds on too tight, she says. And I say, Yes. A few minutes later she asks me, How is your girlfriend? And I say steadily that we are not dating anymore and she nods again. You are so young, she says, and there are so many. Yes, I say.
I am holding her hand and I've never done this before. I've never held her hand, not really. I forget that so much can be communicated through the strength of a grasp, through a squeeze, and I'm suddenly terrified she will communicate something to me that I do not want to know. I squeeze her hand, which means, I'm here, Tata. She squeezes mine, meaning, Hello, mijo.
I squeeze hers, I don't mind sitting next to you on the ground.
She squeezes mine, I can't understand what they're saying.
I squeeze hers, I can't understand what is happening to you.
She squeezes mine, It is lonely here.
I cup her hands in mine, Does anyone else hold your hand anymore?
Her hand is limp, I can't understand what they're saying.
I turn over her palm, What are your dreams like?
Her hand is slack, I get so tired.
Then—I squeeze my grandmother's hand. Are you afraid like I am?
She squeezes mine. I love you, mijo.
I excuse myself for a glass of water downstairs. Really I'm leaving to take a break. It takes a lot of energy to hold onto someone's hand when they're trying so hard and wanting so much to float away from this world, and I'm exhausted. Dad is downstairs on a conference call and I'm yelling loudly inside my head, Help, Help, because I've left Tata and my stepmom and Tata's sister alone upstairs and what will they talk about? And who will make jokes about my bald head? And who will hold her hand?
When Dad is done we go upstairs together. I take my spot again on the carpet, make myself small up against her arm chair, and take her hand. I start to say things but her eyes remind me of a clean cup of water clouded with milk. I ask, ¿Me entiendes?—Do you understand? She says in English, Not really. So I start doing my best to speak to her in Spanish and it's as if her mind turns on again after so many years of disuse. I see the light behind her eyes, she understands my every word—I have my Tata again, after I thought I had lost her completely. We chat excitedly for a bit, and I tell her that when I was in Spain the locals would always turn their noses up at me when I tried to speak Spanish to them. She says something too fast for me to hear—later I figure out it was métetelo en el culo—and my dad laughs, and I ask what she said, and Dad says, She said they should shove it up their ass. This is my grandmother.
After a while it gets hard, it gets impossible. It's too exhausting—trying to hold onto Tata's hand to keep her from floating away, swimming in my sloshy brain that's halfway between Spanish and English and doing neither well, seeing Dad smiling and knowing how he will cry when we get downstairs. It's too hard to communicate. So I just hold Tata's hand and hope that will be enough.
There are so many things I want to tell her and ask her, so many things I want to say to comfort her, but she won't understand me in English and I don't know enough Spanish. I think for a while. Finally I look at Tata in the eyes and I say, Somos dos personas en la neblina—We are two people trapped in fog. And she says tiredly, thankfully, Sí, nosotros dos—Yes, us two in the fog.
They talk. My dad, stepmom, great aunt, and the caretaker. They chat, this and that, nothing really. The new Hunger Games movie, magazines, work, travel—my great aunt is going to Panama soon—and I can tell Tata isn't understanding all of these English words buzzing by her. I wonder what's going on inside that tan scalp, what she's thinking, what happens in a dying brain. ¿Que estás pensando? I ask, What are you thinking about? She says, without hesitation, Musarañas. I ask Dad what it means. If there was any light flitting around in his eyes, it drains away. He looks at his mother and says, Cobwebs.
They talk more. I'm still there, small on the dark yellow carpet next to my Tata holding her hand. English words zip by us. I want to know if she's still thinking of musarañas, because if she is I think I will have to get up for another glass of water. I ask, ¿En qué estás pensando ahora?—What are you thinking of now? She looks down at me. En tí, she says—Of you.
It is time to go. We get up to say our goodbyes and I promise Tata I will send her a letter in Spanish and attach a poem by Pablo Neruda. We shuffle out. Inches by the door, my great aunt says, Pórtate bien—Behave yourself. My grandmother looks up at us, looking small in the enormous armchair that swallows her. She is far away, or deep underwater, or high up behind the clouds—somewhere that is not here. He tratado, pero no es divertido. And I don't need a translation for that one. She said—my Tata—I've tried, but it isn't any fun.
When we arrive I hear her before I see her and she sounds tired and when I round the corner I see her—there, in that big armchair, looking small, looking around, seeing things a second after they happen. I go up and say what I always say—¿Qué pasa chica? ¿Qué pasa linda?—What's up girl? What's up pretty thing? and I bend down and kiss her on the cheek. Mi corazón, she says—My heart.
For the first time I see my grandmother's scalp. It's tan somehow, and leathery. Her skull is a good, round shape. Thin grey hairs sprout like so many untended blades of dying grass—and my grandmother is proud, too proud to have no hair, and I know this. You look like me, I say, I can give you haircuts from now on. I motion with my invisible electric clippers around my shaved head. Zip zip zip. And she laughs.
I sit down on the carpet next to her. I think she must feel very small these days, and I want to be small with her. So I sit on the carpet and rest my hand on hers, and mine is live and strong and hers is splotched with liver stains, and her veins rise up blue and inky like gorged rivers, and we talk.
Tata asks, How is your girlfriend? I tell her we're not dating anymore and she nods. She holds on too tight, she says. And I say, Yes. A few minutes later she asks me, How is your girlfriend? And I say steadily that we are not dating anymore and she nods again. You are so young, she says, and there are so many. Yes, I say.
I am holding her hand and I've never done this before. I've never held her hand, not really. I forget that so much can be communicated through the strength of a grasp, through a squeeze, and I'm suddenly terrified she will communicate something to me that I do not want to know. I squeeze her hand, which means, I'm here, Tata. She squeezes mine, meaning, Hello, mijo.
I squeeze hers, I don't mind sitting next to you on the ground.
She squeezes mine, I can't understand what they're saying.
I squeeze hers, I can't understand what is happening to you.
She squeezes mine, It is lonely here.
I cup her hands in mine, Does anyone else hold your hand anymore?
Her hand is limp, I can't understand what they're saying.
I turn over her palm, What are your dreams like?
Her hand is slack, I get so tired.
Then—I squeeze my grandmother's hand. Are you afraid like I am?
She squeezes mine. I love you, mijo.
I excuse myself for a glass of water downstairs. Really I'm leaving to take a break. It takes a lot of energy to hold onto someone's hand when they're trying so hard and wanting so much to float away from this world, and I'm exhausted. Dad is downstairs on a conference call and I'm yelling loudly inside my head, Help, Help, because I've left Tata and my stepmom and Tata's sister alone upstairs and what will they talk about? And who will make jokes about my bald head? And who will hold her hand?
When Dad is done we go upstairs together. I take my spot again on the carpet, make myself small up against her arm chair, and take her hand. I start to say things but her eyes remind me of a clean cup of water clouded with milk. I ask, ¿Me entiendes?—Do you understand? She says in English, Not really. So I start doing my best to speak to her in Spanish and it's as if her mind turns on again after so many years of disuse. I see the light behind her eyes, she understands my every word—I have my Tata again, after I thought I had lost her completely. We chat excitedly for a bit, and I tell her that when I was in Spain the locals would always turn their noses up at me when I tried to speak Spanish to them. She says something too fast for me to hear—later I figure out it was métetelo en el culo—and my dad laughs, and I ask what she said, and Dad says, She said they should shove it up their ass. This is my grandmother.
After a while it gets hard, it gets impossible. It's too exhausting—trying to hold onto Tata's hand to keep her from floating away, swimming in my sloshy brain that's halfway between Spanish and English and doing neither well, seeing Dad smiling and knowing how he will cry when we get downstairs. It's too hard to communicate. So I just hold Tata's hand and hope that will be enough.
There are so many things I want to tell her and ask her, so many things I want to say to comfort her, but she won't understand me in English and I don't know enough Spanish. I think for a while. Finally I look at Tata in the eyes and I say, Somos dos personas en la neblina—We are two people trapped in fog. And she says tiredly, thankfully, Sí, nosotros dos—Yes, us two in the fog.
They talk. My dad, stepmom, great aunt, and the caretaker. They chat, this and that, nothing really. The new Hunger Games movie, magazines, work, travel—my great aunt is going to Panama soon—and I can tell Tata isn't understanding all of these English words buzzing by her. I wonder what's going on inside that tan scalp, what she's thinking, what happens in a dying brain. ¿Que estás pensando? I ask, What are you thinking about? She says, without hesitation, Musarañas. I ask Dad what it means. If there was any light flitting around in his eyes, it drains away. He looks at his mother and says, Cobwebs.
They talk more. I'm still there, small on the dark yellow carpet next to my Tata holding her hand. English words zip by us. I want to know if she's still thinking of musarañas, because if she is I think I will have to get up for another glass of water. I ask, ¿En qué estás pensando ahora?—What are you thinking of now? She looks down at me. En tí, she says—Of you.
It is time to go. We get up to say our goodbyes and I promise Tata I will send her a letter in Spanish and attach a poem by Pablo Neruda. We shuffle out. Inches by the door, my great aunt says, Pórtate bien—Behave yourself. My grandmother looks up at us, looking small in the enormous armchair that swallows her. She is far away, or deep underwater, or high up behind the clouds—somewhere that is not here. He tratado, pero no es divertido. And I don't need a translation for that one. She said—my Tata—I've tried, but it isn't any fun.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
To Tata, on the eve of Something I Do Not Understand
This is hard. I'm back at Stanford now and I know I need to write about my visit with Tata. I know I want to write about it . . . it's just not easy.
I have been so afraid to visit her. What if she does not recognize me and I can't talk to her? What if she does, and I have to? What do I say? How much can I handle? It is not easy to see a dying person.
She is sitting in her chair looking small. She has thin grey hairs dotting her wrinkled scalp and I say, I got the same haircut as you! And she laughs. I tell her I can give her haircuts from now on. I motion with my invisible electric clippers around my head. Zip zip zip.
And this is hard to write, and this is close to the chest, and this and this and this—
She says to Dad, Mira que grande es—Look how big he is. She asks me about my girlfriend and I say that we're not dating anymore. She nods her head and says, She holds too tight, and I say, Yes. We chat about some things for a while and then she asks about my girlfriend and I say that we're not dating anymore, careful to be just as invested in my response as the first time. She says, You are young, and there are so many, and I say, Yes, and she doesn't remember to ask again.
I show her the front of the journal Dad and Shakti got me in Tulum. It says, El tiempo ne elige lo que se lleva—nosotros elegimos lo que se queda—Time does not choose what it takes—we decide what remains. She says, Bonito, and I say, Yes.
I tell her about the dream I had, about her in the ocean swimming, diligently smoking a cigarette, about me flying over on a kite, about her asking, What are you doing? and me saying, Estoy volando—I'm flying. I tell her about the way she chased the escaping gray sinews of smoke and inhaled them back in, making a big show of it, and she laughs and laughs.
And this is hard, so hard, I can't get the creative juices out of me, and it feels like trying to pull essential things from out of my chest and I just can't get them out. When I wrote about my dream earlier, I relished the moments when I could make it sound beautiful, when I could observe things, when I could twist those words around my tongue and light them delicately on the page. Now—I don't want to. Because it's writing about someone who's disappearing right in front of you, who's disappeared a little more every time they ask you about your girlfriend, and you tell them and you can see they had no idea.
...will finish later~
I have been so afraid to visit her. What if she does not recognize me and I can't talk to her? What if she does, and I have to? What do I say? How much can I handle? It is not easy to see a dying person.
She is sitting in her chair looking small. She has thin grey hairs dotting her wrinkled scalp and I say, I got the same haircut as you! And she laughs. I tell her I can give her haircuts from now on. I motion with my invisible electric clippers around my head. Zip zip zip.
And this is hard to write, and this is close to the chest, and this and this and this—
She says to Dad, Mira que grande es—Look how big he is. She asks me about my girlfriend and I say that we're not dating anymore. She nods her head and says, She holds too tight, and I say, Yes. We chat about some things for a while and then she asks about my girlfriend and I say that we're not dating anymore, careful to be just as invested in my response as the first time. She says, You are young, and there are so many, and I say, Yes, and she doesn't remember to ask again.
I show her the front of the journal Dad and Shakti got me in Tulum. It says, El tiempo ne elige lo que se lleva—nosotros elegimos lo que se queda—Time does not choose what it takes—we decide what remains. She says, Bonito, and I say, Yes.
I tell her about the dream I had, about her in the ocean swimming, diligently smoking a cigarette, about me flying over on a kite, about her asking, What are you doing? and me saying, Estoy volando—I'm flying. I tell her about the way she chased the escaping gray sinews of smoke and inhaled them back in, making a big show of it, and she laughs and laughs.
And this is hard, so hard, I can't get the creative juices out of me, and it feels like trying to pull essential things from out of my chest and I just can't get them out. When I wrote about my dream earlier, I relished the moments when I could make it sound beautiful, when I could observe things, when I could twist those words around my tongue and light them delicately on the page. Now—I don't want to. Because it's writing about someone who's disappearing right in front of you, who's disappeared a little more every time they ask you about your girlfriend, and you tell them and you can see they had no idea.
...will finish later~
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Rough Drafts of Things, Part One
And so it begins. I need to write something for the Creative Nonfiction competition this year. At Stanford, they give out prizes for best undergraduate fiction story, best senior fiction story, best poem, and best creative nonfiction piece. The undergrad and creative nonfiction prizes both offer $1000 for first place. The senior prize is $2000 for first place. I will speak plainly—I need that money.
I've never written with a contest in mind, with money in mind. They key to winning, of course, is to forget about the money. It's just another deadline. So, that's how I'll treat it.
I think for the undergrad prize I'll use "Signed, The Repairman" and for the senior prize I'll use "How to Forget a Father." Last year I entered "River Road" into the undergrad competition and I didn't even place. That made me feel Shitty. If I can't even place competing against Stanford kids, how do I compete with people trying to get book deals? But here's the secret: book deals aren't about competing, they're about using shoulders and elbows to make room where you want it, and inviting people into that space. And there's room for everyone. Someone said in a book I liked, There's always room at the top. And I like that. That's good.
I'm at Jo's on South Congress. There's a song playing with violins and the singer is crooning, Sugar Man, Sugar Man, and hey, that's pretty good.
I hear "creative nonfiction" but what my brain really hears is "talk about Mom." That's one of the times I feel like it's okay to talk about it extensively. But, at the same time—who wants another sob story. I refuse to write a sob story—I will write a story first and if a person sobs second, then by God it's a good story.
I have this Last Memory of Mom before the Worst Memory. It's one of those memories you have to work on, like it was a house that needed to be built up, or a shed in the back that needs tearing down. It's costly and weighty and I feel it right Here, right There, and I don't think about it in waking life often but when I do I feel guilty and then sad and then a warmth settles in my chest because I know there's nothing I can do now and that feels Okay.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory has to do with smoking.
I have to remember—damn it, Lucas. You're writing this for you and no one else so just be you on the page and create and think about it and if you see it well enough then they'll see and don't forget that.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory—it has to do with smoking. I was in seventh grade and it's the last thing I remember about Mom before the morning she passed away. And I don't want to shock or awe because there's nothing awe-inspiring and there's nothing to gape at and nothing to cry or feel bad about—my mom passed away when I was twelve. There it is. Kurt Vonnegut said in his rules about writing stories—which I find hilarious, that Vonnegut of all people wrote rules (I think it must have been a joke, but Still)—that the reader should know as much as possible as soon as possible. He said to hell with suspense, that cockroaches should be able to eat the last pages of your story and the reader would still know how the story ends. So, this story begins when my mom was in a bad way with bi-polar disorder and pills, and it begins with the best mom in the world who does things with you like lie face down on the grass and saying We're hugging Mother Earth—things like that—and it also begins with her passing away from a blood clot in our bath tub, and me seeing it happen, and calling the ambulance, and to hell with suspense, and the story begins with me shutting down and Plugging In, as I like to call it, to the Internet and the television and living inside buzzing wires so I didn't have to live out the Worst Memory anymore. And our story begins with this, and my dad and I Making It Work, and having a lot of hard times, and him finding three years later the most wonderful woman who could never replace my mom but is the next closest thing, and this story begins with me loving her, and loving my dad, and hard times, and it begins with middle school and high school and being Plugged In and going to Stanford and slowly Unplugging and realizing all these things about what I had missed, and what I had kept my eyes from—things like the Last Memory, things like the Worst Memory. And this story ends with me typing this story as I sidle up to graduation day smooth and steady and wondering what will become of life.
Like I said, the Last Memory has to do with smoking. It's almost worse than the Worst Memory, which means I have my labels mixed up, but each of them have their own taste and the names seem to fit in a strange way, like when people say, I'm doing fine, thank you—which can very often mean, I'm not fine at all but I don't want to talk about it. The point is, just because something has the wrong label doesn't mean it's talking about the wrong thing. Because sometimes a wrong label tells you more than the actual thing does. (?)
And I feel myself resisting the memory and having to suss it out. Crane flies have been everywhere in our house. It's the spring rain that brings them. I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my vision. I find them and I try to catch them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—on the counter they get stuck in thin slips of water until they drown. I want to say, Hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good for you in here. But they're attracted to the light, or the air conditioner, and they have very small brains, and so I keep trying to rescue them and my success rate is about one half, and that's what it's like trying to suss out my memories.
Or maybe that's only half what it's like. I have another memory of smoking where my dad and mom were out on the porch and it was raining outside and they were there, sitting, and sitting. And Mom was smoking a cigarette, and I was out there to ask her something, and I saw her drag on that skeleton bone and I told her, You're going to get addicted again, and I said it serious like an adult even though I was only somewhere between seven and eight. And she said, I won't, and I thought, But you will, and then she did.
And three years later she was still smoking but then she was working the night shift in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Babies born with their intestines on the outside. Things like that. I am not kidding. And often babies died on her watch, and can you think of a worse thing for a person who was bipolar and whose father had just passed away and who was on medication and who was working the night shift and who was not lying on the grass anymore and saying, Here is Mother Earth?
And then is the time of the Last Memory when I was waiting for her to pick me up under the elm tree in front of my school. And I was eleven years old and I waited and waited and she was not coming, and I could have gone inside to the office and called her, because she was probably sleeping because of the night shift, which they called the Graveyard Shift—but I wanted her to feel guilty.
But now I can't help thinking about all the ways Mom died. There was That Time Mom Died by SCUBA Diving. There was a hungry shark and can you blame it? And there was a funeral at sea and we scattered poppy petals because they were her favorite, and Dad found and killed the shark one-on-one and he took a tooth and so did I and now we wear them around our necks and Dad's has carved in it, Bastard, and mine says, Shark Fin Soup. There was The Time Mom Died by Toaster Oven. She was getting my Bagel Bites out of the metal trap with a fork when all of the sudden, zap! And I do not eat Bagel Bites anymore, mostly because I have outgrown them.
Of course there was The Time Mom Died Falling Off the Merry-Go-Round, which does not need explaining, and The Time Mom Died by Frogs, which does, but is irrelevant. I remember The Skydiving Incident clearly, though Crossing South Congress Avenue on May 14th is still a little hazy because of all the buzzing buses everywhere, and then the one bus that whisked her under. I can count the ways Mom bit the dust. Trolley Fishing, The Backward-Falling Chair, Losing in a Duel, Saving Me from a Bullet, of course That Time She Rented the Wrong Movie on the Wrong Night, and then Death By Knives.
My mother died in so many ways. One thousand, I know, because I counted. And that's the mystery, and that's what I think about sometimes when it's quiet, because all those One Thousand Deaths are so much better than The One Death, and what about a little imagination? And I'm not delusional and I'm not delusional about anything, but why not make it something magnificent and spectacular, and why not make things up, and why not, and why not?
I was talking about the Last Memory, which is a memory about smoking, and how I was waiting to be picked up, and I waited for an hour under the cool shade of the elm tree in front of my middle school, and I didn't go into the office to call. And then I saw Mom's car at the light far away, and when it turned green I heard rubber cry out and I knew the tires were hers, and she sped toward me and I saw her inhaling and then throwing a cigarette out the window, and I knew it was Bad, and I didn't want her to feel guilty anymore.
I invented things when I was young.
(here, Infinite Telescope, or The Doppler Effect, or Time Travel...)
(more soon...)
I've never written with a contest in mind, with money in mind. They key to winning, of course, is to forget about the money. It's just another deadline. So, that's how I'll treat it.
I think for the undergrad prize I'll use "Signed, The Repairman" and for the senior prize I'll use "How to Forget a Father." Last year I entered "River Road" into the undergrad competition and I didn't even place. That made me feel Shitty. If I can't even place competing against Stanford kids, how do I compete with people trying to get book deals? But here's the secret: book deals aren't about competing, they're about using shoulders and elbows to make room where you want it, and inviting people into that space. And there's room for everyone. Someone said in a book I liked, There's always room at the top. And I like that. That's good.
I'm at Jo's on South Congress. There's a song playing with violins and the singer is crooning, Sugar Man, Sugar Man, and hey, that's pretty good.
I hear "creative nonfiction" but what my brain really hears is "talk about Mom." That's one of the times I feel like it's okay to talk about it extensively. But, at the same time—who wants another sob story. I refuse to write a sob story—I will write a story first and if a person sobs second, then by God it's a good story.
I have this Last Memory of Mom before the Worst Memory. It's one of those memories you have to work on, like it was a house that needed to be built up, or a shed in the back that needs tearing down. It's costly and weighty and I feel it right Here, right There, and I don't think about it in waking life often but when I do I feel guilty and then sad and then a warmth settles in my chest because I know there's nothing I can do now and that feels Okay.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory has to do with smoking.
I have to remember—damn it, Lucas. You're writing this for you and no one else so just be you on the page and create and think about it and if you see it well enough then they'll see and don't forget that.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory—it has to do with smoking. I was in seventh grade and it's the last thing I remember about Mom before the morning she passed away. And I don't want to shock or awe because there's nothing awe-inspiring and there's nothing to gape at and nothing to cry or feel bad about—my mom passed away when I was twelve. There it is. Kurt Vonnegut said in his rules about writing stories—which I find hilarious, that Vonnegut of all people wrote rules (I think it must have been a joke, but Still)—that the reader should know as much as possible as soon as possible. He said to hell with suspense, that cockroaches should be able to eat the last pages of your story and the reader would still know how the story ends. So, this story begins when my mom was in a bad way with bi-polar disorder and pills, and it begins with the best mom in the world who does things with you like lie face down on the grass and saying We're hugging Mother Earth—things like that—and it also begins with her passing away from a blood clot in our bath tub, and me seeing it happen, and calling the ambulance, and to hell with suspense, and the story begins with me shutting down and Plugging In, as I like to call it, to the Internet and the television and living inside buzzing wires so I didn't have to live out the Worst Memory anymore. And our story begins with this, and my dad and I Making It Work, and having a lot of hard times, and him finding three years later the most wonderful woman who could never replace my mom but is the next closest thing, and this story begins with me loving her, and loving my dad, and hard times, and it begins with middle school and high school and being Plugged In and going to Stanford and slowly Unplugging and realizing all these things about what I had missed, and what I had kept my eyes from—things like the Last Memory, things like the Worst Memory. And this story ends with me typing this story as I sidle up to graduation day smooth and steady and wondering what will become of life.
Like I said, the Last Memory has to do with smoking. It's almost worse than the Worst Memory, which means I have my labels mixed up, but each of them have their own taste and the names seem to fit in a strange way, like when people say, I'm doing fine, thank you—which can very often mean, I'm not fine at all but I don't want to talk about it. The point is, just because something has the wrong label doesn't mean it's talking about the wrong thing. Because sometimes a wrong label tells you more than the actual thing does. (?)
And I feel myself resisting the memory and having to suss it out. Crane flies have been everywhere in our house. It's the spring rain that brings them. I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere in our house always glittering around the edges of my vision. I find them and I try to catch them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—on the counter they get stuck in thin slips of water until they drown. I want to say, Hey you're so stupid stop flying inside there's nothing good for you in here. But they're attracted to the light, or the air conditioner, and they have very small brains, and so I keep trying to rescue them and my success rate is about one half, and that's what it's like trying to suss out my memories.
Or maybe that's only half what it's like. I have another memory of smoking where my dad and mom were out on the porch and it was raining outside and they were there, sitting, and sitting. And Mom was smoking a cigarette, and I was out there to ask her something, and I saw her drag on that skeleton bone and I told her, You're going to get addicted again, and I said it serious like an adult even though I was only somewhere between seven and eight. And she said, I won't, and I thought, But you will, and then she did.
And three years later she was still smoking but then she was working the night shift in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Babies born with their intestines on the outside. Things like that. I am not kidding. And often babies died on her watch, and can you think of a worse thing for a person who was bipolar and whose father had just passed away and who was on medication and who was working the night shift and who was not lying on the grass anymore and saying, Here is Mother Earth?
And then is the time of the Last Memory when I was waiting for her to pick me up under the elm tree in front of my school. And I was eleven years old and I waited and waited and she was not coming, and I could have gone inside to the office and called her, because she was probably sleeping because of the night shift, which they called the Graveyard Shift—but I wanted her to feel guilty.
But now I can't help thinking about all the ways Mom died. There was That Time Mom Died by SCUBA Diving. There was a hungry shark and can you blame it? And there was a funeral at sea and we scattered poppy petals because they were her favorite, and Dad found and killed the shark one-on-one and he took a tooth and so did I and now we wear them around our necks and Dad's has carved in it, Bastard, and mine says, Shark Fin Soup. There was The Time Mom Died by Toaster Oven. She was getting my Bagel Bites out of the metal trap with a fork when all of the sudden, zap! And I do not eat Bagel Bites anymore, mostly because I have outgrown them.
Of course there was The Time Mom Died Falling Off the Merry-Go-Round, which does not need explaining, and The Time Mom Died by Frogs, which does, but is irrelevant. I remember The Skydiving Incident clearly, though Crossing South Congress Avenue on May 14th is still a little hazy because of all the buzzing buses everywhere, and then the one bus that whisked her under. I can count the ways Mom bit the dust. Trolley Fishing, The Backward-Falling Chair, Losing in a Duel, Saving Me from a Bullet, of course That Time She Rented the Wrong Movie on the Wrong Night, and then Death By Knives.
My mother died in so many ways. One thousand, I know, because I counted. And that's the mystery, and that's what I think about sometimes when it's quiet, because all those One Thousand Deaths are so much better than The One Death, and what about a little imagination? And I'm not delusional and I'm not delusional about anything, but why not make it something magnificent and spectacular, and why not make things up, and why not, and why not?
I was talking about the Last Memory, which is a memory about smoking, and how I was waiting to be picked up, and I waited for an hour under the cool shade of the elm tree in front of my middle school, and I didn't go into the office to call. And then I saw Mom's car at the light far away, and when it turned green I heard rubber cry out and I knew the tires were hers, and she sped toward me and I saw her inhaling and then throwing a cigarette out the window, and I knew it was Bad, and I didn't want her to feel guilty anymore.
I invented things when I was young.
(here, Infinite Telescope, or The Doppler Effect, or Time Travel...)
(more soon...)
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Ice cream social
I had an Adventure today.
I made good on my promise: I wrote a poem in Sharpie marker on a piece of paper that went, I am a stump / It's sad to see / At the very least / Please sit on me? and put it one my across-the-street neighbors' stump. I held it in place with a dandelion and a stone. It made me smile—it was Guerilla Poetry.
Fun things happen when you carry a ukulele around. I walked through my neighborhood down to Zilker Park, and on the trail next to the blue-green water under the bridge sat an Australian. His name was Simon. I said Hi and he said Hi and I asked what he was doing and he said reading and writing, and I said Hey I write too. And we got to talking.
Simon is visiting the United States until the end of May. Simon plays guitar some. He got to play at Antone's last night somehow with the house band, and he said he played just Okay but that the experience was much better than his playing. He said he got to play on the same stage as Stevie Ray Vaughn and I said That's true and then I offered him my ukulele and he played some blues. I wish I could play blues.
I forgot to mention that I've been practicing saying Hi and/or smiling at every person I see whether they look friendly or not. This means I often get rejected—this also means I am often surprised. Those surprises are to die for.
I got to Zilker Park and sat out on the big rock in the middle and the whole city was out playing in the grass. There were two soccer games going on—most of the players were a little overweight, but their feet were still light and they looked graceful with the ball at their laces. There were women sunbathing and I couldn't see their faces but skin is skin and I appreciated it. I played ukulele for a while and made up a new song based off C.W.'s chord progression—Am, C, G, F, and I was mostly picking and it sounded nice. Then I read the last 80 or so pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which E.M. gave me for my birthday, and every time I came across her yellow underlining I felt like I knew her better. And I started underlining with blue. And sometimes our underlinings overlapped and it made green and that made me Happy.
I walked around Barton Springs road with half a mind for coffee and writing, but was sidetracked by an airstream trailer called Ice Cream Social. They were barely open because no one was out. I knocked on the glass and a woman I later learned was named Meredith slid the window open. I asked if they were open and she said they were, and I asked what her favorite thing was and she said salty caramel ice cream, and that she had just made fresh waffle cones, and I said, Yes.
Meredith was very friendly. She said her friend in the next-door Cajun food truck just got breast cancer, and that on Sunday they were going to have a big benefit brunch with old-timey Country Music and that the money would help pay for her friend's treatment. She invited me to come but I would be out of town by then, so I promised I would come for Sunday brunch when I got back to Austin. Incidentally, it was the best ice cream I'd ever had in my life—no kidding.
Walking back I saw a cool house that was three stories tall and red brick and looked out of place like there might be magic in it, and nearby a woman walked her tea-kettle-sized dog while jingling a bell she held between her fingers.
I walked under the shade of elm and live oak trees on the way back to the house. Boys played little league and their dads yelled and their moms cheered with every ping of those aluminum bats. Two chubby boys, one bigger than the other, played catch outside the fence by themselves. They were wearing outfits. The bigger one said, Remember when he hit that pop fly out in midfield? And he threw the ball to the other boy, who said, Uh-huh, and threw it back. The big kid continued, And I ran out to catch it and I was like I'll never make it and then I did and everyone was saying things? The smaller one caught the ball and said, That was nothing.
I walked home eating the ice cream. When I got back there were three people hanging out on the front porch of the across-the-street house, and one of them, a woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a nose piercing, was sitting cross legged on the stump.
I made good on my promise: I wrote a poem in Sharpie marker on a piece of paper that went, I am a stump / It's sad to see / At the very least / Please sit on me? and put it one my across-the-street neighbors' stump. I held it in place with a dandelion and a stone. It made me smile—it was Guerilla Poetry.
Fun things happen when you carry a ukulele around. I walked through my neighborhood down to Zilker Park, and on the trail next to the blue-green water under the bridge sat an Australian. His name was Simon. I said Hi and he said Hi and I asked what he was doing and he said reading and writing, and I said Hey I write too. And we got to talking.
Simon is visiting the United States until the end of May. Simon plays guitar some. He got to play at Antone's last night somehow with the house band, and he said he played just Okay but that the experience was much better than his playing. He said he got to play on the same stage as Stevie Ray Vaughn and I said That's true and then I offered him my ukulele and he played some blues. I wish I could play blues.
I forgot to mention that I've been practicing saying Hi and/or smiling at every person I see whether they look friendly or not. This means I often get rejected—this also means I am often surprised. Those surprises are to die for.
I got to Zilker Park and sat out on the big rock in the middle and the whole city was out playing in the grass. There were two soccer games going on—most of the players were a little overweight, but their feet were still light and they looked graceful with the ball at their laces. There were women sunbathing and I couldn't see their faces but skin is skin and I appreciated it. I played ukulele for a while and made up a new song based off C.W.'s chord progression—Am, C, G, F, and I was mostly picking and it sounded nice. Then I read the last 80 or so pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which E.M. gave me for my birthday, and every time I came across her yellow underlining I felt like I knew her better. And I started underlining with blue. And sometimes our underlinings overlapped and it made green and that made me Happy.
I walked around Barton Springs road with half a mind for coffee and writing, but was sidetracked by an airstream trailer called Ice Cream Social. They were barely open because no one was out. I knocked on the glass and a woman I later learned was named Meredith slid the window open. I asked if they were open and she said they were, and I asked what her favorite thing was and she said salty caramel ice cream, and that she had just made fresh waffle cones, and I said, Yes.
Meredith was very friendly. She said her friend in the next-door Cajun food truck just got breast cancer, and that on Sunday they were going to have a big benefit brunch with old-timey Country Music and that the money would help pay for her friend's treatment. She invited me to come but I would be out of town by then, so I promised I would come for Sunday brunch when I got back to Austin. Incidentally, it was the best ice cream I'd ever had in my life—no kidding.
Walking back I saw a cool house that was three stories tall and red brick and looked out of place like there might be magic in it, and nearby a woman walked her tea-kettle-sized dog while jingling a bell she held between her fingers.
I walked under the shade of elm and live oak trees on the way back to the house. Boys played little league and their dads yelled and their moms cheered with every ping of those aluminum bats. Two chubby boys, one bigger than the other, played catch outside the fence by themselves. They were wearing outfits. The bigger one said, Remember when he hit that pop fly out in midfield? And he threw the ball to the other boy, who said, Uh-huh, and threw it back. The big kid continued, And I ran out to catch it and I was like I'll never make it and then I did and everyone was saying things? The smaller one caught the ball and said, That was nothing.
I walked home eating the ice cream. When I got back there were three people hanging out on the front porch of the across-the-street house, and one of them, a woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a nose piercing, was sitting cross legged on the stump.
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