On the positive side, I've been doing lots of writing (as a result? :-) and will be sending a couple of stories and a poem to the first readers list. Let me know what you think of them...
Will hopefully do a longer entry soon -- there's lots of stuff rattling around in my brain these days and I may talk some of it out to you. Right now I should get back to holding office hours, though. :-)
"It is one of the greatest feelings known to humans, the feeling of being the host, of hosting people, of being the person to whom they come for food and drink and company. This is what the writer has to offer." (204)
I love throwing parties, having people to dinner, making tea for someone. I'm good at the details (having an organizational mind helps), and there's some satisfaction in setting pretty table, or having all the dishes come out at the same time, on time, or in decorating the house. But it's really simply providing for people, feeding and watering them, satisfying primal urges in them perhaps better and with more care than they would have for themselves that night -- that's where the real satisfaction lies.
I realized at some point when I was in college that I never said 'thank you' to my mother for making me dinner...and that it was when people thanked me for cooking for them that the hours in the kitchen and the burned heel of my hand and the dishes still to be done and the frustration of the rice that burned and had to be made again, delaying dinner by twenty minutes -- that it was then that it all became worthwhile -- more than worthwhile, actively joyful. I tried to remember to thank my mother, for dinner at least, after that. I often forgot.
Wherever I go, I tend to meet people fairly quickly, and then I start to organize things. Dinners, potlucks, parties, brunches. I love doing this. What startled me about this passage of Lamott is that I have never before connected it with my desire to write.
We are all so alone -- anything that makes us feel more connected is a powerful thing. Anything that lets us know the Other, and lets them know us...the scared, shivering us, hiding in a corner, sure that everyone else is accepted and welcome and known.
I was generally a cheerful child. I think it was only in college, when I realized that everyone felt just as alone and Other as I did that I began to be actually happy. Because, of course, it meant that I was no longer alone.
for now i will comfort myself with
eager reassurances that you will
return. i will wait impatiently.
i will send letters, and turn over
the memories of your words, of
your hand on my cheek, and that
indecipherable look in your eyes.
i will write poetry, and send it to you.
i will inflict it on the world,
that they may know that i love you.
i will regret the wasted days, and
hope you have not taken them too much
to heart. i will wonder what you
are thinking of me these days. i
will not dare to ask, except in
poetry. at least you will forgive me that.
i will fall into incoherencies,
the last refuge of stumbling love.
Okay, the circumstances aren't really even close to desperate. But I *am* hopeful that I will soon crawl out from under this teetering pile of writing (MFA thesis, idea for new book that would make a great movie) and sewing (I made my first real dress!) and reading (freshman English papers and 18th century American writing, oof!) and other stuff (finishing sending out rejection letters, waiting anxiously to hear back from Masquerade on whether they liked the anthology, spending time with Karina before she leaves, practicing for a music thingie I'm performing at, etc. and so on...) and actually talk to you guys.
Consider this as an arm sticking out from the pile to wave hello...
Despite everything, I'm having a good time. Not to worry. :-)
What they tattooed on to him was the DES algorithm, in some computer readable form. Thus rendering the guy unexportable. The US government offered to scrape the tattoos off, but they guy's lawyers screamed something about human rights abuses. The way I heard it, the guy was eventually granted citizenship.
"One of the writing assignments I give new writing students is based on a quote by Red Smith. 'There is nothing to writing; all you have to do is sit down and open up a vein.' We talk about the pain of revealing ourselves, of getting out what is inside. Later I may ask students to write a letter of unfinished business to someone from their past. Often the first important poems we write, our 'breakthrough' poems, are angry. There's something about anger that motivates, that gets us over our 'stuckness,' over our fear. Often poems seem to burst out whole from some storeroom in the body/mind as if they had been sitting around waiting for years. But there is a danger in anger for black students. White students often write 'breakthrough' poems about their childhood. Often called 'brave' by the other poets in the class, these poems are frequently painful reassessments of their parents. Black students, however, often don't go back to childhood. They have clear angers that are more weighty right here in the present. There is always a 'last straw'. Writing about the past is not threatening to others in the class, but writing about what is happening in the classroom here and now is. For the black writer breaking silence, breaking restraint is a frightening step. The person who was the catalyst for the angry poem, unaware of the long history of oppression and internalized rage, takes it as a personal insult. Some students side with the white student, some with the black, but most students remain silent, afraid to go in either direction. In any event, the black student may lose a few of his or her best supporters, people who can tolerate poems about race as long as they don't make anybody feel too uncomfortable..."
- Toi Derricotte, "Race in the Creative Writing Classroom"
Sorry it was such a long quote, but I had a hard time choosing a place to stop. There's far more that's worth reading, especially for writers.
In other news, tonight we throw a mini-party for Cliff and Sherman's birthdays. Until then, I have piles and piles of work to do, so I'd best get to it. Talk to y'all later...