On the road again

All things must end...

...the evening clouds disappear into the veil of night...

...the most perfect dinner is consumed...

...your favorite tile gets old and must be ripped out...violently...

...and the gardens in such brilliant bloom this season, will go quiet in the season to come...

...and I have to leave Kansas City, where I think, no matter how many other cool places I go to and live in on Earth, my heart will always be.

But I'm one of the lucky people who has good stuff waiting for me at both the arrival and departure gates of airports, and so tomorrow I get to see cute husband for the first time in 3 weeks!!!!!!

Often all that's left of a time is a darkening sky, and a happy memory or two.

And the sad but beautiful part is, you've got to just make due with that.

Groovin + grammarin

This weekend I was trolling the Internets and ran across this song at npr.org.  I know chances are slim you will click on this link--after all, clicking on the hyperlinks in a blog post indicates a certain, shall we say, lack of a life.  I know this because I click on hyperlinks.  So that fully admitted, I would like to try and get you to click on the link because I believe it will really make you happy to hear this song.  It's called "My Feet Can't Fail Me Now," and if it doesn't put a smile on your face and a little bounce in your foot, then frankly you need medical attention.

It's a brass band jam from a New Orleans outfit called the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.  I loved this quote from the article that preceded the music samples:

William Claiborne, the first American governor of the Louisiana territory, believed New Orleans was ungovernable due to the citizenry's preoccupation with dancing.

Holy moly, what a wonderful world it would be if that was our problem in the usa today.  If everyone just sort of took to the streets and danced.  Great music would be playing all the time, and our spirits would all be a little lighter.  I know it's Monday and I'm a little groggy, but I don't think this idea sounds that crazy.  The only time I dance nowadays is at weddings, and when I crash into my bed afterward, I always say to myself, "We really gotta do that more often."  But then we just go another year until the next wedding.   Occasionally, I'll wiggle a little when a good song comes on my ipod and there's no one else around, but that's not enough!

So, humor me?

Now, humor me again.  I have something I need to say as a writer, a reader, an almost-teacher, a language-lover, and an avid sentence-diagram-er.  It's directed at the whole world--again, I delude myself into thinking this blog has wide readership.  So here it is, take it to heart, paint it on your wall, tattoo it on your tush:

The period goes inside the quotation marks. 

And you can quote me on that.  "The period goes inside the quotation marks."

So does the comma in the middle of the sentence: We tell Elaine that we are "heartbroken," but alas, to us, Franklin was just a goldfish.

Now, apparently the British do it differently, but we are not British.  (If you happen to be British and reading this, please by all means do it your way, we'll agree to disagree.)

I fear that you will take me for a stuck-up grammarian.  I am not at all that way.  I enjoy a well-thought out sentence, and people who can speak clearly and eloquently off-the-cuff always impress me, but in truth I believe that, given time, anything can become grammatical.  That is to say, if we make it part of our vernacular, then it becomes correct and we must accept it.  Saying "ain't" ain't pretty, but we know what someone means when they say it, so it's grammatical--it makes sense.  Language constantly mutates and builds upon itself, and it's crazy not to adapt along with it; it's how we all came to say, "cool" to everything.  But for the love of Pete, World, you gotta keep those periods and commas contained.  They look goofy and desperate hanging out like that!  They are like prostitutes out on the sidewalk that must be hastily ushered inside, so that no one gets offended, or, worse, the wrong idea.

Merry weekend to all

It's been raining here for three days, which I kind of enjoy.  Gives me an excuse to spend my whole day with a book and not come across as nerdy or lazy.

But these trees are everywhere, and the rains seem only to strengthen them.

Springtime sure does make you wonder about the universe, doesn't it?  So elegant, so well-planned.

See you next week, you wonderful people.

Can't get no satisfaction

Don't know if you know this, but I really love Shakespeare.  I don't always understand him.  In truth, I got through many of his plays reading these alongside the original plays, which reside inside my giant red THE COMPLETE SHAKESPEARE book, spelled out in big, obnoxious, you-are-not-smart-enough-to-understand-this block letters just like that.  For awhile, I really loved King Lear--it's kind of messy and extremely melodramatic, and one of my favorite contemporary novels, A Thousand Acres, is a modern retelling of it (keep this in mind for later: A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize).  But in years past I've come to love Romeo & Juliet the very best.  Part of it is because in addition to reading it in high school, college, and graduate school, I also taught it three different times while I did my student teaching.  So it's the one that I understand the most fully, and the one that I've done the most reading about.  And beyond all that it just makes me swoon.

But this post isn't really about R&J or the Immortal Bard.

Remember the scene in the play when Romeo is outside Juliet's window the first night they meet, and he's shouting up to her where she stands on the balcony?

 He says, "Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" 

And Juliet responds, "What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?" 

And Romeo says, "The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine."

Well this little exchange came to my mind today as I was reading a New York Times article about the author of the newest Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, called Tinkers.  I haven't read the book yet (and I have absolutely no doubt that it may be quite good), but this post isn't even specifically about that book either.  In the article, there was this quote from the author, Paul Harding, on getting rejection letters when he first sent out Tinkers:

"They would lecture me about the pace of life today," Mr. Harding said last week over lunch at a diner in this college town, where he is now teaching at the workshop. "It was, ‘Where are the car chases?’ ” he said, recalling the gist of the letters. “ ‘Nobody wants to read a slow, contemplative, meditative, quiet book."

Then, one of his writing professors and a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist herself, Marilynne Robinson, gave this quote:

“One of the problems I have is making my students believe that they can write something that satisfies their definition of good, and they don’t have to calculate the market,” Ms. Robinson said. “Now that I have the Paul anecdote, they will believe me more.”

So here are a few thoughts on this, because it's been bothering me all day...

I love a quiet book.  Three of my favorite books that are also quiet books:

The Folded World by Amity Gage
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Evening by Susan Minot

And it's true, like Marilynne Robinson says, there are so many writers out there who read things just to see what their own stories should be like.  They want to know what sells and then they want to duplicate it so that they too can be published.  I went through a phase where I was doing this...

But when we talk about books being marketable, and we talk, figuratively, about the "car crashes" in books, I think what we're really talking about is satisfying our reader.  Not boring them.  Not making them feel dumb.  Not giving them characters that do randomly odd stuff that does nothing to illuminate life or the way we live.  We're talking about giving readers a good story.  Something that is not work (work in the ugly sense of the word, it's okay if it's in the good sense) and keeps them turning the pages late into the night, not caring that they have a busy day tomorrow, or forgetting, as they sit riveted in an airport terminal, that they are there to get on a plane.

To me it's false to suggest that books that are page-turners and books that are meditative are meant for two different types of readers.  As though those of us who spent good money on English degrees don't appreciate a good story, and those who were smart and got applicable college degrees, or no degrees at all, are not capable of sitting quietly and appreciating something quiet.

Right now, I'm reading a Luanne Rice novel!  I'm loving it!

And Luanne Rice, though she'd never pass muster in a writer's workshop, seems to be VERY concerned that I am enjoying her book.  She seems like she'd be hurt if I stopped turning the pages, because on every page there's something that makes me want to keep reading.  She doesn't think it's about her, but about us, writer and reader together, exchanging a faithful vow of love.

Write me something that transports me--whether by thrill or meditation--and I shall sit dutifully enthralled.  Think of all the twists and turns in Romeo & Juliet: Romeo is depressed, Romeo meets Juliet (their families hate each other), Juliet and Romeo fall in love, Romeo kills Juliet's cousin, Romeo is banished, Juliet seeks out a magic potion to seem dead, Romeo believes that she is dead, Romeo kills himself, Juliet kills herself!!!!

A good writer, like a good lover, cares about the other person.

Where do you go when the world's got you down?

In between worries for summer plans (cute husband's and mine), and the fact that my parents are stranded in Europe due to volcanic ash, not to mention other various and sundry concerns that define my anxiety-ridden way of life, I have been escaping in my mind to a little beachfront cottage with a white deck that looks out over the water, with no one else in sight so I can hear the soothing sounds of the waves.  (I really don't think there's ANY sound more relaxing--if I could live and sleep each night by the ocean I think my night owl lifestyle would be cured.)  In my daydream I'm alternating margaritas (my new recipe: tequila, lime juice, and a floater of Grand Marnier) with Louis Jadot Chardonnay.  Cute husband sits on the ledge and plays his guitar.  In the mornings I walk for miles along the beach and by afternoon get brave enough to go far out into the water, wading for hours and feeling the sunlight on the top of my head.  When I get home as the day begins to fade, I step into the front hallway of the white cottage, the floor covered in sand, and this poem painted on the wall to remind me of what's important.

Whenever I had trouble sleeping as a kid, my mom would tell me to just go somewhere nice in my mind, somewhere I'd love to be, and imagine all the things I might do in that place.  To this day, I still do it, and it really works!  I think it has an effect on my writing too, as it helps me create scenarios in my mind and forces me to take the time to really flesh out all the details that help bring a scene to life.

So if you've got troubles, if you've got worries, meet me here, in the little cottage with a white deck...

...of course you can't see the cottage in this photo because it's invisible to the naked eye.  It appears quite clearly after two margaritas.

The runaway train

Today I've been thinking about getting older.  I know some of my readers will groan here...just a second, let's let them groan...because they might find it a bit, shall we say, naive, for me to be talking about getting old when I am but a rip-snorting twenty-seven.  I know I've written here before about how twenty-seven feels old because all of the items on my "To Do By 27" list have not quite been checked off yet, but that's not really what I'm talking about today.

Today I'm thinking about how pleasant it can be to get older, how there is a certain wisdom involved in admitting that time is passing, and that you are moving along with it.  Being home, it has been nice to drive by old places and remember them when they looked new.  I feel a certain pride as I walk through my neighborhood admiring the tallness of the trees and the thickness of their roots, because I was here when the trees were tiny, when the trees had just been planted.  We used to have to be extra careful to close our blinds at night, but now it's not such a big deal, because the trees are big enough to obstruct the view.  It's funny to remember my parents commiserating with my friends' parents, "Can you believe how small the trees are?  They're practically bushes.  It's going to take forever for them to look normal."  But forever turned out to be the duration of our childhoods; none of us can believe how fast forever went.

I like to remember the block parties we used to have down the street, and how we are one of only a few families that remain here from those older days.  My parents tell me there are no more block parties, and that makes the memory even sweeter.  My vision of it is like a cloud that clears in the center to reveal a muggy July night and the dads in shorts and the moms running back and forth to their houses to grab more food, and the kids in bathing suits waiting on the curb for the fire department to arrive (they used to come and spray us).  And best of all the falling night, as people start to trickle home, but a few stay, drinking beers, swatting mosquitoes, laughing and talking and telling the kids to stay close, it's getting dark.  It's hard to believe now, but that was the best night of the whole summer: we all started looking forward to it the day school got out in May, and for the end of July and August we were sad that it was over, and said how it had been the best one yet.

The passage of time is undoubtedly scary--I think Ben Folds' analogy of life barreling on like a runaway train is quite apt.  But I can't help but feel glad for the things that I have to remember, I can't help but feel that they make my heart bigger and make going into my own mind even more fun than it used to be, when I was younger, and I used to just think about the things that were to come.  I miss so many things, I regret not savoring certain moments more, but how nice to have them stored along the little shelves of my mind.  How nice to know they are there.

Chips

The coffee still tastes good out of a chipped cup...  If not better, because a chip means age, and maybe a nasty run-in with the kitchen sink, and good things come with time and experience.

My mission for the weekend is to accept the little chips of life as elements that add character.  Hope you'll do the same.

I also need to get reading...

 { my bedside table }

This always happens when I come home.  It's actually a 3-tiered problem, as follows.  (1) I am incapable of bringing just one or two books with me when I travel, I bring 6-7 because I never know what kind of mood I'll be in (needless to say I never finish all the books I bring), (2) I end up going through my old books I store here and finding a stack that I want to bring back with me, (3) I can't go a week without a stop in at the bookstore, especially when I'm home and our Barnes & Noble is oh so well stocked, so I end up buying a couple.  That I'm a nut goes without saying.

Happy weekend my friends.  Thanks for reading this week, it really means a lot to me.