Blow by BlowWe hold what hope we can in the intimacies of life, the little breadcrumbs—be that through a small audience, a jewel of a sentence, or one evening well spent with a book. Rarely do we understand our impact on others, where the sliver of an action can set a spark in someone.
As writers, we cannot map the internal landscapes of our audiences. We cannot peer over their shoulders as they read our words and we cannot be inside their heads and hearts as the syllables hit their ears. Occasionally, we can get a sort of call and response, where we feel and see how our individual creativity inspires and feeds off another's (like when Cam and I write poetry back and forth, or like when letter writing takes on a lyrical quality, or like that book by Marvin Bell and William Stafford).
And so our lives are lived largely on faith. Writing is a small boat and faith is the ocean it floats upon. The best writing happens when we ditch the paddle, leap from the boat, and do what we must fearlessly and without looking back.
Today, that is my struggle. I just got the email that I did not get selected as a finalist for the Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant Program – this was the $34,000 one that was my ticket out of my Coffeehouse job, my ticket into a career as an arts writer, and my ticket into the
next bigger and brighter thing. This was, in effect, the biggest thing I've hoped for alongside my applications to Whitman College and Pacific University. And I did not get it. Not even a chance to advance to the final round of review.
I'm reading and puttering; trying to get back to my creative self. Sending out the Fine Arts Work Center application this morning took a lot of me. I don't believe that I'll get it, and I had to fill out the application on the heels of 4 rejections last week (all for my thesis work). Then today, this—the biggest rejection of my career work I've ever had.
I'm at a loss and yet I know I cannot stop. I have to keep going, yet where I thought a big shift was in sight, now I'm not sure there is one.
That's me. Here on the mountain. Snowed in again. And going now to put another log on the fire. Fountain of InspirationBecause Ben Fountain says, “By now I’d learned that to return to a remembered place is to risk ruining the thing archived in your mind.”
Because he says, “So the method, basically, is I research myself into a corner, then try to work my way out of it with the help of the story that got me going in the first place.”
Because he says, “Sometimes a thing chooses you—rather than you choosing it…”
Because, because, because there are so many out there who don’t give up and keep praying with their hands splayed at the keyboard, I, too, will keep going.
As always, it must start with heavy reading. The kind of reading that makes you forget where you are. Tonight, plowing through Fountain’s Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which I started some months ago and am now eager to eat up. TurkeyTaking a break for a few days... One Baby StepAfter yesterday’s post, two friends emerged like old growth trees, always there through forces of any kind:
Cam writes:
“As much as I've always wanted a writing community, besides you, I've never had one. Or if I have, it hasn't been constant. Little blips here and there. It is a solitary pursuit for me. One I've begun over and over, because there has been nothing left to lose. Which means at times I've lost everything with my writing. Maybe it has been me, or who I am, or just the way things have gone….A writer begins again because we HAVE to. I can't describe it any better than that. The times writing has diminished down to almost nothing for me. And then I started again. You are far from that place, but I think you feel the potential borders of having your creative writing taken away. Though you have your blog (exercise), art writing (pay), your creative writing (identity), screams, because it is who we are. And when the creative writing feels threatened, WE feel threatened…You have never stopped. Maybe that is why you are having trouble beginning again.”
MBA writes:
“Did you know that [our teacher’s] poem that was included in the Best of American Poetry or Pushcart 2008 was rejected by SEVERAL magazines? And my poet friend submitted to FIELD for seven years (that's 14 submissions, filling the 2 per year quota) before they finally took his work? Now he's in there pretty regularly but, I am sure, still gets rejected…Keep writing and send again down the line. I wouldn't take this time to tell you what I know and about the sub possibilities if I didn't think you are so very talented! You are young and it takes time to develop and live and write about it! Keep writing with abandon and let that imagination and heart run wild. And keep submitting and don't pay too much attention to what comes back. Eventually it's going to gel if you just keep going. And have a triple peppermint mocha or a salted caramel latte with whip once in a while. I'm pretty much on the verge of a nervous breakdown all the time (my looming, albeit indolent cancer,
my hubby out of work and needing eye surgery, my autistic son is in puberty and may get kicked out of school, etc... etc..) but these yummy holiday drinks and a quiet browse around the local bookstore are saving me from total mental ruin. Oh yeah, and writing. Writing has saved my fucking life.”
And today, I write. Just a little bit. But I write. World of WritingHere is what is happening:
Inch by inch, I’m fighting for momentum.
The history:
When I graduated in June, I came back on fire and didn’t let up with my creative writing until fall. I wrote more and read more. I sent out more submissions in two months than I had in the past year.
In September, I had a break from work and took a week off from the creative writing to coincide. Simultaneously, a boatload of freelance work appeared before me, all a result of the reputation I’ve been trying to build as an arts writer. National magazine work, regional editing work, literary editing, A&E coverage for the Xpress…you name it, I took it. In terms of my career, it was work I simply could no turn down. Add $2,000 in medical bills (knees) and the upcoming reality of graduate loans, and the decision couldn’t have been easier.
During that time, my creative worked stopped in service of completing 4 major grant and fellowship applications. My rationale? I had to apply for those grants if I wanted the time to do the creative writing. Ahh yes, the double-edged sword. I don’t regret it—it needed to happen—but it was a lot to sacrifice.
Before I knew it, it was November. In the past two weeks I’ve applied for two more grants or jobs, written another article, read submissions, and took on another writing assignment that had a one-week turnaround time.
The future:
Now it’s winter. There is half a foot of snow on Fork Mountain and a pile of papers just as deep across my desk. I have five artists to deal with in December and four deadlines in the next five weeks. I’m on seasonal layoff, and the promise I have made to myself is that my time gets split 50/50. Half for the freelancing, half for the creative work. Add training in the martial arts in, and it’s more like 40/40/20.
The verdict:
Where does a writer begin again, in this practice that will always be about spinning new webs and tossing filament after filament out into the world?
Last week I received a rejection letter. Today I received three more. They were all for my creative work—writings from my MFA thesis. In between I secured publication of an interview with FavoriteNonfictionWriter, which will be published early 2009—that’s exciting. I’m trying desperately not to look at my calendar, as I’m due to learn about 2 grants in the next ten days.
I try to conjure the wisdom and love of my advisors. Jack sent an email today that warmed my heart. Pete and I harass each other about once a month, which feels right. Claire is with me, always on my shoulder, and she’s usually got a twinkle in her eyes. We’ve made a date for dinner in Chicago come February. And Judy, well, Judy would tell me to buckle down, girl, and keep at it. Then she’d laugh a wild horse laugh, and pat me on the shoulders as though I know what to do.
And perhaps I do. Ongoing Adventures of Al Onteroa[This is part of the ongoing saga of Al Onteroa and the swinging footbridges project. To read the most recent post about Al, scroll down to 11/9 and you’ll see it. This post picks up where that one left off.]
I launched into an explanation of the project, referencing spreadsheets and county maps, DOT bridge numbers and construction dates. Al didn’t know George Canipe, but he knew footbridges and it seems as though he’s crossed nearly every single one in Mitchell and Yancey Counties—on his motorcycle.
“Back then that’s the only way we got from one side to the other. That bridge over there at Lunday connected the two counties,” Al said, talking about the old train depot sitting a top a giant pegmatite boulder.
“What’s the main reason the footbridges were built?” I said.
“For lovin’!” he said, then smiled and lifted into that cacophonous laugh once again. “I grew up in Ingalls and we used to play there are Ray White’s barn. We played quarter limits and we played for fellowship,” said Al.
And this is how the conversation went for several hours. Shane or I would mention a footbridge, Al would respond with a few sentences that hit the nail on the head, then launch into a slew of stories about everything under the sun—except for footbridges. He rebuilt his motorcycle engine with parts from a washing machine. He worked every mine up and down every holler between nearly every peak you can see out the window. He’s got an anvil collection tucked away in a barn somewhere that many-a-blacksmith in these hills would kill to get a peek at. His brother died working the lumber. He’s got a [piece of equipment] that can lift a two-ton train engine off the tracks and he’s keeping it for World War III (more laughter). Antioxidants in teas help fight cancer (this, as he poured himself a cup). One year, he harvested more chinquapin nuts than any man in the county.
He hands me some nuts from his desk drawer, unshelled. He gives Shane and I small pockets knives and a mini-whetstone to sharpen them, then teaches us how to sharpen. He’s got seeds for replanting trees and redneck flashlights, soapstone sticks, and Alaska quarters—anything, you name it, and Al Onteroa has it somewhere within arms reach of his desk and he’s going to give you some because where there’s one, there a hundred or more.
“What about bridge 223W,” I ask, pointing to the map. “Do you know if it has a name?”
“That there? That divides Yancy and Mitchell Counties over the North Toe River. That’s Whitson’s Road on the other side, there, and that’s the highway on the opposite bank.”
“Yes, Sir. Do you know what it is called?”
“I’d say probably the Whitson’s Bridge or the No Name Bridge,” he says. “NOR-RAAAH?” Al shouts out the office door.
“Yes?” a voice calls back from deep within the building.
“Nora, get Ms. Bennet on the line, please, tell her I’ve got a question.”
“Ms. Bennet?” I ask.
Al rises quickly out of his chair and reaches for a second phone on a shelf above his desk, shoving my direction. He picks up the other line closest to him, all business and brow. “I know these folks, used to log their land. Lots of their land. Still do business with them to this day, I do. Pick up the phone now, get on the line. We’re gonna get you some answers.”
I swivel on my chair and the two of us are perched over his desk, matching conference call phones from the 1980’s in our hands, chairs squeaking and bobbing with the slightest pressure. Shane snaps a few pictures of the research in action.
“Hello?” says Ms. Bennet.
“Ms. Bennet, what do you folks call that swinging bridge down there at Whitson’s?” says Al, who apparently needs no introduction over the phone.
“Oh, Al, that bridge? Well I don’t think we had a name for it. Just the Whitson’s Bridge, maybe” She laughs. “I just don’t know. But I can tell you something, Nola Garland has lived within sight of that footbridge for her entire life and if anybody can tell you what that bridge is called, it’s her.”
“Well alright Ms. Bennet, thank you.” Al turns to me. “Hang up, now. We’ll call Nola.”
Nola, it turns out, doesn’t know much more than the others about the bridge name, but she does know that bridge well. “I crossed it every week before the wires were on it, just the hangers were there. We crossed for our bible school or some night program. We didn’t have a car at the time. One night, the river was up so high it was just 2 1/2 feet below the bottom of that swinging bridge. Roy had a kid around his neck, just a tiny little thing, and he was walking across that bridge like nothing mattered. I thought, Boy, you better be holding on tight!”
[more soon…I’m learning on the page here, or thinking out loud, rather, trying to figure out how to tell the story of this man. The blog posts are like sketches or incomplete thoughts. They’re the pot before it’s been glazed and fired. I’ll get there…thanks for your patience and the permission to explore…] Snow Day!Today’s lesson: Every writer needs a SNOW DAY, a friend to share it with, and a truck to haul her bruised booty home when it’s all said and done. The link is to a temporary page I put up (no bells and whistles) of some of the day’s events. It’s worth a laugh or two. Enjoy!
[Tomorrow, back to the desk. No excuses.] Meet Lady BlueWell my friends, I am now the proud owner of Lady Blue, the craft school’s former gardening truck, and the timing couldn’t have been better. With two inches of snow on top of fall leaves and the ultra-steep grade of my driveway, there was no chance the old Volvo could make it up the mountain this week. Behold, Lady Blue, queen of Fork Mountain! Holy Good LuckAt the craft school, we have a policy that whenever the school is selling a piece of equipment, staff members get the first chance to buy it before it goes to the general public. If more than one staff member wants the same item, it goes to a lottery. I've tried to get several things this way, but have never been the lucky name drawn in the lottery. Until today...
Yes, my friends, for a mere $150 I now own a fully functioning 1987 Ford Ranger 4x4 truck! It's blue and beat up to perfection but not so beat up you wouldn't trust it to, say, get you up and down the mountain...
That means I don't have to hike up the driveway in the freezing cold after a long, hard karate workout. It means I don't have to backpack my groceries up the 1/2 mile long driveway, which also means I can buy more then 4 rolls of toilet paper at once because I don't have to worry about what will fit into my backpack and what won't. Oh, the possibilities are endless!
I get the keys Monday and Dad and I are making a day of it. Check vital fluids, give it a cleaning, poke around the engine, and roar that puppy up the mountain to see how it handles. Yippee!! Training RegimenI’ll get back to Al, soon, I promise…
Meanwhile, here is the training regimen I designed for myself. I’ve been doing it for about three weeks and it feels great. It’s in preparation for the Shuri-Ryu White Pine Tree test in karate—a challenge that feels years away, but at least it’s a start. I do a different workout each day, plus karate class three times a week, plus 45 minutes of physical therapy everyday. I take one day off a week. And yes, thanks to the world’s most amazing physical therapist, my knees are almost entirely pain free!
Workout A
40-60 mins distance training on bike at level 5-7
20 mins arm toning, push ups, sit ups
Workout B
30 mins interval training on bike:
sub-maximal intervals at level 5/8 for rest/work ratio
5 min warm up, 8 intervals of 90 sec/30 sec, 5 min cool down
75 straight punches w/ 10 lbs
100 sit ups
75 upper blocks w/ 5 lbs
100 crunches
Workout C
25 mins interval training on bike:
maximal intervals at level 5/10 for rest/work ratio
5 min warm up, 6 intervals of 60 sec/30 sec, 6 min cool down
20 mins arm toning, push ups, sit ups
Workout D
1 of each: Shino, Wunsu, Anaku, Empi-Sho, and Basa Dai katas
Repeat 3 times: 50 front kicks, 10 push ups
Repeat 2 times: 50 front kicks, 50 sit ups
75 upper blocks w/ 5 lbs
2 mins freestyle fighting Initiation Rites{There are two brief posts about this that set the stage. Just scroll down and look for 11/7 and 11/8 posts…}
“Schultz?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“A German name, “ I said.
“Isn’t that a beer?”
“I’m not sure if it’s a brand, but the Germans make good beer.”
“Maybe you’re thinking of Schlitz?” Shane said.
“No, Schultz. Schultz. That’s a liquor,” Al said, closing his eyes in concentration. “I just can’t remember what kind now, give me a minute, it’ll come back.” In his left hand he still held my business card. His right hand rested on his leg, fingers slowly moving up and down along the top of his thigh as he sifted through the thoughts in his mind.
I looked at Shane, who nodded in the direction of my purse. “Well, Sir,” I said. “Speaking of liquor…we brought a little something that a friend of ours makes.” Reaching into my purse, I pulled out a pint of the quick whiskey and offered it to Al. “It’s from Cherokee county and it’s made from sugar.”
Al set my business card down and took the jar, then swiveled his desk chair slightly away from us and shoved some papers aside on his desk. Hands swift as a magician’s, he opened the jar, sniffed, looked, and sniffed again.
“Not very strong proof,” he said, replacing the lid then shaking the jar.
“It’s oak aged,” Shane offered, though Al didn’t seem to hear.
“You want a bead on there the size of a rabbit’s eye,” said Al, tilting his head and looking at the jar sideways. Indeed, a rim of bubbles emerged at the top from being shaken and a few of the bubbles were big enough to make the cut. He set the jar down again and looked at me.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to the chair next to him.
I sat down and we were just about knee-to-knee. Al leaned forward and the chair squeaked.
“A bead a big as a rabbit’s eye,” he repeated. “And then you’ve got to check to see if it ephereses[?].” His eyes widened and he swiveled back to the desk, hands swiftly on the jar, twisting the lid free again. He shoved more papers aside, sighed loudly, and moved a few odds and ends on his desk. He seemed to be looking for something. Moving another pile of papers aside, he snatched up a dried ginseng root and dipped it into the whiskey.
“This country’s in bad shape, I’ll tell you.” He paused with the ginseng root just long enough to look at us. “It’s got too wicked and lazy.” His right nostril went up like a hound dog in that moment and his upper lip pressed flat against his front teeth. The man looked momentarily crazed—yet every word he spoke felt heavy, as though it were meant for us and we’d better listen up and listen well because he might not say it again.
Al returned to the whiskey, dipping the ginseng root again and inspecting. “If it epherezes it’s bad liquor,” he said, drilling his eyes into mine.
“We’ve had it before, Sir,” I said. “No poison there.”
One final dip and Al brought the root to his lips and touched the tip of it to his tongue. “About 90 proof,” he said. Then he shouted: “I’ll start a small fire with it and if it goes out I won’t drink it!” and with that he set the root down and took a long pull on from the jar. Setting it down, he licked his lips then opened his mouth full and wide into the most gregarious laughter I’d heard in months.
I looked at Shane, Shane looked at Al, Al looked at me. We all looked at the jar. Al took another pull and it was then I saw the rash of red on his face, purple veins like little blossoms across his cheeks.
“I’ve been a little wild,” he said. “Now let’s talk business. Tell me what you got.” Obama-RamaI went for the original Obama HOPE poster instead of the Cafe Press imitation image on the shirt. Here's a link to a pretty cool Obama paraphernalia site: http://www.projecthope08.com/.
I might go for the red PROGRESS shirt, too. Who knows. I heard a 28-year-old Dem on NPR the night of the election. He was interviewed live from Grant Park in Chicago and he said, "This is the defining moment of my generation." Yes, yes, YES! More About Al...{continued from yesterday}
Al’s been in Spruce Pine since 1939 and spent his childhood in Ingalls in Avery County. Despite his rumored wealth, he lives modestly and dressed by the book. The mountain living book, that is. Take a “Toe Cane Bee Keepers” hat, worn blue jeans, and a button up plaid shirt thin as a dishrag. Add a pair of suspenders, sturdy work boots, and a mechanic’s blue uniform jacket and you’ve got Al Onteroa. Keeps his hands dirty because he’s always working, even at age 76, and besides, you never know when some piece of equipment or another is going to need repair.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Still expecting to be stood up, Shane and I pulled into the lumberyard and parked in front of the main entrance to Al’s company office. The signs on the door proclaimed loud and clear: THERE IS NOTHING ON THIS PROPERTY WORTH BEING SHOT OVER. Another sign hung above the door handle: WARNING: TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.
I reached for the door handle. Shane reached for his camera.
“Hello?” I called into the cluttered office. An abandoned front desk, piles of yellowing papers, and a darkly lit backroom all cautioned to take pause. “Hello?”
“What is it?” a voice called from the side office.
I followed Shane toward the direction of the voice, then we stood, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow entrance. An old man sat with his back to us, hunched over piles of junk strewn across yet another desk. Bumper stickers, magazine clippings, old deeds, political cartoons, and more dotted every square inch of wall space. Half the window was blotted with papers as well, lending a muted yellow quality to the tiny room. We shuffled into the office but Al wouldn’t turn to greet us.
“Hi Al, I’m Katey Schultz, we spoke on the phone earlier this week and we were going to—“
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’re gonna do,” he interrupted.
“The footbridges, sir. We spoke about the interviewing you for Our State Magazine and we were going to talk about—“
“I’ll need your names,” he said, spinning on his office chair to face us. “Both of them. And your cards. Your phone numbers—everything—before we can continue.”
His hands trembled a little and his look was fierce. Pointed blue eyes that meant business. I fished in my purse for a card. Shane scribbled his info on a notepad. Al looked on, holding his gaze on the tip Shane’s pen, breathing just loud enough to be heard.
{more tomorrow} The Beginning of the Longest Interview EverWe were supposed to be stood up.
Al Onteroa, by all accounts, was a mysterious man too busy to be troubled with anybody who wasn’t in the timber or mining business. Twice he cancelled a lumber tour with a local school, my friend told me. Indeed, the half a dozen conversations I’d managed with Al on his cell phone were quick at best. It seemed as though I always caught him in medius res. Either that or he was just walking out the door and could I please speak with his secretary, instead?
But the night before our scheduled interview, I got a tip that Al Onteroa likes moonshine and it occurred to me that if we were going to meet one of the largest landholders in the state and pester him about footbridges, we ought to bring libations. I called Shane who called the gardener up at the craft school, who in turn called his father that runs “quick whiskey” in Cherokee county. Thirty bucks later, we had ourselves a half gallon of amber liquid bottled in that telltale Ball jar and all the confidence in the world for what could have been the interview of a lifetime…
{to be continued} OBAMANOS! Here We Go!On Friday, payday, I will purchase the following shirt:
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/obama-graffitti-dark-tshirt/273443405
Unless, of course, I can find the Sheperd Fairey print of the obama HOPE image that's so utterly fitting. Anyone? Posters? Shirts? I can't seem to find the real deal, though the above link to Cafe Press comes pretty close.
All day long things were different. Oh, indescribable joy! Oh My God: Bridge 225WThe old lady on the hill was right.
We thanked her and went on our way with some semblance of directions between the two of us. Heading back out River Haven Drive, things seemed quieter. The woman lived alone, her only neighbor her son and his wife who cared for her and mowed that steep hill of hers when needed. The abandoned house, with all its guts of old clothing, Christmas ornaments, a tricycle, and even a mounted buck head, used to belong to her youngest son. That boy, she said, married young and his wife died suddenly of a swift cancer leaving him two young girls and a shell of a heart. She didn’t say where he was now.
Driving away from the river for a while, we cut left onto Roses Branch until it took us to pavement. The paved road there is unmarked, but make no mistake, it’s Double Island Road—arguably more hairpins and switchbacks than any other road in the county. We turned left on Double Island and swung the car downhill for several miles. The patience it takes to search for something in this way is uncanny. You must be willing to drive until you’re certain you’ve gone too far. You must be willing to live with that feeling of impatience, how it laces each breath and nips at the tip of your tongue, urging you to say, “Wait. Stop. Go back. Surely we’ve missed it.” Still—you must go farther and slower and haul your stubborn lack of patience in the backseat of the car with you until you can prove it wrong.
Finally, we started looping down the widest hairpin turn yet, a marker the lady on the hill warned us of. Some distance down the road, we spotted the Double Island Baptist Church, our second marker. “There’s a rock wall there at the church,” she told us. “Turn by that. Not on the paved road by the wall, but on the gravel. It’s down there. You’ll find it.”
We find that the rock wall is fake and the gravel road, albeit gravel, is more rutted and narrow than anything else. It splits and turns, divides and turns again, and all the while we had to our noses, hell bent on riverfront. For a moment, we came out of the woods as the road leveled and there was the mighty North Toe, wide and flat as poured concrete. Fifty yards downstream--Bridge 225W near Kona and Lunday.
Shane stopped the car and we sat, awestruck for several long moments. This side of the river, ten slightly crooked steps climbed steeply above the road to the bridge, higher than any bridge so far. On the far side, steal cables twist like reaching arms bolted into a pegmatite boulder the size of a double wide. The rock glistened gray with smears of chartreuse and white across its face. On the far side, a short walkway at the end of the bridge leads to the rock. A few more steps and you’re standing on the porch of an old train depot, it’s foundation flush with the giant igneous rock.
Kona and Lunday are hardly dots on the map. Like many places deep in Appalachia, they’re known only to locals. They do not have their own post offices. There is no central location. Many times, there isn’t even a gas station. But to those that live there, a name like Kona or Lunday describes a certain area within a mountain county, narrowing someone’s location down to a few hollers and backroads and in some cases, even a person’s bloodline. The name Lunday comes from [RESEARCH]. Kona must be a geologist’s pun, as a local told us, because pegmatite contains potassium (K), oxygen (O), and sodium (Na)—and there you have it—unless the joke’s on us.
I cross 225W first, but there’s no leaping and bounding this time. The chicken wire guard along each side of the three-foot wide plank is shorter along this bridge, which spans [FEET]. It’s also a lot farther to fall, as the last half of the plank arcs upward toward the pegmatite. Before I get to the other side, a train rattles in the distance and that’s when I realize the tracks aren’t even fifty feet from the end of the bridge. I look behind me to see Shane’s reaction, but he’s still on the other side trying to get a shot of the entry steps overgrown in wild aster and goldenrod.
One step on the old depot porch sends a chill down my spine, as a hollow thud echoes across the floorboards and through the empty building. This is the sound of old stories, but there’s no one around these days to tell them. I step again and caution a call to Shane across the river. “You gotta check this out,” I say. My voice comes back to me in anemic echo and not far down the tracks, a train gets nearer and nearer. Three black Adirondack-style chairs and two 1950’s chrome and plastic seafoam green chairs comprise the depot furniture and one has to wonder how long it has been since any passengers waited for a train ride here. Several private property signs, curtained windows, and a locked door prevent us from seeing much more.
Shane’s started across the bridge by the time the train arrives, though neither one of us could have been prepared for what we heard next. From the steps of the depot I watched as the engine rolled past and slowly but surely the engineer set the brakes. Ten cars passed, then another ten, then another with no caboose in sight. All the while the most treacherous, powerful, rumbling sound echoed through the holler, rattling the metal handle on the depot door. The sound was so encompassing it gave the impression of an earthquake. I swore my body shook, the chair trembled, and the earth moved—though indeed everything was very still; everything but those gigantic, life-crushing wheels that hummed along steel rails.
The slower each car passed, the louder the sound grew, until I realized it was no longer the wheels screaming but the reverb of friction through the wheels and into the hollow steel cars whose walls shook and vibrated, gigantic cages of sound forming a chorus of metal voices in this middle-of-nowhere place. The sound filled my skull, my chest, my belly, the arches of my feet. I was at once flesh and metal, grounded and ethereal. As though I had literally become steel and wheels, my body subsumed by the sound and movement before my eyes, I felt magnetically pulled toward the still moving cars. I had to resist the urge to place my hands under the wheels, to be tossed about with that sound inside one of the cars, to get just a little closer to that reverb of metal on metal—something, anything, to feel that power in its most visceral capacity.
And then it stopped. The ensuing silence contrasted so sharply with such clamor that even the absence of sound seemed to echo and fold back into itself, like a wrinkle in time.
Later, another train rolled by going the opposite direction on neighboring tracks, freeing the one at the depot to move ahead. Two beacons in broad daylight passed without calamity or fanfare, yet they carried the most spectacular display of harnessed power and efficiency I have ever witnessed.
Going back across the footbridge, things couldn’t possibly be the same. Everything I touched had some trace element of power in it, be it the cable of the bridge or the old boards beneath my feet. On the other side, the sound of gravel beneath my feet was extraordinary in the most minute ways, each crunch and shift of rock a tiny ode to the greater sounds and stories that continually unfold before us, one swinging step at a time. CorrectionI fixed the spacing issue on the header of my website. Sorry. News and UpdatesGOOD NEWS: I nailed my panel interview in BigCity, NC today for the Regional Artist Grant Project. If I make final cuts, I'll get funding for a trip to AWP Chicago in February. The hardest question fron the panel: "What role does the lyrical essay play in modern American literature?" The easiest question: "Who do you want to see at the conference?"
WEBSITE UPDATES: Also, I had time on a high speed connection this afternoon so I updated the main page and the published articles page of my website with news, downloadable .pdf's of my essays, and more. Also, a new central image! TodayToday the house was shown and I do not know yet whether or not it is going to be sold.
Today I learned Wesley is resigning from the craft school.
Today I prepared for my grant finalist interview, which occurs Saturday in BigCity, NC.
TodayI found a lovely definition for my favorite form of writing (aside from the essay): “What is a lyrical essay? Aesthetically, there is usually some sort of rhythm or logic to the language. The diction is often as carefully chosen as with a poem. Its paragraphs are organized like an essay's, with a topic sentence, and its whole is organized like a piece of fiction or non-fiction—leaping around is common if not encouraged between paragraphs and no underlying structure is necessary. Lastly, the lyrical essay is different. It should not conform completely to any standards, it is an individual and fiercely so.”
Today is just a few more days away from what could be the most exciting Election Day in a long time.
Today there were 15 gloriously large wild turkey in the lower field when I woke up. W is for Winter. Winter is for Writing.The wind ripped down Fork Mountain this evening, tossing branches like broken arms and sending leaves through the air like so many pieces of confetti. Chaos can be beautiful, and as we lean more and more into winter, I can feel the outdoors demanding my attention. Winter is the time I’m more apt to take longer walks in the woods. It is the time I’ll stop to see through the forest, because without the leaves, the light falls in glorious rays and the tree bark takes on this luminous gray tone I’m absolutely enamored with.
It is also the time of deep writing. After November 17th, I’m officially on seasonal layoff and that’s when I can devote myself full bore to writing. I can balance my time between the creative and the freelance more, and I’ll have four major grant and fellowship applications off my desk. The only trick will be making sure that the holidays and visitors and seasonal social events don’t suck up my time. I want to celebrate and enjoy company, but I also need to hibernate with my first love, words. Winter Has ArrivedThis morning I awoke to an indoor temperature of 47 degrees and two inches of snow outside. Wind howled through the still-bright leaves and I leapt from bed godspeed, certain it was now or never. Bow saw and buckets in tow, I headed straight for the woodpile, where a stack of long, dried sticks awaited downsizing. Ninety minutes later, I’d cut five buckets of kindling, hauled three sacs of wood to the mudroom, and safely driven my car down the mountain to the paved road.
As I hiked back up, I couldn’t help but notice the brilliant colors of the leaves crushed beneath the snow. In some places, my boots had kicked up the snow and mud blotched out the brightness. But in others, fall colors bloomed beneath the powder fresh snow, rioting in a cacophony of color amidst all the bluster. Before dusting off my boots to go inside, I lifted my gaze to the tree tops and delighted in the vision of gold and maple-red leaves shaking in the breeze, little shakes of snow falling down. Recipe for Writing[Sorry for the delay.]
The past few days, a minor case of the crazies sent me back my more creative self. This is a welcome shift from the past few weeks of magazine writing mania. Choose your evil, I guess, eh? There is an odd comfort, though, in watching it all come together internally as though I were a fly on the wall in my own semi-demolition.
But I exaggerate.
Really, the recipe is quite simple: Start with a few nights rough sleep. Add an awe-inspiring landscape at the peak of change (and therefore ripe with metaphor). Shake with one or more human emotions experienced under pressure and unrequited for a period greater than 48 hours. At the peak of said pressure, sit down to write. Do not get up.
Works every time. I swear. Just In Case It Wasn't ClearI can't envision dating someone right now, yet it seems to be the pressing question.
To all the people who keep asking that question:
I insist--I don't want to be with anyone right now. I'd rather write. I have four or five big irons in the fire for my writing career and I want a handle on at least one of them before I even THINK of messing around with a relationship. Relationships take time and emotional energy. Right now, I am in control of my own time and my own emotional energy and that has allowed me to do as much as I have. To risk that is to risk losing everything.
And furthermore--I'll know him when I see him. That's how it's always been for me and probably always will be. I'm not looking and I'm not expecting. I'm doing my own thing (dammit!) and if in the hurry and flurry of that somebody comes along that demands I take pause in body, mind, and spirit. Well then. I'll know enough to take the time and make it happen.
Meanwhile--back to work. News, news, newsGood news: I made first cuts on the Regional Artist Grant Project. My interview is in a week and a half. This is the small one – about $900 – but it’s to fund my trip to AWP Chicago in 2009. Wish me luck.
Meantime: Here’s what I’m doing using the stationary recumbent exercise bike I pulled out of my parent’s attic and set up in my loft at home: interval training.
Also: I’m almost done with the NC Fellowship application for writers. That’s for $10,000. It feels the weakest to me out of the bunch, but it can’t hurt to try.
The only thing that hurts is wanting something so bad. But it’s a good hurt—like when you’re getting a massage. PRRead my latest article, featuring Brent Skidmore’s artwork at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design!
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