Signs and Signals

This week has been full of unexpected encounters. I have seen more old friends/acquaintances in the last week than I have in a long time. Today, in addition, is a dinner party at my house where my oldest friends in the world will be here. I'm very excited to have them around. There is even a last minute addition of a guy who lives in San Diego, CA. He emailed me and said he was going to crash our party. It was a message out of the blue.

I'm prone to think about what life is trying to teach me when things like this happen. I tend to think that life offers us up lessons and experiences that are meant to be understood and/or experienced.

With people popping up on the fringes of my life, I wonder what life is trying to tell me about my connection to this place, this community. I can't say what it is that I know about the lesson, but I know that something is roiling beneath the surface, wanting to spring free. It may be that I have just finished reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg, where I felt the author did an amazing job of painting a small town community and populating it with all the different people that make places like Canby a memorable place to be, a place that allows you to sink roots into the region, into its people, and enfolds you like river water when you sit with your back upstream.

Empty House

Tracy and I slept in this morning. She's sick with some kind of stomach bug and has been sleeping off an on since about two yesterday afternoon. I had dinner last night with my in-laws, a quiet birthday celebration, and, since Tom was going to watch Shea today anyway, I left her there to spend the night.

I seem to be adjusted to waking up early, well, early for me, and early for a part-time bartender. I woke at eight, drifted in and out of sleep until nine-thirty when I gave up the ghost of getting more. I showered, came down to a pot of fresh brewed coffee. Even when Tracy is sick she can't help but do some of the smaller things that are a part of our daily routine. The pot is full, she hasn't had any of it. She made it for me. It's the way she operates.

So, I've spent the morning alone in the living room, checking emails, reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg and listening to the invading silence of a house empty of our child. It flashes me back to a time when our daughter wasn't around, when my wife and I were single, enjoying each other's company, and living only for ourselves.

I have to say that it's easier to get stuff done when I'm alone like this, no cartoons, no electronic toys, no child underfoot, but I yearn for my daughter and miss her when I don't get to see her. I haven't felt the soft press of her lips giving me a morning kiss. I haven't held her in my arms, her head falling to my shoulder as she hugs me when I lift her from her crib.

This is my new life, the way things are going to be from now on, and I can't think of a better way to live. There are so many things about my life that are richer, more intense, even joyful. I wonder what levels of joy felt like ecstasy before she came into our lives. I wonder how the levels of happiness can be pushed beyond what I had felt before and if they will continue to grow and expand. My life threatens to overtake me sometimes, to push me beyond the known levels of contentment and peace and burst my heart with a bliss that comes only from loving.

A Frightening Tone

My jacket was zipped, the stroller was packed, and the meltdown began when I tried to get my daughter's shoes on. I don't know why shoes were an issue this morning but they were. After struggling past her kicking feet and getting her little velcro shoes on her feet, I went for the coat.

We were going to the park. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

Well, the jacket set off round two of the hissy fit. When I sat my daughter in the living room chair and tried to put on the jacket, she hit me, right across the eye, her little fingernail scratching me a little bit as she did so.

I grabbed her little hand and told her "no." I have to admit that the tone I used was the same tone I use with my dog when I am training her. It's a deep, grumbly, growly tone of voice, one that speaks authority to dogs, but, apparently, freaks the shit out of little kids. My daughter's eyes went wide and the fit escalated to levels I really haven't seen before.

She couldn't catch her breath, she wouldn't look at me, she turned around and buried her face in the crease between the chair's seat and back. I felt horrible. I left her alone, knowing that I was only going to make her worse. She cried, curled up on the seat of that chair, for ten minutes before she moved off of it.

She eyed me warily before she sauntered off to her toy corner. Again, she tucked her head so she couldn't see me, this time against the back of her dump truck. She pushed the balls inside the bed back and forth without joy or enthusiasm. Every now and then I could hear the hitch of her breath as she was slowly calming down. I tried to speak to her in gentle tones, to comment on her play, to change the subject. Each time she shook her head and continued on without looking at me.

I've never had this experience, this lasting grudge for discipline given. My tone was probably too harsh, but the reason for the tone was justified. It's hard to discipline someone you love so much, especially when you see how it can turn them against you, how you become the threatening father like so many fairy tale stories, or bad Lifetime TV movies.

It's a line, a line I have define for myself as a father. I felt bad for scaring her like that.

But, then again, I just put her down for a nap and she snuggled with me for twenty minutes, longer than any other day, her head in the crook of my shoulder, my nose pressed to the top of her scalp, breathing her in as deeply as I could.

What a day.

State of Poetry?

I was reading the blog of Stephen Kuusisto today and I found this post. I think I understand what he means, what he intends to say, but I wonder about the overall approach. I think if there are any poets out there reading this they will want to take a look. The address is:

http://www.planet-of-the-blind.com/2009/01/philistine-yes-thats-me.html

I'm inclined to disagree as a generalization, but, then again, I've heard a lot of poetry like this in the past couple of years. I have to admit that I like poetry that turns inward, brings in the "I", becomes personal and revelatory. Maybe just a personal preference.

Breakfast Meeting

It was snowing as I stood outside the restaurant, light flakes landing on my jacket and hair, melting instantly into the fabric, my hair, down into my scalp. It was 10 am on a Sunday and I was already at work. A mandatory meeting had been called.

I didn't know the agenda, but I figured it was going to be about plummeting sales, cut back hours, new promotions, or something along those lines. I was smoking the first cigarette of the day, my breath frosting the air, or was it the smoke, I couldn't tell. My hands were pinking in the cold, the tips beginning to get that burn that comes from being in the weather too long. I knocked the cherry off the smoke by pinching the cigarette between my two fingers and the burning ember hit the pavement with a hiss.

In I went. The restaurant was empty of customers and so I gave a loose "hello" to Aurelio, Arnie, Luis, CT, and Leah. As I reached for the coffee pot, it hit me, the buzz from the first smoke of the day. It was a strong one, my head swam and little electric impulses shivered down to my fingers. My hand shook a little as I poured myself a cup of coffee.

The restaurant smelled like bacon, not unusual for the opening shift as they pre-cook the bacon for the day's lunch crowd. In addition, there were eggs spattering on the plancha, O'Brien potatoes frying next to them with a mix of peppers and onions, hash browns browning. We don't serve breakfast at the restaurant, or at least we DIDN'T.

Turns out the meeting was for the sole purpose of testing out the new breakfast menu. Erica, Joan, Leah, and all the rest sat around sampling omelets, potatoes, breakfast burritos, and a breakfast sandwich on sourdough bread. I sit on my couch now, having to return in less than four hours to work my night shift, but my belly is full and my heart is content. My daughter is screaming herself to sleep, a sound I've become adjusted to, and Tracy is nibbling a little something to tide her over. We plan on having our lazy afternoon today, a day where nothing much is accomplished except the tender touch of a hand on a cheek, or my fingers running through her hair.

Lazy Saturday

My wife and I had expected to laze around the house with our daughter, but, as with most things, it didn't go as planned. Somehow, the garage stand-up freezer wasn't closed and we woke up to a wet mess on the floor of the garage. By the time Tracy had unloaded the freezer into coolers and the other two refrigerators, I was elbow deep in play time. Shea was in a fantastic mood, running, playing, giving unsolicited kisses.

Tracy defrosted the freezer, breaking out pieces of ice and dumping them in the backyard to melt. She was thorough as always, making sure that any trace of frost was eradicated. She boiled kettle after kettle of hot water, making sure to rinse all of the walls, wiping down any drips of chicken blood, marinara sauce, or soup. She wore a grey sweatshirt that was wet to the elbows, fleece pants and her woolly, rubber-soled slippers. Her hair fell about her face in thin wisps, wet at the temples where she sweat.

Feeling like I needed to contribute, after Shea was tucked into bed, I unloaded the furnace filters and took them to the back patio to clean them. Armed with a bottle of Simple Green, I sprayed down the filters, hosed them off in the grass, and shook them as dry as I could. By the time I was done, Tracy was ready to reload the freezer and I passed her its contents by category: beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, fish, turkey, duck, rabbit, and lamb. When she was done stacking its contents, the fridge looked like a compartmentalized office space, cubicles full of frozen flesh.

We came inside, warmed ourselves, dined on bowls of Top Ramen, and settled in to watch "Juno." While the morning wasn't exactly as we expected, it's turned into an afternoon where our sloth feels justified, where we feel we've accomplished something, and now can collect our just desserts. Speaking of...there's Snickers in the fridge.

Shmoozing

The MFA department asked me to come to a recruitment meeting at Marylhurst University. It was a small informal meeting held in a classroom of the main building on their campus. In total, there were six people there, two of whom are faculty. Collene, the assistant director of Pacific's MFA program, and I answered questions about the nature of the program, the interactions with faculty, publishing, cost, etc. I noticed that the two Marylhurst faculty members were nodding a lot when I spoke. They asked questions about my TA experience, about how I run a classroom, which seemed odd for an MFA meeting.

Afterward, I talked to both of them and they asked me to send along my CV. It seems that they may have some adjunct work. It just goes to show, it's not what you know, but who.

Dropped the Ball, Picked It Up and Ran With It

I was attempting to blog every day of the residency, but I dropped the ball. There was so much I could have written about but all of that energy got funneled into the creative work. I couldn't help but come back to the page again and again.

Work I got out of the residency:
I have one whole first draft of a nonfiction essay.
I have two partial drafts of nonfiction essays. I couldn't do the research for one of them in Seaside because the library didn't have what I needed and Stephen helped me find the structure for the other one. I can't wait to get going on them.
I have two partial drafts of short stories. One of them was urged by Ellen and Mark. It grew out of a rant, an anecdote, in the bar. Bonnie would be so proud (her craft talk was on how to make anecdotes into stories).
Strangely enough, I have a completed first draft of a children's book.

I set out to have one whole short story completed. I'll put the completed nonfiction essay in that spot and say, "Check. Mission accomplished." What is greater than that is that I'm burning with inspiration. I went to the residency to find the juice and that is what I got.

Also, I met the fiction editor of a literary magazine, dined with her, and she asked that I send her one of my stories for consideration. Here's to hoping. I'm going to take a look at it and make sure that it is polished enough.

One helluva week, I'd say.

Residency - Barry Lopez

I am back in my room after having listened to Barry Lopez speak. I can't summarize his talk, can't begin to even process half of it, but here are some quotes I was able to get down:

He quoted Robert Duncan, I believe, "The drama of our time is the coming of all men into a single fate." This was written in the '50's so men refers to the human race.

His approach to nonfiction involves a bow of respect to the material, a bow of respect to the reader, and he believes the hinge is the structure in which the story is told.

"Diversity is a necessity for the continuation of life."

Paraphrase: The university years are important for two reasons:
To discover what you mean
To learn how to say it.

"Language asks everyday, 'Don't abandon me.'"

Story reminds people of what they already now. People don't want away from a novel saying, "I didn't know that before." Not on a fundamental level. On the elemental level, the novel has reminded them of something that they already knew.

Amazing talk. Most of these things are paraphrased and/or explained from my notes. Only those in direct quotations are taken as Barry phrased them.

Residency - Day Six

Time is getting away from me. I've been allowing myself to be distracted from my purpose while I am here. The social networking, the drinking, the entertainments have all begun to crowd the time I'm supposed to be writing. I need to be firmer in my resolve to use this time wisely.

The craft talks are amazing as always. I find myself not taking as many notes, not being as enthralled in the presentations as I was in years past. It's not that it's not great information. It's not that it isn't good advice, hints, tools to employ. It seems that I have changed. I incorporate their information more readily, I follow the trains of thought almost intuitively. There are flashes of brilliance where I am writing things down, but for the most part I can see the DNA of the craft talk, the inspiring idea, and the how that DNA will express itself by the time we are ten minutes into the talk. It's strange but comforting.

The reading last night was lovely. Stephen, John, and Leslie all read. It was a poetry sandwich: prose went first, poetry, followed by prose. There was a lot of humor in the reading and it felt good to laugh, to make light, to look at the ridiculousness of our own frailties. A good day.

Residency - News from Home

The night’s frost still clings to the shady basins of the dunes, although the sun is steadily marching higher in the sky, pushing back the white frosting coating the sand. For the Oregon Coast in January, it is a spectacular day. I’ve woken late, my conference schedule allowing for a late start, and one of the first things I’ve done is call my wife to check in.
My daughter had physical therapy yesterday and we’re discussing how the session went. I can tell there is something bothering Tracy and I ask if everything is okay.
“I didn’t want to tell you while you were gone,” she says.
“No, tell me. I’d appreciate it if you tell me.”
“Well, Cressa, the physical therapist wants to put a new brace on Shea. Both legs. She thinks Shea’s walking on her toes is getting worse.”
I mumble a quick, “Uh huh,” and hope my wife will continue quickly. I don’t like these stories to be dragged out. I want the information quick and dirty. Otherwise, if I don’t get it that way, my mind begins to wander, I see surgery, disfigurement, a lack of physical aptitude.
“It’s going to be a calf-length brace on both feet. It’ll incorporate the orthotics she already wears and so we’ll only have to worry about one brace. She needs to wear it 90% of the day.”
“Wow,” I say. It’s not the brace I’m amazed at. It’s the amount of time during the day she’ll have to wear them. I should tell you that my daughter is going to be two in a matter of weeks. She’s a baby, or close to it anyway. Braces are a struggle, a power play that involves coaxing, persuasion, and, yes, sometimes even force. I’m not saying force in terms of physical force, abusive force, but a force of will to ignore Shea’s cries and tears when she doesn’t want to wear them. The force of will to understand what you are doing is incomprehensible to the child, but, in the end, in her best interest.
“Yeah, I know,” Tracy says, “Anyway, Cressa think they’ll be temporary. Six to nine months. If we don’t do this now, her calf muscle won’t elongate, won’t generate the proper strength and could cause problems with her balance, her ankle, knee, hip, and back. We have to do this.”
Tracy is persuading me, trying to argue me into acceptance. What she doesn’t know is I’ve already accepted this. I’m firm in my resolve that this is the best course of action. Then I wonder if it isn’t about me, if it’s about her, if she is persuading herself. It sucks I’m gone.
I’ve been gone for a week now and am not due to return for another three days. It’s hard enough on Tracy and I both that I’m not there. Tracy’s aunt Mary is there at the house, taking care of Shea while Tracy is at work and I am gone. She’s a lovely woman and we are blessed to have her around to help with everything. I don’t know what we would have done without her.
Tracy and I are creatures of habit, routine, schedules. I was never this way as a young man, but I’ve come to love the security of the schedule, the safety it provides from anxiety and stress. But, also, it makes weeks like this, when I am gone, much harder to handle. Things are in disarray, chaos. It sets us both on edge a little bit and our conversations feel like we are talking across continents, instead of only the distance of an hour and a half drive.
So, the braces. In my mind they are mechanical contraptions, bulky, heavy, unattractive. I know modern orthotics and corrective devices aren’t always this complicated, but I grew up in a time where they were. I remember a girl Stephanie in grade school who had complex mechanical braces on her legs plus arm supports that helped her walk. This is the image that pops into my mind. It makes me sad, fretful. It’s not because of Stephanie, it’s because of the way I remember people treating Stephanie.
Stephanie herself was a bright and witty young girl. She was also the best tetherball player I had ever seen. The strength in her arms as a result of using them to help her walk was enormous. She couldn’t move quickly, so she would plant herself at a strategic point on the court. She didn’t need to move. Her long arms seemed to attract the ball with some kind of magnetism. You had to hit the ball perfectly so it hit the apex of its arc just above her head. Anything in an upswing, or dropping too early, was hers. I don’t think I ever beat her. I don’t think many people ever did.
I remember that playground and those games. Stephanie didn’t excel at dodgeball or basketball but she owned the tetherball court, which was one of my favorite games to play at recess. I played with her often, wanting desperately to beat her. I was a child, I wasn’t taking it easy on her because of her disability, I was playing an opponent, a good one, and I wanted to win, to prove myself. I can’t remember if I ever did or not.
So this image of Shea in these mechanical braces, having to walk with corrective devices does bring me some sadness. It makes me realize I will be explaining myself to nosy people in grocery stores and restaurants. I know I will have to have a conversation with my mother, who watches Shea once a week, and stress the importance of her wearing the braces, even though she cries and throws fits.
It’s hard to not cave in the face of a crying child. It’s hard to assert strength of will over their tearful objection. This is parenthood, though, right? I’m not acting this way out of some form of malicious intent. I’m trying to help her, I’m trying to prevent long term damage to her skeletal and muscular structures. I have her best interest at heart, right?
So, if all of this is true, then why is this so hard?

Residency - Day Four

Michelle and Robert give their critical introductions and their readings and the audience is stunned to tears. It isn't that their is anything depressing, overtly sad, or nostalgic about it, it is the sheer power of their words, the power of their friendship, the power of these two open, dedicated people. The crowd lingers in the room for almost twenty minutes. Each person is trying to find the time to get a moment with the writers, to pass along a hurried congratulations, and to express their gratitude for what they shared.

I'm in a mood. Not a bad mood, but a mood where I can feel some kind of quiet settling over me. I need to find a room with a door where I can lock out the outside world. I need a room with a door and one person with which to talk. I miss Katey. I miss Beth. They would be a perfect balm to me in the moment. Instead, I make my way to Stephen's room to see if he remembers the student/faculty dinner.

His room is adjacent to mine and so it is easy to slip next door. I knock. I hear the scamper of a dog behind the door and am soon greeted by both dog and master. I'm invited in. I'm given a glass of red wine, a chair by the sliding glass door. I'm given the gift of conversation, quiet conversation, passionate, expansive, hopeful conversation.

Stephen is a gifted conversationalist. He knows much about many things and our conversation whirls between the typical literary conversations, Israel and Palestine, Obama, Congress, Apocalyptic visions, hope in the face of the future, hope in the face of overwhelming odds, hope as a way of sustaining oneself, hope as a way of entering the writing, of expanding it, of finding something to treasure in the space between words, of committing to the act of creating something beautiful and lyric. I look him in the eye and his eyes dance.

Residency - Playing with Voice

My husband eats hot dogs. Lots of hot dogs. I can’t stand the things. Ever since I was in the third grade and my teacher, Mrs. Elkin, took us on a field trip to the hot dog factory, I can’t touch the things. So, I don’t give my husband many restrictions on diet or behavior, but I do ask that he not eat hot dogs.
It’s not even that I ask him not to eat hot dogs. I ask him not to cook hot dogs in our house. Have you ever walked into a house where someone has been boiling those chipped up intestinal wraps? It reeks. I can’t stand it.
So, my husband not only eats lots of hot dogs, but he insists on cooking them in the house. Normally, it’s when I’m not home and he has the day off, but I can still smell the stinking things hours after he’s eaten them. I come home from a long day at work, wanting to unload my laptop, turn off the cell phone and simply relax. But that’s not possible when your house smells like hot dogs.
He tries to mask the smell. He turns on fans, opens the windows, sprays floral air freshener, but, in case you didn’t know, hot dogs are impervious to air fresheners. People say Twinkies and cockroaches will survive the holocaust. I don’t think that’s true. I think it will only be hot dogs and cockroaches. Hot dogs, cockroaches, and yellow mustard.
Ugh, that’s another pet peeve of mine. Yellow mustard. I can eat the spicy browns, the hots, the stone ground mustards, but I cannot, and will not, stand for yellow mustard. Hot dogs and yellow mustard joined together emanate a smell that can only be compared to Richard’s gym bag. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks in August. I’m telling you, it smells that bad.
So, I came home the other day, it was a Thursday, and the whole house had that meat filler, yellow mustard funk hanging everywhere. It greeted me before I could set my bag down by the front door. I could tell he’d taken his usual measures to mask the smell, Lysol disinfectant spray, fans whirring, windows open, letting the salt breeze infiltrate the room. So, now the house smelled like a salt-cured-flower-stuffed-hot dog with yellow mustard. I dropped my bag right there at the threshold. I could hear the heavy thunk of my computer on the hard wood floors and a sharper crack like the breaking of Lincoln Logs. “Fuck,” I said, not taking the time to survey the damage. It was a work computer anyway and if anything was wrong I would just put in a requisition for a new one. I was due anyway.

***That's all I have for right now. I'm hoping this leads me somewhere.

Residency - Day Three

I woke this morning and made coffee first thing. I feel rested, although a bit unsteady. I battle my contacts but quickly retire them to their case and don my glasses. My left eye burns. I fill my travel mug with coffee, pour a cup for Stephen, and walk next door to the room where he is staying. He is not there.

I make my way down to Salvadore's, feeling groggy and full of head fog. Stephen sits with one of his students from the last semester, having breakfast and chatting about her writing. I say my name when he notices my shadow standing at the end of the table. He smiles and tells me I look like Cary Grant. I tell him, "I'll take it," and smile broadly. He is refreshing. Witty. Cavalier. An unrepentant flatterer.

We make preparations for his craft talk -- cue up the CD to the proper track, set up his laptop, and wait for Shelley to make the morning's announcements. It's typical fare for the morning: room changes, cell phone reminders, etc. And then Stephen steps to the microphone.

He begins by talking about underpants. Underpants, that's right. The room immediately fills with the muted chuckles of educated people taking delight in the bathroom humor of it all. I can see some reluctance from them, how they wonder if they are above this kind of humor, but I let fly with a laugh. It's funny, I'm sorry, but it is. Stephen knows this and explains that you can make any group of people laugh at the mere mention of underpants. The chuckles dissipate into the ether and the room steadies its reverberations into silence.

He begins in earnest. I won't pretend to speak on his subject with as much poetry and lucidity as he does, but he talks about listening, about the language of sound, about simile. He talks about textures in writing, about how we must expand our senses beyond the visual into sound, smell, and taste, and how this forces us into a poetics of simile, about how rain on a tent sounds like bacon frying, about how the high C of the opera singer Caruso is like milk and iodine. He is firing on all pistons, the room is stunned into silence. I watch Jack and Bonnie beaming at him on stage, Peter whispers "damn" on more than one occasion. The talk is pure inspiration, poetry, and brilliance. I am in awe.

His talk casts me back to the experience of reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind. I studied this novel, about how Suskind, with very little language available for smell, had to connect smells to memory. Comparisons needed to be made in order for the smells of the novel to come alive, and Stephen has done something similar with sound. He's linked what he hears to all kinds of unlikely things, which drove the language of his talk to a poetic place, full of simile and concrete detail that allowed us to experience his world in a very tangible, a very personal way.

At one point, I was tempted to close my eyes and to simply listen, but I fought against it. It is good to highlight the sense of sound or smell by eliminating sight, but it is contrary to how I need to work in the future. I need my visuals, my images, but I ALSO need to be aware of how my other senses are interacting with the world. I need to layer these perceptions on top of my images, I must use all the tool sets available to me in a textured tapestry that will naturally elevate my prose to poetry.

I'm awake now and, I hope, paying attention.

Residency - Day Two - Intrigue

It's odd being inside the cabal of people who orchestrate the residency. There are maneuvers and egos on this side of the residency. I was always pleasantly unaware of the intrigues that occured inside the residency walls and it is hard to see some of the things that happen while the students aren't looking.

There are an infinite number of concessions that need to happen in order for all of the professionals to be satisfied and I'm amazed at what these people expect from the staff of a program like this.

I've spent the last two hours on a book hunt (one of the author's books didn't arrive) and composing emails to said author to try and repair some of the damage that was done as a result. It isn't a good situation. But, the staff is trying their hardest to repair what was done and I'm going to have to commit seppuku tonight at the introductions. I don't mind. The program should apologize for their oversight and, as the mouthpiece, I will do so with as much grace and sincerity as is possible. Taking one for the team.

Residency - Day One

After the grumpiness of the morning passed, I'll credit the coffee, I settled into the day with ease. My anticipation was high as I knew Jack Driscoll was going to be giving the first craft talk of the residency. As always, he was eloquent. He revisited a theme he and I have discussed many times...love. This time the frame of the talk surrounded the treatment of "characters," those people we inhabit when we write fiction.

He talked about desire and how when characters don't desire, they lose the ability to suffer, which inevitably flattens out the prose. He talked about loving our characters, both good and bad, heroes and villains, in a way that we enlivened them with the energy of that passion. It brought my mind back to Keir, a character for a novel I was working on when I first began the MFA. I realized I still loved the man, was still invested in his journey, and I wondered what would happen if I revisited the page with this young man in mind.

Well, when I found a free moment, I returned to the page and I invoked Keir's spirit. Sure enough he was there, he was enlivened, and three pages passed before I even really knew that I was writing. I'm debating whether or not I should follow him further or return to the short story. Either way, I'm having fun being present and inspired. I'm sneaking away more than is usual for me at residency, which is a nice change of pace and a nice tone to my new life outside the program.

Yes, I am here. Yes, I am participating in elements of the program, but, no, the program is no longer mine. I love it but must leave it. I have a feeling that these ten days are going to be the perfect bon voyage.

Residency - The Reality of Morning.

It's six am when the noise starts. I had been so excited about my room. It's big with a view of the ocean (although it's not an oceanfront room). It's the same room I had two years ago but two floors down. The third floor. I didn't even think of the logistics of what this meant.

Well, this is what it means. At six am the people cleaning rooms are starting to prepare. They push around a cart with the squeekiest wheel of all time. I want to yell at them to put some WD-40 on it. But I try and roll over and go back to sleep. Then, the hotel comes alive.

My room shares a wall with the stair well. Also, my floor is where all craft talks, panel discussions, etc will take place. I may be next to the most highly trafficked portion of the hotel. The "pitter-patter" of giant feet in the stairwell reverberates throughout my room. People are coming and going. Taking walks on the boardwalk, going to breakfast, chatting and making acquaintance. It's all very social and friendly and ambitious.

It's also right outside my door.

Residency - The Arrival

This is for you, K.S.

I arrived at Portland International Airport a good thirty minutes before Stephen Kuusisto's flight was due to arrive. I browsed Powell's, got a sandwich, and sat myself near the security checkpoint. With Kwame Dawes' She's Gone in hand, I wiled away a good hour before I asked about his flight. The security guard was a pleasant older woman with prim makeup and hair. She was accommodating (she even went to the gate to check on the flight's status) and she chatted for a bit until I saw the yellow lab round the corner.

Stephen is an unassuming man, but his guide dog is a young three year old, full of energy and enthusiasm. They crossed the threshold to where I stood and Stephen and I shook hands and introduced ourselves. Behind him stood a lithe young woman, beautiful and earthy. Stephen introduced her to me immediately. It was Bonnie Jo Campbell. They had shared the flight and, instead of waiting the two hours for the shuttle, Bonnie made her way to my car with us.

The drive to Seaside via Highway 30 was uneventful in terms of traffic or flooding. The Columbia was swollen, overtaking trees on the bank, but the time went quickly as we marched our way west to Seaside and the impending residency.

Stephen is irreverent, charming, and a tad bit eccentric. Bonnie, a little reserved, is brassy and also charming. We shared book titles, anecdotes, political opinions, and soon we had arrived at Safeway inside of Seaside's city limits.

Stephen was smart not to pack dog food. Instead relying on the fact that his brand would be waiting for him inside the "stupor-market" as he called it. We browsed the aisles, looking for the pet food, Bonnie claiming that she wanted a bottle of wine, Stephen agreeing. It was fun, casual, reminded me of my college roommates on a similar "stupor-market" expedition.

When we finally arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by Shelley, the queen of the program, all smiles and welcomes. Our rooms were doled out. I'm staying on the third floor, in the corner room overlooking the beach. Not a beach front room. Those are reserved for faculty and students, but the next best thing. I am comfortable. The moment I arrived in Seaside in January, I felt the call of the keyboard. I felt the need to sit and be present. It's been nice to hammer out these few paragraphs, the first of many. I hope, anyway.

I'm missing some of the familiar suspects. I miss K.S. I miss B.R. I even miss J.W. To be honest there is a litany of people I wish could be here. S.R. with her fiery red hair. W.G. with his Magnum P.I. mustache. L.G. with her androgynous sexuality.

I will try and make the best of my ten days here at residency. I promise not to focus too much on the introductions. They are secondary to the content of the readings. I promise not to get swept up in the social life presented in these ten days. I promise to have the rough draft of a new story by the time I check out (a week from Sunday). I am looking to make good on these things and the thing that is necessary to make these things happen is a dedication to the idea, resolve to allow myself time, and an openness to the ideas presented in the craft talks, readings, and otherwise good mojo.

Love you, K.S., I'll keep you posted.