Trying the Sequential.

The minute Jeff Knight arrived home from school, he went to the mailbox. He expected acceptance letters to arrive in the mail any day now and he was desperate to begin this next phase of life. Canby was nice and all, he’d had a nice childhood, but it was beginning to feel like a python, constricting against every move he made and he was desperate to flee.
As he had anticipated, there was a large white envelope bearing the seal of the University of Arizona on the upper left hand corner. It was thick with its contents, which, to Jeff, heralded only good news. They wouldn’t bother sending catalogs and registration information if you’d been denied. He must have been accepted. He stuffed the envelope into his backpack, tucked the rest of the mail up into his armpit and crossed the front yard to the wide front porch of his house.
He dropped the mail on the dining room table as was the custom in his family and bounded up the stairs without a word. His mother appeared in the kitchen door just in time to see his backpack straps trailing in the air behind him.
“Well, hello…” she called.
Jeff’s voice echoed back down at her, “Hey, mom.”
“Are you coming down?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute, I want to put my stuff away.”
It was not unusual for Jeff to lock himself in his room for long stretches of time but it was the urgency with which he disappeared that sometimes caused his mother alarm. His mother, Beth, understood his excitement. She remembered what it was like to be a teenager. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she felt like she hadn’t aged a day since eighteen. She knew her body was different, her hips wider after childbirth, her chest larger from nursing her boys after they were born. She didn’t mean these physical things, in that way she knew she had aged, it was the inside of her that didn’t feel older. She felt like she did when she was dating Randy Durmeyer and taking long drives down to Molalla State Park in his tricked out Mustang. While nothing had changed on the inside, she knew her children would never believe such a thing. They saw her, checkbook in hand, at the dining room table paying bills, with flour in her hair at Thanksgiving. They knew “mom” and, in moments where she knew Jeff felt misunderstood, she couldn’t help but feel the corners of her mouth crawl up into the beginnings of a smile.
With his bedroom door firmly closed behind him, Jeff reached back into his backpack and pulled out the letter. He was visibly nervous. His hands shook and were moist with sweat, the white envelope barely darkened where his palms pressed into the paper. He didn’t know what he was going to do when the time came to tell his parents. He pushed the thought to the side, allowing himself the victorious moment, and ripped into the envelope. He withdrew the packet and began scanning the title page. He stopped reading after, “Congratulations.” His heart fluttered with the word, as if someone he missed had spoken his name after a long absence. He took the moment, thrilled at it, but then had to face the facts that he was going to have to talk to his parents.
He hadn’t exactly discussed out-of-state schools with his parents. There was a prevailing history in their family of attending local universities. The fact that it was never said made it seem somehow more sinister than it ought to have been, but the Knights suffered from the same lack of communication that affects most families with teenagers.
Each of them, Jeff, his mother, even his father, Tom, a jovial guy with a small insurance business in town, didn’t want to “interfere” with each other. The modern idea of privacy for teens is a good one for the most part, but it has quickly escalated into a remote distance, a silent absolution for the tight family unit.
So, Jeff had application packets mailed to the school. Filling them out was a furtive activity, one that required late night hours, solitude and a shut door. He needn’t have worried about being disturbed. His father had told his mother he was probably masturbating in his room and so there was no chance of his being discovered. His parents’ distance had always seemed like a disinterest to Tom, but to his parents it was a sign of respect. The cross-wiring and miscommunications in their family were too convoluted to be understood by any of them.

A Reading

Between sunbursts, the weather around my home alternated between rain and hail. It was a tumultuous day. It began with a trip to the accountant and news of a refund. My wife and I had expected to pay but we were greeted with good news. Then, off to the doctor for my daughter's two-year physical.

While she falls well into the realm of average for height, weight, and developmental milestones, we had to endure the words "cerebral palsy" for the first time. Let me be clear, it is not a diagnosis, it is a possibility. We had to sit there and hear about MRI scans, sedation, and entertain the possibility of a previous stroke. Our baby is healthy and happy but there are a couple of things that remain to be determined and the not knowing is the worst kind of torture. This is not spinning me off into despair, on the contrary, I feel, for the first time, like we are beginning to narrow the field of possibility. We switched pediatricians and this new doctor is frank, sympathetic, and available to questioning. While the news itself was hard to hear, at least it came in the form of news.

So, the afternoon continued with a long dose of snuggling from my daughter as I put her to bed. She tucked herself into the crook of my shoulder, her doll tucked in the crook of her own shoulder. She drank warm milk from her sippy cup, looked me in the eyes and cooed until her lids grew heavy with the pace of the day. I slipped her into her crib, tucked her in tight under two blankets soft as suede, and made my way to the patio to read from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

The babysitter showed up early, as requested, and I tucked myself into my father's Expedition and headed off to the airport. I was early, as is my custom, and pulled into the cell phone waiting area. More Kavalier and Clay. When my cell phone rang, I was tickled to find Ellen Bass on the other side of the line. She had landed and was ready to make her way to Pacific University to give her reading.

We chatted the whole way there about writing, poetry, students, teaching, and the sacrifices and struggles the writing life imposes. She was sympathetic and charming and before we knew it the drive was over. We pulled in front of the new Thai restaurant in Forest Grove and met the other reader, Alissa Nielsen, a fellow teacher, and a couple of students from the creative writing program. The menu was expansive and meal was delicious but we were already pressing for time.

We made our way over to Taylor Auditorium, a space that has played host to many inspirational craft talks during my MFA program. The night began with Alissa reading. Her story was a knockout. I remember the closet where the main character hid, the threat of violence between a father and a son, the image of box elders swarming, and the lovely final note that resonated on past the close of the story. It was fantastic.

Ellen, for her part, was her charming self. Her poetry was accessible, her demeanor plain and open. The students laughed, celebrated her work, and ripped into applause when the day was done. I sat in my seat well after the final poem had been read. I was soaking it all in, trying to process the language that swam over me. The reading had been a comfort, a wanted distraction and call to attention, I felt that Alissa and Ellen had tucked me in with their words and their work felt warm and soft as suede.

I received an email today from one of the publications to which I submitted a story. While they didn't accept my piece I got a nice personalized rejection from them. MY FIRST! I have either had the experience of publishing or receiving stock rejections and so I see this as a step in the process. A testament that my stories maybe do have strength. Anyway, it's an encouraging development.

Exhale

The day is grey, which is perfect for late morning lounging and a single cup of coffee enjoyed over the space of an hour. It's a no-rush-sweatpants-wearing-carpet-sprawled-color-crayon-playing kind of morning. We're moving at the speed of glaciers. Even our conversation seems slowed to the speed of tree sap oozing. It's lovely.

Shea maintains her attention for long periods of time this morning. She must feel grounded, settled-in, with both her parents sitting next to her, each armed with a coloring book all their own. I'm cheating a little bit, coloring the pages of Writer's Digest. She wants me to color and I do, I simply chose my medium wisely and I glance through the pages and chuckle at the absurdity of some of the writing advice.

All can say is...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

An Awkward Situation

What do you do when you have information from one source that effects another?

How do you handle the balancing of confidences?

I had a conversation this morning with the person with whom the conflict originates. I am an outsider, someone who was involved only by way of solicited advice, but I heard a retelling of events that wasn't true by someone else outside the situation. They asked me not to repeat it.

Well, I didn't repeat it outside of the affected party. I told her of the miscommunication, of how I had heard misinformation being spread about her. She was relieved to find out that I had corrected the information, put the interested party on the right track and avoided a larger snafu regarding her professional life. Things should be cleared up now but I am still nervous that I've somehow painted myself into a corner and will soon have to experience the backlash of a conflict that has nothing to do with me.

Let's hope not. Sorry to be so vague.

Upcoming news

A faculty advisor of mine has called to say he has good news for me but won't elaborate any further. I am dying to hear from him. I've left two messages for him but I've missed him at home. Hopefully I will have something exciting to say here soon.

A Prolonged Absence

I've been slacking on updating the blog and found it whispering my name as I prepared for another bar shift. Things have been hectic over the last couple of days. The job I thought would never be has reasserted itself and with a deadline looming only two weeks away. I'm in the process of chasing down reference letters, teaching philosophies and trying to formulate a class syllabus. All of this is in the midst of my classes handing in their first graded assignment. I only have 11 essays left to grade and then I am free to focus.

I find myself sinking down into a kind of calm that belies my current obligations. It is the advent of creation. I can feel it. The juices have been stewing under the surface and are about to spring forth. I can't wait. I know that I will get home tonight and set to it, fingers to keyboard, searching for that entrance into what can only be expressed as joy finding a voice.