#IKB: I Know Better...Fear

I am my own worst enemy.  I sabotage myself all the time, and the worst part of it all is that I oftentimes have very good "reasons" for it.  It is the worst form of cowardice..."justified" cowardice.  It requires that I blame others, my life, my job, my circumstances, instead of taking a deep, powerful, and, yes, terrifying look inside myself.  I am a grown man capable of working for what I want.  I have people tell me all the time that they believe in me, so why doesn't that translate into personal belief?

I can't answer that.  As such, I am going to launch a new blogging project for 2018.  For those longtime followers, you may remember the "promises" I made to myself a couple of years back.  This project is similar but with a different focus.  I'll lay it out for you.

The new project is called "I Know Better."  Every two weeks I will work toward identifying something about my life that needs improvement or correction that is the result of a faulty belief.  I do a lot of things in my life that "I know better," and it is time I stop it if I want to live the life I want to lead.  I must live presently enough to understand myself a little bit better and I must work to choose to live differently.  Now, I am hoping for some of these changes to become permanent changes for me and my family.  I'm hoping to start to make a difference in my attitude, my circumstances, and my spirit.  That's the point of the project, but there is also the blog.

The blog is the accountability portion of the assignment.  It will keep me honest in trying to deal with these changes I am starting to make and communicate it outwardly to those around me.  I'm hoping that this kind of public naming will allow me to be held accountable personally.

So...the first #IKB?  Fear.  I need to stop living in fear of failure.  I have had a small business idea for at least two years now, but I have never pulled the trigger on it.   I may have missed my window, but I won't know until I try, so I am going to go out there and give it a go.  I will be posting more about this soon.

The second part of my fear of failure has to do with my creative life.  I have been failing as a writer because I fear I have lost too much time, stayed away for too long, or I just fear I might not have the talent in the first place.  I can't mess around with that line of thinking anymore.  I want to see my creative projects take flight.  I want to work toward something real.  I have things to say that I want to see put out there in the world, so I am going to start writing again.

The final component of my IKB is confronting my fear of failure as it relates to my family.  I am so afraid of failing in my duties as a husband and a father that I don't take the next step.  The problem with this is that I wind up beating myself up about it and becoming a kind of miserable sot for them to be around.  Either way, I'm not doing anyone any favors right now.  I am sitting in a creative slump because I'm worried about what "might" happen if I try.

I need to be done with that.  I will be done with that.  I am setting this course for 2018, and I am keeping my sights set high.  It needs to happen, and I NEED to be the one to make it happen.  So, for these first weeks of 2018, I say "I know better than to be paralyzed by fear."

Writer's Note: I Really Am Thick

I am so thick it is laughable.  Honestly, if it didn't cause me so much pain, I'd laugh too.  In fact, when I finally am able to learn something, I often do laugh at myself.  I am so consistently wrong that it amazes me that I still often think I am right.

Where is this coming from?  

You have "The Incredible Jessica James" to blame.  

I watched this movie tonight, which is about a playwright in NYC, and there is a scene in the movie that just blew my mind tonight.  The problem is that it is so simple that I felt like an idiot when I had my AHA moment.  

The premise for the scene is this:

Jessica meets her longtime playwright idol at a weekend retreat.  Before introducing herself by name, she gushes over the artist.  When the artist finally gets her calmed down, Jessica asks her a question, a sincere question, a question that many artists wonder about/ask.  

"When do you know you've made it?"

The playwright replies, "I'll let you know when I get the memo."

Jessica replies, "But you won a Tony..."

After a short give or take, the playwright gestures around to signify the weekend retreat they are on, and she says, "Isn't that what we're doing this weekend?"

For me, my heart finally broke of many of these crazy illusions about success, the writing life, etc.  I just...stopped.  It was so simple.  It was so easy.  I couldn't believe how thick I had been.  

As I sit here and write this post, I'm a writer.  I've arrived.  I'm here doing the work, and that's it.  I enjoy being able to write in my own voice to an audience.  That's it.  That's the pleasure.  Everything else is...everything else.  

P.S.  I enjoyed "The Incredible Jessica James".  Jessica Williams is just about as charming as they come.  Thank you, Jim Strouse for your body of incredible work.  I have just now realized how much I enjoy his films.  Check out his IMDB profile here.

Man Note: Love's Cowardice

Thanks for the quote, Bob Marley!!!

I'm a monster.

My love makes me a monster.

My use of love for my own purposes makes me a monster.

This post is going to be hard for me, but it is one that I must finish.  Before I begin, let me emphatically state that this post is about me and my capacity for love, and NOT the objects of my love.  This is an introspection and not an accusation.  In my recent self-evaluation, I've been looking at my behaviors and trying to find things I can improve on, ways of getting out of my own way.

In evaluating myself, I came to a realization about my roles, which is largely the reason I started this blog.

I am a husband and a father.  These are two of the biggest roles I have ever taken on in my life, but I have been abusing my roles.  It is a two-fold abuse.  I have been abusing myself in my roles and I have been abusing my loved ones.  I use the word abuse because it is accurate, it conveys what it is I mean to say, but it makes me wildly uncomfortable.

I have willingly chosen my roles, but lately I have been using my roles as a way of excusing myself from my life as opposed to a way of enriching my life.  I have put the anchor of "responsibility" so heavily around my neck that I have had very little room for anything else.  Instead of seeing my marriage and my child as the blessings that they are, I have used them as a downer, an excuse for not living up to my potential.  I have shouldered myself with the burden of doing all things for them.

What is funny about this, is that I have probably been at my least helpful during this phase.  I have been surly, combative, and depressed.  I have not engaged in my normal activities with the family.  I have stayed away instead of joining them in activities.  I have buried myself in work and called it "working for my family" when it has been doing anything but "working for my family."

This quote is for my family.  They don't deserve my disrespect.

I have been burdening myself with an over-proportioned sense of responsibility.  The sun and the moon do not rise and fall because of me.  I am not responsible for all things.  I can do what I can do, and that's about it.  I have been abusing myself with my inflated sense of responsibility and its been crippling.

I mentioned the flip side of this inflated sense of responsibility earlier.  I've been surly, combative, and depressed.  The depression has caused me to want to place blame.  I've been silently blaming my family for my actions, and the sheer injustice of this does not escape me.  It is so unfair to them that I have been projecting my sour feelings on to them.  Most of the time, they don't have any idea as to why I am so surly.  This realization has been one of the hardest for me to deal with.  The thought of causing my loved ones pain, and all because I've been struggling with my self is horrifying to me.

But this isn't about making myself feel bad for past sins, it is about moving past this depressed phase and getting my feet underneath me.

So here's where I stand on this: I've been a coward.  I've used my love as a way of avoiding risk, of avoiding myself, and I vow to stop.  I vow to use my love relationships as a way of filling my cup instead of capping it.  I vow to treat my loved ones in the way they deserve to be treated.  I vow to treat myself the way I deserve to be treated.

And I vow to take a pin to my inflated sense of responsibility when it gets out of control.

It's going to be hard work, but I want this.  I want it a lot.  I deserve it, and my family deserves it.

For now, I simply ask their forgiveness.  And patience as I work through this.

Another piece of wisdom from Gandhi.

Personal Note: What Vacation Teaches Me

The View from my cabin at Odell Lake

I just got back from a short 4-day vacation at Shelter Cove Resort at Odell Lake in central Oregon.  It was 4 days without cell service, without alarm clocks, without commutes, work days, and all the accoutrement that goes with the modern life.  Here are 3 things I was able to take away from those 4 days.

1. No one but me will defend my time.

I need downtime.  Everyone does.  But I am terrible at protecting myself and insulating myself from the pressures of work.  I almost always say "yes" to requests from work, and it is starting to become a barrier to my own personal desires and the relationships with my family.  When I did some poking around and reading about work/life balance and overworking, I ran into this quote:

We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety. - John Lubbock

This is very much true for me.  I have a tendency to put off my personal desires in pursuit of work, or of tending to my family, which is not to place blame on them.  It is a character fault of my own.  I need to be a better defender of my own time and to be more disciplined in accomplishing my own goals.  

This is the first lesson.

2. Reading is still one of my favorite pasttimes.

I finished a book and a half in the 4 days I was on vacation.  It was marvelous.  Almost every morning I awoke before the others in the cabin.  I turned on the coffee pot and sat with my book.  I pounded through the last half of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and I almost got all the way through One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak.  

It takes me back to grad school where my advisor, John Rember, once told me, to paraphrase, that "the writing life looks like sheer idleness from the outside."  When I spend 4 days in the woods reading and ruminating, I feel like I've gotten something done.  I feel like I can breathe and work and create.  

In the time I spent in the large windows of the cabin, bathed in morning light, I came up with a couple of new ideas for the TV series I am writing. I got myself unlocked from a plot thread that had me pinned for a moment, and I was able to actually dedicate a portion of my mental real estate to my own creative endeavors.  The words of others help me with this.  Reading helps me with this.  Being submerged in the waters of others' creative works gives me hope that my own creativity has a place in the world.  

3. Sleep is my friend.

I'm a terrible sleeper.  Well, once I'm sleeping I'm fine, but I am a terrible self-manager when it comes to putting myself to bed.  I can distract myself with this, that, or the other for hours on end in the wee hours when the rest of my family sleeps.  I used to think this was my most creative time, but I am slowly learning that this is probably not the case.  

Many times, I will find myself distracted by the television, by the internet, by a stiff cocktail, or any number of other things.  What I need to be doing is putting myself to bed so that I wake recharged with the energy to dedicate to my own creative endeavors.  

Self-care...not my strong suit.

I have an eye mask that I know works to put me to sleep, as well as some lavender pillow spray that helps me fall down into sleep, but I don't use them.  I somehow allow myself to engage in "mindless idleness" instead of "mindful idleness."  It's time to change the way I behave in order to encourage more of the latter.  In fact, that may just be my next blog post..."Mindless Idleness vs. Mindful Idleness."  More on that soon.

So, for me, next steps are to remember my lessons, to rededicate myself to the process of working hard for a creative life, which sometimes means indulging in pure idleness.  Thanks, John Rember, for the permission.

Personal Notes: Principled Pleasures vs. Pleasure as Principle

Image Sourced From all-free-download.com

As a result of reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by blogger Mark Manson, I've been thinking about the idea of pleasure lately.  Pleasure is a large word to throw out there, but I will be using it in this blog post to address physical pleasures (i.e. food, drink, sex, etc).  In reading Manson's book, I've been thinking about pleasure in relationship to entitlement, a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, and I think I've stumbled upon something that helps me clarify the "issue" of pleasure for myself personally.  It all hinges on the use of the word "principle."

A principle is the building block, or foundation, or a system of belief.  In mulling over the idea of pleasure, I found myself using this word in a couple of different ways, and I decided that I'm going to start using the metric of "principled pleasure" in my personal life.  I need to work on striving for "principled pleasures" as opposed to using pleasure as a principle.  Here's how I seem them as being different.

A person who uses pleasure as a principle is looking to achieve pleasure, in all its myriad forms, as a moral "good."  He/She is looking to achieve pleasure as a result or outcome of action.  By using pleasure as a principle, it is then easy to choose any action that results in action, no matter if that action is good or bad.   It sets the end result as priority over the evaluation of the individual action.  By using this framework for decision making, one could justify any number of actions as long as it lead to the end result...pleasure.  I'm uncomfortable with this framework, and I believe it leads to sloppy decision making.

In contrast, if one is seeking "principled pleasures," then one is seeking to prioritize individual principles as a basis for achieving pleasure.  The moral "good" in the eyes of the individual becomes of greater importance than the outcome.  It is only through the choice of the moral principle that one would be able to achieve pleasure.  One would feel good about decision making, and, therefore, achieve the feeling of pleasure one is seeking.

Some practical examples are necessary here.

1. The lawn needs mowed (unpleasurable).  The completion of necessary maintenance of the house, the chipping in of time/effort on communal household chores, and the desire to be physically active are all principles the individual holds. Choosing the easy pleasure of an afternoon spent "Netflix and chilling" would be more pleasurable than mowing the lawn, but upholding the individual's principles provides a deeper more sustained pleasure than the easy, passive pleasure of streamed entertainments.
2. Having a drink after work provides pleasure at the end of a long shift.  It is the culmination of a day's work, but returning home and spending time with family is a principle the individual holds.  While it is easy to write off the post-work drink as "harmless" and "earned," the prolonged satisfaction of having a close knit family and spending time with loved ones trumps the easy pleasure.

These are two simply examples of the distinction in action.  Holding this framework for decision making will help any individual (but especially me) become better at accomplishing life goals and living a life that fulfills in the long term and not simply in the short term.  

Manson's book is challenging my basic precepts.  I'm starting to look at my life in a new way that is reminiscent of some of the best times of my life.  I've been lazy in my thinking (or lack thereof) and I need to continue to challenge myself in order to achieve the quality of life I desire.  

I sat down today to blog about my thoughts, even though the easier pleasure would have been to simply pick up my book and continue reading.  I hold creativity as a life principle.   It is something I always want to have present in my life.  So...instead of making a sandwich and curling up with a book, I've set myself in front of the computer and written this blog post.  It is much more satisfying.  By living the principle I set for myself, I was able to achieve a deeper sense of pleasure in my day.  By living my standards, instead of flauting them, I was able achieve a sense of satisfaction that otherwise wouldn't have been present.

I'm beginning to think I'm on the right track here.

Man Notes: The Days Since

My Agent for Change

It has been a couple of days since I last posted here, where I revealed a personal truth about myself, about my enduring depression, and it's been a couple of hard days.  My work life is at the peak of our high season, with lots of additional responsibility coming down the pipe.  It has also been a time of doubling down on my new outlook.  I've decided to "not a give a fuck" in the way Mark Manson discusses it in his book.  I've decided to get out of my "Feedback Loop from Hell" as Manson calls it.
I'll give you a couple of scenarios.  First, I was covering vacation for a coworker.  I was in an environment that was out of my ordinary.  Then, the systems in place to make the place run smoothly broke down.  All kinds of problems arose from this situation.  I don't want to go into specifics as that would be an inappropriate use of this blog.  Basically, what happened was that I was forced to either let these things get to me, or to "not give a fuck."  I chose the latter.  I had to actively choose to not let other people's drama affect me personally.  My job is my job.  It is the mechanism that provides for my family, for the things I love to do, and I need to stop taking everything in my professional life personally.

The other part of this is that I've chosen to use my free time better.  I choose to not simply wile away my free time on my phone playing silly games.  I choose to feed my brain, to feed my heart, to feed my soul.  As the first crusted layers peel away from my unused heart, I find myself having a deeper sense of forgiveness, of trust, of love.

Lately, I've felt a sense of amnesia.  A sense of not remembering myself and my life, and this "amnesia" has left me disconnected from parts of myself that are, and remain, important to me.  In an effort to remember myself, I've also been listening to music through an iPod.  I've been digging through albums from the 90's, and it has reminded my of my earlier self in ways that don't feel melancholy and saccharine, but in ways the feel important, like remembering my own identity.

In the end, the greatest agent for change is my own family.  My wife and my daughter remain the best motivators for being true to myself, to being my better self.  Working around the house more assuages my guilt for not being a better partner to Tracy.  Spending some time with my daughter teaching her how to draw connects me to my creative loving self, and shows me why art is important in all its forms.

It's been a busy couple of days.  A good couple of days.

Man Notes: Unintentionally Intentionally Miserable

Life is good when working from the patio.

It's been months since I've posted here, and I can tell you exactly why.  I've been silently, ashamedly unintentionally intentionally miserable.  The last year has seen me working against myself in almost every single way imaginable.  I have been doing NOTHING for myself.  I've been working as little as possible on the things I want, on the things that bring me joy, and I've been slowly dragging myself down into the pits of depression.  

Recently, some people have been reposting a former post from this blog.  It is a post about moving past grief, and it was a piece written from personal insight about depression.  When the post made its way around Facebook, I was forced to go back and reread it.  I wondered what made this one blog post stand out to my family and friends.  I am so glad that I read it.  It may have just saved me from many more months of depression.  

Today?  Today I am feeling better.  The reason for this?  Choosing.  Choosing small moments, small ways in which to participate in my life.  I've been a lazy slug around the house lately, blaming my work life for my level of participation in the house.  The other day, without being asked, I came home and mowed the lawn.  That's how deep into my depression I had sunk.  Mowing the lawn was a BIG deal for me a couple of weeks back even.  I was engrained into the couch, unmoving, unmotivated, and slowly wasting away.  Today?  Today I am feeling better.

So, what have been some of the other remedies to getting out of depression?  

1. Making more time for the things I care about.

2. Making more time for me.

3. Actively choosing to get out there and do things I love, or talking to people I love.

I've been to Powell's bookstore twice in the last week.  I've finished one and a half books in the last week, and I am feeling invigorated.  The book I am reading right now is for sure helping me.

This book is not about being dispassionate and indifferent.  On the contrary, it is about accepting pain as the agent of change.  It's about choosing the pain you want, the pain you can sustain, because it is the pathway to the change you want to enact in the world.  I got it yesterday and I'm already almost a 1/4 of the way through it.  Every now and again you get the message you need in the moment that you need it.

Another book that reignited me was "Waiter Rant."  This book felt like looking into a mirror for me, and I am so grateful that I found it. 

The last two days have truly felt like a turning point for me, and I am excited to see where my new choices will take me.  

Co-Hosted: Blogging With My Daughter

***I tried this experiment with Shea a couple of months back and forgot to post.  Here it is.***
We've been talking a bit about feelings in the Lang household these days, and it isn't always an easy go.  I've got a 10 year-old girl who is going through lots of different things in her life, and I always want to be close to her.  She expressed some interest in blogging with me and contributing here.  Here's what we came up with:

Me: What would you like to write about?  It should probably have something to do with fathers and daughters.

Her: (after taking a moment to think to herself) How you can get into disagreements but fathers always come back.

Me: What does that mean to you?

Her: That means that fathers always come back.

Me: What do you mean "come back"?

Her: Like after work, come back.

Me: Why is that important after having an argument?

Her: Because that way we know that we love each other.

Me: Is it hard sometimes to talk about things you disagree about?

Her: Yes.

Me: Why is that? Why is it hard do you think?

Her: I actually don't know.

Me: Is it hard to talk about difficult feelings?

Her: Mmhmm.

Me: Can you describe a feeling that is difficult to talk about?

Her: Sadness.

Me: Why is sadness hard?

Her: I don't know.

Me: Is it because it feels like a big feeling?

Her: I really don't know.

Me: Is it overwhelming sometimes?

Her: Nope.

Me: I'm going to have to start getting some longer answers here, honey.

Her: You start.

Me: Ok.  I know that when I feel sad, I can sometimes get real quiet because I don't know how to talk about my sadness without making other people feel bad, or that they need to fix it. What about you?

Her: I don't know.

Me: Do you want to pick a different topic to write about?

Her: No.  It's fine.

Me: So can you say anything more about sadness?

Her: Sadness is just a weird feeling.

Me: Weird how?

Her: I don't know how it is weird, but it is weird.

Me: Do you feel it often?

Her: No.

Me: What about happiness?  Is it easier to talk about happiness?

Her: Mmhmm

Me: So what you could you say about that?  When do you feel happy?

Her: Like when you win an OBOB (Oregon Battle of the Books) battle.

Me: Are there any other times you feel happiness?

Her: When someone does something nice for you?

Me:  That does feel good.  What about when you do something nice for somebody else?

Her: That makes them feel good.

Me: Does it also make you feel good?

Her: Mmhmm

Me: Is there anything else?

Her: Nope.

Me: So, what else would you like to say about fathers and daughters? (silence) Is this hard?

Her: Yes.

Me: So do you want to stop?

Her: Would that be ok?  Is that ok with you?

Me: Yes.

I think I didn't post this originally because I thought it didn't add up to much, but as I sit and look at it now, I realize that it was an important conversation/exercise for me to have with my daughter.  We didn't get to any profound realizations, but she knows that I am open to discussion on what may seem like hard topics to her.

Writer's Notes - The Price of Productivity

Image Courtesy of Pinterest

Hello, two am.  It's me.  I'm here again.  I hope you remember me.  It's not the first time we've met.  Not by a longshot.

I've been up writing for a while now, and watching first episodes of television shows I like.  I've got the bug.  The "I've-got-to-get-this-down-now-while-I-can" kind of bug that feels like heat, like fire, like passion.  It's the kind of juice that makes me want to go upstairs and stir my wife and say, "Hey, remember me?  I'm going to wake you in the middle of the night and show you the man you fell in love with."  I feel like taking a walk in the early morning hours and counting stars.

You know what's got me there?  A schedule.  A deadline.  When I have those...I'm good.  When I'm left with open-ended timeframes, my creativity falters.  My ideas don't even make it to notebooks.  I piss away ideas without even bothering to quality check them.

Today?  Today I had a scheduled meeting with people who hold me accountable.  Today?  Today I expanded a new scene, cut another, restarted it, found a new opening, and began a portion of research that will lead me to new areas of understanding about my subject.

Tomorrow?  Tomorrow I'm tired because my life will come crashing in on me.  Tomorrrow?  Tomorrow my daughter will wake me up and we will spend the day together, having breakfast just the two of us, meeting friends, swimming, having a good time.  Then, it is off to work.  Tomorrow is the restaurant on a Friday. Tomorrow?  Tomorrow is everyone else.  Tomorrow is deferred at 1 am.

I now tomorrow will come.  I know I will drag ass.  I know I should go to bed, but I can't.  I'm kicking with the juice that takes me back to my younger self.  Today, having written, I feel virile, strong, alive, and engaged.  Today I can remember why I do this, and tomorrow...?  Tomorrow I will deal with then.

I may be sleepy, but I'm alive, and I found the space in which to exercise my creative mind.

To all my collaborators...THANK YOU!!!

Personal Note: Picking up the phone

Image Source

The universe has been calling me.  It happens to me more than I like to admit, but lately it has been a full court press.  I don't know if others experience this phenomenon the same way I do, but my life has a way of reminding me what I'm supposed to be doing when I lose my way.  These calls often come in the form of chance encounters, unforeseeable opportunities, and unexpected people.

In the last couple of months, I've seen a resurgence of old friends I met during my MFA program.  They've been reaching out to me to get a coffee date, a phone call, or a writer's group going.  I've also had old friends from unknown quarters in my life offering me the opportunity to engage in creative projects.  The universe is trying to tell me something, and I'm trying to make myself available to listen and participate.

Image Source

In the last two months, I've been asked to participate in an oral storytelling project, a writer's group, and, now, a side project that includes writing for the screen.  I'm over the moon about it.  The trick now is to find the time to engage with all of those opportunities.  All of them are worth while.  All of them are being orchestrated by good people.  I have an immediate and powerful creative connection with each and every one of those endeavors, and all of them ask that I return to the keyboard, that I return to the state of empathy that writing requires.  All of them require that I open my heart to the world and begin listening again.

For a long time, I've been very career-minded.  I've been stressed about titles, money, and pride.  All of those things were about me, which is never where I succeed.  When I am narrowly focused on self, I am not at my best.  When I obsess about my position, my notoriety, how I appear to other people, I usually wind up in a box that I have to struggle to escape.  That's been the case in the last couple of years, and I've seen my creative expression dry up as a result.  It's time for a change.

It's time to listen to what the universe is telling me about my own purpose and to stop trying so hard to direct my life to where I "think" it should go.  All of this means taking a risk, putting myself out there, being uncomfortable in certain situations, but that is always where I find personal growth.

There is that famous expression, "Jesus take the wheel."  Well, I'm not overtly Christian, but I can identify with the sentiment.  It is time to allow the universe to take the wheel and guide me a little bit.  Sometimes the best form of direction is submission, submission to your life's calling, to what you are meant to be as opposed to what you want to be.  I'm going to try real hard to allow myself the freedom to do so.

Image Source

For any of you who are experiencing the same thing, I hope you find the courage to do the same, and I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.  Knowing that others are experiencing the same thing brings me strength, as I hope this post has done for you.

Man Notes: Opt Out

Image Courtesy of Massapequa Observer

The other night I spent two hours "opting out" of email notifications, social network notifications, and unsubscribing from email lists.  It took me two hours and I still have more work to do.

Part of what got me into this trap in the first place was either not thinking about these kinds of things when I signed up for a new social media platform, or it was when I signed up for every news outlet, literary magazine, or news aggregate newsletter.  I stopped checking my emails, and I was missing personal communications. I had "opted out" of a legitimate way of communicating with people near me.

The reason?

I had too much information pouring over me at all points.  I had 2 email accounts to manage, at least 5 social media platforms to manage (personally and for work), and text messages on top of everything else.  This is just what comes to my phone.  This doesn't even include what would happen when I logged in to a computer.

It was getting to be too much.  Too much for anyone to manage.

So, I cut back.  I went through my emails after weeks of neglect and I unsubscribed from every advertiser, news outlet, and literary magazine.

I logged on to all of my social media platforms and I unsubscribed from email notifications.

I tried to pull the plug on unnecessary and redundant notifications.

I couldn't do it anymore.  I was starting to feel like there was this mountain of electronic notification building above me that I would never surface from, and so I needed to minimize. I needed to back away for a moment in order to get my head on straight.

I have many jobs.  I wear many hats, and I love participating in all of these aspects of my life, but I need to make sure that I am taking care of myself first so that I still have the energy to get up and face the day, to reply to my friends when they write, to respond to birthday invites when they come in, and to just be a better participant in the parts of my life that matter and not spend so much time deleting email notifications that a friend of a friend liked something that another friend once posted from a website I don't follow.

Image Courtesy of Online Trust Alliance

It is always important that we guard ourselves from unwanted intrusions into our personal life.  It is something I'll think about before I hit "accept" on the next web subscription.  I think it is important.

Father Notes: Patience

It's been a little under two years since my daughter asked to try to ride a bike.  Lately, she has witnessed more and more of her friends getting proficient at riding, and I think it finally piqued her curiosity enough to give it another go.

My wife told me, "You better put those training wheels back on for a minute.  It's been a long time."  So, I listened as my wife is often smarter than I am about these things.  I tend to be more of a "full speed ahead" type when it comes to teaching my daughter things.  So, I sat on the floor of the garage and I reattached the training wheels to my daughter's now undersized bike.  We took it for a spin down the road and back, but she kept saying she was scared, that the rattle of the training wheels was unnerving her.

So I went back to the garage and set about undoing the training wheels from the tiny bike.  I was worried that this would be another excuse, another false start toward getting her to do something I REALLY want her to be able to do.  I could feel myself already starting to push, to get short and sharp in my tone.  I wanted her to do this.

With the training wheels off the bike, I set off down the driveway where my daughter sat on the curb looking nervous.  I stood there with the two-wheeler and looked down at her.  "What's going on?"  I asked.

"I'm scared."

"I know you are, honey." I said. "I don't expect you to not be scared.  It's what we do with our fear that is important.  Someone once said, and I can't remember who, 'Courage isn't the absence of fear.  It is moving ahead anyway, even though you are afraid.'" (Sorry, Nelson Mandela, for the horrible misquote).

"Okay," came her soft reply.  "But you won't let go, right?"

"Right," I said.  I worried a little about this because most parents realize that there comes a point where this is going to be a lie.  If she starts doing it on her own, I will let go.  I will let her take off on her own, even if that means she crashes a couple of feet from my open hand.

Shea did great though.  She got back on the bike, and within 50 or so feet, I wasn't holding the bike anymore.  My hand was resting against her at the back of the seat, but my fingers were not clenched there.  I was providing no guidance, no direction with it.  I simply rested my hand at her back and watched her go.

For anyone who has gone through this moment as a parent, you'll understand the joy of it, the upswelling of pride as you see your child physically mastering a new skill.  Shea rode "unassisted" for a couple of seconds each time before I clenched back down and kept her from falling off sideways, but I could see her gaining more encouragement.

Finally, she got on the bike, pushed off, started pedaling, and I let go.  I let go, let go.  I allowed my hand to fall to my side.  Shea rode for about 10-15 seconds before putting her feet down and bringing herself to an awkward stop.

She turned to look at me about 10 feet behind her with my hands in the air and a smile on my face.  Then, we back slid.  I praised her for doing it all by herself, but when we set off to try again, she did worse and worse.  She kept stopping short, or she stopped immediately after my hand pulled away.  It was fear making its move again.  She knew in her mind that she could do it, but the fear was holding her back from really taking off.

When we got back to the house, she was ready to quit.  She didn't want to ride on our street any more.  Then, and this is the moment that really makes me proud, she asked if we could go to the park.  "There aren't as many hills there," she said.

"Done," I said.  "Let's get mommy."

So we gathered Tracy and made our way to the park where there is a large, newly paved parking lot.  It is wide, mostly flat, and open.  She had originally wanted to ride the bike paths around the park, but when I told her she could try riding in the parking lot, she looked excited.  There was nothing really in her way, nothing to crash into, no real traffic coming along, and we started again.

As soon as we got her on the bike and pushing off, she took to it.  She didn't go far, she didn't go long, but she did it all on her own.  She even fell once, scraping her hand and foot a little bit, but she got back on and did it again.

As I sit here now reflecting on what happened today, I can't help but realize how patient I am going to have to be in the coming years.  I am going to have to let her find her own way, her own time, for when she is ready for things.  I will always want things for my daughter's life.  I will always hope she acquires this skill or that talent, but I am going to have to let go of driving her.  I'm going to have to let go of my own time frame for things because the last time I tried to teach her to ride a bike two years ago, we both went home disappointed, and she could probably read that on me.

The other thing that I remembered today is that anything worth having is worth trying for, worth practicing, worth coming back to, even after a long absence, and so I knew I would write today.  If I am going to teach my daughter about acting in the face of fear, then I need to lead by example.

Personal Note: Six Months

My last post on this blog was on December 7th, 2015.  Six months ago.  Much like a New Year's resolution to hit the gym, recommiting to the a creative endeavor can be fraught with much of the same personal pitfalls.  How many of us have told ourselves we are going to get in shape this year, to hit the gym three times a week, and then failed to show after week 3?  I know I have.  The blog is much the same way.  Once I miss a writing goal, I appear to abandon my craft entirely.  Here's the thing.

I don't care.  I have to get back on this pony eventually.  I can't allow myself to put so much emphasis on my failings.  They are things of the past, and I cannot change the past.  I am here now, and I am typing words on to the screen.  That is all that matters.  I fell down, but now I must get back up.

The thing that brought me back to the screen?  A funeral.  The funeral hasn't happened yet.  It is on Wednesday, but, once again, people close to me have chosen to enlist me to help them say goodbye to a loved one.  The person who died?  Margaret Ellen Gitts, my friend's grandmother.

I had met her before, sure, but I didn't know the woman well, but I got the chance to talk to her family and I received emails detailing aspects of her life.  My job is to then distill all of this rich material into a shorter form, to put it in some kind of order, to make sense of a 90 year old woman's life in the space of about 20 minutes.  I loved every minute of it.

The reason I did?  Margaret was FASCINATING.  She was a wonderful Depression-era woman who sewed, cooked, ran a dairy farm, a dahlia farm, who raised 5 kids and a gaggle of grandkids.  She made her family's clothes for generations, learned to ski in her 60s, she traveled the world in her later years.  She devoured life with a passion and grace I am forced to marvel at.  She is wonderful.

So, how did that bring me back here to this page?  It brought me back to writing because I realized that more than anything I like making sense of the world by processing it in words.  I love the complexity of life, and I love the challenge of trying to distill that complexity into something that others understand.  I love...connection, and my words are my best tool for making that connection.

My perch on the patio.  Not bad.

Writing about the family's love for Margaret reminded me that I love the world too, and my way of loving is to tell my reader's how much this world is worth our affection.  It's been a long time since I've been here, sitting under the starlit sky at two in the morning with a glass of whiskey and the sound of the wind and the keyboard in my ears.  I'll try not to stay away so long next time, but if I do disappear again, I know I will be forced to forgive myself until I find my way back.

Peeling the Onion: A New Encounter

To borrow a line from the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, "Haaaaaaaaaaave you met Ted?"

Ted Ramsey is a newer edition to the Wild Hare family, and I've had the pleasure of getting to know him over the past couple of months.  He's a vivacious, pleasant young man who is quick to smile and quick to engage with other people, but I didn't really get to know this young man until I sat down with him over a beer after work the other night.

It is so easy to assume that you know people from the sparse interactions you may have with them throughout a day.  You work side by side with them, so you think you have an idea of who they are and what they are about.  I have to tell you that Ted was one of those surprises that caught me completely unaware.

Let's start with what I thought about Ted in the beginning.  He seemed nice, charming, and good for a laugh.  I thought him young, fresh, just out of college, and, while smart, maybe not that worldly in his experience in life.  I was wrong.

When Ted and I sat down to have a beer together, it became quickly obvious that this was a young man with potential! He had a diverse range of interests and a lot of experience for one his age.  For example, Ted worked as a singer on a cruise ship for a year.  He worked for years in Washington D.C. on public policy issues, aaaaaaaaaaaand there is this:

Ted was a part of the University of Oregon a capella group "On The Rocks" that was featured on NBC's Sing Off a couple of years back.

It's amazing what happens when you put your assumptions aside and actually engage others in conversation.  I had an overly simplistic view of this young man in my head, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to be corrected.  Stereotyping and snap judgments are easy to do, especially as we get older and feel like we "know" more, but I was glad to be wrong in this case as I got to better know a nice young man who I might have overlooked if I kept my blinders on.

Plus, and you know this is true, I just wanted to post that Youtube video and see if I couldn't get people to embarrass Ted at work.

Homework: Act Like a Lady...Think Like a Boss

When I picked Shea up from school today, we set off for home and had our daily small talk.  We covered our usual topics of school, play, her friends, etc.  We then set the agenda for the day.  We were going to go to the store and then return home for homework.  We agreed that both of us were going to do our homework.  She had a composition to write, and, guess what?  So did I.

I had to do my own daily homework of writing, and we agreed to do it together.  I hadn't planned on sitting down to write, but an opportunity presented itself, and I decided to take it.  Thus, you find me here in the blogosphere brainstorming on what to write.  This can oftentimes be the hardest part for a writer, discovering your subject, but today was easy as I latched on to a small detail from my drive to pick up Shea.

On the way to the school, I was behind a car with the bumper sticker, "Act Like a Lady...Think Like a Boss."  My first reaction was, "Right on, sister."  Then I stuttered a moment and had to rethink my original idea.  I wasn't sure if I liked the "Act like a lady" part.  I decided this would be a great chance for Shea and I to have a talk about it, to pick her brain and see what she thought about what it meant to "act like a lady."

After our initial small talk, I told her about the bumper sticker I saw and asked her what she thought.  Her first answer, "Good."  I had to press her a little bit to see where she truly stood.  I followed up with, "What is a boss?"

"Someone who tells other people what to do.  Like at work or a teacher."

"Is that different from being a lady?" I asked.

She had to think hard on this one.  "Yes," she said.  "Ladies are nice."

"Is it mean to tell someone what to do if you are in charge?" I asked.

"No," Shea said after a moment.

"So a lady can be in charge and tell people what to do, right?"

"Yeah," Shea said her voice rising in excitement.  She was on board with this whole train of thought.

"So...if ladies are supposed to be nice, then what other types of things are ladies supposed to be?" I continued.  I even air quoted the "supposed" to emphasize the point.

Shea struggled with this one, so I changed my line of questioning.  "Is there anything a lady is not?"

In my college lectures, I always tell my students that it is easier to say what they are not than to actually say what they are, so I took this tact with Shea.

Shea came back with, "Boys can lift heavy stuff."

"OK," I said, "But how often do you practice lifting heavy things?"

"Not a lot," she said.

"So what would happen if you practiced lifting heavy things?  Would you get better at it? Would you eventually be able to lift heavier and heavier things?"

"Yes," she said.

"OK," I said, "so are there girls who can lift heavy things?  Girls who work hard at being strong?"

"Yes," she said.

"So would you say that girls are strong?"

"Yes," Shea said, again her voice rose at the idea.

"So it's not just boys, is it?"

"Nope," she said.  She even had a hint of a giggle in her voice.

"So, let's run through some words and you tell me if it describes girls."

"Okay," Shea said through her smile.  She's used to me by now, and she knows my little word games with her.

"Strong."

"Yep," she said.  I lobbed the ball to her on that one.

"Smart."

"Yep," she said.

"Funny."

"Yep," she said.

"Pretty."

"Yep," she said.

"Powerful."

She took a moment on this one.  She asked me what the word meant.  I told her that being powerful meant that you could do things on your own, that you commanded respect from others, and that you were able to do things on your own without help.

"Yep," she said.

I reached across the car and gave her a high five.  "Sounds right to me," I said.  This girl makes me proud.  She has a natural sense of her own power, but I'm always careful to have conversations with her that reminds her of it.  In all my time as a college instructor, I saw so many young women who had lost a sense of their own power and were slowly reclaiming it through the process of a self-guided education, but it makes me wonder at how spectacular they would be if they simply didn't have to go through that culturally indoctrinated period of self-doubt.  As a parent, I know some of it will happen, but I hope to be an advocate of my daughter's own self-worth throughout her lifetime,  to maybe soften some of the trappings of adolescence.

It was a wonderful conversation, and one that I hope she remembers and takes to heart.  If she doesn't remember, then maybe she will one day read this and either remember or be reminded of how her daddy sees her.  When we got home from our errands, my daughter and I sat at the kitchen table together.  She did her school work and I got the chance to reflect on my day with her.  These moments are small moments, the moments that make up a life, and a good life at that.  I hope to spend many more hours working with her like this, showing her that writing, thinking, and questioning are all a part of how we navigate the complexity of life.

All in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

This Is How I Love You

It has been a long time since I've posted on my blog.  I've been undergoing a phase of personal transformation, and I didn't feel steady enough to post here, but recently my mind has turned more and more to the blog.  Today, my mind locked on an idea that I finally felt compelled to bring to the page.  Here goes...

I've been making a lot of changes in my life recently.  Examining the way I identify myself, making career moves, and trying to become more present in my life in real ways.  As I was working around the house this afternoon, my mind drifted back to a story I wrote during grad school at Pacific University.  It was titled "The Little Things" and it was one of the most personal stories I wrote during that phase of my life.  It was also the story that taught me the most about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to live my life.  As I was elbow deep in dirty toilets today, I thought back to the things I learned in writing that story.  And this is what I thought about as I scrubbed away.

Recently, I created this chalkboard for myself.

Self-imposed chalkboard chores

I don't know why the idea came to me in this particular form, but I know that the idea came from the feeling that I was somehow disconnected from my own home, from my family.  I've recently taken a position that requires me to work nights, a situation that removes me from the evening escapades of my family, and I was feeling like I wasn't present when my family was in the home.  I couldn't miss work, so I had to find another way to participate in my family's life.  This was one small answer to that nagging feeling.

In a marriage, in a family, there are all kinds of compromises that must be made, all kinds of sacrifices that must be made in order to keep the family unit afloat, but that doesn't mean that I had to be absent, or inactive, in my family's life.  The chalkboard chore board gave me an opportunity to feel like I had contributed to my family in a real way.  It allowed me to be of assistance to my loved ones, even if I couldn't do so by being physically present in the room.

My chores are an expression of my love.  My contribution to the household is a way of leaving a love letter every day that shows my family that I love them and want to help them navigate their busy modern lives.  My love may not be present in a hug or a kiss at bedtime, but my love is the scaffolding that holds up the structures that enable them to be successful in their lives.  Each of these things are small, minuscule efforts, things that can be done in short periods of time, but they still are what they are...they are expressions of my love for my family.  They are a statement that says I am there for them in all the ways that I can, even if some of those ways are "invisible."

I don't like the fact that I barely get to see them these days, but I will make every effort to make sure that I am a presence in their life in all the "little" ways that I can.  It sometimes takes a little swallowing of pride, a little mental coercion to get myself to play "Suzy Homemaker," but when I am done at the end of the day, when I've taken a chore off my spouse's plate, or prepared the home to receive my daughter, I feel like a man.

Promisary Note: Tiny Hands

In 2014, I took on the task of fulfilling 52 promises over the course of a year.  It was meant to be a promise a week.  In the end, I failed to keep the timeline and I eventually lost track of the task.  That isn't to say that I failed utterly though, for there were some interesting things that arose as a result, and I think I can trace many of them back to the 52 promises.

First, I wanted to take a year's end accounting of the promises.  In the end, I failed to complete 11 promises, that's almost three months worth.  Although, another way of looking at it is to say that I completed over 9 months of promises.  While I stopped blogging about my promises, I still engaged in the exercise.  What I found when I looked back through the promises was that I didn't complete a lot of the promises that had to do with a couple of subjects: exercise, writing, and those oriented toward personal (not social) time.  It looks like I was dedicated to making time for others, but not for myself, which brings up some things that I look forward to working on in the next year.

The question may arise as to how this all wound up coming up now, conveniently at the end of the year.  The answer is simple.  I was cleaning up my office in preparation for a new term, which includes a new adjunct teaching position, when my daughter found my bowl of promises.  She remembered the activity and asked if she could draw a promise.  I told her, "I'm not really doing that anymore, honey."  She then gave me this face...

I couldn't say no.

So, she drew a slender piece of paper from the bowl.  It read, "Surprise your daughter with something fun."  Shea read it in her slow 2nd grade thoughtful way, looked up at me, and said, "You already did this, Dad."  I thought about it and agreed.  I had made an effort to surprise Shea on occasion with a thoughtful activity or gift.  She recognized that fact immediately.

"Can I draw another one?"

I told her she could, and she dipped her hand back into the bowl to retrieve another slip of paper.  She drew out, "Do some home improvement."  I thought back and remembered my fight with a pipe leak under the house.  It was a long term home improvement project I finished on my own.  Done, I thought.  Shea drew again.  The next two promises had also been fulfilled.  I was on a roll.  Something I thought I had failed at turned out to be something I had naturally incorporated into my personal life.  By paying attention to these promises across the first seven months and blogging about it, I had naturally worked this sort of attentiveness into my way of living.

The next thing that unfolded was that I began to make bigger and bigger changes in my life.  I incorporated a lot of new changes into how I taught my writing class.  I went back out into the job market in search of a new adjunct position.  I quit drinking.  I began working on improving myself in new and revolutionary ways.  As I finish out 2014, I can see a difference in myself.  There is a new attentiveness to the "now" of my life.  I try and allow myself a greater presence in the moment, without dread of the past or fear of the future.  I'm looking forward to implementing these changes in 2015.

As I formulate those goals in greater detail, I will try in earnest to return to the page.  I'm hoping you, my audience, will still be there in all the lovely ways you were in 2014.

All of this grew out of the movements of one tiny set of hands.  As I am discovering more and more in my life, those tiny hands are my greatest motivation to become a better and better man for the future.  Both hers and mine.

Man Notes: Former NFL Lineman Joe Ehrmann

I'm fascinated by the idea of modern masculinity.  The idea appears again and again in this blog, but it also appears repeatedly in my fiction.  Even when I'm working through an idea that is, at least on the surface, not about this theme, it finds a way to exist in between the lines of my creative work.

Image Source

On my way home yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening to an interview with Joe Ehrmann, former defensive lineman for the Colts.  He had some fascinating views about masculinity, sports, and spirituality.  The interview began with a quick mention of the three words most men have encountered throughout their lives, "Be a man."  These words, while often used as a way of trying to salve, or suppress, an emotional moment, often find a way to lock men into a box.

The interview quickly expanded to include three lies of masculinity: "athletic ability, sexual conquest, and economic success."  He goes on to talk about how culture sends messages to men about these three categories of life and prioritizes them in destructive ways, especially in the modern era of social media and internet and access.  He speaks about the dearth of "moral clarity and moral courage" and links this back to the Steubenville rape case.  While I assume he understands and deplores the heinous nature of the crime, he expands his analysis of the situation to include the people not directly connected to the crime that occurred that night, but to those complicit in either covering up or advancing the scope of the crime through the sharing of pictures and tweets in the case.  He points to these actions and, rightfully, attaches them to a lack of "moral clarity and moral courage" in the larger community.

When asked directly about what masculinity is, he responds by saying, "It can only be defined by two things.  One, it is your capacity to love and to be loved.  Masculinity ought to be defined in terms of relationships.  Second thing it ought to be defined by commitment to a cause.  That all of us have a responsibility to give back, to make the world more fair, more just, more hospitable for every human being."

This interview brought me an overabundance of comfort for many reasons.  The first is that I wholeheartedly believe in Ehrmann's message.  The second is that Ehrmann speaks with real credibility for men who have a predisposition to the "lies" he mentioned earlier, specifically to the lies of athletic ability and economic success.  I'm always seeking role models in the world, men who stand as positive forces within the world and actively demonstrate the full spectrum of what it means to be a man.

At times, media feels like a cyclops, a singularly-visioned creature that can't see in dimension, in depth.  I applaud NPR, All Things Considered, and Joe Ehrmann for putting this discussion out into the world.  At the end of a long work day and after allowing the interview to wash over me, I felt affirmed and contemplative in all the best sense of the word.  Media reflected something back to me that felt authentic and sincere, which is too infrequently the case.

The discussion is happening out there.  We just need to find it.  I realize now that All Things Considered is doing an entire series on Men in America, and I can't wait to catch up on streaming segments that will, hopefully, allow me to hear a spectrum of voices on the subject of modern masculinity.  A good song possesses more than one note, and a discussion of a complex topic like this requires a range of notes, a choir of voices, in order to bring the richness and vibrancy it demands out into the world.

Again, thanks to all the contributors and producers for making this happen.  If Joe Ehrmann intrigues you, you might think about picking up his book.

Personal Note: Fear and Silence

I've been offline for a couple of weeks now.  This hasn't necessarily been intentional, but it has been necessary.  I recently had a health scare that sent me spiraling into a pit of anxiety, covering all the necessary stops through denial/isolation, bargaining, etc.

It was a lump.

I found a lump on/near one of my testicles.

It scared the hell out of me.  This was weeks ago.  I didn't tell a single person.  Not one.  At first I denied it was there.  Then, I bargained with myself and said, "I'll give it a week or two and if it doesn't go away, then I'll go to the doctor."  Eventually, I realized that it wasn't going away, and I had to do something.  I resigned myself to calling the urologist who did my vasectomy.  I figured skip the general practitioner and head straight to the specialist.  When I called to set my appointment, I set it for the earliest possible date.

I couldn't handle waiting another day or week.  Once I had accepted that this situation was real, that is was worth examining, there was nothing that could have held me back from that appointment.

The appointment revealed that I have a spermatocele, a relatively harmless condition brought about by a blocked tube in my testes.  It is nothing to be alarmed about, nothing that needs any further medical analysis, and I was free and on my way.

This was last week, a week ago to be exact, and for some reason I am still working my way through the news.  While I am in perfectly good health, I still get the jitters, an uneasy anxiousness that sits within the pit of my stomach and reminds me, maybe for the first time, that I'm mortal, really mortal.

The most extreme medical treatment I've ever had was to get my tonsils out, maybe when I had my wisdom teeth removed, but I've never had anything serious, nothing that made me really concerned for my overall well-being.  Those weeks when I didn't tell anyone were some of the most anxious of my life.

The only person who really picked up on it, the only one who really looked me in the eye and said, "What's going on with you?" was a twenty-year-old hostess at my work who often reveals herself to be an astute observer of people's personalities.  Because she persistently asked me what was happening, because she kept insisting something was "going on," I realized that the lump was starting to effect the way I carried myself throughout my day, and I decided to take action.

The first person I told was my wife, and the moment I had the news out of my mouth, I was on the internet and looking up my doctor.  I had an appointment for three days later.

There was no reason for me to delay the appointment, besides a fear of the unknown, a fear of recognizing that there was something potentially serious happening with my health, and I was a fool to let it go on so long.  As I sit her typing these few choppy paragraphs, trying to work my way through the residual relief and fear, I realize, as I often do, that writing would have helped me through all of this.  Writing is processing.  Writing is putting things in order, puzzling out knotted threads, finding a way to navigate difficult situations, and I shouldn't allow things like this to keep me from the computer for so long.  I am really backed up on promise posts (yes, I'm still doing those, even though I've missed two during this time), and I may just march forward instead of trying to catch up on the back log.

I'm feeling more and more like myself with each day.  Today will help.  I'm watching a friends daughter for a couple of hours, allowing Shea and her a couple of hours of play.  In the background as I write this, the girls are creating an original song with an electric keyboard, a pen, and a small pad.  Their giggles and their earnest efforts to commit words to the page serve as an inspiration for this small effort, my effort to somehow capture the complexity of what I've experienced in a blog post.  I have a feeling I'm not done with this subject.  I'm done with it for the blog, but I have a feeling it will find its way into my writing in other forms.  Writing is processing after all.

Thanks for listening.

Teacher Notes: Preparing for Workshop

The day has arrived!  The day where all the days of teaching Composition finally pay off.  I am teaching a fiction workshop this summer at PCC, and I couldn't be happier about it.  I've had the opportunity to teach workshops before at PCC, but this summer feels like serendipity, a coincidence of the fates that conspired to allow me to dive into craft at a moment when I am feeling a creative resurgence.

For me, workshop is a divine space, a space of unadulterated creativity, where writers are allowed to stretch their craft, to dabble, to experiment, to try things they might not have the chance to try when writing in isolation.  In order to model this for my students, I write with them.  I try to show them that the exercises I've produced for them are not just for the "new" writer, but, like any exercise physical or mental, an opportunity to try and try again, to hone and battle, to dive headlong against a task in order to become stronger, more lithe and flexible, to remake ourselves in ways that might be surprising after multiple repetitions.

More than anything, workshop is a chance to write and write a lot.  My workshop classes are full of prompts, of freewrites, of imitations and modeling.  It is a time to read from great works, and then to try our hand at creating our own.  Today is the first day, and I feel like it is the opening of a grand adventure.

Coincidentally, today is also the day I will return to Pacific University's Low-Residency MFA for a faculty reading.  This is the space where I was taught the art of the workshop, the knack of the craft talk, and the unending passion for honing the written word.  The line up for tonight?

Pete Fromm:

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Hopefully reading from his forthcoming novel If Not for This:

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Craig Lesley:

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I'm hoping for new material, but he could read from his nonfiction Burning Fence...

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Or some of his fiction, like Storm Riders...

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The final author is a new one to me: Eduardo Corral

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While unknown to me, a quick search brings the edge of excitement even closer as his poetry promises to ignite me with inspiration.  If he dazzles, then I'll be picking up his collection Slow Lightning.

In preparation for this day full of excitement?  Double barreled coffee.