Awful/Good

I went running a couple of times this weekend.  It's been a long time.  I've been off the cigarettes for a while and so I want to get my wind back.  So, I ran.  Well, I ran/walked.  I had to do this because I wasn't in shape.  I was soft, spoiled, fat and lazy.  So, the run was awful/good.  This post is all about the forward slash.  It's about the space between desire and reality, between expectation and capability, between passion and self-sabotage.

I ran two days back to back in an the hopes of getting two runs in before the soreness settled into my legs and did me in for a couple of days.  It went okay.  I was able to get 4 miles in.  The 4 miles also led me back to the computer.

I'm writing these days.  I'm not blogging.  I'm not journaling.  I'm not freewriting.  I'm writing.  I'm actively working on the novel these days.  It's awful/good.  I tell my students all the time that they are allowed "shitty first drafts" but it feels awful sometimes. 

I'm out of practice with writing.  I'm stale, stagnant and my drafts are thinly imagined.  BUT, and the but is the important thing, I feel so good.  I know the work is awful.  I know I probably won't keep much of it, but my butt is in the seat and I'm working.  I'm working on something I'm passionate about.  I'm not grading.  I'm not reworking syllabi, finishing training for online classes, etc.  I'm doing what I want to do, what I've been forced to set aside for a while now. 

I feel awful in ways, but I feel oh so good in others.  I can't wait until I can hopefully sit down to a "marathon" writing session and at least feel I've gotten my wind back. 

Perilous Pink

Today brought about one of those moments where three different things you at once and you see a strange kind of convergence between disassociated events.  Well, I'm going to try and explain mine.

First, I was mowing the lawn when the moment hit me.  I had my headphones on and I was listening to a shuffle of my library.  Well, Pink's "Raise Your Glass" came on.  I love this song and I found myself singing along as I pushed the mower up and down my lawn.  It's the perfect underdog party anthem.  I never fail to bounce when this song comes on.  This is part one.

Second, I went to my brother's wedding last weekend.  The groomsmen were made up of me, my oldest brother, and an old family friend.  Somehow, the groom, the family friend and I were standing outside when Pink came up again.  "Who was that girl you used to listen to back in the day," the guys asked. 

"Pink?"  I knew exactly who it was they were talking about.  They used to give me all kinds of crap for listening to her album Misunderstood. 

"Yeah, Pink.  We should almost pull your 'man' card for that one."

I nodded and walked to the car so we could go get pictures.

Third, I tend to write about men going through some kind of struggle that grows out of some challenge to their "manhood".  I feel this force is so aggressively pervasive in our culture that there are many men out there who don't feel like who they are is represented by "manhood and masculinity."  Without a ritual movement from childhood to adulthood, most men stumble through adolescence, and beyond, desperate for a role model or a figurehead who can mirror their own masculinity back to them.

Now, I know that the guys were just giving me shit, playing, having a good time, and I want them to know that my feelings aren't hurt or anything (they subscribe to the blog), but I find this phenomenon fascinating.  I wouldn't be me if I didn't have these strange associative moments that most people tell me is just me "thinking too hard."  It is more grist for the mill of my fiction.  Things to consider that bring me back to this blog and back to my other work.

I've finished mowing the lawn, but I'm going to hit "back" on the iPod and "Raise My Glass" to the woman who brought about today's rant.  Thank you, Miss Perilous Pink.

The Light

The days are growing longer.  I've been waiting for these long warm evenings for weeks now.  I'm toward the end of longest sustained working "sprint" I've ever done.  Four classes, training for and developing an online class, participating in my brother's wedding and all the events, writing the ceremony and a speech, plus grading stacks upon stacks of papers has left me drained.  The rainy winter months haven't done much to improve that situation.

I'm a hard worker.  I don't think even I can deny that one, but I'm exhausted.  I have all the energy in the world to go out and mow my grass, to weed the beds, to play, to see friends, to toss one back, to have "a life" as my students call it, but I'm work exhausted. 

My brother's wedding reminded me of this fact.  While writing the ceremony for him and my lovely new sister-in-law, I wrote about how a marriage can sink if one believes that physical presence is the same as emotional presence.  Well, I've been here every night.  I've been a body in my home, but I've been so wrought with distractions that I wonder if I've been much more than a physical body. 

It is time to rebuild the intimacy.  It's time to be a person, available, present and listening in my own household.  I have two stacks of papers  between me and a little more free time.  I have a working day tomorrow that doesn't involve a commute.  If I hammer down, I can get through the stacks and free myself up for some real quality time with my wife and daughter. 

God bless the light.  I want to go outside and enjoy it.  I simply want to make sure my wife's hand is in mine as I cross that threshold into play.

Hey, you, out there in the cold...

"Hello, Blank Page."

Oh, hello.

"Is something wrong?"

No.  I'm fine.

"Oh yeah?  You don't sound fine."

No, it's nothing.

"I've heard nothing before and that's not it.  You have to remember...I'm married.  I can tell a loaded nothing."

Well, fine.  It's not nothing.

"What is it then?"


Where the hell have you been?!

"Oh, yeah, that.  Well, I've been really busy."

Too busy for me is what you mean.

"I guess you could say that."

I still see you working hard for your students, spending time with your wife, your kid.  But what about me?  What about Old Blank Page?  You're all over me when you're in the mood, but what about my needs, huh?

"I know.  I've been insensitive."

You've been an ass is what you've been.  You call yourself a writer?  A writer pays a little attention to the blank page every now and again.  A REAL writer would know how to satisfy Blank Page.

"Let's not get hostile now."

Oh, you haven't even begun to see hostile, Writer's Block.

"I don't have writer's block.  I've just been busy.  What about my needs, huh?  Am I always supposed to live in support of the story?  Did you know that my brother got married?"

No.  No, I didn't.

"I wrote his ceremony.  Does that count?  Or does it always have to be fiction?"

I don't care what it is as long as you fill me up.

"Well, then, don't act so needy all the time."

Can you blame me?  I'm a blank page.  I'm yearning for a little expression here.

"What if I transcribed this conversation?  Would that count?"

Words are words, writer man.  I don't care what they are as along as you visit me every now and again.  I get lonely, ya know?

"I know.  I miss you too.  We good?"


We're good.

Big Questions

Last night, after brushing her teeth and using the toilet, Shea was ready for bed.  She called to me as she moved down the hallway, signaling it was time to put on her pajamas and tuck her in.  Tracy was picking up a few stray things in Shea's room as I entered and we set about the end-of-day routine.  Diaper, check.  Pajamas, check.  Blankets, check.  I leaned in to kiss her good night, but she wanted mommy to go first.  I backed away from the edge of the bed and patiently waited my turn to say, "Good night."

As Tracy leaned over Shea's tiny frame in the bed, Shea mumbled something under her breath.  Neither Tracy or I quite understood so we asked her to say it again.  She looked at us and said, "When are we going to die?"

You're never quite prepared for these moments, when the scope of your child's understanding widens and takes in things that even we are unsettled about.  There was an odd pause in the room as Tracy and I tried to get our wits about us. 

"Not for a long time, honey," I said.

"Not for a really long time," Tracy backed me up.

"Do you know what that means?" I asked.

Shea got real quiet, pulling the blankets up to her chin and her face furrowed as if she was scared, or unsure.  After a moment she said, "Nuh uh."

Okay, I thought.  Now what?

"Well, honey, it means that you don't have a body anymore," I said.  Tracy added something to the conversation, but I can't remember now what it was. 

"Will we all be together in heaven?" she asked.

"Of course we will," I said, "You'll be able to see everyone you love."

"Will I see Jesus?"

"Yes, dear.  And Nona and Grandpa, Noni, and Papa."

"My cousins?"

"Yes."

Tracy piped in, "But that's not going to happen for a long, long time.  Okay?"

"Okay," Shea said and snuggled deep under the covers of her bed.

"We love you," I said.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you to the moon, back, and then some," Tracy said.  The same thing she says every night.

"I love you to Pluto, back, and then some," she said.  Then, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

As I sat downstairs later that night, I was haunted by her questions.  I don't know the answers to these things and this is one of the first times that Shea's asked me questions that I find deeply unsettling.  In the future, when she asks me a whole new brand of hard question, I wonder what I'll do.  Will I lie?  Tell a half-truth?  Candy coat things?  Be brutally honest?  Rely on the things that I was told as a child?

There are times when our children amaze us, when their capacities exceed what we expect.  There are times when they work as mirrors, showing us our own ignorance and simplicity, where we are forced to realize our own ignorance on matters. 

Most days, I feel like I have built my life on solid ground, that I have a decent comprehension of my life and its purpose.  On days like yesterday, those structures I've built?  They appear to be built on sand.

Let It Begin.

Today marks the first event in the string of events that will lead up to my brother's wedding.  Tracy and I are co-hosting the event with my other brother and his wife.  It makes me both joyous and a little sad that may brother is getting married.  Not because of him and her, but of what it means.  It means that all three of us Lang boys have crossed that threshold. 

I've been asked to officiate the ceremony and I'm having a hard time coming up with stuff to write.  It isn't that I don't have material, it's that I have too much.  This is my brother and his lovely fiance, Amy, we're talking about.  There are too many things to say, too many wonderful connections/threads I could follow that would honor them in one way or another. 

I'm hoping that tonight will find me surrounded by friends and family and something will click, the beginning of a theme or trope that will help me unite their ceremony into a singular expression of love and adoration.  Both them for each other, but also all of us for the both of them. 

Let's get this party started!

The Benefits of Reading

A friend of mine came to town last weekend and it was decided that first night that we would spend the day in Powell's Bookstore on Burnside.  I had two boxes of books to sell and $50 worth of gift cards to use.  I was ecstatic.  I hadn't been to Powell's in a long time.

Well, this same friend of mine had recently written a series of stories that had to do with war.  She had read a bunch of material on the places, on the military, etc, in order to make her stories more believable.  I liked this idea.  I've slowly been working on a novel about a Marine, and I've always felt inadequately prepared for this task.  I don't know the first thing about the Marines, so what makes me think I could possibly be qualified to write about one?  The short answer is, "I don't know."  The longer answer is that my character, John, is a Marine.  I can't do anything about that.  It's who he is.  Okay, so I'm getting off track.  The point of the matter is that I needed to do more research.

I found myself in the "War" section of Powell's browsing through the "Gulf War" shelves.  These shelves cover all the wars fought in the area.  I was able to find a ton of material on our current war, but there was very little covering Desert Shield and Desert Storm (which is when John would have served).  I found three books that I think will prove useful.  The first is titled "How to Defeat Saddam Hussein: Scenarios and Strategies for the Gulf War" by Col. Trevor N. Dupuy, U.S. Army (Ret.).  It has a banner across the top of the book that reads "As Featured on CNN".  It moves through all kinds of strategies and options for the war.  I'll use it to get an idea of how they thought about the situation strategically. 

The other is called "Desert Warrior" by Richard Kay.  It's a reporter's first person account of time spent with the 4th Armoured Brigade.  It's a British book which might add a different angle on the whole affair, but it is in first person and should give me some necessary voices for working in such foreign terrain.

The final book is "Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford.  It was turned into a movie recently, but I haven't seen it yet.  I'm about a quarter of the way through it right now and I already have two scenes that have been loosely inspired by Swofford's work.  It too is a first person account of the war, the fallout afterward and the run up to his time in the military.  It's nice to have because it gives me the broader perspective of a single solider, instead of only focusing on his time in Saudi Arabia.  The language is tight and specific and will help me get a sense of the cadence, abbreviations, and jargon used at that time. 

I remember a craft talk given by David Long when I was a graduate student.  It was on reading and the influence it has on writing.  I remember David making reference to the old saying You are what you eat and then putting his own spin on it.  I believe he said, "Remember.  You are what you read, but you are also what you don't read."  It was a lesson in searching, reaching, getting outside the box of canonical, contemporary literature.  He was asking us to push a little outside ourselves to find books and inspiration where we might not expect it.  I never thought I would find myself in the "War" section of Powell's, but it was one of the most natural and beneficial journeys I've made in a bookstore in a really long time.