new favorite timesuck

Creative nonfiction essays, all 750 words or less.  Brilliant.

Brevity: The Craft of Concise Literary Nonfiction

my favorite postsecret this week

This made me cry. In the good way.

www.postsecret.com

the little blue house

(This is a piece I turned in with my midterm portfolio in my Intro to Creative Nonfiction course.  Those of you long-term WEW readers will find familiar material.)

Before my heart ever belonged to the man I married, it belonged to a tiny, cheery cottage called The Little Blue House. If I were talking with you, you’d hear an unmistakable depth of affection and tenderness in my voice when I say it: Little Blue House. I’m not sure it was justifiable to have this degree of emotional attachment to 525 square feet, but regardless — I was in love.

This was no palace: the ten-second tour of my home took literally ten seconds. It had what I liked to call quirks, such as orange-brown rusty water for the first two seconds I ran water in the tub, and a sloping floor in my tiny kitchen which caught my feet off guard more than once. My brother had to duck to enter the doorways when he came to visit; if I stood on my tip-toes all 5′6″ of me could touch the ceiling with ease. There was a 35-40 degree temperature range in my home at all times — somewhere around 50 degrees when the heat was off, somewhere around 90 when the baseboard heat was on. Mornings were so frigid, I found it difficult to brave the chill long enough to turn on my coffee pot. Extreme temperature variances did nothing to discourage spiders from sharing my home with me, much to my dismay.

My new home’s beauty far outweighed its many quirks, however, and such trivialities were soon forgotten. A collective seventy years of old-fashioned charm shone in polished hardwood floors, a huge porcelain tub special-made for bubble baths, a desk nook, prismed glass doorknobs, and old-fashioned light fixtures — the kind made to look like candles on the wall. My tiny lawn took about fifteen minutes to mow, but to mow it made me feel handy and self-sufficient nonetheless, and the rosebush I freed from weeds my first weekend in residence quickly grew heavy with hot-pink blooms in gratitude.

I loved living alone for the first time and having walls all to myself: for once, there were no screaming neighbors downstairs, no thumping car stereos out in the parking lot causing my too-thin walls to shudder at 2 a.m.  No longer did I hear a motorcycle directly outside my window coughing and sputtering in vain attempts to start at 5 a.m., when I typically would be trying to squeeze in the last few precious moments of sleep.  Here, the only sounds to reach my ears were the whoosh of cars driving by, the light hum of the refrigerator, and the steady tick-tick-tick of the second hand on the clock above my stove. These sounds lulled me to sleep more than anything.

The peace I felt simply in existing here extended far beyond an absence of noise. The moment I walked through the front door at the end of a long day, I was surrounded by my favorite things. (One could argue that I was surrounded by the things I love merely as a result of how tiny my place was, but I leave them to it.) My treasured, full-to-overflowing bookshelf was the first thing in view when I opened the door. My guitar rested in the corner. Pictures of those I love smiled down at me from the walls, in case it had been more than five minutes since I’d seen them (the home I grew up in was a short walk away). There were more candles around than my landlord would care to know about. Add to this my well-worn, comfortable couch and The Reading Chair, and to be honest, I really couldn’t have asked for more. (Not even cable).

A few months into my lease at the Little Blue House, I was startled to realize how much I was enjoying this little life I had fashioned for myself. This quiet home provided a backdrop for appreciating small joys: Enjoying the companionship of friends I loved. Being challenged daily in my new grown-up job. Finding peace in this place I came home to at the end of the day. These seemingly small things suddenly took on huge new realms of importance.

This was no Plan B, although my younger self certainly would have thought so. Many of my friends graduated college young and married soon after, and I simply assumed this would be the case for me as well. I thought I’d be done with college in four years and marry within a year or two afterward. That’s the way the plan is supposed to go, right? (I laugh now at the thought of me being capable of domesticity at twenty-two, and grieve for many of those friends who married too young, who found that growing up meant growing apart.)

Real life didn’t know about my plan.  It never moved along at the pace I expected it would, and there were detours and dead-ends thrown in that I could not have known to prepare for. If there is anything I learned in my early twenties, it is that we each of us move along at our own pace in life – five year plans be damned. As soon as I let go of the need to be on anyone’s schedule but my own, I began to feel pride in my independence, pride in the adventures I was able to experience as a single person.

This isn’t to say that I never faltered. Each of the four times I was a bridesmaid, I experienced a slight emotional hangover after watching my friend drive off into the sunset with her new husband. At this point, usually some well-meaning older gentleman would ask when I was going to find myself a man, when it would be my turn. At first, I sighed, wondering if perhaps life wouldn’t be complete for me until I had that ring on my left hand. Later, I learned to smile sweetly and say I would be getting married as soon as my beloved made it out on parole.

I would travel home from the party, change out of my fancy dress into clothes I could breathe in, and sit cross-legged on the beach behind my house, a glass of cheap white wine in my hand. I allowed myself time to catch a split-second silver glimpse of fish leaping from the gently lapping waters of Dyes Inlet. I sat in awed solitude as the last light disappeared behind the rugged grandeur of The Brothers’ peaks. As the sun went down, the gnawing envy in my gut would grow quiet, if not completely still.

It happens at different times for different people, but it was then I discovered that I am responsible for my own happiness, that I could not place that burden on anyone else but myself – especially not an as-of-yet fictional life partner. I learned to be a good companion to myself. I slowed down, allowed myself room for what makes a life (or at least my life) satisfyingly full: time to think. Time to breathe.

I reveled in it.

More than once I wondered if I might be setting myself up for lifelong spinsterhood in the Little Blue House. After all, I reasoned, I was happy on my own. I wasn’t sure I could trade the ability to sleep sprawled out diagonally, bed all to myself, for the company of a mere man. Not any current acquaintances, anyway.

Life turned my plan topsy-turvy once again, and I ended up losing that ability to sleep undisturbed far more quickly than I saw coming. Not long after as I’d grown comfortable with a life on my own, I stumbled upon someone I wanted to share it with, someone who thought all the same things were important.

In March, seven months after I first set myself up in the Little Blue House, the walls in my living room observed as I obsessively checked my computer for more words from this witty new presence in my life. They witnessed my cheeks growing rosy the first time we nervously spoke on the phone. Later, I would skip along the stepping stones from my front door more than once each day to see if the mailman had made his rounds, hoping for a new set of precious, handwritten words. In July, my bedroom walls would see a tall man kneeling by my bedside, Starbucks coffee and ring in hand. They’d see me, pajama-clad, sleepy-eyed, accepting.

I said goodbye to my tiny home, my first love, a few months later. I ached the day we packed up all my boxes and I locked the door behind me for the last time, but I was also thrilled for what lay ahead, for fashioning a new home together. College in a new town beckoned, and we moved soon after we were married.

It’s been over a year since Justin and I said our vows. My life is vastly different. My life is much the same.

It’s different: I’m still getting used to shaving stubble in our bathroom sink. I steal my husband’s holey socks (to which he has no reason for such an emotional bond), throw them away, and triumphantly replace them with new ones. So I can sleep, a fan blows all night to cover the sound of Justin’s deep breathing, which begins about eight seconds after his head hits the pillow. I’ve learned to cook. We watch football. (Every Sunday. I know most of the players).

It’s the same: We have two overflowing bookshelves now, and two reading chairs. Our apartment, while it doesn’t exactly inspire an affectionate name, is quiet and comfortable, and our balcony overlooks long, tranquil Sunset Pond. With the enthusiastic finger-pointing of small children, we watch bald eagles dive and soar in the wind, does and fawns literally graze in our backyard. Whenever I point out the sun’s brilliant display at day’s end, Justin stops, grabs my hand, and shares it with me, knowing how important this is. I wake up most mornings to steaming coffee on my nightstand in the morning dark.

I always thought that when people got married, they traded their old life in for a new one. I was wrong. The simple joys I learned to appreciate while I lived alone aren’t much different.

They’re just doubled these days.

Two-Part Invention

We made a trip out to Henderson’s Books yesterday and I traveled home with this fourth part of Madeleine L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journal series.  Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage was especially intriguing to me, as I am new to marriage, and so I found this account of their early courtship through forty years of marriage hard to put down when we arrived home to our apartment later in the afternoon.  They had a kind of easy comraderie that I like to think Justin and I have, and it was a joy to read about it enduring through the decades.

We have both, throughout the forty years of our marriage, continued to respond with excitement to the same beauty–for instance, to certain pieces of music.  I remember driving up to Crosswicks one early spring day when we heard, over the car radio, the beautiful flute solo from Gluck’s Orfeo, and our response of delight was such that it has always been special music for us.  On a cold and dank day we walked along a beach in southern Portugal, arm in arm, gazing in awe at the great eyes painted on the prows of the fishermen’s boats.  One night we stood by the railing of a freighter and were dazzled by the glory of the Southern Cross against the blackness of an unpolluted sky.  If this kind of simultaneous recognition of wonder diminishes, it is a sign of trouble.  Thank God it has been a constant for us.

Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of this universe–these are what build a marriage.  And it is never to be taken for granted.

Periodically during my life I have needed times of assessment, of stepping back from my life, our life, and contemplating.  When I was twenty-nine I wrote in my journal that I did not expect to die soon, but if I did, at least I would know that I had lived.

That was at twenty-nine, when I had been married for two years.  It is far more true today when thirty-eight more years of marriage have been added.  This is a summer for reviewing and reassessing.  My husband is ill and I do not know how it is all going to end.

Of course we never do. 

When I had trouble sleeping last night, I read through the second half of the book, traveling through her husband Hugh’s battle with cancer, through her grief and loss.  I tearfully turned the last page around 12:35 am, rolled over and hugged my sleeping husband as hard as I could.  I can’t even imagine.  

Although Hugh passed away in 1986, Madeleine continued writing and lecturing up until her death this past year in September.  She was a beautiful writer, and I’m grateful for her words.

the poem which inspired the name…

Just in case you were curious.  I think the poem is brilliant. 

From T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets

Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.  And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.  And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate–but there is no competition–
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious.  But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying.  The rest is not our business.

–T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker, V

So here I am…

I thought it might be good to have a blog whose sole focus was creative writing (and some of the brilliant material I’m currently digesting, thanks to Full-Time-Studentdom).  Also seemed like a good idea to separate stuff I’m currently working on from the journal-ly stuff I have going on over at WEW.  I didn’t like these two very different focuses (focii?) all smashed together.  Ever since I began studying creative writing in earnest, I felt I needed to consistently be a “writer” over there when sometimes all I wanted to do was tell a funny story, reflect a little, or update people on what’s happening with Justin and I here in The Ham. 

(The thought instantly occurs to me: I may be no more a writer over here, but at least my efforts will be in that general direction.  I know I’m a fledgling.  It’s okay with me).

So look for some old stuff, some new stuff.  As always, the whole of it is unfinished stuff.

All part of the fun.

new blog

Hello, strangers!

Sorry for the absence.  School has been amazing this quarter (with one class’ exception, but that’s okay, they can’t all be winners) — and has been keeping me a little busy of late.  Justin and I are doing really well and are enjoying our course in Creative Nonfiction together.  I am being stretched, realizing I have lots to learn, growing excited about writing in new ways… all good things.  That, and I’m reading some kick-ass authors.

I am, however, ready for Spring Break.  We are in week 8 of 10 weeks, and a much-needed break is coming rather quickly.  We’re hoping to make a trip down to California and play in the sun for a few days, and are in the process of figuring out how to make that happen.

Anyway, the point of this whole post is to let you know I have another blog going whose focus will be solely on writing projects and new authors I’m being exposed to.  I think one of the reasons I slowed down over here is that I put a lot of pressure on myself to write more polished stuff, now that I’m studying how to do it. 

Frankly, that’s not what this blog was intended to be.  I want to be able to tell funny stories, update dear friends on what’s happening, and ramble on about what’s going on in my little brain without it needing to serve any larger purpose than that.

It may be that this new blog won’t come any closer to being what I think of as actual writing, but at least I’ll be making that attempt.    If you’re interested, feel free to check it out.  I’d welcome feedback from anyone willing to give it.

Trying to Learn to Use Words

Here’s the poem which inspired the title.  It flattens me every time I read it (thanks Michael).

From T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets

Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.  And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.  And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate–but there is no competition–
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious.  But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying.  The rest is not our business.

–T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker, V. 

***Small side note: although this excerpt was introduced to me last quarter, I finally found Four Quartets at Henderson’s today — a slim black hardcover version printed in 1943.  It is AWESOME.

vindication

This morning, around 9:30 a.m., my husband was telling me that it was completely foolish for anyone to think that the Giants could possibly win this game (I picked the Giants to win, while he picked those other guys).

I would just like the record to show that around 9:32 a.m., I told my husband that in about eight or nine hours, he would be eating his words.

Go me.